← The Tony Kinnett Cast
The Tony Kinnett Cast
Ep. 528 - Democrats Threaten to Arrest ICE Agents for Helping TSA in Airports, SCOTUS Smacks Sony
01:21:41
Democrat officials from the Philadelphia District Attorney to the Governor of Illinois issue threats to Immigration Customs Enforcement officers helping lower wait times and shorten lines at major airports across the nation as the Department of Homeland Security shutdown continues.
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- [00:02]
Tony Kennett
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Caller/Guest
Tony Kennett.
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Elizabeth Mitchell
Tony Kennett.
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Tony Kennett
Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett. Tony Kennett, host of the Tony Kennett cast. Let's get down to business. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIBC on CYTV here on the Daily Signal. Good evening and welcome to the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated, first on 93 WIBC. We're pleased to have you, no matter where you're joining us from this evening, the radio and the TV side, the livestream crew, YouTube.com daily signal, or the podcast stuff later. Because without further ado, people are making really, really bad decisions. And I mean the kind of bad decisions that people make fun of you for making. At least that's the case with attorney, the district Attorney Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, who's losing it because ICE is in airports. And I got a level with you. Even those on the left are currently noticing right here, right now, those that aren't particularly big fans of ICE, that they are making a pretty positive impact in the airports that they are in. And I'm not joking, there are videos of people over on the left saying I hate ice. But what they are doing here is pretty helpful in getting the lines down there.
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Caller/Guest
We have ICE agents at the airport checking bags. I can tell you I would, I would much rather them do this than
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Tony Kennett
execute people in Minneapolis, that's for sure. Now the, the swears start popping in a little bit after that particular moment in the video, but it's pretty well agreed right now. Among the initial polling that we have that Americans are a pretty big fan of this so far, the Trump administration, new Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen. We're going to get to our White House correspondent with some details on that here in a minute. Are pretty okay with this so far. So what is the, what are the Democrat officials immediately run out to do? Announced that he's gonna put all of the ICE agents in cuffs for being in the airports. Here's Larry Krasner. He's mad.
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Larry Krasner
This is how it works. You commit crimes within the jurisdiction. That is the city and county of Philadelphia. I prosecute you. That is how it works. No, I don't take a phone call from the president saying, let him go. No, the president cannot pardon you. I'll say it again. The president cannot pardon you. And yes, I will put you in handcuffs, and I will put you in a courtroom. And if necessary, I will put you in a jail cell if you decide to make the terrazzo floor of this airport. Anything like what you did in the streets of Minneapolis.
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Tony Kennett
Oh, big boy with the big threats. Oh, boy, he's. Boy, he's like. He's ready to part. He's like, I tell you what. You know, I'm gonna put the cuffs on you if you treat this like Minneapolis, okay?
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Larry Krasner
Which involved the criminal homicide of unarmed innocent people. We are not having that here. But let me go back to all ICE agents who are going to keep their oath, who are going to follow the law.
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Tony Kennett
I love that. So he's issuing a good series of threats here. Right off the top of the bat, right up front, he's like, I'm going to put you in cuffs. I'm big tough Philly District Attorney. This is the same stuff that we heard from J.B. pritzker. It's the same thing that we've heard from. And by. When I quote JB Pritzker there, I'm talking about on the podcast recently with the lady that dressed like an Amazon package, in which he made this long, eloquent speech all about how he Democrats needed to go after and arrest all of these ICE agents. You've seen the same thing from a number of individuals on the left side of the aisle. And then, because people started making fun of him for again, going after the guys who are helping check bags and pass out bottled water at airports. He didn't like being made fun of. And so the guy who posted the clip, this is Western Lensman. He provides a lot of clips over to the Tony Kennett Castle. Uh, Larry got out on his phone. Always a bad choice in, quote, Sweden. He's like, I'll say it again. I'll double down. I'm not afraid of anybody. I'm really big, strong, Mr. Larry, man. Now, a little bit of a hot tip here just so that we actually get the laws on the books. If you attempt to arrest a federal officer for doing his job, for upholding federal law, or completing a series of security assignments that he has been given, like aiding the Transportation Security Administration, you could face federal felony charges. These include, but are not limited to, assault, obstruction, harboring, conspiracy, and then you could be an asset to a felony murder if your actions end up leading to the death of an individual. Now, this isn't really new from this guy. He did the same smug routine back in January, essentially just trying to ratchet up the rhetoric as heavy as he can. Again, right in the middle of ICE doing something that's pretty universally benign. But, you know, here. Here he is again, back in January. Same stuff, different day.
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Larry Krasner
This is a small bunch of wannabe Nazis. That's what they are. In a country of 350 million, we outnumber them if we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down
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Tony Kennett
Nazis for decades, by the way, nothing is more intimidating than a dude shouting from an oversized peacoat surrounded by a bunch of. Of ladies that he pulled from his office that morning. We're gonna hunt you down, you Nazis. And now he's. He's resorted to doing press conferences outside baggage carousel three at the Philadelphia airport.
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Larry Krasner
Okay, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice.
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Tony Kennett
And. And this is fantastic. I love. I love this nonsense. The rest of the country is making fun of him because, again, the stuff that ICE is kind of doing right now in the airports, again, just really, really benign stuff. Here's one New Yorker's take on it. Oh, they're right there.
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Larry Krasner
All right.
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Tony Kennett
They're good to hear, to help.
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Larry Krasner
They're not bothering nobody.
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Tony Kennett
As long as they can check my bags and get me on my flight,
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Larry Krasner
I'm good to go, right? I want to get.
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Tony Kennett
I want to get to the Bahamas. Yeah, yeah. I'm not really seeing the issue here. Again, Carolyn Levitt, press Secretary for the White House, made kind of the case right on the turnaround.
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Virginia Allen
They cannot pardon you for what? He's talking to the ICE agents who are handing out water bottles and are helping people move through lines at airports. It's a disgraceful comment. The men and women of ICE are great people. I would encourage this lawmaker, whose name I don't know and don't care to know, to actually sit down and speak with the ICE agents who are on the ground doing this important work, not just in our nation's airports, but again, to remove violent, dangerous, illegal alien criminals from our country.
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Tony Kennett
Now, that is where the rubber meets the road, especially for Larry Krasner, the District Attorney for Philadelphia. As a good friend of mine, Greg Price, pointed out, not too long ago last June, Larry Krasner's office dropped charges of kidnapping and strangulation against a man named Keon King. Keon King then went on to kidnap and murder a different young lady. 23 year old Kada Scott Krasner consistently lowers bail and drops charges for violent criminals. But you know, all of the su. All of a sudden ICE helps somebody load their bag onto the conveyor belt. All of the sudden, ICE arrests someone with a removal order and oh, man, quick, I gotta get a press conference and like a bunch of ladies to stand behind me while I yell about Nazis. Okay. All righty. Not just relegated to the guys who let criminals go, who hurt individuals in Pennsylvania, but also the case regarding Sheridan Gorman. The young lady, the 18 year old who was killed, shot in the back of the head by an illegal immigrant while she was looking at the Northern lights in Chicago. The student newspaper of Loyola University in Chicago, which had originally described accurately her killer as an illegal immigrant, has now issued an apology. For what? Oh, oh, not for advocating for illegal immigrants to remain here despite any kind of criminal record. No, because they originally used the term illegal, illigrant, illegal immigrant for the killer of Sheridan Gorman. They said it didn't align with, like their style guide or values because no one is illegal. Yes. What a comfort. This is the kind of stuff that actually does impact voters when they see the. For example, the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. Priorities in mind are in fact deliverables for voters where your priorities are in solving problems that are right in front of you. Those are the kind of things that people do pay attention to. So when you have people like Hakeem Jeffries pretending not to see the news and they're asked about deporting criminals, when they're asked about homeland Security issues and they get brushed off, Americans pay attention.
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Caller/Guest
An illegal immigrant has been charged with
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Tony Kennett
murdering a college student in Chicago last week. Do House Democrats believe if he's convicted,
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Caller/Guest
he's someone who should be deported?
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Tony Kennett
I'll look into the case. Do you expect any. Oh, I'll look. I'll. I'll look into the case. Now, I'll. I'll be honest with you here. I don't think he should be deported. I don't. I think he should be hanged. I think if you're an illegal immigrant and you come to the United States and you commit a violent offense like murder, you should be hanged. I don't think we need to send you back to somewhere else. I think that you should just be hanged. Doesn't need to be public, doesn't need to be fancy one and done. They have a zero percent chance, those who've been hanged about the neck until dead or hanged by the neck until dead, you know, committing a second crime. Just little fun facts and statistics there for you. Now, unfortunately, it's not just those over on the left who are towing this line. There are a couple of Republicans over in the Senate who are holding everything up right now based on kind weird sensibilities because they believe that if they go into the midterm season or if they go into the conference and kind of the fight season here, if, if they use strong, heavy words, then this is going to make them look really big and mean and stinky. And I don't think this is going to play out the way that they're looking for here. Radio crew, we're going to send you over to the commercial. We're going to continue on the live stream. It's the Tony Kinit cast here on the Daily Signal. In a rather bizarre exchange, Utah Senator John Curtis on CNBC's with Joe Kernan standing next to Senator Adam Schiff. They got into a conversation about illegal immigration and where Joe Kernan expected to hear kind of the left wing line on immigration and amnesty from Adam Schiff of California, instead he started getting this from Republican Senator John Curtis. I was pretty surprised to see this exchange, especially on cnbc. Here you go. Do we need then to anyone who's here illegally that hasn't committed a crime, Senator Curtis, should there be a path to citizenship? Is that what compassion means to you or should these people not be allowed to stay?
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Larry Krasner
Well, then let me ask you a question. Is there any law, any rule broken in our country where we don't have a consequence defined? So why don't we have a consequence defined when it comes to coming into this country without documentation?
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Tony Kennett
Okay, so first of all, that's ridiculous. Number two, coming into this country without documentation, that means illegally immigrating, crossing the border illegally. So, you know, let's be clear with the way the law describes it, but I'll answer the question. He says, well, we don't actually have like a series of crimes. Correct. By the way, this is one of the reasons why we're going to talk about this later in the show. The Supreme Court is currently hearing a one of the landmark lawsuits of our time regarding asylum law in the United States. It is a huge issue. It's a very, very huge issue. And regarding the question from Senator Curtis here, why don't we have a definition like a series of crimes and then punishments that follow those crimes regarding illegal immigration, it's because for a long time, and I mean a, the majority of this country's History. There were no immigration courts. Immigration courts are a new thing, boys and girls. Originally, if you showed up here to the United States and you weren't supposed to be here, you got the boot. There was no if, ands, buts, or coconuts. You were shown the border, you were given back your bag and you were told, see ya. There was no magical, well, let's take a look at the things that you have and haven't done. But again, this is not a Republican or excuse me, this isn't a Democrat senator arguing this. Schiff isn't the guy making this case. Schiff isn't the guy giving you the Tom Susie line. Democrat representative from New York. It's John Curtis of Utah. Republican.
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Larry Krasner
We continue to allow these people to be here, but we haven't defined what their consequence is.
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Tony Kennett
So that's a. The inaction from.
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Stephen Kent
From policymakers.
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Tony Kennett
And a good question returned from Kernan. He's like, wait a minute, you haven't defined this. Aren't you a senator? Isn't that your job? What are you doing to resolve this one there, skipper?
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Larry Krasner
Absolutely.
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Tony Kennett
All right, so what. What would you say we need to do that? What's your answer to that? I guess like every other.
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Larry Krasner
So first of all, you have to define amnesty, but any other crime that's committed here in our country. We define what. We define what the punishment.
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Tony Kennett
Good sweet grace. Oh, well, first we have to define what amnesty as. So the idea that Americans who in 2024 elected and voted for something very specific, have a Department of Homeland Security, have an administration, have a Republican Congress who seems to have the only idea they want is just the moderate left line of some gradual amnesty program. And that is the moderate left line, meaning that the progressives are far more radical in their amnesty approach. When I say the Tom Susie line of New York, I'm not joking. Here's his exact claim made recently. This is a political clip. If you've been here since President Trump became the President on January 20th of 2017, you've been here since that time, and you haven't committed a crime. But for not having proper documentation, let's figure out a way to legalize you so you can go to work every day, you can pay your taxes, you can raise your family, you can travel freely and not be afraid of being deported. Or hear me out, you can emigrate legally. I know, I know. Shocker. Incredible. This is the stuff that we're running with. I don't think so. And if you do want to know why, so far we see these reconciliation arguments now coming through the Senate, when you see all of this muling and whining that waters everything down, it's because of senators like these. Senators like these, who don't fight, who don't do anything, who just kind of parrot the party line and then fall apart like wet toilet paper. We got to bring the radio crew back. Way more news to cover. Don't go anywhere. It's the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal. You're listening to the Tony Kenneth Castle on 93 WIBC. So the current line that is being prepared over on the Republican Senate side regarding the Department of Homeland Security shutdown and possibly some of the Save America act voter ID stuff is that they're going to fit it into a beautiful, pristine reconciliation bill. Reconciliation is when the Senate changes a small part of the budget, I. E. Who gets funded and who does not, what gets money and what does not. And you only need a simple majority of 51 votes to pass a budget item. But Republicans have decided that since they can't get 60 votes on things, instead of, you know, messing with the filibuster or running better candidates in elections that aren't 85 and clueless, instead the move is to try these weird reconciliation measures where they say, all right, California, if you don't do voter ID things, then we're going to withhold funding until a federal judge. Two weeks after that sign says you're going to turn the money faucet back on, and then it never shuts. Back off. And please do not take my word for it here as a an aggravated pundit from Indiana, Senator Mike Lee of Utah. The the more useful of the two senators from Utah makes this case quite clearly. Reconciliation ain't gonna work to get some of this stuff through.
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Caller/Guest
There are a lot of things that can be passed through a Senate procedure known as budget reconciliation, through which we can pass things with a simple majority vote. The Save America act isn't one of those things. It can't pass through budget reconciliation because it's a policy. It is not budgetary. And even if you attach money to it, there are things at the margins we could do to help facilitate compliance with it. But the restrictions themselves have basically zero chance of meeting the standard to pass through budget reconciliation. So, look, regardless, there are other reasons out there to do budget reconciliation. Do not be fooled into thinking that we can set down the SAVE act, the Save America act, and just pick it up on budget reconciliation.
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Tony Kennett
Now, two things. Number one, the Senate parliamentarian who decides whether or not something fits into the budget reconciliation maneuver. Elizabeth MacDonough. Yeah, she's, she's not going to let that fly. Number two, the reason I'm going over this as a matter of news before we cut over to our White House correspondent on some of the updates, because she asked the president question about this and then he kicked it over to the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne Mullen. Because Cruz and Lindsey Graham are trying to fund DHS by splitting the ICE funding away from it and, and funding DHS as a separate bill and then ICE funding moving that through reconciliation. But you are going to be told by a lot of senators in the beautiful, wonderful, fun election season we're entering, that they delivered for you by passing Save America act stuff in budget reconciliation. No, they're not. Do not order a large Big Mac fries in a Coke Zero and then let the cashier gaslight you when they hand you half a chicken nugget and a thimble of ketchup instead of your meal and tell you, well, I delivered the meal you ordered. No, that is not going to fly. And by the way, Democrats know this. That's why they're already accepting this as fact. Chuck Schumer, Senate minority Leader, who has an approval rating of hepatitis, has come forward with a big grin on his face announcing, we're gonna fight you tooth and nail on this, Republicans, because he knows the Save America act is not going to move through based on messing with the filibuster. And so he already knows the parliamentarian is gonna chuck this stuff out. Here's Chuck Schumer.
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Larry Krasner
And finally, on the SAVE act, which seems to have now been intertwined in these negotiations because of Donald Trump and Republican obeisance to him. Let me say this to our Republican colleagues. If you want to shove the SAVE act into reconciliation, then have at it.
- [19:37]
Tony Kennett
Look at the smile on his face and he says, we're going to fight you every, you know, every little bit in the way here. I really don't expect that this is going to play out on the administration level from Trump's office in this exact way. But you should be aware of these things. Now, that said, there are some questions that are being asked over at the White House. And to dive into that, we're going to have to pitch over to our White House correspondent, our White House correspondent, Elizabeth Mitchell, joining us from outside our nation's White House. Elizabeth, good afternoon.
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Elizabeth Mitchell
Good afternoon, Tony.
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Tony Kennett
Lot of questions you've been asking. Of course, the president, him pitching a question over to Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. Were you expecting the president to pivot over to the new Secretary of Homeland Security regarding reconciliation and funding. What was, what was the in the room kind of feel at that moment?
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Elizabeth Mitchell
Yeah, so I think that's a question that a lot of people have been wondering is how exactly is the President going to get the Save America act through? Because the margins are very slim in the Senate and even some Republicans aren't going to vote for it. No Democrats are going to vote for it. So the question has remained is what exactly is he going to do? And so I asked him, are you going to use the recognition retaliation process, which might be a long shot anyways, but it seems like the only option the Senate has right now. And I was surprised when he turned it over to Mark Wayne Mullen to give me the details of how exactly this is going to take place. Mark Wayne Mullen laid it all out for me right after he got sworn in as DHS secretary, saying that they are going to use reconciliation not only to likely fund ice, since Democrats don't want to fund it through the DHS general bill, but also to pass the America act, which Mark Wayne Mullen said is the most important legislation that we have right now.
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Tony Kennett
So you also asked the President about the Gulf War allies in the Middle East. It's something that we went into a little bit of detail about yesterday. Maybe not as much as I would have preferred. Give us an outline. What does the president think that the Saudis, the Qataris, the uae, Bahrain, what is he looking for in some of our allies response over in the Operation Epic Fury theater?
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Elizabeth Mitchell
He told me he would like to see a little bit more from the Gulf states, but he's for the most part happy with what they've done. He said he's happy with uae. He said those countries have been hit very hard by Iran in this war. But he really put his attention on to NATO. That's where he wants to see more effort on this war. He wants to see a lot more support from NATO than what he's getting. Sounds like he's happy with the Gulf states, but continues to be very unhappy with NATO.
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Tony Kennett
You said it's been an end to end kind of busy day over the last 48 hours. What does it look like the White House is focused on? Obviously we had the briefing earlier yesterday and then today, lot that's going on just kind of in the procedural side of things before Easter. What do you think the core focus of the administration is right now? If you could narrow it down to one or two things?
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Elizabeth Mitchell
I think, of course the Iran war is a huge focus but another thing is I think as these lines continue to just get longer at airports around the country, people are missing flights. Atlanta Airport people are waiting for six hours. It's just ridiculous. And I think the White House is really pressing hard on what a crisis this is, not only for travelers, but even more importantly for these TSA agents. Famil TSA agents are having to quit their jobs because they need to feed their families. They're not being paid. So I think they're really pressing hard on the human effects of this DHS shutdown, hoping that that won't get through the Democrats to reopen dhs.
- [22:53]
Tony Kennett
Elizabeth Mitchell, our White House correspondent, thanks for giving us a quick windy interview outside of the White House. We really appreciate your getting a chance to talk to our audience about what's going on.
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Elizabeth Mitchell
Thanks, Tony. See you soon.
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Tony Kennett
All right, radio crew, we're going to send you guys to the commercial side of things. We're going to continue on the live stream. We've got some crazy stuff going on in California that is going to perhaps cost all three of the major Democrats running a spot on the ballot come November. We'll catch the radio crew back in a minute. It's the Tony Kinit cast here on the Daily Signal. I'm a little surprised to see that this hasn't really making it isn't making a lot of the news outside of California. So right now California has what's called a jungle primary system. In a jungle primary, no matter who you're voting for, Republican, you're voting in the Democrat primary, Libertarian Green Party, birthday party, doesn't matter. They're all in the same primary bucket. So that they then take the total number of votes for each candidate regardless of party and they take the top two total number of vote candidates regardless of their party. And then those are the two that are on the ballot come final election. And it was set up this way so that hopefully you would have a huge number of Democrat votes for the primary candidates. So you'd have a choice between a Democrat Senate candidate and a Democrat Senate candidate for the senator, that kind of a thing. Well, in the California gubernatorial right now, they, they may have have just goofed themselves. And there's also a little bit of a controversy regarding some ballots and Sheriff Chad Bianco. But we'll get to that here in a minute. So right now the three Democrat candidates who are in the lead according to the most recent polling, you have Eric Swalwell, the former amore of Chinese Fang Fang spy Eric Swalwell's at 10% Katie Porter, who, when she's not running for election, is beating her staff members at 10%. And then Tom Steyer, who was about as exciting as Tim Walls without the leg, kicks at 10%. So the three Democrat candidates who are running are split 10%. You then have four other candidates who don't really care about at 3, 3, 2, and 1%. Then you get to the Republican candidates. 16% of California voters are leaning towards Steve Hilton. Chad Bianco, sheriff in California, is at 14%. What does all of this mean? This means that when you get to the primary, which is 69 days away. Nice. That if California voters end up voting along these particular poll numbers, then California is going to have a choice between a Republican and a Republican. Steve Hilton, who I believe we've had on the show before, and then Sheriff Chad Bianco moving forward towards November. Now, that's the first side of things, and it really wild when you play these kind of ranked choice or ranked voting or jungle primary games. This is the kind of crap that you get is not how the country was really intended to function. But alas, this is the kind of thing that's. That's worth talking about because nothing like California Democrats who were desperate screeching for jungle primary rules to now find out what happens when everyone wants to be the governor of California. Uh, also, I should mention there's a. I believe USC was supposed to get out there and host a big gubernatorial debate and then cancel the debate because there wasn't enough racial and sexual diversity. So, you know, California nonsense strikes again. Alas, though, regarding Chad Bianco, here's where things get a little interesting. It's kind of a developing story. We're not able to dive in a ton because there's still some investigations that are going on. Attorney General Rob Bonta in California filed an emergency writ with the Court of Appeals to stop ballots from being counted. There's a reported discrepancy of about 45,000 votes. There are some that are suggesting, you know, Bianco is trying to steal the election. Some are suggesting, oh, it's California trying to intervene. Eric Swalwell's crying about things. That's. That's what I'm talking about. By suggesting. I'm not sure right now what we are seeing, at least. At least as far as this writ and where it's supposed to go. So we are currently reaching out to the Hilton, the Bianco campaigns, as well as the Democrat campaigns to see if they have any comment on this particular writ from the California Attorney General. Office. Regardless though, that's not going to help the 10% poll number for the Democrats. We got to bring the radio crew back. Don't go anywhere. Tons more to cover. It's the Tony Kennett cast. Taste the biscuit. Taste the goodness of the biscuit. You're listening to the Tony Kennett cast on 93 WIPC. Welcome back to the Tony Kenneth cast. Only the, the most, the most professional of, of bumpers. And now normally I would compare perhaps you know, the bumper, the intro to a particular segment like those of network television. But given that CNN is, according to the reports, about to lay off what could be 2, 300 staffers over in the CNN headquarters and that also some of the hosts on network may not be getting contracts renewed. Also, you know, hosts moving to broadcasts like podcasters. The entertainment and the communications businesses are not doing so hot. The era of corporate arrogance, where these large industrial communication empires thought they could just do whatever they wanted and they could charge you whatever and they could tell you whatever is coming to a close. And that brings us to the Supreme Court of the United States where and I can't believe I'm uttering this sentence out loud in a 90 decision, which really means it's an 80 decision. And, and Katanji Brown Jackson, who has no idea what's going on, was just told by Kagan and Sotomayor to scribble her name along with the, the opinion of the rest of the court. Justice Clarence Thomas issued an absolute pimp smack, reach back glove slap in the face insult to Sony. And this is a truly incredible case. So Sony, to give you a little bit of context here, is fighting one of the longest industry battles in kind of the modern communication era. And this battle is that if you get out there and you pirate software or music or you share a video that you know, Sony made and you don't attribute and pay Sony a flickity jillion dollars, they're gonna sue you for everything you're worth. Only here's the problem. And we found this out in the 90s. We found this out in the aughts. We found this out again in the teens and now we're finding it out again in the early 2000s. Guys, there's a lot of piracy that goes on. The answer to piracy from a corporate perspective is to provide people a product that they like and you don't scalp them for it. The answer is not to try to sue Jimmy Dean in southern Ohio. Just random dude out there, you know, suing John Doe for a flippity jillion dollars because he downloaded an album without asking permission. So who's Sony going to go after if they're not going to go after, you know, John Doe, Jimmy Dean, who are they going to go? They're going to go after the Internet provider. So there was. There was a kind of a thing over the last decade where if your Internet provider guessed that you were pirating things, they might send you a message and says, hey, we don't want to get sued by Sony for a floppity jillion dollars. And here's where things get a little bit fun. So Sony had filed a lawsuit along with other major music labels in 2018, arguing that Cox Communications, who provides a ton of Internet access to a ton of the country, was legally responsible for essentially not blocking people from the Internet because they went to the Pirate Bay or a streaming music site that wasn't allowed to stream that music. And, and here's a jury in Virginia initially, initially found Cox Communication liable for vicarious infringement, which means they benefited financially and for contributory infringement, and awarded a billion dollars in damages. So the jury ruled in Virginia, hey, Cox Communications, yeah, you probably are responsible for some of the damages. You owe Sony and other music labels a billion dollars. But Sony and other organizations around the country decided that wasn't enough. And so they threw it to the appeals court and then threw that to the Supreme Court of the United States. And because Sony got really, really cocky and said, no, you owe me a floppity jillion dollars because people aren't going to Sony to buy their overpriced premium packages, the Supreme Court of the United States said, hey, guess what? Nope, you don't get a thing. So Sony had a billion dollars in their hands, in their hands, and they threw a toddler fit just to see Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court say, you're dumb. You don't understand the law. You have no idea what you're doing. You think that just because someone, for example, that Tommy Robinson, the guy who went after Charlie Kirk, who shot him when he was messaging his tranny boyfriend on Discord, the argument that Sony would make is that Discord is responsible as the communication platform for allowing what could have been harboring a fugitive from law. Or if you burn down a building and then you take a picture of yourself in front of the burning building and send it to your mom and say, hey, look, Mom, I set fire to this, you know, side of Chicago, then Verizon or AT&T would be responsible for, for hosting those messages. That's not a thing There are entire sections of the law that say no and an entire wing of lawsuits right now. Sorry, not Tommy Robinson, Tyler Robinson. Thank you for the correction, Producer Josiah. In this instance right here, right now, all of the corporate legal lawsuits where you could be, you could be slam, sledged, hammered in the knees by these agencies and corporations kind of coming to an end. It's coming to an end. So $17.7 billion industry completely turned on its face today because the Sony lawyer got snippy with Justice Clarence Thomas. So that's the first big Supreme Court ruling from the day. Now Elizabeth Warren and some others are losing their minds over a Trump Tech advisory board and we'll get to some of that. But there is another major, major lawsuit right now in which we now have some of the audio and then some of the oral arguments from. There's the Mississippi lawsuit over mail in ballots, where right now, in a bunch of different states here in the country, if you mail in your ballot up to and including election Day, meaning you're looking around at everyone else who's going to the polls to vote and then you fill out a mail in ballot and then mail it in that day, that states have to continue accepting and counting those ballots even if they're coming in several days after the election. The Supreme Court is hearing a case on that right now. And Samuel Alito, another originalist justice on the Supreme Court, essentially took the time to humiliate both Katanji Brown Jackson Sotomayor also humiliated the lawyer to a point where I, I gotta tell you, I really have never seen Katanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor and even Kagan trying to run interference for the weird mail in ballot rules. According to the New York Post, the Jackson had said, quote, this case is not about a Mississippi practice or policy related to recalling ballots. Because Justice Amy Coney Barrett had said, hey, if let's say that there's a guy who, you know, mails in his ballot, does he then have a right to recall his ballot after the election is over, but it hasn't yet been counted by the office? And then you had Catanja Brown Jackson say, well, this isn't about recalling ballots. To which the conservative justices looked at the liberals like they're dumb. Essentially the entire case boils down to this particular exchange. I'm going to read you one of the most phenomenally incredible exchanges I've ever seen ever regarding one of these cases from Alito. Quote, there's nothing in federal law that has prohibited recalling your ballot explicitly. Correct. From Mr. Stewart. Uh, that's right, your honor. From Justice Sotomayor. All right, Justice Alito. Well, Justice Sotomayor is asking you what I think she intends to be a friendly question. But maybe you want to think about whether you want it to go that far. Here's what this means. The Supreme Court hearing these oral arguments today got a couple of interesting exchanges related to how ridiculously thin the mail in ballot goofy spaghetti rules right now in this country are. And the lawyer showed up and had nothing prepared. The lawyer arguing that you should be able to mail in ballots whenever and from whoever and anytime that you want, had nothing prepared. So you had Justice Alito and Justice Thomas and Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice John Roberts essentially saying, you know, the law of the country. Right. And the lawyer hung his head in shame and muttered yes. And it was so bad that the New York post also Dan McLaughlin over at the National Review essentially started pointing out that the judges started to make fun of the lawyer and make fun of Katanji Brown Jackson and Sotomayor. And excuse me, that, that that argument yesterday, but the the full audio release that we're able to clip today came in today on the asylum case. This is where things get really bizarre. So this would be Nome versus Al Otolado. Samuel Alito tore into Sotomayor and Jackson who essentially in the middle of this case argued. So this would be so do my orange acts and the liberal justices that if you come into this country and you illegally immigrate, as soon as you're here you can declare asylum and then you essentially get to stay forever because of how crowded the immigration courts are and because the lawyers arguing in favor of unlimited asylum also did not bring anything to the table. You actually saw Justice Samuel Alito and I really don't think we've ever seen a clip like this or heard a clip like this before starts openly mocking Sotomayor and Jackson. Here's what this sounded like.
- [37:53]
Larry Krasner
Leave that. Both you and Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson on several occasions have used the phrase arriving at I think you said you arrived at your house, but that's not the term that is in the statute. Do you think there is no difference difference between arriving at a location and arriving in the location, does it?
- [38:17]
Tony Kennett
He's not talking to the lawyer. He is making fun of Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor suggesting that the Constitution and the federal law when they say when you arrive in the country, when you arrive at the border of the country, that doesn't mean the same thing. That essentially arriving is Like a personal journey that like sometimes you go through. You just like, you know, you just like arrive like going to the Met. It's like when people start noticing your dress. And Samuel Alito cocked his head to the side and said, are you that stupid or are you just pretending a
- [38:52]
Larry Krasner
person arrive in the house when the person is not in the house and is knocking at the door asking to be admitted to the house?
- [38:59]
Virginia Allen
Yes, I think here the door is open. The officer is standing on the other side of the threshold.
- [39:06]
Tony Kennett
That's exciting stuff. So, all right, that's the Supreme Court Meltdown radio. We're going to send you over to the commercial side of things. We're going to catch you on the flip of it. It's the Tony knit cast. We'll continue on the live stream. Now this does bring us over to some of the broader impact stuff on other, you know, meta and Alphabet. That'd be Google. They've been found liable to pay damages to a 20 year old woman who had alleged that her addiction to the company's social media platforms caused her to suffer a mental health crisis. This is according to a jury, this is an important distinction because all of these corporations that essentially said they could provide a service to you, but then they could screw over the algorithm and manipulate you and cause damages in that, well, you agreed to the terms and conditions. So here's the middle finger. That's not a thing. Right now you have all of these media entities. We're going to talk about this with Stephen Kent and kind of the Lord of the Rings side of things. All of these media entities from the CNN corporate journalistic sphere, CBS ratings are really, really down as well. Cuz Barry Weiss hasn't been able to pull up quickly enough. Washington Post, of course, laying off a bunch of people all the way over to these social media enterprises are learning now that they can't just shove whatever they want in front of you and force you to like it and accept it. Mark Zuckerberg has announced that he's shutting down the meta, the metaverse, the virtual reality goober land that Facebook told you that you were going to like and that you were going to get a headset for and you were going to pay for, that's not a thing. And so when we get into these new ages where everyone starts getting into the doom and gloom of oh, the tech companies are taking over, we're all going to die. It's all so terrible. We're so horrible. No, I don't think so. Because while a lot of companies can spend Oodles canoodles and toaster strudels of dollars to get something in front of your face, they can't force you to enjoy it. Now on the administrative side, they're not just focusing on kind of the reframing of the social media atmosphere. The president received some flack for allowing Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and Jensen Huang to be on a tech panel advising the president on some aspects of tech policy. They're also focusing on the kind of drug czar situation. So while we're focusing on the Department of Homeland Security regarding TSA and the Coast Guard not getting paid, of course, as well as Immigration Customs Enforcement, there's a very serious concern that the United States is not doing enough to combat fentanyl, is not doing enough to combat certain drug trafficking rings. And this brings us over to our Virginia Allen. So here in a couple of minutes, we're going to kick over to her regarding the pretty bizarre situation regarding drug trafficking, what the administration is actually doing because there's a huge gap right now. You may remember back in the 80s and the 90s, the DARE program, just say no to drugs. And this is your brain on drugs and all of these kind of psychological campaigns to make you think that, hey, drugs are really, really bad and that's going to solve the issue. There was a major, major mental gap with this. It did not effectively involve the community. Sure, there were a lot of skits that were performed in your public school. Sure, you had wonderful super duper improv skits that were performing and telling you all of the evils of smoking a joint. But it turns out that that really didn't connect with Americans because what actually drives the culture of this country needs to be the actual community institutions that are supposed to be raising kids. And I don't mean drag, you know, drag queens at the library. So we're going to cut over, talk to our senior news reporter Virginia Allen about that. Don't go anywhere. Lots more tonight. It's the Tony Knittcast here on the Daily Signal. It's the Tony Kenneth cast on 93 WYBC. We go over to Virginia Allen, our senior news producer here at the Daily Signal. Virginia, understood you had an interview kind of recontextualizing some of the Trump administration's focus regarding efforts against drug cartels and trafficking. Tell us a little bit about it.
- [43:23]
Virginia Allen
That's right. So I spoke with drug czar Sarah Carter. She was confirmed in January and she says that in May, the Trump administration is going to be rolling out their formal plan for combating Combating drugs across the United States, what that looks like, and it's a two part plan. It deals with both the demand side as well as the supply side. So we see a lot about what the Trump administration is doing on that supply side from carrying out strikes on drug boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean, securing our border, cracking down on the cartels. But we spent an extensive time as well talking about that, that demand side and that you have to address the fact that you can cut off the supply chains. But if you still have Americans that are seeking after drugs, that is such a problem and it drives the supply chain. They're intricately connected, of course. And the unique approach that the Trump administration is that, as Director Sarah explained, is that they are really looking at bringing in a faith component and saying, hey, for one, churches, faith communities across the country, they have a lot of experience journeying with individuals through, through journeys of recovery and drug rehabilitation and those recovery programs. So they're gleaning from those, that insight resources and then also saying, hey, as a society, so much of our society acknowledges that there is a higher power, that there is a God, whether Christian communities, Muslim communities, Jewish communities. And so let's draw on that to actually create a culture that says no to drugs and embraces living a more full, holistic life in a really, really healthy way. So it's a unique approach and it's an approach that is looking at every single aspect of how do we tackle this, not only again from that very aggressive approach, but from a very human standpoint of, of saying let's address this from a societal position.
- [45:21]
Tony Kennett
So if the administration is going for kind of a cultural revitalization strategy here, one could maybe point to kind of the dare campaigns of the 80s, the 90s, and the early aughts that many would argue fell short. And so the question that I have here, at least from maybe some of your conversation, do or does the administration actually attempt to create something, or is this maybe a call for some legislation, or is it just giving a voice to communities and churches around the country? What are they planning to do here outside of just kind of bringing faith into the picture?
- [45:54]
Virginia Allen
Sure. I, I think it's a giving of voice and it's a seat at the table. Right. I think it's saying we're, we're gonna not ignore this awesome resource that we have in faith communities and we're gonna make sure that in the ways and in the areas where civil society can work with government, that we do that. But it's also not an all eggs in one basket strategy. We spoke extensively about how China needs to be held accountable for ensuring that, that the precursors for fentanyl are no longer flowing out. And Director Carter used very strong words to say, yeah, we're going to make sure that China is held accountable for doing what they say they're going to do because they've promised, yeah, we're going to crack down on those precursors, but there has to be action behind that. She spoke about partnering with Mexico. She says that relationship has been very strong, that the US And Mexico are working together again to crack down on the drug cartels. So it's multiple approaches. And I think the unique element of what the Trump administration is doing here is just saying we're going to leave no stone unturned. Drugs are a scourge on our community. We're going to look at every single avenue to tackle this issue.
- [47:02]
Tony Kennett
Is there anything that stood out to you in this interview that has the longevity kind of the legacy past this administration? Because this is one of the things that has plagued the American political system. Every four to eight years, you hit a reset switch and then everything from the prior administration stops and everything starts over. What, if anything, do you see here that's going to outlive this administration in this kind of strategy to combat these problems?
- [47:25]
Virginia Allen
Yeah, I mean, that was something that drugs are. Carter, she talked about. She said we can't just have policies that end when this administration ends, because then what are we even really doing? And it does really. I, I think maybe it's the optimist in me. Glass half full, you know, I, I think twofold. One, there is real hope, I think, of bringing about a cultural shift to where, and I think young people play a big role in this. Social media platforms, that's another avenue we talked about. They play a big role, but to where drugs are seen as not cool and young people are saying no. There's so many other avenues that I can use for my time, my resources. I'm not going to take any risk and I'm just not going to walk down that path. So I think that at the end of the day, that has the most staying power if you can actually effectively create a cultural shift. And I, I want to be clear, that doesn't necessarily end with the government in any capacity. The government has a role to play. But society, again, faith, communities, social media platforms, they all have a role to play. And at least right now, we're seeing a whole kind of full frontal approach on trying to tackle this because it
- [48:39]
Tony Kennett
is so critical well, that's Virginia Allen. She's our senior news producer down in the description. We've linked her interview with Sarah Carter, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the drug czar. Virginia, thanks for giving us a couple minutes of your time.
- [48:53]
Virginia Allen
Absolutely. Thank you, Tony.
- [48:55]
Tony Kennett
All right, now, before we send the radio crew off to a nice evening of rest, the couple of updates before we get into some of the media news and Stephen Colbert and some other nonsense. So first and foremost, a US Administration official has referred New York Attorney General Letitia James to federal prosecutors in Miami and Chicago over two alleged homeowners insurance fraud cases, according to CBS News. And there are a couple of individuals who are making the criticism that while the administration's just trying to get these charges to stick, the reason that you are seeing a consistent and clear level from the administration level of referrals continuing to bring this particular instance up is that the kind of fraud that she committed is very, very, very blatant. It's really not able to be ignored. So you can have someone you know in a particular district that says, well, you know, I just, I'm not interested in getting into that right now. Eventually you are going to find a crew that says, wow, she, she really signed next to where it says, I'm not renting this property and then rented the property. Hmm. That kind of stuff is going to come. So in the next couple of weeks, I would expect us to see some type of update on the Letitia James charges, at least out of Miami. I know that that court is snowed in, but when you do some insurance type fraud stuff and you could make a case that in the southern Florida district, there might be some damages or at least some laws broken in that particular jurisdiction, you can expect to find that mousetrap ready for your big toe when you step in it. That said, I want to go over to a little bit of foreign policy news here. For those who are getting ready to be shunted off out of our broadcast hour, here's what you need to know. The Marine Expeditionary crews are getting closer and closer as half of the Iranians in the administration right now, those that are remaining are saying, we're not negotiating with America. And the other crews are saying, oh, actually we are. And we might be getting reports of threats and kind of an internal schism that could result in the old classic Iranian drive by between those administration officials. We'll cover that with you guys a little bit tomorrow or head over to the Live stream, catch that stuff right now. Too much news to Wait on that one. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated and first on 93 WIBC radio and TV crew. Take care. All right, we're out of the broadcast hour. We're out of all of those FCC regulations. So now we can dive into some of the real good hoots on the international news front here. So first and foremost, the president announced, I'm rescheduling my meeting with President Xi of China. And instead of the meeting with that Chinese dictator taking place in March, it's now been shoved back to May 14th and 15th. The core reason the president's not going over to China is obvious. International moves, especially over in an area like that, not able to be completely secure. Additionally, China and Russia are in a bit of a schism with each other right now. It is under China's best interest that Iran quits screwing around as much as it is. And this has come in some snippets and statements from China's foreign minister, but Russia isn't in that particular vein of thought. And when I say that, I mean Russia right now has been accused of trying to smuggle additional suicide drones, the ones that they had purchased from Iran now back into Iran. Like, you know, I have the receipt. Will you take them back? Iran's kind of running out of stuff to shoot into the air. And when they're running out of stuff to shoot into the air, this brings us to the United States, which is moving closer, closer and closer to perhaps taking Carg Island. And then Iran's really going to have nothing to say at all about the Strait of Hormuz. And that puts the United States in a position where effectively it controls the oil flow to China. Now, there was a statement made by the President in which he alleged that the Iranians had provided some kind of a present dealing with oil and gas. The only thing that I can reasonably assert that the President of the United States might be referring to is a possible promise from Iran to give the United States, like a permanent 5% kind of a bonus, kind of a small tax, let's say, on outflow from the Strait of Hormuz. That was a report from back in mid February that was unsubstantiated. We don't know what the present the President was referring to. But over here on the US Soil side, there are two kind of splitting narratives that are really funny. You have those who are on the Democrat House side of things who are suggesting that we're all going to die and the war is going terribly and actually Everything is on fire and they've sunk in all of our boats and, oh, it's so terrible. And then you have those who are more in the know who have actually left the United States at one point or another and don't have their head up social media's rectum and saying completely different things regarding, for example, the movement of troops, placing them in strategic positions, maybe to capture Carg island, maybe to strengthen certain U.S. bases. Here was speaker of the House Mike Johnson on that today level.
- [54:27]
Mike Johnson
So. So I'm optimistic that's going to happen. The buildup of troops is very different than boots on the ground. We don't have boots on the ground. I don't think that's the intention. But I think Iran should watch that buildup and they need to take note of that. They have to reopen the Strait. They have to be good neighbors to their Middle east neighbors over there in the region. They cannot have a nuclear warhead. They cannot have that capability, and they cannot declare war on the United States and Israel, which is what they did, you know, decades ago. Our mission will be accomplished. I think that will wrap up in a short time period, and I know that's the intention of the administration and the Department of War. We have the greatest, most powerful military fighting force ever conceived in the history of planet Earth. It's an amazing. An amazing power that we have, and we willed it for good. We've done it here. That job is almost done, and I think it will wrap up soon.
- [55:20]
Tony Kennett
Now, what's the line coming, at least at this point in the operation, epic fury from the Iranians, Two things. Number one, you have the Iran foreign minister, Abbas Arakchi, calling on regional countries to distance themselves from the United States from what he described as US Aggression against Iran. That was met with what I can only assume was laughter from the rest of the Middle Eastern regional powers, who are rather annoyed. Again, Saudi Arabia is mobilizing part of its armed forces to begin certain strikes on Iranian infrastructure targets if Iran, which is continuing to try to throw the very last couple of missiles that they have, the last couple of suicide drones that they have at the infrastructure for water, for electricity and for oil at the other moderate Muslim countries around the region. Now, on the social media scape, they've released a propaganda video that makes me cackle because you could easily see this shared from, like Ilhan Omar or Tucker Carlson. Doesn't, you know, really could be any of them. This is an AI video about how Iran's actually fighting this war on behalf of all of us so, first of all, you have the. The Native American lands. You got the chief artificial intelligence out there, you know, staring into the sky and exciting stuff. Then you have Hiroshima. Vietnam, by the way, is also currently in an oil crisis and collapsing because China's not propping them up anymore. You have Yemen, okay? Then you have Palestine, because, you know, of course, then Epstein Island. This is the. The trolling Iran. Now, it is really hilarious. So then. Then Ayatollah al Khomeini, you know, you know, currently dead. And then all of the missiles. Oh, Iran's got the missiles. Oh, they're soaring. They're flying. And then they're getting intercepted. Now, I do. I find it really hilarious. They're pointing it at the Statue of Liberty like they're going to do anything. This is their message. We're fighting this war on behalf of all of you. Nope, nobody's buying it. They're. Skipper. Nope, nobody's buying it. It's not. Again, multiple reports now, this most recent indication coming over from a couple of Middle Eastern sources as well as from kind of a side nod from Reuters here. There appear to be rumors of infighting in the remaining Iranian regime because about half of them want to make a deal with the United States and beg for things to stop, because at some point, the IRGC bases aren't going to be enough anymore. It's not going to be enough. And once it's not enough and the Kurds reach what they consider to be a point of readiness, you know, once the Kurds reach a point where they're ready to either distribute arms from Iraq into the rest of Iran to the people, regime's not going to last a long time. And then you have some of the crew that are essentially whistling past the graveyard, or in this case, the smoldering remains of Ayatollah Khomeini's compound. So, interesting updates, I'd say, in that particular frame, there is another take that is rather hilarious. There's kind of a briefing in which the Department of War said, hey, here's some of the things that are going on regarding the ongoing operation. And after these representatives and senators came out, they're all saying wildly different things. And I really enjoy this because it's just a time, just like congressional committees, to posture. You get in front of the media and go, I saw the files. I saw everything in front. Everyone's gonna die. It's terrible. Essentially, they showed me a picture of a crying baby, and I thought, oh, my gosh, we gotta stop this right now. You get that kind of interview. You know what I'm talking about. My personal favorite. This is a report from Semaphore, quote, one Republican senator unnamed because you know, of course one Republican senator told Semaphore that it will probably take some US ground troops and diplomacy to reopen the strait while Trump may end up declaring victory. This senator described the operations current state as a, an effing cluster bleep and entirely predictable, end quote. There was a lot of superficial thinking that went into this operation. The GOP senator said, quote, it's like so much that happens right now. A very risk seeking executive decides to make some risky moves that could turn out well. The Semaphore article is pointing out that the Republican senator here. I've got five bucks on that. It's Thom Tillis communicated well. I really don't like how chaotic all of this is. I mean sure, Trump's probably going to come away with this with a win and sure, you know it's going well, but it's really disorganized and it's really quite a cluster beat. Okay, that's, that's really special. That's, that's, that's really something. The someone asked over in the comments, you know, what's the IRGC saying? You know, what about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps here? They're in Baghdad Bob mode where they just lie about things that are currently viewable on live camera feed. Now that we do have footage coming out of Iran because the Internet building they used to jam things was oofed so they're making the case now. They said Iran is producing 400 Kamikaze drones a day and we've only used 3,000 in the last 26 days and that's only like seven to eight days of capacity. So what you've seen so far, it's just the opening move we've been holding back. Uh huh. Okay, that's, that's quite special. On the last side of news there are reports, reports CNN is suggesting according to several different sources in the Persian Gulf, not near the area, not US official sources, not even identical or identically confirmed sources. Meaning in kind of the journalism world here, if an unnamed source reaches out and says, hey I'm a minister inside of Iran, I want to leak something to you. If there is a separate person that I know in the region that can confirm that person is who they say they are, then that's an identically confirmed source. I'm confirming it from multiple people that this is likely someone they say they are. It helps journalists avoid lawsuits. It's you say, oh, I spoke to an unnamed source. You kind of need to prove that it was who you said it was and not just someone who's telling you what you want to hear. But CNN ran this report, said these multiple certain sources who are not going to tell you where they're from, just in the general area say that Iran is fortifying Kharg Island. They're fortifying it now. So after the United States obliterated all of the SAM sites and defenses on the island that is also a map from the video game Battlefield 3 and handles 90% of all of the oil refining for Iran, they say that Iran is reinforcing it. Now here's the fun little tidbit here and it's actually one of the kind of naval observers from Bahrain who has individuals in the region. There are no Iranian boats currently active moving to or from Kharg Island. It's 15 miles away from the shoreline and it's an area that is currently heavily patrolled by MQ9 Reaper drones and the accoutrement of the loitering forces of the United States military. Meaning this, they don't have any boats left to move people to Carg Island. And if they did, I don't think that row, row, row your boat has done too hot given that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is itchy to blow up any kind of speedboat that might be carrying a turban wearing individual trafficking illicit substances. So best of luck to you. Now this is a case that's been made by several that are far more I would say they have far better long term records on macro analysis of military operations than I do. So I'll kind of leave it there and maybe bring you guys a couple of kind of 30,000 foot views tomorrow. Last but not leastly on the show side of things this evening I did want to share with you something rather precious. Lord of the Rings, which is a fantastic movie trilogy. Peter Jackson. There's an announcement that they're gonna make a new movie and it's gonna be Stephen Colbert that's writing it. So we're gonna talk about that with Stephen Kent of the Consumer Choice center and geeky Stoics here in just a minute. Don't go anywhere. A little bit more on the show tonight for the bonus Tonus section, it's the Tony Kinnit cast here on the D. This is the Tony Kenneth cast on 93 WYBC. Welcome back to the Tony Kenned cast here with Stephen Kent, our dear friend from Geeky Stoics as well as his brilliant consumer strategy research over at the Consumer Choice center for a little whatcha watching. Because it's time to return to Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, whether you want to or not. I guess it's some. Were you expecting the announcement about Stephen Colbert in Lord of the Rings?
- [64:37]
Stephen Kent
You know, there was a part of me, Tony, that sort of saw this as inevitable. There were no rumors circulating that Colbert was working behind the scenes with Warner Brothers and Peter Jackson on a new Lord of the Rings script. But he is the most out front media personality of all the major networks. To be both connected to the cast of the original films and to know literally everything about the original Tolkien books that people still talk about to this day. So you know, he's a, he's a super fan with street cred, but this was quite a surprise.
- [65:14]
Tony Kennett
So let's frame up for just a quick moment here what this is all about. So according to Variety, a new Lord of the Rings movie in the works. Quote, Stephen Colbert is co writing quote Lord of the Rings Shadow of the Past, it's a working title which will go into production after the hunt for Gollum. The synopsis quote, fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Mary and Pippin set out to retrace the first. Oh, excuse me. 14 years after the passing of Frodo, Sam, Mary and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. I'm already seeing issues with this. Meanwhile, Sam's daughter Eleanor, who has, has discovered a long buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began.
- [66:03]
Stephen Kent
Red flags.
- [66:04]
Tony Kennett
Oh, so many red flags. Do you want to take this from like the, the giving the fanboys the, the writing of the scripts to write fan fictions or do you want to take it from the books? How do you want to tackle this?
- [66:15]
Stephen Kent
Well, there's, there's a lot of different ways to look at this. So what we have learned from Colbert and Peter Jackson is that these, this movie is basically tackling a lost chapter in the Lord of the Rings original films by Peter Jackson where they really cut out the beginning of Sam and Frodo's journey. Several chapters mostly having to do with when they meet this guy named Tom Bombadil. It runs all the way up to the chapter river of Barrow Downs.
- [66:44]
Tony Kennett
Right, right.
- [66:44]
Stephen Kent
And that all got cut from the film. It was just too weird. It just didn't quite fit. And so there is a story there worth telling about Sam and Frodo's journey. Now this is all captured in the lore, right, in Tolkien's lore, in the stories that are told by Sam in what is now called the Red Book of Westmarch. So at the end of the Lord of the Rings, Frodo passes along the book that was being written by his uncle, right, Bilbo. And so Sam is tasked with finishing that book by telling their story. And this is the collection that I think the daughter Eleanor is then going to find and learn this story that nobody ever got to see on screen. Eleanor is real, by the way. Eleanor, Sam's daughter is real. You know, she, she's mentioned first back in 1954, but I think a lot of modern culture warriors are going to see this as the original heroes are dead. Enter daughter. Because it's always female heroines these days in modern media, but it is consistent with Tolkien's story.
- [67:54]
Tony Kennett
So, I mean, of course, yes, Sam's daughter Eleanor, real character, she's named after the Flowers of Lothlorien, that kind of thing. Not an issue with that. And again, it's long been kind of maybe a gripe, maybe something that's more understood because of constraints, why they didn't include the four hobbits going to Tom Bombadil and the lady of the the river and again Goldberry enjoying a little time there, the Barrow Downs and all of the theories about, oh, what did the Witch King of Angmar have to
- [68:27]
Stephen Kent
do with that would have been such a huge risk getting that, that franchise.
- [68:30]
Tony Kennett
Well, because as Bilbo says, once they get to Rivendell. So in the movie when Frodo wakes up in the bright orange morning and Gandalf is sitting there and they just laugh at each other for a while, like little bit too long in the screen there. Then Bilbo comes up to Frodo and says, my, you've already had a lot of adventures just to get here.
- [68:50]
Virginia Allen
Yep.
- [68:51]
Tony Kennett
And when they went and tried to do the Hobbit, they broke the Book of the Hobbit into three different movies. Did a terrible job. I'm sorry. But you know, they tried to slow down and it didn't work. So I understand why they didn't try to do that before with the Fellowship of the Ring. But
- [69:11]
Stephen Kent
there's, there's, there's a lot of stuff to be worried about. Yeah. There's also unnecessary, you know, at the end of the day, the Lord of the Rings films by Peter Jackson are some of the best reviewed fiction fantasy movies of all time of the modern era. You know, looking in the world after the year 2000, they have aged well. They are universally beloved. And we'll talk politics right from the left to the right, this is sort of like a piece of culture that so many people appreciate. No matter what walk of life you come from, they are untainted. Even the Hobbit, which sort of reeked of the Star wars prequels and some of the ways that they were lackluster and looked really cheesy and corny, they've sort of avoided tarnishing the legacy of Peter Jackson's work. And I would even say, you know, putting aside the Ring of Power on Amazon, the, the legacy of the original Lord of the Rings movies are intact. So every time you dip back into this universe and we talk about the hunt for Gollum and Aragorn and Smeagol and bringing back the original cast, you are risking everything, you are risking everything about the legacy of these movies. And there's cause for people to, to worry here. And Colbert, you know, he is a very polarizing figure. Like, we can talk briefly about him. Stephen Colbert has tarnished his legacy and his reputation. He used to be considered one of the funny men of America and he decided to be a regime deep state flak. Instead he has Trump derangement syndrome. But so does a lot of Hollywood.
- [70:46]
Tony Kennett
Sure.
- [70:47]
Stephen Kent
And so I think that there's, there's a challenge here for us to go. Was, was Colbert necessary to be attached to this project or did he actually just write a good story treatment that actually was worth picking up?
- [71:00]
Tony Kennett
This is the question that I did want to get into. And I know, you know, you have like a seven minute introduction of like, why does this matter? You know, what, what's the point of this? And we could talk about how really the most interesting part of the Return of the King in the books behind me and the book of Lost tales is describing what happens after the story. You know, we never actually got the story of the scourging of the Shire. Actually got a lot of the follow up. Why does Frodo end up taking the boat with the, you know, Gandalf and, and Galadriel and some departing from Middle Earth forever. The annexes are excellent. The appendices, I should, excuse me, the appendix. That's the best, some of the best stuff in there. And this is where I'm, I have my issue. So Stephen Colbert, aside from his politics, the dude is a, a dude who's all about the lore of the story. And that's what makes Lord of the Rings fun to talk about. There's so much you can pull from the, you know, the psychology that Tolkien brings in of the kind of mythology that he creates, the really good storytelling, how he sets up characters. And for a long time, Colbert, when he would talk about that, he had such a deep knowledge of these things in the same way that, that a lot of people might have on Star wars or Star Trek or some other classic literature, as we could probably talk about Chronicles of Narnia, but to write the story that he's suggesting right now, it seems like he's Kathleen Kennedying all over the series already talking about a little adventure of step three tracing that didn't take place, that the book said didn't happen. And now we're already starting to pull into what I'm worried is going to be like a follow trilogy that Tolkien really warned against. Like an after trilogy or more books or more adventures after the Fall of Sauron.
- [72:46]
Stephen Kent
Yeah, yeah. And as soon as they describe this as being the daughter Eleanor, uncovering a long buried secret that might have, that uncovers basically why the War of the Ring was almost lost before it began.
- [73:01]
Tony Kennett
Right, sorry, sorry.
- [73:03]
Stephen Kent
Yeah, exactly. This kind of is coded in. There's something about the original films and the original heroes that you don't want to know.
- [73:14]
Tony Kennett
Lord of the Rings, the Shire Awakens.
- [73:16]
Stephen Kent
Yeah, it just, I, I feel like we're gonna learn something really horrible about one of the original heroes and think differently about them because revisionism is sort of the, the brand of the day. And so I'm worried. But it's the Colbert Factor that's gonna divide people and kind of light people's hair on fire. I think I would encourage people to take a deep breath on this one and try to segment some of their political opinions. Aside from a guy who is a liberal, Catholic and deeply avowed fan of Tolkien, the only thing that he's ever done that I think is a disgrace to Tolkien's work is to play into the joke about Sam and Frodo being romantic partners. That alone is one of the most, I think, offensive things that he has played into as a, as a liberal talk show host.
- [74:08]
Tony Kennett
So now I really want to bring this kind of final thought that I have to your attention. I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it before you for judgment here, so see if I can plate this up correctly before Mary Berry says it's the time has ended on this competition. I think that my biggest issue with this and the reason I've brought up, you know, the, the Last Jedi or the, the Force Awakens kind of joke to this is that it is messing with the formula in a. In a manner of people just being desperate for a reboot we've already seen, you know, to pull. It seems that Hollywood hasn't learned its lesson after a lot of the more recent reboot failures. And I say reboot failures because they're not aging well. So you had Boy Meets World, and then you had Girl Meets World, the sequel to that Disney series. Now we're bringing Hannah Montana back. We got a new Hannah Montana series. I didn't watch any of that, but
- [75:01]
Stephen Kent
Scrubs and Malcolm in the Middle.
- [75:03]
Tony Kennett
Sure, Malcolm in the Middle, excellent example. Scrubs also. And we have to keep bringing back the old stuff because people aren't writing as consistently as they used to in On Center Stage. And we've talked about some of the Japanese studios that have been pushing out some really good things, some smaller studios pushing out some good things. We're returning to Lord of the Rings because it's. We've. We've coughed up all that we can, and we tried the prequel era, and then that didn't work. So now we're going to write a sequel trilogy because that always works. And it's just. Oh, man, I. I'm seeing the train wreck before it even gets here.
- [75:41]
Stephen Kent
Yeah, well, you know, we are about to see an Odyssey movie this year from Christopher Nolan. So look, there are just some stories that are just never going to get off of people's lips that people will always love. So I'm totally with you. But then again, when you're talking about, like, Tolkien and C.S. lewis, and I think Star wars is the most modern example, these are the stories that are going to still be getting talked about when you and I are dead and our children have gray hair. So I think we should make some allowances for certain stories to keep getting retread. And you know, Greta Gerwig, you know, when she's doing this, this Narnia series for Netflix, we have not seen a magician's nephew film. This is the first book in the line of the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. lewis, where Aslan creates Narnia from scratch and we sort of get to see Creation itself. It's. It hasn't been done, you know, So I, I think this is sort of an opportunity for CS Lewis to really get a legitimate revival if we can trust Greta Gerwig.
- [76:44]
Tony Kennett
So again, Greta has a better record at framing this. But do you remember as kids when we used to talk about how some of the not movie or show portrayals of Things that we grew up with might go, what actors or actresses you might see what you might see on screen. Or even if there were things that we didn't know, there were gaps in the history of the lore of whatever. We might sit there and we would talk about what we think did or didn't happen. And it was always a great place for conversation, imagination. Yeah, a lot of that's being stripped away by a lot of these films. Yeah, I think. And you have a lot of shows that take away the what might be and kind of the sitting around the barbershop, the coffee shop, the bar, you know, talking about what might actually take place or happened in the past because they're making the movie. And it seems to satisfy very few on this interpretation of what events actually carry out. Yep.
- [77:41]
Stephen Kent
Well, I think that goes. You mentioned the word satisfy. You know, what actually will satisfy? Our hunger to return to these places. And, you know, great movies, great books, they leave us, you know, wanting more. We want to go back to that place. And one of the things that I say about Star wars often, that Star wars has been, I think, such a catastrophe over the past 10 years is that the fan base cannot travel back in time to being who they were when they first saw Star Wars. The reason I know that George Lucas versus Disney, there are some differences in quality, obviously, but the main problem is that we can't time travel to like the things that we liked exactly the way that they were 20 years ago. And so seeing all of these characters, these actors again with wrinkles on their face, going back and trying to be like, do you remember the year 2001 when Lord of the Rings was changing your life? It's sort of the Member Berries thing from South Park. And it. It makes people, I think, feel embittered when it's over because they want to know why they don't feel as full of life as they were when they first saw it. It's because you're not the same person. You know, that's how time works. And that can be really painful for fans.
- [78:56]
Tony Kennett
It's true. I love getting to bring you on and kind of talk through some of these things because, you know, I know that the political news and the economic news and that kind of take an analysis. It makes it really easy to just dive into the open politicization of any kind of an announcement. And I saw a lot of arguments and critiques of the, you know, oh, Stephen Colbert's involvement and. And, oh, he's gonna do a bunch of lib stuff with it. But I think that what you're bringing up here and what we actually get to talk about is sometimes what's worth discussing isn't just the easy headline and the aggravation kind of, you know, over on social media and that really there are, I don't know, some more interesting things to kind of bring to the table long term. I didn't mean for that to come out across as a deep, arrogant statement. That's just kind of how I reflect on it.
- [79:45]
Stephen Kent
That's all right, Tony. That's what makes you special and one of the top rated show hosts in the nation.
- [79:50]
Tony Kennett
Wow. Well, we're sending that check to you right now. Really appreciate that, Steven Kent. You too can get him to say extra kind things about you. The Venmo and Cash app are in the description. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal. Really appreciate, you know, a little, little different kind of a conversation. We like to switch it up every once in a while especially after I tell you that I'm so broadcast focused slapping you, you know, after 8pm with kind of a more podcast style interview about how I think that Stephen Colbert's ruining of the Lord of the Rings, the Last Hobbit, you know, the having Kylo Ren go, you know, we must kill the past precious Gollum. We must kills it if we ask to. That sounds awful. I slip my wrists. I'm sure they can work in Stacey Abrams and a lecture on Star Trek lesbianism if they really work at it. Guys, have a wonderful evening. All right. We really appreciate you stopping by this beautiful Wednesday, March 25th. We'll be back tomorrow to talk a little bit about NASA's super extra space moon plan. Yeah. Because you might remember I ran my mouth quite a bit about wanting the president to kind of look up at the heaven and do really cool space stuff. So we'll talk about that a little bit. And then of course more information on the international front. We haven't heard from Cuba since the socialist influencer crew was partying it up. We're going to dive into all of those things and maybe even if you're really, really, if you're really good. Black Snape at Harry Potter. It's gonna be a fun day. It's the Tony Kennett cast here on the Daily Signal, nationally syndicated and first on 93 WIBC. Y' all take care.