Original subtitles

Start the clock.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

You're very kind.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for... Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being in a good mood. We did have a tough week. Dolly Parton

died. There was this horrible flooding in Nepal, and I found out today Canada

has been treating me very badly.

Have you seen this? We're in a trade war with Canada. You know, we've been

tariffing them, and then they were tariffing us back.

You know, looked like we were heading for some sort of a deal, but then no.

No deal. Why? Because they've been taking advantage of us. Yeah.

Fuck yeah, man. Every time... Every time I see a Canadian, I'm like, this is the

guy who's been fucking with me all these... But I just want to...

And we have a lot of viewers in Canada. I just wanted to say to our viewers in

Canada, we're still cool, right?

It's not all of us. It's not all of us. We like you.

Trump is so mad at Canada, he renamed Lake Ontario

Lake America.

Now I've got to buy a new globe again.

It's like the fifth time it's happened.

And liberals are very pissed at this. They say you can't just go around

renaming things to suit your political agenda. Just ask any Latinx birthing

person.

But the thing is,

we already kind of have a war.

We have one more going with a round. It's not going well. We just can't seem

to finish. It's like fucking on Coke, this war.

It's... What? It is.

It's going... It's going so badly.

Today, Pete Hegseth said, it looks like I picked the wrong week to never stop

drinking.

But...

We can't seem to negotiate with Iran.

Can't negotiate with Canada.

I went into a bookstore today. The art of the deal was in the humor section.

So, but you know what?

We have an election coming up and the people in this country will express

their opinion on this kind of stuff and all stuff that's going on. We also have

coming up a lot of anniversaries. You know, today is the 63rd anniversary.

of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech on the Mall.

All right, we're off next week. The week after that, we're on 9-11,

on the day itself. That's the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

Also, this week, the anniversary of when, during the War of 1812, the

British burned the White House. That was back when, if you attacked a federal

building, you were the bad guys.

But you know what?

All this is going on, all America could really talk about this week was how sad

it is we lost Dolly Parton. And you see everybody around the country, even

around the world. London, they're doing things.

The Santa Monica Ferris wheel is lit up with hearts. The Empire State Building

was put up in pink.

The sphere in Las Vegas added a nipple.

You know who did have a good week this week? Parents.

Parents, you know why?

Because Meta, that's Facebook and Instagram, they're going to pony up $18

billion because, you know, this is big. This is the first time a court has ruled

and people have ruled you can't purposely addict people, especially

children, to something that's this harmful, like we did with cigarettes.

They did the same thing.

So there are new rules. If you're under 18, no Facebook and no Instagram between

midnight and 6 a.m. when the kids will be exclusively on Pornhub.

So progress comes in small steps.

But also, how about this? The Miss USA pageant, you all watched it, right?

We had a first, our first mom.

You know what? I mean, the fact that we're still having beauty pageants, I

don't know if that is going to look that good in the future, that whole thing

about, hey, get out here in a bikini and answer a question about world peace.

And they asked this new mom,

Miss USA, about peace. And she said, yeah, could I get 10 minutes fucking

alone, please?

All right, we've got a great show.

of Representative Byron Donald and Molly Jones-Ass.

But first off, he is the president of Wesleyan University and author of The

Student Destroyed History, Michael S. Roth. Michael, how are you, sir?

How are you?

Great to meet you.

Okay.

All right, so you are the president of a university. I am the president of a

university. An elite university, and let's be honest, you are a defender of

elite universities. I have been a critic of them.

I have been a critic, too.

Okay, maybe we'll meet in the middle. Maybe you're the guy who'll convince me

it's not as bad as I think it is. But, you know, when I see the things, and it

happens over and over again, where the criticism comes from, indoctrination

instead of education.

is one of them.

Lack of perspective, especially on world history, America's place in the world,

Western civilization.

I think that's true.

Intolerant of other ideas, not being afraid to hear other conservative

voices.

Is that all wrong?

That's why so many of them want to become investment bankers. They've been

convinced by the faculty that socialism is the answer. And I was told not to try

to make a joke, and that proves they were right.

No, I mean, the most assigned books in America

remain Plato and Machiavelli and Mary Shelley.

There is definitely a leftist tilt. Those ones aren't that controversial.

No, they're not. But those are the books that most classes teach. Also Karl Marx.

And Karl Marx. A lot of Karl Marx. And The Guide to Style.

That's another one.

Another joke?

No.

I'll leave those to you.

I've been talking for the last 10 years about the need to diversify the faculty

at colleges and universities. We have too much of a political monoculture, and

we have to work really hard to bring other ideas into the campus. I do think

most teachers are not trying to indoctrinate their students. They're

trying to get them to think for themselves.

But we have a lot of work to do in that regard to make it a more open

environment. At Wesleyan, we've tried very hard to bring lots more

conservative voices onto campus. We have lectures from the editors of

Christianity Today or from former members of Republican administrations,

and we have a veterans program.

But I think we have to be very intentional.

I wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal a decade ago calling for an

affirmative action program for conservatives on college campus.

And everybody hated this op-ed. The conservatives thought we just need a

meritocracy, and the liberals thought we don't like affirmative action connected

to conservatism.

I think we have a real problem of bias, and we have to correct that. But it will

only get worse if the government tries to correct that for us. I agree with

that also. But, I mean, the statistics, when they've done surveys on this, And

again, I'm not pushing for the Republicans. I'm just saying when one

place, no matter what it is, and we know it this year in the state of California,

when one party, when one point of view controls everything, they are not

checked. And that's what's happened on campus. Something like 77 out of 80

professors vote Democratic.

Yeah. That's a ridiculous number. That is. How did we get there?

Well, I think one of the reasons you have to understand, you're in graduate

school for eight to ten years, and you're taking a job with a starting

salary of $70,000.

Who but a Democrat would accept that proposition?

Look, you did it. You did it.

You got a good joke.

I think what has happened is that, you know, I saw this when I was in graduate

school. I was in school around the same time you were. And I went to graduate

school.

We asked the professors, why don't you hire more women?

And they said, oh, we would hire women if we could find any good ones.

And it was ridiculous because they were biased. And today people say to me, oh,

we would hire conservatives, but we really think this guy is the best guy.

And that guy happens to believe the same things they do.

But I believe that when we convince the faculty, we show the faculty there is

this bias, they will correct.

Right now we have students and faculty all over the country trying to get

students to participate in the elections in the fall.

I think the greatest cure.

for political bias or monoculture is to get out in the streets and talk to our

fellow citizens. And you really think the professors are just saying to the

kids, vote. Well, I'm not going to put my thumb on the scale of who you should

vote for. I think that's ridiculous.

When I went to Cornell...

I could not tell you. I was trying to think of it knowing you were coming on

today. I was trying to think of any professor who I could tell you that I

had who I knew what their politics was. I can't think of one. They didn't get

into that. Do you really think that's what's going on today? I think it's a

mixed bag.

I know that, like you, I had professors who they were just always surprising me

by making me think about something I didn't want to think about. But I

couldn't tell what they really believed themselves. There was just no politics

at all. I feel like now it's the opposite. Like you couldn't even get a

job if you didn't.

demonstrate what your politics were. And it's very much in the classroom. We saw

it after October 7th. It was the professors who were out there cheering

it on. Now, of course, most people in most colleges and universities are

studying sciences, economics, business, communications.

I don't think any of this stuff is happening in those fields.

I do think that after October 7th, we saw a shameful display of political

partisanship, but also moral obtuseness.

But we also saw a pushback against that.

And I think that there was, in many schools, a healthy debate about what's

the best way forward. And I think that that's what I'm trying to encourage, is

more debate about the best way forward and less government intervention.

Okay, but, like, since I have been covering news, and especially the Middle

East, even before that, Israel was known as an outpost of Western civilization.

Yes, it was.

And that's what it was called.

That was always a good thing.

Now? I don't think it is. I did an editorial here one night talking about

that. The Western civilization, they talk about it like it's a bad thing.

Instead of saying Western civilization is what gave everyone who is a

progressive the things they should be most proud of. And I think that a lot of

our students are learning just that in class.

The professors are teaching that message? I think they're learning it

from my show. I don't think the professors are.

I really don't.

You are learning it from your show, of course.

But the professors watch your show, too, maybe even more often than an 18-year

-old. You think I could come on campus and speak and be welcomed?

Welcomed? Maybe not, but certainly given a hearing. Okay, but I shouldn't be

welcomed? Someone who twice gave the Democrats a million dollars, that's not

enough credentials to come on anymore. Well, if you came to Wesleyan with a

million dollars, I would welcome you with open arms. Okay, right. Well, I'm

not going to be doing that.

So we had Justice Scalia come to campus.

Justice Scalia come to campus, and there were certainly many people, oh, my gosh,

how could he? We bring him here. He gave a really good talk. He spent the day on

campus talking to students. They argued with him.

Welcome was probably the wrong word, but they enjoyed the debate. Okay, good. And

that's what we want. We want people to enjoy the debate. I would hope so,

because I worry about your field in general.

looks like it's becoming obsolete for some of the reasons we've been talking

about, because it's lost a lot of its credibility, because people don't think

it educates.

They think it indoctrinates. And also, I'm sorry, but kids come out and they

don't know anything. I mentioned the War of 1812 here in the monologue.

How many of the kids probably could tell you what happened in the war? Okay. I

think we have to do a better job of giving fact-based education.

But, Bill, when you were in college, when I was in college, The old folks

complained about us, that you don't know anything, that you're studying nonsense,

it's all hippie bullshit.

And now I don't want to be that old guy who's saying kids today, they don't know

as much as we knew. I don't remember anybody saying that when I was at

Cornell. Really? I was not studying. Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and the

people, and Ronald Reagan afterwards, they all said that. Maybe that's true.

They all said that. And I worry when I complain about the students.

I worry that I'm one of those old guys.

What I should be doing is just teaching them about not just the War of 1812, but

all kinds of things. And what I do find is that they're eager to learn.

We should never indoctrinate students. I agree with that. But they are eager to

learn, and we need good teachers to teach them. Okay, but, okay, so that

issue is also the debt.

People get into debt, and then they find, well, the job isn't there that I

went into all this debt for, perhaps, or I'm in debt for so long trying to get

out of it.

Maybe it would have been better if instead of spending $400,000 on

Wesleyan, they just gave me $400,000 when I got out of high school, and I'd

be better off and no less uneducated.

And AI.

AI is now, we've talked about it on the show last week, they're only doing the

kids' tests. They're taking the courses for the kids.

How is you going to survive in a world where you don't actually have to know

anything anymore? I think people said the similar thing about how is sports

going to survive when you can watch it on TV?

People love to go to a game. Terrible analogy.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

Why would anybody play football if you could play Madden football?

People want to learn in their classes.

They want to do experiments.

What should happen at a college campus is not the transfer of information.

They can get more information on your show or from their phone than they have

to get on a college campus. What should happen is they develop the habits of

learning and thinking for themselves in good company. And then they will carry

those habits with them after they graduate.

And I think that's really still important.

Colleges all over the country are welcoming students back.

They're eager to be there, not so they can assign their projects to AI, but so

they can learn to think for themselves. Exactly when they do surveys of

employers.

What they complain about is that the kids coming out of college, they think,

have not learned how to think. They were told what to think, not how to think.

And they complain about that when they get to the workplace.

But let me ask one final question. Please. Because I used to play colleges

in the 90s. It was fun. I remember.

You do?

Yeah. You were there?

I remember reading about your show. Oh, okay.

Right. I don't know any comic who plays colleges anymore.

Because they just don't think the kids... No, I'm sure there are many who

do, probably of the much younger generation, who know how to be a lot

more sensitive.

But think about it. They just don't think the kids have a sense of humor

that can stand up to political incorrectness, which is what comedy is.

I hear that a lot, and I do think that the students I see at West End, they're

anything but politically correct.

They're outlandish.

They're unconventional. They're critical of everything.

But if Rodney Dangerfield came to Cornell or Don Rickles, they probably

wouldn't have been welcome with open arms.

That's what happens.

Young people don't find older people as funny as older people find one another.

But we can fight.

I mean, I don't even think we can fight intolerance on college campuses.

and in our government. And what we have to do over the next three months,

especially, is not tell people who to vote for, but to get students to be less

cynical, more open-minded, and more engaged in the public sphere.

All right. Well, you've made me feel a little more optimistic about it. I thank

you for coming on and sharing that with me. Thank you so much. Thank you, Doc.

Let's go.

All right. Let's meet our panel.

Hey.

Hey, guys.

All right, here's the Republican congressman from Florida who recently

became the party's nominee for governor. Congratulations, Byron Donald.

And she is the host of Fast Politics podcast and author of How to Lose Your

Mother, a daughter's memoir available now in paperback. Molly's young class,

great to see you.

Okay.

Going to be a busy night for you, Byron.

Well, because, look, you're running for governor. You won the primary.

Congratulations. You would be the first black Republican

governor in this country.

That's the first you've heard that?

You look very surprised.

You must have been aware of that. It's a high honor, but in this campaign, and

quite frankly, I think in politics today, it's much more about... the

vision for your state, the ideas you have, how you improve people's lives,

how we lower costs. It's much more about that. Okay. It wasn't even a question.

I'm just, here's my question.

Your slogan is accountable, achievable, affordable for Florida.

Not a slogan, but true.

That's what I read.

You don't know a lot about your own campaign, do you?

You know you're running in Florida, right? Okay.

Anyway, I don't feel like the president's policies are making that

affordable part easy for you. Even the Wall Street Journal, which is usually

pretty far right, calls the trade war with Canada the dumbest trade war.

That's the title. It says Republicans are already getting pounded on the

campaign trail over his tariffs and inflation, mostly because of the war.

Byron, are you getting pounded on the campaign trail?

No, I think that people in Florida are thinking about their pocketbooks. Well,

that's what's fighting against it. How can you explain that? Tariff policy,

let's be very clear, is about renegotiating certain trade policies and

trade deals that have not worked in the interest of the United States for a

long, long time.

If you're looking at USMCA, obviously the president negotiated that one, and

what he's doing is he's looking at some of the outcomes and saying, you know

what, we need to go back into this. And I think that's where this latest spat

with Canada is coming from.

rather have a chief executive that looks at these deals and engages these other

countries and fights for Americans than just lets them roll knowing that they're

not going to be in the interest of small businesses. How pissed are you at

Canada, Molly? Are you as mad as I am?

Have they been fucking asked as much as Byron suggests?

I also would like to add that I... I thought tariffs were on-shoring

manufacturing. I thought the goal was to bring jobs back to America. And I'm

telling you, we've seen the research and it hasn't worked.

So, like, what is Donald Trump doing? Because I was told that factories were

going to come back, jobs were going to come back, and what's happened is that

everything is just more expensive. Well, some have. I mean, it works both ways.

It does work both ways. But in general, it doesn't look like a winner. It

doesn't look like a winner at the polls. It doesn't look like a winner for the

economy. I'm just, I mean, they asked him when he changed the name to Lake

America the other day. They said, what message was he trying to send Canada?

And he said, no message. Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade.

Okay, well, that is a message, first of all.

But they're not ripping us off. Are you not frustrated that you can't... I mean,

I know you speak to them. I know you're very friendly.

They're not ripping us off. I mean, there's eight times as many of us as

them. Of course we're going to have a trade deficit with them.

We'd have to buy eight... They would have to buy eight times as much product

from us. No person could do that in Canada.

Don't you wish you could say this to the president?

Well, first of all, I actually thought the Lake America thing was actually

funny. I really did.

I thought it was funny.

First of all, in politics, everybody is so uptight about so many of these

things. What I think is far more important is looking at some of the

outcomes of USMCA, like I said earlier, and then going back to the drawing board

and finding out ways to make them better deals in favor of the United States.

When we set up these deals, To be honest, it's not really about making

sure that these other nations are getting a better deal when that actually

deals with what we're having to manage economically over the long term in the

United States. And to your point.

If you look at what we've done on trade in the last 40 years in this country,

that has definitely not brought manufacturing jobs to the United States.

They've actually left the United States. So it's about time somebody said enough

of that policy.

Let's try a new way to get a better deal for the Americans and for our small

business owners. I mean, Biden did tariffs. Some tariffs, you know, tariffs

with a scalpel actually work. That was a good thought. But tariffs with a

sledgehammer don't work. And in fact.

I mean, Maggie and Swan have this book called Regime Change, which is... Who's

Maggie and Swan? Maggie Haberbeck and Jonathan Swan. Just wrote a book, sorry,

called Regime Change. And in it, they really document a lot of the tariff

stuff. And the reporting is that when he first laid out the tariffs, he forgot

China.

Oh, he never forgot China. No, he just doesn't want to fuck with China. He

certainly has not forgotten China. But if you're going to tear up a country, I

would think China would be one. But now he wants to punish everybody who is not

on our side in the Iran war.

And, you know, we can't be at war with everybody.

Well,

let's talk about Iran for a moment. Oh, good.

Let's talk about it. All right.

Okay.

I'm going to put aside the core of the entire situation, which is the Iranians

cannot have nuclear weapons. Yeah, I agree. We all agree on that. Well, we

don't all agree, but I certainly have been on that. To me, anybody who thinks

that it's okay for the Iranians to have a nuke, that makes no geopolitical

sense. Even the Democrats said it for years. It makes no sense. But anyway,

with the Strait of Hormuz, my frustration is that, yeah, a lot of

these NATO countries, all they had to do was come in and help us.

secure shipping lanes in the strait. The reason why navies even exist in

countries is to make sure that international shipping lines are not

held hostage by any one nation or any pirating group.

That's the whole purpose of navies. And you have the Europeans are sitting on

their heels while their oil prices are higher, their gas prices are higher, and

them saying, oh, well, we don't have nothing, no role to play in this. I

think that is a frustrating part when you know the Iranians are squeezing the

strait simply to cause economic harm across the world. because they're crazy,

psychotic, and they want nuclear weapons.

Isn't that true?

Sure, but... Well, the regime is crazy and psychotic. We don't think the

people... I don't want to cut you off.

But the people have no ability to actually take control of this country.

The regime is psychotic. It's been that way for 47 years. And then they get a

nuke? My question is, the strait was open.

Wasn't the Strait open? The Strait has always been the leverage point of the

Iranians. But the Strait was open before Donald Trump went to war with Iran,

never explaining to us why.

It's such a dumb talking point. Of course they explained why. Okay, so why?

To stop them from getting nuclear weapons.

And also, they were a terrible actor in the Middle East. There was no way there

was ever going to be peace in that part of the world as long as Iran was funding

and... But we knew... it was an unwinnable war.

Well, we did not know that. What they did was they fucked up the timing,

Byron. They should have attacked when the people were in the streets, during

the uprising.

They waited until they got shot, and then they attacked three months later.

So, as always, not always, sometimes he has a good idea, and then the execution

is fucked up. But I want to move on to something, because I promised this one

viewer I would.

You were endorsed by Donald Trump. Yes.

Okay. And I said last week, I'm quoting myself, Trump used to win all his

endorsements. Now he's winning almost none of them. I heard from this one

viewer who was very upset about this, contacted me directly.

Well, we text.

I'm glad we do. I'd rather have communication.

I agree. I agree. And he said, well, he sent me a lot of charts. He sent me a

lot of information.

And I said, you know, I promised if this is not true what I said, I will say it

on the air.

He's right.

I did overstate it.

Trump used to win all those, but now he's winning almost none of them. That

isn't true.

Overstated. There. Was that so hard to not be a dick about everything?

To just sometimes say, and by the way.

When I say we all shouldn't just dig in and be a dick about anything, I'm also

addressing that one viewer.

But here's the fact, and it's a little more shaded than that, but yes, 260

people this election cycle he's endorsed. He only lost nine, 97%. So he

still has...

Very powerful endorsements. But the full picture is a little more nuanced.

My point was that the trend looks like it is going downward on that, because he

did lose five governorships.

Republican primary voters, this is from CNL, now rejected 10 Trump-endorsed

candidates for statewide offers this primary season. That's equal to the

number who lost in 2018, 20, and 24 primaries combined.

Now, he says that's because he backs a lot of ones who were sure losers, but he

did it just out of loyalty.

I don't doubt that some of that is true. I also think it's true, on the other

side, that he wins some because he picked some easy winners.

He picked incumbents sometimes and uncontested people with overwhelming...

Okay, doesn't matter. He just won in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham's know

-nothing sister.

And he won one in Oklahoma.

He also, when you cross him like Bill Cassidy, Thomas Massey, and John Cornyn

did. So, okay, when he shows up at a place like for Lindsay's sister, you

know, he's still a star.

And when you're a star, they let you do it, okay? And they come out and they

vote for him. So there, that's the truth. It's a little more nuanced, but

yes, I overstated it. Now stop texting.

I won, though.

You won what? I won the nomination.

I know, I know you, yeah. But you did, to your point that you were making

earlier, you did lose the redneck Riviera badly.

And, you know, I think... Uh, okay, go ahead.

No, I'm just, I think, look, I can't get with you on a lot of this policy stuff,

but I think it would be great if the country did have the first black

Republican government.

And I do.

And I also think it's great that you want to run in the post-racial world

that we imagined years ago. And, you know, just the character of their

character and not the color of their skin. We're not quite there yet, though.

Right. I mean, because I think I mean, the Redneck Riviera, which is the

panhandle. I don't think people can maybe sometimes picture the map of

Florida, but goes all the way under Alabama.

Can you imagine how redneck you have to be to be under Alabama?

It's a beautiful place, man. I know. It's beautiful. But I think there are

people there who still would not.

You're a Republican. You're a Trumper. They should love you.

And they don't. I think there is still racism. I'm going to bring you on the

campaign trail with me. You're going to find out. Look, let's talk a little bit

about the panhandle. There were counties we did incredibly well in that we won.

There were some counties that we fell a little short in. That's okay.

But there was also 11 Republicans on the ballot, many people who had various

lines of support.

The number one thing overall, we closed out 48% of the vote. In Florida, 800,000

votes. has gone a long way to becoming the nominee.

I think Florida really has become the microcosm of what we all want. It's a

meritocracy, and it's about the best person with the best views, the best

skills, the best talent moving forward to represent your state or to represent

a district in your state, and Florida exemplifies that.

Yes.

You've had to say some stuff.

Like last week on Margaret Brennan's show, you said,

rampant illegal immigration was the cause for this measles outbreak and not

being vaccinated.

I'm curious.

I have three kids. You have three kids.

Do you not vaccinate your kids?

I vaccinated mine. Also, Molly, I didn't realize we were doing a solo interview

of me, but that's okay.

That is okay.

It's a panel.

We're talking to each other.

Translate through me?

There are parents who want to make those decisions.

They want to be able to make those decisions about their children. The

other thing is, hold on a second. The other thing is, my oldest son is 23

years old.

The vaccination schedule for him was less intense than the vaccination

schedule for my 15-year-old son.

And I think if you talk to my mom, the vaccine schedule for me being 47 years

old was not nearly as intense as it is for newborns today.

So I think there are parents, there are mothers who have real concerns about the

frequency of vaccines for young infants into just being a toddler. And so I

think some of the order that came out the other day from the White House was,

well, let's just spread the vaccination schedule back out.

Let parents have an ability to make those decisions.

for their children with informed consent.

And then the last piece is, let's also make sure that the human body in its

infancy can actually manage the amount of vaccines that are being put into

their child. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I don't either.

I mean,

we have people dying of measles.

We had two people in Ohio die of measles. Like, we were almost eradicated

from measles, and now we have measles again. And there's a reason for that.

I mean, the idea that you said illegal immigration causes, you understand

that's not what happened.

Under the previous administration, more than 10 million people came into the

country illegally.

And I know for a fact, just like everybody else, you can read your notes

too, they weren't checking their vaccination schedules coming into the

United States. That's a fact. That's number one. Number two, there was a

measles outbreak in a couple of the detention facilities on the southern

border. There was a measles outbreak in El Paso, Texas. There was also one in

Chicago. at another illegal immigration facility.

Those are the facts. So when you let that many people come into your country,

well, we already know in other countries they don't have the vaccination schedule

that we have. And then when the Department of Health and Human Services

is talking about American children, now you're finding fault with vaccination

schedules for American children? I don't think that's an accurate way to look at

it. I don't want to talk about vaccines anymore.

I had measles.

As a kid, I loved it. I was home for two weeks. I ate ice cream every day. But,

you know, I get it. It can be bad.

But we're talking about this war that we're having with Canada. And I just

want to say that in any war, what you have to do is get the civilian

population on your side. Now, during World War II, we put out World War II

posters. I'm sure people are familiar with some of what they look like.

The problem with a war on Canada is that we don't hate Canada to begin with.

And so they've come up with the administration has some new posters to

get us to be angry enough at the Canadians. Would you like to see some of

that? I thought we would.

All right. For example, there's this one. She's fucking you, but she's

thinking of them.

Yeah, I don't get I don't get them out of Canada.

Canadian geese crashing our planes into the Hudson since 2009.

Nickelback, never forget who did this to us.

Canadian bacon is ham. If they'll lie about this, what won't they lie about?

When Canada sends its pop stars, they're not sending their best.

You wanted that job in a comedy troupe, but it went to a Canadian.

And Canadians are so nice. What's so nice about stealing Katy Perry?

Well, we here in America, on shows like this, have been obsessing

about things like war and tariffs. A lot of America, I noticed this week, was

talking about Lindsay Clancy.

And I must say, I learned a lot this week. And probably things that you

already know.

Byron, did you learn a lot this week about moms? And you're a dad, maybe you

do all this stuff.

I've never had kids, and everyone seems to now agree with me.

It's a hard thing to do, to have kids.

And I just want to ask, this woman, Lindsay Clancy, she killed her three

children because she had postpartum depression.

What I learned is that this is a very prevalent thing. It's very real. I

absolutely don't think she knew what she was doing.

I get that. What I don't get is, why does she have fans?

There are so many women now who are, like, outside the courthouse. It's a

little like Luigi.

Like, I understand the frustration.

Don't understand why the fans, and it's just because this has been a cause celeb

that has gone under the radar for so long?

So my guess is that postpartum psychosis, which is what she had, is

very real. I mean, it's not so common, but it happens.

And I think that a lot of women, this has sort of brought up postpartum

psychosis as a topic.

The reporting on this story is horrific.

Like, she keeps putting herself in mental institutions. She goes to McLean.

She's a labor and delivery nurse. So if there ever were a person who knows about

postpartum care, it would be her.

In the reporting, it says she doesn't want to report how bad her symptoms are

because she's worried she's going to lose her kids.

It is one of the worst stories ever. And in my mind, you know, she's paralyzed

now. And so she's in this wheelchair trying.

I'm not sure that the courts are the answer to a problem like this. But if we

move away from just this extreme version, which, again, I learned is more

prevalent than I knew before.

What I learned reading about this this week is, okay, obviously not a lot of

women go to the length of killing their kid.

But a lot of them are not afraid to say, I don't like being a mom.

They put up TikToks just talking about it.

And they seem to be just frustrated with what, back in the day, I think

mothers just expected was going to happen when you're having a kid.

And, I mean, I think a lot of it is, you know.

They did it to themselves because everything is a negotiation with a kid.

And if you were negotiating everything, I mean, my mother didn't negotiate with

me. It just wasn't a thing. And, of course, you weren't as frazzled if you

didn't have to. If you have to negotiate with a child all day long, look at

Congress. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

smarter than a lot of the members of Congress.

But I agree. I mean, there are people who don't want to be parents. That's why

our birth rates are down through the floor. But part of that is because they

don't have, you know, in a lot of countries, we have a lot of child care

and we have a lot of, in a lot of countries, they have scaffolding for

people to have kids. They have child care. They have health care. We don't

have that here.

I mean, look, three kids are gone.

And as a father, that's just tragic in and of itself. I think to what this

whole story really has become, it demonstrates some of the holes that we

do have in mental health in the United States.

I know in Florida, if you talk to my sheriffs, half of their population.

is mental health issues in the county jail system.

There are beds that we need in order to help provide mental health care to

people who have acute cases, just so that some of the other resources that

are there are available to people who might just need some outpatient care.

They might just need a phone call. They might just need a follow-up, something

to help them get through the day. I think this story, obviously, is a

tragedy in and of itself.

But it does demonstrate that there are some real holes in health care. And from

my perspective, we have to really think about how we're going to deliver it,

especially in some of the real acute mental health issues that do exist in

the United States. I mean, that's and obviously, you know, the other social

media stuff that's out there. Social media, I think, is helping to play into

those mental health issues. They are not helping abate them.

Can I ask you about another?

Another pop culture issue, sort of. The owner of the 49ers. Oh, boy.

Beautiful.

Wow, that's all I had to say was the owner of the 49ers. Looks like he's got

a great team this year.

He's a billionaire. He went back to his home state of Ohio and was looking for

some action and didn't get it, basically.

He went to a trailer park and, you know, what, Byron?

I know nothing about this.

Nothing at all. Well, listen up.

Because I'm going to tell you.

It's not a lot to know.

I can sum it up.

He was back in his home state of Ohio and kind of a poor area.

And, you know, I guess you'd go on the Internet and hook up with somebody or

say you'll meet with somebody. And an undercover cop busted him. It was $160.

There he is getting arrested.

I mean, why?

Why are we, why is this guy, which is just pathetic, to have a billion dollars

and this is the best hooker you can get?

But why?

Why does America still have a morality police, basically?

I'm the daughter of Erica John, so I'm not going to argue with you here. I

agree. I think that, again, we're arresting all the wrong people for the

wrong stuff, right? Not all.

Well, but I mean.

comes to this this is clearly there's clearly a lot more to this story also

that we're not totally getting i think what are we not getting i mean i don't

know he's a billionaire he wanders into a no i just think with a billion dollars

you ain't wandering let's just yeah i mean just go to a

bar man just go to a bar That's all I got to say. Just go to a bar. Well, it

doesn't work that way in bars, Byron. People, they're not hookers in bars.

Well, I guess there are some hookers in bars. I don't know.

All right. I'll move on to another thing.

Hakeem Jeffries.

This is interesting. And this gets to the president and whether his grip is

slipping a little bit or not.

Jared Kushner.

And when you're meeting with Jared Kushner, you're meeting with.

as close you can get to the administration.

I mean, he's his number one boy. He's obviously the son-in-law.

Whatever the important mission is, he sends Jared.

He sent him to meet with, or I think Kushner asked for the meeting, with

Hakeem Jeffries. To me, this says that the Republicans know Hakeem Jeffries.

who is the House Minority Leader, is going to be the House Majority Leader

after the Republicans get their ass kicked in the midterms. It's going to

happen. I'm not saying that. It just is.

And, you know, I'm for this because I'm always for talking to people. Not

everybody is.

One aide said, of course, off the record, opening a back channel, I think,

is just a governing reality.

I would agree with that.

James Carville, who I always usually agree with, he says, no, we don't want

to fuck with them unless we absolutely have to. Well, James, you do.

They're in office. You have to.

He says, no more meetings.

Okay, you know, it's a meeting, not dating. And it wasn't on Epstein Island.

You've got to talk to people you don't like. Not everybody's Dolly Parton,

okay? She's the only one everybody liked. Everybody else falls short.

That's right. Dolly Parton vaxxed and gave money. Sorry, sorry. Anyway.

But yes, you're right.

I think one of the most dangerous things that Democrats do is this idea that we

shouldn't meet people we don't agree with. We shouldn't go on shows with

people we don't agree with. We should go everywhere. And we saw that with Harris,

you know, that she didn't want to go on Rogan. And there was this whole talk

about Rogan.

That was the only way we were going to get in front of 100 million people.

Like, that was it. So do I think we should go everywhere? Yes. Now, here's

my question for you. First of all, I have two questions. One is, who set this

meeting up?

I really want to know. What I read is that it came from Kushner. I don't think

that's so relevant.

It's very relevant. I think it's relevant. It's very relevant that the

administration reached out to him. First of all, Jared obviously is doing stuff

over in the Middle East. I think everybody kind of knows that. But that

being said, if he is talking to Hakeem Jeffries and they're having a

conversation, okay.

We're talking about policy. Okay.

How do you think we're going to solve so many of these issues? I know. We're all

agreeing. We're all agreeing. Talk. Talk.

Definitely talk. But my question is come from a place of strength, right?

Jared is having this meeting because they think they're going to lose the

House. That's right. So why are you coming in a defensive way? And he did

this video and he says we talked about affordability.

There is no way they're talking about affordability. He's coming in a

defensive way because Democrats are freaking out.

Why are Democrats freaking out?

Republicans aren't freaking out that Jared had a meeting with Hakeem. It's

been Democrats that are freaking out. You just said Carmel did.

It's Democrats that were freaking out about this. It is always the left that

can't stand to talk. And so my attitude is this. Look.

If you really want to get down to business, you're going to have to talk

to the other side. Right. I'm working on legislation right now about opening up

commercial flood because the National Flood Insurance Program isn't helping

the American people. It's very expensive. You're not getting very good

coverage. So open up commercial flood. I'm talking to a Democrat about that,

trying to get that policy done. If you're going to get some of these common

-sense solutions accomplished, you're going to have to deal with the other

side of the political aisle.

That's a reality while maintaining your principles.

Okay. Thank you, guys. Time for New Rule.

Okay.

All right.

Remember, someone has to explain why the toilets in Japan are so far superior to

the ones we have here.

If we are the greatest country in the world, why are we number two at number

two?

Japan looked at wiping your ass with paper and said, we can do better.

America said, let's make this stuff thinner.

New Rule. Now that San Francisco 49ers owner and billionaire Jed York has been

charged with arranging to meet a prostitute in a trailer park in his

hometown of East Palestine, Ohio, for $160, let's honor him for putting money

back into vulnerable communities.

This doesn't sound like a crime. It sounds like a new program called NFL

Cares.

But, Jed, I have to know, what exactly do you get for $160

in rural Ohio? Because for $160 in San Francisco, I'm pretty sure all you do is

get to watch.

New Rule... Oh, excuse me.

Since zoos are animal prisons, let's turn our prisons into zoos. Who wouldn't

want to take the family to the prison zoo?

Look, they're feeding Harvey Weinstein.

Oh,

a real-life serial killer. They're endangered, you know.

Quiet, it's a white-collar criminal. They're very shy and rarely come out of

their enclosure.

Oh my gosh, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Look, now she's being groomed.

New Rule,

now that we know that sound waves directed at the penis can have a

positive effect for men suffering from erectile dysfunction.

Doctors have to tell us, is this something that can only be done at the

office with special equipment, or can you just tell your partner, try yelling

at it?

Um... Several news outlets reporting on the Chinese robot that

broke Usain Bolt's 100-meter dash record must tell the full story.

The robot ended this triumphant sprint by slamming full speed into a wall.

So it's not a good substitute for Usain Bolt.

Tiger Woods, yes, but not Usain Bolt.

If you're looking to find out why our government is so dysfunctional and why

the sensible middle never seems to win elections, stop. I'm going to tell you.

And as they say in the world of clickbait, the answer may surprise you.

Because while we've all been obsessing over the gerontocracy in Washington and

how Congress looks a lot like the 4 p.m. dinner hour in Boca Raton,

we're missing something important.

The people who actually run the country aren't old. They're probably too young.

Yes, the public face of the government may be an 82-year-old almost dead

person.

But the person who's really puppeteering this lunatocracy of ours, that's this

guy, a 26-year-old congressional staffer with the Twitter handle Tactical

Amphibian.

Or something like that.

Congressional staffers.

That's who writes the material. The politicians just perform it.

Did you see the Canadian senator who recently did this?

Citizens often develop expectations that exceed the powers actually granted to

those offices.

Here's a more natural flowing version of that section that reads like a

legislative speech rather than a series of short points.

Yes.

That's right. He read out loud the part where the chatbot tells him how not to

sound like a chatbot.

A lot of people these days are asking, where's

Mitch McConnell?

Oh, I know where he is. In Hades, arguing with Odysseus about whether it's

better down there or up here.

But his body is still a senator, and someone's using it to vote. The

Secretary of Education is Lyndon McMahon, who's 77, and who recently

referred to AI as A1.

Now, she may think the internet is powered by steak sauce, but...

But her staff of 20-somethings knows better, and they're the ones who will be

writing the legislation about it.

Which would be okay if the kids were all right, but the kids are not all right.

At least not the ones in this job, and not on either side.

Because who gets these staff jobs?

Young, ideologically extreme weirdos who live online and spend their days either

accusing people of settler colonialism.

Or posting AI memes of Trump riding a lion.

These are not the kind of people who have an eye on the art of compromise or

delivering for the American people.

Arriving at solutions, grand bargains, please.

They grew up on social media.

They're about getting a sick burn to go viral.

Trolling, owning, destroying, shitposting, rage baiting, that stuff.

On the right?

Republican leaders in New York State voted to disband the entire Young

Republican Club because their chats to each other were so full of truly vile

rhetoric, it embarrassed even them.

It's not surprising, considering that the conservative estimate of how many

Young Republican staffers are fans of Nick Fuentes is 40%. It could be as high

as 75%. And Nick says things like, Hitler is awesome.

And I'm not living around blacks.

And a lot of women want to be raped. And having sex with women is gay.

I mean... Wait, sex with women is gay?

Okay, I'm lost.

And I know that's the point. But when you post about how much you love Hitler,

and then you say you're kidding, but then keep posting it, is it still a

joke? And if I can't tell if you're joking or not, I don't want you anywhere

near Congress, because Congress is enough of a joke already.

You know, enthusiastic young conservatives used to look like this.

Now they look like this.

Yeah.

And ladies, he's single.

Yeah. That's Preston Parra. He's 24, a former staffer for Republican Senate

candidate Mike Collins of Georgia. And Preston got into a little trouble this

week because he recently shared images of his ex-account of a swastika and this

one in Klan robes.

You know, a former generation of Republicans looked to William F. Buckley

for their philosophy.

This one found it in Kanye.

Always being deliberately offensive, nihilistic, never caught, being sincere,

only ironic.

Oh, you're Deadpool.

No, you're a shock jock on whatthefuck.com.

They call it being an edgelord. Normal people call it being an asshole.

And sadly, the fact that so many people can't tell the difference is not even a

new phenomenon.

You know, I once did a show called Politically Incorrect. And people

would... Thank you. And people would always... And people would always be

asking me...

What does that mean, politically incorrect?

And I'd say it just means the opposite of being political, which is being full

of shit.

It means radical honesty.

What it doesn't mean is just saying the unsayable to get a reaction.

But so many people started doing that back then. We actually had to have a

contest called politically incorrect or just stupid.

Today, I don't think politically incorrect would even stand a chance.

It's all just stupid.

On the right, Nazis, racism, rape, ha ha ha, all good.

And on the left, just abolish anything that isn't working perfectly.

Police, prisons, borders, shoplifting laws, the Senate, the Supreme Court.

Globalize the intifada.

Tampons in the boys' room. You know, someone is coming up with this crazy.

And it's not Dick Durbin, age 80.

It's the staffers, the perpetually online, fatwa-curious social justice

suicide squad. Hey, memo to Democrats, the call is coming from inside the tent.

Democrats never really reckoned with, why didn't Joe Biden actually give us

the return to normal he promised?

Biden ran in 2020 as a single-issue candidate, eliminating malarkey.

He wasn't obsessing about intersectional queer theory when Joe heard the word

trans he thought Pontiac But

his administration

that is the kids he was too feeble to fight with They made gender identity the

federal government's day one top concern. They're the ones who told

Kamala Harris that the answer to do you support tax-funded sex changes for

people in prison was fuck yeah instead of you're fucking kidding.

Those are the Democrats' edgelords. And like the ones on the right, they're low

-key running the country now.

So yes, by all means, let's elect some younger politicians, but maybe.

The problem isn't just the old farts. Maybe it's also the new little shits.

All right. We're off next week. Back on September 11th, I want to thank

Representative Byron Donalds, Molly Young-Fast, and Michael S.

Rush. Super Random drops every Monday on YouTube. I listen wherever you get your

podcasts. Now go watch Overtime on YouTube. Thank you. You are a great

audience. I appreciate it.