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Hey everybody, Happy Friday.
Happy Friday.
I didn't know if you were talking to the audience rhetorically or to us, Crystal.
It could be either both all of the above, you know, welcoming people in. Yes, I got us in trouble last Friday, So I'm going to try to be more to mure this week.
We're tightening it up. We've got to makeup on. We're hair makeup ready.
That's yes, Yes, a Western bill bumber.
We're gonna call him down. And and how we objectify our nation's assassins.
And Ryan combed his hair.
I did he found it looking good?
Looking good, guys.
There was a bunch of reaction last night on the late night shows to the firing of our indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. I guess it's not clear that he's canceled for good, so wanted to get into some of that. We got some new Trump comments, We've got updates with regard to Israel Netanyahu directly denying that he had anything to do with Charlie Kirk's death, and some new information
brought to light by Candae Owens. A new picture that she released that is allegedly of Tyler Robinson hours after the killing accur and he's still sort of like hanging around in the area at a dairy queen. I don't know, we'll probably get to that in the premium section.
Yeah, really interesting, obviously, really interesting story.
Yeah for sure, And shows him wearing like a combination of the outfits that he'd wear worn previously in the photos that we've seen, and it's just yeah, I mean whether or not the photo is real or not, I think is a question in of itself.
Some people speculate it could be AI.
We don't have timestamp all of those sorts of things, but anyway, we'll bring you all of the latest with regard to that investigation.
Yep, another fast food killer, apparently just like Luigi with the McDonald's. So let's start with Trump's comments here about Jimmy Kimmel.
Why don't we you'll?
Vice President Vance said the pre speech is under attack in the UK. Do you agree with him? And Prime Minister we saw dismissal of a very well known chat show hosting America last night. Mister Kimmel, is pre speech more under attack in Britain or America.
Well, Jimmy Kimmel was right because he had bad ratings more than anything else, and he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person. He had very bad ratings. Have fired him a long time ago. So you know, you can call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent.
Yeah, we haven't gotten you guys, take at least on the air with regard to the indefinite suspension of Kimmel. So, Emily,
¶ Kimmel Suspension, Trump's Comments
what did you make of all of these developments before we get to the president specific comments there.
You know, I probably am in the position of like disagreeing with I'll probably be the one like odd man out throughout this conversation because I think with Kimmel the timing is is obviously an appearance of conflict of interest, and an appearance of conflict of interest is a conflict of interest.
But also my position is that the FCC.
Either should not exist or this particular power of the FCC certainly should not exist. Actually asked Brendan Carr about that a couple of months ago, about whether the law itself actually needed to be changed, and he said at the time, actually, that's probably a conversation that needs to be entertained whether the FCC should have any jurisdiction to
determine what quote public interest is. Because as long as that exists, if you're a Trump Republican and you see the FCC with this power, and you see corporate media going against you for so long, you're going against it being like fairly obviously biased in one direction for so long, then the tool gets more and more attempting to use. And the last thing on that point that I'll say is I would not have a problem with the Democratic
FCC commissioner. If you see NBC News or wherever lying our way into another Iraq war, saying we could do this the easy way or the hard way. This is not in the public interest that you are making up intelligence whatever. I would never support them yanking a broadcast license. I don't think the job owning is that like significant. I do think that the merger question is absolutely significant.
The next our merger question is absolutely significant. But my basic point on this is that I think the corporations are opportunistically, opportunistically taking these these dust ups as they're
¶ Emily: FCC, Network Opportunism
like their opportunities. The market was catching up with Kimmel, the market was catching up with Colbert. He wasn't turning Colbert wasn't turning a profit. I would be shocked if Kimmel wasn't losing a decent amount of money. And when these things come up, it becomes an opportunity for the networks to be like, Hey, we're doing you a favor Trump, look what we're doing here. So that's that's kind of my take overall, but I'm sure we'll have other disagreements.
What do you think, Ryan, I disagree basically all of that I don't think we can. I don't think we have any way of knowing whether or not Colbert or any of these people are profitable. You see this claim made that they're profitable or unprofitable. The way the broadcast networks work is not that you they make a certain amount of candy and it caused this much to make the candy, and then they sell the candy for a
higher price and then they have a margin there. It's like, it's not like there's so much more to that and it and they're they're part of a giant brand and which involves their connection to their bigger conglomerates and the and the cable revenue that they get in the broadcast revenue through the ads that they get and if they have even just five hundred thousand people who you know, are huge fans of Kimmel, like that can actually make
it worth it to have the Kimmel. So like, there's this we're too quick to say that this that that actually these are business decisions they wanted to make, but they were afraid to make, which I don't understand either, Like companies are usually fine to fire, you know, to make business decisions that they think are in their own interests. They don't need the government to push them. But I think the bigger disagreement is on the problem with the
jaw boning. I think jaw boning by the government when, especially when it is directly connected to an explicit threat. You Brennan Carr of the FCC told ABC, you need to take action against Jimmy Kimmel or else that is a explicit threat of government action unless they take action in Missouri versus you know, the Biden or whatever the
case was, where you didn't even have any threat. What you had was members of the government, both the Trump administration's DHS and then Biden administration's DHS, going to the platforms and flagging I don't think I don't like this post here about the vaccine, or I don't like this about the lab and the platforms are actually like most
¶ Ryan: Government Jawboning & Threats
for the most places, they're like, all right, we're taking that down. The reason is a problem is not because the government said take this down or else. The fact that they're the government means that they come with awesome power, enormous power that has to be or else or else is just implied. It's it's much worse when you straight up say or else, like, that's just gangster stuff. But but the awesome power of the federal government needs to
be checked by the constitution. And that's why the FBI cannot even walk in the door and tell you anything about your monologue or else. You understand that to be an implicit threat. Big fat, beefy Italian guy comes in.
It's like.
The Twitter file, right, Yeah, Hey, he's just hey, just knocking on the door here, just want to make sure that all your paperwork is in order. Like they didn't even have to say back off of the Twitter files or else you will get audited. That would be horrifying if they said back off the Twitter files or else you will get audited. How is this any different? Also, the entire center left thought that the framing of the Twitter files was was misinformation. It was poorly constructed, it
was cherry picked. So should the FCC or the I R S or the FBI have said, you know what, we didn't like the framing of the way the Twitter files came out. We thought this was wrong. So now you're you're going you're going to suffer, You're going to get punished. It's it's the exact same thing because The conservative argument is that what Kimmel said was misinformation and
therefore the threats are justified. In fact, if you look at exactly what he said, you know, he said, Maga folks are desperately trying to find ways to make it so that this is not one of their guys. Now to me, it turned out it was not one of their guys. He said this on Monday night. It was it was the case that everybody from every direction was trying to make the case that this was not one of their guys. That's just what that's that's what they were doing. So then come in and say you have
to take action against this guy or else. And then the or else is the dual murders. There's murders at the Disney level that are needed. And then Next Star wants to Nextar is the biggest you know, which bought Rising. Next Star is the biggest owner of local television networks, which is trying to buy even more local television networks, which we have said for decades is consolidation that we don't want to see. So they need the law change. Basically, they need an FCC rule changed so that they can
buy more local television channels. And which are so lucrative. Why because of super packing political ads. But that's the main revenue source. That's that's the only reason local television channels are so lucrative. And as we know because Emily and I worked for them for like five minutes, they're
like they're a trump by aligned freelance. Yeah, we met their leadership, their Trump aligned and so then they operated like they operated on the UH on the same team and helped effectuate this entire thing.
And they also, by the way, Brendon Carr and his comments, I mean directly named chacked like, hey, these you know, cable affiliate owners, they need to be looking into this. So he says that and threatens ABC.
Next thing.
Next Star says, Okay, no problem, we're going to We're going to preempt Kimmel. And then and according to the
¶ Trump's Merger Leverage Revealed
Rolling Stone reporting, the executives who'd been meeting and who'd been like, you know, shitting themselves over this, they did not think what Kimmel said was over the line. Nor do I mean, I think what Kimmel said ended up being obviously incorrect, but it was not like that crazy or wild or in sense like insanely out of bounce thing to say. In any case, the executives didn't have a real problem with what he said, but they explicitly felt that the pressure from the Trump administration was the
reason why they had to act. And then on top of all of that, if you had any doubt in mind, then you have Brendan Carr go out and say, hey, maybe the view should be next. You have Trump come out and say effectively, like you know anything, really, you shouldn't be allowed to criticize me, or else your license
should be revoked. So if there was any doubt whatsoever about the reasoning for the decision making of the ABC and Disney executive team, it should all be put to bed by the chain of events, their own interternal deliberations, and then the government basically going out and bragging about the power that they wield in their ability to coerce news executives to do whatever the hell they want.
Griffin, we should get you in on this, because comedy is your space. One thing to that point, I don't I wonder how because the Wall Street Journal was reporting after it happened that Kimmel they expect Kimmel to be back in a couple of days, And I actually am curious if he will be back by like Monday.
I don't know.
I agree with one thing Crystal said on the nature of the like the one liner by Kimmel's standards was relatively mild. He said, he said some during COVID, he said some crazy stuff like he's, he's, he's.
Been out there. And my thing with Kimmel, I don't know what you guys think.
It's sort of like my thing with Colbert as a big like Griffin, we've talked about this like Strangers with Candy era Colbert fan.
It just feels like a lot of it feels lazy. But anyway, that's beside.
The point and one other point I think what people were really upset about. And then Griffin, who's if you're in comedy, that means you're an outlaw at this point because comedy is illegal once again out So there there was two pieces of the joke. The first part is not even a jokes, like Maggie's trying to out there, trying to or political points on this and say that it's not their guy. I don't even actually see how
that's funny. It's just a comment. But the joke was the next one, just like let's see how Trump is responding. And then Trump gets asked, you know, sir, like how are you holding up personally after the loss of your friend? And Trump responds, great, we're building this. I don't know, I don't know if we have a handy, but like, you know, we're building this ballroom. Everybody said we couldn't
build the ballroom. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. It's going to be the greatest ballroom in the history of ballrooms. And you know, it goes on and on and on about the ballroom. That's it and so, and that was his joke. He's like, look at this guy, what a Cretan? Like that was the joke. And I think that's what Trump was actually offended about. But Trump should have not acted like a Cretan if he didn't want Jimmy Kimmel to portray him as one.
Well, and Trump made it pretty plain that that's what he was upset about, since he then went on to say, you're not allowed to criticize me, you.
¶ Kimmel's Ratings, Cancellation Motives
Know, right, yeah, yeah, go griffing.
If we're to analyze this from a comedy perspective, then Kimmy the Kimmel is guilty and should be fired, but we shouldn't analyze it from a comedy.
Perspective because that's that's not right.
Uh.
I did have a few questions for Emily. I am curious about this idea that the FCC should be eliminated or what have you. I'm curious about that, and like what what that would mean if it's gone. But like also to the point about money to slightly steal man Emily's case about views, like I did read last night that Jimmy Kimmel was averaging in the Key demo around one hundred and twenty nine thousand views, which is about
like one YouTube clip from US. This clip today will probably do more that just acting that the demo, and that's actually down fifty percent from what it was a couple of months ago, so there seems to be like
a study decline there. But like if this were just purely if Next Star were to try to make this look like purely a financial decision, like oh, we're just bleeding money on the show, why wouldn't they just make an announcement being like, hey, we're gonna slowly fold this show down at the end of the year.
As opposed to this super.
Knee jerk Disney, I mean from the administration, and like why would I'm sorry, yeah, Disney, Like why why wouldn't they do similar what they did with Colbert right where they're like slow rolling it out. But this knee jerk reaction to it seems to be like implicitly a direction from the from the government.
Well, I think because they're trying to please, Like I think they're being opportunistic. My my honest opinion is that I think they're trying to like exactly what you say, Trump operates like a roy Cone trained mafioso. So I think they take these sort of dust ups as opportunities to be like, look, we're, uh, we're giving you a little here, like we're we're cooperating, we we love Trump.
Maybe it is what they're saying behind the scenes. I don't know if you guys caught Sherry Redstone obviously coming out and saying that this is this is business.
There were a bunch of.
Anonymous sources who went to Puck and and I think the Near Post during the Colbert dust up that said it was losing around forty million dollars last year. I don't know, I mean, like when you have a few anonymous sources. It's hard to obviously verify that number without the network going on the record.
Those are catastrophically bad numbers for Kimball. Some of this is anyway.
That is, we don't have to get into the market of late night shows just to say that I think the network's taken up. I'll grant you to be like, hey, look we're working with you.
Yeah, I'll grant you. The shows is dude and probably is losing money, but it's just hard to disentangle it from the entire right network.
Well, and I just looked it up.
So the numbers, I'm saying Kimmel was averaging two hundred twenty thousand viewers in the demo, which is still not great.
It's a little better than one hundred couple months ago.
A couple of months ago, he was it was what I read.
Okay, well he and he was ahead of Colbert and Fallon in terms of his numbers. So you know, in terms if you look at the genre, he was actually the person who was performing the best. And you know, yeah, I mean, I'm just listen, I'm I obviously I agree with Ryan, like the business thing may be true that it's losing money, but that is not the reason he was suspended right now, because in fact, I think by doing it in this way, they have put themselves in
¶ Debating FCC Power, Comedy's Decline
a much worse position because people are very upset that they made this decision, and they have the possibility of strikes from talent, and you know, obviously this is a giant conglomerate. There's all sorts of ways that talent and producers and actors and whatever can speak out and be upset. It's created this whole national cultural moment. Like, I don't think as a business, this would have been the way
that they would have wanted to go. Instead, they could have done what, for example, like MSNBC did at the beginning of the Trump administration when they look around and see the writing on the wall and they basically offer up joy read as tribute. They're like, okay, yeah, but you don't even have to say anything. We're going to get rid of this lady, and we're going to sell
off MSNBC. Are we good now? That in that way, there isn't that direct like you're directly threatened and under dress you intentionally like cave and capitulate in a way that is undeniable and blatantly obvious.
And also the.
Reason why these shows, these late nine shows, like in general big picture suck is because they are sickophantic to the Democratic Party, and now the Republicans are asking for them to be sickophantic to the Republican Party. And like, to a certain extent, comedy is supposed to be illegal. It's supposed to feel illegal. It's supposed to feel like, oh, you're not allowed to say that, but the comedian is
saying that. And that's why it sucks right now when they just you know, jerk off the Democratic Party, and it's going to suck when they jerk off the Republican Party. And so it's like the fundamental like identity and core of comedy is going to continue sucking if it's about making comedy feel legal, like you're things that you're allowed to say, which is the antithesis of the form more Baby.
Yeah, that's kind of an interesting comment though, Griffin, because what Trump is doing, accidentally is making them like Edgy and Subversta. Yes exactly, you can't do You're just like standard thing is now illegal. So yeah, it's making it so because we all watched I mean, I watched a bunch of the monologues from last night, which were not
like particularly spectacular. But now they have this looming interest and you know, increased interest in scrutiny and edge to them simply because of what the Trump administration has, you know, has done here.
We've got new comments here from Trump on the Air Force one about sort of his larger plans or thoughts on on TV networks in general. Let's let's take a listen for him on Air Force one for a second.
That's something that you'd be talking about for licensing too. When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is it Trump. It's all they do.
You go back.
I guess I haven't had a concerput going in years or something.
Somebody said when you.
Go back kick a Look, Well they do is job.
Ye're license, They're not allowed.
To do that.
They're an arm of the Democrat parties.
Thank you.
Everybody fly safely. You know why to say that, because I'm on the flight I want to get Otherwise.
I wouldn't care he's on the flight, or otherwise he wouldn't care.
That would be a good joke. We know we know he's on the flight because he's standing right there. And so it kind of he stepped on his own punchline with his own presence. He otherwise that's funny.
He also keeps saying from his first post to just that like he's absolutely convinced that Kimmel has been fired and that is not what any of the reporting suggests right now, and it wasn't when any of the reportings suggests when he fired off is true social at one thirty in the morning UK time. So I don't know if if he knows something or if he's trying to manifest.
Well, maybe maybe they should just not just bring him back and not announce it. And you know what, actually Chop would never notice.
He might not ever know.
And what might solve the entire problem is if they give Trump Kimmel's late night spot and then Trump isn't president anymore.
He would love that job.
Yeah, but couldn't he do a five minute monologue or is it just the whole show just going to be his monologue?
I see that? Could he contain himself to all?
You know?
Sometimes?
You know, if he was not president, I would watch that.
I would make that du remember that time on the campaign trail, he like they just like stood in silence and swayed to ave Marie or something like that.
That was great stuff, that was amazing.
Some real's a realist content.
I don't know what you call that, but I do want to focus in on what he said there, which he specifically said, they hit Trump every night.
That's not allowed.
It's like, literally in America, you are allowed to criticize the president of the United States. That's like kind of the whole deal here, Like that's a big part of what we're all about. And as I said before, makes it plain not only that the real problem he had wasn't you know something he said about Charlie Kirk's killer. It was about the criticism of him, which is why he had previously said, hey, Jimmy Kimmel's next had been
calling for his ouster. And also why you've now got you know, Brendan and and he said, who did he say is next?
Jimmy Fallon or Steven.
Gilmer and and Seth Meyer.
And Seth Meyer and then and then you have Brendan Carr coming after the view and you know, putting them in the in the spotlight and the view notably and this is like pretty shameful. They didn't talk about this topic yesterday on their show at all. So and that's the point. The point isn't just to get a scalp
in terms of Jimmy Kimmel. The point is to send the message out to everyone that you better watch it, you better be careful, because you step over wherever that invisible line is, you get a little bit of a you know, online conservative backlash going.
And that's it.
Your companies, your corporate executives, they're not going to have your back.
They are not going to have your back. You are on your own.
And that message, whether or not Kimmel comes back at some point or doesn't come back, whatever, that message has been sent. And the fact that the view said nothing about this yesterday, I think shows you the chill that has already been instilled, at least in you know, in many journalists, personalities, comedians across the board, the.
Minions across the board will go for it. Emily, why I pull this clip up? I do a Colbert clip I want to pull up next.
I was saying, if if I were Democrats right now, I would like immediately be looking at ways to defang the FCC and force Republicans to defend the power of the FCC, because the FCC gives what's called like news exemptions. Howard Stern, for example, got his quote news exemption. So this is like it goes years and years, and it's been used in ways that we've become accustomed to because like many things before, we had this crazy moment ten
¶ Trump Calls for License Revocation
plus years ago. I guess now in the US we didn't think about the tools, or we hadn't thought about the tools in this way for like twenty thirty years, and now Republicans haven't watched the media, especially with Trump. But like saying, going back over the last whatever thirty years, the way that conservatives were covered are saying, well, hey, there's this public interest tool in the FCC's toolkit, and
that's there. So while all of these levers are being pulled, why not take a look at the public interest part of it. Why not say, why not take away the quote news exemption from some of these these broadcasters and make it so that they do have to do equal time because what Trump said there where he was like, you have to it's not allowed to just bash Trump night after night. If they if they have their news exemption, maybe the FCC takes that away and then says, actually
it's not allowed. You have to do equal time, and all of that was like as a business model, doesn't really even make sense anymore. So if I were Democrats, I would make Republicans start defending the new Deal FCC because that would get I honestly think it's pretty good case for abolishing the FCC, the way that we licensed broadcaster wives and all of that.
But anyway, beside the point, well, I.
Mean, got feld needs equal time, get me out.
That doesn't count because it's cable, but like the broadcast.
Okay, gotcha, gotcha, but which most people I don't think distinguish a difference between, Like the average person just views this as just like a freedom of speech thing without the intricacies like all that that's broadcast.
This is cable, like, you know.
The The problem there is that this isn't really on the up and up. It's not as if they have a genuine concern about public interest and they're going to
use the remedies existing around the public interest rule. What they're saying is we don't like what you said, and we're going to connect it to this other thing, this merger that you want that your parent company wants, and We're going to use the threat of blocking this merger, not because we think it's anti competitive, not because we don't like the merger on the merits, but as power
to get you to do what we want. So looking at the rules implies that this is being done on the up and up through the rule book, and it's and it's not. It's just being done with with raw power.
So many people are saying, what are Jimmy Kimmel's colleagues going to say? What is John Stewart, What is John Oliver going to say? So We've got a clip here from Stephen Colbert that we like to play here. See if it met the moment.
I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. But tonight we are all Jimmy Kimmel.
I am.
I still have a show though.
Right yesterday, after threats from Trump's FCC chair, ABC yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely.
That is blatant censorship. And it always starts small.
You know, remember like in week one of his presidency, helf of America, call it Gulf of America. Sure seems harmless, but with an autocrat you cannot give an inch.
And if ABC thinks, if ABC thinks that this is going to satisfy the regime.
They are woefully naive and clearly they've never read the children's book.
If you give a mouse a Kimmel and and and to Jimmy and to Jimmy, just let me say, I stand with you and your staff one hundred percent. And also you couldn't let me enjoy this for like one week?
All right, if you give him mouse?
Kim ol Ryan loved that one. That there's the key demo, folks, there's the.
Jen X enough.
I'm sort I think I'm in the demo.
Now.
I need to start watching these late night shows.
¶ FCC Coercion and Media Chill
So did you guys watch these late night reactions? Do do we find that this met the moment? Because I was struck by these feeling very similar to other just Trump takedowns in terms of tone and energy.
What did you guys make of it? So?
I think what they were lacking.
I mean, on the one hand, I'm sympathetic because it's hard to make comedy about something that, you know, like to have a topic and be like, I'm going to make a joke about this. And yet they're mandate on the show obviously is not just to do political commentary, but to make it funny, and it's a difficult thing to be able to nail sympathetic there. It's certainly not something I could pull off. I think what they were all lacking is some.
Sort of a call to action.
It's like, Okay, you don't like it, and you're saying, oh, this won't affect my performance, and maybe it will, maybe it won't.
I mean, I don't even.
Think like, as an individual human being, you're not even really fully equipped to assess your own ability to withstand that pressure, cause you don't know the way things are subtly influencing you, If that makes sense, which is why you have to why we've worked hard to insulate ourselves from different pressures that are we can't anticipate. But there was no like, Okay, that's why we need to That's why we need to boycott.
That's why we're going on strike.
That's why you know, that's why Democrats need to break up these giant conglomerates. Like maybe it's too much to put that on them, but I think people are looking at them for like some sort of leadership, since this is their industry and these are really influential, powerful wealthy people at this point and there was none of that. It's just sort of like, you know, Republicans are hypocrites. Okay, we can see that. You know, we're not happy about
what happened with Kimmel. That's obvious. And I think the other thing that's always difficult with Trump is because we've had this is far from the first threat to the First Amendment from this administration, even literally in this week.
So when you've talked about these things before, it also becomes difficult to separate from previous concerns from this moment and to really sort of like put a pin in what makes this particular action different, more extraordinary, more troubling, darker, more sinister than previous things that we've thought about and talked about with Trump.
Yeah, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are really awful free speech martyrs for like the left in these cases, because they're at heart corporate Dems who have coasted on really lazy comedy and started driving some of these formats like into the ground unnecessarily show, unnecessarily so, and it's like hard to I think it's hard for people like rally.
Around these I agree, Emily and like company men.
I agree only because also It's like liberals have a lot of times turned the blind eye to other freedom of speech issues over the last two years. I mean, like, had they covered the crackdowns from both Biden and Trump on Palestine protest freedom of speech? Like I see so many people in LA have Colbert.
And Kimmel talked about that.
That's a really I mean, I mean maybe, yeah, Stewart
¶ Late Night Responds to Kimmel
has for sure, But I don't know. I am a little struck by, like a lot of liberals that I see online coming out for the first time about freedom of speech after two years of disastrous freedom of speech. But it's like, oh, when it's like a multi millionaire like white host of the Late Night Show, that's when it matters. Obviously, it's he's a more famous person, it's
gonna make a bigger impact. But yeah, if you haven't been talking about freedom of speech in a lot of other areas, and let's say a lot of these were front page news stories, you like to miss Mahmoud Khalil, that's a front page story, Like that's not like, oh, sorry, I didn't turn to the third page to see that.
Let me defend not you know, Colbert and these people who I haven't watched, I genuinely don't know. I don't suspect that they said anything about that, but I don't actually know for sure. But let me defend the Libs a little bit here, which is to say, number one, Democrats overwhelmingly, you know, oppose what's happening in Gaza, have opposed the crackdown on you know, on speech on campus. Like that movement comes from the left, and you know, it's most more leftists, but also left liberal.
So there's that.
The other thing I would say is, again like I was, and Ryan was at odds with a lot of liberals in terms of their you know, ignoring an acceptance and pushing actively cancel culture and trampling out her speech and censorship and in all of that.
Right, So I wasn't on the same page with them there.
However, I will say, both in terms of the substance and in terms of the state mechanisms, this is different. Right, Like with the Twitter file stuff, what the Biden administration was messaging to you know, these social media companies about was COVID misinformation that they felt like genuinely was going to cause people to lose their lives. Right, So now we all felt like Okay, First of all, a lot of these accounts are tiny accounts, Like it's not going
to make that big of a difriends. You guys have been wrong about a bunch of stuff with COVID. We don't want a ministry of truth. Just by sending these messages and having these meetings, you're exerting extraordinary pressure pressure. But I don't want to pretend like the COVID misinformation and this like lame comment from Jimmy Kimmel are remotely the same, because they're not right. So the content is different. And then, as Ryan was laying out before, the government
action is different as well. So here you have an explicit threat and it comes in the context of a Trump administration that has used every opportunity, real and imagined crises to crush descent, crack down, grab power, and has truly, I mean that truly is an authoritarian threat to the country and to democracy. So I even as I again was not on the same page as the liberals, you can go and back and look at my support of the Harper's letter and coverage of the Twitter.
Files and all of that.
Yeah, even though I wasn't on their side there, Like I think it is fair to say this administration, what they're doing now is genuinely different than what anything we saw under the Biden administration. I don't think it even came close. And that's before we even talk about like scrubbing people's social media and you know, for whether or not they can have a visa and deporting them without due process, and you know the massive crackdown over speech
on Palestine, et cetera. So that's what I would say in defense of the libs its the I.
Think you always have to take what Trump is saying, even if he doesn't mean it literally, you have to take it seriously because when you have the President of the United States threatening broadcast licenses, and even if it's just quote jaw boning, I think you do have to take it seriously, especially when it comes with threats from
¶ Free Speech: Hypocrisy and Authoritarianism
the FCC and when you see compliance. So I actually think the way that Trent talks about broadcast licenses is insane.
And when they have a track record of weaponizing the government to punish universities, law firms, immigrants, students, anyone that they don't like. When he's coming out and issuing a you know, statement saying hey, we're going to make ANTIFO, which is like, you know, an ideology a terrorist organization and threatening people who are just pro Palestine with being providing material support to terrorism. Like that's the record of
this administration, So it's not an idle threat. We all know that they have weaponized the entire federal government in every way that they can think of in order to coerce and crush dissent and consolidate power. So that is a very different landscape than what we've dealt with before.
The other thing I was to say is I do think some moves from Dems and the Biden administration, and this doesn't have to become a tip for tap thing. I do think things like the Global Engagement Center, which it's hypocritical for Marko Ruby to shut it down and like he's a champion of a free speech obviously given
what's happened with Visas and other students. But in that case, the State Department was funding blacklists of conservative media outlets, and not even just conservative media outlets, but like literally Unheard found its way onto a global disinformation index that was funded by the State Department.
The Equality Act.
Which almost every Democrat supports, would have serious ramifications for free speech because of the way that it reads gender identity into sex, and the same thing was true of the way the Obama administrations in the Bible Biden administrations
wielded Title nine. So it's some of that stuff I think was enormously significant in ways that it's frustrating because the Colbert you know, who's now a free speech martyr and Kimmel is a free speech martyr, don't give a damn about They don't care, and some of the people who are supporting them don't care and never did. The media barely covered the Global Engagement Center story like it wasn't really anything, And there are other examples that we could point to I actually I agree.
I don't think the COVID one is apples to apples. I think it's apples to oranges.
But I do think there were other ones where we saw both the Obama and buy An administrations weaponizing their power to go after journalists and you know, or not not just journalists, but to go after speech. Actually, Ryan the James Rising case from the Obama administration and the James Rosen case from the Obama administration are examples of that too, But in those cases, most of the media was pretty defensive of Rising, if I'm remembering correctly.
Yeah, And Risen started late Bush and then went into Obama. And so it was this bipartisan attempt to get He was a New York Times reporter who had exposed some of the NSA's spying reporting that was then later confirmed by Edward Snowden's leaks, and they were threatening to put him in prison in order to get him to reveal
his sources. And eventually Obama backed off because he was you know, he was the kind of person that elites could pressure and say, your constitutional scholar, bro, like your law professor, like what are you doing?
All right? Fine?
And and so he never ended up going to prison. But you know, A Chrystal and I both warned, you know, throughout the teens and early twenties that what the left was doing might be constitutional because it's private stuff. You know, you're just bull you're bullying, you're the mob is bullying some company to fire a person or get rid of them. But that it was still a roade, you know, it was still e roding of the First Amendment. That the First Amendment is is has a letter and it has
a spirit. And while it might not have been violating the letter of it, it was violating the spirit of it. And amendments that are on the books but that aren't respected by the cultural spirit aren't worth what they're written on. Look at the Fourth Amendment, no illegal search and seizure, Well, how's that. How's that working out for us? It's still written there, but because spiritually we kind of abandon it,
then nobody follows it anymore. And so that's why people like Glenn and Crystal and I were all saying, no, you've got to draw the line here and protect it in spirit, not just in letter, because you're not always going to be in power, and in a lot of cases like Trump was president at the time, and when you fully lose power, look, you know it's it's going to ratchet further. The most hopeful thing I've seen, which is probably too hopeful, is that the right is going
to have its outrageous spasm of cancel culture. It's going to use the tools and the power of government to censor speech, taking cancel culture on to the next level. But it's going to fall apart because the American people when they vote in elections. A lot of the political science says they're not really actually moved by what the media and what commercials say, Like that's just that's a
that's a fraction of how people vote. What they vote on is the underlying material conditions of their lives, which are rapidly deteriorating under Trump. So his effort to like do a Turkey air Towan or Hungarian like consolidation of the media to hold on to power may not work
¶ Dystopian Media, Eroding Democracy
because we're so federalized, and because people vote based on how they you know, and Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the world history, so people know that they don't know what it stands for, but they know what exists, and so if they're not happy with the conditions that they're living in, they know that they can vote for this other party. What is that party going to do? God only knows. They're not telling us, but at least they're not the party in power, so that
could still happen. And then at that point, maybe both the left and the right are like, Okay, we're wrong, let's do an amnesty and a truce on this cancel culture stuff.
No I mean no, I mean let me well, and we yeah, right, we don't pretend like cancel culture started with like you know, liberals in the like Hillary Clinton era, and that's just not true.
Like think back to the two post two thousand and.
One, I mean, and yeah, go back to McCarthy even the early nineties, like all the little moral panics about rap lyrics and stuff like that.
Like there was John Adams throwing French aligned people.
Oh so true.
As original sin on on First Amendment there, I mean, it's actually Jesus yep, there you.
Go, original podcaster.
But I mean, so, I like, I have to tell you guys, I feel I don't feel scared or angry. I actually just feel depressed because I like, let's play this sound a little bit, okay, and let's keep in mind you guys, Ryan and em only you guys covered this week. Also this consolidation of media institutions in the hands of Trump aligned figures and Zionists, the Ellison's you know there, So you're going to have CBS, potentially CNN, HBO.
You know Twitter is already owned by Elon TikTok coming under that umbrella too.
So yeah, you have got a breakdown of view of these crystal for you while you're talking.
Okay, if you want to throw that up on the screen. And so you talk about orbon, I mean this is orbon. This is like a speed run of Orbonism, which from my study, took longer to consolidate than you know this has in the second Trump administration. And then what do you do with the remaining mainstream, you know, establishment institutions. You do what you did with Jimmy Kimmel. You said down the message, listen, you better not cross me, or
else there are going to be consequences. And the corporate executives. You know, as a leftist, I never expected the capitalists to fight back up against fascism. But they certainly aren't rising to the occasion, There's no doubt about that.
And so that message to hurt feelings, don't don't hurt feelings with the app.
So that goes out, you know, that goes out too to everybody who works there, like they're not going to They don't have my back, nobody has solidarity with me. I am just out here on my own And do I personally have any ability to stand up to the entirety of the United States government?
Of course not.
And neither does independent quote unquote independent media either, Like if Disney can be crushed like a bug.
What do you think we are?
Right?
So you have, I mean you have, so you have. That's the media landscape. Okay, and then okay, we have elections, right, we have mid terms. We already know Trump is trying to like Jerry, rig the maps to make it as favorable as possible, cast out on mail in ballots, They're monkeying around that, the voter rules, like all this stuff that they're going to try to do. Not to mention, we've got National Guard already in the streets in multiple cities.
Are they going to be there intimidating voters on election day? I don't think it's a crazy thing to suggest. Then let's say that Democrats overcome that it's too big to rig, they win a majority in the House, they do well on the Senate. Whatever you think this man is going to accept those election results. Of course he's not. Of
course he's not. We already know his playbook. He's already projecting what he's going to do when he's casting doubt on elections and mail in ballots and saying, you know, I wish we had the recourse of the ballot box, but you know, the ballot box in many cases is rigged and it's not sufficient. He's going to go out and say, no, these election results are not legitimate. Democrats did not win these seats. They're incapable of winning these seats,
and his base will believe him. So at that point, you have a media ecosystem that is completely compromised, that's terrified to tell the truth about the nature of the elections. You've got you know, roughly half of at least of the voting public that is going along with, you know, his view that this is all rigged and sham.
Like, where are we then, Because the whole.
Thing, to Ryan's point about like, you know, it's all written down on paper, but it's as good as the paper it's written on. If we don't all sort of like buy into the spirit of the project, the whole thing falls apart. If you don't have most of the population sort of routinely just like accepting, okay, these results are more or less correct, going to move forward with
what we get. So that's where we're headed, and this media consolidation piece is an important part of it, because they need to be scared to tell the truth going you know, when and if that happens, about what actually occurred. And so that's why I'm feeling very depressed, because I don't see what institution exists or what power structure exists that is capable of like rolling back or resisting any of this. It's certainly not the corporations. It hasn't in
the universities, wasn't the law firms. You know, it's labor has already long been defenestrated long ago. They're irrelevant to the conversation, which is sad and pathetic. The court system, like Trump has realized that number one, there's this loophole in liberal democracy where if you just do a bunch of shit, it takes a while for the courts to catch up. And number two, the Supreme Court's given him everything he wants anyway when it gets there. So I
don't know, guys, that's where we are. It's pretty ugly.
And they're already on Fox News being like, oh, well, the First Amendment. I don't know if Charlie really would have believed in that now I think Trump said that, And then someone else on Fox News was like, I don't know if we really I don't know if we can deal with the First Amendment anymore. I'm not sure, if that's as important as these other things we're dealing with.
Literally every lib said during the Biden administration that sent
conservatives through the roof. Not every lib, of course, but it was like all of the disinformation libs who were complaining about the First Amendment scope being too broad in the way that it I mean, it is, like she said, the thing that was sending all of the right onto their moral high horse, and again like in a good way, right, like we should all be against the government saying well, maybe that whole First Amendment thing is a little outdated.
So yeah, I mean, I.
Emily, I'm curious for your take on crystal scenario because it seems pretty dystopian but also so fairly realistic. The only thing I would say could change that arc would be a financial crisis, which we do seem like. I think that's a matter more of of when rather than if that could That basically just flips the table. But outside of that, where do you see holes in the kind of arc that she sketched out there?
I don't, I mean, I don't, I think you know. For me, it was also depressing when the Hunter Biden like laptop case broke and I saw the way the media had treated the like Russia collusion thing for years, And of course I like, I remember not being able to DM that story after the Politico broke that fifty one former intelligence people coming out and saying it had
all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. I remember not being able to send it over a DM in private comp So that was like I felt really similarly then, And I think probably the most important reservation that people should have about Trump, even if you're a conservative, even if you are ideologically maga, but you're not like full Curtis Jarvin and want just like a monarchy or an American
CEO instead of a president. The biggest reservation people should still have is fake claims, a fraud in election because in elections, because that is the hallmark of Banana Republicanism, and we've seen there's precedent for it. So I don't think like I actually think a lot of conservatives, if you laid out what Chrystal just said, would be like, oh haha, But no, I think it's completely serious because again we have precedent for it. So I've got I've got nothing in response to that.
Let me ask you guys something too about this York County shooting of there was an Pennsylvania in Pennsylvania, five cops were ambushed, three killed, two others wounded. And I'm curious if you think that the climate that we're in explains some of the lack of attention that the media is paying to this. Uh, the guy's Matthew Ruth was the is the killer he was he was he was killed or he took his own life. It's there's there's very little information about about this. He was stalking his uh,
his girlfriend, his ex girlfriend. She called the police, they suspected an ambush and still got ambushed from a cornfield. And he's he's a registered libertarian, I believe, white guy. Like it's what people call demographically inconvenient. But even given all those facts, the killing of the shooting of five police officers and the killing of three usually makes national news, even if the shooter is demographically inconvenient. Yeah, there's barely
been a blip. I wonder if the political climate the media is under right now is influencing decisions by broadcasters to say, you know what, do we let's not touch this? This is like this is just this looks this looks like trouble I.
Mean, the innocent explanation would be there's just so much else going on, you know, with Charlie Kirk just being assassinated and that being the investigation of that being ongoing, and the Kimmel censorship and all of those things right and to presidence in the UK, like all these things that are going on that it just couldn't quite break through.
But what I would say, Ryan, is if the shooter were trans and just murdered three cops, everyone in the fucking country would know about it and it would be wall to wall coverage. So I think there's no doubt that the demographic inconvenience of the shooter is a big part of the reason why networks society, you know, there's a lot of other stories to cover, we're just not going to touch this. We're just going to put this one on the back burner and we're not going to particularly touch it.
Now. I will say that's nothing new, of course.
You know, how many stories do we have of like adorable little white girls who get murdered and kidnapped or horrible things and they become national names and stories, and same thing happens to an adorable little black girl and nobody ever knows her name, Like, this is not a new thing in terms of American media presentation, but I think you are correctly touching on the particular political valance that could be influencing, you know, the lack of coverage,
lack of details, the lack of curiosity around this one. Because when I saw this break, I was like, Wow, what the hell is going on here? And I'm still in the place of Wow, what the hell is going on here? Because there hasn't been much of any significant,
¶ Media Silence: Police Shooting
like journalistic inquiry into what exactly unfolded, what the circumstances were.
So Ryan was asking crazy.
Ryan was searching for hope earlier in this episode, and we were also searching for people that were meeting the moment.
And a lot of people have been saying, oh, what about all these center right, right wing podcasters who made free speech and cancel culture a core part of their message, a core part of why they voted for Trump, why they supported Trump and the vibe shift, and people were a lot of people on the left were saying, Oh, these guys are going to duck their heads not meet the moment, and so let's see what that side of podcasting has been saying first here, I've got a few
different ones. This one hears from Tim Dillon. This is an Instagram story for those just listening, it says on his Instagram stories, sc commissioner threatening to revoke broadcasting licenses has chilling effect on free speech. Ag threatening to go after hate speech is a bad sign. When someone has a weapon, everyone will use it. I continue to unconditionally support Israel and all its actions now and forever. It's nice to cover your bases there.
And he also announced that I couldn't even tell if he was joking that he'd been fired from the Saudi.
Comedy circuit.
So I's a separate issue that might be keeping the down payment, because he did I looked at their website and for the coffee, and I don't see him there anymore. So I think that might have actually been true, because he did his whole monologue where which I Coverden did monologue about where he was like, you know, they're paying me enough to look away.
But then he said in.
The model like if someone's being beaten next to me, I'm going to look away. If there's slave labor, I'm going to look away. So we sort of named the things that Saudi Arabia is doing so I can't. I couldn't totally he was joking, but I think he may. I think he may have been canceled from the comedy.
Funniest thing to do is take the down payment and get fired. Getting fired is the funniest thing you can do, always as a comedian. And that's why I like Tim has been unafraid to kind of like poke all sides, including like his friends, Like, I mean, he's ripped RFK, he rips Barry all the time. He used to get invited to dinners there.
So he also he also joked I'll be taking the down payment and donating it to a foundation that supports He's like, I'm just kidding. I'm gonna buy a car.
Yeah.
Another see you in Montecito.
But this one I thought was even more interesting. This comes from a barstool of sports podcast Now. The CEO, Dave Portnoy, seemed to support the decision, was kind of gaslighting people and saying it's not really a big deal. It's all about a business decision. But here's one of the podcasts under his arm and what they had to say, No right now.
In twenty five at ten oh six on September eighteenth, The extreme right are the biggest group of pussies that has ever existed for America, A bunch of because people with green hair at Starbucks. Because once in a while a fucking guy swam against girl.
You fucking pussies have broken in half.
When in consequence culture Portnoy, who is just waving his arms at the right to like him again after the thing last week he said it was Trump's fault privately publicly that Charlie Kirk died. Now he's like, I gotta get them back. I gotta get them back.
I get them back. I will say it's the Try profile. So yeah, and is he getting that?
Is he just getting anti?
Just getting anti at the very Yeah, the try profile that's still on barstool.
All right, let's let's we'll look into this. Well, we're gonna look.
I thought he got into it.
He had me until the end there.
Yeah, talk about not sticking the landing.
Yeah, you know Jewish, Yes he's Jewish, Yes he's Jewish.
Yeah.
So he just wraps it up with some blatant anti Semitism. But he's talking about Portnite and he.
Says, typical member of the tribe he's just basically saying like typical jew.
So yeah, yeah, all right, so we we lost that one.
Tim. Tim destuck the landing far better by hailing Israel. So we're showing the right way all the wrong way of doing this.
We've smoked out the true anti Semite on breaking points, and we all know it's not Griffin.
Griffin.
Okay, what this is the free half of the show. This is the half the Fox News producers watch, Emily. This is not okay, they.
Watched the whole thing that they absolutely watched the whole thing. They share one premium sub im.
I'm a defender. I'm a defender of Jewish people all
¶ Right-Wing Podcast Reactions
around the world.
So check the ips of their login. See how many people they didn't name drop. Starbucks though, and we I had to throw this up here. There's an update here from Starbucks. Update Starbucks employees must write Charlie Kirk's name.
No matter what your names exactly.
In response to some conversations on social media, Starbucks shared the following there are no restrictions on customers using Charlie Kirk's name on their order, and we are following up with our team, which I just think is such a great example, it's like this is the world that they're envisioning, like that they need a safe space at Starbucks so that there was so lib coded the trans barista can write Charlie Kirk on it, like, I don't know, I do, I.
Want to say go ahead.
I just I when before Starbucks made this decision or whatever, I felt really bad for these baristas who are trying to navigate like this corporate policy against writing anything political on the cups and these customers coming in and like berating them and recording them and putting them on.
Blasts the world. Like I felt, I felt very bad.
For the barisa that.
Yeah, I mean, how do you navigate that?
Right?
Like your boss is telling you to do one thing, and then you've got this customer who like wants to make a social media moment of it, and then Lives of Talk is gonna is going to send it out to the world and make it like you're some evil like pro murder lefty or whatever.
So I yeah, the whole thing was.
And Portnoy fired uh some intern from barstool because he posted condolences to Charlie Kirk on like the Barstool Texas account or something, and he fired him, saying that you're not allowed to do politics, doesn't matter what.
Yeah, you see this, Yeah, I didn't see that either.
I didn't see that. That seems weird.
And Portnoy said, I always hated this kid. He knows you're not supposed to do politics on the account. It's not about what he said, it's these are these are accounts, it's not his personal account. It's not supposed to do politics. He had the kid had posted like basically thoughts and prayers for Charlie Kirk from the Texas barstool account. So, but they have a very strict rule no politics from
the account. So to Chrystal's point, if you're bar Easton and they say no politics on the cup and somebody asked you to do put a political gesture on the cup, you say no, then you get filmed and now you're on limbs of TikTok, and so, yeah, Starbucks kind of put them in a bad situation. I agree with you there.
Yeah, I mean, I also just want to say, because I genuinely think this is important that when something happens to somebody who's in the media space, I think as Probabilia also explains why Dean Weathers, for example, had such a visceral reaction after but really though different, like after it happened, did you see Wethers vase?
For those don't know, Dean Withers is like Dean Withers is a very young zoomer liberal TikTok debater, and he was.
I mean, it was, oh there, it is okay, yeah.
But anyway, what I was gonna say is for me, like as someone who did not know Charlie Kirk nearly, as well as a lot of people who are in the media who were very very close with him, like in right wing media who are like very very very close with him, were This is just all I'm trying to say here is not defending any like censoriousness or whatever, but just to say that I have been trying to extend a lot of grace to people, and hopefully that people have extended some grace to me, because that was
like a collective trauma for people on the right who are really close to Charlie Kirk and are now the ones that find themselves in positions to be like in the public space discussing it.
So I hope that some of this dies down. I don't think all of it will die down.
But I did just want to say that, like, if something God forbid happened to like someone on the left, I do think we would also be seeing some of this like deep visceral anger that's like feels really raw. And again I'm not saying that's going to go away. I don't think it is, but I do just want to say, like I just knowing some of these guys, what this did to them psychologically was incredibly hard and
I can't imagine. Again, I wasn't like a close personal friend of Charlie Kirks, but a lot of people that
¶ Culture War, Trauma, Political Power
I am close friends with were.
And it's just.
So anyway, just a word to say, I think some of it will go away. I don't think all of it will go away. And it's just been crazy.
I think that's a fair point.
I don't extend that point to the President of the United States, though, And that's who that's fair, you know.
Is because because he showed that he had no emotional.
Reaction, that he doesn't care.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, he was not. How are you doing I'm doing great, I'm doing great. My renovation is going fantastic, you know. So you know, and I don't know how capable he is of human emotions on the best of days, but whatever, I mean, And so that's that's like, it's one thing, okay, a cultural phenomenal, random influencers. You know, I still think you're a person with a platform, you still have responsibility. Certainly, I don't think grace would
be applied in their direction. Not that that should dictate what you do whatever, But that's one thing.
The Presidente's a good example.
The President of the United States is using this as a chance to crack down right in any number of ways on media figures, media outlets he doesn't like, on left wing groups. You've got Steven Miller, who's like basically the real president of the United States, who is out there are vertly like, we are going to use this aggressively to go after all of our political enemies, and they will. I mean, that's I I believe them when they when they say that, and they are already taking
steps in that direction. So you know, my, my, my grace said, I can extend to individuals who who directly knew Charlie and are impacted by this on a personal level, does not extend to the President of the United States, who was supposed to represent all of us and is probably the worst person I could possibly imagine to be the president at a moment such as this.
Yeah, and before we go to the premium, one other point, I think I think the audience correctly sussed out that that that the trauma that Emily is talking about having hit people close to him, but also people in the broad kind of ecosystem also does you know, bleed out into people on the progressive side too, like you and I think that just you know, psychically, psychologically, people like me in Crystal and Hassan and anybody who's kind of like a public figure, you know, saw themselves in that.
And I and I then I and I think the audience is right to you'll kind of be to be worry of the of that fact, like understand that we're that our analysis flows out of out of that bias and so that that I but I don't think there's you'd have to be just this you know, stone cold, non not human person for it to be any different, and that's not who we are any either.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Well, on that note, folks, we are going to get into a lot of other fun stuff here in the second half, we're gonna be analyzing breaking down the Candice Owens new released photo of the shooter, Tyler Robinson alleged shooter, and we're gonna be getting to a few other stories. If you want to see all that and ask us questions in the AMA, you can sign up at breakingpoints dot com to uh support us and our independent journalism. We don't read ads, we don't take money from anybody.
It's all you guys, and we'll see you there on the second half.