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The Gist
Not Even Mad: Michael A. Cohen and Jamie Kirchick
01:01:21
Michael A. Cohen and Jamie Kirchick discuss the Charlie Kirk assassination and the immediate retreat to priors — who’s weaponizing grief, what counts as incitement, and whether “fascistic” vs. “authoritarian” language clarifies or...
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September 18, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca and today is a not even mad day. We have Michael Cohen, we have Jamie Kerchick. They get into it and discuss things in a really high minded manner. However, the discussion did take place before Jimmy Kimmel was suspended indefinitely for doing what his job description says gentle, generally gentle mocking of President Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his minions did not like that and they applied pressure and now Kimmel is off the air. Tomorrow I'm going to bring you an interview on the Gist with Brendan Nyhan. No one in political science is better for getting to the real truth about what the populace is thinking in terms of endorsing violence. And I have to tell you there has been some shockingly misleading thoughts. Statistics, survey results that you've probably heard of that greatly over state just how bad a place we're in in terms of people endorsing violence and getting those ideas that it's as bad as the numbers that you've been hearing are can only worsen our situation. So Brendan Nyon is going to talk to us. He did quote another expert. He's at Dartmouth Harvard expert Stephen Levitsky, who analyzes why democracies die, who said, and this is succinct, in liberal democracies, the price for criticizing the government is nothing you can can criticize the government. The government does not extract a cost for criticizing the government in a liberal democracy. I think that's certainly apt among the lowest bars for what constitutes a liberal democracy, and we're violating that. We're now under that bar in a discrediting game of limbo. All right, Michael Cohen, Jamie Kirchek not even mad. Here we go. Hymns cannot solve some of the more common bedroom problems. The I like to watch TV at a very high volume, whereas I look at the place of sleeping as a place to sleep. I don't want to tell you which one of us has those different stakes in the debate, but I think maybe you can tell. There's the blanket stealing, but when it comes to performance, that is where HIMS can help take control of ED with personalized treatments made with proven ingredients prescribed by licensed providers 100% online and you know ED is more common than you think. I don't know how common you thought it was, but from what I understand, it's quite common, though getting less common because of hims, which allows you to connect online with a licensed provider to access personalized treatment options. To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss and more, visit hims.comthegist that's hims.comthegist for your free online visit hims.comthegrist Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. I've been wearing a lot of True Work clothing because I like it, because it looks good and feels good. But that's not even why True Work exists. True Work exists to make workwear that keeps pros comfortable, capable and and ready for whatever the day throws at them. Is made by a guy who studied this very hard, looked at canvas and denim and the things we were working in and sweating in and that weren't holding up to our tasks. I use True Work because, well, they gave me a couple and then I said ooh, I want more. And they gave me a couple more. And every once in a while you could catch me working around and walking about fully clad head to toe in the True Work. I got a hoodie, the Wooby hoodie. I don't know why they call it this. It is wind resistant and it is quite comfortable and I have the Work Pant. They work so hard there is no space between work and pants. The T2 work pant, durable, flexible, water resistant Work pants. Started off with one in rust, then just went to black. Black goes with everything, including clearing brush and taking a giant iron fence and dragging it into my. I have a truck driving it and I'll tell you the whole story one day. This is a true work ad. This is not how much money I got for my iron fence. But if you want to guess, you can upgrade your day with workwear built like it matters. Get 15% off your first order@True Work.com with the code. The gist, that's T R U E w e r k.com hello and welcome back to Not Even Mad, the show that raises your interest. As we lower interest rates today, we speak of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Trump administration excesses, which doesn't really narrow it down, but that is the point. As always, the beloved goat grinder. And we do so as we uphold our reputation for a refutation while promising to be not even mad. So who are we? Well, I have with me Michael A. Cohen. He writes the newsletter on substack, Truth and Consequences, is a contributor to MSNBC, and he's got a 70s show movie podcast. That's not the right title. It's the 70 millimeter podcast. Right?
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B
It's that 70s movie podcast.
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C
And what's the 70s movie you're doing this week?
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B
We just got finished actually talking about Three Days the Condor, as starring Robert Redford, of course, passed away yesterday.
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C
Is that why you did it? Because of Redford?
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B
Actually, we were planning to do it and then it just happened that unfortunately. So we have to be very careful who we talk about when we talk about next week.
- [07:24]
C
Yeah, it's the well known curse of the that 70s movie.
- [07:28]
B
It's exactly, exactly right. Exactly right.
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C
We also have with us James Kerchick, who is the author of Secret City, frequent contributor to Politico, and a contributor to the New York Times opinion pages. Hello, James. What's your favorite? Or I could call you Jamie and I shall. What's your favorite. What's your favorite 70s movie? Or what do you want to hear Cohen do Next?
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D
My favorite 70s movie? That's a tough question. Maybe One Flew over the Cuckoos.
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C
That's pretty good. And from what I understand, taught America all the wrong things about mental health. But it was pretty good.
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B
It's pretty good. It's pretty good.
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C
Shoot the ball, chief. Well, Tyler Robinson has been arraigned in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. What we know now, he was, as was originally reported and somewhat disputed in a relationship with a trans individual who is helping authorities. He inscribed on the bullets, including the one that struck Kirk, antifascist and pro furry messages, but there's some thought that it was just shitposting and memes saying so a little bit of nihilism and not a firm belief. Although he did specifically target someone that he thinks of as a fascist and who espouses in his mind anti trans sentiment. Immediately after the shooting, the President of the United States, when asked by that notable unifying force, Fox News, how do you bring the country together? Said, I'll tell you, I don't really care about bringing the country together. The radicals on the left are the problem and they're vicious. Trump retreating to his priors, but so did everyone else in media. And I've been decrying this trend. I don't know if it's a lone voice in the wilderness, but I've gotten much more pushback and guff by trying to say maybe now is not the time to issue the bill of particulars against Charlie Kirk while the blood is still coagulating on the floor. I want to start with you, Jamie, as I ask you that, as I ask you afterwards, beyond the actual fact of the political shooting, did the discussion afterwards depress you as much as it depressed me?
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D
Oh, absolutely. I mean, I just don't understand why people haven't learned by this point that in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy like this, you could be, you could say something that could be totally off base. People will see that in a couple of weeks, right? Or however long it takes. I, and it's, I really think it is social media, it's, it's this temptation to weigh in, to offer your take, to look for the so called evidence. Every little leak from law enforcement gets blown out of proportion, taken at face value and why people don't think about their track records. Right. Like if you're in the business of punditry, you would think by now, since we have these sorts of tragedies, you know, far too often that people would just wait a little bit, you know, just wait until the facts emerge. But we can't do that anymore. I mean, that's what I do now. At this point. I don't, I try my best not to jump to conclusions, at least publicly. I might have, you know, private conversations with people in which I speculate on what the political motivations of a killer might be. But I'm not going to put my name to something in print or say it on air if I'm not entirely sure of what the stated motive of the killer is.
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C
Yeah, I just Want to, I just want to be clear that what I was more talking about and that sentiment is something I absolutely co sign is the retreat to the priors and arguing essentially the politics of Charlie Kirk, the necessity of arguing that it could go both ways. And I know that Cohen engaged in a high minded, higher minded version of that than some others. But what do you think of that? Because as much as well. But what do you think of that?
- [11:17]
B
So there's two things here. I mean, Jamie, to your point about why people do this, I mean, I think that the reason is just because, you know, there's benefit to doing the benefit to ginning up outrage. And I think what I was struck by, they hadn't even captured the suspect yet. And yet the President of the United States blaming the far left for this. I mean, and it was across the board, it wasn't just, it was politicians, it was journalists. You had Democrats out there saying we condemn this and Republicans immediately blaming the left for it. And this isn't. And even as more evidence came out, this continued. And then you get this just, I mean, just astonishing political hypocrisy of people saying the left is responsible for political violence in America, which is completely not correct. And that you're going to find people online who will say terrible things about Charlie Kirk or even cheer his death, which I find abhorrent. You're not going to find any Democratic politician who's doing this. Meanwhile, you have the President of the United States fomenting political violence by basically blaming the left. I don't care. There's no other way to put this. If you're blaming the left for a murder, you are contributing to an atmosphere of divisiveness, of hatred of your political opponents and potentially violence. And so what's made me sort of crazy about this is that there is a bad actor in this. And it is all on one side of the equation, whatever the motives of Tyler Robinson were. And yet we seem to have a hard time just acknowledging that. And by the way, one more thing, talk about political violence. The President of the United States pardoned 1500 people who committed the gravest act of political violence. I mean, maybe since the Civil War in this country. And that seems not even to be discussed at all. So I just find this whole conversation is not just depressing, it's misinforming Americans about what's really going on here.
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C
Well, I would say that it's not all on one side and I don't know that retreating.
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B
It's mostly on one side.
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C
Well, the statistics actually show that there is more right wing extremist violence than left wing extremist violence. Some of it depends on how you describe or define extremist. But my point was it's not 9010 or 80, 20. There's enough extremist violence on the left or the right that if you just looked at extremist and defined it correctly and violence and target that with law enforcement, you'd be much better than just looking at.
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B
But I'm not actually making that. I'm actually not even making that point. As to who commits more acts of physical violence, of political violence. I am saying that one political party is using this as an opportunity to attack its political opponents and its political rivals, to delegitimize its political rivals. I mean, can you imagine Joe Biden giving a speech in the Oval Office? Whatever you think of Joe Biden, but the same day as, like the attack in Minnesota, if it happened when he was president, and immediately decrying the far right lunatics responsible for this? I can't. I mean, I think it's just, it's a mindset on the right that just takes this opportunity to, to just go after their political opponents in a way that almost feels calculated.
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C
But this exactly happened with the killing of Melissa Hortman. It was defined as a far. He was defined as a far right lunatic. And I think lunatic is much more important than far right. I just want.
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B
Any Democratic politicians blame Donald Trump for that.
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C
No, no, no.
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B
Any leading Democrat politicians.
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C
This is what I don't want to get.
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D
I actually, I thought I heard Democrats say, and I'm sorry, I don't have the evidence right in front of me that Donald Trump has contributed to, you know, an atmosphere of hate. This has certainly happened over the past 10 years. They've accused him. And look, I don't entirely disagree with that.
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B
I think that's actually correct.
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D
Right. But there's, but there's a difference between saying that this rhetoric is contributing to an atmosphere of hate and pinning direct blame on a particular speaker or their speech. Right. And I think that's an important distinction to make here. Like, for instance, I will say without qualification that much of the rhetoric coming out of the transgender movement over the past couple years is absolutely encouraging violence. Okay. To speak of a trans genocide is preposterous. But when you, but when there's a genocide going on, what do you expect people to do? How should they react? You know, you want them to take out. The people who are perpetrating the genocide.
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C
Now are those that would Be the moral. If it really were, that'd be the moral act, right?
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D
During the second. You know, during the Holocaust, you would kill Nazis right now. Are people who use that rhetoric, they're not criminally liable. Okay? I'm a First Amendment absolutist. They can say whatever they want. But I mean, clearly this has been taking a toll, this sort of rhetoric. I mean, you can just look at what is written under everything that J.K. rowling posts on Twitter. I mean, she has had to have, you know, significant security now because people daily, hourly threaten her with death. And there have been. And there has been an increase in the number of, you know, trans individuals carrying out mass shootings that appear to happen in at least partly or maybe largely, if not entirely inspired by the sort of radical transgender ideology.
- [16:37]
B
But I think we have to differentiate here between activists, people on Twitter, people on social media, and the President of the United States. And I will just add on the trans issue, the President of the United States and this administration have fundamentally sought to dehumanize trans Americans. I mean, I don't have any question about this. And I think when you look at the ban on trans soldiers in the military, the sort of gratuitous acts that the DoD has taken against not just trans community, but the LGBT community, you take the Harvey Milk ship incident is one example of that. I think that there is a. This is not coming from some fringe of the party. It's coming from the party leadership itself. And I think that is the difference. And I'm getting really frustrated, and I'm not pointing at you, Jamie, but I'm getting frustrated seeing this conflation of yahoos on Twitter and Republican politicians and. And Republican president saying these things. I mean, look, Stephen Miller goes on Twitter, maybe the most powerful person in America, and says that the left needs to be wiped out because they're a threat to civilization, society, and families. I mean, that's like. That's like fascist authoritarian language.
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C
It's not just yahoos on Twitter. It's not just tweeters on Yahoo. It is prominent voices on the left. Not even the far left. Not the. I don't even know what a griper is or anti griper is right or left. After the killing of Kirk, the Nation magazine wrote a piece. Charlie Kirk's legacy deserves no mourning. End of paragraph one. He had children, as do many vile people. Third paragraph, a Hitler comparison. And then, of course, the obligatory we believe in truth quote. We live in a culture where manners are more often valued than truth. And we should note that that article misquoted Charlie Kirk in a way that J.D. vance, when he read on the plane with Charlie Kirk's widow and kids, drove him crazy, he said, and called it propaganda. Now, here's what I want to do. The President of the United States is unbelievably powerful and unbelievably incendiary. Absolutely. And there's no equivalent in terms of power, voice, anything else. Irresponsibility on the left. No equivalent. Same with Stephen Miller. You could probably go down the list and find a whole bunch of people in the administration who are so much worse in terms of stoking flames. Of course, their friend and pal got murdered, so maybe you can excuse that, but that absolutely went on. And then, Michael, you wrote a piece right afterwards. Let us now document the sins of Charlie Kirk. And I was saying, I do not think, even if you're a member of the media who has always believed that Charlie Kirk has said odious things, I think it would be great if you just held your fire, as it were, on that day. Didn't happen. I kind of thought it would have. Wouldn't happen. But if we could go back, I'll ask you. I was calling for more de. Escalatory rhetoric, writing, contribution to the public sphere. It didn't happen. Do you think I was wrong to emphasize and want that?
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B
I mean, look, I can't. That's a hard question to answer. I mean, you have to make your own choice and what you think is important to stress. And I think the reason I wrote. And it wasn't my first piece I wrote about Charlie Kirk, I think it was. I think it was maybe the second piece. But my argument was really that he's become canonized. He's being. I mean, and I was really frustrated mostly by that piece by Ezra Klein in the New York Times. She basically said that Kirk exhibited the kind of politics that. I can't remember the expression he used that we should. He did politics the right way. And my argument is like, no, he didn't. He did politics the wrong way. He did politics that were intended to divide people. He did politics intended to demonize people. Like, I'm. I think his death is a tragedy. I am heartbroken to the fact that his kids are never going to know their father. And he's 31 years old. I mean, he's very young. And as I said in that piece, he'll never get the chance to evolve and to grow as a person. And that's a real tragedy. But we should also be very clear as to who he was. And what kind of rhetoric he put out there. He was not a bridge builder. He was not trying to convince people. He was trying to embarrass liberals, and he tried to demonize liberals. And so I think that we should not. This idea. We shouldn't speak ill of the dead. I don't really agree with. I mean, I think that you speak honestly.
- [20:52]
C
I don't agree with you honestly. I will compliment your piece in so far as it came a couple days after was a reaction. Your headline was, we can and should mourn Charlie Kirk's death, as opposed to the Instant Nation piece. Charlie Kirk's legacy deserves no mourning. And I'll say what J.D. vance called for was essentially going after the Nation because their sorrow.
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D
Can I say that.
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B
That.
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D
That. That is a lot worse. Okay. What the nation. What the Nation published was vile and disgusting, and I disagreed with its mischaracterizations of who Kirk was. But that really pales in comparison to the vice President of the United States seizing upon an article in a magazine he doesn't like and then threatening to go after the magazine's donors with the power of the federal government. That is an absolute outrage. And that's what really should be outraging us. And I want to say just one more thing. I mean, you know, Christopher Hitchens was a friend of mine, and he was famous for, like, the body was still warm and. And he would write, you know, of. Of Mother Teresa. She was a thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf. Okay. And he did similar things to Jerry Falwell. So I, you know, I can't tell other writers or other people that they should, you know, hold off on expressing their feelings about a very controversial person. And I can disagree with what they might say about that person. I can take issue with the specific claims that they make. But if the individual was someone as, you know, a political. A political, you know, firebomb thrower, which is what Kirk was. And, you know, I agreed with him on some things. I disagreed with him on most things. I think it depends on what you say and how you say it about the person. And, you know, Michael, I. I read your piece on Kirk, and I thought that it was. It was fair to him. And I don't think that you were, like, disrespecting his, you know, his soul or whatnot. But, you know, a lot of the people, but a lot of the leftists who have been writing things about him like the person of the nation, and there have been many others have been sort of reveling in his death. And while I, you know, again, I consider that gruesome and disgusting, and I think that there should be lots of social shame attached to that. And frankly, I don't have a problem if schoolteachers who are, like, taking videos of themselves reveling in the death of someone, I think those people should be fired. Okay. Because I don't understand how you can teach children when you. When you do something like that. Okay. You know, an airplane pilot, like, I don't understand how his views on Charlie Kirk's death would in any way impact his, you know, flying a plane.
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C
The manager of a Texas roadhouse in the Florida Panhandle, whose wife, you know.
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B
Some of these people who are being. Who are being, you know, a attacked were just basically saying, I'm sorry he died, but, like, he said terrible things. And that was not seen as being reverential enough to Charlie Kirk's memory. And I'm sorry, I'm not gonna play that game. I mean, look, you can. People wanna praise him on the right, they're welcome to do so. But I certainly have a right. Someone on the left and people in my lives, they are affected by his rhetoric. I don't get to details here, but his rhetoric, especially on LGBT issues, affects people in my life. And I have a right to say that that's hateful and it's not something that deserves to be praised.
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D
I think it's a sign of a unhealthy society if someone dies regardless of maybe they're not controversial at all and you're not allowed or your livelihood is taken away from you because you don't fall in line with what the mass of people are saying. I mean, we live in a democracy and people are allowed to say terrible, awful, insulting things. And that also applies. That also applies to people in the minutes after their death.
- [24:30]
B
Yeah. And by the way, I remember when J.D. vance went to Europe in February and said. And attacked the Europeans for basically trying to outlaw hate speech. And this is exactly what he's trying to do now.
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D
Right, Right.
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C
Has anyone in the administration shown one scintilla of commitment to free speech or to free expression or to just Andrew Sullivan. Andrew Sullivan said this? Well, when he cataloged a litany of the offensive things, odious things, hateful things that Charlie Kirk said and then said. So what he's allowed to say that I disagree with him. You know, my number one issue, Sullivan is saying, is gay marriage. And I think he was hateful to gay people. And so what this is where we are, should be, as America.
- [25:10]
D
So this is My Pam, Pam Bondi. Okay. Who's the attorney general whose job it is to enforce the laws, a couple days ago said that we're going to go after hate speech. Okay. The first thing you should learn in law school is that there's no such thing as hate speech. Okay. There's not a legal category. And so to hear her say that was really frightening, I have to say. Now, are they going to actually do this? I think they'll try, but, you know, fortunately, our courts are pretty good when it comes to the First Amendment. And I, and I don't see these, these challenges really holding up in court. But the very fact that it's being raised by the highest, you know, law, you know, law enforcement officer in the country is really disturbing.
- [25:51]
C
Yeah. And what do you make of the list generated by Christopher Rufo, who is, who was a person who became famous for, among other things, decrying cancel culture? A list of those that can be contributed to by the public who misspoke on the. Or who said something that was offensive to Christopher Rufo or Charlie Kirk fans afterwards. Here's my question. It's wrong. It's not in keeping with free speech. But just analyze it. Is there, is there some sort of strategy that I'm not picking up on or is it just now that we have power, we're going to use it to punish our enemies?
- [26:32]
B
I think you just put your finger on it. Exactly. I think it's that, look, I guess I said before, they didn't even know who the person was responsible for the crime. And they were for Charlie Turner's murder. And they were already vilifying the left. And if you look at the rhetoric that's coming out by Stephen Miller, I mean, Trump was basically, we have to go after organizations that have promoted this. I think they just saw this as an opportunity. And I think their mindset is how do we screw with our political enemies and our political rivals? And this was just an opportunity presented to them to do exactly that.
- [27:06]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [27:06]
D
I, you know, it's not often, it's actually never that you hear me say a kind word about Bernie Sanders. But I will say that his response to this was perfect. There was not a single syllable that was off note. He did a five minute video where he just came out and said, look, Charlie Kirk and I didn't agree on anything. Okay. But this is absolutely wrong. We cannot have political violence in this country. And you know that everyone across the political spectrum should be modeling or, you know, following his model.
- [27:36]
C
Yeah, he and he and Spencer Cox were really the only two bright points that I could find. I also want to ask each of you about this. In the minutes after Charlie Kirk was dead, and this isn't any sort of disgusting legacy, besmirching effort, but this is something that friends of mine who are largely apolitical, there was a discussion and someone sent me this tweet, which is an accurate comment. Charlie Kirk 2023. We've all seen this. I think it is worth. I think it's worth to have a couple of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so we can have the Second Amendment. That is a prudent deal. That is rational. No one talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe. So there is the, you know, provocateur tendency to say, no one's talking like this. I'm saying the thing that no one says. He said that about the Civil Rights act being a mistake also. But it did strike me that in the immediate aftermath, this was the number one meme or rebuttal I saw by reasonable people. When you think about it just for a second, everyone who believes in guns or the Second Amendment, which is a lot, I think, when you see polling on the Second Amendment specifically, there is not majority opinion to scrap the Second Amendment. Everyone who believes in this, maybe they don't work out the second order effects of believing in it, but that's what they'd have to believe in to have a second Amendment that come with benefit. Well, I.
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D
This is not.
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C
Yeah. So the question is, I not even just talking about if that is or is not an acceptable sentiment. I took the immediate injection of this idea as another depressing sign of where our society has gone. Saying things like karma or saying things like fuck around and five, find out. That was another meme that depressed me. People are allowed to say it, but it's not good in terms of de escalation or taking us to a better place. Sorry, Jamie, you were saying?
- [29:36]
D
There's nothing remarkable about that comment he made.
- [29:40]
B
Okay.
- [29:41]
D
I'm not a big Second Amendment guy, okay? I barely touched a gun. But I wrote. I wrote an article a long time ago, the Daily Beast, you can look it up where I made this exact point that Second Amendment supporters, they view the Second Amendment as they do the First Amendment, okay? And if you support the First Amendment, you support freedom of speech, you're going to accept that there are negative consequences of that. There's going to be a lot of nasty, hateful, bigoted speech that society will have to put up with. But we've decided as a society that it's better to have the freedom than to abolish it altogether because of speech we don't like. They apply that same principle to the Second Amendment, which is the right to bear arms is too important, too foundational to what it means to be a free citizen in a republic, to take that away because some people might abuse that right. Now, there are criticisms you can make of this argument. The first, most obvious one being that abusing the First Amendment isn't violent. Okay? It's like horrible, nasty, bigoted, racist, whatever you want to call it, but it's not an actual violent act, whereas abusing the Second Amendment can lead to death and destruction. So there's an obvious qualitative difference here. But I think what he said is a perfectly respectable argument, and it's one I agree with as someone who does support the right to bear arms. Of course we acknowledge that there are going to be people who abuse that freedom. But that's what living in a free society is about, okay? It means having responsibility and there are risks. Right. The alternative is to live in an utter dictatorship, okay? Where you have no choices and no freedoms and the government takes all the guns, and the government doesn't give you the freedom to speak your mind. And sure, that's maybe ostensibly a safer society, but it's not one that I think most people want to live in. Now, what, Mike, what you were saying. Yeah. This use of using this very, in my opinion, anodyne comment as a sort of gotcha is. It's moronic, okay? Because again, what he said is not controversial.
- [31:41]
B
I actually, I'm gonna push back a little on that because I think that Kirk is lying on a straw man to some extent, because no one is really saying. No one is talking about taking guns away from people. Right. People are saying people.
- [31:51]
D
Well, that's not true. I mean, I remember years ago, the reason I wrote this column years ago, it was because. It was because Hillary Clinton brought up the example of Australia and she said, look, there are societies that they have a terrible mass shooting, and then they implement, quote, unquote, gun control, and there's never a problem again. I mean, the gun control that they implemented in Australia, confiscation, it was taken.
- [32:16]
B
By all the guns. Hillary Clinton has never, never openly offered support for gun confiscation. And the thing is that most.
- [32:23]
D
Well, to say Australia. To say Australia is a good.
- [32:26]
B
Okay, but let's say this. Most gun control advocates, more or less, and I'm looking at, like, the Everytown folks and everything they basically want, sure, Legislation to make it harder to purchase gun. They want to, they want to place restrictions like background checks.
- [32:38]
C
The vast majority, the vast majority of gun control advocates know it's such a non starter, or maybe they even believe in their heart of hearts that some guns are okay like most countries in Europe have for shooting at a range, right?
- [32:49]
B
So the question is really like, are you willing to accept those kinds of restrictions? But people like Kirk and others just make it out to being a binary between either you have, either you want to banish guns or you want to have no laws to restrict guns. And so I just think that that's not really a fair way to. I think the way that I think it's fair to bring it up actually to say like if this is what you believe about guns, then you know, this is the end result. I put a different way. This is the end result of believing that we should be able to accept gun violence in this country. And the thing is, what makes me crazy about these kinds of incidents, what all of these incidents, all these mass shootings, all of these, is that we talk about the motive, we don't talk about the instrument because what is the motive is to my mind secondary. Now maybe in this case it's a little different because it's an act of political violence, but I still think it's almost secondary. The issue is we allow people in this country, including 22 year olds, to go out and purchase high caliber weaponry that they can use to kill people with. That is the bottom line. And we don't place restrictions on their ability to do so. In fact, we're losing restrictions on their ability to do so. And that's why we're the most violent. We have the most gun violence of any society. Society in the world. And so to me, like, I wish we talked about the gun element of this because that's really the story here. Every country in the world has some elements of political violence. I mean, in Japan, the Japanese Prime Minister was killed, what was it, six months ago, nine months ago? I forget what Abe was.
- [34:05]
D
No, no, it was a couple years ago.
- [34:07]
B
I'm old, I can't remember these things anymore. But basically he got stabbed. I mean, and the point is that, and we have actually in this country, if you look at the numbers, we have vanishingly small amounts of political violence in the, in this country. It's very, very rare in America. What makes this situation worse though is that we have easy access to guns. And I just think that should be the conversation. And I have no problem bringing this up. That this is what gun control 2A supporters believe and this is the logical outcome of that, is that people are going to die, including people that people actually care about. Like on the rights to go back to the.
- [34:42]
C
I just have to say Shinjobi, Shinzo Abe was shot and killed by a firearm that the guy.
- [34:47]
B
Oh, you're right. I'm sorry, you're right. I'm thinking of something else.
- [34:50]
C
No, you're right. And it's also happened in the, in the UK killing of the parliamentarian. These are societies with strict gun control rules. And my point isn't people will get around it. But I think if you look, gun control's an issue that's mostly about inner city killings and gang killings and interpersonal killings and actually mostly, mostly about suicide, actual assassinations, especially with long guns, which would be the thing that we'd be least likely to regulate. I don't know, any sort of gun regulation that is proposed by an everytown USA that would have taken the guns out of this shooter who, from what we know, didn't have any red flags. Hands. But Jamie, go ahead. And then I want to say, I.
- [35:28]
D
Was going to say to go back to the First Amendment comparison, which is how the real strong Second Amendment reporter supporters look at this, it's like the, it's like the slippery slope when it comes to free speech. Right. If you really believe in free speech, then you have to oppose all of these attempts, no matter how innocuous seeming they are, to limit speech. People who want to ban hate speech, well, that's a slippery slope. Right. So they view gun control efforts as a slippery slope towards the total confiscation of all our guns. Now, you can view that as a, you know, crazy paranoid.
- [36:01]
B
I do view. I do.
- [36:02]
D
But, but it's okay. But that is a dear. That, that's a deeply, I think, sincere.
- [36:06]
B
I mean, listen, in this country there's no.
- [36:08]
C
Michael. What?
- [36:09]
B
Say there's no absolute rights. In this country we create, we create limitations on every single and every right that's in the Constitution. And Second Amendment should be no different. Sir. Go ahead, sir. Mike.
- [36:17]
C
Yeah. And Jamie, earlier in the show, you, you identified yourself as a First Amendment absolutist. I know you're a First Amendment Maximus maximalist, but I know there are a couple of things you're against in terms of the first.
- [36:27]
D
Well, I support the, I support what the Supreme Court has ruled.
- [36:31]
C
Here is my question though. And Michael, since you're a historian, after JFK was killed by a gun, there was no social media and no Ability to disseminate a sentiment widely. But I have never heard of people saying, well you know, he was a member of the nra, you know, karma, which probably wasn't a popularly known concept back then. He had it coming. He didn't oppose gun control. And then after RFK was shot, and you know a lot about this, RFK did propose some forms of gun control, but very, very mild compared to even what is being asked of now. And after he was killed, I don't think anyone said, oh, he only wanted to ban, he didn't even want to ban the kind of gun that killed him. This seems to be a modern sentiment where we retreat to our priors, where we play gotcha. And it's part of, I think, I hate to be the old man saying look at society these days, but it is a good example of a difference from 50 years ago or 60 years ago when from what I perceive, cuz I wasn't born, people had more normal sentiments of mourning the dead and not turning it into a political.
- [37:42]
B
Well, but hold on. Gun violence was way more prevalent today than it was in the 1960s. And in fact actually it's interesting, I mean I had thought about this before, but there were a lot of calls for gun violence when JFK was killed. And I think in part because there wasn't a lot of gun violence, gun control, there wasn't a lot of gun violence in the country. But by 68 crime had increased exponentially and there was a lot more gun violence. And so there was legislation that was pushed. If I remember correctly, it was actually what LBJ pushed after Kennedy's assassination was pretty aggressive and it was watered down in Congress. But there was legislation that was passed after Kennedy's death to limit access to create some gun control measures. And so I think that the difference now is that gun violence has become so endemic in our society. I mean I was struck by the same day as Charlie Kirchheim, there was a shooting in Colorado. I saw this interview with an 8 year old boy who was at the school and he basically said like I just didn't. He sort of said something to the extent of well, I figured it would happen eventually here. I mean that's kind of where the kind of thing we're raising kids to sort of see this as just a part of life in America. That wasn't the case 50 years ago. It just wasn't.
- [38:42]
C
Yeah. The last thing as we talk about Kirk and I'll just throw this out to you, it's almost not a fully formed thought, but you know, Charlie Kirk was a Republican, a MAGA Republican. He was, quote, unquote, good at communicating that or effective at communicating that. And when you host a podcast or a TV show, you both also say some things that maybe you regret or some things that you don't, even though they're really incendiary. Is there even a role, is there even an acceptability for someone who believes in what almost every Republican self identified, not conservative, not classic liberal, but is there a role for what every Republican believes to say those things without being called even an hour after he died? All the things that Charlie Kirk was called, some of them maybe apply, some of them don't. I just was coming to the idea that, well, you know, I really hate a whole bunch of stuff he said, but this is what a lot of people believe. And I don't think all of these beliefs, well, none of them make anyone deserve getting killed. But I also think we've overreacted to just how dangerous every single part of the Republican Party platform we on the left have. I think, I think it's not a fully formed.
- [40:05]
D
I mean, all I can say is that, you know, reading a lot of these left wing critiques of him calling himself a hate monger and whatnot, I would look into the most inflammatory things that he allegedly said. And he didn't say them. He never said that gay people should be stoned to death. He never said that black women are incompetent and, you know, inferior. I'm trying to think of some of the other ones, but I, again, like, I didn't agree with the guy.
- [40:26]
C
Yeah, he said that. He said that Paul Pelosi attacker should be bailed out. But it was in a.
- [40:32]
D
That's terrible.
- [40:32]
C
But. Yes, but it was. Chicago doesn't have bail.
- [40:37]
B
He said Joe Biden should be executed. I mean, he did say that as well.
- [40:40]
C
Well, he said Joe Biden should be. He's guilty of treason. And then we extrapolate from that. What the. What. The penalty for treason doesn't have to be execution. So I hate doing this. I hate doing this.
- [40:50]
D
Okay, well, the whole, the word treason. I'm sorry, how many liberals have accused Donald Trump of treason? They've been doing that daily for 10 years. So again, it's kind of the pot calling the kettle black.
- [41:03]
B
I mean, the problem is that Donald Trump is a much worse individual than Joe Biden. And I think we should be able to say that a lot of the things people have accused Donald Trump of are actually accurate. I mean, I think someone who incites an Insurrection against the Democratic election may not be just like treason, but that's traitorous behavior, maybe. I mean, I think this is sort of the problem is that we make these. I mean, there's element here just lying where Republicans are basically saying that Democrats are looking all the time about Trump and ignore the fact that, like Trump says, you know, he calls Democrats the worst scum or vermin. Or compare the Biden administration, the Gestapo administration does things all the time. But I also think there's, like, a point to be raised here that, like, Trump's behavior often, you know, is legitimately described in these terms. I mean, the things like, I call him an authoritarian, people call him a fascist. I don't think that's a slur. I think that's an accurate description of what he wants to do as a leader and what he's trying to do. So I think you have to be really clear here. We have to be able to use our analytical abilities and say calling Donald Trump an authoritarian is not inaccurate. It's fair. And I made this point. I mean, I, the other day compared some of Steve Miller's rhetoric to rhetoric that I saw in Mein Kampf, and I felt uncomfortable making the comparison. But the reality is it's the same kind of dehumanizing, delegitimizing rhetoric that Hitler used toward Jews and Communists that Miller uses toward the left. I think we should be able to point those things out and not sort of people say, oh, you're just doing what you accused Trump of. No, I'm actually pointing out what are facts and things that these people have said and making, I think, what are legitimate analogies and comparisons.
- [42:44]
C
Why don't you say fascist?
- [42:47]
B
I'm getting to the point where I'm saying fascist. I for a long time thought it wasn't. Yeah.
- [42:51]
D
I don't think it's inaccurate to say that Trump and certainly Miller have fascistic qualities. I think Miller, absolutely. And I don't disagree with anything you just said about Miller. He's a repulsive human being. But I do think it's. It's a leap to say that Donald Trump is himself a fascist.
- [43:09]
C
So they said after. After the two assassination attempts, this was a constant complaint. The more you call someone fascist, the more likely someone will take it into their own hands to end fascism. Because what do we really know about fascism? Do you think of the Iron League in Romania? No. People think of maybe Mussolini, definitely Hitler. You think of the idea of, well, if someone could have stopped Hitler or strangled baby Hitler, they should have. So I do think that accurate or not, the claim. I understand Republicans saying that this kind of puts a target on us, but.
- [43:40]
B
I think, look, I would say, I think he uses fascist language, but I think he is, I think I'm more comfortable saying authoritarian. I think it's a more accurate description. I mean, I would say that he is, he doesn't, he doesn't embrace the value American values. And he is, and he is not anti Democratic. And on that argument, I mean, January 6th, I don't think there's anyone who could seriously argue with me on that point. So I just think that these are accurate descriptions of who Trump is. And beyond all of that, I wrote a piece right after saying, look, if you want to go to the one person responsible for fomenting political violence in America, it is Donald Trump. And no one's actually brought this point up, but was it a month ago? He wants the Air Force to honor Ashley Babbitt, a woman who broke glass in order to attack members of Congress trying to certify an election, and they want to honor her. I mean, that is, is encouraging political violence, in my opinion, doing something honoring somebody like that, it's honoring somebody who committed grave acts of political violence, the gravest acts of local violence.
- [44:43]
D
Yeah. I mean, to make a, to make a sort of, I think, justified Nazi comparison, they have turned Ashley Babbitt into kind of horse vessel.
- [44:51]
B
Absolutely.
- [44:52]
D
Who was a, he was a, he was a, he was a member of the SA in Germany. I think he was like the first person killed by a communist in one of their street class.
- [44:59]
C
Yeah. 1930.
- [45:00]
D
The Nazis, the Nazis turned him into this martyr. There, There was a, A horse vessel lead. A horse vessel song that they sang about him. And again, I'm not making Nazi comparisons to Charlie Kirk that he was not a Nazi, obviously, I find, but I do find a lot of what the right is doing in response to his death to be kind of eerily similar to what the Nazis did. You know, I mean, using his death as a, as a pretext to attack. To attack, you know, a broad base of people who have no responsibility for this murder whatsoever. Right. I mean, that, that to me is a kind of eerie analog to, to, to what happened a long time ago.
- [45:46]
C
So, Jamie, what's your assessment of when Republicans say when you call Donald Trump a fascist, you're wishing harm to him into the world, you're putting him in the crosshairs. And Republicans, who I take it to, I take them as being honest about that assessment. But do you think it's mostly just opportunism and jiu jitsu and purposeful political umbrage taking.
- [46:12]
D
I mean, I can't get in their heads, but I do somewhat agree with them that, you know, constantly calling the president of the United States a fascist is leading people to justify political violence. I mean, but what if he's fascistic.
- [46:27]
C
As you just said? What do you do then?
- [46:30]
D
Fascistic is different than a fascist. It's different than being a Nazi. Saying that someone has, I mean, so it's one syllable.
- [46:35]
C
It's the one syllable difference.
- [46:36]
D
Well, it means it is a big difference to say that someone has authoritarian, as someone has authoritarian qualities. And you know, and look after the assassination, I was disturbed, sorry, the assassination attempt on Trump, I was disturbed by the number of people who I know, not like close friends, but people in my Facebook friends or on Twitter, people who were of my acquaintance who were expressing the belief that they wish he had died. And to me, that is a very disturbing reaction. And there's been a lot of that, by the way, this past week. I think a lot more of it surrounding Charlie Kirk. And a lot of it has been very public, by the way. And again, it's not Democratic leaders, it's not Democratic politicians, it's not leading, you know, liberal thought leaders, you know, pundits and whatnot. But it is a lot of people on the left who have been celebrating this.
- [47:28]
C
Let us talk about some of those autocratic tendencies trying to be nice about this. In a moment, we'll get a little more specific about just a few of the latest Trump administration proposals or ideas or splenetic bleedings. Back in a minute with more of. Not even that. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.
- [47:57]
B
Honestly, Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.
- [48:05]
C
That's not the itinerary we're following.
- [48:08]
B
Well, I'm departing from AT&T and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four.
- [48:19]
C
New phones on the house. Bon voyage.
- [48:23]
A
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- [48:52]
C
We're back with Not Even Mad. Michael A. Cohen and Jamie Kirchick. Join me. So Donald Trump in the last couple of days has said that NBC and ABC should have their licenses revoked. Got into a tiff with Jonathan Karl of ABC saying maybe we should target you. We already mentioned Pam Bondi and her crackdown on hate speech, quote, unquote. Donald Trump is once again sending the National Guard into Memphis, Tennessee, this time, which he has less authority to do than Washington, D.C. which is of course a federal territory. And then I don't know if you really want to get into interest rates, but there's that. What is popping out at you? How do you even perform the political triage of saying, oh, yeah, he sued the New York Times, this is the important thing? This is the bluster? Or is it okay just to note everything and say, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong? MICHAEL A. Cohen, I mean, I think.
- [49:48]
B
This is the problem in a lot of ways. Like, I remember writing a piece right before the 2016 election and saying that the biggest threat of Trump winning was that he would destroy political norms and he would make the obscene seem normal. And we saw that in the first term, but in this second term, it's just, it's on steroids. I mean, I don't think I've ever, you know, the corruption that he is engaging in that in any other situation would be impeachable offenses, the sending the military, musing about sending the military into major cities, you know, posting a meme where he shows US Military helicopter over the city of Chicago and says, you know, the War Department's coming for you. I mean, this is the stuff that has become routine in this administration and it's barely even remarked upon anymore. And I feel like we are all like the proverbial frog in the boiling water, that we've just become used to this kind of situation and it's not normal and it's not. It's so bad for the country and it's so bad for the future of the country. The things that have become tacitly accepted. And I gotta say, I mean, I put a lot of the burden, a lot of the blame for this on the American people. I mean, where is the outrage over this? You know, I know people, I know Trump is unpopular. I know there have been protests. But I mean, we have literally National Guard on the streets of the city of Washington. We have people in unmarked vehicles wearing masks, stopping people because they speak Spanish and taking them off the street. And the Supreme Court just sanctioned it. I don't know. To me, it's. That's the biggest issue that we're dealing with with this Trump era is that the obscene has become normal and it's become unremarkable. And I don't know how you put that genie back in the bottle.
- [51:28]
C
On the where is the outrage? In some instances there is, but I generally think the populace doesn't look at process. And even putting federal troops in Washington, D.C. the process of that raises questions among people like all of us, but to maybe not the people of D.C. but regular Americans who are not looking at this and reading the Posse Comitatus act of 1870 are saying, oh wait, crime went down by 80% when they were there. So it's very hard to get them to be outraged over process, over the practical. Not that I'm buying that the big drop in crime meant anything. It wouldn't surprise me. If you inject tens of thousands of federal troops, you're going to have a one month decrease in crime. I'll also add to the list of triage boiling frogs. He's just striking Venezuelan boats claiming they're selling drugs. You can't do that. That's really horrific. Except he can do it. He did do it. He has a lot of power. When it comes to foreign affairs again, I don't expect America to be particularly up in arms about that. Iced ice agents wearing masks is more of the sort of thing that regular Americans would object to. But there is recently a lot going on that's beyond the category of bluster, I think. Jamie?
- [52:51]
D
Well, I live in Washington D.C. and I was at Union Station the other day and in that grassy sort of plaza in front of the station, there's a giant tent encampment, multiple tents of very left wing protesters, and there's a giant sign that says Trump on it. The liberal mayor of our city, Muriel Bowser, has had really little but positive things to say about the National Guard deployment. So I can just tell you as a resident of this city, it is not the kind of fascist crackdown that people were making it out to be. It actually seems to be a pretty popular.
- [53:29]
C
What about going to Memphis? Is that a different category for you?
- [53:31]
D
That is a different. I don't know what the situation is in Memphis and obviously there is a.
- [53:35]
C
Lot of crime, but he's bringing in a National Guard and the governor is okay.
- [53:38]
D
I don't know about the legality of. I don't know about the legality of that. Okay. I'm not, I haven't followed that closely enough. If it's, if it's something that's illegal.
- [53:45]
C
Not per se, it has to be an emergency situation which has.
- [53:48]
B
Right.
- [53:49]
D
Emergency. It doesn't seem like that. And I think a lot of this is just, look, liberal cities with, you know, pro. I don't say pro crime, but these, you know, left wing prosecutors who don't believe in prosecuting people.
- [54:00]
C
That's not the case. Steve Mulroy White.
- [54:03]
D
But I'm saying a lot of these cities, and you know what? They should. It's the same way I feel about Mamdani in New York. If the citizens of New York want this, then they deserve to get it good and hard. And it's not the responsibility of the federal government to come in and save the city. Like, people elect mayors, they elect their representatives locally, and if they elect a, you know, far left mayor who doesn't believe in enforcing crime or, or cleaning up the city or allowing crazy homeless people to just go off and commit crimes, then that is on the voters of that city. It's not the responsibility of the federal government to come in and fix it. What really does worry me is Trump's attacks on the media and not his rhetorical attacks. In the first administration. It was just rhetorical attacks. He accused saying the media, the enemy, the people all, you know, on a daily basis. It was these horrible, lurid attacks. But whatever, you know, it didn't actually have the kind of same effect as what he's doing now, which is filing these lawsuits against media entities and putting these media entities into positions where they're settling for, you know, amounts of money that in the grand scheme of things are not a lot to them. But it is a big deal to have the President of the United States suing media outlets for Republicans, reporting things or presenting things about him or about the news that he doesn't like, and to my knowledge, has never happened before in this country. And that is a very dangerous precedent that he is now.
- [55:30]
B
I agree, but I just. Go ahead, Mike. Sorry.
- [55:33]
C
I agree with that. I sometimes wonder, all right, where in the media that seems egregious. If we were Venezuelan boaters not even affiliated with Trende Aragua, maybe we would find that the most offensive.
- [55:46]
B
But I want to get to what I said a second ago about the norms point. I mean, this is, I think, what happens when I think we've learned something over the past 10 years, which is that democracy is only as strong as the willingness of people in political power to enforce the rules of democracy and to adhere to basic understood norms. And we know that Trump doesn't adhere to norms. And since he doesn't adhere to norms, then we actually need the legislative branch, judicial branch to hold him in check. And what's, I think the most telling thing about what's happened in this country is that you have the legislative branch and Republicans in the legislative branch who just refused to hold Trump accountable and a Supreme Court that basically lets him get away with everything he wants to do. So I think that this sort of proves the point that you really need people who have institutions are only as strong as those people who run those institutions. And what we've seen is just a weakening of every institution. And by the way, it's not just in the federal government. I talk to people all the time in worlds of philanthropy, in journalism, in other places as well, who sort of talk about, want to keep their head down to avoid getting scrutinized by this administration because they don't want to deal with the political fallout from that happening. I mean, we are living in a time of like, there's a real chilling effect in this country. I remember at a one week period where I talked to people in like three different fields who all said the same thing. It's like we're just afraid of getting investigated. Oh, it was a college administrator that we're afraid of getting targeted by the president. That is not a Democrat, that's not a democracy. If that's happening. Right. That's a climate of fear. And I think that's become just routine. And people are afraid to push back on it because they're afraid of the consequences, because they know that even if you push back on, even if you blow, you're a whistleblower. This administration and the lackeys in the Republican Party in Congress are going to come after you. There's no point in trying to do the right thing.
- [57:45]
C
I'll throw one more point out there that we're all to some extent implicated, at least all of us who are still using TikTok or who are less than up in arms about the fact that Trump in a clear, and this is the clearest violation of law and how procedure works, just chose to ignore a law enacted by Congress. And as we speak, he's meeting with Xi of China to negotiate a TikTok settlement. He is not allowed to. Congress passed the law, but I think everyone's, most everyone except a couple law professors are okay with that because I don't know we want our TikTok and maybe we overreacted to the law. So I don't think I would rather have people be very upset with masked ICE agents and attacking Venezuelan supposed drug boats just in terms of prioritizing what the greatest outrage is. But that is, you don't get a clearer violation of law that if they brought it to the courts, there is no way that even Alito and Thomas. I shouldn't say that, but I would doubt that even Alito and Thomas could keep a straight face by saying, yes, the president is doing something in his power. All right, now we come to the time since the show has been so cheery and positive. Let's grouse a little. These are the things that get our goats or grind our gears. These are our goat grinders. Jamie Kerchick, start us off.
- [59:08]
D
Well, I should not be surprised by this, but I have to say I was literally within minutes of Charlie Kirk getting shot. There were opportunists, cynical idiots on Twitter with very large followings who were spinning a tale that this was the fault of the state of Israel. And it continues to this day. Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson and others are alleging that because Charlie Kirk, he was expressing all these grave reservations about the United States relationship with Israel in the weeks leading up to his assassination, that Israel somehow decided to assassinate him. You know, Charlie Kirk being a very loud, vocal, strident supporter of the state of Israel, It's a preposterous allegation. But the fact that it's gained so much currency is again, just another indication to me of how virulent and widespread anti Semitism is becoming in our society.
- [60:14]
B
Michael, I just sort of follow up on the point I was making earlier about norms. There's a story out today that the president has pressured the Department of Justice to investigate Letitia James more aggressively and to prosecute her, even though they've been able to find no evidence of wrongdoing. They're trying to do this mortgage fraud issue that tried to get Lisa. Is it Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve, which seemed to have. Seemed to have spectacularly failed. Well, for now, we'll see what the Supreme Court says. And apparently when the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia refused to indict James, the person was fired. And Trump wants to put somebody in there.
- [60:53]
C
Wait, Virginia. It was Virginia.
- [60:55]
D
Yes.
- [60:56]
B
I think she has a. Oh, okay.
- [60:57]
C
Cuz this is where her second mortgage was.
- [60:59]
B
Her second home, supposedly.
- [61:00]
C
Okay, sorry, go ahead.
- [61:01]
B
And he's trying to replace this person with somebody who would prosecute James. You know, I just, I just have to say like in any other moment in American history, this would be a slam dunk, impeachable offense. It's an unambiguous abuse of presidential power. It is taking the Tower of Justice and using it for partisan political purposes. And in the case of Trump, not even partisan. He just wants to get back to James for indicting him when she was as Attorney General of New York. And along those lines, you mentioned Lisa Bondi, but also Todd Blanche, who is. I'm sorry, Pam. Bomb. Sorry. You had Todd Blanche, who's the deputy Attorney general, attack Democrats by name a couple days ago. This violates the very idea of the DOJ being nonpartisan. And I just think it's one of these norms that we have come to just. It was part of the country for a very long time, certainly post Watergate, after the excesses of then, and it's just become completely shattered. And so now you have a president who is regularly using the Department of Justice to attack his political enemies. And it is not even really. It's really even a story anymore. No one even seems to care anymore.
- [62:07]
C
All right. Antisemitic, online conspiracizing targeting of political enemies. Mike, my go grinder is even bigger. It's a stupid commercial I saw while watching a football game. So someone buys a toaster on Visa. And then Christian McCaffrey, really good running back, has the toaster and runs through a den of hackers, chucking them out the window, staring down with a really mismatched eyesight, saying, I don't like you hackers. I don't like you identity thieves. I'm protecting this toaster. And then some Visa spokesman says Christian McCaffrey represents what visa is going to do to protect your toaster. This was the most confusing commercial I have ever seen, but I figured out why. So you have McCaffrey coming down in the elevator, and then there's this den of hackers. Now it looks, if you do a freeze frame, as I did, in the background, one of them seems to be eating Chinese food, but there's another one at his monitor. Then there's just a standard a loan shot of a hacker who's wearing a black beanie and a black outfit, like he's a cat burglar but also a hacker. And he's staring again. The eyeline doesn't match anything. He's just staring into space. And then he's ejected from this glass enclosure. And then the spokesperson says, visa will protect you. So was the hackers then, like in the business that also was delivering the toaster Was the Visa protection lady also working in this office building? Here's how I figured it out. This was a maybe 15 second commercial, 20 second commercial on an NFL game. I found the more lengthy commercial and it's exactly like Three Days of the Condor, which was taken from the book Six Days of the Condor. And when you cut out three days, there are so many unanswered questions there. So they cut the minute long or 45 second commercial down to 22nd. No eyelines match. And I don't understand why Christian McCaffrey, who's a very elusive running back is the epitome of someone who's going to protect your cut your toaster. But this really does grind my gears. I mean it's a little, let's be honest, it's a little more serious than rampant anti Semitic, Semitic conspiracizing or the targeting of enemies. I mean this I think does rise to the top of the list of things that should grind our gears and get our goats.
- [64:27]
B
I have to say I absolutely loved that rant right there. That was fantastic. I respect.
- [64:33]
C
Are you going to use Visa to protect your toaster?
- [64:35]
B
By the way, the identity thing is all kind of BS too, right? Because it's really just protect the credit card companies from getting charged if you're, if your credit cards are stolen.
- [64:41]
C
This is another really good point. Don't ever choose a bank or credit card company by how they're going to protect your stuff buy by law, if you are the victim of a scam, they have to replace your.
- [64:52]
B
Exactly, yeah. So it's really to protect them, not to protect you.
- [64:55]
C
To give a compliment to the commercial, the toaster was this very distinctive light blue and that stayed consistent. So that was the one part the star of that commercial was the toaster.
- [65:05]
B
Was it a two bread toaster? Was the toaster oven?
- [65:07]
C
That's a good question. Definitely not a toaster oven. Think, I mean Cohen think.
- [65:11]
B
Like a pop up kind of a toaster.
- [65:12]
C
Just think about what you're saying before.
- [65:13]
B
You say I could have said that to you. I could have said that to you five minutes ago.
- [65:16]
C
Yeah, I know. Many, many more. Well, I want to thank you Michael A. Cohen. I want to thank you Jamie Kirchick. A good conversation. Thank you guys both.
- [65:24]
B
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
- [65:25]
D
Thanks for having us.
- [65:26]
C
And until next time, we are not saying we're right. We're not acknowledging that you're right. But we are saying we're not even mad. And that's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the Gist and Ashley Khan is our production coordinator. Kathleen Sykes writes the Gist list. Go to Mike Pesca, that substance no no no. Text 33777 for a 25% off subscription. Philip Swissgood helps with strategy of the Gist list, Jeff Craig runs our social and Michelle Pesk is CEO of Peach Fish Productions. Thanks for listening. Listening.
- [66:13]
E
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.