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It is the best way to directly support

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our endeavors. It's

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Monday, April 30th, 2023 from Peachfish Productions. It's

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the gist. I'm Mike Peska,

0:29

Cleveland,

0:36

Texas, 50 miles or so north of

0:38

Houston. Francisco Oropesa

0:41

is shooting off his rifle again, an

0:44

AR-15 in his front yard.

0:46

It's not illegal for Oropesa to own

0:49

or use the rifle, but the neighbors

0:51

just want a break. It's nearing midnight

0:54

and they have small children who need to sleep.

0:57

Hey, neighbor Wilson Garcia asks,

0:59

do you

0:59

think you could give it a rest just for the

1:02

evening? Instead, Oropesa

1:04

walked into his home, then walked back out

1:07

over to the Garcia's and executed

1:09

Mrs. Garcia, her eight-year-old

1:11

child and three others. Oropesa

1:14

is still at large. Just another

1:16

example of America's hair trigger

1:19

tensions spilling over into

1:21

actual victimhood,

1:23

when the trigger in question is a literal

1:25

one, setting off a firearm, ending

1:28

or ruining lives. This on the heels

1:30

of the shooting of a teen in Kansas City, a

1:32

20-year-old in the wrong driveway in New York, a

1:34

six-year-old in North Carolina, a cheerleader

1:37

who got in the wrong car in a Texas parking

1:39

lot. Something is happening.

1:42

Something deadly, awful,

1:45

and different.

1:46

Only it's not. No,

1:49

it's deadly and awful. It's just

1:51

not different. We

1:52

have a cluster of high-profile gun

1:54

crimes, but there's scarcely a week

1:57

that goes by in which you couldn't find four or five

1:59

shootings.

1:59

where the victims were innocents, the shooters

2:02

were hotheads, and the beefs were meaningless.

2:05

I understand the inclination to ask, how

2:07

could this happen? And to say, this

2:10

is unbelievable. But no, it's

2:12

not, neighbors told KHOU, Houston's

2:15

CBS affiliate.

2:16

They're always shooting. They're always calling

2:18

the cops. I have two babies, they got scared.

2:22

But we're like, well, it's normal, they're always shooting.

2:24

As a different neighbor said, this

2:26

wasn't unique, it was inevitable. I

2:29

guess that's what happens. There's

2:31

a lot of people here that like to shoot guns,

2:34

and it was just a

2:36

matter of time before something like this happened, I guess.

2:39

He's speaking for a neighborhood, Cleveland,

2:42

Texas, but he could be speaking

2:44

for America, which isn't to exaggerate

2:46

the threat of gun violence to you and

2:48

your family. The threat's way too high,

2:51

but it's concentrated. And if you're lucky

2:53

enough

2:53

not to live in one of the few census tracts

2:55

where gun violence takes place

2:58

extremely often. A 2015 study

3:00

identified neighborhoods that contained just 1.5% of

3:03

the country's population, but saw 26%

3:06

of America's total gun homicides. On

3:09

my sub-stack, Pesca Profundides, I delve

3:11

more into the stats, I provide

3:13

charts that is appropriate to

3:16

the page. But here, I will

3:18

just emphasize that this is

3:20

not normal, but it is

3:22

the norm,

3:23

the literal meaning of normal. We

3:26

have so much gun crime, you can tell

3:28

any story to indicate any

3:30

new trend, and it is a trend. It's

3:33

just not new.

3:34

It's not that we've suddenly gotten less

3:36

civil or reasonable or neighborly.

3:39

It's that we remain so heavily

3:41

armed. On the show today, the most

3:43

dismissive Sunday show guest you will

3:46

ever hear,

3:47

but first, we are joined by the host of

3:49

the witch trials of J.K. Rowling,

3:52

Megan Phelps Roper, who gives us

3:54

insights into the creation of her podcast,

3:56

the connection to Megan's past as a

3:58

former Westboro Baptist.

3:59

Baptist church member and the power, if

4:02

any, of convincing people through

4:04

Twitter. Megan Phelps Roper, up

4:06

next.

4:08

I'd

4:19

like to now talk to you about

4:21

the best radio show in America.

4:23

The best? Yeah, that's right. I

4:25

was going to qualify that statement by saying, oh, it's the best

4:27

public radio show, it's the best call-in

4:30

radio show. No, I believe the call-in macro

4:32

show is the best radio show in America.

4:34

And not just a radio show, also a podcast. In fact, if it

4:36

wasn't a podcast, I don't think I'd know

4:38

about it. This show is well-produced,

4:41

well-booked, and extremely well-hosted.

4:44

Sometimes they'll have a topic like toast, and

4:47

you ask yourself, what's interesting about toast?

4:49

And then by the end of the 40-something

4:51

minutes on the podcast, you'll know what's interesting

4:53

about toast. And then other times, they'll

4:55

do the biggest issue in the news,

4:58

but they'll always do it really well in a

5:00

way you haven't thought of. On Fridays, they have a segment

5:02

called The Nose. It's a cultural rundown. How

5:04

do they always seem to be talking about the shows

5:07

that I'm listening to with a fascinating,

5:09

wide, interesting array of

5:12

guests? Colin has all these skills,

5:14

and the best are a little subcutaneous.

5:17

You don't see what he's doing. What

5:19

you do here is that he's so eloquent. But

5:21

he also elicits from his guests

5:24

the best they have to offer. And as an

5:26

audience member, I appreciate that he's operating

5:29

at the height of my intellect, engaging

5:31

me without ever slowing down.

5:33

This show meets me where I am. I think

5:36

if you're a Just Listener, it will meet you

5:38

where you are. Perhaps you

5:40

could tell by Mike Velling, I can't recommend

5:42

it, anymore highly, The Colin McEnroe

5:45

Show from WNPR. Listen to it

5:47

on podcast, wherever you get those

5:49

things.

5:52

I absolutely knew that

5:55

if I spoke out, many

5:58

people who would love my books. would

6:00

be deeply unhappy with me. I knew

6:02

that. Time

6:05

will tell whether I've

6:08

got this wrong. I

6:10

can only say that I've thought about it deeply

6:13

and hard and long, and I've listened,

6:15

I promise, to the other side. And

6:18

I believe absolutely that

6:21

there is something

6:22

dangerous

6:24

about this movement, and it must be challenged.

6:27

The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling is

6:29

an excellent podcast from the

6:31

Free Press. It is hosted by

6:34

Megan Phelps Roper, and it

6:36

is really the first in-depth analysis

6:39

of the most famous, powerful, influential

6:42

writer of fiction alive

6:45

today, and her interactions

6:48

with one issue that she couldn't just

6:50

stay away from as she tells Megan

6:52

Phelps Roper. The issue is, of

6:55

course, trans rights, J.K.

6:57

Rowling is not quiet about it. It

6:59

has upended her life to a degree

7:02

that I think we did not realize until

7:04

maybe we heard all seven episodes of this

7:06

excellent podcast. Megan, welcome to The

7:09

Jist.

7:09

Thank you so much for having me, Mike. So, Megan,

7:12

I know that you were in the Westboro

7:15

Baptist Church, and you wrote

7:17

a memoir and had many pieces

7:19

of journalism written about you

7:21

leaving that church, the religious extremist

7:24

organization, and you left in 2012. But

7:27

the Harry Potter books were out before then.

7:29

What was your relationship with those

7:31

books, the existence of those books

7:34

when you were younger?

7:35

My family were, I mean, huge fans.

7:38

My dad came home from work one day. I think I

7:40

was maybe like 12, 11 or 12, and

7:43

insisted, you know, his boss had,

7:45

you know, works in this, you know, very professional

7:49

environment, and his boss had given him the

7:52

book and the first book, and he

7:54

loved it, and he insisted that I would

7:56

love it. And I started

7:58

reading and, you know, all of All of the books became,

8:00

you know, passed around. My siblings

8:03

and I have 10 siblings and we

8:05

were huge fans. Like I would take

8:07

copies of those books to the

8:09

picket line and, you know, kind of balance,

8:12

obviously as they got bigger,

8:14

I would take them and balance them on top of my sign

8:17

and read because I didn't want to stop reading. And

8:19

these were pickets for military

8:22

funerals, pickets against gay

8:24

people. What were you picketing as you were reading those

8:26

books?

8:27

In general, it was like the

8:29

local protests in Topeka, Kansas. So

8:32

the protest targets were, you know, invariably

8:35

LGBT people, but also Christians,

8:38

you know, other Christians who we believed

8:41

were not following the word of God. Those

8:44

were two primary targets that we, because

8:46

we protested every single day in my hometown

8:49

from the time I was five years old. So

8:52

my, I guess, cursory

8:54

understanding of what the Christian right,

8:56

per se, thought about those books was that they

8:58

thought they were ungodly and they thought that they

9:01

embraced witchcraft, which clearly

9:03

they did though. Witchcraft is fictional

9:05

in the worlds of those books. And therefore the

9:07

Christian right would be against it. But

9:10

the Westboro Baptist Church were

9:13

for it, but also against some parts

9:15

of the Christian right. Is there a coherent

9:18

theology that explains that?

9:21

Yeah. So I mean,

9:23

when it comes to the book specifically, you know,

9:25

we just saw that these are fiction books. You know, we

9:28

believed witchcraft was wrong, but it's a fiction

9:30

book, you know. So it's, it's, we didn't

9:32

take it nearly as seriously as

9:34

other Christians did. And

9:37

then when it comes to, I mean, we didn't call

9:39

them Christians. We would call them, you know, so-called

9:41

Christians or Christians with the, you know,

9:44

scare quotes implied. We

9:47

didn't think they were truly Christian because they were not, you

9:49

know, not following the

9:51

Word of God, the Word of Jesus Christ. You

9:53

probably, or the Westboro Baptist Church, thought

9:56

of these other Christians as

9:58

insufficiently Christian.

11:30

for

12:00

the show, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, and

12:02

the fact that she had been the subject of

12:05

these two major backlashes, one from

12:07

the Christian right and the other from the progressive left.

12:10

And when he first mentioned

12:12

that, as I said, because my personal experience

12:15

of the books was so positive,

12:17

I had forgotten that there

12:19

had been this Christian backlash. And so essentially

12:22

I got off the phone and immediately started researching,

12:25

looking back and

12:27

finding all of these old documentary

12:29

films that Christians had made

12:32

to expose the sin and

12:37

demonic nature of J.K. Rowling's books

12:39

and what she was about. So

12:42

that was actually the original poll.

12:45

And then I did

12:47

really wanna understand what was happening.

12:50

And I don't think,

12:52

if you just start with the tweets, you're

12:54

getting a very shallow version of the story,

12:57

which is why we don't start there. We start way

13:00

back in the early 90s with

13:02

her experience as a victim

13:05

or a survivor of

13:07

domestic abuse and sexual assault

13:10

and go forward from there.

13:11

Right, so that's interesting. That is just

13:14

journalistically interesting, that tension,

13:17

a figure who is a hero or a figure

13:19

who was demonized by the right becomes a

13:21

figure demonized by the left. And

13:23

that figure doesn't really change. But

13:26

that does parallel a little bit

13:28

of your experience, celebrated

13:30

by what we could call the right, this

13:32

born again Christian group, and then celebrated

13:34

by the left as someone who got out of

13:36

this born again Christian group.

13:38

Yeah, I mean, it's really funny because

13:40

I mean, when I think about my

13:43

own life, I mean,

13:45

I was very demonized growing

13:48

up, which is totally understandable to me now.

13:51

At the time though, of course, I see

13:53

my family and I think that we are, I believe

13:55

that we are doing the right thing. I mean, that's a huge theme

13:58

of our show, of course. Like it's even. the

14:00

witch hunters of old, of like, you know, Salem

14:03

and the ones that we talk about in

14:05

in Scotland, you know,

14:07

they really thought that they were doing the right thing. They thought

14:10

that they were stamping out this this

14:12

evil and so

14:15

I obviously also believed that I was doing the right thing

14:17

and then

14:18

in my 20s have this moment

14:20

where I realized like, oh my god, these

14:23

things that I believed were unquestionable were

14:26

actually not just questionable, but you

14:28

know, I came to believe extremely destructive

14:31

and that's a really

14:34

stark

14:35

realization to come to and

14:37

it makes it very difficult going forward

14:39

to

14:41

to know like how do you ever know how

14:43

can you ever know if you're doing the right thing like if

14:45

I could be so Certain that I was doing

14:48

the right thing and then

14:49

and then realize I was wrong You

14:51

know that I obviously talk about this at the end of the at

14:54

the end of the witch trials of JK Rowling You

14:56

know, what leg do I have to stand on? How do

14:58

I how do I move forward? So that that's that

15:00

questions at the heart

15:01

of the show for sure So

15:03

she has said and it's in the

15:05

show that she couldn't keep silent any

15:07

longer she had to speak out and what she had to speak

15:10

out was influenced by

15:12

the fact that she's been a Feminist

15:14

her whole life and you get into exactly

15:16

why that is and what that means to her So

15:19

I take her at her word.

15:21

She couldn't not speak out. But what about Does

15:24

she regret her?

15:26

Using the forum

15:28

of Twitter or social media

15:30

as a means to speak out She could have right

15:33

posted at length just on her

15:35

site Which she did to explain some of her

15:37

views but just never have a Twitter

15:40

account Never engage in social

15:42

media kind of define the conversation

15:45

on her terms as she wanted

15:47

to Do you think that that was

15:49

or that could have been a route available

15:52

to her?

15:52

Yes, I mean you you asked the

15:54

question does she regret it? I don't

15:56

think she's ever expressed regret She

15:59

did

15:59

say in one of our conversations,

16:02

she described one of her June 2020 tweets,

16:04

so

16:05

just a few days

16:08

before she published that essay you're describing.

16:11

She described that first tweet as flippant.

16:16

And again, one of the things

16:18

that I loved about Twitter when I was at Westboro

16:21

especially, and

16:23

you hear this from a lot of people who

16:26

find themselves having these

16:28

controversial positions, it's

16:31

very frustrating trying to have

16:34

those conversations through the media because your

16:37

words are filtered through the lens

16:39

of a journalist and very

16:42

often things are lost in translation. And it

16:44

was, in other words, using a

16:46

platform like Twitter is a way for you to speak

16:48

directly to an audience without having that

16:51

middleman. And again,

16:53

especially if you are convinced

16:56

that you're not going to get a fair hearing, why

16:58

would you go through the lens of a journalist?

17:01

So

17:03

I understand, I think, why

17:05

she has decided to use Twitter

17:08

in this way. I do

17:10

think it is the shallowest

17:13

and maybe poorest way

17:15

of engaging. I prefer things

17:17

like her essay and obviously our show, which

17:20

really contextualizes a lot of things and I

17:23

think and hope and believe really

17:25

gave a fair hearing to a lot

17:27

of different views including hers. But

17:29

that's a risk every single time. And

17:31

I know this myself, like when I did the,

17:34

you know, there was Adrian Chin wrote

17:37

this profile for The New Yorker in 2015

17:39

and I gave dozens of hours of my

17:41

life. And

17:44

it's a terrifying thing to open yourself up to

17:46

someone in that way and to hope

17:49

against hope that you're going to be fairly represented,

17:52

that you will recognize the person in the article

17:54

when it finally is published. And

17:57

if you're JK Rowling, you know, she

17:59

just doesn't. She doesn't have to do that. She

18:02

doesn't have to. And she will choose how she

18:04

engages and when, just like all of us. So I

18:07

understand why she does. I do think

18:09

our show is a much better representation.

18:12

And I don't mean to say we represent JK

18:14

Rowling better than she does. I think that might be how that sounds. I

18:17

just mean she herself

18:19

described in this speech

18:21

she gave, she described how she

18:23

could answer somebody like the

18:25

Christians who were attacking her back

18:28

in the day. She could answer and say, you don't

18:31

understand what this thing is about

18:33

human nature?

18:34

I'm paraphrasing. Or you're

18:37

an idiot, depending on which side of the bed I woke

18:39

up on that day. And I think we

18:41

got the former, and sometimes

18:44

Twitter sometimes gets the latter.

18:47

But if someone as not just famous

18:49

and rich and powerful and influential,

18:51

but someone who has the psychological

18:54

place that JK Rowling has with so

18:56

many people, if no matter how

18:59

carefully, how methodically, how

19:01

sensitively, that person

19:03

in that position were to phrase

19:06

her actual beliefs, do

19:08

you really think that we would have escaped

19:10

the majority of the

19:12

contratum around her?

19:14

No, I don't. I mean, and

19:16

the thing is, you can actually,

19:18

maybe it would have been different if she hadn't done the

19:20

tweets first and if she had published the essay first. But

19:23

I agree with you. Like, I think there still would have been a

19:25

massive amount of blowback. But

19:28

I do think the more that you

19:30

choose to communicate in

19:32

more like the essay than the tweets,

19:36

in such a way that, like, so again, the

19:39

people who are really criticizing her, the people that,

19:41

as I'm reading those

19:43

very critical tweets in episode

19:45

five, you are so disappointing. Turf,

19:48

begone, turf. Watching your book sales

19:50

plummet will be lovely. Say whatever

19:52

you want. But don't be surprised when you're

19:54

called out as a turf. You don't have to be a transphobe,

19:57

you know. You could also just say

19:59

no.

19:59

nothing. Pretty sure that Hitler and Nazis

20:02

have the same view as you and Maya when it comes

20:04

to being a certain sex. Those

20:07

are real. The people who tweet those things

20:09

are real and they really do hold those

20:12

positions I think. But there

20:14

are a lot of people who just don't

20:17

understand even what the conflict

20:19

is or what the debate is. And so

20:21

again, I do think that the way that we

20:24

choose to communicate matters. You

20:26

know, Westboro used to say a similar version of this. Like

20:29

they wouldn't be like, okay, if we say

20:31

God hates,

20:32

God hates fags versus God hates gays,

20:35

they're still going to hate us for it. And we'd

20:37

use that as a strategy. I'm not saying Rowling does this at all,

20:40

but we use that as a strategy to get attention.

20:42

And

20:43

I think that that has a markedly

20:45

like negative effect on the

20:48

ability to have a conversation around it. There

20:50

is also, I think,

20:52

you know, in that kind of thinking,

20:54

there is a hopelessness, it

20:56

doesn't matter how we say it, nobody

20:58

on the other side can be reached. And from

21:01

my perspective, like that kind of thinking

21:03

is,

21:04

I was going to say dangerous.

21:06

I'm not trying to like overstate the case,

21:09

but what I mean is if

21:11

we really believe that we can't reach people

21:13

on the other side,

21:14

what strategy do we have left

21:17

besides force and violence? So

21:19

I

21:21

think communication and conversation and

21:23

dialogue, these are all extremely important

21:26

and that how we choose to engage really

21:28

can affect how the other

21:30

side can hear us and how they choose to

21:32

engage. Right? So it's, these

21:34

are feedback cycles. And so I

21:36

do think it matters. I mean, it's

21:39

like the whole thing about my own story, right?

21:41

Like the people who were, you know,

21:43

engaging in like the kind of insults

21:45

and public shaming, kind

21:48

of reflecting back the

21:49

hatefulness that they felt from us. That

21:52

just made me even more certain that I was

21:54

doing the right thing. It was the people who took

21:56

the time to listen to me and hear where I was coming

21:58

from.

21:59

and to address what I was actually

22:02

saying, the positions that I actually

22:04

held who eventually

22:07

were able to help me see outside of this

22:09

paradigm that I had been raised in. So

22:13

again, I guess it would make sense that

22:15

I would take this position that the way that we communicate

22:18

really, really matters.

22:20

Right, and so what your

22:22

critics or critics of this series would say

22:24

and have said is that, so does this

22:27

mean we just can't say

22:29

mean things to bigots, does this mean we can't

22:31

shun bigots? Does this mean we should

22:34

never call out rampant bigotry

22:36

for the chance that we could somehow reach

22:39

and change the bigot? What's your argument

22:41

to that?

22:42

I have never said that

22:45

other people shouldn't respond

22:47

how they want. Like if they want

22:49

to express their anger, rage,

22:53

disappointment,

22:56

disgust even

22:57

for people that I think are doing wrong.

23:00

I mean, I've never told anybody that

23:02

they shouldn't do those things.

23:04

What I have said is that if you want to

23:06

change people's minds, I don't think

23:08

that's the most effective way. And

23:10

tomorrow we will continue our conversation

23:12

with Megan talking about pushback from

23:15

the transgender community over the witch trials,

23:17

specifically the YouTuber and

23:19

host of ContraPoints, Natalie Nguyen.

23:22

Since his death in 2009,

23:25

the world has struggled

23:33

with

23:38

how Michael Jackson should be remembered

23:40

as the king of pop or as a

23:42

monster. In their new podcast,

23:45

Think Twice, Michael Jackson, journalist

23:48

Leon Naefak and Jay Smooth explore

23:50

what makes Michael Jackson seemingly

23:52

uncancellable and the complicated

23:54

feelings so many of us have when we hear Billie

23:57

Jean at the grocery store through

23:59

dozens of.

23:59

original interviews with the people who watched

24:02

his story unfold firsthand, Think

24:04

Twice Michael Jackson reveals

24:07

a new perspective on his artistry, his controversies,

24:10

and how we should remember him. Follow Think

24:12

Twice Michael Jackson on Audible

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or the Amazon Music app.

24:18

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24:50

And now the spiel. There have been many unhinged

24:52

or rude guests in the history of the Sunday

24:55

shows, but I don't think I've ever seen

24:57

one as casually dismissive as

24:59

Representative Tom Emer, Republican

25:02

of Minnesota, appearing on CNN's

25:04

State of the Union hosted yesterday by Dana

25:06

Bash. I take a little issue, Dana,

25:09

with the cuts language. And

25:11

I guess I'd put it this way, Dana, to answer your question.

25:14

I might remind everybody, Dana,

25:16

that in the last 30 years line budgeting,

25:19

Dana, that's

25:20

just four months ago. First of all,

25:22

her name is Dana Bash. Not

25:24

what Emer called her. It changed.

25:26

Plus there's a Minnesota accent to

25:28

account for. But that's the least of it.

25:31

After Bash asked a quite

25:33

textbook question, respond to

25:35

your critics, Emer first

25:38

began citing Pinocchios, as is the want

25:40

of Washington insiders, then began

25:42

questioning, not just his critics, in

25:44

this case, administration officials, citing how

25:47

a discretionary spending cap would hit

25:49

Minnesotans,

25:50

but he began questioning and

25:52

disputing the premise itself. And

25:55

notice at the end how it starts getting personal.

25:57

You know, you've got a president who has just told

27:59

That was their position in Washington.

28:02

That's the law they want to pass and nobody

28:04

in your business will talk about it. As

28:07

Dana Bash said, she and her

28:09

network talk about it frequently and

28:11

fairly.

28:12

Graham's characterization of the United States

28:14

is an outlier that allows terminating pregnancy

28:17

up until birth is also

28:19

untrue. So to go backwards out

28:21

of 11,000 abortions performed in

28:24

the United States, dedicated late

28:26

pregnancy abortion center in Colorado, 25 of

28:29

them took place in weeks 25 through 27 and 35 in weeks 28

28:31

plus. Week 25

28:37

abortions are available to save the life of the

28:39

mother or fetuses are not viable outside

28:42

the womb throughout Western Europe. It

28:44

is unclear how many countries would allow

28:46

an abortion in week 28 plus, but

28:48

there is nothing on the books that

28:51

I've read the laws of in countries like

28:53

Sweden, France

28:55

or Spain that would disallow

28:57

it. And also, let's be clear

29:00

that 28 weeks, right,

29:02

we know gestation periods are 40 weeks, 28

29:04

weeks isn't up until the moment

29:07

of birth.

29:08

Fetal viability is achieved around 28

29:11

weeks. But in the case of the fetuses

29:13

that we're talking about, not for

29:16

the most part or perhaps even in

29:18

every case. Now, I found these

29:21

statistics in a story in the Washington

29:23

Post and I, Mike Peskam, talking about

29:25

it here on the gist. So therefore

29:27

it is not true that the media isn't

29:30

talking about it or covering for anyone. It's

29:32

also not true that Dana Bash

29:35

was covering for anyone. It's

29:37

further not true that her name is Donna Bash.

29:39

Just wanted to put that out there again. I

29:41

don't know if part of the bargain of Republicans

29:44

going on CNN is that they get a free shot

29:46

at the network's credibility or just feel

29:48

that they have to take one. But when it's

29:50

unearned in the specific case of the

29:52

State of the Union program or

29:55

if the shot at CNN is unearned given

29:57

the questions

29:59

that are being asked.

29:59

right then in the moment, the Republican

30:02

official comes off as insulting,

30:05

but insulting to who? You might say,

30:07

oh they don't care, they're just insulting CNN

30:09

viewers who won't vote for Republicans anyway,

30:12

but that's not true. The proof that is not true

30:14

is that Republicans are going on CNN

30:16

to begin with. There are plenty of discerning

30:19

viewers of CNN who are open to

30:21

good arguments, otherwise why would any Republican

30:24

deign to make an appearance on CNN?

30:27

Of course, that same demo, the open

30:29

to a good argument group, those

30:32

are the very viewers you will lose if

30:34

you engage in terrible arguments. The

30:37

next prominent Republican for whom this lesson

30:39

can be absorbed or discarded has

30:42

just been announced. And just into CNN former

30:45

President Donald Trump will participate

30:47

in a CNN presidential town hall next

30:49

week. That was Jim Schudo today.

30:52

Citizens and CNN moderators

30:55

be so advised.

31:01

And that's it for today's show. Cory Warr

31:03

is the producer of The Gist and Joel Patterson's

31:06

the senior producer. Michelle Pesca

31:08

is in charge of Operations for Peach

31:10

Fish Productions. The Gist is presented

31:13

in collaboration with Libson's Advertise Cast

31:15

for advertising inquiries. Go to AdvertiseCast.com

31:18

slash The Gist. Oomproo-jee-poo-doo-poo

31:20

and thanks for listening. Just take the bill

31:22

we passed last week, Dana. Make

31:24

it law.

31:48

Make it law.