Michael Moynihan is our Oskar Schindler

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0:24 The people who are out protesting the Vietnam War, the people that were out saying, "Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh is gonna win," they're all Republicans now. Right. [laughs] I mean, the- It's true... you know, Mike Love from The Beach Boys wrote this song on the very weird album called Surf's Up called Student Demonstration Time, and it's about Kent State, and it's about all rah-rah the students and going out there for, to end the war.

0:47 And if you Google him now, he has, he literally has a MAGA hat. He's, like, friends with Trump. Oh, my God. [laughs] Who's gonna be like that in 30 years? Like, Miss Rachel- [laughs] No... is gonna be, like, joining Chabad. No. You know? [laughs] She, she will be joining Hamas. Yeah. [laughs] That's what she'll be doing. Exactly.

1:09 [upbeat music] Hi, welcome to Chosen People Problems, where a secular, sinful Israeli speaks to her holy, religious friend. I'm Yael, here with Hila. Michael Moynihan, welcome to Chosen People Problems. What show is this? [laughs] I don't know. I don't... This is... [laughs] I mean, in fairness- [sighs]... the last time I was on this show, I did walk away saying, "Ask a Jew. They asked this- [laughs]...

1:30 kinda half-Catholic loser from Boston a lot of questions. I have a lot, I have a lot of questions for the Jews." I know. So, I, I- Don't ask us... thank you for having me. I love, uh, both of you so much, and I love doing the show. Aw. Thank you. So happy to be here. Well, you're, you're- Thank you...

1:44 you, we wanted you to be one of our first guests because you're, you're our emotional support guest. Yes. That's right. You just make us feel, like, comfortable and, and warm and fuzzy. You're the only two people on Earth that have ever said that to me. [laughs] [laughs] My family doesn't say it. I know. Friends don't say it, but, uh- I know. From the, from the distance, the safety of a screen. Correct.

2:02 That's true. [laughs] That's true. [laughs] Yeah, 'cause we are in the same city. Yeah. Two of us are, anyway. I know. Yeah. I know. Um, well, tell everyone- But for people who don't-... who Michael... Yeah, tell everyone who Michael is. Okay. For people who don't know Michael Moynihan, first of all, why don't you know him? Mm-hmm.

2:15 Uh, second, he is the co-host of The Fifth Column, which is kind of our, our original daddy podcast. We can talk about that a little bit. Uh, he's now host of The Moynihan Report, which is fantastic, and you know him, uh, previously from Vice and the Free Press, two, uh, very similar ideologically aligned- [laughs]... I think, news organizations.

2:33 Almost the sa- It w- it was just a parallel move, yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I see- [laughs] Exactly. [laughs]... like, you know, something- Yeah... about how awesome Marco Rubio is, and I'm like, "Wait, is this the Free Press or Vice?" I, I don't... Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it was... I went there and I was like, "Okay, which..."

2:45 It was, like, the one that was so philo-Semitic that I went to the one. [laughs] I was like, "I just, just go to the Free Press. Same thing." Yeah. Same thing. But you used to write for Tablet, didn't you? I did write for Tablet. Yeah. Uh-huh. Um, Alana, uh, Newhouse, who I think is one of the great talents of her generation, like, kind of unsung in the way, 'cause she's in the background, and she's produced so much- Yeah.

3:03 She, she's sung. She sung. She's sung b- amongst people who know. Right. But, I mean, she should be more well-known. Uh, she should be, uh, like, she... I mean, by the way, she helped Bari become Bari. I mean, she's- That's true. Her husband is also freaking- Yes... brilliant. David, who's, uh, who's, uh, was a writer at The New Yorker, at The New Republic- Mm-hmm... and, uh, now does County Highway.

3:22 I'm promoting- Oh... everybody else's shit. What am I doing? Yeah. I know. Let's talk more about Tablet. Yeah, Tablet, I, I mean, I- [laughs]... love Tablet because, um, I haven't written for them in a very long time, but I did a story. I have the one, I have a great distinction of being the only person who's ever crashed the Tablet, Tablet web servers. Wow. Oh.

3:41 Um, because I did a story that I had a hunch was gonna be a pretty big story, uh, about a guy at The New Yorker, speaking of The New Yorker, uh, named Jonah Lehrer- Mm... and how he was a, a fraud. Yes. And I had a bunch of people that were interested in putting it out, and I'd done a s- bunch of stuff t- for Tablet, and I loved them so much, and I said, "I'll give it to you guys.

3:59 This'll be interesting," 'cause it was still kind of- Mm... new-ish at the time. It was 2014. So it wasn't new, but pe- it wasn't as widely known- Right... as it is today. And, uh, I was like, "Oh, yeah, I'll, I'll give it to them." And the, the story went up, and the server went offline, I think, for a full day. Wow. I think 20 hours.

4:15 I didn't realize that was a Tablet story, the Jonah Lehrer thing. It was a Tab- it was a Tablet story. That was a big expose. That was a big expose. I was in, I was once in the expose business, and now I'm just too damn lazy, so I do- Well-... podcasts... for people who don't... No, but for people who don't know, Moynihan has this incredible ability to read something, and he... I, I'm sorry. It's not your funeral, but I'm gonna compliment you- Yeah... in pers- in front of you.

4:36 [laughs] And by the way, I will- We're gonna mi- we're gonna miss him so much. [laughs] Uh, Hila, I will interrupt you in saying at, at, this afternoon we are doing an episode of The Fifth Column on obituaries- Oh... literally, so yes. Hmm. Oh, my God. [laughs] True. That's so funny. It's actually true. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. No, but Moynihan will read a book, and he'll be like, "No, that does not make sense.

4:53 That never w- happened. That sentence-" Yeah... "never, doesn't exist." He'll look for footnotes. It's just incredible. I m- I mean, it's a real talent. But it must be frustrating when you read. It is extremely frustrating because, um, well, back in the day... I mean, now I think, I, I guess everyone just thinks it's AI or people use AI. But it was always, people would always ask me, like...

5:10 [laughs] And you'd sound like a, kind of a pompous jerk when you said no, but like, "What software do you use?" Yeah. And it's just like, no, I just, you can tell certain cadences that aren't right, facts that clearly that cannot be true. I had a conversation probably a couple months ago with our mutual dear friend, uh, Noam Dorman.

5:29 Mm-hmm. And I sent some quotes from this kind of anti-Israel book from, I was, from about 30, 40 years ago, and they had been recycled over time. I'm gonna write about this soon. Hmm. And I tried to find the original one, so I was like, "This one doesn't make any sense." Hmm. Turned out it was fake. Right. And that happens a lot.

5:46 It sounds like you should have some, like, Amazon Prime detective series about you- [laughs] Yeah, yeah... where you're, you're a detective, but your superpower is you can tell who's plagiarizing. And, yeah, and my, and my annoyed boss is Liam Neeson. Yeah. [laughs] And he's like, "Why you always look at these books, Moynihan? You got criminals out there."

6:05 [laughs] And I'm like, "No, no, I gotta, I gotta find the-"... find the anti-Israel quotes from 1910. [laughs] Um, but I did do, um... I, I have relaunched, uh, a show that I did previously in a kind of- Yeah... haphazard and lazy way, and now have relaunched it in a real way, um, called The Moynihan Report. But there's a Substack where we release the episodes- Mm...

6:26 you know, via the Substack, and last week I said, "I'm gonna write something. I'm gonna start the Substack, I'm gonna write something." And I wrote something, and then I realized at the end of it, I was like, "Oh, this is 4,000 words with-" Oh, God... 13 footnotes. [laughs] And while I was, while I was... This is actually true.

6:42 To your point, Haila, while I was, like, putting it in the back end of Substack, you know, just formatting and all that stuff, and I had look [laughs] looked at a book review on New York Times. In the first paragraph I said, "That quote's not right." Oh, my God. And then I had to wait, and then I wrote about that. Oh, my. [laughs] And the quote was, the quote was tran- it was in German.

7:01 It was translated from German, too, so I had to find the German source and determine that was right. Oh, no. So there you go. Oh, my God. No, it's great. Tell me- Dude, like, I wish I had the... I wish I could pick stocks. I know. This is useless. [laughs] I know. I'm, I'm, I'm taking this- No, it's amazing... I'm taking this to Amazon Prime. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, take it to Amazon Prime.

7:15 [laughs] I don't know if it's Netflix r- ready yet, but I feel like Amazon Prime will be good. I don't know. You guys have, you guys have the studio, so just call whoever. Yeah, exactly. [laughs] We own it. We personally own it now. Wait, Jeff Bezos is in Jewish, right? That's a, that's a- No... that's a missed opportunity for us. He's not. I know. There's a very good, um, viral kind of, um, thing that I've seen on, um...

7:35 It's, it's not as viral as all, all, all the competing, uh, memes, but it is, uh, how the Irish control banking. [laughs] Oh, my God. So, you know, 'cause my, uh, namesake, I have no relation to him unfortunately, is the head of Bank of America. He's a guy named Brian Moynihan. Right. And somebody put together of all these people that run big investment banks, big hedge funds, and they're all Irish. Oh, my God. And there's [laughs] there's like a huge number- Oh, my God... of Irish people.

8:00 And that was the moment that, uh, made us proud and realize that it wasn't true. Wow. How come nobody hates the Irish then, I mean, anymore? Well, we do. Uh, well, the Irish hate the Jews, so that's- Yeah... we know that. Oh, the, the, the country of Ireland is, is dead to us. I mean, you know- Yeah... especially post, in post-Eurovision world. Um- It's really kind of sad, and it- Yeah...

8:18 I, I have one friend in Ireland who is the greatest friend of the Jews named Rob, and- Aw... he's an actor. He's, like, a theater actor. Um- I love him... has a baby. Like, he's probably early 50s, late 40s, and he gets invited to all the Israeli Embassy events. He goes to every one- Oh. Mm-hmm... because they're... Who else are they gonna invite? Who else? I know. Knee cap?

8:39 [laughs] I mean, really. I mean, no, he's like their Jon Voight, you know? [laughs] Yeah, he ex- That is exactly right. He is the Jon Voight. Also an actor. He's the Jon Voight or, uh, who's the other, um, the guy who played- Dean Cain. Dean Cain. Dean Cain. I was gonna say the guy who played Superman. Dean Cain. I love Dean Cain. I know. I love, I love how they're all...

8:57 U- unlike those guys, though, he's not totally insane, so. It's so sad. All right. We, I... Michael, I wanna talk more about Dean Cain with you for the entire episode, but let's take a break. No, we have serious stuff to discuss, too. Let's, let's, let's get paid first. Take a quick break. [air whooshes] Here's a chosen people problem we can actually solve.

9:13 Finally, because we're not doing anti-Semitism today. No, I'm over it. Today we're doing money, and specifically how you should be spending yours. How you should be spending your money on us. Join Ark Plus. You'll get exclusive content and ad-free listening across the Ark network. And also, your support allows us to say what we actually think, even when we probably shouldn't.

9:31 When you join Ark Plus, you get to hear us behind the paywall completely unleashed and ourselves. Yeah, this is us on our best behavior right now. And by the way, not just us. You'll get exclusive content from Call Me Back, For Heaven's Sake, and Ark News Daily. Ooh, wait till you hear what Deborah Pardes is like after dark.

9:47 If this show has ever made you laugh, taught you something, or made you yell at your phone, become an Ark Plus member today. You keep independent Jewish media going, and we get to keep doing whatever this is. Join Ark Plus. It's good for the Jews. Is it? I don't know, but it's definitely good for us. [air whooshes] Okay, and we're back with Michael Moynihan. So- Look at you professionals... Michael, do you have to do this?

10:11 With your ads and everything, yeah. On The Fifth Column, do you do this stuff, too? Uh, you know, we did, um, 10 years. We've been doing the show for 10 years. It's been a, a fantastic, lovely, wonderful success. We've done it almost exclusively without advertising, and now we're doing advertising. But, uh- Yeah... but d- we don't, we don't do a ton. So, um- Mm... uh, we mostly subscription based and everything.

10:31 But we t- we try not to. But the, the... It's very hard because it's like I don't wanna ever do a host read ad of something I don't believe in. I know. And not be like, "Hey, here are these pills. They're gonna cure your cancer." Yeah. [laughs] 'Cause, uh, nobody else seems to care. So it kinda limits what you can do, right? So, so- Oh, my God. It's so funny. Yeah.

10:48 But listen, for people who don't know, The Fifth Column was very important to Yael and I. Obviously we only met because of you guys. Um, and I know the show is fun, and it was the three of you just bantering, talking about bullshit all day. Yeah. But you really created this whole kind of world that exists beyond you.

11:05 I mean, like, like, you created a community of people who met during COVID, and it's- Yeah... grown and grown. What does that feel like to you? It... I, I'll tell you two things about it. One is that we take no credit for it because we d- we did almost nothing. I mean, people just really- That's true. Or legal responsibility... it was... Uh, well, yeah, both for legal reasons- [laughs]...

11:23 and the fact that it's incredible how- Yeah... you plant one seed and then they seed elsewhere. Yeah. It just spreads. Mm-hmm. Um, I'll tell you, yesterday I was walking to a subway and I was on Canal Street, and this guy who's this just big hulking Black guy walking towards me across the, the... This is, like, 5:00 PM, and just puts his hand on me to stop me. Like, you know, I'm like, "Is he gonna, does he... What, does he wanna fight me or something?" [laughs] And he showed me his phone.

11:52 He's like, "I'm listening to the episode right now." Aw. Aw. And it was this, it was... I, and I swear to God- That's-... it was the most amazing thing. Oh. He was this 40-plus-year-old guy. His parents are from Grenada. He grew up in Flatbush. Wow. Never went to college. Worked as, like, like, running stock at one of the stores down there. And, uh- Wow... I, I ta- I literally was standing on the street talking for, like, 20 minutes.

12:10 Was he hot? And I said, "Oh, come by, come, come by the studio sometime." Brilliant. Oh. And it's, it's incredible this world- Yeah... of podcasts. Like, these... Like, he... You know, he went to a public high school in, in Brooklyn. His, uh, boss were, bosses were Yemeni Jews. Wow. So he was very interested, and he said they treated him wonderfully. He loved them.

12:29 Very interested in Israel, very interested in all this. And it's just, like, the great thing about this world as we kind of wring our hands and clutch our pearls about AI and losing jobs, the... there are great things about this, too. Yeah... is that people who don't have, you know, $80,000 a year to go to some... dipshit college- Mm...

12:47 can, and he, and it was so funny, is he closed the, the browser, and then he was, uh, he was also listening to Adrian Goldsmith's biography of Caesar. Oh, my gosh. Mm. And I was just like, he's- Oh, my gosh... and he was like, "He lives," and he's like, "I could barely afford an apartment," and all this stuff. Oh. And he's like, but he's just learning all the time. Yeah. He's like, "Oh, I love this stuff.

13:03 I had a teacher who was great." And you could have a teacher who was great, but in th- this day and age, for, you know, the price of your phone, you can walk around the city of New York getting the best education. That's true. And I don't know if we're part of that, but- You are... hopefully more entertaining than educational. But, but yeah, the show has been...

13:20 It has been the best thing that ever happened to me, without, I mean, literally without- I mean, you have a daughter, Michael. [gasps] [laughs] Okay. I wanna, I wanna go back and say- Mm-hmm... it was literally the best thing that ever happened to me. [laughs] Um, but thank you for pointing out that I have a daughter. Yes. Yes. [laughs] Um, I did forget for a second. Um, in a work context, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

13:41 I mean, it's like, look, if I had the opportunity, and I think that, you know, like, take Arc. Mm-hmm. You know Dan, who I think is, uh, does o- one of the greatest, has a fantastic podcast. I'd listen to it constantly Octo- Mm... after October 7th. It was a lifeline- Mm... for people who cared about these issues. And if Dan got an offer, if you got an offer, if I got an offer from CNN- Mm-hmm...

14:03 from The Wall Street Journal, from New York Times, I would be like, "No. Why would I do that?" Right. We have loyal fans. Mm-hmm. I really enjoy interacting with them. I get to do what I want and get to talk about whatever I want, and we got, you know, sort of started getting well-known by talking about, you know, kind of wokeism and cancellation and things like that. Yeah.

14:21 I wanna talk about that. And I have no fear of that. Yeah. I did have a fear of that advice, and it's like, it's a liberating, technology's incredibly liberating in the sense that, you know, you can't cancel my internet connection. Right. You know? Yeah. Right. That's all I need, so. Right. But you, you guys were, and, uh, well, this was my experience with The Fifth Column, but tell me if it was for a lot of other people, too.

14:41 I discovered you guys, I think, around the, the Central Park Karen days. Yeah. Um, which were- Yeah... you know, I always say that there were, like, two months where COVID was fun, and that was like- Yeah. [laughs]... when we were making, like, sourdough bread and stuff. Oh. Yeah. And then- I mean, it was really fun, unless you were 85. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, yeah. Um. Not so fun. No.

14:58 The, for, for us in the pajama class, as they were called- Yes... it was fun. Yeah, for sure. And then George Floyd happened and the Central Park Karen. Yeah. And then I felt, when I, when I found you guys, and, and also some other podcasts, too, it was like this explosion of like, "Holy shit, there are all these other people who think everything is insane, and I ne-" Correct.

15:15 "I don't know they exist, because they only exist on podcasts." It, it is a very bad comparison, because I do not like when people say that we live in fascism or we live in communism, and it's an insult to people who lived through those systems. Mm-hmm. But there is, you know, there's always tiny echoes of things, of like, you know, it's always a thing you read about the Soviet Union when, when you find out that there's somebody else in your village or your apartment block that has the same dissident views of you, that's- Mm...

15:41 been very hard to actually communicate that. It's easier to communicate that now, right? When all this stuff started happening, it was like, I used to point this thing out about Joe Rogan, and I don't have any strong opinions about Joe Rogan either way. I don't really listen to him. If there's a guest on that I like, maybe I will. But w- before he was purchased or he was, his, his show was purchased by Spotify for, like, $110, $20 million, look at how long he was successful. Yeah.

16:07 Extraordinarily successful. Yeah. Mm-hmm. No one picked him up. Right. Yeah. Right? Anybody who has... I mean, you know, there was that girl during the first Trump administration who was doing, like, lip-sync to Trump talking. Yeah. Oh. It was like- Yes... and she got, like, a Netflix show. I know. [laughs] And it was just like, wait, what? She's just lip-syncing to Trump. Well, the Central Park Karen guy got, like, an, didn't he- Yeah... get, like, a National Geographic- He had a show on Nat Geo. He did.

16:30 It's like, you could get a show for anything. But proven success, they're like, "Well, we don't wanna touch that." Yeah. And it's like, all right, thank you for leaving a lane totally open for us, which- Mm-hmm... was not deliberate. Everything about the show has been almost accidental. And I mean, now we're actually doing it deliberately, and it's astonishing. Yeah. That's great.

16:50 Like, we had, I'll, I'll give you an example of, of how things changed in the past year, when we actually tried to do things deliberately. Um, we didn't have a social media presence before. Right. We didn't tweet. We had, like, you know, maybe 1,000 followers on Instagram or something like that. I think we have 130,000 or something like that now. Wow. Wow.

17:08 And you know, I, I, the clip total just on Instagram for the last year has been, like, 40 or 50 million. Wow. Wow. And that's crazy. That's great. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, because we have young people- Mm... we're not hired because they're young, by the way, they're hired 'cause they're good and they understand it better than us, who can cut clips, cut clips fast. Mm-hmm.

17:26 And it's not just, you know, someone talking for two minutes. Like, making it, you know, archival footage- Yeah, yeah... and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. And it's just that changes- Changes it... everything, and you start competing with, uh, the bigger guys. I mean, remember when CNN, what was it, last, six months ago, they started putting, like, podcast mics on the, they did this thing? Yeah. [laughs] No.

17:44 They were, like, putting podcast mics on the table, and they were like- [laughs]... "Okay, people like podcasts, so let's just- Right, right... have Anderson Cooper- Right... with, like, a podcast mic." [laughs] It's like, it's still CNN with a dumb mic. [laughs] It's like, that David Letterman mic didn't work, you know? Right? Yes, exactly. It's like when they give kids, like, a fake phone to play with. Yeah, yeah.

17:59 [laughs] Ex- Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It's like the fake flip phone. There's candy in it. But that was kind of- Yeah, right. [laughs]... the thing is like, they're like, "Oh, we're gonna try to play catch-up." I mean, the idea is not, it's not a technological thing, although it is a pain in the ass. You can't watch CNN on your phone, really. Right. Um, it's not that. It's content. Mm-hmm.

18:17 It's the fact that what people liked about our show, I think, was not so much that we talked about, quote-unquote, "wokeness" or whatever you wanna call it. It's that it was very clear that we didn't give a fuck. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We just didn't care. Yeah. Yeah. It's like we would make- No, it's true... really bad jokes- Mm-hmm... and off-color jokes- Mm... and make fun of whoever.

18:37 But if you take it in, a- as a total, like, if you take it in toto, if you take the whole thing- Mm-hmm... you realize that we're not bad people. Right. Right? Exactly.... that there's, like, a jocular nature. I mean, I was just talking about our friend Josh Zepps. The second he sits down, I'm gonna talk about him being gay, because I talk a- to Josh about it all. [laughs] And Josh loves it.

18:57 Is he gay, or is he just Australian? Uh, there is no difference. [laughs] Mm-hmm. There... In, in Aus- in Australia, there's no word for gay. They're just Australian. Ask Josh about the time I took him to Steven Spielberg's mother's kosher restaurant in LA- [laughs]... for dinner. And then he became an antisemite. There's- Is that wh- is that why he started hating his own people?

19:14 [laughs] And, and then, and there's a big Schindler's List poster right over the dining room, and it's like, how am I supposed to enjoy this expensive meal right now? That- But yeah... that is like the Seinfeld episode where he brings the girl to make out during Schindler's List. It's like- Exactly. [laughs] Yes... how can I make out and/or eat in front of... Exactly. [laughs] It's so annoying.

19:32 Uh, uh, so just one, one final thing. On the Schindler's List thing, it's, it is the issue of antisemitism, which I've been obsessed with for a long time, and Israel, as I've realized more and more, is that I'm having to step back to say how much of this is representative of a- Right... of a broad movement. Yeah. Even a broad movement about un- university students or a broad movement amongst the intellectual class or whatever. I think about that a lot. Mm-hmm.

19:56 And I don't, I don't really know, because it's not something you can really poll, right? Mm-hmm. But, you know, in New York City yesterday, Zohran Mamdani, who did the Democrats a really big favor by saying, "No, no, no." Oh. "We're not extremists." Yeah. Right? It's like y- you might win Texas. Mm-hmm.

20:15 James Talarico might beat a Republican- That's right... in Texas who has outspent him, like, 20 to one. I know. 15 to one. I know. And they're like, "You know what? We're not that bad. Talarico might've said these things about trans stuff and blah, blah, blah, but that was 2020. We've moved on." Yeah. And then the mayor of New York City on October 7th says, "That was bad what happened on October 7th.

20:37 Okay, by the way, but you know what else was really bad?" Yeah. And it's like, you can't... And then he goes, at the end of the day- I know. Ugh... after being protested for- Yeah... being, you know, not getting this- More pro-Hamas. Mm-hmm. Yeah... well, not getting the Sinwar tattoo on the neck or something. Right. Right. [laughs] I have no idea.

20:52 But then goes and, and, and finds the one Palestinian restaurant on the Upper West Side, which was named after the takeover at Columbia. Yeah. And him- Where they have a from the river to the sea pun in their menu, which offends me twice, because also I hate puns. Yeah. [laughs] Puns. I also hate restaurants. [laughs] Yeah. But Michael- All of them...

21:11 on the Upper West Side. Michael, I want... It brings me to a point I wanted to discuss with you, 'cause, you know, there's a story in the news right now that's not getting as much play as I think it should, and I know that you'll have what to say about it, and it's about what's going on in France and in Europe- Yeah...

21:24 and in general. These riots in France that supposedly high school students are upset about not having teachers. Yeah. I mean, the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life, the stupidest reason that people are giving for this, these riots. Yeah. So what is happening there, and why are we not taking the lessons from Europe- Why are we not bombing them?... here in this country? [laughs] Yeah, Yael's really gets to the point of, um- Yeah. [laughs]...

21:49 if we can finish Iran- Those B-2s are just- Uh, in-... collecting dust in New Mexico... yeah, for all of you who wanna take a clip of this, it's a fucking joke. [laughs] Relax. Um, sorry, can we swear for the Chosen People podcast? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes. Sorry. I apologize. To your- We can swear on Dan's show, though. I don't think so. I, we don't swear on Dan's show.

22:05 I- I was- I will answer that question before I said it. Yeah. I was on Jonah Goldberg's show, and, um, afterwards he was like, "You gotta not do the F-bombs." Oh, God. Oh. And I had to, I had to cut them all out, and I was like, "Ugh." Oh, God. 'Cause I know Jonah, and I, you know- Yeah... you're looser around your friends, and I...

22:20 You know, if someone comes in for a meeting, you're not gonna swear, but- Right... so, um, I know you have a producer now. Yeah. She's lovely. Yeah, Beth- I'm a-... Beth is, like, her hair is on fire right now. Beth, I'm sorry. Sorry, Beth. It's fine. I am sorry. Don't worry. [laughs] I'm sorry. This episode is gonna be, like, eight minutes long. It's gonna be about- Yeah, and it's not gonna- It's gonna be about Talarico...

22:35 and it's not gonna be sponsored by anyone. I apologize for that. Yeah. [laughs] I'll pay, I'll pay for it. Um, but for- No, but I did a, I did a show yesterday, and I asked the host on the break, I'm like, "Can I say bullshit?" And he's like, "No, unfortunately you can't say bullshit to the FCC." And he's like, "You can say BS." And then he's like, "You can also say bull crap." [laughs] And I'm like, bull crap sounds worse than bullshit. It is. It is much more evocative. It sounds dirtier. I have to say.

22:57 [laughs] It is much dirtier. Um, on, on France, I mean, this is- Yeah... there's a couple of things about, I mean, there's a million things about this. But of course I played a clip on Phil Callen the other day. So I'm, if you listen to that episode or watch that episode, it's a retread of, uh, my version of the mostly peaceful protest, which- Yeah... of course happened on CNN- The meme...

23:17 in front of a roaring fire of a building having been burned down and saying it's mostly peaceful. There was a very funny thing where they ad- and they ha- and they can actually edit this. It's po- It's, it's voiceover, but they don't notice it. And they said, you know, something to the effect of, you know, they really just want these, uh, teachers. They just want more teachers, better teachers.

23:35 They want UNRWA teachers. And by the way, these are people who want zero teachers. Yeah. [laughs] I mean, you can, these are not- Exactly. [laughs] These are not academics you can see out there. [laughs] And in that frame, there was somebody flying a big flag that had Arabic script on it, and the country of Israel with no borders internally, which I presume was the country in their mind of Palestine. Right.

24:00 Yeah. The one state solution, um, the, the double Nakba, um- Right... was to- Mm-hmm... to do it all over again. And that was literally said while they were saying, you know, it's all about the students and about they have to bring their own pencils. Mm-hmm. And look, the thing about this stuff is that there's always some kernel of something there. Mm-hmm. Students in France yearly do these kind of protests. Mm-hmm.

24:21 And there's some times when they're more aggressive than others. The French love protesting, right? Mm-hmm. Yellow Vests or it doesn't make a difference what it is. These banlieue protests, and these are the kind of very impoverished, shall we say, um, the arrondissement outside of Paris. Mm-hmm. Like places like Clichy and places like that, uh, Saint Denis.

24:43 They are not protesting about schools, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. This is always the interesting thing to me, that if you were around for the protests around the Iraq War, it was Any attacks that happen to America is because America was involved- Mm-hmm... because they did this- Yeah... and it's going to be blowback.

25:02 And then I tried to understand why somebody drove a tractor trailer truck down Drottninggatan in the center of Stockholm, close to where I lived. Swedes were wildly anti-Iraq war. Mm-hmm. And why do these protests, you know, happen in France when France makes all the correct noises about Gaza- Right, right... makes all the correct noises about Israel? It's like the problem is much, much bigger. Mm.

25:24 There is a societal problem, and we notice often with terrorism, see this with the 7/7 bombing in London, is that it's not immigrants. It's second generation immigrants. Mm. There's a lot of second generation... I mean, in Germany it's, it's slightly different in 2015 when you have the big migrant crisis. Mm. Many, many people from Syria, many, many people from Afghanistan, and we have a different set of problems.

25:46 But these second and third generation people, whether they're Algerian, whether they're from other places in former French colonies, it has become an enormous social problem- Right... that it is being exploited right now by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far left, uh, candidate. There's going to be an election in April of next year, but who is leading those polls?

26:07 In every poll, I looked, the, the French love polling. There was like 20 polls from the past like two weeks, and Le Pen was 35% on all of them. Wow. Wow. Mélenchon's about 15, but you have the two polls. You have the two... But what do Jews do? Right. This is the question that's pretty interesting in Europe, right? Because Jean-Marie Le Pen was an antisemite. Right. Like just a flat out- That's her father, right?

26:31 Her father, right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And they, he died recently, and I don't believe when he died they had reconciled. Mm. She kind of kicked him out of the party, because this is what so many of these parties do. AFD has done it. Mm. Sweden Democrats have done it. They start in these very dark corners of the, of the political spectrum. I mean, on the, on- Mm-hmm... usually on the far right.

26:52 I mean, there's some hor- horseshoe in this stuff. Um, and you know, Jean-Marie Le Pen very famously said, his very famous quote was, "The Holocaust was a detail-" Yeah... "of World War II." Right. A detail of World War II. And that's what you do, whether it's hate crimes laws, you talk around it. Um, or when you're trying to keep some sort of respectability like Tucker Carlson, which he's rapidly losing. Ugh, God.

27:12 But they're still, still just d- directionally- Yeah... going there, but not exactly saying it. But those fissures in those parties mean that they're now micro kind of more Nazi parties that have been kind of pushed out. So can Jews vote for, um, Front National, what they're now called, um, National Rally? Mm. Um, I, I think that if you polled Jews in France the, the, the, the numbers would be pretty high.

27:36 I haven't looked at it recently. Yeah. Um, but that is the problem. 'Cause our problem when we talk about immigration, it's about sealing the border, right? Right. It's about, you know, working, about well, you know, if they weren't picking the lettuce- Who would? Yeah... the, the... Yeah. Well, but, and then the, the, the, you know, uh, which is by the way not true, but the, um, hourly wage would go up, and then Americans- Right, right... would do it, and teens would do it, whatever. Oh, right.

28:01 That's not the issue. No. They don't talk about work in Europe because everybody's- No... on the fucking dole. Right. But what the issue is is cultural. Right. There is a cultural chasm that separates a class of people, not all of them. I mean, some of the most, I think, effective right of center politicians in Sweden are of an immigrant background. Lots of them are. Right.

28:22 They're people who really don't like this stuff. But there is a huge kind of underclass that is being served, I think, in the popular media and amongst in- intellectuals that this has been done to you. Our colonial past is why your home country is a disaster, and you come here, and the reason your life here is a disaster is because of endemic racism and Islamophobia. Right. And so that is like the wind at their back.

28:50 And you know, you have a, the, the third place political party that I think is stoking a lot of this stuff, and they're, they're playing a very, very dangerous game electorally because in France, and the final point on this, in France if you don't get 50% of the vote, there's a runoff. And so- Yeah, right... the number one party has been for oftentimes is going to be, uh, uh, National Front. I'm just gonna call them National Front. They're National Rally now. Mm-hmm. Right. But they don't...

29:17 They're 35%, 36%, and then the other parties band together to prevent them from forming a government. Right. But now that 16, 17% with the far left, people are not gonna wanna make common cause with them if they're a centrist party of the Macronist variety. Right. Wow. So it's a very interesting, uh, situation, and the thing that we've seen across Europe is those cordon sanitaires around parties have collapsed. Wow. Um, they work with them now. Well, good luck with all that.

29:46 [laughs] Yeah, yeah. And, uh, we'll be right back. [whoosh] Here's a chosen people problem we can actually solve. Finally, because we're not doing antisemitism today. No, I'm over it. Today we're doing money, and specifically how you should be spending yours. [beep] Yeah, a bunch of rich Jews- Listen, rich Jews, give us your money so that we could do this show.

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30:43 You keep independent Jewish media going, and we get to keep doing whatever this is. Join Ark Plus. It's good for the Jews. Is it? I don't know, but it's definitely good for us. [whoosh]Okay, and we're back with Michael Moynihan. I feel crazy when I, like yesterday with, uh, um, Mamdani's statement yesterday. Yeah. I, I was enraged, and I...

31:07 You know, you think, "Okay, I- we already know what he's like. We know where he's coming from," like, but yet I read that statement and I felt my body just, like, shaking, right? Or I think about El-Sayed, and I, and I think, "Am I just an Islamophobic?" Like, am I, do I hate Muslims? But I don't, but I look at Europe and I think to myself, "Why aren't we learning the lessons from what we're seeing happening?" I mean, my husband's from England. Go look at what England looks like.

31:29 I think 16, I could be wrong about this, but I think, like, 16 cities in England have Muslim mayors, including London, Birmingham, Leeds- Well, I mean, and the mayor of Birmingham has- I mean, it's, it's-... an almost inde- indecipherable accent. Yeah. But I will, I, I will try to, to make you a, rest a little easier, is that i- the United States has been very good at assimilating, um, all populations, including Muslims.

31:53 Um, I think that's changing, and I think that's changing for a lot of different reasons, and you can see that in Dearborn and the surrounding areas. You can see that in Minneapolis, et cetera. And I just, it... I, I don't care if they're German. I don't like ghettoization, particularly when it means no integration into the wider culture.

32:12 I mean, when people say, "Oh, you wouldn't care if it w- were Germans, actually," it's like, well, the reason I wouldn't actually care is because every German you meet speaks English. Every... It's a very, it's a similar kind of ported on culture. There's churches they can walk into, et cetera. But the thing that I think is, is a positive thing, you can look at the, um, Senate election.

32:33 Now, it's kind of surprising that, um, El-Sayed and some of his people that he's campaigned with, we know who those people are, and some of those people that are within his orbit are disturbing. But what is the thing that we see about El-Sayed is that we have a primary system that allows him to exploit those flanks of the party. He has to run towards the center. You don't see a lot of that.

32:56 I mean, what is, what is the, the far left doing in France? They're running towards the extremists because they have coalition politics, and they can build their coalitions. Where he has to win in the state of Michigan. That's true. He has to seem a little more centrist. He has to seem a little more... He has to... He has said, "Well, you know, I'm not gonna," uh, not...

33:15 I mean, look, it doesn't satisfy me, but the, "Well, you know, I'm not gonna be with Hasan Piker," and all this stuff. So there is a moderating force that just happens in American politics in a general election, and I don't think there's going to be a... You know, I mean, look, you have people in Congress.

33:31 The Senate is why it's really interesting, 'cause it's statewide. You can win DSA elections in the Upper West Side. Right. [laughs] Yeah. 'Cause the primary's the election. Right. There's no general, 'cause there's no Republican and nobody's gonna vote for the Republican anyway. And there's so few people that come out, he's basically gaming the system, but it's totally legal and totally fine.

33:47 But it is... You know, you're winning an election with a, a infinitesimally small number of votes, and you're bringing out the people who are highly ideologically motivated. And they will come out, particularly when they know and they follow the stuff, that the primary is the election. Congress, yeah, we're gonna get a lot of shitty people in Congress.

34:06 I, I still don't worry about the size of it yet, um, because the one thing that I go back to on DSA is that their policies aren't popular, right? I am trying to be very optimistic about the vision of Middle Eastern politics in this, in this country right now. I think that the shift, um, away from Israel, which is obviously much more concentrated amongst the young, but it does fan out amongst a lot of people, uh, the Republican Party, is the people who are on that edge of the party are not gonna win.

34:43 I don't think they can win elections. Really? I, don't you think- And, and, and not the Israel thing, but it's just on a lot of other... But that comes as a package- Right. With others... with the kind of J.D. Vance-type stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, that will lose. I don't like criticizing people, um, for trying to straddle a line, because politics is about not being honest with people, and that's depressing.

35:03 But- But the number of people that come to you and say, "Yeah, I, I gotta do that at this point in the election." DSA believes it. I, I, I go back and forth a lot between trying to figure out how many people are true believers. Yeah. You know, people who love Mamdani and love El-Sayed. How many of them are like, "Yes, we need to..."

35:20 You know, as far, as far as I'm concerned, let's say, with Israel, "Yes, we need to... You know, Israel shouldn't exist," and, uh, whatever, "We need to stop funding for the Iron Dome." And how many are just, like, going along. They're, you know, they see something cool on Instagram. They get a good vibe from somebody, and they're like, "Yeah, I support this guy." And I don't know.

35:37 I'm starting to think... I was talking to a friend of mine who was traveling, uh, in Iceland. Um, he's a, a law enforcement guy, and he met, uh, he met an American, uh, young girl that was traveling alone. She's in her 20s, and they were talking, and they say she said they had a very normal conversation about, like, police, and she was very moderate.

35:56 And then when they got to Israel, she was like, "Oh, I, I don't think that place should exist, and, and neither does anybody I know." So I wonder if some of it is, like, already so much in the water that it's just become like, "Oh, of course. Who doesn't think that, you know, Israel is worse than Hamas?" Well, there's a couple things there.

36:16 I mean, it, generationally, how, how, um, insistent is it going to be in the years to come? I mean, the, the people who were out protesting the Vietnam War, the people that were out saying, "Ho, ho, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh is gonna win," um, they're all Republicans now. I mean- Right. [laughs] It's true.

36:34 The... You know, Mike Love from the Beach Boys wrote this song on the very weird album called Surf's Up called Student Demonstration Time. It's one of the worst B- Beach Boys songs, and it's about Kent State, and it's about all rah-rah the students and going out there for, to end the war. And if you Google him now, he has, he literally has a MAGA hat.

36:52 He's, like, friends with Trump. Oh, my God. Who's gonna be like that in 30 years? Like, Miss Rachel- [laughs]... is gonna be- No... like, joining Chabad. No, she- No? [laughs] She'll be joining Hamas. Yeah. [laughs] That's what she'll be joining. Exactly. [laughs] Um, and then who knows what happens then. Exactly. But no, I think that there's a lot of, I mean, young people particularly. Yeah.

37:08 Like I saw a post the other day, somebody I knew. Um, 'cause I, I, I'm, I don't use Facebook. I don't, I don't know what it's for. But they're- [laughs] They have Facebook Marketplace. Marketplace, yeah. Yeah. I buy like, like old furniture and, and cars. And also remembering when people's birthdays are. Yes. Yeah, that's also very helpful. It is. Yeah. It is.

37:25 But it's also, uh, realizing which friends of yours from the past are completely brain dead. I know. Yes. And there was somebody who was like, this long post about, this is literally two days ago, about the genocide and blah, blah, blah. And somebody, it was like, "Oh, why equivalent the genocide but this is the people that died?" And somebody responded and said, "No, the genocide means a particular thing, so if it doesn't qualify, then how about we not call it that?"

37:50 And the person, again, who I know, responded and said, "Okay, fine. Let's just call it mass murder." [laughs] And it's like, okay, so if you are the type of person, and you can be anti-war, you can say the, the Israelis did this wrong or that wrong, or they did everything right, doesn't make a difference, is that if you cannot disaggregate in a war situation m- everything, everything is mass murder.

38:14 You can't talk to these people. I mean, we used to have conversations. I mean, you know the conversations literally within the RAF general staff when Bomber Harris, uh, decided that we need to terrorize the German people and bomb their cities, and that included the firebombing of Hamburg in 1943, which killed 45,000 people, uh, the bombing of Dresden, which killed anywhere from 35 to 50,000 people, not what David Irving says, 100,000.

38:38 But the, you're doing that in two days, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Two bombing runs. But they had those conversations, and they had, they said, "What... Let's, let's think about civilian casualties." But there was that demarcation, and I realize now that we're just having different conversations. Mm-hmm. That there is no demarcation for, um, fighters, for...

38:56 'Cause it, it's, again, never disaggregated who's a fighter, who's not. Right. We're literally trying to fight the battle in saying, you know, you're talking about journalists, and here's a picture of every one of these journalists with, you know, wearing a Hamas uniform- Mm... 'cause they're in the Al-Qassam- [laughs] Right... Rocket Brigade. They have- Like, I mean- They run the Hamas podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but they also do the sports page. Right. [laughs] So. [laughs] Right. Right.

39:18 They do the box scores- Which is also about terrorism. Yeah... for the Cubs game. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Um, uh, they love baseball. Not a ton of Jews. Gabe Kapler's great, though. [laughs] Um, but, but, uh, but yeah, that, that kind of stuff is like these conversations are very difficult to have with people. But it is, these things are the flavor of the month. I mean- Yeah... Iraq went away. Yeah.

39:38 No one cares about that now. Yeah. No one looks at Iraq and says, "What is happening? Is it democratic? Do they have elections? Does Muqtada al-Sadr still control Sadr City and still run Shia militias?" No one knows. No one knows. No one knows. Yeah, but you ask them what they think about the war in Iraq, and they'll... You know, it, it's an easy kind of one-word answer for them, right? Yeah, yeah.

39:59 They're like, "Oh, I remember it's bad." So I'm wondering how much of this, let's say everything ends tomorrow, ends well, [laughs] hopefully. Yeah. You know, like you never hear about Israel, Gaza again. We're on to, you know... I'm very excited that we're on to AI now as being- Yes... the evil thing. [laughs] 'Cause I think that- Yeah... that takes some of the, some of the shade from us.

40:14 But, but like 10 years from now, you're gonna ask people like, "Oh, remember that?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, of course. Genocide and apartheid and colonialism." Yeah. Well, there, there's a really interesting guy named Lucas Gage. Are you familiar with who he is? Yes. Yes. I was on with him. So I interviewed him, I interviewed him yesterday for my other show. Oh, wow. And, yeah.

40:31 And it was really interesting to a- 'cause he explained to me how he believed everything was a conspir- like he believed in every conspiracy theory basically, right? And at the center of it was the Jews. And what happened to him is basically, not to give away the whole plot, because you should definitely follow him and read his Substack, but what happened to him is he watched the Charlie Kirk conspiracy theory happen in real time.

40:55 Yeah. He watched- Mm... it unfold in real life, and he said, "Oh my God, what else that I believe is happening?" Like, like what else was created in this way. Yeah. And so he started asking questions about everything, including the Iraq War, which he was a f- he fought in the Iraq. He was a Marine. Yeah. And he thought it was the worst thing that ever happened.

41:14 He was embarrassed that he had served. He was embarrassed. And he has now un, like unwoven basically this mess of everything that he believed. And so I wonder if maybe things like the Charlie Kirk assassination, which people are watching happen in real time, will help people think about things in a different way. I don't know.

41:32 That's really fascinating because there's a, a couple of things. And like this is, um, to, to, to get kind of briefly back to the kind of cancellation idea. You know, if it's really bad, I don't really give a shit. But if, when, you know, people are like, "Swarm this person's- Yeah... employer and get them fired," and everything, that tends to really kind of martyrize people- Yes...

41:51 in their own heads, uh, which is the appropriate word for the side that they're on too. Yeah. Is that they become the Shahid of, uh, the insurance company they got fired from. No- But you know-... like the guy who said, "Long live Yahya Sinwar," on the, on the Park Slope Coop message board. [laughs] Yeah, I mean, that's, that- I can't believe the words I'm, that are coming out of my mouth.

42:07 No, but when I saw that, I was like, how is that a news story? Yeah. Of course. Right. Right. Of course that happened. Right. [laughs] I would be, I would be surprised if it didn't happen. But the thing that I find interesting is there are people, particularly now, that are consuming stuff in the internet way, right?

42:23 If you go to college and you sit down and you go to these, you know, groups, they have these, you know, y- you know, Students for Justice in Palestine. They give you reading material. You go, your, your professors and you're reading these books, and the other smart guys, the professors, not the dumb ones you had in high school- Yeah...

42:37 who taught you all the lies, you know, and you're reading all this stuff- Mm-hmm... and you say, "Well, this is the way the world is, and I have the secret knowledge." That's a, it's a, like- Mm. Mm... internet conspiracy stuff I take slightly differently, and the reason is, is that it, it's such a passive way of doing it. You get it by flipping through TikTok.

42:55 It's like the images of people covered in soot after a building has been hit in Gaza, right? Mm-hmm. And, and if you don't-... look at that and say, "Oh, shit." Mm. I mean, everyone does. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Th- th- like, th- there's a lot of humanity in a lot of people. Right. It doesn't matter if they think the war is justified or not, they're just gonna look and be like, "Oh, that's a jarring, arresting image." I don't...

43:15 Like, it... Even, even in the sense of like, you know, the October 7th, uh, footage, I didn't wanna go see it. Mm-hmm. Because it's a... I mean, it's a lot. Would I have come out of that even more galvanized? Probably not. I mean, it's very hard for me to be more [laughs] You really can't be more geared. No, I can't be. You're like Ben, you're a Irish Catholic Ben Gvir. Y- yeah, no. [laughs] I, I know.

43:34 It's like I, you know, every- The Ben Gvir of Boston. [laughs] That is- [sighs]... kind of what, what happened, so. [laughs] So, but I... What I... I always think of individuals, saving them one at a time. Mm-hmm. Lucas Gage is an interesting one. Yeah. Your natural inclination is to be like, "This guy's bullshitting. It's his next grift." Right, right. Mm-hmm. Do think that always. Yeah. Because you need to.

43:54 You need to think that. Yeah. And then you judge, and you say, "Well, maybe, I think he's probably honest about this." But there's a story that I've told a few times, which is largely unknown, and there was a guy in a terrorist group that was very close to Carlos the Jackal. I think I might have talked about this on the show that I did with Joby Warrick from The Washington Post, who wrote a great, great book, by the way- Mm... about Carlos the Jackal. It's like this is- Oh, yeah...

44:17 it's so good. It's like a s- I, I like that interview... a TikTok of- Mm... what '70s terrorism was all about- Mm... and how insane it was. Um, but he doesn't really talk about this in the, in the, in the book, but I think I might have mentioned it in the interview, is there was a guy named Hans-Joachim Klein, who was a German half-Jew, not college educated.

44:38 He worked in a, um, auto shop, I think, and he was w- uh, uh, he was brought into this organization, um, in the l- late '60s, early '70s, and he became this activist, and he went really, really far, where he was at the OPEC raid, um, where people were killed, Carlos the Jackal, the PFLP, for the Palestinian cause.

44:57 And this happened to a couple of different people, is that one was in Entebbe, was when the Germans, not the Palestinians on that plane, separated the Jews. Mm. Right? Muscle memory. We're gonna separate the Jews. Yeah. What is the entire, um, you know, what is the log line of that movement? We are fighting back against what our parents did. West Germany is a Nazi culture. It's infused with former Nazis. That was not entirely untrue.

45:25 There were a bunch that slipped through and got into government. And Hans-Joachim Klein, it was, I think, in Egypt, and one of the ac- activist terrorists said, "Oh, you're from Germany." And he said, "Yeah." And he's like, "Oh, love Hitler. Great, great guy." Big fan. Great, great guy. Big fan. [laughs] And you have this, you know, half-Jewish guy whose parents, I think, escaped to France, and then ended up coming back, and he's like, "What am I a part of?" Mm. Mm. W- wait, what have I... Yeah. Like, it, it, it, it wakes you up. Yeah. Does it happen often?

46:01 Probably not. I wish Jews today in the US would... I wish Jews today in the US would have that same... I mean, no, a lot of them are, but like- I've seen some. I've seen people that have woken up- I-... to how insane the movement has become. I mean, the, the... I, I was... 'Cause a lot of people talk about, you know, Mamdani on October 7th anniversary, and Mamdani's October 7th, uh, 2023 message.

46:20 But, uh, uh, the one that I find the most jarring is actually the one that the DSA, New York DSA, put out on October 7th. So there, there are still terrorists in Israel actively- Yes... kidnapping people. Yeah. And they put out a statement, um, and the first line of the statement is something like, "We commit, you know, our steadfast support to Palestine."

46:42 If you're, uh, I don't wanna say a Jew, but if you're a normal person who's, like, not a big fan of violence, like, how do you not get up and leave at that point? Yeah. I, I had one moment where I f- I tried to be, not forgiving, but understanding on that day, in the sense that, okay... 'Cause I, and the parallel to me was on January 6th. Mm. Mm-hmm. I remember Matt being like, "Holy..."

47:05 We were doing a show that night, and he was like, "This is fucking nuts." And I'm like, "Oh, it's probably just a bunch of people protesting, and they're saying- No... they're terrorists, and blah, blah, blah." Mm. And then I was like, "Oh, this is actually bad. They're beating up cops, they're smashing windows, et cetera." Um, that, I was like, for the... I'm, I'm 100%, I was like, that day, I was like, maybe they don't understand. Right. Um, and the thing that- The people who wrote that statement should understand, though... the people who wr- and then I realized very quickly- Yeah... they do understand, 'cause I went to the march, which was named after the operation. Oh, you went to the Times Square thing? Yeah. No, I went to, I went to the one a couple days later. Um- Oh... The Flood Brooklyn, uh- The Flood, yeah... march.

47:44 And I stopped these two guys who were older, you know, 68 or kind of w- w- like, you know, holdovers, and I said, w- when I was... I was kind of interviewing. We had the cameras there and everything. We didn't use it, because it was just too insane. But, um, I said to the guy something like, "You know, when this started on October 7th, when the attacks started on October 7th," and I think Mamdani, somebody said this yesterday, somebody, uh, like a famous person, which is now on repeat.

48:14 It's like Teddy Ruxpin. You pull the thing, and it just talks and says the same fucking things over and over. It said, "It didn't start on October 7th." Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah, yeah. This is what, what we hear, is that they have been ready, and they're always ready. And to think as if they're going to look at the evidence... Same thing with conspiracy theorists.

48:34 They're gonna look at the evidence, and you can convince them. Let's do a counter, you know... Uh, we were endlessly talking about this on the 5th, of like, the Pinocchios didn't work. Right. Two Pinocchios for Donald Trump. Right. Oh, yeah. Nobody cares. No one cares. Nobody cares. They, they have the view, and the view is the media's lying to them. You're the media. You're lying to them.

48:53 It's taken care of in the definition. Yeah. What is the same thing about Israel? It's an expansionist, um, genocidal, um- Yeah... cultish state. White supremacist. White supremacist, colonialist state. What would you expect? So to have a debate... is to presume that you're on terms, I mean, debates are about- Mm-hmm... moving people's opinions, right?

49:18 This is why you have these public debates, and people vote before, and they vote after, and the presumption is people will change their minds. These are people that have no interest in changing their minds. They're not looking at the data, looking at a document or something that you give them and saying, "Huh, maybe I should reassess this." What they do is look for the counterargument. What is the counter? Yeah.

49:38 Who's making the counter? That's why people like Norman Finkelstein become- Ugh. Why do you have to mention his name? Ugh. Uh, but they become heroic because he's... Is he camera ready? He's- No. He looks like a guy shuffling through a parking lot. Which he is. And particularly when you see, like, all the stuff that with his neighbors, all these lawsuits and stuff- He is... he's like a crazy person.

49:57 Such a bad person. I, I- What, doesn't he not have... What's the story- I hate him so much... with him not having a cellphone or something? Oh, he has no phone. [laughs] Yeah. But he asks people for... Is that a thing? Yeah, yeah. That's- Did I hear that from you? Yeah, he, yeah. That he asks- He asks pe-... people to use, yeah. [laughs] Yeah, that's it. Imagine him walking up to you, "I'd like to use your phone." I'd be like, "Go.

50:16 No." [laughs] "Fuck o- fuck off. No." [laughs] I need to call Candace Owens. You cannot. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. No, but here's the thing, so we're, there's another story in the news right now, this Cornell rape story. Yeah. And it's such a good example of how people, and I've seen people say this on Twitter and all over, but, like, it's people are hearing two different versions of the story, right? Yeah.

50:36 Like, if you're in one part of the internet, you hear one side. If you're in another part of the internet, you're hearing a completely different s- narrative. How are we supposed to deal with this in a cul- in a, in a society like ours, where we have to, like, have some common understanding of the facts, and yet we don't even have that? No.

50:55 I mean, the, the, the question that you first have to ask, and this is a question nobody does, is that can they both be true, right? Right. Ugh. So if people are getting two sets of facts- Yeah... they're, the facts are the facts, right? Yeah. But that presumes a completeness, that we're getting all the facts. You can present facts. Yeah. I mean, that's what lawyers do. They don't present all the facts. Yeah.

51:14 They present the facts that help them. Right. And they're kind of directionally true in some way. So are they true? I haven't followed this case, uh, that closely, but enough to talk about. I've been reading about it, and I was kind of blown away by, by the New York Times story about it, which was, like, you know, and the fact that Letitia James is like, "I'm-" I mean- "... we're gonna fire the DA."

51:36 It's like this is, the fix is in, right? Mm. It's like the, uh, do we learn nothing from Duke? No, we don't learn anything from Duke. It's like, y- you know, Mike Nifong, who was the, the prosecutor there, I think he went to jail. I, like, it was bad, really bad stuff, but we don't learn from this stuff at all. And I think that w- what happens is the university is where these crucibles of ideological indoctrination. Mm. And you know, it, it doesn't mean everybody. I mean, there's a lot of smart k- people who resist that.

52:05 And as a matter of fact, there's a lot of p- smart people that go through that system and actually become the opposite of what they want you to be. Right. I mean, that kind of happened to me. I mean, I was like, "This is ridiculous." Um, it's the weak that they capture. Yeah. But now it has really become a society-wide thing. I have... I can't actually... Well, I can't tell this story.

52:26 I can just, I, I can talk around it and say- Tell it. Tell it... I'll just say people that I know and who are not in this world, um, they think of podcast, and they think maybe Joe Rogan or maybe the Barstool Sports or something. Right. And to see them consume stuff, and this is why I can't resist, watching somebody consume things is one of the most fascinating things in the world. Yeah. Mm. It's hard to do. It's, yeah. But there's certain situations when you can do it. Not spying, but certain situations you can do it.

52:57 People watching them flip through there, and I'm like, "Oh, wow, there's, like, political content there." And they're stopping and- Yeah, it's terrifying... they're stopping. And it's like- Like on the subway sometimes you see it. It's- Yeah... uh, it's crazy. Yeah. I saw, um, there's this homeless guy that, that, that hangs out right by the They/Them coffee shop. Was it Matt Welch?

53:16 [laughs] Wait, did we talk about this? No. No. [laughs] Okay. [laughs] Um- No, we love Matt... and, uh, he has a phone because America's awesome. Yeah. [laughs] You're homeless, and you still have a fucking supercomputer in your hand. Amazing. Like, that's pretty great. [laughs] And, uh, every time I walk by, uh, you know, this won't be the case always, and it's, it's becoming not the case now, but you can, you can hear AI voices. Mm. You can hear they sound that kind of- Yeah, yeah... tinniness and, and, and- Mm-hmm...

53:44 like robotic. And he's, like, watching these AI videos. Oh, yeah. Homeless guy. Mm. Oh, my God. But he'll look up and ask for money. But he's, like, engrossed in these- [laughs]... AI- What are they about? About politics mostly. Oh, my God. Oh, wow. I was, um, I was writing- Yeah, it's crazy. This is crazy.

53:58 I was trying to remember October 7th the other day, and I kind of wrote down all the things that I remember that happened that day. But one of the things that I remembered, but I didn't write, was that I was, I was walking home, and it was, like, maybe in the afternoon, and a homeless guy came up to me.

54:13 And he was like, uh, you know, he was, like, asking for money, and I was like, "Go- you, you should, like, you know, you need to find shelter. There's a war." And he's like, "What?" And I was like, "Yeah, like, 100 people died." It was, like, you know, that, but then it was 100 people. It was a lot of people. And I was like, I looked at him, was like, "How do you... Like, you don't know this?"

54:30 And he looks at me. He says, "Lady, I live on the street." [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Like a bit of a reality check for me. I was like, "Yeah, you should, uh- Yeah... find somewhere, somewhere to play, to be." But you know what I find so, I find it so fascinating how the same people who are yelling and screaming about what happened at Cornell, which by the way is a terrible story.

54:48 I, from A to Z, I think it's a terrible story regardless- Yeah... of how you fall. It's a horrible story to begin with. But the same people yelling and screaming how women are not safe, right, won't yell and scream that in Long Beach, where I live, I cannot go get gas at night- Yeah... because there are so many scary zombie-like people walking around. Mm. And I'm not a fearmonger. I'm not just saying that because I wanna, you know, make a big story out of things.

55:13 I literally cannot go get gas at night for my car because it is too scary. Is that what you tell Baruch? Yes, exactly. [laughs] No, but it's, but, th- you won't hear them yelling and screaming about women's safety then. No one's worried about, you know, how unsafe it is for women to be walking around at night here because there are so many crazy drugged addict people walking around, and it's just, uh, it's infuriating.

55:36 And the medi- the worst part, and that's what, you know, I love talking to you about, is like the worst part is how the media just paints a narrative that is a lie. Yeah. It's just a lie. Yeah. And everyone eats it up. And then what do people remember? People are gonna remember from the Cornell story, and I, I spoke to somebody young who's consuming all of this and some- very intelligent, but at the end of the day they're gonna remember the, the rapist's, uh, punishment was to write essays.

56:00 Yeah. Which is not what happened. Right. I understand two of the men, two of the boys- Mm... men, I don't know what you wanna call them, uh, probably assholes, had to write essays who weren't part of the- Right... whatever the, it was. Mm-hmm. Um, but people like, I feel like people take, uh, same thing with like Israel, Gaza, and everything, people take like some bottom line, there was so much information, and people take like the bottom line that's like interesting and like very sticky, and they remember- You know, it's just that you plant your flag, right? Yeah. Right. You're on one side of the good or you're on the side of the bad. Right. Yeah.

56:28 And unfortunately in the Israel story, that has flipped over time. Um, and that is like, I talk to people who know nothing about this who are very kind of fire breathing about it. They're very angry, and they don't... Do you think they know, you know, uh, m- what n- n- what significance 1948 even has? No. Right. [laughs] No. They don't know anything about this. They say- No, they just follow Buzzfeed...

56:52 they say this, you, I mean you'd, you'd be saying, "Oh, the Six-Day War." And like, "No, it's longer than six days." They're like, "No, this is older." [laughs] This is, this is from 1967. We're gonna go to '67 now. Oh, my God. But that, that is like the kind of thing, like I, you know, it, it, the tribalism of it all prevents interesting conversation. Yeah.

57:10 And unfortunately, what had happened in the past was that, it still happens in some areas, but increasingly now, is that the actual conversation, the actual interesting stuff would happen in academia and happen amongst scholars who were actually looking at this in a kind of bloodless way. But, you know, you can't, I mean, if I were to have a conversation, if I were to tweet this, I don't tweet anymore because I don't like the, the kind of tone of the whole thing, but if I were to tweet this, is this not a story also about pornography?

57:40 Yeah. 100%. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Cornell? Oh, my God. Like, what? What are you talking about? 100%, yeah. Like, are you excusing them? I'm like, no, no, no. Right. Right. When I was in college- Right... pornography was something that was not readily available. People had it, but it was like- Mm... you had to go into a seedy little shop, and you had to pay. Yeah. Not even free, you had to pay for it.

57:57 You had to go to the college library. Yeah. Right. And it hadn't reached the thing where, you know, like the drugs had to get stronger to work, right? Yeah. Everything got a lot more intense. Right. And this is not abnormal to somebody of that age. Do I know that that's true? I don't. Mm. But that should be something that people look into. Right. And that's not my area of expertise. I was thinking about that too. Right.

58:19 Like, why does a 19-year-old think that this is a normal sexual experience to have? It is- 'Cause they watch porn. Yeah. 'Cause they watch porn. Yeah. I mean, there's also, there's a woman, there's, uh, uh, two I think, both British, or one's British, one's Australian, who, you know, m- have, you know, became famous for having sex with, like 2,000 guys in like two days- That's right... or something, whatever that was. Mm-hmm. That's right. I mean, that's, like that, you become famous. Mm-hmm.

58:45 Like famous. Not infamous. Tyler, if this doesn't work out, now we have a, a plan B. [laughs] No, but what, you did 1,000. That was, uh, [laughs] that was, uh... [laughs] You have to top that now. Oh, my God. Beth, you can, Beth you can cut that. I'm sorry. [laughs] Um, it's a family show. I understand. Um- This is not a family show.

59:02 [laughs] I, I, I d- like there's a lot of elements of the story that the media is not covering itself in glory, and I think the reason for it is, is that there are a handful of issues that you don't wanna be on the wrong side of. Right. Just directionally don't wanna be on the wrong side of. Right. This, even if you're like, "Well, there's something a little different about this," you have to do a very long throat clear- Yeah, yeah...

59:25 of like, "All this is bad. Fraternities are bad," whatever it is, whatever the, the- Yeah... kind of layout of things that you have to denounce. Yeah. But like just to look at this in that kind of bloodless way, which is the way they look at rapes on October 7th- Yeah... on October 8th- Yeah, yeah...

59:42 on October 9th, they, um, and throughout the war is like, well, we're just trying to get to the bottom of this. We're not caring about emotion. You guys are getting ca- Mm-hmm. You know. Yeah. And you're gonna have the beheaded babies thing, and it's like if you actually looked at the evidence, I would absolutely respect that as a response. I do. Right.

59:59 Like, like you do have to look at this stuff in a bloodless way. Right, right. And not be emotional about it. There are people that you should be emotional about it, and particularly if it's your country, right? Mm. And they're your friends who have been killed- Mm... and your friends who have been taken hostage.

1:00:11 But in a kind of journalistic way, you can step back from this stuff, and what i- what is it, uh, like you, you, you learn the lesson. Do you know Camille Paglia? Is that her name? Camille? Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So c- like c- you know, she had a, a, a, an interview about the Cornell thing, and like, you know, she brings up a c- a point- She did. She came out of the- She, she spoke about it... cannon, whatever...

1:00:31 she spoke about it, and she's like, "Maybe co-education is a bad idea. Can we have a conversation about it?" Like, if, if girls can't... And I, I'm, I'm not saying this as myself, I'm saying what she said, but she's like, "If girls are so vulnerable, and weak, and can't make good decisions, and can't, you know, maybe we should have a conversation if co-education is even a good idea."

1:00:50 Why do I remember that? 'Cause I grew up obviously in a world where I only went to school with girls my whole life. Yeah. So, you know, of course I, I perked up when I heard her say that. But the point is, is like there, you're so right, there are some really interesting questions that we could be asking, and we can't because- Yeah... that doesn't fit- And look-... the narrative...

1:01:06 Ca- Camille Paglia, yeah, Camille Paglia was doing this, um, late '80s, '90s. She wrote- Who is this person? Sorry. She's an academic. She, she, she wrote two books- She's too interesting... that were, uh, kind of widely popular despite being kind of academic. One called Vamps and Tramps and a o- one called Sexual Persona. And she had the thing, Mo. You had to always have the quality.

1:01:30 If you wanted to talk about George Floyd, you should be Camille or Coleman, if you wanted to have- Right... different kind of views. She's getting- Well, not Camille, because he's not Black. Yeah, yeah. [laughs] That kind of collapses under the weight of his own- That's a, that's an inside joke-... theory... for Fifth Column fans. Yeah, that's an inside joke. [laughs] Um, but, you know, she was a feminist- Yeah...

1:01:49 and a lesbian. Right. She's very butch lesbian. Yeah. She has been living with the same woman for, for many, many years. And the framing of it is, like, e- or if you hate wokeness and you wanna get, uh, a write-up in The New York Times, you can be one of these people on the Marxist left- Mm-hmm... who says, "This is a distraction from class politics," and that's- Right... kind of okay. Mm-hmm.

1:02:12 Um, you know, what happened with Camille was, a Camille pilot was, was the idea that we have been fighting a very long time to stop the infantilization of women- Right... and this is the kind of ne plus ultra of- Mm... infantilization. Mm-hmm. And she, uh, she had this thing a long time ago. I remember her saying that, you know, it's not, it never takes the onus off the aggressor.

1:02:34 And her, I think this was her, when she said, you know, if you go to the worst neighborhood in Philadelphia, where she lives, in a brand-new BMW, and you throw the keys on the hood of the car in front of- Hm... a bunch of dodgy-looking people, and you leave for a couple hours, and you come back, and your car is gone, those people are still criminals. Mm-hmm. Right.

1:02:51 You're not allowed to take somebody's keys and drive off in their car. Right. But what are you doing? Right. Why did you- Yeah... do that? Right. Be responsible and be... And then that was... And again, l- like you said, Hylie, I'm making her argument. Right. No, I... But it's- And she, and she... And then of course the response to that was always, "You're blaming-" Victim blaming... blaming the rape victim.

1:03:10 Yeah. Yeah, victim blaming. Yeah. Which can be that, actually, in that very specific context, to be clear. It actually can be that when you say, "You shouldn't have gone there." You should have done something different, yeah. And you should've done something different. One v- other version of this, by the way, is The Pretenders, uh, one of the totally great, amazing bands of the late '70s and '80s. Chrissie Hynde, the singer, wrote a memoir, um, when she...

1:03:32 And she talks about being sexually assaulted, and it's actually, there's a song on her first album called Tattooed Love Boys, which is about it, and I didn't even realize that until recently. But she talks about, like, they were Hells Angels, and she's like, "I was a fucking, I was a moron for what I'd, what- Yeah... the situation I got myself in." Mm.

1:03:49 And again, it's never, um- Right, it's not to victim blame... letting anyone off the hook. Yeah. Yeah. We've all done stupid things, w- especially- That's what victims say... when we're younger Wait, are The Pretenders- Yeah... the ones with the 500 Miles song? I will walk 500 miles? Is that The Pretenders? No, there's, there's- No... there's, uh, uh, no, that's The Proclaimers.

1:04:07 Oh, The Proclaimers. [laughs] But, but there's, but, uh, who, by the way, have now become... They're, like, two Scottish brothers. Oh. [laughs] And now they've decided that they're never gonna have another hit, 'cause it was, like, 30 years ago. [laughs] And now they... I'm not even joking. Now they're, like, talking about trans stuff online.

1:04:23 Oh, you're kidding. Really? Yeah, so wild. Like, they're like- Oh my God... "Well, I saw this clip." Wow. And they're like, "They're not ladies. They can't go in the room," like... [laughs] "'Cause they've got, like, the Johnsons," like... And it's like, what? Are you the guy from the miles and the- I love that song. Yeah. I just love that song. It's a, it's a great song. It's a good song.

1:04:39 But now, I, I was gonna say, if I was, if, if I had a kid, a, a g- a girl who's going to college, it, y- you know, I feel like we focus so much on, like, trying to find systemic solutions to very, very- Yeah... complicated problems. And even if those boys are all criminals and should sit in jail for the rest of their lives, which I don't know, um, I would still tell my daughter, "If I hear that you went to a kind of party like this and you took drugs-" Mm-hmm...

1:05:04 "I will... You know, you're gonna be in trouble." Yeah. Yeah, you have to do that. And then the other, uh, I always think the other, more interesting, not more interesting, but an interesting question is men and their ability to make good decisions when they're on drugs. Yeah. Exactly. Mm-hmm. And they're drinking too. Yeah. Is that she couldn't consent because... And I know there's a physiological thing that's, that's there. Yeah. But as far as, like, judgment, like- Right... the judgment.

1:05:29 So what you're saying, Michael Moynihan, is nobody should drink or do drugs. [laughs] Excuse me? [laughs] Just to, just wanna confirm for the Instagram clip. I, at first- I just wanna be, I wanna be sure that, that people know that that's not the takeaway. Oh, no. Do what... I'm a libertarian. Do whatever you want. I know. [laughs] Be responsible about it.

1:05:45 But no, but it, it is, it is always the stew, is that why is the, the idea of, of a rape culture, which I don't believe in, and the- there's a campus rape, rape culture. Why is it campuses? Right. Why isn't it insurance companies? Right. Because it's 18-year-olds. Hm. A lot less hot, insurance companies. Exactly. And there's 19-year-olds. Yeah. And they're alcoholics. Exactly.

1:06:08 And they, they're free from home for the first time, and they wanna do crazy stuff. Yeah. And there's no way, in a easy way, to program that. Um, but y- the one thing you will see out of this which really frustrates me is the number of people who see this as an opportunity to make their political pitch on some ideology or some, you know, bill or whatever it is. Mm-hmm.

1:06:32 And it's like, it's a tragedy either way, and I say it's a tragedy because no matter what happened, lots of lives have already been destroyed, you know? Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I just wanna say about the drinking thing, the first time I met Michael was at a bar in Miami. Oh, yeah. At the, at the live show. [laughs] And he, you drank, I mean, at least 10 or 15 drinks.

1:06:52 I, I don't, I wasn't- It's very impressive, Michael... I wasn't counting. Correct. We look up to you. But he was dr- it was so hot. I just remember this. [laughs] It was so hot outside. It was, I was sweating. [laughs] I was trying to act cool. Yes. [laughs] I couldn't drink. I wanna, I wanna say, that's not why I was so thirsty, but yes. [laughs] I know. Yeah. Yeah.

1:07:09 No, but I just remember, I wanted to be cool so badly and drink, and I, like, was sweating. It was humid. And d- I don't know what, how it got to this, but the two of us were yelling in each other's faces about how much we love the Holocaust. Oh, yes. In the h- I remember that. Yeah. It w- [laughs] it w- From different points of view, though, right? Yeah. Like... [laughs] That's great. Yeah.

1:07:26 We were like, "No, I'm, I love the Hol-" Yeah, I was say, I was saying I didn't know if it happened, and you were saying, "I think it did." [laughs] And I was like, "Well, I've been drinking." Oh my gosh. No, I, which, you know, I, I, um, uh, I d- I have a, um- Person in my life, shall I say, who said to me the other day in bed, I was reading, and I had the, I had the, the Kindle so you can...

1:07:47 Looked over and she said, "Another fucking book about the Holocaust?" [laughs] I'm like, "There's a lot to know. There's a lot to figure out why people are, act this way. It's horrible." Oh my God. Yeah. But yeah. You, you and my mom are like, we always joke with my mom that she won't see a movie unless somebody's dying or it's about the Holocaust. Yeah.

1:08:04 Well, we should have a film festival where it's just me and your mom, [laughs] to be honest. [laughs] 'Cause I have some really deep cuts that are very good films about the Holocaust. Yeah. Um, like smart, interesting films about the Holocaust. Um, not only do I have to go, guys, but I, um, was worried about time, so I set up very quickly, and I have 3% on my battery, and I don't want anyone to think that I just disappear- Oh, no, no, don't worry.

1:08:26 Don't worry... because I'm rude. But, uh- Don't worry... but I just want to say I, I, um, don't care about the rebrand. I pretended to care about the name change. As long as Yael and Haille are doing a show, I'm a happy person. Aww. Aww. So very, very good. Thank you so much, Michael. I will come back whenever you want. I love talking to you guys so much. Oh, thank you.

1:08:47 You're smart, you're funny, and there's not e- there's not enough of that, so- Oh. Aww. Well, thank you. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. We love you. Appreciate it. And we'll see you soon. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye. All right, Michael, thank you so much. Uh, you can leave now. Thank you, guys. Uh, you're, you're dismissed. Everybody else, stay for another minute. [upbeat music] Can I say something mean?

1:09:10 Have you seen what John Cusack looks like lately? [sighs] It is, it, it's, Hashem, Hashem works in mysterious ways, let me tell you. I just, it, it... He looks horrific. I mean, he looks like a f- 60-year-old woman. Lady. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I heard somebody, somebody said on Twitter, I don't remember who, somebody was like, "This is what happens when you piss off all your Jewish plastic surgeons."

1:09:33 [laughs] Because his opinions and, and tweets and whatever are- No, he's-... so vile... oh, God. I know And, like, why... You, you know you have the option to not say anything. Right. That's what I want to tell these people. Y- y- you realize you're not, like, a head of state. Like, you can totally sit this one out and just, you know, let us- Yeah... enjoy your terrible acting instead.

1:09:55 Well, it's, he's an interesting case because I think I used to like him, you know? Like, I enjoyed, I loved some of his movies. Now when he comes up on anything, like, uh, you know, what was that movie with the... Isn't he the guy in Say Anything with that- Oh. I think he's in Say Anything, right? I think I get him confused- He's annoying... with McDreamy, um, from- No. How dare you...

1:10:15 No, but they were both, like, '90s heartthrobs. No. How dare you. Yeah. He, he- Don't-... definitely loves Israel secretly, right? Patrick Dempsey? Ugh. Yeah. I know. One of my sons is watching Grey's Anatomy right now. [laughs] Really? And it's, it's making me really proud. Is it the one who wants to go to med school? No. Oh. Are you kidding? He made fun of it. He's like, "That's not a real medical show." But anyway.

1:10:36 Well, we had, we had an, an episode with a woman who was a producer on Grey's Anatomy- Yeah, that's true... that people should go listen to. That was really fun, but it will make you not want to watch the show. [laughs] But I, I thi- I'm gonna say about John Cusack that when you go full anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, you get ugly, so everybody- Yeah... should just be aware. It's not good for your skin. It's not good for your skin.

1:10:55 All that hatred and all that stupidity is just really not good for your skin. And also, I always say about plastic surgery, I have no problem with it. I have, um, you know, I have big plans to, w- as, as I age, to, to look phenomenal. Yeah. And, but you need to know how to get plastic surgery. It's like clothes. I know.

1:11:12 You know, you, not everybody can buy nice clothes. You need to know how. So it just, his judgment there on what kind of work to get done, it... I wouldn't trust anything he says from now on just by visua- my, my visual- Yeah... you know, assessment of him. I, I just, ever since, like, now that we're on video all the time- Mm-hmm...

1:11:29 and I'm looking at my face, like, I have never thought about plastic surgery before in my life- Oh, I'm, yeah... but now I, now I look at my face all day and I'm like, "This line needs to go. That line needs to go." Yeah. But I'm gonna keep John Cusack's picture in front of me so that I remember- Yeah...

1:11:43 that there's- Well, I went to Sephora and I told the, the person working there, I'm like, "Listen, I'm starting to do a lot of video now, so, you know, what can you recommend?" And he just, he could have put anything in my basket. Yeah, I- He could have put, like, an $800 lip gloss in there, and I was like, "Yes. Sold, sold." [laughs] So now before we do these recordings, I spent, like, 90 minutes putting, like, I have, like, two inches of, of creams on my face. [laughs] And I look exactly the same. I- I'm pretty sure I look exactly the same. You look gorgeous. You look gorgeous. I mean, I look...

1:12:14 Do you know how much serum it takes to, to keep this whole thing- Stunning... going? It's, you look stunning. It's just serum, and I, I, I was like, "Wait, but is it, if I take this serum, why do I also need this serum?" Yeah. And he's like, "No, because that serum acts as a barrier to the other s-" I'm like, "Okay, fine. I'm convinced. Give me, give me more of it." Well, John Cusack, you're ugly. That's the end. You're ugly.

1:12:33 And, and also, a- I just wanna, I just wanna make sure, this is not just about your physical appearance. You're also, inside, you're also ugly. Right. So, you know, I just, I don't want people to think that we're being, like, unfair here to just his looks. [laughs] Okay. This episode was free because, um, we're good people and we promised you it would be free, and we want our content to be free, but there is more of us.

1:12:56 So if you want us to answer your questions, uh, and we'll answer them in our subscriber only AMA- The group chat... the group chat- We're calling it the group chat... the group chat- Yes... or something, something or other. Maybe you can even help us name the segment. Uh, but if you want to send us your questions, uh, go to the link in the show notes. Uh, send us anything you want, really.

1:13:13 There's no such thing as a dumb question. Just subscribe to get those- Yeah... episodes. Duh. So. [laughs] So sign up for Arc Plus and we will see you there. [upbeat music] Here's a Chosen People problem we can actually solve. Finally, because we're not doing anti-Semitism today. No, I'm over it. Today, we're doing money, and specifically, how you should be spending yours. How you should be spending your money on us. Join Arc Plus.

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