Some More News - Even More News: Rashida Tlaib Didn't Say What CNN Says She Did

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

Hi. Jason Pargin joins Katy and Cody to discuss the smear campaign against Rashida Tlaib and the clownish crimes of Eric Adams. Right now, Whisker is offering $75 off Litter-Robot bundles. AND, as a special offer to viewers, you can get an additional $50 off when you go to https://stopscooping.com/MORENEWS. Beam’s Dream is clinically shown to improve sleep. Click https://shopbeam.com/MORENEWS and use code MORENEWS to shop our exclusive discount and get up to 40% off. Get results you can run your fingers through! For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our viewers $10 off your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to https://nutrafol.com and enter the promo code MORENEWS. Some More News viewers get an exclusive 50% discount on a new SimpliSafe system, plus a free indoor security camera, with Fast Protect™ Monitoring. All you need to do is visit https://simplisafe.com/MORENEWS

Now we're ready to party. Hello and welcome back to Even More News, the first and only news podcast. My name is Katie Stoll. This is Benny. Hi, Benny. And Katie. Thank you for being here and introducing yourself and Benny and me. This is Beni. Say hi, Beni. Hi, Beni. And Katie. Thank you for being here and introducing yourself and Beni and me, who is?

Cody. Thank you. I got a little distracted by these kisses. Normally I put him in his room, but whatever. Until you bark, you're free, my friend. What a treat. What a delight. We have such a great guest with us here this week.

Return guest, former editor at Cracked, and author, new novel, I always got a new novel, this one, is called I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom. That's right, it's Jason Pargin. Is this the first time I've been on this show on the cusp of an election?

Was I ever on here in like fall of 2020? I don't remember having like a discussion about that election, but. You were definitely on, well, when was your last book out? Last year. So yeah, last year probably. Did you have, well, I guess the big question is did you have a book coming out in 2020? You know what? I don't know. I would have to go to Amazon and look at the

publication dates because I assume it's every year. Starting from, it's not, but starting from around March of 2020 time has become meaningless to me. I for I understand. I cannot tell if that first day of the pandemic when they came on and stopped that basketball game. I don't know if it feels like yesterday or 200 years ago. I know it's really depends on the day. But also I feel that way simultaneously. It happened so fast. It could have been yesterday, but it wasn't.

But also it feels like forever ago. I'm a completely different person. Not completely different, but everything feels different. Let me run something by you very quickly because something came up. I was recording Jack's show yesterday and an extremely upsetting fact came up, which is the fact that in 2016, during that election, the Access Hollywood tape when that came out and we all thought, oh, this is over, like Trump will have to drop out. That happened on October 7th of that cycle. Meaning we're not there yet in this cycle is the point I'm making. So like the James Comey letter that actually probably threw the election

to Trump, that was on October 20th. So I guess the point I'm making is all of the most upsetting things that are going to happen in the cycle Probably are coming still on the calendar because it's that final month when all of the Oppo stuff drops when they treat You know anything people been holding on to they hold it for October the October surprise October surprise season Because yeah, they know it's the most effective close. So many people don't even If you don't know you're gonna for, you're not gonna make that decision until like a week before, two days before the day of. But also, everything moves so fast and gets spun

and Trump was, attempted assassination attempt, what? We've moved so far past that in such a short period of time, you gotta back load your surprises closer to the election date. And you also don't think the things that are going to do X or Y are necessarily going to do that. Right. Like the the Access Hollywood tape, it was like, oh, that's that's it. The Comey letter, I don't think even though it was like, that's not good. I don't think it was seen at the time as being like, oh, this is it for her.

This is like she's like it was still pretty confidently. She was going to win even after that. Yeah, I guess the point I'm making is that when that Access Hollywood tape dropped, we all thought we were still living in a world where a scandal could sink Trump. Right. Like that world where we all know now like nothing, nothing. He has this solid level of support, nothing moves it. Like nothing moves it.

And so at that point, it seemed like it was conventional wisdom, this is over. Like these are the things he's saying, no woman is going to vote for him. The polls already don't look great for him. And we kind of, there was jokes, there was memes about how, you know, well, there goes that, that's over, thank God.

And then where from there to here feels like 100 years. I know. Can you believe that he's been a politician for 10 years? Like, what? And just to start, like the difference from those, from that and the things he was saying in 2016 to now, it's, if you weren't there, it's like, how did we even get to this point where you can say, well, we'll talk about some of it maybe, I don't know.

It's so ratcheted up that he could say something 20 times worse than what was on that tape, and it would be nuts. Yeah, absolutely. The next, it might not even be reported on. Sometimes he'll say something in a rally and two weeks later, I'll be like, wait, he said what? It just slips through so easily.

Jason, we've already established that you're on quite a schedule with releasing like a book a year. What is that like? Do you just write every day? I mean, how do you keep focused? How do you get the words out? How does your brain come up with new ideas? Like straight up, that's not in questions, but it's good.

Like, how do you do it? What's going on? Let's put it this way. I don't have a book coming out next year. I'm taking a year off. I'm giving myself two years to write the next book. I'm under contract for by necessity because now like TikTok is I guess my

day job. I have 550,000 followers on there. That's where I now reach almost my entire audience and I make videos to tell them that I also have written a book and I do not doubt there are kids on there who see those videos and think, oh, here's another TikTok influencer trying to cash in by writing, trying to crap out a book to cash in on his TikTok fame. And I'm like, no, because again, the most common comment in any video I make about my books is, I didn't know you wrote books. I thought you were just a geriatric TikTok influencer. Like, believe it or not, I did stuff and had skills prior to the creation of TikTok. I was going to say like, is this the last thing you wanted to do?

Like just like so much like it cracked, just like avoiding being on camera as much as possible. Like it's not what you, you want to write books, right? Yes. It works. For the first decade wrote anonymously and then Jack had to talk me into coming on to the podcast and I had to to talk me into coming onto the podcast and had to explain to me what a podcast was and I think 2010? I was like, but it's for like an iPod?

How do you get it on your iPod? He's like, it's a huge deal. I was like, that's, nobody's going to want it. You can have to like download an MP3 on your iPod. Like my iPod Nano doesn't even have that much memory. What kind of a pervert is listening to like an hour long radio show on their iPod? Why don't you just listen to AM radio like the rest of us? And then I don't know, it was a few books in before we put my author photo on a book jacket because I did not want people knowing

what I looked like. And then reluctantly did a YouTube video because I created a YouTube channel and did like a Q&A and felt very uncomfortable the whole time. Then 2022 was when I just became clear as you guys, like we had a discussion, but this podcast goes up on YouTube and video outlets. That is a necessity. And same thing. It's like book talk. You can go to a bookstore and you see the big shelf of book talk books. This is where the people are talking about books is on TikTok.

So started an account that have now made Jesus Christ, I don't know, over a thousand videos on there. They've been viewed more than half a billion times. And now that's like half my income because I monetize that channel now. So now it's a job like I got to wake up and comb my hair and figure out a video to do, and that's it. So this reaches far more people than anything I've ever written when I was at Cranked or any podcast I've ever done.

All of that stuff put together does not count as much as the number of people I've reached on TikTok. I will be remembered on my tombstone as a TikTok guy who also did into writing books. Such a hilarious arc for you. You've come so far in the last 15 years. Kids are gonna aspire not to become published authors, but they're gonna aspire to become TikTok influencers and they're gonna be like, I better become a published author

so that I can become big on TikTok. Cats are a lot like clowns in that I keep six of them in my basement. Bazing! Now, I'm just a kidder over here. A kitty, a kitty litter. Anyway, cats are terrible. I mean, I love mine, but, you know, they're basically just large spiders. Also, they poop a lot, like human-sized poops, which is why you should check out the Litter Robot by Whisker.

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That's an additional $50 off when you go to StopScooping.com slash more news. Once again, that is StopScooping.com slash more news. Ha geez, starting and stopping, am I right? I love being awake and I love being asleep. It's just that time in between that sucks. There's always a million things keeping me up, like work stress, too much caffeine, the Babadook, and being on my phone.

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I think that we should talk about some news. I can feel the energy of the viewers and listeners. They're just like desks. These perverts watching. Those perverts with us in their pockets just want us to talk about the news. So Jonathan, what are we talking about? What's been going on lately?

What are we talking about? Can you just tell me what's? Can you tell me news? What? Who happens to what? What is news? Webster's defines news as noun, dot, period, colon. That's a weird definition.

Let's talk about it. I was like, you really got the definition of news up fast. Yeah, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced a few weeks ago that the state was going to file criminal charges against nine people who took part in a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Michigan in May. These are people who refused to vacate the encampment in order to do so by police. Representative Rashida Tlaib, who, as a reminder, is the only Palestinian American in Congress, criticized this decision in an interview with the Detroit Metro Times on September 13th. She gave a bunch of quotes basically talking about how there's many different protests

that have happened on college campuses over the years, but that the attorney general is choosing to prosecute these students and there must be some kind of anti-Palestinian bias there and she said the bias was probably due to pressure from the University of Michigan. We should read the, I think, let's read the exact quotes that we're going to be talking about. There are more quotes in the full article, which you can read. And should.

But this is the one that people have keyed in on. We've had the right to dissent, the right to protest. We've done it for climate, the immigrant rights movement for black lives, and even around issues of injustice among water shutoffs. But it seems that the attorney general decided if the issue was Palestine, she was going to treat it differently, and that alone speaks volumes about possible biases within the agency she runs. And then a little later in the interview, she says, I think people at the University of Michigan put pressure on her to do this and she fell for it

You can hear that nowhere in there. Did she mention that? Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is Jewish nor did she suggest that it was because of her Jewishness that she decided to prosecute these students We're a weird freak would have that interpretation maybe like Like some dishonest freak. Disingenuous, purposefully being dishonest. At that context. Well, that's what CNN's Jake Tapper and CNN's Dana Bash said. When my co-anchor Jake Tapper asked about a Democratic congresswoman's accusation that the state's Jewish attorney general was letting her religion influence her job.

But do you think Attorney General Nestle is not doing her job because Congresswoman to leave is suggesting that she shouldn't be prosecuting these individuals that Nestle says broke the law and that she's only doing it because she's Jewish and protesters are not that's quite quite an accusation do you think it's true How did how did he get that from? Such a good question. Well, the reason is because Dana Nestle

Not Dana Nestle Dana Nestle the Michigan AG tweeted starting in response to a horrendously Islamophobic cartoon posted about Rashida to leave she wrote Rashida's religion should not be used in a cartoon to imply that she's a terrorist. It's Islamophobic and wrong. Just as Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as attorney general, it's anti-Semitic and wrong. So Jake Tapper and Dana Bash reported on this as if Dana Nestle's accusation was completely accurate.

Yeah, it's incorrect on its face. I don't know how this continues. Right. It's been a days long scandal for Rashida Tlaib and it's just perfectly simple. She didn't say what they're saying. She didn't say it. And I've seen so many, it's very frustrating because I've seen so many people respond to Jake Tapper specifically on X.com. Don't call it that. And I'm sorry. There's no need.

On the website that the people are on. And I've seen so many people just point out like she didn't say that, here's the quote, she didn't say that. Some are meaner than others, whatever. But there's just radio silence in response to it. And it's, I know that Jake Tapper is online. He's online all the time. He posts on Blue Sky.

He interacts with people. He has seen that. So I just, it's just so frustrating to see something like this happen. And then it's very obviously, whether it's an intentional lie or not, it's just not true and it's not what was said, but they're just going with it.

But is it because of the media's bias toward just conflict? Like that interpretation maximizes, conflict maximizes. Is that all it is? Like he's leaning toward the version of it that's the most, that gets people the angriest? That's an interesting point. But there's, that gets people the angriest part of it. That's an interesting point. But there's, I've seen Tapper do this kind of thing about Palestine a few times and just

sort of like misrepresent some things and not really give full context. So it might just be an Israel-Palestine issue, but that definitely feeds into it. They do want the conflict. Absolutely. And they know that she is a firebrand in Congress. So she's going to get attention. Whatever the reason. I mean, it's hard to know actual reasons why this stuff happens all the time, one version of it or another.

But it's hard to know. I mean, it underscores why people more and more so have a very valid distrust in the media and where they're coming from or why they are choosing to report on things that they do in the way that they do or address it. I don't know what other influences could be behind that from bosses or, from bosses or just them, I don't know. There was a correction though. Well, there was a clarification.

Clarification, sorry. From Dana. Yes, from Dana. From Dana. I just hate saying it like that. I know. The clarification was that Dana Bash read the Rashida Tlaib quote and noted that she didn't specifically reference Nessel's religion,

but that Dana Nessel still says she believes it is anti-Semitic and repeated on CNN yesterday that, quote, clearly she's referencing my religion. Now she can believe that, right? She's allowed to say, I believe that this is a anti And tweet the thing she tweeted, yeah.... anti-Semitic dog whistle. To me it's not. I feel like... And then the reporter who interviewed Rashida Tlaibs was like, this is being taken out of context or this had nothing to do with that. It's not even being taken out of context. It's just being misrepresented a weird way.

And then they said that we've reached out to Rashida Tlaib's office to see if she would like to clarify. And I just don't believe clarification is necessary because she said in that same interview, I think the anti-Palestinian bias is because of pressure from the University of Michigan. Yeah, it's very clear. There's no clarification necessary. As a reporter, it's weird that Dana's like, well, one person says this opinion about this quote, but I'm like, she's a human being who can read. And she gives her opinion other times

about objective facts and interpretations and the like. It's been almost a year of this war and of this frustrating conversation about what is anti-Semitic and what isn't and people accusing people of be of anti-Semitism or, and I do not mean to dismiss the fact that there is, like we've said lots of times, that there is actual anti-Semitism and that there actually are hateful things being said. And I'm sure that that, I'm not Jewish, I'm sure that lots of people feel that, but it doesn't help when you misidentify something as such. And Rashida went out of her way to say, I'm sure that this has to do with pressure from the university. She went out of her way to say that. Well, if you would like to see an example of a real act of anti-Semitism so we can compare and contrast.

OK, that would be helpful, Jonathan. Yeah, because I always have some former presidents making anti-Semitic comments at the ready. This young buck, you're going to tell me he's anti-Semitic comments at the ready. Oh, this young buck. You're going to tell me he's anti-Semitic? So listen to this. This is him speaking at an anti-Semitism event. This is specifically about not being anti-Semitic. Okay.

In my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss if I'm at 40%. Think of it, that means 60% are voting for Kamala, who in particular is a bad Democrat. We need every vote we can get. The current polling has me with Jewish citizens, Jewish people, people that's supposed to love Israel. After having done all of that, having been the best president, the greatest president, by far president by far, by far,

a poll just came out. I'm at 40%. So this was at a, uh, specifically an event about anti-Semitism? Uh, yeah. Is that what you just said? Yes. I mean, uh, it's, it's of course, as a Jewish person, when I hear someone say, and then the Jewish people who are supposed to love Israel, what are you doing? Well, no, you could go back and pause and go listen to the episode we did last year,

because I was on this show just weeks after the initial, the October 7th attack. So that's what I was thinking is that you did. And we had word for word, because it had been long enough since the event that you had had incidents of some Jewish actors coming out and saying and acting like they had been betrayed by people being so anti-Israel. And we talked about how poisoned the conversation was to the point you can't talk about it in a way that it's at least not when you talk about it on Twitter, you talk about it in a place

where you've got an audience. People are waiting to hear, okay, is this a dog whistle or is this person secretly a racist, is this an Islamophobe or whatever? And I try to avoid talking about it entirely because people are just waiting and listening to, because it is absolutely true, the worst hate mongers are very smart about slipping in references to the Jews without ever saying the word Jew. And when they start, whenever you are, if you start to fall down a conspiracy rabbit hole,

and you keep following it, and they start to talk about international bankers, it's like, oh, I know where this is going. How would I know that they all lead right here that even the moon landing, somehow they tie that into, well, you know, certain the certain scientists who worked on rocketry, we know they were, you know, a certain type. Anytime they is used, basically, they are doing anything. And so the end they love, they love this, they love to throw that out there because they know that it spawns this. Where now you're looking for it. And so any

kind of someone who wants to act in bad faith can say, see, this is, this is a dog whistle. It's like, well, okay. Uh, I don't know. They, they want it to be, see, I say they, it's like, well, I know, I know, we're like losing the thing. Who are you talking about? Lots of people profit from this. Elon Musk does not want Twitter to be a place where people learn accurate information. And then once they've learned, they turn it off.

He wants it to be a place where people fight. That's where the money is. Absolutely. And the mainstream media, if you sense a scandal, if you sense a conflict, if you sense, well, technically, yeah, she didn't say the word Jew, but when she says, well, why is it that these protests get shut down and not those?

If you follow that down like six more steps, she could be accusing a Jewish conspiracy of doing it. It's like, well, hey, that'll get people yelling, that will get people tuning in, that will get people quote tweeting this tweet. And I think there doesn't have to be a conspiracy. There's no evil person at the top of CNN or whatever. It's like, yes, so discord to make the money. That's just how you keep your job. This is the stuff that gets people to watch and the stuff that gets people to watch is the stuff that makes people hate each other. You don't see that many very productive conversations about this conflict that I can't

believe is still going on because when we had the discussion we were thinking in terms of like there have been many Israeli incursions into Palestine and actions and stuff and they go and they destroy some stuff and they take out some facilities that they claimed were you know sending rockets over the border whatever and then they go home and it's over after a few weeks we were kind of talking about at least I remember us talking about thinking, you know, well, gosh, how long is this? Is this going to go through Christmas? Like, and it's like, right. Right. And that was even hard to wrap our mind around. I can't get a sense that there's any kind of settlement or ceasefire on the horizon. I can't believe it. No, there isn't. Only escalate.

This is in the news because there's now another front opening up. Yeah, because there's, I mean, there's the element of the pay attention to the conflict and like, let's fire everybody up. But also with this issue specifically, there is this sort of status quo like settled, like, no, this is what we as America and American media believe about this issue. And so there is a sort of like, if you just if you're distracted by this then you're not going to care about what's actually going on you're not going to like address the actual conflict because we have this fun conflict going on domestically. I mean that's probably

a front of mind thing for some people maybe not for for everybody here. Jason you're right this I mean there's no sign of this slowing down and we're going to talk about that next. But I want to just say one thought on this specifically, which is I'm curious if another member of Congress had issued that statement, if we would be having this conversation at all. And so if we're talking about the racism of this statement, I think that you have to also talk about the racism of the interpretation because it's the only Palestinian American member of Congress. Yeah. Oh, 100%.

And she was incredibly reasonable, an incredibly reasonable point. And again, these are students whose lives are just so fundamentally changed. I'm not going to go so far, maybe ruined, but people are young and you can use this to go into their... But like, oof. And that is, of course, not a conversation that anybody is having in any capacity. And I think that is at its core what, I mean, all of it leaves me cold, honestly, but that's part of it. But yeah, speaking of broader escalation,

so Jonathan, can you catch us up to speed on the latest that's happening? Thank you. Well, Israel and Lebanon seem closer to all-out war. Following the pager attacks that we talked about last week, Israel has carried out major bombing operations in Lebanon, killing hundreds of people and displacing nearly 100,000. They've teased a potential ground invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah-

Stay tuned. Yeah. They dropped a trailer for a ground war, great. And Hezbollah fired a missile at Tel Aviv, which Israel shot down, causing only minimal damage. US diplomats say, as they've been saying for a long time, say they are trying to broker a short-term ceasefire to avoid a wider war. I don't believe them. I feel like independent of the election, everyone wants this to slow down and every no one wants this kind of broad conflict in the Middle East except some maybe some Republicans for some biblical reason or something.

But like, I feel like short term, I feel like short term Republicans would love a war, you know, just through November to make it look like Biden Harris administration doesn't know what they're doing. Yeah, depending on how much you trust the reporting of this is that Netanyahu doesn't want to give Biden this success and would rather give it to Donald Trump. We give who success? Biden? Biden. Oh, the president of the United States.

The current president. Oh, yeah. I know, I know, I know. I guess I'll look that up, all right. That's the old ghost we see sometimes on the stage. He's on the view recently, you might have seen him around, yeah. Believable reporting, for sure.

Oh yeah, it's not the first time wars have been used for electoral advantage. I wouldn't put it past them. But clearly, you want you want conflict and, you know, I think both both sides. But if you're not incumbent, you want conflict. And you also want like high inflation and unemployment and high gas prices. You want things to be not great so that you can say that you're going to fix everything by giving tax cuts to the wealthy. So not to bring everybody down even more. What's the worst case scenario here for the

way this is playing out at the moment? You talk about an all out war between Israel and Lebanon. Like what's like what's the worst? possible outcome there Israel nukes Beirut. I Feel like is a short-term Really really awful thing and then what would happen after that? I don't want to think about that. I mean like it gets worse I think there is you know the optimistic view is that once another nuke is dropped,

everybody wises up about the implications of that and tensions dissipate, but I don't know if that's going to be in the cards. Oh, I don't think so. I think it's, I mean, I don't know what an end goal is. I can't even wrap my mind around it because everything that has happened feels so astounding. Because we're going to side with Israel if they do any of that kind of- Yeah, U.S. ground troops in all of these places would be a very bad scenario.

Yeah, and that is definitely a possibility. It's mostly that I don't quite know what the end game is with any of it. Not to mention hundreds of thousands more deaths, like obviously that. And displaced and you know. But you know, there's a lot of potential for this to spiral and get very bad.

I just, I don't know what any of the end goal, other than the obvious one that we all talk about in terms of Gaza, is that they don't. Yeah, they want to level Gaza and then as theirs. But in terms of when you start in Lebanon, I don't know. What do you think, Jason? I don't know because I don't understand the region because I keep hearing Iran's and being involved somehow

and then talking about how there's always been this faction of Republicans who are obsessed with going to war with Iran, to the point that even Trump complained about this. This is why when he stole those documents, he did that so he could show people at dinner parties all this cool top secret stuff he brought home from when he was president, like it's a vacation souvenir. Yeah. And he had these war plans with Iran. He's like, hey, I stopped this. There's these generals brought this. They wanted to go to war. And I can't do a Trump impression

or else I'd be doing it in his voice. Like, that was something that scared Donald Trump because even from his point of view, it's like, well, what does this gain us? What do we get out of, can we like open hotels there? What can we do? What do we accomplish if we, you're spending a trillion dollars to, it doesn't even sound like

him wanting to do it. I can't do it. You hide the dance into it. You hide then the jobless in the world they're like well you do it to go to war in Iran that's what the what why are we exactly yeah and so the answer is the title yeah because there's always been these different factions on the right and some of them are like very isolationist but they've been in retreat for a long long time and Trump is was one that was like no we're wasting money to do. Whatever you want to say about him, he was not a warmonger. It was not about, you know, he would talk, he would say things about China or whatever, but he was not obsessed with

like, you know, war going to war over Taiwan or anything like that. So there are people that seem to act like, I don't know, this would be finally be a chance to confront Iran. It's like, well, why, I don't know, this would finally be a chance to confront Iran. It's like, well, why do you? Why do we need to? For a long time, we propped up Iraq as a kind of a bulwark against Iran. This is part of the history of this region. You're going to get very confused.

Oh, yeah. One decade is different than the other decade. Yeah, because it's like, well, we want to offset Iran's influence. And then by toppling Iraq, we basically eliminated like Iran became the supreme regional power because. We knocked off Saddam Hussein was who, whatever, you know, he was a monster, but also he, we liked having him there to be, to oppose Iran, to keep them in check.

So I don't get, I don't get what we want to happen, because as you alluded to, this is highly underrated, the degree to which on the Christian right they believe this is the fulfillment of a prophecy. I grew up in an evangelical church. I heard about this every Sunday, that the formation of Israel was. The first things in the aftermath of October 7th, you know, I live in the mountains, it's a very religious community up here and people weren't saying like, they were like, but you don't know, you don't know that this is,

this has been written for a long time. It's part of the plan. And it like sent a chill down my entire body. That is chilling. So yeah, the Armageddon will break out in the Middle East It was part of the plan. And it like sent a chill down my entire body. That is chilling. So yeah, that Armageddon will break out in the Middle East and that Israel, because again, Israel and the Bible, they assumed Israel would exist because it did exist when they wrote it and that it, and all these things would happen.

And so they have rewritten this prophecy many, many times and now they've got a version of it. It's like nuclear war breaks out in the Middle East and this triggers a war between the United States and China or however they're doing it now. So on one hand they believe that if you don't keep arming Israel that you will be cursed by God, that God will turn his back on the United States. So there is a core of like the evangelical right that firmly believes like this is literally a supernatural fight against the actual devil and this is why you can't and this is why the support among voters for Israel is so very high among the Christian right. It is something they

they hear in church. I think people who are outside of that bubble, Katie, are largely unaware of that. Absolutely. they think I'm talking about weird Alex Jones stuff. This is mainstream belief among the evangelical right. And to clarify, part of the chill, first off, this was information that having not been raised religious in any capacity that I was just straight up wasn't privy to, but it made sense how so much of this country, even if you think, oh, people try to distance themselves from it, but there is such a religious undercurrent and there's so much money and influence over our government from, yeah, from religious organizations and people that deeply believe this and they might

not be talking about it on the news because if you were to be talking about that on the news then you would lose a lot of support from people broadly but that is 100 percent uh a driving motive motivator for a lot of the people that support this. Maybe not all. Yes, that is the religious thing. It's also I mean, you know, there's old videos of like Joe Biden talking about how what if if Israel didn't exist, we'd have to invent Israel. The idea being that like, well, they're like the one and, you know, there's a lot of racism tied up in this and our general view of the Middle East. And the idea is that like Israel is like the one like true democracy and like the shining example of what we want a nation to be of the Middle East. And the idea is that Israel is the one true democracy

and the shining example of what we want a nation to be in the Middle East. So our support of them is somewhat, there's an aspect of, oh, well, if they're there and we're a strong ally of them, then maybe they expand a little bit. Then there's more of that shining example of a democracy in the

Middle East. And you're sort of... I don't know if it's such a shining example. I don't know either. But there is this sort of colonialist mindset to it. Absolutely. Yeah. And just sort of like, no, this is the one good country there.

And we need to support them and maybe change or change the borders or change the culture, whatever it is, however they want to say it. Well then, and after you point out some of the problems with the way Israel is run and what they do to other people, then you get into some of those anti-Semitic things. It's like, well, if you don't support what this independent nation is doing, you're anti-Semitic. And the same people who will make that allegation will be like hey Did you know that Tim Walls met with Alex Soros? What do you think's behind that? Politicians meet with billionaires don't know what to tell you

Why are you pointing this one out so much if Tim Walls met with Elon Musk? What's what are you? What's that about? Yeah, exactly Yeah, it's there's so many aspects that go into this, and it just seems to lead to more death and destruction. I think what this conversation is leading to is an outbreak. Oh, good. Oh, good. That was my way of stretching out. Oh God. Aw, nuts, the holidays are coming.

That means you have to spend countless hours digging holes in your yard. All those holiday holes, we love them. But hey, you need to spend time on you too, not just your holes. And if you're concerned with hair shedding or thinning, I mean, I'm not. But if you are, you could check out NutriFull. NutriFull is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over 1 million people. See, thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding and just three to six months with NutriFull. They brand trusted by over one thicker, stronger, faster

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Again, that's simply safe.com slash more news. There is no safe, like Simply Safe. And we're back. Boy, there's lots of bad news that's happened and we are aware of it. We wanna lighten it up just slightly and talk about funny news. It's not that funny. It's funnier than some of the news. It's not that. I mean, it's funny.

It's funnier than some of the news we've talked about already. It's funnier than some of the news we're not talking about. We will talk about it next week. We're just trying to have a nice mix of tone because this is a fun podcast sometimes. Tell us something kind of fun that happened late breaking yesterday. Yeah, well, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was charged with bribery fraud and accepting the illegal campaign

contributions from Turkish nationals You can't be doing that. Okay. I just want to interject to say that all of these are very serious things But the funny part is everything around it. Okay, go ahead. It's so funny. Just that first sentence, it kept going. Sorry, keep going. Yeah, well, he took lots of money. He took $100,000 worth of travel benefits like airline tickets and hotel stays and upgrades. He obviously didn't disclose those and tried to create a fake paper trail. And in the indictment-

Ooh, can't be doing that. The indictment was unsealed this morning and man, there's lots of text messages he shouldn't have sent or deleted when he was asked to. There's text messages like. Shouldn't we know that when you delete it, you still sent that text. Well, it's gonna be tougher. Like, there's texts like, to be on the safe side,

please delete all messages you send me. And Adams responded, always do. And then didn't and Adams responded always do and then didn't and then Yeah, they needed that so he did You didn't they have that's why they found it. I was like, well, how did they I guess the complaint is full of stuff like this And that is like the 37th most clownish thing he did in this This is my complaint about the Trump era. I'm used to politics being corrupt I'm not used to politics being corrupt. I'm not used to it being such a total,

I think you should leave sketch level of clownishness that it feels like these are characters that somebody created. Like everything I read about the details of this guy, it's like, this is not a real person that walks the earth. It can't be. It's just incredible. He changed his iPhone password.

He changed it from four numbers to six. And then when they asked, when like- Everybody had to. He was like, I got to because I don't want my staff to inadvertently delete the contents of my phone. But then when the FBI is like, hey, what's your password here? He's like, I forgot what's your password here?

He's like, I forgot it, man. Okay, that's funny. But I just have to interject to say- Can't be doing that, man. Can't be doing that. There was a certain point with iPhones that we went from four digit to six digit to unlock the phone. Is it six now? It is six.

Mine is, but it went from four to six, so that's what I say. Everybody did, but yeah. Anyway- Well, he should have given that excuse. He did went from four to six. So that's what I say. Everybody did. But yeah, anyway. Well, he should have given that excuse. He did not. He should have. And he should have given that excuse. But it's baked in. He also, this is worse than even, I mean, it's bad enough taking money from Turkish interests to like, fund your stuff. But also, he used those, what he claimed were individual donations to get public contributions because

in New York you can get public campaign funding based on how much you raise. And so he used that to get 10 million dollars in public funds for his 2021 mayoral campaign. And this is the guy who's like, we're going to kill you if you hop the subway, turnstile, we gotta close the library, sorry, there's no money. Done so much for that city. I thought he was a centrist hero sent to save the Democrats from themselves by being a reasonable crime-stopping hero.

Did that not pan out? Didn't materialize. These I love you messages. You're my best friend. Oh, yeah, I know. I want to cuddle you at night. Messages are so good. You are great, Eric.

We are so happy to hear that. You are a true friend of, prayer hands, prayer hands. You are a true friend of Turkey. Adam's replied, yes, even more a true friend of yours. You are my brother. I am here to help. H-E-A-R, it's fine. And then the Turkish official. You are such a friend. More prayer hands.

Prayer hands. This sounds like a real love affair they're having. It's like when Trump and Kim Jong-un were sending love letters to each other. I gotta fact check you on that one, Cody. It was only Trump who described them as love letters. So I have to- They weren't necessarily love letters. They were described as love letters by one of the guys who was sending the letters. Sorry. There's so many stories like this.

Our Supreme Court is riddled with people accepting things and gifts and travel and other benefits and not disclosing them. I wish we could dig this deep into everyone. The funny part about this case is not the crimes. It's that when it's everything in this complaint that people are sharing snippets of on social media, and each bit is, it's like something out of a Coen Brothers movie where an assistant's like,

now, you know, they offered this money, but of course that would be illegal. And then he like replies, no, take it. Let's do the crime. Yeah. Let's do the crime. Yeah. Let's do it. Just remember to delete all these messages. Just be safe.

It's like, I don't think he'll accept it. But sure. We just will get away with it. Yeah, and it's like the way a dumb person thinks corrupt politicians talk to each other. It's like, no, actually you have the most accurate view of exactly what it sounds like. It's So funny.

It's comedic. These are not geniuses. They're very easy to catch. If you just try, if you just try, they've kept, you know, like Donald Trump did not keep those documents in a secret bunker. They were in a bathroom. Drew it about everywhere. Drew it about Mar-a-Lago.

It is funny. It's like a burn after reading and people are like, oh, this is a little bit too over the top, a little bit too over-the-top a little bit too silly and saying I bet it's a bit the gym guy could have gotten a hold of the CIA identity or you know it's why Veep is no longer works as a show in our current landscape it's just another example of that just like it's like imagining like Clarence Thomas Thomas getting like a text from Harlan Crowe like you are a true friend of the Nazi party Like yes, like I can't be like thank you very much

Thank you very much. Yeah So when's the Clarence Thomas indictment coming any minute? That doesn't happen any day now We don't do that. We don't do that October surprise. Yeah, everything this guy does it is like a sketch It is and I swear that the world did not used to be full of these people until Trump came along. And suddenly everybody, they just kept coming

out of the woodwork. It's like, this is not a real person. You hired an actor to do this. And this guy's not a Trumpster. He's the Democrat mayor of New York. And it's like, this is the, not just one of the largest cities in the world, this is the financial capital of planet Earth. You would think you would want your absolute best of the best in that job.

They're like, for their last six in that city. It's been ho. Yeah. Yeah. There's also that supercut of him at all these events being like, Yeah. Yeah. There's also a supercut of him at all these events being like, we, New York, describing New York City as whatever city he's in of America. It's very, very funny. It's like 20 times. Like, yeah, we're the, we're the Beirut of America. Yeah. We're the Paris of

America. Yeah. New York City. It's so many times. It's so funny. About what's great about New York, and he's like, well, on any given day, you can see somebody opening a new deli or 9-Eleven. Or 9-Eleven, why would you say that? It's so wild. And that clip is like, he's asked, they're like, 2023 has been a crazy year in New York.

If you could sum up New York in 2023 in one word What would you say and his answer is New York? on any given day 9-eleven or a small business owner and then What it's just incredible like he like Trump really did is he he rode that escalator down and we all just entered into His farce that we are playing out. Yeah, it's suddenly like Rudy Giuliani. I remember at a time in my brain, Rudy Giuliani is like smart, America's mayor, was I him?

Good public figure, inspiration was. New York mayors, they just can't do it. Now he's like Danny DeVito's character and it's always Sonny in Philadelphia. Like he's just, like everything he says is weird and off-putting and the way he looks and everything. Oh. Like he's just, like everything he says is weird and off-putting and the way he looks and everything. Oh yeah, he's so greasy.

The way he looks like he curled out of the couch. Yeah. It's that the masks are off. We've realized whatever it is that everyone's chasing. That's part of it, yeah. It's part of it. Because there have been incompetence and weirdos forever in politics generally.

Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is that Donald Trump has normalized, I know some people will call it being authentic, but he just doesn't give a fuck. And so people are now leaning into it, I guess. I don't know, but it's like a normalization of this. And there's obviously a lot of tolerance for it for various reasons because of our ecosystems

that we live in, Twitter, the different way that we get consumed news, the fracturing of this country and it's like people have been given permission or something, I don't know, it's not a fully fleshed out thought but. I mean it's a lot of that, it's that, it's teams, we're all team sports so no matter what, even if you're goofy and saying all this weird stuff about how great it is

to live in the city of 9-11 or whatever, well, he's on your team, so you can't really criticize too much. And also, yeah, and like this like, people in politics forever have been like weirdos and incompetent and like, there's like, not, you know, people in cult politics forever have been like weirdos and incompetent and like egomaniacs to some degree, but like you're saying, the permission structure has changed. You're almost encouraged now to do this, right? Bo Bear is out there, or Bobert, I really don't know actually, is doing all this stuff

that she does because she knows it works now. I don't think giving a handy to some guy during Beetlejuice would have panned out for her 10 years ago, but it super did this time around. I think the defining moment of the Trump years will always be when he had Kid Rock in the Oval Office and he was showing Kid Rock some classified documents and Kid Rock said sir I don't think I'm supposed to see this because he in that room was the most level-headed person who was like yeah no I think this see this marking at the top I think that means you're not supposed to show it to

Kid Rock. You know, I'm the guy who shoots the beer cans when they give a beer can to someone and I don't like, that's the one that I am. I was gonna say like three weeks later. Yeah, but I'm just trying to sell like T-shirts and stuff at concerts. You're the president.

Like I'm supposed to be a clown, do you understand? Like this is something, this is my profession. You're the one supposed to be the serious one in this room and it had to be an alarming moment for Kid Rock when he realized Oh I'm the president now My name is the President maybe I should like sell some of these secrets to a front. No, no, no, I'm not gonna do that I couldn't possibly do that. How would I even get in touch? But there's gotta be a second where he's like, could I use this to a front? No, no, no, I'm not going to do that. I couldn't possibly do that. I'm Kid Rock. How would I even get in touch? But there's got to be

a second where he's like, could I use this to my benefit? This is a ridiculous position to be in. Should I print these on shirts? Gentlemen, we're going to wrap this up with one more quick story that I guess I already alluded to, and that's John Mulaney's presentation at Salesforce, I guess, convention. What is Salesforce? Very quickly, tell me what Salesforce is. Salesforce is like a software as a service company. They make like customer relations software that like no one really knows what they do. That's kind of the bit.

And it's probably worth $40 billion. Yeah. No, extremely huge company. It's Mark Benioff's company, I believe, right? So you can yell at him for his cousin or whatever ruining Game of Thrones. Doesn't matter. So, so. Is he related? Yeah, they're, yes. Wait, for real? Second cousin, second cousin. Okay. This is why people think we're living in a simulation because this is bad writing to have those two people be related. Yeah, like why? Like what's the, like there's no, there's no reason, there's nothing, there's no thematic like link. It's just like, and then too, everyone's everyone's relation in some, in some way.

They, so, so Salesforce every year has this annual convention in San Francisco called Dream Force. Anyway, there's, and they invited John Mulaney to do a 45 minute set. And John Mulaney was probably like, Hey, can I make fun of you guys a little bit? And they were like, very good. But that's what he did, I believe mostly. So there are some quotes here. I won't do the rest of it in the thing. I can't do that. Come on, oh, you can nail it. But I want you to. You look like a group who looked at the self-checkout counters at CVS and thought this is the future.

The fact that there are 45,000 trailblazers here couldn't devalue the title anymore. Solid. When he was talking about his son who is three, he says they played baseball in their front yard. He says, we're just two guys hitting wiffle balls badly and yelling good job at each other. It's sort of the same energy here at Dreamforce. Kind of roasted the old techie boys.

I think it's really fun, good for him for getting those zingers in to their faces. I wanted to highlight this particular one because it's like the point. Talking about his son also, for the world, he wanted to thank everybody at the conference, for the world you're creating for my son, where he will never talk to an actual human again.

Instead, a little cartoon Einstein will pop up and give him a sort of good answer and probably refer him to another chat bot. Yeah. That is them and that is the problem a sort of good answer and probably refer him to another chat bot. That is them and that is the problem and I'm glad he said that even though it won't penetrate their whatever shield they've put up to make themselves think that they're changing the world for the better. But that is the future and it sucks.

I just like, you know in your goddamn bones that a bunch of you are working on products that are just okay, but you have to vamp and make up terms to make it sound more awesome than it is. You just an old back. I like it. I like it. Good job, John. When we were working at the crack days in the final months and years, you would get like a company-wide email because I worked remotely. And it would always be something like, all right, it's Friday evening. Everybody needs to remember, are you logged out of Florpo? If you've got, they're doing the update.

You need to be logged. If you have logged your hours in, in work, work, work boy, whatever it will always be some dispelled term because they've all got that soft, that, that efficiency software and time management software software and there's always six different ones that everyone's using and we either didn't use it or else they never told us how to use it. So I would always like message people and chat like, Hey, you logged into Florpo because we were like just trying to write some it just use one of your job. I work and they'll update it like five months later, like we're switching from Florpo to worky with 2Ks or whatever. I worked at companies where like, because some of the managers didn't really have anything

to do, so they were like, well, how can I make my team more efficient? And so then they would suddenly tell you that you had a new like software system you had to work in and everything you were doing, you had to log in, you know, Asana or Notion or these are real ones. Those aren't fake names, but these are the real things. And I'd be like, but why would I do that? Because we have an email and we've gone back and forth on email and the managers would be like, email, you can't keep track of anything.

I need it here in my wigby or whatever it was to go through and see it. And so you do that for a few weeks until he got bored or went on a trip to Korea or something and then come back and then he'd be like, are you guys still working on the Wigby work board in there? I guess we can do it. It's like when I worked at, when you work retail and once every month the regional manager comes in and is like, you got to tuck in your retail and once every month, the regional manager comes in and is like, you gotta tuck in your shirts and you're like, all right, and then you stop tucking in your shirts.

Yes, when the manager leaves, productivity goes up. Well, I think we did it, you guys. I think we maybe arrived at the end of the show. I think we may have to have done that. I think so. Jason, thank you for joining us. Please tell our listeners all the ways they can find you because there's a lot of them.

TikTok being one of them. And tell us about the book. This talks about everyone. This book that we're on here that I briefly mentioned, it is relevant. It is not a part of any series that I write. It is not a John Dice at the End novel. If you have never read anything I have written or watched anything I've recorded,

this book is the book for you. It is a standalone novel and it is the premise is that a rumor goes around on the internet that they think there's a domestic terror attack about to happen on the Capitol and they think that the authorities are not taking it seriously. So a bunch of people on Reddit and Twitter and elsewhere are trying to follow this in real time and see if they can put a stop to it. And that goes exactly as badly as you would expect.

If you have ever tried to follow a breaking news story on Twitter, like when Trump was assassinated and you see the avalanche of rumors and lies and hoaxes and you're trying to sort through it because you want to know what's going to happen. You want to know what is the future of the world's going to be. And so you're refreshing and there's all this garbage and you're trying to sort through it. This book is that. It is people who think they've caught wind of something that could destroy the country and that there is a ticking clock and they have to stop

it. But the thing they're fighting against is the total inability of information to move across these platforms in an inaccurate way. So it is probably very stressful to read, but also extremely ridiculous because it is a dark satire set around this ticking clock situation. I'm definitely going to read this. And it's called I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom.

Do you ever turn in a novel that's called The Box, and they're like, no, you have a way of titling your books, and we need you to do your thing? You got to do the thing, yeah. We went through a lot of titles for this. Because see, you're not supposed to have the title of your book be like 25 words long. That's actually not.

Yeah, they discourage it. It's a rule in publishing that the good titles are like two words. Twilight, like one word even better, it. You know, you look at Stephen King novels, you know, Salem's Lot, Misery, one word. That's what you're supposed to do. But I think they ran out of word.

So I have this thing where my book titles tend to be an entire statement, and then it's a nightmare for the graphic designer. I think they need a beautiful cover for this, but you can see where they're struggling to fit all the words on. That is my fault. Not theirs.

So the next book, I have made it a resolution. I'm gonna try to give it a short punchy title. We'll see. We'll see. But it's also kind of your thing. We have you saying that out loud on record. Yeah, you're on record. Well, hopefully you come back before that,

because apparently it's going to be a couple of years. But we will remember this. Yes, 20 fall, 2026, God willing. But yeah, no, there's no rule that says I can only come on this show when I have a book. There's no law that says that. You can come back. That's just the way it panes out.

There's no law. It's strongly suggested, but we can break that. I will come back after the Israel thing is over. I don't want to talk about that again. Once there's peace in the Middle East, I'll come back. Okay. Bye, Jason. See you.

It's been nice knowing you. I guess. Thank you, listeners and viewers. Like subscribe. Oh yeah, comments help, right? Whatever. I guess. Thank you for listening. Thank you listeners and viewers. Like, subscribe, oh yeah, comments help, right? Whatever. I guess. Thank you for listening.

Thank you for watching. You're great. And we love you very much. Very much. Very much. Hi, we're the Nemeth Bros. I'm Nick and he's Ryan and I'm a 20 plus year pro wrestling veteran, amateur comedian,

F-list actor, wannabe lawyer, I once ate a 96 ounce steak, and we have a new podcast, because we finally got some time on our plate, called The Nemet Bros. The Nemet Bros. Hey Nick, what is this podcast about? This podcast is gonna be about stories from the road for the past 20 plus years of my pro wrestling career,

winning world championships, injuries, everything in between that you can think of, stories about you and I putting together a comedy tour. You and I doing skits. Me being an F-list actor. On set stuff. And of course, Q&A answered questions in depth from the fans who want to hear them the most.

Hey, what if I want to have special guests on that are like famous comedians or showbiz types? There's no roles, this is America. Bring them in. Hey, if we're bragging about accomplishments, I have been an extra on Jimmy Kimmel Live 27 times. showbiz types.