Will President Trump Save TikTok (& Free Speech)?

[00:00:41] I was gonna say for some reason we're dark but no we're there now. I was gonna say for some reason we're here. Okay geez sorry now we should be good because for some reason you guys were muted.

[00:01:11] Okay geez geez sorry now we should be good. There we go. See because we're live I can actually help you and do it and do an audio. We could do one of those classic spur of the moment YouTube preamble audio checks. Yes check check one two check one check check one two one two one two. So anyway yeah we we got through all the best parts before I hit live so thanks for coming everybody. This has been the Average Intelligence Podcast. No just just to reiterate it's weird because I was telling Haley before Justin jumped in I was like the winds kind of out of my sails now.

[00:01:40] Because when I came up with this idea I was all fired up I was like because this was originally supposed to be a fairly mundane podcast but then Eric having a family emergency and then this. I was like you know what we should probably talk about this and I know two people that will help me out because one of them is pissed and one finds the entire situation hilarious. It's fairly amusing I won't I won't lie to you.

[00:02:04] I was gonna say guess which one but I told I told Haley last night I showed her I said like real talk because I have to for science I had to check. I could not even though tick tock still on my phone at the time but it just wasn't working but if you search tick tock last night on the app store it would not come up a bunch of other social medias although I'd like to point out. Guess what app popped up first when you search for tick tock red note Instagram. Oh of course it did.

[00:02:34] Of course it did. But speaking of red note I was like you know what surely the app that is 100% Chinese owned would surely not be available with this new law being in place totally was. Well the one that got me was not even so much tick tock and not even cap cut which also bothered me but it was finding out that Marvel snap got caught.

[00:03:00] I know I made a video about that but it's the one where I'm like what is Captain America just like every five minutes looking into the camera being like vote for the Chinese Communist Party. Like what what was the why why that like if this is indeed a as they have referred to it tick tock ban. Why are these not tick tock companies getting swept up into it when they did when they would a cap cut do how is cap cups cap cut stealing your information.

[00:03:29] I mean I have a I have a horrible joke because what what's really happening is this is why they banned the app because periodically as the current Captain America Sam Wilson became made aware of the tick tock ban. He kept every few minutes looking into the app and said you've got to do better. You've got to do better senator that senator guy the one who's been OK that's a bad joke. Never mind. You're not everybody. I'm sorry.

[00:03:58] I don't follow American politicians. No the Jack Haley knows who he is although now I'm blanking on his name. What's that jackass his name. Is it right. No. I only you talk about Jeff Jackson. No no no no no no. Hang on. Tick tock senator Arkansas. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh um um um um Tom Tom the guy the idiot Tim. Tim. Shoot what's his name. Tim Cotton. Tom Cotton. Tom Cotton. Tom Cotton.

[00:04:28] Which by the way shame on shame on the internet because not a one of you that I've seen has stitched a video of his stupid ass saying stupid things and then clipping the uh Jason Bateman from dodgeball saying it's a bold strategy cotton. Let's see if it pays off. I mean I've heard about him is all the comments being like oh wow wow just getting reelected. So so so much dumb just so much dumb. I really hope that this was worth your political career.

[00:04:58] No but it was it was worth his book career because again tick tock being the source of internet sleuths that it is before it went dark last night. Many people were pointing out you know the fact that you even though his stock portfolio was supposed to be public record you cannot see it. Um because his staff apparently did not disclose which is a violation of the law. Worth it is. And the fact that he has a book coming out all about how China is evil China's evil.

[00:05:28] I don't know why Trump is saying it but I mean you can't really do because Otten is just so la bland that you can't really do an impression of him except like I'm a fucking idiot. Right. He literally I saw a tick tock video like a couple days ago and there's a part of like him talking to the press and was like he he literally threw himself under the bus by calling it a propaganda tool.

[00:05:56] Yeah, not anymore than okay here's my thing right here's here's the Canadian part of this right. So our Canadian our Canadian the guy who's probably going to be our next prime minister. Um, he said that oh, we're gonna look to ban it right because it's Chinese propaganda. Well, I hate to tell you but Facebook and Instagram are American propaganda and they're absolutely influencing our elections. So like so here's here's uh, yeah, here's a argument.

[00:06:24] Here's another thought that I had though is because okay what is and there has to be lines somewhere when it comes to legislation, but I don't think anyone in Congress at least nobody certainly nobody that agrees with this has thought about this is where where is the if if your if your argument is that this is propaganda that's influence which first of all at least in the United States propaganda still protected by the first amendment. You don't have to like it but but it is but it's like let's assume let's put that aside for a moment.

[00:06:53] And let's say okay where where's your line is it the source of the propaganda or the ownership of the means of the propaganda because if with this law it seems to be based on ownership which also doesn't make sense because bite dance is only 20% owned by Chinese companies or individuals the vast majority of is international. Um, so I don't even think it legally meets the ownership criteria put forth in the law. I'd have to look it up, but let's assume that it does because they went ahead with it, right?

[00:07:22] But okay, so meta even if meta is 100% American owned which there's no way in hell no tech company is but assuming that it were like people from both sides of the political aisle in the current Congress have said that in two elections. At least that I can remember both sides have said that there was Russian misinformation on the platform that affected the presidential election.

[00:07:52] Right. So if your actual care which by the way this law is not about people actually caring about national security or influence of elections they don't give a fuck but assuming that it were I'll come back to that here in a second. So, so, so, um, but assuming that that were your concern then Facebook would be up for a ban too because foreign foreign nationals and foreign companies can still use it.

[00:08:21] Like Jordan said this to me this morning. He said, oh, they don't like that that that that you're talking to each other. No, they don't care about that. They don't care about that because if they cared about that you're right Facebook and Instagram and all those guys would be in the crosshairs. They don't care about that. They want to own it. They want the money. That's what it is. That's why up until the 11th hour they were like sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. That's what they want. They want to own it. They don't care what you say on it. They never have. That you saying something has no power to them.

[00:08:51] It doesn't matter to them. What they care about is the money. Okay. Now I understand what you're saying. So he's talking about the title of the podcast. I thought he was talking about something I said. He says, I actually bet not they will make something else. Only way it could work is if China made big concessions like maybe even with trade, but I'm leaning still on not. Here's. Okay. I very respectfully disagree with you.

[00:09:17] So for the plain and simple fact that this country was created because enough people bitched, moaned, complained, and protested about a 3% tax on tea that wasn't even enforced. So if enough people raise hell about this, they will figure out a way to keep it around now to appease the other side.

[00:09:42] Let's say, and this is not my biggest problem, but one of my big problems with this quote unquote ban, because God, I hate that word. But to my knowledge, they've never even demonstrated that TikTok has ever taken people's data in a way that would compromise national security. And I would also like to point out that people are sharing videos of U.S. military personnel uploading videos. The ones I saw were on an aircraft carrier onto Red Note.

[00:10:12] Right. So and they're only doing that, which, first of all, I'm going to I'm just going to say this. I think that if you're in the military, you probably shouldn't post that anywhere. Anywhere. But certainly not on an app that is 100% owned by China. And I would also like to point out talking about national security. I forget what year this was. I think it was 2023. It might have been 2022.

[00:10:35] But anyway, there was an Air Force officer who got caught divulging top secret material in a Discord group. I mean, yeah, Discord's also bad. That's another WhatsApp. Bad shit happens in WhatsApp all the time. Well, but WhatsApp owns by WhatsApp's owned by Meta. So they're in the clear. Yeah, but that's my I guess that's my point is like this shit happens on like the government did not. In my opinion, I'm not a lawyer. I hate saying that stuff like I'm not a lawyer.

[00:11:04] But at no point did they satisfy any proof. And and when they when the Supreme Court was like, oh, they sufficiently proved that it. But they did. Well, OK, so so so here's but here's the thing. Here's what you have to understand about the Supreme Court. The only thing they did was determine whether or not the law was constitutional. And in their assessment. And here's the fucked up thing is I see where they're coming from.

[00:11:29] But that just tells me that Congress has way too much power over our individual lives and what we say and do. It kind of seems that way. Yeah. So this is a this is a much bigger issue is the fact that, OK, they have they have the capability of eliminating a computer program from your life. Right. That's not good. And a computer program that has yet to be, as far as I'm aware, actually shown to be dangerous in terms of national security.

[00:11:59] As as the foreigner in this conversation, it makes your Supreme Court look bought and paid for. But by who, though? That's the crazy part. Oh, OK. I thought you meant by a side of the government. So, yeah, you're right. The government is owned by Metta. But but I don't even blame but I don't even blame Metta per se, because even Zuck. Zuck just came out recently and threw the Biden administration under the bus by saying like, yeah, they totally called and said, you need to give us this data.

[00:12:27] Now, I think he was a bitch for doing it for sure. His immediate response should have been, fuck you. No, I'm not doing that. Right. And then see where because it's meta. Like, really, you're going to threaten them. But what are you going to do? Look, I give them I give them that information voluntarily. Like that's my thing is like I get that that that that them having it is maybe bad. Yes, they use it. But I that's part of the contract I have with them. The social contract I have with them is.

[00:12:57] Well, and I've never and I've never been against them banning TikTok on, say, like government officials phones. Yeah. Because that makes it. But I think that should go for social media, period. At least at least the phone, at least the phone that they use for work. Right. If you want to dick around with cat videos on your own time, get a different phone. You're you're you're paid enough. Trust me. You make enough money. You have a work phone that you don't do work stuff. You don't do your personal stuff on. Yeah. That just makes sense to me.

[00:13:26] I mean, in my country, they they they got rid of the TikTok business part of it. So we're allowed to have TikTok like they can't ban it in my in my that would be very difficult for them to do to ban it here. Yeah. Yeah. And I do want to clarify, though, because I. I like semantics, OK? I don't even like the fact that they're using the word ban because technically it's not because it's not like if you have TikTok on your phone, you're going to get arrested or fined or anything. That's not the case.

[00:13:54] It's they're just telling the content providers and the service providers. You can't offer it. That being said, even if they did uphold this, quote unquote, ban. A couple of weeks, there'd be a workaround guaranteed. And they might and they might even be trying to figure that out. Like my favorite thing is because my first inclination was like, OK, even if the app is inoperable, which is a decision by ByteDance, not the providers. Yeah. I mean, that was a decision that ByteDance made. Oh, yeah. Send a message.

[00:14:24] You'd be like, but even we can do. Yeah. But even if it were inoperable, I mean, I've yet to see a source say that a VPN would not work. True. The other thing the other thing is, and this is this is the part of this where you guys missed. TikTok with you gone just kind of trucked along like you didn't matter. It's just I hate to tell you that. I hate to tell you that. We didn't really notice. We didn't notice you were gone. And most of the people didn't care.

[00:14:52] Well, because a lot of your content is your content can be interest or geographically driven because I have a lot of stuff that shows up on my feed that's from Indiana. And it's stuff that I've never searched for stuff that to my knowledge, I probably have mentioned it. But like there's a bunch of people that are like breaking news from such and such Indiana. I've never even fucking been there. Yeah. But I got this guy with a three foot beard telling me what's happening. And it's like, cool, because I'm in Indiana. Right. Indiana. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:15:20] And so it's like, I mean, it wasn't my I was still seeing American content all morning. Like, oh, yeah, like the Americans are gone. I was still seeing American content. Jordan claimed he didn't, but I did. So it was just really funny when like one of the one of the guys came back and was like, we missed you. It's like we've been gone for so long. And it's like you guys were gone for like a morning. You went out for coffee and then came back. Yeah, I think it was like I think it was like 12 hours. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:47] You were like, like metaphorically, like down the driveway and we were still waving. Like. Yeah. You know what's really funny, though? What's really kind of funny is kids like teach like teenagers and stuff. When that when all this happened, we're calling 911. OK. Oh, God. That's a tad melodramatic. That's that's a little too American for me. Yeah, that's. I mean, Canadians would do that, too. To be fair, that's that's probably you know, that's probably an Asian.

[00:16:15] Not a not a geographical thing, but very much an Asian. Although I'm still I'm still pissed because for those of you who don't know, which if you don't. You're not on TikTok in the first place. TikTok is back up and running. Yeah, you guys are back. Except CapCut isn't yet. CapCut's still not back. Show. Get a move on. Well, I heard. So was your guys's TikTok worse? Because I've seen so many comments that say it came back for Americans, but it's worse now. Like apparently the video quality to me, it looks the same.

[00:16:45] I mean, I imagine that it'll be somewhat glitchy for some people when they first turn it back on. But that's just because like there was a there was a period of time where it was still working here last night, but it was having trouble. So this is this is funny. And I wonder this. I almost texted you, Haley, to show you a video of it. And then it stopped working. But my girlfriend's phone was loading TikTok for a couple hours after it was effectively turned off.

[00:17:13] Like she was still able to access it and see videos. But then it was acting real glitchy. So I'm getting well, her phone's a little older. So I'm guessing maybe her phone was just having trouble updating the application, so to speak, because it did eventually. But before it did get the message, it was all kinds of like it would try to load the video and then it wouldn't, you know, tell her that it was an Internet error and all that jazz. But hmm. Interesting.

[00:17:43] Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. But right as I recorded the video to send you, Haley, it stopped. She finally got the notice right then. I was like, well, damn. Well, damn it. I mean, for me, like. It kind of felt like the apocalypse. I'm not going to lie. It felt like the apocalypse. Oh, I've been telling you for weeks, Haley. I've been telling you for weeks, even if it went dark. Trump's going to come in and say, I'm going to save TikTok because I like TikTok. I like it a lot. It helped me win. TikTok likes Donald Trump.

[00:18:13] The thing that people don't seem to kind of. Yeah, it was like I saw a bunch of people. Oh, but they need to show a certain amount of divestiture before you can commit to the 90 days. And I'm like, no, there's I can tell. He could just kind of be like, it's kind of looks like it's moving along 90 days. Like it seems like what becomes satisfactory in terms of divestiture. He gets to claim. So he it could be divested like 10 percent and he could just say it got divested 50 percent. And like no one would know any.

[00:18:42] You can say it's divested now. It only has 20 percent ownership of a Chinese firm or individual. Right. Well, the thing was ice. OK, this may be a test for Haley. Jake, this is the political podcast. Charlie Kirk. How do we feel about Charlie Kirk? I don't hate him. I don't love him. I think I think he's a skilled debater. But OK, let me.

[00:19:12] There's a caveat to that. He's a skilled debater. But if you watch him, he uses a lot of the same talking points that are well researched and used often. And I think if he debated someone and this is the case for most people that debate online, both right and left, if they are put on a debate stage with someone on the other side that actually knows what the fuck they're talking about, they will get dismantled very, very quickly. Now, Charlie Kirk is not a stupid person, but I said this about I was talking to Eric.

[00:19:41] There's actually a video where he was talking about. Oh, O'Keefe, James O'Keefe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's James O'Keefe. Project Veritas. Yes, thank you. And I said, James O'Keefe strikes me as the type of guy who wants to find the truth, but the truth that he wants to find his truth. Yeah, he wants to find his truth, which is hilarious coming from the right, because they're the ones that are always criticizing. Like, there's no such thing as my truth. Well, I mean, I don't know.

[00:20:11] I mean, there's not, but in certain subjects, there can be. Wow, the sun went behind something. It got really dark. It was like they were getting ready to cut me off. The reason I ask is because when you guys came back, his was like one of the first three videos I saw of him being like, y'all need to thank Donald Trump. He's the reason he saved TikTok.

[00:20:35] And here's the thing that pisses me off about that, because Charlie Kirk, since this idea came up, has been very supportive of it. But now that Donald Trump is saying that he wants to save TikTok, all of a sudden, all of a sudden now he's a he's a champion of free speech. Right. Yeah. He's like, oh, we want to save TikTok was the bastion of free speech all along. And I'm like, no, all of you, all of you Fox News nut lickers. You were all like you were all for this ban when it was Trump's idea.

[00:21:04] And now that Trump wants to save it, you're willing to swallow. Come on. Well, because Trump figured out that always be wary of the person that wants to ban something when they've never used read or seen it. Because Donald Trump realized that when he went on TikTok, he was like, oh, this is not what I thought it was. Well, he thought it was an anti Trump like hate machine. Yeah. And then it's just it wasn't. Well, certain corners of it are. But that's the point.

[00:21:34] TikTok is in terms of social media. It's pretty much the town square. Well, I mean, Haley, Haley shared. I was watching during the credit to Haley. She sent me the link on a live stream of someone during the hearings and they had a big group chat and it was like a selection of everyone. There was like and to me this I found her to be kind of a walking contradiction. But there was a lesbian Trump supporter on the same live stream as like left wing people.

[00:22:04] And I'm like, yeah, this is a space that brings us all together. And that kind of means something. Well, for some reason. And I think this is just society in general, not just American society. But we've kind of gotten to this point where we have become very much emotionally attached to our ideas. And when somebody criticizes or attacks those ideas, we take it personally. Now, some people some people do, you know, and it's I'll I'll be I've been called a fascist far more times than I care to be.

[00:22:34] But I also know that they clearly if they're calling me a fascist, you clearly don't know what that word means. And true. But also, like sometimes sometimes a right leading person will say a thing that I don't think they realize is a fascist and is a fascist. You're kind of fascist thing right now. Like I saw I saw I watched a Stephen Crowder because I peruse my right wing guys just to know what they're saying.

[00:23:00] And I perused Stephen Crowder and he had solutions for the those particular visas that the right wing right wingers don't like the H1B. Yeah, he had this whole thing. Oh, God, that is so stupid. He was like, this is how I fix them. And all of his ideas were unbelievably fascist. You know how you fix them? You know how you fix them? They involve depriving freedoms from people. And I'm like, this sounds fascist. Yeah, well, and you know how you fix the H1B?

[00:23:29] First of all, you don't make it cost an arm and a fucking leg because they are insanely expensive to get. His his his solution was the opposite problem. He said you make them unbelievably expensive. No, like, OK, so I'm glad you brought that up because I do want to touch on immigration because I don't want this to be a Donald Trump circle jerk because like this is very much a good Trump moment. But we saw it coming. It's not like he came out of the wings. It was like Dick Duck is saved. Right.

[00:23:58] You know, I mean, I mean, he he did. But if you've been following this for more than five minutes, you know that Trump always was planning on swooping in. And he's really happy that Biden apparently fell asleep before he could get a point where he realized that he could make this about him. And he chose to do that because that's what Donald Trump does. Well, he also sees he also sees the value in tick tock since I mean, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Tick tock was part of what won him the election.

[00:24:26] I'm not going to say it was all of it, but for sure it was. I mean, even before he joined tick tock, there were a lot of people like I found out about the gold Trump sneakers, for example, on tick tock. And I was like, oh, and everybody was making fun of him. But here's the thing about Donald Trump. When it comes to marketing, Donald Trump is a fucking genius. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I saw I saw those golden shoes. I said it on this podcast. I saw those and everybody on the left was making fun of him. And I said, he's going to sell every single one of those fuckers.

[00:24:55] I mean, the man can sell a Bible, slap his name and sell a Bible, a thing I'm pretty sure you can get for free. Yeah. Depending on who you talk to. I'm totally positive. You could probably obtain a Bible for free. See, I would buy the Trump Bible audio book. Not going to lie, because I think that would be entertaining as hell. But he has to read it. Yeah. Yeah. That's that. Yeah. He has to. None of this AI shit. I want him to read the Bible cover to cover. He might like that.

[00:25:23] That'll be funny because I'm pretty sure it'd be the first time he'd ever read it. And then he'd be in the middle of me like, oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that. I'm going where? No. He turned to what? Yeah. Yeah. What? Oh, that's why that's called that. Oh, Lot. No, I knew Lot. Bad guy. Okay. Wait, wait. So, Jack, how are you feeling about the Donald Trump supporters eating themselves? The mega civil war, as it were. It's, I'm not surprised.

[00:25:53] It is being blown a little out of proportion because here's, here's the thing about the right. The right's been eating itself forever. And just like the left has been eating itself forever because in every spectrum, there's always a fringe. There's a majority. And then there's the middle. So, and two sides, three sides of that spectrum are always hated by everyone. The fringes in the middle. Right.

[00:26:22] And at least for the current state of things, this really goes back to the 2008 financial crisis and the creation of the Tea Party, which is with hindsight, a very, very funny and ironic turn of events because the Tea Party eventually just morphed into the MAGA movement. They did. They absolutely did. Yeah. Which is hilarious because it started out as the Tea Party and now it's still the Tea Party, just a letter T instead of the drink. Ha! Ha! Ha! That's funny.

[00:26:52] I mean, look at, look, look at the movement. It's the same thing. That's so true. If you had told me before, prior to the Tea Party that, because I'm not going to say mainstream Republicans, but a much larger portion of the Republican Party today is anti-big business. I'd have thought you were smoking something. Now, here's the thing. They're not actually anti-big business. They're just anti-big business that don't serve them. Just like the left.

[00:27:21] Because the left, you know, the guys that are like, fuck Walmart and have Starbucks. You know, corporate Democrat is a word. Yeah. It is. And, you know, fuck BP. Which, fuck BP. But they're saying fuck BP. And they've got their Apple laptop and their iPhone and various other companies that use literal slave labor. And, hey, listen, I can't talk. I'm holding the fucking iPhone right now. But here's the thing. I don't bitch about them. Now, would I like? Would I love it if they stopped using?

[00:27:49] Which, actually, I think they are, at least with the iPhone. Because I think they said, this year we're going to get our first iPhone release that's made in the United Kingdom. And it's going to be more expensive. But here's the thing. For me, I really don't care. I'm okay with an increase in price so long as it's not ridiculous. And here's the thing. We fought a war about this, folks. If you have to rely on literal slavery for affordable goods and services, you're not businessing right.

[00:28:20] It's true. That is true. It's you're you're you're not doing economy the right way. True. Because because fun fact, as much as people think that the South was holding on to slavery for purely economic reasons, the North actually had a much more robust economy than the South did and cheaper, cheaper goods and services, depending on what you're talking about.

[00:28:48] But generally speaking, and that was because of manufacturing, because hate to break it to you, a textile factory can turn out clothes much faster than slave labor can. Yeah, I guess it can. It's a much bigger production. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it's a scale thing. Yeah. Not to mention the fact that it's really hard to get people to work hard and quickly and efficiently when they don't want to.

[00:29:14] Well, that's what it's been sort of it's been proven, I think, statistically that like when you pay people more, they work harder. And you're probably like, I watched a video on Tim Hortons where the summation of it was basically like, the more you focus on cost cutting and efficiency, the more your product suffers and the more money you lose because then your customers don't want to come back to you. I was listening. I was listening to a playlist of Dave Ramsey rants yesterday, ironically, and I actually

[00:29:43] learned something about Toys R Us because everybody knows ever. Well, everybody of a certain age knows Toys R Us and they went out of business and Amazon put them out of business. Did you know that's actually not true? Really? What put Toys R Us out of business was somewhere in the neighborhood of. It was a few billions of dollars in debt, corporate debt, and because they reallocated their revenues to pay off said debt, they were not able to optimize their business with the changing of the market.

[00:30:11] Because when Toys R Us went, when Toys R Us read, what's the word? When they shifted focus to paying off the corporate debt, Amazon only accounted for about 4% of sales of toys in the market. They were not a major competitor yet. Now, by the time Toys R Us went out of business, they were. But that's because Amazon changed the way people bought Duff. It's true. A lot of storefronts kind of went down as a result of Amazon.

[00:30:41] But keep in mind, there are still plenty of storefronts that are still open. Yeah, we have Toys R Us Canada still. Oh, really? I did not know that. Yeah. Yeah, it's a different company than Toys R Us. Okay, that's going to be a separate conversation that we're going to have later because now I'm intrigued. But back to the story. Had Toys R Us, and this is not me speculating. And this is somebody formerly of the Toys R Us upper echelon saying that had Toys R Us

[00:31:08] not been crippled by that debt, they could have used their revenue money to spruce up their stores, make it more of an experience, change their website, capitalize on online sales, make it to where he even talked about an idea they had where you could order online and pick it up at a store. Imagine that. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty forward thinking. Yeah, at the time. Now that's true. And all I'm saying is Amazon didn't put Walmart out of business.

[00:31:38] No, no, it's true. Walmart. And you can buy your groceries on Amazon. You absolutely can. And it's not, I mean, it's more expensive, but I wouldn't say it's prohibitively expensive depending on where you are and your revenue. It's possible. This is not a thing that, you know, it's just like, I'm trying to think of another example here, you know, nothing. My point being that it was not, in fact, Amazon that killed Toys R Us.

[00:32:07] It was Toys R Us that killed Toys R Us. Now, I was going to say the same about Walmart. If anyone's going to kill Walmart, it's going to be Walmart. It will absolutely be Walmart. Yeah, it'll be Walmart. But so you were touching on something else because I'm becoming very, in terms of President Trump and what that's going to look like, I'm becoming very, I'm not going to say worried. I'm going to say concerned about looming immigration policy and changes.

[00:32:31] But what makes me more nervous than anything is the fact that Trump has really yet to lay out a definitive program. Like there's people saying, oh, they say so-and-so said they're going to do this. But if you know the law, it's not that cut and dry. Like, for example, I saw, ironically, before TikTok went dark, I saw a bunch of places in Chicago because Tom Homan, who I would like to remind everybody, whether you like him or

[00:33:00] hate him, he is not an actual government official. He does not have power to do anything. He can advise President Trump, but that's about it. So when he says he's directing raids, that is a false statement because he does not have power to do fuck all. Well, that's sort of like, um, uh, what was it called again? Doge? Yeah. The Department of Government Efficiency. Now here's the thing. There's a thing, though. The not real government department that that's just made up and not real?

[00:33:30] Well, all they're going to do is advise the president, which again, is what they were talking about doing. Now, Trump used some very poor words is that we're going to create an agency, which he didn't create a government agency. But yeah, they can advise him. They're going to do their research, but they're not going to be able to do as much as they say they're going to do because they're going to be stopped. But the immigration thing. So there's allegedly going to be on Tuesday this massive ice enforcement in Chicago. And I kind of chuckled. I heard that, yeah.

[00:33:58] Well, but here's, here's why I kind of chuckled. Um, I don't know what the population of Chicago is, but it's, it's a, it's a pretty big city. Yeah. I'd say population wise, it's probably, it's top 20 for sure. I would think if not top 10. Yeah, it's a big city. They're going to send 500 ICE agents to do this mass deportation. Now you may think that's 500 guys. The average ICE arrest, I think has four to six agents. So that's yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's not a lot of it. Yeah. I mean, what's it?

[00:34:26] I mean, there's a lot in administratively that goes into it. Well, and here's, here's the other thing that just about every news outlet left out. And if they didn't leave it out, they left it at the end. This quote unquote operation, which first of all, they typically, the government typically doesn't broadcast ICE operations. They're usually secret. It's kind of the point. Yeah.

[00:34:51] That's kind of, you know, it's kind of a thing you do, but the detail is though that this, now this is one source saying this because most of the people aren't addressing this, but knowing the law, this makes sense is these allegedly are going after people that already have removal orders and just have not been deported yet. Okay. So that's not really okay. So like it's. That's the first thing you were going to do anyway.

[00:35:20] Well, the problem is though, is the Biden administration really wasn't doing it. I mean, they were, and this is ironic. So there were actually, I believe, fact check me on this, but I thought I read an article saying that over the 40 year Biden administration, they actually deported more people than the first Trump administration. Well, yeah. People said that of Obama as well. I mean, it makes sense. That's demonstrably. Yeah. That's demonstrably true for Obama. Yeah.

[00:35:46] They called Obama the president deport or was it the president deportation is what they called him. Yeah. Now, now here's the thing though, which you have to understand too. So that's not saying Trump's a great guy. A large part of that was the fact that they couldn't deport people during COVID due to restrictions, due to restrictions. Um, so that being said, now here's, here's my guess, my sort of optimistic guess. And I've said this to both of you privately when it comes to Trump, um, which incidentally

[00:36:15] for, um, immigration, apparently the Supreme court or not the Supreme court, the, um, some court all of a sudden came out and said that DACA is not constitutional. So yeah, I heard that. Yeah. So, okay. Yeah. We've only been operating onto that for eight fucking years plus, you know, but whatever, apparently it's not constitutional. So, um, but that being said, I kind of think what's going to happen. So here's another thing you have to understand about me.

[00:36:44] I'm a really, I'm an begrudgingly superstitious guy, but I've kind of seen a pattern evolve over the years of my life is it seems like whenever I'm super worried about something, it usually works out in the end. And it's the stuff that I don't respect that metaphorically kicks me in the dick. Yeah. Okay. Here's the thing with, here's my thing with Trump, right? Is it's the same. It's not different. Like everyone is pretending it's different.

[00:37:11] Everyone is pretending that he has somehow become a smarter, more capable, brighter, different person than he was four years ago. And he's not, well, he is a, he is a little bit, he's polished compared to before. Okay. This is, this is a little bit, a little bit. I'm not saying like he, he hasn't done a complete one 80. He's done like a, he's done like a 30 degree turn. He's still more or less the same guy, I guess is my point.

[00:37:38] So a lot of this stuff, it's just kind of seems the same as four years ago. So my prediction is it's just going to be the same for as four years ago. It's going to be a lot. It's going to be two years of him trying to do bullshit that he can't do that. He won't get away with. And then two years from now in the, in the midterms, the Republicans will get dominated in the house and the, in the Senate, because everyone will be mad that Trump won in 2024. So they will absolutely punish them in Congress for it.

[00:38:05] And then you'll wind up with a Democratic Congress who will do nothing and nothing will happen. That's what I'm hoping for. Except I do want some things to happen. Like for example, I think, I think I talked to you about this, Justin. Yeah, I did. This, this, this wasn't recorded. So you, you all out there hearing this for the first time, but I think we said this on Friday is like what I really, I, and I think Trump can do it if he plays his cards, right. But I'll give you that after I tell you my, my thoughts on Trump.

[00:38:34] I think kind of the really ironic thing that could very well happen if Trump plays his cards, right. Is that after his second term, Trump may go down as one of the most popular presidents in the modern era because he'll come in, he'll figure possibly, I'm not saying he's going to do it because if Trump is anything, he's really good at shooting himself in the foot. But he does. If we're Republicans do it, politicians do it there, but Republicans are real good about,

[00:39:03] you know, having success in their sights and going, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They are. I mean, arguably Democrats are like, are like the guns over there. Well, okay. So Trump, Trump can come in and save TikTok at least figure out a way to keep it going. Um, I suspect at least this is what I hope.

[00:39:30] I think all of his like really strong arm talking about immigration policy is going to be really similar to his way. He uses tariffs is he's going to get everybody scared and then they're going to be more receptive to make a deal. Like for example, what I would like to see personally, and I know this is where remember the middle gets hated too. This is, this is where most people are going to hate me who are watching this. Here's the thing. I want the wall. I want the wall. Walls work.

[00:39:58] That's why, you know, they, they work. They, they do. I mean, not according to China. You know why it didn't work? Fun history lesson. You know why the great wall didn't work for them? At least with the Mongolians. Not long enough. No. Oh, okay. Here, we're going to have fun with this. So legit, this is what happened. So every morning for, I forget how long, but it was for a while. They, they had the main gate open, right?

[00:40:24] And every day for a very long time, at least for a few weeks, probably months, is the Mongols would all get on horseback and they would charge the gate. And then at the last minute, they would veer off and ride away. Huh. And they would do this repeatedly. So eventually, the Chinese guards, this may be anecdotal, but this is what I've read in. I've read this from legitimate, you know, books. So I wasn't there, but this is allegedly what happened.

[00:40:52] So they've did this for a long time until one day they just didn't stop. And they went right in the front door. Huh. Interesting. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. I guess in theory, it's just there to scare them away. It only works for so long. Well, a wall won't work if you don't use it or kind of like what we have now. And I get it. It's a long stretch. I understand that. But if there's a hole anywhere, the wall becomes ineffective. Yeah. I just watched the two towers last night with my girlfriend. Same difference.

[00:41:22] Once they blew the drain up, the wall became irrelevant. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's kind of why your wall doesn't work. You've got so many holes in it. You've got so many points where you can't, you can't. So a wall is one of the few things that's literally all or nothing. If you don't have a full wall, then there is no wall, effectively. True. I mean, so here's the thing. I want a full wall. Well, my caveat to that is, like I said, if I were made emperor and it was like Emperor

[00:41:51] Jake, apart from banning country, I'm kidding. I'm not going to ban country music. I don't like the word ban. I just like to jab at it a little bit. But apart from banning, apart from capping Taylor Swift's income, we need to figure out the southern border. You know what I would do if I were emperor? However, I'd have people who back into parking spots. I'd have them jailed. Not executed. Not executed, but jailed.

[00:42:19] I say instead of capping her income, just take it away. Well, no, that would be socialism. Yeah, I want to take away her income. We can't do that. I don't like her, so I don't care. But no, so what I would do is Republicans get their wall. Democrats get a path, I'm not even going to say an amnesty program, a path to citizenship program. Part of that, what I would suggest is, let's say you came over the border illegally, and I don't care when, I don't care how long you've been here.

[00:42:49] Let's just say you did it, and you don't have any other violent offenses. Like, you don't have any other violent felonies, right? Okay, you pay a fine. And it's a hefty fine. But in exchange for that, you get a path to, I'm not even going to say citizenship. You're going to get a path to legal status. That seems fair. And you're going to be able to pay that fee off over time. You're going to be able to get a work permit. You're going to be able to get a driver's license if you don't have too many infractions.

[00:43:18] Like, if you're safe to drive, you're going to get a license, or you're going to be able to get a license. And I wouldn't be opposed to docking that from their paycheck over like a 10-year span. It's whatever. But you're going to pay a price, because technically, you broke the law. But I think that it's way different to compare somebody who, you know, murders somebody and somebody that crossed an imaginary line. Yeah, 10 years ago?

[00:43:43] Trying to, trying to, and they may not have known it was illegal either, because, I'm sorry, if you don't live in the United States, can you realistically be expected to understand immigration law in a country that you don't live in? Especially when it, when enforcement changes literally every four years. I mean, let's not mention the fact that a lot of your economy is based around undocumented immigrant labor.

[00:44:10] See, that's, that's not, that's not a sticking point that I have too often, because I'm a big, even if it's economically unideal, I, I, I believe in principle over price sort of thing. So it's like, yes, I understand. Effectively, yes, you did break the law. But here's what a lot of people don't know. Because immigrants, immigrants, geez, Americans are very ignorant about immigration law and policy unless they live it directly. And I found this out the hard way because of people that I know, work with, and have

[00:44:40] met in various stages of the immigration process. Over the years. It's a misdemeanor. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it doesn't, it's not even a felony. Although we have a problem with abusing immigration systems in our country. So I think it's a pretty universal planet wide. If you have a, if you have a desire, a desirable country, if you have a country people want to immigrate to, you're naturally going to have immigration problems. People who abuse the system.

[00:45:09] It's just, it just, it just happens. Yeah. But what I always say is, and I get it. It's not a one size fits all. There's going to be, no matter what system you have, people are going to exploit it. But the thing of it is, 1996 marked a real, under the Clinton administration, marked a real change in how immigration was enforced. Because used to, the penalties were a lot less stiff. And you know what ironically happened?

[00:45:33] And people tended to not stick around for years and years and years because you would affect, if you got caught coming across the border and working illegally and all that, you'd basically get a slap on the wrist. Like, yeah, there was a penalty, but it wasn't like you were banned for 10 years, right? Yeah. Most of the time it was like a three to six month ban of like, you can't come over. And my whole thing to that is like, why is it illegal to come over in the first place? True.

[00:46:03] Like, cause here's the thing. Let's, let's say this is all theoretical, right? And somebody might, but let's say that, let's say, for example, Justin, that I, I cross into Canada. Yeah. You know, legally or not. Can I work in Canada just by being there? I'm not a hundred percent familiar as I am a natural born citizen, but no, I believe we have an equivalent to, uh, to a green card that you have to obtain. Yeah. A working visa. Gotcha. So.

[00:46:32] But don't quote me on that. I could be wrong. No, you're right. Ironically, because of wrestling. Yes. You do have to have a work visa to work in Canada. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure we have a, we have a green card. My, I know that there's a, we have, well, we have, sorry, no, no, we have, um, we have dual citizenship and permanent residency. That's what it is. You obtain permanent residency and then you can work. Yeah. So if I were to cross into Canada, getting a job would be pretty difficult.

[00:47:02] I'm not going to say it's impossible. Yeah. Yeah. But if I'm doing so, I am breaking the law. Now. You have some things going for you that, you know, but yeah. I see what you did there. Yeah. I can throw on an A like the rest of them. Yeah. Pretty well, pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. They'll never know. You could pass as Canadian and just lie and say you're from Canada and they probably wouldn't check your immigration status.

[00:47:31] If probably not, but my point being, see, everybody gets hung up on like, well, they shouldn't be able to work if they're legal. But here's the problem with that. So let's say, even if you come here legally, right? Because I knew a girl who was originally from Ireland. She came over here because she met her fiance who was American. They were on a tour. They were on a world tour together. She decided she wanted to come here. They were going to get married here. She came over on a fiance visa. She wasn't allowed to legally work for six months.

[00:48:01] Really? Yes. Okay. The other thing, though, that you kind of got to keep in mind, and we already joked about it, but for some people, there's a big difference between an Irish immigrant and a Mexican one. I'm not saying you're one of those. I'm not saying you're one of those. I don't think you are. No, she even said, she said, thank God I wasn't brown. Yeah. Yeah. She actually said that. But my point being, because for my point, I don't really give a fuck where you come from. To me, it's the same issue.

[00:48:29] Like, six months to not be able to work in any country is fucking bullshit. Because immigration is also expensive. You have to pay an attorney. Because they write these forms in English, but you need another person who speaks the same language that you do. It's like our tax system. You need another person that speaks the same language you do to translate the language you speak back to you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Jesse Waters. Okay.

[00:48:58] So, how are you supposed to live, eat, pay for a lawyer to do everything legally when you can't work without breaking the law? Which is going to hurt your immigration case, among other things. Because you're also much more likely to get exploited if you're working under the table. And not to mention, you're not paying taxes. So, my whole thing is, my caveat with the wall is you get your wall.

[00:49:23] But, if you come up to said wall and say, hi, my name's whatever the fuck, and I'm from wherever the fuck. As long as that wherever the fuck is not, like, a hostile nation that we are, like, currently... And even if it is, you can claim refugee status and pass a background check. You can be like, hey, I just came from... I don't know. I'll say I came from China.

[00:49:45] I don't know.

[00:50:15] That's fine. Well, yeah. That's what my parents do. They travel through Canada. And, yeah, they get some grief going. They've gotten some grief coming into America. Even though they're like, we're just going on through to the place we actually want to go to. We're just passing through, eh? You know? We're just passing through. But my caveat would be provided... And I'm saying let everybody who wants to come in in. I'm just saying, like, you got to pass a background check. You got to pass, like, a wellness check. You know, to make sure that you're not carrying any diseases. You know, that kind of stuff.

[00:50:42] And if you are, you'll have quarantine facilities and all that shit. Like, you can have an immigration policy that is safe, secure, and also compassionate and realistic. Because I think once you have all that, then it'd be like, okay, here's your temporary immigrant identification card. Where are you going? And I'm even cool with them using that app that they use to track people. Because, like, yeah, we're not 100...

[00:51:12] It's like, we just met. I don't know you. But, okay, where are you going? Oh, you're going to... Oh, you're going to Las Vegas. You've got dreams of being a showgirl. You have a penis. That might be problematic. But it's also 2025. Go nuts. Okay. Here's the address to the USCIS office in or around where you're going to be. Report to them. Get your work permit. This should take weeks, not months. If it... It should actually take minutes. Days.

[00:51:41] Days, tops. Yeah. But the thing is, in my system, you'd already... You would have already passed the background check. So this realistically should only take a few hours. Maybe a couple days. You know? And then that's it. Because Eric and I were talking about this once. And he was like, yeah, but that's expensive. And I'm like, yeah. So shouldn't we make it to where people can come and start working and support themselves? It wouldn't be less expensive and less... Okay, here's my thing.

[00:52:11] From the... I always like to bring the international perspective to this. Where like... That's why you're here, my friend. Wouldn't that be, in terms of the court of public opinion, less internationally embarrassing than doing a fascism and marching people out using ICE agents? Like, wouldn't your method be way less embarrassing on an international level? I would think so. And I would also think it would be a much... So ICE exists for a reason. And it's a very good reason.

[00:52:38] It is to take people who are a legitimate danger and have already been ordered to leave for various reasons. Now, I think those reasons should be looked at. But... Like, okay. If you do get caught trafficking drugs across the border, right? Yeah, I think you should fucking get booted out. Yeah. The fuck out. And I do want an apparatus to do that. I do. And I agree with Tom Homan on some things.

[00:53:05] Because I do believe him when he says, because he did work on the southern border for years. And you hear the most heartbreaking shit you've ever heard of traffickers bringing people and children across. And, you know, I think we've all heard the story about him holding the young boy in his arms as he died from exposure. Because instead of going through a port of entry, they smuggled them across a remote part of the border in a literal fucking desert.

[00:53:30] And guess what happens when a trafficker, you know, if you get injured or pass out or anything on the way, they fucking leave you. I was going to say, I suspect they probably just leave you behind. Yes, they just leave you behind. And sometimes there have been anecdotal stories of them purposefully leaving people behind if they're off border patrol. Because they rightfully are, whoa, this person's dying. We should probably get them some help. Right?

[00:53:56] It just seems to me that the solution to immigration problems is easier and more accessible immigration policies. I know, right? That might be crazy. That might be my crazy Canadian socialist ideas. Well, and the thing is, and this is where people are really going to hate me. So I'm not saying everyone involved in immigration policy is racist, but I don't think you can deny

[00:54:21] that the vast majority of this sort of ire towards immigration, illegal immigration, is directed at a pretty specific group of individuals. You notice he said- It rhymes with lexicons. Well, I'm just saying, you notice he didn't suggest making Mexico the 52nd state.

[00:54:47] Even though I do think that would be good for Mexico, honestly. I'm just saying there was no- It'd be good for the states too. It would be. Even though he probably would be shocked to find out we're not all white up here. I mean, we're doing all right, but we're not all white. It's a spectrum. Well, here's another funny thing. Do you know what the official name of Mexico is as a country? Like the official national name? No, I actually don't.

[00:55:16] Estados Unidos de Mexico. Which is the United States of Mexico. I mean, that makes sense because they're- They are states. Yeah, they're a republic as well. And I learned last time I went to Mexico, a great deal of California used to belong to Mexico, which I didn't know. All of it used to belong to Mexico. Yeah. Well, like their peninsula or whatever that they're part of, they're like, all of this. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's right.

[00:55:42] Because, yeah, if you look on a map, actually, you'll see that the little turd coming out from California that's south of the Mexico border. That's just called Baja California. Yeah. It's called the California Sur. Yeah. Baja California. Yeah. South California. Yeah. Yeah. Baja California literally means short California. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's just funny. They're very much like, yeah, we used to be part of the big part. That's- You can go to several tourist destinations that point that out. I didn't know that. I was like, oh, I learned something. Well, you lost. So-

[00:56:11] You lost that Canada-Mexico war. No, so here's the thing. This is where I confuse the shit out of people, right? Is I am also in the camp of like, yeah, they lost the war. It's not theirs anymore. They lost. Fair and square. Now, did James K. Polk do some fishy shit and making that happen? Yeah, but the Mexicans were kind of fucking with Texas after they invited them there. So there's that too.

[00:56:41] Yeah. You know, so- They did. Yeah. I learned that from Westerns. Mexico and Texas. They didn't have a good time together for a long time. They did not. And hey, credit where credit's due. Maybe the means are unideal. But Polk did run. President James K. Polk did run on saying like, I'm gonna annex Texas and I'm gonna get America to the West Coast. And he did both those things and only did one term because he was like, done.

[00:57:09] Nobody likes to impress the annex stuff, which is why- Oh, actually, no. That's demonstrably not true throughout history. Texas annexation was widely popular. I was gonna make a joke about annexing Canada, but I just can't. Well, no, but apparently 50- Allegedly 57% of Greenland thinks it's a great idea. But I don't know. Now that TikTok's banned- Okay, it's funny because- They might change their tune. Did you see that clip of Eric-

[00:57:36] I think it was Charlie Kirk and Eric Trump going to Greenland and apparently being like, Greenland people are excited to be part of America. And they paid those people. They were like homeless people that they just paid to say that. I did not see that, but that wouldn't surprise me too much. But I mean, if you go to any country, you're gonna find a certain pocket of people that are like, you know, that Donald Trump guy. He's got it together. And you're gonna find- You're gonna find a group of people in any country that go, fuck that guy, no matter what he does or says.

[00:58:07] Well, I was gonna say, and I think I said this to you, Jake. Like the Discord message of them sharing the post that Trump made. Oh, yeah. It's gonna be like 50-50. And then this person on top of it says like, Oh, you watch. It's gonna be 50-50 right now. And then it's gonna be 50-50 owned.

[00:58:34] But then later on, it'll be 100% censorship. See, here's the funny thing. Because I did see that. And here's the funny thing about that, though. Is actually the government owning 50% of something would actually make it... It depends on your definition of censorship, honestly. But here's the thing. And if the electorate exercises their rights, it would actually be very difficult for the government to censor TikTok if they own 50% of it.

[00:59:02] Because then it is an actual public utility at that point. And there's actually a lot of regulations in place that prohibit, you know, like discrimination or censorship or things like that. And all somebody would... Like they can do it for sure. But all somebody would have to do is be like, Yeah, this is a violation of my free speech and I'm suing you. And also, TikTok already censors content. Like you can't say kill on TikTok or your video gets blocked. You can't say... Maybe in Canada.

[00:59:32] Maybe in Canada, TikTok. There's a certain... I mean, I got a video blocked for using the name Hitler. So like... I got a video blocked for using the name Andrew Tate and we were actually criticizing him in that video. And when I appealed it, I'm like, No, watch it. We're making fun of him in this one. Oh, yeah. That happened to me as well. There's been times where I'm like, No, no, no. But I'm just talking about the thing. Oh, yeah. That was your Charlie Chaplin video. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a few... But I've had more than one video do that where it just gets...

[01:00:01] Like where I'm just talking about a movie and it gets blocked. And it's like... So TikTok is already kind of a reasonably censored app. So... 10 minutes ago, a notification of TikTok is back in the US. Discover new videos and reconnect with the TikTok community. So I'm just going to check CapCut again real quick. I mean, yeah. Come on. TikTok knew that they weren't going to be down very long. They knew it. Damn it. They knew they were going to... Is it not back? It's still not back yet.

[01:00:32] ByteDance. Okay. You got TikTok back. Can we do something about this, please? I need it. I don't understand why CapCut. What was the justification behind block banning CapCut? It's owned by ByteDance. It's owned by ByteDance. But that's not the argument. The argument has always been against TikTok. What does CapCut have to do with TikTok? Because it's the same parent. I don't understand that. Because it's the same parent company as ByteDance. I thought the argument was against ByteDance, not just TikTok.

[01:01:01] It is. But they're targeting TikTok through ByteDance. But all the... I guess maybe that's my point. Is all the arguments, all the government's arguments, Tom Cotton's arguments, has always been against TikTok. Just TikTok. Not ByteDance. Tom Cotton wouldn't know common sense if it walked up to him, pinched his nose, and kicked him in the dick. So... I mean, it wouldn't. But I'm just saying, the argument from the Congress has always been that this is purely about TikTok.

[01:01:30] No one mentioned CapCut. No one mentioned Lemonade. No one mentioned... Well, this is... I want to be clear. This is ByteDance. This is ByteDance limiting access to CapCut. Because theoretically, theoretically, the program would still work if they weren't... True. But I'm just like, in terms of the divestiture law, to my understanding, it was always directly targeting TikTok. When people are like, oh, it's always gonna... It's gonna hit CapCut and all these other apps as well. I... Why?

[01:01:59] I don't understand why. Because they're targeting... Oh, go ahead, Hale. Oh, I was gonna say, I did get a note notification on TikTok, though, saying that they're working hard on getting everything back up. Yeah, they're prioritizing TikTok. I get it. Like, I understand... I understand why you as a company would do that. I get it. Because, like... I need it. Yeah, well, they keep saying... I know they're like, oh, ByteDance needs to... So it's ByteDance that needs to divest.

[01:02:29] But this... The entire... PR campaign... Push for it has always been about TikTok. So I'm just like... It just makes the law seem even more disingenuous than it already does. Well, the whole thing is disingenuous because it's like... There's actually a lot of companies out there that have at least partial Chinese ownership. So... Well, yeah, they're talking about how they want to go for Riot Games and, like, all these... All these, like, video game companies. Like, all these Chinese companies

[01:02:59] they want to go for now. Well, that's hilarious when you consider that China basically owns the Hollywood film industry right now. More or less, yeah. For the most part. So, I mean... This is an example... COVID kind of divested it a bit. It's not as bad as it was but, yeah, it's still pretty bad. Well, I still see a lot. I forget the name of the company. It starts with an age but I still see quite a few of those at the beginning of my movies, so... I do see them but it's not quite as, like, transparently awful as it was in, like, 2014 when you got, like,

[01:03:28] the entirety of Transformers Age of Extinction takes place in Hong Kong. Like, it's not like that where it's, like, blatantly trying to appeal to the Chinese market. I did always find it ironic that the... Not the Toho Godzilla movies but the legendary ones. Oh, yeah. Part of the... Well, not even production part of the financing companies that pay for the movies are Chinese entities. That always kind of made me... That always made me chuckle a bit. That's probably because those movies do exceptionally well in China. Oh, yeah, sure.

[01:03:58] Sure, I... They do well everywhere. Yeah. But as long as you blur out any black people on the posters. I mean, or another good example is did you guys... I mean, Haley, you're not a Marvel person. You wouldn't know. But did you know that at the end of Iron Man 3, China has an alternate ending where a Chinese surgeon is the one who removes the... does the surgery to fix his heart? Yeah. That doesn't surprise me. Because that... Yeah, to me, that's way more blatant than some Chinese people investing some money.

[01:04:27] But the thing I think we learned from the Red Note thing, the most fascinating thing to me about Red Note was... I don't know if you guys saw them talking about this on TikTok, but was the communication between Chinese people and American people being like, we don't hate Chinese people. We hate the Chinese government. It was very much that distinction had to happen a lot. Yeah. Yes, Mr. Diamond, we're aware, but it's not in the free and clear.

[01:04:56] There's only an expectation that Trump is going to delay the... basically, the enforcement of the law, of the fines in the law for 90 days. So, they basically have 90 days to figure it out. TikTok is still technically legally banned under the law. But they're... Trump is essentially saying, I'm not going to enforce the fines for 90 days. what's happening is, you know this will-they-won't-they bullshit that we've been putting up with for the past few weeks? That's keep going. It's going to keep going.

[01:05:26] It's going to keep continuing. I hope you like it because it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Well, I think that... I think they'll figure something out because... But also... So, go on. I was just going to say, like I said earlier in the episode, this country exists because of a 3% tax on T that wasn't even enforced. True. That is true. Well, I... A lot of people don't know. A lot of people don't know that that tax was actually not enforced. I didn't know that. Well, they were... They threw the tea

[01:05:54] in the bay or whatever. Yeah. Because they said, we're going to tax your tea. They're like, all right, boys. Let's put some feathers in our hair, get drunk, and fuck some shit up. I mean, in a more modern example, you... People... People told you guys, we're taking away this app because it's going... been given away to the Chinese government for Chinese propaganda or the Chinese are getting your data and several million people on went, fuck you. I'll give them my data all day long

[01:06:24] if that's what I want to do. Picture... Everybody who reads just went, yeah, and? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Your point being? I think my favorite one was the meme, the green screen meme where they got paid for Pascal in front of the screen and it shows whatever you want and then the caption was what the data Chinese took from me and it's just a cat video. Right? It's like, yeah, and? I'm like, yeah. I think China has said multiple times they don't have any interest in harvesting data

[01:06:53] because most of it's stupid. Like, they don't need to harvest it. They pop in every... They pop in every week and they're like, are they still dancing? Yes. Good. Are they still fighting with each other? Yes. Good. But I do think, though, from the international community that it's going to become a boy who cried wolf kind of scenario. Yeah, it absolutely is. I think it already is. I saw several Canadian creators who went, you know what I realized when this happened? I'm not American

[01:07:22] and I don't have to care about them. And, like, I saw more than one... Like, my thing is, I've always seen my content as being entirely separate from America. So, like, I... That... I didn't have that viewpoint, but, like, so many... Like, there were so many people who I saw when it was going down who were doing their own, like, eulogy. I'm sad to see TikTok Go videos and then a video later were like, oh, wait. I'm Canadian. Like,

[01:07:52] I don't know if... There's this one... She's a men's rights person but her name is Chloe Roma. She did that exact thing. Like, 30 minutes later she was like, wait a minute. Yeah, I don't have to care about this. What am I doing? And there was all... So, I think that will happen where next time it won't quite have the same circum... In 90 days we won't be doing this again. I don't know. No. Well, and then just to point out another example of that happening, it's not exactly the same but when the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade there were a lot of people

[01:08:22] who were like, oh my God! We're gonna... Now, to be fair, there were a lot of people in states where they went legitimately, oh my God, we're, you know, we're losing these protections but in some states people woke up and were like, wait a minute, I actually have more rights this morning just to put it into perspective. I live in one of those states where people woke up and they're like, well, fuck, they're gonna ban it as soon as possible and they did. Yeah. Yeah. But, what I keep telling people is listen, you don't have to like it but it's actually easier for you, at least in the confines

[01:08:51] of your state, is vote them the fuck out. On this year, this election, or not this year, but in 2024, in November, every single judge on the Indiana Supreme Court was up for removal. So if you didn't like the abortion ban that was put in place by the Indiana courts and legislature, remove the judges, remove the state representatives, and vote new people in. They can overturn it very easily. Yeah, I mean, that's,

[01:09:21] I saw even a lot of like, like right-wing people being like, don't get used to this because in two years we're gonna get decimated. Like, there's a lot of political pundits who are like, this won't last. Well, there are still people that argue with me back in 2022. We did a podcast that was initially, or no, it's still called The Red Wave because initially it looked like there was gonna be a massive red wave in the midterm elections

[01:09:50] and then the Roe v. Wade draft decision was leaked and I even said on that podcast, Eric's like, yeah, there's gonna be a red wave and I'm like, shh. Are there going with your red wave? I don't know, man. I don't know, man. I don't think so because I think, remember I said about Republicans shooting themselves? That, that would, yeah, that, that did it. That did it right there. Between Roe v. Wade and the people that were just like, on, not even, what's the word I'm looking for? The people who were still going on about the conspiracy

[01:10:19] to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump in a certain way because I'm one of those people that believe there was some fuckery, just not the same fuckery that those people were talking about. Different, different kind of fuckery. Different fuckery designation. I also would like to point out in the video I, that, that you and I recorded for my podcast, I said that one of my representatives vote for a man.

[01:10:49] I have 13 representatives, they all voted yes. So, Michigan, get to work. You punished, at least, at least, at least the ones that are up for re-election in 2026 because that wouldn't be all of them. Electorally, fuck, one, one senator and half the representatives are fucking gone. Or, or no, 12 voted yes, one didn't even vote at all. Uh, see, I don't think that should be allowed. Oh, that's, that's a problem. That's a problem. Yeah, that's a problem

[01:11:18] in our political system. Yeah, because some people just vote. I, my whole thing, and I don't know exactly how you would do this, but I think you shouldn't be able to vote absentee and you shouldn't be able to abstain from voting. If you're a fucking senator or representative and there's a vote, your ass is there. That is your fucking job. That's your job. Right? I, I, there is no reason for you to not be on the floor where there's, when there's a vote. Unless you're sick. Like, if you're sick and you got to call him sick to vote.

[01:11:48] Okay, I will, I will, I will allow when I'm emperor, I will, why do I have a legislature if I'm the emperor? I mean, the emperor had the senate. Yeah, until he dissolved it. No, according to, uh, according to episode four, or four, five, they still reference the senate. Yes, but they're talking about how he got rid of it. he dissolved it. The last remnants of the old republic have been swept away. Oh, no, fair enough. It was like, it's been so long since I've seen those movies. I can't challenge you on this.

[01:12:18] Control, control is now put in the hands of the regional governors, which were all, uh, in the pocket of the emperor anyway. The moffs, the grand moffs. Right, right, right, right. That was, it was all, it was, it was all, uh, sorry, like, it looked like there was, but there wasn't really. And, and, okay, so to put this into perspective of an earlier comment, that's fascism. That's what fascism looks like. Yeah. Well, I mean, hey, you want to talk about people who, who don't understand fascism in terms of my government?

[01:12:48] You know what fascists don't do? They don't resign. Not willingly. Uh, I mean, if the Fuhrer, I mean, if the leader tells them to, and they're just replaced by another yes man. True. Why more meant like the leader typically doesn't step down in a, in a, some, some, sometimes they do. Sometimes they put a, like Maduro, you know, he, he effectively just took over for Chavez, but I guess Chavez died, didn't he? He didn't really resign. So yeah.

[01:13:18] What didn't, didn't I, the only resignations I know usually are, are preceded by political violence. Like they don't usually get a choice. Yeah. Kind of like King Louis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He lost his head over it. Wait, he did. He lost his head over it. He tried to be fair. He tried to resign there at the end. Um, but then they were like, nah, motherfucker. No, no, no, no, no, no basket time. Ooh. That's where the, that's where it goes at the, that's a, that's a morbid reference. The fun fact though, he almost, he almost escaped and you know what?

[01:13:47] Fucked it up. No, I actually don't. His wife. I mean, he didn't, he didn't want to leave without his wife because she was supposed to meet him and she was late. And so then they got him. Yeah. Then they got him. Love, love will get you every time. You just, I forget. I think it was a Shane Gillis video where they're talking about it. And he was just like, could you imagine that conversation? Just looks at her and goes, really? Right. Really? You couldn't be on time this once.

[01:14:17] Just, just one time, one time. And then he was like, she was, she was probably like, well, couldn't decide what shoes to wear. I'm like, that's sexist, but funny. Yes. Justin Trudeau didn't get scared of Donald Trump and quit. I mean, Donald Trump doesn't believe that he, he said it was such disbelief that he was, I do. I do really enjoy the story that Trump tells about when he's meeting with Trudeau. And he was like, Justin,

[01:14:46] if I wanted to cripple the Canadian economy, what's the one thing you wouldn't want me to do? And Trudeau allegedly told him, he's like, well, if you tariffed our cars, that would really suck. And then Trump was like, Justin, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. If somebody asks you what they can do to cripple your economy, don't tell them. Well, according to the way he tells it is Trump, Trump brought up the, the taking over. I think it's probably the same conversation, but he,

[01:15:14] he brought up the taking over Canada thing. Oh no, actually I think, I think that story is from the first Trump administration. is it from the first administration? Okay. Cause yeah, apparently he says he met with them and he was like, he, he mentioned it and Justin just went, yeah, no. And then moved on. That's, that's probably how that happened. Yeah. Like, yeah, no. Anyway, which here, here's the thing. I'll, I'll put this into perspective for all you Republicans that are like,

[01:15:44] yeah, let's annex Canada. You do realize that would become a bigger electorate than California effectively. And they would fall of Democrats. Yeah. Full of Democrats. The best thing that could happen to the democratic party would be the annexation of Canada as a state. Right. Like here's what, here's the only, the only thing that would help you is if maybe Alberta, Alberta would come join up with Trump. But beyond that, beyond that. Yeah.

[01:16:14] We're mostly liberal. Most of our country is liberal. tends to lean liberal comparatively to the United States, at least. Yeah. Our, our conservatives are like less conservative than your conservatives. Well, and to put this into perspective for you guys, Canada has not quite double the population of California, but almost double. So, so if Canada was the 51st state, um, there would never be a Republican president ever again. And look,

[01:16:43] I'm not against that. So yeah. Now the other side in Canada is like, wait a minute. Or, or conversely, you could adopt our political system. I would never. Political leaders wouldn't matter. I would never, I would never, ever adopt your. I have a big problem with your, because I didn't even know this until you educated. So why don't tell, tell the, tell the, tell the Americans what we're talking about. Oh, well, I mean, um, well,

[01:17:12] Justin Trudeau resigned and, um, it doesn't matter because the liberals are still in charge and they'll just put in a new leader. They'll just install a new leader. Like you, us as Canadians, we don't vote on our political leaders. So like, you know how, like when, when, when you walk into your voting booth, you can vote for Joe Biden or you can vote for Donald Trump. That's not how it works in Canada. You just, you just vote for a representative and that they represent your party and they vote for a leader internally, different parties that works differently.

[01:17:42] But, um, so your indignation towards Justin Trudeau, Canada is noted, but ultimately pointless because he steps down and they just put in a new leader, which. So actually, actually the, uh, the American presidential election used to be somewhat similar to that is you would vote for your state's electors who would then vote for the president, which is still kind of done. Officially that way,

[01:18:11] but most state constitutions have a winner take all where your electors can be punished for not voting with the state majority vote. I mean, they can, but there's punishments for it and it doesn't happen very often. I think I shared a video. Sorry, which I didn't, to be fair, most Canadians don't understand their electoral system to an embarrassing degree. Um, but I watched a video where the guy tried to make the argument that we should be able to vote for our leaders, which I don't agree with.

[01:18:41] I don't think we should be able to vote for our leaders. I understand. See, this is the American. This is the American in me. I absolutely see. Like I have a massive problem with me not being able to directly vote for the leaders that represent me. For me, it's for me, it's, I believe it should be, um, the, your ideas should stand on their own and it shouldn't be a popularity contest. So I shouldn't be able to vote for Justin Trudeau because I like the cut of his jib. I want to vote for the party and their ideas. But conversely, but, but conversely,

[01:19:11] if Justin Trudeau had good ideas, you could only vote for his party and that may not necessarily put him in a position. So I see both sides. I see both. I see both ways. So for me, my, my ideal form of government in the Canadian sense is I don't want any one party to have more power than the other. I like, I like a solid majority deadlock government where they have to agree on something. We're, we're like, we're,

[01:19:35] we're brothers from different motherlands because we like the same thing just in our own version of government because this, this, this throws people for a loop because here's the thing. I've been staunchly on the anti Biden train for a while for a very long time. But then when Trump won my first instinct, it wasn't so much that Trump won. It was the fact that Trump won and the Republicans took both houses of Congress. And I went,

[01:20:06] Oh, now here's the thing. They, they, they don't have a sufficient majority in the Senate to basically have a free pass. There's enough resistance. But my idea, I've said this a million times. My ideal version of the American government is the Republicans control the house of representatives because that's where a lot of the legwork gets done. And I like conservative people being in the sort of, you can, you can start bills in either house of Congress, but the majority of it does seem to stem from the house. And there's a lot more,

[01:20:35] there's a lot more variability in there. I like conservatives being in charge and sort of like the bottom rung, so to speak. And then I like the Democrats to have a sufficient enough majority in the Senate to be able to stop bullshit. But I like the Republicans to have a sufficient majority in the house to stop bullshit. Basically, I don't want anything getting done unless it's a good idea that the majority of Americans agree. Yeah, this is a good idea. And then I want,

[01:21:04] and then I want Ron Swanson in the White House. Do president? Yeah. That's a configuration I could get there. Well, I mean, then you must like the, that would be civil war then because Ron Swanson was the president of that movie. That wasn't Ron Swanson. That was Nick Offerman. I want Ron Swanson. And I would actually support a constitutional amendment to end term limits for Ron Swanson only. I want him in there for life. So here's what's funny about term limits, right? Um, we don't have those. No, you don't have term limits. We don't.

[01:21:34] So, but here, here's what, what, what you will ultimately find with that, which is very interesting is, um, you know how like, okay, people are like, Oh, Donald Trump wants to be president for life. Here's the thing, right? Uh, no politician has ever won a fourth term in Canada. I watched a video on this. It was wild. The last three prime ministers have had three terms and they, they, him and Harvard, whether or not they're going to run for a fourth one. And then, um, most of them don't.

[01:22:03] The only one who did was Stephen Harper. He ran for a fourth one and he lost to Justin Trudeau, like in a landslide because no Canadian wants a prime minister to have four terms. Um, and Justin Trudeau didn't. And so anytime you're like, Oh, uh, you should get rid of term limits. And anyone's like, well, when someone just run for president for life, probably not. Well, there was an American president that won four terms. So more terms. I thought it was only three FDR one fourth terms, but then he died. Oh, interesting.

[01:22:33] I didn't, I, I didn't know it was FDR. I thought it was, um, no FDR is actually the only president to serve more than two. Oh, I thought it was not Jefferson. No. What's his name? The one who Robin Williams plays. And, uh, Teddy Roosevelt. Yeah. I thought he had three terms. No, he ran for three, but he only won the two. Oh yeah. Cause I know that the term limit thing is a recent thing. Like 19, the seventies, I think I believe. Yeah. Yeah. For the, for, for, um, actually,

[01:23:03] um, no, it was earlier in that. I think it was Truman. Actually. I think it was, hang on. I'm going to look that up. Yeah. It was, it was, it was more recent than I was expecting. I thought it was baked into like the origins of your country. Like, no, no, it was in precedent, but actually being codified into law. Okay. Yeah. 22nd, 22nd amendment. Yeah. So it was, it was, it was Truman. It was 1947. Okay. 47. Okay. Oh, sorry. I, I take,

[01:23:32] I take that back. It was completed by 1951, but it was, the process was started in 1947. Interesting. Interesting. And then I'm fact checking my Teddy Roosevelt. Huh. As well. Chances are they probably won't because what you'll learn is that after a certain amount of time, people just get sick to death of you about seeing your face. Well, and I, I still, I still maintain like FDR kind of had the perfect.

[01:24:03] Yeah. Ran for a third term, but he, he didn't win this third term, but FDR kind of had the perfect bed for winning multiple terms because he won during the great depression, but that was mostly because everybody felt that Hoover was the most useless human being on the planet. And I mean, he kind of was, but he just, he just viewed that it wasn't the government's responsibility or role to do that.

[01:24:28] Now you can debate that point because there's economists that I know of and respect that claim, and I believe this, that FDR actually extended the great depression by almost 10 years, probably eight, at least six. And it was actually the second world war that really got the United States out of the great depression, but that, that I have heard. I've heard. Well, we'll, we'll never know for sure, but you can make the case and not be like completely off base. And then you had a war. Yeah.

[01:24:58] You know, well, the war was incredibly profitable. Well, not just profitable, but there, there is a thing because I still maintain that this is why George W. Bush won his second election is because I know it was a, no, that was the first election. I think he won a second because we were in the middle of two wars and Americans as a group, generally speaking, don't like to see massive change in the middle of a conflict. They feel like, and obviously I'm not speaking for all Americans,

[01:25:26] but it does seem like the general consensus, at least in terms of the electorate is the majority feel that, you know, like, even though we may not love the leadership, it may not be the best idea in the world to change the guard. If we can avoid it. Yeah. Especially when you're in the middle of something that requires focus. Yeah. I mean, Canada is the same way where a barrier. I mean, we have leaders for like 10 years at a time. So we're very status quo voters. And, and a lot of like, a lot of Canadians don't get that. It's why,

[01:25:55] it's why Pierre Polyev would have beaten Justin Trudeau. He not, not on, not on his merits. Cause he has none, but I don't know about that. I feel like he can talk to journalists pretty well. The Apple video is legitimately amazing. I will. Okay. I will say, I will say he has no merits as a politician. He has put forth no substantive policy. He has affected no change as, as a, as a MP. He is, he's, he's not, he's not passed any, anything meaningful.

[01:26:23] So you would know better than I, you would know better than I. And, and as a lead, just, just generally his policy position is just, he, okay. I'll put it to this way. His policy position is Justin Trudeau sucks. Justin Trudeau sucks. Yeah. He, he, he was pissed that Justin Trudeau stepped down because he wouldn't get a chance. He wanted to be, yeah. Yeah. fair enough. And I will say the reason a lot of Americans, particularly on the right, like Pierre Polyev is because rhetoric works here on both sides,

[01:26:51] like rhetoric and witty comebacks and slogans work extremely well. It doesn't work here. Like just demonstrably doesn't work here. so there were, and I still maintain this. I still maintain this fact that as far as Republican candidates go, I still prefer Ron DeSantis to Donald Trump. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't have the, he doesn't have the charisma though. That's, that's just it. And I make fun of him for it because I think, I think my best one was like,

[01:27:21] uh, I don't know. And then like, if Trump goes to jail and Ron DeSantis develops the personality, he might win. Well, the thing with, with, uh, I've seen a lot of people say, and I, it's what happens once Donald Trump is gone. What does the Republican party do without him? Like I, I've seen people say that the Democrats basically have a slam dunk for at least two elections going forward because like once. It depends. It depends on what Trump does. It depends on what Trump is able to accomplish and who he influences. So, like I said,

[01:27:52] if I were, if I had Trump's ear, what I would tell him is like Donald, not only is this important for your legacy, but it's important for the Republican party. So here's the thing. And everyone will argue with me about this, but you're wrong. Donald Trump is a political moderate. He says goofy shit. I don't disagree with that, but he's a political moderate. He wants to be liked. He wants to be liked by both sides. He won't admit it because he wants to play to his base,

[01:28:21] but he wants both sides to like him. He can. And I would say, Donald, here's the thing you've got to do. You've got to, a, you've got to figure out the tick tock thing to keep it. You, you, you just do. And I think he knows that. Immigration's a big one though. I said, Donald, you need to basically do what I said, but you need to figure out a way to placate both sides on this and give both sides effectively what they want. Yeah. Without,

[01:28:50] without going on the extremes. And here's the thing, dude, if, if you create an easy path to citizenship for a lot of these people that are here legally and illegally, and like particularly DACA recipients, which now they don't have anymore. If you can give these people a way to not be afraid on a daily basis, they will vote for you, dude. Yeah. Like they, they absolutely will. You know, here's my, my thing is like,

[01:29:20] there's no one in the Republican party that after Trump's term runs out that I believe will pick up his audience, pick up his base, pick up his people. And I think that JD, JD Vance might, it's way too early to tell, but I don't think he's, I think he only has, I agree because I only think he has that juice when he's standing next to Donald. Now here's, here's the funny thing. As a politician, JD Vance is actually a lot more savvy than Donald Trump. I mean,

[01:29:48] he certainly knows which way to win blows. He's much better dealing with media than Trump is. Yes. Significantly better. So if he can capture, sure. And, and, and JD Vance is somebody who has grown a lot. I would say in the past four ish years, four to six years, maybe. He's still a bit of a doofus, but. I just, I just think that if Donald Trump's audience had any interest in moving on from Trump or going,

[01:30:18] well, I mean, there's two things that demonstrate. Number one, a lot of the down exit polling shows that nobody voted down ballot. They were only voting for Donald Trump, which just kind of shows that once he's gone, what is that? A lot of those people who didn't vote before, we'll just go back to not voting. Um, and I just don't think anyone in that party has the charisma. If they did, they, they would have beat him or they would have come closer to beating him in the primaries. Would be my idea. yeah, yeah, for sure. And like, I guess this kind of, this kind of personifies my,

[01:30:49] my politician radar. So first of all, do both of you know who Mike Johnson is? You mean the speaker of the house? Yes. That guy, that Mike Johnson, you mean that the loony bin? Yeah. That guy. Oh, he's not compared to a lot of people in the Republican party. I mean, I've seen some stuff from him where he's got some right. Religious loony, I guess is maybe how I would, I mean, to be fair, I really don't care what religion somebody is, as long as it doesn't, I mean, your, your, your religious beliefs will influence your, you know, political beliefs to a certain extent,

[01:31:19] but we have fail safes in place to keep that from getting. He seems a little too, he's one of those politicians who seems just a tad too interested in a theocracy. And that automatically puts me off. Uh, see, I, I disagree from an American perspective, but I, I might just have more of a tolerance than you do, but okay, here's a better example. I actually prefer this person, but he got removed. Kevin McCarthy. Yeah. Yeah. I like him better.

[01:31:46] I love dealing with politicians because I don't love any politicians, but I prefer politicians like Kevin McCarthy, who they have their beliefs, but they also live in the real world. Yeah. Kevin McCarthy got into trouble because he knew that, okay, we need to make a deal with the other side for this, because if we don't, they're going to be able to come back and pass something worse later. Yeah. So we need to get some of what we want.

[01:32:16] And then I'm sorry. I have to, do any of you hear a phone? Somebody, somebody better pick it up because I called that shit with Matt fucking Gates. Fucking called it. My father. Come on. That was simultaneously the funniest thing I've ever seen. It's just, it's just was so funny. Like the fact that he thought he could get away with it. The fact that he thought he could get away with that, that ethics report, not coming out. Fuck you, Matt.

[01:32:45] I hope, I hope you lose. I hope, I hope we never hear from you again. I hate that guy. Sorry. He's a piece of shit. I, from the first time I saw Matt Gates, I just looked at him. I said, I don't like this dude. And then the more I learned about it, I was like, I think I'm right. And then, and then he led the crusade to oust Kevin McCarthy, which is politically one of the stupidest things you could have done at that time. They just got lucky and basically got his,

[01:33:15] albeit more soft-spoken clone, politically speaking, in Mike Johnson. And that was the thing. I was like, Mike Johnson's the same fucking guy. Yeah. Well, he, he was willing to bend the knee and like boot. What you have to as Speaker of the House, I don't care what political party you're on. That's your job. Your job is to kiss ass and like it occasionally, but with the goal of getting what you really want further on down the line. Your job as Speaker of the House is to make deals. That is effectively your, your, your job.

[01:33:44] But the only reason Matt Gates did that was because McCarthy was going to bring the fucking hearing, the ethics hearing. Which he did anyway. Well, Mike Johnson had to, it's the law, man. That's the thing is Kevin McCarthy even said after the fact, he was like, it wasn't even, he's like, which I believe me, I wanted to, but that wasn't the main reason. The main reason is because we have to, as a governing body, it's the law. I can't stop this from happening indefinitely.

[01:34:13] Like I can table it, but eventually it starts to look really, really strange when something ethically gets tabled over and over and over again. God, I just, I've never wanted a man to get a job at McDonald's so badly. Dude, I hope you enjoyed funny. I'm hoping you, you enjoy bagging those fries for the rest of your life. no, that, that, that makes it bad for the people that work at said McDonald's. Those fine people that would have to put up with his ass on a daily basis. And here's the other thing. So everybody,

[01:34:42] if you're watching this podcast and you don't know who we're talking about, I want you to pause this real quick. Pause it. Well, after I'm done telling you what you're looking at. Okay. I need you to Google two things for me. First, if you've never seen the show, Buffy, and you will see a picture of someone who has like, it's a distorted face. I need you to know this. Okay. So with that in your mind, then I want you to open up a new tab and Google Matt Gates. That's M A T T G A E T Z.

[01:35:11] I think it'll, it'll come up. A A E T Z. Yeah. It'll come up. And I want you to take those pictures and look at them side by side, like alternate tabs and look at them. It's the same fucking picture. He looks like a Buffy, this vampire slayer vampire. He just always looked like somebody like farted at his face. Like he just always looked like he was like, Oh, Oh, Oh, I could taste it. Oh God. I just don't like,

[01:35:40] like the funniest bit was when he was announced as the nomination for the frigging attorney general and everyone went, no, no, no, not everybody. Not, not everybody, but I, I certainly did. I went absolutely fucking not. Get back down. Yeah. Well, no, it went to the back rooms. What Matt, we all know, no, you know, no. So we're not even going to pretend. Yes. Okay. Okay. See, I have,

[01:36:08] I have to believe that Trump did that on purpose because he knew it was going to be a fuck. No. And Matt was stupid enough to not see it because he quit his job. Trump, he resigned in lieu of being confirmed like before. And yeah, I thought he thought he thought he was going to get it. And I think Trump rightfully knew that was like, listen, they're never going to go for the pick that I want to, unless I make the first option. So unpalatable that they, they will literally say anybody, but this motherfucker. Well,

[01:36:36] if you've been watching those confirmation hearings, I mean, they, they're, they're, they're going at those guys really hard. Well, they typically do. They typically do. That Fox news guy, Pete, whatever the fuck man, he, he sure seems like he sucks for multiple reasons. However, I will defend one thing. There are people on the left who are saying that he's unqualified. He, he, he was in the military. Like, I mean, I, I, yeah, I have other issues. Here's my question about that process though.

[01:37:07] Could they all be like, nah, dog? Like, is it, is that just a formality or no, it's not a formality. They, they, they have to be confirmed. So, cause I'm getting the vibe that he's not gonna, I don't think he is. I'll be honest. I don't think. And here's the thing. I'm not saying he's unqualified. I think there are, I'm not trying to throw shit his way because I respect everyone who puts on the uniform and serves. So this is not a fuck Pete head Seth necessarily,

[01:37:35] but I gotta believe there's numerous people out there that are tremendously more qualified. I didn't, when I, when they were like Fox news hosts, I thought he, I thought it was Tucker Carlson. And then when they were like, when they were like, see, he would, this guy like who, see, he would be unqualified. He would be deeply unqualified. Deeply. Although I have to remind people too, because I did a, our short, um, where we were talking about how CNN actually used to make good documentaries. Oh yeah. I'm,

[01:38:04] I'm waiting for somebody to comment and say something snooty. And then I'm going to remind them that Tucker Carlson was on CNN for years. I mean, he was until, uh, until John Stewart showed up and destroyed his career. But why are you wearing a bow tie? And he never wore a bow tie ever again. I just like to think every time he looks at a bow tie in a store, he just, he just pictures John Stewart yelling at him on that show. Like, he's like the picture that like haunts his nightmare. Well, no, that's what was so funny is that John Stewart didn't yell at them.

[01:38:34] The show was called crossfire for those who don't know. And it was essentially Tucker Carlson and some other person that would just yell at each other for about an hour. And John Stewart went on there and be like, everyone just needs to calm down. That if truly audience, audience, you got, it is, it is like glorious couple of minutes. I'm just, John Stewart being like, why are you doing this? What is wrong with you? You're wrong with your, what's wrong with America? Yeah. Tucker Carlson looked like he wants to cry. It's just, I love it.

[01:39:04] Cause John Stewart. Cause I think it was, it was either that or Bill O'Reilly. I think it was Bill O'Reilly. Now to think about it, but anyway, they're cutting John Stewart up. He was like, our lead in is puppets making prank phone calls. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like we're not, I think they can try to call him a journalist. And he's like, yeah, you are. It's like, no. And the fact that people are viewing our show as junior realism should scare you. Right. Right. I, I see. Well, in terms of the CNN documentaries, I should mention, yeah,

[01:39:33] there was a really good one. I watched from them about QAnon. That was quite good. That was quite well produced. That was interesting. So yeah, they do make good documentaries or did make good documentaries at one point. It's been a minute since I've seen one, but anyway, we're, we're becoming the problem. Yeah. So to bring it back to the topic, at least it's not my show. Yeah. It's, it's, which actually I'm renaming our mascot. He used to be, his name used to be by,

[01:40:02] but I am now in a protest of the film better man. I'm renaming our mascot, Robbie. That's good. Every time I see that name, I just think of, uh, now, you know me better, man. Fair. But, um, wow. I completely, so Robbie and the problems. This, this episode is Robbie and the problems featuring Haley, Robbie, Robbie and the problems. So for the next two hours,

[01:40:32] your ass is mine. So about that tick tock, man, about that tick tock, man, tick tock. Uh, yes. In closing. Hey, actually, I do want to dig into this a bit because Haley, we, again, we've talked a lot off air. Um, tick tock means significantly more to you than it does to, to me and this podcast, because frankly, our following on, it's not that great cap cuts, but really pissed me off, but it seems like it'll be back up and running here at, at some point. And if not, I found an alternative.

[01:41:02] If I need to share that information with everyone more on that, I want to test it if need be, but they really need, cause I have to finish editing a podcast tonight. So they need to, Oh no. Oh yeah. Yeah. It sucks. Yeah. They need to, uh, they need to get off their ass. Get that shit fixed. Yeah. So figure, figure it out by dance. Cause I don't want to pay for this other software. If I only need it for a day. Yeah, no, fair enough. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, it's, it's cheap enough.

[01:41:31] Like it's not the end of the world, but I'd rather not, but Haley, the tick tock ban affects you far more because your presence is, I mean, it started on, and I would wager to say is more prevalent on tick tock than YouTube. And I love how everybody who's not, who doesn't do this stuff either for a living or just in general, they don't make content. It's really easy to say, we'll just move to another route.

[01:41:59] I've made several videos indicating why that's not possible. It's, it's possible. Well, it may, it may be possible, but even if it is, it's certainly not easy because all these apps have very different audiences, totally different audiences. Like this show does terrible on tick tock. Our, our videos do better. Our videos do better on tick tock. Generally. Um, I also, as a solo artist don't exist anywhere else other than tick tock. As a solo artist. So you're a solo artist.

[01:42:29] What'd you do solo? This. Well, I get on there and I talk about things and call them stupid and talk about movies and such. Usually I make fat jokes. They're hilarious. Uh, but yes, Haley. So how is this affecting you? Emotionally, spiritually? Financially. My strength and spirits are gone.

[01:42:59] Oh my God. I can't even get my words out. I'm like laughing. Um, actually it doesn't really affect me, uh, financially. So. Well, that's your aspect. You guys don't get to be in the, uh, you guys aren't in the creator program. I'm not, I'm not, I don't even know how. I don't have followers for that. Yeah. I probably don't have no followers. But. The friendships I made on this, on this, like on Tik TOK, like.

[01:43:30] These three, by the way. Yeah. We wouldn't be here today. Not even you. I know. I know there's others. I'm just saying demonstrably right here. Yeah. Yeah. No, there is no, like there's no spur of the moment podcast without Tik TOK. That's for darn sure. And, and there are connections that you can't get anywhere else. No, because it's the social element of Tik TOK is what makes it. The,

[01:43:57] the joining of the social aspect and the creation aspect aspect. Because YouTube is a place full of people who are creating stuff, but you can't direct message people and collaborate. It's very difficult to do so. Yeah. You used to be able to ironically. But then I wager to say, because YouTube is a wonderful place full of tolerance and measured responses. I wager to say a lot of people probably got really shitty private messages sent to them. So they just got rid of it. I think so. Yeah. No, no, the sarcasm. Well, I think it,

[01:44:27] I think it has everything to do with the amalgamation. Of Google or the, or, integration. That's where I was like, of Google. That's, that's true because Google doesn't really have private messaging either outside of Gmail, but that's an email client. That's not, it's, it's a different, it's a different thing. I will say though, one of my friends, a couple of days ago, me, before the ban happened and took, I got shut off for a little bit. Um, she went on YouTube to test it out.

[01:44:57] And see, that creeps. Oh, that's so sad. But here's the other thing about YouTube too, is I can attest to this. YouTube growth tends to, tends to be not always, but YouTube growth tends to be slower, but more, but more consistent because it does seem like on Tik TOK, the average creator will get to a certain point and kind of hang out there for quite a bit. Um, until something very lucky happens. So it seems unless you change your content,

[01:45:26] but then that can turn people off who followed you in the first place. It seems to me, the followers on YouTube are, seem to be real people. Um, as opposed to like on Tik TOK, I can show you my follower page, but like the last 10 of them are all a particular kind of bot. Ah, yes. The only bots, the only bots. I get those like in droves. So like, I've got 2000 followers, but portion of them are bots only, but not ones that you paid for though. They're just, they're there. So maybe,

[01:45:55] maybe somebody is managing an, an only fans account and they're like, this guy's funny. Well, it comes from like, when you like, if you comment something on their video or you like interact with their videos, these bots will automatically see you even if it's something innocuous and they'll all start to think. So if you want to get followers, it works. And let me just preface this by saying to like the kind of questions she was getting, let me just preface this.

[01:46:23] She's a redhead and she was getting certain questions. If you catch my drift. Really? That joke is so old to come up with some original shit guys. I mean, I've gotten some pretty, pretty, uh, mean, most of my mean comments come from Tik TOK, but I've got the occasional one on, uh, honestly, uh, we did a Harry Potter video that, that was, people were really nice. That was unexpected. You're, you're far enough. You're far enough away from the movies being new is, is what it is. Yeah.

[01:46:52] Yeah. Um, but yeah, I find the, the, the growth on YouTube to be Tik TOK and YouTube's algorithm are completely different. I would works on Tik TOK. Doesn't work on YouTube and vice versa. They complement each other really well. Yeah, they are. But, and then conversely, you have things like Instagram, which, Hey, I know content creators that their livelihood is on Instagram. They cracked Instagram and they just got it figured out and they're on other platforms, but Instagram's their, their deal.

[01:47:21] And like for the vast majority of what I do, YouTube's my bread and butter. Tik TOK. Tik TOK is there. And, and I put stuff out there. Instagram's there, put stuff out there. We started doing it on Facebook because for years I thought Facebook was just obsolete. And it, it kind of has been thus far. It just, I don't see a ton of people on Facebook anymore. Like, yeah, we just, we, we might honestly, the other thing we did was recreated a company page just to have, um, we, we might cut, we, we nixed Twitter. We,

[01:47:50] for average intelligence and down the middle specifically, we, we tried putting stuff on Twitter. We're just, we're not there. Rumble doesn't work great for us. We basically have a rumble in case we have episodes get removed, which has only happened once, but. Our stuff, my, I mean, I always did better. The thing I found with Tik TOK, and this is where the magic in Tik TOK is Tik TOK. And Jordan hates this about Tik TOK, but it's what I love about it. Tik TOK is random. Their, their algorithm is entirely random. It's, it's literally just like,

[01:48:19] have you, have either of you ever played Boggle? Oh, maybe it's anything but random. Tik TOK's algorithm is so incredibly, precisely. I, I found, well, okay, here's, here's my experience, right? I found it was very much like that. And then it, it integrated everyone's call, everyone's content sort of equally. So like, Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. This has just as much of a chance of winding up in there as it's less corporately driven. Is what I get, I get, I get what you're saying. Yeah.

[01:48:48] In when a video is initially uploaded, it is probably the most democratic algorithm of all the. Yes. Yeah. Because it, it's, it's just like you said, it throws it into the ether. And if people like it, it gets pushed more. Whereas with YouTube, YouTube specifically, they kind of look at some of the aspects of it. And sometimes they can predetermine whether they're going to push it out to people or not based on. Yeah. With YouTube, I find,

[01:49:18] sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say the, at least my, my experience is the TikTok algorithm is like amazing. Like you can see, like, like if you search something and then it'll just show you everything. I, I agree. The other thing with YouTube, I find is YouTube has two algorithms. It has the YouTube shorts algorithm and it has the YouTube, the main, your main video algorithm.

[01:49:46] And those two algorithms are completely different. They operate completely differently. Like my videos perform differently in each of the algorithms. And I find YouTube is really, they say that the tanks don't affect it, but I find like, if you, if you SEO matters on TikTok, on YouTube, SEO doesn't matter on TikTok. Yeah. That's how, that's how I would break it down. Whereas like, if I, if I like my most successful,

[01:50:10] one of my more successful shorts is like a Moana video that I put out around the time that people were talking about Moana and it performed really well. That doesn't seem to happen as much on TikTok. Like it's not as SEO driven, at least on the back end. That's what it looks like. Like videos will just do randomly well arbitrarily. It's, it seems that engagement is what drives. Cause I've seen some videos that had, I mean, Buku, Buku attention.

[01:50:38] And I don't see how anybody could make the argument that SEO or current events were a driving force. It just seems to be that people liked it. And TikTok was like, okay, X amount of people liked it. So we're going to push it out to even more people. Whereas YouTube is, which makes sense. I mean, they're owned by Google. It's almost exclusively SEO driven because we've even had videos that had a lot of engagement comparatively and still have similar views,

[01:51:06] which I know might be anecdotal because here's the other thing. Like, unless somebody works for TikTok or Google, I hate to break it to you. They have no idea how the algorithm works. They don't have a clue. I'm guessing. Well, the thing is everybody's guessing. Now, there are some places that seem to have it figured out for them at least. But like what we found, YouTube is very SEO driven. Because things that are currently hot tend to perform better.

[01:51:36] Like our best performing video of all time is the seven. I bring it up all the time, but it's my 700 view video about Terrifier that we put out when Terrifier three was being talked about. And it performed really well because we put it out at the correct time. Whereas like a video randomly, a random announcement video I do on TikTok will get 700 views. Yeah. And conversely on this channel, our best performing shorts to date are all about Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse. And that's because when we uploaded them,

[01:52:04] that movie was just wildfire culturally. Yeah. Those same videos, some of them did okay on TikTok, but none of them did even close to what they did on YouTube because everybody was talking about that movie at the time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just demonstrably true. But at the same time, yeah, I've got, again, I mean, I made a video about this, but I've got views on videos on TikTok that have double, triple, quadruple the amount of views. So I, oh, oh, they have,

[01:52:33] they have twipple the views. They have twipple the views. They have twipple. But yeah, they, yeah, I think it's a good balance of both. I think anyone I'd recommend, you have to have a balance of both. Well, because we'll have all of us, we can demonstrate. We had one video randomly. It did. I'm not even gonna say it did me. It did pretty bad across all those other platforms. And yet on Instagram, about half a million views in a few days. Yeah. And it's just like, why? Different, different audiences.

[01:53:03] Yeah. Different. Like, um, the, the, the goose video I have. Yeah. That thing got over half a million views on TikTok, a thousand views on Instagram. Ironically, animal video, as much as people joke about app videos being a YouTube thing, animal videos seem to do extremely well on TikTok. They've always done well for me. They've always done well for me. But the other, the other thing with TikTok that I find benefits me, and this is why I was sad to see you Americans go is you know, we're back for now, for now.

[01:53:33] But is you guys interacting with my stuff consistently tells TikTok that pushing. So my stuff does better as a result because I have built in quote unquote followers who are like, that also helps on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're back. It's like, we got evicted from the apartment, but then we came up with the rent. I like to think of it as, as you guys went outside to get some fresh air and then came back. I expect everyone to act as though you've been gone for 10 years. No, what we did was we got sent,

[01:54:03] we got sent outside to think about what we did by, by TikTok and by dance. And said, no, you think about what you did. And then we're like, it's kind of cold out here. It's boring too. Yeah. It's kind of boring. To be fair, some of us, some of us from the very beginning, we're like, no, no, no. We, we, we want to stay in here. We like it. We like it. Just kick them out. Like we don't, we don't want to get kicked out with them, but then we all got kicked out and we were like, nah,

[01:54:32] this kind of sucks. This kind of sucks. I want to go back inside. I will say this when it all, when after it all happened, I have not cried that much in that hard. And like, I saw some sad videos. Yeah. No, I felt bad. I did feel bad. I saw, I saw some sad videos of some people. I wanted to be there when you guys went down, but I fell asleep, but that, yeah, that man, to be fair, it, it, it, it's an integral part of your guys is like country.

[01:55:01] Now you like it or don't like it. It just is. It, it, it, it, like the feeling that I had was like, I just kept climbing a metaphorical rope, trying to keep, keep, keep ground. And I just kept slipping. I heard so many people say that they like went to check it out of habit and they, there was just gone. It was just like this hole in there. Like, I was going to say, I'm sure that happened to more than a few people. God damn it. Come on, cap cut. Get your shit together. I,

[01:55:30] I did that for like the, the 12 hours. I mean, yeah, fair, fair. I kept checking it. Cause I, I, yeah, I want to see the Americans, like if they would disappear from my for you page and you, you guys never left my for you page. Suck it government. That's right. Which really, I, I, I do find this just insanely ironic that the country, country that both purportedly.

[01:55:59] And I think in spirit, we do, I very much believe this, but in practice, sometimes it's dicey. That's all for freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom in general, has a problem with the app because it is tied to the country that allegedly is. And I'm not even gonna say allegedly, because China does censor. It's, it's people hardcore, but.

[01:56:24] Shouldn't like the country that's pro free speech be like the shining city on the hill and say like, look, yes, we understand that there's danger. There's danger in everything. But what did Benjamin Franklin say? I'm going to butcher this, the exact quote, but basically like. He who trades. He who trades liberty for security deserves neither. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I recognize that. It's something, something. Yeah, that sounds familiar. I'm going to butcher that.

[01:56:54] But yeah, yeah, it's the truth. Yeah, yeah, your, your government is sure sounding a lot more like the Chinese. You guys don't look great. Like internationally, I guess one of those things where like, like a lot of countries are like, yeah, man, if any, if you said that to any other, like you say, if you say like, let's say, let's say TikTok was like British control. You wouldn't be like, got to get, got to rescue, got to rescue that app away from those Brits. Well, now here's the thing.

[01:57:20] That's a different conversation because I think the British are the secret evil of the world. I mean, Hey, there's a reason we all speak English with their bland ass food. and crooked teeth and thievery. I'm looking at you. Hey, I have a friend on TikTok that's British. Thank you very much. I'm not saying that not everyone, but Hey, you know what? The smart ones got out and became Americans. It's a joke, people. It's a joke. It's a joke.

[01:57:50] Hey, they gave their brand of freedom. No, American, American sentiment about law comes from English common law. Like that, that was the precursor. Like, so if, if everybody who, who, and I like, don't get me wrong. I'm as much of like, yay. America is the next guy. But if you think that the United States just came out of this vacuum of lawlessness and tyranny, it's like, nah, I mean, there was some fuckery. There was some fuckery,

[01:58:20] especially back then. There is. But, but I mean, to, to, to think, I mean, they basically, the framers of the constitution basically took British law and tweaked it a bit to give the government even less power, you know? So like, Hey, I'm all, I'm all for that, but it's not like by the time that the United States became a thing, British citizens enjoyed very much a lot of the same freedoms that, you know,

[01:58:48] Americans did after the fact with the exception of forced quartering of soldiers. Look, I'm from Canada. My country went, it's fine. It works. I mean, we do, we do, we do kind of like the fact that if something happens, we got the world's most terrifying Navy and an army that's nothing to sneeze at to come and fuck people up. If need be. And I will say though,

[01:59:18] I don't have like, Oh, the, the, the, the also difference between Instagram and Tik TOK is like, I have way more followers on Tik TOK than I do Instagram. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the same way. I've got way more followers on Tik TOK than I do anywhere else. It's been a very, it's been a very supportive community for me in terms of numbers. Sorry. I'm looking up the, okay. So this is the actual Benjamin Franklin crow. So I was right.

[01:59:43] It was like those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety. I don't disagree. I was close. Turns out that Ben Franklin guy, pretty smart, dude. He flew that kite. He flew that kite in that electric storm and invented electricity. Even show. It's just like, fuck you guys. Who? Who? show. Show. Yeah. I,

[02:00:11] show deserve some kind of award or medal for sitting through those meetings and not just openly laughing in their faces. Senator. I'm Singaporean. Like, that's not even the worst one. I think my favorite one was those tick tock connect to the home wifi and shows just like, he's like, I think I understand the question, but I have such, I have such faith in you as a human being that I don't believe you're that fucking stupid. And I think you're trying to bait me, but at the same time,

[02:00:42] dumb. And then, and then he, and then he asked him if it accessed the camera and he's just like, if no one else. See, is this real? Are we living real life right now? He just takes a top out of his pocket and just spins it on the table just to make sure. I don't, I don't even remember that. Did they ask that? Yes. Oh yeah. I don't even remember that. Oh my God. And then I,

[02:01:12] somebody, somebody asked the question in a, which again, this is, this is, this is like a bad toupee, but somebody asked the question in a way that was a little bit less stupid, but still stupid because it's like, does it, he has, does the app like record people's faces and show was like, look, if you're, if you're using the filters, it has to, cause it has to know where your face is, but it doesn't. And he was like, so it does have record of your face.

[02:01:42] And he was like, yes, but only in the context of using the filter, which is optional and temporary because it, it needs to know where your face is. Right. My favorite quote, my favorite quote for like, for, for the hearings on the tent that, that were on the 10th, the, this, I don't, I can never remember her name, but the U S government, uh, uh, uh, lawyer. She was like, tick tock, uh,

[02:02:12] like blatantly, like has people fight, like makes people fight. And I'm like, and the Supreme court literally goes like, isn't that true? It all apps. Yeah. That was funny. I was like, it makes people want to fight each other. It's like, well, I don't have to work very hard for that. Okay. Look, look at the court. Look at the correspondence between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. These guys wrote hate mail to each other. Like,

[02:02:41] and John, John, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson took out pages in newspapers to shit on each other. Oh yeah. I know that's not anything new. This is not new. Technology did not change people. Okay. Like how did the line go? They smack each other in the press and they don't print retractions. This is like off topic, but you said John Adams night until he went like, I told my brain went, Oh yeah. I know John.

[02:03:09] Like he's my actually great, great, great cousin from my grandmother's side. Oh, I'm sorry. John Adams is kind of a piece of shit. I'm going to say it. His, I think his maiden name was with, Redmond. And then that was my grandmother's name. Oh, Oh, so that means you're also related to John Quincy Adams. Yeah. Huh? Huh?

[02:03:39] So I should be invited to the white house. That should be, that should give me some of this to get going to the white house. I mean, yeah, you should absolutely be alive. Like, like my great, great, great, great, great, great. And just keep saying great. Was the first motherfucker to live here. Granted, he didn't live in this one because it got burned down, but it was in the same spot and it looked kind of the same. He, he also was like reportedly much shorter than George Washington. And it bothered him. It bothered him a lot.

[02:04:09] I, I, enough that, I mean, I keep referencing Hamilton, but I'm thinking Hamilton. Yeah. Yeah. King George calls him the little guy. That's probably true. I just, you just remind me that Eric and I were having fun with this on our last episode. Uh, Shane Gillis is stand up, beautiful dogs when he's doing the bit about the George Washington museum. Oh, is that, is that a newer special? I haven't seen, I haven't seen, I've only ever seen his older stuff. 2023. Oh, okay. I'm going to have to check it out. Oh, you do. It's so funny. So there's a bit,

[02:04:39] I'm not going to ruin it for you, but there is a bit where he's talking about learning all the stuff about George Washington. And he's like, George Washington was six foot six foot two. Nice. You know, George Washington had red hair. And then he learns about the teeth that were, um, you know, he had fucked up teeth. And he's like, you know, after that, now people will say like, it's a miracle. We won the revolutionary war. I don't know how we did. And he's like, I fucking know how we did it. Got it. They were essentially made out of wood, right? No, that's a myth. So the top row were, um,

[02:05:09] donkey and horse teeth. And then the bottom row were human slave teeth. And like, they don't, that's problematic. They also did. I've seen pictures of them. They didn't look like dentures as we understand them. They were like horrified, horrifying, like machination of like teeth that have been like struck Frankenstein together. They're functional, not aesthetically pleasing, but anyway, so Shane's, Shane's bit is like some six foot two ginger,

[02:05:37] crazy looking fucker with bad teeth. Just comes out of the woods and goes, ah, fucking ghetto. And then he's like, the British were just like, Oh no, it's George. I mean, I can believe it. I know. It's like, you put that into perspective and it's like, I kind of get it. He was like, and also that painting of him crossing the Delaware, he's the only one standing. And that says something. That's, that says something.

[02:06:07] Also, yeah, that myth about him not telling a lie. Not true. Not true. That was a lie. And of itself was a lie. You'd be a pretty bad general. If you never told a lie. I'm good saying. He was like, Hey George, where is she? Come on down in the Valley. Thanks George. That would be a very bad way to, to fight a war. Are you coming up the left or the right? Right? The center. We're coming up the center. Wow.

[02:06:37] That would have really thrown us for a loop. I know. Right. Thanks George. You're welcome. And then my personal favorite. How many do you have? Not as many as you. Okay. Hold up. Cause, okay. So you know how TikTok can, like you can like post like the, the, the, the bubble on your profile. Like the thoughts. Yes. It's like a status update. Yes. That's totally a thing I knew about. No, you didn't.

[02:07:06] I never use it, but I'm familiar with it. Had no idea. Someone put in their thought, in their thoughts, America will fight to save an app, but, but not for school safety. That's a little too elementary of a take, but I, I understand the, I understand the precedent. I understand the sentiment behind it. Yeah. And which is not inaccurate. You're right. There is a certain indignation that the, the government could come together in a bipartisan effort to ban a thing that nobody wanted them to ban,

[02:07:36] but they can't actually do anything that people want them to do. Well, it's the, it, the constitution got in the way of that one. So I, I see both sides. Um, but yeah, but yeah, it, it, it is very infuriating though, because that's one of the times I get called a Nazi. Ironically is when I'm like, yeah, don't get me wrong. There's an issue here for sure, but you kind of can't just ban guns because constitution. Yeah.

[02:08:06] Unfortunately you guys got that second amendment. I don't know. I don't know about unfortunately, but I think here's my thing. And I always maintain this. I don't think it matters what the issue is. I think that if both sides genuinely want to come to a, some sort of solution, they will, they just never want to. No, no, they don't. Well, I mean, the Democrats want to be the victims. So. Here's my take on it though. Cause my friend, Tiffany that I met through tick tock too,

[02:08:34] she is a reporter and like activist kind of, and she's been working with, with, with like the tick tock lawyers and everything. And, and tick tock. Is she the redhead? Is she the redhead that you sent me? Okay. Yeah. And she's been like, like doing these lives to like, you know, figure out a way to save tick tock and like protest and everything, everything else. And it's no, and she says point blank,

[02:09:02] we're not just fighting for an app just because it's an app. We're fighting. For tick tock. So then we can, so we have somewhere to fight for the other things that matter. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. And demonstrably true. The, he, the side that wants to eliminate discourse is never the good side. Right. It's never the good side.

[02:09:32] The government has had that, has had that moment yet, or at least the people who voted against it or for this band had that moment of like self-reflection of being shit. Are we the guys? Guys? No, guys. because the reason I say John Adams is a piece of shit is because we have the first amendment in this country. Second president of the United States violated it with ruthless abandonment. He made it a crime to say negative things about the president. Thankfully,

[02:10:00] that law was repealed, but the alien suggestion, well, actually, no, I guess it technically isn't repealed. They stopped enforcing it because they realized, hey, this is kind of a violation of the founding principle of our country. We probably shouldn't do this on, you know, the second president. Out the gate? Yeah. But I mean, they were enforced, yeah. I think certain aspects were repealed, but yeah, he would literally, he jailed people for speaking ill of the president. So, if Hamilton,

[02:10:27] if Hamilton had been written when John Adams was president, Lin-Manuel Miranda would likely be sitting in a prison cell. I mean, isn't that what Trump wants, kind of? No, actually, I'm not, I'm not necessarily opposed to that. But not, but not Lin-Manuel Miranda in prison. I, I, I just think he should be brought up on charges on crimes against humanity. I mean, have you seen Mufasa? I hear it's not good. No, I have not. it's not good. I hear it's not good. I haven't seen it,

[02:10:57] but I'm not seeing it. Did he, did he, did he do, did he do all the lyrics for that? Yeah, he did the music for it. Yeah. So he did that stupid brother song. Yep. Yep. Okay. I always wanted a brother. Yep. Yeah. That song. I haven't seen any of it. I haven't seen any of it yet. Like I'm not even, I know how it ends. Cause I was curious. I looked it up, but I, other than that, I've seen nothing. I looked it up and it completely takes away the established canon of Lion King, but. Absolutely does. Yeah.

[02:11:26] Especially the part where like, he like, isn't like his blood brother. Yeah. He just, and it's like. And, and technically. So here's the thing that they did. This will be my last thought. And then we'll, we'll wrap it up with Tik TOK. But here's the problem with Mufasa from a narrative perspective. That means that scar is technically in the right. In the Lion King. They do kind of. To be fair, I did look up how it ends and they do kind of wrap around explain.

[02:11:58] I mean, they do explain it. Like, like he, he, he, Taka is a prince, but he's not the prince of pride rock. So like pride rock and the pride lands are a separate space. Space. So by virtue of that. So by virtue of that logic, the American colonies were, should never have been subject to the British crown. Look, I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm just saying. I'm not saying it's right, Jake.

[02:12:26] I'm just saying that's what they're saying. It's what the movie says. It's how the movie. That's what they're spewing. Cause the last time I checked dominion of a King follows the King. I read how he became so long as they don't, so long as they don't encroach in another kingdom. Yeah. Basically it's like pride lands have a different name in the movie. And they're this like magical land that they're all trying to get to. And Mufasa becomes king of that. All the animals are like, Mufasa, you should be king. And he's like, I don't want to be king. And like, you should be king.

[02:12:56] And then he becomes king. So a democratically elected king. Pretty much. Yeah. Because that's a thing that happens. It makes sense. Guys, it makes sense. This movie is good. It makes sense. Totally. Plus all the animals talk. And, and they defeat the, they defeat the evil white lions. But nobody, see, nobody appreciates. Only, only true Disney scholars will appreciate the fact that the, that the bad guy in that movie is a white lion.

[02:13:25] Oh, I appreciate it in more ways than one. Kimba, the white lion. And, nobody gets that Disney stole that. And they were all straight white men. Actually, it's funny. Cause the, one of the lions is played by someone who has an accent. Who was it? Someone, I think they were Chinese. It wasn't a white guy. I think Blue Ivy's in this too, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. She's Kiara. She's a, she's no, that's going to bug me. Now to be, to be fair. I think that was more about,

[02:13:55] yeah, that's an interesting choice considering the history between, with Kimba, the white lion. Yeah. That, that's a choice. I suppose. I thought that that was fine. That's a little, little bit of nose rubbing, but you know, I imagine it. Disney is not that clever anymore. I imagine that. Oh, I can't. Yeah. That's probably true. They were probably like, you know, what would make them really evil? It's going to bug me. If they made them white lions because they can't make them black lions. That would be. No, can't make them black lions. That would be bad.

[02:14:25] Oh, maybe I'm thinking of someone different. Oh, but anyway, TikTok. Anyway, anyway, TikTok is here for the moment. I think days, I think, I think within 90 days, because I don't think anyone's stupid enough to let this happen again. Here's what I think is good. Here's my prediction. All right. I think that, that they will claim that there has been a major, and within those 90 days, they will claim there has been a major divestiture and they'll say a percentage number. And we'll find out a year from now that that was a lie. And it's like,

[02:14:55] they divested like 20%. And well, you know what, you know what they're going to do. They're going to say they've divested. And now China only has 20% ownership, even though it had 20% ownership from the beginning. Yeah, pretty much. And Trump will claim that he did it. It's yeah. I did that. Yeah, that's yeah. That's, that's, that's pretty much. Yeah. I, that we'll, we'll be back here in like 90 days and we'll be like, yep, we were right.

[02:15:24] Somebody better pick up that phone. It's going to be 50, 50. Yeah, but the thing is, Trump says a lot of things. Trump says a lot of things on true social. He does. And like starting, starting with the fact that true social was going to beat Twitter. Right. Trump, Trump lies a lot. He says, he says what I call really dumb and obvious lies where you're like, Oh, that's, that's not true. So I suspect, yeah, he'll probably just lie. Well, you know, what happened is what really started is King George slapped George Washington's mother.

[02:15:56] And he said, you can't slap my mother. You'll be back. I'm not going to take that. But yes, it should be, it'll be, it'll be a very interesting 90 days, but I've kept both of you too long, but real quick, George, do you want to check out either of these fine people's podcasts? Their links are in the description. Justin of the spur of the moment podcast, where they have a good time discussing the latest news in pop culture and, um, not so much new news, but you, you really dissected,

[02:16:26] I guess would be how I would describe your show. We, we try to keep up with the news of the week. And then we do as Jordan refers to it, uh, general media analysis. Ooh, GMAs. Love it. Good old GMAs. And then Haley is our resident Disney and Broadway expert, as you can probably discern from the Phantom of the Opera poster behind her. Oh, that's not a poster.

[02:16:56] That's a blanket. It's a blanket. It was like magic. Why am I an asshole? It looked like a poster. It's a fan. It's a, that's, that's what makes it a phantom blanket is it's mysterious. It looked like one thing, but it was another kind of like this Tik TOK band. I'll have to take a picture of the whole thing and show you, but it literally looked like a poster. Okay. The playbills in the background. It's what I was totally talking about. Yeah. The playbills. That's pretty cool.

[02:17:25] And I got the, um, she's university thing. Oh, I couldn't tell what that was, but that is really cool. Which speaking of she's university. So is it the shiz? It is. Is the shiz. Speaking of the other, my cousin's letter. Oh, the one you uploaded. Okay. I know what that is. Um, speaking of the other podcasts though, stay tuned for next week. the RTA podcast,

[02:17:54] when the winners of the 2024 already awards will be announced. Yeah. I get excited for that. Yeah. It's going to be, it's going to be real pomp and circumstance as I, as I make a full declaration. No, it was, it was a really, really, really interesting. year. And it, some ways it went how I thought it was going to go, going to go in other ways. I was very surprised. Some of these winners, I did not honestly see coming. As,

[02:18:22] as with most awards ceremonies, you know, there's, there is, but I don't, I don't, yeah, but I don't disagree with the one. It's just not how I thought the voting would turn out, but actually some of them, I was like, I get it. As a, as a member of the prestigious already Academy, I have had, I've had a sneak peek into some of the results and I will say, interesting. It did not turn out the way I thought it would on all of some categories. It did, but some of them, I was genuinely surprised. Yes.

[02:18:53] Interesting results. Very excited to reveal those next week. Yes, that is coming until then. Keep using Tik TOK. Give them the middle finger. If you're not on Tik TOK, get on it anyway, so that you can join in our disappointment if they screw this up again. And, uh, Trump's getting inaugurated on a Monday tomorrow. So yeah, I forgot about that. We'll see what happens. We will see. And if, uh, if you're in Chicago, I would like to know what happens on Tuesday.

[02:19:23] See if you see any ice agents. We'll be watching with great interest. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't, I don't think you don't broadcast. See what they're, they're going to say it's in Chicago and it's really going to be in, you know, like Los Angeles or DC. Probably. Yeah. They're going to be like, gotcha. Although I mean, Los Angeles, probably not the best time. I don't think they need ice in this, in this instance. Nah, probably not the best time.

[02:19:50] It'd be a really bad form for ice to show up and arrest the Mexican firefighters that are there illegally to help out. Right. That would be very bad. Cause I'm sorry. I, I'm just going to put it out there. I don't think they had enough time to get the appropriate visas. So now, no, but you know what? They were helping people. You know what? Maybe they did to be fair, but I just feel like that was really fast. I feel like they didn't go through the months long visa process to come in and work in this country legally. Probably not. So just, just throwing that out there. But anyway,

[02:20:20] this has been the average intelligence podcast. Hopefully you're a little bit less average and a little bit more intelligent on this one. You actually, did I screw that up? Did I say a little more average and a little less intelligent? I think you did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully you're a little bit less average and a little bit more intelligent, but given how, what just happened, probably not at least not by virtue of me.

[02:20:47] We will see you guys next week when theoretically we're going to tell you guys how not to get screwed online, but Trump will be president next week. So we'll see something might happen, but until then. We're going to be waiting for you. We'll see you next week.