Juston McKinney Commandeers a Snowmobile + Brad Meltzer on the Two Types of Presidential Assassins

Summary

Adam Carolla Show – Episode Summary: Justin McKinney & Brad Meltzer on Fires, Politics, and JFK Conspiracies

Release Date: January 16, 2025

The latest episode of The Adam Carolla Show, the world's #1 daily downloaded podcast, brings together comedian and former police officer Justin McKinney and bestselling author Brad Meltzer. Hosted by Adam Carolla and produced by PodcastOne / Carolla Digital, this episode delves into personal struggles, political commentary, and historical conspiracies, all interwoven with Adam’s signature humor and candidness.

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I. Welcome and Guest Introductions

[00:00] Adam Carolla:
Adam kicks off the episode by introducing Justin McKinney, highlighting his rise as a comedian with over a million YouTube views, and Brad Meltzer, a renowned author known for his works on JFK conspiracies.

[03:24] Justin McKinney:
Justin shares his recent TED Talk titled "A Comedian's Guide to Surviving a Dysfunctional Childhood," recounting personal hardships, including the loss of his mother to a brain aneurysm and his father's decade-long struggle with alcoholism and homelessness.

Notable Quote:
Justin McKinney:
"It was a little crazy how big a part that was."
[09:43]

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II. Justin McKinney’s Transition from Law Enforcement to Comedy

Justin discusses his seven-year tenure as a deputy sheriff in rural Maine’s York County, describing the challenges of working in a severely underfunded department. He humorously recalls handling everything from domestic disputes to burglaries with minimal resources, even resorting to using his personal fridge to store evidence.

Notable Quote:
Justin McKinney:
"I had blood evidence in my fridge at my place. If I was in your apartment, it was in a trailer park."
[06:20]

Adam contrasts this with his own experiences, joking about navigating quarantine protocols and humorous encounters with law enforcement while sharing stories about modern-day electric bikes evading police detection.

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III. California Fires and Political Commentary

A significant portion of the conversation centers on recent wildfires in California and the controversial statements made by a California congresswoman regarding the Altadena community. Adam critiques the congresswoman’s insinuations that the fires were a deliberate act against a historically black community, emphasizing the irrationality and divisiveness of such claims.

[12:10] Adam Carolla:
"You can't just create DNA that's not."

[53:59] Adam Carolla:
"It's crazy, but it's super destructive. Because now you're gonna go chase, run down some rabbit hole trying to find something that never happened, and you put it out there."

[54:09] Joe:
"It's like 19% is higher than Malibu. Is that what she sees?"

Adam vehemently debunks the congresswoman’s claims, asserting that power shutdowns during fires are standard safety protocols and not racially motivated actions. The discussion highlights the dangerous implications of politicizing natural disasters and fostering racial tensions.

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IV. Security, Assassinations, and Conspiracy Theories with Brad Meltzer

Brad Meltzer, an expert on historical conspiracies, joins the dialogue to explore parallels between past and present threats to national security. He references World War II strategies, the evolving nature of terrorist tactics, and the limitations of reactive security measures like those employed during JFK’s time.

[95:08] Brad Meltzer:
"The one thing JFK does to calm things down is he unleashes hope again."

Meltzer emphasizes the need for proactive and innovative security strategies to counter modern threats, noting that traditional defensive measures often lag behind the evolving tactics of adversaries. He also touches upon the resurgence of conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s assassination, attributing them to societal fears and distrust in governmental institutions.

Notable Quote:
Brad Meltzer:
"If you look through history, history from the four men who successfully assassinated a president, from Abraham Lincoln to JFK, all four of them are hunters."
[116:49]

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V. Brad Meltzer’s Commencement Speech and Upcoming Works

Meltzer shares anecdotes from his recent commencement address at the University of Michigan, where he delivered a speech on "making magic." He explains how this theme ties into his upcoming book, highlighting the human aspects of historical figures and the importance of balanced narratives.

[99:14] Brad Meltzer:
"What makes a home is more than just a house or property. It's the location, it's the neighborhood."

He elaborates on his upcoming books, including a sequel to "The Lightning Rod" and a children’s series inspired by astronaut Sally Ride, underscoring his commitment to making history accessible and engaging.

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VI. Reflections on Political Division and Hope

Adam and Brad reflect on the persistent political and racial divisions within America, drawing parallels between historical and contemporary issues. They discuss how public sentiment and media narratives shape perceptions of leaders and events, often leading to misinformation and heightened tensions.

[110:37] Adam Carolla:
"It's such a fickle fate where... we just want it just for recollection."

[115:16] Brad Meltzer:
"It's a perfect thing to talk about JFK. The one thing JFK does, you know, we can talk about how Camelot is not real, and we could talk about the flaws. We could talk about the great things."

They argue for the importance of unity, pragmatic solutions, and fostering hope to overcome the societal challenges exacerbated by divisive politics and misinformation.

---

VII. Conclusion and Show Highlights

The episode wraps up with Adam promoting Justin McKinney’s upcoming stand-up shows and Brad Meltzer’s new book release. Justin shares his website for tour dates, and Adam expresses gratitude to his guests for their insightful contributions.

[135:02] Adam Carolla:
"Justin, thank you guys for swinging by. We'll talk to author Brad Meltzer right after."

---

Notable Moments and Highlights

• Justin’s Arrest Story with Police:
  Justin recounts a humorous yet tense incident where he and a fellow former cop were mistakenly perceived as genuine officers during a ride-along, leading to an unexpected police confrontation.
  [70:25]

• Brad’s Insights on JFK’s Legacy:
  Brad delves deep into how Jackie Kennedy crafted the "Camelot" narrative to preserve JFK's legacy, emphasizing the power of storytelling in shaping historical perception.
  [127:22]

---

Conclusion

This episode of The Adam Carolla Show offers a compelling mix of personal narratives, sharp political critique, and deep historical analysis. Justin McKinney’s journey from law enforcement to comedy provides a unique perspective on resilience and transformation, while Brad Meltzer’s expertise enriches the conversation with thoughtful insights into political conspiracies and national security. Hosted by Adam Carolla’s engaging and humorous style, this episode is a must-listen for fans seeking a blend of entertainment and intellectual discourse.

For more insights and live show dates, visit Justin McKinney’s Website.

Note: All timestamps correspond to the provided transcript and indicate the approximate point of referenced discussions.

Transcript

[Adam Carolla]

In this episode, very funny comedian Justin McKinney comes in. Inspirational story, lots of great stuff. Brad Meltzer, Author, New York Times Best Selling Author, Times 25 Wrote a really interesting book on JFK and a plot against this life that you've never heard of. Anyway, always a great conversation. Mayhem's bringing the news and we'll do all that right after this.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Don't miss Adam Carolla live in Solana beach on January 19th. Two shows at 6, 30 and 9 in Covina, California at the Laugh Factory at 7:30pm on January 22nd and in Florida, Boca Raton January 30th and Naples on the 31st and February 1st. Tickets for all shows are [e-mail] so get yours now and we'll see you at the club.

[Adam Carolla]

Hey fans of freedom and open discussion. I'm heading over to Substack and there's an ad audio and video version of the Adam Carolla show that's going to be waiting there in the near future. You'll even be able to watch ACS Live unedited as we record it. Participate in the show via live chat. That'll be coming up very soon. You also get an ad free version of The Adam Corland Dr. Drew Show. You also get an exclusive to my new podcast, Beat it out where I share unpolished ideas with my comedian buddies. The first series of episodes is going to be Jay Moore. You'll get all this and more for the low, low price of nine bucks a month. A pittance for all we're going to bring you. Subscribe [e-mail] substack and I'll see all of you in our new speakeasy called Substitute.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

From Corolla One Studios in Glendale, California. This is the Adam Carolla Show. Adam's guest today, comedian Justin McKinney and author Brad Meltzer. Plus the news and trending topics with Jason Mayhem Miller. And now, putting the jock in jocular Adam Carolla.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, get it on. Got to get on that church with commendation. Get it on. Justin McKinney's here. Very funny stand up comedian. It's a very funny stand up special. Over a million views on YouTube. So that's a lot of traction on YouTube. Yeah, check them.

[Justin McKinney]

Way to go baby.

[Adam Carolla]

On the bright side. And it's a very funny stamp special if you want to check that out. Also dates coming up, playing theaters all over the place. City Theater in Bedford, Maine and Marilyn Rodman Performing Arts Center, Foxborough, Mass. Vogel at Count Basie center for the Arts in Red bank and then off the hook. Where I'll be coming up Naples. Always a fun place. And good eating over there. That's coming up March 12th and the 13th. I'll be there January 31st and then the 1st of Feb. Good to see you, Justin.

[Brad Meltzer]

Good to see you.

[Joe]

Thanks for having me.

[Adam Carolla]

My pleasure. So much to get into today. Now, I know you gave a TED Talk recently. How does that come about?

[Joe]

They actually reached out to me and kind of knew my story and said, I bet you have a TED Talk in you. So they asked how I felt about doing it, and I didn't really want to do it, to be honest. It's, you know, a little personal, dysfunctional family thing, and I kind of sometimes don't want to go there. Didn't want to go there. So I was kind of hesitant up to about two weeks before doing it. I said, I'm not feeling it. And then I just said, you know what? I'm just going to make it happen. And I just barreled through and did it. I'm glad I did it now that it's over.

[Adam Carolla]

I would say that's a reoccurring theme in most people's lives, where they go, I'm glad I did it now that it's over. And it's funny. It's funny. I read a. I don't know why, but every time I turn on Twitter, there's this, like, I have no. I don't follow anybody intentionally, but I somehow hook in to certain feeds, and there's a feed that's, like, true facts, and it just has a little blurb, you know, grizzly bear. Male grizzly bears way less than their female counterparts. And you just go like, okay, so I have said a million times when people go, why did you do. Fill in the blank. Why did you do Dancing with the Stars? I go, because it's scared. It sounds scary to me. And they go, well, you did this professional Trans Am race. Like, why'd you do that? I go, because it sounded scary. It sounded scary. So I said, I'll do it. And then the one I saw yesterday, it said, people who do things that scare them are happier.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

And I was like, oh, yeah. Because it's the opposite of, like, my family who did nothing that scared them ever, but they never lived.

[Joe]

Yeah. It was challenging, and it was a challenge, and it was something I didn't kind of want to do. So I think you're right about that. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

So you were a cop for a while, right?

[Joe]

I was.

[Adam Carolla]

Seven years.

[Joe]

Seven years, yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

But not like streets of Chicago cop.

[Joe]

I wouldn't call it Chicago at all. It was rural Maine. It was York County Sheriff's Department, deputy Sheriff. It was 14 towns, 500 square miles. There are only two cops, 500 square miles each had seven towns a piece.

[Justin McKinney]

You're like a game warden.

[Joe]

Warden a little bit. But we handled everything. Domestics, burglaries, we did it all. And it was, you know, it was poor, very poor police department. Like, I was defunded before it was ever a thing. I mean, we were like teachers where we bought our own supplies. Like, I mean, we're talking in the 90s. So, like I had buy my own camera, like, I used my own camera, like on the crime scene and stuff like that, you know, and, you know, we didn't have an evidence locker. Like, Like I had like blood evidence, like in my fridge at my place. Like, really? Yeah, like. And I could remember after the chain of custody, I could remember when the OJ thing happened. And they're talking about, you know, what temperature was the blood kept at and all this stuff. And I'm like, my blood's in the fridge. I'm like, if I was in your apartment, it was in a trailer park at the time.

[Adam Carolla]

In a trailer park. And I had a mini fridge.

[Joe]

It was a mini fridge. And my roommate at the time was like, what the hell's that? And I told him, he goes, I don't want that in there with my food. And I'm like, we don't have a. I remember saying to the chief, I'm like, where do I put this? He goes, you got a fridge at home, right? And I go, yeah, I guess so.

[Justin McKinney]

You got OJ's glove next to your Coors light.

[Joe]

I mean, that's where it all would have gone, everything. But if I was on the stand, I'd be like, yeah. What temperature setting? 4. I mean, I don't know what. I mean, I don't know what temperature the blood was at.

[Adam Carolla]

What's a hungry man normally?

[Joe]

Well, that's a Fraser, I think.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, you're right.

[Joe]

Definitely don't want to freeze it. If they found out I froze it, they'd be like, you froze it?

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I don't know if it, you know, most things last longer in a frozen state than they do.

[Justin McKinney]

You think, you know, you think, but it's certain. But water crystallizes when it freezes. That pushes out and then therefore taints.

[Adam Carolla]

The evidence, I guess. But you can't create DNA that's not.

[Justin McKinney]

There, but you can damage DNA. Until it's like, you can't.

[Adam Carolla]

Let me ask Joe. Joe, what is the proper temperature to store blood? Asking for a friend. So what did you come across? Did you come across any good? Like, small town murder stuff? Like anything good in graphics?

[Joe]

The only murder, believe it or not, seven years. The only murder happened when I was on duty at the exact same time that I had solved 83 burglaries. Okay.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow.

[Joe]

This guy broke into 83 camps. Okay. And he went to jail. Did, I don't know, six months, nine months. Got out of jail. I see him in the waiting room.

[Adam Carolla]

Waiting camps. You say camps?

[Joe]

Yeah, in lakes. Yep, camps on the lakes. And I see him in the waiting room. I'm like, hey, Richard, what's up? He's like. He's like, oh. He's like, you know, not much. I go, how you doing?

[Adam Carolla]

You know?

[Joe]

He goes, oh, I'm turning my life around. You know, all this. I'm like, oh, that's good to hear, man. You know? So I go up and I'm having dinner with the other deputy. And then all of a sudden we get a call. There's a guy on the roof of the jail with a blowtorch trying to break into the jail. It was him. He was trying to break his friend out. And at the same time I was going to that call, we had a stabbing in the town. The murder. So I didn't go to the murder. I went to the jail break. And we got this guy Richard, who's turned his life around. I go, you're breaking your friend out of the jail.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow.

[Joe]

Yeah, but that was the only murder.

[Justin McKinney]

When I need more people's life around. That's what he was trying to do, you know?

[Joe]

And I was sincere. I'm like, oh, good for you, man. You know? And he just lied right to my face. Who would think that he would lie right to my face?

[Justin McKinney]

A dude with criminal burglaries, bro.

[Adam Carolla]

83. 83.

[Justin McKinney]

83, 83, 34.

[Adam Carolla]

Then you would be the biggest case I ever solved. Storing blood. The optimal temperature is 33 to 42. So we. I don't know when the freezer.

[Justin McKinney]

32.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, that is freezing. But when does the, like. Where is your freezer at? When do you go from the fridge to the freezer?

[Joe]

Well, Freezer's gotta be 32. So it's like right there. It's.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't know. I'm gonna give myself half correct on that. I don't know. All right, so then from seven years of that to stand up comedy which is quite a transition. And the TED Talk is that. Obviously, that's part of the discussion, but that's not what you alluded to at the top. At the top of the show, you were kind of talking about going back and reliving some personal.

[Joe]

So it was A comedian's Guide to Surviving a Dysfunctional Childhood is what I titled the TED Talk. So when I was six years old, my mom passed away, and then my aunt, my mom's sister moved in, ended up with my dad in a relationship. And then my dad was an alcoholic and was homeless for a decade. Like, was on the front page of the paper. Homelessness still grows. It shows my dad. It was like. It was. So we thought he was gonna die on the streets. My dad got sober. He's been sober 18 years. Wow. So it's a happy ending. So it's just this ride.

[Adam Carolla]

How old were you when your dad hit the streets?

[Joe]

I was out of high school. So when I was a cop, when I was a dad, first of all, my dad hated the police. Like, they would come over to the house, like, the dog would be loose, running in the neighbor's yard. I let a cop in one time, and my dad comes down the stairs, sees the uniform, and goes, get the fuck out of the house. Chases him out of the house. And it's like, I remember seeing that because I love Chips. I've watched the show Chips, and I was always like, you know, the cops are here to help. And my dad just didn't, you know, didn't see it that way. So when I. That's why I became a cop. I think as young as I was, was because I looked at everybody like they were my dad. They didn't like the police. And I tried to change their mind. Like, I really was like that community policing. And that's so very passionate about that, being a good cop, you know?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So funny. I was trying to get from here to my condo in Malibu, which I've now been away from for more than a week. And, you know, at a certain point, you want to change clothes and socks and shoes and stuff. You miss stuff that's yours, you know? And I don't really know what the protocol is for getting into your place when the place is under quarantine and people have been evacuated, but there's no immediate danger. But the winds are starting to kick up. And I was unable to get an answer, really, from anybody. But they're anecdotal stories of, like, apparently if you're on an electric bike, you can go Anywhere. That's the new world order. Like you can just go right into the White House, right through the gates, right into the oval office. There's like, cops are like flagging down guys in cars and sus like, turn around. Guy on an electric bike just buzzes. I don't know what that is. Do you know what the electric bike is? It may be the road going version of the tool bags in the toolbox. I have walked into almost any house with tool bags and tools. People just right this way.

[Justin McKinney]

I look at it more like the Navy SEAL thing where they go underwater and is a jet powered turbine. Yeah, the rock.

[Adam Carolla]

The rock, exactly.

[Joe]

But it's not like a bad person can get a bike. It makes no sense. Can't you just rent those anywhere, anytime?

[Justin McKinney]

And while you go by the cops, you hit the bell. Ring, ring, ring, ring.

[Adam Carolla]

You know what it is? There's something, okay. When you're on like a full dressed hog, you look like a biker and you're looking for trouble. The electric bike guy looks innocuous, but for some reason, I swear to God, they're gonna have four cars pulled over waving them around. And a guy in an electric bike could just go right past them and they don't even look up.

[Justin McKinney]

Damn tourists.

[Adam Carolla]

You know what I think it is? The electric bikes, the new ones, they haul pretty good ass. They got knobby tires, they're pretty durable. You can go up on the sidewalk and cut across a lawn and everything. No cop wants to be outrun by a dude on an electric bike. And they know they're about to. Cause I swear to God, you cannot run that guy down if he's got an electric bike. And he can go up the hill and cross the lawn and all that kind of stuff. So they don't want the humiliation of getting shown up by a guy in a bird scooter or an electric bike.

[Justin McKinney]

I've lost the cops a few times.

[Adam Carolla]

Have you?

[Justin McKinney]

Great cardio.

[Adam Carolla]

Great cardio.

[Justin McKinney]

Just sprint the opposite direction that they're driving.

[Joe]

There was a clip I saw a month ago where there was a guy on a scooter that was getting away from a cop. And the copy stole skull stole like this kid's bike. Did you see that green handlebar? Oh no, it's on the Internet. Cops grabs the bike, green handlebars. And he's on the bike. You gotta see it. It's. Yeah, it's.

[Adam Carolla]

Stole the joker's bike.

[Joe]

The bike. And he's. And he's on the. Yeah, yeah. And I think it was. I know it was this past year anyway.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So I'm tick tock. I decide, well, I'm just gonna try to drive in and like, I'll just see what happens. Where do they stop you? What do they tell you? And as I'm driving in, wind's starting to kick up again. I'm down at the canyons, getting to like Malibu area and starting to go through the canyon. Lights are on and off, the traffic lights blinking. Some are just blank. You know, power this and that, and there's nobody around. It's like you're stopping in the intersections, but there's no lights going and there's no traffic, there's no foot traffic, there's no kids going to school. There's nothing. It's what you would expect except for I see on one side of the road there's a Mercedes G wagon with a chick in it and a motorcycle cop riding her a ticket. And it wasn't for going through cones or going through barriers. It was just. She was just speeding. Like, they were like, look, this may be Sodom and Gomorrah in a hellscape, but we still gotta make a quota. And that bitch in that g wagon, that's $130,000 car. She's probably trying to get back to Malibu. She's definitely going to cut this city a check when we write her this ticket for going 49 and a 35. And they still. Motorcycle cop on patrol. Pulling G wagon is the number. Well, actually, the cyber truck replaced the G wagon as the number one form of douchebag transportation. The number one way to move Malibuians used to be the Mercedes G Wagons. That was the number one. Like, oh, oh, that's the number one douche mobile in America. And in Malibu, been bumped off, usurped. Someone's got to tell Elon the cybertruck has bumped the G wagon off.

[Justin McKinney]

Wait, so did you get into Malibu or not? We're on the edge of our.

[Adam Carolla]

No, I stopped at a. I stopped. They put cones all the way. If I had an electric bike, I.

[Justin McKinney]

Would have flown right through the trunk. In the trunk. Razor scooter.

[Adam Carolla]

I stopped where the cones were at the Las Vergines, which is one of the canyons at Mulholland, the beginning of the canyon, it was just. I could have moved a cone and driven, but then I would have got stopped when I got to the bottom where PCH is or Pepperdine is. Oh, we have the cop on the kid's bike. I love that. I haven't even seen that. He's Jumping the fence, foot chase, a body cam, going over the trash can. I miss 80s movies where dogs would bark and chase.

[Justin McKinney]

Right.

[Adam Carolla]

Whoever jumped over scooter, he's on the road.

[Joe]

Oh, there it is. That part there. He grabs the bike.

[Adam Carolla]

Got a BMX bike.

[Joe]

There it is.

[Justin McKinney]

I missed the trope of him yelling, I need to commandeer this bike for the Lone Tree government.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So now he's just down H. Yeah.

[Joe]

Let'S see the scooter.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, the guy, the guy he called in a cruiser. Cruiser got the scooter. Yeah. I miss all. I miss all the 80s and 90s movies where the guy knocked over the guy riding the enduro through town and then jumped on it. It always started with a wheelie. Like, I didn't know you're a professional motocross rider. I just thought you're a Vietnam vet, like, who had some tough times, you know? Like, don't start with a cross up in a wheelie. The guy's. It's not his bike. Like, he doesn't even know what the shift pattern is or if it's a two stroke or how pipey it is. Like, he doesn't know anything about why they would. The stuntman always goes, oh, fuck that. Some camera time.

[Justin McKinney]

Exactly.

[Adam Carolla]

I always start off of the wheeling across up.

[Joe]

Like, come on, it's too much.

[Adam Carolla]

It's too much. You'd be. You'd be tentative at best. When you jumped on someone else's bike, you'd probably stall it. You'd probably go like, oh, yeah, you have to kickstart it. And you'd push off. Like, you. We not start off with a crossed up wheelie.

[Joe]

I. I commandeered a snowmobile one time. You did the only thing I ever had to commandeer.

[Adam Carolla]

Did you flash your tin? Yeah. Yeah.

[Justin McKinney]

So, yeah, you burn out the back. Right?

[Joe]

So what happened?

[Adam Carolla]

Start with a wheelie fishtail?

[Joe]

Well, it didn't start with a wheelie. So what it was was it was an arson case. And it was. People were burning ice shacks on the middle of the lake, Right. So they were out. So I'm on land and I can see them. And by the way, talk about a fire that doesn't spread. I mean. Yeah, I mean, they were lighting each individual one, like eight different ice shacks.

[Adam Carolla]

Trying to collect insurance.

[Joe]

It was. No, just for fun. How do you not get the.

[Justin McKinney]

Burning stuff is fun.

[Joe]

It is fun.

[Adam Carolla]

When you say arson, sometimes I think, like, okay, somebody's trying collect something, but all right. Just for fun.

[Joe]

Criminal mischief. You know what? It's criminal mischief. But it is arson because you're burning someone else's property. And I could see them on in the middle of the lake. And I'm pretty far away. And this snowmobile comes by. And I stopped him. I'm in my uniform, so I'm like, I need that snowmobile. He jumps off and then I go, I don't know how to ride a snowmobile. So he rode and I rode this. I didn't even know how fast those goes. But you talk about not knowing. Like I literally telling the story and I'm not stuff over. But I'm hanging on to him so tight. He literally goes, not so tight, not so tight. And I'm like, you're going like 80 on the ice. Like, I have no helmet on. He's got a helmet on.

[Adam Carolla]

You're yelling freeze and no homo simultaneously.

[Justin McKinney]

You're clenching his nips ever so gently.

[Joe]

And I'm wearing mittens. I got my mittens. I wore mittens.

[Adam Carolla]

It was freezing.

[Joe]

Sorry about that.

[Adam Carolla]

I got. I'm picturing. I'm picturing the fireman walking up on the ice fishing shack that's ablaze. Don't worry about it. We'll let him do it. He'll clean it up.

[Justin McKinney]

Byron's got it.

[Adam Carolla]

He's like standing out front.

[Joe]

Can't drive a snowmobile.

[Adam Carolla]

The ice fishing shacks ablaze. The environment's out there. He's like, I'm going in, Bob. It's like, there's nobody in there. There's four cases of Strohs Tall boys. Now I'm going in. You caught the guys and you charged them with what?

[Joe]

I think it was arson.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Joe]

And they pled down. I think the criminal mischief. It's a couple kids. I can't remember if they were 17 or 18. Right around there. They were young. That's the age, you know, just up doing stupid shit.

[Justin McKinney]

I know. That's why I get the guys in training camp about that age. That's what I want you. Because now you're psycho and you're like unafraid of whatever, too dumb to be afraid yet. So I get them sparring hard, young, and then later it's easy.

[Adam Carolla]

So back to the TED talk. Mom died. What'd your mom die of?

[Joe]

Brain aneurysm.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow. Just all of a sudden.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm gonna suggest sliding that.

[Joe]

No, I was with my kid. This is what we do to my kid, my 14 year old. We have to go. Can you push your glass away? You're gonna knock.

[Adam Carolla]

I'm sorry. He has autism. I'm sorry. No, it's funny. I was watching your right hand as you gesticulated, and I was kind of. I was kind of like, he's gonna. He's gonna get it. He's gonna get it. Yeah. So brain aneurysm just went all of a sudden.

[Joe]

Yeah. She was at the school fair volunteering. I was with her, and it was just collapsed.

[Adam Carolla]

Wow. You were there. Oh, boy. And so she was decent. Cause she was volunteering at the school fair.

[Joe]

She was actually a really good mom. You know, the kind that was involved and make the. You know, make the school fair and all that stuff. Yeah, she was that kind.

[Adam Carolla]

And then dad starts drinking. And at some point, some years later, 12, 13 years later, something like that just hits the streets.

[Joe]

But by that time, he hit the street. But the drinking started, obviously, when I was elementary school, junior high, all that stuff. It was a little crazy.

[Justin McKinney]

What happened? Something triggered this.

[Joe]

Well, I think my mom died. He was left with four kids, and my aunt moves in, my mom's sister. They end up in a relationship. Like, they're together now. Never got married, but they're together. And she drank, too, so there was a lot of drinking. Cops over, you know, calling the cops, him flying out of the house drunk, upset, you know, but. So it was.

[Adam Carolla]

It was a little crazy how big a. For me, I think one of the biggest parts of my childhood was shame and embarrassment. I was very embarrassed of my family. I was always like, you know, it was. Now maybe I have a pre wiring for embarrassment. I'm very sensitive to sort of making a scene and like, no, no, no, I don't like it. I get embarrassed easily. But, like, my sister ran away when I was young, so, you know, had enough dysfunction that she thought that'd be a good idea. And. But she's only a grade above me, so people would come up to me and go, hey, where's your sister? I haven't seen her in the ninth grade. Where is she? And I was like, oh, she's in space camp. But she ran away. And I was really embarrassed to say that. And my mom was like, a mess and welfare and stuff like that. And she physically looked like a mess. And then her house was a mess, the lawn was dirt, and, you know, everything was a mess, you know, and people, you know, made fun of my house, called it the barn and stuff. It was, like across the street from the school. And everything was, like. Everything was. I was brutal.

[Justin McKinney]

You understand him a little more now.

[Adam Carolla]

It was directly across the street from My junior from my grade school, Colfax Elementary. And this is the 70s, you wanted to live in the Brady house, not in the Munster's house. You know, I was a barn.

[Brad Meltzer]

So where people walk.

[Joe]

When you would walk to school, is everyone, like, looking and they see you, like, come out the door?

[Adam Carolla]

I was old school. Like, I would have, you know, Mr. Gallagher, my football coach for Pop Warner, you know, I'd have him pick me up down the street and like, drop me off down the street. Like, I didn't. I just was embarrassed all the time. And like, these people had, like a nice house and a nice car and a nice family, you know, and the. The moms were like, put together. You know, they went to the hair salon and they had their nails done. And my mom was just kind of a mess all the time. And I just remember the feeling of embarrassment and shame, you know, and it wasn't like, you know, a lot of people go, oh, I know you blamed yourself. It's like, no, these were assholes I live with who were fucking lazy. It wasn't. I didn't blame myself, but I was still fucking embarrassed all the time. You know, I would sleep over at everyone else's house and eat all their food, and no one would ever come over to my house. Cause it was always a mess, you know, it was like that.

[Joe]

It's like my. You're hitting all the points in my TED Talk. I actually go in through the lens of embarrassment. I didn't want my friends to know. You don't want your friends to know. And it was like coming up with these rules. We had. One of them was we had no sleepovers, right? Because the one time my cousin had a sleepover, the cops chased my dad into the house, pepper sprayed him. And all my cousin's friends got hit with Mace. Like, and that was the last sleepover. But it was all that you don't want your friends to know. And that's where I go through it. It's like one of the stories in the TED Talk is about my dad got mad at the bank cause they didn't give him a loan. And he went down in broad daylight in his underwear and threw a brick through the front window of the bank. And I didn't want anyone at school to know. So I'm literally like, I don't want anyone to school. Find out. My friend Allen, lived across the street, calls me up and he's like, is your dad home? And I knew he wasn't because he just ran out the house pissed off with A brick? No, I don't know where he got the. No, he must have grabbed the brick off the street.

[Justin McKinney]

A brick of opportunity.

[Joe]

Yeah, but. Which was weird because he never threw a ball to me ever. But he's throwing bricks. So I remember the guy. I didn't know my dad could throw, but he goes, is your dad home? And I go, no, why? And he goes, I think I just saw him throw a brick through the bank in his underwear. And it's like this moment, like it's just etched in my brain. Like I just couldn't get away from that. And I'm like, don't tell anyone at school, you know, you don't want anyone at school to find out. And that was my constant childhood, was. You don't want anyone to know.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Joe]

You know?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. It's such a strong through line. The shame and the humiliation, and I had it in spades. I was just. I hated anybody knowing anything about my family because it was always so embarrassing to me. One time when I was playing Pop Warner football, I got concussed. I got knocked out in this game and I guess I had a concussion. So then when Duke Gallagher dropped me off, he was like, you know, usually I'd be like, drop me off at my friend's house up the street. And he's like, no, no, I gotta drop you off at your house this time because I gotta talk to your mom. Cause you got knocked out. And I was like, I'll tell her I got knocked out. You know, he comes pulling. He's got the fucking Country Squire wagon, brand new, with the fake wood paneling on the side and the back seats that face out the back window, and the magical curved glass that would go up and down, like automatically with a button, you know, he's got a station wagon that's worth way more than my mom's house, you know, like, literally worth more than my mom's house. And he comes pulling up and he's good looking, red hair, with a mustache. His name is Duke.

[Justin McKinney]

Duke.

[Adam Carolla]

As an Irish setter, you know what I mean? Like that guy, his daughter's beautiful blonde named Kelly, you know what I mean? Cracker Jack, athlete's son named Dan. You know, it's like, I'm like, oh, God. Oh, God.

[Joe]

I don't want you to run up.

[Justin McKinney]

To the Corolla dirt farm.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, when I went to their house, I remember just going to their house, big house up in the hills, going to the mantelpiece in their living room and seeing a picture of the entire family on that Top of the mountain ski vacation shot. Everybody's fully decked out with the goggles and the gear, parkas and stuff. And they're at the top of the mountain and they're all with their fucking lift passes clipped to their parkas. And I'm like, I'm just staring at it. How did you get to the mountain? Where'd you get that jacket, bro? Like, everything was like, gloves. Look at this, she's got goggles. Where'd you get the goggles? And so he comes pulling up the driveway. He's like, I need to talk to your mom. And my mom, of course, didn't go to the football game, so she wouldn't know what was going on. And she hated football. She was a hippie. She didn't like the contact. She didn't like the. She didn't like the competition. Real supportive, real supportive. And so she comes out, she had her. My mom used to dye her hair red, but at some point threw in the towel, like, just like, I'm done. I'm just gonna start packing on weight and I'm fucking forget. No more shaving armpits, no more makeup, no more nothing, right? It's all gonna be hairy pits and moo moos from here on, you know? And her hair was from the scalp, from the part in the middle, gray all the way down about 7 inches and then cut off. And it was bright red. She looked like fucking Mo Howard, you know? Cause she just said. She said a year earlier, fuck it. Like, no more. But she never went and dialed. Her hair, she never color matched, so it was just this gray thing that just stopped. Straight line red. It was ridiculous looking, you know. And so she's wearing, you know, sandals and a moomoo, and she's fat and depressed and everything. And, you know, Duke Gallagher's like, honking the horn or whatever. And she, like comes out and, yeah, I'm like, dirt lawn in the background, house falling apart, you know, And I'm like, just leave her alone. I'll go back in. I won't fall asleep, Duke. Don't worry. And I see her, I see, like, Duke out, who's a normal dude, you know, he's like, listen, can I talk to you? Your son is. And he like kind of steps aside with her and is like, you know, your son's had a pretty serious head injury. And I hear her like, oh, God, no. I knew it. I knew it. I told him no. And he's like, calm down. And I'm like, please make it end. Please make this End. I'm standing eight feet away watching her and her two tone hair have a fucking meltdown. And Duke's trying to reel her in and I'm like, oh, Kelgon, just take me away.

[Joe]

Were you thinking about the hair on the way?

[Adam Carolla]

Like, oh, her hair.

[Joe]

Was that on the ride home?

[Adam Carolla]

I knew the hair. I knew the underarm pits were gonna be a situation. Cause she went sleeveless. And I had my buddy Ray go in earnest. Why does your mom got so much hair coming out of our pits? I'm like, she doesn't care, right? That's why she doesn't care. So I was like, yeah, I was already sort of locked and loaded for what was coming. I also knew she was kind of an emotional wreck and when she heard football and concussion and stuff, she was just going to spin off into some other realm, you know.

[Justin McKinney]

Did your dad give a shit? Despite being alcoholic? Like, I mean, was there times that he. I mean, it sounded like he was trying to get a loan for some reason and try to, you know, make himself better somehow.

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah, he was.

[Joe]

He was trying. But, you know, the alcohol definitely. I mean, he would drink every day, like just sip out of the little shot glass. I remember when I was real little, I didn't even realize it a drinking problem because he would sip out of that little glass. You know what I mean? When I was, you know, this was elementary school, I didn't realize, like how strong it was.

[Adam Carolla]

Maybe your dad was trying to get a construction loan. And he's like, all I got is one brick and I need a construction loan so I can buy the rest of the materials. And then he gave the brick back after they said no, I don't.

[Joe]

I don't think he went with the brick. But, you know, I never asked.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, maybe he walked in. Yeah, you're right. You don't go in asking for a loan with a weapon with a projectile, as you guys would call it. Right?

[Joe]

I think. Well, I think it was on the phone. They turned him down. He hung up the phone, pissed off, and he kind of went out, you know, flew out the door, so.

[Adam Carolla]

And we can find the TED Talk wherever. Finer TED talks.

[Joe]

Yeah, it's on there. But it's, you know, it's funny and you talk about not wanting to know where you live. So another story I tell is about, I did a ride along with a police officer in high school. I wanted to be a private investigator, but they couldn't find one to shadow. So she sets this up with his cop. I do the ride along he wanted to drop me off after the ride along, and I knew he'd know my house because of my dad. So I told him another house was mine.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, right.

[Joe]

It was the same. So he let me off around the corner. He then left, and then I walked around the corner to my house. So it was just. Yeah, it was constantly comparing yourself to other people, what they had and what you didn't and how it was so funny.

[Justin McKinney]

It's the American way.

[Joe]

Just thinking about it, you know?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. And I realized the sort of embarrassment. Gene has followed me, and I do. Like, I'm that way if I'm with someone who's talking real loud on the phone and we're in a Starbucks, I'm always like, don't talk so loud. There's people around, you know. Like, it's always a thing of not wanting that. But then you and I get up on stage in front of a thousand people in the theater, talk for an hour. So it's hard to reconcile it. I will say this. In my eight or nine days of not being let back into my home, you know, they do this thing where they go, man, if I only. Like. If you only knew your mom was going to die that day at the school fair, you would have. You would have told her you loved her. You know what I mean? And I feel that way about socks and underpants. Like, if I only knew I was not going to get back to my fucking condo for two weeks, I would have grabbed more shit. You know what I mean? I thought I was. I thought we're. I had been evacuated three weeks earlier, went and spent the night, found out that a couple of neighbors never left in the first place and did that move where I was like, what the fuck? I should have never even left, you know? So I was not anticipating the forever move, you know, weeks upon weeks of not coming back.

[Justin McKinney]

You're new homeless. Old homeless, you know, you need new vo.

[Adam Carolla]

Homeless. Right. So I thought I'd be back the next night, and obviously it's been a long time. So I spent the night in Dr. Drew's pool house last night. Dr. Drew has a nice, ish remodeled pool house at his home. He's in Pasadena. And I'm happy to say that many people have come forward and offered me their home to stay in. But the pool house was nice enough. I do realize I am addicted to television. And it's not watching television. It's having dominion over the tv. I come home, I got TMZ waiting for me. I got SportsCenter waiting for me, I got the best of the UFC. And I sit down and I get excited. Oh, TMZ's in. And I just start, and then I pause it, and I rewind it. And then I make a little note for something I want to talk about. Sitting in front of just a set, and you're at its mercy, like, whatever the fuck is on is on. And you can barely control the set. Brutal.

[Joe]

Brutal.

[Adam Carolla]

Taking its toll.

[Joe]

What'd you do with the socks and underwear? Did you have to buy it?

[Adam Carolla]

I. I got. I got enough socks.

[Justin McKinney]

Drew's tiny whities. I mean, you put them on, you feel smarter.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I got enough. I. I have enough socks and underwear so that yesterday, my girlfriend did a load of laundry at a hotel we were at that had a laundry facility in it. So then I got that sort of rebooted.

[Justin McKinney]

Now you got Drew's pool. So you can just scrub them in there.

[Adam Carolla]

Drew's pool. I'm glad you brought that up. Drew's pool. Three and a half weeks ago, when I was removed from my condo, I once again stayed at Drew's house. And just because I feel like I should say so. Jimmy offers his house, too, but he's in a beach community. He's deep. He's deep. I gotta get here every day and be here all day. And Drew's up the road in Pasadena. So while Jimmy's custom pad in the beach city might be a little aesthetically better, it's an hour and 10 minutes on the one, you know, on the freeway. So I'm. Drew's up the road. Last time I was there, I used Drew's swimming pool to do my cold dunk. Cause he's up in the foothills, and it's freezing up there. I then announced that I was getting back in the pool this morning to Drew, but Drew announced that the pool man said there was so much ash in it that they literally are gonna have to drain it. They cannot strain it. They can't filter it. They have to drain it. It's got so much. And I looked into it, and it was Black Lagoon. And I still went. And then I said, oh, fuck it. I did the cold shower. But the. The point is, yes, his pool's all fucked up because of the ash. Now his. Which leads me into this story. His house is in Pasadena. Altadena is next to Pasadena. And it's sort of like what North Hollywood is to Studio City. Studio City's nicer, more upscale. Maybe the houses are 30% more. And north Hollywood, where I grew up, is sort of working class. A little downscale, but good enough, you know what I mean? And my dad lived in Altadena the last. God, let's see. I did that show where I rebuilt my dad's house with my crew, with my construction crew, 2005 or whatever. My dad's been there for 20 years now. He's up in the foothills. Pasadena, Altadena. It's, you know, modest, 14, 1500 square foot house. You know, two bath, one bed. You know, like pretty modest little ranch place, but up in the foothills. Now, the comedy is my dad passed a couple of months ago and they sold the house. And the house's escrow closed on the Friday before the fire on Tuesday. So there's. Theoretically, somebody closed escrow on that house and four days later burnt to the ground. No, theoretically, is it? That's for sure.

[Justin McKinney]

100%. Well, look, we gotta look at a map.

[Adam Carolla]

All of Altadena's gone. It's all toast. And my dad was right in the middle of Altadena and right at the base of the foothill, so I cannot imagine that place is there. But dad, you know, the house went up for sale. He moved into a facility, you know, he died six weeks later. The house was sold right when he died, and that was two months ago. You know, 60 day escrow or whatever it is, it's just ended. The day the fire started, Ghost of.

[Justin McKinney]

Jim Carolla burnt the whole house.

[Adam Carolla]

Could have saved on the cremation if he just stayed home. I said, do home care. Save on the, hey, I'm a pragmatist.

[Justin McKinney]

He is a pragmatic guy.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Joe]

Was that one of the areas that the insurance was an issue? They weren't given fire insurance. I heard there's so many areas out here that people couldn't get it.

[Adam Carolla]

I honestly don't know. I was thinking about my stepmom and I was thinking, well, geez, if the house burnt down before the escrow closed, that's a big deal. If it's after the escrow close, that's just force majeure. I mean, I sold a Ninja 600 motorcycle to a dude once back when he'd do stuff with the recycler. Newspaper and shit, standing out in my lawn. Sold the guy my bike. Girlfriend dropped him off, followed him. This guy gets on my bike on a Saturday. I'm not asking if he's got a motorcycle license or anything. It's just he's giving me 1100 bucks. Gets on, you know, total old school. Put it in the recycler guy calls you up on the landline. You know, Saturday, I'll come down to the house. I'm renting a house in north highway with five dudes. You know, I sell the dude my bike. The guy gets on the bike, looks a little squirrely, but all right. I got the cash in my pocket. He goes down the street, dumps it in the intersection, fucks the bike up, gives himself road rash, comes back pushing the bike, pushes back. I'm still standing out in the lawn. He goes, I want to return your motorcycle. I said, you want to sell your motorcycle? He goes, no, I want to return your motorcycle. I go, no, that's your. You bought the motorcycle. Now if you want me to help you sell it or whatever, I can help you. Which I did. But you can sell your motorcycle. So, I mean, that was four minutes after.

[Joe]

It's not like he had tried doing a wheelie, did he?

[Adam Carolla]

He did what Stallone did in First Blood.

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

He didn't know how to ride a bike. And he was. So when you crash a bike, you get really shook up. Shook up, shook up. And he just. He literally. He pushed it back like he was shaking. And he was like, I never. And I was like, well, look, you probably would have been killed in the next four months. You dodged a bullet. You got a little road rash. You learned a lesson. I said, I'll take the bike and I'll take it, and I'll fix the peg and the shifter and whatever. I'll take it and then you can pay the dude to fix it, and then I'll sell it. Because the phone keeps ringing because it's in the newspaper. And you get the phone call that night, hey, you got the bike still for sale. And you're like, well, kinda. Yeah, kinda is. And he ended up making himself sort of whole almost or whatever, and sold it to whatever it kind of worked out. But the point is, is that's your house, and it caught on fire. That's your bike. You dumped it. I don't want to sound like a douchebag, but that is your property, baby.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Now, I don't know if you can qualify for a loan in an area that way without fire insurance, because the bank, from what I know, is they don't, you know, you know, the house, it's a fucking shitbox for like 1.2 million bucks. You know, it's like. It's nuts, right?

[Justin McKinney]

California.

[Adam Carolla]

California, you put down 20%. You put down, you know, 220 grand. The bank is financing 975K. They're not going to finance 975K without fire insurance, I don't think.

[Joe]

I imagine.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I think you're right. Hopefully it works out. Or FEMA. Well, no, no, Biden's gonna give him $770. So that should be. Yeah, that'll cover.

[Justin McKinney]

Well, I'm looking forward to my 770. I'm getting two Xboxes. Hey, how do you make all this stuff funny, dude? Like a lot of your man stories right now.

[Adam Carolla]

It's a little depressing, heartbreaking.

[Justin McKinney]

We're livening up with burning his dad's house down.

[Brad Meltzer]

Oh yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

You know what I'm saying? On a happier note, you could have.

[Joe]

Saved money on the cream. Is like, what brings the story light up? Well, you lightened it up.

[Justin McKinney]

Oh my God. Nightmare.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, this story. So, okay, so with the crazy hotel schedule, I've been going to bed. Sometimes I go to bed at like nine at night. I've realized I've lost my will to live. Cause there's no tv, you know. I used to love just having a cocktail and watching my shows like at the end of the night, you know, and now it's like there's nothing on. I don't know how to control the fucking TV set, you know, I'm going to bed. It's 9 o'clock, I'm going to bed. I got nothing to live for. So I go to bed the other night, I wake up at five, ten in the morning and I'm like, why are you up so early? And I'm like, well, because you went to bed before the street lights came on. Like you've been sleeping for eight hours. It's just five in the morning. And then it's like I'm looking around, nothing else is up, you know. So I just put my robe on. Thank God. I took my robe, I go sit down in the living area in the super shitty sofa and turn on the TV and I'm watching CNN at 5:20 in the morning. And this story comes on. Now Joe had to look long and hard for this story because I couldn't. I was like, oh, am I seeing what I'm seeing or hearing what I'm hearing? And I jot it down. And then I come to work and I tell Joe, find this thing, cnn, you know, today, this morning, this politician, her name is Sydney Kamalajer. Dove, I guess it's hyphenated or Dove or whatever, she's on cnn. She's a what, Joe? She's a congress, something from whatever district. And she's from California, so she's a politician from California, so she's batshit crazy. And of course every agenda's wrong because they just focus on all the shit that doesn't matter and none of the shit that does matter. It's like, like it's the craziest. It's like a bizarre obsession. Like Pete Hegseth just went in front of Congress to try to get approved to run the Defense Department. And everybody on the right was asking about combat ready lethality, budget surpluses and munitions. And everyone on the right's like, how do you feel about lesbians? It's like, I don't know, I kill ruskies. You know what I mean? Yeah, but what about the ladies? Every single question is, what about the lesbians? And it's like, it's an insane obsession. I mean, maybe if you're talking to a guy who's in charge, like we're looking for someone to be in charge of gay bars, then maybe that's like a normal question. But for a guy that's going to be in charge of the defense industry, Army, Navy and Air Force and Marines to constantly just ask them about, I heard you were mean to your girlfriend in high school. It's such a weird line of questioning. But the bizarre part is they think it's a good line of questioning. And we're talking about national defense and they're going, you like to drink at parties, don't you? By the way, every single thing they accuse him of, I'm like, you beat off in a car once, didn't you, this morning? All right, so Altadena is just burnt to the ground. All of Altadena is burnt to the ground. And they get this congresswoman from California on at 5:30 in the morning. And here's her take on the fire.

[Congresswoman]

I do agree we need to find out the facts. A full scale investigation on what went wrong. I and the cbc, the Congressional Black Caucus, for example, are curious about who decided to sacrifice Altadena, a historically black community in the LA county area. We have got to look at.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, then there's this. Oh, we can scrub ahead to the now. You know, when CNN goes, huh, you've really crossed some weird line because somebody has sacrificed Altadena because it's a historically black community. By the way, Jim, Carolla, white as the driven snow with his white ass wife Lynn live there. I've been to my dad's house a million times. It's a white community where I don't see black folk walking up their dogs and what have you. I looked it up. It's 19% black. It's like 30 something Hispanic. So first off, your premise of somebody burned down my dad's house because it's a black community is fucking insane. Thank you. It also means you're gonna be really bad at your job because you can't identify problems. But she'll continue here. Sorry. We'll find this.

[Brad Meltzer]

Congresswoman, did you just say sacrifice Altadena? I mean, are you suggesting that this was done somehow on purpose to hurt Altadena? There are a lot of conspiracies out there. We heard something similar from Mel Gibson questioning whether the fires were purposely set. Is that what you. Is that what you mean?

[Congresswoman]

I am not suggesting arson. There are some.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, hold on. You just suggested arson. What do you mean you're not suggesting arson? I didn't hear you talking about a lightning strike. You want to know who burnt this place down, so you kind of are suggesting it. Well, the reason the anchor's asking what you just said is because you just suggested arson. But you're allowed to now say something you said 30 seconds earlier you never.

[Justin McKinney]

Said, she sticks the race card into everything. So this one was SoCal Ed broke the power lines on purpose so black people could get their house burned down, including Jim Carolla, who identified as black.

[Joe]

She said sacrificed, right? Is that the word?

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah, that's what I mean.

[Adam Carolla]

All right, well, listen. We'll listen to it from the top. We'll let it play a little Lauren, just to see if you can digest this crazy. This is. By the way, this is why California is such a shitbox. It's because we have dingbats like this setting policy. They're focused on everything but what makes sense seems counterproductive. It is.

[Brad Meltzer]

Congresswoman, did you just say sacrifice Altadena Altar.

[Adam Carolla]

From the top. From the top. Meaning the top will mean from the top. Of the top. Sorry. We'll do it from there.

[Congresswoman]

We need to find out the facts. A full scale investigation on what went wrong. I and the cbc, the Congressional Black Caucus, for example, are curious about who decided to sacrifice Altadena, a historically black community in the LA county area. We have got to look at federally backing our insurance industry. There is no reason why only 2/5 of the folks who have.

[Adam Carolla]

So then we can skip ahead. By the way, when I started in radio, I used to say on the morning show at Kevin and Bean on kroc, I'd always go, oh, man, I got the big swing in Black Caucuses in town. And I'm gonna go hang out with that cockeye. And they always go, stop saying that. And I said, why? They're big bunch of fun dudes, the Black Caucus, and we're gonna have a great gay old time, you know, they'd be like, stop saying big swinging Black Caucus. And I go, why? It's all legal. You know what I mean?

[Justin McKinney]

My eyebrows spazzed when she said black Caucus.

[Adam Carolla]

I was like, no, I gotta put. You gotta put big.

[Joe]

You said big.

[Adam Carolla]

You said big Black Caucus. Well, they're large in numbers. They're large group. And I add swinging, just, you know, the little parsley by the side of the plate. But the big swinging Black Caucus is my favorite. Next time I go on any of these shows, I'm going to see if I can sneak it in, if I can sneak in the big swinging Black Caucus. But. All right, so then we go to the part where she asked her if she said that.

[Brad Meltzer]

Did you just say sacrifice Altadena? I mean, are you suggesting that this was done somehow on purpose to hurt Altadena? There are a lot of conspiracies out there. We heard something similar from Mel Gibson, questioning whether the fires were purposely set. Is that what you. Is that what you mean?

[Congresswoman]

I am not suggesting arson. There are some initial investigations about if there was an electrical fire that started this in a tower. But what we do know is that power was shot off in Altadena.

[Adam Carolla]

What we do. When I was evacuated three and a half weeks ago from Malibu, it was in the dark. Yes, because they shut the power off on whitey's ass over there because they have power poles that are 100 years old. The winds kick up, the shit falls over and they shut the power preemptively. So her angle is somebody was trying to eliminate black people. Except for 80% of the people living Altadena are not black. And the reason she knows it's true is because the power was shut off. Except for the fucking power gets shut off on every municipality whenever there's a fire and the wind starts blowing it to prevent it. Yes, thank you, dingbat. Now, by the way, this idiot is not just dumb when it comes to this subject, she's dumb when it comes to school choice, she's dumb when it comes to urban planning, she's dumb when it comes to traffic, she's dumb when it comes to taxes, she's dumb when it comes to everything. This is what you're dealing with. This is why we fucked up California. Her and 150 other dingbats that are like minded fucked up our state. Sorry, continue.

[Congresswoman]

I am not suggesting arson. There are some initial investigations about if there was an electrical fire that started this in a tower. But what we do know is that power was shut off in Altadena. What we do know is that residents were not given adequate time to leave their homes.

[Adam Carolla]

All right? Because they're black or because they're 80% white or 30% Hispanic. Just fucking knock it off. Like, not everything is a race crime, you fucking idiots.

[Joe]

It's like 19% is higher than Malibu. Is that what she sees? You know what I mean? It's a higher percentage, but that's 19%. It's crazy. It's crazy. This thinking is crazy.

[Adam Carolla]

It's crazy. But it's super destructive. Because now you're gonna go chase, run down some rabbit hole trying to find something that never happened, and you put.

[Joe]

It out there and you create anger. And then people are like, oh, this is why this is happening. And it's the whole victim thing.

[Adam Carolla]

Exactly. It's why end racism in the end zone of every NFL game is a horrible idea because it agitates people especially. And by the way, all the guys scoring the touchdowns are black. So they gotta deal with it.

[Justin McKinney]

You know, it seems like a conspiracy brain. Everybody's on Facebook reading this strange things, and they believe it because it's enough. They read it.

[Adam Carolla]

Her thing is the power was shut off, okay? That is a non starter because it's shut off everywhere all the time, whenever there's a fire, okay? Possibly if she was doing her job a little better, she would have worked on the power infrastructure in her shitty, decrepit community and we wouldn't have to shut the power off preemptively when the winds kicked on. But she's not gonna do that. She's gonna focus on racism, number one. Number two, the warning didn't get out fast enough. Like, I was in the middle of the Palisades fire, and then somewhere in the afternoon, I heard Altadena was on fire. 80 mile an hour winds, embers flying in the air. Shit happens pretty fast. But what is your suggestion? Your suggestion is somebody knew Altadena was on fire, but because it's historically black, even though 80% white, they did what they said. You know what? I'm gonna count to a thousand Mississippi before I pull the alarm or before the Dalmatian starts barking or whatever, whatever we gotta do. Let the black people incinerate. Is that so? Somebody knew something, but they went, you know what? If these were white folk, we would hop to it. But because they're black. See, I got another race thing to get into.

[Joe]

Well, what about Pacific Palisades?

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe]

What's the story there? What percentage is that, right? I mean. Oh, well, I'm saying that burned down. Was that. Did somebody sacrifice.

[Adam Carolla]

There's only one black person in the Palisades, Malibu, Topanga Canyon fire. There was only one black person, and that was the person that was the head of Black Lives Matter. The head of Black Lives Matter had to flee. She was there one or two of her million dollar mansions. The head of Black Lives Matter, who's worried about white people, lives in the middle of the whitest place on the planet, which is Topanga Canyon.

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

It's whiter than John Denver's house. It's the whitest. It is whiter than Beverly Hills. It's whiter than Malibu. It is literally the wides this place on my. She who is scared of white people because white supremacy is being. Biggest problem this country faces. Chose to buy a home with maybe some Black Lives Matter proceeds when she was done helping out the poor kids in the inner city in the middle of the whitest place ever. And she's the only white. She's the only black person that had to flee Topanga can because she was the only black person in Topangan. So that's how it works. And you guys are getting scammed and you have no fucking idea. Pacific Palisades, 1% African American. All right, now tell me if this would be an unpopular position. Remember when Katrina hit and you had the mayor of New Orleans? I think it was the mayor. I don't think it was the governor. Mayor Ray nagging. I try to think of that. Don't get me to say his name when I'm drunk. You know, black guy shit. That guy was promising that they were gonna keep New Orleans chocolate. Do you remember that clip, Dawson? It was a great clip. Again, this stuff goes way back. It's like, race, race, race, race. It's like, all right, it's a black town. And he was promising that they were gonna keep it chocolate. Yes, the black folk had to move away into temporary housing, but they were going to come back. We're going to keep it chocolatey.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

It's nicknamed the Chocolate City Speech.

[Adam Carolla]

Ah, There you go.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

January 16, 2006.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, man. D minus student, but yet remember everything. Never the good times. Never the good times. Only Duke Gallagher talking to my mom that I remember later on, I won Player of the Year. Have no recollection of it. So he gave that speech and he's like, don't worry, everyone's fled. But when we come back, we're going to keep it chocolate. Shouldn't Mel Gibson give a speech about keeping the Palisades white? Like, he should go, don't worry, don't worry. Forget about the chocolate milk. We're going white instant here, baby. We'll keep it white. Don't worry. Because I guarantee New Orleans was more than 1% white when Katrina hit. But they're keeping a chocolate probably 20% white. You know what I mean? 1% white. Palisades. I say we got a mission, fellas. We gotta keep it white.

[Justin McKinney]

Oh, my God.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, it's a two way street, isn't it? Well, if keeping it black is noble, then why, why isn't this. By the way, you always know they're horrible ideas because all you do is flip the script and you go, oh, that's horrible. And then you go, do we have that speech, Dawson? It's pretty, pretty good. Now, is he still in prison for money laundering or hammering federal checks and giving it to his brother in law? Is this sanctimonious prick still in prison or has he been let out? He's been. Oh, everybody. Everyone in New Orleans gives their sanctimonious speeches and then it's some point the feds catch up to him. Yeah, all right, here he goes. Sorry, we as black people. Yeah, it's time. It's time for us to come together. Hold on a second.

[Justin McKinney]

Speak, son.

[Adam Carolla]

When Mel does it, I'm going to have him do it in the Braveheart thing and I will have white guys behind him. You know what I mean? Going. Talk, Mel. Say it now. You know, maybe trying to. I'll have Gary Busey back there. He's a Melbourne guy and he'll just be back there going, Mel, go. You go, boy. Go, Braveheart.

[Joe]

What was Mel's. She referenced the conspiracy that he had said. What did he say? What were his comments? That somebody purposely.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't know. I think sometimes when someone on their side says something batshit crazy, they'll try to quickly pull out, like Elon Musk said, you know, to kind of balance out the crazy.

[Justin McKinney]

He made an offhanded joke in Joe Rogan, I think, where he just said casually, like, oh, maybe they burned it down. Get us out of there. It was like offhanded, sort of.

[Adam Carolla]

Negan was assigned to prison bureau prisons. Terms, sentence, including possible release date. I don't know if he's out. It was supposed to be out.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

He was out on house arrest on April 27, 2020.

[Adam Carolla]

What was he arrested for, though? They didn't just arrest him for shits and giggles like he did something. We'll listen to the speech, and then it'll be fun to find out what this guy did.

[Justin McKinney]

I like this.

[Adam Carolla]

We as black people. Yeah. It's time. It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild a New Orleans. The one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. And I don't care what people are saying uptown or wherever they are, this city will be chocolate at the end of the day. All right, listen, I'm gonna just. I'm gonna do that with Mel. We'll just swap out chocolate for vanilla. And why not? Anyway, the guy's in prison.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

He was convicted on 20 of 21 charges of wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering. Laundering related to bribes from city contractors before and after Katrina, and was sentenced to 10 years.

[Adam Carolla]

Good dude, though. Good dude. Okay.

[Joe]

Just conflicting messages, you know, it's like, what we should all just be. I don't know. It's just. Haven't been a cop. The whole thing that everything is race is so frustrating for me, you know? And I go to bat for cops all the time.

[Brad Meltzer]

Every.

[Joe]

Everyone thinks everything is. Oh, it's because of race. And it's so. It's so frustrating. Like, you talk to people, they don't even realize. If I say an unarmed white guy was shot, like, you don't hear about. You won't see that thing. You never see any of that. And it's just. It's not to say there isn't work to be done and there's things you can do better, but it's just sad what's happened to that profession, you know, because.

[Adam Carolla]

Can I ask you. I'm due to give a commencement speech for the big swinging Black caucus, and we need to hear messages like that. They need to hear, maybe you could come down, give a little TED talk to the big swinging Black caucus. I'm just saying, you know what? Don't answer.

[Justin McKinney]

Think about it.

[Adam Carolla]

Don't answer. Think about it. I want you to sleep on it. I want you to think about it, Justin.

[Joe]

Okay, I'll think about it.

[Brad Meltzer]

But I do.

[Joe]

It's like, you know, I want. I would love it if we just. There was a way to fix the problem, not make the problem worse. And we're making it worse.

[Adam Carolla]

I know, but it's asshole politicians like this. These politicians need to be called out. They really do. I mean, this guy is just a race hustler. Biden's a race hustler. They're just hustlers. And someone needs to fucking call it out.

[Joe]

They want us divided.

[Adam Carolla]

And someone needs to say to this dumbo chick, sidney, whoever, like, what are you talking about? No, no. Now, you said. You didn't imply. You just said it 30 seconds ago. We all heard it. What did you mean by it? And please explain how this would work. So the power. Let's unpack this. They knew that Altadeen was gonna catch on fire. But somebody, presumably a white guy, sat on that information, not wanting to alarm the black people or help the black people. You really need to tell me what you mean when you say this kind of shit. Because otherwise you. You just agitate people. And by the way, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but I'm all ears. Please explain this to me. Stop just talking. When Gavin Newsom was sitting where you're sitting, and he's like, half of black and Latino Los Angelenos or Californians don't have access to a checking account. I was like. I didn't go, yeah, I know. It's so bad. I just kept asking him, what the fuck are you talking about? He couldn't answer it, of course, but he sat there where you sat. He agitated. Race baited, race hustled and lied. And I just did my job. Which is half of the Latinos in LA or California don't have access to a checking account. That seems patently insane to me. And I kept going at em. That's why I did it. But you could do it if you did the news. Like, if you actually wanted to do your fucking job for a change, you could do this. Reminds me, it's sort of.

[Joe]

Of.

[Adam Carolla]

It's not the race hustler's fault. This chick's a dingbat. That guy's a criminal. And the race hustlers, and that's how they get elected. Fine. It's the journalists and it's the citizens and it's the people that play into it and don't ask questions. That's what feeds it. Because otherwise it wouldn't work.

[Joe]

The headlines, if you just read headlines, which most people just do, it'll say, you know, there'll be something like, you know, police. Black woman, pregnant black woman, calls the police for help, is shot within six seconds of when they showed up. And you read the article, she had a knife at her boyfriend, was going like this to kill the guy, like. But people don't read the article. So it's just. Policing is Complicated. It's like. And it's not. I don't know any cops who, like, care what color your skin is. And I've lived in la. I lived in, in Florida. And by the way, I almost got shot by LAPD by the way they drew on me. I almost got shot.

[Adam Carolla]

You flash him your tin?

[Joe]

No. You want to hear the story?

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. I'll tell you what. No, I want to take a break. We got news. We're kind of getting up against it. We'll take a break, we'll hear the story, we'll do the news. And we'll do that right after this. Adam and Eve, you want to have better sex immediately. Well, I got a brand new deal from Adam and [e-mail] ACE. Go to adamandeve.com ACE and pick any four sex toys for just 20 bucks. Absolutely the best deal they've ever offered. And there's a limited time. You get again, four sex toys while supplies last. There's something for everyone. You can save a buck 75, 175. Save up to 175 bucks with this exclusive offer. Check out AdamandEve.com Ace to see what four sex toys will be yours for just 20 bucks, which is like five bucks a toy, which is practically free. AdamEve.com Ace is the only way to get this offer. So spice it up a little. Have some fun. It's cold outside. Warm it up in the bedroom at Adam and Eve.

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[Joe]

So I think one of the biggest problems we have in this country is too many people having kids that shouldn't have kids. Right? There's too many people. I mean, everyone. Do what you can, man. You know, guys, wear a condom.

[Brad Meltzer]

Guys.

[Joe]

If you don't want to wear a condom, just wear crocs.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Justin McKinney is on the Adam Corolla show.

[Adam Carolla]

All right. Justin was drawn on by La Popo.

[Joe]

Yeah, this was. And so this was like in 2004.

[Brad Meltzer]

Ish.

[Joe]

I would say. I'm shooting a sizzle reel for. There was a guy named John Diresta. Who was a transit cop in New York City. This guy named Jim Jones was.

[Adam Carolla]

I know. John Diresta.

[Joe]

And Jim Jones is married to this cult leader. Yeah, woman. Different guy.

[Adam Carolla]

Not for me.

[Joe]

Woman from Comedy Central. So we were shooting the sizzle reel in the Reno911 car, but the light bar was covered with a piece of leather, right. I'm in a New York police uniform. He's in a New York police uniform. I'm driving, he's in the back seat filming. And we get pulled over. Middle of the day, two LA cops come up, one on each side, and they're like, hey, what's going on here? So we give them the whole spiel. I'm a comedian. I was a cop in Maine. And you know, he was a cop in New York. And like, oh, you remember the, you know, this guy in Brooklyn? Oh, yeah. He was, you know, telling cop stories, asking me, what was that like up in Maine and this whole thing. And he's like. And I'm like, I just did your. I just did an event for Bill Bratton, the chief black tie event. I just performed there. They're like, oh, we don't get invited to those whip eons, you know, haha. Laughing. So I think, like, I'm talking with old cop buddies, right? We're cops. We're all cops. They go, are those real guns? So I go, no. And I reach down to grab the gun. They both drew on me before I even got my hand on the gun. They do, they go, don't move. And this guy John's like, He's like, oh, what the hell are you doing? I mean, it was like. And they both drew on me and I didn't move. And my point is, what I. The reason that story is they don't know what I gave them this whole story, it could have been all made up. I'm driving around, you know, doing whatever they don't know. So that unknown. And if I didn't, if I kept moving, they weren't gonna holster their gun and tase me, you know what I mean? I would've got shot.

[Justin McKinney]

That's what firearm is. Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

You gotta be careful.

[Joe]

And you know, the fact that I to this day wish he kept the cameras on in the back.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, John. Yeah.

[Joe]

You know who was in the backseat? Kyle Dunnigan was filming. He was in the back seat. Yeah. Until that day.

[Adam Carolla]

Kyle was in the back filming.

[Joe]

He was in the back filming with Jim. They were in the back. There's four of us in this police cruiser, broad day, daylight, but it's like, they literally. And I. And I literally. And if I got shot, that would have been my fault. Like, what an idiot. I just wasn't even thinking. Yeah, but what a different world. But you talk about where I was a cop, wasn't Chicago. Yeah. I'm up in the woods and you're just talking, you know, like, oh, we all. We're all cop buddies, you know, talking. And that. That's the threat. So when they pull someone over, if that's what they think. Just thinking with us, and I give them this whole story and they see the film and we're in the arena, you know, it's crazy. So they just don't know what they're.

[Adam Carolla]

I know.

[Joe]

You know, I get it.

[Adam Carolla]

But anyway, I listen. I just. I get mad at CNN for doing the hustle part. All right, news, news.

[Justin McKinney]

Let's get matter. California eco bureaucrats halted Pacific Palisades fire safety to project. To protect this. This says project, but to protect an endangered shrub. Yeah, yeah. They wireless. They had. Essentially, the story is that there was fire safety conservation type project that they halted, replacing the fire poles with metal. Fire poles.

[Adam Carolla]

Not the fire poles, the telephone poles which catch on fire.

[Justin McKinney]

Excuse me. Yeah, these poles to make them fire safe. So instead of doing that, they stopped and everybody halted it because of a random shrub that ironically benefits from wildfire.

[Adam Carolla]

Look, the fact that it's 2025, okay, there is like, there's a physical danger to having the power lines, you know, falling down and electrocuting people or starting fires or what have you. But there's also just a very sort of cosmetic, emotional sort of urban sprawl kind of thing where it's like. It's just wires everywhere. It just really. It's kind of a bummer. It looks like shit.

[Justin McKinney]

Ye.

[Adam Carolla]

If you walk outside the studio and look up the street, it's just nothing. It's just endless, endless wires. So it's a safety thing, but it's also just kind of a societal thing. Like, it just looks like shit. And we've been talking about this for a long time. We get taxed a lot in this state. Can we just bury them? Let's just put them in the ground. Let's stop having all these conversations about replacing poles and this, that, and the other. It's an aesthetic gross nightmare. Yeah.

[Justin McKinney]

My question when it first happened was, why did that never happen? Why? And this answers the question. There's a big problem that they could have retrofitted even though it wouldn't be buried, which I would think that the people the taxpayers in that area would decide to bury it.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, this is sort of what we're talking about, which is the politicians. Sidney Nutjob we just saw and Karen Bass. This isn't something they're interested in. They're not interested in it. It's not sexy, it's not fun. They don't get to accuse people of being rac. Racist. It's nothing they're interested in. Honestly, I am interested in it. So if I was a politician, I wouldn't do the racial hustling. I'd be a dog with a bone. And burying these wires, that's all I would talk about. They are a bunch of dingbat chicks who have no interest in this. So of course we don't get the wires buried. And we have a bunch of politicians that are much more interested in saving the milk thistle weed than we do bearing the wire. I'm glad they just don't. They don't care.

[Justin McKinney]

The LA Times. Yeah, this is the Thistle. If you could see there on the screen.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it's pretty.

[Joe]

You know, I paid on one of those.

[Adam Carolla]

Later on, it'll dry up and catch up.

[Justin McKinney]

Exactly right. The LA Times owner says endorsing Karen Bass was a mistake due to incompetence. So that's just going along with what you're talking about. That. Yeah. The LA Times. Williams kind of took back their endorsement of Karen Bass a little bit too late. And a strange thing. Rick Caruso, all his buildings are alive.

[Adam Carolla]

And well because he got his own private fire detail. Or he built them a certain way.

[Justin McKinney]

Well, they had a. Built a certain way. And they also sprinkler systems that engage during this thing.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, that's built a certain way.

[Justin McKinney]

His shopping center is fine.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Well, that guy wanted to be mayor. So basically, we had a choice. And so we're there now. Are we going to be a pragmatic society or are we gonna be an emotional society? And we had a choice a couple years ago. What was the mayoral thing, Dawson. I mean, two years.

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah, two years ago.

[Adam Carolla]

Two years ago, we had a choice, and one road led to pragmatism. And I'm not even assigning a values judgment to this. It's just one was. I'm super pragmatic. Most women I've been with have been less pragmatic and more emotional, which is better for certain things, they're better huggers. But I've always been pragmatic. I'm more pragmatic than most guys I know. I'm super pragmatic. I always have Been. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying that's how I'm wired. Real nuts and boltsy. I used to be a builder, so that's kind of my background. And women are wired a different way. Okay, so two years ago we got to a fork in the road. One was a pragmatic fork and the other was a more emotional feel good vibes based, whatever fork. And we, because we're LA and we're California, are not wired for pragmatism. So we went down the emotional road. Karen Bass gave a speech a couple years ago in front of the big swing in black. No, in front of the Democratic whatever party, explaining that in Dawson. I think we look for this. We could never find it because they scrubbed it, they wouldn't put it there. But she was explaining that the homeless problem was caused by income inequality, which is batshit crazy. It's basically Elon Musk took all the money and now we have people rolling around in their own shit on the streets of downtown Los Angeles. It has nothing to do with income inequality, but she's basically a communist and she's emotional, she's non pragmatic and she thinks that way Rick Caruso would have taken a different path to getting rid of the homeless cuz he's a pragmatic person. But we didn't want that. We didn't want that. We wanted the emotional part. The emotional part goes nowhere and leads nowhere. Just you feel good that you voted for the person that feels good and it's more emotional and everything else. Meanwhile, two years in, more homeless, $24 billion down the fucking drain now. Now what does it take to get from emotional to pragmatic? And the answer is your fucking house burning to the ground. That's what does it. It's you getting stabbed by junkie, it's your daughter getting shot, work at work on Melrose Boulevard. That gets you from emotional and hypothetical and fantastical to super pragmatic. And that's so. So now that everything is burned to the ground, we may be ready for something a little more pragmatic and a little less good. Vibesy.

[Joe]

Yeah, might bring change. It might, just might.

[Justin McKinney]

Well, they need some change because it's beyond the brink. Data shows the LA Fire department among the most understaffed in America. Yeah, the fires swept through and yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

The reason also we have a bunch of of unintentional arsonists. Like imagine if you just went, well, they're not really arsonists, they're just homeless people who like smoking crack, camping in the Hills. And they get really fucked up and pass out. They're like, oh, so we have some de facto accidental arsonists. Army of accidental arsonists just brawled out. You know what I mean?

[Justin McKinney]

The other thing about this is, you know, my personal experience where you can be a prison firefighter and go cut fire lines and go through work your sentence off early. Early. But when you get home, you cannot be a firefighter.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, really?

[Justin McKinney]

No, you can't.

[Adam Carolla]

Wait, exactly. Why would you be in prison? Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So little pragmatic, things like that, like if you got a lot of experience out in the field cutting fire lines, then you get out, you serve your debt to society, you should be eligible to at least attempt to be a firefighter.

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah. But, yeah, they've taken that away. And, you know, there's just a hiring freeze, I guess. And most of the firehouses are underfunded. They got less than $1,000 of cash on hand. It's been like a systemic problem. Even though we all knew that these fires were going to break out sometime in the Santa Ana, but, yeah, the leadership fell very short.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, where's. Somebody tweeted me out, Joe, me on stage at Wise Guys, like, four years ago, screaming about Newsom and how California was on fire. I just kept yelling, on fire. And I was like, when did I say that? Because I don't remember anything. That was four years ago. So the people knew. People knew about. I will find 30 seconds of it just to hear me yell fire.

[Joe]

But what's the deal with the. There's only like two planes that pick up the water. Like, when this. I think there'd be like 10 or 12 planes ready to go.

[Justin McKinney]

One from Canada, and then the drone took it out.

[Joe]

Yeah, you know, I'm watching that from New England going, geez, that's only got two planes out there and one's from Canada.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So what we do is we spend our money on a lot of shit that doesn't matter, but that's the non pragmatic. Now. What we just got in the presidential election is the pragmat. The pragmatist won. But California is not that yet. We'll be the last to get sucked up into whatever's pragmatic. But eventually, at the end of the day, people want their home to not be on fire, and they want their streets to be safe. So they don't even know what the fuck they're doing in California because they want this too. They go, we want good schools and we want safe streets, and we Want homes to be safe, and yet then they vote for everything that doesn't get them that because they think it feels good.

[Joe]

People that want to destroy it, which makes them stupid.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. Was that a tweet that I. I don't know. Why? It was just me yelling fire over.

[Justin McKinney]

And over in a crowded theater. I thought that was illegal.

[Adam Carolla]

None of my shows are crowded, man. You know that. You know better. Accused me having a crowded room.

[Justin McKinney]

Well, here's some good news. Israel and Hamas agreed to hostage release.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Justin McKinney]

And the Gaza ceasefire deal after 15 months.

[Adam Carolla]

Hey.

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah. Apparently. I mean, there are a lot of hoops to jump through in order for them to completely get through, but apparently it involves a hostage exchange. They're going to release some of these prisoners from Gaza. And. Yeah, Trump weighed in. He said this epic ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our historic victory in November, as it signaled the entire world and that my administration would seek peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans and our allies. He wrote on Truth Social. So he's taking credit for it.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, he told them he was gonna unleash hell on them if they didn't do it. And ultimately, they're bullies. And bullies do not respond to friendly, nice and what have you, decorum. They only respond to bullies and terrorists. And that, by the way, that entire. That culture, it's a culture that looks at you as a sucker if you try to play nice with them. They just assume, you know, Every time I got into a street fight, it's because I wanted to get into a street fight. And I knew the best way to get into a street fight with assholes was to tell them I didn't want any trouble. As soon as I told them I didn't want any trouble, they went, well, you found trouble. And then I would fight, which is what I wanted to do mostly out of boredom, I think. But I knew the way to get them to fight was just to pretend like I was scared and I didn't want anything because they were bullies, because they were starting shit in the first place, you know? So when you tell those people, we don't want problems, they go, oh, you don't want problems? Oh, now you got problems. Because they have a bully mentality, and that's how they roll. Plus, they think if they had the power we had, they'd come in and invade and take over. They do everything. They destroy us. You know what I mean? They don't understand being able to destroy something and not doing it, you know? What I mean, not doing it. They only understand fear and being punched in the nose. And so that's what they get with Trump. They get fear with him versus diplomacy. Everyone likes diplomacy. But diplomacy's. Diplomacy is good when you're dealing with Sweden, but it's not good when you're dealing with bully homicidal maniacs who want Sharia law everywhere and declare jihad on everyone. Then it's not good. That's weakness to them.

[Justin McKinney]

They're saying that there are 60 hostages believed to be alive. They're gonna release least 33 in exchange for Israel freeing hundreds of Palestinian imprisoned jails. So that's the first phase. And then apparently on the seventh day, I believe, of the ceasefire, there are going to be further releases after that.

[Adam Carolla]

Do they get any? Oh, God. What's the syndrome? Not Munchausens, but there's Stockholm. Stockholm. Are there any Stockholmies going?

[Justin McKinney]

I mean, I don't know. I'm imagining they were in tunnels somewhere.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't think I see. I think no. Stockholm.

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, but if I was. If I was kidnapped by people from Stockholm, then I might have some Stockholm syndrome. Like, hey, we're shopping at ikea. Well, you're free. Own ikea.

[Justin McKinney]

I gotta. Yeah, I got a strange.

[Adam Carolla]

Stockholm would be a nice place to have Stockholm syndrome, but a tunnel in Hamas would not be a good place to have stopped.

[Justin McKinney]

Yeah, I don't know where they. I guess we're gonna hear about where they held the hostages. You know, I don't know if it would be the tunnel the whole time. Maybe they went to some secondary location. It's not clear yet. But. Yeah, there's gonna be some stories that come out, and I don't know if Stockholm syndrome's part of it.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't think anyone's staying behind.

[Justin McKinney]

No.

[Joe]

Is that where that term came from?

[Justin McKinney]

Something happened. Yeah, I remember reading that. That it was something happened where everybody started to sympathize with their. You know, there's a famous case of a woman, Patty Hearst, who.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Justin McKinney]

Who did a. Who did a bank robbery with her kidnappers because she slowly understood why they were doing what they're doing. Yeah. People fall into that.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I would do that. If I was kidnapped as a young person from my house, I'd probably fall in.

[Justin McKinney]

Well, I mean, it'd be a better idea. It's absolutely possible.

[Adam Carolla]

Duke Gallagher, you got to talk to the leader of Hamas now, not my mom.

[Joe]

Your hair's all one color. I'm going.

[Adam Carolla]

So, Joe. Sorry. Somebody tweeted me that yesterday and I retweeted it, so it's the only standup that's out there.

[Justin McKinney]

I know.

[Adam Carolla]

I saw you when you retweeted it.

[Justin McKinney]

It's no longer there, so I don't know if they took the tweet down.

[Adam Carolla]

But I'm looking for it because I did see it. How does that work? I never know how. If they deleted it, then you no longer retweeted it. Oh, the other thing that was weird is Crazy Race Hustler lady on cnn couldn't find it anywhere. Wasn't on CNN scrubbing it from the Internet. Wasn't. Did they scrub it? Did she have it scrubbed? Did they tell her to scrub it like I just said? Oh, it was on CNN this morning. Just go look on CNN this morning. Nothing, no trace anywhere. They found it on Fox because FOX Records just records CNN for these nut job bitches so they can make fun that that's all. I fully believe. 80% of the view watchers are just Sean Hannity and the rest of the Fox guys just watching it, going, oh, my God. Can you believe how fucking dumb that's. All right, play it.

[Joe]

Save that.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I now think it's people just watching it to make fun of them.

[Joe]

At this point, trying to catch it.

[Justin McKinney]

I read it.

[Adam Carolla]

Is there somebody watching the View earnestly, like, wow, Whoopi makes a really valid point. Is there anyone earnestly watching that?

[Justin McKinney]

I love Whoopi personally. All right, hey, we got one last story.

[Adam Carolla]

Hold on. We got Brad Meltzer, celebrated authors now waiting in the wings. Now the fire video, we'll find for tomorrow maybe, but circle it, Joe. Or maybe we'll find it at some point. I want to give Justin a plug. The TED Talks out. We have that. Also, there's some live dates coming up, right? Yeah, yeah. We got theaters all over the place. Where do we go to find out all your live dates?

[Joe]

Justinmckinney.com, but it's Justin with an O. It's J U S t o n.mckinney.com.

[Adam Carolla]

That'S right.

[Joe]

I do own Justin McKinney too. If you go there, if you need it.

[Adam Carolla]

I was gonna ask.

[Joe]

I bought both.

[Adam Carolla]

Mayhem. Justin, thank you guys for swinging by. We'll talk to author Brad Meltzer right after.

[Joe]

Thank you.

[Adam Carolla]

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[Jason Mayhem Miller]

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[Jason Mayhem Miller]

In the spirit of Murrow, Jennings Cronkite. Here's another great moment in local news.

[Adam Carolla]

I get it.

[Brad Meltzer]

I'm not naive. I get the California Durango. I've been living with that for years and years.

[Adam Carolla]

New scum. You know, the same seventh grade. I remember the guy on Baltimore Avenue.

[Brad Meltzer]

That called me New Scum.

[Adam Carolla]

I was in seventh grade.

[Brad Meltzer]

I can handle that.

[Adam Carolla]

We'll leave that aside.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

That's a great moment in local news. Now back to the Adam Carolla Show.

[Adam Carolla]

Brad Meltzer's join us once again. Seventh appearance. As I look down on my piece of paper, I knew you'd been on a lot, Brad. I didn't know it was that many times. God bless. New book. The jfk the Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy and why It Failed. Good to see you, Brad.

[Brad Meltzer]

Good to see you.

[Adam Carolla]

I've been thinking about you a fair bit lately because all the fires out here and I know. So one thing I remember us talking about is that you were recruited by the Department of Homeland Security to sort of brainstorm of ways terrorists might attack us. And then I started thinking about that old World War II Japanese plot of sending up incendiary balloons and having them fly over the Pacific Northwest and come down and start fires and use all our resources and our time and our energy, trying to put out our own fires versus attack them. But the more. And then I started hearing about arsonists everywhere in Los Angeles. And then I realized, well, you know, in terms of terrorist plots, this isn't a bad way to go.

[Brad Meltzer]

Well, listen, when we would sit in that room, there were worse ideas presented than that. And if I were watching and I were a foreign country right now, I mean, it's heartbreaking what I see there, right? And all the resources, all the stuff, all the confusion, all the misinformation, you know? But again, we gotta. You gotta look at facts. I mean, you know, that is at the end of the day when we would sit in that room and just, you know, they would give us a city like Los Angeles, like New York. And I remember when they called me, I'LL never forget when they called me and said we want you to come in and brainstorm different ways for terrorists to attack. My first thought was if they're calling me, we have bigger problems than anybody thinks, right? Like if you think we're screwed now, like you're calling a fiction writer, you know, a guy who does history for a little living. But it's not stupid. It's a good idea. If you want out of the box thinking from the government, take people out of the government and let them come up with their crazy ideas. And we came up with crazy ass stuff. But again, ones that were worse than that.

[Adam Carolla]

I always thought since 911 that while everyone thinks in a big grand fashion of 911 or dirty bombs or things like that taking out whole cities, I always thought to myself, well just a handful of people coordinated with automatic weapons in any crowded mall at any given time in America is going to be a real big body count. I mean they're just doing it with F150 pickup trucks now. But I mean it's pretty, pretty doable on a kind of quiet, non spectacular, just sort of local level, you know, just lots of guys.

[Brad Meltzer]

If you look every year, you know, the CIA, dni, they'll all make a list. There's a national list you can look up of what the greatest threat to the United States is. And obviously during the Cold War we'd say it was Russia. With these big countries you had to have, you know, a whole mass of things. And then after 911 for many years it was an individual person with purpose and a belief that they are the one who can change the world. That was a bigger threat than an entire foreign country. Because of course, as you saw with 9 11, a small group of people who are zealots for something could do maximum damage. The thing that's crazy about the government, if you really want to get into this conspiracy side of it, is that if you look at last year, so at 9 11, after 911 we put that up and then we started, started making people take their shoes off in the airport. And you had to go through, you know, we have this whole system of TSA to fight that threat. And right now if you want to know the greatest threat, it's not that individual group anymore though, Adam. It's actually China, it's actually big countries again. And we are still 20 something years later, still focused with all of our money and millions, billions of dollars on TSA and making a stake or should have. We haven't changed our defense at all. Even though the Offense moves have changed. That's the scary thing right now in security.

[Adam Carolla]

How much of it is a sincere belief in stopping terrorism versus a kind of chew toy for the masses to satiate, you know, like feel like we're doing something. There's no real practical application. I mean, in the sense that.

[Brad Meltzer]

I know, I get what you're saying.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Brad Meltzer]

I mean, the truth is I think it's different than that. I think it's just the government is like a cruise ship. You can't make it turn 90 degrees, it only turns 2 or 3 degrees. So it should change. People who really care about this want this to change. But you would have to pass laws. You have to take billions of dollars and say we're going to take it away from this thing and give it to this thing and we can't. You know, our government has said, you know, it's not doing that, it will not do that. And so we are stuck with this terrible defensive system and a whole new offense coming at us.

[Adam Carolla]

The book getting back to Kennedy, which seems to seems like he's had quite a renaissance these days. I've been around long enough to hear about it. And then kind of conspiracy theories and then it just kind of went dormant for a long period of time and now it's back. And it may also sort of piggyback on UFOs and what else is the government. Now we're open to the government hiding stuff for us. So if they're going to hide stuff from us, why not this as well? And now you have Robert Kennedy Jr. On there talking about he doesn't think, he thinks the CIA is involved and just Joe Rogan or whomever. It's kind of back. Maybe they'll release some of these documents that formerly we couldn't see.

[Brad Meltzer]

Let's talk about that. But you want to know why he's. Let me tell you, let's start with who killed Kennedy and then we can talk about the plot that we're talking about. But, but, and this is why what you're talking about is if you look who killed Kennedy in the 60s, right when it happened, we said it was Cold War. So it was our great enemies at that time. It was a Soviet Union, it was the Cubans who did it. And then Watergate happens and Nixon's there and mistrust and distrust for the government goes to all time highs. Who killed Kennedy? Inside job, our own government did it. CIA, LBJ did it. And then you look in the 80s, 80s and the Godfather movie peaks. Those movies peak who killed Kennedy. The mob. So if you want to. Who killed Kennedy? It's decade by decade, whoever America's most afraid of at that moment in time. And Kennedy's become that. You know, he's the first celebrity president. And. And I'm not talking about famous. I'm talking about that Hollywood celebrity thing, right? He's not Lincoln or Truman waving off a train. He's selling a lifestyle. The beautiful wife and the beautiful life. And he's got the perfect hair, and he's got the multiple houses, houses. And, you know, some. We've been chasing that. When he died, we've been chasing that. And for some people, it's Reagan. Some people it's Obama. Some people it's Trump, right? But all of them are cosplaying JFK and Jackie because they are forever the ones selling us that dream, that Hollywood dream, which, of course is completely hollow pursuit, because Camelot never existed. It's not real. But, boy, you know, at a time like this, when we're worried, worried, especially when worried about the government, Kennedy goes up. Watch it. You can always see it.

[Adam Carolla]

It's so funny when you look at pictures of Michelle Obama from Obama's first term, she's got the Jackie Onassis, Jackie Kennedy hair bob. Like, she literally just said, give me that hair bob.

[Brad Meltzer]

Reagan's got the thing. They're all everybody. It's a. You know, and the presidency has sadly become that thing. Thing. That's the thing. But we. And we as Americans, you know, I always believe you can't feed people what they don't want to eat. The reason we got where we are is because that's what people want. They want that simpler time of Kennedy. And, you know, when I was researching this book, I was like, where does Camelot come in? I mean, we, you know, in this book, we talk about Jackie's affair, the affairs that JFK is having on Jackie, and we talk about, you know, when she's. There's a point in time where right after they get engaged, one of JFK's best friends comes to Jackie, Jackie. And basically says, you know, Jack really loves women. Tells her to her face, he's gonna sleep around on you. And this woman's like, you know, when she. When she goes into labor, she's hemorrhaging, and her basically, JFK is nowhere to be found. He's on a plane headed to Florida. You know, my wife went into labor, and I was on a plane headed to Florida. Do you know what my wife would do? I would not be doing this interview. I would Be dead and murdered by. That's right. And jfk, she's holding. She's holding this together. Together. And I'm like, why are they calling this place Camelot? Where does it even come from? When did that come into the lexicon? And I finally discovered it, Adam. And it came in. This is crazy. After JFK dies, after his assassination, Jackie grants one interview. And the interview goes to Life magazine. And she has the reporter come to her house. And the reporter shows up. He's there until after midnight. She's helping him rewrite the story. Story. And she tells him this exclusive story. And she says to him that back when JFK was alive and his back was hurting him and he was physically in pain in the White House, when he was going to bed, to get him, to relieve him of that pain and calm him down, she would put on his favorite record. And it was about this song about a place called Camelot. And you forget, Jackie was actually started as a reporter. So she's a member of the press. She's hounded by the press. Press. But make no mistake, brother, she is a master of the press. She's the one who inserts that word, Camelot, into our vocabulary because she wants to write JFK's legacy before anyone else can. And Jackie's the one who pulls that off. And she's a mad genius, man. She's the one who makes it happen.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I mean, every time you hear a little bit more about jfk, you hear about chronic pain and opioids and all the medication. And I've talked to Dr. Drew about this a few times, like the heavy duty stuff he was on, and it all sounds fairly miserable. And then all the philandering and all the partying and all the cheating and everything else, it does not sound like Camelot at all. But that was also back in a time when appearances were a big deal. And appearances are different now, which is interesting. So. So back then, if your parents, let's just say your family was middle class or even upper middle class, back then, if they asked where you came from or who your parents were, you would build them up. My dad was a very successful. So. So. Captain of industry, well respected, Very well respected, and very powerful man. Now if your parents were rich, you were like, we were middle class, nothing special. Put our shoes on one. We're literally downgrading ourselves.

[Brad Meltzer]

We were embarrassed of it, of course.

[Adam Carolla]

Right. So now we're embarrassed of it because it could be used against us. And everyone, all of a sudden is super working class. That came from Working class. I mean, we just. It was funny.

[Brad Meltzer]

Listen, you and I came from working. I know you almost 20 years now. And I remember our first conversation talking about, like, whose parents? Like, we come from that background that actually is real before it becomes cool to say it. It's crazy to me when you say that out loud to realize that that's what's happened and how we've turned it around. Because I remember spending my entire childhood measuring things and, like, what we didn't have, right? And how I was going to get what we wanted to get. The thing about JFK is his life is exactly what you said, the opposite of that. Like. And he doesn't. And I can't even say it's all bad. Like, he has. He's in World War II. Two is, you know, on this PT109, Japanese destroyer. Blows the thing to bits. He's got, like, his men are all floating around him, and he's got one guy who's unconscious. And just to talk about where the back pain comes from and stuff, he says, we got to swim. This guy can't swim. Put him on my back. I'm gonna. I'm the best swimmer given to me. And they. They fashion, like, a rope and they tie it to the guy and he puts it in his teeth. And he's swimming for miles to save him. Gets to an island. Island. When they get to the island, they're like, there's no food here. No one's going to find us. There's no fresh water. He swims another couple of miles, finds another island, says, that one's a little better. I think they're going to look for that. It's a little bigger. Let's swim there. Put him on my back again. Swims again. And when he's done fighting, now his dad, the connected guy, right, the famous Joe Kennedy, the man himself, says, son, you're done. Let's get you out of the war. I'll bring you home. He has the power to bring him home. He's got the medicine, battles, no shame. Let's go. And jfk, and I didn't know this story, JFK says, no, not leaving. This war is still going on. Put me back in World War II. And he goes back. That's why he's the hero. He starts at that. And that's the amazing part of jfk. That's why people love him, because he is worthy of adoration for that. And then, of course, you put him in power and you have this other side of him that's just A disaster. So to me, me is, you know, we've turned the Kennedys into this cliche, right, where they got the perfect life, they got the perfect wife and the perfect hair. But is he good and a World War II hero who took us to the moon? Is he a reckless husband who's bad, or is he like the rest of us? A little bit of both. And to me, what's important about history is letting these people come alive and be human as opposed to just taking them and saying they're one thing. They're all good, they're all bad, they're all the best, they're all the worst.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, I agree. I always think about Henry Ford, who's an anti Semite, but also building the bombers at Willow Run. That's winning World War II to liberate the Jews from the concentration camps. So what is he? You know.

[Brad Meltzer]

Right. That's it. It's a hard that you actually name, by the way. He's like my hardest one because he's such a bad anti Semite. Right? I mean, he's literally like, the guy's the worst of it. And then you're doing these things and we have to. We have to figure that out. And, and by the way, Kennedy's also. And let's talk about this for a moment. He's the worst thing you can be in a politician at that moment in time in 1960, he's Catholic. So that, like, you know, to paint the picture of where we're talking about it, you know, this is a. This is a secret plot to kill Kennedy before he's. Before three years before Oswald ever comes around out. And It's Sunday morning, 1960, right after JFK is elected. He's headed to church. And what he doesn't know is that there's a retired post officer, a person who works in the post office, who named Richard Pavlik, who basically wants to kill him. Packed his car with seven sticks of dynamite, and he's followed JFK all the way to Palm Beach, Florida, where JFK lives, because he's like JFK security, he thinks, thinks is the weakest there. And he's right about that. So as JFK comes out of his house, and this is all true. Comes out of his house, all this assassin has to do is hit that little trigger device that he's built and boom goes the dynamite. And what saves his life that day. I won't ruin that part of the book. Obviously, it's the big finale. But what saves his life has to do with Jackie. It's the craziest JFK store you've never heard in your life.

[Adam Carolla]

Why haven't we heard it? Yeah, why haven't we heard it?

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah. And the reason you haven't heard it is because a huge story in Florida where all the best crazy happens. Right? Of course it's in Florida, my home state.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, Germany or Florida, I like to play.

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah, they're the same, basically, at this point. And basically it makes the front pages there. It's about to go nationwide. And what happens is over New York City, two planes collide and everyone on board dies except for one young boy, this one sole survivor. And America becomes obsessed with is this kid gonna live? And this story takes that JFK story, knocks it off the front page, puts it buried into the middle of the paper, and it becomes a footnote to history until Josh Mench and I, my co author, are like, this is an awesome story. We need to tell this story because the 1960 election is exactly where we are right now. It's the same kind of thing.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, yeah. It's such a fickle fate where. And I always think of the people who had a bunch of stuff go down on 9 11, and I think about. I don't know if it was Gary Condit who had something go down. A politician.

[Brad Meltzer]

No, that was the big one. That was the one. That was the one that was right in the front. Chandra leave investigations going. 911 happens and that story goes away. And that's what happens here.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So it can take a really big front page story and just get it to go away immediately. So that's why people like me, that's.

[Brad Meltzer]

Why you don't heard of it.

[Adam Carolla]

Right.

[Brad Meltzer]

But the thing that you know. And listen, I know it's titillating for me to say. I just think it's titillating for me to use word titillating, but I love that word now that I say it out loud. Titillating.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah, it is.

[Brad Meltzer]

Seems like the best word ever, actually right now. But you know, to say, hey, we found a secret JFK plot that nobody knows about. But history is not great because you can tell old stories. They're only interesting if it says something about us today. And if you look. If you look at the 1960 election, it's Nixon versus Kennedy, and you know, it's the country split in two. And whoever. Whatever side you're on, it's a close selection in the 20th century. And whatever side you're on, you think the other side are complete and utter morons. Does that sound familiar to you.

[Adam Carolla]

Right?

[Brad Meltzer]

And, you know, and. And what happens with JFK is because he's Catholic. There are all these religious groups that are determined. It sounds almost silly and trite now, but there are Protestant groups that are like, we can't have a Catholic president. You know, there's. There's all these people who are like, he will be loyal only to the Pope. He won't be loyal to America. We can't have a Catholic president. Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, who wrote the Power of Positive Power Thinking, famous big book, and he's, like, determined to make sure JFK is not there. And at the same time, you got the Ku Klux Klan, who has a resurgence because they're like, you know what? We were making money hating black people. But in the 1920s, they realized they can get more money and they can expand their kind of circle of hate and get better dues if they start hating more people. So they start hating the Jews, and they start hating immigrants. And they see JFK as an Irish Catholic image immigrant. They're like, we cannot let an Irish Catholic immigrant and his family that came over be the president United States. And when you put that stuff out there, man, it activates people. And this guy, Richard Pavlick, who worked at the post office, he puts the postal in the post office. He gets activated, man, and he's like, I got to do my thing as an American. And JFK is not getting in office. And he puts those sticks of dynamite in his car and gets right there.

[Adam Carolla]

He. He's not in the car when he's blowing it up. I'm assuming he's in the car.

[Brad Meltzer]

He's in the car, yeah. He has a trigger device. He writes the goodbye letter, says, I'm never coming back. He knows what he's doing, and he is truly. In fact, the Secret Service at the time said that according to them, the head of the Secret Service, he's never had a closer call to a sitting president than this with jfk, which of course makes you go like, well, then three years later, if you saw how close someone could get, what are you doing with that bubble off the car in Dallas? You know, it begs all these other questions, but. And it makes me realize that where we are right now, you know, that's where we were in the 60s, right? And JFK, guess what happened? Another guy came, right? More people came and said, I want to do this right. If you look at Trump, who just had two attacks, you know, two attempts on his life, I went to the Secret Service and I asked him, I Said, tell me about the people who killed president residents. And they said to me, you can divide them into two categories. There's hunters and there's howlers. And a howler makes a lot of noise. They howl. They say, I'm going to get that present. I hate that guy. I'm coming for you. But they rarely take action. They're like all talking, no bite. But hunters are very different. And hunters, they don't make a sound at all. They don't tell you they're coming, but those are the ones who pull the trigger. And if you look through history, history from the four men who successfully have assassinated a president, from Abraham Lincoln to jfk, all four of them are hunters. And I hate to say it, but we're going to see it happen again. Someone's going to try. Because you can't hold yourself out as being the best fighter and not expect someone to come and try and take another, throw a punch back. And it's sadly just the state of where we are right now as a culture.

[Adam Carolla]

I hear discussions of drones as, you know, sort of a point of vulnerability for assassinations and these sorts of things. I mean, there's just.

[Brad Meltzer]

Cause it like collapsed all of New Jersey in the Tri State area in like two days.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah.

[Brad Meltzer]

I mean, it was crazy. How crazy was that? Like, a couple of guys are flying drones, and literally you think, like, New Yorkers can handle anything. And I have friends who are like calling me, like, what's up with the drones, Meltzer? And I'm like, what do you think? I mean, just because I'm like, I love history, that I know every crazy thing out there. But I was like, they're like, what's up with the drones, man? I was in.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, I mean, you think about rooftop and assassins and car bombs and stuff, like, stuff that can kind of be swept. But drones adds another dimension that makes it difficult. Also, I think in terms of us, whether it's the TSA or whether it's the Secret Service, we're always kind of one step behind you guys do something, and then we acclimate and we stop, go, okay, this is never gonna happen again. But then they're onto the next thing, you know what I mean?

[Brad Meltzer]

It's like that moment in Garp when the plane hits the house and they say, we'll take it. What's the odds of that ever happening again?

[Adam Carolla]

Right? So we do a lot of that, and now we just announce things are unacceptable, which is always funny to me. But I have heard people I trust talking about drones and that seems to me, and I guess Ukraine and all the war stuff and how they're being weaponized and implemented and so on and so forth. That does seem like a new option that is gonna confound the Secret Service.

[Brad Meltzer]

Well, the thing that confounds the Secret Service is that you're not fighting a country that has a tactic. You're fighting an individual. And every one of them has an unheard of, not before seen, nobody knows about, new tactic. And you got to be ready. And you're exactly right. I mean, a drone or like a technology you don't even think of yet. You know, some. Something that you put in the wall. You know, each time we have this, a new thing is when we get a new level. Like, there was a point where it was during World War II with FDR, where he had his Secret Service guy basically was like, you know what? They're going to poison his food. He's seen a couple of people be poisoned, and he's the one who instituted, we're gonna have someone taste the President's food and make sure that it's safe. And so then you put that level in, you know, same thing with 9 11, right? Shoe Bomber comes, we take off our shoes. Like, it's all very reactive. And you're trying to anticipate what can't be anticipated because it's just some crazy person's idea.

[Adam Carolla]

It's also. Yeah, I think back, you know, you think about Reagan getting shot in the street, and you think about. About more recently, the poor fella who's running the insurance company getting assassinated in New York. And so people have these cries where they go, where was his security? He should have had security. And now the other CEOs of these companies, insurance companies and probably Nabisco and beyond, they're gonna have to have security. Okay.

[Brad Meltzer]

Their pictures came in, Their pictures came off the websites that day.

[Adam Carolla]

Right, Right.

[Brad Meltzer]

You saw what happened. All reactive.

[Adam Carolla]

But my feeling is you got some guy who's hanging out in Hawaii. By the way, the guy killed John Lennon was hanging out in Hawaii, too, before he came back to New York and killed John Lennon up the street from where this guy was killed. But. All right, so let's just say this guy, Guy who runs the health insurance company, hires a couple of guys who played college ball, Big Brothers, to walk next to him when he's walking down Manhattan, which he would have had, you still come up behind him and just shoot him in the back, like, because.

[Brad Meltzer]

You'Re in New York City. And eventually, here's the other Part, you know, I study this a lot from my books. You know, there's obviously all the stuff you can do defensively in what they call things, right? Like you can. When the president goes into a hotel room, the Secret Service wheels in bulletproof glass to put up against the big window, so no one can say, oh, he's going in that thing. We know where the president's suite is. Let's go to the building across the way and shoot him. Right? They have all these things, and we can build all the defenses for things. But what you can't build defenses are for are just human nature, right? That's what. It's just human nature. So if you. There was a point in time where, when I was looking into it, they would say, you have all these generals who are surrounded with rate. You know, they have bodyguards, they have this. They have all this stuff. But you know how we were raiding and getting into their phones. They were. Eventually they would go through their kids phones because their kids just want to download some stupid app, and dad doesn't want to put an encryption device on their kid's phone. So they're just like, fine, here, just take the app. And that's. They're still a dad. So at some point, that's the weak point, right? The weak point is always where you're a human being. And at some point, that guy, that poor guy who was shot in New York City was just like, I just want to go out for a walk, man. It's early in the morning. I just want some fresh air. I want to be out of this hotel room. And he's just being a human being. And as long as those moments exist, you're going to have problems like this.

[Adam Carolla]

So what are. What's your prediction with Trump and assassinations? And I mean, like you said, there's already been. They seemed. The scary part is they seem pretty haphazard and kind of unprofessional and low grade. And both may have worked and almost worked and could have worked, which is scary.

[Brad Meltzer]

But, yeah, the first one. The first one you got, I mean, he is obviously more, you know, the second guy's just hiding in a bush on the golf course. Secret Service, to me, they catch him, they get him. He doesn't get the shot off. Like, that's the job, right? The sad part is, I think whoever won, and I don't say this about whether it's Trump, whether it's Kamala, whoever was gonna win is gonna face someone who's coming to take a shot. It's just you can't have the country. There's a reason why Abraham Lincoln is killed. When he's killed, it's a civil war, right? Half the country hates you. And when all that venom goes out there, people just go, I got an idea. And there's a reason why JFK, in that close 1960s election where the country split down the middle, and they're just venomously saying, get that Catholic out there. He's going to ruin the country. Don't let him in. Someone takes a number of people take shots, and it's, here we are again in this divided country. And it's sad to say, but I just think it's a matter of time until someone takes another shot. And I wish it weren't the case, but, you know, that's what happens when you're divided. And to me, it's a perfect thing to talk about jfk. The one thing JFK does, you know, we can talk about how Camelot is not real, and we could talk about the flaws. We could talk about the great things. And people say, well, if you live, you know, the whole world will be different. And you could say, like, you know, whatever. Civil rights might come faster on the LBJ or maybe the Bay of Pigs or something. Doesn't happen. That's whatever. You can have that sliding doors are going argument. But to me, the one thing that JFK does to calm things down is he unleashes hope again. It goes in that inaugural address. And he does, man. There's nothing to make fun of about hope. And he makes us feel like we're in it together. And I do think, you know, that's the one thing that JFK does completely right. And I really do wish we could get back to where we are now. I don't know. In this kind of divided world where we have two different sets of facts, depending on your politics, how you get back there. But, boy, we need it, man.

[Adam Carolla]

I think that if we start, whoever you disagree with sort of yields results, then I think it quells a lot of this stuff.

[Brad Meltzer]

You know, I live 100%, 100%.

[Adam Carolla]

I live in Los Angeles, and we have a mayor. And I would have voted for Rick Caruso, though I was in La Crescenta or la. Cause it was like, unincorporated, whatever, long story. But Rick Caruso is a business guy, and he's gonna do something about the homeless problem. And he said he was gonna clean up. He was gonna clean up the garbage and the graffiti and stuff. And I went like, all right, Yeah, I like that. And then Karen Bass Won. And that was a couple of years ago. And if I walked outside my house and saw a lot less garbage and a lot less graffiti and a lot less homelessness, then I'd probably go like, most. Okay, good, so be it. All right. It's less of. So I still believe that results can change people's minds.

[Brad Meltzer]

Of course. Of course. Well, listen, even Clinton, as many people as hated Clinton, when you felt like the stock market was going, well, you felt like whatever you thought was going or bad, he lives and dies by that. Obama, same thing. Lives and dies. That's how we do it. That's why you have one term, presidents. Because people. People are like, no, it ain't working. Next, let's go.

[Adam Carolla]

Yeah. So I'm hoping that when it's like a lot of people fled Los Angeles and went to Florida, and a lot of those people would have been pretty Democratic people historically, but then they go to Florida and they go, you know what? It's nice, it's safe. I feel safe. There's no taxes, and they kind of just go, regardless of how you vote or what your ideology is, nice, safe.

[Brad Meltzer]

Clean, no taxes is the first one. Trust me.

[Adam Carolla]

I live in Florida, right? No taxes.

[Brad Meltzer]

Everyone that's come, we've taken. Dave Barry has this great. He says people call Florida the craziest state, but it's only because we took all your crazy, right? We took all your California crazy, your Texas crazy, your New York crazy. We got it all. And trust me, no taxes is up there, baby. You could see it, right?

[Adam Carolla]

So you can go, well, I don't like Desantis, but you do like no taxes and you do like safe, and you do like clean. And so at the end of the day, that makes a big difference. And I'm hoping that the Trump administration, with the likes of Doge and Elon, Musk and Vivek, I'm hoping they take this and they kind of do something with it that makes people go, well, I was driving here today, I passed a Tesla. The person was driving a Tesla and it had Elon sticker with a slash through it. Because the crazy California bitch wants you to know. But she still loves her Tesla and she'll probably get another Tesla. Now, she don't like Elon, but she does like this network of charging systems that other electric cars don't have and would be, I have an electric car. I do not have a Tesla. And I can tell you it's a grave inconvenience to not have that network in place of charging. So she will get Her Tesla. And she will renew her lease on her Tesla in two years, even though she's got the bump. She'll have to remove the bumper sticker with the Elon and then put it on her next Tesla. That's what I'm saying.

[Brad Meltzer]

Well, it is ecologically friendly to do it that way. So I think that's probably right. That's probably the way it's done.

[Adam Carolla]

And ultimately, people are pragmatic, even if they talk that. They talk about this and they talk about that, but they really want clean and safe.

[Brad Meltzer]

Politics is local, right? It's all local. It's what affects you at home. That's it. That's how we've always done it. And I think in a strange way, that's what, you know, there's the Kennedys represented for people. You know, they were that. That last bit of the 50s come into the 60s, right? And you had. It was when this word teacher, teenager became exploded. Because what you had happen, if you look at the time, it used to be like you were saying before, I should have brought this up, I forgot. It is. There was a point where when you were younger, what your dad did, you then did, right? Your dad's a carpenter, you take over the part of the business. Your dad's a butcher, you take over, you're the butcher, like. And then what happened was, is people moved to the suburbs. And as the 50s became the 60s, they started going to better schools than they had where they were. And when you give the people better schools, schools and places to live there, guess what happens? They don't want to be the butcher. They don't want their dad's job. And they want to have their own version of their own future. And Kennedy represents that hope of, like, you know what? Not Eisenhower anymore. We're going to be. I'm going to be my own future, my own person, my own, not my mom and dad's president. Here I am. And when we look back, boy, we have been chasing that. That simplicity. Simplicity of what he represents, that transition, whether it was real or not, we don't care.

[Adam Carolla]

We just want it just for recollection. Kennedy's PT boat was hit by a Japanese destroyer.

[Brad Meltzer]

Or that's the thing, is shot by Japanese. It came up under the boat. It like comes up. I think it comes up and hits it. We don't know. No one knows to this. This day. I don't know if it was rammed on purpose or it just came up and hit it because it was too small. It wasn't shot upon. It Was hit physically by the boat. And then the boat is. You know, the PT109 is just so much smaller and it just shatters. You know, he. One guy's unconscious, everyone else. There's a couple obvious people who die. But it's a. You know, the guy saying, put him on my back because I'm the best swimmer, and then do it again. It's a hell of a story, man. It's an unbelievable moment.

[Adam Carolla]

I think Joe can look this up. I think PT boats were made out of plywood.

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah. I think they are wood. I think they are wood because they. Because he takes the planks. Because the only thing that saves the guy who's unconscious is the wood floats. And so they make. They fashion this, like, floating device for them. They don't have life preservers then. And they're, you know, or their God. God knows where they are. And they. He's holding onto this. They put a string around. He puts the string in his teeth, and that's how he saves the guy's life. It's unbelievable.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, okay. It says here they were made of. Often said made of plywood, but they were actually made of mahogany planks with a layer of canvas in between. But anyway, the point is wood, which is weird because we didn't have a lot of wooden boats back then. And I watched enough McHale's navy to know the difference between steel mowers, mahogany planks. Probably using my old carpenter days. Shiplap. Not tng, but shiplap, which is what.

[Brad Meltzer]

They put ship lap is now what you put in a fancy house on the ceiling.

[Adam Carolla]

That's right. Back then. Back then, they held your ship together on ships. Well, Brad, what else? I mean, you always have something in the hopper, right? And then what about Hollywood? What about film and movies?

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah. So, I mean, we're working. Listen, we always are working on that. We talk to people about our Lincoln conspiracy book. We did the Nazi conspiracy about the secret plot to kill fdr, Stalin and Churchill. And my thrillers, I all, you know, I'm obsessed with Dover Air Force Base. And I've been writing about that for three books now from my work with the USO and all the stuff I do there. But the next thing that actually comes out, I just finished a new thriller which will be the sequel to the book I did called the Lightning Rod. We spoke. Spoke about. But the next book that actually I'm doing, I Am Sally Ride and our kids book series comes out next because I want to do a female astronaut. And then I gave a Commencement address at the University of Michigan this year. And it was a crazy moment because, you know, it's 70,000 people. It's like what YouTube played when. When they're playing in Wembley Stadium during Live Aid. And I care about one because my son was graduating and my son was in the 14th row. So I got 70,000 people there, and I wrote a speech for my son, and I graduated Michigan. He was graduating Michigan. And it's the middle of all the protesting. So you have all these Palestinian protesters are coming down the field. They're marching eight minutes before I go on. They're marching to the 50 yard line. The whole thing's going, the crap. It's one of the first graduations of the summer, of the season. So I'm sitting next to the president of the university, and he says to me, why aren't they pushing him back? And I'm like, you're the president back and look, whatever you're doing. And they wind up eight minutes before I go on, the police come in and move him back 80 yards into the end zone. The. It's all overcast, the clouds part and sun comes out. My sister, who's in the stands, takes a picture of the sky and says to me, mom and dad are looking out for you right now. And all the crap that was going on, all the dominoes were going this, this way, suddenly was like they got up and started going the right way. Eight minutes before I go on, I go and give this speech. And the speech is about how to make magic. And obviously real magic, you know, doesn't exist, but there are. There is magic in the universe. There are things you can't explain. And if you talk to magicians, they'll tell you that there are four types of magic tricks. You put aside escapes, and you put aside, you know, escapes, and you're left with four trips tricks. And the first one is you make something appear. The second one is you make something disappear. The third magic trick is you make two things switch places. And the fourth trick is you got to turn one thing into something else. The hardest trick of all, which is transformation. And I talk about how when I graduated Michigan, Desmond Howard had just won the Heisman Trophy. And I remember the speaker at the day at graduation said, is Desmond here? And he stopped, stood up, and he was like 10 rows away from me. And I remember looking at him being like, wow, there's my classmate. So excellent, just right there. I'm so close to excellence. And I go through my whole speech, which is all about making magic, and what you need to make appear in your life and what you need to make disappear in your life, like your fears and how you have to make the two things that switch places are empathy. That's what empathy is. Trying to look through someone else's eyes. And we could use empathy. We need that as a culture. And when I get to the end and I say, every magician has another magic trick up their sleeves, I said, I still think about Desmond Howard 30 years ago when I graduated. So I want to do one more trick for you. Ladies and gentlemen, remember that magic is always not done for yourself. It's done for other people. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome my friend, Desmond Howard. And 30 years later, Desmond Howard comes out on the stage and 70,000 people go bananas. And it is the craziest moment of my professional life. I literally said, when you have 70,000 people, I know you've done big events, but, like, I had to lean forward because I thought it was going to be knocked back on my ass. And A.J. mcCarthy and Blake Corum, I had them come out from our championship winning team and the place explodes. And I'm screaming in the microphone because I can barely hear myself. And I have access to three jumbotrons. And when the speech is done, Adam, I've never had more people say to me, can I have a copy of that speech? I want to give that to my son, my daughter, my grandson, my kid. Please, please, please. I've written so many book, no one's ever asked me for the text to give away as a gift for like a legacy purpose. So in March, make magic my new book. It's literally that speech that I gave. My commencement address is coming out in book form and that's the next book we're going to do.

[Adam Carolla]

Oh, that's wonderful. Did Desmond do the Heisman pose?

[Brad Meltzer]

Well, that was the whole thing. He did The Heisman pose 30 years ago. And he came out and he doesn't do it in between. And he did it again. Really, it was he. When he did, I said, you know, I said, I remember he did the Heisman pose when he stood up. And then 30 years later, go look on YouTube, put my name in in University of Michigan commencement and you'll see him do it. And the place I truly had to lean forward and it was deafening. I've never my whole life had an experience like it. It was standing in a hurricane.

[Adam Carolla]

I don't want to shatter your dreams, but Desmond Howard does not do the Heisman pose anymore the correct way. On last season at a Chili's on a Tuesday night and he's drunk, in which case he does it every single time.

[Brad Meltzer]

It is Chili's, too, for Taco Tuesdays, that is.

[Adam Carolla]

Well, Brad, always great to catch up with you again, my friend. I'm glad you're doing well. I look forward to the book coming out March. Come back and let's talk it up in March. Because I was inspired just by the publishers. Not the publisher, the Reader's Dice Digest version. You just.

[Brad Meltzer]

Yeah, there is Digest. I love you, man. Thanks for looking out for me in all these different genres I go to play in.

[Adam Carolla]

Love you, Brad. All right. The JFK conspiracy, the secret plot to kill Kennedy and why it Failed. Brad Meltzer, always good to see him. Justin McKinney, very funny. Stand up. You can check his standup [e-mail], all the live dates and all that. Me, Solana beach coming up Sunday. I'm going to be there with James Moore doing two shows. So come on out and say hi at the Belly up and then Covina the Laugh Factory, Paul Rodriguez gonna be with me January 22nd and Boca Raton on the January 30th. And then Naples and Naples and Naples. Go to Adamkle.com for all the live shows. Until next time, Adam Kroll from Mayhem Miller and Brad Meltzer and Justin McKinney saying mahalo.

[Jason Mayhem Miller]

Leave us a voicemail at 888-634-1744 and they get tickets to see Adam Carolla. You can get [e-mail].

[Brad Meltzer]

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[Dawson]

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[Adam Carolla]

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[Dawson]

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