October 23, 2025 • 56 mins
Maybe Zig was wrong about John Bolton, Vance jokes about the King, more thoughts on AI, Virginia Giuffre's posthumous memoir and a bizarre Sunday spent battling about the past with Bruce Heim co-founder of the Second Mile.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to episode two hundred and sixty four of the
Death of Journalism podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm
your host in today's show. Why may have been wrong
to defend John Bolton on his classified documents issue when
almost everyone missed about No King's Day, a series of
significant updates on the artificial intelligence front, why the Jeffrey
(00:21):
Epstein narrative is heading in exactly the opposite direction of
where it should be, And yet another absolutely mind blowing
story from the Jerry Sandusky saga. We begin this episode
of the podcast with a couple of quick programming notes.
At the end of our last episode of the Death
of Journalism, I teased that I was anticipating a new
(00:42):
episode of With the Benefit of Hindsight, our epic podcast
about the entire Penn Stage Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky saga,
and that in fact came to fruition. We put out
an episode number twenty two, which was a remarkable, mind
blowing in interview almost two hours long, that I conducted
(01:03):
with the wife of wanted various Sandusky's trial accusers.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Her name is Jasmine.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The interview, as described by former Penn State President Graham
Spaniard is quote unquote spectacular.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And I agree that it's very very good.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Our executive producer, Mike Agavino thinks it's the best, if
not one of the best interviews that we've ever done
for with the benefit of hindsight, and so if you
have not yet checked that out, I urge you to
do so. It's totally free. There's not even any ads
on the episode. That's episode number twenty two with the
benefit of hindsight, and I think you'll find it to
(01:39):
be worth your while. I will have another somewhat related
but not completely related update on the Sandusky saga at
the end of this episode of the Death of Journalism,
so stay tuned to that or go forward to it
if you are so interested in that particular case. Also,
I want to make sure that people understand that in
(02:01):
episode two sixty three of the Death of Journalism, our
last episode, we did a very extensive, deep, deep dive
into the entire artificial intelligence issue, which we put a
lot of work into. I don't know how effective it
was or how compelling it was. Some people thought it was,
but I don't think we really got the kind of
(02:22):
reaction to it that I was hoping for I'll have
some thoughts on that a little bit later on in
this particular episode, because we are doing an AI update,
which I think we're going to probably be doing on
most episodes going forward, because that's how important I think
the topic is. But I just wanted to make sure
in case you happen to have missed it, and it's
easy to happen in this very busy world. Episode two
(02:43):
sixty three of this episode of this podcast, The Death
of Journalism has a very deep dive into AI, which
should not only provide you a lot of I think
interesting information and potentially good insight, but also it lays
the framework and the foundation for now this particular podcast
will handle the topic of AI going forward, So if
(03:05):
you get a chance, make sure you check that out now.
As far as this episode of the Death of Journalism,
as you probably are already aware, I always follow up
on my predictions and opinions, even when they turn out
to be wrong or maybe wrong. I think I do
a pretty good job of being fair about that. I
think human bias would indicate I probably focus more on
(03:27):
things where I turned out to be right or probably
right than when I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Wrong or probably wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
But I do make a concerted effort to try it
to be as unbiased and as fair as possible on
that front for the purposes of truth and credibility, and
just because I think it's the right thing to do.
And I am wrong a lot, just ask my wife,
and it looks like I may have been wrong on
the entire John Bolton issue.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
John Bolton, the former National security advisor for Donald Trump,
the guy who I don't really like that much. He's
wrong a lot, but I have a little bit of
contact with him, very little. I've met him a couple
of times, gone to a speech of as many years ago,
followed his career, and I've always thought him to be
an intelligent and sincere guy. That doesn't mean he's not
(04:15):
wrong a lot, doesn't mean he's perfect. But I've never
considered John Bolton, unlike Donald Trump considers him to be
a bad guy like I'm you know, because I think
I'm pretty good at being able to pick out who
the bad guys are and who the good guys are,
and I would never have considered John Bolton to be
quote unquote a bad guy. I'm still not sure I
consider him to be quote unquote a bad guy, but when.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
His house was raided recently in.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
An attempt to gain information surrounding an investigation into his
use of classified documents, I felt very strongly that this
was a classic situation where there were people of the
FBI that were trying to please the King Donald Trump
because they knew that he wanted revenge against John Bolton,
and that this was most likely case of total bullshit
(05:01):
and trying to create aggravation in the life of a
guy who didn't deserve it. That was my take when
we heard that there had been a raid on John
Bolton's home, and I think I predicted that there probably
wouldn't even be an indictment. I can't remember what I
predicted as far as the indictment, but I'm quite certain
that I gave the impression that there's no possible way
(05:21):
John Bolton is ever going to be convicted of anything
related to this, because I don't believe he would have
been guilty, and you know, just the nature of anything
coming from Trump, it's going to be very, very difficult
to get a unanimous verdict in a case that is
so steeped in politics as anything like this would be. Well,
in the last week, John Bolton has in fact been
indicted by a federal grand jury, and that.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Doesn't necessarily mean anything because.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
The same thing happened with James call Me, and we
have also a Letitia James indictment, and all these are
seemingly consistent with the same pattern of behavior, where people
are desperate to try to give Trump what he wants.
He's the King, let's please the King. Doesn't matter if
we're actually gonna use our justice system as a vehicle
of retribution and revenge. So I was very skeptical, like,
(06:09):
oh my gosh, there's no way that this is legitimate.
This is purely, you know, Trump and his people trying
to get revenge on a guy that Donald Trump doesn't like.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
He doesn't like John Bolton. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I guess because John Bolton has been critical of Donald Trump.
That's the worst sin you can create, and you can
commit in Trump world, even when you used to work
for Donald Trump. I mean, it's just always amazing to
be how Trump gets away with the idea of having
hired somebody, praise the hell out of them at certain points,
especially when you first hire them, have them not do
(06:44):
anything particularly horrendous or scandalous, fire them, and then they're
the worst person in the world. And then, of course
they become even worse when they say critical things of
Donald Trump, which is the worst thing you can possibly do,
the worst sin you can commit in Trump world. And
so this all seemed very consistent with this pattern until
(07:04):
there started to be some legitimate commentary about the charges
against John Bolton. Now, to be clear, I have not
changed my mind that John Bolton would.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Not be being charged with these alleged.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Crimes involving his use of classified information if he was
not a quote unquote enemy of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That has not changed.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
However, there does seem to be a different narrative about
the John Bolton charges than there were certainly about the
James Comy allegations. And it's very, very, very difficult, We've
talked about this before to find people whose opinion on
such matters is both objective as well as coming from
(07:49):
the standpoint of a so called expert. All these experts
are biased in one way or the other, and there
are very very few voices, especially in the legal round,
that I consider to be credible enough to take at
their word and to have it influence my opinion I've
referenced Dan Abrams, a guy I used to work for,
(08:11):
a guy I considered to be a friend.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I've been on his old.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Television show dozens and dozens of times, and he's the
legal analyst for ABC News.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I have not seen him.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
He probably has, but I've not seen him chime in
on the John Bolton issue.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
But I did see a.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Clip on CNN from a lawyer by the name of
Ty Cobb. Now that name always gets people's attention because
Ty Cobb, and a baseball fan will tell you, was
one of the best baseball players, certainly in the old
history of Major League Baseball. And Ty Cobb happens to
be apparently a distant relative of the famous baseball player
(08:49):
Ty Cobb. But the lawyer I'm referring to is somebody
who worked in the Trump administration. Although he has never
been a fan of Donald Trump and says he's never
voted for Donald Trump and it should be want it
out for the purposes of his credibility. It's not perfect
because he even once predicted that Donald Trump would go
to prison because of some of the charges he was
(09:09):
facing before he became president. So he was obviously incorrect
about that. So ty Cob is hardly perfect, but I
find him to be an interesting guy. He's intelligent, and
he has this unique background where he has worked in
the Trump administration, but he's no fan of Trump. And
he was on CNN with Aaron Burnett and he gave
(09:30):
what I thought was a pretty good analysis of why
the charges against John Bolton should be seen far more
seriously and with far more credibility then for instance, those
that are currently pending or actually not pending but have
been levied against James. Call me and Leticia James. And
here's what it sounded like with Aaron Burnett interviewing ty
(09:53):
Cobb on CNN.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
But then you say, that's where the similarities end. So
why is this indictment different?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
That's exactly my view, which is, yes, this case would
not have been brought but for Trump's revenge, because we
know the Biden Justice Department declined to bring this case
quite likely to avoid burning the means and methods through
which they extracted the Iranian intelligence, which is a valid
governmental concern. What we have now is you know, Bolton
(10:24):
insisting that this is you know, purely revenged. That's clearly
not the case. If you read the indictment, keep in
mind that in the Comi case, seasoned senior prosecutors who
were later forced to resign told told the Justice Department
that there was insufficient.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Evidence to pursue the case.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In the James case, senior prosecutors in the in the
Eastern District advised that now they didn't go to the
insufficient evidence.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
They said, there's no case. That's clearly not what we
have here.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
When when you look at this indictment, and keep in mind,
Judge Lambert years ago, in the dispute over the book
uh pointed out that Bolton's unilateral conduct had raised serious
national concern, national security concerns, that he had gambled with
national security, he'd probably harmed his country, and he certainly
exposed himself to potential criminal liability.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So this shouldn't come as a.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Newsflash that you know, there's there's a potential crime here.
Two federal judges, magistrate judges issued search warrants where the
probable cost standard that was used by the grand jury
today was met, and they issued issued search warrants and
the materials that were taken are consequential and highly consequential
(11:39):
because The most important paragraph in the indictment to me
is the paragraph that makes playing not a single one
of the documents used in the book or in the
pre review process is a basis for any of the charges.
All these charges are based on newly found evidence. So
I think that I think that echoes the seriousness of this,
(12:01):
and it certainly undermines undermines the political arguments that Bolton
would like to make.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Now, this is not just Ty Cobb's opinion. This seems
to be the conventional media narrative about the Bolton indictments.
Of course, I'm always very nervous about the conventional media
narrative because it's so often wrong. But my sense is
because it is consistent with what other credible people are saying,
and because Cobb comes at this from a pretty unique perspective,
(12:28):
I'm willing to acknowledge that appears as if Bolton probably
screwed up, that he probably did something very careless, very reckless,
very stupid. Now, there's no evidence that I've seen so
far that what he did was nefarious, but he was
particularly stupid given the fact that he had to know
that he was in a very vulnerable position, and when
you know you're in a vulnerable position being an enemy
(12:50):
of Donald Trump, that you maybe should be more careful. Now,
maybe he didn't think that Trump was going to be
president again.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That could have been part of the deal.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
The Biden administration looked into this and decided not to
press for charges against John Bolton for reasons that ty
Cobb referenced in that clip.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
But I just for the record, I wanted to say,
all right, I'm willing.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
To change my opinion and acknowledge that I may have
been wrong about the charges being completely bogused. They don't
appear to be completely bogus. I'm still not believing that
this is ever going to result in John Bolton going
to prison, but I'm certainly more than willing to be
objective and listen to it as it goes forward and
will keep you updated as it does on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
A couple other updates.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
We spent quite a bit of time in the last
episode of the podcast talking about the peace deal between
Hamas and Israel and Gaza, and from a.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Media perspective, I still find the treatment of Trump.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And particularly Jared Kushner, who's getting a lot of credit
for having broken the deal, to be almost in the
realm of being bizarre. I really I have a theory
that I put out there in the last episode of
the podcast, is what's really going on here where the
right wing media, of course, it's Trump, so they want
to give him credit at every possible turn, And the
(14:10):
left wing media is actually, you know, excited because they
love peace, which is understandable. They love the hostages being returned,
which is fantastic. And also it appears as if Israel
did not get the better end of the deal, which
might also please a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Of members of the legacy news media.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
But the part of this that is so baffling to
me is the premature nature of the overwhelmingly positive media coverage, because.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
We don't know whether or not this deal is going
to hold.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
The deal appears to be still at this moment remarkably fragile,
though it has not blown apart as some had worn.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
In fact, there was a warning by the State Department.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
A few days ago that there appeared to be imminent
news that the ceasefire was going to be broken and
then there was going to be hostilities breaking out in Gaza.
To what extent that ever actually happened, I don't think
it did to the point where the ceasefire was actually
quote unquote broken. But we've seen all sorts of reports
(15:13):
where you know, Hamas is saying that they didn't really
agree to what has claimed that they agreed to.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And it's my opinion that Israel can't be.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
All that thrilled about this except for the fact that
they got their hostages back because they gave.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Up an awful lot in return.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And you know, there are some people believe that Israel
ended up being strong armed into agreeing to this, and
then Yahoo agreed to this almost banking on the idea
that the peace wouldn't hold, that'd get the hostages back,
and you know, then the hostilities would be reinstated. I
don't know if that's true or not, but it makes
(15:52):
at least some sense given the.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
History of the situation here.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But sixty Minutes interviewed Kushner and and others about this,
basically allowing them to take a victory lap literally as
they're also reporting, hey, the whole thing might not hold together,
which I just find to be bizarre, especially given the
fact that the legacy news media like CBS sixty Minutes,
at least until Bari Weiss took over as one of
(16:16):
the leaders at CBS News has not been exactly known
as being pro Trump. In fact, Trump sued them over
the whole sixty minutes Kamala Harrison interview during the twenty
twenty four election, and so you know, there's always there's
been a lot of conflict there, But here they almost
seem to be going out of their way to praise Trump.
(16:38):
I think from a motivational perspective, almost from the standpoint
of trying to prove that they're objective, that this was
an opportunity to prove by the legacy news media that
proved that they don't have tens, that they are objective
about Trump, that when he does well, they can give
him credit. And in my opinion, they were actually prematurely
(16:59):
willing to praise this entire administration because especially given the
history of these things, to me, you cannot celebrate this
until you know that the piece is going to hold.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Which may in fact happen. I hope that's the case.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Nobody wants war, especially in the situation like this. It
would be fantastic if it did. I'm just from a
purely media analysis perspective. I think it's a remarkable set
of circumstances where Trump and Kushner and others are getting
so much praise when we don't really know for sure
how this is all going to shake out in the
(17:33):
longer run. And I still maintain that this was not
that great a deal from Israel's perspective, and.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
That that was actually the key.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
The key to how they did this was that Kushner
has all these contacts in the Arab world conflicts of interest,
some people might say, with all these billions of dollars
exchanging hands with his hedge fund, anybody has these relationships,
and he was able to use these relationships in the
Arab world for those countries used to put pressure.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
On Hamas to go ahead and make a deal.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Meanwhile, the United States pressured their own ally, Israel into
making a deal. And that's how it ended up happening.
And let's hope it works. I hope it holds. It
be fantastic, and if it does, then Trump had pushed
everybody else deserves a whole lot of credit. I just
think it's premature to be celebrating, especially to this degree.
(18:24):
But it's interesting to note one there's elements in that
sixty minutes interview that back up my whole theory on this.
Number one, you know, not that that's the most important thing,
but just for the record, And number two, it appears
as if this exact same philosophy that I outlined in
the last episode of the podcast that Trump and the
people surrounding him seem to have when it comes to
(18:47):
resolving these conflicts is to not pressure our enemies, but
pressure our allies, which is.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
A novel strategy.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You can see how if you really want a deal,
that's how it could work. And years to have worked
with Israel, but it doesn't appear to be working with Ukraine.
And there's yet another example of this where there's it's
been widely reported that Zelensky and Trump had another blow up,
this time in private.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Which is where this should happen.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It should not happen in public like it famously did
at the White House earlier on in the effort to
try to come to some sort of a peace agreement,
where Trump told the world that Zelensky has no cards.
I mean that, to me was as clear a piece
of evidence as you ever going to get that that's
Trump's philosophy here, cut the balls off of your ally
(19:37):
to force them into making a deal because you erode
their leverage, or at least their perception of leverage. Well, Zelensky,
who I do not like at all, is not going
along with this. And there's, like I said, more evidence
of this where apparently widely reported, even in right wing
media outlets, that there was a massive blow up between
(19:59):
Zelensky and Trump. And you know, Trump keeps going back
and forth between you know, kissing Putin's ass and then
attacking Putin and doing the same thing with Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
He seems to be all over the map.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
We were going to give Ukraine Tomahawk missiles and you
know that was probably a bluff. And Trump has not
been able to fulfill his promise of ending the Ukraine
Russian War on day one, and there's no sign that
it's going to end. And I think the main reason
is because Trump's whole philosophy, which apparently has worked when
it came to Israel and Hamas, does not work when
(20:35):
it comes to Ukraine and Russia. Partially because Putin is
not as easily manipulated as Hamas, because there are no
allies that we have that we can go to to
put Prussia on Russia, and also our ally alleged in
this Ukraine doesn't seem to be willing to give up
the ghost as Israel apparently was, at least in the
(20:56):
short run. So that's my analysis of those two situations.
I think they're actually remarkably similar, and in one situation
we have an apparent success, and in the other one
we do not have any success, at least not as
of yet.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
One of the big moments.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
That occurred over the last week, at least politically, was
that liberals across the country did a protest called.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No King's Day. And this is one.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Of those situations where you might think that I'm a
little bit conflicted, because obviously, as a conservative critic of
Donald Trump and someone who believes strongly in the Constitution
and in our republic, I am very much on the
record as saying that one of the most important things
about the United States of America is that we.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Never have a king.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's literally in our branding, it's literally how we became
a country. And obviously we're we're about to celebrate the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,
which was declaring independence from a king from a monarchy.
And so I have been very very concerned. It's been
my number one concern. I stated numerous times during the
(22:08):
twenty twenty four campaign about why I was hesitant to support,
not that I matter, but just for the record, to
support a second Donald Trump administration because I strongly believed
that Trump was going to have nobody around him who
was going to be willing to say no. Everyone would
treat him as a king, especially after the assassination attempt.
(22:30):
He would be like a godlike figure. Everyone would be
terrified of him, The Congress would lay down for him,
and he would effectively be a king.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And that has happened.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I mean, there's absolutely no objective analysis that can conclude
anything other than that Trump, in many ways, not in totality,
but in many ways does act as a king.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That is a fact.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
However, I did not support, nor did I like, the
No King's Day protest, mostly because it was obviously overtly political.
It's all a bunch of far left wing progressive Democrats
and whack jobs with their latest excuse to protest. Now,
I do think that the numbers were at least somewhat impressive.
(23:21):
Everyone always talks about how many people are there, and
right wing people will say, oh, it's an exaggerated number,
and left wing people will exaggerate in the other way.
It's very tiring, But I don't think you can argue
that it was not a success from the standpoint of turnout.
I mean, a lot of people turned out, and I think, frankly,
the storm clouds are brewing for the twenty twenty six
(23:43):
midterm elections in a lot of different ways, not just
from how many people turned out.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
For No King's Day, but also a lot of polling
that we're seeing.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
By the way, it could be a very bad twenty
twenty five election in a couple of weeks for Republicans
as well, especially without Trump on the ballot. So the
fact that this was overtly political as opposed to philosophical
and the idea of no Kings was one problem I
had with it. But the biggest problem I have with
(24:12):
it is that we're doing this less than four years
or five, depending on how you do the dates. But
we're doing this within the same time period, within the
same decade that the entire Democratic Party and progressive apparatus.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Laid down completely completely.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
During the COVID panic for blue state kings, especially here
in California, and of course, Gavin Ussu desperately once the
twenty twenty eight Democratic nomination. He was all over the
no king's situation and passionately promoting it by saying, we
don't do kings in America. I'm like, are you fucking
(24:54):
kidding me? You are such a hypocrite in general particular issue, it's.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Off the charts.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Gavin Newsom literally declared himself a king. I didn't use
the word king, but during a state of emergency that
he declared, and he created the panic. There's no I've
gone through this a dozen times in this podcast. He
created the panic by shutting down California, declaring a state
of emergency, giving himself emergency powers for two fucking years.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Over a lie.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
His original emergency declaration was a complete lie.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
It wasn't a miscalculation.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It was a grotesque, overt and obvious lie that I
wrote about the next fucking morning, and I was one
thousand percent right about. He lied about how many people
were gonna get COVID in the next eight weeks.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
He duped Donald Trump into believing it.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
None of it turned out to be anything close to
what he claimed or predicted.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Even all these years later, we've only.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Gotten half the cases that he predicted or claimed was
going to happen in the next eight weeks when he
declared the state of emergency. But he was dictating every
little scintilla of our lives.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Literally. It was absurd. Have people forgotten this already?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I mean, what businesses could be opened and closed, what
schools could be open to closed, beaches open and closed,
color coded guides for how you could get from one
level of close to the next level of openness.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I mean, it was just complete absurdity.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
First, forget about the back that none of it was
effective or warranted or did anything positive. But it was
the most grotesque violation of the no king's concept that
has certainly occurred, and then close in my lifetime or
even in the modern history of America, maybe during the
Civil War when Habeas Corpus got suspended was maybe something
(26:55):
close to it. But this was unprecedented in the modern
history of this country. And for Newsome to be out
in front on this, by the way, he put out
a tweet where somebody it's I mean, you can't make
up this level of hypocrisy and irony. Somebody had gone
into I think a cornfield or some sort of a
(27:17):
field of vegetation where they carved out no kings Day,
as well as yes on Proposition fifty. Now, Proposition fifty
here in California is going to be voted on in
a couple of weeks. That is Gavin Newsom's attempt to
try to, in his mind, counteract what Republicans are doing
(27:38):
nationwide when it comes to congressional redistricting. And I'm like,
oh my god, the level of hypocrisy here. First of all,
Gavin Newsom declared himself a king for two years, no
self awareness, no accountability for that.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Number two, No King's Day, and yes on.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Proposition fifty are also inherently contradictory because Proposition fifty is
a way for our governor, former king to get around
the state fucking constitution that was voted on by the voters.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
It's in the state.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Constitution, and so here he has this proposition where he knows,
or at least he thinks he knows, that he has
the votes to do it because it's an overwhelmingly liberal
state that hates Donald Trump, and all the Prop fifty
commercials are about Donald Trump, folks, it's not even about
the issue itself. They don't want to talk about the
issue itself, because they don't want to tell you the
(28:36):
truth about what it's all about, because even average people
are gonna go, what the fuck is this? Didn't we
already vote on this? This doesn't sound very democratic at all.
We're going around the state constitution so that Democrats can
get more representatives in Congress. How is that democratic? And
it's certainly far more consistent with the idea that Newsom's
(28:59):
a king then the concept that we don't have kings,
that we're sacred defenders of democracy. And so I'm unfortunately
of the belief that Proposition fifty is probably going to pass.
I don't think it's going to be by a lot.
It's probably going to be in the maybe two to
four point range, which is going to be very, very frustrating.
(29:21):
But it's based on a total lie. It's completely anti democratic,
it's anti constitutional. It's not the same thing that happened
in Texas at all, although that's what they're lying about.
And it's a brazen power grab. And here we have
Gavin Dusom connecting no King's Day with yes on Proposition fifty.
(29:41):
And here he was the worst offender by way, not
the only one, not the only one. I mean, we
had Hochel in New York, and Whitmer and Michigan, and
Shapiro in Pennsylvania and Bashir in Kentucky. By the way,
all these people are going to be running for president
in twenty twenty. They were the worst governors when it
(30:02):
came to the COVID panic. They were all effectively kings,
and now here they are blatant hypocrites with no credibility whatsoever,
claiming that Donald Trump is a king, which there's a
decent argument to be made there that I think it's
an important discussion to be had. It's very concerning a
lot of the things that Trump has done from the
(30:23):
perspective of becoming a monarch or a king. But these
people have no credibility on this issue at all. And
of course the media doesn't point any of us out,
nobody in even the right wing media. I mean, that's
the part that's most frustrating to this story, that the
entire issue of the COVID panic and how we turned
(30:44):
our government into a tyrannical force, especially in the Blue States,
just never gets talked about it, like we pretend it
never happened. It was only four or five years ago,
people were forced to get a fucking experimental vaccine. Gys
were forced to wear masks in school with no evidence
that they work at all, all because Democrats wanted to
(31:07):
signal their virtue and make it clear to the world
during the twenty twenty election that this was unprecedented and
that Donald Trump inherently was doing such a bad job
that he needs to be kicked out of office. And
that's exactly what happened. So I have nobody to support
when it comes to the whole King's Day protest, even
(31:28):
though it's a subject on which I obviously have a
lot of passion and a lot of concern, because I
do think this is where we're headed. I mean, these
things don't tend to reverse themselves. There have been people
who have been warning about presidential power in this country
for a long time. Go search it for yourself. One
of these days, I'll play it. I probably should play
it right now, but I don't have the time for it.
(31:51):
But Barry Goldwater, who was the nineteen sixty four Republican nominee.
In nineteen sixty four, he made a tremendous statement about
the future of the US presidency and how he feared
it would effectively become like a monarchy, and I think
he was prescient. And I think Trump has moved the
(32:11):
football down the field at.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Least twenty thirty yards.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I don't know if we're what guard line we're at currently,
but we're in the red zone, that's for sure. And
if Gavin Newsom ends up becoming president in twenty twenty eight,
God help us all. I mean, because we saw what
he did during COVID and he has absolutely no no
(32:36):
restrictions on him whatsoever from the standpoint of what he
thinks a leader should be restricted by or that they shouldn't.
Actually doesn't really believe in this idea of no kings.
He's just doing it because it's popular among the left,
and he's trying to be the democratic now many in
twenty twenty eight. We know that because we have the
history of what occurred during the COVID panic. Now I
(32:58):
referenced proposition fifty and how I'm not optimistic, even though
I think Proposition fifty could be defeated. I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
He's been out there a little bit, but I don't
think he's been out there enough. Barack Obama disappointed me
by hopping on and doing commercials in favor of Proposition fifty.
But so I think it is possible that fifty could lose,
(33:21):
and boy, that would be fantastic, not just because it's
wrong and because it would be good for Democrats if
it passed and bad for Republicans if it passed, but
it would also probably greatly hinder Newsom's presidential hopes for
twenty twenty eight. I mean, he really is trying to
build this brand as the guy who is effectively fighting
(33:42):
against Donald Trump, and if he were to lose in
his home state with Proposition fifty, I think that would
really destroy that brand and destroy that narrative. But unfortunately,
I don't think that's going to happen. It's in the
realm of possibility, but I think it's probably going to
pass by a few percentage points. There's also, understandably a
lot of consternation and a lot of discussion about what's
(34:04):
going to happen in the New York City mayor's race
in November, and it's looking more and more like Zoron
Mondani is going to be the next mayor of New York.
Now there's a lot of speculation about especially after they
just had a debate, which which was funny to watch
Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York, basically
(34:25):
suddenly claim that socialism is bad.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
I find that fascinating.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
So wait a minute, Andrew Cuomo, socialism is bad when
you have no other argument to make because you're running
against the guy who's to the left of you in
a desperate attempt to try to.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Salvage your political career.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That was interesting, But the biggest issue for a lot
of people is that there are three people in the
race Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Silva, who is a long time
right wing gadfly talk show host in New York City,
and Zoron Mondani, who's an open socialist communist seemingly pro
terrorist sympathizer. It's unbelievable hanging out with people who are
(35:05):
unindicted co conspirators in the nineteen ninety three World Trade
Center bombing in the very city he wants to be
the mayor of it's mind blowing. It's unbelievable, less than
twenty five years after nine to eleven, not to mention
the fact that he's an open and overt communist. But
there's a lot of speculation. Okay, if Mondonnie's winning in
the polls, what would happen if Silva got out? Would
(35:28):
Cuomo actually beat him? And I understand why there's pressure.
The New York Post came out and said that Silva
ought to drop out of.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
The race, and look, he probably should. He can't win.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
He's in there just for ego, which he has a
huge ego, as most people in politics do, but he particularly.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Has a massive ego.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
But I also don't buy necessarily that him dropping out
would really mean that Mandonnie would lose. It would certainly
bring it into the possibility in realm of possibility. But
I'm not a big believer that you can simply take
all the votes from a third party candidate and give
them to the part of the candidate that's in second
(36:09):
place and say whila, that would mean that Cuomo would
beat Mondani. I just don't think it works that way.
First of all, a lot of the soul Well vote
may not even be real in the polls. It may
just be people saying they don't like the other two candidates.
Number Two, they may not show up or they may
not decide to vote if their candidate is out. Three,
(36:30):
you know, they may I think he's going to be
on the ballot anyway, they may end up voting for him,
regardless of whether or not he were to drop out
and endorse Cuomo, not to mention that the endorsement of
Cuomo would be very awkward in my opinion. By the way,
there's also some sivil voters who might even vote for
Mandanni just because people are crazy and weird and unpredictable.
(36:51):
So I just don't think the math works out, and
so unless the polls are catastatic strapically wrong, I think
Mandanni is going to win. And you know what does
that mean for New York. Now there's a divide here
between people who are like, we need to stop this
at all costs and people who are like, well, let's
just let it burn to the fucking ground and use
(37:13):
New York as an example for why communism is bad.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I have kind of been in that ladder group. I'm
still in that ladder group. But I'm also I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I'm concerned about is it possible that this is actually
a situation where we're setting a very bad precedent, that
maybe this is getting allowing the Mandans of the world
to get a foothold in a very powerful position, and
obviously the largest city in America, you know, in theory,
one of the most important cities, if not the most
(37:44):
important city in the world. Still, from a financial perspective,
I get both arguments. I'm still kind of in the
in the perspective of the perspective of let it burn
and use it as an example. But this is a
very very troubling situation, especially after what we've seen in Europe.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
The polls are very clear.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
That Mandannie is if he's going to win, it's going
to be on the backs of foreign born voters. There's
a massive divide between foreign born voters and domestically born
voters in New York. By the way, one of the
stranger polling results I saw is that Mondanni is currently
getting allegedly thirty percent of the Jewish vote, I mean,
(38:26):
which is just fricking crazy given Mandani's behavior and his statements,
especially on Israel. But this is where we are, and
so this is I agree that this is a very
significant situation, the development that could have wide spread ramifications,
(38:47):
and if Mondanni actually gets elected and does what he says,
New York is in very, very big trouble. And that
could be very bad for America.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
I guess my concern is would this be isolated and
it be dramatic and quick enough for it to reverse itself,
and would that actually be of benefit to the rest
of the country to see the ramifications of what happens
when you an elect to Zora Mundani, I just I
wish I had enough confidence to know.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, that's the that's going to be the result. It
feels like playing with fire.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
In fact that it's very clearly playing with fire, and
obviously we'll have more analysis on that situation as we
get closer to the election in November. There's also going
to be I think significant races in Virginia and New
Jersey where on the governor's side there looks like to
me like Republicans are going to lose pretty badly the
governorship in Virginia and may not win in New Jersey
(39:43):
when a lot of people think that that is a
vulnerable place where Democrats could lose. I'm not convinced republic
the Republicans going to win in New Jersey. So right now,
on paper, it looks like it will be a very
very good November election. Off your election for liberals and
Demo Democrats. But obviously we'll know more in just a
couple of weeks. Now back to the no Kings thing
(40:05):
for just a minute, because it's going to allow me
to transition into the latest on AI Artificial intelligence. Vice
President jd Vance, in response to No King's Day, made
his first post on blue Now. Blue is the very
liberal version of Twitter and has no real impact because
everyone's just in an echo chamber and the numbers aren't
(40:28):
all that significant. Basically, it's all just a bunch of
liberals who got pissed off at Elon Musk purchasing Twitter
now x but basically in a troll job. Jd Vance
made his first post on Blueie during No King's Day,
and it was an AI video of Donald Trump as
(40:49):
a king, literally as a king, you know, the crown,
the sword, the robes, the whole bit, And it had
Nancy and Democrats bowing to him, and of course, you know,
MAGA fans absolutely love this. The video was well done
from a production reduction standpoint, it was clearly AI obviously
(41:13):
and had some cool cool music underneath it.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
And from an entertainment perspective, I got it.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Okay, Yeah, you're you're trolling the Democrats on their No
King's Day, and you're promoting the idea I guess that
Donald Trump really is a king, And I have a
big problem with this from a number of perspectives, but
the number one is there there are some things that
can be both funny and totally wrong, inappropriate and dangerous
(41:44):
even And this is a distinction that Maga world doesn't
seem to understand. Yeah, something can be funny, that doesn't
mean it's inherently good or that it's not problematic, because
they're awful lot of people in Maga world who had
the response to No King's Day of yeah, good, I
(42:07):
want him as my king. Now, a lot of right
wingers will claim that that's not the case, but that's bullshit.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I see it all the time. I mean JD. Vance
is not just the vice president United States.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
He's the guy who's most likely to take over as
the leader of the Republican Party, very likely to be
the the nominee for the Republican Party in the twenty
twenty eight election, assuming that Trump isn't a king and
doesn't try to run for a third term. That's a
huge part of this whole equation why this is very,
very troubling that the vice president would do this, this
(42:41):
trolling job, which I acknowledge was funny, but one from
the perspective that it comes from Advance essentially not even
that subtly acknowledging that, hey, he doesn't really mind that
Trump runs for a third term. That seems to be
the implication of him posting an AI depiction of Donald
(43:03):
Trump as a king, not to mention that, yes, I
know you're trolling Democrats that they think Trump is a king,
but you seem to be promoting this idea as if
it's a good thing, which it's clearly not, and it's
clearly against whatever principles the Republican Party still theoretically believes in,
(43:26):
and so coming from Vance, I thought this was completely wrong,
highly inappropriate. Yes, it's funny, I acknowledge it. I think
a pretty good sense of humor all the time. I
will say, you know what, this might be inappropriate, but
I'll allow it because it's just so funny, and maybe
(43:46):
it's effective in owning the Libs. But owning the Libs
shouldn't be the end goal of everything. There can be
problems created, There can be very troubling precedents, set very
bad messages that are promoted, and having the Vice Pressing
of the States put out an AI video of Donald
(44:10):
Trump as a monarch on No King's Day just to
have fun with trolling the Democrats. I did not like
that at all, regardless of how funny it was, especially
coming from Vance, and what this inherently says about the
twenty twenty eight election, because you still have Trump himself
constantly quote unquote joking or trolling about running for a
(44:35):
third term, which would be clearly unconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
And then there's the AI part of this.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Now, look, I have no problem and unfortunately I think
Trump does this way too much. But you know, when
you put out an AI video and it's very clear
that it's AI and you're trying to make a point
or you're trying to make trying to be funny.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Okay, this is the new world we're living in. I
get it.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I'm okay with it if it's used properly. But I
want to use this as a way of entering into
an update on a subject that we spent quite a
bit of time on in the last episode of the podcast,
which is where we are on artificial intelligence. And where
we are going. And I want to start with JD.
Vance because not only did he put out that AI
(45:19):
video on No King's Day, he did an interview with
Greta Van Sustern on Newsmax. By the way, now that
this is why I'm playing the clip, but the idea
that Greta Van Sustern is now on Newsmas is just
amazing to me.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I mean, this is this.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Woman I think has been on every single cable news
network that there is. And I use the term shape
shifter to describe Megan Kelly. I've used it to describe JD. Evans,
but there's no greater shape shifter than Greta Van Suster,
who has been a liberal, has been a conservative. I mean,
this woman was the last white person in America that
(45:58):
still believed O. J. Simpson might be innocent. And that
was in her alleged realm of expertise. That's part of
how she became famous.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Back in the day. But she's worked for MSNBC, she's
worked for CNN, she's worked for Fox News. She had
me on several times on Fox News Channel.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
In fact, she did almost an entire show on Fox
News Channel based upon my interview with Sarah Palin after
the two thousand and eight elections.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
She was very smart.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
She saw the Sarah Palin thing from a mile away,
and she jumped on that because she knew it was
good for ratings, just like she did with the Natalie
Holloway miss disappearing disappearance in Aruba that she was constantly
talking about for years about what twenty some years ago now.
So Gretavn Sstrat is a remarkable media story in and
(46:47):
of herself. But here she is now with Newsmax interviewing JD.
Vance and the issue of AI comes up, and specifically,
Vance starts talking about the idea that open AI has
now announced that they are going to start limiting their
restrictions on what is erotica or effectively pornography. In other words,
(47:13):
it is going to be possible soon with the new
update with chat GPT to engage or create some forms
of pornography. Now I don't know all the rules, obviously
it doesn't even exist yet, so who knows what that
is actually going to mean. But I found this clip
from JD Vance to be very telling and a bit
(47:35):
concerning and troubling because jd Vance appears to have and
again maybe he's just using slogans here.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
I'm trying to be as fair as possible, but he
appears to have a remarkably limited understanding of the far
reaching impact that AI could very likely have on our
society as a whole, because he tries to break it
down as to what when AI is good and when
(48:07):
AI is bad, as if it's going to be a
very isolated thing that will have only marginal impact on society.
And this was very very concerning to me because I
can I consider JD. Vance to be a very smart guy.
He's obviously much much younger than Trump. He's clearly much
(48:28):
more in tune with what's going on from a technological perspective,
if only because of his age. And so here's a
guy who I would actually look to as somebody who
might actually get it.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
He's a big, big picture thinker.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
He's clearly got a big brain, a great educational background.
If there's somebody in Trump's world who could be there
and say, you know, mister President, this AI thing is
really going to have far reaching and potentially very very
damaging implications on our society need to be prepared for it,
it would be JD. Vance and instead he seems to
(49:05):
be grand standing on this incredibly minor issue of open
AI and the topic of pornography. And here's what it
sounded like in his interview with Greta Ancestorn on Newsmax.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Where are we going with ourtificial intelligence? What about the
jobs are going? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (49:21):
So artificial intelligence that's still in many cases very dumb.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
And I think that.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
There you asked, is it good or is it bad?
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Or is it going to help us or is it
going to hurt us?
Speaker 4 (49:29):
The answer is probably both, and we should be trying
to maximize as much of the good and minimize as
much as the bad. Let me give you a very
concrete example. So two artificial headline intelligence or sorry, two
artificial intelligence headlines that I've read in just the last
week is one researchers used AI to identify a new
cancer drug pathway that nobody had ever come up with,
(49:51):
and they're actually starting to see some evidence that that
could be a credible and a promising way to treat
certain types of cancer.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
That's what we want artificial intelligence to do is to
unlike unlock new therapeutics so that people can live.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Longer, healthier lives.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
At the same time, I saw an announcement I think
it was from San Altman of open AI who said
that basically, they're going to start using AI to introduce
erotica and porn and things like that. And if AI
is helping us find new cures for new diseases, that's great.
If it's helping us come up with increasingly weird porn,
that's bad. And I think that we actually need policymakers here.
(50:27):
And this is where you know, me and the President
have been so focused on this issue. We want to
lean in as much to the socially positive applications of
artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Now, on the surface, there's nothing really wrong with that statement,
except to me, it indicates that Advance is not getting
the big picture here.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Now maybe he just decided not to get into it.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
But the idea that judg EPT or open AI or whatever,
you know, a source that you're using is going to
be limiting restrictions on pornography, I get you might find
that concerning.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
You might Okay, what's that all about? What that's going
to means?
Speaker 1 (51:10):
That's a perfectly legitimate question, especially given the difficulty of
trying to restrict age and whether not people of a
certain age are going to still.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Have access to AI. I get all that those are
legitimate questions.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
However, in my opinion, that topic is not in the
top one hundred, not in the top one hundred of
the concerns.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
That we as a society, or JD.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Vans as the Vice President the United States, ought to
have about what is going to transpire in the next
several years regarding artificial intelligence. And by the way, let
me just very quickly address this issue of restrictions on pornography.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
See to me, this actually is quite.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Interesting from the perspective of the problems that AI creates. See,
once you create a restriction in the algorithm, it will
inevitably go too far inherently because there's no human discretion.
This is one of the areas where humans ideally have
(52:16):
an inherent advantage over artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Now, a lot of humans are not capable of this.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
You know, if you've ever run into a police officer
that pulled you over for going six miles per hour
over the speed limit and he gave you a ticket
and you weren't causing any problems, you know that not
all humans are willing and.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Able to use proper discretion.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
We've also seen this on a weekly basis in the
National Football League in college football when it comes to
really horrendous calls, usually involving roughing the passer. There's very
little discretion that some people are able to actually use
in real life. But human beings are at least capable
of using discretion, of being able to discern Okay, this
(53:01):
might be technically a violation, but there's nothing really wrong
going on here. Algorithms are not capable of doing that.
And I have seen this already, specifically when it comes
to restrictions on whether it's Chat, GPT or rock or
Imagine or some of the other AI platforms that I use,
(53:25):
where our request requests something that is clearly not even
close to the roum of pornography, but somehow it gets
flagged that way and they're not able to fulfill the request.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, I totally get why.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
That happens, because there's no human being going This isn't
a request involving pornography, or you know, or you'll take
a picture that you want to have the AI may
it come to life, and that there's something they don't
like about the picture, because I guess maybe I don't
even know. I'm I'm just theorizing that they didn't like
(54:02):
how much skin there was in the picture or whatever
it was. I have no idea, there's no way of knowing,
because the algorithm doesn't tell you this, and they never
give you an explanation for why you can't do what
you're trying to do. But the lifting of restrictions on pornography,
in my view, as someone who's against censorship and is
in favor of free expression and is against restrictions and
(54:26):
is in favor of allowing adults to be able to
have control over what they create.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
I think it's actually a good thing.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
And it's disappointing to me that jd Vance doesn't seem
to understand that. So there's two elements here where I
think jd Vance is expressing a lack of fully understanding
where we're at.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
He doesn't understand.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Why you need to pull restrictions on porn, because when
you restrict porn, you're inherently going to restrict all sorts
of other things in the creative process that have nothing
to do with porn. Not to mention, you know, in theory,
adults should be able to do what they want in
a free country. But then there's also the issue of
does jd Vance really think that that's the biggest problem
(55:10):
or one of the biggest problems that we're going to
face when it comes to AI.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Because if it is, which I'm actually.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
Hoping is not the case, I'm hoping this is just
what he happened to say in an interview with Redevan Sustern.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
He thought it was a pithy way of describing AI.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
But if it is, that's very disappointing and very concerning
because I was counting on jd Vance for being a
real to for him to be a real leader on
this issue, for reasons that I've already stated. Thanks for
listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show. If
you're interested in listening to the entire show, you must
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Speaker 2 (55:47):
Please go to Patreon. That's p A t R e
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Speaker 1 (55:53):
Patreon dot com slash the Death of Journalism with John Zigler.
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Speaker 2 (56:13):
But that's how you can subscribe,
Welcome to episode two hundred and sixty four of the
Death of Journalism podcasts. My name is John Zigler. I'm
your host in today's show. Why may have been wrong
to defend John Bolton on his classified documents issue when
almost everyone missed about No King's Day, a series of
significant updates on the artificial intelligence front, why the Jeffrey
(00:21):
Epstein narrative is heading in exactly the opposite direction of
where it should be, And yet another absolutely mind blowing
story from the Jerry Sandusky saga. We begin this episode
of the podcast with a couple of quick programming notes.
At the end of our last episode of the Death
of Journalism, I teased that I was anticipating a new
(00:42):
episode of With the Benefit of Hindsight, our epic podcast
about the entire Penn Stage Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky saga,
and that in fact came to fruition. We put out
an episode number twenty two, which was a remarkable, mind
blowing in interview almost two hours long, that I conducted
(01:03):
with the wife of wanted various Sandusky's trial accusers.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Her name is Jasmine.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
The interview, as described by former Penn State President Graham
Spaniard is quote unquote spectacular.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
And I agree that it's very very good.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Our executive producer, Mike Agavino thinks it's the best, if
not one of the best interviews that we've ever done
for with the benefit of hindsight, and so if you
have not yet checked that out, I urge you to
do so. It's totally free. There's not even any ads
on the episode. That's episode number twenty two with the
benefit of hindsight, and I think you'll find it to
(01:39):
be worth your while. I will have another somewhat related
but not completely related update on the Sandusky saga at
the end of this episode of the Death of Journalism,
so stay tuned to that or go forward to it
if you are so interested in that particular case. Also,
I want to make sure that people understand that in
(02:01):
episode two sixty three of the Death of Journalism, our
last episode, we did a very extensive, deep, deep dive
into the entire artificial intelligence issue, which we put a
lot of work into. I don't know how effective it
was or how compelling it was. Some people thought it was,
but I don't think we really got the kind of
(02:22):
reaction to it that I was hoping for I'll have
some thoughts on that a little bit later on in
this particular episode, because we are doing an AI update,
which I think we're going to probably be doing on
most episodes going forward, because that's how important I think
the topic is. But I just wanted to make sure
in case you happen to have missed it, and it's
easy to happen in this very busy world. Episode two
(02:43):
sixty three of this episode of this podcast, The Death
of Journalism has a very deep dive into AI, which
should not only provide you a lot of I think
interesting information and potentially good insight, but also it lays
the framework and the foundation for now this particular podcast
will handle the topic of AI going forward, So if
(03:05):
you get a chance, make sure you check that out now.
As far as this episode of the Death of Journalism,
as you probably are already aware, I always follow up
on my predictions and opinions, even when they turn out
to be wrong or maybe wrong. I think I do
a pretty good job of being fair about that. I
think human bias would indicate I probably focus more on
(03:27):
things where I turned out to be right or probably
right than when I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Wrong or probably wrong.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
But I do make a concerted effort to try it
to be as unbiased and as fair as possible on
that front for the purposes of truth and credibility, and
just because I think it's the right thing to do.
And I am wrong a lot, just ask my wife,
and it looks like I may have been wrong on
the entire John Bolton issue.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Now.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
John Bolton, the former National security advisor for Donald Trump,
the guy who I don't really like that much. He's
wrong a lot, but I have a little bit of
contact with him, very little. I've met him a couple
of times, gone to a speech of as many years ago,
followed his career, and I've always thought him to be
an intelligent and sincere guy. That doesn't mean he's not
(04:15):
wrong a lot, doesn't mean he's perfect. But I've never
considered John Bolton, unlike Donald Trump considers him to be
a bad guy like I'm you know, because I think
I'm pretty good at being able to pick out who
the bad guys are and who the good guys are,
and I would never have considered John Bolton to be
quote unquote a bad guy. I'm still not sure I
consider him to be quote unquote a bad guy, but when.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
His house was raided recently in.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
An attempt to gain information surrounding an investigation into his
use of classified documents, I felt very strongly that this
was a classic situation where there were people of the
FBI that were trying to please the King Donald Trump
because they knew that he wanted revenge against John Bolton,
and that this was most likely case of total bullshit
(05:01):
and trying to create aggravation in the life of a
guy who didn't deserve it. That was my take when
we heard that there had been a raid on John
Bolton's home, and I think I predicted that there probably
wouldn't even be an indictment. I can't remember what I
predicted as far as the indictment, but I'm quite certain
that I gave the impression that there's no possible way
(05:21):
John Bolton is ever going to be convicted of anything
related to this, because I don't believe he would have
been guilty, and you know, just the nature of anything
coming from Trump, it's going to be very, very difficult
to get a unanimous verdict in a case that is
so steeped in politics as anything like this would be. Well,
in the last week, John Bolton has in fact been
indicted by a federal grand jury, and that.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Doesn't necessarily mean anything because.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
The same thing happened with James call Me, and we
have also a Letitia James indictment, and all these are
seemingly consistent with the same pattern of behavior, where people
are desperate to try to give Trump what he wants.
He's the King, let's please the King. Doesn't matter if
we're actually gonna use our justice system as a vehicle
of retribution and revenge. So I was very skeptical, like,
(06:09):
oh my gosh, there's no way that this is legitimate.
This is purely, you know, Trump and his people trying
to get revenge on a guy that Donald Trump doesn't like.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
He doesn't like John Bolton. Why, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I guess because John Bolton has been critical of Donald Trump.
That's the worst sin you can create, and you can
commit in Trump world, even when you used to work
for Donald Trump. I mean, it's just always amazing to
be how Trump gets away with the idea of having
hired somebody, praise the hell out of them at certain points,
especially when you first hire them, have them not do
(06:44):
anything particularly horrendous or scandalous, fire them, and then they're
the worst person in the world. And then, of course
they become even worse when they say critical things of
Donald Trump, which is the worst thing you can possibly do,
the worst sin you can commit in Trump world. And
so this all seemed very consistent with this pattern until
(07:04):
there started to be some legitimate commentary about the charges
against John Bolton. Now, to be clear, I have not
changed my mind that John Bolton would.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Not be being charged with these alleged.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Crimes involving his use of classified information if he was
not a quote unquote enemy of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
That has not changed.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
However, there does seem to be a different narrative about
the John Bolton charges than there were certainly about the
James Comy allegations. And it's very, very, very difficult, We've
talked about this before to find people whose opinion on
such matters is both objective as well as coming from
(07:49):
the standpoint of a so called expert. All these experts
are biased in one way or the other, and there
are very very few voices, especially in the legal round,
that I consider to be credible enough to take at
their word and to have it influence my opinion I've
referenced Dan Abrams, a guy I used to work for,
(08:11):
a guy I considered to be a friend.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I've been on his old.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Television show dozens and dozens of times, and he's the
legal analyst for ABC News.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I have not seen him.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
He probably has, but I've not seen him chime in
on the John Bolton issue.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
But I did see a.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Clip on CNN from a lawyer by the name of
Ty Cobb. Now that name always gets people's attention because
Ty Cobb, and a baseball fan will tell you, was
one of the best baseball players, certainly in the old
history of Major League Baseball. And Ty Cobb happens to
be apparently a distant relative of the famous baseball player
(08:49):
Ty Cobb. But the lawyer I'm referring to is somebody
who worked in the Trump administration. Although he has never
been a fan of Donald Trump and says he's never
voted for Donald Trump and it should be want it
out for the purposes of his credibility. It's not perfect
because he even once predicted that Donald Trump would go
to prison because of some of the charges he was
(09:09):
facing before he became president. So he was obviously incorrect
about that. So ty Cob is hardly perfect, but I
find him to be an interesting guy. He's intelligent, and
he has this unique background where he has worked in
the Trump administration, but he's no fan of Trump. And
he was on CNN with Aaron Burnett and he gave
(09:30):
what I thought was a pretty good analysis of why
the charges against John Bolton should be seen far more
seriously and with far more credibility then for instance, those
that are currently pending or actually not pending but have
been levied against James. Call me and Leticia James. And
here's what it sounded like with Aaron Burnett interviewing ty
(09:53):
Cobb on CNN.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
But then you say, that's where the similarities end. So
why is this indictment different?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
That's exactly my view, which is, yes, this case would
not have been brought but for Trump's revenge, because we
know the Biden Justice Department declined to bring this case
quite likely to avoid burning the means and methods through
which they extracted the Iranian intelligence, which is a valid
governmental concern. What we have now is you know, Bolton
(10:24):
insisting that this is you know, purely revenged. That's clearly
not the case. If you read the indictment, keep in
mind that in the Comi case, seasoned senior prosecutors who
were later forced to resign told told the Justice Department
that there was insufficient.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Evidence to pursue the case.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
In the James case, senior prosecutors in the in the
Eastern District advised that now they didn't go to the
insufficient evidence.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
They said, there's no case. That's clearly not what we
have here.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
When when you look at this indictment, and keep in mind,
Judge Lambert years ago, in the dispute over the book
uh pointed out that Bolton's unilateral conduct had raised serious
national concern, national security concerns, that he had gambled with
national security, he'd probably harmed his country, and he certainly
exposed himself to potential criminal liability.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
So this shouldn't come as a.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Newsflash that you know, there's there's a potential crime here.
Two federal judges, magistrate judges issued search warrants where the
probable cost standard that was used by the grand jury
today was met, and they issued issued search warrants and
the materials that were taken are consequential and highly consequential
(11:39):
because The most important paragraph in the indictment to me
is the paragraph that makes playing not a single one
of the documents used in the book or in the
pre review process is a basis for any of the charges.
All these charges are based on newly found evidence. So
I think that I think that echoes the seriousness of this,
(12:01):
and it certainly undermines undermines the political arguments that Bolton
would like to make.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Now, this is not just Ty Cobb's opinion. This seems
to be the conventional media narrative about the Bolton indictments.
Of course, I'm always very nervous about the conventional media
narrative because it's so often wrong. But my sense is
because it is consistent with what other credible people are saying,
and because Cobb comes at this from a pretty unique perspective,
(12:28):
I'm willing to acknowledge that appears as if Bolton probably
screwed up, that he probably did something very careless, very reckless,
very stupid. Now, there's no evidence that I've seen so
far that what he did was nefarious, but he was
particularly stupid given the fact that he had to know
that he was in a very vulnerable position, and when
you know you're in a vulnerable position being an enemy
(12:50):
of Donald Trump, that you maybe should be more careful. Now,
maybe he didn't think that Trump was going to be
president again.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That could have been part of the deal.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
The Biden administration looked into this and decided not to
press for charges against John Bolton for reasons that ty
Cobb referenced in that clip.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
But I just for the record, I wanted to say,
all right, I'm willing.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
To change my opinion and acknowledge that I may have
been wrong about the charges being completely bogused. They don't
appear to be completely bogus. I'm still not believing that
this is ever going to result in John Bolton going
to prison, but I'm certainly more than willing to be
objective and listen to it as it goes forward and
will keep you updated as it does on this podcast.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
A couple other updates.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
We spent quite a bit of time in the last
episode of the podcast talking about the peace deal between
Hamas and Israel and Gaza, and from a.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Media perspective, I still find the treatment of Trump.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And particularly Jared Kushner, who's getting a lot of credit
for having broken the deal, to be almost in the
realm of being bizarre. I really I have a theory
that I put out there in the last episode of
the podcast, is what's really going on here where the
right wing media, of course, it's Trump, so they want
to give him credit at every possible turn, And the
(14:10):
left wing media is actually, you know, excited because they
love peace, which is understandable. They love the hostages being returned,
which is fantastic. And also it appears as if Israel
did not get the better end of the deal, which
might also please a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Of members of the legacy news media.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
But the part of this that is so baffling to
me is the premature nature of the overwhelmingly positive media coverage, because.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
We don't know whether or not this deal is going
to hold.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
The deal appears to be still at this moment remarkably fragile,
though it has not blown apart as some had worn.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
In fact, there was a warning by the State Department.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
A few days ago that there appeared to be imminent
news that the ceasefire was going to be broken and
then there was going to be hostilities breaking out in Gaza.
To what extent that ever actually happened, I don't think
it did to the point where the ceasefire was actually
quote unquote broken. But we've seen all sorts of reports
(15:13):
where you know, Hamas is saying that they didn't really
agree to what has claimed that they agreed to.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
And it's my opinion that Israel can't be.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
All that thrilled about this except for the fact that
they got their hostages back because they gave.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Up an awful lot in return.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
And you know, there are some people believe that Israel
ended up being strong armed into agreeing to this, and
then Yahoo agreed to this almost banking on the idea
that the peace wouldn't hold, that'd get the hostages back,
and you know, then the hostilities would be reinstated. I
don't know if that's true or not, but it makes
(15:52):
at least some sense given the.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
History of the situation here.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But sixty Minutes interviewed Kushner and and others about this,
basically allowing them to take a victory lap literally as
they're also reporting, hey, the whole thing might not hold together,
which I just find to be bizarre, especially given the
fact that the legacy news media like CBS sixty Minutes,
at least until Bari Weiss took over as one of
(16:16):
the leaders at CBS News has not been exactly known
as being pro Trump. In fact, Trump sued them over
the whole sixty minutes Kamala Harrison interview during the twenty
twenty four election, and so you know, there's always there's
been a lot of conflict there, But here they almost
seem to be going out of their way to praise Trump.
(16:38):
I think from a motivational perspective, almost from the standpoint
of trying to prove that they're objective, that this was
an opportunity to prove by the legacy news media that
proved that they don't have tens, that they are objective
about Trump, that when he does well, they can give
him credit. And in my opinion, they were actually prematurely
(16:59):
willing to praise this entire administration because especially given the
history of these things, to me, you cannot celebrate this
until you know that the piece is going to hold.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Which may in fact happen. I hope that's the case.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Nobody wants war, especially in the situation like this. It
would be fantastic if it did. I'm just from a
purely media analysis perspective. I think it's a remarkable set
of circumstances where Trump and Kushner and others are getting
so much praise when we don't really know for sure
how this is all going to shake out in the
(17:33):
longer run. And I still maintain that this was not
that great a deal from Israel's perspective, and.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
That that was actually the key.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
The key to how they did this was that Kushner
has all these contacts in the Arab world conflicts of interest,
some people might say, with all these billions of dollars
exchanging hands with his hedge fund, anybody has these relationships,
and he was able to use these relationships in the
Arab world for those countries used to put pressure.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
On Hamas to go ahead and make a deal.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Meanwhile, the United States pressured their own ally, Israel into
making a deal. And that's how it ended up happening.
And let's hope it works. I hope it holds. It
be fantastic, and if it does, then Trump had pushed
everybody else deserves a whole lot of credit. I just
think it's premature to be celebrating, especially to this degree.
(18:24):
But it's interesting to note one there's elements in that
sixty minutes interview that back up my whole theory on this.
Number one, you know, not that that's the most important thing,
but just for the record, And number two, it appears
as if this exact same philosophy that I outlined in
the last episode of the podcast that Trump and the
people surrounding him seem to have when it comes to
(18:47):
resolving these conflicts is to not pressure our enemies, but
pressure our allies, which is.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
A novel strategy.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
You can see how if you really want a deal,
that's how it could work. And years to have worked
with Israel, but it doesn't appear to be working with Ukraine.
And there's yet another example of this where there's it's
been widely reported that Zelensky and Trump had another blow up,
this time in private.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Which is where this should happen.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
It should not happen in public like it famously did
at the White House earlier on in the effort to
try to come to some sort of a peace agreement,
where Trump told the world that Zelensky has no cards.
I mean that, to me was as clear a piece
of evidence as you ever going to get that that's
Trump's philosophy here, cut the balls off of your ally
(19:37):
to force them into making a deal because you erode
their leverage, or at least their perception of leverage. Well, Zelensky,
who I do not like at all, is not going
along with this. And there's, like I said, more evidence
of this where apparently widely reported, even in right wing
media outlets, that there was a massive blow up between
(19:59):
Zelensky and Trump. And you know, Trump keeps going back
and forth between you know, kissing Putin's ass and then
attacking Putin and doing the same thing with Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
He seems to be all over the map.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
We were going to give Ukraine Tomahawk missiles and you
know that was probably a bluff. And Trump has not
been able to fulfill his promise of ending the Ukraine
Russian War on day one, and there's no sign that
it's going to end. And I think the main reason
is because Trump's whole philosophy, which apparently has worked when
it came to Israel and Hamas, does not work when
(20:35):
it comes to Ukraine and Russia. Partially because Putin is
not as easily manipulated as Hamas, because there are no
allies that we have that we can go to to
put Prussia on Russia, and also our ally alleged in
this Ukraine doesn't seem to be willing to give up
the ghost as Israel apparently was, at least in the
(20:56):
short run. So that's my analysis of those two situations.
I think they're actually remarkably similar, and in one situation
we have an apparent success, and in the other one
we do not have any success, at least not as
of yet.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
One of the big moments.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
That occurred over the last week, at least politically, was
that liberals across the country did a protest called.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No King's Day. And this is one.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Of those situations where you might think that I'm a
little bit conflicted, because obviously, as a conservative critic of
Donald Trump and someone who believes strongly in the Constitution
and in our republic, I am very much on the
record as saying that one of the most important things
about the United States of America is that we.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Never have a king.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's literally in our branding, it's literally how we became
a country. And obviously we're we're about to celebrate the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,
which was declaring independence from a king from a monarchy.
And so I have been very very concerned. It's been
my number one concern. I stated numerous times during the
(22:08):
twenty twenty four campaign about why I was hesitant to support,
not that I matter, but just for the record, to
support a second Donald Trump administration because I strongly believed
that Trump was going to have nobody around him who
was going to be willing to say no. Everyone would
treat him as a king, especially after the assassination attempt.
(22:30):
He would be like a godlike figure. Everyone would be
terrified of him, The Congress would lay down for him,
and he would effectively be a king.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
And that has happened.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I mean, there's absolutely no objective analysis that can conclude
anything other than that Trump, in many ways, not in totality,
but in many ways does act as a king.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That is a fact.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
However, I did not support, nor did I like, the
No King's Day protest, mostly because it was obviously overtly political.
It's all a bunch of far left wing progressive Democrats
and whack jobs with their latest excuse to protest. Now,
I do think that the numbers were at least somewhat impressive.
(23:21):
Everyone always talks about how many people are there, and
right wing people will say, oh, it's an exaggerated number,
and left wing people will exaggerate in the other way.
It's very tiring, But I don't think you can argue
that it was not a success from the standpoint of turnout.
I mean, a lot of people turned out, and I think, frankly,
the storm clouds are brewing for the twenty twenty six
(23:43):
midterm elections in a lot of different ways, not just
from how many people turned out.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
For No King's Day, but also a lot of polling
that we're seeing.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
By the way, it could be a very bad twenty
twenty five election in a couple of weeks for Republicans
as well, especially without Trump on the ballot. So the
fact that this was overtly political as opposed to philosophical
and the idea of no Kings was one problem I
had with it. But the biggest problem I have with
(24:12):
it is that we're doing this less than four years
or five, depending on how you do the dates. But
we're doing this within the same time period, within the
same decade that the entire Democratic Party and progressive apparatus.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Laid down completely completely.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
During the COVID panic for blue state kings, especially here
in California, and of course, Gavin Ussu desperately once the
twenty twenty eight Democratic nomination. He was all over the
no king's situation and passionately promoting it by saying, we
don't do kings in America. I'm like, are you fucking
(24:54):
kidding me? You are such a hypocrite in general particular issue, it's.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Off the charts.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Gavin Newsom literally declared himself a king. I didn't use
the word king, but during a state of emergency that
he declared, and he created the panic. There's no I've
gone through this a dozen times in this podcast. He
created the panic by shutting down California, declaring a state
of emergency, giving himself emergency powers for two fucking years.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Over a lie.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
His original emergency declaration was a complete lie.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
It wasn't a miscalculation.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
It was a grotesque, overt and obvious lie that I
wrote about the next fucking morning, and I was one
thousand percent right about. He lied about how many people
were gonna get COVID in the next eight weeks.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
He duped Donald Trump into believing it.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
None of it turned out to be anything close to
what he claimed or predicted.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Even all these years later, we've only.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Gotten half the cases that he predicted or claimed was
going to happen in the next eight weeks when he
declared the state of emergency. But he was dictating every
little scintilla of our lives.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Literally. It was absurd. Have people forgotten this already?
Speaker 1 (26:15):
I mean, what businesses could be opened and closed, what
schools could be open to closed, beaches open and closed,
color coded guides for how you could get from one
level of close to the next level of openness.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I mean, it was just complete absurdity.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
First, forget about the back that none of it was
effective or warranted or did anything positive. But it was
the most grotesque violation of the no king's concept that
has certainly occurred, and then close in my lifetime or
even in the modern history of America, maybe during the
Civil War when Habeas Corpus got suspended was maybe something
(26:55):
close to it. But this was unprecedented in the modern
history of this country. And for Newsome to be out
in front on this, by the way, he put out
a tweet where somebody it's I mean, you can't make
up this level of hypocrisy and irony. Somebody had gone
into I think a cornfield or some sort of a
(27:17):
field of vegetation where they carved out no kings Day,
as well as yes on Proposition fifty. Now, Proposition fifty
here in California is going to be voted on in
a couple of weeks. That is Gavin Newsom's attempt to
try to, in his mind, counteract what Republicans are doing
(27:38):
nationwide when it comes to congressional redistricting. And I'm like,
oh my god, the level of hypocrisy here. First of all,
Gavin Newsom declared himself a king for two years, no
self awareness, no accountability for that.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Number two, No King's Day, and yes on.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Proposition fifty are also inherently contradictory because Proposition fifty is
a way for our governor, former king to get around
the state fucking constitution that was voted on by the voters.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
It's in the state.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Constitution, and so here he has this proposition where he knows,
or at least he thinks he knows, that he has
the votes to do it because it's an overwhelmingly liberal
state that hates Donald Trump, and all the Prop fifty
commercials are about Donald Trump, folks, it's not even about
the issue itself. They don't want to talk about the
issue itself, because they don't want to tell you the
(28:36):
truth about what it's all about, because even average people
are gonna go, what the fuck is this? Didn't we
already vote on this? This doesn't sound very democratic at all.
We're going around the state constitution so that Democrats can
get more representatives in Congress. How is that democratic? And
it's certainly far more consistent with the idea that Newsom's
(28:59):
a king then the concept that we don't have kings,
that we're sacred defenders of democracy. And so I'm unfortunately
of the belief that Proposition fifty is probably going to pass.
I don't think it's going to be by a lot.
It's probably going to be in the maybe two to
four point range, which is going to be very, very frustrating.
(29:21):
But it's based on a total lie. It's completely anti democratic,
it's anti constitutional. It's not the same thing that happened
in Texas at all, although that's what they're lying about.
And it's a brazen power grab. And here we have
Gavin Dusom connecting no King's Day with yes on Proposition fifty.
(29:41):
And here he was the worst offender by way, not
the only one, not the only one. I mean, we
had Hochel in New York, and Whitmer and Michigan, and
Shapiro in Pennsylvania and Bashir in Kentucky. By the way,
all these people are going to be running for president
in twenty twenty. They were the worst governors when it
(30:02):
came to the COVID panic. They were all effectively kings,
and now here they are blatant hypocrites with no credibility whatsoever,
claiming that Donald Trump is a king, which there's a
decent argument to be made there that I think it's
an important discussion to be had. It's very concerning a
lot of the things that Trump has done from the
(30:23):
perspective of becoming a monarch or a king. But these
people have no credibility on this issue at all. And
of course the media doesn't point any of us out,
nobody in even the right wing media. I mean, that's
the part that's most frustrating to this story, that the
entire issue of the COVID panic and how we turned
(30:44):
our government into a tyrannical force, especially in the Blue States,
just never gets talked about it, like we pretend it
never happened. It was only four or five years ago,
people were forced to get a fucking experimental vaccine. Gys
were forced to wear masks in school with no evidence
that they work at all, all because Democrats wanted to
(31:07):
signal their virtue and make it clear to the world
during the twenty twenty election that this was unprecedented and
that Donald Trump inherently was doing such a bad job
that he needs to be kicked out of office. And
that's exactly what happened. So I have nobody to support
when it comes to the whole King's Day protest, even
(31:28):
though it's a subject on which I obviously have a
lot of passion and a lot of concern, because I
do think this is where we're headed. I mean, these
things don't tend to reverse themselves. There have been people
who have been warning about presidential power in this country
for a long time. Go search it for yourself. One
of these days, I'll play it. I probably should play
it right now, but I don't have the time for it.
(31:51):
But Barry Goldwater, who was the nineteen sixty four Republican nominee.
In nineteen sixty four, he made a tremendous statement about
the future of the US presidency and how he feared
it would effectively become like a monarchy, and I think
he was prescient. And I think Trump has moved the
(32:11):
football down the field at.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Least twenty thirty yards.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I don't know if we're what guard line we're at currently,
but we're in the red zone, that's for sure. And
if Gavin Newsom ends up becoming president in twenty twenty eight,
God help us all. I mean, because we saw what
he did during COVID and he has absolutely no no
(32:36):
restrictions on him whatsoever from the standpoint of what he
thinks a leader should be restricted by or that they shouldn't.
Actually doesn't really believe in this idea of no kings.
He's just doing it because it's popular among the left,
and he's trying to be the democratic now many in
twenty twenty eight. We know that because we have the
history of what occurred during the COVID panic. Now I
(32:58):
referenced proposition fifty and how I'm not optimistic, even though
I think Proposition fifty could be defeated. I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
He's been out there a little bit, but I don't
think he's been out there enough. Barack Obama disappointed me
by hopping on and doing commercials in favor of Proposition fifty.
But so I think it is possible that fifty could lose,
(33:21):
and boy, that would be fantastic, not just because it's
wrong and because it would be good for Democrats if
it passed and bad for Republicans if it passed, but
it would also probably greatly hinder Newsom's presidential hopes for
twenty twenty eight. I mean, he really is trying to
build this brand as the guy who is effectively fighting
(33:42):
against Donald Trump, and if he were to lose in
his home state with Proposition fifty, I think that would
really destroy that brand and destroy that narrative. But unfortunately,
I don't think that's going to happen. It's in the
realm of possibility, but I think it's probably going to
pass by a few percentage points. There's also, understandably a
lot of consternation and a lot of discussion about what's
(34:04):
going to happen in the New York City mayor's race
in November, and it's looking more and more like Zoron
Mondani is going to be the next mayor of New York.
Now there's a lot of speculation about especially after they
just had a debate, which which was funny to watch
Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor of New York, basically
(34:25):
suddenly claim that socialism is bad.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
I find that fascinating.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
So wait a minute, Andrew Cuomo, socialism is bad when
you have no other argument to make because you're running
against the guy who's to the left of you in
a desperate attempt to try to.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Salvage your political career.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
That was interesting, But the biggest issue for a lot
of people is that there are three people in the
race Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Silva, who is a long time
right wing gadfly talk show host in New York City,
and Zoron Mondani, who's an open socialist communist seemingly pro
terrorist sympathizer. It's unbelievable hanging out with people who are
(35:05):
unindicted co conspirators in the nineteen ninety three World Trade
Center bombing in the very city he wants to be
the mayor of it's mind blowing. It's unbelievable, less than
twenty five years after nine to eleven, not to mention
the fact that he's an open and overt communist. But
there's a lot of speculation. Okay, if Mondonnie's winning in
the polls, what would happen if Silva got out? Would
(35:28):
Cuomo actually beat him? And I understand why there's pressure.
The New York Post came out and said that Silva
ought to drop out of.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
The race, and look, he probably should. He can't win.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
He's in there just for ego, which he has a
huge ego, as most people in politics do, but he particularly.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Has a massive ego.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
But I also don't buy necessarily that him dropping out
would really mean that Mandonnie would lose. It would certainly
bring it into the possibility in realm of possibility. But
I'm not a big believer that you can simply take
all the votes from a third party candidate and give
them to the part of the candidate that's in second
(36:09):
place and say whila, that would mean that Cuomo would
beat Mondani. I just don't think it works that way.
First of all, a lot of the soul Well vote
may not even be real in the polls. It may
just be people saying they don't like the other two candidates.
Number Two, they may not show up or they may
not decide to vote if their candidate is out. Three,
(36:30):
you know, they may I think he's going to be
on the ballot anyway, they may end up voting for him,
regardless of whether or not he were to drop out
and endorse Cuomo, not to mention that the endorsement of
Cuomo would be very awkward in my opinion. By the way,
there's also some sivil voters who might even vote for
Mandanni just because people are crazy and weird and unpredictable.
(36:51):
So I just don't think the math works out, and
so unless the polls are catastatic strapically wrong, I think
Mandanni is going to win. And you know what does
that mean for New York. Now there's a divide here
between people who are like, we need to stop this
at all costs and people who are like, well, let's
just let it burn to the fucking ground and use
(37:13):
New York as an example for why communism is bad.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I have kind of been in that ladder group. I'm
still in that ladder group. But I'm also I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I'm concerned about is it possible that this is actually
a situation where we're setting a very bad precedent, that
maybe this is getting allowing the Mandans of the world
to get a foothold in a very powerful position, and
obviously the largest city in America, you know, in theory,
one of the most important cities, if not the most
(37:44):
important city in the world. Still, from a financial perspective,
I get both arguments. I'm still kind of in the
in the perspective of the perspective of let it burn
and use it as an example. But this is a
very very troubling situation, especially after what we've seen in Europe.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
The polls are very clear.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
That Mandannie is if he's going to win, it's going
to be on the backs of foreign born voters. There's
a massive divide between foreign born voters and domestically born
voters in New York. By the way, one of the
stranger polling results I saw is that Mondanni is currently
getting allegedly thirty percent of the Jewish vote, I mean,
(38:26):
which is just fricking crazy given Mandani's behavior and his statements,
especially on Israel. But this is where we are, and
so this is I agree that this is a very
significant situation, the development that could have wide spread ramifications,
(38:47):
and if Mondanni actually gets elected and does what he says,
New York is in very, very big trouble. And that
could be very bad for America.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
I guess my concern is would this be isolated and
it be dramatic and quick enough for it to reverse itself,
and would that actually be of benefit to the rest
of the country to see the ramifications of what happens
when you an elect to Zora Mundani, I just I
wish I had enough confidence to know.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, that's the that's going to be the result. It
feels like playing with fire.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
In fact that it's very clearly playing with fire, and
obviously we'll have more analysis on that situation as we
get closer to the election in November. There's also going
to be I think significant races in Virginia and New
Jersey where on the governor's side there looks like to
me like Republicans are going to lose pretty badly the
governorship in Virginia and may not win in New Jersey
(39:43):
when a lot of people think that that is a
vulnerable place where Democrats could lose. I'm not convinced republic
the Republicans going to win in New Jersey. So right now,
on paper, it looks like it will be a very
very good November election. Off your election for liberals and
Demo Democrats. But obviously we'll know more in just a
couple of weeks. Now back to the no Kings thing
(40:05):
for just a minute, because it's going to allow me
to transition into the latest on AI Artificial intelligence. Vice
President jd Vance, in response to No King's Day, made
his first post on blue Now. Blue is the very
liberal version of Twitter and has no real impact because
everyone's just in an echo chamber and the numbers aren't
(40:28):
all that significant. Basically, it's all just a bunch of
liberals who got pissed off at Elon Musk purchasing Twitter
now x but basically in a troll job. Jd Vance
made his first post on Blueie during No King's Day,
and it was an AI video of Donald Trump as
(40:49):
a king, literally as a king, you know, the crown,
the sword, the robes, the whole bit, And it had
Nancy and Democrats bowing to him, and of course, you know,
MAGA fans absolutely love this. The video was well done
from a production reduction standpoint, it was clearly AI obviously
(41:13):
and had some cool cool music underneath it.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
And from an entertainment perspective, I got it.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Okay, Yeah, you're you're trolling the Democrats on their No
King's Day, and you're promoting the idea I guess that
Donald Trump really is a king, And I have a
big problem with this from a number of perspectives, but
the number one is there there are some things that
can be both funny and totally wrong, inappropriate and dangerous
(41:44):
even And this is a distinction that Maga world doesn't
seem to understand. Yeah, something can be funny, that doesn't
mean it's inherently good or that it's not problematic, because
they're awful lot of people in Maga world who had
the response to No King's Day of yeah, good, I
(42:07):
want him as my king. Now, a lot of right
wingers will claim that that's not the case, but that's bullshit.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I see it all the time. I mean JD. Vance
is not just the vice president United States.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
He's the guy who's most likely to take over as
the leader of the Republican Party, very likely to be
the the nominee for the Republican Party in the twenty
twenty eight election, assuming that Trump isn't a king and
doesn't try to run for a third term. That's a
huge part of this whole equation why this is very,
very troubling that the vice president would do this, this
(42:41):
trolling job, which I acknowledge was funny, but one from
the perspective that it comes from Advance essentially not even
that subtly acknowledging that, hey, he doesn't really mind that
Trump runs for a third term. That seems to be
the implication of him posting an AI depiction of Donald
(43:03):
Trump as a king, not to mention that, yes, I
know you're trolling Democrats that they think Trump is a king,
but you seem to be promoting this idea as if
it's a good thing, which it's clearly not, and it's
clearly against whatever principles the Republican Party still theoretically believes in,
(43:26):
and so coming from Vance, I thought this was completely wrong,
highly inappropriate. Yes, it's funny, I acknowledge it. I think
a pretty good sense of humor all the time. I
will say, you know what, this might be inappropriate, but
I'll allow it because it's just so funny, and maybe
(43:46):
it's effective in owning the Libs. But owning the Libs
shouldn't be the end goal of everything. There can be
problems created, There can be very troubling precedents, set very
bad messages that are promoted, and having the Vice Pressing
of the States put out an AI video of Donald
(44:10):
Trump as a monarch on No King's Day just to
have fun with trolling the Democrats. I did not like
that at all, regardless of how funny it was, especially
coming from Vance, and what this inherently says about the
twenty twenty eight election, because you still have Trump himself
constantly quote unquote joking or trolling about running for a
(44:35):
third term, which would be clearly unconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
And then there's the AI part of this.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
Now, look, I have no problem and unfortunately I think
Trump does this way too much. But you know, when
you put out an AI video and it's very clear
that it's AI and you're trying to make a point
or you're trying to make trying to be funny.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Okay, this is the new world we're living in. I
get it.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
I'm okay with it if it's used properly. But I
want to use this as a way of entering into
an update on a subject that we spent quite a
bit of time on in the last episode of the podcast,
which is where we are on artificial intelligence. And where
we are going. And I want to start with JD.
Vance because not only did he put out that AI
(45:19):
video on No King's Day, he did an interview with
Greta Van Sustern on Newsmax. By the way, now that
this is why I'm playing the clip, but the idea
that Greta Van Sustern is now on Newsmas is just
amazing to me.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I mean, this is this.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
Woman I think has been on every single cable news
network that there is. And I use the term shape
shifter to describe Megan Kelly. I've used it to describe JD. Evans,
but there's no greater shape shifter than Greta Van Suster,
who has been a liberal, has been a conservative. I mean,
this woman was the last white person in America that
(45:58):
still believed O. J. Simpson might be innocent. And that
was in her alleged realm of expertise. That's part of
how she became famous.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Back in the day. But she's worked for MSNBC, she's
worked for CNN, she's worked for Fox News. She had
me on several times on Fox News Channel.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
In fact, she did almost an entire show on Fox
News Channel based upon my interview with Sarah Palin after
the two thousand and eight elections.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
She was very smart.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
She saw the Sarah Palin thing from a mile away,
and she jumped on that because she knew it was
good for ratings, just like she did with the Natalie
Holloway miss disappearing disappearance in Aruba that she was constantly
talking about for years about what twenty some years ago now.
So Gretavn Sstrat is a remarkable media story in and
(46:47):
of herself. But here she is now with Newsmax interviewing JD.
Vance and the issue of AI comes up, and specifically,
Vance starts talking about the idea that open AI has
now announced that they are going to start limiting their
restrictions on what is erotica or effectively pornography. In other words,
(47:13):
it is going to be possible soon with the new
update with chat GPT to engage or create some forms
of pornography. Now I don't know all the rules, obviously
it doesn't even exist yet, so who knows what that
is actually going to mean. But I found this clip
from JD Vance to be very telling and a bit
(47:35):
concerning and troubling because jd Vance appears to have and
again maybe he's just using slogans here.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
I'm trying to be as fair as possible, but he
appears to have a remarkably limited understanding of the far
reaching impact that AI could very likely have on our
society as a whole, because he tries to break it
down as to what when AI is good and when
(48:07):
AI is bad, as if it's going to be a
very isolated thing that will have only marginal impact on society.
And this was very very concerning to me because I
can I consider JD. Vance to be a very smart guy.
He's obviously much much younger than Trump. He's clearly much
(48:28):
more in tune with what's going on from a technological perspective,
if only because of his age. And so here's a
guy who I would actually look to as somebody who
might actually get it.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
He's a big, big picture thinker.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
He's clearly got a big brain, a great educational background.
If there's somebody in Trump's world who could be there
and say, you know, mister President, this AI thing is
really going to have far reaching and potentially very very
damaging implications on our society need to be prepared for it,
it would be JD. Vance and instead he seems to
(49:05):
be grand standing on this incredibly minor issue of open
AI and the topic of pornography. And here's what it
sounded like in his interview with Greta Ancestorn on Newsmax.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Where are we going with ourtificial intelligence? What about the
jobs are going? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (49:21):
So artificial intelligence that's still in many cases very dumb.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
And I think that.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
There you asked, is it good or is it bad?
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Or is it going to help us or is it
going to hurt us?
Speaker 4 (49:29):
The answer is probably both, and we should be trying
to maximize as much of the good and minimize as
much as the bad. Let me give you a very
concrete example. So two artificial headline intelligence or sorry, two
artificial intelligence headlines that I've read in just the last
week is one researchers used AI to identify a new
cancer drug pathway that nobody had ever come up with,
(49:51):
and they're actually starting to see some evidence that that
could be a credible and a promising way to treat
certain types of cancer.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
That's what we want artificial intelligence to do is to
unlike unlock new therapeutics so that people can live.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Longer, healthier lives.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
At the same time, I saw an announcement I think
it was from San Altman of open AI who said
that basically, they're going to start using AI to introduce
erotica and porn and things like that. And if AI
is helping us find new cures for new diseases, that's great.
If it's helping us come up with increasingly weird porn,
that's bad. And I think that we actually need policymakers here.
(50:27):
And this is where you know, me and the President
have been so focused on this issue. We want to
lean in as much to the socially positive applications of
artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Now, on the surface, there's nothing really wrong with that statement,
except to me, it indicates that Advance is not getting
the big picture here.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
Now maybe he just decided not to get into it.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
But the idea that judg EPT or open AI or whatever,
you know, a source that you're using is going to
be limiting restrictions on pornography, I get you might find
that concerning.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
You might Okay, what's that all about? What that's going
to means?
Speaker 1 (51:10):
That's a perfectly legitimate question, especially given the difficulty of
trying to restrict age and whether not people of a
certain age are going to still.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Have access to AI. I get all that those are
legitimate questions.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
However, in my opinion, that topic is not in the
top one hundred, not in the top one hundred of
the concerns.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
That we as a society, or JD.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Vans as the Vice President the United States, ought to
have about what is going to transpire in the next
several years regarding artificial intelligence. And by the way, let
me just very quickly address this issue of restrictions on pornography.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
See to me, this actually is quite.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
Interesting from the perspective of the problems that AI creates. See,
once you create a restriction in the algorithm, it will
inevitably go too far inherently because there's no human discretion.
This is one of the areas where humans ideally have
(52:16):
an inherent advantage over artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2 (52:20):
Now, a lot of humans are not capable of this.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
You know, if you've ever run into a police officer
that pulled you over for going six miles per hour
over the speed limit and he gave you a ticket
and you weren't causing any problems, you know that not
all humans are willing and.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Able to use proper discretion.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
We've also seen this on a weekly basis in the
National Football League in college football when it comes to
really horrendous calls, usually involving roughing the passer. There's very
little discretion that some people are able to actually use
in real life. But human beings are at least capable
of using discretion, of being able to discern Okay, this
(53:01):
might be technically a violation, but there's nothing really wrong
going on here. Algorithms are not capable of doing that.
And I have seen this already, specifically when it comes
to restrictions on whether it's Chat, GPT or rock or
Imagine or some of the other AI platforms that I use,
(53:25):
where our request requests something that is clearly not even
close to the roum of pornography, but somehow it gets
flagged that way and they're not able to fulfill the request.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, I totally get why.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
That happens, because there's no human being going This isn't
a request involving pornography, or you know, or you'll take
a picture that you want to have the AI may
it come to life, and that there's something they don't
like about the picture, because I guess maybe I don't
even know. I'm I'm just theorizing that they didn't like
(54:02):
how much skin there was in the picture or whatever
it was. I have no idea, there's no way of knowing,
because the algorithm doesn't tell you this, and they never
give you an explanation for why you can't do what
you're trying to do. But the lifting of restrictions on pornography,
in my view, as someone who's against censorship and is
in favor of free expression and is against restrictions and
(54:26):
is in favor of allowing adults to be able to
have control over what they create.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
I think it's actually a good thing.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
And it's disappointing to me that jd Vance doesn't seem
to understand that. So there's two elements here where I
think jd Vance is expressing a lack of fully understanding
where we're at.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
He doesn't understand.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Why you need to pull restrictions on porn, because when
you restrict porn, you're inherently going to restrict all sorts
of other things in the creative process that have nothing
to do with porn. Not to mention, you know, in theory,
adults should be able to do what they want in
a free country. But then there's also the issue of
does jd Vance really think that that's the biggest problem
(55:10):
or one of the biggest problems that we're going to
face when it comes to AI.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Because if it is, which I'm actually.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
Hoping is not the case, I'm hoping this is just
what he happened to say in an interview with Redevan Sustern.
Speaker 2 (55:22):
He thought it was a pithy way of describing AI.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
But if it is, that's very disappointing and very concerning
because I was counting on jd Vance for being a
real to for him to be a real leader on
this issue, for reasons that I've already stated. Thanks for
listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show. If
you're interested in listening to the entire show, you must
become a patron.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
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Speaker 1 (55:53):
Patreon dot com slash the Death of Journalism with John Zigler.
My name is j O h N z I E
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