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- [00:00]
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Mike Pesca
Don't know if you know that sometimes on my sub stack I'll write an essay that I call the Pesca profundities portion of the substack. But really, every day I'll have five to seven items that if you fail to acknowledge them, you're going to be a worse person. Not just worse off, but not as interesting. Behind the times and a little slow on the uptake. This is called the Gist list. It is shot through with my aphorisms and observations. For instance, did you know that Texas was making Daylight Savings Time permanent? You would if you read the Gist list. Do you know that penguin poop cools the planet? You would if you read the Gist list. Did you know that if Trump's threats to Harvard go through their crew team, or I guess you could say their crew is going to be hit hard. A lot of Englishmen and women on the crew team. These are just some of the exciting items on the Gist list. Again, I would just hate for you to be an unoptimized, less than extremely interesting person. Go to Mike pesca.substack.com to get the written word. And now enjoy the spoken It's Thursday, August 20, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pe today we have a Not even mad, but I'm a little mad, I gotta admit. Our not even mad is with guests. Isaac Saul, he runs Tangle, which I love and I get and I pay for. And Ricky Schlott, she's a columnist for the New York Post, which I'm very aware of. And I should say if you're a New Yorker, you get the New York Post. But do you get the New York Post? I gotta say, my dad does. He loves the St. John's coverage. St. John's and Ricky Schlott. Two reasons to get the New York Post. One of the topics we'll be talking about today is the horrible idea of federal police taking over Washington, DC's policing. And as you know, because I've talked about this a couple of times, there are many reasons why the D.C. police shouldn't take it over. You'll hear me talk about this on the show. You'll also hear me talk about, as I have, the fact that crime is not great in Washington, dc. If by not great you mean four times as likely to be murdered as New York City. Four times, maybe a little more as likely to be murdered as anywhere else in the country. And yeah, it used to be less great than it is now. But I'll talk about this on the show or yesterday or the day before, you got a pretty high chance of being murdered in Washington D.C. it's a murder rate of 25 per 100,000. Was last year's in the 30s, it was celebrate. Now it's only in the 20s. Which is to say, how do you want me to contextualize this as bad as all but four big cities in the United States? So you think I'd run out of ire and I would if I didn't listen to a different podcast every day where a progressive liberal person shares my views on the inadvisability of Trump and the federales going in and trying to police the city. But then also to buttress the point, just, I don't know, lies or totally mischaracterizes safety in Washington D.C. latest the pivot Podcast. Kara Swisher Anyone who lives in D.C.
- [03:57]
Isaac Saul
Is like, what are you talking about? Crime is down. Living in this city, the crime is down.
- [04:02]
Ricky Schlott
All kinds of major crimes are done.
- [04:03]
Mike Pesca
It's a very safe city. No, no, not totally safe. Maybe you shouldn't say it. Maybe you'll lose your credibility. You probably won't. The Pivot podcast is doing great. If you hate everything Donald Trump stands for, I say just hate it. For every reason stand the good ones, the bad ones, the true ones, the false ones. Seems not to hurt the credibility, standing, or ratings of anyone in the media. But if you want people in the media you can trust, you can listen to, you can evaluate and say, good point, bad point. I like how that one piggybacked on the other point to make an even better point. Well, that's why we invented Not Even Mad, which is up next with Isaac Saul and Ricky Schlot. For all of the parents out there with teenagers, we know you're already trying to keep a million different things under control. Cash app is here to help make sure your team's money and their spending isn't adding to that craziness. The idea is to meet 13 through 17 year olds where they are to educate them to work with their knowledge of apps already. It comes in different colors and patterns to fit their style. They'll like it. I like getting money. Apparently teens like colors and styles. It's cooler than regular apps. The platform has a lot of tools that help teens develop real world financial habits. It's inviting. Teens are app natives. Maybe you're not. Cash App bridges the divide and you know it's not there to take advantage of anyone. It really is a learning tool. It's functional. There are no surprises. They don't hit you with monthly fees or minimum balances or hidden charges. I gotta tell you, I just got a call from my child at college saying can you send me cash? And he literally meant cash in the mail. And I said no, we need an app for that. We need a Cash App. It will now be a large part of our life. Skip the stress and give your teen a way to learn financial responsibility with no hidden fees. Download Cash App and get started today. For a limited time only new Cash App customers can use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash. For real. Just download Cash App Use our exclusive referral code Family10 in your profile. Send $5 to a friend within 14 days and you'll get $10 right into your account. Terms apply. That's money. That's Cash App. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank Member FDIC direct deposit roundups, overdraft coverage and discounts provided by Cash App, a Block Inc. Brand. Visit Cash App Legal Podcast for full disclosures. As summer winds down and fall is right around that corner, just peeking out the tendrils of your hair, feeling its lovely breeze throughout. Quince is there for you. Refreshing your wardrobe with staple pieces for the season ahead. I in summer used linen shorts Linen shorts. Timeless, classic, artisan and oh so luxurious. They stack up against similar luxury options quite well in terms of design, craftsmanship and especially value. You know. Quint's also has a line of bedding, towels and cookware. Your closet will thank you. How about on your next trip? Want some Quint's luggage? Quince bags to check in to carry on Carry on Quints within a Quince Quince is there for you. Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with quince. Go to quince.com the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com the gist to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com the gist hello and welcome back to Not Even Mad, a talk show and a trilateral meeting of sorts. Today we speak of federal forces in cities, toxic empathy, college corrections, and you know, we're going to get recognition of the Palestinian state in there somehow. This is what I do. We do so as we uphold our reputation for refutation while vowing to be not even that. So who are we? Well, Ricky Schlott is a political commentator. She is a columnist at the New York Post and co author of the Canceling of the American Mind. How Cancel Culture Undermines Trust, Destroys Institutions and Threatens Us All. Hello, Ricky. Thanks for joining me.
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Ricky Schlott
Hi, thanks for having me.
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Mike Pesca
Did you do a recent event at a place. I've done events at the National Liberty Museum on cancel culture and jokes?
- [09:26]
Ricky Schlott
Yes. Yeah. It was a debate with this guy, Ernest Owens, who wrote a book called the Case for Cancel Culture. And I was surprised because I give him credit for actually being one of the only people that I've ever heard make the case of. Actually, I just want power. Like, if someone else is going to wield cultural power, I want to be able to wield it too. And I was like, actually good for you for being honest about it. And I give him credit for that. So it was. It was interesting. And he was a nice guy, so it was fun. It was a little funny, though.
- [09:56]
Mike Pesca
He was a. He's a famous guest, perhaps an infamous guest on the show because I don't even know if I ever aired the interview. It was the longest interview I ever did. And I either have withhold listeners will know. Oh, yeah, Mike, we heard that over an hour and a half when you were on vacation one day. So, yeah, he was. There was some prolixity involved. No one canceled his right to speech. Now, Isaac Saul, who I should also introduce.
- [10:19]
Ricky Schlott
Very true.
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Mike Pesca
Yeah, Isaac Saul is a founder or the founder of Tangle News. I'll read to you a little bit about Tangle News and how they describe themselves. A nonpartisan politics newsletter that gives you opinions from the left, right and center so you can decide unbiased news for busy people. And the thing is, I've come across products that use similar verbiage. But it's true, I couldn't endorse Tangle News more or Isaac Saul more. So you got to live up to that.
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Isaac Saul
Isaac, how are you thanks for having me back, Mike. Glad to be here, I should say.
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Mike Pesca
The National Liberty Museum is in Philadelphia, which is why I didn't go to that debate. But what's your excuse, Isaac? Saul, don't you live in or near Philadelphia?
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Isaac Saul
I would have loved to watch Ricky rake somebody across the coals on Cancel Culture. So if I. That's bad marketing. That's my excuse. I would have preferred to be there.
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Mike Pesca
Exactly. If there's, like, one Venn diagram of the guy who most wants to go and you.
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Isaac Saul
Yeah, definitely.
- [11:17]
Mike Pesca
Okay. So the Department of Justice rescinded its planned takeover of Washington, D.C. but the presence of law enforcement there is still felt. The Trump administration has instructed federal prosecutors to aggressively pursue charges against those arrested during the crackdown. There is a homeless crackdown going on. To what end, we don't know. Manpower strains have been felt at the Department of defense, and the DOJ has decided to also investigate whether Washington, D.C. is downplaying crime statistics. So what are the statistics? I'll give you some. Murder in Washington, D.C. is down. It hit a peak of 35.9 murders per 100,000 people in 2023. And that's an abstraction. People don't like stats per 100,000, but it's a city of 700,000 people. So we're talking about 250 bodies in Washington, D.C. it was the fourth most murderous place in 2023 of big cities in the United States. So if you want to debate if crime is coming down or if murder is coming down, if you want to debate and use the terms that. That Trump used, talking about the catastrophe of Washington, D.C. i guess there are points in the debate that you can latch onto. The way I see it is it is or was a very, very dangerous place, and now it's a very dangerous place. And Trump's solution is not the right one. The federal government still has to stay out. I'll start with you, Isaac. What do you think?
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Isaac Saul
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's. It's always hard because you don't want to play too hard into some of the kind of hyperventilating stuff that comes out of the left. There's a. There's a sort of boy who cries wolf effect with Trump. I would say this, for me, is one that, like, very much concerns me, mostly because I don't want, you know, federal troops patrolling U.S. cities and enforcing, you know, crime laws across Washington, D.C. or the other cities. That Trump has made it clear he might consider trialing this kind of thing in, like, Chicago or Los Angeles. If Trump had come out and said, look, we have a unique control over Washington D.C. as the federal government, and there is a unique problem here that decades of Democratic leaders have failed to address. We're going to try something new and press the reset button. And this is like, this is something that we want to do in Washington D.C. to see if we can help. Maybe you get a little bit more of a favorable read from me. But what he did was he said this is a trial run. And, and we're going to do this elsewhere. And everybody who's watching this, take note of how we handle Washington D.C. because, like, we're coming for you basically. So that's the part that really concerns me. I mean, to your point, Democrats don't have a strong messaging response to this. And that's, that's what scares me most, is they're just dropping this 30 year low crime and it's like, no, Washington D.C. is not a very safe city. And Democratic leaders have done basically nothing to solve that problem, which has left this opening for Trump, which makes me very uneasy because I think he's going to win the messaging war on rolling out federal troops in a major American city, which scares me a lot.
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Mike Pesca
Right. So before I go to you, Ricky, I'll just fill in that 30 year low crime statistic which you've heard all around. What that refers to is the violent crime rate. However, the vast, vast, vast majority of violent crimes are of course not murders and not assaults. They are essentially muggings. And you could play with the statistics or I'm willing to credit that muggings have gone down a lot. But this is why I look at homicides. This is most police look at homicides. It tells you a lot about the violent crime and it's the one that's least likely to be swept under the rug via statistics. So, Ricky, you write for the New York Post. You have to write a lot about crime. What do you think about these tactics of policing in this nearby city?
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Ricky Schlott
Yeah, I mean, I think that this is one of many cases with the second Trump administration where like, I agree with the sort of initial complaint and I think that there is absolutely a crime issue in our major city. I think that the repeat offender issue that we have in major cities and this sort of like slap on the wrist justice system where we have people that are just like in this revolving door and getting let out by progressive DAs, is a massive problem. I think the way that we sometimes treat juvenile repeat offenders is not actually to their benefit at all and has created especially in D.C. a massive problem with teenagers that are committing crimes and actually in the long term destroying their own lives too and creating these horrible criminal records that are really impossible to make an adult life after. But I would say I agree with the initial instinct that there is something wrong and something needs to be done, but I don't agree that it's the federal government's place. I would say the exact same thing. In the instance of Columbia University, there's a huge problem there. I'm a part time student there. I 100% agree with the Trump administration that there is an issue with anti Semitism on campus. Free speech was a problem for conservatives on campus. But I don't think that the federal government needs to show up and put their fist down on the university and get involved. And in the same instance, I agree that the federal government should not be taking up this position. But unfortunately we have a lot of progressives that have kind of just put their hands up and not done anything that have been in control of the city for a very, very long time too. I mean, I was in D.C. recently and I saw a carjacking that literally, like I was in the backseat of a car. We stopped at a red light and had we got like gone through the yellow. This car spun out in the middle of the intersection. Four teenagers got out and ran different directions. Then a cop car came, a helicopter came. Is absolutely crazy. And like these kids could not have been 15 and it turns out that they stole this car. And like this is apparently something that happens in our Capitol, which is crazy.
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Mike Pesca
Like, yeah, Joyride and Maureen Dowd wrote about this and youth crime. You're absolutely right about in the Capitol. I don't think if you had to list all the reasons why crime goes up or crime goes down. I think progressive prosecutors don't have that much to do with the homicide rates. I think they definitely have to do with signaling on the shoplifting rates. But I don't want to nitpick most of what you said. You're generally directionally right, I think. But the question is, and I heard Matt Iglesias talking about this on his Politics with an Ex podcast, he says that if you are the Democrats, you have a choice. The public is just not where you are on crime. Even during the summer of 2020, the policies that you were advocating were unfavored by a 2 to 1 margin. So all the Democrats can do. And Isaac, I'd like your case on this is to change the subject or to have tough on crime tactics of their own or policies of their own. Is that real politic? It seems a little cynical to me, but it might work. What do you think?
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Isaac Saul
Well, two things. First of all, I just want to add something. What you said earlier about the underreported crimes, like, I think this is really important because it doesn't get talked about enough with regards to Washington D.C. it's not just that these kinds of crimes that are being cited as the 30 year lower underreported, There is literally an investigation into the Washington D.C. police Department right now about systematically under reporting these crimes. They're Right, right.
- [18:49]
Mike Pesca
And that is, I mentioned that the DOJ is investigating that. But, but this investigation you're talking about predates the Pam Bondi DOJ totally.
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Isaac Saul
And I'm just pointing out that like it's Washington D.C. specifically, we have good reason to believe that the data we have is also not good. On top of all the other stuff Ricky and I are saying, it just feels worth emphasizing. It's not just that, it's the way it's reported. It's that like we think there might be these like a literal crime happening with the police department underreporting crime statistics.
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Mike Pesca
Then we'd under report that.
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Isaac Saul
Yeah, yeah. To the question of aliasias. Look, I, you know, I said this in my piece and I think, or a piece I wrote about this, which I think is really true of Trump and it's part of why he's so successful as a politician is like Americans would rather a politician who has a bad solution for a problem that they're stating honestly than a politician who tells you that the problem you're seeing and experiencing isn't real or doesn't exist. So like when Hakeem Jeffries, when he, when he, when Hakeem Jeffries is saying like Trump, get lost, it's a 30 year low, you know, get out of D.C. there are D.C. voters who are probably Democrats with all Democratic political instincts who are like, well, no, I like the fact that Trump is saying the city needs to be cleaned up because I feel that way too. You know, 65% of Washington D.C. residents in 2024 said that they thought crime was a very or extremely serious problem. And Trump is playing to those residents who he knows see the same thing he sees. I don't think his problem's right, but I think what Matty Iglesias is saying to me is not right. Like, I think Democrats don't necessarily need a hard on crime, you know, policy platform. They need to just acknowledge the actual problem and put forward some kind of solution. But right now, they won't go as far as aligning with Trump on the real issue. And voters hate that. I mean, it's why Trump wins on immigration is because Democrats spent four years saying there wasn't a border crisis when there was. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that pisses voters off. And I think Trump understands that even when he's wrong about how to fix something.
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Ricky Schlott
Yeah. I would also say that, like, 2020 was a pretty good demonstration of, I think, like, the sort of luxury beliefs that existed around crime for, like, for example, I didn't agree with the Tom Cotton op ed in the New York Times, but that was actually when you looked at the statistics of popular polling on that, that was something that the majority of African American actually agreed with is bringing in troops to quell these protests. And a lot of the people that got impacted by the defund the police sort of rhetoric were lower socioeconomic people, people that, you know, Democrats traditionally purport to speak for and champion. And I mean, when they did their little experiment with actually trying to scale back the police in Minneapolis, you had a lot of wealthy people that ended up hiring them back as private security officers. Like, it is a kind of moment of clarity where I think that a lot of the rhetoric around policing is not actually coming from the communities that need protection. It's coming from an educated elite that has sort of taken over the left in a lot of ways, at least in the political sense of who's in control of the party and the messaging.
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Mike Pesca
Yeah. So as far as I get infuriated by the messaging, it is clear that, and here's a slogan Democrats could use what? Everything. Everything that Trump touches, he destroys. Stay out of Washington, D.C. but then you don't go and have to say, because it's an idyllic, turned around, perfectly safe situation, it's still one of the five least safe big cities in the United States. The stats. And again, I know stats don't appeal to people, but their bodies, we're talking about bodies. 2018, there is a murder rate of 20. Then it goes up to 35. And yeah, in the last year, it seems to have come back down to 25. But this is still a giant increase from the murder rate of 2018, when Washington, D.C. wasn't so good as a safe place to live. And it seems to me that not only do the Democrats make a mistake when they deny that almost all the people who are getting killed in D.C. by the way, are their purported constituents. They're young black men, but it Seems that the Democrats have this and I guess the Republicans do too. They will cite statistics when it shows there is an improvement on a topic that they don't want to talk about. But when there is progress on another issue, policy area, let's take carbon emissions and there's been a huge decrease in carbon emissions. Things are going great. But the Democrats maybe will acknowledge that in a sentence. But of course they'll always reframe it too. But so much else needs to be done. But that's not good enough. Or really quite bluntly, but we're still living in a climate apocalypse because they don't want to credit the progress if the issue is one that they really care about and own. Crime is not that issue. So it's a retreat to oh, the last year's worth of statistics on these maybe worthless statistics of overall murder rate shows a general trend and I don't know how much the voters see through it, but I see through it and I think it's to their discredit. What do you think, Isaac?
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Isaac Saul
Yeah, you know, mostly agreed. I would just say, you know, the, the personal experiences can't really be underrated here. I mean, Ricky was just talking about something she witnessed. Washington, D.C. i have a staff member who was literally jumped in Washington D.C. two months ago on a walk home from a party at like 11 o' clock on a Thursday night. Almost every media person or reporter I know who lives in the D.C. area has a story like mine or Ricky's or knows someone. And it's just something that, like if you live in New York or you know, Chicago, even Chicago, you often don't hear about this kind of thing. One of the misnomers about DC I think is that the crime is all consolidated in one or two really bad neighborhoods. That's not true. It's all throughout the city. And those sort of personal anecdotes add up, you know, they, they really do. And I think when someone who lives in a city like that knows somebody who's experienced this kind of thing, it just doesn't come across as believable. When politicians, like many Democratic politicians are talk about it the way they talk about it and it makes you question everything else that they say.
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Mike Pesca
Yeah, and you could do anecdotes with New York, but as I perceive it, most of the anecdotes are the deodorant is locked up and there's chaos and homeless people, unhoused people who are sitting in their own filth on a subway. It's not about actual homicides or Victimization in New York, which actually does reflect the statistics of New York being a relatively safer. Am I blind to New York? I mean, have. Do you know people have been attacked in New York as you do and witnessed in D.C. ricky?
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Ricky Schlott
I mean, I would say I have some stories and I think that the common thread is like, maybe, maybe it's all ages, but like certainly young women being like randomly harassed by mentally unwell people on the streets. I've had that happen many times and I've.
- [26:19]
Mike Pesca
That's the New York story. Agreed.
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Ricky Schlott
My pepper spray has been brandished multiple times and gotten me out of situations in the past, which is unfortunate. But I think that's why someone like Eric Adams was elected the first time around. And I think addressing that was important to New Yorkers. I don't know what's going to happen the second time around, but I think that sort of messaging from him the first time, especially coming out of 2020, was important to a lot of New Yorkers. And that sort of like blue collar former cop messaging was appealing. I don't know if I think that's going to work out in a second election, but.
- [26:57]
Mike Pesca
Well, you just interviewed him, right?
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Ricky Schlott
Yeah, I did, just yesterday.
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Mike Pesca
Did he convince you that he has any momentum?
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Ricky Schlott
I think the polling numbers are certainly weak, but I. The alternatives to me are not so wonderful. You know, I think that he is somebody who clearly has a history of corruption. But the thing about him that I think is I think all politicians do. I think that certainly I think Mamdani is not even just a nonstarter for me. Cuomo. I think the situation with the nursing homes and the corruption there is just so unethical and impacted so many lives that I think that's just next level. Like the thing with Turkey and Eric Adams. To me it's just such basic new level, unadvanced politician corruption that I almost feel like if Eric Adams is going to be corrupt, we're going to find out about it some way and it's going a dumb form of corruption. And I'd almost rather that.
- [27:56]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, maybe you should campaign on that. Yeah, I'm corrupt, but you're going to catch me.
- [28:01]
Ricky Schlott
Yeah, basically. I mean, I almost feel more comfortable than that than like this next level, like career politician variety of it. But on the questions that we were just talking about with crime and stuff, I asked him about the fact that like under his tenure, crime has gone down and I think public perception is not really caught up to that. And he wasn't defensive about that. Like, he was like yeah, and I completely understand why. It's, it's repeat offenders on the streets. It's random acts of violence that are newsworthy and crazy and like people getting shoved in front of the subways and like that understandably makes everyone feel a little bit less unsafe, because that could theoretically be you. And they are really dramatic instances of crime in New York when they do happen. And then he also, I mean, he has been made a very controversial move by allowing police officers to commit people against their will with mental health issues, and now has just bumped that up to also trying to expand that to people with substance use issues as well, which is also super controversial. But he thinks that this kind of sense that there could be someone that's completely unhinged on the streets is also contributing to that sense as well.
- [29:11]
Mike Pesca
Well, let me take this moment to pivot off the crime question to another issue that you raised, Ricky, which is colleges. And here's the connective tissue issue. Trump has all these initiatives where he correctly or at least diagnoses a problem, or at least diagnoses in a way that's resonant. And my theory has always been this is what good politicians do. They point to a problem, good leaders solve the problem. He's a terrible leader. He almost always makes problems worse. And the examples that go in this bucket are colleges and crime and almost everything that Doge was cutting and a lot of of the immigration. But I want to know from you, Isaac, do you think that it is possible in American politics to actually execute the scalpel, not the chainsaw approach? Because I just don't see too much evidence that the technocrat or the non blunderbussing politician can shake things up enough to really get something done. The second time I asked the question this way, or am I too cynical?
- [30:15]
Isaac Saul
I, for me personally, I think the scalpel is still in play. I mean, I don't. Look, President Biden I don't think was very good at selling his agenda, but he changed meaningful parts of the country. You know, whether you agreed with the direction that he was nudging things or not. I mean, the country changed in really big and meaningful ways when he was in office. And it was, you know, something like the border crisis, which was, in my view, in most people's view, a bad thing. Though I think a lot people were happy to see a lot more immigrants come here and immigrant labor come here. You know, he was creating kind of quote unquote, small programs that got scaled up that were in these really narrow areas of executive law that he could Execute without going to Congress, you know, not passing the big, great, big beautiful bill. And all of a sudden there's 500,000 additional people here from a foreign country. Like, I think if you know how the government works and you know how to wield some of that power, you can still seemingly small scalpel, sharp surgical things that have a really big impact across the country. I don't think you need to like unleash the Doge kids and start, you know, firing tens of thousands of people and then hiring them back based on what breaks do. I think that's politically still wise that I feel much less sure about. I think like Americans are really hungry for the kind of big chainsaw type actions that we see Trump doing. I mean, not to tie it back to the New York stuff, but I think that's why Mandani is so appealing to a lot of people is because he's a response to Trump in a lot of ways. He's like a populist lefty who's like, I'm going to come back and start these government grocery stores and get free child care and we're going to tear the system down. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to listen to anybody. I'm not going to be fearful of like the big corporate interest, whatever, whatever. All that stuff I think is really appealing to a lot people on the left, even if they don't agree with all of his politics.
- [32:19]
Mike Pesca
Well, that's what I think could work. I think directed initiatives for distinct things can work. I don't know that Mom, Donnie's. Well, I'm Pretty sure I'm 100% sure the government grocery stores won't. But yeah, you can decrease the particulate matter in the air by policing coal plants. You can raise average lifespans through a bunch of things. But when it comes to big institutions, big institution with momentum on their own, I don't know that the scalpel is going to be able to get in there and do anything about the DEI apparatus or the civil service or how much the size of the government and expanse of the government has grown or the one I specifically want to talk to you about, Ricky, because you're an expert and you have the lived experience colleges. Can you really scalpel your way? Could you have scalped your way any to real reform or does the threat of and we're going to take away $100 million of your funding? Yes. Even for Alzheimer's research. Did that, do you think have to be a part of the proposal or the salvo in order to get any change.
- [33:26]
Ricky Schlott
I mean, I think the really sad thing was there was a lot of organic change going on before Trump got involved. I think after October 7, there were students that were upset in a new way and new populations of students. It wasn't just conservative students. I think a lot of people had a wake up call. I think there were donors that were starting to pull back and like, that's not the federal government getting involved. That's just the free market of who's involved in a school. And that's organic pressure on schools to reform. And think twice about not just the issue of October 7th and antisemitism, but like a lot of different things going on on campuses. I think that that just really renewed scrutiny on DEI on a ton of different issues or just, you know, alums that maybe weren't even paying attention to, like a lot of the issues that a lot of political commentators have been pointing to for a long time, getting involved and looking twice. I think that there were a lot of professors that got that became outspoken around that period of time, too. And I think there was a genuine introspection on a part of the, on the part of some administrators, on the part of some schools. A lot of schools adopted institutional neutrality on their own before the administration got involved. I think that is a huge positive in the long run. We don't need schools making statements about contentious issues at all, period, and speaking for all their students. I do think that there was a tremendous push for change and that was a moment where schools were realizing it's not just progressives and conservatives and red and blue and Republicans and Democrats. Like, there could be a political issue that comes on campus that pulls us in a million different directions and we can't appease all these competing interests. And maybe we do need to be genuine bastions of free speech and think about what that means beyond just right and left. And then the federal government came in and just ruined all of that organic, like, organic momentum and created martyrs out of random students that no one had ever heard of before, like Mahmoud Khalil. And I think renewed this sense of kind of vindictiveness among a lot of people on campus and I think completely got involved and squelched whatever organic momentum there was going on on campuses. So that's another place where I agree with the administration that there was a problem, completely disagree that they should have gotten involved. I think that's where the activist types like Chris Ruffo are in Trump's ear and telling him, you know, do things that have absolutely nothing to do with what the federal government should be up to, or even the local government should have nothing to do with what sort of administrators are on Columbia. Putting someone like, in charge of watching Columbia's Middle Eastern studies department and stuff is just not the business of any government official at all, period. And so, yeah, I found that to be a tremendously disappointing reaction to something, and I think it really kind of put out or totally squelched organic change that could have happened.
- [36:40]
Mike Pesca
But do you think without threatening the funding that is unrelated to all these cultural issues, they could have gotten Brown to pay their 50 million and university of Pennsylvania to pay their a hundred million and swear to reform?
- [36:54]
Ricky Schlott
I think that a lot of these schools were reforming on their own because they had a lot of different cultural interests to appease. And maybe it would have happened slower, but it wouldn't have happened under the pressure of the federal government and it wouldn't have happened. And I mean, I don't think anyone really believes that, like, these schools are genuinely changed because they wanted to. But I think before the federal government got involved, a lot of the schools that did kind of, you know, a lot of schools adopted the Chicago principles. A lot of schools did actually make meaningful changes that were a step Institutional.
- [37:22]
Mike Pesca
Neutrality on issues directly conservative. Yeah.
- [37:25]
Ricky Schlott
Or they, or they set up like, commissions on free speech and dialogue on campuses, and students actually got involved in that. And like, that was genuine because it wasn't imposed on them. And I don't think any of what the Trump administration accomplished with this is actually accomplished if it's compelled. It doesn't make any difference to me whether, you know, Upenn took away Lia Thomas's awards, if they were forced to by the federal government, and they still believe that, like, that was an ethical thing in the first place. I don't know. At least that's my opinion.
- [37:58]
Mike Pesca
Isaac, I'm sure you and I both agree that the accomplishments of a swimmer who last swam four years ago doesn't really amount to a hill of beans in this world. But what about the general point? Without the gigantic threat of the chainsaw, could they have gotten any of these changes?
- [38:14]
Isaac Saul
I'll take it. I mean, first of all, you know, what Trump did with the universities, to me, I think it's like, fair to just say that he extorted them. I mean, I don't really know another word. It's like, do you want your money or not? And if not, then don't do the thing. You know, it doesn't seem like complicated to me. And I don't think we need to overcomplicate it. So I would take it a step further even than what Ricky said, which is that now the cultural movement that she's talking about, which I think was moving away from a lot of this kind of anti liberal really woke stuff in 2019, 2020 is going to be stunted now because all the actions of the administration in the eyes of their students who are overwhelmingly lib role is just going to be seen as them folding to Trump. It's all going to be associated with them falling to Trump, which is going to create this whole new like generation of activists, anti Trump students who want to be on the other side of everything the administration's doing. And that's going to be really tough for them because what administrators at these colleges learned in the last four years and five years, six years, whatever, is like it's really hard to appease a 19 year old college activist. Like you do the thing they're asking and you get there and then they're not really happy about it anymore and they want the next thing. And that's what they went through that made them say like, you know what, we're going to stop issuing statements about this because we issue the statement and then they're pissed off about how the statement was worded and we didn't actually calm down, you know, the student body's response to this and it just made everything worse and whatever else. No, I was thinking about your, the I guess like the general prompt about the scalpel versus the chainsaw in this case. I don't know. I think Ricky's right that like the, the cultural change was happening organically and it probably would have happened slower. I don't think Trump gets the result that he got without the threats of the funding. But like we have a lot of examples even of the Trump administration using the scalpel that I think we sort of memory hole one that came to mind. I was trying to like rack my brain for a good example of this. But like, you know, in 2020 we had half as many legal immigrants enter the country as we did in 2017. 16. Trump spent all this time talking about the wall and like the big chainsaw stuff that everybody was focused on. Katherine Rampel wrote this great Washington Post column about this. Like the wall was built out of paper. What Trump actually did in his first term was he made it really hard to integrate here legally. They did all this technical stuff, like 250 tiny little executive orders, changing the qualifications for somebody to come to the country legally. And in four years, he halved the number of legal immigrants coming to the US but before COVID So, like, we don't talk about that that much because we obsessed over the wall and the Muslim ban and whatever else, but, like, they used the scalpel. That was like a technical attack. The government using the tools of government and change the level of immigration that we're having in the country. And it, it feels to me like Trump doesn't have interest in selling that kind of thing because he knows it's not great politics. But I think even his administrations have shown that they're capable of working that way. I don't know how you apply that to the college university situation, but generally I think it's just a bummer because of what Ricky said, which is like the cultural movement was headed that way anywhere and I'm aligned with her. That, like, that would have been a good thing for these colleges.
- [41:37]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, prison populations are another one. They came down every year in the Trump administration, federally and even on the state level, which the federal government has some control over. So, yeah, it's not like there wasn't progress that we could all cheer.
- [41:48]
Isaac Saul
Almost.
- [41:48]
Mike Pesca
Almost all of us, if we're not for open borders or decriminalizing, everything could cheer. Yeah, it's a good point. Let's not memory hold it, but let's also hold on to whatever thoughts you may be having as we'll talk with Ricky and Isaac in a moment. The topics, the concept of toxic empathy and of course are related to recognizing the Palestinian nation. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.
- [42:20]
Ricky Schlott
Honestly, Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new family Freedom offer.
- [42:28]
Mike Pesca
That's not the itinerary we're following.
- [42:30]
Ricky Schlott
Well, I'm departing from ATT and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.
- [42:44]
Mike Pesca
Bon voyage.
- [42:45]
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- [43:14]
Mike Pesca
We're back with not even Mad. I'm joined by Isaac Saul of Tangle News and Ricky Schlott of the New York Post. And Ricky, you introduced a concept. I think it's yours. I'm going to give you all credit for coinage. I hadn't heard.
- [43:25]
Ricky Schlott
I don't even know if it is. It may or may not be.
- [43:28]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Okay, so that's very, that's very generous of you. It is called toxic empathy. And you used it to write about a recidivist subway jacker, which seems to be a limited appeal hobby because once you hijacked a subway, there's only so many places you could take it. But tell me about this person and this topic and then I'm going to bring in Isaac and the Palestinians.
- [43:52]
Ricky Schlott
Okay. Just as you were saying that. I googled it and it's not somehow it seeped into my subconscious, but I used it in my column. But there is a 70 or actually 18 year old now who was arrested more than a dozen times this year for repeatedly hijacking MTA trains, subway trains. Going on joyrides up to 40 miles an hour, stealing MTA workers backpacks, which is how she even got the keys in the first place, to turn on trains at like 4am and pepper spraying. An MTA worker at one point, like just over and over in, in the MTA like world, in the realm obsession with trains for some reason getting arrested and five times in front of judges. Prosecutors asked for different bails and bonds. And over and over five times judges let her out, either on her own good conscience or unsupervised release. And again she's back getting arrested and back in front of judges. And it just was this complete cycle. And to me, I mean, it seems as though what these judges were trying to do is be empathetic to an 18 year old and give her a second chance.
- [45:04]
Mike Pesca
Or an 11 year old.
- [45:06]
Ricky Schlott
Yeah, exactly. Over and over. And like the worst thing, like this is a cry for help. This is someone that's clearly unwell, whose parents are failing them or whose community is failing them. And the least empathetic thing that you could do is let them out again and not hold them in custody and figure out how can we help you, like what is actually up here. And yeah, so that was my premise using this specific case because this is a person who's not only a danger to themselves, also clearly a danger to other people. I mean if you, you, if you're doing a joyride on, on a subway train, you could easily hit another train.
- [45:42]
Mike Pesca
So joyride is one of those phrases that definitely takes the perspective of the driver rather than everyone else involved also. So. But explain to me before I do my hard pivot to a hard subject, why it's not something just like bleeding heart liberalism, some old phrase why you think and I've, I've read a lot about the problems with, with empathy. Paul Bloom's written brilliantly about this. But why you think toxic empathy is a good phrase that really gets at what's going on here.
- [46:12]
Ricky Schlott
I mean, I think there's nothing wrong with being a bleeding heart liberal, but I think that there's something genuinely toxic about like drinking the Kool Aid of such a extreme look at the restorative justice or, I don't know, this sense of the justice system that, like, is justice even done if you're like, what is the point of having laws? What is the point of wasting all of this NYPD energy? What is the point of even having prosecutors if we're not going to prosecute? I mean, I think that this is empathy that is actually doing harm to the person who's at the other end of it. And I guess that would be what I would say is the kind of delineation there.
- [46:52]
Mike Pesca
So here's what I was thinking in terms of the Palestinians, France, Britain, Canada, Australia and of course Malta. That'll be a game changer. Say they will recognize the state of Palestine in the upcoming UN General Assembly. I should say Britain's with a little bit of an asterisk. There are some conditions and the idea is our hearts all go out to the suffering of the innocent people of Gaza. So. And most of the countries of the world want what's called, or had been called before people stopped talking about it, a two state solution. So this is an empathetic way where you feel for the people who are suffering and you want to intervene. And my, and I know this will be a bridge too far for many of the listeners, but why toxic empathy might apply in this case is the real politic, the theory of change. Just the strategy seems exactly backwards to me. If you want to forestall a crisis, a burgeoning crisis out of empathy, why would you also want to incentivize a key progenitor of the crisis? Hamas? I would say the key progenitor by dangling the reward that they want. Now, we could also caveat that with Hamas wants the total state, but this is at least an intermediary reward for October 7th and so forth. Isaac, you've written a lot about your feelings towards Zionism and you're really a fair broker in many ways, in my opinion on this. But what do you think of the analogy and do you think that toxic empathy might apply?
- [48:28]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I, I do think the politics of empathy are so deeply at play on the issue of Israel and Palestine and also just so many issues across our country right now. I mean, when Ricky was talking, I was thinking immediately about like the moms who are begging San Francisco to shut down safe injection sites because they're like, I want my kid to go to prison and get clean. Every time you just leave them on the street to shoot up more heroin. It's like they think they're doing something empathetic, but actually they want them in a place where they can't use drugs because they've tried this thing a million times over and over again with the, the issue in Gaza. I mean, it, it seems to me as if there are so many well intentioned people who watch what's happening in the war and think like, I can't look at another Palestinian toddler, you know, covered in blood, strolling through rubble, just like, stop whatever it takes, just stop it. And I find myself there a lot of the times even as like a self described Zionist. I mean it's, it just gets to a point where you, you're, you're like, I don't know that anything else matters aside from just stopping this thing. The statehood, like proclamations to me are incredibly frustrating for a few reasons. I mean, one, it's just who is going to be the facilitator of the state. Right now Hamas controls Gaza, the Palestinian Authority kind of controls the West Bank. You obviously, I think are not going to just hand like official statehood over to Palestine under the rule of Hamas. I don't think any of these countries who are making these proclamations are going to do that. I feel like they're, they're selling this bill of goods like we can grant statehood and resolve the war and end things and move towards that. And they're like offering their support for statehood when we're not, we're not even there. Like what we need is the actual current war to stop. And then we need the truth, which is that resolving the conflict is going to take literally years and probably multiple generations of reconciliation and territorial trades and healing and, you know, convincing this whole generation of Israelis that all Palestinians don't want to kill them and convincing this whole generation of Palestinians that are alive in Gaza that the Israeli government doesn't want to kill them. Like, you are not going to solve this in six months by, you know, a European coalition coming together and say, we, we want to give Palestinian statehood. And it just feels like a snake oil thing. And if you're the Palestinian, even if you're like in the Palestinian liberation movement, it must be so frustrating to be begging for that kind of recognition for decades and then have it come at the moment when you are least equipped to actually act on it. Like there is no, there's, there's nothing they could do right now to actually engage because Hamas rules Gaza and Gaza's in ruin. So I just think it's all kind of bullshit, to be honest. And I think like everybody on both sides in the conflict recognizes it as bullshit and it's sort of something for like Western commentators to grapple with.
- [51:47]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I don't understand why defeat isn't the path forward, the logical path forward. An argument against that would be, well, defeat, as Netanyahu and his cabinet defines it, is unacceptable because it's killing everyone or too many people in Gaza. But in fact, it would definitely seem that the steps towards some sort of two state solution are one, defeat Hamas. And without that, there's no way that Israel is going to countenance a two state solution. You'll never get to anything like a recognition of a Palestinian nationhood that means anything. And in fact, as I'm thinking about this in a way, toxic empathy might be the most generous reading to think that it is the empathy for those suffering that motivates this, I would say bad tactic because really what's probably going on is just appeal to a domestic audience that's also upset about suffering. But any smart world leader would know that not only will this no way do anything in the real world, if anything it will incentivize Hamas to never give up the hostages or negotiate. Do you agree with me on that, Ricky?
- [53:00]
Ricky Schlott
I mean, I'm by no means an expert on what it means geopolitically, but I certainly think that it, there's a lot of pressure that I think that politicians are feeling even just on the social media end, from especially like very outspoken young people who I would say, I don't know that it's necessarily toxic empathy, but it's from my experience encountering a lot of the protesters at Columbia, I think it's genuine empathy. I think that there's a generation of young people who are just very used to growing up being bombarded with images and you can really end up on one side of a conflict in an algorithm. And when that's just an unceasing feed of suffering. This is I think really the first test case probably of what happens when a war is unfolding in real time on your cell phone for the entire world.
- [53:53]
Mike Pesca
Right. Because. Sorry to interrupt. It could have been, it could have been Sudan and it could have been Yemen, but the algorithm didn't suck those up for whatever reason.
- [54:02]
Ricky Schlott
Yeah, I mean, well, this, I think.
- [54:03]
Mike Pesca
This isn't served to us.
- [54:05]
Ricky Schlott
Yeah, well, also in the, this is I think probably a unique conflict in the sense that it's pretty sensitive for a lot of Jewish American people and it's, and also Arab American people. Like, it actually does have a unique relevance I think for a large enough percentage of Americans that it became relevant to everyone else on college campuses and everyone else around them. And also you have the fact that like Gen Z and digital natives who are just so online in the first place are now adults and are just interacting differently with this media than somebody who like isn't just so habitually online and isn't necessarily as, you know, predisposed to become so obsessive about something that's happening internationally as maybe somebody around my age is. But I think that this is kind of like an unfortunate, maybe kind of canary in the coal mine event of what could possibly continue to happen with other international events. I wouldn't be surprised if this is not a one off.
- [55:12]
Mike Pesca
Do you think that will be lasting? Those algorithm algorithmically dictated or influenced sentiments are just the 2025 version of the deep outpouring of sympathy or empathy of the post Holocaust Jews. And then we had the movie Exodus and then we had Claude Landsman's show a documentary. And now we have a different sort of media, but it's just as deep and will change things and motivate the public just as much as however we came to our opinions 70 years ago.
- [55:46]
Ricky Schlott
Yeah, I mean I think that it's. But the thing that's crazy is it's like we have less of a unified cultural narrative than we ever have before. It's. You can have a completely disparate experience. Like if you're a Columbia kid, like your roommate could be having a completely opposite experience of the same event on their device at the exact same time. And I think that that's a very unique experience for this generation and part of why we're at where we're at with this conflict. But yeah, and it's different too because it follows you everywhere. It's not like there's, there's a meaningful documentary or a meaningful cultural moment. It's. It's you have push notifications. And I mean, I. It's crazy, like, when you look at the statistics of how many hours young people are spending on their phones every day. And I mean, when I go through, like, Instagram stories of, I still follow people from, like, my high school and stuff, who are from before when I was political. I mean, everyone is posting on one side of this conflict and it's like it's no longer even their personal lives. It's just like, this is what's happening in Gaza. Or like this is the latest from Netanyahu. And like, it's fascinating to watch that this is really like, subsumed my generation's consciousness.
- [57:00]
Mike Pesca
So, Isaac, as a guy who straddles these worlds, who came from old media, who now has this extremely successful product that's, I don't know, new media seems like a medium phrase, but that is entirely online and social, what do you think of that question I just asked? Is the latest TikTok video or image from, from Gaza the same as watching, you know, judgment Nuremberg in 1950, whenever, when that came out, will the opinions be as deep, lasting and affecting of policy?
- [57:32]
Isaac Saul
It's interesting because I think if you asked me four years ago, I would have said no. And I was so skeptical, you know, in kind of the peak Black Lives Matter movement, 2020, summer of 2020, 2021, and everybody's posting the black boxes on Instagram. And I just was like, like, all these people are not going to care about any of this stuff in three months. And it just felt so, I don't know, frivolous, not lasting to me. Like, I just, I didn't, I didn't really feel like it was real or genuine. And then we had this election where I felt like Trump won the election on the backs of kind of reaching people in the podcast, YouTube influencer space. And we sort of saw at scale the massive influence that this, like, new era of media people have, which, like, you know, to Ricky's point, I think a lot of people are posting about this stuff because the people that, the famous people they follow on these channels are posting about it and are making content around it. And, and I, I'm sort of a believer now, I guess you could say. Like, I, I do think that we're watching public opinion sort of split from the traditional commentariat, from, you know, the, the Washington Post editorial board, which seems like totally irrelevant all of a sudden. Even more so now than it did four, eight years ago when there's just like a YouTuber or an Instagram you know, influencer that has 10 million followers and is posting this kind of stuff on their platform. And you know, I, I log on to Instagram and I see stuff from journalists on the ground in Gaza who maybe they have often they do have like, you know, political horses in the race, but they're filming stuff, boots on the ground when other reporters can't get into the territory. And like, like, what am I to do other than watch that content and try to glean or learn something from it? Like, it's a really, really powerful thing. So I do actually feel like my opinion on that has changed and I think the impact is going to be much bigger and they have much more influence than maybe I thought.
- [59:55]
Mike Pesca
Before I get a McLaughlin this one, the answer is it's more than cotton candy, but less than meat and potatoes. Meaning it's not nothing. Right. It's not Coney 2012. It's not ephemeral. And then we'll move on to the next thing. But it is not as deep as the sentiments say after World War II. It's not as deep as any sentiments could be, I think 30 years ago. And also the salience and importance of the continuation of the state of Israel to people who are really dedicated to it, I think far outweighs the momentary and legitimate horror of the suffering of the Gazans. Plus add on to this that people who experience the world through social media are against horrors and against war. But war is a fact of life. All right, so did I. McLaughlin. This special K and banana. We will go now to goat grinders. Those things that grind your gears or get your goat. Little annoyances like, I don't know, maybe when the host of a panel discussion show insists on the last word on a very ambiguous and ambivalent topic. Maybe that's one. Isaac, you want to go first? You got a goat grinder?
- [61:09]
Isaac Saul
Yeah. I really appreciate this. On, on the, on the Tango podcast, we end every show with the airing of grievances. So I'm super aligned with sharing space to complain. I will mine. I'll. I'll try and be brief. Mine is that I'm going to Italy, which is not my complaint, but I have a, a seven month old son, my first kid. And so I am planning travel for the first time with a child and it is a nightmare. I don't think it could be. It is like you can't just book something for an overnight flight to Europe online. You have to call the airline and get the bassinet seat or figure out if the car seat you have is going to fit in the seat and. And, you know, one flight, we need him to sleep in a bassinet, but then after the connection flight, it's two hours, so we don't need a seat. He can be an infant in a lap, but no, they're going to charge you for that seat anyway, whether you have the bassinet or not or the car seat or not. And I did, like, an hour and a half phone call with British Airways to get a flight to a wedding I'm going to in Italy, which sucked all the life out of me. And then immediately after booking it, I realized that we had the wrong date and I need to actually change the day that I'm flying out, which made me want to jump off a bridge. So that's. My complaint is as privileged as that might sound. Yeah, I'm complaining about flying to Italy with a child. I would really like to not be doing that.
- [62:40]
Mike Pesca
If you think that's a first world problem, listen to mine. It's about reclining in movie theaters. So I saw the Naked Gun. That's not my Go Grinder. That was, you know, B minus movie. And side note, Liam Neeson is great as Liam Neeson. He just wasn't great as the son of Frank Drebin. I think it comes down to when he gives his line delivery, he keeps growling, whereas Leslie Nielsen clipped it off. And you could really see how stupid the things he was saying. Maybe that's the deal. Liam Neeson just still seems a little too cool. But to watch this movie, and I realize this is, I think, the first movie I watched in a movie theater, maybe I went to a screening at some point. Oh, there's a. A first world problem, right? Maybe three quarters of the first world. They. The inducement is we'll give you a comfy chair. The comfy chair. And we'll let it recline. So everyone in my row is essentially sleeping during this moving movie. This is not a way to get people back in the theaters. Neither, for that matter, is the remake of Naked Gun. Maybe this complaint, this Go grinder, would go a bit further for a movie that one should. Should sit up and take notice of. But it did, in fact, grind my goat as it also lulled me to sleep. Ricky, what do you got? What's your Goat grinder?
- [63:55]
Ricky Schlott
I'll stay on the. The travel sort of theme that Isaac brought up, because I was recently on a flight that ended up being delayed six hours. And I think this is a new thing post Covid, which is like, they just lie to you about what's going on. I don't know why. This is like the new trend of they like it's weather. Oh, actually like now there's not the right crew here. And it turns out that they had to have new pilots drive from home to come and like fly the plane. And so a bunch of people ended up rescheduling because they just thought that the flight was not going to take off. And it did take off. So a lot of people had to get hotel rooms and stuff. But I just can't stand this new thing with the airlines. Not. Not just leveling with you.
- [64:39]
Isaac Saul
I like that one.
- [64:40]
Mike Pesca
Yes. And in fact, today on the gist list, we had a story about Delta and I think it was United being sued and defending themselves for selling window seats that had no windows. Essentially the entire industry went from one whose business model was to fly to one whose business model was to lie. Lion fly. I guess you could say it's the new bed and breakfast. So I want to thank Ricky Schlott who writes for the New York Post. I want to thank Isaac Saul. Check out Tangle News. I mean, check out the New York Post. But you know, about that maybe before you even heard this show. And until next time, we're not saying we're right. We're not conceding that you're right, but we are saying we're not even mad. That's it for today's show.
- [65:30]
Ricky Schlott
Quite.
- [65:30]
Mike Pesca
Cory Wara produces the gist and Ashley Kahn is our production coordinator. Astra Green does the socials. Leo Baums the intern. We've got Philip Swissgood and Kathleen Sykes on the mandolin. Michelle Pascal lays out the red carpet for everyone. Improve G Peru De Peru and thanks for listening. Or maybe improve G Peru and thanks for listening. Yeah, that's the order.
- [66:02]
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