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0:51

Honestly, we we owe it to you

0:53

all for for us being able to kinda

0:55

take a little step in the in

0:57

terms of making this part of

0:59

our job instead of a fun hobby that we got

1:01

to do. We couldn't do this now yet. It's to be both

1:03

now. It's really Yeah. It's it's

1:06

it I I cannot stress

1:08

enough that this is pretty life changing for

1:10

me actually. So Well, very exciting, Danielle.

1:12

Congrats. I'm dying. Congrats us.

1:14

We're dying and took a

1:16

long time, but yay. Alright.

1:19

We've only been podcasting for nine years. So,

1:21

like, So I figured we would

1:23

start by just pissing everyone off

1:25

then because -- Oh. -- what better way. Can

1:27

you check her? Kevin McCarthy right

1:30

No. It's too easy and it'll keep going

1:32

for the next three months. So this will start.

1:34

And we're I'm gonna demand a

1:37

McCarthy quarter. At some point. At some

1:39

point, at some point. Let's

1:41

start with did you watch the Monday night football

1:44

game? This I mean, I definitely followed

1:46

the many news alerts

1:49

I got regarding it. One

1:51

of the the safety? Yeah.

1:53

He's a safety for the Buffalo Bill. Tell me his

1:55

name. Damar Hamlin's. He

1:57

collapsed on 460, and my under this

2:00

is what I saw. He collapsed on the

2:02

field, had to undergo CPR

2:04

for something like ten minutes. Mhmm. On the

2:06

field. On the on the 460, which is horrifying.

2:09

Made a tackle that wasn't didn't

2:11

look weird. I will say Always

2:13

that I he made a

2:15

tackle on someone else. It wasn't that

2:17

strange. And then he just didn't get up.

2:19

And that he got up for, like, a second

2:21

and then collapsed -- Mhmm. -- which again, all

2:23

of that is bad. Sure. But all of that

2:25

is not weird in the context of a football

2:27

game. What was weird is that when he collapsed

2:29

on the field he stayed down. Yeah. And

2:32

very quickly, everyone seemed

2:34

to realize, oh, this is this is -- There's an

2:36

emergency. To run

2:38

and stay on the CPR for, like, ten minutes?

2:40

Yeah. They brought him to the hospital.

2:42

Mhmm. And my understanding is

2:45

that the NFL

2:47

was ready to move forward with the game.

2:50

Yeah. And the coaches were like, excuse

2:52

me, did you just say you're giving her team five

2:54

minutes to warm up after

2:56

we just watched our friend and colleague

2:59

have CPR performed on him

3:01

and we don't know if he's alive or dead. No,

3:03

I'm gonna go ahead and

3:05

gracefully bow out of trying

3:07

to rip the heads off my fellow man

3:10

in light of this tragedy. The NFL

3:12

says they did not say they

3:14

had a five minute warning. But everyone, including

3:16

the broadcasters, including the teams, are

3:18

like, we were under the understanding we were

3:20

supposed to get back way. Oh, well, we didn't

3:23

say it. It's not my memo, so we can't be held

3:25

responsible. Yeah. But you're right. The coaches

3:27

and the players were basically made clear

3:29

to league officials like we are in no go

3:31

fuck your No place to keep playing this

3:33

game. And then they canceled it. They have not rebooked it anyway.

3:36

That's not what I wanna talk about. But all of that happens.

3:38

That's the best line. Garbage NFLs. We

3:40

could be. I do think about that.

3:42

Who here's the question that I think

3:45

should be asked as we are waiting

3:47

for Hamlin's condition to get better.

3:49

It's gotten a little better. He seems to be alert.

3:51

I was holding hands with his loved ones as of this. Yes.

3:54

This is six thirty on Thursday. Yeah. So it's

3:56

getting a little better. Still waiting on that.

3:58

What I wanted to mention is

4:01

if there's one thing people should be talking about,

4:03

especially the experts who

4:05

cover the NFL for a living -- Mhmm. --

4:07

a couple arise. Like, is

4:09

there anything did

4:11

he didn't seem to do anything wrong on

4:13

that play and the other players that

4:15

he was like, the other team didn't seem

4:17

to do anything wrong. Right. This wasn't an

4:19

illegal hit. This was a violation of the

4:21

rules. So did the NFL do

4:24

anything wrong that led to

4:26

this injury? Okay. That was that's a

4:28

fair question to your question. Is there

4:30

any protective gear he should have been

4:32

wearing or that he wasn't wearing that? We

4:34

believe you know he what exactly

4:36

happened that causes collapse? Did his heart

4:39

stop? Or I'm not even gonna

4:41

try to give you a medical explanation. Okay. Well,

4:43

you went through it by your your medical school.

4:45

So what did I pay for that for? He

4:47

had a heart and then it got hurt. That's

4:49

the best I can do for you. But

4:51

did the NFL, like, if there was a

4:53

concussion, the question is, you know, are

4:55

the helmets protective enough. Is there a

4:57

type of hit we should be banning from

4:59

the field? That's kind of the analysis

5:02

that's nonmedical that I want to hear

5:04

from the people for

5:06

at, for example, ESPN. Because

5:09

those are the sort of people who if they're communicating

5:11

on the game -- Mhmm. -- and they're analyzing

5:13

the game, you have the loudest megaphones.

5:15

Right? Like, I want them to

5:17

be the ones criticizing if

5:20

or at least raising the issue. Let's

5:22

change it. Let's talk about those issues.

5:25

So bear with me for a second. I wanna

5:27

explain. Here's what I saw answer there. going

5:29

here. Yeah. So after the injury

5:31

happened and as he's being taken off

5:33

the field, realize if you're a player on the Buffalo

5:35

Bills, which is Hamlin's team, or you're on

5:37

the bangles, the opposing team, like, there's not

5:39

much you can do at that point -- course. --

5:41

other than, I mean, hopefully, not suiting

5:43

back up to get back -- Right. -- just watch and

5:45

work with the rest of them. Players at

5:47

least on the bills, I believe, formed a prayer

5:49

circle on the 460. Fine.

5:51

Doesn't bother me. One, their adults,

5:54

two, it's a private league. It's not a marathon.

5:56

It's not a high school. It's not a coach telling him

5:58

to do it. So, like, not my way of

6:00

dealing with grief, but if that's the way they're

6:02

dealing with it, doesn't bother me one bit.

6:05

Fine. Here's And

6:07

by the way, some of the loved

6:10

ones, some of the people who held press conferences

6:12

after the game and they were asked. Are you

6:14

feeling about this? What are you doing? Which there's

6:16

not much to say it. Yeah. Wait. Terrible. But a

6:18

lot of coaches, players also

6:20

express like I'm praying to God that he gets better,

6:22

fine. That's how you're dealing with it. I am

6:24

not mad about that. Okay. Where I

6:26

got mad especially is

6:28

when I saw the way

6:30

people were commenting on

6:32

this thing when they were in a position to

6:34

offer better commentary. So I'll give you one

6:36

example of this. And I have a clip that I wanna

6:38

play from the show. One

6:40

of the shows on ESPN featured

6:43

a football analyst named Dan Orlowski.

6:46

I don't watch his show very much.

6:48

I couldn't tell you more about him. And I'll

6:50

preface this by saying, I think he was just

6:52

doing what felt right to him in the moment.

6:54

But what he did is instead of talking

6:56

about things we just mentioned. Could we

6:58

have done anything? Could the NFL have done

7:00

anything to prevent this? Is there blame to

7:02

go anywhere? Sorry. This guy is representative

7:05

whom? He is a football analyst points.

7:07

Okay. So he's not Not connected. On behalf

7:09

of NFL, not on behalf of okay. He's

7:11

the sort of person who has a

7:13

megaphone that could get people talking

7:15

about these things. Right. So here's

7:17

what he said. I'll talk about. Saying a

7:19

man was cowardly in the face of

7:21

a little bit of difficult LTA are you?

7:23

Because I've never seen no criticism

7:26

against, like, ESPN analysts

7:28

for not going harder against

7:30

the NFL because they have a

7:33

mutually beneficial relationship. Of

7:35

course. This is not about that. This

7:38

is not about that. Here's what he said.

7:40

I'll talk about it on the other

7:41

side. This is about a minute, minute and a

7:43

half long.

7:45

Football gave me everything. Know, I

7:47

think even through the midst of a tragedy

7:50

last night,

7:50

I think you saw some of the beauty of football

7:53

as well that it's brought us all here together.

7:56

You know, like, this is a little bit

7:58

different. I heard I've heard it all day like

8:00

thoughts and prayers. And you just heard Sherf and

8:02

Jonathan Allen say, like, all we can do is pray for

8:04

him and I've heard the Buffalo Bills

8:06

organization say that we believe in prayer. And maybe

8:08

this is not the right thing to do, but I wanna it's just on

8:10

my heart that I wanna pray for it. It is.

8:12

The Marhammond. I I right now. I'm

8:15

gonna do it out loud. I'm gonna close my eyes. I'm gonna bow

8:17

my head and I'm just gonna pray for him.

8:21

God, we come to you in these moments that we

8:23

don't understand that are hard. Because

8:26

we believe that your god

8:28

and coming to and praying to

8:30

you has impact.

8:32

We're we're sad. We're angry.

8:35

And we want answers,

8:37

but some things are unanswerable. We

8:40

just wanna pray. Truly

8:43

come to you and pray

8:45

for strength Damar for

8:47

healing for desire, for

8:49

comfort for To be with

8:51

his family, to give them peace.

8:53

If we didn't believe that prayer

8:55

didn't work, we wouldn't ask this of

8:57

you god. I believe in

8:59

prayer. We believe in prayer. We

9:02

lift up Damar Hamlin's name in your

9:04

name.

9:05

Amen. Amen. Amen. Right

9:08

now. It's beautiful. Respectfully.

9:11

Okay. Finish off

9:13

this clip right here. Boom. There we go. Mhmm.

9:15

Okay. So he spent about a minute

9:17

and a half during their commentary show

9:20

where he basically breaks out into a

9:22

Christian prayer. Here's And

9:24

by the way, he got plenty of praise from

9:26

that online. You know where I heard about this

9:28

first? It's from Christian websites

9:30

that were raving -- Okay. -- about

9:32

the fact that this analyst use

9:34

time on ESPN to pray

9:36

in front of everybody, like to show everyone

9:38

how it's done. Okay. And

9:40

again, if he did that off the clock,

9:42

I don't care. It's not I it's not my business.

9:45

Here's what I didn't like about that

9:47

prayer, and this is what I was mad about because

9:49

this is a guy who's on ESPN

9:51

live he has the

9:53

ability to raise issues that I

9:55

don't. And no one else does. Here's

9:57

what I didn't like about that. One is

9:59

this comment like we believe

10:01

in prayer. Who is we? Is he talking

10:03

about the entire ESPN viewing audience?

10:05

Because no, we're not all of your

10:07

faith and maybe the three people

10:09

sitting at that table, offering

10:11

commentary shared as faith, but the idea

10:13

that, hey, you know what? I'm Christian, so I'm

10:15

gonna go ahead and offer

10:17

this prayer for Hamlin Like,

10:19

imagine if that was any religion

10:21

but Christianity, how that

10:23

would have gone over. Mhmm. It

10:25

wouldn't. It never would have had been

10:27

pissed off. The idea that

10:29

everyone just we're all cool with this. Right? I'm

10:31

just gonna stop everything we're doing and

10:33

break out into a Christian song and dance. Do you

10:35

think that if, like, a Jewish

10:37

person gave a prior, do you think

10:39

that it was explicitly Jewish the way this

10:41

guy was inquisitively Christian? That's what I'm

10:43

wondering. It would not have gone over

10:45

well at all. You don't think? Name a name

10:47

a time it's ever happened. I mean,

10:49

it it hasn't. It hasn't. It hasn't ended up

10:51

Because of course, nobody would put up with

10:53

it. But Who

10:55

are you? You are And imagine someone be one

10:57

of those things that you're real mad about. Oh,

10:59

and so. Mad about I'm not mad about mad about

11:02

he is white. Fine. Imagine if a brown

11:04

person who wasn't Christian did what he just

11:06

tried to say. White privilege is not new,

11:08

Terry. For us to try So that's one

11:10

thing. He assumes, I'm Christian. I'm I've seen

11:12

other people doing this. So I'm gonna do

11:14

it too, using my time on

11:16

ESPN. That -- Mhmm. -- it's using the

11:18

platform that gathered me. If he did it on

11:20

the car on the way there, wouldn't care. Here's the other

11:22

thing he said, and this is the one that I don't think

11:24

tell me if you picked up on this. Okay.

11:27

Because I think most people -- That's pretty fucking

11:29

common. -- did

11:31

not hear any of this. We're

11:33

sad we're angry. We

11:35

want answers, but some things

11:37

are unanswerable. You know

11:39

what's that? Is I heard the we're

11:42

sad and angry and we want

11:44

answers and immediately spun off my head

11:46

of like, well, that's a really nice sentiment

11:48

and and missed that last that

11:50

last things are unanswerable. No.

11:52

This is a medical injury

11:54

on an NFL field. It

11:56

is very much answerable

11:59

with enough evidence. And

12:01

he is one of the people who could be

12:03

demanding that the NFL do a better job

12:05

of taking care of players health.

12:07

Mhmm. I just found this out. I did

12:09

not know this. After you retire from the

12:11

NFL, the NFL, I guess, covers your

12:13

insurance for five years and then it's

12:15

cut off. Like I'm

12:17

genuinely shocked that they

12:19

offer anything to ex I believe

12:21

that only Hamlin's people

12:23

complained and said you don't do anything for all

12:25

the concussions and the the brain

12:27

trauma. Listen, who do you think is

12:29

worse too? It's better. The

12:32

US Army or the NFL.

12:34

And it's kind of a joke, but as soon as

12:36

I said it, they have VA hospitals. They don't have

12:38

anything. How are those doing? I don't

12:40

know. Right? But the thing is,

12:42

like, your job is to point

12:44

out how the safety of players very much

12:46

depends on the league's decision. Was

12:49

like, I'm gonna pray. By the way, some things

12:51

are unanswerable. I guess we will never

12:53

know what happened to this player is

12:55

the insinuation he's making. Can

12:57

act in God's hands? Can I give,

12:59

like, the tiniest bit of pushback

13:01

on, like, your specific brand of anger

13:04

in this? I I

13:06

think if I think I

13:08

would be feeling very different about this

13:10

if it was a bad tackle

13:12

that hurt him. If it was helmet helmet

13:14

contact, like something that we

13:16

saw happen in front

13:18

of us and understand

13:20

that it could have been prevented.

13:23

You know what I mean? Like, it was it was where

13:25

it could have been prevented. And obviously,

13:27

well, he's on the way to the hospital. No one even knows

13:29

exactly what happened.

13:30

But it seems to me that, like,

13:32

he's twenty three, twenty four. He was a young one guy.

13:34

I believe. Twenty four. It

13:37

seems to me he from

13:39

what I could gather listen,

13:42

when I was in junior high,

13:44

A FRIEND OF MINE DROP

13:46

DEAD IN MY SCHOOL PLANE

13:48

BADMONTON. HE JUST HAD

13:50

HEART PROBLEMS AND THEY COUD UP

13:52

WITH HIM during fucking mad men

13:54

junior high, and he fucking died

13:56

in front of us. Things like this --

13:58

Terrific. -- do happen

14:01

And I'm just not sure and

14:03

listen, I am never gonna defend the

14:05

NFL, but I'm not

14:07

sure that he should have

14:09

his first instinct would have been,

14:11

will the NFL fucked up or the NFL could have

14:13

prevented this? Calling for that. Not asking for

14:15

him to do that because he's saying he's

14:18

I'll I'll give you an alternative here.

14:20

Scott Van Pelt, the host of sports

14:22

center. And another football

14:24

analyst, Ryan Clark, were

14:26

immediately on ESPN after

14:28

the game. And so they they cut in early

14:30

because they were already ready to do the post

14:33

game stuff. They had to deal with the immediate

14:35

aftermath of the incident. And

14:37

later on, and when I

14:39

read what like sports media

14:41

people wrote about the coverage

14:43

of this incident. Mhmm. They overwhelmingly

14:46

praised what Scott Van Pelt and

14:48

Ryan Clark did And the New York

14:50

CNN. CNN spoke with Scott

14:52

Bendel later. And they're, like so, like, what

14:54

was going through your mind as you're dealing

14:56

with this guy, John? He did the prayer. No.

14:58

Oh, different gunpowder. Scott Manpelt is

15:00

the host of sports center. Okay. Normally, here's what

15:02

he told CNN. This is supposed to be a

15:04

fun show. We're the diversion. There's a lot of

15:06

series bullshit in the world, but we're here for

15:08

the fun. That's what we do, but we are also

15:10

capable of covering something

15:12

serious. And Van Pelt said that

15:14

before going on the air for their

15:16

top rated sports center show, he

15:18

made the decision to focus strictly

15:20

on the known facts. I kept leaning into

15:22

what we know, he said. We'll deal in

15:24

what we know, not in what we wish we knew or hope

15:27

to find out, and the truth is we knew

15:29

very little. Which meant in

15:31

practice, they did not have medical personnel come

15:33

on the show to say, here's what might have

15:35

happened to the guy. They would have probably would have been

15:37

irresponsible because we don't

15:39

know at the time. That is a very

15:41

different take than what this

15:43

other ESPN guy, Olavsky,

15:45

where he's like, you know what, something's a

15:47

unanswerable. You just gotta give it up to God. Like,

15:49

no No. He doesn't know the

15:51

answerable. No. He doesn't know the answer. That's

15:54

different. He is assuming, like,

15:56

we'll never know and Who am I a guy

15:58

on ESPN? Who has the

16:00

NFL's ear? Who could say I hope the

16:02

NFL is spending

16:04

considerable amounts of

16:06

time or money or research to

16:08

make sure that what happened

16:10

to this player never happens to

16:12

any other player if there is something in

16:14

their power that they could have done. just could

16:16

have said that. He didn't say

16:18

that because there was absolutely no

16:20

way that anybody could know that

16:22

it was the listen -- You know what? --

16:24

the NFL. I have a question.

16:27

In fucking ten years because I think it's

16:29

genuinely morally not okay

16:31

because it's so dangerous for

16:33

people. However, if somebody collapses on

16:35

a field not after a

16:37

bad hit or something or like

16:39

something that a pad could have prevented or a

16:41

rule could have prevented. This guy's heart

16:43

just gave out from what we can tell. And

16:46

I just don't see

16:48

anybody who in that moment of

16:50

us all trying to deal with this collective

16:52

trauma watching a man be resuscitated

16:54

on the field and then be like, oh,

16:56

well, we're gonna go down hard on the

16:59

NFL. That's just how she got actions

17:01

work. You're not a human being. You forget I know, but

17:03

I'm not asking. I am not asking him to go

17:05

after the NFL. He has

17:07

said some things are unanswerable.

17:09

This may not seem like that why is

17:11

he assuming that and he's

17:14

clunky. If he said, here's what Franklin

17:16

Graham said. Hang on. You're not you're not

17:18

hearing what I'm saying. I am. No. No. You're

17:20

wrong and stupid. That's fine. is

17:22

what Franklin Graham said, and of course, he's

17:24

the evangelist. Here's what his

17:26

post was. The Buffalo Bills know

17:28

who to call out to for

17:30

help. He is Hang on. He's gonna be an idiot. I

17:32

know. Tell me why this is different from Murlowski.

17:34

The entire team dropped to their

17:36

knees in a circle of prayer after

17:39

Hamlin was taken away via ambulance.

17:41

They knew that Demar needed help that

17:43

only God can give. Today, millions

17:45

of people continue to pray for this

17:47

young man and I am one of them. No

17:50

credit to the medical personnel. I mixed hang

17:52

on. I'm expecting this from Franklin

17:54

Graham, because you hang on. You're not

17:56

wearing some new eighties, but we need to get

17:58

over this. Okay. Are you done yet? Hang

18:01

on. So Franklin Graham's no credit to the

18:03

medical personnel, no credit to the hospital

18:05

team, the doctors and nurses working on him

18:07

right now. He's just like, yep, they're

18:09

praying because they know only God can fix

18:11

this. Of course, that's a dumb thing to say. Of course.

18:13

You expect that from Franklin Graham

18:15

because he doesn't know any better. The

18:17

ESPN analyst who has probably covered

18:19

injuries, and the NFL's on

18:22

inability to handle things

18:24

the right way when the obvious

18:26

answer is always right there.

18:28

Here's a guy who could say, what's the ask

18:31

the question, what's the

18:33

NFL doing about this? What are they

18:35

planning to do once they get

18:37

a medical autopsy is the wrong

18:39

word. When they get the report about what happened

18:41

from the experts in the hospital,

18:43

what is the NFL gonna do to try

18:45

and prevent this? If

18:47

there is something in their power, are they

18:49

going to see to it? Are they gonna

18:51

postpone this game indefinitely? Are they

18:53

gonna make sure that the trauma that happened

18:55

here? I mean, there's so many things you could

18:57

be doing to pressure the

18:59

NFL into doing the right thing. What did this

19:01

guy do? He basically said, hang

19:03

on hand. Here's what he said. We don't

19:05

know what happened, some things are unanswerable.

19:07

If prayer didn't work, we wouldn't be doing this.

19:09

We all believe in prayer,

19:11

that what he's doing. And because he's cloaking

19:13

it in prayer, it all sounds very good

19:15

to a lot of listeners. But again,

19:17

I don't need an ESPN

19:20

analyst to of his faith in

19:22

me. And I think that would be obvious if this was

19:24

anything but Christianity and

19:26

a guy who not his fault or anything the

19:28

guy wasn't a white guy who happened to be Christian and

19:30

he was a brown guy who happened to be any

19:32

other religion, people would

19:34

have not be honest. No. They don't have

19:36

a right deal. They have plenty of Jewish people. They

19:38

have plenty of Indian people on the staff, dude, not

19:41

enough, but they do. And I watch them all the

19:43

time. But if one of their other

19:45

anchors, did what this guy did, it would not receive

19:47

the praise it got. That's the thing that

19:49

bug me. By the way, on Fox Sports

19:51

one, totally different place,

19:53

There was another co host named Nick

19:56

Wright who offered around the

19:58

same time. Also part of a

20:00

panel discussion on this I'm not playing

20:02

his clip, but here's what he said. He praised the medical

20:04

workers for their quick reaction.

20:06

He highlighted how people who were

20:08

desperate to, like, channel their grief

20:10

into something positive, donate

20:13

to a toy for kids, toys

20:15

for kids fund razors that Hamlin

20:17

had started on GoFundMe He

20:19

was hoping to raise twenty five hundred dollars. Yep. Before the injury,

20:21

he had not met that goal. Well, it's now

20:23

at like eight million in counting because people

20:26

wanted to give they wanted to help in

20:28

some way. HE HIGHLIGHTED THAT HE BROUGHT UP, BY THE

20:30

WAY, NICK Wright ON FOX SPORTS ONE

20:32

HE BROUGHT UP THAT PEOPLE CLOSE TO HIM

20:34

WERE RELIGIOUS EVEN THOUGH

20:36

HE'S NOT. he appreciated the

20:38

fact that they had their faith to help keep

20:40

them grounded during a

20:42

tragedy, and he didn't begrudge them

20:44

back he didn't use that platform

20:46

to say, here's why they're wrong. That's

20:48

what I'm for. But like, he didn't do that. I

20:50

thought that was a perfectly normal

20:52

fine way of saying, let's give credit where

20:54

it's due. Here's what any one

20:56

of us can do if we wanna help in

20:59

some way because we don't have the power to do any thing else.

21:01

Right. You know, chip into the fundraiser. Right.

21:03

And by the way, I respect and

21:05

understand that people are using their

21:07

faith to deal with this really scary

21:09

thing. Mhmm. And that's fine. I don't

21:11

personally have that is what he's

21:13

saying, but he also didn't sit around and say,

21:15

like, no, let's let's trash the

21:17

people who are saying this about

21:19

God. Like, let's he didn't. I thought that was a

21:21

much more sensible

21:23

take. I think that's not what the ESPN guy

21:25

did. I I agree.

21:27

That's not sports one

21:29

guy. Is that it? Nexstar's first one? Yes.

21:31

Did a better job.

21:34

But also, he is a person

21:36

who philosophically is

21:38

more aligned with us. Oh, I thought he

21:40

was way more conservative than I was

21:42

with the, you know, I'm not

21:44

religious, but everyone else isn't. I'm kinda jealous of

21:46

that. No, that's not my take. But

21:48

I'll take it. Me and

21:50

him do not see I die. No. This

21:52

is just one of those things that I am

21:54

never gonna get my hackles up about you.

21:57

Like, the fact that you

21:59

got mad about this is blowing

22:01

my mind. It's so mad. Genuinely, this is the

22:03

thing we have this conversation we have all time

22:05

of, like, the shit that, like,

22:07

pisses you off is so

22:11

confusing to me. It's always, like,

22:13

I'm mad because I like football. I like

22:15

watching it. Football. It's because I have nothing to

22:17

do beyond in my life that I like. I

22:19

keep asking if I can come over and be able

22:22

friends. No. Okay. Wait. Wait. I'm not no.

22:24

You were the time down. I'm not done talking about

22:26

this. Yes. I just am not sure

22:28

that you and I personally should

22:30

be in the business of,

22:32

like, shitting all over people who are coping with

22:35

tragedy. I'm not shitting on the the

22:37

Buffalo Bills parade down the field. Didn't bother

22:39

me one bit, and I'm not kidding. Talking

22:41

about our ES PN gentlemen. Yes.

22:43

Listen, Abbott, these are real

22:45

human beings who are going through real

22:48

trauma. Paid money to offer her

22:50

NFL expertise, not be a preacher

22:52

on TV. It's

22:54

not like he like every time

22:56

somebody a touchdown pass. He's like, oh, got

22:58

out of his hand on that one. Like, he

23:00

is a man doing with Trump. He's the

23:02

white guy. Bothered by it. Too.

23:05

That's it doesn't That's not what we're talking about. It absolutely

23:07

is not what we're talking about. That's a

23:09

false equivalence. If he just said, I

23:12

feel impressed. Speicious arguments when

23:14

you think you're right. It's embarrassing

23:16

him. I think your argument would apply if he said

23:18

something like, you know, I'm praying that this guy

23:20

gets better. If he

23:22

left it at that, I would be like, I'll roll my

23:24

eyes, but I'm not gonna get mad at that. That's how

23:26

people, like, that being mad

23:28

about I am seeing a minute and a

23:30

half on TV to do your little

23:32

prayer routine for everybody?

23:34

No. This is heaven't.

23:36

These these can't be the fight we pick.

23:38

Okay. I'll give you a better fight. Fine. Actually,

23:41

no. I'll get to a better fight and say, this is an

23:43

interesting story out of

23:45

Pennsylvania. So we've here's your McCarthy moment

23:47

if you want. Listen. I

23:50

only wanna talk about McCarthy the last

23:52

two days. Like

23:54

thirty seconds. Okay. The last few days, I have

23:56

been at work at the barn, and we've

23:58

been, like, basically reorganizing our whole

24:00

office, which is insane. So it's, like, five people

24:02

in a tiny office. And every

24:04

time for the last forty eight hours, a

24:06

new vote came in that he

24:08

lost, I would tackle

24:11

like, throw my head back and tackle

24:13

and then yell at the number.

24:15

And then today, I just wanna

24:18

tell you I literally interrupted

24:20

a vet appointment with my catheter lane. I

24:22

was holding a horse who was

24:24

getting her leg scanned,

24:27

not scanned, like what's the thing where you,

24:29

like, look at, like, an ultrasound, but you're,

24:32

like and literally, we're, like, in the

24:34

middle of it, and I'm holding the horse, and I glanced down on my

24:36

phone because I got an ASP or a spinal Yes.

24:39

And I canceled because that was eight. And then

24:41

later in the office, I was laughing

24:43

so hard that I

24:45

could only sign the number nine.

24:47

And thankfully, the women who work with me no

24:49

sign language because I couldn't

24:51

breed, I was so laffy. Laughing, happy is what I'm

24:53

gonna say. Okay. Let's go. Okay. So

24:55

in Pennsylvania, we've earned this is what

24:57

I'm saying. We've earned this shot

24:59

in Fred for years. Glassbox,

25:01

we appreciate you taking the risk. It was nice knowing

25:03

you. Okay. Let's

25:06

talk about Pennsylvania. Because they have

25:08

a weird situation with their

25:10

house as well because all the

25:12

attention -- Yeah. -- people who care

25:14

about politics at all, what you probably

25:16

remember from election night IS

25:18

JOHN FEDERMAN ONE THEIR SENATE

25:20

RACE AND MAYBE THAT JUG

25:22

MOSRIANO WHO RAINED FOR GOVERNOR AND WAS A

25:24

CHRISTIAN NATIONAL HAS LOST THE GOVERNOR'S

25:26

RACE? MAYBE? HE DID. To

25:28

Josh Shapiro. Very exciting, very

25:30

big elections. But what

25:33

probably went under a lot of people's radar is

25:35

that their state house After years of being under

25:37

Republican control, House and Senate in

25:39

the state of Pennsylvania, the House

25:41

flipped to Democrats. In

25:44

Pennsylvania. Well, that's a good sign.

25:46

They had a one hundred

25:48

two to one hundred one

25:51

majority -- Mhmm. -- in the house.

25:53

Alright. -- razor thin

25:55

margueries. Razor. But, wow, they

25:57

managed to flip the state house. They got

25:59

some Pennsylvania. To do some

26:01

stuff. But here's where it gets weird. Two of

26:03

those people who were in the state house,

26:05

they were state representatives had

26:07

also run for congress, and

26:11

one. And so very exciting, but that

26:13

means they're going to Washington

26:15

DC. They're not sworn in yet

26:17

because of McCarthy, but they are over

26:19

there, which means there are two

26:21

vacancies. In addition to that, there was

26:23

one Democrat who on

26:25

the ballot. He died in October.

26:27

He I think he was old. I don't

26:29

remember the circumstances. But he died in October.

26:32

It was too late to off ballot, and then he

26:34

won the race. All three

26:36

of those are safe Democratic

26:38

seats, but what needs to happen is there needs

26:40

to be a special election. Odds

26:42

are Democrats are gonna win all three seats. Those are pretty

26:44

blue districts. Sure. Okay. So as it

26:46

stands, it is not a one hundred two to

26:48

one hundred one majority in the House.

26:51

It is a one hundred one Republican to

26:53

two ninety nine Democrats.

26:56

Mhmm. And so here's the thing. If you're the

26:58

Republicans and you're like, we need to elect a

27:00

speaker of House, do you

27:02

say, you know what? Let's wait to

27:04

do that until, like, we can

27:06

get the special elections done

27:08

in February. No. What did the Republicans do?

27:10

They said, we're gonna hold. We're gonna

27:12

push back. We're gonna sue to file

27:14

the special election in

27:17

May. They wanna push back the special elections

27:19

as long as possible. I think May

27:21

is their deadline, the the last time they could

27:23

do it. And they're asking the

27:25

courts to let them do it in May because they're the

27:27

majority right now in the house. And the

27:29

democrats are like, dude, we won

27:31

we won the election we

27:33

have the majority. We just

27:35

have these three vacancies for other

27:37

reasons. Right. Okay. So there's a bunch of

27:39

those votes. So I won't I'm I

27:41

hope I don't screw up all specifics there, but this is

27:43

their dilemma. They need to vote on a speaker of

27:45

the house. And the thing is

27:47

the Republicans couldn't

27:49

coalesce. Around one name. Wait.

27:51

Barry McCarthy. Sound familiar.

27:54

Familiar. So at some point

27:56

here, over the course of trying to

27:58

figure this out, one of the

28:00

Republicans, one of the, quote, unquote, moderate

28:02

Republicans in the Pennsylvania

28:04

House speaks with some Democrats, and

28:06

he's like, You know what? If you got like,

28:08

the democrats were nominating, like, the head

28:10

of their caucus. Sure. It was a black woman,

28:12

really good politician, they were

28:14

eager to nominate her to be their speaker. Mhmm.

28:17

But she didn't have the votes because they

28:19

don't have those because of those vacancy. I don't love

28:21

them. The Republicans wanted to nominate whoever they

28:23

wanna nominate. Democrats weren't gonna go along with it, but

28:25

there was deception. So one

28:28

of these Republicans goes to the democrats

28:30

and says, you nominated

28:32

this other guy over here who

28:34

happens to be a Democrat, I think you

28:36

could get a handful of Republicans

28:38

on your side. So he's

28:40

saying bailout on the black

28:42

woman who -- Y'all are really in -- who's the head

28:44

of your caucus and happens to be pretty

28:46

progressive. Okay. And go with this slightly

28:48

less more moderate. Slightly

28:50

more moderate white guy. White guy. Oh,

28:52

who happens to feel strange? Who he's worked

28:54

with on some bills before, but he is

28:57

a Democrat. And he's like, I think if you nominate that

28:59

guy, you would get the votes you need right

29:01

now. I think that would also reveal some

29:03

very interesting things about Well,

29:05

guess what? But we can all the

29:07

democrats. Every one of them was like, you know

29:09

what, we'll take you up on that. And So they

29:11

nominated one of their fellow democrats, his

29:13

name is Mark Rosie. Damar

29:16

Razzi won that election for speaker

29:18

of the House one hundred fifteen

29:20

-- Wow. -- to eighty

29:22

five over the Republican should go down and run for

29:24

speaker the house. I know. Right? So here's the

29:26

interesting thing. Who is Mark Rosie? Because he's been

29:28

in the state house of Pennsylvania for

29:30

ten years since like

29:32

twenty twelve he was first voted in.

29:35

He just became the speaker of the

29:37

Pennsylvania House representatives. Now, what did he compromise get

29:39

those Republicans on board? He said, I

29:41

will drop my Democratic label

29:43

and I will change my late party label to

29:45

independent. But by

29:47

and large, he still holds all the same values. Changes

29:50

changes. Changes. Yeah. So

29:52

that's one thing. He also said in, like,

29:54

his acceptance speech this week.

29:57

That he promises he will be an independent speaker

29:59

of the house. He won't caucus with either

30:01

side. He'll try to play it down

30:03

the line, which is fine, like,

30:06

whatever the supreme court does. Yeah.

30:08

But he said, I pledge my loyalty to the

30:10

people of the commonwealth, which whatever. But

30:12

then he added, sometimes Republicans will win, sometimes

30:15

Democrats will win, and that is fine so

30:17

long as the beneficiaries are

30:19

the people of this commonwealth. Okay. Okay. Why are we

30:21

talking about? Sounds fine. He doesn't

30:23

seem to be like a Kirsten cinema independent

30:26

-- Sure. -- just exist to,

30:28

like, crap all over Democrats.

30:30

He seems like a Democrat who's using

30:32

a different party label, but he's

30:34

also a guy that at least some

30:36

Republicans are, like, yeah, he'll give us a fair shake

30:38

if we have ideas. Sounds like they respect him as

30:40

a man of integrity. Yes. And that's important. And here's the

30:42

thing. So What does that mean? Championship.

30:44

And no one seems to disagree about that.

30:46

Like, if you don't like him, it's because he's a

30:48

Democrat or he used to be -- Sure. -- or whatever. But

30:51

here's the thing. This is what's was surprising to me

30:53

about it. Why do why

30:55

did that wreck Republican recommend this guy?

30:57

What is it that he's fought for

31:00

his principles other than being a Democrat? You

31:02

know? What are his principles? Well, the

31:04

thing he's best known for -- No. -- the

31:06

thing he made his name for

31:08

isn't fighting? No, it's good. He's made a

31:10

name for himself fighting on behalf

31:12

of victims of child sexual

31:14

abuse. Wow. He said

31:17

himself was a victim

31:19

of a Catholic priest back when

31:21

he was thirteen. And one of the

31:23

pledges one of the things he's been working

31:26

for for several years is

31:28

to get a law passed that

31:30

would do what some other states have

31:32

done. Open up a retroactive two

31:35

year window so that past

31:37

victims of sexual abuse who

31:39

were time term limit of time

31:41

limited out -- Uh-huh. -- because of statute of limitations --

31:43

Mhmm. -- so they couldn't SUE, BUT NOW THEY

31:45

REALIZE WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. Reporter: HE

31:47

WANTS TO OPEN A TWO YEAR WINDOW,

31:49

SO THAT THEY COULD FILE THOSE

31:51

lawsuits against the receivables. Already do something

31:53

like that specifically

31:55

for Catholic church In

31:57

some states, they have I believe in Pennsylvania,

31:59

they have not done that.

32:01

Oh, I thought they did leak. Huge. Here's the

32:04

investigation. They did the gosh Shapiro, the

32:06

new governor is the former

32:08

attorney general who spearheaded that

32:10

investigation. Cool. But the question

32:12

of, well, what do you do after that? Now that the

32:14

investigation is out, the question

32:16

is, well, now we know there were all

32:18

these priests. Now that people are

32:20

better aware of sexual abuse,

32:22

what can we do about it? Mhmm. And Mark was

32:24

one of the guys saying, well, let's do

32:27

this Let's open up this window so that victims

32:29

can sue their assailants. Some the

32:31

Catholic church and, like, its allies, who

32:33

fought against that law, we're

32:35

very much like you just wanna get that

32:37

pass because you wanna make money. You

32:39

wanna sue whoever did this

32:41

to you and you wanna make money off of this, which,

32:43

first of all, means he's telling the truth. That's

32:45

what we call a projection. Like, you

32:47

know, he would only get money.

32:49

Yes. The Catholic priest did everything

32:51

he said they did. But

32:53

also he said he said

32:55

to everyone like if that law passes,

32:57

I am not interested in filing

32:59

a lawsuit myself. But I am doing this for other people in

33:02

opposition. So either who

33:04

whoever molested him is dead or I have just

33:06

not interested or he's just

33:08

not interested. I just love

33:10

every time a Republican accuses

33:14

anybody of doing anything. It's so

33:16

reflective of their own values of,

33:18

like, you're only doing this because you

33:20

want money. And he and this dude from what

33:22

Nope. Just principle. No. Genuinely,

33:24

I care about human beings. Go

33:26

fuck yourself. Like, it's

33:29

so telling, isn't it? And it it and

33:31

they do it over and over and over and over

33:33

ten. There was a law passed

33:36

that was it didn't get

33:38

anywhere. He he got a law passed. He got

33:40

that bill passed in the house. Great.

33:42

Even with the Republican house, he got it passed

33:44

in twenty twenty one. The Republican led

33:46

state senate said no to

33:48

it. However, both

33:50

chambers agreed to put it in front

33:52

of voters constitutional amendment

33:54

in twenty twenty one -- Oh.

33:56

-- which is fine. Put it to the voters.

33:58

Like, that's all well and good. However,

34:00

a procedural mistake made

34:03

by people who weren't trying to do this

34:05

on purpose, they couldn't get

34:07

it on the ballot in twenty twenty one.

34:10

So anyway, I only say this. I'm I haven't even investigated the specifics

34:12

of that law. They wanna put this in front

34:14

of voters. But Mark Rosie is the guy

34:16

who's been fighting for this to

34:18

happen. Mhmm. That's why the Republicans are

34:20

like, we respect this guy. He's doing this

34:22

out of principle. And you know what? If you

34:24

wanna make him the speaker of the

34:26

house, you'll get a bunch of our votes, and

34:28

they agreed to it, and they did.

34:30

Because I'm sure the black woman is

34:32

definitely largely

34:34

what? Not interesting or

34:36

compelling or dignified. I

34:38

didn't look into their complaints about her

34:40

specifically. Sure. Will we respect this

34:42

guy? So we'll vote for him. That woman Other

34:44

thing that's interesting. Mhmm. The Free Thought Equality Fund

34:46

Political Action Committee, one of the secular

34:48

groups that offers endorsements

34:50

-- Mhmm. -- like affiliated with

34:53

the American Human Association -- Uh-huh. -- but has the ability

34:55

to make endorsements. They actually

34:57

endorse this guy like in

34:59

this year for the last election. Uh-huh.

35:02

And they said his other

35:04

why did they endorse him? They said in their

35:06

blurb. His other policy priorities include protecting women's reproductive

35:08

rights, dot dot dot improving

35:10

and investing more funds into pre

35:14

K, K to twelve, and higher education -- Yeah. -- increasing

35:16

the minimum wage, safer communities,

35:18

youth homelessness. So on a

35:20

host of progressive issues, he's all

35:24

And by the way, they pointed out eleven. He lost eleven. He lost eleven. He

35:26

lost eleven. He lost again. Eleven.

35:28

And they also noted that Mark

35:30

Rosie here is a free thinker.

35:33

That was Razi's term to describe

35:35

his religious affiliation, which

35:38

I I don't know how he uses that word.

35:40

Everyone has different reasons for using

35:42

the religious label they use,

35:44

especially when you're non

35:46

religious. Right. And what she uses is free

35:48

thinker, but I think

35:50

that is his way of criticism. a

35:52

word for atheism. As far as I can

35:54

tell, he is openly

35:56

non religious. He just doesn't talk about

35:58

it. Yeah. And That means if

36:00

I have it this right and I try to cover

36:02

this stuff as closely as again, I think

36:04

Mark Rosie is now the most powerful

36:06

openly non

36:08

religious politician in the country. Wait. Isn't prison cinema not religious? She

36:10

is unaffiliated, takes no position on

36:12

it. Wait. And also religion in

36:14

addition to her Everyone else

36:18

and you? Correct. I would say Jared Hoffman. He is the

36:20

humanist in Congress. We'll talk about that in a

36:22

little bit, but actually Jared Hoffman

36:24

is now one member

36:26

of a minority party in the US

36:28

House. The speaker of the

36:30

Pennsylvania House only has

36:32

more legislative power. Oh, so you're

36:34

talking in, like, power rankings, not --

36:36

Yes. -- religiosity rankings. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

36:38

Yeah. So anyway, I need to say to be,

36:40

like, he said, something about I'm

36:42

praying for you to fucking I

36:44

am amazed that a guy who

36:46

is openly nontheistic, whatever

36:49

word he uses. None of that seemed to affect the vote for

36:51

him to be speaker. No one like,

36:54

if you have criticism of this guy, maybe it's his

36:56

policy positions.

36:58

Mhmm. But even there were a

37:00

handful of Republicans who voted for him, like,

37:02

now we like the guy. We think he's

37:04

principled. Interesting. It didn't happen

37:06

at the national That's a good question. Will there be, like, a consensus

37:08

candidate that a handful of moderate

37:10

Republicans where we live? Have to fuck

37:12

out what they're gonna

37:14

do. Right. My my

37:16

friend and friend of the show and just

37:18

texted said if they get to

37:20

thirteen, people in a hundred years are

37:22

gonna call it a McCarthy dozen and

37:24

never know why. And it really made me laugh a lot. So I just to

37:26

give her credit for that that text

37:28

that almost made me bust out laughing in

37:30

the middle of this recording. It's

37:34

just wait. It's just so fucking fun to

37:36

watch. Oh. Just absolutely. Twitter

37:39

is fun again. It's just

37:41

it feels like

37:44

it feels like the season finale of White Lotus, and

37:46

the Academy Awards are happening at the same

37:48

time. Oh, it's great. Someone we just need a slap and

37:50

we just It's just outstanding, and I'm

37:53

glad we're all enjoying nip. You're gonna

37:55

enjoy this one too. This

37:58

happened closely after Christmas or

38:00

around Christmas, but I I and I had to

38:02

hold it back. Last

38:04

week because we didn't talk because I was

38:06

driving last week. Oh, this is too good to

38:08

pass up. Dennis Prager, the

38:10

conservative commentator, wrote

38:12

an essay Craig is here.

38:14

We'll talk about that in a second. That is him.

38:16

Dennis Krager wrote an essay on one of

38:18

his weird little websites,

38:20

and it got a ton of reactions on

38:22

social media because -- Reactions. --

38:24

because here's what he said. He's

38:28

I'll read this with my best acting

38:30

voice. Probably an unprecedented number of Americans with

38:33

grown children will be

38:35

alone this Christmas. Because their

38:38

children will neither visit

38:40

them nor invite them for the holiday

38:42

dinner. Pay your

38:44

parent after parent calls my radio show often close to

38:46

tears. Sometimes actually sobbing

38:48

pouring their heart out

38:52

to me about being alone on the holidays

38:54

despite having children and

38:56

grandchildren. I'll stop there. Okay. First

38:58

of all, I have so many thoughts on this,

39:00

but is this how

39:02

you a key focus on TikTok? Oh, yeah. Just my acting skills.

39:04

Yes. No. No. No. No. Apparently, somebody posted

39:06

on the Facebook group

39:08

that dude on TikTok picked that up and

39:10

was like, I only watch half of

39:12

it, but it's like some dude doing that classic

39:14

like TikTok. Oh, no way. Yeah. He I'm

39:16

sure it happened because this was so comically

39:19

stupid to write. That people on TikTok know how to do these things

39:21

-- Right. -- would have had a field day with Well, and

39:23

it was a point of ridicule by

39:26

everybody. It's

39:28

true. And I think you said, and I only know that because I I wanna be

39:30

clear, I don't rate your shit, but I saw this

39:32

tick tockman. Yes. But I think you

39:34

said something about, like, if they want

39:37

people to love them. Maybe they should be loving

39:39

or want people to be kind to them. They should

39:41

be kind. That's exactly it. Yeah. I mean I

39:43

can't answer exactly it. Good. Here's the thing. We

39:45

know why the conserved First of all, I

39:47

have I don't trust this guy to tell me the truth

39:50

about parent after parent calling his radio show

39:52

something. No. These people like Let's call

39:54

it. Let's say he's right about that. Why would

39:56

conservative grandparents -- Uh-huh.

39:58

-- be alone on Christmas? Because they're homophobic

40:00

and all their kids are queer because every

40:02

kid is straight people are

40:04

done now. Yeah. I mean, if you if

40:07

you are either LGBTQ or you

40:09

care about civil rights or

40:12

reproductive rights, or you're affected by those issues,

40:14

which almost everybody does --

40:16

Right. -- turns out. -- then you know damn

40:18

well, conservatives

40:20

by and large, oppose all of that. The people who vote

40:22

for them, oppose all of that, or

40:24

they don't care about it, or they

40:26

are willing to accept all of those

40:30

things in exchange for, like, tax cuts because they're rich or something.

40:32

A hundred percent. Yes. You're correct. Similarly,

40:34

if you care about health, then you don't

40:37

want the unvaccinated or vaccine

40:40

deniers and conspiracy theorists

40:42

putting your life at risk or

40:44

other kids are your kids' lives at risk? Yeah. And that's before we about

40:46

book banning, election denial,

40:49

whitewashing history, science, rejection.

40:52

Awesome. More guns, more hands, more

40:54

place. Honestly though, can I just,

40:56

like, backtrack a little bit? And,

40:58

like, hey. Do you think these

41:00

guys, like, read or have anything cooled off for the

41:02

conversation? Maybe you're just a

41:04

boring guess. Did you ever think

41:06

of that? That too. You're not NASA.

41:08

You're saying Boring. If you're the sorta

41:10

conservative who seriously listens

41:12

to Dennis Kroger and not does it as

41:14

a king of your personality. Shut about

41:16

this. Like, these are not opinions that you're

41:19

gonna hash out over dinner or that

41:21

you wanna ruin, like, your dinner by

41:23

having this opinion shoved in your face.

41:25

Mhmm. These are harmful beliefs that

41:27

hurt people -- Mhmm. -- that you love -- Yeah. --

41:29

that might be sitting at that buried table. And

41:31

so if you have a choice -- decide.

41:33

Yeah. If you have a choice, same thing.

41:35

To say no to those conservative

41:38

relatives, why wouldn't you take

41:40

them up on that? Like, not everyone

41:42

gets that choice for a bunch of reasons, but like if you

41:44

do. If you get to decide who's shown up

41:46

at your house over Thanksgiving or

41:48

Christmas or whatever, and

41:50

you're like, know what? Crazy, mega, ant,

41:52

whatever. We're gonna just not invite

41:54

her over. Here. I get

41:56

it. Yep.

41:58

Here's why I am always so constantly

42:01

proud of the Zeniols or Gen Z.

42:03

I don't know whether it's actually supposed to

42:05

be Zeniols or is that mean

42:08

Even in that words by percent? Yes. Problem. That's fine. Is that

42:10

the boomers and the older people

42:14

who are saying like my kids won't invite me to dinner, how

42:16

come are because

42:18

those people and I can speak

42:20

for this in my own family,

42:23

did not like their

42:25

own parents, but felt

42:28

for their entire lives

42:30

obligated to spend time with them because that's what you do. That's a

42:32

grandparents' right or whatever.

42:34

And that's not healthy

42:36

for children. Like, maybe

42:40

you shouldn't spend time with people who you actively

42:42

don't like or don't value you as a

42:44

human being. So I guess all I'm

42:46

saying is like, this

42:50

Okay. Sorry. This is gonna be a small tangent, but we're gonna do it

42:52

anyway. Okay. There's a lot

42:54

of rhetoric that goes around on the

42:56

Internet about

42:58

single women of a certain age of, oh, you're

43:00

gonna be mad that you don't you you're so happy

43:02

being single now, but you're gonna be older with

43:04

your cats and you're not gonna

43:06

have any kids to --

43:08

Right. -- take care of this. Start having --

43:10

Which is why you need to have -- Yeah. -- get

43:12

married. Truly.

43:14

And it's so

43:17

telling that people

43:19

have kids specifically

43:22

because they're afraid of being alone when

43:24

they're old. And think

43:26

that the solution to that is to

43:28

create Progyny who would be obligated

43:30

to hang out with you no matter how

43:32

good your

43:34

self is. And then they do and so,

43:36

like, that's what they grew up

43:38

doing. Like, you know, I hated my

43:40

parents, but we all went to fucking hang out

43:42

with them. You might hate me,

43:44

but that doesn't matter. That's how we do.

43:46

And people who don't like their parents

43:48

are like, I don't want to be

43:50

near you. You're mean to me.

43:52

You are like, vicious. You're not kind. You make

43:54

me feel like shit. Make my kid feel like shit.

43:56

You make us go to church with you. You

43:58

don't respect our XYNZ. So when

44:00

you get

44:02

a chance to break free of all that. Mhmm. It's

44:04

too it's Oh. So what did Prager

44:06

say? I I mean, I I thought he would at

44:08

least address

44:10

some of those things -- talking. -- three hours. Okay. I thought he would

44:12

at least address some of those concerns

44:14

or complaints or whatever. Nope. Here's

44:17

what he said. what did he say? Here's what he said. The

44:20

further left you go, the less

44:22

likely you are to believe that you are accountable to a

44:24

absolute moral

44:26

code. On the other hand. Yep. He's talking about morality.

44:28

Are you not inviting your mega ant

44:30

means you're in moral? What is Damar?

44:32

When people say absolute morality

44:36

or whatever. Morals only come from

44:38

God. God said these are the rules

44:40

and you Ethan don't

44:42

follow anything. Show is morality respecting your elders? Is that

44:44

what you're tying it in? Here's what he

44:46

said. On the other hand, conservative,

44:48

certainly religious

44:50

conservative who are people who believe in

44:52

a god given ten commandments, who believe that they are obligated

44:54

to honor their parents irrespective

44:56

of such things as political differences.

45:00

Religious people who believe they have to answer to god for their

45:02

behavior are likely to treat their parents

45:04

better than those who do not

45:07

pay believe So Yes, everybody. Live a

45:09

life as such that your family will be

45:12

obligated to spend time with you and your

45:14

old age.

45:16

Congratulations, Chris. You really fucking mailed it. If the only

45:18

reason you wanna honor their parents is because

45:20

the old list told

45:22

you so, you

45:24

wouldn't have done it if you didn't have to.

45:26

Of course. And so you understand why nobody

45:28

wants to hang out with you, Betty. I

45:30

think the morality is coming from our

45:33

side over here. not about political

45:35

differences or like Liberals or

45:37

snowflakes. Families are not breaking up because

45:39

people have different ideas

45:42

about taxes. This is about, like, values

45:44

and decency and the fact that one group of people here revels

45:46

in hurting the other

45:49

side. It wouldn't have been

45:52

Christmas Eve if my dad and my uncle

45:54

Mark didn't have a political argument, my

45:56

dad, the Republican, my uncle Mark, and

45:58

Democrat, but, like, the richest person I've ever met.

46:00

So who knows kind of? But it

46:02

was always

46:04

about sorry. I just hear

46:06

your computer. I'm gesturing a lot. It was always

46:09

about like you said, minimum wage

46:12

and money and shit like that, not

46:14

like this person is wearing a dress

46:16

and so I think they should

46:18

be murdered. the it's just a different language. And what else did

46:20

Kroger blame for all of

46:22

this happening? Gotta be gay. It's

46:24

college. He

46:26

blamed college. Actually,

46:28

here's the thing. Because they've always blamed college

46:31

for everything. But they're not

46:33

wrong is the thing. And the thing

46:35

is the right they're just

46:37

-- He just doesn't. -- wrong about whether it's a

46:40

group. He doesn't get that when you

46:42

have more in-depth education,

46:44

formal education, I should say, exposure

46:46

to a wider variety of people

46:48

and the ability to explore new

46:50

ideas away from, like, societal,

46:52

cultural, religious

46:54

barriers that might lead you

46:56

down a slightly more liberal path.

46:58

I'm very curious how many

47:00

conservative religious people have gone

47:02

to college and come on on the other end with,

47:05

like, their exact beliefs and everything.

47:07

If you It's just

47:09

unexamined. A guy who looks like

47:11

he's twenty but always wears a suit and

47:13

a bow tie. You have

47:16

your match. I hate people like

47:18

that. I know. So there you go. I saw a thing

47:20

about how fucking mad people are

47:22

that Americans wear pajamas to the

47:25

grocery store, and it's like, get

47:27

a life. Spreads are incredibly

47:30

comfortable. Right? The good news about this

47:32

is that all of those people who

47:34

are no longer invited to the

47:37

family holiday dinners. You know, they have a lot

47:39

of free time over the holidays to rethink

47:41

their life choices. So, you

47:43

know, get started. You

47:46

wanna talk about Kurt Cameron? Yeah. You do. Wait. Can

47:48

we talk about him yet? Like two

47:51

weeks ago? Two weeks

47:54

ago. Can't remember if we did. Talked about him recently. Okay.

47:56

Here's this reason I wanna bring up Kurt

47:58

Cameron. He wrote a children's book. It's

48:01

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He talked about things. He wanted

48:03

to do a public library thing, and they

48:05

wouldn't do and he was mad. We had a

48:07

bunch of librarians write in and explain to you guys what the fuck

48:09

that's all about. Okay. So that's where we were at.

48:12

That he his publishers, like, we reached

48:14

out to fifty,

48:16

some public libraries. And they

48:18

said, no. And all the librarians are like,

48:20

you can rent the space

48:22

yourself. And they were cleaning

48:24

persecution. It's like, no libraries

48:26

obligated to like, promote

48:28

your event for you. Of course. So guess We're

48:30

not a marketing arm of you

48:32

personally. So a couple weeks

48:34

ago, his team went ahead and

48:36

rented space from a

48:38

branch of the Indianapolis Public

48:40

Library. They they hosted their

48:42

own event. And of course,

48:44

like, if you say, if you go

48:46

to Indianapolis, And you're like, hey,

48:48

Kurt Cameron's reading a book to your

48:50

kids. Will it get attention?

48:52

Sure. Will it get people to show up? Yes. He's

48:54

a name. He is a name. And so they got people

48:56

in the publishers of his book,

48:58

posted pictures on Twitter, where they're like,

49:00

look at all the people here. Like, look, what an

49:02

incredible turnout. But here's the thing.

49:05

Here's what BraveBooks. Here's

49:08

what they said. This is a message

49:10

to every library in the

49:12

United States. In one hundred thirty seven years of the

49:14

Indianapolis Public Library's history,

49:16

never once all caps,

49:20

never once have they had over

49:22

twenty five hundred people show up to a single event until

49:24

today? Our libraries in

49:26

the business of mass crowds

49:30

I don't think that's sort of their I think okay.

49:33

Can I give you a really high arching

49:35

problem with society right now

49:37

specifically with conservatives? Is

49:41

that they only know how to measure things in monetary

49:44

value. And font size. And font

49:46

size and,

49:48

like, just they only III shouldn't say monetary value. They only Look at how many

49:50

people came to my round Exactly. They know they

49:52

only know how to brag about, like, sheer numbers.

49:56

And, like,

49:58

if I'm not impressed that you got twenty five hundred

50:00

people to a free library event

50:03

in Indianapolis. Like, what

50:05

am I okay. Cool.

50:08

Like And then Okay. I'm

50:10

not even done yet. On Facebook, Kirk

50:13

Cameron added that this beautiful library

50:15

has a large auditorium that seats over

50:17

two thousand people, but leadership

50:19

never offered it to us or even

50:21

told us about

50:24

it. Here's the thing with all of these comments you just heard.

50:26

They're all lies. You know,

50:28

you don't know that because they're

50:31

lying. Indianapolis is public library

50:34

responded on Twitter, and

50:36

they said the following. Our

50:39

estimated door count during the

50:41

event was around seven fifty. Not

50:43

twenty five hundred. Part one. Okay.

50:46

Oh, wait. Wait. Wait. Seven seven

50:48

hundred fifteen What's that? Two thousand five hundred

50:50

here? It's about a

50:52

third. Yeah. They said, who's

50:54

good at math math? We've had larger events.

50:58

Then Listen. I

51:00

lived in Indiana for a long time, and I

51:02

do hate this shit as a whole. But Indiana

51:04

Atlas fucking rolls. I love that

51:06

city and I love this. Then

51:08

they added. By the way, we

51:10

churned one hundred fifty years

51:12

old in twenty twenty three, not one

51:14

thirty seven, so they got that number wrong. I'm doing

51:16

that. They said now. And our

51:18

auditorium, which our guests

51:20

chose not to rent,

51:22

holds three hundred, not

51:24

two thousand. So like

51:26

every numeric claim they made

51:29

was just flat out wrong.

51:31

Do you know, like, it's one thing

51:33

for, like, the red billed misogynist

51:35

online to get owned by, like, Greta Thunberg. But for

51:37

Kirk Cameron to

51:40

get to get owned by a public

51:42

library in Indianapolis. Oh, nice.

51:45

Funny. Well, I we Cameron, by

51:47

the way, had to edit his Facebook post

51:50

multiple times to remove

51:52

that comment. That he made because he's like, oh, I was wrong. Oh, I

51:54

was wrong. Oh. Well, it's just

51:56

so so indicative of this

51:58

kind of

52:00

shit that these this world that people live in is, like, they'll just

52:02

throw out whatever number is in their

52:04

brain, and somebody near them will

52:07

make it make sense. Twenty

52:09

five hundred. Sure. That looks like Charlie. Honestly, I

52:11

I truly think that we are about to get to

52:13

this reckoning of conservatives who

52:16

just make shit up and say whatever they want to pretend And

52:18

I think we're seeing this in DC right

52:20

now of they elected a

52:24

hundred and fifty people who have no interest in governing or doing

52:26

the business of running a country. And

52:28

so this is what we get. We're

52:32

gonna be doing this for the next two years and people

52:34

are gonna be like, oh, oh,

52:36

actually the government needs to be

52:38

doing things because, like, we

52:40

kind of rely on it for driving and

52:42

living and having water and shit like

52:44

that. Wild. But it's things like this of,

52:46

like, these guys guys

52:48

will say a number that

52:50

they make up and there are dorks

52:53

on computers bending over backwards, trying to

52:55

be like, well, when he said ten thousand,

52:57

we definitely knew there were seven thousand here and

52:59

two hundred here. And four hundred

53:02

like, it's they think

53:04

they can make anything up they want to,

53:06

and it will be fine. Yep. And no one's gonna call

53:08

them out out. I think we're finally getting there that

53:10

people are gonna get called out on

53:12

easy things that they lie about. And look, I'm

53:14

just saying if the Christian parents who

53:16

attended this event wanna see courage

53:18

Damar morality and really good storytelling

53:20

like just go to a drag queen

53:22

story hour. It's fine. You don't need Kirk

53:24

Cameron. P okay. I that's a

53:26

thing I've noticed recently, is that people

53:29

are on on Facebook. Specifically, which is where

53:31

I do my most public interaction, which is miserable. That's

53:33

the saddest thing about it. It does see

53:35

first of all, I have real friends

53:37

so fuck you. This

53:40

one means it should stop me very mean to

53:43

you. But it seems to be that

53:45

is the go to,

53:48

like, anytime somebody

53:50

criticizes conservatives, they're like,

53:52

well, at least they're

53:54

not, like, applying sex to

53:56

three year olds in the form

53:59

of drag Queens. Like -- Yeah. -- that has become their new

54:01

sort of like, well, y'all

54:04

Do you raise the concept

54:06

in any way? It's automatically

54:08

the worst thing. The first thing you've ever heard

54:11

of. I'm just for the

54:13

first time in, I

54:15

don't know, eight

54:18

years, I'm a little bit optimistic

54:20

about the delivery. Stop it. Should I

54:22

stop it? No. No. No. No. No. You

54:24

stop it

54:26

right now. Maybe people

54:28

are starting to wake up from

54:30

the Trump is -- Oh, god. No. -- and

54:32

the ineffectiveness. They're all there. It's

54:34

been Nobody he's running again and nobody

54:36

answers shit. Like, honestly,

54:38

I think The scientist is not better

54:40

though. No. It's a different brand of

54:42

all. Use me. Did you just

54:44

accuse me? You said you were optimistic. I said I was optimistic

54:46

about the direction of the country because I think

54:48

people are starting to wake up to this

54:50

kind of bullshit of like these people

54:54

are liars. And they're not gonna follow through and fucking anything. This is why couldn't

54:56

be a politician because my

54:58

general consensus is the American

55:00

voter is just that Domest

55:03

human beings. Of course. But even idiots have

55:05

their floor of, like,

55:07

okay, you can't

55:10

just say, anything to me and expect me to believe it. Right?

55:12

Like, I feel like that's where Trump is.

55:14

Like, he just keeps lying

55:16

about everything

55:18

and people it seems to me

55:20

from, like, online red or a one by one or,

55:22

like, I don't think

55:24

he is the person

55:26

I thought he was. I can't believe

55:28

the person I supported through all this

55:30

did x. I would kind I

55:33

wanna believe that except if Some other

55:35

idiot does the exact same stuff with the same mannerisms that's not

55:37

with his name, which is what

55:39

the scientists is.

55:42

They're falling forward again. So it's like we haven't learned it. You think people

55:44

are falling forward to Santos? Yes. Republicans.

55:46

Yeah. Well, I mean,

55:50

So let's talk about this is interesting, the Pew Research

55:52

Center every two years when

55:54

the first day of Congress is

55:56

set to get sworn in. They

56:00

issue a release where they say the

56:02

religious makeup of Congress.

56:04

So they did it again this year. Little did

56:06

they know. So Sweden a baby. But basically, they're saying

56:08

we looked into what are the religious labels

56:11

-- Yeah. -- used by every

56:13

entering member of congress

56:16

and what is different now from two years ago. So

56:19

in terms of the stuff that

56:21

I think people should know for

56:23

the first time on

56:26

the list, It actually says humanist. Hey.

56:28

One that Jared Hoffman from

56:30

California last two

56:32

years ago Even

56:34

though he was openly humanist -- Uh-huh. -- he was listed as

56:36

other. This year, they gave him

56:38

his own label. Oh. So for the first time,

56:41

there's a human symbol. It was the plight of biracial

56:43

people up until, like, twenty twelve of his

56:46

other. Yep. Yep. I knew it

56:48

well. Yep. So there's a humanist on the list. That means one

56:50

member of Congress is a humanist. That is

56:52

point two percent of Congress.

56:54

That's reflective of America.

56:56

Right. Yep. What

56:59

percent of congress is some brand of Christian?

57:02

Sixty nine. Nice. Hi.

57:04

Nice. Really? Yeah. Seventy six

57:08

eighty eight percent. Ah, God. Me. Is Christian

57:11

Seventy six is the number of thrombones in

57:13

the big parade. What percent

57:16

of Republicans our

57:18

Christian. Oh, a hundred percent.

57:20

Ninety nine. I think

57:22

ninety eight point something, but it's

57:24

ninety nine. Who's not a single person? It's two. They two

57:26

Jewish people in their caucus and one

57:28

guy take a guess who is, quote,

57:30

Jewish. Ish, wink wink

57:34

wink. Okay. So it would be to listen to person whom

57:36

I did not hear of --

57:38

Yeah. -- until I learned --

57:40

And then to know everything about it. --

57:44

thing. Yeah. Who the fuck is this guy? Can you give me, like, a thirty second

57:46

explainer? He lied for years and years,

57:48

and he ran for Congress and lost two

57:50

years ago. So I think the consensus

57:54

was he lost. We're never gonna hear of him again. We don't have to do any

57:56

more deep dive into him. Is he always

57:58

lying? Yeah. Okay. And now he

58:00

won the

58:02

race And it turns out when you actually look new his background, George Santos,

58:04

he lied about pretty much everything. And

58:06

by the way, Brazil wants to arrest

58:08

him on fraud charges. Brazil. Brazil.

58:12

Okay. Dude, you popped up. Nice.

58:14

And even Republicans other than

58:16

the, like, far mega

58:18

people, and none of them wanna talk to him based

58:20

on Seaspan camera. So he

58:22

We're not even talking about this guy, but he's one

58:24

of the non Christians because what he told

58:27

the press is he's like, I'm Jew, dash

58:29

ish. Okay. That was my question. What

58:31

is his question? I don't know. But

58:33

is that be does he have

58:35

any Jewish heritage in me? According to Jewish newspapers, we checked

58:38

and know. Oh, who

58:40

knows? Okay.

58:42

Okay. I don't want to just going by what they publicly

58:44

said, and the Pew is

58:46

not doing the deep investigation. I

58:48

don't wanna hear a dick about

58:51

this, and maybe this is dickish, but, like,

58:53

why would you pretend to be Jewish to

58:55

win a GOP raise? I think he That's my

58:57

concern. I think one of the things he was

58:59

saying is my grandparents escaped like the Holocaust. They they

59:01

were the Oh, that's his second problem

59:03

because I think GOP is pro holocaust

59:06

at this point in his But I think that was one

59:08

of the

59:10

stories he hold -- That is -- and it turned out to be false. They

59:12

have no record of his grandparents there

59:14

either. I don't know what his name

59:16

is. How old

59:18

is it? Like, four. I don't know. No. Generally, is he, like, our age or

59:20

is he an older person? He's younger. He's younger

59:22

than us. He's younger. For the youngest people, I

59:24

have our man.

59:26

You're old. He's also old, r h

59:28

old, forty, thirty. Okay. So he's

59:30

an adult. He's not, like, a twenty three year old kid

59:32

yet. And he's not a ninety year old. So

59:34

that's one thing. Republican We're talking

59:36

about ninety nine percent Christian. I'm

59:38

frankly That's not a hundred percent.

59:41

Thirty three members of

59:43

Congress as a whole are Jewish. That's

59:45

about six percent of congress compared to two percent of the

59:47

population. Okay. So they are

59:50

overrepresented in congress. I was hoping you're gonna get

59:52

me this. Yes.

59:54

Catholics are also overrepresented in

59:56

congress, a hundred forty eight Catholics. And I

59:58

would say on the supreme

1:00:00

court. Yeah. Hundred forty eight Catholics in congress, that's twenty eight percent of

1:00:02

congress compared to twenty one percent of

1:00:04

the population. And

1:00:06

closer. Closer. Where the

1:00:08

makeup? Like, who's underrepresented? That

1:00:10

would be the unaffiliated -- It should.

1:00:12

-- president us. There is one member

1:00:14

of congress who is listed as Unaffiliated.

1:00:17

And that is compared to twenty nine percent of the population. Who

1:00:19

is that one Kirsten cinema? Fuck

1:00:22

you. So couple of other things

1:00:24

to note. Jamie

1:00:26

Raskin. We'll talk about him in

1:00:28

a little bit house member

1:00:30

Jamie Raskin. As far as

1:00:32

I can tell, he believe higher power

1:00:34

of any sword, but he is listed as

1:00:36

Jewish. He says that's what I was

1:00:38

raised with. It's the culture I identify

1:00:41

with. And Judaism is a tricky

1:00:43

thing in terms There's a singular

1:00:45

jute. Yeah. So there's that. Other

1:00:47

things to keep in mind, there

1:00:49

is one messianic Ju, who is

1:00:51

one of these crazy mega Republicans, Anna Paulina Luna, there are three

1:00:54

Muslims, to Buddhists,

1:00:56

to Hinduos, A

1:00:58

little diversity there. So diverse. It's impressive.

1:01:00

It's all diverse. This room we're sitting

1:01:02

in right now. There are twenty

1:01:06

twenty members of congress who chose not to answer the

1:01:08

religion question, which is pretty much what

1:01:10

it was two years ago. I wonder why that it. I

1:01:13

I'm just Sometimes they just believe,

1:01:15

like, I'm Christian, but I don't believe it's it's some part of my

1:01:18

place. It's nobody's business or

1:01:20

they just forgot to answer the question

1:01:22

on the survey that we are

1:01:24

working off of. Or it didn't make to their

1:01:26

desks. Or some of the newer members who

1:01:28

are don't know or refused

1:01:30

to answer. Brittany Patterson, a Democrat from Colorado,

1:01:32

Nikki Budzinski, a Democrat from

1:01:34

Illinois, Melanie Stansbury, a Democrat

1:01:36

from New

1:01:38

Mexico, George Santos, who's listed as Jewish, who's the Republican?

1:01:40

Wait. No. No. No. He's not listed as

1:01:42

Jewish. He's one of

1:01:45

the non Christians but

1:01:48

he's technically don't know or refused to say.

1:01:50

The hyphen isn't in there. But the hyphen is not

1:01:52

in there. Okay. Just wanna make sure because we

1:01:55

need to have some seriousness in this regard. The Democrat from Rhode

1:01:57

Island, Seth Magazineer, and also

1:01:59

John Federman. The

1:02:02

senator Also, has listed no religious affiliation. I

1:02:04

have no reason to think he's listed affiliation. Anybody

1:02:06

Anyhow, he never talked about that. Is

1:02:09

my personal hero. Draws I

1:02:12

absolutely truly, Sydney McElroy and

1:02:14

Justin McElroy on Southern's call him draws,

1:02:16

and I would only refer to

1:02:19

him as such. Although I do I'm

1:02:22

just never I don't think ever

1:02:24

gonna get over doctor Oz walking

1:02:26

into that grocery store and

1:02:28

saying, like,

1:02:30

I need to make a crudetae plate

1:02:32

and it was too expensive. And, like, that was

1:02:34

him trying to appeal to blue collar

1:02:38

people. As if any of them have I would say, Curtiss, and a

1:02:42

snug. I make sure Curtiss is all over the

1:02:44

time with

1:02:46

Pat. Hey. Here's here's the disclaimer for this entire part of

1:02:48

the conversation. Like, this is

1:02:50

ultimately a superficial way of viewing all of

1:02:52

these people

1:02:54

because Of course, all

1:02:56

that really matters is how any of these people are gonna

1:02:58

vote on the issues that matter to us. If there's

1:03:00

a Republican atheist who votes against

1:03:02

women's rights, LGBTQ rights, shirt date separation. Yeah. It's

1:03:04

my best friend. Yeah. Like, then the fact

1:03:07

that your non religious means nothing

1:03:10

to me And by the way, there are plenty of religious Democrats do

1:03:12

a really good job of fighting for

1:03:14

progressive causes. And if they keep doing

1:03:16

that, I don't really care how they self

1:03:18

identify. Yeah. Not the reason

1:03:20

I care about them right now. You know what I mean? I

1:03:22

I think you and I hopefully are

1:03:24

pretty what's

1:03:27

the word? Like, our values of, like, just

1:03:29

because somebody's an atheist doesn't mean we

1:03:31

want anything to do with them. Like, you need to do

1:03:33

because I think that's a

1:03:35

problem. Like, republicans Christians and things

1:03:37

like that. Like, if they are ex, then I trust them. And I trust

1:03:40

nobody. Yeah. Let's

1:03:43

also talk about This is a thing

1:03:45

we talked about like a year ago, but it's been a while, and now I've seen these ads -- It's been a year. -- up

1:03:48

again. Do you remember those

1:03:50

he gets us ads

1:03:52

for Jesus? I

1:03:54

saw them pop up all over the place this week. I

1:03:57

know my face didn't translate, but your face

1:03:59

looks like I've never heard of

1:04:01

these things ever. And how dare

1:04:03

you bring it up to me? The during the

1:04:06

college football, like, semifinals,

1:04:08

and the bowl games, I saw these commercials

1:04:11

all over the broadcast. Mhmm. And

1:04:13

I've seen them during some of the

1:04:15

election or the news coverage now,

1:04:17

like, on cable shows

1:04:20

they're putting this ad in front of people who are watching. But basically,

1:04:22

if you don't remember these ads,

1:04:24

these started appearing a little more

1:04:26

than a year ago sometime in

1:04:29

twenty twenty one, I think. But basically, these are

1:04:31

ads that say things like he

1:04:33

was a refugee. He

1:04:35

gets it. Jesus.

1:04:38

He gets us. Oh. You know

1:04:40

what I mean? K. Mhmm.

1:04:45

Basically, they're not advertising for a

1:04:47

brand of Christianity or a particular

1:04:49

church. They're just saying, jeez, it's like

1:04:51

milk. It does a body good. I

1:04:53

am so critical of

1:04:56

things like that that are just

1:04:58

like Jesus writ large

1:05:00

because who's pouring this

1:05:02

money because the milk a step ahead of me

1:05:04

here. The milk does everybody good. It's

1:05:06

done by. The dairy

1:05:08

council, the pork, the other

1:05:10

white meat. Yeah. The pork

1:05:12

council like people pay for this

1:05:14

because it is in their financial

1:05:16

interest to remind people that milk

1:05:18

is great. Who benefits from an ad that says, like, Jesus is cool. You should give

1:05:20

him a second look. And that's the question

1:05:22

I'm curious about is, like, you can't just say

1:05:24

Jesus and expect them to come to your personal church.

1:05:28

Tracked. And basically, what we learned last year, and I

1:05:30

think we talked about this at the time, is that

1:05:32

the people who sponsored this campaign.

1:05:35

First of all, anonymous donors. We don't know their names. No.

1:05:37

That's messed up. And do you know how much

1:05:40

money they're spending on this ad

1:05:42

campaign, which is not just commercials

1:05:44

on TV. I

1:05:46

wanted to bring this up. They according

1:05:48

to the Catholic News Agency,

1:05:50

they have bought two

1:05:52

ads during the Super Bowl

1:05:54

which by my estimation is a cost of

1:05:56

fourteen million dollars. Four Fourteen.

1:05:59

For sixty seconds of airtime during the

1:06:01

Super Bowl. Where

1:06:04

everyone Super Bowl. That is to be a million dollars for thirty seconds.

1:06:06

Wow. Now it's seven million. Wow. So they

1:06:08

bought two ads for the SUSU. You will see this during

1:06:10

the Super Bowl. How much money do they have

1:06:13

in the campaign altogether. It has to be tens of

1:06:15

millions. Hundred million dollar

1:06:18

ad campaign. Wow. So who's

1:06:21

paying for Comes from a group. This is from Christianity

1:06:23

today who got a hold of the story. I

1:06:26

think I need to date as good shit sometimes.

1:06:28

Sometimes. Yeah. And they,

1:06:30

I believe, he gets us. People are like, Hey, Christianity. Today, we'll talk

1:06:32

to you exclusively -- Sure. -- if you're

1:06:34

right about this. And they

1:06:36

they said, it comes from a group called

1:06:38

the Servant Christian

1:06:40

foundation, which is a nonprofit backed by

1:06:42

a Christian donor advised fund

1:06:45

called the Signet Tree. Which

1:06:47

is a weird way of saying there are this group funded by

1:06:49

this group. You've never heard of either group.

1:06:52

And all of those groups are funded by

1:06:54

shadowy donors who we cannot tell you their names.

1:06:56

They're all anonymous. But here's the

1:06:58

important Something Dan Brown may have.

1:07:00

That's exactly my thought too. It's just

1:07:02

like nebulous weird groups and I don't know

1:07:04

anything about them. Here's what you do need

1:07:06

to know. The people who first thing you

1:07:08

need to know is that the people who

1:07:10

are behind the marketing here,

1:07:12

whoever's funding them, and I don't know the answer

1:07:14

to Whoever's

1:07:16

funding them? It's a Michigan based

1:07:18

marketing agency called Haven. And

1:07:20

what do we know about Haven? The people

1:07:22

actually making the ads and

1:07:25

getting paid make that do this, they have

1:07:27

previously worked for focus on the

1:07:29

family and alliance defending freedom, like

1:07:32

very conservative

1:07:34

Christian in groups. Mhmm. But the same time,

1:07:36

they're being chill. Right? And here's my

1:07:38

problem with the campaign. I believe, again,

1:07:42

we talked about this a while ago.

1:07:44

My problem with the campaign is I get that their belief is

1:07:46

we are not selling you on a particular

1:07:49

type of Christianity We just

1:07:51

wanna get Jesus out there and

1:07:54

It feels noble on its debate.

1:07:56

Feels like it. I believe this

1:07:58

isn't me trying to make money. This is me

1:08:00

trying to SAVE PEOPLE. AND I BELIEVE THE

1:08:02

WAY IT WORKS IS THEY HAVE A WEBSITE LIKE HE

1:08:05

GETS US, WHATEVER, BUT ANY CHURCH CAN GO THERE

1:08:07

AND SAY, Hey, CAN YOU ADD MY CHURCH'S

1:08:09

to your directory. Mhmm. And if anyone curious

1:08:11

goes to their website, they could say, I'm

1:08:13

interested in this Jesus person. Is there anything near me

1:08:15

and they will direct you to

1:08:17

all the churches in your area -- Okay.

1:08:19

-- that have signed on to the all we're

1:08:22

we're for Jesus and we have no other beliefs about

1:08:24

it. No other

1:08:26

barriers. Which, again, that could be fine. The problem is, like, you can't sell any

1:08:28

product without acknowledging

1:08:31

the side effects And

1:08:34

if we've learned anything from the people who

1:08:37

follow Jesus, it's that things don't

1:08:39

turn out well. Marketing Like,

1:08:41

you can't market Jesus unless acknowledge that most of the people

1:08:43

who use the product are like not worth

1:08:46

admiring. We are about to

1:08:48

have another fight. No.

1:08:50

No. No. No. No. No. Totally read about it. Alliance defending freedom,

1:08:52

focus on the family. No. Those are

1:08:54

bad people. Absolutely bad people. But

1:08:58

I'm sorry. Are you saying to me right now with

1:09:00

a serious tone that people who are

1:09:02

the kind of people who are

1:09:04

gonna do a hundred

1:09:06

million dollar ad campaign for

1:09:09

Jesus. Yes. Are you going to be like, Astrid,

1:09:11

all of your wishes won't come true? No.

1:09:16

I was there. Sounds like to me. No.

1:09:18

I think the problem is that they're saying if you just agree with us

1:09:20

on the Jesus thing, here's some of their

1:09:22

ads. I'll put them to visit that.

1:09:26

They do believe that. Here's some of their ads. Jesus

1:09:29

confronted racism with

1:09:32

love. Wait, did he?

1:09:34

No. I mean Wait. Was there racism

1:09:36

in the Middle East where they're all the same

1:09:38

race? I think they just make up these

1:09:41

thing. Jesus was a refugee. Jesus Fought

1:09:43

systems of oppression. It shows a

1:09:45

refugee like is folded into the

1:09:47

Jesus' tourism thing and less Not

1:09:49

in the way we talk Listen, if it wasn't

1:09:51

in Jesus Christ, super sorry, I don't know about it,

1:09:53

but I don't think there was a racial thing.

1:09:56

But like the thing is, there's no

1:09:58

mention of the fact that the people fighting

1:10:00

against any mention

1:10:02

or response to structural racism? Guess who they are. It's like the white evangelicals.

1:10:04

You can't protect. Jesus

1:10:07

is all good with confronting

1:10:11

racism without admitting without trying

1:10:13

to admit, like, dude, Jesus is

1:10:15

the problem when the

1:10:17

rest of us. Are

1:10:20

trying to I know. Jim, you haven't.

1:10:22

I feel like you're giving me these arguments that there's moved in in APEAS for forty

1:10:26

five months now. Come up here. Here's another ad they've actually put out. This is

1:10:28

a Facebook ad. Have you ever cars?

1:10:30

Have you ever been bullied? Yeah.

1:10:34

That's the whole ad. The implication is Jesus was bullied too.

1:10:36

He gets you. He gets being bullied.

1:10:38

My bully called me Eagle because I

1:10:40

have a Roman nose and he thought

1:10:42

I made me look like an eagle. But that's

1:10:44

the thing like there's no mention, no acknowledgment of the fact

1:10:46

that the people who are getting bullied if you're talking about like

1:10:49

LGBTQ people, where is

1:10:51

that coming from? So I wanted to

1:10:54

bring this. Do you remember expectations, haven't? I acknowledge that I I would love to see

1:10:57

an honest campaign

1:11:00

that says we know most of the

1:11:02

Christians you ever see are pieces of crap on TV in

1:11:04

the media, the

1:11:07

people with the largest platforms and

1:11:09

profiles are horrible. Mhmm. We are not like that. Mhmm. We wish

1:11:11

we would all get back to basics. Mean,

1:11:15

I would at least get where that's coming from. Now, these people want to think,

1:11:17

like, if we all just return to Jesus, everything

1:11:19

will be fine. Well, one of us

1:11:22

is a marketing professional, and one of

1:11:24

us isn't and I just want

1:11:26

to say to you that Would this campaign work? It's a I

1:11:31

mean who cares? Jenny, I mean, that's the

1:11:33

whole question. They're spending a hundred million thinking that this campaign will work. Do you think

1:11:35

they have a point? No, I

1:11:38

don't. But also fine.

1:11:40

Like, I'm happy with that

1:11:42

fucking advertisement money to go to the MTA and they can, like Sure. Improve their trains or whatever. Yeah. I mean, like,

1:11:44

they can waste their money however they

1:11:46

want. I guess, haven't I'm just

1:11:51

confused. I'm confused about why this feels

1:11:53

like a big deal for you. I'll give

1:11:55

you an analogy here as

1:11:57

well. This is what we I haven't I've

1:11:59

been working for you for ten years now. And

1:12:01

this is all we do. Somebody

1:12:04

did this bullshit advertisement for,

1:12:06

like, allegedly, and I made it.

1:12:09

But, like, what are you Okay.

1:12:11

What are you? Okay. Andrew Yang, remember him. Oh. Remember

1:12:13

Rob? Okay. Darrin. Do

1:12:15

you remember he launched the

1:12:18

forward party recently? No. Okay. And I get attention He launched a third party.

1:12:20

It's called the forward party.

1:12:22

And his whole thing is, like,

1:12:27

we know most of you hate the two sides. He

1:12:29

actually build it as a centrist

1:12:31

alternative to the two party

1:12:33

system meant to appeal to

1:12:35

a, quote, moderate common sense

1:12:37

majority. How do you feel about entering as a fellow Asian? Do you think he's making y'all

1:12:39

look good or bad?

1:12:43

No. He's a someone you all don't. We

1:12:45

all don't. We do. Like, okay. But here's the point. He seems like a good dude, just

1:12:48

misguided. Totally misguided.

1:12:51

I think the a girth. But here's the thing. Yeah.

1:12:53

If you go to their website like, forward party, find you started a third party. I've seen that. It

1:12:56

usually does Are

1:12:58

they running at local levels? That's

1:13:00

a great question. Green party. Like, are you

1:13:02

doing anything? Are you doing anything besides running a

1:13:04

candidate to siphon votes? We're running

1:13:06

for president once every four years.

1:13:09

This is to the

1:13:12

Bernie Bros from twenty sixteen. Okay. Forward party. You

1:13:14

wanna be the centrist alternative. What are your positions on anything?

1:13:16

Yes. And

1:13:19

the answer is they have none. They say we don't

1:13:21

have a platform. There are no

1:13:24

positions. Like, say

1:13:27

those words or they just say I'm saying that, but

1:13:29

you will not find any

1:13:31

policy What are

1:13:33

they saying everything? What are they for? Yeah.

1:13:36

Nothing. They have no opinions

1:13:38

about anything. So they're only saying

1:13:42

hey, we're not a Democrat, and we're not a

1:13:44

Republican. We'll find a common sense.

1:13:46

Like, here's what they said, this

1:13:48

is actually this week an essay in

1:13:50

the Atlantic. Was from a volunteer for the forward party who has

1:13:52

since left the group here's what he wrote.

1:13:54

When a party's platform is no

1:13:58

more specific than free people, thriving communities

1:14:00

and vibrant democracy, leaders

1:14:02

are essentially saying good

1:14:05

vibes, good people,

1:14:08

trust us. Which -- Yes. -- did you write

1:14:10

that? No. That was this guy in the Atlantic. It was very good. But here's the point, like, if

1:14:12

you don't tell us where you

1:14:14

stand on the biggest issues, we're all

1:14:17

facing right now, what abortion rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration rights,

1:14:19

like, you gotta have some position

1:14:22

on this. Even if you

1:14:24

say, we

1:14:26

can find a good compromise to

1:14:28

bring people from both sides together.

1:14:30

What is your compromise on abortion?

1:14:32

Mhmm. Like, how are you gonna

1:14:35

find a way to to thread the needle here. Well, I

1:14:37

I don't know what that is.

1:14:39

I I think we as a collector

1:14:41

need to be a little more aware

1:14:43

of the overten window. Which you do

1:14:45

you wanna explain? Can do you have a good People have a range of opinions you could have. But if one

1:14:47

side's insanely crazy, of

1:14:52

crazy people are kinda normal,

1:14:54

and it shifts the window

1:14:56

of acceptable

1:14:59

opinions. In one direction or another. Is that fair? Yeah. I I think that's

1:15:01

how I would put it. Well, I think

1:15:03

the origin window is

1:15:06

very much applicable here because the Yang at

1:15:09

all are saying, oh my

1:15:11

god, they're both extremists. Yes.

1:15:13

And we're gonna find something

1:15:15

in the middle where

1:15:17

-- And all I'm at -- that

1:15:19

we're both extremist. Right. Is one party wants to, govern and help people

1:15:21

and the other wants to

1:15:24

show chaos And

1:15:27

if you try to divide those particular

1:15:29

uprights, you're going to

1:15:31

end up with, like,

1:15:33

an anti choice decision

1:15:35

as a compromise. Right. So this is the

1:15:37

point. Like, why this is the criticism everybody who

1:15:39

cares about politics and writes about it. Yeah.

1:15:41

This is what they pretty much complained about

1:15:44

from the get

1:15:46

go. It's like you're it's one

1:15:48

thing to say we're gonna bring Republicans

1:15:50

and Democrats together. Like, nice idea. Well, what

1:15:52

are you gonna do to make that

1:15:54

happen? What is your shared principled position

1:15:57

that's not too extreme? You

1:15:59

cannot. Anything. Especially paint

1:16:01

on contentious things. I'm

1:16:03

not him. Yes. And the answer is

1:16:05

there is no answer, which is what everyone said. Like, what are you gonna do about abortion? They're like, we're not

1:16:07

here to tell you

1:16:10

how to think about

1:16:12

abortion. We're gonna bring people to

1:16:14

the table and figure this out. We're gonna talk to fifty white men about their views on

1:16:16

abortion and come to

1:16:19

a consensus. Like, here's here's

1:16:21

what the analogy I wanna make. I think what you get that the forward

1:16:23

party is that whatever you think about

1:16:26

the idea of it,

1:16:28

It doesn't work in practice because there is

1:16:30

no way to compromise on a lot of these issues. Which is it's a nice idea,

1:16:33

but in practice, it

1:16:35

just doesn't work because even

1:16:38

if she knows he can't compromise and we're looking at

1:16:41

it right now. This is the

1:16:43

Jesus gets us. He gets

1:16:45

us thing. You can't just say we're

1:16:47

the forward party We come Jesus has

1:16:52

in common. Tell us what you

1:16:54

think about gay people. Oh, I Tell us what you think about that. They're like, we we have no opinions about

1:16:56

this. But where do

1:16:59

you think the bigotry's coming

1:17:01

from, it's your side buddy. There was another we talked about this a year ago, like, there was

1:17:03

a I'm not gonna bring his

1:17:05

name into it because it

1:17:08

doesn't matter. But there

1:17:10

was a Christian minister who said

1:17:12

his ministry exists to bridge the divide

1:17:14

between Christians like himself and LGBTQ people.

1:17:18

And he said, I wanna bring those groups together

1:17:20

because historically they do not get

1:17:22

together. Sounds like a nice idea. Here's

1:17:24

the problem. You go to his website, and

1:17:27

the FAQ is like two questions long. No. Do you think homosexuality is immoral? Mhmm. And

1:17:29

he's like, I don't I don't have

1:17:31

any position on that. Like,

1:17:35

I don't I don't wanna say anything one way or the other. Oh, do you

1:17:37

think same sex marriage is okay? This is like ten

1:17:39

years ago. Do do

1:17:42

you think same sex marriage should be okay? He's I don't take I'm here to

1:17:44

tell you what to say so

1:17:46

brave. And that's why That's exactly

1:17:51

that's the right answer. Guess what that ministry doesn't exist anymore? Because

1:17:53

no one like Denea because it's like,

1:17:55

how can you not have

1:17:57

a position on the thing we're all arguing about.

1:17:59

You're like, you guys are all arguing. I'm gonna bring

1:18:01

you together. Buddy, what do you think we're arguing about?

1:18:03

Can I talk I was trying to this

1:18:05

is that he get this campaign. One hundred no. It's

1:18:08

just saying, like, we can bring everyone

1:18:10

together under the banner of Jesus. We

1:18:12

all agree. It's a bad

1:18:14

campaign, Hammond. And my argument is the

1:18:16

reason this campaign doesn't work and why it's a waste

1:18:18

of money. And what I want everyone to be thinking when they see their stupid

1:18:20

emotional ads during

1:18:23

the Super Bowl is I

1:18:26

don't care what you think about Jesus. I've

1:18:28

seen the effects of Jesus and

1:18:30

they hurt people. And then if

1:18:32

Christians of any stripe, are not willing

1:18:34

to acknowledge that the most prominent Christians

1:18:37

who happen to be conservative, which

1:18:39

are the ones with the prominence,

1:18:41

that they are the ones hurting people more than anyone else and they

1:18:43

are doing it in the name of Christianity. Mhmm. If you can't bring yourself to

1:18:48

acknowledge that, and admit your religion on

1:18:50

as played a role in that advertisement. Any way you want, admit

1:18:52

that Jesus and the way

1:18:54

people have believed in Jesus and

1:18:57

taken that message, has hurt people like Jesus alone, especially when

1:18:59

it's an ant campaign run by people who

1:19:02

have used Jesus to hurt

1:19:05

people and have marketed groups that have used Jesus to hurt people. Like, they're

1:19:07

all in this to

1:19:10

try to get you.

1:19:12

It's Remember all those

1:19:14

mega churches that are like You mean about

1:19:16

capitalism for the first time? Remember all those mega churches are like,

1:19:18

we're inviting. We're we welcome all night. No.

1:19:22

Fake people allowed in this church.

1:19:24

And they say, welcome in here. And then

1:19:26

we've heard all these sad stories of

1:19:28

like, well, this lesbian joined the church.

1:19:31

And then later on when she was like a volunteer and

1:19:33

working with them, she gets married to

1:19:35

her partner, and they're like, oh, you can't work

1:19:37

here anymore. I mean, we've seen a a gajillion. What

1:19:39

is the thing? They're trying to

1:19:41

suck you in without telling you all to fine print. And then it's like, what do you think's gonna

1:19:43

happen? Yeah. Dog, are you accusing a

1:19:45

Coke? Being a Coke. That's how

1:19:48

it works. So

1:19:51

They're gonna do. It's lucky. It's worked for millennial.

1:19:53

That is exactly what I said at the beginning

1:19:55

of this, and you got mad at me

1:19:57

for saying what you're saying right now. I

1:19:59

just don't understand why you're mad.

1:20:01

This is their whole fucking Because this ad is now taken on a

1:20:03

second wave right now. On

1:20:06

a lot of big

1:20:08

things, fucking movie. I want people who

1:20:10

see these ads to be pissed off when they see them for all these reasons. That's

1:20:12

a new movie. Listening to the

1:20:14

show. I guess. I'm sure they are.

1:20:18

Fair. But I want them to say, like,

1:20:20

oh, okay. You cannot say Jesus gets us.

1:20:22

Jesus is fine, but all the people who

1:20:24

use them in a bad way or No.

1:20:26

Your religion is the problem. I want

1:20:28

everyone to be thinking that when you

1:20:30

see the ads. That's all. And guess

1:20:32

what if there wasn't in this podcast,

1:20:35

they already are. I hope I just feel

1:20:37

like you expect people to take ownership of their bullshit because

1:20:39

I feel like you are pretty nice. It

1:20:41

would be nice because I

1:20:44

this is 460 I feel. I

1:20:46

think you are a person with with, like, self respect and Yeah. You

1:20:48

have misjudged me.

1:20:51

Well, I mean, obviously. But,

1:20:54

like, I feel like you say what

1:20:56

you mean and you mean what you say and you

1:20:58

expect that of everybody else. You are honest and

1:21:00

and clear

1:21:03

about things, but that's

1:21:05

not how advertising do. I know.

1:21:07

And I want the people who just see

1:21:09

it like when you hear people talking about

1:21:11

it because you will. You'll see it on

1:21:13

Facebook. Your friends will share it. Be the person who

1:21:15

comments and is a dick. Here you

1:21:18

are. I don't. I sorry.

1:21:21

That's what Facebook is for. It's not for useful conversation. Person who

1:21:23

is here to tell people to be a dick to their weird Christian and to, like They

1:21:25

don't invite themselves at the holiday dinner. Well,

1:21:27

I didn't. Okay. I

1:21:30

wanted to make sure I covered this too because

1:21:33

this is a big deal. In Norway recently,

1:21:35

in Norway, in Norway, the

1:21:38

Jehovah's Witnesses were just stripped of their religious community

1:21:40

status. This is a big deal. Wow.

1:21:42

And what that means in practice

1:21:46

is that Like, they could still get together and have their

1:21:48

religion, whatever. But they will

1:21:50

not get taxpayer funding and

1:21:52

they will not be allowed

1:21:54

to perform legal marriages. Wow. What's

1:21:56

that based on? So what is that

1:21:59

based on? A year ago, the government of Norway basically said, listen, we

1:22:03

don't care, like, let explain a couple things Norway has a national

1:22:05

church, like a lot of European countries

1:22:07

do. They actually don't have a

1:22:09

national They no longer

1:22:11

have a national because

1:22:13

even in Norway, no one believes in anything. But a national church, but they do have a national church.

1:22:15

But the way it Norway is that the

1:22:18

more members your religion has

1:22:22

fifty is the minimum. Mhmm. If you're if you

1:22:24

have fifty members in your religious group, you

1:22:26

can apply with the government and

1:22:29

say we want taxpayer

1:22:31

money to run our church, our business, our religion.

1:22:33

Because in theory, we're bringing good to the world. You know, the art

1:22:35

of sports. You can

1:22:38

apply for state subsidies In twenty

1:22:40

twenty one, seven hundred twenty four different groups

1:22:43

got that sort of funding. That

1:22:45

includes, by the way,

1:22:47

humanist groups, like this isn't a

1:22:50

discrimination thing. But seven hundred some groups, a lot of religions, got money for Incredible

1:22:56

country. Yeah. So, like, okay. This is what

1:22:58

they do. This is that's their thing. Okay. Fine. They do.

1:23:00

I've heard from everyone on social

1:23:02

media, they do not want you singing.

1:23:06

Fuck you, Kevin. This is the first time the people

1:23:08

have rallied for me. I don't even

1:23:10

remember what I was saying or why I

1:23:12

was yelling. Here's what the law says though. There

1:23:14

are some lines in the sand, because they say we don't care which what your beliefs are. If you have fifty members The

1:23:18

human beings. Fifty human

1:23:20

beings like

1:23:22

we will you are eligible for the subsidy.

1:23:24

Here are the lines for the

1:23:26

sand. They say if you're religious

1:23:29

or philosophical community or anyone acting on behalf

1:23:31

of your community in some official capacity.

1:23:33

That's tricky. Commits violence makes

1:23:35

threats, violates children's

1:23:38

rights, violates statutory discrimination

1:23:40

prohibitions, or basically if you're

1:23:42

impeding the rights and freedom

1:23:45

of others, yeah, we're not gonna give you money.

1:23:47

That's kind of their basic Yeah. Those witnesses are pretty okay. Alright.

1:23:49

Just tell me. But those are their telling them your guess. Okay. So those

1:23:51

are their rules. Now know

1:23:55

there are atheists who are like, of religious indoctrination is child abuse. That is

1:23:58

not what we are talking about here. This

1:24:00

is like straight up unless your religion

1:24:02

says, like, we hurt people. Right. Like,

1:24:05

you're not getting money. Shale, it's fine. I like

1:24:08

the Catholic church, you're fine. Because there's nothing in your rule book that says you

1:24:10

must do this. There's nothing in the rule book that says, a dog cannot be

1:24:12

speaker the

1:24:15

house is all I'm saying. And Donnie is an idiot. Terrified

1:24:18

to Norwegian religion. Okay. So

1:24:20

here's the deal with the Joe's Witnesses.

1:24:22

In twenty twenty one, there were twelve

1:24:25

thousand no. Twelve thousand six hundred eighty six Jehovah's

1:24:27

Witnesses. That's more than fifty. More than fifty. That's

1:24:32

a brag wasn't a math teacher. Count for

1:24:34

that accounted for about one point eight million US dollars if

1:24:36

I convert. Oh oh, dollars. About one

1:24:38

point eight million dollars they were eligible.

1:24:41

Do we have a percent of the population off

1:24:43

job of head or That's how money. But much point eight

1:24:48

million dollars is what's the Jehovah's Witnesses What

1:24:50

I would call because they have that many members. A metric fact of money. A lot of money. So

1:24:52

here's the thing.

1:24:55

In twenty twenty one, They

1:24:57

got some letters, two former members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and

1:24:59

another whistleblower who wanted to remain

1:25:04

anonymous sent the government letters saying the witnesses are

1:25:06

violating your rules. And, like, it's not like the rules were

1:25:08

secret. It's really like

1:25:11

the rules were secret. BUT THE GOVERNMENT

1:25:13

CAN'T LIKE GO ON A WHICH HUNT

1:25:15

GO AFTER RANGING RELIGENCE. THE RULES MEANS THEY'RE THREATENING PEOPLE BEING VIOLENT.

1:25:20

THEY WERE a few things. Okay. Here's the thing. The

1:25:22

government can't just say, like, hey, Catholics, we see what you're doing. We're gonna come after you. No. They had to

1:25:25

wait to get

1:25:28

some paperwork. And now that they had some letters

1:25:30

in hand, they could do their investigation. Okay. And here's basically what they found out.

1:25:32

I'll skip ahead the nuance

1:25:34

of Here's one's upset. Things

1:25:37

over there that are. The

1:25:39

witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses actually formally have a practice

1:25:42

called dis fellow shipping.

1:25:45

They do. What is dispel shipping? That means if you decide

1:25:47

you're an adult, you say, you know what? I don't believe in this stuff anymore. I'm gonna

1:25:50

leave the Jehovah's Witnesses

1:25:53

The religion says you're

1:25:55

basically excommunicated and members of the church, members

1:25:59

of the witnesses cannot have any

1:26:01

interaction with you -- Mhmm. -- minus, like, small, minor things or they can't talk to

1:26:03

you. You are not friends anymore.

1:26:06

You are cut off. Which

1:26:09

makes it really hard to leave the

1:26:11

faith. And, I mean, there's no shortage of This traumatic stories of adults who,

1:26:13

like, I left

1:26:16

the church, I

1:26:18

even talked to my parents, yeah, since whenever. And while this is not only a Jehovah's Witness thing,

1:26:20

it it's really common there,

1:26:22

but we see it in what

1:26:26

scientology -- Mhmm. -- especially a

1:26:28

lot of cults where people have to pick between

1:26:30

their relationship -- extreme, but also their in

1:26:32

Mormonism -- Yeah. -- so Mormonism -- Yeah.

1:26:34

-- they did this fellowship. Thing, you can't go to the church if you're not a Mormon, like,

1:26:36

for weddings and shit like that.

1:26:38

It's heavy. It's heavy to

1:26:40

leave the church. Norwegian government

1:26:43

said, well, guess what? All the

1:26:45

religions that receive government subsidies from us, they have to

1:26:47

practice a quote, right to free withdrawal. You

1:26:51

have to be able to leave religion freely. Okay. If

1:26:53

there's any obstacle to leaving

1:26:56

the religion, that's a violation of the

1:26:58

law. So what do they consider an

1:27:00

obstacle? And obstacle is, like,

1:27:02

if someone says, I don't believe and I wanna leave, they have the right to do things. That they do to keep them

1:27:05

there as an

1:27:08

obstacle. Yeah. Because now you're not just

1:27:10

a religion with religious beliefs, you're a cult. Like, let's all admit -- That's kinda

1:27:12

what you're doing. --

1:27:14

it is a hundred percent

1:27:16

Sure. I'm genuinely just thinking about What the

1:27:18

government official wrote in the letter said this fellow shipping, quote, can

1:27:21

cause members to

1:27:24

feel pressured to remain in the

1:27:26

faith community. Yep. Now remember, if you're, let's say, Catholic or evangelical and you decide you are no longer

1:27:28

-- Mhmm. -- and you wanna leave

1:27:30

-- Mhmm. -- your family might protect

1:27:33

are on you. They might make you feel really

1:27:35

bad about it. Correct. Your church might say we're not friends with you anymore, but

1:27:38

that is not written in the cruel book. That's just kinda how it plays

1:27:40

out. The

1:27:43

Jehovah's Witnesses, though, this is in their rulebook, the

1:27:45

dis fellowship and idea. This is coming from

1:27:47

on high. Second reason,

1:27:49

and there's only two, Second reason the government said we have

1:27:51

a problem with what you're doing is that they

1:27:54

have a similar policy for kids. Because

1:27:56

if a child in a

1:27:58

job of us with his family, quote, makes it a habit to break

1:28:00

the moral standards of the bible and

1:28:02

does not repent. Basically, if you have

1:28:06

a rebellious child, but maybe not one old enough to do

1:28:08

a career. Old. Do you mean, like, six,

1:28:10

seven year old or something? Fourteen. Let's go

1:28:13

with sixteen to make this easier. Okay. Like, you're not

1:28:15

quite old enough to go off on your own somewhere, but

1:28:17

you decide you don't believe this stuff.

1:28:20

Yeah. But whatever, you

1:28:22

you don't feel bad about not believing in this stuff. You know, if witnesses

1:28:24

teach, you treat them

1:28:26

like as pariahs. You

1:28:28

can't kick them out.

1:28:30

We're not asking you to Like, yeah,

1:28:32

you get That's a bad thing. That

1:28:34

means if a young teenager quits the religion, you're

1:28:39

not excluded the same way an adult would be. Like, your parents are

1:28:41

not obligated by the religion to kick you out

1:28:43

of the house. But The

1:28:47

religion says the rebellious child

1:28:49

can no longer, quote, have

1:28:51

contact with other close family,

1:28:53

including grandparents, aunts, uncles,

1:28:56

and cousins, or friends. That's what they teach. Like you

1:28:58

could stay at home with your parents. But like outside

1:29:02

of that, no. You are taught Hey.

1:29:04

Hey. Hemant, what the fuck is wrong

1:29:06

with religion? Yes. Why do they do? Welcome

1:29:08

to my role. That's what I've been saying for an

1:29:10

hour and a half. I did not. Okay.

1:29:13

JUST DISCOVER THIS. Reporter: SO THE GOVERNMENT SAID THAT PUTS PRESSURE ON THE CHILD TO REMAIN IN

1:29:15

THE FOLD A VIOLATION OF

1:29:19

THEIR OWN RIGHT They said, we

1:29:21

consider social isolation as a form of punishment against the child. And they're

1:29:23

correct. Yeah. So because

1:29:26

of those two, quote,

1:29:28

systematic and intentional offenses. None

1:29:30

of which the Jehovah's Witnesses could deny because it's in their In their

1:29:32

texts. Basically, last year,

1:29:35

the government said, listen, we're

1:29:38

totally gonna punish you for this. Yeah. So for this year, we're

1:29:41

taking away your money. Great. But we'll give you a

1:29:43

year to kinda get your stuff in

1:29:45

order if you wanna make any changes. Classic

1:29:47

Norwegian generosity. And of course, the religion

1:29:49

is like we're not making any changes. These

1:29:51

are our religious rules So

1:29:54

this past week -- Yes. -- a week two weeks ago, the government said,

1:29:57

okay, we're now

1:30:00

not only making this

1:30:02

permanent instead of temporary and not giving you the money. We're also revoking your right to perform

1:30:07

religions that are marriages that

1:30:09

are considered official by the government. So if

1:30:12

Joe's witness wants to

1:30:14

get married with all the

1:30:16

benefits of

1:30:18

marriage -- Mhmm. -- they gotta go through, like, a judge,

1:30:20

like, that you do in the US -- Yeah. --

1:30:22

because your priest can't marry you anymore. Okay. And

1:30:25

by the way, the witnesses said they're gonna this

1:30:27

decision on what grounds I don't know. Wow. They

1:30:29

did say, like, a they asked a

1:30:31

judge, can you put a halt

1:30:33

to this and they got a

1:30:36

victory there? But really all that means is, look, we

1:30:38

got time to fight this in court. And until it's finalized, we want you to

1:30:42

hold off on getting rid of the no marriages allowed in the religion,

1:30:44

like, better. Which Tribute fair

1:30:46

is harmful on a lot of

1:30:48

level. Sure. So it's like fine.

1:30:50

You guys can have the stay

1:30:53

on the decision, but ultimately it doesn't look like the

1:30:55

Norwegian government has done anything wrong. Mhmm. They acted by

1:31:00

the book that Jehovah's Witnesses have followed

1:31:02

their dogma, and now they just jutopia themselves out of like two million bucks a

1:31:06

year. So whatever, They can still meet, they can still practice their faith, they're just not

1:31:08

gonna get rewarded for it. Oh, listen, none of

1:31:11

us do not get government funding for

1:31:13

hanging out with our

1:31:15

friends. So So, yeah, like,

1:31:17

the and by the way, like, hope other

1:31:20

places, one of my

1:31:22

favorite tangents to this story

1:31:26

is that there have been unintended

1:31:28

consequences to what the Norwegian government

1:31:30

is doing. And here's one of

1:31:32

the examples of that. In twenty

1:31:35

sixteen, the nation's evangelical Lutheran Church.

1:31:37

They launched a website to make

1:31:39

it easier to track

1:31:42

members enroll new ones thinking, hey, this is

1:31:44

good for us. We're modernizing our

1:31:46

church. So we have an app

1:31:48

and a website and all that. But

1:31:50

that plan backfired because by

1:31:53

twenty sixteen people were much more

1:31:55

aware that if they say we

1:31:57

are members of a church, that

1:31:59

the church gets money for them being a member. Uh-huh.

1:32:01

So in twenty sixteen, when this evangelical

1:32:03

Lutheran Church app went live, a

1:32:05

lot of people are like, you

1:32:08

know what? I always say I'm lutheran, but

1:32:10

like, I'm not at first. So I'm gonna use your app to get out of the church and a lot

1:32:15

of people left. And also in twenty fifteen, fucking fucking fun. In

1:32:17

twenty fifteen, the Catholic church also had

1:32:19

an app to help

1:32:22

people with membership and stuff and it turned out the Norweigan government I'm

1:32:24

sorry. I should say, let me back up

1:32:26

in twenty fifteen, the Norweigan government find

1:32:28

the Catholic church

1:32:31

like five million dollars because

1:32:33

they fraudulently registered thousands of people on its membership lists.

1:32:35

I mean, I always

1:32:38

said I wanna move and

1:32:41

in Arabia. And after the church

1:32:43

created an app for members, more than eleven thousand

1:32:45

Norwegians resigned shortly. Eleven thousand. When you get people

1:32:48

a button, makes

1:32:51

it easier for them to say, like, no, I want out. Listen, there's

1:32:53

a reason email marketing berries. It's

1:32:55

unsubscribe button in, like, the finest font

1:32:57

at the bottom of the page. Nobody

1:32:59

wants to get to Tampa.

1:33:01

I've been going forever. I'm gonna give you two quick stories because I wanna make sure Real quick,

1:33:03

I know. Three hours -- It's a

1:33:06

record. -- but really

1:33:08

quick, I think I

1:33:10

mentioned this two weeks ago, but we didn't have finality on it. Okay. In New York,

1:33:13

there was

1:33:16

a bill. Zero points. I

1:33:18

see so many. In New York, there was a bill that passed it was in front of the governor just

1:33:21

waiting for

1:33:24

her signature that would have expanded treatment options for

1:33:26

secular people struggling with substance abuse. Basically, all the

1:33:28

bill did is if you have

1:33:30

to go in front of a judge,

1:33:33

for whatever addiction issue you have. And the judge says you have

1:33:35

to complete a substance abuse treatment program. Uh-huh. A lot

1:33:37

of those judges were just sending

1:33:39

people to, like, alcoholic

1:33:42

synonymus -- Yeah. -- which is religious. Yeah.

1:33:44

And a lot of and like in some states,

1:33:46

not in New York, but in some states, there were

1:33:48

people who are like, this violates my religious

1:33:51

Was he into the the pilot? There was a pilot for United not public place,

1:33:54

but yeah, United Airlines.

1:33:57

Buddhist. Buddhist. And they said, like, you gotta go through a faith based substance abuse program. And he's like But I think

1:33:59

you can also that.

1:34:04

But that's what we understand it

1:34:06

to be. And the Buddhist said, like, well, I found an alternative substance abuse program. No. Go ahead. There's faith.

1:34:08

And the company's like,

1:34:11

no. That doesn't count. He

1:34:14

filed a lawsuit. They just settled in

1:34:16

his favor. Mhmm. But same thing, like,

1:34:18

a a prisoner was like, you're making me

1:34:20

go through, like, alcoholic's anonymous. I don't

1:34:22

want to. In twenty twenty, an appellate court sided with

1:34:24

the prisoner. So why did they pass this bill

1:34:26

in New York? They just said if you're

1:34:28

making someone go through a substance abuse

1:34:30

treatment program -- Mhmm. -- but put

1:34:33

it make the obligation on the judge, on

1:34:35

the courts to let the defendant know if you

1:34:37

don't like the religious aspects of

1:34:39

it, we'll get an

1:34:42

alternative place. Because right now, it's on

1:34:45

the defendant to say I wanna

1:34:47

go somewhere else. That's

1:34:49

what the bill did. Harmless easy.

1:34:51

It just says, hey, you know this thing that's already legal? Mhmm. Just

1:34:53

make the judge remind it because guess what?

1:34:55

The defendants don't know the nuance of

1:34:57

the law on this stuff. Most people

1:35:00

don't know alcoholics anonymous is religious

1:35:02

in nature -- Mhmm. -- even though it's nebulous in its religion these days.

1:35:04

So anyway, that was the

1:35:06