Transcript
Conor Fowler: Hello and welcome to an exciting episode of Apocalypse. stuff This has been in the works really since the beginning, and I have known our two guests for quite a long time.
Conor Fowler: Our guests have spent their careers challenging power, but in very different ways. One with a pen, the other with policy. Both understand that democracy depends on people willing to speak up.
Conor Fowler: Kevin Call Callagher is one of the world's most accomplished editorial cartoonists. For decades, his work has appeared in The Economist and recently The Baltimore Sun, where he's chronicled presidents, prime ministers, scandals, wars, and political absurdity with wit, precision, and a drawing style that has become instantly recognizable.
Conor Fowler: A single cartoon can say what some people need 2,000 words to explain. Joining him is Barry Lynn, attorney, author, ordained minister, former CEO and executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Conor Fowler: For three decades, Barry was one of the nation's leading voices defending the First Amendment and separation of church and state, arguing that religious liberty works best when government stays out of religion and religion stays out of government, ah blah, blah, blah.
Conor Fowler: they approach They approach the same questions from different angles. And I thought it would be so good to get them together. And so here we are. Matt and I have prepared some questions for you guys individually and together.
Conor Fowler: So.
matt: Yeah, yeah. We think this going to be a really fun, ah very discussion-heavy episode, which, you know, we've talked to both of y'all before, and yeah, welcome. Thank you.
matt: Thank you for doing this.
Kal: Thank you. I feel honored, honored, honored to be in Barry's presence.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: Thank you.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: I mean, this is yeah right up.
Barry Lynn: i
Kal: I'm glad you brought us together because I think we're probably twins in brains. you know I just draw instead of the other thing.
matt: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Conor Fowler: I think so.
Kal: ah The separation of church and state is a really big deal, obviously, in the country, but it's also important to me, very, very, very important ah to me.
Conor Fowler: I think so.
Kal: We had a cartoonist who you might know, Barry, heard of Steve Benson, who was a cartoonist whose family had been very thick in the Mormon church. In fact, I think Steve saystith tells the story was he was in line to become the leader, Steve was, the leader of the church as a grandson who was, you know,
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Kal: And he was being groomed for that. And then he, um, um had a run in he found, he discovered the sort of duplicitous nature of much of the the administration of um of the church.
Conor Fowler: Thank you.
Kal: And he um left and then caused a big ah big shock, you know not just to him and his family, but and through the whole religion.
Barry Lynn: or
Kal: And he became of the the one of the greater spokesmen for separation of church and state, or the freedom from religion, basically.
Barry Lynn: Absolutely.
Kal: And so you you might have known him. He sadly passed away about a year ago, but you he was a hero on in my mind in that in that battle.
Conor Fowler: RIP.
Barry Lynn: I have heard of him and I've seen some of his cartoons and I've never met him, but I think I actually have a book of your drawings that you autographed for me like 20 years ago.
matt: oh my god that's that's so good
Kal: Oh, not possible.
Barry Lynn: Yeah. Yeah.
Kal: I'm not that old. Come on.
Barry Lynn: No, no, come on.
Kal: yeah
Barry Lynn: you know, age age is ah before beauty, right?
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Kal: Well, tell me about that book. Do you remember that what the book is?
Barry Lynn: I do not remember the name of the book.
Kal: Yeah. Well, I have a ah you know a bunch of books out, but I'm very excited to announce here that and in the next two years, I'm going to be celebrating my 50th anniversary with The Economist.
Kal: And we're looking to have a you know a grand look back at the an illustrious career of illustrating.
matt: Oh my gosh.
Conor Fowler: Wow.
Barry Lynn: Terrific.
Kal: So I'm looking forward to that.
Conor Fowler: Wow. Wow. Are you going be on the cover?
Barry Lynn: Perfect.
Kal: ah ah Barry might be on the cover if he saves himself.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Right, right, right.
Barry Lynn: You know, um ah early in the my career at Americans United, where I spent 25 years, um we we were early adopters of the internet.
Conor Fowler: Mm-hmm.
Barry Lynn: and i And was curious what would happen. We had a guy who was, he was also became a minister actually in the very,
Barry Lynn: a liberal United Church of Christ. And so one day I was looking at the documents and and I could see that you could actually write a message to the organization.
Barry Lynn: And I wrote and I said, I am really annoyed to see these videos of your executive director. He is so ugly that he scares dogs and children.
Barry Lynn: And I said,
matt: but
Conor Fowler: Wow. Right. Right.
Barry Lynn: It took them like four days to say, we got this unpleasant message about you.
Kal: well now yeah of course that today that seems tame right that's tame compared to something's out there
matt: Oh, that's fred it's fantastic.
matt: Right, right.
Barry Lynn: Oh yeah.
matt: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: Now it's like sending pictures of people's genitals.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: yep yeah yeah yeah i only do it once uh once every other month i try to
Barry Lynn: Yeah, which I don't do or like, but I'm sure it happens.
Conor Fowler: right
Barry Lynn: I've heard it happens. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.
Conor Fowler: I was going to say, ah box a box of flaming excrement really sends a message, um which...
Barry Lynn: That's good. Perfect.
Kal: yeah
matt: Right, right.
Barry Lynn: Perfect.
matt: It's kind of funny because like you know I'm old enough to remember the ah the Clinton scandals.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
matt: And that's that that even seems quaint at this point.
Conor Fowler: Sure.
Kal: Oh my God. Yes.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
matt: Like...
Conor Fowler: Well, I was four, and I remember it because I remember very distinctly, what is oral sex? is oral sex?
matt: Right, right.
Conor Fowler: You know, like I was in, I was like in kindergarten, you know what I mean? And it was, ah it was, it was practically dinner table conversation.
Kal: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
matt: Right.
Kal: Yeah, it was ah it was quite astonishing because at the time, of course, it was shocking to everyone. um And now we are sense our nerve endings have have completely been hammered so much that we don't feel anything.
matt: right right
Conor Fowler: What?
Kal: and um And it's partly because the deluge and volume and. um um depth of all the idiocy that's coming on, that it's a normal ah instinct to retreat.
Kal: rather than to engage. And one of the challenges I think that we're finding for anyone who wants to kind of exist ah and and push back in this era is finding a way to engage people who are tired and frustrated and also feel impotent in the world that we currently live in.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: And I'm pretty curious, Barry, are you finding that with the the people that you're running into?
Barry Lynn: Yeah, very much so. um I was talking to somebody a few hours ago who's, he's a teacher and he's made some films, but I asked him what he thought would happen in the midterm elections. And it's the most affirmative thing that i've I've heard anybody say.
Barry Lynn: He believes that not only will House flip, but that the Senate will flip and that Democrats will gain 10 seats in the midterms.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, was going to say.
matt: Oh, wow.
Conor Fowler: Huh.
Barry Lynn: Now that's, you know, I mean, I'm all for fantasy. ah
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: think there's a little bit of fantasy mixed in with that projection. But when you look at the possibilities, you can certainly see extraordinary candidates that the Democrats have managed to come up with.
Barry Lynn: And if the only thing that the Republicans can say is, well, they're too liberal, or as so the Secretary of of War said yesterday,
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: Democrats are to blame because they don't give us a big enough budget. I'd like to see Democrats say, you know what? 20% of the military budget can be cut and it should be cut.
Barry Lynn: And if that means, Secretary Hegg says, you can't buy lobster tails, too bad, too bad.
matt: Right.
Conor Fowler: Well, didn't they just say $37.9 billion dollars on Iran already? And like, it's just money in the trash can.
Barry Lynn: thirty seven Yeah, almost 40 billion. and nobody and But nobody believes that. They believe it's much more. And sure.
matt: Right.
Conor Fowler: Oh, sure. Sure. Sure. Cause the whole, the whole of the defense budget is like a a a redacted document.
Barry Lynn: it's it's the odd It's hopelessly bloated.
Conor Fowler: Right. The Pentagon has never been audited even.
matt: Total.
Conor Fowler: So I don't know. I don't know what to do.
Barry Lynn: I love
Conor Fowler: And this is what we return to again and again. It's like, we can't even talk about anything that isn't depressing.
Kal: Yeah, i guess I guess you're right, but i feel I'm still like a glass half um full kind of guy.
Barry Lynn: it.
Conor Fowler: Well, and I appreciated your point just now, very wise as always, about the
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: kind of push pull of activism and involvement.
Barry Lynn: Thank
Conor Fowler: Cause like, you're right. They do want us unplugged and, and not like that. They want us like super plugged in what our minds turned off or something.
Kal: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a brilliant strategy if it's if it's a strategy or if it's just everybody kind of pulling their weight because you can't imagine, for example, say a the Democrats do um get a majority, as Barry points out, both in the Senate and the House, let's say, is that um even if they got the presidency, you can't imagine that their strategy be flood the zone like the them the Republicans have.
matt: Right,
matt: right.
Conor Fowler: Mm-hmm.
Kal: even though might be effective, but it's just that is not in their DNA to kind of just shove everything and don't care what other people think. Just we're going to overload you and blindside you with everything that we believe.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: And you're going to have to live with it. It's just not kind of the way that we used to thinking. So we're kind of in a new landscape generally on how ah politics is going to operate. So it's going to be very interesting to see.
Kal: It's ah it's going to obviously November is very big on the you know, what could possibly happen. Well, what happens next if the Democrats manage to claw back power over time um is also going to be wide open.
Kal: Really big question, you know.
matt: Yeah. Yeah. I really hope that they start, they stop pulling punches like do doing, you know, whatever for quote unquote decorum, which hasn't worked since, you know, the, the maybe, i don't know, late nineties, early two thousands, but like tape or yeah yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Or like the 1800s. I mean, it's like, yeah.
Barry Lynn: up up
matt: I mean, I'm being generous with this, but you know, like you, you want to think that like the opposition party is actually going to throw up some opposition and,
Conor Fowler: yeah
matt: You know, I hope that that's the case. If if anything, you know, like earth shattering happens, but I don't know. It just.
Conor Fowler: Right. Like what if they do try to seal the election you know, like, what are we going to, what are we going to do then?
Barry Lynn: up
matt: Right, right.
Conor Fowler: i mean, if they have, they crossed the line in the sand yet again, and we stand there and do nothing.
Barry Lynn: i You know, i do I do blame the current Democratic Party for doing so little to stop these terrible things.
matt: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: I mean, one of my great heroes in the Senate was actually a Republican for a while, and he became an independent, and that was Lowell Weicker from Connecticut.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: This guy understood filibusters and how to run them and how to operate them, and everybody knew if he threatened to do it,
Conor Fowler: Mm-hmm.
Barry Lynn: He would do it. One December, they were debating a big tax bill. And I get a call on the phone and it's Weicker. And he says, Barry, I don't think you're watching C-SPAN, which which was true.
Barry Lynn: And he said, but I have a question for you. And he said, here's this is a couple of sentences in a tax bill. And he read them. And it was a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Barry Lynn: And he said, OK, well, he said, hangs up, he goes, I turn on C-SPAN, he comes up, Mr. President, I have just consulted with counsel. And he believes that this these two sentences are so much in violation of the First Amendment that if you decide to keep them in, we're going to have to talk about it from now until Christmas Eve.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: And needless to say, all of a sudden they disappeared and they never came back.
Conor Fowler: Right.
matt: Right, right, right.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
matt: I think one of the main points of like getting you all together is that you're you've both been you know in politics in your own ways for so long.
matt: And freedom of expression is something that you both fight for and have fought for. um And it it seems like we're almost getting to a point where that freedom of expression is basically becoming non-existent, which kind of sounds like what you're talking about, Barry.
Kal: It's certainly under siege, no question.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: It's so interesting um that ah you know in my cartoon world, we don't get as much of that and partly because we're not as important as we used to be, right?
matt: Right, right.
Kal: So if I was on TV and I had a, you know like Jimmy Kimmel or you know ah Colbert, or yeah i was in the New York Times or some other places that Donald Trump watches or reads, then you'd be right your crosshairs and you can fully expect that i would have lawsuit after lawsuit frivolous things thrown at me and what what does a guy like me do without coverage you know and that's intimidation it's blatant um um but they will do it because that's part of their playbook and it's happening all over the place
matt: Right.
Kal: um i I'm delighted what's happened at Harvard where they're fighting back at the overreach of the of the government, but enough people haven't.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: And Iran, they're going to keep on doing this. They're going to keep doing long as Trump is in office. So we've got two more years of this nonsense at least. And so ah you just hope enough people can fight.
matt: Hopefully.
Barry Lynn: you
matt: Hopefully.
Kal: um This is one of the things, you know, kind of, you know, I'm on Substack, you know, i'm mostly with The Economist and all the publications I've worked for before. um I was legally covered by them.
Kal: Right.
matt: Right.
Kal: A cartoon is picked up by the Baltimore Sun Publishers that they're responsible. The Economist, the same thing. I'm doing cartoon today for this week's Economist. They're responsible. But on Substack, I show my cartoons out there.
Kal: I'm uncovered. And so if it doesn't take the government, they just have to get one of their cronies to sort of you know throw hurl a frivolous lawsuit at you and it can cause problems.
matt: Right.
Kal: So there's many different ways that it can be suppressed. In addition to, course, the oligarchs, you know right wing oligarchs buying so much of the media and so on. So there's it is a lot to be concerned about.
Kal: um Barry, what does it look like from your perspective?
Barry Lynn: One of the things I've noticed, I mean, I used to live on cable television and CNN was CNN.
Kal: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Which is so wild.
Barry Lynn: we Yeah. Well, I, I lived there. I was wearing clothes at the time, but I lived there, but I've noticed this' is there's, there's a, seems to be an insatiable interest in CNN now because a fear being under the umbrella of Paramount and
matt: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Conor Fowler: cetera
Barry Lynn: all the oligarchs there, that they're changing their positions on issues. It's not just ah Anderson Cooper quitting on CBS, but it's just the balance of people they have and the in the absolute morons and liars that they consistently have on those panel shows on CNN, you know, starting with Scott McCready.
Barry Lynn: who used to work for Mitch McConnell.
Conor Fowler: Right. Right.
Barry Lynn: But I just noticed that more and more of these people get on the air. And I think it's because CNN, in its current leadership, is petrified of what's going to come were the oligarchs to take over control of CNN.
Barry Lynn: And I think I just i i I love debates. I had gazillions of them. But I think It's unnecessary to debate every issue with people who are kind of right wing nuts.
Kal: Yeah.
matt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it it almost seems like um to that point that, you know, especially, let's say Fox News, obviously they've been reactive since the dawn of their, you know, inception.
matt: um And a lot of, I feel like a lot of more mainstream, like MSNBC, CNN, or whatever has like wanted to do that, but they don't really have the same ah I guess the same like history of doing it and it just comes off shallow to me.
Conor Fowler: it's a little bit of an ethical thing, right? Because like the ox is so sensational.
matt: Right, right, yeah.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Conor Fowler: Like you couldn't be so sensational on quote unquote, the other side. Like, I mean, like the onion does satire, you know, they, I feel like do kind of what you're talking about, but it still is like, it's so far away, you know, it's not like,
matt: Right.
matt: Totally.
Kal: So you mentioned satire.
matt: Right.
Kal: True, lot of the First Amendment in mainstream media, or what we used to call mainstream media, um is under assault. However, one of the great things about the internet, a lot of bad things about the internet, of course, but one of the good things about it is that it's now can become a forum for voices that cannot be heard ordinarily.
matt: Totally.
Barry Lynn: Right.
Kal: And so Substack, for example, you know where I have a Substack, is an amazing location for people who have ah can create generate greater audiences.
matt: Totally.
Kal: They can make money.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: And you're going to start seeing, in my opinion, more network style organizations like Midas Touch and Bulwark
matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Kal: Organizing on Substack where they can get money, they can get budgets, they can pay people, they can do all this stuff and they can get audiences, even bigger audiences than Fox and some of these other places get in the so-called mainstream media.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: So to me, that's really great. And the other thing, the reason why I bring up satire is there's now more satire than ever. Because you look at the internet with memes and and and created content more and more and more than that, which generally is healthy for democracy in my mind.
Conor Fowler: Interesting.
Kal: Okay.
matt: Totally, totally.
Conor Fowler: Sure, sure, sure.
Kal: It's really, really great. Now, one of the things from the cartoonist perspective, which I think is kind of interesting is that um it does it's it's kind of a threat to a job for someone like me, right?
Kal: um Because if you're going be paid to do this, you've got to be kind of a step above the average satire that you see on the Internet. Right. it can't And you've got to get above the low hanging fruit. But I guess the big difference that a professional satirist has from what we're generally seeing is that my name goes to mine.
Kal: If you see memes, you see stuff, you don't know who created them, you can appreciate them, but you don't, in this kind of digital world where there's gonna machine learning and machine building stuff, people are going to miss that personal ah interface that the thumbprint of a human being behind the item that they're consuming.
matt: Right.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: And whether they like it or hate it, they'll know that they're an interface of sorts. So I suspect that there's going to be some cachet still in this new world for um cartoonists and satirists like me.
Kal: ah But I will strongly say that I really love where we are with satire in general.
matt: Right.
matt: do Do you think that it could...
Barry Lynn: What do you think is gonna, one of the, yeah, I mean, one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in this field
matt: Oh, go ahead, Barry.
Barry Lynn: was the time when Jerry Falwell, who was a nemesis of mine, i knows that Lord knows how many times I was on television with him, but but he yeah he sued um a major pornographic magazine for running in a phony ad for Campari, which you mix with water.
matt: Ha ha ha ha!
Barry Lynn: i don't drink anymore, but and I'm sure I had it when I was drinking. that he had sex with his mother in an outhouse. And Falwell went berserk over that.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: And i i was i was at I was at the Supreme Court because i did know I did know Larry Flint somewhat.
matt: Ha ha ha ha!
Kal: Yep. Yep.
Barry Lynn: And he got out of his limo and he said, we're going to win this. And of course, he did win it. But if that same this set of facts arose today,
Barry Lynn: Kennell, do you think he'd win or do you think they'd find some way to say, well, satire OK, but it can go too far?
Kal: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a really good point. I mean, obviously there's no no knowing that they, ah ah trav of these guys and what they'll they could possibly do, right? In that Supreme Court.
Kal: um It wouldn't surprise me if they if they came out just like you said, because that was a 9-0 decision, I believe, right? and um And well, I'll i'll also add, you know, something that I learned later, Barry, was that Rehnquist, you know, he was the head Supreme Court at the time.
Barry Lynn: a Yeah, I was going to... Yeah.
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Conor Fowler: Wow, dude.
Kal: um They discovered in his high school yearbook that his his professional goal was to be a cartoonist.
Barry Lynn: No kidding.
matt: Oh, wow!
Kal: Yeah, and that he had practice and all this stuff.
Barry Lynn: No.
Conor Fowler: you
Barry Lynn: Well...
Kal: And so that was that was a great revelation for us. so he I think he had some sympathy for the for the satirists and cartoons in ah that era.
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Conor Fowler: That's funny.
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Conor Fowler: That's really Because I don't know, I mean, not to toot your horn, but like the cartoonist thing is about observation, obviously, and like, extremely keen to say the least, right?
Kal: Hmm.
Conor Fowler: Like,
Kal: Mm-hmm.
matt: And Barry, you do and have done stand-up comedy, right? Like, that's...
Conor Fowler: yeah.
matt: like that's Yeah, yeah.
Barry Lynn: Yes, I have done some of that.
matt: I mean, like...
Conor Fowler: Which is just so which is just so good.
Barry Lynn: i mean, I think
Conor Fowler: I mean, that's like, a different creativity.
matt: Right. But it's also kind of rooted in the same thing, like challenging challenging norms, challenging, like, you know, people in power. ah
Barry Lynn: Yeah,
matt: i'm ah I'm a huge stand-up fan, so, you know, I see a lot of, like, ah similarities between that and being like a political cartoonist.
Barry Lynn: absolutely. And I think the the late night scene is once Colbert decided he he just couldn't take it anymore.
Barry Lynn: And I think he's he's got so many new gigs that I'm sure he doesn't miss much. But um he was, when he was a correspondent for the Daily Show, before he got the show where he pretended to be a right winger, but he, they called me up and they said, because we had sued Judge Roy Moore, you may remember this, for putting a two and a half ton granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the judicial building.
Conor Fowler: right.
Barry Lynn: And he said, could you could you come up and be interviewed and I'd like you to be interviewed in a church. So we went into the choir loft of the Judson Memorial Church in New York City, which was a tremendously progressive church.
Barry Lynn: One of the places on the early abortion kind of underground railway, getting people to be able to go to, well, mainly out of the country to get abortions back in the sixty s
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: And so I did, i went in and I i had a good time and it was three hours and I think it was probably five minute conversation. But I didn't, you have to be careful on those shows because sometimes when you assume that someone is on your side, it turns out they may not be on your side.
Barry Lynn: the did But here was the clue.
Conor Fowler: ah
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: we were We were talking about awards. And he said, what what what do you, what do you think about these ah award ceremonies? I mean, do you think like God's watching them? And I said, possibly so. And he said, well, you know, it and with the Grammys, he must be there because everybody who gets a Grammy goes, I want to thank Jesus.
Barry Lynn: And it yet i he said, and they are movies, what about movies?
Conor Fowler: Right.
matt: ah
Barry Lynn: And, And he said, wait a minute, let's let's do the let's do this again. Let's talk about movies. Let's think of a really, really bad movie. And I said, how about Bruce Willis in that movie about ah being a cat burglar? And he said, oh, that's perfect. So we did that.
Barry Lynn: And then we taped alternates. Like he said, what about the Emmys? Does God care about those because he was up for an Emmy?
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: And I said, yeah, he might be interested in that. then they did tape two where he goes, uh, no, I don't think he is. And then one, cause he did win, uh, that they, they then aired it. He said, that I said, yeah, I'm pretty sure God's incredibly interested in the Emmys.
matt: Ha ha ha ha ha.
Barry Lynn: i
Kal: Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Barry Lynn: So, uh, but you have to have fun. I mean, I can't, I've never given a speech where I didn't start with something. I remember I got this big award from the Roosevelt, uh,
Barry Lynn: foundation, Eleanor Franklin's up in Hyde Park. And I got this Medal of Freedom thing. And the first thing I said was, you know, there are, i don't even remember the year, but it was a presidential race.
Barry Lynn: And like it's seven Republicans were seeking the nomination. six of whom had claimed God wanted them to become the president.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: And I said, I said, I come to you.
Conor Fowler: Thank you.
Barry Lynn: I'm talking about separation of church and state. You do know there are seven members of one party, six of whom have already said God wants them. And in the case of Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, he didn't get a message, but his wife got a message.
Barry Lynn: and and And so people thought that was extremely funny. I said, one of the things that you have to know if you watch movies is ah
Barry Lynn: there could be a failure to communicate as was said by a famous actor.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: Right.
Barry Lynn: Anyway, ah but yeah you have to do it. I could not stay sane if I didn't have some sense of humor. And to to transmit it, is it just makes sense.
Barry Lynn: I mean, i i can't draw, I only draw a stick figures, Cal.
Kal: Mm-hmm.
Barry Lynn: But I mean, but yes, funny, satire, it's good, it's important, and it does make a big difference.
Kal: Mm-hmm.
Kal: and also many of the the equipment but the autocratic personality are devoid of humor, right? And so that's, to me, that's an anathema of a person.
Barry Lynn: right.
Conor Fowler: My god, that's so and it's so so so true.
matt: 100%, yeah.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: Okay. So that they, it makes them seem less human, certainly less, there's no empathy involved there. And so I think that that, in addition to being able to project humor and use humor, the fact that somebody can emanate humor, enjoy humor, um says something.
Kal: It's a little bit like first people who don't have dogs, right? Not, not it
matt: Right, right, yeah.
Kal: and Not everybody has a dog, but every president until Donald Trump came along had a dog. That says something, right?
Barry Lynn: That's right.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: so um So anyways, I think you having a sense of humor. So it's I'm going to just expand upon this a little bit.
matt: Thank you.
Kal: when i was I lived in the UK for 11 years, long time. And I remember chatting before I came here. i had dinner with a Baltimore Sun European correspondent who was visiting England and invited me out to dinner.
Kal: Now, of course, I had been born and raised in the U.S., come back many times, but I had left um right after university. And so I had my whole professional career had not been in the U.S.,
Barry Lynn: hmm
Kal: And so I was asking him basically what the culture of the Baltimore Sun and American business might be compared to Britain. And he was a Brit. So he would, have he'd have that privilege of don't both worlds.
Kal: And he said that in Britain, it's a badge of honor. The higher you get up the um scale of importance in society, in business,
Kal: Your a quality of sense of humor gains more cache. Well, in America, at the higher get you get up, the the less sense of humor you get, right?
Barry Lynn: Oh.
Kal: It it evaporates.
matt: Right.
Kal: And it's they're just so earnest. And basically American power people, pegsaf, earnest as all gets out, right?
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: um And so I much, of course, prefer those people who take a great appreciation and understand the subtlety and the and and and the nuance of humor.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: But I also think it's a ah reflection of one's humanity. If that's that's too grand, that's what I would say.
matt: Total. Total. No, no, I agree with that entirely.
Conor Fowler: No, I don't think so.
matt: Like, no one should take themselves as seriously as Donald Trump does.
Kal: Right.
matt: And a lot of other shitty politicians. But, like, that's just not normal and, like, not a human emotion, in my opinion.
Kal: Yeah. Yeah.
Barry Lynn: Do you think, though, that there comes a point when if Donald Trump, if he loses the House and even comes close to losing the Senate, I worry that this guy is so deranged and so out of control and having fired so many people in the military who actually understood something about national defense that he could start thinking seriously about starting World War III?
Kal: Yeah.
matt: I... So I... As someone that is way more... ah Or I consider myself way more like... Tuned in to what's happening.
matt: That's such an open-ended question. But I also don't think that he is... a that intelligent. And B, that... He wants to do anything that's going to take away from... From like the spotlight on him.
matt: Like...
Conor Fowler: Well, ultimately, yeah, it's about selfishness and like a nuclear holocaust.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Conor Fowler: A nuclear holocaust?
matt: Like, he doesn't give a fuck.
Conor Fowler: No one wants you remember for a nuclear holocaust.
matt: Right, right. Like, I don't believe for a second that he that he, like, you know, wants anything out of, like, the shit going on in the Middle East other than, oh, I might be able to, like, license my name for to some builders to build condoms.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, it's...
matt: you Like, he's such a selfish piece of shit that I don't even know if he has the wherewithal, but I could be wrong.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: I guess you can't count out anything with him. You can't count out anything.
matt: yeah Oh yeah, totally, totally.
Barry Lynn: No, you can't.
Kal: I think the percentages, I think Barry, what gets to is, of course, his desperate nature.
matt: I mean...
Kal: And as somebody's great and in the key word Barry said was crazy. He is...
matt: Oh.
Kal: He could quote a certifiable in my my mind. And of course, it's narcissism is so dominant and it's getting more and more ah um deranged that, yeah, anything could happen.
matt: Totally, totally.
Kal: But I suspect, you know, deep in his his nature is that he's incompetent, right?
matt: Right.
Kal: And don't know if it takes a lot of confidence to start World War III, or that's a complete, total incompetence.
matt: Right.
Conor Fowler: And incontinent.
Barry Lynn: I
Kal: But I suspect that because he's really, really worried, you know how obsessive he is, he's really, really worried about getting impeached again.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: And so, um and, you know, and maybe taking down whatever legacy he's trying to build with all of this, you know, nonsense he's building around and building. That... um
Kal: Uh, if there's any way that he can interfere with all of that, uh, I think that there's more, a greater like live likelihood than necessarily going big, but the guy, you know, he thinks big and he he's also, he's impulsive, right?
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Kal: Why did he go to war in Iran? Oh, just, it was in his gut.
matt: Right, right, yeah.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Kal: Yeah. All the, all the, recommendations about no, no, no, no. That was in my gut. Yeah. So.
matt: And it's been flip-flopped a thousand times in the past, what, four months, I think?
Kal: Hmm. its
matt: You know, like, he he comes out with a statement in the morning, and then by 7 p.m., there's a different statement that totally negates anything he just said.
Kal: Yeah. Yeah.
matt: Which, I mean, it's kind of his MO, but it's just like, it's it would be funny if it wasn't so fucking, like, terrifying.
Kal: Yeah.
Kal: Well, Mark Carney, the head of Canada, you know we have all the conflicts with Canada right now, who's as smart a leader as you ever want.
Conor Fowler: and sad.
Barry Lynn: Yeah. Yeah.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: Right.
matt: Right.
Kal: And now he's he's just incredibly competent, very direct, straightforward. You know, you got to love this guy. and And also you can disagree with him completely and it's still to respect him, which is something.
Kal: So he, you know, so somebody was asking him yesterday day before about basically about Trump.
matt: Yeah, total.
Kal: OK, because Trump has thrown all these things. you know, these these tariffs, you know, 50% increase in tariffs. And also he's been threatening to undermine the, you Mexico-Canadian trade agreement that that had been forged over time.
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Kal: and And people were saying, you know, he's going to do this. He says he's going to do this stuff. And his answer was, well, my experience is um that ah Trump is always going to do something right up to the moment he doesn't do it
matt: Right.
Kal: So he's going to change and then you just got to roll with that, you know?
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Kal: So why am I getting, he just was trying to show cool, cool, cool.
matt: Right.
Kal: You know, it's going to be 50% now, but tonight it's going to be 12% or, you know, tomorrow, who knows, you know, that kind of thing.
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, he he doesn't.
Kal: So.
Conor Fowler: What do you know about Fred? What do you know about Fred Trump?
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Like the elder.
Barry Lynn: and One of the things about Iran, a friend of of Joanne's, another doctor, said that he was more concerned with the possibility, the likelihood, the almost certainty that that not only is there some kind of nuclear program, but there's got to be a biological weapons program that is undertaken.
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: So for all the hand-wringing about, oh, we don't want them to get any nuclear weapons, what about the other kinds of weapons that are just as dangerous and much easier to transmit?
Barry Lynn: i mean, this can make COVID look like, you know, ah a common cold if they have you know, any kind of pathogens that they can just release across borders or send a drone into Europe.
Barry Lynn: I worry about that. i In fact, I was so worried about that.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: I don't like artificial intelligence in principle, but i did so I did ask an artificial intelligence to write a story involving Trump and a female assistant.
Barry Lynn: And it's it's got to do with The nuclear codes and and it came out, it came out, it wrote like three pages and it it knew something about it because it's artificial and mean it is intelligent more than, more than many people.
Conor Fowler: Like, I said,
Barry Lynn: And it came up with a um couple of chapters where This woman comes in and he says, I insist on having the nuclear codes.
Kal: Sorry.
Barry Lynn: I want them right now. And she says, I'm not really authorized to know what they are. And he I don't care what you're authorized for. But then it just sounds too real, not true.
Conor Fowler: It sounds like a pornographic film in your telling of it.
matt: Right.
Conor Fowler: Like, these codes?
matt: Yeah, it kind of does.
Conor Fowler: I don't know about these codes. I mean, maybe you could have the codes.
Barry Lynn: um
Conor Fowler: Well, what do you know about Fred Trump? See, because I was reading about him ah with...
Barry Lynn: yeah
Conor Fowler: I don't remember how it came to pass, but you know, when he was arrested for being at the KKK rally, but he has denied all his life being involved with it.
Barry Lynn: yeah
Barry Lynn: yes
Conor Fowler: And that's like a great sentence couplet on Wikipedia, which is like in 1937, Fred Trump was arrested at a KKK rally. He denies being involved with the rally that he was attending.
Conor Fowler: it just is It just is fanciful. And I mean, i just, just i I read a bunch about him and I,
Conor Fowler: Really bad guy also.
Conor Fowler: So Apple didn't fall far from the tree, I guess is my point.
Barry Lynn: and I think that it's a good point. It's a good point. You know, there's nothing... about this guy you know i was in washington and dealt with the raid administration i dealt with the bush administrations there was always somebody you could talk to i mean i used to do this friday afternoon radio show with oliver north and uh one day he has andy card who was bush's chief of staff on and what andy would do he'd say now barry
Conor Fowler: Sure.
Barry Lynn: whatever you want me to do, I'm not going to do, but tell me what I ought to do. But I mean, it was a sense of humor and some kind of a kind of common decency about it.
Barry Lynn: When I asked the current president of Americans United for separation of church and state, who do you talk to in the administration? And she said, we don't have any, we we don't have any way to get in.
matt: Right, right.
Barry Lynn: And that's incredibly important. When, um Russ Feingold was he was one of the other people that got that Roosevelt Medal of Freedom the same day I did.
Barry Lynn: And so had him on a radio show and I said, you know what you should be. You should be the kind of person that goes and is kind of an ombudsman.
Barry Lynn: for an administration that you disagree with. And I think that would be a very good thing. If you have nothing but yes men and women, you don't get any chance to make the right decisions.
matt: Yes!
matt: Yes!
Barry Lynn: And this clown doesn't want any. He only has sycophants. He has, i always wondered, you know, Back in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon in 1964, the most important thing was the island of misfit toys.
Barry Lynn: i always wondered it was, but now I know where it is.
matt: Yes!
Conor Fowler: All right.
Barry Lynn: It's in the White House. They're all there. They're all misfits. Kowtowing, of course, to the biggest misfit of them all.
Kal: Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, he doesn't read anything. Right. So that he even if he had those people around him and he was getting some information and he but he his brain is still locked in the 1980s.
matt: Right, right.
Barry Lynn: Now,
Kal: I think that was the last time he ever read something more than four pages.
matt: Yeah, totally.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
matt: he' He's all about vibes. That's it.
Conor Fowler: Yeah. And it shows, I mean, I just like, if you look at clips, not to be like a Trump apologist, but like, if you look at clips of him from like the
Conor Fowler: eighties and even like the early nineties, he's pretty lucid. Like he's almost likable. He's like, that dada throw like I'm Donald Trump. Like I do the whole real estate thing. And like, I'm going to fire you.
Conor Fowler: He had like had a stick and it was kind of like endearing almost. um
matt: I mean, he was in Home Alone 2.
Conor Fowler: Exactly.
matt: Like, yeah.
Conor Fowler: Which he still gets royalties from.
matt: Right, right.
Barry Lynn: The the other other thing we haven't touched on, this is so unusual. There's a ah kind of, of but if if you look up,
Barry Lynn: good this guy, Everything is about the money, every single thing. And it' it's the same as same with his kids.
matt: Yep.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: They're nothing but interested in the money when you have to follow the money.
matt: Turtle.
Barry Lynn: And I don't remember George Bush or I mean, much less Jimmy Carter. I mean, Jimmy Carter used to, you know, he divested himself of the peanut farm because he didn't want the appearance of a conflict of interest.
matt: Right, right.
Barry Lynn: This guy's looking for it, lies about it when he's caught. And most of these decisions, particularly relating to tariffs, he knows that if he says something about imposing a tariff, there's going to be ah a decline in the stock market the next day. And it almost always turns out that way. And he knows that it's inside information. But when somebody asks them about a journalist says, well, didn't you know this in advance? no Absolutely not. I have never, I don't talk to anybody about my investments.
Barry Lynn: That is total bullshit use to use a ah phrase that I generally don't use.
matt: Oh, absolutely.
Kal: Mm. Mm.
matt: No, I love it Barry. We love it.
Barry Lynn: thought
matt: We curse a lot on this program.
Barry Lynn: No, I heard that.
matt: So...
Conor Fowler: We have freedom of expression.
Barry Lynn: That's okay.
Barry Lynn: Um, Do you know that since this is a podcast, do you know that there's a podcast involving one man and one woman and you put in your name? Then it searches the Internet and does a 20 minute podcast out of what it learns on the Internet about you.
Barry Lynn: It's an extraordinary thing. I mean, it was, a I did it couple months ago, and, you know, they're talking about this and me, and and they said, and, you know, Barry had a retirement event, and Louis Black, who curses all the time, he was the emcee.
Conor Fowler: Oh,
Barry Lynn: and What is that?
matt: Oh,
Barry Lynn: But maybe Barry just thinks it's funny. But, I mean, it's really frightening to think.
matt: it's terrifying.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, it's terrifying. Yeah.
matt: Yeah, I'm very lucky that my name is Matt Smith. because I'm pretty much un-Google-able because of the actor.
Conor Fowler: It's good surprise. Yeah.
matt: it's It's fantastic. ah Maybe my Instagram pops up, but I use that to sell shit. So I'm good. I think I'm good.
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Kal: I love Louis Black, by the way.
Barry Lynn: thank you
Kal: Is he a friend of yours?
matt: Oh, it's the same. Yeah.
Barry Lynn: yeah he's a good friend of ours.
Kal: Yes.
matt: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: He actually...
Kal: So,
Barry Lynn: He he did emcee my retirement dinner, but he we just saw him a couple weeks ago. he was He's doing a show on Broadway.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: Yeah,
matt: He is one of my white whale guests for the podcast.
Barry Lynn: yeah I mean, he's...
Conor Fowler: Yeah. He's in DC, right? He's from DC.
Kal: ah
Barry Lynn: What was it?
matt: No, he's from Baltimore, right?
Kal: No, he's not from Baltimore, but he, i know he went to Carolina.
Barry Lynn: He grew up in Montgomery County.
matt: Okay.
Kal: Is he from outside DC area?
Barry Lynn: yeah Yeah, Montgomery County, Maryland, is where he grew up.
Conor Fowler: so.
Kal: Mount Columbia County.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: Yeah.
matt: gotsh you Gotcha, gotcha.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, yeah we we just we just had dinner with him a couple of weeks ago.
Kal: And I,
Barry Lynn: Yep.
matt: Oh.
Kal: So I had the good fortune, i don't um he regularly, I don't think he does it annually, has a a comedy festival, or kind comedy, yeah, maybe a comedy festival down North Carolina, UNC, because that's where he went to school.
Barry Lynn: triine is plenty
Kal: And he brings a bunch of friends of his from Saturday Night Live and and a bunch of other folks.
Conor Fowler: Mm-hmm.
Kal: He normally assembles 10 people, and it's usually just like a Friday, Saturday, Sunday thing. And they put on a show, and it's especially for the kids you know for the students and things like that, and classroom visits and things. So he invited me to come down and have an exhibition of my cartoons, which was great.
Kal: you know And then I went and talked about the cartoons and everything. But he was a ah first class delightful fellow because as you know, um which I didn't know, of course, until you meet him, is that that that ah acerbic of persona that he embodies is a wonderful comic play, but it's not what he's like in person at all.
Barry Lynn: it's not.
matt: Oh, that's great to hear.
Barry Lynn: It's not. Yeah.
Kal: Yeah, no, he's a delightful. He's very intelligent, sharp, um caring. um Yeah, so I was very impressed.
matt: Hell yeah.
Conor Fowler: Well, that's, I don't know, that's like ah Gilbert Godfrey too, right? Like, I feel like there are comics who are just, ah they're doing that, they're really committed to the bit.
Kal: Yeah, yeah. Personas. It's so interesting because politicians also put on personas. I mean, there's some that do more personas.
Conor Fowler: of course.
Kal: and it's ah And also when I'm doing caricatures, i'm I'm normally caricaturing their persona rather than the person itself because you don't really totally know the character.
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Kal: We, of course, will always speculate. We being every person. person will continue to speculate what the president's persona is, whoever the president is. um um But I think that we've got this guy figured out and we know that whatever persona it is, it's completely false and fake and you know all that stuff.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: So
Conor Fowler: But do you think it's real? Because like, OK, I met Guy Fieri once and we went to his restaurant opening dressed up like Guy Fieri, like 10 or 15 of us. And he didn't seem to notice even.
Conor Fowler: Like. We were all wearing like Hawaiian shirts and like flaming bowling shorts and camo cargo shorts and stuff. He had no clue. He was just like working. He was in the zone. So is that how Trump is?
Conor Fowler: Or is he like, it seems like he couldn't put on an act if he wanted to.
Kal: I he's a man unto himself. He's a character unto himself.
matt: Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that.
Kal: and And also I think what we were discussing earlier that I'm not you know not confident of his kind of mental mental capabilities right now. And but I do know from, you know, from reports of other people in his presence. I mean, he's a large character, right? um He's a he's a presence in a room.
matt: Right.
Kal: And um and he's ah partly because he he uses his anger a lot, his his foul temper in small you know meetings with people that he forces and, you know, ah he's an intimidating character in that way.
matt: Right.
Kal: um And then what I always kind of find mystifying is how do you define charisma? Right. This is a bit tangible.
matt: Right.
Kal: How do you define it?
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: Because here's a guy that's been in the room and a little bit of what you were saying before, Connor, is that, you know, he seemed like a character back in the day that, you know, hey, this is an interesting character to be around um and that he's built, um you know, a um
Conor Fowler: Right.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: a whole career and now a political career around this oh charismatic character that does speeches. It's all about his presence with a microphone in front of him at a speech being able to say things.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: And so um why that works with some people and not others, why that for some people, does it send alarm bells up? Why do people kind of buy into it is God knows. But we also know that Donald Trump has got, he's a one trick pony. He's saying the same thing that he's been saying for a decade now. So he's kind of on the, you know, he can't get away from it. As we heard mispes the other night about the 2020 election so on.
Kal: So, yeah, I mean, he's he's hardwired now. We know what the character is. He is that he is what he is. But I think the sooner that he he isn't is going better.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Conor Fowler: Right.
matt: Oh, it's going to be like the queen.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Extremely diplomatic.
matt: Just...
Kal: Yeah.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: Yeah.
matt: I can't wait for that day.
Conor Fowler: But it just won't happen.
matt: but
Conor Fowler: It just won't happen. It keeps going for going for going for. And you know, like, I think you said this, Cal, ah evil people live longer.
Kal: Did I say that?
Conor Fowler: I think I remember you saying so at least something to that effect. And I think it's probably, i think it's probably true.
Kal: Something to that fact. Yeah.
Kal: Well, that might be some truth to that.
matt: yeah i
Kal: Might be some truth that.
Conor Fowler: Like he's just powered by McDoubles.
Barry Lynn: well
Kal: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: He just has hatred and cholesterol running through his veins.
matt: I got banned from Twitter, ah but the the day that Queen Elizabeth passed and the day that um Kissinger passed were two of the funniest days I've ever seen on the internet.
Kal: Yeah, yeah.
matt: And I'm really bummed that I will have to get it secondhand on Instagram and things of that nature.
Kal: What would people say about the queen?
Conor Fowler: I mean...
Kal: That's what wanna know.
matt: Just, you know, kind of kind of the same shit that they've said about Margaret Thatcher or the the monarchy in general. um it was just ah It was like an end of a shitty era.
Kal: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
matt: You know? Yeah.
Conor Fowler: Couldn't happen to him as
matt: Kissinger, like, Kissinger was some of the best roasts I've ever seen in my life.
Barry Lynn: Hmm.
matt: Like, just hands down.
Kal: Yes.
Conor Fowler: a person. What I didn't know about him, I was reading this book um that my brother gave me that was like maybe 15 academics wrote about Kissinger's effect that they that Kissinger had on their people.
Conor Fowler: So like academics and economists from like 15 different countries each wrote an essay like, I am from Vietnam. Like this is what Henry Kissinger did to me, which is like, wow.
Barry Lynn: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: And so what I didn't realize and that multiple essays talked about was that Kissinger was kind of like a sex symbol in his day. He was like very handsome and like, he was super admired by both the right and the left. Like he was at the Playboy mansion all the time.
Conor Fowler: ah Really fascinating stuff. Cause I don't ever see him outside of a like, you know, like he's always just looking like that. And then like you look at him, like he looks like Eugene Levy. Like he looks like, he looks like a handsome guy. You know what i mean? He's got chest hair.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, I so i think the the good do tend to die young.
matt: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: That's what I'm saying.
Barry Lynn: I just had a item sort a birthday a couple of days ago, and and a couple of birthday I birthday.
matt: Agreed. Agreed.
Conor Fowler: And whether you believe in God or not, it's just like an irony.
Barry Lynn: didn't die. so why Yeah, thank you.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, I was going to say, happy birthday.
matt: Yeah. Happy birthday.
Conor Fowler: It's in the show notes.
matt: Happy birthday.
Conor Fowler: Happy birthday, Barry.
Barry Lynn: thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Kal: So, Barry, you're an evil bastard is what you're trying to say.
matt: yeah
Barry Lynn: I think I must be. I think that the things that I say and the things that I've done and the manipulations that I've managed to accomplish probably do make me an evil person.
Kal: Yeah, yeah that's right.
matt: yeah
Barry Lynn: on Who would write a trilogy memoir called Paid to Piss People Off if it wasn't something evil going on here? I don't know, but it was, um you know, what I'm curious about one thing, Kim.
Kal: That's right.
Barry Lynn: Can you, what's the first event in the news that you remember seeing or reading about?
Conor Fowler: Great question.
Kal: That's a really good question because you know I started cartooning and working for publications when I was 21. um I did cartoons in the college newspaper for four years. So we're now getting down around 18. was a news agnostic.
Kal: I didn't know anything about anything.
Barry Lynn: Really? Okay.
Kal: um But when Jimmy Carter became president, ah a girlfriend of mine's father was gonna be a low level member of the um administration.
Kal: So I got invited to the inauguration. So i remember going down to ZC, being in the middle of all this stuff, you know the kind of the political whirlwind, understanding that something historic was going on, that's the the vibe was, you know a big changeover. I knew a little bit about Nixon because when I was at college,
Kal: I used to read the newspaper and I'd read the cartoonist because Watergate was going on and reading the front page was like Chinese to me. But I go to the cartoons and it would tell me all the main players, who they were, people to watch out for.
Barry Lynn: Wow.
Kal: So that's how I learned about politics was through cartoons. So I've always thought since then that cartoons are a gateway drug to knowing about the news.
Barry Lynn: Wow.
Kal: So so but to me,
Conor Fowler: Man, how have I never heard that before?
Kal: that was the That was a kind of a crystallizing moment for me there. um Growing up, of course, before that, you know you had these moments where you were part of ah history. I remember when i was but John Kennedy was assassinated. i was you know i I was in grammar school and I remember they the nuns came in and talked about it and we all had to say prayers and all that sort of stuff. And I thought that was something.
Kal: um But yes, so that was the start was was getting to understand that the world was bigger than my little bubble at college.
Barry Lynn: Jeez, yeah.
Kal: And then when I went abroad, um ah Barry, one of the things that I i discovered, i I was traveling around Europe, leading first bicycle tour of American teenagers.
Kal: And when the tour finished, I cycled around by myself. And I discovered it as an American living abroad, that I was held personally responsible for everything that went on in this country.
Kal: So I had to you know kind of book up a little bit, kind of just understand what was going on.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: ah thought
Kal: And so, but i I immediately got a very interesting curiosity and was very much engaged. And while I also love cartooning, I was pursuing cartooning simultaneously that I thought wouldn't it be cool to kind of combine my interest now in politics and current events with the my love of cartooning.
Barry Lynn: Sure.
Kal: So that's where the political cartooning kind of kind of forged itself together.
Barry Lynn: Interesting.
Barry Lynn: Yeah. My earliest recollection, I was, i think, six years old, Queen Elizabeth was being coronated.
Kal: Oh, dear.
Kal: Okay.
Barry Lynn: And I was sent over to my my mother's mother's house. And I was so bored.
Kal: Oh, yes.
Barry Lynn: i mean, incredibly but And I remember going outside the day she had a little backyard just in the middle of all this going, why does anybody in this country give a flying F about this?
Kal: Yeah. Yeah.
Barry Lynn: And I retain that view to this day. i do i I cannot stand thinking about, talking about, or arguing about the royal family.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, yeah that's how that's how I feel too.
Barry Lynn: just, I can't.
matt: Ha ha ha ha
Barry Lynn: And half with the royal family. we but We were in Concord taking our grandkids to see the Lexington-Concord battlefield and everything.
Kal: Yeah.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: And there are a lot of signs that go when you get into Concord. We got rid of kings in 1776, and we sure don't want them back now.
Barry Lynn: their Every other house has a...
Kal: No, no kidding.
Barry Lynn: That's good. i like I like those political ads.
Kal: Yeah.
Kal: Yep.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: Yep.
matt: Oh, yeah.
Kal: Yep. yep
matt: Yeah.
Kal: yeah Great.
matt: Well, what ah so y'all been in the game both a long time. um And no offense, you know, you're older than Connor and myself.
Kal: Wait, hold on, what?
matt: yeah
Barry Lynn: Well, I...
Kal: Yeah,
matt: Barry, Cal, I know you're like, you know, 45. You're not that much older.
Kal: yeah that's it, that's it.
matt: But so...
Kal: Yeah.
matt: but so America at 250, and I'm assuming seeing the bicentennial ah celebrations.
Kal: Hmm.
Barry Lynn: Yep. Hmm.
Kal: Yeah. Yeah, Bicentennial were really great. It was really great.
matt: what do you yeah what do What do you think about 50 years on?
Kal: From here, you mean?
matt: Just from from how it was how it was done, like what you thought about it, like, yeah yeah, kind of an open-ended question.
Kal: So um I'll just say my memory. as was I was a senior at university and um it was it was really exciting. mean, they had all these kinds of activities planned, you know, um ah they the tall ships. and And actually remember going on a train. There was a train that toured the country and the train was a giant museum with America you'd go through it.
Kal: And I remember seeing the train in Boston. and um there from My understanding at the time, there was no friction against it. um And there certainly didn't feel like there's any political overhanging message of any sort.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: It felt like a celebration. Well, this one has been completely polluted.
matt: Right.
Kal: It was completely polluted in my It was like a missed party.
matt: It's...
Kal: You know, like if you ever gone to a party, you guys, you get really excited for it and it's really dull. Band is really bad. Band doesn't show up. No, nothing to drink.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: All that sort of stuff. That's what it felt like. You got to the party, know, we've been waiting a long time and now that it's and it's a nothing burger.
matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kal: So it's like that. Yeah. Yeah.
matt: yeah
Barry Lynn: We were attempting to watch, we were at a family reunion. i don't have any family that will even talk to me anymore, but Uh, Joanne, my wife has a big family. We all had ah good time. And then we went back to this kind of house we had rented for a bunch of, with a bunch of other people. We were attempting to watch the proceedings, uh, on the 4th of July, which of course were delayed by thunderstorms and then to, but it was on Fox and the people on Fox kept desperately trying to convince people that
Barry Lynn: everything was fine.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: They were going to get to the speech. It was going to be a great speech. And it would go an hour, and then they'd have to fill another hour and another hour. and but but for me you know the celebration was one it was it was a very nice event i read i mean was in washington one of The people I worked for at the time was getting a big award for his work against apartheid in South Africa.
Barry Lynn: But this was nothing. It was, as you mentioned, a nothing burger. There was nothing good.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: A couple weeks ago, Joanne took those grandkids of ours down to Washington for a couple of days. And you you couldn't get into that. I guess the great state fair was was ah still in progress, but you couldn't get in there.
Barry Lynn: And then once you found a way in, there were no tourists there. So, I mean, it's just it every little thing. The thing that bothers me most about Donald Trump is he wants to he wants to hurt people. He wants to push down on everybody about every single thing. There's not one trivial slight.
Barry Lynn: that he takes that he doesn't take so seriously that he feels compelled to make sure that you're made an example of. And he doesn't, and it's, you know, it's it's like crap about ah the pollution coming from Canada.
matt: Right,
Barry Lynn: If he cared about pollution, he wouldn't be making sure that the pollution that is occurs in Americans
Conor Fowler: Right. Shut the fuck up.
Barry Lynn: cities on a daily basis happens he'd he'd be worried about the loss of species he doesn't care about that he doesn't care about anything but if it comes from canada then it's terrible yeah everything
Kal: Yeah.
matt: right.
Kal: yeah It's terrible. It's terrible. It was funny. You know, I heard a Canadian talk about this, that, you know, Trump, one of the things he's putting a 50% tariff on is hockey sticks.
matt: What?
Kal: And like yes, hockey sticks. And the Canadians are, they think this is the funniest thing because in their mind, Americans don't buy hockey sticks.
matt: Of course.
Barry Lynn: ha
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: We buy all the hockey sticks.
Conor Fowler: where
Barry Lynn: Exactly.
Kal: What are you trying to do?
Barry Lynn: hu
matt: I mean, um unless you live in like the Northeast or maybe like the Northern Midwest, like I love hockey.
Kal: yep.
matt: i have I played street hockey as a kid.
Kal: yeah
matt: It's not a fucking thing. Like, I don't know if I could go but to any sports store in the South. And they would have hockey stick available.
Kal: I know it's just a pathetic, it's a pathetic Trump symbolism nonsense.
matt: Oh, it's so fucking funny.
Kal: It's just Joseph's brainlessness. Or you can imagine, or maybe Steven and the Miller was in in the back of the room says, let's not, let's talk to our party sticks.
matt: Right, right. Yeah. Oh, my God.
Kal: Right?
Barry Lynn: it's a very good imitation of Stephen Miller.
matt: um
Barry Lynn: know i But you know, of the all of the collection of despicable people is, it's a speaker of the house that bothers me the most.
Kal: Right.
Barry Lynn: And people, well, because, you know, when he was on with Sean Hannity right after the election and Sean says something and Sean Hannity is, i mean, I was on so many shows with him and,
Kal: Oh, really? Yeah. Okay.
Barry Lynn: He's a a disgusting figure. However, he um he says to the speaker, to Mike Johnson, well, how how are people going to know um you know what your principles are?
Conor Fowler: Yeah, my God.
Barry Lynn: And Johnson says, go go to your bookcase, get out the Bible and read it, and then you'll know where my principles come from.
matt: Oh,
Barry Lynn: That's right.
Kal: Right.
Barry Lynn: That's right. The Bible, it it it should be read literally. And I do want to put a plug in for John Fuglesang's wonderful book. It was on the ceremony.
matt: John Fico's saying it's awesome.
Barry Lynn: he I mean, he's spectacular. and he he But it's called The Separation of Church and Hate. And he just he just goes through all of these proof texts that religious nationalists claim supports all the terrible things they do and just deconstructs them.
Kal: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: And it's it's funny and it's it's open.
Kal: Right.
Barry Lynn: I mean, John is, if you know him, I mean, he constantly explains that he cares about religion, but he's not a theologian. But a lot of theologians have learned something if they just picked up a copy of and Separation of Church and Hate.
Kal: Right.
Kal: Yes.
matt: Totally.
Kal: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
matt: Totally. Totally.
Kal: yeah yeah yeah
matt: ah I guess one of the, one of the like i don't know, starting to close out questions. ah How did either of you feel about the death of Lindsey Graham?
Barry Lynn: I mean, he's okay. I mean, he
Conor Fowler: It's not that long of a question.
matt: Great answer! Great answer! Yeah.
Barry Lynn: i mean
Kal: I mean, you know, it it is interesting, obviously, Barry and I have had friends and colleagues who have passed away.
matt: Yeah.
matt: Of course, of course.
Kal: And of course, family members, of obviously.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: But you know that ah you know that there's there's people who are hurt and they're pain because of his passing. But then to to return to the persona thing we discussed before, that when you get into politics, you so you but you have this kind of other person outside of the human person almost.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: You've got this character who then fits into the game of politics, right?
Barry Lynn: Thank you.
matt: Right.
Kal: The big game that's going around. So um he was such a ah duplicitous character and such a classic character. classic Washington politician who could turn on a dime, um sell their soul to the devil, do whatever they want.
matt: Right.
Kal: You know, it was to me, any person who comes and looks at politics and comes away disdainful of of what it means to be a politician in the dirty word, he embodied it with his political behavior.
matt: Totally.
Kal: So you've got that then also because he's a central character in the political high end of the political Republican political movement.
matt: Totally.
Kal: There are some holes that that creates when he's not there.
matt: Right,
Kal: And, ah you know, for for example, he was a great advocate for Ukraine. ah which I think you know there's a movement in the Republican Party that is in favor of supporting um Ukraine, but then you have Donald Trump and his cronies around him who don't want to for a variety of different reasons.
matt: right.
Kal: I'm happy that he it was he was an important character to be in the middle of that discussion. So I think that that be hopefully it will not be bad on that score that he's not around.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: um And then also, ah you know, I don't know where it's standing. Now, his sister has been nominated to his position. I guess, um and you know, maybe Barry, you know better than I Can she vote as if she's a senator or is she just kind of holding it as a ah you know representative?
matt: Right, I saw that, yeah.
Barry Lynn: No, she was appointed and in under South Carolina law by the governor She initially said she wasn't going to seek election, but now she's changed her mind and and Trump has endorsed her.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: but But I think you're right.
Conor Fowler: There's money to be made.
Barry Lynn: I mean, you can't, it's a little bit, i was having this conversation with somebody earlier. The old adage, you know, a stopped clock is correct twice a day.
Kal: Right.
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: And I can't think of a single thing that Lindsey Graham ever did that was good. Unlike Mitch McConnell, who back, back I worked for the ACLU for a long time, and then I was on the board of directors.
Barry Lynn: And the issue came up of the flag burning amendment, remember that?
Kal: I do.
Barry Lynn: And the the reason that I remember being at a board meeting in New York City, and somebody announced that Mitch McConnell had just come out against the flag burning amendment.
Kal: Yeah.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Barry Lynn: which would have prohibit prohibited the burning of an American flag. And and it it ended. I mean, it was like, we don't have anything to worry about now. So he was right that one time.
Kal: Right, right.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Barry Lynn: But you're right. I mean, I don't, yeah, but you're right.
matt: I'll give him that one.
Barry Lynn: I mean, you can't get to our ripe ages and lose people and not know that there's a pain associated with the death of anyone, even if they're the most politically despicable people.
matt: For sure.
Barry Lynn: you can think of. So I didn't cheer it on.
Kal: Yeah.
matt: Yeah.
Conor Fowler: No, I didn't say i hope it was painful, but, you know, we'll see. We'll see when we meet him on the other side. but ah
Barry Lynn: Yeah, know
Conor Fowler: He's down there with all the others or up there.
Barry Lynn: well we might, who knows.
Conor Fowler: I guess we'll see. um
Kal: If there is a there,
matt: Yeah, if there is a there.
Conor Fowler: right Right. Exactly. um So I guess the last question i was going to ask, um and then this one we could probably edit out if it is to whatever. What do you think of Momdani? We don't want an endorsement or anything. We're just curious what you think of him as a politician and as a like ah force basically now in our political landscape.
Barry Lynn: I like him a lot. i I think he's doing exactly the right set of things.
Conor Fowler: Great.
Barry Lynn: The only thing people can complain about him doing is that it's socialism, like social security.
matt: Right, right, right.
Barry Lynn: and And he's looking for solutions. you know If people were willing to try some experiments, um what makes it possible for people without houses to get houses?
Barry Lynn: I mean, there's all kinds of evidence that if you, in fact, say to somebody, look, we're going to put you in an apartment and we're going to put you in and you don't have to pay anything for it.
Barry Lynn: And then in a year, we're going to come back and see how you're doing. There are success stories all over the countries of that working, of that work.
matt: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: So and this is what, you know, the the mayor of New York is doing now. And he's eighty child care. I mean, it's. It's unbelievably complicated and expensive and he's got plans to do something.
Barry Lynn: He has concrete ideas.
matt: Right.
Barry Lynn: I think the Democrats ought to learn from him that they, yeah, I do, i do.
matt: I really fucking hope so.
Conor Fowler: Yeah, seriously. Because it's put up or shut up but right now. Like, this is the time.
matt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, exactly.
matt: Like in the moment that we're in you need you need things that are tangible for working people.
Barry Lynn: Exactly, exactly.
Kal: So I had the good fortune, i was ended doing an event in New York City where I had been asked, was a media event where they I'd asked to do a cover of the program and some cartoons in the program.
Kal: And he was going to be the featured speaker. So ah I went down to the event and then I was in a kind of back room, almost like the green room area.
matt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Kal: He comes in and there was a lot of people there greeting him.
Barry Lynn: Mm-hmm.
Kal: And i I got to see him in action and he was deeply impressive. And then when he gave and he he gave a...
matt: yeah
Kal: I'm gonna say six, seven minute extemporaneous humorous dialogue that he had, you know, obviously had learned and was going to um ah not necessarily memorize that somebody else had written it, but it was a spectacular performance in a hostile group.
matt: Right.
Kal: i was so impressed by his performance a combination of humor uh self-effacing um ah jabs and then understanding the moment and the feeling the room and but still so making his points unabashedly uh again Deeply impressive young guy, you know whether you like him or not, you couldn't walk away but think that he was, you know, and in a politician, not just a performer, because he was a great performer, but as a politician, he was really impressive.
Barry Lynn: Thank you.
matt: Right.
Kal: So. um To be successful in that game, you have to start with that. Right. Because we're humans. Right. And we respond to in a human sort of way.
Kal: So you can read on paper what somebody represents and what they do. And people can see nasty things on paper. But when somebody sees somebody or feels somebody, it suddenly takes on different sort of power. So he does have a kind of power.
matt: Right.
Kal: We talked before about you know charisma. He has a charisma for sure.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: And he's like he's harnessing it for his ideas. Right. So i suspect I suspect that in his time of office, whether it's one term or two, he is going to do as good a job in that position as anyone can imagine.
Kal: Of course, we all know, maybe putting the presidency aside, the hardest job in American politics is being the city of ah the mayor of a major city.
matt: Oh, totally, totally, totally.
Kal: Okay. Between the financial crunches that you have, you know, filling the potholes, doing all this stuff.
Barry Lynn: Thank you.
Kal: Now, which you can't win all the time. you're you're You're right in the, you're really in the middle of the dirt negotiating. So, so he's going to have some victories, but he's going to get battle hardened. He's going to be really get a lot of experience in this game.
matt: Yeah, yeah.
Kal: So then
Conor Fowler: And his whole crew, right? Like his whole organizing crew.
Kal: Right, and his crew, and he's got a good crew around him. And so he his voice will, I think, help inform the Democrats as we go around. But I also think his personal um mix or the cocktail that he involved doesn't translate well out of certain parts of America.
matt: I hope so.
Kal: So I think his national potential is not strong.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: That is, I don't think that he'll, yeah maybe he'll be brought into an administration in some lower position or something like that, housing or something like that.
matt: Right, right.
Kal: But I suspect that he will remain a force in the ideas and the... ah um the erudite way that he can put forward these things which have been laid dormant for such a long period of time, very eloquently make the case for things like Barry mentioned, for it four those people that the Democrats used to champion, that he can be able to be that voice.
Kal: So I suspect that he's got a bright future in that sort of way, but I don't see him having any national ah capability as a you know national candidate.
matt: get it.
Kal: That's my opinion.
matt: get it. i got it
Kal: I mean, he might run. You think of of people like you know like that you know Sanders had run. you know There have been people on the on the extremes who have run, but I don't suspect that he'll cross that that threshold.
Conor Fowler: Right.
Kal: that you come up be be able to He's not electable on a national scale, i don't think at least in in the foreseeable future.
matt: Right, right.
matt: Okay, yeah. I will say, like, him contrasted against Eric Adams, who's like an SNL character of a mayor, in my opinion, is so fucking funny.
Barry Lynn: Thank you.
Kal: Yes, it is. Yeah.
matt: like that's that's Like, that's like reality pissing it on satire to me.
Kal: yeah Yeah. yeah Yeah.
matt: Man.
Kal: Eric Adams, man, man, man.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: Well, new York's a tough city to they do and he's he's doing he's doing as good as most people, or you know better probably than most people imagine.
matt: Totally. Totally.
Kal: Yeah. Yeah.
matt: Well, um y'all, we have we've had a good time. on ah Connor, did we lose Barry?
Conor Fowler: yeah.
matt: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. we We appreciate you all coming on. This has been fantastic.
Kal: it.
matt: And we didn't even get to the questions that we initially had for each of you. um But that that's, yeah, we we'll maybe do it again. And and now y'all kind of know each other.
matt: So, yeah, hell yeah.
Kal: Great, great, great, great, great. And it's such it was such an honor for me to be hanging out with Barry for a little while. And yeah, it was nice to get to know you a little bit.
Barry Lynn: Well, same here. Same here.
Kal: Barry, tell me where you where are you right now?
Barry Lynn: In Hanover, Massachusetts, which is about 40 minutes south of Boston on a good day,
Kal: and Okay.
Kal: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Conor Fowler: Oh.
Barry Lynn: But
Kal: yeah And that's your that's your headquarters these days?
Barry Lynn: yeah, three three years ago we moved. We wanted to be close to three grandchildren and wanted to have a backyard.
Kal: Nice.
Barry Lynn: And those are things we didn't have in DC.
Kal: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
matt: Yeah, totally, totally.
Kal: That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, great, great.
matt: Yeah.
Kal: Yeah, Hanover's nice. You got to get the New England weather, though. That's that's part of the deal.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, there's a... is I've been hearing thunder and the clouds are so dark. I can't even see my face on my, they think more but terrific.
Kal: Oh, yes.
matt: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Kal: Yeah, yeah.
Barry Lynn: Well, thank you. Thanks, Connor. Thanks, Matt.
Conor Fowler: Thank you.
Kal: So
matt: Of course, of course.
Barry Lynn: Nice to be back.
matt: um tell Tell everyone ah where they can find you, your subsects, your, you know, mailing list, whatever you got.
Barry Lynn: Yeah, well, um I do have a ah web page, barrywlynn.com. It has a couple of things I did last summer, one with Louis Black and a discussion at Chautauqua, you know, the summer camp for NPR listeners.
matt: Yeah.
Barry Lynn: madam
Kal: Yeah. Yeah.
Barry Lynn: and and And some other, I used to do a lot of Bill Buckley firing lines and a bunch of those up there.
Kal: Yeah, yeah.
Barry Lynn: And I have a sub stack, but I barely use it, so maybe I'll do that.
matt: Yeah, mitten maybe y'all can talk about it, you know?
Kal: Yeah. yeah
Conor Fowler: Right.
Barry Lynn: Okay.
matt: Cal can give some pointers.
Kal: Well, make sure you got to subscribe to my Substack.
Conor Fowler: You can collaborate.
Kal: You don't have to pay.
Barry Lynn: I will definitely do that.
Kal: Sign up for nothing. It's very simple.
Barry Lynn: I will definitely do that.
Kal: It's Kaltoons. Kaltoons, K-A-L-T-O-O-N-S dot Substack dot com.
Barry Lynn: Okay.
Kal: And tell your friends.
Barry Lynn: Perfect.
Kal: We need as many subscribers as possible. You'll see great cartoons, great storytelling.
Barry Lynn: Oh, wonderful.
Kal: And one of the things, Barry, is that I have ah I've produced I've published 11,000 cartoons. And so i I go through my archive, I i bring up old stories, old old news items and stuff, a lot of stuff that you'll remember that that I put out there.
matt: Oh, wow.
Barry Lynn: Wow.
Barry Lynn: Oh, sure. Oh, terrific.
matt: That's, yeah.
Kal: Great.
Barry Lynn: Wonderful, will do.
matt: That's fantastic. Y'all, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much one more time.
Barry Lynn: Absolutely.
matt: um
Kal: Excellent. look
Barry Lynn: Thank you.
matt: Yeah, yeah. This is Apocalypse Duds. We are at Apocalypse Duds on Instagram. Apocalypse Duds at gmail.com. And I am Matt Smith at Rebels Rogues.
Conor Fowler: And I am Connor Fowler at Connor Flower.
matt: And we will see you week.
Conor Fowler: Yeah.
Kal: Take care.
Barry Lynn: Thank you. Bye-bye.
