Vaccines, Who Needs 'Em? Plus, Nina Westbrook and the Wellness App, Nebbi

Summary

Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay

Episode: "Vaccines, Who Needs 'Em? Plus, Nina Westbrook and the Wellness App, Nebbi"

Date: September 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay unpack a variety of pressing topics, from controversies in progressive media over donor transparency, to a viral baseball game incident that raised questions about gender and race dynamics. The highlight of the episode is a candid, in-depth interview with Nina Westbrook—licensed marriage and family therapist and wife of NBA star Russell Westbrook—about her new mental wellness app, Nebbi, and broader themes around mental health in relationships. They also debate Florida’s plan to end all vaccine mandates, discuss celebrity culture, and examine the fallout from leaked jailhouse phone calls involving rapper Young Thug.

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1. Covid Surge & The 'Wired Article' Fallout

[00:12–13:13]

Key Points:

• Rachel opens up about getting sick amid a new Covid surge, noting a sense of collective fatigue:
  "Step outside. Boom, Bam. Sick."
• Van highlights how journalist Taylor Lorenz uses every media appearance—even amid controversy about her Wired exposé—to remind audiences, “Covid is back. Mask up.”
• The Wired article allegedly uncovered that major left-leaning content creators were receiving funding from dark money groups, sparking a debate about independence and messaging on the left.
  • “The article...is tearing the left apart. Everybody’s at each other’s throat.” (Van, 00:37)
• Van and Rachel clarify their own platform’s relationship to corporate sponsorship, stressing that while they are not “independent media,” they are not told what they can or can’t say:
  • “We are funded by a corporation. If I come out tomorrow and devote an entire podcast to X personal life...somebody's gonna say something. So we should let people know.” (Van, 07:37)
• The two debate whether taking funding compromises “independent media,” and the importance of transparency about funding sources and editorial independence.

Notable Quote:
"If you're taking money from a fund you don't know, you might be taking money from people who don't want you to talk about Palestine...or go against Big Oil."
— Van Lathan, [11:08]

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2. Viral Baseball Game & "Karen" Culture

[14:22–27:28]

Key Points:

• Donnie relates a viral incident at a Phillies/Marlins game where a woman aggressively demanded a home run ball from a father who’d given it to his son. The man chose to deescalate and give her the ball.
• Rachel praises the father's restraint as a good example of modeling conflict resolution for his son, particularly given the gender dynamic of the confrontation.
• Van reflects on whether the response would change depending on the race and gender of those involved, highlighting the fraught optics for Black men in confrontational public situations.
  • “If it was a white lady, I cannot acquiesce to the caringness. I can't do it.” (Van, 17:23)
• The hosts delve into the societal expectation for men, especially Black men, to "be more than a person," and show extra restraint in confrontations.
  • “I have to be better than you...there's no accountability there [for her]." (Van, 26:57)

Memorable Quote:
“We've seen Karens call the police on people...try to get Black people killed. But for some reason, this one—kid at a kid-appropriate place, somebody trying to steal from a child—this angered people to such a degree.”
— Van Lathan, [20:15]

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3. Texas Democratic Senate Race

[28:08–43:18]

Key Points:

• State Rep. James Talarico’s expected Senate bid is discussed in light of his broad appeal and fresh approach in Texas politics.
• Both hosts believe Talarico could outperform Colin Allred in the primary thanks to his ability to appeal to both moderates and progressives, particularly his integration of faith and politics.
• Van worries about the “national celebrity” problem for young progressives—success outside Texas doesn’t always translate into local political infrastructure or support.
• They speculate about possible endorsements—particularly Joe Rogan—and the complexities of shifting political allegiances within influencer spheres.
  • “That entire...manosphere podcasting ecosystem, you made MAGA cool.” (Van, 36:04)
• Van emphasizes the need for a robust and unequivocal rejection of Trumpism and authoritarianism by any serious candidate or influencer.
  • “I need a rebuke of MAGA-ism...not ‘taxes are cool,’ not ‘Trump is funny.’” (Van, 43:22)

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4. Interview: Nina Westbrook & the Nebbi App

[58:14–97:50]

4.1. Nina's Background & Mission

[58:14–63:10]

• Nina details her journey from UCLA English major to licensed marriage and family therapist.
• The Westbrooks’ dedication to advocacy around mental health is rooted in their personal and family values, extending to community work and youth mentoring.

4.2. Mental Health & Relationships

[63:10–76:33]

• Rachel asks about the role of therapy and communication in sustaining a successful relationship. Nina shares how she and Russell Westbrook, from very different backgrounds, learned to make mental health and communication foundational to their partnership.

4.3. The Nebbi App—Purpose & Features

[65:36–73:53]

• Nina introduces Nebbi, a daily wellness app designed to make evidence-based mental health tools accessible, simple, and non-intimidating.
• The app focuses on quick daily check-ins, emotion identification, and bite-sized tasks—all grounded in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) principles.
• Rachel shares her own positive experience using Nebbi:
  • “What I love about the app… it doesn’t feel invasive, but it feels like a friend I’m talking to.” (Rachel, 68:00)
• Nebbi is differentiated from AI-based “therapy bots” by ensuring data privacy and clinician-led guidance.

4.4. Relationship Wellness—Key Insights

[74:32–80:23]

• Nina debunks the idea of “being your partner’s peace,” emphasizing that fulfillment must come from within:
  • “You have to be your own peace. You can’t rely on someone else to bring you peace because they can decide to take that peace away.” (Nina, 74:32)
• She encourages listeners to seek companionship, but not as a remedy for feelings of “incompleteness.”

4.5. On Criticism, Social Media, and NBA Life

[81:00–89:02]

• Nina shares how she and Russell navigate intense public scrutiny and criticism, crediting their grounded family life and strong core relationships.
  • “For all the hate you hear, there’s so much more love—people that we actually know and care about… We can’t hear the hate from the Amalfi Coast.” (Van, 87:18, paraphrasing)
• Nina extols the importance of privacy, emotional honesty, and having trusted confidants.

4.6. Practical Mental Health Routines

[90:53–96:45]

• Nina’s top tip: just do a daily check-in; awareness is transformational, even in under a minute.
• When supporting someone through emotional difficulty, she advises: “The best thing that you can do...is just listen and be kind.” (Nina, 94:36)

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5. Florida Plans to End ALL Vaccine Mandates

[101:11–116:50]

Key Points:

• Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced plans to end all vaccine mandates for children, labeling them “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
  • Rachel and Van blast the rhetoric, calling it a dangerous, dishonest politicization of public health.
  • “This is so scary… You're doing it for claps and cheers and to satisfy a certain audience… not protecting the children.” (Rachel, 104:34)
• Van gives a mini-history lesson on smallpox and vaccines, highlighting Black and Indigenous innovation in immunization, and decries how anti-vax movements exploit distrust in medical institutions.
  • “It was our ancestors that actually invented the vaccine… and now I'm watching a Black man stand up and be used as a puppet.” (Van, 112:28)
• Both hosts warn that undoing vaccine mandates—spurred by misinformation from Covid debates—could lead to the return of deadly childhood diseases.

Memorable Quote:
“They leverage the cultural fear that Black people have of some of the scientific institutions in America that have failed us, and they turn that around… we have some of the highest levels of skepticism, when really it was our ancestors that actually invented the vaccine.”
— Van Lathan, [112:28]

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6. Notable Segments & Cultural Commentary

6.1. “Glaze of the Week” (Obsessive Celebrity Fandom)

[119:06–126:26]

• The team roasts news that a Brazilian businessman left Neymar, the soccer star, $1.1 billion dollars in his will purely because he admired him, calling it “one of the greatest dick rides I’ve ever seen.”
  • “You could build all kinds of schools … but you left it to a ‘kicker of the ball’.” (Van, 121:11)
• Rachel and Van debate the media’s role in amplifying celebrity worship.

6.2. Young Thug Jail Call Leaks

[126:31–142:54]

• Young Thug’s private jailhouse phone calls were leaked, revealing him talking candidly (sometimes negatively) about other rappers and discussing personal drama.
• Rachel and Van question the ethics of leaking such calls, the difference between “private” and “expectation of privacy” in jail, and how much leaked trash-talk reflects someone’s true feelings.
  • “It’s in him. This is who he is. So if I'm listening to it and I hear my name, this is how he feels.” (Rachel, 138:20)
• Discussion of Atlanta’s unique hip hop camaraderie—now possibly over due to the leaks.
• The hosts reflect on “street” authenticity and caution against glorifying street life when it’s not one’s lived reality.

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “Covid is back. Make sure you guys know that.” — Van, [02:15] (on Taylor Lorenz)
• “You have to be your own peace.” — Nina Westbrook, [74:32]
• “For all the hate that you hear, there's so much more love… we can't hear the hate from the Amalfi Coast.” — Van (paraphrasing), [87:18]
• “Who am I as a government… to tell you what you should put in your body?” — Dr. Joseph Ladapo (via clip), [101:45]
• “They leverage the cultural fear… when really it was our ancestors that actually invented the vaccine.” — Van, [112:28]
• “You have to be better than [them]… there’s no accountability there [for her].” — Van, [26:57]
• “This is one of the greatest dick rides I’ve ever seen before. This is crazy.” — Van, [122:41]
• “It’s in him. This is who he is. So if I'm listening to it and I hear my name, this is how he feels.” — Rachel, [138:20]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Covid surge / Media independence discussion............................. [00:12–13:13]
• Viral baseball game & social dynamics................................. [14:22–27:28]
• Texas Democratic Senate race analysis................................. [28:08–43:18]
• Fitness, vulnerability, and aging commentary......................... [51:40–58:14]
• Interview: Nina Westbrook & Nebbi App................................ [58:14–97:50]
• Florida vaccine mandates controversy................................ [101:11–116:50]
• Celebrity worship & "Glaze of the Week".............................. [119:06–126:26]
• Young Thug jail call leaks and street authenticity................... [126:31–147:58]

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Conclusion

This episode blends serious sociopolitical critique (vaccines, media independence, electoral politics) with lighter, deeply human moments (aging, sports, relationships), providing listeners with a rich cross-section of Black culture, politics, personal wellness, and celebrity discourse. Nina Westbrook’s interview offers actionable wellness insights, while the rest of the show reaffirms Higher Learning’s signature: smart, uncensored, and highly relatable conversation.

Don’t miss:

• [58:14–97:50] Nina Westbrook interview for mental health and wellness actionable insights.
• [101:11–116:50] Florida vaccine mandates for urgent public health discussion.
• [14:22–27:28] Viral baseball game for an engaging exploration of gender and race codes in public life.

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Listen on: The Ringer, Spotify, Apple Podcasts
Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. & Rachel Lindsay
Special Guest: Nina Westbrook

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Take caps off, but do not stop learning.

Transcript

[A]

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Other is on is Ivan Lathan Jr.

[B]

And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay.

[A]

What's wrong with you?

[B]

It happened. It happened. I got sick. I got sick. Listen, it's been a while since I've been sick on the podcast. Been a lot, a long time since I lost my voice on the podcast. I've been been taking an effort to take care of myself, vitamins, rest, less travel, at least for the last month. Now step outside. Boom, Bam. Sick.

[A]

There's a Covid surge happening right now. Nobody seems to care. So it's an understandable thing that this is happening because Covid's on the rise. Cases are going up. People are not masking Taylor Lorenzo, who is the lady that wrote the Wired article. Remember the Wired article that we talked about that is tearing the left as far as the content creators apart. Like it's tearing them apart. Everybody's at each other's throat. This is so funny.

[B]

Is it funny?

[A]

It's hysterical. Because what's happening right now on the left as far as the content creators are concerned with the Wired article is such a microcosm of what just happens on the left, period. The article comes out your David Pakman's, Brian Tyler Cohen's Two Raw two Reels. All of the people involved go to their wing of it, the progressive leftist wing goes to their wing of it, and then they fight it out for whose way really is the best way to do this when the answers are probably somewhere like in the middle of the whole thing. But I'll say this every time. Taylor Lorenz is being interviewed by this and she's been interviewed by everyone. She's on the Habituation Room. Love that show. She was on Vanguard. Those guys are hilarious. Vanguard might not be for everyone, but love those guys. She keeps reminding people, hey, Covid is back in the real way. Mask up.

[B]

And she does.

[A]

Yeah. Every time she's on there. It's so funny. She's on there to talk about this article that is like sending shockwaves through left media. And she's saying Covid is back. Make sure you guys know that. Covid is back. It's just funny. I've seen her say it like three different times.

[B]

I mean, I'll go get tested after this.

[A]

So what are you going to say about that?

[B]

Wait, can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question about that?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

You know, like a lot of people are saying or a lot I'm reading is. And even the comments that I got from our listeners Were like a lot of that was fabricated. They're claiming that that's not true. Has Taylor, I have not seen her be interviewed anywhere. Has she come out and said take it like retracted anything at all in regards to her article?

[A]

There's nothing to retract. So there's nothing to retract. It really just depends on how you look at the situation. This is my analysis of it real quick. We have more information on it than we did before. The 1630 fund, or whatever it is, is a dark money fund. People don't know what a dark money fund. It just means that you don't know where the money's coming from. Okay. They are investing into chorus. KORUS is a group that was actually started by Brian Tyler Cohen, which I didn't know then, that we all know is giving stipends to leftists, not leftists to content creators that are on the left to create content. And apparently this is not just them being paid. This is a mentorship program where they understand, they get to learn how to scale their businesses, they get taught how to deal with different algorithmic things and as you would need, they get funded. I don't think Everybody was making $8,000 a month, but I think it was up to $8,000 a month. Now, there are two different ways of looking at it. One way of looking at it is if you have. And by the way, Taylor's article, we talked about this, alleges very direct things that they are not just funding the content, but they're curating it. If that is happening, it's wrong, full stop. But that also depends on how you look at it. For me, I would never take any amount of money to be told what I could say because that means that I'm not really saying anything, that somebody else is saying something and they're filtering it through my face, voice and platform. So that's not. There's nothing worth that. Okay, but some people might say that, hey, what we essentially need and the we being people who are fighting against the magoing of the party is avatars to get out messaging in a compelling way that is powerful and resonates with people. And if that messaging has to be curated from whomever, wherever to combat the messaging of ice, taking people off the streets or of environmental injustice or whatever, then hallelujah. Now I disagree with them, but I don't look at them as evil. And I think that is the thing. I think there are some people that were saying this is the big Democratic Party putting their thumb on the scale as far as content on the left it might be, but is a thumb on the scale better than a thumb up your ass? And that's a disgusting question to ask. That's a nasty question. That's a fucked up question.

[C]

Because.

[A]

This goes back to a philosophical debate about whether or not the way to defeat inaction from the Democrats is with a progressive leftist agenda that pokes holes in the fact that the Democrats are no longer in step with what their constituency wants. So if they're trying to gain more control by cooking the books, by telling these people what to say, then all that basically is is the destruction of independent media, the shredding of people's actual free thought and destroying the actual consent of the governed because you're actually manufacturing consent.

[B]

I don't look at them as evil, and I hope that didn't come across that way the last time we were talking about it, but I do look at them as compromised.

[A]

Yeah, of course.

[B]

It's one thing for me to have a personal view of it. And I'm with you. I could never take money because I feel like then I wouldn't stand for anything. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror because I'm. Even if I believe everything that I'm saying, it still feels like it's coming. You know, I'm being paid to speak this way. And it just feels compromised, which is why I use that word. And I don't want people to ever question, you know, where I stand, what I believe in, any of that. So when I look at people who are taking money and again, that's why I asked me, does she retract anything that she said in her article? She. I look at. I read it as there. These messages have to be approved. It has to be like, you can't just say whatever you want, like some parts of it. But like on, like on our platform, yes, we're with the corporation, but nobody has ever told us what we can and can't say.

[A]

I can't imagine we should say this.

[B]

They would, but they haven't.

[A]

They haven't. But I just wanna make. This is not us coming from. We are not Cedar FD signifier. All of these that are funded by their people. We are funded by a corporation. And if I come out tomorrow and devote an entire podcast to X personal life or something that we think somebody's gonna say something. So we should let people know that we don't have. Yeah, we're not coming down from that.

[B]

No, that comes with a corporation. But it takes away from. I'm making is as it stands as we're recording this Monday, September 8, 2025. Nobody has ever told us what we can and can't say. Nothing has been a curated message. My point is, is when I look at these people who are accepting money, even if it is just to bolster up their education and knowledge platform, whatever it may be, I still look at it as but you're still doing this. So I don't know, like there's a but. There's a hmm. There's a hmm. I'm not saying I don't believe you, but there is a pause and it's just. I can't see past it now that I know this. That is just me. Not everybody has to feel that way, right?

[A]

Is it true that we've never done something where someone. Where we made the people around here uncomfortable? That's definitely not true.

[B]

I didn't say uncomfortable. You make me uncomfortable probably every time.

[A]

I'm not talking about that, but I'm saying that to where we've. There was one whole interview that we did that we didn't put up the medical doctor.

[B]

Yeah, but we talked about that on the podcast. That wasn't us. Nobody telling us what to do. That was us not realizing how far gone and how much misinformation and disinformation this person was spewing out. It wasn't somebody that told us to take it down. That was us.

[A]

What I'm saying is that the. I want to be crystal clear as we're having this conversation, we can get into quick hitters. When you are independent media. To me, the power of being independent media and saying that you are independent media, is that right or wrong? Up or down, red or blue, the buck stops with you. You put something out there, you put it on your shit and you live with the consequences of it. You have a relationship, oftentimes parasocial, with your audience, where you go back and forth with them. They are the people that you are beholden to and what's in your brain. If you are talking to people anywhere from anything that's sponsored by any corporation, that's just not what you're doing. So while we're talking about people that are. When we're talking about independent media, we are not independent media. And that's just. I just have to be. I have to be consistent.

[B]

They know that.

[A]

But I would also say that the question, I think is, can you be independent media if somebody is helping you? Like, can you still be independent in thought? If There is an organization that is giving you $8,000 a month and incubating you in a way that is. You're saying yes.

[B]

Well, that's why I wanted you. Cause you said independent media and I was about to say thought and then you said it, right, of course you can, but it's the perception of it.

[A]

Well, that's the debate is what we got, what we've got. There's one group of people that are saying, no, you can't be independent media if you're taking money from Kors. Who's getting money from a place that they don't even know who's paying them. Right. Because it's dark money. So they don't even know if that fund is funding chorus. We know that it's a fund that is dedicated to left thought. If that fund is funding chorus and then they're giving it to you. You're taking money, you don't even know where it's coming from. So you might be taking money. The money that you might be taking might be coming from people who don't want you to talk about what's going on in Palestine. It might be coming from people who don't want you to talk about AIPAC or specific candidates. It might be coming from people who don't want you to go against Big Oil or any other things that actual structures of party politics are into. Maybe they don't want you to talk about Zoram Hamdani. I always say his name wrong. Zoramdani. Maybe they don't want you to talk about him. Maybe they want you to talk up the mainstream candidate. Maybe they. Because another thing that was alleged in the article is before you have a politician on that, you have to run it by them.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So that would cut against what people would say, you being independent media. Independent media means and independent of thought mind. And.

[B]

And that's my biggest hangup, which is why I asked the question about Taylor from the very beginning. Biggest question is, is she gonna. Is she taking back anything that she said? Because other people are saying what she said is not true. Some of the people receiving money. So that's why I said that. Because it's more, more even than the money of where it's that they're getting money. It's the thought that things have to be run by pass somebody before they can put it out to the public. That's the most troubling thing, right? If that's true.

[A]

Yeah, I see. She went and she did a run, by the way. Cause I think she felt like people were coming after her. She did a lot. They were. She was on a couple of different places. I watched her everywhere she was directly. But maybe we'll have Brian. I met Brian at the Zateo thing in Los Angeles. So might hit Brian up and see if he wants to come on the show. I reached out to David Pakman a long time. David's on the run right now. They getting on David Ass. This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. Would you sell your soul for greatness? What would you be willing to sacrifice? Find out on September 19th in the new Jordan Peele produced horror film him only in theaters. Starring Marlon Wayans as the greatest football player of all time and Tariq Withers as his up and coming protege. Directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Monkey Paw Productions. Never meet your idols. Him hits theaters September 19th.

[B]

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[A]

All right, Donnie. Quick hitters.

[D]

Yeah. Something that happened at a baseball game Friday night was all over the socials. It was the Phillies versus the Marlins. A home run got hit into the stands. And you know, as normally happens, fans scramble for the ball. A man came up with the ball. Looks like he gave it to his son. And then this lady came up to him, yelled in his face, and he gave her the ball. I'm playing the video right now for y' all watching. After this incident happened, staff of the Miami Marlins came up to the kid and gave him a goodie bag with some swag. And then after that, it looks like Harrison Bader, the guy who hit the home run, greeted the fan and gifted him a signed ball. But everybody's been searching for this lady, calling her a Karen. And the father, who's been identified as Drew Falwell, was interviewed afterwards and said, I don't even remember what she said. It was, you know, a lot of eyes on us by that time. And the ball was already in his glove. And she just wouldn't stop. And, I mean, I'm literally leaning back as she's in my face yelling and yelling. And I pretty much just wanted her to go away because I had a fork in the road. Either do something. I Was probably going to regret or be dad and show him how to de. Escalate the situation. So that's where I went. What'd you guys think of this?

[B]

I love the sad. I love this dad so much.

[A]

The argument is about whether or not he should have given the ball back.

[B]

Yeah, he should have. And this is why I love this dad. First off, when you see the video, my favorite part is after he takes the ball, gets the ball from under the chair, walks over to his son and hands it to his son. He's behind his son, and he closes his eyes and he holds his son so tight. Like he's just so happy that he was able to make this moment happen for his son.

[C]

And.

[B]

And then, of course, that's taken away in 10 seconds when this lady, whatever her name is, comes up and basically harasses the man and the child right there. He should have given the ball back. For the last part of what he said in his statement, he was faced with the fork in the road, and he had to figure out what to do. She was not gonna back down. She didn't care if the child was present, if cameras were on her, if people were recording nothing. She wanted the ball. That was her main focus in that moment. He was able to determine all of that and then say, you know what? I have an opportunity to be the bigger person to show my son what you do in these situations. And it was a woman versus a man. Like, there's also that if it was a man versus a man, maybe he would have handled it different. He gave his son. I mean, gave her the ball, walked away, and then what ended up happening? They were rewarded in. Even in a bigger way. He absolutely should have given the ball back just for the sake of his son. If there were no children present, if it was man versus man, totally different situation. But, like, it was a lesson man. I can already tell you disagree.

[A]

It's not that I disagree. Right? It's not that I disagree. I actually thought about something here. If that was me, I was there with my black family.

[B]

Which one are you?

[A]

I am the man.

[B]

The dad.

[A]

I'm the dad, okay? And I'm there with my black son. And if it was a white woman, I would have not given the ball back. If it was a black woman, I would have given the ball back.

[B]

Say, why?

[A]

Because if it's a white lady, I cannot acquiesce to the caringness. I can't do it. I gotta say, hey, go on now. And it's not even nothing. I'm not Gonna get animated. I'm gonna actually just ignore. Talk to my son. Hey, nah. Or I might hit her with the look like daddy used to do. Look. My daddy had a bunch of different versions of look. I've talked about it. Look, look, look, look. And then he had a one look that meant get the fuck on, and that was look. So I might have hit her with that. If it's a black lady, I would have given the ball back because I wouldn't have trusted you guys to understand the situation.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

And I'm just being for real. I wouldn't have wanted to.

[B]

I thought it was for your love. That's what I thought she was gonna say. Not.

[A]

Cause she would've been in the wrong by coming over there and getting to the. And getting in my face. She would have been totally in the wrong. But what you just said before is the fact that there's a gender dynamic to this, which there is, is one of the reasons why it's probably best just to give the ball back and, like, even in front of your son, because it's like the moment she can come over there, yell and put her finger in his face and do all kinds of crazy shit, the moment that he either even raises his voice with her a little bit or goes, hey, yo, get the fuck out of my face. Now he looks like the asshole, which is preposterous and absurd in every single way when they're two adults talking. But that's kind of the way it's going to look. And I would have never wanted to be in a situation to where I was, like, raising my voice or getting like that with a black lady because I would not trust people to see that as me protecting my son and not have them see that as me, like, attacking too vehemently and aggressively a black woman. But if the lady is white, then there's an extra dynamic there to where I would have had to have been. I can't let a. Let her come take the ball. They took everything else. I can't let them have the ball, too.

[B]

But you know what? If that was you and your son and a white woman came over like that, you wouldn't have to give her the ball. The optics would be so bad. She could have yelled at you for one second or 100 seconds. And the optics of a white woman screaming and berating at a black man who's just standing there being composed, you would have already won. You probably would have kept the ball and still got to beat the players. The optics were. Would have just been so Bad.

[A]

But there's nothing wrong with showing your son that. Deescalating the situation and being the bigger person is how you should live your life. There's nothing wrong with that. For a lot of people that are calling this guy weak, he's not weak. There is definitely strength in showing his son that he does not have to get crazy wild with it in order for them to win that situation, which they clearly want. We were arguing about something completely different in the group chat, and this guy dropped into the group chat. And I do not know why, but people were fucking livid. This angered people to such a degree. This might be. This might be right here, the tipping point of the Karen. And it shouldn't be. We've seen Karens call the police on people. We've seen Karens try to get black people killed. We've seen Karens freak out. Remember the lady in the goddamn with the bird, Central park just going crazy trying to get that man killed. But for some reason, this one had a kid in a kid appropriate place. And somebody trying to steal from a child. In this situation, it did. This lady is. This lady is going to have a rough go of it for at least another couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months.

[B]

Yeah. And can I just also add that, also deescalating the situation we talked about the gender dynamics. This is also a lesson for his son. Anybody who's watching. Of how you handle. Because we've talked about. We talk a lot about how when a woman's the first one to do something, it's, you know, like people don't look at it the same way and all these things. And how do you handle a situation when a woman attacks first or a woman's harassing you first? This is an example of how you handle this situation. Because if he was screaming and yelling at her, never put any hands on her. It's just showing your son that it's okay to talk to women like this. It's like not recognizing that there's a different. A gender dynamic here. It would have just shown the son that this is how things can be done. And I think the fact that he was like, despite somebody coming at me, and especially because she's a woman and I'm a man, I'm just gonna sit here and let. And give her what she wants so she could be on her way. You don't.

[C]

What?

[B]

What? What?

[A]

Okay. It's certainly okay for him to scream back at her, Right? She's an adult. He's an adult. She walked up to him. He could. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not coming.

[B]

I don't think it's okay. I don't think it's okay.

[A]

Wait a second. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

[B]

Only for the sake of this. Like.

[A]

Hold on. Wait a second.

[B]

Go ahead.

[A]

Woman walks up to you screaming in your face, right? Putting her finger in your face in front of your family. It is not okay. It's not okay for you to scream back at her because she's a woman.

[B]

I'm only saying this because the child was there.

[A]

Forget about that.

[B]

Oh, well, then I don't care.

[A]

Well, no, no. Okay. No, no, no. What I mean is, how does the child. So if a man would have walked up to him screaming in his face, is it okay for him to scream back?

[B]

I would lean towards. Yes.

[A]

Donnie, where are you at on this? I have to make sure that I'm not like, where are you at?

[D]

I'm all for meeting people's energy. Like, I don't think he would have been in the wrong if he would have yelled at her in response. Woman or man.

[A]

Yeah. It's like, what. What it. So, okay. Cause this is the deal and we're gonna move fast. I'm just gonna hit it real quick. Because, like, she's an adult. She's an adult. She's an adult person. So it's. There's one thing to like, because a woman could be a police officer that is screaming at you. A woman could be any different type of person that is infringing upon your right or just your making you have a bad day. And it's got to be okay, regardless of the fact that she's a woman. To say, yo, get the fuck out of my face. Fuck you.

[B]

I agree with you.

[A]

Right?

[B]

I think it's the kid that just changes things for me. That's. That's the only. That's the only reason I'm saying it. If he had been with his boys and she came over, I say. I say meet, like Donnie said, match her energy, I guess, with a kid who maybe doesn't have the sense of emotional intelligence or just met with these situations, and this is the first time maybe he saw something like this. I guess that's what I just keep thinking in my mind. And I could be wrong. I just. It's just the child standing there, him yelling at the woman rather than de. Escalating like he did. It's just the optics of it that I get like, that are unsettling for me. But I absolutely agree that if a woman Comes screaming up at a man, he absolutely can scream and yell back at her. Yeah, I totally agree.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It's just a child for me. And maybe I'm just being too much.

[A]

Well, I don't think the child chasers. No, I do, actually. No, I don't think you're being too much. I think that, like, there is a. I think, once again, we've talked about it here, and it makes sense. I think that there is a understanding here. And the reason why this is always interesting to me is because it's interesting to litigate to me both how vulnerable men should be and also what men are expected to take because.

[B]

Very true.

[A]

Because it's like there is some daylight between. You're tough, you're a man. Take it. Because everyone in the world is weaker than you. Right. And. Well, you should also be able to act like a human being and a person, too. And when we talk in the middle of those lines, it's always like, it gets a little dicey for me. I'm gonna be honest with you. I feel like it's fucking bullshit. I feel like I talk to people all the time that say, hey, you know what? We want you to act as a person in society and react to things and do all this stuff. But you also have to remember that everything you touch, you break. And I get that. But at the same time, it's like, well, shit, if you come up to me, yelling at me, I have to be more of a person than you. Like, I have to be. I have to be.

[B]

Yeah, show restraint.

[A]

I have to be better than you. Like, you're asking a person to be more than a person. I have to be better than you. It's like, there's no accountability there. There's no accountability for her because his son is there. Which. Interesting, interesting. We'll save that for a time when we have a therapist on so we can get to crying and I don't look like him. I can't believe Donnie backed me up on that.

[B]

We do have a therapist on the show coming up.

[A]

Yeah, but I'm not gonna ask her about this. Cause I'm gonna ask her about other stuff that has to do with the NBA. All right.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

It's gonna be an NBA centric conversation. We got Nina Westbrook coming on later. It's gonna be all about.

[B]

I'll let you handle that, Ed. I'll handle the other stuff.

[A]

Okay. And we're gonna do it. Our new way of interviewing Rachel is gonna take completely the first half of the interview with Nina Westbrook, the first half, and then once Rachel's done, I'll jump in and I'll ask the questions that I have for Nina, and that way I'll be able to build off what Rachel. New higher learning, new interview. Donnie, put it under here. New interview format debuts today. I can't believe you backed me up on that, Donnie. You like 10% backing me up. It's kind of interesting. What's the next one?

[D]

Texas State Rep. James Talarico, friend of the podcast, is set to announce his Senate bid on Tuesday. According to three people familiar with the plans, former Representative Colin Allred already announced his bid for the seat in July. Thoughts on Jimmy T's chances?

[A]

What you think his chances.

[B]

I mean, I absolutely think in a primary, he can beat Colin Allred. Um, I mean, like, when you run down the list of. We had James on this podcast, so pretty much everybody understands the person he is. But like everything he represents, I think he appeals to moderates, I think he appeals to progressives. I think he appeals to. Well, it's the primary, so I'm not gonna say independents, but I think he. Especially being in Texas, even if you're a Democrat, there are a lot of people who are deeply religious. And so I think those people who are conflicted by watching what Christian nationalists are doing and who may be questioning their faith based on how the right or maga, is weaponizing it. I think that James Talarico stands in a place where he can speak in such a great way and in a way, and break it down in a way that other people can understand it, because he really integrates faith and politics together. That will really speak to a lot of people. Colin Allred is a moderate Democrat. I know why he's running again. He ran last year, made some noise against. Yeah, Ted Cruz, almost won. I mean, both of them had 5 million votes. And so he's trying to do it again, this time for John Cornancy. But I don't know, Colin. Al Rich can flip flop quite a bit. And I think James Talarico is more liked and way more exciting as a candidate for the Democrats than Colin Allwright is.

[A]

James Alarico is a perfect Texas Democrat. He's someone who's able to communicate and resonate and relate with a lot of different people. Like Texas.

[B]

Come on, fam. We knew this.

[A]

Well, I'm just saying so as you send a picture of Colin Allred and his family to the chat.

[B]

But look, he's biracial.

[A]

Colin Allred's biracial, and I believe that.

[B]

He uses that term.

[A]

Okay, so if he's biracial, then I gotta call him.

[B]

Never knew the black side of his.

[A]

Family, so he never knew the black side of his family. Okay, cool.

[B]

Never met his father, so I'm just gonna assume he didn't know the rest of the family.

[A]

Okay, you assume that his father's black, so. Damn.

[B]

No, I read it. His father is black. I read it.

[A]

So I was at state 48 with some. I told you this story before. I was at state 48 with some Democratic political people in Houston. We're all eating. They actually introduced me to state 48, which is a great place. So we're all sitting around eating and Colin Allred comes up and I love black women from the South. Said all this. Yeah, I saw him. I saw him up there with his white wife. I just looked at it. I was like, sister, why you do that? Why did you say with his white wife? Why isn't it just wife? She's like, well, I'm just saying his wife was wife. Back to James Talarico, though, he has a shot. The only thing that bothers me about this or concerns me not bothers me is that there's a lot of seasoning that needs to happen in terms of building your allegiances, your political infrastructure, all of that stuff. When you're going to make a Senate bid, there's a lot of stuff that needs to happen. Maybe you can get there faster than what you used to. We've seen it. But there is a Beto o' Rourke situation here to where you have this young, fresh faced Texas Democrat that catches lightning in a bottle and then does not have what you need to have to get elected in Texas, which is a tremendous amount of support. Not from celebrities and people outside of the state that they're in. Not because we like James or because James is liked in Florida or because James is liked by anyone who heard him on Joe Rogan. I'm talking about the ability to make inroads with the people and the community that he is running for. Right. That's what has not happened in Texas and in other states where these people have become national celebrities. If you're talking about James, if you're talking about Andrew Gillum, if you're talking about what's our sister from Georgia? Her name just jumped out of my head. Jesus Christ. Stacey Adams, Stacey Abrams. If you're talking about Stacey Abrams, if you're talking about these people who, by the way, Stacey Abrams does amazing political work, whether or not she is running for anything or not getting out votes and changing the voter landscape of the American south is something that she's doing every single day and has done for a very long time. I digress. I'm saying for James, I just hope that he is properly supported by the party there. Right. And that he is properly supported inside of the state of Texas by the Democrats there to make his political journey one that is long lasting and not just one that is responding to social media fame.

[B]

Right. This is what I hope. When Beto ran for Senate in 2018, ran against Ted Cruz. Different time in our country.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Trump's first term, even though that was a close race, Trump's first term, don't see all the damage that we're seeing now. MAGA was present, but not even what it is now. It was a different time. And you're right about the outside support in the celebrity. My hope, I think James will beat Colin and James is a better candidate, as you said.

[A]

Colin for sure.

[B]

I don't know that he's the perfect. Yeah, we don't know. But he is the perfect person, I think, to represent Democrats in the Senate in Texas. Perfect candidate. Who he would be running against is either the Attorney General, Ken Paxton, who is quite similar to Trump in that he has a number of controversies, had an affair with his wife, they're getting divorced. Even though he's, even though he's a devout, started up a church, Christianity, all that. Has been having an affair for multiple years that someone in his office was helping him cover up. He was impeached by a Texas Republican House for the way that he was running things in the state. Now the Senate acquitted him, but still a Texas Republican House impeached him. He is extremely MAGA and he's extremely controversial. You have him going up against John Cornyn, who MAGA people like to refer to as a rhino. You know, he's called out President Trump in the 2024 election. I'm not saying he's not supportive of Trump at all, but you know, he supported a bipartisan bill after Uvalde. He's looked at as a little bit softer than like they're on opposite, maybe ends of the spectrum when it comes to the Republican Party. So I think that if either one of them goes, you're going to have, I feel Republicans who are going to be pissed off and may not even vote. So I think that this is a good chance because they either they don't want to support James, they don't want to support Paxton if he gets it, because he's a crook. And then they don't want allegedly a crook. And then they don't want to support James Cornyn because they don't feel like he's tough enough. And so I think that you would have a lot of people who are excited. Plus, James has the support, support of Joe Rogan down there and his whole crew.

[A]

Does he have the support of Joe Rogan?

[B]

I mean, he hasn't endorsed him because he hasn't announced yet, but he's definitely. I would be shocked if Joe Rogan did not because he was so, you know, like, praised by him on his podcast.

[A]

I'll be shocked if he did.

[B]

I. We'll see.

[A]

Yeah, we'll see. And this is, this is the interesting thing about that wing of the podcasting circle and all of that stuff. It's one thing to have supported President Trump and have put him on your podcast, sucked his fucking balls, licked his asshole, the whole fucking nine, right? Some of these people went to the inauguration that we're talking about in the podcasting sphere, all of that stuff. It's one thing to come back and say, hey, this guy isn't who I thought he was on Immigration. This guy isn't who I thought he was on Free Speech, or God forbid, this guy isn't who I thought he was on Epstein. That's one thing. It's another thing to support a candidate that is in direct opposition to what you just supported six months ago. Because what you really did was you spent time grooming your audience to the reasons why you supported these things. You made the MAGA wing of the Republican Party cool. All of you did it. All of you did it. That entire podcast bro, manosphere, podcasting ecosystem, you made MAGA cool. It's one thing to come back and go, it's one thing to say, MAGA is not as cool as I thought it was. That's one thing. It's a completely different thing to say. Not only is MAGA not as cool as I thought it was, because the way they're treating undocumented people sucks. They're flip flopping on the Epstein thing, they bombed Iran, they're in Israel's pocket, all of these things. It's another different thing to say, hey, there's an alternative and this is what you should be supporting. That actually would take some balls. This is an alternative and this is what you should be supporting because that then gives a political directive to the people, a direct political directive to the people that are listening to you that is saying, not only is MAGA uncool, but we were Wrong materially about how good at governance they are. And I know that some of these people are eating around the edges of denouncing the stuff that President Trump is doing. They're playing with it a little bit. No, this is what they're doing. Now, I'm not even going to use that analogy because people get mad and say, I'm making everything.

[B]

It get dark. It was get dark.

[A]

I saw.

[B]

You saw the way your fingers were moving.

[A]

Because you know it's.

[C]

Don't do it.

[A]

I want to say it. So you've been with somebody before and you're expecting oral favors and it's not going to happen. And then you go, yo, are you going to suck it or not like that. And then you. And then after that, just let me know, we could start watching the movie again. But like, I'm not tripping at all. But what, but what I'm saying is either get on that motherfucker. Y' all all taking too much time. Like, either get on the motherfucking bandwagon, get on the bandwagon of a free, non authoritarian America, or get the fuck off of it. I'm listening to a lot of people that are also saying, hey, the Epstein thing. If you are a creator or a mind, and you are saying that the Department of Justice is fumbling the Epstein thing, but it's not Donald Trump's fault. You are a fucking moron. You're fucking stupid. You're a moron. There is obviously something about the whole Epstein thing that makes the President uncomfortable. And if you are in any way, and I'm looking at all of the guys at pbd, I'm looking at all of the people on the Bennie Johnson's, the Ben Shapiro's, all of these people, Megyn Kelly, all of these people who are saying, yeah, it's actually not Trump who's uncomfortable with the Epstein thing. It's Cash Patel, Dan Boyn, Gino and Pam Bondi. What the fuck are you talking about? Like, literally, Cash Patel would trim the ass hairs around Trump's asshole if Trump asked him to.

[B]

Okay, they're not morons. They're cowards because they know the difference. It's hard for me to believe that the people that you just named can't recognize that Trump is involved.

[A]

Some of them are stupider than you think they are. You do this all the time. Some of them. Some of them are stupid. Some of them are.

[B]

I really think they're cowards. I really think they're cowards. And maybe it's a mix of both. But I just think that they are absolutely terrified and not even just Trump. It's the same rant I went on when I talked about Megyn Kelly before as white Candace Owens. They see dollar signs, they see engagement, they see audience, they see their platforms.

[A]

I'll give you that.

[B]

They are cowards.

[A]

She's lying.

[B]

They are cowards in the sense that they don't want to lose what they've built. So if that means in some cases playing dumb, then they will. So I'm more comfortable using the term coward. I ain't saying that they're geniuses. I'm just saying I'm. I think that there's a lot of fear. Not fear, just cowards. Cowards.

[A]

This is what I'm saying. She. I agree with you. She's too smart for this. She really is. She. I agree with you. However, I will say that, like there are people that Trump says stuff and they believe him. Now, I do not know why this is. I really don't know why this is. But actually I do know why it is. I can't act like that only exists over there. Like people run on things and we believe that they say that they're going to do it. The question is, once they don't do it, whether or not you can have an actual conversation about why it's not happening. Sometimes it's not happening because the politics aren't right. Sometimes it's not happening because the people you believed in never want to do it in the first place. So I acquiesce to the fact that and some of these people are just lying. But there are some people that I watch and I'm looking at them because I consume so much of this stuff and they're just not as bright as I thought they were or they're not bright at all. And they truly, truly believe in the Trump doctrine. They really believe in it.

[B]

I won't disagree with you. I'll just say if you are a coward and classified, it's worse because you know better and you're not doing better. Last thing I want to say because I know this was a quick hitter.

[A]

About not now we in the show.

[B]

This Texas, this Texas Senate race. Oh, are we? I thought it was quick hitter is that we have. We don't know if Joe Rogan will endorse James Talarico, but I think that an endorsement, even though it is for Senate, even though this is all for a national fig, I think it's different than Trump. I think there's a way that he can be Anti Kim Paxton, Joe Rogan, anti John Cornyn and vote for or endorse James Talarico. And it not affect and him not have to give an opinion about Trump.

[A]

Yeah, that I don't know. I need a.

[B]

And like it not change.

[A]

Maybe. I'm gonna be honest at the point that we're at now, and Ezra Klein just did something. Whether you like Ezra Klein. You don't like Ezra Klein. You love abundance. You don't love abundance, whatever it is. Ezra Klein just did a piece for the New York Times where he talks about the fact that very soon the Democrats are gonna have to vote on the budget again. Well, the last time the President put his budget forth, the Democrats voted to fund the government, led by old Chucky Chuck, strongly worded Leonard Schumer letter. The Senate Democrats funded to fund the government. And that funding is coming up again and they're gonna have to vote for it again. And at this point, there should be no argument whatsoever that they shouldn't fund the government. I mean, we see what the government's being used for. The government's being used for authoritarianism, full stop. That's it. You shouldn't fund the government. And there should be a plan by the Democrats. He lays it out, it's 20 minutes long. There should be a plan by the Democrats in how they're not going to fund the government, why they're not going to fund the government and what they want in lieu of funding it. Like, if you look at it, even the Democrats in the House led by Hakeem Jeffries, even they had enough sense to be like, well, we shouldn't fund President Trump because what he's doing is going to severely damage the society of the United States of America. We're looking at. It's going to hurt the citizens. It's going to hurt people. They did it anyway. And President Trump has become brazen. Klein lays out all the reasons why. Not asking you to like Ezra. I know some people here are going to be like, Ezra, is this Ezra? I'm not asking you like Ezra Klein lays out all the reasons that they did it then and the reasons why they said that they did it and why those things aren't necessarily the same now and things are more dire and the Democrats should be in a better place. I'm saying all that to say this in order for me to respect the fact that you care about people. I need a rebuke of MAGA ism. Not man, the taxes are cool. Not this is hip. Not Trump is funny. I need you to Rebuke and reject mass troops on the streets of American cities, pulling people out of churches and schools and homes and all of that stuff. Or even if they're not doing that even from a parking lot of Home Depot. You should be against that. I need you to be against black people drinking dirty water in Louisiana and Alabama. I need you to be against Trump taking over the African American Museum and trying to reorient the way that we teach and educate our kids on the trauma and horrors that black people have experienced here in America. I need a rebuke of that. And it can't be, oh, I like you because you're a nice church going state senator. I need you to say, you know what? I was fucking wrong, man. I was fucking wrong. And look who's paying for it? Not me. Not me. I'm not paying for it, but there's somebody paying for it. I was fucking wrong or I was selfish or I was an asshole or anything short of that is. There's too much tape. We got too much tape. This is like Bo Nicks second year. I watched Bo Nicks go out there and fuck up because we got a lot of tape on Bo Nicks now. We got too much tape in this first six months. Tape everywhere, man. I read an article, we can move on. I read an article in the New York Times about the fact that Trump wanted to implant a listening device on Kim Jong Il. He wanted to implant the listening device and he sent the Navy listen to this for real. This is true, you guys, I'm not making this up.

[C]

I believe it.

[A]

He sent the Navy SEALs to implant the listening device. It's hard to do it in North Korea because you can't fly drones in North Korea. Can't fly the drones there. So they had to use satellite imagery that was coming down from the top of the fucking satellite and spy planes and all of that. And they weren't getting the imagery in real time. So when the seals went out there, they had been practicing this in American shores. When the seals went out there, they didn't have real time visual on what was happening to them. So they get out there and there's a boat. The seals think that the boat is some type of military engagement that's coming from the shore because they feel like, oh my God, they know that we're here. They're coming out here to fight. The SEALs engaged, kill everybody on the boat. The boat is not military in any way. It's just Korean people on the boat either fishing, doing civilian shit. The SEALs kill everybody on the boat. Abort the mission. Leave. Nothing happens. We don't get the listening device at all that Trump wanted. Trump. Nothing happens between Trump and the North Korean. All for nothing. They just murdered everybody on the fucking boat for no fucking reason. The President sent it. We don't really investigate it. Nothing happens. And now all of this stuff is coming out. The Times got it. Any other administration, just the murder. And every administration has these type of scandals, but it would have stuck. Just the murder of a bunch of civilians for a botched mission that the President wanted to be able to get some kind of negotiating leg up on a foreign dignitary. Foreign dignitary on a foreign head of state. And they just kill all the people. And then we leave. And I felt bad. I'm just saying everything is so fucked right now that all of these guys that helped put us in this position, they gotta walk this shit back directly.

[B]

I agree with you. I agree with you. Y' all read the article. Read Ezra Klein's article. It's appropriately titled. Stop acting like this is normal.

[A]

Yeah. And it's also. Also, you can just listen to it if you want. Sometimes I listen to this shit.

[B]

Oh, I read.

[A]

Yeah. He does this, like, really dramatic. Hasn't grown his beard out. He did this really dramatic, like two camera. It's all black behind him and it's very like, oh, my God, the Democrats gotta do something. It's crazy. This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures. Would you sell your soul for greatness? What would you be willing to sacrifice this September? Experience the horror event of the season. Him, the new Jordan Peele produced horror film. It stars Marlon Wayans in the role of a lifetime as Isaiah White, the greatest football player of all time, AKA the goat. Tyreek Withers plays Cameron Cade, a rising star quarterback who Isiah takes on as his protege. As Cam's training accelerates, Isiah's charisma shifts into something darker, sending Cam down a disorienting rabbit hole that may cost him more than he ever bargained for. Directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Monkey Paw Productions, Never Meet yout Idols, him hits theaters September 19th. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. If there's one thing I'm going to make sure I pack for my summer vacation, it's my Apple Card. I can earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, including fuel for my car and booking places to stay. Plus, I don't have to worry about fees, including foreign transaction fees, which is perfect when I'm planning to travel abroad to get an Apple card for your summer travels. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on creditworthiness rates as of July 1, 2025 Terms and [e-mail] all right, so I played basketball. I went out and played basketball Sunday, and it was tough. It wasn't like a tough game. When I'm playing basketball now, I'm not playing against the opponents in front of me. Donnie, how old are you?

[D]

36.

[A]

You're still in your good. Damn. You're still in your good era, bro. When I hoop now, I'm not hooping against the people in front of me. I'm hooping against the old version of myself. It's such a weird thing to be able to see something and you just can't do it like you used to. Like, I can see it. I know what to do. Yeah, I just can't do it anymore. Right. Which is why I'm trying to get back into the best shape that I can get back into. Because maybe there's 10 or 15, maybe even 20 more percent I could be doing if I was in the same shape that I used to be. Even though I still feel like I'm just older. So I got super depressed after I played this game on Sunday because I should have been killing everybody out there. Everybody out there would have been dead in the past. I don't know if you guys believe this, but ask around. I could do my thing. It would have been an easy work for me, but I was playing decently, but still kind of like in Strugglesville a little bit. I'm not making shots. I should be easily taking over these games. I shouldn't be getting off the court. And N is talking shit, too. And so this morning when I was at the gym, I told my coach, I was like, hey, my trainer. I'm like, I wanna make sure that we do some agility drills and we do some agility stuff and make sure that every time we're working and training that we're doing something that's agility. And so he goes, yes, we can do that. Shout out to James over at Equinox. That's my guy. So he gives me some agility stuff to do. And while I'm doing it, it's the same thing with the boxing. I feel great. I feel like I'm moving. I feel like I'm getting To it. I feel like, okay, I do this for a couple of weeks. I'm gonna go out on the basketball court. I'm gonna be able to fuck over people. I feel so good that I tell James, I say, yo, James, tape what we doing. Tape it. Cause I don't know if y' all ever saw this video of. I think it was Sonoris Moss, Chad Johnson, Andre Johnson. And they were all working out together, like 2011. And it's crazy the way they picking up the feet and putting. I know you've probably seen that video before. It's crazy video, right? Chad Johnson, feet are like nuts. Shows why he was always open. His feet are crazy. I feel like that's what I was doing. Y' all could play that video right now. I felt like I was going crazy. Told James. I'm like, james, tape some of this. And he taped it, and I just put it in the group chat. And I want y' all to look at it. And, Donnie, you can play it for the people. That's what I looked like doing the drills. I felt like I was moving at warp speed.

[B]

I don't even wanna laugh, man.

[A]

That's where I'm at in life.

[B]

Look, it's okay. But you know what? If you felt good, that's what matters. How big is the weight you're holding that bitch?

[A]

Small. But what I'm saying.

[B]

No, but I was so strong.

[A]

What I'm saying is I felt like. When I'm telling you in my mind.

[B]

That'S all the bat.

[A]

In my mind, I was Chad Johnson. You could laugh. Cause this is happening in real time. Like, in my mind, I felt like I was back. I was like, all we gotta do is do this every couple of days. And then I'm gonna go back on the court, and I'm gonna be fucking back. And then I watched the video, and I got hit with a wave of depression.

[B]

Okay, then I don't wanna laugh.

[A]

No, you could laugh, Donna. You see it, right?

[B]

The best part.

[C]

The.

[B]

The best part is the faces you're making because you. You didn't even have to tell us that you thought you were getting it. We can tell.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The bite of the lip, the grimace. Like. Oh, let me just.

[A]

Ah.

[C]

I'm there.

[B]

Ah. Ah. That's. That's. That's how you looking.

[A]

You. You're right. Ah. Ah.

[D]

And, Dottie, I would use this as a baseline. Was this your first time doing this? And, like, looking back at this?

[A]

Yes. Oh, that was the first time doing that drill. Yeah, yeah.

[D]

So I would Use this as a baseline. Do it again and again and again. Look back at it, and you're going to see some progress.

[B]

No.

[A]

No, thank you. Thank you.

[B]

This is what we're going to do. Well, I'm rooting for you, too. No, you're not. But this is what we should do.

[A]

You are one of the. You, you. You. My. You're not at all.

[B]

I said. What matters is that you felt you were doing a good job.

[A]

You're not rooting for me.

[B]

That's the first thing I said, Rachel. Then I said, I don't want to laugh. And you said, go ahead. And I said, fuck it. Yeah, but can I. Can I do. Can I propose a higher learning challenge?

[A]

What's the challenge?

[B]

We all record this video.

[A]

All. We all record the video doing it.

[B]

We all do our own version of this.

[A]

No, I don't want to do that.

[B]

How many. How many weights? How. How big is the weight? That looks like about a five pound weight.

[A]

I don't think it's. I don't know if it's that much. It might have been a half pound weight, but, like, I don't want Donnie to do it. Cause Donnie plays safety. Donnie is only 36. Donnie going to do it with Juni, and he gonna look like Andre Johnson in them. I don't want Donnie to do. I don't want that.

[B]

Oh, but. Well, then I'll do it.

[A]

You do it. I mean, you look. You're in better shape than you. Nah, you are.

[B]

But now you already counted me out.

[A]

No, I believe in you.

[B]

While I'll stick down.

[A]

This is not about me looking down. I mean, I know you don't believe in me because you're always throwing it in my face that I didn't dunk. After the foot injury, after I, like, literally, like, sprained my foot. After.

[B]

I ain't never seen a limp.

[A]

I had the foot injury. I had the foot injury.

[C]

I ain't never seen a cat.

[A]

I had the foot injury, but I never see.

[B]

I just say it. I have seen no evidence of an injury.

[A]

I'm going through this in real time, and people don't remember. I'm gonna start g. Getting old people from the gym. People don't remember. My whole life I've been a Hooper, and now it's just not.

[B]

We believe you. Well, Kylie, Rachel, you know what?

[A]

Come out. Come out to the gym. Let's. Since you could guard, come out to the gym and. Let's see.

[C]

Come on.

[B]

I'll come to the gym.

[A]

Come to the gym.

[B]

Give me Till next week.

[A]

The last time it was a Lindsay in the gym, it didn't go that well. All right, we got you write about.

[B]

It being a Lindsay too.

[A]

Oh, that's fucked up. Oh, we got Nina Westbrook on the show now. Joining us now is Nina Westbrook. She's one of Rachel's friends to hang out and she's a licensed marriage and family therapist. I never knew this until just recently, actually. Maybe it was like when we started to some research on you to have you on the show. I didn't realize how accomplished you were. It's very impressive.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

But thank you for joining us on Higher Learning. Thank you for joining us. Higher Learning. She has launched a brand new app and we're going to talk about some of the app and some of the other things that she's got going on. So thank you for joining us.

[B]

Thanks for having me.

[C]

Very exciting. Hi, Big Rach.

[B]

Hi. We were just talking about basketball before you walked on Vince. Oh, goodness. And told me to come out to the court and show them what I got. Now Nina's never seen me play basketball, but she just trusts me.

[C]

I've heard you speak about it here on the pod. So I'm told. I mean, based on what you're saying, you're a defensive player is what I.

[A]

She said she could guard Caitlin Clark.

[C]

I know, I know. I mean, listen, you don't have to give an opinion on that. No, here's the deal. It's really crazy. I mean, I feel like I lived that life already for so many years. I'm a huge woman spirit sports fan. Like, I'm a Stan. I support women's sports and I love to see the growth and everything, but I am just not like, I'm not that competitive. I, I, I'm not a comp. As competitive as I once was. So I just like to see everybody win most of the time.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Go sport.

[B]

Thank you. Thank you. Let's, let's start from the beginning because, like, Van came on here and he was like, he didn't know that you were a licensed marriage and family therapist. Tell the people who you are and maybe like misconceptions that people have about you. Nina Westbrook, as a person.

[C]

Oh, gosh, that's really interesting. Yes. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. I went to UCLA and studied English. I'm actually an English major in undergrad, which was a huge mistake at the time. I appreciate it now. It just, it wasn't what I anticipated, so I pivoted and completed my work. In clinical psychology. And, yeah, I mean, I feel like it's been a really long journey. I think most people don't know that about me. You kind of have to be a kind of wellness. Probably in. Maybe in the wellness space or not exactly a huge sports fan. I'm not sure. But I think that even through Russell, my husband, we've been able to really establish mental health as one of the main pillars of all the work that we do. We have our school in Southgate, Westbrook Academy, and we have our youth sports teams. And my husband's very open and vocal about his mental health journey, and we just try to incorporate it. Mental health awareness and mental health fitness and tools and lessons and all the things that we've kind of accumulated over the years in both of our experience and try to share it with the community and share it with youth, young people and women and underserved or generalized communities at large. So that's kind of been our mission and my mission for quite some time. But, yeah, I mean, I'm a huge basketball fan also. I like sports. I used to play at ucla, but.

[B]

The original love in basketball, that's you guys.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, for real.

[A]

For real.

[C]

We get that a lot, so. And I'm. I mean, I'm a whooper. Like, I'm like Big Rach. Once you have it, you can't really lose it.

[B]

Come on. Come on.

[C]

But I think that the competitive nature. Van Big Rach and I against you. Pick your partner, and we're probably going to win.

[B]

I love it.

[C]

But, but. But we've shifted gears a little bit and into the mental health space, and that's where I kind of put all of my focus these days.

[B]

I love that mental health is, like, it just seems to be the foundation of. With family, your relationship and everything. We saw you guys just celebrate 10 years in Italy, renewing your vows, all of. All of those things. I. Well, okay, detour for a quick second. Had I realized how important mental health was in a relationship and communication and doing therapy and having those conversations, I think things would be different for me either. Not how they ended, but maybe how they started, if you know what I'm saying, When it came to my own relationships. And I love that that is so important to you guys. Is that something. Something that you guys grew into with each other, or is that something like, for all the people who are listening in a relationship? Or is that something that was important from the beginning or like y' all grew together to. To establish that?

[C]

Well, in terms of relationship, I think that Russell and I, my husband and I come from two very different worlds. Right. I grew up in a family that my mom was a PA and always really into health, and not only physical health, but mental health as well. And so it was a part of the conversation for me growing up for many years, and it kind of just became who I was. I was that girl. I was that friend who everybody would come to. I'm pretty, like, even, you know, tempered. I'm pretty good at being objective. And so I was always that friend. But for Russell, I think it was very different. He grew up in a family where maybe they didn't express things as openly and freely. He was really, really close with his family. We always laugh about it because their closeness looks so different than my closeness in my family. And over the years, you know, we kind of have been through so much. You know, I think I always like to say I've lived a lot of life in a lot in a very few years, and we both kind of have been thrusted into this life where, you know, without really embracing mental health tools and practices and therapy and all the things, you know, we wouldn't be where we are today. I think that, you know, we've had to kind of use all of these tools to build and grow and be happy. And I think, you know, it's just been part of the journey for me from the beginning. But it's definitely something that Russell has embraced a lot over the. Over more recent year, not recent years, because he's married to a therapist, but, you know, for himself and his own journey. It's been really beautiful to watch.

[B]

I love that. Let's talk about Nebby, the app, which I. You have been working on this for a very, very long time. I want to know why. Because you've done a lot, like you said, around the mental health space. You've created companies, you have a podcast. You created games that bring out great conversation with between friends and relations, relationships. I use them both. But now you've created this app that you've been working on. Why did you want to create this? Who did you want to target? And then I'll talk about my personal use of it.

[C]

Well, yeah, I think for me, it's all about trying to get people, resources and tools in a way that best suits them. That's why we came up with the game, Do Tell Conversation Card game, because it's a more like fun, playful way to have meaningful conversations for people who don't have them in everyday life. You know, it's. It really helps Spark, reflection. I have my platform, my digital wellness platform, B' Nai by Nina, which is very specific. And what I found is that there were so many people in my group, in my circle, especially over the last year, who are struggling mentally, especially women. Not that the app is just for women, but people weren't quite able to figure out why they were feeling the way that they were. There's so many different factors playing into our lives. We're busy. There's social media. You guys talk about so many of the ups and downs and things that are going on in our society. And for all of us who are just trying to kind of live life, be happy, find light, enjoy in everyday life, there was something. There's been something missing. And so I'm finding that people are really starting to value wellness and mental health in a new way and being really intentional about the things that they're doing to feel better. And there are some really cool resources on the market and in the tech space. But I was inspired by different conversations that I was having. I was going to conferences, and there was this huge, huge push and request for mental health tools in the tech space. How can we integrate technology and mental health and wellness in a way that feels clinician led so that people are actually getting the tools and the resources that they need, rather than the corporate pull or push for whatever their interests are? And so having conversations with friends and family, living in the times that we're all currently living in, and just a combination of those things made me think about the fact that people need more personalized care, and they need simplicity. They need things that they can actually use every day that isn't gonna take up too much of their time, but it's gonna have a really big impact. And so that's where the idea of Nettie came from.

[B]

And I love it because I talked to you about this. I'm not good at routines. I'm not good at, like, Van wears the Oura ring. Is that what it's called? Is that the Oura ring? And the reason I won't get that is because I feel like it's gonna judge me. And I don't like somebody telling me how bad I sleep, what I'm doing. That alone gives me anxiety, I think. Also feeling like I have these big tasks over my head that I have to do also makes me feel very overwhelmed when it's supposed to be helping me. What I love about the app, and you could talk about this even more detailed, is first I get a reminder that's like, check you need to check it, check it. Then I get to identify the emotion that I'm feeling. And I learned in therapy that I'm really bad at that. I'll say something, and it's not quite. There's like, that's not really an emotion. And I'm like, wait, I thought it was. And so I like that you can identify your emotion, but then identify the level of it. So I'm like, oh, this really is. It forces me to think how I'm feeling first thing in the morning. Then when it gives me my task, I'm like, oh, these are easy. I can do this. Like, today, I'm tired, right? I'm sick. The thought warriors know I'm sick. I'm tired. The first thing it told me to do was do a bright spot activity, and I stood outside for 30 seconds in the sun and I immediately felt better. It was like I took a drug or something like that. So I like. I like the app because it doesn't feel invasive, but it feels like it's a best friend, kind of like a friend that I'm talking to. Is that your intention when you. For people like me?

[C]

No, absolutely. I think that everything about the app is very intentional. It took about 18 months for us to really get to a place where we could go into the marketplace. Everything about the app is evidence based. Everything's based in cbt, which is one of the most widely recognized forms of therapy that there is. But at the same time, our goal was to make sure that the app didn't feel clinical or sterile. It's meant to be a daily use app, and we wanted that to be reflected. And we wanted me to be reflected in the app in the way that I like to share mental health knowledge and information, which is not in a way that feels intimidating or in a way that feels like you're constantly in therapy. Right. Because at the end of the day, you don't have to be in therapy to be growing emotionally and mentally. And the app is. That's one of the things that people really love about the app is it's more therapy adjacent where it feels like it's your friend. It's like a pocket companion. And it's so crazy because the things that you'll be asked to do based on how you feel are so minimal, they're so simple. You wouldn't even think that doing these little micro tasks could have such a huge impact, but somehow it does. And that's because it's based on evidence. And we're going to teach you it's an educational app. With AI and technology, we are having to use our brains a little less. If we want to be emotionally well, we need to be able to understand our feelings and emotions and what moves us. We want to be able to build emotional self efficacy, which just means that we can determine how we're feeling and then we can automatically know what can I do to make myself feel better in this moment? And that's what the app is going to teach you. That's the thing that's really different about this technology. It's not meant to kind of like keep you stuck in a place, which you will find. There's a lot of research that goes into how can we keep people on this piece of technology, how can we keep people on this app? That's not what we want. Our goal is more adjacent to the goal that you might see when you're talking to your therapist. You talk to your therapist. The goal is not to have to talk to your therapist forever. It's to reach a goal, an endpoint to where you learn how to cope and deal with your own emotions and figure out how to navigate life and its challenges. And then you go off and you're afraid. Essentially, that's the same goal with the app. We want to help educate you and teach you all about emotions. Most of us, when someone asks us how we feel, we're like, oh, we're cool. I'm tired or I'm good, just surviving, whatever. But nobody's really getting underneath that surface level when it comes to thinking about how we're feeling. And you can't really feel better and do things to feel better if you don't even know how you feel in the first place. Right. So it's just drawing attention in a small way that's really impactful, to educate you about how you feel, all the different emotions and all the little tasks and steps that you can take to feel better in everyday life. And so it's just like. It's like having a friend. And the difference between this and AI, which people are turning to AI more and more and using them sort of like a therapist. But there are no rules and regulations around AI and therapy. There's no privacy. The reason, the thing that makes the therapeutic relationship so special is because it's private. Right. And you know, the things that you share between your therapists are going to be just between you, and it's not accessible to anyone else. Whereas in AI, anybody who has access to that technology has access to the information that you're inputting into It. So with the app, you get to kind of bypass that layer also, because your information is yours, and we take privacy really seriously. So it's just. I mean, I think it's overall, all the things that we want in our everyday life, and we want to be emotionally well and emotionally fit built into this one little easy, accessible form of a technology.

[B]

It's. It's great. I mean, I heard you talk about it before, but then when I actually started using it, I'm like, I'm so proud of my friend. This is so great. Congratulations.

[C]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[A]

So being that you're a licensed marriage and family therapist, you deal with people's relationships, right? So I'm meeting and talking to a lot of people who are wondering what they should be expecting out of a relationship. I think people don't even know what they should be expecting anymore. So you see memes and stuff online, and this is like, be your partner's peace. Be his peace. Be her peace. What does it mean to be somebody's peace?

[C]

Ooh, that makes me cringe a little bit, actually, because I think that you have to be your own peace. You can't rely on someone else to bring you peace because they can decide to take that piece away. Right? So I think in a relationship and in a partnership, what we should be looking for or seeking is someone that helps to add companionship and partnership in ways that feel complimentary to the things that you want to do for yourself and in your own life, and finding a partner that can support you along your journey, and a partner that you can also support along their journey and that you guys can build together, and someone that makes you want to achieve more or build more. It's the same concept of choosing a friend, Right? You're kind of a good friend of mine actually told me one time, you become the sum of the closest five people or the five people you spend the most of your time with. Right? So it's kind of that same concept in a partner. What type of values and aspirations do you have? And what type of values and aspirations do they have, and how can they align and connect with yours, and how do they support you in your journey? But I don't believe in placing happiness or the way someone else is supposed to make you feel expectations on other people because you lose control of how you feel emotionally. And a lot of those things. I think that we all are in charge of our own, creating our own happiness and taking the steps necessary to build our own confidence and boost our own confidence. And so I Think that that could be a challenging approach and it could be setting yourself up for disappointment a lot of the time.

[A]

Do you think that people are over concerned with finding companionship now? There are so many different things that they have to kind of investigate and they're. I talked about it last week about why people are lonely. People are lonely, they say that they're lonely. But I've never heard from more people in my life or like outside of my life, women and men, that they want companionship. But sometimes I feel weird saying, hey, why don't you just take this time and enjoy being yourself? Enjoy just working and living inside of what you are. And don't worry about who else finds you beautiful, sexy, worthwhile. Just be yourself for right now. But people have a real problem doing that. Have you seen that? And if so, like, why is that?

[C]

That's an interesting question. I feel like, I don't know that people should stop seeking companionship because companionship can come in many different forms, right? And we're human.

[A]

I'm talking about specifically like romantic companionship.

[C]

I mean, I think just it's human nature to love and want to be loved. So I don't know that it's problematic to seek partnership. I think that many people have dreams and aspirations for their lives and having a partner can be a part of that. But I do think that it's really important whether you're in a relationship or you're not to be happy with who you like, with being by yourself. And whether you're in a relationship or not, there's still always that push and pull and that balance between being alone and spending time with other people. Right? Being an individual and being independent in a relationship and versus being codependent in a relationship. And when you're not in a relationship, it's about being happy and content with being by yourself and being. And spending time focusing on growth and friendships and family and whatever else, career, career, work, whatever else helps to make you kind of a whole human. But I mean, seeking partnership is something that we're all going to do at different parts and times of our lives. And I don't think that people can be overly. I mean, I don't think that it's problematic to be overly interested in finding a partner. It's just a matter of, is this person still happy on their own? Are we seeking partnership to fulfill us? Because then that can be problematic.

[A]

Fulfill you? Meaning, like if you don't feel like you have, like, what would you say if someone said, I don't feel like I Have a full life because I don't have a partner. Would that be a problematic statement to you? Would that be a statement that you go, oh, my God. Well, if that's part of what you desire for yourself, then I think that.

[C]

It could be a part of a plan. I mean, I would challenge that person to reframe or shift their perspective slightly to know that partnership is great and it's fine to have, but there's also so many different things that make us whole and that can complete us in terms of our happiness and the things that make us happy. So I wouldn't place all my eggs in one basket as it pertains to how to, like, feel whole. I would kind of maybe shift that perspective slightly.

[A]

Do other players, wives, come to you for therapy and asking because you guys have such a functional, almost aspirational player to wife, family relationship, wife to husband. And let's face it, there are other people that the shit is fucked up. And like, I mean, I'm just being for real. And so do they come to you and ask you for how to. For tips on how to live and thrive with these guys who are looked at as like superheroes, you know, that's.

[C]

An interesting question also. I don't know that that is the case. I don't know. First of all, Russell is such a guy's guy. I don't know what the heck he talks to his guys about. Like, he does not. Like, we have very friends.

[A]

Duncan. Hey, man, you got that 360Bam. That's what they talk about. Duncan. No, I mean, they.

[C]

I know they talk about real life things. I. I do think that they're. It's. It's an interesting dynamic. All people have different needs in a relationship and different wants in a relationship. And I wouldn't say that my phone is blowing up with people asking me, how. How do you do this? No, I think that people respect our relationship and people know that we are here. And sometimes we do get phone calls, and sometimes he does get a phone call from someone unexpected that has questions. And people do come to me sometimes, but it's not like every day people are asking me questions. No, but we're very aware of our relationship and how wonderful, though not perfect is. And so we're just fortunate to have that in a really challenging space.

[A]

So I run into people like, I'll give you an example of something that happened at the gym. The gym is my house of horrors now. Is where I get reminded of who I used to be. I was talking to this guy in the gym. I talked about it on the. On the fucking. On the podcast. This podcast that we're on. And the guy who said, hey, man, I used to see you at the Grove when you were at tmz. You were at the Grove. Like, you see you at the Grove, and when you were working, that we would be there working. He worked on Rachel's old show, and he'd see me when I was working at the Grove, and he looked at me. He looked at my body, and he goes, man, what happened? And a lot has happened.

[C]

Okay, okay.

[A]

I was like, you know, it's so funny. Cause me and James, the guy that I trained with, we actually laughed about it. He was like, what happened? That fucked my day up. Like, you know, it didn't fuck my day up. From a standpoint. Like, you know, I get. I still get joy out of such small things in life. Like, very small things, like a cute dog. Or, like, I still get joy out of, like, really small things in life. But that fucked my day up. I was like, God damn, what happened? I used to be the man. Now that's just me in my very, very small world of myself and people that used to see me at the Grove. I could not imagine what it would be like to have been the MVP of the NBA and then go out and have a bad game or a bad series or whatever, and then have people inundating you with, like, fucking questions and opinions and all of this. One time, Kevin Durant. I'm sure you've met him before. One time, Kevin Durant, he, like, posted on this post that I had on Instagram. I asked. I said, hey, what's the best kind of pie? And everybody on Instagram was going crazy. He said, apple pie. And then two comments later, it said, yo, nigga, win a real ring. I'm like, God damn, we can't talk about pie. How do you. It was funny to me. I was like, nigga, what the fuck that got to do with the pie? You guys are in a family where there's so many opinions on it. Nina, you seem so well regulated. You not mad. You not on Instagram. Fucking stop talking about my guy. Stop talking about my. Not at all. Everybody has a high opinion of you. What are y' all doing? Don't act. I'm just. I'm just being for real. I've covered this stuff for a long time. I've never seen the Nina Westbrook crash out. I've never seen you going back and forth with the fans. I've never seen you. She's remembering. Have you crashed out?

[C]

No, I don't crash out. I. I have meaningful conversations, but I don't crash out. I am confused a lot of times. But what do we do? I don't know. I think that, I mean, first of all, you probably know, but like, how long has Russell been playing? This has got to be like 18 or so years.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

In the beginning, I think we probably just were in a bubble and could care less what people would say, you know, out of sight, out of mind kind of stuff, or, you know, I didn't follow. We don't. We used to not fought. Like years and years ago, we didn't follow sports commentary. And like any of these so called media outlets, we didn't really follow any of that and it was fine. But now that we do so much work in the community and we have so many partnerships and just so much work that we're doing, it's very necessary for us to be a lot more forward facing. And we made that decision intentionally. And I think that, believe it or not, you see so much negativity and so much hate online, but somehow we continue to elevate and our lives continue to grow increasingly more, you know, Fantastic. I don't know how to describe it. So for all the hate and negativity that you see online, we have so many people who we f. With. I know we can curse on this podcast, but I'm not gonna say it.

[A]

I'm getting you out your shell.

[B]

Just say it, Nina.

[A]

I'm still shitting on y' all after all these years. Nina, just, just, Nina, just say it. It's like, y', all, y'. All. What Nina's basically saying right now, audience, is we can't hear the. The hate from the Amalfi Coast.

[B]

No.

[A]

What Melancholy is saying. It's hard to hear y' all at 35,000ft. Just to.

[C]

What I was saying is that for all the hate that you hear, there's so much more love, like, people that we actually know and we actually care about. Like, we. I, Kerry Washington, said this on another podcast or morning show or something recently is like, when it comes to criticism, you have to love and respect the person whose criticism you're willing to.

[A]

Oh, yeah, she does.

[C]

Like, we, you know, expectations are really tricky in my house. We don't have them. So not for other people, not for ourselves. It's kind of more like embracing organized chaos and trying to make it happen every single day in small ways, like Nebby. But I think that overall, what it really comes down to is there's so much love, like internally, despite all of the chaos. And so when you have that core, you know, family, group, loved ones, friends, fans, like, Russell has some stands, there are some haters, but people go hard for Russell. He's not even on social media. He has like 20 something million followers and he's like, just hanging out, right? And like, of course, I don't know, I think that that's how we're able to really block out and like, we don't. That kind of stuff doesn't really impact our everyday lives. So it's fine. Doesn't matter.

[B]

This is why I want them to set me up. This is why I want them.

[A]

You know what? I wish I would set you up with somebody.

[C]

I know my single friends up. I think that would be really cool.

[A]

But I mean, I mean, you just gon. You gonna set them up with an athlete?

[B]

No, I specifically said no.

[A]

Well, no athletes.

[C]

I don't know any. Listen, I'm telling you, I'm very serious about this. I'm not really intertwined. We have great friends. We have great friends that are athletes and we know lots of really great couples that we hang out together with that are athletes. But that is just not my scene.

[A]

The app itself, I have almost every wellness apple. It's very true. I just go in seasons with wellness app. I'm like, future. I have lots of different options when it comes to wellness apps. You know what I mean? All of them. Every. I've tried it all. Instagram gets me every time. It's like, hey, you want to learn how to breathe? Here's breathright.com. i download it. You want to know how it is? It's all of it. I have all of them. They all talk to me. What is the most important thing with engaging with your mental health on the daily I. My routine is like. Rachel called it sunspotting. I wake up, I walk. I do everything just to stay at baseline. But not everybody is in the situation that I am where they do this type of job. Some people got 30 minutes before they gotta be at work and then they can't be on there. So if there was only one thing that they could do when they're waking up or when they're going to sleep or throughout the day that the app will help them with, what would be the most important thing to Nina Westbrook?

[C]

This is. These are really. This is really great. This is a great question. I think the thing that sets the app apart is just the simplicity of it and checking in. Checking in with how you actually feel is enough. And that takes less than 60 seconds. If you do that every day, then even just the understanding of how you're feeling that day can help inform the decisions that you make throughout the rest of your day. Whether you're completing tasks or not. Though the tasks are meant to be short and quick, checking in each day is.

[A]

Is.

[C]

Is enough to see and witness some. Some pretty significant change in your behavior. And also, the thing about the app that I love the most is that we're not asking you to go and sift through. Like, it's not the Netflix effect, where you're going to go on and you're going to keep on scrolling until you just go to sleep. Instead of picking something to actually watch, you're gonna go on the app, you tell us how you feel, and we're just gonna give you the stuff that you need, like the good stuff right away. There's no sifting and trying to keep your attention. We want you to live life outside of the app, not be glued to your phone. And so it's just meant to be to fit into your daily life in that way, very simply.

[A]

Last question for me, and I think it's an important question. You said earlier something that really resonated, like when someone asks you how you feel. Rachel said that sometimes she would maybe cheat herself a little bit on actually being able to describe how she's feeling or not get deep into it. But then there's an other side to that. You can ask somebody how they feel and then not be prepared for the answer. Because sometimes people don't. People ask me how I feel. I don't go, I'm okay. I go. I'm in the abyss of my emotions. Today I woke up this morning. Think about the fact that all of this will be gone pretty soon, and one day, everything and everything that I love, it'll all be nothingness. I thought about that, and then I thought, what do I do with this day that has been granted to me, this day that will never exist again, this moment that we're in that will never come again, this place that we're in that will evaporate and be gone to time? How do I best make use of this specific time that only exists in this moment and will never exist again? And I'm pondering that answer right now, and by the time you look back at the person, they go, yo, what the fuck is this nigga talking about? What the hell is going on? The dog is looking at me crazy. She's looking at me crazy. And I'm going, oh, my bad. I'm gonna play the game. So my thing is, when you ask somebody how they're doing, and then the answer comes back, and some people are just in their heads all the time. They're overwhelming themselves, so they overwhelm you with the answer. How do I make it easier for the people in my life? And how does somebody else make it easier for the people in their life who are asking honestly, but might not be prepared for the depth of the answer that returns when they ask that question from a really good place?

[C]

So that's a really great question. And that happens all the time. And I'm like, you. Like, I don't have a lot of time. So when I ask someone how they're doing, like, I'm not doing it for pleasantries. Like, I want to know how you're doing so I can know what I need to be doing as a friend, as a mom, as a wife or whatever. But the biggest thing that you can do if you're asking someone how they're doing is just be willing to listen. Because a lot of the time, we just need to get it out, right? And if you think about journaling, journaling is an exercise meant to just get it all out of your brain and onto a piece of paper so that you're not holding onto it. And there's a really big sense of relief in just letting that information out. So if someone. If you ask someone how they're doing and then they go on and on and explain to you all the things that they have going on in their mind, the best thing that you can do for them in that moment is just listen and be kind. And that goes a really, really long way. You don't have to know exactly what to say back, and you don't have to have an answer. A lot of times people aren't qualified to have an answer to certain questions or feelings that people are sharing. But the one thing that you can do is comfort someone in a time like that. And then if you are someone and someone, if you're a person, who the person is being asked how you feel. I mean, I don't know that you need to do anything or change anything about the way that you're sharing the information. If you want to help the other person, maybe you can just warn them. You know, if you have a moment to listen, I would love to share with you how I'm really feeling. And so that way you are teeing up the fact that you're going to share, you know, this is going to be a moment and if you have time to listen, then let's do it. But I think the more we share, the better, the healthier we are. So I'm always here for of sharing. Just make sure you're sharing with someone that you trust.

[B]

We've had that conversation.

[A]

Thank you. Oh, you had that. Thank you for joining us on higher learning. The app is Nebby, but you have several different things. You have Benny by Nina, which is explain that to people.

[C]

B' Nay by Nina is a digital wellness community where you can find all sorts of mental health information and resources, courses and classes hosted by me. And I have detailed relationship podcasts where you can tune in and listen to people share their journey about relationships. And just all the things wellness tools and tips. And then Nebby, the newest. I have detailed conversation card game that Rachel was talking about earlier. There's just so many different random things, but all of it is mental health and wellness in any form you want to receive it.

[A]

I want. I'm gonna be a producer real quick. Cause you got the detail relationship podcast. I got two guests that will come on there. They will come on your podcast because you're Nina Westbrook. You could blow up the podcast right now. This is going crazy. This is going crazy.

[C]

Okay, go for it.

[A]

All right. You have to. Even if you have to get other people involved to make this happen on your podcast right now. Get Young Thug and Mariah the scientist. Get them on the pod. This is a good idea. Anina. See, nobody fucks with my. I'm not saying I would love. This is a good idea. You get Young Thug, Mariah the Scientist together on the podcast. Not. Cause they gonna do. They gonna sit down pretty soon and they gonna do. But you get them on the podcast, you get to talk about how it feels, how you do. You hold it down for somebody while they in jail. Are you responsible for the things that you say while you on a jail phone because your head is so fucked up. You know what I mean? Like, are you even responsible for that? You could be the one that cracks the code of the entire Ride or die chick through the form of Mariah the Scientist. That's what.

[C]

This is going to be terrible.

[B]

This is going to be terrible.

[A]

No, it's not going to be terrible.

[C]

Listen, you haven't heard it yet. I don't know. But you're talking about.

[B]

I thought she was gonna say that.

[C]

I'm not a hip person. I have three small children. Van. Like we. I don't. I told you. I don't Pay attention to what's happening.

[A]

This is why the relationship is lasting so long. And y' all so happy. This is. This is the class. You acted like you was all of this therapist stuff. Y' all just somewhere right now in their own world. Y' all not concerned about this shit.

[C]

We're in the empathy business, and so, you know, this is different. There's so much to be done.

[A]

All right, well, just hire me on as a producer or maybe we'll bring it over here to our corporate overlords at Spotify. But thank you for joining us today. It was really enlightening, fun to talk to you. Continued success with everything you got going on. And, man, try to keep Rachel's head straight, man. We need her right out here in these.

[C]

Rachel, I got so many. She's amazing. She's so, such a gem. And I'm so grateful you guys had me on and I enjoyed talking to you. Thanks for having me.

[B]

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[A]

This episode is brought to you by the all new ESPN app. All of espn, all in one place, your home for the most live sports and best championship moments. It's the ultimate fan experience. Step up your game and get even more than before, with no annual contract required. Level up. For More on the ESPN app or at stream.espn.com Sign up now. All right.

[D]

Florida announced that it plans to become the first state to end all vaccine mandates, including for school children. Now, Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo, the Florida Surgeon General, he made this announcement on Wednesday. Listen, hear a little bit from the good doctor.

[A]

What I'm most excited about is an announcement that we're going to make that we're making now, which is that the Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law.

[B]

All of them. All of them.

[A]

Every last one of them. Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and. And slavery. Okay, who am I as a government or anyone else? Or who am I as a man? Standing here now to tell you what you should put in Your body. Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body? I don't have that right. Your body, your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body, what you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don't have that right. Government does not have that right. They want you to believe they have that right. And unfortunately, you know, they've been successful. They've been successful.

[B]

You could tell where he really started to feel himself, you know what I mean?

[A]

From all these niggas that they get to do this. They get it. They look, they all look like they in the same family. If you take this guy, Paris denard, Byron Donald, and they all look like they cousins or they. They from the same family. Where they get these from?

[B]

Well, he's from Nigeria.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Not born here. Which is interesting because when he announced his plans to end all the vaccine mandated vaccines in Florida, he said every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery. That's when I immediately looked up. I was like, where's he from?

[A]

Oh, I was just saying. Well, hold on for a second now.

[B]

I don't want to get into it. When he made the comment.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

When he made the comment, I immediately.

[A]

Rachel, you standing up for the FBI.

[B]

Well, because it's such a ludicrous well, it's such a ludicrous comment to make that I feel like no one, first off, we wouldn't support this, but to compare a vaccine mandate to slavery. I said, oh, you're not from here. And he's not. And I'm not saying everybody not from here make that statement. It just was interesting. It's just something to note because it is such a wild comment to make. No, I was saying before I could tell when he started to feel himself, he got a couple of claps, he got a couple of cheers. He was three seconds away from a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Voice of. Emulating that. You know how they get, you know how that happens. Started feeling himself just a little bit. What do I think about this? Okay. It's always interesting, the back and forth. And we've talked about this multiple times, the back and forth with Republicans of it's okay for the government to get involved and tell you what you can and can't do with your body or with your child, and then it's not okay. You know, they use this and throw this all the time, whether it's religion, whether it's reproductive rights, education. They want the government involved. And then they wanna tell the government not to be involved. So the whole thing, when I'm listening to this man talk, this doctor talk about we shouldn't be telling you what to do, it should be your choice. But then you do that in other areas. So the hypocrisy is just raining through here. But this is scary. This is so scary. And I'm saying this to the person who's sick right now. It's like the longer this goes on because we know that there have been anti vaxx people for a while. That's nothing new. But there was this increase of it with COVID and even I was reading this article and the research shows the majority of the people do not want this to happen. Republicans as well. Republicans were big on anti Covid but not all Republicans. Majority of Republicans support anti vaccine mandate and for various reasons. We saw what happened in Texas. We've seen an uptick of diseases that have not been around for decades and decades are back. We're going to kill herd community. The longer we keep doing this. This is wrong. When questioned about this by Jake Tapper they talked about that they didn't do the research of the long term effects of this. It's just so bad. And you're doing it for claps and cheers and to satisfy a certain audience and not really at the end of the day, protecting the children, which we talked about on the last podcast, when I talk about going into Chicago and all these other cities, what about protecting children in school? You want to talk about protecting children from predators but you don't want to protect children health. It's just it, it's sick.

[A]

So just so everybody's clear here, he's not talking about the COVID vaccine. Right. So when people. It's very important for people to know that people are talking about vaccine mandates. We've had conversations about vaccine mandates. We've had conversations about the COVID vaccine.

[B]

Yes, he's talking about all vaccines.

[A]

It's not. But there were vaccine mandates then that people got all up in arms about. I'll say two things. One about COVID is not made has shaped this entire debate. And then two, about vaccines themselves. I'm going to restate some things we've stated here. A couple of years ago, Covid was a novel disease, novel virus. We were learning about COVID on the go. And so if we were learning about COVID on the go, we were also learning about the COVID vaccine on the go. So there might have been things that were said about the COVID vaccine, about Its ability to slow transmission of COVID Some of the other things about it that might have turned out after we had enough information not to have been true. There were other things regarding Covid that we thought, then we looked at, then we didn't think, after we looked at some things masking all kinds of stuff. If there's any robust discussion about the COVID and the response to Covid, the question should be about science and not about politics. And the reason why we need to have those discussions in a full throated way is because people need to be able to understand what the expectations should be. If you're dealing with a novel virus that we've never seen before, that's about best practices. No one can give you certainty on something that we don't know very much about. We can only use diseases that are like it, situations that are like it, past pandemics and other things and technologies that we've been working on to address it. Right. That's all you can do. And if it turns out that you, that you were wrong or that you were off or that you said this amount of time when it's really this amount of time, if you said it was this amount of feet, when it's actually this amount of feet or this, everybody should be able to be honest about that. And the public should understand, or I would hope that the public would understand that scientists and doctors were doing their best to keep people alive. Okay, I'll just say that now, being that this is not specifically about the COVID vaccine, but it's certainly been injected with steroids because of a lot of the hysteria surrounding the COVID vaccine. Rachel, I'm going to ask you a question. Here's a question for Rachel. From 1900 to 1977, how many people do you think died from smallpox? Give me a guess. From 1900 to 1977, how many people do you think died of smallpox? 300 million people. Low end estimate between 300 million, 1 million and 500 million people. Human being people.

[B]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

Died of smallpox between 1900 and 1977. Smallpox was eradicated 1980. Okay. In 1900 alone, it's estimated. Got it right here. Got it right here. That about 5 million people died small of smallpox. 5 million people died smallpox. 1900. Between 1900 and 1910, pretty deadly. Smallpox vaccination was around. Vaccination became more widespread.

[B]

What year was that?

[A]

And then smallpox was essentially eradicated. Smallpox is the disease that vaccination was invented around. I'll go back to a very brief history lesson real quick. Edward Jenner, the father of vaccination, the father of immunology, Edward Jenner, he was variolated as a child. Variolation is a process by which a part of a disease, little scab of disease, little piece of pus from smallpox wound, is introduced to someone at an early age, and then they develop an immunity to it, right? They develop an immunity to it over time. Who invented that? Africans and Indians. Africans, people that were in Africa figuring out how to live with the land that they had there go, hey, this disease is ravaging people. But once you catch it and you survive it, then it's not as deadly to you. Variolation was not perfect. Sometimes you get the disease and it kill you. Sometimes you get the disease and you get really sick and it fuck you up. But Edward Jenner saw that. He saw that the variolation that he had gotten from African peoples, from Indian peoples, they even had something called insufflation that in the past, they would take the scabs from the diseases. This was more in Asia, and they would smoke them, give yourself some immunity. It's called insufflation. Edward Jenner took that, and then he goes, okay, you can use that. You can take that technology, that cultural, scientific technology. He said, cowpox is not as deadly as smallpox. So I'll take cowpox, use cowpox pus to varylate milkmaids. Then we variolate the milkmaids. Do the milkmaids then get smallpox? They did not. One breakthrough after another breakthrough after another breakthrough, and then you have a vaccine for smallpox. Vacca means cow. Baca comes from the term cow. Vaca. Cow, vaca, cow. The reason why that matters is because vaccinating people, using what exists in nature to protect people, has been around for thousands and thousands of years. What the Western world did was build on a cultural, natural technology that has existed for thousands of years. They then synthesized it and they made it so that everybody could get it, and they eradicated the disease. This is fundamental to the evolution of humanity, being able to figure out how to kill these diseases and how to get them out of our societies. So part of who we are, we've been doing it before. Medical science was to the point to where you could mass produce a vaccine and literally destroy a disease, because if not, smallpox would still be killing people today, even maybe more so, because we are so much closer to one another than what it is that we used to be. There's an interesting thing about that story that I just told. The interesting thing about that story is how it directly involves African people and people who are non European. You have a European man, Edward Jenner, who is the one that takes a process and then makes that process available to everyone else, synthesizes the process, takes this, adds some science that he has access to because of the technology that the Western world had and combines it with the human and cultural science that already existed, homeopathic medicine, and then create something that's for us all. That is the way the world works when the world is concerned about saving people's lives. About your kids not having measles, about your kids not having mumps, about your kids not dealing with all of the really serious side effects that can come along with some of these diseases that we've essentially figured out. And there's a group of people who want to undo that for no fucking reason. There's no reason. None. It is completely political. It is anti humanist. It is a farce. They're leveraging all of this to make a political issue out of keeping your kids from itching. And more than that, they leverage the cultural fear that black people have of some of the scientific institutions in America that have failed us, and they turn that around and make that which is very well placed, a very well placed fear and distrust. Make that into a reason that we have some of the highest levels of skepticism when really it was our ancestors that actually invented the vaccine. They invented the way that you lower the chances that smallpox kills you. They set the blueprint and built the structure for this disease to be eradicated. And now I'm watching a black man stand up and be used as a puppet in front of a group of people to do something that's going to make kids sick, that is going to make children sick. They don't care if your kids die. They just don't. This is absurd and preposterous and it's anti human. So I just wonder, what is it gonna take for someone to look at their child and put the health of their child over what the Trump wing or RFK wants? What is it gonna take for you to say, you know, I want my kid to get measles? There's no reason for my kids to get measles. I want my kids to get mumps. I don't want my kids to get other. I want, like, do you want. How far does it go? Tetanus shot? Is that okay? Like, what is like, what is like what. What's the deal here? What's the, like, what's the thing here? All of this stuff is stuff that we figured out.

[B]

It's and, and then you forget that you figured it out. That's, that's what it is. Like when I hear you say the numbers, people feel so far removed and detached, feel like we've made so many advances and don't realize how we've made those advances to get where we are, that they're undoing decades and decades of work or built up immunity and all the things that you just named that you beautifully laid out. It's also interesting because for the politicians like the man standing up there, I'm not, I'm not actually sure his personal life or situation but like an RFK junior, you don't have, your kids are grown, you don't have kids in school. You're making these decisions where you're totally separated from the school system when it comes to that. I wonder if you would feel the same way if you had kids or grandkids in school. I wonder if it would be the same school of thought. It's really like I don't even have much to add after the way you just laid that out. But you ask what it's going to take. It's not even going to take the child getting measles. It's going to take the worst thing happening for it to hit. People don't feel like they need to act until they're directly impacted by a situation. Even learning about what happened in West Texas and kids dying and how many people were impacted by it and one out of five kids that were impact impacted think they weren't vaccinated. Like this is statistic. Check that, Dottie. For me, it still feels so far away from what you're doing and it may not even happen in this lifetime. But they don't even think about how it will affect the lifetime after your children, their grandchildren, your great grandchildren. They don't even think of it that way. They're thinking about it right now and it seems so far removed that they can't grasp the gravity of the situation. It's almost the same thing. We're so far removed of where we were when millions and millions and hundreds of million people were dying. They can't correlate the two and think about it happening again because they're removed from it.

[A]

It's tough. It's tough. Very upsetting. Glaze of the week. Glaze of the week. You're on somebody's meat. It's the glaze of the week. Glaze of the week. Glaze of the week.

[C]

You're sucking Daisy.

[A]

Glazer. The week is easy. This week we took a couple of weeks off with it. Neymar. You know who Neymar is? He plays soccer.

[B]

I do.

[A]

You like him?

[B]

I do. I don't really follow soccer, but I do know who Neymar is.

[A]

Kicks the ball. He must kick the ball really well.

[B]

He does.

[A]

He's got to kick the ball pretty.

[B]

Well.

[A]

Because somebody left him a billion dollars because he kicks the ball. You on a nigga, Dick. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, bro. So it's a Brazilian businessman. He died at 31. He left all his worldly possessions to Neymar. It's $1.1 billion. Neymar is worth 450 million bucks. The man was reportedly single with no children, and the billionaire chose Neymar because he identifies Neymar on a personal level. Soccer star's close relationship with his father, Neymar Sr. Is said to be the inspiration behind the billionaire's decision, since it reminds him of his own late father. This is dick ride. I'm sorry. A lot of people might look at this and they might say, hey, you know, this is a beautiful story. This guy looked at someone that he identified with, and he decided to leave him a lot of money because he likes the way Neymar kicks the ball all over. They kick the ball, run after the ball. He runs, he runs and he kicks. He left him a billion bucks. You guys, we have to address the dick riding because in this case right here, it cost. I'm sorry. For this man's life. 31. That's not enough years. Brazil could have used that billion dollars to fix up some of the favelas, all kinds of stuff. Think about what the billion dollars could do, man. You could take the billion dollars and put it all kinds of places. You could build all kinds of schools. You could build all kinds of hospitals. You could do so much with the billion dollars. If you don't have anybody to leave the billion dollars to, you could do so much with it. You could give the billion dollars to me, and then I would then go out and then I would do what you do with money and just give it away. You could give the billion dollars away. You could have given the billion dollars to somebody who would then have taken the billion dollars and done good with it and helped people. But you left it to a nigga who kicks the ball. He kicks the ball and you like it, and you gave him a billion dollars when he's already up a half a billion dollars. You're dick riding. I'm sick of it. I can't make people stop dick riding and it's bothering me. When I saw this story, my blood boiled. Good for Neymar. Maybe he'll take the billion dollars and do something great with it. The guy from the Simpsons died and he left 150 million bucks to the doggies of the world. And I fucking loved that. Because at least he had something in mind for what to do with this money. When he was no longer here, this guy said, I want to leave the money to a kicker of the ball. Now look, there could be something else going on here. Maybe these guys have a relationship that I'm not rightly aware of. Who knows? I have no clue.

[B]

No, they're saying he's a stranger. They say it's seems like he just wanted Neymar to know who he was.

[A]

This is one of the greatest dick rides I've ever seen before. This is crazy. What are we going to do, Rachel? What can we do here at Higher Learning? Donnie Ashley, all hands on deck. What can we do here at Higher Learning to stop this obsession with celebrity, this obsession with people we don't even know? What can we do to stop the dick riding, man? What can we do?

[B]

Well, you've already done. We've both done some of our part, right? We left media outlets that perpetuate this kind of. That glorify this, that glorifies this.

[A]

Well, we weren't. I can tell all the things that tmz. I can say. TMZ was not a dick riding outlet. Well, the dick wrote some.

[B]

I didn't say they were a dick riding. I said glorifying celebrity. The constant attention that is given to celebrity, every little detail of their life, the glorification of it perpetuates it. We both are guilty of that. We left.

[A]

I will say this.

[B]

Best thing we could do is ignore it.

[A]

I was. The obsession is one thing, but we never glorified. We had it. Never glorified. We had to.

[B]

Well, the obsessive attention, the obsessive nature of documenting every single thing people do.

[A]

Because it leads to dick riding, Right? It's the gateway.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

To dick riding.

[B]

You make these people more important than they are.

[A]

Look, guys, this guy had a billion dollars. He can do with his money what he wants to do with it. Just to say this to be clear, he can do whatever he wants to do with the money. And also, just to be honest with you guys, I was tired of giving the glaze of the week to the Republicans. You could give it to him every week. You could give it to him every week. You could give glaze of the week to the Republicans everywhere. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. Like, Trump goes into a cabinet meeting, puts his dick on the table, and then everybody else takes turns just licking it. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. Mr. Trump. I tell you what, if there was no Tony Stark, you would be Iron Man. You fly around in the suit, you stop thanos. You have given your entire life to setting this universe back on the right path. And we love you for it, Mr. Trump. Every single person I've never seen.

[C]

He.

[A]

Took the tech gods, all of the tech gods, and made them into dick riders.

[B]

Yeah, he did, man. He did. It's out of control. It's out of control. I get it. I get you being so upset by it. It's disgusting.

[A]

Now we contradict ourselves because we're gonna talk about celebrity stuff, Donnie. We are. Yeah. Young thug, by the way, just to let you know, just before we move on, before Donnie says this, it's not like we never. Yo, sometimes you dick ride. Sometimes it happens. Like you dick ride people. Sometimes it. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes you find yourself on somebody's dick, you're like nano on a dick. One is kind of like, you know, some. Like a really important black man hit me up a couple of weeks ago, hit me up to just reach out and say, hey, I like what you're doing. And I say, thank you, legend. That legend was a dick ride. I caught myself that legend. That was a dick ride. No reason to call him a legend.

[B]

Who was it?

[A]

I'm not talking about that.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

I'm not talking about that. But that legend part, it's a dick ride. But I caught it in the moment. I went, you know what? I even said it to him. I'm like, this was a dick ride and this will never happen again. Said this. We don't dick ride in Baton Rouge, Donnie.

[B]

Ok?

[A]

We don't. We don't dick ride in Baton Rouge, Young thug.

[D]

There's been like, leak after leak after leak of jail phone calls between him and Mariah the Scientist and other people. In these leaks, you've got him calling out rappers including Future J. Cole, Andre 3000, Kendrick Lamar and Glorilla. And he also speaks on his infidelity. He appeared on Perspectives With a Bank to kind of clear the air on some of the stuff that's been happening.

[E]

So listening to people tell you, like, why you the wizard? You ain't going to prison. And then you. You gotta understand Man, I was in jail three years, bro. Like, I was praying three whole years. @ some point, I started thinking, like, the prayers ain't working. You gotta understand that too. Like, I'm going through every day. I'm looking at my best friend. Them do what they do. I'm looking at this. I'm looking at certain, and it's making me feel how I'm feeling. Like, I ain't never been a to pillow talk. I ain't never been a to talk about nobody else in my life on the phone with nobody else. I've never been that type of.

[A]

I've been.

[E]

These last few days, I've been sitting around, like, what the was I thinking? Like, what I was doing?

[A]

He said, you were saying that.

[E]

I think I was just so up, and I just felt like it was just over. Like, I'm just sitting in jail 24 hours on. On 23 and 1. I'm in a cell 23 hours. Like, at this point, I'm just like, man, I don't give a life. Ain't it ain't what I'm thinking.

[A]

It is.

[E]

Like, I'm just talking, man. At this point, I'm just talking. At this point, I'm just holding conversations with my girl. But the crazy part is all these conversations that I had on the phone, I also had with the same who I was talking about on the phones. So that's why it don't seem weird between us, me and them, because I don't have these same conversations with Wayne. I don't hurt. He had these same conversations with Savage. How I feel about him, how I feel about Wham, how I feel about this, how I feel about every situation. We talk like, me and we brothers, we talk. They tell me how they feel about certain things. So we all align. We won.

[A]

We what we here.

[E]

But you got to understand, like, my standpoint. I'm locked up, nigga. I'm on the phone talking to my girl every day. This the only person I'm talking to on the phone. This is the only person that I can talk to.

[A]

All right. Did you listen to the interview, Rachel? Did you see it?

[B]

It was three hours.

[A]

Yeah, with it. I listened to it, watched it. First thing I have to say, Bravo, the Bank. This is some of the best IRL ogn that I've seen. Bravo the Bank. Obviously, look, there's some things that are going viral right now that thug said that are all fucked up. Obviously some homophobic stuff that thug said that's going viral, all fucked up. Obviously, thug is not the guy that I would think would have those types of thoughts, based upon the fact that he's been very gender fluid in the past, I wouldn't have thought that he even looked at things like that. But when I watch the interview itself, I gotta give props, man. Cause bank held Thug accountable. He tried to humanize Thug at the beginning of the interview. And I really felt like this is exactly the type of interview that I was talking about last week. Something that got to the heart of what the actual artist was going through. So the interview was fantastic. I really enjoyed it. Thought it was fantastic, terrific. Whatever adjective you want to use. Great. For bank, what do you think about all the Thug stuff? Is it fair to take private recordings of someone?

[B]

No, it's not.

[A]

Go for it.

[B]

No, I just don't think I saw Mariah talking about this. Not. We haven't heard from her with this, but there was. When something else was leaked before and she was talking and she was just like. It felt like she felt exploited was the word that she used. And I just sat there thinking, like, they're having these intimate conversations because he is lying there. Mariah was not the only girl he was talking to. He was talking to other people. So in that clip we played, that's not all true, but I. I just kept thinking I couldn't imagine the guy that I'm into somebody recording every single detail or our whole conversation and then having the public pick it apart. That's such an invasion of privacy. Like, I just could not imagine it. And it's so wrong. And I feel wrong even listening to it because I didn't listen to the interview. But, like, I went down a dark hole trying to listen to every single recording that was leaked. And I just. It just felt wrong. And I did it for the sake of. We were going to talk about this, but the more I got into it, the more I was like, this is not right. And I'm not saying I agree with. I'm taking up for Thug, Young Thug and agreeing with the things that he was talking about. But it was so. It feels so wrong that we were privy to those private conversations and that they just keep coming out and keep coming out.

[A]

Do you know why they keep coming out?

[B]

Who's leaking, though? I don't even know who's leaking, though.

[A]

Well, I guess this is my question. You know these are jail calls.

[B]

Yes, I know they're jail calls.

[A]

So these. You ever been on the phone with somebody that's in jail? All right, it's funny. This is very funny. With a Group of guys yesterday watching the games. These are wide. And I went around the room asking them, yo, have you ever been on the phone with somebody that is incarcerated? No, I'm talking about. These guys are older guys. They're like, no, never. Never been on the phone in life with somebody that's calling from a jail or a prison. And they're like, how many times have you been on the phone with somebody? Like, a lot. Like when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, when I was a young man. A lot. A lot. But those calls are recorded, and they let you know that the calls are recorded. Like, when you are on the phone, the thing says two things. One, how much time you got left, Right on the phone? And then two, the fact that these calls are being recorded, they're telling you how that the calls are being recorded. So they're private, ish calls. Because.

[B]

No, you know, they're not. He addresses it, you know, he says, that's why you can't talk to certain people on the phone, because they're gonna say the wrong thing. We know that.

[A]

Right?

[B]

They don't get. But the way we are getting them, it feels wrong. Of course they're recorded. We know that.

[A]

Right? So all I'm saying is, does it change? Does it. Does Your estimation of that young thug wasn't bugged. No one, like, skirted his privacy in any way. He was talking on a recorded phone line, and he said all of these things. Now, that doesn't change his mentality and his mindset. Maybe he's thinking, I'm on the phone, I'm good. But he's talking. It's almost like, I mean, we're talking right now for public consumption, right? But if I'm on a Zoom call with a whole bunch of people and all of that stuff and the zoom is being recorded, then whether or not I expect that Zoom to be released or not, if I say certain things, it's kind of like it put me in a weird space. I didn't know whether or not he should have expected this or whether or not this is on him. Like, what's the deal?

[B]

I think he thought, as long as I don't say anything incriminating, I'm just going to talk.

[A]

I'm going to talk my shit.

[B]

Which is why he didn't want family members or whatever. He want anybody saying it's going to incriminate him. I do not think he was thinking, if I gossip, that's going to come out, because why would somebody put it out that I was Gossiping, like, you know, we don't get gossip calls necessarily from jail. It's like the incriminating stuff, right? The stuff that they can use against him in a court of law. Not him talking about somebody's. The aesthetic of somebody or somebody on an album or whatever, or the way they are in the music business and stuff like that. I think the question a lot of people have was, was he talking like this? Because he thought he was never. He thought he was never physically getting out of jail, and his mind was just. He was just talking and he's watching all these other people live this life, knowing things about them or not knowing, and he's just hating on them from jail. And he's. And he has this mindset because of the place that he's in. Like you said, I'm in there 23 hours. Only see one hour of daylight. Or is he. Has he always been this way? Chatty Patty now, huh?

[A]

Like a chatty Patty.

[B]

Chatty Patty. The reason I think he's always been a little bit chatty is because I feel like if I was listening to my man talk like this for the first time about all these people, I feel like I would have been like. And granted, maybe we aren't getting this part of the phone call. I would have been like, I ain't never heard you really talk like this before. But, like, damn, you sure are chatting it up. You know, I wouldn't just be, like, going along with it like I heard. I really would be like, are you okay? Cause I'm not used to. You sounded different. I'm not used to hearing you be like this. I think he probably was pillow talking with his girl about some of these same things before with everyone.

[A]

So he. Oh, you think before this. Before this, he was probably. You know, it's funny because with all of this, all of this audio that came out, there was also audio of Thug his interrogation from. You remember when they shot up Lil Wayne's tour bus? Remember when the tour bus got shot up?

[B]

Yeah, I remember that.

[A]

And so they released some interrogation video or audio, should I say, from Young Thug around that point. And people accused thug of snitching. They accused him of snitching because he talked a little bit about. I mean, if you go back and listen to it, he gives the cop his phone number at the end of it. He gives the police his phone number at the end of it. He says in his bank interview that he was flirting with the police or trying to twist the police head around. He also says, you know, he insinuates in this interrogation audio that it wasn't. If they think that it was so and so his friend who shot up Wayne's tour bus, that it wouldn't have been his friend. Everybody knows that the beef is with Wayne and Birdman, and people looked at that as the snitching. They said he was snitching, but it might just be that Thug is very chatty, is that he wasn't really trying to tell on no one, but he's chatty as shit, chatting it up. And then these jail calls were an example of the fact that this nigga loves to chat. To chat the issues and chat the hot topics. If you heard your name on one of these jail calls, though, if you heard that goddamn Rachel Lindsay, man, that goddamn. Get out the way now. That goddamn Rachel Lindsay got a big ass forehead now. She all right. Watch out, Sheila. Watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out, watch out. That goddamn Rachel I seen on that Bachelor. They're playing that Bachelor. She all right now. She watch out now. She all right. Watch out, watch out. I can't do the laugh. What's the laugh? How the laugh? Yeah, like, watch out. That goddamn Rachel Lindsay. If you heard him talking shit about you like that, would you feel paid?

[B]

I would be like, this is what he really thinks.

[A]

That's what I'm saying. So if you were Metro, boom, or whomever. Cause he literally. If Thug did not mention your name, you ain't shit. So that's how we know who is on in Atlanta right now. Cause if Thug didn't mention you, then you ain't shit. Cause there's literally tape on everyone about him saying something. Would you take this as, this is the way he really feels? Or would you take this as, like, I want to hear from Donnie, too. Would you take this like, this is how he really feels? Or would you take this as, this nigga's fucked up. He in jail, his whole life might be gone by the wayside. He just talking shit.

[B]

So my therapist said something to me when I was going through the divorce, and I would talk about the behavior of my ex and how, you know, like, question things, like, was he always this way? Or, you know, like, the way I was, the way I was versus the way that he was. And I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to me about like, well, no, Rachel, you would never do it because it's not in you, right? I would never behave or do some of the certain things that my ex was doing because it's just Not. It's just not my character. Right. So I apply that same logic to Young Thug here. It's in him to say the things to do, to talk this way and say the things. It's not just the situation that he's in the situation. So even if he had never said these things, these thoughts are in him and he's saying it for whatever situation. Maybe thought he was never getting out, maybe he's hating seeing people live their life. It's in him. This is who he is. So if I'm listening to it and I hear my name, this is how he feels. Now, he may have thought it and never said it because he was in a different situation. Now he's saying it out loud, doesn't matter. This is how he feels. That's what I believe.

[A]

Have you ever.

[B]

And the situation brought it out of me.

[A]

Have you ever expressed a thought to someone else about somebody else that you did not want the person that you were talking about to hear?

[B]

Talking behind somebody's back? Of course.

[A]

Okay, so I guess what I'm saying is that. Does that mean you're frustrated with somebody, you're talking about them to somebody else? Does that necessarily mean that Those are your 100% thoughts?

[B]

Well, what else is it? Right. If I'm talking about a friend, if I'm saying something about somebody and I'm frustrated and then I go, just the way you feel. Talk about their career or their, you know, what they're wearing or whatever. It may be like I really felt that and my frustration, the way I. In this environment or whatever I'm feeling is making me express it rather than keeping that in. But at the end of the day, it's still a thought.

[A]

It still was there, still how you feel.

[B]

It's just a matter of whether does somebody know it or do they not know it?

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Like the. I guess the question, Donnie, do you hold somebody accountable for things that they say that they didn't necessarily want somebody else to hear about them?

[D]

Yeah, I think so. Just like Rachel said, these, like, thoughts aren't.

[A]

You gotta. They're not, like, blatant.

[D]

He's not lying. He's just maybe didn't want them to know that he felt these things. But the fact that he felt these things or thought these things, I think is a truth. Maybe that he's uncomfortable with being public, which is a thing that I also get as human.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It just. It a lot of stuff. So in the bank interview, he talks about the fact that he squashed a lot of beefs in Atlanta. And all of the rappers in Atlanta were all. Cause there's a larger sort of Atlanta hip hop thing. All the rappers in Atlanta were pretty good. I mean, obviously Thug and Lucci had their whole thing that turned violent, but all the Atlanta rappers were pretty good, man. I learned about Gunna through Thug. I learned about 21 Savage through Metro Boomin, who's not a rapper, but obviously a huge producer that's from St. Louis that now is in Atlanta. All of these guys were showing up on each other's stuff, and it didn't seem like they took each other out the way the rappers in, like, New York would. A new rapper would pop up in New York, and then it seemed like it was a gauntlet. Cause the battle culture kind of comes from there, so whatever. But in Atlanta, everybody kind of worked together. The ecosystem was good. And that meant that you got all of these crazy records with everybody on them. Obviously they didn't all love each other and they were beefs. But now it seems like that might be dead forever. And I wonder if that means that Atlanta is no longer the capital of hip hop now. Maybe it's not even right now because, you know, things are a little bit more quiet than it used to be because, shit. Thug came out and fucking dissed everyone. This was the biggest. These thugs calls are the biggest diss record ever. He dissed everybody about everything. Everything. He dissed the way they look, the way they rap, the way they sell. About everything. He dissed everyone. Everyone. Somebody should put it to a beat. And this would be the craziest dissed record ever. Thug just dissed the whole fucking city. He dissed everybody, everybody stuff. All right.

[B]

Oh, and disrespected his girl in the.

[A]

Disrespected this girl in the process and let the whole world know. See, this is the holding it down when somebody's in jail, it just. It doubles. I've seen it on both sides. I've seen men. I've actually seen this a couple of times. I've seen men that think girls have gone to jail and they've held it down. They've held it down. The girl get out, she leave them, whatever. Seen it more with women and just having that relationship with somebody when they're incarcerated and then coming out, them coming out and them doing you wrong. It's just very. I've seen it really fuck with people's heads, like, in a real way, really fuck with people.

[B]

I mean, I could see it. Yeah, Yeah, I could see it.

[A]

We gotta go to the guy who called me to the guy who called me and was talking to me about Young Thug and said, you know how things are where we're from. Say real quick to all of the homies and all of the guys out there, the black men out there, you are not a street nigger. You're not, okay? The street nigga thing has to. We gotta put some limits on it, okay? You're not a street nigger. You're not a street nigger at all. And when I say you, I'm talking to you, whoever you are. You ain't no street nigga. Goddammit. All right? Somebody breaks into your fucking car, you're gonna call the police because you have to for the insurance. You're not street nigga. You're not gonna tool up and go out there and do the. You don't do these things. No. You feel like you're a street nigger. I know you feel that way because you got harassed by the cops. The street niggas got harassed by the cops. You grew up in the neighborhood. The street niggas was in the neighborhood. I know it feels like you're a street nigga, but you're not one. Stop using this to litigate your streetness. You're not a street nigga. You wake up, you go to job. Street is a choice. You didn't make that choice. Why does everybody want to be a street nigga? It does not seem like very much fun at all. It seems like if you're a street nigger and the police go, hey, what are you doing? And you go, nothing. Snitch, rat. You wear a rat jacket. Snitch jacket. It seems like being a street nigga means you have to kill people that have lightly disrespected you. It seems like it means you can't have a regular job, like you can't do regular, like you can't wear. I remember when Jay Z wore flip flops on the beach. Jay Z wore flip flops on the beach. And the streets were outraged. DMX was outraged. Rest in peace, dmx. DMX was outraged that Jay Z war. I've never felt more connected to Jay Z. Jay Z said, nigga, I'm on the beach. It's 400 degrees. If wearing. If I got to wear Timbs on the beach, if that means I ain't street of hip hop, then I'm not street of hip hop. Being a street nigga feels so fucking fraught, and I know it is. And I'm not hating on the lifestyle. It's the lifestyle that People put on you guys. But why do people want to do that? It doesn't seem like it's all that awesome to me. I seen it, uncle. Street niggas, they're all gone, friend. Street niggas, they're in jail now. There are times where it looked fun. I'm not gonna bullshit you. If you ever been in a club with a street nigga, in a strip club with a street nigga, or in other places, it does seem like it's fun.

[C]

Hey, y', all, we ballin'.

[A]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you leave, and he pulled over by the police. You go home, you go to sleep. I don't know, Rachel, you like Street.

[B]

N. Well, who said that?

[A]

I know you do. You look like the type you.

[B]

No, no. That is. I'm 40 years old.

[A]

No, not now. I do not like, you ever dated any street niggas. Have you ever been anybody's. Mariah the scientist? Ha ha ha. Rachel the scientist. Well, you am.

[B]

No, never. I didn't hold it down, but you. I said, oh, okay. You got caught up.

[A]

Oh, shit.

[B]

See it. Three years.

[A]

Oh, you.

[C]

Three years.

[A]

You got some time. Oh, that's too bad.

[B]

Man. Don't call here again, though. Okay?

[A]

Yeah. Like, yeah. Cause I don't know who listening on the phone. I don't know who listening on the.

[B]

Phone, but I did not hold it down.

[A]

You're not holding it down for the streets.

[B]

Oh, you going back.

[A]

I thought you got your life together. You going back. I'm like, okay, nah, we can't. Nah, you ain't got nothing. I'm putting something. I'm putting money on people's books these days. Like, right now, I'm putting money on people's books. I mean, people will probably guess whose money I'm putting on people's books for, but, like, right now, I'm putting money on people's books. I'm still putting money on people's books right now. I'm 45 years old. There's nothing about the streets. Look, the streets. It's not for everybody. Stop acting like you a street nigga. Just listen to the fucking rap music and go to work. Stop with this. Just listen to the rap.

[B]

Right? Right? Listen to it. Be it when you sing it along to the song.

[A]

Yeah, just, like, listen to the rap music and go to work. Take your ass to work, come home, go to the Saints game. Go to sleep. Don't. You're not a street nigga, man. This is not your world. Okay? Anyway, we out. Robust show. Thank you. To Nina Westbrook. Thank you.

[C]

To Donnie.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Make sure y' all check the Nebby app. Yes. Thank you, Donnie. Like, subscribe to the podcast on YouTube.

[A]

Please like subscribe to a podcast. YouTube, Spotify. Before we go, I will say this. I might. I was thinking about like taking Nina up on her. On her two on two thing.

[B]

Oh, love it.

[A]

Yeah. But I'm not going to do it.

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because I know what's going to happen.

[B]

We're doing it.

[A]

We're not gonna do it because all that matters. I'm just. I'm too big for you guys. It's not gonna work. It's like, it's not gonna like. It would be. It would not be very competitive.

[B]

Nah, Match my energy.

[A]

I'm too. I'm too big for you guys to.

[B]

Say, but match my energy. All that's gonna happen is you gotta bum foot.

[A]

What's gonna happen is I'm gonna end up having to play Russell Westbrook. And then that's gonna take the rest of my soul. I mean, that's gonna be the end. That's gonna take the rest of my soul.

[B]

Don't play about Nina.

[A]

Like. Yeah, it's just like he, he do I. Yeah, that's like. I couldn't do that, cuz. I'm gonna get on there, I'm put somebody in the post, I'm gonna shoot the baby hook. It's gonna be easy work. And then all of a sudden I'mma hear boom, boom, boom. Don't go nowhere yet, nigga.

[B]

Cause what's gonna happen is he's gonna come watch the game. He gonna come watch the game and then you gonna be showing out because you're gonna be thinking, man, I gotta show Russ what I can do.

[A]

Right?

[B]

And then you're gonna go too far.

[A]

And then it's gonna be him. And he gonna put like a three year old kid with him or something like that, and the kid just gonna throw lobs and just fuck over me and Ryan or something like that. So I can't do that. I can't. It just. It's not gonna work for me.

[B]

Oh, you said Ryan. Is that who you pick?

[A]

Because Ryan is who I would pick.

[B]

Okay. Ryan's pick.

[A]

And me and Ryan. There's no world where me and Ryan are losing to you and Nina. It's not.

[B]

I like this. I like this matchup.

[A]

Yeah. There's no world where that's gonna happen.

[B]

Ryan would do it.

[A]

Ryan would definitely do it. And Ryan will play way too hard because he's too competitive, so there's no world where that would happen. But anyway, all right, take caps off, but do not stop learning. I'm Van Latten Jr. Please take your vaccines.

[B]

I'm Rachel and Lindsey. Bye guys. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify.

[C]

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[B]

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