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00:00:00
00:00:01
the one with the tangents (ep. 12)
4 Plays1 year ago
maga hilary/signal
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHsDvmEugs9/
they thought they were free excert
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHU9061uJef/
3.5% rule
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGO_4CQPlQ3/
dei in medicine
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFGMfsdvTyq/
sanders 2016 primary
https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/04/politics/bernie-sanders-2016-election-donna-brazile/index.html
anti vaxxer leading research
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHT0HLwP3gZ/
media blackout on protests
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHb6Zn9xWs-/
giving away congress power
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHuEr_TSiuc/
maga constitutional conference
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHuk1TmJBUZ/
hegseth’s russian email?!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHuenrGPd_r/
rip free speech
https://www.instagram.com/p/DHuAQAPSlJk/
global vaccines? nah
Recommended
Transcript
Suppression of Ukrainian Language and Culture
00:00:00
James
modern-day Ukraine. It went all the way across, you know, ah you know like you know on the Kerch, you know, the Kerch Bridge, you know, to the other side.
00:00:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um
00:00:08
James
That whole area, it was way bigger, people who spoke Ukrainian. And the reason why they don't speak Ukrainian in those areas anymore is because they were fucking genocided, you know? That's ah not the only reason, but it's a big reason.
00:00:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, that's not the only reason. So there was like a whole, well, another big reason is that there was like a, excuse me, there was a longstanding effort. So whenever they would,
00:00:34
James
Yeah, conquer a place, they rushify it.
00:00:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah whenever they would show Ukrainians on like a TV show, um the Ukrainians would be like, do you remember the show ah Family Matters with Urkel?
00:00:36
James
Mm-hmm.
00:00:45
James
Yep.
00:00:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So the Ukrainian people, like anytime there was a Ukrainian character, they were always like clumsy, stupid, ugly, you know, they were just like the dumb asshole.
00:00:50
James
Oh, yeah. yeah
00:00:55
James
Yep.
00:00:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then they that character would speak Ukrainian and they would, and they would often have them like, excuse me, wearing,
00:01:00
James
Mm-hmm.
00:01:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like Ukrainian dress, but like, you know how, like you can go to a Halloween store and get like a ah costume for like $20 to be like Batman. And you look, it's just like, you know, like ah spare tent flaps. Like, it's just like, like just the cheapest fabric ever.
00:01:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So they would always make the Ukrainians like costume to show like their heritage as this like cheap plastic version of itself.
00:01:33
James
Yeah.
00:01:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Um,
00:01:35
James
Yeah, I mean.
00:01:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, so that is a big part of why, ah you know, a part of 2014, a lot of Ukrainians spoke Russians, because all of their media portrayed their own culture in such a negative way.
00:01:49
James
Yeah. yeah I mean, it's just...
00:01:54
James
Man, I'm just so sickened with this administration. Where did you want to start?
Podcast Format Changes and Inspiration
00:02:00
James
what did How many things you want to talk about today?
00:02:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Um... Okay, well, first, I want to tell you, i started recording two minutes ago, so we could have ah non-traditional intro.
00:02:10
James
Okay.
00:02:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
This was our non-traditional intro.
00:02:13
James
Okay.
00:02:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We'll do a more on-purpose one next time.
00:02:17
James
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:02:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But i was I liked where you were going. I wanted to capture the conversation. And other thing is that the first thing we're going to do is we're going to do the new intro music. And I didn't write out a list. I have like a loose framework of stuff, but I want to take this episode and kind of change it up a little bit from sort of like rehashing a list of things and ah you know expressing my feelings publicly and switch to some more concerted talking points and so like part of what I want to do this episode is kind of talk about what we want to have our messages be and like what we want to accomplish and what what
00:03:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know to mean like what do we want our voice to be? um But first, the new intro music.
00:03:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Welcome to O Rather News. I'm Gabe,
00:03:34
James
I'm James.
00:03:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and this is O Brother News.
00:03:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, so I love to have music, and I have picture, like, so many Ezra Klein videos where he has some, like, poignant pre-written, like, introduction to, like, a conversation podcast that he then does, ah and I love the idea of doing something similar.
00:03:54
James
Mm-hmm.
00:03:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm basically just going to, look at anything on another podcast that I enjoy, like, like stuff that Scott Galloway does or Ezra Klein or the Bulwark or like whoever. And I'm just going to like, yeah, let's just take the things that we like from everywhere.
00:04:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but What do you think? what do do you like it? Is it is it is it the vibe?
00:04:16
James
It's all right.
00:04:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
All right, cool.
00:04:17
James
ah Sure. It's a vibe, actually, in fact, because as we were talking before, and i think but over the week, and you know we're we've talked about it ah number of times lately, but I was reading a little bit more.
00:04:28
James
It's not a hard book to read, obviously, but i was reading a little bit more stuff on ah on Tyranny, and that music kind of speaks to the whole on Tyranny and what's going on here in America right now. So, yeah.
00:04:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, that's actually one of the want to talk about too is ah put that put that little speech in the group chat about reading on freedom. as I was thinking about just like reading that speech and talking about the book a little bit.
00:04:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
My early experiences with it.
00:04:54
James
Yeah.
00:04:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:04:56
James
I was thinking about Doge when I read about be wary of paramilitaries.
Political Tensions and Paramilitary Stories
00:05:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What's the connection there? I don't get that one.
00:05:04
James
How Doge was going in, they busted into the, uh, um, What's that place called? It's like a think tank, but it's not under the executive branch at all. It's an institute for peace.
00:05:16
James
The Institute for Peace. And they tried to go there one time. Those kids went there one time and they wouldn't open the door like, yeah, no, we're not part of the executive branch. You have no authority over us. And then they showed up a couple days later with a whole bunch of people with guns.
00:05:30
James
you know And the people called the police. And then the D.C. police came there and they were talking to these other people who were some... branch of federal government with a bunch of machine guns and the DC police backed down and said, we can't help you.
00:05:49
James
And they let the people with the big guns go in there. And then the people with the big guns made everybody leave and they locked the doors and, you know, closed down this place. It's not even under the executive branch.
00:06:00
James
Yeah. And was thinking about the January Sixers and everything else paramilitaries, you know,
00:06:07
James
ah was reading a lot of little things in thinking about this administration, you know.
00:06:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I was seeing, I saw several small things also. So in no particular order, some of those things are, there was a, I'll link to all
AI Security Concerns
00:06:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
these things. There was a speech by ah Meredith Whitaker where she was talking about, um,
00:06:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
the danger of agent ai or agentic because you but you have to give it so many capabilities and such access ah to be able to do sort of useful things you want it to do. Like, you know, you want to say, hey, I want to buy these concert tickets and tell my friends about it and put it on my calendar.
00:06:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, in order to do that, it has to have access to your messages. It has to have access to your credit card. has to have have access to the Internet. And it has to then, with all of that access, take data from all those places, send it off to the cloud, parse through it, combine it, come back, and then like you know web crawl.
00:07:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like you know you have to give them so much so much information that you're like making these huge security sacrifices in order to get this like very marginal
Republicans' Double Standards in Politics
00:07:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah functionality.
00:07:26
James
hmm hmm
00:07:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um that was pretty interesting there was a there was ah an interesting video that highlights um magas a whole bunch of maga like a maga cast of characters talking about the hillary email scandal and then talking about signal gate yeah so it's like it's like trump is on there and like what i can't remember janine perero and just like ah and pete hagseth of course and like several other
00:07:44
James
hmm
00:07:47
James
ah go gate yeah jesus christ um much worse
00:07:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah people, I think Mike Walls too, ah you know just like what they said then and what they say now. and like but definitely want to talk about the ah signal gate.
00:08:08
James
Oh, yeah.
00:08:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and like the point like the The biggest point about that that I want to make is is is one that I haven't heard anyone else make before. and It's about um you know everybody engages with them with this like presumption that like they're either incompetent or like genuine in some way. And I think the only way to engage with them that makes any sense, like the only way that I can, I can watch the things that they say and the things that they do and like speak to it without denying the reality of my eyes and ears is to be like, no, they're just liars.
00:08:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They will say they have no, they have no like morality or
00:08:58
James
Yeah.
00:08:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah like there there is no moral or character driven or like ideological ah like like force dry like propelling them motivating them towards a set of beliefs like the only thing that motivates them is convenience like what is the thing that will play the best right now in the news to help me to have an advantage in the in the current news cycle.
00:09:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, that is it, you know?
00:09:32
James
Well, yeah. i mean you but You talk about the people defending them as if they did nothing wrong.
00:09:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i I'm talking about, like, the Republicans in general.
00:09:36
James
It's just made little small mistake. You know, hey.
00:09:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Because, like, if you hear them talking about, like, Hillary, they're like, oh, she should be arrested and investigated and, like, and, like,
00:09:41
James
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
00:09:45
James
yes We should be arrested for having the... Okay.
00:09:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
she's a, trade she's a traitor for like putting them on on a private email server that that was secured in this blah, blah, blah way.
00:09:51
James
no
00:09:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, then they're talking about this and like, well, you know, like, I think he's a really good guy and like, it's really just not, you know, we've got to just let him, it's just people make mistakes, you know, you just got to like learn from it and keep on moving.
00:10:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And it's just like, yeah you know They talk out of the left side of their mouth when it is good for them, and they talk out of the right side of their mouth when it's bad for someone else. like they have no you know i mean like They have no ideology.
Democratic Accountability vs Republican Loyalty
00:10:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They just say whatever sounds good in the moment.
00:10:26
James
Yeah.
00:10:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's one of my that's one of my like foundational complaints with Republicans. It's not that you can't trust them. it's that you can't trust them It's that you can trust them to like to only to exclusively say whatever is politically convenient.
00:10:47
James
Yeah. That's the big difference between Republicans and Democrats. that's one of the that's That's another symptom of what you hated about Democrats versus Republicans, right? Democrats, yes, there are still plenty of people who are, you know, politics is politics everything else, but there's plenty of Democrats who just have a sense of ah sense of right and wrong that Republicans really just don't have.
00:11:11
James
Like, ah shit, look at Al Franken, right? Al Franken, right? Me too, stuff like that, right?
00:11:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yep.
00:11:18
James
Republicans accused of something, man, they will all just... you know
00:11:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like Roy Moore.
00:11:23
James
shoulder to shoulder, they're going to march shoulder to shoulder in defense of this person until it's so overwhelmingly you know impossible to defend the person, then maybe they'll dump them.
00:11:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Did they ever dump him?
00:11:34
James
Democrats,
00:11:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They never dumped Roy Moore.
00:11:38
James
Roy Moore, well, Roy Moore, no, they didn't, really. um
00:11:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No.
00:11:43
James
But Republicans didn't, yes, no.
00:11:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They did.
00:11:45
James
But Al Franken... which is ah not even close to the same thing.
00:11:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Daniel Passamanecki, before you're a politician, you take a picture where you're not touching someone yeah.
00:11:52
James
know I mean?
00:11:57
James
And they're asleep and you're acting like their little hands like, oh and you're looking at the camera with the goofy face, like, oh, look at that. yeah Whatever, you know, and shit, man. and That's something 15 year olds do.
00:12:07
James
Yeah, he probably should have known better. He's, you know, a young comedian. This is, I think, either during or pre- No.
00:12:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but I don't think that he should have. I don't think that he should have known better. Like, I completely disagree. Like, you cannot, you cannot apply the current standard to people in the past and you cannot apply this, the yeah standard of like their current job to their past.
00:12:16
James
Well, whatever. Either way, ah I'm correct. Hey, we've had this conversation before, but... You've come around.
00:12:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like if you're a a comedian in the past, like it doesn't matter if today, like, you know what mean?
00:12:32
James
I know. I know.
00:12:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like the stuff you did when you were a comedian is not the same as the stuff you did when you were trying to be president.
00:12:36
James
Which, by the way, you've...
00:12:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like people can learn and grow.
00:12:38
James
you've yeah you've turned a leaf on that. Because I was trying to tell you about that. Like, that was but my argument to you about why the crime bill in the 90s, you can't, people can't be blasting Clinton for that shit. Because everybody was for it back then. But anyway, but you've come a little bit of ways on that one.
00:12:52
James
But what i'm saying is this. It doesn't matter. The point is, Democrats, oh shit, me too, he's didn't, oh my god, nope, we are not sticking with somebody who's accused of being sexually inappropriate.
00:13:03
James
Bam! He is a fucking pariah, man. They just, they, and they fucked him over and That was bullshit. But Democrats, they have a sense of what's right and wrong.
00:13:13
James
If you had some Democrat up there, i don't care if it's Chuck Schumer. I don't care if it's Joe Biden. If if there was any talk about them seriously doing anything like really wrong, they would fucking roll over and be like, we're not defending that.
00:13:31
James
Democrats are not for that. People, everybody just let you know, we don't support that.
00:13:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know,
00:13:34
James
and they're out.
00:13:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
so
00:13:35
James
what Right or wrong, they do do that. Rebuckmans will do it. They will always stick with their criminal people.
00:13:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
just to get more, oh my God, and I'm going to show how my brain doesn't work sometimes, but what was the guy's, the name of the comedian we were just talking about one second ago?
00:13:49
James
yeah Al Franken.
00:13:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Al Franken, yeah, sorry. ah
00:13:54
James
I love Al Franken, by the way.
00:13:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But just to like, to get conspiratorial on Al Franken, like, you know, Al Franken,
00:13:58
James
Mm-hmm.
00:14:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
was the most like capital p presidential member of the party that we've had since like bill clinton like he's he has he has the like yeah he has like the social cachet and the like ability and like the everyman of like of like a donald trump he has like the you know like the liberal leaning stuff of like a bernie but but like 30 years younger he has like
00:14:12
James
Oh yeah, he could have been president. If that thing would have happened, he easily could have been president. he Likeability factor.
00:14:24
James
He easily could have been president.
00:14:30
James
Mm-hmm.
00:14:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, like the plain spoken Midwestern, like and he has like legislative chops and he has like policy chops.
00:14:35
James
Mm-hmm.
00:14:37
James
And he can explain everything to everybody on a level they'll they'll totally understand and get with humor and make it funny.
00:14:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And make it funny.
00:14:45
James
And everybody's like, dude, and he's fucking great.
00:14:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:14:47
James
He's great.
00:14:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:14:48
James
And that Republicans really wanted to get rid of him. Yeah.
00:14:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, I don't think that it was just the Republicans who wanted to get rid of him. I think that Hillary wanted to get rid of him because she wanted to have it be her time and he was in her way.
Kamala Harris and Biden's Election Performance
00:14:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's that's where I'm getting a little conspiratorial.
00:15:00
James
He was not in Hillary's way. Yeah, that's way conspiratorial. Yeah. a What year was that even?
00:15:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It
00:15:11
James
Yeah, no. ah yeah so yeah I don't think he was going run for prison anyway, man.
00:15:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
was before 2016. I
00:15:20
James
Yeah.
00:15:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i don't know, maybe that's too conspiratorial. Let's see.
00:15:25
James
No, it was 2017.
00:15:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was 2017?
00:15:26
James
It was 2017. Yeah.
00:15:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it
00:15:26
James
yeah was twenty seventeen was twenty seventeen
00:15:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
was definitely
00:15:30
James
It was 2017. Alright.
00:15:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
no it was definitely
00:15:32
James
Yeah, it was 2017. It was 2017. Yeah, there's an article, NBC News, about it. Senator Al Franken said he was embarrassed and ashamed for the sexual misconduct allegations in his first interview in eight days. His first interview, eight days later, was published November 26th, 2017.
00:15:45
James
So, yeah, it was way after. Way after Hillary. No, there was no Hillary conspiracy in there, man.
00:15:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Dude, that's not when the Me Too was.
00:15:54
James
Me Too was not a one-year thing. i mean, it went on for a long time, but...
00:15:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Wow. Okay, well.
00:16:01
James
I mean, Me Too was a little bit later. The Me Too movement really started getting going after, you know, Harvey Weinstein and Trump the grabbing him by the pussy and all that shit. I mean, that's really when it really started taking off.
00:16:12
James
But this was in a pretty close...
00:16:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, you're right, i'm just wrong.
00:16:15
James
Actually, no, 2017 was that, because 2016, yeah, mean, Me Too movement. It was a while ago, man. Let's see. Let's see. They first used it in 2006.
00:16:29
James
But it didn't start up until 2017. There you go. 2017, it was Me Too. There you go. The movement spread virally as hashtags on social media. October 15th, 2017. Alyssa Milano posted on Twitter about that.
00:16:41
James
It's 2017, dude. It was Me Too. That's when it blew up. There we go
00:16:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, I'm just wrong.
00:16:47
James
So, anyway. That was a big tangent.
00:16:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But yeah, like this is this um this is like a classic example of the Democrats bringing the you know regulation weight boxing gloves to a to a gunfight.
00:17:03
James
yeah
00:17:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know And they're like so like, sir, your gloves are not regulation. And they go like, no shit, dumb fuck. And they just shoot them with their gun.
00:17:11
James
And I know that, and I disagree with you.
00:17:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's why we lose all the time.
00:17:13
James
I know that you, I know you disagree with me on this one, but like, honestly, Joe Biden, he was, he was, he looked absolutely like dog shit and that debate, but you know what? I still think he would have won.
00:17:26
James
I still think. the small, small 1% margin of victory, the 1.85% margin of victory Trump had is 1.85, you know, or 1 point, what was it?
00:17:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, I don't think so.
00:17:37
James
1.65? Oh God, it's something like 1.45, 1.65, 1.85, something like that percent margin of victory. And the percentage of people who voted third party eclipsed the the the percentage of victory that Trump had over Kamala.
00:17:51
James
And I still think there's enough little places where white people just didn't vote for Kamala and just...
00:17:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and
00:17:57
James
little bit of margins. I still think Biden could pull that up.
00:17:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Latin people just didn't vote for Kamala. Like men just didn't vote for a woman.
Democrats' Moral Challenges
00:18:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, I don't know. I don't I honestly i don't think so.
00:18:05
James
He was so close.
00:18:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think Joe would have lost worse.
00:18:08
James
He looked... I don't know. I don't think so. but Either way, there's another example though of how the party just fucking rolled on their presidential nominee. The president, the leader of the party,
00:18:21
James
one Granted, really bad debate, and he had sick, was COVID, he looked like shit and everything else, but you know what?
00:18:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But it wasn't it wasn't just one bad debate.
00:18:28
James
He just...
00:18:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was every time he was in public, he he seemed like his brain, like his goose was cooked.
00:18:32
James
Oh, man. That was...
00:18:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And i think what really what really killed him
00:18:37
James
I don't think so, man. that he did the state of the He did the State of the Union. He did the State of the Union. It wasn't all promptered up anything else, and he fucking owned the Republicans. He engaged them back and forth them and made them all defend Social Security. Oh, okay, so you guys don't want to cut Social Security anymore.
00:18:52
James
He owned it and that was after that debate. That like a week or two later after he'd gotten better.
00:18:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i I didn't watch um didn't watch that thing.
00:19:00
James
Oh my God.
00:19:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
didn't watch that State of the Union.
00:19:01
James
why You should have watched it.
00:19:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Honestly, i usually don't watch the State of the Union, actually.
00:19:03
James
e You should have watched it. It was fucking amazing. And if have been like that the rest of the way out, shit. That debate was a long, it was the earliest debate ever. so long before an election, that debate would have been forgotten about.
00:19:18
James
Kamala kicked Trump's ass in the debate. Didn't matter. That would have been long gone. You know, I still think Biden would have pulled that shit out.
00:19:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I, so this thing, I don't think that, I think that the debate got a lot of people talking, but I think so the, the bigger thing was that you had, you had like, well, you had like George Clooney and a bunch of other people who were like, like famous or notable Democrats or like large donors.
00:19:27
James
He was the incumbent.
00:19:31
James
Mm-hmm.
00:19:35
James
Timber Crosk got scared.
00:19:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And they were seeing him at a fundraiser and they were like talking to him face to face. And they were like, this dude's not all here. And they were like, I spent, you know,
00:19:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
six hours with him the other night and he seemed like a ghost of a zombie. And those, and all those people started writing op-eds like, dude, you need to like, hurry, like the clock's ticking, bro.
00:20:02
James
So what you're saying is Democrats have.
00:20:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You need to get out the race before you you give the game away.
00:20:11
James
Yeah, those are Democrats that say that, right?
00:20:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:15
James
Okay. Do you think Republicans would have said that about Trump, who also is fucking incoherent and psycho? No, because they stick together. Democrats, like ah we think we need a we you need a leader who is bla blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:20:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, no, yeah, that's totally true. and
00:20:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
yeah we
00:20:28
James
So we're going to blast our guy.
00:20:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Democrats eat their own.
00:20:31
James
They don't give a shit. They want power. They will stick by their guy no matter what.
00:20:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's true.
00:20:37
James
It's another example where Democrats eat our own because we have a sense of right and wrong and Republicans have no fucking morals.
00:20:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't think that it's so much that we have a sense of right or wrong.
00:20:45
James
ah
00:20:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think it's that we have a belief in the, i don't even want to say we, because honestly, am not a Democrat.
00:20:55
James
you're not yeah no you don't i am yeah
00:20:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I do not agree with the Democrat. i vote for them. You know, I used to be a Democrat, but I'm so fed up with the Democrats that I wouldn't say I'm a Democrat. So I would, I can't say we, but I would say the Democrats ah have this like belief in the value of their moral character.
00:21:09
James
yeah
00:21:16
James
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
as if it's going to win them votes or mean something, you know, it's the same, it's the same thing where they're like, ah you know, your testimony from yesterday was that you didn't know anything about any, you know, ah war plans or, you know, very, they were very, they're more specific in the question.
00:21:22
James
yeah
00:21:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was like, you didn't know about any attack packages, timings, or like weapons packages, or, you know, like you didn't know the exact details of the, of the strike, is like where there are the details of the exact details of the strike in the signal chat. And she's like, Tulsi Gabbard goes like, you know, not I'm not aware of any any details like that.
00:21:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then the you know, he puts out just the whole chat that, you know, after they go in and testify. And then the next day they're back in there like, well, yesterday you said this, do you want to like amend your statement? And she's like, well, I don't, I have my yesterday, what I said what was based on what I did or didn't remember. So, you know, or like Kelsey Kebber does this thing where she's like, she's like, they asked her a question and they're like, you know, as the director of national intelligence is Russia an enemy and she's, ah you know, an adversary or an ally.
00:22:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And she's like, well, in my capacity as a private citizen, and she's like I'm not asking about your your capacity as a private citizen.
00:22:43
James
Mm-hmm.
00:22:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm asking the director of national intelligence, you know? And then she's like, okay, well, ah now I have to say adversary because, you know, i can't look that dumb.
00:22:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah But it's just like, like begrudgingly, occasionally they'll agree with reality only if it like doesn't objectively hurt them in the moment.
00:23:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But any time that it does, like, they just don't, they just don't have the character to say, yeah, you know what? This was in there.
00:23:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's a lot of conversations that I take part in all the time. There's a lot of group chats.
00:23:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's a lot of, but it's not illegal.
00:23:23
James
but They can't say that.
00:23:24
James
That's illegal. That's illegal. They're doing it to get... Hmm.
00:23:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, it's like, you don't have to say that it's like, You know what i mean Like you have to say that it's on signal.
00:23:29
James
Hmm.
00:23:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You're like, look, there are a variety of ways that we communicate. There are a lot of conversations that we have. Some I'm a part of, some I'm not a part of. I'm working through the most relevant deep details in any given moment.
00:23:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I have a team of people around me and we keep records in accordance with the law. And, you know, like if I like I don't hold every single detail in in my mind 100 percent of the time, that's why God made paper and Steve Jobs made the iPhone. Next question.
00:24:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, like they can't just say like the common sense thing and they certainly can't say like, you know, they they certainly can't say something like, well, yeah, like I lied yesterday.
00:24:13
James
We always do this. so We always do this that way that we don't ever have to worry about preserving records under the under the law.
00:24:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, they can't.................................
00:24:20
James
but But it's so obvious that they do.
00:24:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
do the
00:24:23
James
That's what the funny thing The thing is, they can't say any of the other bullshit because this conversation made it so obvious that it's the norm.
Signal App Security Risks
00:24:32
James
Because they wouldn't have just, oh, it just happened to be the first time where something like this happened and we just, oops, we we were playing around this new signal that we thought it would be the way And then P just started saying all this shit, man. I can't believe you started telling us all this stuff. i mean like It was so obvious that it's just so routine.
00:24:52
James
If they said, well, yeah sometimes we it. It's already, it's so plain as day. There's no defending it.
00:24:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, like like everybody else could have been like everybody else.
00:24:57
James
There's no way they can defend it.
00:25:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Anyone could have been like, OK, yeah. So look, we had this chat on here this day and i was a part of the group chat, but I wasn't keeping up with the messages. I came in and I.
00:25:12
James
Oh, but she was.
00:25:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, but here's the thing, like you could say like, you know, I wasn't like, i wasn't like completely keeping up with the messages.
00:25:13
James
Mm-hmm.
00:25:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um You know, an aide was replying for me and like relaying things verbally to me and I misunderstood which, which platform, which, which thread we were referring to. something Something along those lines, right? Like there was some miscommunication because blah, blah, blah.
00:25:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
The next day, or you could even say like, yeah, okay, blah, blah, We had the conversation, okay? And next day we had ah different conversation where we talked about whether or not this was appropriate and what we were going to do to change it.
00:25:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And so we've already made X, Y, Z changes, and this is what we're doing going forward.
00:25:51
James
Hmm.
00:25:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, like you can't even say like, yes, there was a thing that we shouldn't have done, but we're aware of it and we've already started to work on it. You know, like, and you like that would be such a better answer or even like,
00:26:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, it was that, it was just that dude's fault. And like the rest of us were trying to like not make the new guy, you know, feel like an idiot. Cause we're all on the same team, one team, one Trumpy team, one MAGA dream. Like, yeah you know, like you can't even just be like, Hey, look, I'm not going to throw them under the bus. Like, you know, like, like any of these things would be so much better than, than like the absolute, like like, it's just like, it's so,
00:26:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it's It's so absurd because like they have to know he had the, he had the whole thing. Like.
00:26:32
James
well the thing is the thing is no exactly everybody did but the here thing is this it's perjury is one of those things that is not prosecuted that often for a few reasons one big reason is
00:26:50
James
For perjury, right, you have to show intent, right? If she said no or she said something like that, right, obviously she is lying through her teeth, right?
00:27:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mm-hmm.
00:27:01
James
If you say you can't recall, yes, she did.
00:27:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But she didn't say, I don't recall.
00:27:05
James
She said that a number of times.
00:27:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
said She said, I wasn't aware. The first day she said, I wasn't aware of the of ever any of that information being in there.
00:27:09
James
She said that a lot. really shit well Well, i'm not not that I'm aware Cash Patel said there. Gabbard said, same answer and defer to the Department of Defense on that question. Yeah. And was talking to Tulsi Gabbard and she said she didn't recall because when Mark Kelly was asking her, right?
00:27:24
James
That
00:27:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but then they then they the the person responded. She said, same it she said same answer, and I referred to the Department of Defense.
00:27:29
James
yeah was another one that didn't.
00:27:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then the response from the senator was, that's Well, that's two separate answers. And then she said, i was not aware of any of that information in the chat. And then the next day, when they asked her, I said, yesterday, you said you weren't aware of it being in there.
00:27:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And she said, like, what what I said yesterday was based on but what I did or didn't remember at the time. And like, I didn't i didn't recall what was in there.
00:27:47
James
yes I didn't yeah exactly yeah but you either way yeah or yeah but I do not recall the exact details of what was included there you know
00:27:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i forgot. Like, I lied yesterday because I forgot.
00:27:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But if you know, but this is the thing, like if you know that that the the ah whole message thread, like, you know, that all of it is coming out verbatim the
Political Testimony and Memory Lapses
00:28:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
next day, you know, like I'm going to go on the record and lie about it today and tomorrow i'm go to come back and I'm going to have egg on my face for having lied about it today.
00:28:08
James
yeah exactly
00:28:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and they're going to be like, well, here's exactly what it was. Why did you say this?
00:28:17
James
Well, I didn't remember.
00:28:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
yeah
00:28:18
James
i was
00:28:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like.
00:28:19
James
I was in the moment and ah o I was all scared and nervous here in Congress.
00:28:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But
00:28:24
James
you know I've never been here before, you know former congresswoman.
00:28:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but like, but. and but
00:28:28
James
you know and I know, I was making a joke.
00:28:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
they were all They were all there for their confirmation hearings. but like ah
00:28:31
James
man i'm thinking yeah It's harder to prove that you didn't forget something in the moment. How can you prove that they didn't remember something? Prove it.
00:28:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So this is this is the thing. i don't think..................
00:28:42
James
That's why they don't charge. That's why they say that stuff. That's why they say they don't remember. I don't remember i't remember the details. I don't remember exactly. oh the It's a fast-moving conversation. Oh, don't remember if they said that. It matter if they have the transcripts. It's hard to prove you don't remember something. You'd you'd rather look like an idiot than totally say something.
00:29:00
James
No, we didn't talk about that. Well, yeah, you did. It's fucking right here. Oh, you just lied. Damn it. I don't remember.
00:29:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So, so here's the thing, you know, like in terms of like, uh, in terms of like having criminal, um, in terms of having a criminal prosecution.
00:29:05
James
just look like an idiot. but It's less likely to charges.
00:29:16
James
It's never going to happen ah thats for the next four years.
00:29:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay.
00:29:20
James
Hmm.
00:29:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And in terms of having, um, like a a civil prosecution.
00:29:24
James
Hmm.
00:29:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. I do not recall is a valid argument. Okay. Or I plead the fifth and don't want to, per don't want to, you know, make myself look bad. That is a valid argument.
00:29:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But when it comes to, i would like to continue in this job, doing this job.
00:29:43
James
so
00:29:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And if you have to say, i do not recall in my mind, I feel like we should make this like a legal standard to which people can be held in my mind.
00:29:53
James
Well, you can't remember what happened two weeks ago.
00:29:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If you can't remember what you did and what you said when it is written down, OK, if you can't remember what was written. Then you are not good enough to do this job and you got to go.
00:30:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I feel like i feel like that there should be a thing where if you come into Congress and you give testimony and you say that you can't remember, that's fine.
00:30:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But it's only going if you say you don't remember, it's going to take 40 votes. 40 votes in the Senate to fire you. You're impeachable with 40 votes if you can't remember.
00:30:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If you can remember and you can tell us something and you can, you know, b be actually up against the penalty of perjury and tell us some facts, then you can then you can continue to have your job.
00:30:41
James
Yeah, but who's going charge her?
00:30:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But if you can't if you have to fall back on, I can't recall, then 40 people can fire you so that everyone gets fired who can't remember.
00:30:51
James
Yeah, but it doesn't matter because, I mean, none of these people are qualified for these jobs anyway, and they're put up there by Trump, and who would prosecute? Who would do anything? i mean, they're not going to do It's not going to happen. Yes, in a perfect world, none of these people would be this job.
00:31:04
James
He wouldn't be president, and people would be held accountable, but this is the Trump administration.
00:31:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, I'm not just thinking about this one administration and this one right now, but I mean, the system needs to have this as a rule in place. There needs be bite the blade. There needs to be consequence bite on the blade there needs to be like like consequence
00:31:23
James
Well, mean, there are rules in place, but they're just not going to be enforced. There are rules.
00:31:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, let's OK.
00:31:30
James
There are hard, fast, there are hard rules about this. And they are all guilty. If they were in the military, if they were anybody in the military, they would be court-martialed and they would be in in military prison.
00:31:47
James
All of them.
00:31:48
James
Steve Witkoff was in Moscow. His phone was being monitored by the Russians.
00:31:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
okay
00:31:56
James
Russia got all of all of this text. They got all this.
00:31:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
this And like here's the other thing, too.
00:32:01
James
He was in Russia.
00:32:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
is like
00:32:02
James
When they're doing it on his private cell phone and he's getting this message and they're talking they're getting this this whole thread going back and forth, Russia got
Security Concerns with Signal App's Origins
00:32:09
James
all of it.
00:32:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Do you know who made Signal?
00:32:10
James
He was in Moscow. Huh?
00:32:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Do you know who?
00:32:12
James
I don't know who made Signal. I never looked into who made it, but it doesn't really matter.
00:32:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
oh it will you when you hear who When you hear this detail about them, you'll will see why it matters. They're a former Russian citizen.
00:32:24
James
Okay, well, I mean... Okay. that <unk>s there's but We work with somebody who is a former Russian, and you know that doesn't really necessarily mean anything. I mean, there's plenty of good people who came from Russia. I'm not trying to say like a Donald Trump, plenty good people.
00:32:38
James
I'm saying there are good people who are not Russian agents who are very happy to be out of Russia and are now Americans and make software. I mean, and that doesn't... Just but because it was made by somebody excuse me who is russia ne Russian, made Russian,
00:32:53
James
doesn't mean anything to me. Um, you know,
00:32:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, what it means to me is that there is potential for Signal to be a compromised app.
00:32:59
James
but
00:33:05
James
but you don't have to signal itself. Doesn't have to be compromised. Anything. It can be the most secure shit in the world. doesn't matter if they lifted Steve Whitcoff's phone for two minutes and put another app on his phone that would just record everything.
00:33:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:33:17
James
Then it doesn't matter how secure signal is.
00:33:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:33:19
James
You know, if,
00:33:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:33:21
James
They were just monitoring all the transmissions in and out of this phone. Right. And they're doing stuff. They, it doesn't know exactly, exactly.
00:33:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and It doesn't even have to be that complicated. If they just have a camera in his room that looks over his shoulder and reads it, like, get low-tech.
00:33:31
James
They just have cameras on him 24 seven in Russia because then they would be able just look at his screen and zoom.
00:33:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:33:37
James
I mean, yeah, it doesn't matter.
00:33:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
00:33:40
James
The app itself doesn't matter. The fact that it's on a private cell phone and he's in Russia and they're on this and they're typing. That's the problem, you know? is it's on your cell phone.
00:33:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, I mean, like, it's
00:33:52
James
There's a reason why you go SCIF. There's a reason why with classified information, you're supposed to go to SCIF. There's no cell phones allowed, no communications allowed, no listening devices, no electronics in the room because yes, yes, all the cell phones out there, out behind that thing, soundproof.
00:34:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Or, you know, you have the situation room for where you're supposed to go to have these conversations.
00:34:09
James
yeah There's a reason for that so that there's no chance that Russia would be able get this stuff.
00:34:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know, and the other thing, too, that I find just, like, like like honestly, just, like, embarrassing is that there's, like, emojis.
00:34:16
James
lot better than
00:34:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's, like, it was like a it was like a fist and then like a fire and then like a American flag, which like, just as like a string of emojis, like doesn't make any sense.
00:34:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like the fist is punching the fire of America. Like have to do more research on this.
00:34:42
James
um and By the way, Signal was not made by a Russian guy.
00:34:46
James
It was made by Moxie Marlin Spike, who's totally American. born in the US, born in Georgia.
00:34:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Cause I've, I'm certain of some fact and i don't know what I'm misremembering here.
00:34:55
James
where
00:34:57
James
yeah Sorry, I'm just, I don't want our channel to be, you know, propaganda. There's a little thing there, Matthew Rosenfeld, better known by the pseudonym Moxie, Marlon Spikes, American entrepreneur.
00:35:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Put it put it in Notion so I can include it in the show notes.
00:35:09
James
I just put it in, anyway. Anyway, sorry. Sorry, just wanted to, I was Googling that since you said it, because i was like, who did make it? You know. Anyway.
00:35:20
James
What were saying? I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm I kind of did because that little detail.
00:35:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no, I'm just saying that like the the whatchamacallit, the the fact that they're just like using emojis and the fact that they're so
The Use of Emojis in Military Communication
00:35:33
James
Prayer emojis.
00:35:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like the fact that they're so like smarmy and glib and just like like like they're they're dropping bombs on people.
00:35:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like whatever you think about these people, they're still human beings. And we're sending soldiers, like, you know what mean?
00:35:55
James
Thank you.
00:35:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, yeah the thing that they're talking about is sending someone else to go kill someone else, you know? And even if you're of the opinion that, like, you know, some of the people or even all the people that we think are going to get killed deserve it and are bad and that this is, like, like a net positive for the world, like, you're still taking human life.
00:36:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You're still sending someone else to kill people for you.
00:36:26
James
I had no problem with that in this case.
00:36:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know what i mean? And like you have no like they just have no like.
00:36:33
James
I have no empathy for these people.
00:36:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's no so there's no seriousness.
00:36:35
James
I had no empathy for these people that they bombed, and yeah, I'm glad they got killed, honestly.
00:36:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Five of them were children.
Civilian Casualties and Ethical Implications
00:36:41
James
well Well, I didn't know about the five children, but the other one, but you know what, though?
00:36:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't know.
00:36:45
James
I mean, they've been firing us off. They've been, you know, taking the ships hostage. They've been doing all those other things They've been launching other things at other ships. They've been, I mean, they've been killing people left and right too.
00:36:57
James
I mean, you know, Hey, you know, pretty much, you know, I mean, it's like, it's like, it's like fucking Hamas people.
00:37:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Don't start no shit won't be no shit.
00:37:07
James
know I mean? Like Hamas? Yes. I know. I'm not saying all the Palestinians who got fucking killed there. and they They went scorched earth, right. In Gaza. Right. But,
00:37:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mm-hmm.
00:37:17
James
there was going to be a lot of civilian casualties because of the nature of what Hamas does. I mean, they put rocket launchers and shit like that on their hospitals. They build their tunnels underneath hospitals and underneath everything and residential buildings.
00:37:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mm-hmm.
00:37:31
James
They keep people as human shield. There's going to be resident, there's going to be collateral damage in that case. You know, I think there was less of it here at the Houthis than and the Palestinians, you know, the Hamas people.
00:37:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
hu
00:37:40
James
But again, i it's you I mean, Whatever. I mean, these are bad people who deserve to be killed. You know what mean? but But...
00:37:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I feel like the tone, i just feel like the tone was just obnoxious.
00:37:57
James
What's obnoxious to me is when you're talking about killing people and you're using prayer emojis. I mean, fun. Dude. Prayer emoji! Muscle emoji! American flag emoji! You know?
00:38:07
James
I mean, come on, man. Jesus Christ.
00:38:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's what I'm saying. It's like it's embarrassing to just be to be putting emojis.
00:38:10
James
That's stupid. It's embarrassing all the prayer emojis when you're talking... The prayer emojis when you're talking about killing people is Kind of just Jesus, man, the irony, right? Prayer emoji when you're talking about killing people.
00:38:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's just...
00:38:22
James
Jesus would not have done it.
00:38:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's incredibly tone deaf. You're making my point for me.
00:38:24
James
Jesus wouldn't have done that. Jesus wouldn't have been like, pray, pray that we kill them all. Let's pray that we end their lives. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's stupid. It's just ah another example of hypocrisy,
Media's Impact on Political Perception
00:38:35
James
you know?
00:38:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah this So this brings me around... and like as i am as I am guilty of the thing, okay, this brings me around to a point that like very frequently bothers me when I'm watching coverage of things. Like this is something, Brian Tyler Cohen does this all the time. He does a great job of it, but I disagree with this with this tactic, okay?
00:38:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He'll go and he'll show someone saying something, they'll be like, you know, when when it's nighttime, gotta take our sunglasses off so we can see good. and And then they'll be, ah they catch them on video wearing their sunglasses at night.
00:39:11
James
Thank you.
00:39:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And they they go, hey why are you wearing your sunglasses at night? And he's like, well, obviously, you know, there was a streetlight and it was too bright. And, you know, we gotta protect our eyes. like and And then Brian Tyler Cohen will be like, see, he says the one thing the one time. And then later he says the exact opposite whenever it suits him.
00:39:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like in a world where like where that mattered, like, yes, that would be a great gotcha. But I feel like that is a thing that we do constantly that no one cares about.
00:39:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That no one cares about. Like, I don't think that like people are so, you know, divorced from the truth of their own eyes and ears.
00:40:01
James
What?
00:40:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
that they don't realize this. I think people care more about winning than ideological consistency. So like pointing out ideological inconsistency as if it's going to be a persuasive argument, I think is a waste of time.
00:40:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I see a lot of that happening, like on mainstream news, on podcasts, like it seems like such a frequent thing to be like, he said the one thing and then the other thing, look at him. Just, he doesn't have such a flip flopper. Like being a flip flopper. Hasn't mattered since John Kerry lost.
00:40:36
James
Well, no, I think that they're stuck in the facts that i think you're still stuck in the fact that John Kerry lost in part because people said he's a flip-flopper and they think it still matters. It only matters when it's a Democrat.
00:40:50
James
and That's the thing. And that goes back to the first points we were talking about. republican And that's that's the line. Republicans fall in line. Democrats fall in love. Democrats have to be in love with their politicians to vote for them.
00:41:04
James
They have to love Barack Obama. they have be inspired. Yeah, let's help the change. Yeah, Hillary women, woo! they They have to be inspired. They have to fall in love with their candidate.
00:41:16
James
And if they don't fall in love, they vote third party. Fuck these Democrats. I'm staying home. Whatever. Fuck them, you know. Republicans just fall in line. The hypocrisy, the flip-flops, it only mattered because it was a Democrat.
00:41:28
James
If it's Republican, it doesn't matter. They fall in line.
00:41:34
James
That's what I think.
00:41:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, I mean, we the Democrats got a The Democrats got a quit bringing hopes and prayers to a gunfight and expecting to not lose.
00:41:43
James
But that's what makes them, that's what makes the, that's what makes the party faithful vote for
Party Loyalty and Voting Behavior
00:41:48
James
them. If they don't do it, they don't win. The Democrats that win, people fall in love with it.
00:41:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, let's. No, no.
00:41:54
James
Yes.
00:41:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Here's no. Here's the thing that the the people I completely disagree. I think the people who are voting for Democrats, that you're attributing it to their.
00:42:07
James
inspiration there'
00:42:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
abs strength of character, you know, they're like JFK-ness, let's say they're Obama-ness. ah That's not what they're voting. That's not why they're voting. They're voting because Clinton reduced the deficit and brought down crime.
00:42:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's what they're voting for.
00:42:25
James
But they didn't vote for him for that in 92 when he got elected. ah for that in ninety two when he got elected
00:42:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
so
00:42:32
James
he wasn't ah He was a nobody at that time. He was a fucking Arkansas hick who had the state with like the 48th ranked state in the nation.
00:42:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Right, but yeah but he was...
00:42:41
James
like But he sold it, man.
00:42:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah chair
00:42:43
James
And everybody believed him. They're like, wow. he looked at and and Look at him playing the saxophone on Arsenio. Oh, my God. This is a new generation. Look at this guy. And they all fell in love.
00:42:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
no, no. So the thing that I'm saying is like like, it's not just Clinton, okay? But like like Clinton himself was trading on the coattails of JFK. JFK was trading on the coattails of Lincoln.
00:43:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I don't know the details of the politicians for enough before that.
00:43:06
James
I'm winking.
00:43:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, because with JFK, the the alignment to um the Democrats switched from, yes, because like JFK was like, okay, I'm going to flip and I'm going to be on the side of civil rights.
00:43:18
James
think of the civil and stuff like that, you know? No, God.
00:43:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And, um you know, that was that was a big switch because prior to that, the Republicans, because like you remember Lincoln was a Republican, like the Republicans were the ones who were like,
00:43:28
James
Purchase. Purchase.
00:43:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, civil rights. And it was all the Southern Democrats, the like the Dixiecrats who were like making Jim Crow. And then when it got to ah Nixon versus JFK, JFK was like, hey, this civil rights thing is getting pretty huge. I'm going to just tag on to the, you know, social momentum of this thing.
00:43:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And he flipped his party from being for all of the, you know, the Southern Jim Crow to be oh, we're going to be on the civil rights side now. And then we just rode that all the way out through Obama.
00:44:05
James
Thanks.
00:44:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, this is the thing that I'm saying is like, is that like the person who comes in is trading on the success of the person in the past. A lot of times, I don't think that they're voting for like for Democrats because like they really believe the hope and change pitch or because the, oh yes, the moral high ground is like such a valuable thing.
00:44:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're voting. Like there's only, there's only one way that you vote. Okay. Like the only, there's only one thing that matters. And it's like, Is this guy going to help me directly? And they remember or they've heard the stories about how this other guy from this party helped people they know directly or he helped them directly.
00:44:44
James
I don't know, man.
00:44:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And they're just yeah like, ah, I'm just going to go with this party because it worked out in the past.
00:44:51
James
and That doesn't that that argument does not hold true for Clinton. ninety two I mean, think about it. Before Clinton, you had 12 years of Republican presidency. You had four year stint with Carter.
00:45:02
James
Right. ah A lot of people would argue didn't go to so hot. Before that, you had a bunch of Republicans. I mean, Democrats. Shit, I'm going to take my ball back here. For Clinton, you got Republican, Republican. mean You could go all way back to, yeah, I mean, LBJ. You had Nixon, Ford, right? Two Republicans, back to back.
00:45:22
James
Then you had a little four-year sit with Carter. Then he had 12 more years of Republican presidency. Clinton, they weren't thinking, i mean, yes, he pitched JFK, he had little videos because he met JFK and they did that little thing there when he was kid, but it had been such a long time.
00:45:36
James
Since Democrats really felt like the Democratic Party president would save the day. i mean it's been so long since then. i don't think it's like he was riding on JFK. It was 30-something years earlier, you know? That would be like somebody running right now for an election, running on the legacy of, well, I guess it'd be like Bill Clinton.
00:45:58
James
You know what mean? But... I don't know, man. 30 years back, 30-something years back is a long time.
00:46:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
what
00:46:05
James
I don't think, I think it's just, they fall in love.
00:46:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
let's take Let's take somebody like like your mom.
00:46:08
James
Anyway, if we move on.
00:46:13
James
Mm-hmm.
00:46:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
okay it Your mom isn't voting for Kamala Harris or Joe Biden for that matter because of the moral high ground or because you know, she loves all of the policies or there are even ones in there that specifically benefit her.
00:46:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
She's voting for them because she's voting for the party and she became attached to the party ah long time ago. I don't know when, but it was a long time ago. And at some point there were, so there were some candidates and there were some policies that took her from,
00:46:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm thinking Democrat to am voting Democrat to I am a Democrat.
00:47:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's the thing that I'm saying is like a lot of the a lot of the people who are voting for Democrats are not voting so much for the current candidate.
00:47:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're voting because they had that process of like, well, I'm leaning Democrat, i'm voting Democrat. I am a Democrat. And it's all the things that like push them over those boundaries. That's what's getting the vote today. There's this big lag in time. this like a decade ago, this was where the the battle was actually won.
00:47:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And now you're just seeing it like played out. I think that's true for a lot of people. Certainly not everyone. Certainly there's like a bunch of people in the middle, which with things being so polarized, it seems just absolutely like brain dead to me to be like, i don't know It's a real toss up.
00:47:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's just That seems really absurd. i think like, you know, if you go back a few sites, you go back to the pre-Trump era, I think that was a pretty reasonable position. Like, I don't know.
00:47:58
James
I don't think it ever was. That
00:47:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Bush, Gore, it's like, it's not.
00:48:03
James
infuriates me. ah God, I wanted to punch every single person who thought that way back then. History has only proven me right on that one.
00:48:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, but.
00:48:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But like comparatively, you know, like, like they were much more similar. than then then
00:48:21
James
than Trump and anybody on the other side, yes.
00:48:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Trump and anybody else. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. like
00:48:27
James
That's not saying much, I mean.
00:48:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Today, but that was that was true for a long time.
00:48:28
James
so and
00:48:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know they were They were very similar for a long time.
00:48:35
James
Hmm. Anyway.
00:48:38
James
don't know. Either way. Point is,
00:48:43
James
Democrats, and people who people on the left, people who vote for the lefty candidate. they have to ah They have to be inspired.
00:48:53
James
Republicans don't. Republicans play the long game. They vote for the Republican. They vote for that person, the conservatives. Not everybody's a Republican, but the conservative people. The people who don't identify Republican. I'm not part of either party.
00:49:06
James
I just like my freedom. Okay, you we know who you vote for. know what I mean? oh yeah they fall in line Democrats fall in love
00:49:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'm going to take this to my... Oh wait, this is the other one. I thought that I put the... Hold on, let me just pull up the thing that I wrote that I want to read through.
00:49:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, so this was from the group chat. And here's kind of the like the ah preamble to this part that I'm going to read. So I sent a video that I'll link um that was someone who's like, hey, here is a way that you can reconcile the government while addressing the government's budget problems while addressing poverty.
00:49:40
James
Hmm?
00:49:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
This is like a common sense solution that like no one's even discussing. But like, you know, the, the solutions are right there. And put it in the group chat and your mom is like, yeah, I've heard that kind of plan before,
Political Shifts and Overton Window
00:50:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but like this stuff doesn't ever happen.
00:50:09
James
and
00:50:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know, people, people vote against common sense.
00:50:13
James
Yeah.
00:50:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They vote, they vote against their own interests.
00:50:17
James
Yep, they go against their interests all the time.
00:50:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay.
00:50:19
James
Yep.
00:50:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, they have these prejudices. They're afraid they believe in misinformation. Okay. So I, here's like here's my response.
00:50:25
James
Yep.
00:50:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Cause like, this is the thing I want to talk about is like like the, like the bones of this response. It's not just prejudice and fear and misinformation. I have been reading Freedom by Timothy Snyder. Also a great book.
00:50:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He also wrote On Tyranny.
00:50:40
James
Mm-hmm.
00:50:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think we were talking about that before the recording. Anyway, he's a really accomplished historian. I watched his Yale history course on the history of Ukraine. Listen to it. All the lectures from the 26-week course are available free as a podcast. I'll get a link to that too.
00:50:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Anyway, in Freedom, he talks about how in America we have this idea of negative freedom. our culture, that the natural state is free. And so to become or increase freedom, you have to remove blockers.
00:51:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
As he explains it in the book, he gives examples and it seems very clear that removing constraints doesn't create freedom. I'm still pretty early in the book, but highly recommend it, especially the audio version, which is read by him.
00:51:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And the other thing worth mentioning is the difference between the parties and the people in terms of conservative versus progressive versus radical. We have this idea in American politics that the Republicans are conservative because they were.
00:51:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But under Trump, they aren't at all. They're actually far-right radicals. And have the negative concept of freedom. What makes you more free? Less government, less immigrants, less taxes, less regulations.
00:51:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And to accomplish those, you provide less services to the people. And if you're Trump, then the execution of that pitch is a self-serving grift so corrupt it makes you think, Surely it's not that corrupt. The system wouldn't stand that.
00:52:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But it does because the guardrails have been steadily eroded for 50 years.
00:52:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um Then we have the idea that Democrats are liberals or progressives. But they're not. the Democrats are conservatives. That's how far right America has shifted.
00:52:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
When Chuck Schumer gives him the budget CT for free, it's because he's trying to maintain the status quo. Who on the left do people get excited about?
00:52:29
James
Rizal.
00:52:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Bernie and AOC. And why is that? Because they're not conservatives. Bernie is a social democrat, which anywhere else in the world is a moderate position.
00:52:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And in most places that have democracies, like real functioning democracies, social democrat policies have already been implemented. Okay. They already have, you know,
00:52:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
better work-life balance and like healthcare care and like all these things. ah But here, Republicans have called us radicals or Democrats radicals and themselves conservatives for so long, we're the frog in the pot of boiling water.
00:53:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We don't even realize that our concept of left and right has shifted way over to the right. And this is a huge part of the appeal of Trump. And it's the same appeal of Bernie and AOC, which is why you see the same people voting for both.
00:53:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
because they don't want the status quo. The status quo is a $7 minimum wage, 20 in some states. When to have the same buying power as someone making minimum wage in 1970, the minimum wage would need to be, how much do you think?
00:53:40
James
I know the answer.
00:53:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, $67.
00:53:42
James
just
00:53:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It would need to be $67 to equal the buying power of the minimum wage in 1970. And the Democrats have been selling hope and change and delivering business as usual for so long people don't trust them.
00:53:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And choosing to die on the hill of supporting every minority group has amounted to leaving men behind, being slow to embrace new media, and defying common sense in a way that makes Republican misinformation attacks palatable.
00:54:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Because they at least agree with a kernel of truth. They agree that things aren't great and that there are problems. I heard this described as oligarchs versus corporatists. And it rings so true to me.
00:54:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We don't have a left. We have a far right and a center right and a few independent er radicals, quote unquote, that are centrists. And part of the problem is that Democrats are arrogant and unwilling to examine their faults and change them.
00:54:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Take something like the mountains of regulation that prevent us from building housing or high speed rail, for example. And then you have superdelegates on the Democratic side that prevent the party from having a radical candidate.
00:54:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like in 2016, we probably would have won if we ran Bernie against Trump. And oh, what a different era this would be if that had happened. And then also, the Democrats are playing into the narrative that being conservative is what people want because Republicans are quote unquote conservative in name.
00:55:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
This is Chuck Schumer bending over. This is Kamala campaigning with Cheney's and getting Republican endorsements. That doesn't appeal to people on the left. And it objectively is not liberal or progressive.
00:55:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's conservative. And the Democratic Party is much harder to shift because, again, superdelegates. We tried it in 2016. It had huge momentum and a great candidate with great plans.
00:55:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And yet we keep talking about unemployment and the stock market and policy. And those things only appeal to the wealthy and corporations because, again, 70 percent of the stock market is owned by the top one percent.
00:55:38
James
I heard your argument. I read about it. I thought about it.
00:55:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Huh?
00:55:43
James
But I disagree.
00:55:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK.
00:55:44
James
A little bit. I don't think that the Democrats are a conservative party and they're just a super far, far right party, right? I think what it is, is the Democrats, like Kamala campaigning with Cheney, they are recognizing the simple principle, the Overton window.
00:55:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but
00:56:02
James
They are recognizing oh the Overton, you don't know.
00:56:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What's the Overton window?
00:56:06
James
Okay, the Overton window, let me type it in here. Okay, one second.
00:56:12
James
Okay, here's the definition. The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It's also known as the window of discourse, right?
00:56:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK.
00:56:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK.
00:56:24
James
Key to the concept is that the window changes over time. it can shift or shrink or expand. It exemplifies the slow evolution of societal values and norms. That's what it that's Wikipedia for you. I'm not play-driving.
00:56:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
OK.
00:56:36
James
all right. Yeah, and they have like, you have your Overton window. In Russia, Ukraine negotiations with Trump, you can explain this ah with the Overton window also, right? You have one person who's way over here on on one side, right?
00:56:52
James
If you have one person that's way over here on the other side, far ah polar opposite, right?
00:56:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mm-hmm.
00:56:57
James
All right. Where is the real Overton window? What does the mainstream population think if they're all squarely centered middle and you have two radically opposite people, it's going to be really 50-50 close thing. right But usually the center of the people, right the window, is not squarely in one section. Usually there's a little bit of a shift. 60% agree with this or 65% agree with this. right The Overton window kind of moves around, shifts from left to right. right
00:57:28
James
Kamala and Democrats are like, hey, As the Republican Party keeps going further and further and further to the right, right? Now, here's what happens.
00:57:39
James
They do shift some of their positions a little bit away from the left, a little bit more to the right to try to still be on the side where the majority of people are.
00:57:50
James
Now, here's what happens.
00:57:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
uh-huh
00:57:51
James
You keep doing that, right? You keep shifting a little bit more, a little bit more, right? Because you want to try to get the most people on your side because a lot of people, all right, well, they agree with us on some of these things. They don't agree with on everything. We're still closer to their position than the person way over there, right?
00:58:08
James
That's the mainstream. That's the theory about it, right? And it's a sound approach, right? the problem is if you keep doing that one party keeps going for the right the other ones keep chasing you a little bit further to the right yes you do kind of get to what you're saying oh oh they're more like a republican party they're really not but you can see what they're saying though there's well they're what you're saying is they're shifting you're saying that because they're shifting some of their stuff here a little bit more to the right they're no longer ah a liberal party they're a conservative party right and i've
00:58:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no, they're not like Republican. They're conservatives. Because, like, I'm just, like, waiting for you to finish because, like, so...
00:58:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But what does it mean to be a conservative? It means averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. That's Oxford Dictionary.
00:58:46
James
Yeah, and i don't and I don't think that's what they, huh?
00:58:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Averse to change or innovation. That is...
00:58:53
James
Yeah, and that's definitely not the Democrats.
00:58:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Averse to change or innovation.
00:58:55
James
That's definitely not the Democratic Party, you know?
00:58:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That is absolutely the Democratic Party. Did they raise the minimum wage?
00:58:59
James
Come on, dude.
00:59:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Did they did they start taxing the rich?
00:59:02
James
Here's the thing. Remember, they have put forth a lot of these things here and they still couldn't overcome the filibuster. And then they were talking about blowing up the filibuster. And if Kamala was in, if she had become president and the Democrats had the majority, I think they would have actually this time around pulled.
00:59:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
why didn't they Why didn't they blow up the filibuster when Obama won?
00:59:19
James
Well, because Manchin other people in there in the Senate wouldn't go for it and they wouldn't allow it. And you still need to have the majority to do it. And they didn't have, they didn't have Lyndon Baines Johnson's Senate. They they had 51, 52, 53 Senate at the most.
00:59:35
James
They never had a huge majority.
00:59:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, no, no, no, no. You don't need that to get rid of the filibuster. the the of the
00:59:38
James
Yes, you do. and In the Senate, you do need to have,
00:59:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
The party that comes in gets to set the rules for the Congress.
00:59:45
James
Yes, and when you have two or three of the senators on your party, like Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and there was one other one who said, absolutely not, we are not getting rid of the filibuster, and every Republican is saying they're not getting rid of it, how do you pass it?
00:59:57
James
You don't. You don't have the majority anymore.
01:00:00
James
A few people make a big difference. The makeup of the Senate makes a huge difference. You would need to have...
01:00:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, man, but I don't, I just don't agree.
01:00:08
James
just saying. I know you don't agree.
01:00:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're not, they're not accomplishing hope and change.
01:00:10
James
I know, but...
01:00:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're accomplishing business.
01:00:12
James
That's not the same thing as not wanting to, though. That's not the same thing as not wanting to.
01:00:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Yeah, it is.
01:00:17
James
It's that.
01:00:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It is because I don't, I don't care about what your intent.
01:00:18
James
It's that.
01:00:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I care about what your outcome is.
01:00:23
James
Yeah, well, that's like saying that that's like saying that you're...
01:00:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What do you accomplish?
01:00:27
James
ah I'm trying to give a good analogy here. Chicago Bears take away some of your personal feelings about the Chicago Bears, okay?
01:00:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't care about sports enough to have any personal feelings.
01:00:35
James
The players themselves want to win. The players want to win. They want to go and win. Damn it. But they don't.
01:00:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Sure.
01:00:44
James
like um mean They have a 4-12 season. Does that mean that they had no intention of winning? No.
01:00:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but it means that what they did, it means that what they did wasn't good enough for them to win.
01:00:54
James
Didn't work. Correct. There you go. That's fine. I'll give you that. But the Democrats want to do. They didn't do enough to get what they want. They they couldn't overcome everything they wanted to do.
01:01:05
James
It doesn't mean that they're a conservative party and they don't want to do it.
01:01:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
okay but do But dude, like when was the last time that a Democrat okay did enacted some form of radical change and what was it?
Economic Policies and National Security
01:01:19
James
Joe Biden, um and there's a number of things that people still haven't felt yet. And Obama with Joe Biden trying to get rid of everybody's student debt.
01:01:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Radical. Which thing? Pick your pick your pick the most the most the one you argue for the most
01:01:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But he wasn't trying to get rid of everybody's student debt.
01:01:39
James
It was. It just kept getting shot down over and over and over again.
01:01:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
no, no, but that's the thing.
01:01:42
James
They kept having to retweak it and retool it and trying to get it and retweak it again.
01:01:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, he was he was going to get rid of $10,000 of student debt for everyone who who had a loan guaranteed by the federal government. $10,000. And he was going to give $20,000 if you had a Pell Grant.
01:02:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was $10,000 or $20,000. And most people have ah who have student loan debt have over 60k so no he was not trying to get rid of all student loan debt he was trying to win some votes by getting some student loan debt it was no it's 1.4 trillion dollars of student loan debt but he was trying to take ten thousand dollars off of everybody's it was like 15 for for some people and much less for many other people
01:02:15
James
It was a lot. Yeah, 1.6. and one point like
01:02:29
James
and and But there's a lot of things they're trying to do. mean, see here, the CHIPS Act was fucking huge. It will be transformative. Well, actually, there's a funny thing, too. I can't believe the Trump administration administration was going But the CHIPS and Science Act, right?
01:02:42
James
Incredibly transformative. It is fucking bonkers to me that Trump would want to get rid of it, right? Right.
01:02:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
not bonkers to me because his entire his entire thesis was that Biden was the worst president ever and everything that he did was to like harm the country and he was actually a traitor.
01:03:00
James
ah
01:03:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So why would you be for anything that he did?
01:03:02
James
Jesus.
01:03:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Why would you admit that he did anything right?
01:03:04
James
Oh my God. But I mean, the thing is, it's is's about in semiconductor production chips in the U S so we're not relying on it what happened one second. We got to pause. We're going to pause. What's up? weapon so Either way.
01:03:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, okay, we're back.
01:03:17
James
Long story short, we're back, you know, sorry, child emergency. But I mean, I mean, here it's, it's to make America produce semiconductor chips, you know, that we technically we wouldn't have to protect Taiwan if we didn't really want to, you know, boost all the domestic research, jobs, chips, you know, defense.
01:03:37
James
I mean, it's, it's truly, truly America first. Yeah. You know, why are we buying 90 something percent of our chips when we can make them all here, you know, and it would be transformative for decades and decades to come, you know, in so many ways, you know, there's that one.
01:03:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:03:56
James
There's, mean, there's a lot of transforming.
01:03:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i don't think that I don't think that that's radical. I don't think that an across-the-board infrastructure in like ah crucial national security, ah you know economically booming industry, you know like investing in American business,
01:04:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
that's not That's not radical or transformative. like Obama bailed out the banks with like billions of dollars.
01:04:18
James
What
01:04:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know like Then ah Bush took us to war in Iraq and gave Halliburton and injected. We're constantly giving money to big businesses in America, picking a different industry.
01:04:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like o that's not That's not radical or transformative.
01:04:32
James
about cars? What about cars, right? Under if Trump wouldn't be rolling everything back? They finalized the rule that said by 2032, which is not that far, seven years seven yeah seven years from now, right?
01:04:46
James
It would have had in place where like, you know, 60% of the cars had to be electric, you know, to get the climate change stuff done. I mean, to stop all the, you know, the pollution like that.
01:04:56
James
That would have been transformative, you know? things
01:04:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No.
01:04:59
James
things Things can be very transformative and hugely consequential, but it doesn't mean they happen overnight. Seven years is not that long.
01:05:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's what I'm saying. Those things are not radical. here's this hi here's like a version Here's the opposite version of this argument that I had. okay All through the last year of the Biden presidency, I'm talking to my wife, who again is Ukrainian.
01:05:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And she's saying, you know, Biden is basically giving us enough to say that he gave us something. And I'm saying like, no, Biden wants to give you, you know, all the things you need, but the Republicans are just not letting him. And he, and she's like, no, we needed like, like we're getting stuff like,
01:05:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and now at this like super slow pace but like what we needed was attack them on the first day and we knew what we needed was helicopters at the beginning and like what we needed was like all of the things that we needed to win ah when we when we could use them to win like we needed planes and pilots and helicopters and air defense and like etc etc we needed the stuff on the day like getting it two and a half years later slowly hopes and prayers is not it and like this is the thing is like
01:05:46
James
oh Oh, yeah.
01:05:52
James
Oh, yeah. They they eventually get year later.
01:06:00
James
Yeah.
01:06:04
James
Yeah.
01:06:07
James
Mm-hmm.
01:06:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like I lost the argument, right?
01:06:15
James
Well, here.
01:06:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Because because i was like well it wass like, well, presidents are limited in what they can do, blah, blah, blah.
01:06:16
James
It's a thing. Well. Yeah.
01:06:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then Trump comes in and what does he do? He just, he bulldozes everything. He runs over everything. He just, He's changing the, the voter, the way that voting works with executive order.
01:06:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He's eliminating departments of the government. He's putting WWE w e superstar women in charge of shit.
01:06:34
James
well
01:06:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
He's got bloggers running the FBI. He is burning shit the fuck down, man.
01:06:42
James
yeah
01:06:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, so to sit here and tell me that like the best Joe Biden could do is like, is like make a brittle investment in American business. Again, another like trickle down economics of 15 year play.
01:06:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like,
01:06:57
James
Well, here's another thing.
01:06:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Are you fucking kidding me?
01:06:58
James
Well, here's another thing.
01:06:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like that's not transformative at all.
01:07:00
James
There's another flip side.
01:07:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And that's not the most that he could have done.
01:07:01
James
Hold on. Hold on, though. You're giving Trump a lot more credit. Yes, he is coming in. And yes, he is trying to do all these things. And he's putting on the illusion that he's all powerful and I can just will it. And it's done.
01:07:16
James
Right. And it starts to get done. They go in there and these doge kids and they're fucking, you know, you know, fucking goons go in there, right? And they go in there with their guns and they try and shut people out and they lock them out of their building anything else. you know what happens?
01:07:28
James
It goes to court and they all say, yeah, you fucking can't do that. Put all those fucking signs back up. All those people for USAID, all the people for this department, all the people say, they all have to come back. You have to bring them all back.
Presidential Powers: Trump vs Biden
01:07:38
James
What?
01:07:38
James
What? Yeah. Fuck you. You have to bring them back. That was illegal.
01:07:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:07:42
James
Okay, then all the things with like the Ukraine. Oh, we're doing this. We're going pause it. Well, it was already appropriated by Congress. He had to give the money. He could pause it for a minute and then they undid the pause a week later.
01:07:53
James
That money, they had to get delivered, right? All these big things that you're talking about, how he's just coming in with the bulldozer and changing everything. He is trying to. And so far, he keeps getting shut down by the courts because it's not legal.
01:08:08
James
Biden just didn't try to break the law.
01:08:12
James
Biden didn't try to break the law. Trump doesn't give a shit about the law. It's easy if you don't give a shit about the law or the constitution or, you know, the rules of how you govern, you know, just come in there. I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want.
01:08:24
James
And it looks like, oh my God, he's doing whatever the fuck he wants. And then you look at the news and a little bit later, it's like, oh my God, yes, he's trying to do whatever the fuck he wants. And then the courts say, yeah, you can't do whatever the fuck you want, dude. Yeah, I know you appointed me, but fuck you. You can't do that.
01:08:37
James
Hire them all back.
01:08:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, so like okay so like
01:08:39
James
So I mean,
01:08:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So if they're hiring them back, right? So this is the probationary employees. This is like, this is several thousand people, but here's, but here's what's happening with those people.
01:08:44
James
That was that one. There's also the people deporting everybody. the the
01:08:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Here's what's happening with those people. Okay.
01:08:53
James
i know.
01:08:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They're, they're still on and they have been the entire time on administrative leave. So they're getting paid to not work. Okay.
01:09:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like, and here's the thing, like there is,
01:09:06
James
That's the government's choice.
01:09:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it is an effective thing to get rid of an agency by paying people not to work.
01:09:18
James
I know.
01:09:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Right? Because, like, some people are, like, some people are getting fired and they're like, well, okay, I'm just, I want to keep working.
01:09:20
James
but
01:09:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I need to pay my rent. I'm living paycheck to paycheck because I'm, you know, not, you know, whatever, not economically responsible or well off enough to not. So, they're they they moved on.
01:09:40
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like you're, you're having people who are going off to do other things. You are effectively getting the thing done. Yeah. Like, you know, the, the initial thing that you did might not stick, but the effect that you're having, okay, is still profound.
01:09:53
James
Yeah.
01:09:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, this is the thing that like, like none of those things are, are radical. Like,
01:10:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't think like yeah the most radical things I can think of is like Obama making the ACA.
01:10:12
James
Obamacare, right? Yeah.
01:10:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Right. And like, or like, I guess like the, the, the most radical thing from, from Biden is like locking the price ah of insulin at like $35 or giving Medicare the ability to negotiate.
01:10:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like those are like, you know, radical adjacent, but like, No one is doing anything as transformative as like saying like we're going to end homelessness and hunger by giving everyone ubi We're going to change.
01:10:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We're going to use the Emergency Powers Act to be like, there's not enough houses for people. So we're going to build half a million houses in the next, you know, 18 months.
01:10:57
James
He did. He did impose the 15% minimum corporate tax.
01:11:01
James
I mean, I know that's not, it doesn't sound like something radical, like ending slavery, ah but when you figure with George W. Bush and Trump, I mean, Exxon Mobil didn't pay a fucking dollar in tax. So imposing 15% minimum corporate taxes to Republicans, fucking radical.
01:11:18
James
What the 15%, you know i mean,
01:11:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, the i saw this i saw this graph the other day that was like the amount, like the the dollar amount of tax paid by immigrants was more than like 20 different companies.
01:11:30
James
yeah
01:11:37
James
Yeah.
01:11:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And it was like big companies, like like combined, not like individually, but combined because, and then like the chart would show like effective, it would show like their earnings in millions
01:11:39
James
Yeah.
01:11:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
their, the amount of taxes that they ended up having to pay and like what their effective tax rate was. and like, nobody had a 5% effective tax rate. Like all these companies were less.
01:12:02
James
Well,
Corporate Taxation and Government Subsidies
01:12:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Some of them were like, some of them were like in the negative, like they were getting like a massive refund.
01:12:03
James
you remember...
01:12:05
James
If you remember... yeah If you remember BP, remember BP, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill when George W. Bush was there, in there it but the pipe burst, or or the thing caught on fire, then the pipe was down there and it was just pumping oil into the Gulf of Mexico for fucking however long was, weeks. You remember that?
01:12:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:12:23
James
Yeah. Do you know what they do what knew what they paid in tax that year?
01:12:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Nothing.
01:12:28
James
Not only did they not pay anything, they got reimbursed by the federal government.
01:12:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, they had a catastrophe.
01:12:35
James
Yeah. Exactly. and they got their right off the oil spill cleanup stuff as deducting from their taxable income. And with everything else they ended up doing, they ended up getting money back from the federal government.
01:12:46
James
They paid less than nothing. They got money from the federal government.
01:12:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
look, we have socialism in this country.
01:12:49
James
ah you Exactly. I know.
01:12:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's just only for businesses.
01:12:51
James
Exactly. That's Elon Musk, man. He's the fucking number one welfare queen.
01:12:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't like the like, I say it sarcastically, but you say it like meaning it.
01:13:03
James
Well, he is. Elon Musk is ah welfare queen. He is. the du mean the The stereotypical thing that Reagan uses is, oh, these welfare queens, blah, blah, blah. right It always be some black person, whatever you know.
01:13:15
James
It wasn't a black person, but it's an African. An African-American. Elon Musk is a fucking welfare queen, man. He sucks the tit of America and just guzzles down, baby. you know He gets all that tax money. It's only thing that, you know, it's what makes him.
01:13:31
James
If it wasn't for that our tax money, he'd be nothing.
01:13:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah You know, I think that like, you when you talk about him getting tax money, it's him creating a business
01:13:42
James
It's subsidies. It's subsidies. Government subsidies for him, for his companies. he never He would have never had any of this. He wouldn't be where he is without the government bailing him out and giving him tons of money.
01:13:57
James
his company SpaceX would be nothing without the U.S. Without the U.S. subsidies, there is no SpaceX.
01:14:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, but our space program would be way behind if it were not for SpaceX. And electric cars would be nowhere near what it is.
01:14:10
James
no it wouldn't if they wouldn't have scrapped it if republicans wouldn't have no our space program was just fine as the envy of the globe until republicans said you know what why are we spending money on space we can give our rich buddies a whole bunch of money and let them do it in a corporate private way yay and it costs way more money how do
01:14:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It costs dramatically less.
01:14:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but
01:14:36
James
how you figure
01:14:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Prior to SpaceX, the cost of a launch, taking ah taking something up to space, was $250 million. Because they didn't have reusable rockets.
01:14:45
James
they didn't have reusable rockets. That doesn't mean anything.
01:14:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
SpaceX invented, SpaceX made reusable rockets.
01:14:50
James
Yeah. Okay,
01:14:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They brought the cost down to $16 to $25 million launch.
01:14:54
James
you don't think the U.S.
01:14:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's a 90% cost reduction.
01:14:56
James
government... You don't think the U.S. government would have done that with another 20 years of research and development? Come on, man.
Privatization of Space Exploration
01:15:04
James
They would have gotten there, too.
01:15:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, another 20 years another twenty years of research development, we still wouldn't have it.
01:15:09
James
We got rid of...
01:15:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like what
01:15:10
James
When did they get rid of... When they stop the space program here? The U.S. space program... ah a ah private when did they do it it was a long time before SpaceX because we were sending people up in Russian rockets for like 10 years hell like yeah and it probably would have been cheaper
01:15:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, if the... If your question is, could the could NASA have done it had it been funded and incentivized properly?
01:15:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yes. Yes.
01:15:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know If we had done that instead of, I don't know, invading Afghanistan and Iraq and spending a billion dollars a day every single day for 20 years, yeah, we could have afforded a lot of shit.
01:15:46
James
Yeah.
01:15:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I feel like like us going into iraq Afghanistan, and Afghanistan, was like that was like the American version of like making ourselves go bankrupt the way that Russia did trying to win the space race.
01:16:07
James
Well, they didn't go bankrupt trying to win the space race. They went bankrupt trying to win the arms race. Yeah. yeah they They never, they were never, I mean, they they they won the first,
Democratic Strategy and Bernie Sanders
01:16:20
James
the first shot in the space race. And after that, it was all America.
01:16:23
James
They, you know.
01:16:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, they had the first satellite and the first the first rocket and the first animal, the first person.
01:16:30
James
Yeah. They got there first. And then, yeah. We went to the moon and never looked back, you know.
01:16:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:38
James
oh But yeah.
01:16:41
James
You know, SpaceX, man, i mean, shit, they got $3.7 billion of subsidies by 2024. SpaceX's, you know, tax dollar tax dollars might go and right to Elon, $3.7 billion, you know?
01:16:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. but I still see what the Democrats are doing as so much more conservative because like the Democrats aren't trying to The Democrats are aren't taking government and saying it has to fundamentally change. They're not looking at like the social landscape and saying it needs to be radically different.
01:17:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
they're not pushing for They're not pushing for change. like even Even you, right when we were talking about Bernie and Hillary, okay I was like, Bernie's going to come in, going to this radical stuff. He's going to make health care free for everyone. He's going to make education free for everyone. like These are going to be like massively...
01:17:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
transformatively you know valuable things we're going to change the way we tax people we're going to change the way inheritance works we're going to change the blank checks go into the military like those are the things that are that are transformative we're to rebuild the middle class that's transformative that's that's radical okay and like the democrats oppose that Because like this goes back to the like oligarchs versus corporatists because the Democrats are funded by corporations.
01:17:57
James
I don't think that's what it is.
01:18:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's how you get like Obama coming in on like a wave of support of like a grassroots organizer and like...
01:18:06
James
Wall Street. Wall Street money. No, was Wall Street money. it was dark money. Hillary actually had more of the grassroots money than against Obama. He had the Wall Street dark money before it wasn't reported.
01:18:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but I mean, i mean he was like he was a he was a grassroots organizer.
01:18:19
James
ma Sure, okay.
01:18:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, but then he comes in and what does he do? he With with the the entire government stacked in his favor.
01:18:27
James
He was responding through the Overton window and he was trying to govern more from the center and try to bring everybody along and make...
01:18:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Right, but like this is the thing.
01:18:35
James
Yeah.
01:18:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like Why why do we keep trying to bring them along?
01:18:35
James
yeah
01:18:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They have shown that like they will...
01:18:38
James
I know.
01:18:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like they will
01:18:39
James
They got better. He got better. He learned. See, that's where he fucked up. If we don't have Hillary, a lot more shit would have happened right off the bat because she knew by that point in her career, in her life, she knew there were battle lines and it's just do it, get it done.
01:18:54
James
There ain't no... She knew what you're saying. you know it's like yeah You can't just play along and get along and try to good bring them along with it. She knew it's a fucking knife fight. And she was ready for That's why she was making fun of him on the campaign trail in the primary. like He says it's going to be hope and change and the clouds are going to open and the sun will come down and everything's going to be... yeah it's like yeah no She knew the reality of the situation. She...
01:19:16
James
shit, the Clintons in the ninety s Newt Gingrich and Republicans in the 90s, she knew what it's like. She knew it's, you get in there, you have to get your shit done, they are going to fuck you over every single chance they get.
01:19:26
James
And Obama was naive and young and green. In his second in his second term, he got way better. Because he realized, wow, yeah, they're never going to fucking let anything go through, even if it's good for the country. You know?
01:19:38
James
So... But again, man Democrats want hope and change. they want people They want idealist people that everybody falls in love with. Then they get in there and they see the reality. Even you with Bernie. Here, Bernie.
01:19:50
James
It's an idealist. You fell in love with Bernie. Yes, this is the message. Yes, yes. And he's like, yeah, we can do this. We have millions of people marching out the streets. Meet millions and millions and millions of people. right yeah it sounds good. People fall in love with that message.
01:20:03
James
If he would have got elected, what would have fucking happened? he would have had a Republican house or Senate or something like that in there. He would have had you know, no majority had Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema still, here which effectively gave them a 50, 50 Senate.
01:20:15
James
And when he wants to do all these things, it wouldn't have happened. And then you would, instead of ID, like ideal idealizing Bernie Sanders, you would be saying, fuck him, man. Even Bernie Sanders said all that shit. And look, nothing's getting done because that's not the way shit gets done.
01:20:32
James
You know, yeah,
01:20:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, i I disagree because I feel like a lot of the reason that like the down-ballot turnout was the way that it was in 2016 was because of the way that people wanted Bernie, and then they snaked in Hillary.
01:20:46
James
If they wanted Bernie, then they could have fucking voted for him in the primaries, man. The majority voted for Hillary. God, I'm tired of this fucking Bernie thing. He got the minority of the votes. He ran into the Democratic Party, and he lost to Democratic voters in the states. And he didn't get, even without superdelegates, he didn't even have a majority of the delegates.
01:21:04
James
The majority supported
2016 Primary Analysis and Democratic Implications
01:21:05
James
Hillary. He's a Democrat. God! he he should He could have ran as a third party and really fucked everybody like no and like Nader. He would have had a bigger share of the vote than Nader, for sure. Would have had the same result.
01:21:19
James
Would have split people on the left. But, I mean, shit. Fuck. He lost. Oh, God, I'm so tired of 2016. That was so long ago. But it still makes me mad when people still keep bringing it up, though.
01:21:33
James
He lost the primary. Without superdelegates. Yeah?
01:21:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, It was 696.92 to 700.47. 49.59% 49.84%. point nine two to seven hundred point forty seven
01:21:47
James
know
01:21:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
forty nine point five nine percent to forty nine point eight four percent
01:21:55
James
If you look at the popular vote, he had she had 16,917,853 voters to his 13 million. She beat him by 3.7 million more people voted for Hillary than Bernie without superdelegates.
01:22:08
James
That's just 3.7 million more voters.
01:22:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
because most people don't vote in primaries.
01:22:13
James
No, and the people who do are Democrats, and ran as a Democrat. That's what you get, man. You run in a Democratic primary, you're running for a Democrat. 4 million more Democrats voted for Hillary over Bernie. That's why she was the nominee, plain and simple.
01:22:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
do you know Do you know why more people voted for Hillary than Bernie? Because the Democrats are conservative.
01:22:30
James
And look at the map. And look at the map at the states that Hillary won and look at the map of the states that Bernie won. Right?
01:22:37
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Where's the map? Show me the map.
01:22:38
James
Here, I'm gonna put a little screenshot here.
01:22:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i don't I don't have a map.
01:22:40
James
um I'm putting it here in our O Brother News thing here. Just...
01:22:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Wait,
01:22:46
James
Wait, I took a picture of the map of the world. Hold on, let me see if this pastes.
01:22:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
where'd you put it?
01:22:50
James
Here we go.
01:22:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If you paste, put it Wait, where?
01:22:51
James
yeah we go Here's the second one. The second one.
01:22:53
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Where?
01:22:55
James
O Brother News Discord.
01:22:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i swear, you put stuff everywhere but the notion for the episode and I have to pull it all up We should all Uh-huh, I'm looking at it
01:22:59
James
I don't even have Notion open. if you go to Oh Brother News in here, now look at these states. California went to Hillary. Nevada went to Hillary. Arizona went to Hillary. right Illinois went to Hillary. New York, Pennsylvania, most of the North, all of the Eastern states that would vote for a Democrat in the thing went to Hillary.
01:23:17
James
You had Ohio, Kentucky, blah, blah, blah. All the yellow states went to Hillary. Look at the green states, the states that Bernie won. You think Bernie would have taken Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas in the general election? Probably not.
01:23:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Wisconsin, Michigan.
01:23:35
James
Maybe, maybe, maybe those two, yes.
01:23:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yes, I think he would have. ah think I think he would have.
01:23:38
James
Maybe those two. But look at the other ones. I mean, either way, it's like, yeah, the eastern seaboard, California, all the all except for two of those states, Michigan and Wisconsin.
01:23:50
James
And I guess cal it's ah Oregon, right? Oregon and Washington state. Those are the only blue states, really. Vermont, you know, even Maine's a red. It's like split 50 50. I mean, most of the Democratic states and most of the Democratic voters voted for Hillary.
01:24:08
James
Take out that sea of red states in the middle of the country there. And it doesn't look too good for Bernie there. That's why Hillary got the nomination. Four million more votes.
01:24:21
James
Anyway.
01:24:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't have the facts to back up my argument, but I am confident that if Bernie had won 2016, been the candidate that Trump would not have won.
01:24:24
James
This.
01:24:28
James
This. Hmm.
01:24:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Everything would be different.
01:24:33
James
Hmm.
01:24:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That the down ballot would have been different. Like,
01:24:38
James
yeah yeah oh either way it doesn't really matter i mean shit man i blame george w bush for all of our problems right now anyway if gore had won the supreme if the supreme court if john robertson then wouldn't have given the country to george w bush after he lost in 2000 the country be a lot different
01:24:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What a wild bit of savory that was.
01:25:01
James
I know. Just think about how much different the world would be. Iraq, i you know, the Iraq and Afghanistan stuff wouldn't have happened. 9-11 probably wouldn't have happened. You know what mean?
01:25:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Probably would have happened differently. Osama.
01:25:13
James
i don't know, man. I mean, they were asleep at the fucking wheel, man. They were told that Obama was going to go... Oh, sorry, not Obama. Jesus. They were told that the Republicans would love that someday.
01:25:24
James
They were told that, you know, at ah Bin Laden...
01:25:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
osama
01:25:28
James
Yeah, Osama, not Obama. Yeah.
01:25:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Osama, not Obama.
01:25:31
James
They were told that Osama was going to come here and how they're going to do with the planes. I mean, say what you want about the Democrats, man. They're fucking policy wonks. They're nerds. They're bookworms. They pay attention to these things. You know, they would have been on that shit. They would have been looking for things.
01:25:43
James
Something may have happened. It probably wouldn't have been exactly like it was 9-11. If it had been Hillary, she would have shot that fucking plane down. They would have at least a second one wouldn't have hit. You know what Granted, people who hated it, but, you know, she wouldn't sat there reading My Pet Goat for five minutes shell-shocked, staring at a book, not knowing what in the fuck to even do.
01:26:03
James
And she would have got some shit done. You know, Democrats are usually smarter than this.
01:26:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
oh god I can't really remember. I was so young. I don't even think I know all the details. He was remembering he like he was like at a children's like a school or something.
01:26:13
James
He was at school and he was reading My Pet Goat.
01:26:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and He was reading a book.
01:26:15
James
The kids were reading My Pet Goat and he was sitting there reading My Pet Goat. I don't remember if the book was actually upside down or if that's just a funny memory in my head, but he's sitting there with My Pet Goat and they came and whispered to him that um the United States is under attack.
01:26:27
James
Mr. President, the United States is under attack. That's what they
9/11 Political Consequences
01:26:30
James
came and told him. That's what they whispered in his ear. You know, the United States is under attack. And then his eyes just got all buggy and he just froze and held that book.
01:26:39
James
And he just stared straight, not turning pages, staring straight ahead for like five minutes straight. And they came back in there and they're like sir, you know, we have to come, you know, and then he, kind and he stood up and he walked out there with them.
01:26:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Why didn't they just take him? They should have just like, know what I mean?
01:26:55
James
They, I, i didn't I don't know, man, but whatever.
01:26:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, it's probably Chaney calling the shots at that point anyway.
01:26:59
James
He just froze. Then they got there and, You know, whatever. i mean, shit happens. i mean, long story short, though, I mean, but yeah, their i mean their whole, this is way off track.
01:27:11
James
mean, we're such a fucking tangent from the current modern world.
01:27:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
we so
01:27:14
James
I'm just saying, though, man, God, if you wouldn't have had all that stuff, you wouldn't have had Iraq, you wouldn't have those things. Money would have not been wasted over there. We would have still had a budget surplus.
01:27:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Climate stuff would have been so different.
01:27:24
James
God, because they inherited the budget surplus.
01:27:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:27:27
James
Debt and deficit would have been probably still cranking. Man, the would have been so much different.
01:27:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Probably would have raised the minimum wage.
01:27:32
James
Huge tax rates, to the rich wouldn't have... They would have worked... Yeah, I mean, God, the the the the fortunes of Americans and the fortune of America and the...
01:27:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
When was Citizens United?
01:27:41
James
So changed by 2000. Citizens United, that was what? 2004? I don't remember when Citizens United was exactly... to I don't remember, but but you wouldn't have the same judges.
01:27:53
James
You wouldn't have the same judges on the bench. You wouldn't have gotten Citizens United.
01:27:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:27:57
James
know what I mean?
01:27:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yep.
01:27:59
James
oh Oh, man.
01:28:03
James
Oh, when was it? When was the court case? Well, it's 15 years later now, so it's 2009. Yeah, 2008, 2009. But either way, man.
01:28:11
James
ah but either way man We got from a big tangent. Jesus Christ. It's going to be fun editing this episode. and
01:28:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, we're just going to leave the tangent in. It's fine.
01:28:23
James
Okay.
01:28:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it's just us and fan anyway
01:28:25
James
That's true.
01:28:27
James
Either way, man, I just think I'm... Yeah.
01:28:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i think that like the the debate about the soul of the parties is a more interesting conversation than rehashing of the news when when it's just a rehashing of the news i think like
01:28:42
James
Yeah.
01:28:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know, there's a point of differentiation or, you know, it's the, it is the, the things that in our opinions, and I think specifically in the ways that they're different, because we both feel very strongly and, and have like a lot where we're lined up, but also like a lot of places where we're diverging.
01:28:50
James
Yeah.
01:28:57
James
Yeah. Yeah.
01:29:04
James
yeah
01:29:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I think, I think that's a pretty interesting thing as like an angle, like as like take something new and use that to go into something from the past or something that's more of like a larger,
01:29:13
James
yeah
01:29:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
philosophical discussion i think those are more interesting things that we're going to be able to do better than trying to yeah like we're we're not going to like journalist
01:29:27
James
Just talk about the news.
01:29:30
James
I can talk about the same story that everybody else is talking about with less information and less, ah you know, without without my ah public speaking degrees and my, you know, communications degrees and my years in the media.
01:29:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
that
01:29:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and no camera crew yeah exactly exactly
01:29:41
James
Yeah. Yeah, I have a good camera. I got this big light overhead that makes me look at halo above me, which is why we're just talking. Okay.
01:29:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
By the way, I am i am ah did do some research on switching us over to Riverside um and it's not gonna be too hard
01:29:56
James
Okay.
01:29:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
to
Ukraine War and Leadership Reflections
01:30:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
to, whatchamacallit, it's not gonna be too hard to transfer the hosting. um So like the whole switch won't be, like it won't be very hard at all actually.
01:30:13
James
Yeah.
01:30:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So um we can do it, we might just, we might switch to Riverside
01:30:15
James
Yeah.
01:30:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like just audio at first, just to like, I'll do the switch cause it's pretty simple.
01:30:24
James
you know
01:30:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then we can still, I still think there's going to be more fine tuning in the video stuff. We're just like how much you want to show versus talk through. But yeah, I feel like there was something else that I really wanted to talk about this week.
01:30:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What else? What else?
01:30:46
James
so
01:30:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, one of the things I, what,
01:30:47
James
Oh my god. I think we should talk about it. I don't know if we're going to talk about or not. But i think I just think needs to be said at the risk of
01:30:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
hu
01:30:57
James
ah a slander lawsuit Steve Whitcoff is Vladimir Putin's fleshlight.
01:31:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i don't think I don't think we're high profile enough to sue at this point.
01:31:11
James
He he is He is absolutely his, his, his cum sock. That's what Steve Whitcoff is.
01:31:23
James
And, in no, actually, know, it made me think of Steve Whitcoff. I was following the Wikipedia thing after one little link, you know, where i was reading about the democratic thing and I clicked on something else.
01:31:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Thank
01:31:30
James
I was over 10 window window was still up, you know, And I clicked on another little link just from there. says argument to moderation. Argument to moderation, also known as the false compromise. Argument from the middle ground, fallacy of gray.
01:31:45
James
It's the fallacy that the truth is always in the middle of two opposites. It does not necessarily suggest that an argument for the middle solution or for compromise is always fallacious, but rather applies primarily in cases where such a position is ill-informed, unfeasible, or impossible, or where an argument is incorrectly made that a position is correct simply because it is in the middle.
01:32:05
James
Right? That just made me think of Steve Witkoff, who's not even going in the middle of Vladimir Putin's absolutely retarded, stupid...
01:32:17
James
Ukraine is not even really a country. It was, you know, bullshit, bullshit. Crimea was never part of this. We never recognized Ukraine, even though we did all this, you know, that they have, you know, but, but that's Vladimir Putin on one side, and right?
01:32:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, you hear that there there they're saying they won't even agree to a ceasefire unless... Uh-huh.
01:32:34
James
That's, that's their side. And Ukraine's on the side saying, Hey, uh, yeah, we want, we want to have our country. we We want to be alive. We don't want our hospitals and schools being blown up every fucking day.
01:32:45
James
You know, Hey, uh, Yeah, it'd be great not to be invaded and have our people slaughtered and our children stolen and taken God knows where and has no God knows what's happening to them. And, and ah you know, our people being, you know, literally skinned alive and killed and raped and tortured and everything else that's going on. Right.
01:33:03
James
OK, that's their side.
01:33:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Starved.
01:33:06
James
Steve Whitcoff is not even in the middle between those two sides. Steve Whitcoff is saying, all right, I'm going to negotiate this for Trump. We're going to negotiate a peace. Yeah, fuck you, Ukraine. You never even should have been a country.
01:33:20
James
What's wrong with you trying to defend your country? Hey, sir there are some legitimate questions.
01:33:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Standing there next to Russia looking like a democracy. You were asking for a war of aggression.
01:33:27
James
There are some legitimate questions here about whether or not they are they they are even entitled to nationhood. Tucker Carlson, his interview with Tucker Carlson. Everybody should watch it. Khrushchev was a Ukrainian, and that's why he gave them Crimea.
01:33:42
James
Not true. And wow, Can't you even Google? He's just saying bullshit. It's not even true. He was talking about the regions.
01:33:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Thank you.
01:33:51
James
This is, this is insane. It's preposterous, preposterous that they even tried to take over Ukraine. They only wanted those regions in Ukraine that they feel is rightfully theirs.
01:34:02
James
And then he says, you know, like Crimea, Donbass, and Donbass, by the way, is not a region. I mean, it's a region, but it's not a, it's not a, a ah not an oblast, right?
01:34:15
James
You know? and he couldn't name any other ones you know like Crimea and Donbass and up you know the the other regions and Tucker Carlson tried helping him out you know with the names of the other regions this is the guy the point man the guy negotiating he doesn't even know the fucking oblasts you know that Russia is now trying to claim you know forget the fact that they had Kiev surrounded and they were going through all the other places they were trying to take Ukraine you know but Now Steve Wyckoff is just, no, they were never trying to do that.
01:34:48
James
Russia never did that. They're just legitimate questions here. And, you know, they they really want to please. and And Vladimir Putin, I really have great respect for him. He's such a good, he's an honest broker. and He's so trustworthy. And I just love his nutsack, you know?
01:35:01
James
Yeah. And that's the guy. Yeah. Ugh. Gag.
01:35:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
yeah yeah it's it's extremely it's extremely frustrating
01:35:10
James
Ah. So.
01:35:14
James
It's infuriating. It's infuriating. It's so infuriating.
01:35:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know and here's the thing that doesn't make any sense
01:35:19
James
I don't know how, I don't know. oh my God. I don't know how Zelensky, don't know how he cannot go 300 on these people, and just kick them into a pit.
01:35:33
James
I mean, Jesus Christ. I, the man, I don't know how he does it.
01:35:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I know how.
01:35:37
James
I know how, I know why I know how, because he has to,
01:35:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I know how. be I know how because he's Ukrainian.
01:35:41
James
But not just that, but I mean, but no, I mean, Jesus Christ, the self-control and seeing the bigger picture. And
Ukrainian Resistance and Occupation Stories
01:35:53
James
knowing and biting your tongue. God, I could never do what he's doing.
01:35:57
James
I could never bite my tongue and act like, yes, we want peace. no No, we're so grateful, Americans. Yes, we're going to do this. And yeah, well, hey, we'll agree. And just try to play the game, you know.
01:36:09
James
And I mean, God, I don't see how he could do that, man. oh my God. Hats off to Zalinski, man.
01:36:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
because you had Because he has to.
01:36:16
James
I know because he has to, but shit. God.
01:36:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I
01:36:22
James
I couldn't imagine. I could not imagine being in his position.
01:36:23
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it's
01:36:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and know there's a lot of criticisms of Zelensky from Ukrainians.
01:36:27
James
Oh, yeah. the Yeah, Steve Witkoff saying that all these areas that Russia is in control of right now, well, there were already referendums. All those people voted to be part of Russia, which they didn't.
01:36:38
James
There's video of it. People had machine guns to their head with ballots. They still didn't even vote for Russia. They just handed in blank ballots. you know And then they sat there on video counting b blank ballots with with military people there with guns pointed out. like, oh, yep, all these votes.
01:36:54
James
Yep, here's another vote for Russia. There's another vote. We want to join Russia. And they're they're literally showing blank ballots. You can see it. And they're just acting like it's a normal ballot that they're counting. And you can see it with your eyes.
01:37:06
James
And that's what Steve Whitcoff says was a fair election. They just, they voted in a referendum to join Russia. So I don't know what Russia, what Ukraine's bitching about.
01:37:12
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:37:15
James
God. It's sickening. It's so sickening. Sorry. That was my rant.
01:37:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, it's good.
01:37:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
There's a I was listening to On Freedom while I was i was driving.
01:37:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
was driving... are we at? I'm just going to make a footnote. ah I was driving for... ah wait.
01:37:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Gosh. Okay. Okay. I'll remember to edit this out. was driving for Lyft. and i was um I was listening to On Freedom and it was making me cry.
01:37:57
James
Yep.
01:37:59
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
there is ah There's this part at the beginning where he talks about how he he went to a village that had been, ah were they saying?
01:38:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
They were calling it, they were saying that it was liberated. And he was like, well, the Ukrainians say that you know when the Russians leave that it's deoccupied.
01:38:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
not liberated because the absence of tyranny doesn't equate to freedom like you know once you can have train service that's when they switch it they'll say that it's liberated but he was talking about like this thing that had happened like in this town there were 37 people who hid in a basement in
01:38:23
James
yeah
01:38:28
James
Yep.
01:38:44
James
ah
01:38:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and of thirty seven people sixteen of them died and like I don't know, like eight more were, I wish I remember the numbers better, but it was like, like it was over half of them, right.
01:38:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We're like ah bunch people died and a bunch more people were like seriously injured. And like the rest of them, like, you know, starved to death and hung out in a basement for weeks with bodies and like managed to not die, you know?
01:39:08
James
Yeah.
01:39:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, now there's this woman sitting outside a the remnants of her house in a, in a tent because now they have tents.
01:39:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And so like, yeah, it's better that, you know, she has a shelter, but she has like, she has like one chair, you know?
01:39:25
James
Turn off from the basement. Nothing. Yep.
01:39:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, so like, you know, she can't invite someone into her house or like host or like, like, like you don't have your, you don't have the ability to have dignity when you're forced to live in a tent because your home has been destroyed.
01:39:44
James
Yeah.
01:39:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And like, this was like such an affecting story that it was making me cry. But like the, I think like it carries more weight because I know so many other stories, you know, like if you watch the, the couple of like Ukrainian documentaries, like I think one of them's winter on fire.
01:40:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And the other one and I saw was like the revolution of dignity or was it was about that. i remember what the name of it was, but you hear those, you hear the stories of like, this was like something on the news the other day.
01:40:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It was, um it was a general, it was like a former, i was, He's like a Democratic senator, I think, and he's bald and he used to be a ah general.
01:40:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
you know what talking about?
01:40:27
James
Bald?
01:40:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I feel like you.
01:40:28
James
Former general in the Senate?
01:40:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
01:40:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I think so.
01:40:35
James
In the Senate?
01:40:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And a Democrat.
01:40:39
James
Oh, oh, well, he's a Democrat now? No, no, wait.
01:40:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but it What's his name?
01:40:44
James
No, no,
01:40:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What's the name?
01:40:46
James
I have no idea what you're talking about, actually. No, I'm reading...
01:40:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Dang it, okay, i'm gonna have to find um to find the video and like send it to you, because it's maybe um maybe he's a congressman or something and I'm just like wrong about
Narrative Critiques on Russia's Actions
01:40:56
James
general. He couldn't have been in general.
01:40:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it, I thought he was, swear he was pilot maybe?
01:41:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I thought it was general, maybe it's pilot.
01:41:05
James
I have no idea who you're talking about. I mean, other than Mark Kelly. I mean, Mark Kelly was...
01:41:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
that's sort of i think I think that's what I'm thinking of, isn't he bald?
01:41:11
James
He is bald.
01:41:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's what thinking of.
01:41:14
James
Okay. but
01:41:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's him. It's him. What was he? He was a what?
01:41:17
James
He's an astronaut. He's a Navy captain.
01:41:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay, sorry. yeah I'm just getting all these details wrong.
01:41:23
James
Okay.
01:41:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But I was watching Mark Kelly, right? He was talking on one of the MSNBC show.
01:41:26
James
Okay.
01:41:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It wasn't a blog. It was a legacy media thing. okay like it wasn't a it wasn't a blog it was a a legacy media thing and he's like they're they're having a woman like tell her story and the anchor talks about the story and they go to park he's like yeah so like you know you told part of the story but the part of the story that you didn't tell i'm gonna tell because i think people need to hear about it and he goes on to tell like the rest of the story and the rest of the story is that this woman was a nurse in uh an occupied city and the city has been deoccupied but
01:42:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it's like when she tells about the stories of things that happened she talks about how they raped children in front of their parents and then they killed the children then they killed the parents you know like there are so many stories like that of just like of just like you know auschwitz nazi level like like just like just evil you know just like
01:42:16
James
Oh yeah. Yep.
01:42:20
James
Yep.
01:42:25
James
A lot.
01:42:30
James
Torture, yeah. and Just absolute. Evil.
01:42:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
just like The only response like that that feels appropriate is to just savagely delete them. you know and like Everyone who thought of supporting them, you just that's the only thing that feels that feels appropriate and you feel like you would be dirty from having done it because they're so horrible.
01:42:42
James
of
01:42:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
To have whatever the guy's name is, i i wi Pete Wiscoff,
01:43:02
James
P-Whisk out here.
01:43:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
The flesh, you know, Putin's flesh
US vs Russian Economic Alliances
01:43:04
James
Yeah.
01:43:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
sock.
01:43:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah
01:43:05
James
people call from or Steve Witko.
01:43:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, Steve Kumsak.
01:43:08
James
Steve Witko. Steve Kumsak.
01:43:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Steve Kumsak, you know, be like negotiating completely on the side of Russia is it's just despicable.
01:43:13
James
Steve Kumsak. There you go.
01:43:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If you know, the more you know, the more despicable you know that it is.
01:43:23
James
Yeah.
01:43:26
James
Mm-hmm.
01:43:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But ah even completely aside from that, okay, just from like, ah just purely from like ah an America first position, okay, our trading partners over the last 80 years in North America and South America and Europe, okay, if you just take the North American countries and the European countries, right, the North American countries have like, I'm gonna get the number of trillions wrong,
01:43:56
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but I have in my brain 76. The North American countries have like a lot of trillions and the Europeans have 26 trillions in their GDP. all the year All of Europe's GDP, 26 trillion.
01:44:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Russia's GDP is 2 trillion. They're a gas station with nukes. They have nothing, right?
01:44:14
James
ye no
01:44:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like, why would you like, you know, aggressively stop trading with the people who have $26 trillion dollars a year And instead choose to trade with the people who have $2 trillion dollars a year? Okay...
01:44:29
James
that's That's easy.
01:44:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like
01:44:31
James
That's easy.
01:44:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
okay
01:44:33
James
Because one is a dictator. Who does whatever he wants and criminal behavior and can launder you tons of money on illegal crypto money and everything else and just do it because every person in power and in positions of authority in Russia are criminals.
01:44:47
James
And it's a criminal enterprise. It literally is. That is what happened. with russia after the fall of the soviet union criminals scooped up little parts of industry kind of like you know like like the robber barons in the united states and they all became like a criminal network putin runs it and that's why putin gets a cut of everything and it's a criminal enterprise so what does one criminal like likes doing deals with another criminal you know it's kind of like the whole honor among thieves type thing you can't do business with the you know democratically elected people who have oversight and will watch this shit because that does not benefit you.
01:45:21
James
You need to do deals with another criminal. Done.
01:45:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You're completely right. I'm doing the thing where I assume there people negotiating from a genuine... a differing opinion.
01:45:35
James
No, and that's another thing, actually. there's ah There's another good thing because, um, Oh, my shit. I remember I was watching ah another podcast. i can't remember i was watching. And they're talking about, ah like, John Mearsheimer, right? Famous political scientist.
01:45:46
James
When I was in political science classes at, you know, ah you know Indiana University or whatever, like can know they would to always talk about this. And this guy about realism and blah, blah, blah. Realism. you know You know, big power countries, you know.
01:45:58
James
They always... Interned in negotiations, ah was it power um ah power politics, whatever it's called. I can't remember the term right now. But yeah, saying that nations will always always go with what their interest is. And that's always their primary thing. It's their own interest.
01:46:14
James
That is what they always negotiate with,
Russia's Oligarchic Structure
01:46:16
James
whatever's in their own interest, right? Which makes it seem like a transactional type of administration like Trump would make sense. Oh, they must be doing it for your country, right?
01:46:28
James
But you can easily see ah million times over when you, when when countries just don't do that. That is not the way countries do behave. You know, um there are plenty of times when it would not be in our country's direct best interest to say, get involved with, um, you know,
01:46:49
James
um
01:46:51
James
Bosnia right the Serbs right in the 90s right the Serbians were committing genocide down there right they were killing all the Muslim people in there and going to Bosnia and they're doing all this stuff What is what was our nation's interest in it?
01:47:03
James
There was none really other than the fact that it was the right thing to do to stop it There's a genocide going on and we can stop it know what? Fuck it. We need to show the world We still are the ones that people can look at in the 90s, right?
01:47:17
James
Stop a genocide. Boom, and we did it. Yay! There really was nothing in it for us at the time. Tiny little thing. I mean, Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia, war-torn, you know, country. you know mean there was not There was nothing really there at the time other than to do the right thing, you know?
01:47:35
James
And there's plenty of examples of where we try to do the right thing. When... um Assad and and Putin were killing all the people in Syria, right? And, you know, Obama and them like, hey, you know what? We're going to put a no-fly zone. we're gonna and We're going to stop this. We're going to, you know, so stop them, right? And we're going to do strikes and things like that, you know, right?
01:47:56
James
What was the real thing for America at the time? Eh, not really much. I mean, maybe give Russia a black eye or something, you know but there wasn't really anything in it for us, right?
01:48:07
James
Sometimes you do it because it's the right thing to do, you know?
01:48:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Uh-huh.
01:48:10
James
um you know, so, but yeah, like in this in this case, Trump, what you're saying, doing negotiations. Why would they take the side of Russia? It is not because it's in the United States' best interest.
01:48:24
James
It's not. So if you do that, oh What is it? What else could it be if it's not in our nation's best interest? And why are we going to side with the the the group that has explicitly said their mission is to destroy the West and America, United States?
01:48:41
James
You know, it's obviously not because it's best for the country. It's because it's what's best for Trump.
01:48:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Because that's for Trump. And the other thing i was going to say that I was thinking of as you were starting to talk was about how a recession is basically a sale for rich people.
01:48:59
James
What's the sale
Recession Benefits for the Wealthy
01:49:00
James
for rich people?
01:49:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
A recession.
01:49:02
James
Well, yeah.
01:49:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like, you know, in a in a recession, a lot of people stop earning money.
01:49:03
James
True.
01:49:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But people who earn money by having money continue to, you know, their wealth will be less.
01:49:12
James
They buy a lot more.
01:49:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but they hold the same assets. Right. And then everything becomes cheaper because people who are downstream, who don't have like huge amounts of money, can't weather it.
01:49:17
James
Yeah.
01:49:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So a lot of businesses close, a lot of retail spaces go empty and they just buy up real estate and they buy up investments.
01:49:22
James
Yep.
01:49:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, when Tesla stock goes down, somebody comes in and buys a bunch of it because it's on sale. Like a recession is, is a sale for rich people. That's not my idea. That's from, um,
01:49:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
was an Instagram video of someone who used to be like, a they used to be in like wealth management for somebody. And they were like, I was was in the rooms with all these people all the time. And like, they would talk about a recession. Like it's just a sale.
01:49:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like you talk about like, you know, Black Friday, that's how they talk about a recession.
01:50:01
James
yeah
01:50:04
James
oh
01:50:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
All right. So,
01:50:05
James
I don't
01:50:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um couple things I want to do before we as we're wrapping up one is that several episodes ago I went on a rant about what the Democrats need to do and Bernie and AOC heard me and they they were like you know what Gabe we agree and we're going to do it fighting for fighting oligarchy tour and they hit the road and they have been selling out arenas and blowing up
01:50:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah Love to see it and love to be able to remind a fan that I was right.
01:50:46
James
Mm-hmm.
01:50:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And I would love for more of them to do the same thing. That's the energy that we need. um The.
01:50:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
the The other thing is like that, um you know, I'm seeing articles from BBC and The Guardian about how Chuck Schumer should resign. So, you know,
Democratic Leadership and Future Candidates
01:51:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
while I was quite colorful in my dissatisfaction,
01:51:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah it is also a popular opinion that, like, this is not the strategy that we need. um Which brings me back around to your point, ah which is about the 3.5% rule, which is that the thing that that has always, every time it's ever happened,
01:51:31
James
um
01:51:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It has resulted in revolutionary change. If 3.5% of the population of a nation goes into continuous protest until and if they they do it for you know a few weeks, a few months, like they go into continuous protest, they always get change.
01:51:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's happened over and over and over again. I'm going to link a video where somebody talks about it and he talks about a Harvard study that studied a whole bunch of different times that this has happened over the last hundred years it has like a ton of examples of it working out this way i can't remember some book or just like a research paper but it was somebody that was like a woman from harvard who did the research so um to your point like 3.5 percent of the people in the streets and this is like the thing that i was thinking about when i was talking about you know shutting down the government because shutting down the government was the the
01:52:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
was the best play for the Democrats to get 3.5% of the population in continuous protest. So, i mean, I guess we missed our first shot. We have another shot in like five and a half more months.
01:52:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So we'll see what the state of things are is then and what we do. And I hope we do something different than rolling over for nothing. um
01:52:58
James
I started to laugh when when you brought up Chuck Schumer.
01:52:58
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Well, yeah.
01:53:01
James
I was trying to Google, at the same time you bring up Chuck Schumer, I was going to Google his polo numbers, right? And I was just laughing because as I typed in polling Chuck Schumer, what my keyboard typed out was polling Cuck Schumer.
01:53:17
James
started laughing to myself. was like, oh shit, polling Cuck Schumer.
01:53:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
its ah i guess I just drilled it into your brain that is his name now
01:53:20
James
It just typed it in. ah The H just didn't happen. The H didn't happen. It was so hilarious. that It was totally unintentional, you know?
01:53:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it's a silent age
01:53:27
James
But Here's the thing, though. I don't think he's going to go anywhere, really. um You know,
01:53:35
James
surprisingly, you know, here's a nice story from five days ago. It says, Harris dominates in poll on who Democrats want as next president with AOC in third, you know.
01:53:47
James
So, yeah, they were doing a 2028 primary until right now. Kamala Harris tops out. AOC comes in third, you know. She's 36.
01:53:57
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If the 20 in the 2028 primary, it would be Kamala Harris.
01:54:00
James
If it were held today.
01:54:04
James
That's who right now, that's who the polling is of five days ago. That's who the Democrats won. 36% said Kamala. Yeah. said kamala
01:54:10
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What was it like an open poll or did they like give them three choices?
01:54:10
James
ah yeah is It was an open poll. Kamala Harris came in at 36%. Bernie Sanders, let's
01:54:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So,
01:54:22
James
see, it says 36%. Ocasio-Cortez, who was touring with the U.S., you know, trump with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, was in third place with 5%. Sanders, it doesn't say here, it says a Tim Waltz was tied with AOC at 5%. Gavin Newsom is at 5%.
01:54:39
James
um After Harris, the most popular response was 13% with don't know or no opinion. 10% chose Pete Buttigieg. Mark Cuban and Josh Shapiro had 4% each.
01:54:50
James
I mean, so, yeah, it was an open-ended thing.
01:54:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
John Ossoff didn't make the list.
01:54:53
James
Nope.
01:54:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Did no one see his speech?
01:54:57
James
His speech or anything at the hearing the other day?
01:55:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Oh, both, both were awesome, but he gave a, i saw it off to find it.
01:55:02
James
yeah I didn't see a speech, but...
01:55:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'll send it to you. It's, it's good. It's real good.
01:55:09
James
Yeah, but they were saying that account the time is now for Harris to declare she's going run or not, you know, because she has a big, you know, as right now, she's still the one person who everybody in the party, 36%, is like, yep.
01:55:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, You know what I don't want the Democrats to do?
01:55:23
James
I know what you don't want them to do, and I don't know how you can say it politically correct, but yes, you don't want them to put a woman or a black person.
01:55:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't want the Democrats to want to run someone who is not a white man because they have not shown an ability to succeed with that strategy and and when we are in the and when we are in the worst place politically we've ever been
01:55:32
James
I know.
01:55:37
James
well Well, they did in 2008 and 2012.
01:55:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
is not the time for
01:55:48
James
I don't know, man.
01:55:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
for breaking the glass ceiling.
01:55:49
James
know I think? know what, though? Here's the thing. Joe Biden ran for president like four times. And he never got anywhere before, right?
01:56:00
James
When did he win? After Trump fucked up this country big time. And I think... You would have been right in 2020 about Bernie.
01:56:12
James
I think Bernie, I think any person with a pulse with a D next to their name was going to be Trump in 2020. I mean, especially if they were white, but he fucked this country up so bad.
01:56:25
James
Americans just have really short attention spans and memories, right?
01:56:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I mean, honestly, I would love it for it to be AOC. I mean, I would love for it to be ac I'd love it be people to judge.
01:56:32
James
I like her. i don't think she's,
01:56:35
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i would
01:56:36
James
I want to see AOC primary.
01:56:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
At this point, I would be so happy to have a Kamala Harris presidency.
01:56:40
James
I want to see AOC primary Schumer. And I'd be okay. I like i love AOC. you know I really do like her.
01:56:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Because
01:56:47
James
You know what? She's actually a good Democrat.
01:56:49
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i almost don't want her to go like and like run for the president as much as I would love to see her be president. Because i would like to get more years of like, you know, political spotlight out of her.
01:57:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I would like more years of service from her.
01:57:10
James
Oh my god.
01:57:11
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But I mean, you know, like if she's, she's the closest thing to like somebody that Bernie can, can just like pass the torch to. And she's young. And maybe if we like actually give somebody young a chance, it will, you know,
01:57:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
lead to like a bigger change, a sweep of like a bunch more young people getting in at different levels of government, which could be much more impactful. And I guess like, you know, there are a lot of people who voted for Trump and voted for AOC because they have that same like radical change, burn it all down energy.
01:57:44
James
Oh.
01:57:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So, I mean, I just, I just, I just care. The only thing I care most about winning. The second thing that I care about is like when you win, that you
Biden's Presidency and Political Change
01:58:00
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
go hard.
01:58:02
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That you go fucking hard. I don't want somebody who's going to like barely win or sweep and have a massive you know mandate, for peace.
01:58:14
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
don't want another... you know sue for peace
01:58:24
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i don't want another Obama won. At all.
01:58:29
James
I don't either. But no.
01:58:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like there's nothing There's nothing worse you could do to the Democratic Party than like then sell hope and change and deliver business as usual yet again. ah feel like...
01:58:39
James
Yeah. Although, I mean, the funny thing about Biden is after Trump won, after trump after Trump's first term, business as usual was such a welcome hope and change ah because Trump was unusual.
01:58:54
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
it what it it was...
01:58:56
James
Trump was so horrid that simply like in on tyranny. I mean, one of the things defend institutions, right? Do you think like that?
01:59:06
James
You don't mean some of these rules in here, what Biden was doing was a lot of the right things, you know, believe in truth and don't, you know, don't fall to this other stuff here, you know,
01:59:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. right.
01:59:18
James
ah you know, remember the professional ethics doing the thing, all these core rules on here, you know, that, you know, lessons about it, right? Biden was doing that playbook and yes, but institutions, defending institutions doing this like that, not trying, trying to show everybody that, you know what?
01:59:37
James
Government can be good. The pandemic response was great. lowest poverty ever, like, well, in going back 50, 60 years, where the guy right?
01:59:48
James
Doing great things, and for a couple years, like, you know, really brought the country back. You know what I mean? And then, you know, yes, inflation took off a little bit. It did that fucking worldwide, people.
02:00:03
James
God damn it, you know? But, like, Save the country, not by radical change. Did a lot of really good progressive things. And yes, they'd go slower than everybody liked. But...
02:00:15
James
Simply by being sane, doing things the way it's supposed to be you know, returning to normalcy, which after four years of Trump was a huge change. God, I can't believe everybody forgot what the first term and right now what it is under Trump.
02:00:32
James
Every fucking day, you cannot... interact with another human being without hearing the word Trump ten times in a day. It is impossible talking to other humans to not hear Trump at least a couple of times a day.
02:00:47
James
Everybody, every day, all about what Trump's doing now. What is Trump doing now? da da That's not normal. Politics is usually boring. Usually politics is kind of boring to people. I mean, yes, but there's political junkies and people like me who watch and stuff like that, but the average lay person doesn't usually talk politics all day long. And they're not usually horrified by what's going on in politics every single day, you know?
02:01:09
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
uh-huh
02:01:10
James
And that's the way it's supposed to be. So in that way, Biden was selling open change just by being status quo because it was a return to, hey, hey, people, America, hey, America, America, you know, I mean it, I mean it.
02:01:25
James
You know? but Let's not not all talk about you know destroying the world.
02:01:28
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You can, you guys hint guys can just go back and watch TV, alright?
02:01:31
James
on, man.
02:01:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
It's for real.
02:01:32
James
I mean, you're not kidding around, guys.
02:01:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, I'm not kidding around, guys.
02:01:35
James
Let's be boring for a little while. We had enough of that. I'm serious. I'm not fooling around. know
02:01:42
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
but I'm not fooling around, guys.
02:01:42
James
It's true.
02:01:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Like, I got it, okay?
02:01:43
James
ah but But you know what I'm saying? you know i'm saying, though?
02:01:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I'll be i'll take it.
02:01:45
James
That was a huge departure after Trump because it was it got to be that It's got to be so horrible. it's like of things people talk about. Don't tune now Don't tune out. don't Don't normalize this. This isn't normal. It wasn't normal.
02:01:59
James
Shit. You know? Tried to bring it back. You know mean? Instead of being a pendulum, I mean, you know I'm saying?
02:02:04
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah
02:02:06
James
It was a vast departure.
02:02:06
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know what also it was and it was it was really nice to be able to turn my brain off for a while and not like, like oh, how is the sky falling?
02:02:08
James
It was a vast departure from Trump. Very refreshing. Yes. That was a big departure after four years of Trump. Let's not forget what we left and then what we got.
02:02:19
James
You know?
02:02:20
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You know, it was like it was like.
02:02:20
James
I mean, if he had another four years, and if he had another four years, maybe took a couple few more house seats, then maybe they could have gone further the other way, you know?
02:02:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah
02:02:27
James
and done You know, i mean, four years, it is hard to undo all the fuckery in one term. You know? It is.
02:02:34
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, I mean, I liked Biden's presidency.
02:02:35
James
Yeah, but... play
02:02:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I just don't want normal, and I don't think normal sells. like i don't I don't think normal is a great sales pitch.
02:02:43
James
right
02:02:45
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's
02:02:45
James
yeah but There's a reason why and like unstable countries, you know, there's a reason why things should change fairly slowly, not radical changes, administration administration.
02:03:02
James
That leads to instability. That leads to coups. That leads to third world countries
Economic Policies and Societal Stability
02:03:07
James
where every few years somebody else is taking over and then somebody else take over. They always swing wildly one place to the next.
02:03:14
James
Business cannot survive in environments like that. collapse And economies collapse, it becomes horrible places. You've got to move things along slow, bringing the masses with you.
02:03:26
James
You can't just go from Obamacare to no federal government whatsoever. Trump's going to demolish everything and give everything to Tesla.
02:03:37
James
And then go from that to fuck that. no. We're going to kill all the rich people. We're taking their money. Everybody, we have this. And go the other way, super swinging. Because then that's going to lead to another person coming and saying, no, we have this.
02:03:50
James
And they're going to the other way. And it's not stable. It's not tenable. You cannot run a country like that. You can't.
02:04:00
James
Because big changes cause a lot of ripples, a lot of problems, and it takes time to make things work out. Otherwise, people will always be mad and always want something going the other way. And, you know, shit, man.
02:04:13
James
It's like, it's my money and I want it now. People always want that now. People always want everything right now.
02:04:18
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
and i don't I don't agree.
02:04:19
James
Yeah. me
02:04:22
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i don't agree. I feel like it it depends on what the change is.
02:04:28
James
it depends on what the catalyst for the change is.
02:04:29
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
If...
02:04:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
No, but like if the change...
02:04:32
James
If it's an internal thing or an external thing. World War II, wars. Perfect example. Perfect example. Anytime somebody invades a country, that country...
02:04:44
James
They are on board, man. That doesn't own give a shit if your country was a bunch of Quakers and, you know, Puritan or like, you know, whatever, pacifists, okay? You get invaded, and everybody's on board.
02:04:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Mm-hmm.
02:04:57
James
We're all on the same team. Everything's for this war. You, like, ah FDR, stuff, you know what I mean? They bombed Pearl Harbor. Shit, man, this isolationist country, very rapidly, everything for the war movement, right? And everybody was on board with it, right?
02:05:14
James
180, right? External events have to cause it. Just somebody, internal stuff, wanting to change stuff like that and just do things a different way and causing radical change doesn't work.
02:05:26
James
It has to be a unifying event that will bring everybody together. That usually only comes from external factors. 9-11.
02:05:33
James
nine eleven World Trade Center got hit. Bam. George W. Bush was fucking hated by everybody. Michael Moore. And look at his numbers, man. An external event. And all of a sudden, everybody's like, yeah, Patriot Act.
02:05:46
James
Let the government survey list.
02:05:46
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah.
02:05:48
James
Let's get those terrorists. Right? Yeah.
02:05:51
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
yeah
02:05:51
James
80-something percent approval rating for George W. Bush. At the time, the stupidest president who ever sat in the Oval Office. Right? Everybody was all happy. Yeah, go America. We renamed French fries the Freedom Fries, man.
02:06:03
James
It was fucking stupid, right? But it was external event that caused everybody to do it. Just internal domestic politics. We need to do this. You're not going to get everybody on board for such radical changes to things.
02:06:15
James
It's not going to happen. Half the country will love it. Half the country will hate it. It'll swing the other
Political Strategies and Party Unity
02:06:20
James
way. And then anytime you implement
02:06:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like it depends on what the radical change is If the radical change is that everyone has 30% more money.
02:06:27
James
If everybody had 30% more money, then everybody's going to have inflation go up and then prices are going to go up. And that's exactly what happened under Biden.
02:06:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Here's the thing. That's not, first of all, that's not exactly what happened under Biden.
02:06:37
James
It's not exactly, but everybody had more money.
02:06:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Second of all, people say that all the time. Okay.
02:06:42
James
It's true. Okay.
02:06:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
But when they like, when they talked about raising the minimum wage in California, and they're like, Oh, the prices for you raise the minimum wage, the prices for all the fast food is going to go up.
02:06:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. When they actually studied the effects of the, of the change in the prices of fast food, the initially they raised the prices of fast food by 4.5%.
02:07:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
four point five per percent and then they realized that that was more than what they needed to raise the price of food by to account for the additional cost.
02:07:19
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
And then they lowered it. ah in the next quarter, they only raised it by 2.7%, which was less than the average of
02:07:25
James
yeah
02:07:27
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So like my point, my point is this like, like when you, when you raise the minimum wage, you have, you create a lot more stability in jobs because people aren't having all these terrible jobs that they don't care about that they're not making any money at.
02:07:27
James
I'm reading the same.
02:07:35
James
Yeah.
02:07:42
James
Mm-hmm.
02:07:43
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
like when every everyone has enough to like, to be content they're much more likely to work for their contentedness, especially when it is new.
02:07:54
James
Yep.
02:07:55
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay? And especially when it's like, well well, you don't know how long this is going to last. Okay? So if you give the people a massive increase in the minimum wage, I promise you, you will accomplish massive change and you will win the next election cycle.
02:08:04
James
I've been with you.
02:08:15
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
You'll win the midterms. that should be like That should be the number one priority. Because you know what you know what you'd love to be able to say going into the midterms? You'd love to be able to say, yeah, well, we've raised the minimum wage $35 an hour now.
02:08:31
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So economy is doing great.
02:08:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
People are on a spending frenzy.
02:08:39
James
Yeah. Yeah. um It depends on the changes, though. It depends. And here's the thing, though. Yeah, six months later, they said, yeah, wages went up 18%. Price increases only went up 3% to 7%, you know.
02:08:52
James
But it's not only what the real effect is, it's what people's perception is. Look at it Obamacare, ACA, right?
02:09:02
James
The perception, remember at the time? What was it? Death panels. Death panels. death panels, oh my god, a really good thing happened, and no way happened as a result, Democrats lost their asses, because the perception was bad at the time.
02:09:15
James
You know? So, doesn't matter what the reality is, it's what the perception is.
02:09:17
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
That's true. That's good point.
02:09:20
James
Radical change will cause a lot of backlash and negative ads and people lying in some senses and exaggerating what they're really doing and everything else, and it can blow up pretty quickly.
02:09:34
James
Cost of Democrats. You know?
02:09:36
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
So what could go right?
02:09:42
James
What could go right? but your okay
02:09:49
James
okay what could go sorry how was demute um What could go right?
02:09:50
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I know.
02:09:51
James
The administration may shock us all and listen to the the judges who are ruling against them over and over again.
02:10:01
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
All right. That is yeah has an answer.
02:10:04
James
um
02:10:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
um
02:10:06
James
If not, we're fucked. Really fucked.
02:10:08
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
My what could go right. um
02:10:13
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
My what could go right is that Pete Hegseth could get fired over the over signal gate.
02:10:19
James
yeah
02:10:22
James
Oh yeah, maybe then they'll promote Tulsi.
02:10:25
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Tulsi's already a Tulsi that would be a demotion.
02:10:28
James
I don't think so.
02:10:30
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Department of Defense versus Department of National Intelligence.
02:10:30
James
Running Yes. yes
02:10:35
James
Yeah, I think so.
02:10:38
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay.
02:10:38
James
DNI is kind of like, you're privy to all the intelligence from the different agencies, right? And you get to report to the president, you know, hey, whatever, here's what you think, right?
02:10:50
James
Whatever. And the Pentagon, I mean, you fucking, you run the military. You run all the defense contracts. You run the largest, the largest organization in the world.
02:11:03
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah, but the DNI runs all the spies.
02:11:05
James
They don't run the spies. The DNI, the director of national intelligence, does not run everything.
02:11:07
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
She's the director.
02:11:13
James
it's kind of like a It's kind of like that position we had in our company, head of product. That wasn't really head of product. They just kind of you know got all the information from all the product owners and kind of said, hey, head of product. But you don't really run anything.
02:11:26
James
You just kind of process everything from all the different pieces. And you report to the president and everything.
02:11:32
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
i Well, I think they would bring in another, you know, they would be like, it would be like Tucker Carlson would become the Steve Whitcoff would be the new,
02:11:35
James
Russian. Steve Witkoff would probably get it. Probably Steve. Yeah.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
02:11:41
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
ah you know, what's, ah what's the, what's the, you know, you know who it would be.
02:11:41
James
Vladimir Vooten would become the new one. down
02:11:47
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I know exactly who it would be.
02:11:48
James
Sebastian Orca, whatever his name is.
02:11:48
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
What's, ah
02:11:51
James
The other guy.
02:11:52
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
no, no, no, no. It's even better. It would be Elon's, Elon's four-year-old son who was wiping his boogers on Trump. in the Oval Office. That would be the new...
02:12:04
James
No, no.
02:12:05
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Just be Elon's way of teabagging Trump publicly. Okay. ah This has been a week. Probably going to call this one the one with the tangents. I still like it better than...
02:12:15
James
yeah that
02:12:16
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I still like it better than then last week. ah
02:12:21
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Yeah. You know, stay... ah
02:12:26
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
I don't know. Keep your chin up.
02:12:29
James
ah Resist. Bring it back, man. Resist. We need it.
02:12:33
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Okay. Yeah, I like that better. Good night and good luck.
02:12:37
James
good luck
02:12:39
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
Thanks for tuning in. Like, comment, and share, please, fan. Put something in the comments.
02:12:44
James
We
02:12:44
GABRIEL ZIEGLER
We will respond. All right, great.
02:12:47
James
will.