The Latest on the TikTok Ban, The UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooter & Jay Z's 99 Problems
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Like, just tragic.

Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience.

Hola, mi amiga. What's happening? Feliz Navidad. Hello. Feliz Navidad, almost. We're already a third of the way through December. I can't believe that this year's about to be over. We are about to start Project 2025. I am sick. I keep telling my team like, oh yeah, well in December, they're like, babe, it's December 10th. It's almost over. It's like time stopped for me at the election day and I refuse to move on. It's like how...

2019 was five years ago now or 2020 was five years ago? I'm like, no, can't. That's how the 90s were only 10 years ago. Yeah.

It's wild. Well, here's the thing. Like December ends like in five days, basically. Yeah, because I give my team off. I give them off for the last two weeks in the first week of January. There's no under the dust team. They all get to go rest because they work so hard. So you'll just see me doing my thing out here. So I really have like no time left with them. It's circle back season. Circle back season. Wake me up when December ends. Okay. Speaking of the EOY, I

You went to Kamala's Christmas party yesterday and we are going to the White House Hanukkah and Christmas parties in T-minus one week. Yeah, my wife is not a facade. She's real. She came with me yesterday to Kamala Harris's, as I found out, press holiday party. It wasn't the influencer holiday party. I was invited to the real press holiday party. So it was like Joy Reid and like

cool people. Did you meet anyone interesting? No, because I'm too nervous to talk to anybody. So I just stand with Natalie and like panic the whole time. Bridget was there. I saw Bridget. Yeah, I spoke to Bridget. That was it. And she also was surprised. She's like, why are we here? I was like, because we're press apparently. Yes.

Oh, she was so sweet. I met her boyfriend. Oh my God. What a doll baby. What a cute couple they are. So that was exciting. But there was like a tour of the vice president's house that you can go on. I have pictures on my Instagram. If you want to see what her Christmas trees looks like. Yes, she does have multiple. And then next week, me and Sammy are going to Hanukkah together one night and then Christmas the next night to revive our every woman that I am seen with people think is my wife, Lore.

I go to dinner with my sister and they're like, aren't you a cute couple? And Jen will embarrass the shit out of me every time because I'll be like, she's my sister. And she'll be like, what? You don't have to lie anymore. People accept gays now. Like she gives me the hardest time. She thinks it's so funny. Well, I'll be your second wife. Yeah, there we go. My sister wife, if you will. Last year, Avi was a huge asset at the VP's Hanukkah party. He is good at making friends.

He's the best. And he was helpful for me. So, you know, you're just going to have to talk to people, I guess. Well, these are the influencer parties, so I think we'll know a lot of people. I'm also like, just personally, I hold like a lot more reverence for the vice president than I do for Joe Biden right now. So I always get like very...

nervous and more excited when we're going to see her then. Yeah. She looked great. She was 27 to 30 minutes late to give her speech because I guess Joe had her on the phone. She came out and she's like, the president had me on the phone. I'm so sorry that I'm late. And I was like, probably talking about the fall of Syria's regime, but like probably something important, but we'll wait for you.

she looked fantastic. She spoke about patriotism and like making sure that children know the truth. And then she was a little bit spooky and she was kind of like, she's like, you are the press. You must be brave no matter what comes out, especially anything to do with state level interference in our elections. You must be brave and tell the truth. And I was like,

What? Wait, did she really say that? She was just kind of like, you know, talking about how misinformation and disinformation are really, really bad in the world right now, not just for us. And that when you as the press encounter it, you have a responsibility, no matter the potential repercussion, to report the truth. And I thought that was really, I was like, okay, girl. Yeah. That's a nice warning. Helpful. I was mad at everybody in the room.

I was mad at all the trad media in the room because like, I don't know. I'm like mad that they don't know how to storytell in a way anymore because it's like everything's become so systemic for trad media now that it's like they tell us what happened, but they don't like really dig into what that means in some cases. And I'm sick of like the punditry. So I was sort of like aggravated with some of the people in the room because like, for example, okay, I don't know if this will be on the video, but I have this salute to service hoodie I got from the bills. And like, you know, I'm

care about my military family. Trump says he's going to medically discharge 15,000 trans people from the military active day one. So then they start getting into like, well, should he? Well, what about? Well, is it more expensive to have trans people as opposed to being like, hey, we did this one time when we medically discharged all of the gay men because they could get AIDS, like which was so sick. And we fixed that. Why are we making the same mistakes again? So I was kind of aggravated with the people in the room. I didn't make a lot of friends.

I get it. I understand being aggravated with the trad media. It was hot in there too.

I'm sure. It's like in that greenhouse thing. Yeah, it was like a greenhouse. The media was literally cooked. Well, it's tough to be in the media right now, not just as a journalist, because they can try to report what they want, but what about the owners? This actually brings us to something we were going to talk about later, which is that people are getting laid off all across the business. Yeah.

It's everywhere. You see it from the LA Times and the Washington Post. You see it from CNN and BuzzFeed News shutting down, MTV News shutting down and clearing their archives and whatnot. But we're also seeing it in niche markets. Almost all of Eater and Thrillist were sort of quietly laid off this past week, 80%. And these are the markets that really make or break local restaurants. They talk about those small stories that are so important. Again, it's like the attack on local media. And it's...

It's becoming so common now that people aren't getting up in arms. And then, you know, the Guild is like, we won't stand for this. And I'm like, Guild, what's going on, girl? Like, Writers Guild of the East, what's happening? My question is, do you need Eater and Thrillist when you have TikTok and Reels and YouTube, which can show you what restaurants are good, or Reddit or Yelp, where you can kind of get that information? Yeah.

I think you do because this was – I'm not asking because I think that those should exist. But the point about, oh, there's no one to write about or cover these things, you can have them covered. It's just not in this centralized business. Mm-hmm.

So here's the thing about Eater because one thing that I love more than anything when it comes to periodicals, if we will, is we have a magazine here called City Magazine. I'm sure you maybe have one in your town. It's like the little – the rag magazine that's at like the coffee shop and it's free and it talks about like what events are happening in your town, maybe a little special on somebody in your hometown that did something cool. And that's what Eater was.

for these regional districts. So like, sure, you can watch a bunch of TikToks or read the New York Times review on what the best restaurants in Charleston, South Carolina are. But Eater, Charleston was sort of something that you could like hold, you could take with you. It served as both a way to show you the town, but also take that with you as a memory. The pictures were great. The time they take with the owners of the restaurants and the shops is greater. They're talking about history a lot more. It,

I think it is important to have those spaces because the way that we as millennials maybe get our news, we're a little bit more agile. But people who are Gen X and older, they are still relying on those sort of like pamphlets at the hotel desk or whatever. And I don't want to see that go away. Also, I just love print magazines. Yeah.

I'm with you. I agree with you. But the thing is that if there is a demand for that, it will come. And it's not that there aren't places for that to happen. I understand the pride in something local. I think we're talking about a bigger issue, which is that anything that's not supremely profitable gets shut down.

And the idea of having something... Because there's also Scripps. Scripps also laid off a majority of its workforce, which is a very reputable publication. And then the LA Times announced that they're going to start using an AI-powered bias meter to determine the bias of their sources. And if you want to look at how well AI does...

As a guaranteed mechanism, you can look at the AI that UnitedHealthcare implemented, which started wrongly denying 90% of its claims. AI is not going to save us. It's going to hurt us. The LA Times...

Some of the Dust Bunnies or the older listeners will remember I did a six-month stint at the LA Times. It was not cute. I have talked many times about my experience there. And Patrick had just bought the newspaper. So this was like the early days of Patrick kind of coming in.

This is a person who wants immediate gratification, who has absolutely, in my opinion, no respect for the art of journalism or the chain of command again. The idea that your D.C. bureau chief maybe knows a little bit more about what's going on in D.C. than you do and the necessary way to get those reporters to cover those things. Kimbrielle Kelly was the D.C. bureau chief multiple times.

Pulitzer Prize award-winning journalist. Like LA Times had the best investigative reporters, an incredible DC bureau. They were on the cutting edge of being first on TikTok and digital news and meme news. And he just was like, got it.

I'm sick of it all. He wants to read his own propaganda. He wants to see in the newspaper only the things that reflect his opinion as the owner. And that has never been more clear than the fact that now he's making the opinion writers from the LA Times send them his articles to approve to make sure they align with the opinion of the LA Times. And it's like,

This is crazy. This is crazy. You know who pioneered this? Jared Kushner. Yeah. And I am not okay with the LA Times potentially backing away from important journalism, such as what did Tom Girardi do? And did Erica Jane know? And the whole thing just gives me the, did you ever see, the whole thing just gives me the vibes of, did you ever see Citizen Kane? No. Oh, you must. Yeah.

Well, for the listeners, I think it would be fun to run a newspaper. I guess it's kind of based off William Randolph Hearst loosely. Oh, okay. And he is just this very wealthy guy who decides he wants to run a newspaper and he uses it to his advantage. And that's just one thing he does. But you have to watch the movie. I will watch the movie. I think you could really enjoy it. I mean, it's a classic. Yeah.

I know. It's like, well, I, oh, is that from there? I had never seen The Godfather until like two years ago. This is different.

Yeah, but I mean, like, in terms of, like, classic movies, I had never seen it. I had never seen a Star War. I've never seen a Star War either. I've never seen a Star War. That's fine. I don't want to see a Star War. But I actually, I had a film class in high school, and that's when I watched Citizen Kane. I will watch it, yeah. And they used it. It's wonderful. It's long. It's long. Well, we're coming off the internet, which is sort of unusual.

twist for us. I don't know if you've noticed in lieu of all of the good reporting and fun TikToks and even reels that there used to be, now it's getting replaced with an awful lot of Christian nationalist stuff. Almost every third reel for me is some sort of Christian thing or some sort of MAGA thing. And I'm like, okay, so I'm going to maybe take, when I say I'm taking time off the internet as much as I can. And we've been just watching movies from the 80s and 90s and stuff because

I need to like reset my entertainment expectations to something that's actually entertaining and not something that just like enrages and scares me all the time the way that social media has lately. Right. Not just what's there. It's not just news. Like you need to take time to just watch like movies or like stupid stuff. Like it shouldn't always be that all content is reality TV and breaking news.

Correct. Okay. We say as we make our lives on this platform. I'll try to make that my New Year's resolution or something. All right. Easier than other things. As someone who exists in the public eye, and especially as someone who shares their opinions and beliefs pretty openly, it definitely freaks me out to think that it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. If the thought of having your personal information up for sale gives you the creeps, you need delete messages.

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That's joindeleteme.com slash Betches20, code Betches20. This episode of American Fever Dream is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now more than ever, as they say, is the time to seek therapy. If you're feeling overwhelmed, stressed, confused, anxious, or maybe you can't even identify the feeling that's wrong. I have been going to therapy for years. I've gotten so much out of it. I've learned so much about myself and I've been able to navigate many different life changes as a result of going to therapy.

Therapy has been so helpful for me through periods like this one. Even when I feel like I have it generally together, I do try to consistently speak to somebody. It's good to just have that outlet and to just make that time in your life to get some space and objectivity from someone who you know has your back.

And especially right now, right now, I'm really working on trying to live in the present moment. And my therapist is certainly helping me with that. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, you should give BetterHelp a try. It is entirely online. So you don't even need to leave your house designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. To start, you just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist, but you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. If you want to vibe with someone else. So find comfort this December with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash Fever Dream today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Fever Dream. Okay, how weird does it feel to be called someone's fiancé? The first time you hear it, you do a double take. Your heart kind of flutters. And before you know it, you go from, let's enjoy this moment, to, we're planning a

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From getting engaged to getting married, Zola has everything you need to plan your wedding in one place. Start planning at Zola.com. That's Z-O-L-A dot com. Speaking of TikTok, I've always said that they will break this app or they will make it not fun before they ever ban it. And I do believe that they'll continue this game of kick can down the road. I think Biden will give that 90 day extension. And TikTok's not going to be lights off on January 19th. I say today on December 10th. But who knows? I don't know.

And the thing about the TikTok ban is people are like, well, he just has to sell it. He should sell it to Elon. And I'm like, one, no. Selling it requires three years of them rewriting the code because this we're not TikTok isn't like one cookie that they're selling you. They're selling you just the 2% slice of cookie that represents the United States market. ByteDance would still operate and own all of the content that has come before and that exists in all the other countries.

So for the United States to buy TikTok, they're only buying their piece, which means that they have to rewrite all the code to this point. And it would take like three years, TikTok told me, to do that. Well, wouldn't all of that sort of depend on the deal that was struck? And isn't there always a price for everything? There is, and it's $10 billion for just the American. Okay. That's less than 2% of Elon's wealth. My feeling has always been...

This has nothing to do with right or wrong. And it's not about red or blue. It's about green. And no one is going to leave this money and this tool on the table in the United States. I just don't see anyone. I don't see that being the way things go, what's allowed, how the rules work. And by rules, I mean no rules work.

It's too much money and too much power for someone to leave on the table. And lobbyist team. Totally. I talked to TikTok's legal and lobbyist team and they were like, look, kid, just keep doing what you do. That's why. What's the point? And so that's why I said in my TikTok and people are like, it made me feel better. And I don't want to make you feel better in a complacent way. But if this is a terminal diagnosis for TikTok...

Thank you. I've had a fucking incredible four years. This has been one of the most amazing times in American history for community and for people getting a chance that would have never gotten a chance before. Thank you for these four years. Thank you for this time. And also, if it is a terminal diagnosis, I want to spend every single day watching the sunset with you and enjoying life and not worrying about when they're going to pull the plug. I also, this is sort of a rule that I've made for myself in life, is that when you are anticipating something that could happen that's very bad,

Just don't think about it because if you don't have control over it, don't think about it because you are just living it over and over and over again until it happens, which might not happen. So you are actually just making your own present much worse by worrying about it. It's okay. I'm not saying be delusional. You know in the back of your head,

that this is probably, that this is a potential thing. So you're not going to like forget about it, but just don't keep harping on that because it is a waste of your mental and emotional energy. It's going to affect your content if you are a TikToker or you're working on the internet because you're just going to be feeling like you're hedging what you want to do. Just keep going with

what you're doing, enjoy your TikTok, and don't worry about something before it's going to happen. That's something I've learned how to do. Thanks in part to SSRIs probably. And our trauma. Just kidding, for legal reasons, because I am not on medication. No, I don't want to go to the farm. I'm not going to R.K. Jr.'s SSRI farm. Absolutely not. No. Although how much fun would it be if all our friends were there? I mean, maybe that's the spot to be. I don't do anything forced.

I'm out of here. No, we're done. No, that's the way I feel about it. And I think it is our trauma too. You can't live death every single day. Right. And Donald Trump said when he was asked if tariffs are going to make things more expensive for American families by Kristen Welker, he said, quote, I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee tomorrow. So live with that energy. Yeah.

The incoming president can't guarantee tomorrow. I know. And don't worry about whether TikTok will be banned. Yeah. There is a little bit of good news in the journalism world, and that is because of the fall of Assad and the Syrian regime of the last 12 years. 12 years ago, Assad captured and imprisoned an American journalist known as Austin Tice. I had the chance to meet his parents a couple times. They are a lesson in resilience, kindness, and hope in a way that, like,

You ever like meet somebody and you're like, wow, I didn't even know like the human experience could be that expansive. That's what it's like meeting his parents. And Joe Biden said that we know that Austin Tice is alive in Syria and there's a very good chance that we get him back. And so I'm really hopeful for journalism that we get Austin Tice back. And that's my happy thought about journalism right now. Wow. I'm curious what his experience is like.

They've been able to talk to him, I guess, a couple times through a lawyer. But I mean, it's like being might even be worse than Russian prison. But he's had a very horrible last 12 years experience. I don't want to think about what that's like, but he's endured and survived. At least they tell us he's alive right now. And I'm so hopeful that they get Austin Tice home. I think that'd be such a great thing for Biden's legacy to have brought home so many Americans from these like impossible situations.

So I'll be glad to see that come through if it does. Yeah, that's something we can prepare for and look forward to and be hopeful about. But, you know, and over the next couple of weeks, we're going to prepare you for things that are coming from the Trump administration that you can do something about. Like, what are the nine documents you need to recreate a legal marriage when Obergefell gets overturned? We'll have that for you. What can trans people do if they get medically discharged from the military unfairly? We'll have that for you.

in the new year because right now we're in circling back and preparing and gathering those documents for you. But don't worry about a TikTok ban. And the news is moving at a breakneck speed. It's crazy.

I mean, some of the trad media seems like they're getting kind of wise to what's going on and jumping ship as well. I mean, CNN, Alison Camerota has been at CNN for 10 years. Last night she quit. She's been super critical of Trump. Yeah. And she was like, effective immediately. I'm no longer at CNN. Now, CNN, Scott Jennings is super Republican from CNN. CNN is leaning super right wing. And she came out last night and was like, today's my last day at CNN. I've been so grateful for the opportunities I've had, but like, I'm out.

So Alison Camerota actually first announced on Instagram and then said it on air that this would be her last day.

Do we know if she's doing this to go independent? It's possible that her contract was up for renewal. She couldn't come up. They didn't maybe, maybe they were cutting budgets. Also, she's a youngish. She's a youngish woman who is probably someone who could do like a Jessica Yellen easily and come, you know, like build their own brand. She has the skills. She has the skills to be a reporter. And yeah,

Like we were just saying, she doesn't need something like an eater or a CNN now that she has a name. And she can break stories as an independent. It's like Rachel Maddow, right? She was on MSNBC five nights a week, and now she's just on Monday nights. Everybody watches on Monday. And she's got all those podcasts and books and everything she does independently. You got to own your own shit in this economy like it

It's kind of how it is. Speaking of owning our own media, here we are, Sammy. And we're going to change up maybe what we do a little bit because we were thinking of maybe doing like a little roadshow. We've talked about it a couple of times. If you want us to come to your town and do like a little in-person pop-up, like a bookshop, like not a crazy thing. We're not planning like a true crime podcast, multi-stop tour. We just want to like...

Come hang out. Yeah. I mean, we would start in New York, naturally. Start in New York. Our hometown-ish, you know. And I mean, I think we want to do something fun, something a little audience interactive. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe.

Yeah, well, my dream is to have like a variety show, but we'll work towards that. But in the meanwhile, I want to have like a podcast party show. What Betches put on, I don't know if you saw Real Housewives of Salt Lake City when there was this incredible finale and Heather Gay did this like, meek screenshots. Yeah. I don't remember what, I can't even believe I don't remember it. I can't recite it off the bat right now. But we then put on a live reading of,

of that finale scene. And we cast like creators and people from Bravo as the people. So like, it was basically just like a table read that went, right, like we can do something that I think springs out of what happens and we should be on the lookout for what it is.

Look, if you want us to perform Wicked, we can do that. I know Wicked's very popular. I could get hoisted up. I'm willing to risk it. I personally would pay to watch Sammy defy gravity.

My voice is too bad. Obviously, I'm the Glinda. I'm the Glinda in this situation. It'd be great. We'll lip sync. Anyway, we have a very talented audience. If you're a person who does this kind of stuff or you've got an idea, write us an email, AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com and let us know. Write us an email anyway about anything you want to talk about. We have an episode coming out around the holidays where we did a mailbag, but we want to kind of do them more. The problem is we run out of time.

Even when we put an email to read into the outline, that's our, that is our greatest vice. Speaking of vice and reality TV, that is, is just too absurd to believe. Um,

Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend had a New York Times feature, which is truly the ultimate New York story. She met him while giving him a lap dance at a cabaret club in New York, very high-end cabaret club, and just fell endlessly in love with Mr. Biden. The more they called him Mr. Biden, the more I was like, is this like –

like a sex in the city kind of slant. Like it was so crazy, this story in New York Times. No, that's how they always- Leave Hunter alone, first of all. The boy is like, oh God, leave him alone. Honestly, I think what this was was actually more of like a redemption story for his girlfriend, her name is Zoe Keston. And she, what makes this such a New York story is that she ran with this crowd with like Julia Fox. Yeah.

And these really edgy, sex-forward people who are part of the scene, quote-unquote. She went to Horace Mann. She was starting her own line of clothing called Weed Slut. And she had obviously put forth the money to have this line manufactured, and she did it with him. And, like, there's something kind of...

fucked up and glamorous about the story. Like she would go, she would stay at like different hotels with him and he was like partying and these details were really very dark. And it's very dark when you think about the age gap. She was 24 when this happened. So just...

with the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. This does seem like something a 24-year-old would do once you're post-college and you're like, what the fuck? And your judgment's still not great. That's New York, though. If you've been young in New York City, right? When I think about when I was young in a New York City, 22, 23, 24, we were rolling with Stephanie Germanotta, who wasn't Lady

Gaga yet. It was like all these cool people that you're hanging out with who haven't quite made it yet. And so like to talk about that time is like, well, it was before the big time. But if you're young in New York City and you're out at the clubs and you're having fun and you're doing whatever, the city provides you truly a movie of like a lot of danger.

A lot of drugs, a lot of like people who will eventually go on to be like maybe a politician or a pop star or something interesting. And this is just sort of like her time was meeting Mr. Biden. My time was hanging with Ashley, Alex Earle's stepmom, before she was Alex Earle's stepmom, when she was Elliot Spitzer's mistress. And we thought that was like the hottest, coolest shit ever. Yeah.

Everything's stupid and silly when you're in your 20s in New York City. Nothing's dangerous, even though as an adult, you look back and you're like, wow. Especially if you are running with that sort of what today I think would be like the dime square crowd would be what it is now. And she was so young. He also was not a... He wasn't relevant. Like no one cared about Hunter Biden. No one... Joe Biden was not in office. Yeah.

He was just like the vice vice president's son, which is interesting. And he's a good, it's like me hanging. It's like me hanging with Meghan McCain, right? Like it didn't matter. Early two thousands. This was the crowd that was coming up. You would go to a Saturday night after party, which was the things that I used to host at the restaurant. Right. And that you'd have like, uh,

Meghan McCain drinking Bud Lights because her dad distributed Bud Light at that time. You'd have like Zac Efron doing crazy stuff. Adele was just coming up. Stephanie Germanotta wasn't Lady Gaga yet. And this was New York City at the time. Jessica Simpson was super hot at the time. She spilled...

stuff on her shirt. I remember we gave her one of the waitresses shirt like off her body that said real girls eat meat. TMZ picks that shit up. Now everybody wants the t-shirt from my restaurant. Like New York is crazy and so much fun. And if you've ever been young in a New York city, then you've seen it. The Perez Hilton of it all. Right. Yeah. So I think she was the way she describes him was like, he seems so like the only way I can describe it as impish. He seems like a child.

who is like an eternal child. He's feral. Feral, but also in a way that's like naive because he clearly had not really experienced consequences for this behavior in a real way. His trauma obviously comes from

being in a car accident where he saw his mother and... And his sister die. Yeah. Sister die. It's... And he lost his brother. It's just a really... It's clear that this person had dealt with a lot. And even as he was like

fucking over this girl. It was very clearly due to his addiction and not due to his intent to hurt her. We've all got these texts from a man, though, where he was like, they would go out, they'd have a blast. And this is all in the New York Times article. They'd be whirlwind New York City night. And then he wouldn't call her. And then he would text her and be like, I'm a bad guy. You got to stay away from me. It was like Pee Wee Herman. I'm a loner, Dottie, a rebel. Like, that's how I'm reading Hunter Biden's texts.

In like a Pee Wee Herman voice. It's actually really sad. And this woman only became known because she happened to co-her relationship with him, which lasted about 11 months, happened to coincide with the period of time that

Republicans essentially used to exploit him and to blow up his life. And that's really the only reason. But what I thought was so funny was there was a quote from her where she was like, in a weird way, I felt validated because people would now believe that we spent this time together. It's like, yes, everyone knows the feeling of that guy who wants to deny something that there was a thing. And she's like, yup, it was all here. See, it was real. And here on the floor of Congress is me giving Hunter Biden

a blowjob because it was real. Yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, because those are the pictures that she's the girl from the laptop. She's the girl from all his party pictures on this laptop. But during the same period of time, that's when he fathered his newest child. It's a lot.

She says, her brand is debauchery and camp. I was young. And you know what? I love that girl. I love that girl. I don't blame her at all. Not at all. This works for her. Totally. She has a bright and beautiful future ahead. Yeah, she was 24. He was 47. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, but he treated her like a peer. That's because he's a young boy at heart. He's arrested development. He's younger than her at heart.

They are peers emotionally. But what I think is like she has a bright future because the way this is portrayed, it's all makes sense that this would have happened this way. And I know she'll land on her feet. Well, the last piece of this New York Times article, which I read so many times because I loved it.

The party's over. As the couple's stay at the Chateau Marmont neared its end, Ms. Keston had started to understand just how deeply Mr. Biden's addiction ruled his life. When she went to sleep, he would retreat to the bathroom where he would set up a laptop and a crack pipe and a chair and stay up all night making phone calls. If no one answered, he would find cam girls on the internet to keep him company. Like, just...

Tragic. Like a movie, though. That was the most salient part of the Chateau Marmont. Could you be more cliche? At least go to the bungalow to Beverly Hills. Please. Please. Please. I know. So, yeah, you should read it. It's an interesting article. It spans the nation from Providence to the Chateau Marmont. Oh, speaking of Chateau Marmont, though, not to get off topic, but just to give her her flowers, Lindsay Lohan is looking so amazing these days. Talk about a glow up. She is.

She is. I'm so happy for her. Look, my friend and I have been calling that since 2020 that we were on the verge of a low-hannissance. Yes. And that she is going to be making her way back up. She will win an Oscar.

I hope so. She's been doing these Netflix-style Hallmark movies that she's way too talented for, but she seems to really be enjoying, and I think they're giving her confidence. And I'm just so glad for them. We watch them. I'm so glad for Lindsay. Yeah, I think it's great that she's— I'm always rooting for the girls of our age, like the Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, like all them, always rooting for them.

Same. Always rooting for Lindsay, especially as, you know, as a fellow Long Island girl. She, exactly. Like, she had to go through these things, and now she's working the Hallmark circuit. She's working her way back up. She had to prove that she could work because that, remember, that was a problem that, and now she's, oh, she's showing up to work. She's doing her jobs. She's pulling viewers to these movies because I'm going to watch it.

I watched that horrible one where it's like the rich kid in the slopes. I loved it. Yes, I loved it. It brings me joy to see the millennial girlies getting better. And I was at that thing in Missouri and talked to Chapel Roan's parents. Her parents also said that the millennial pop girlies are very protective of her. And I thought that was really nice too. The millennials are perfect. We are the perfect generation. Everyone should aspire to be just like us. Yeah, the big sisters of the world.

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Speaking of millennials, though, and things that we can never have anything nice, another one of our... Except ourselves. Except ourselves. Well, because it's not the millennial that does it wrong. It's like the people who influenced us. So it's always like Gen X people that we looked up to or that provided the music for us or whatever that end up being like gross. It is us who have been wronged. And we have been wronged. Have the great burden of learning from others' mistakes.

Yes. And that's why we are so amazing. Yes, and such people pleasers. So, you know, we know that Diddy is still in jail, which is something that confounds me to this day because normally people with this kind of money can figure out a way to get out and they're like, uh-uh, never. But it seems like maybe Diddy has rolled on Jay-Z now because over the weekend-

It came out that Jay-Z is facing allegations now of essaying a 13-year-old with Diddy after the MTV Music Awards. You know this isn't TikTok. You can say the real word. I know, but I'm so TikTok coded. Well, he was accused...

of raping a girl when she was 13 years old in 2000, the year 2000 with Diddy and that there was another female celebrity watching who was part of it. Who is that other female celebrity? Because this comes up in Diddy's stuff quite a bit. I have two guesses. Email us your guesses, obviously. Email us your guesses. Because they constantly say that there was this other woman involved and just like there always is some woman involved like Jeffrey Epstein had Ghislaine Maxwell, like all,

all these different people always have like some woman who's involved, who's horrible. So they said there was another woman involved. You know what that speaks to that? These men know that they need a woman around in order to soften. Yeah.

the situation. Make it seem safe, which is so sad. Make it seem safe, because how else would they get into that situation? Because here's the story. She's known as Jane Doe in the lawsuit. She said this happened after she was driven to an MTV VMA afterparty. This lawsuit had initially been filed in October against Diddy in the Southern District of New York, and as one of the lawsuits filed against him. But what happened now is that it was refiled by

just to include Jay-Z by name, by that accusation. So it described the same situation. It now just names Jay-Z. And immediately he issued a statement through his lawyer claiming that this traces back to a blackmail attempt from this lawyer, Tony Busby, who had made these accusations and that it's extortion to get him to settle for a lot of money and that he is fighting this. I

I don't know. I think it takes a lot of courage to put his name on something, and I can't imagine that they would file a lawsuit just on someone's word at this point, especially against Jay-Z. They didn't have some sort of corroborating evidence.

The fact that it was originally just against Diddy and now they've added Jay-Z to me is like, maybe Diddy's rolling on people in there. And he's like, if I'm going down, you're all going down because they'd have to have something really solid to risk the original filing to add this name to it. Like, yeah.

they already had Diddy in jail if they weren't so certain. I mean, this is all, we won't know until it goes to court. But Jay is like, well, then make it criminal, make it a criminal. The reason why she could do civil and not criminal is Statue of Libertations, I believe, is up on this, but there was some sort of loophole that said you could do a civil penalty against somebody due to this adult victims of gender violence thing in New York. So he can't actually, I believe,

be charged for the alleged rape criminally, but he can be charged civilly. Sort of like how E. Jean Carroll was able to get Donald Trump on a civil trial because the statute of limitations had been up. Right, but Jay-Z is using those people's lack of knowledge about those technicalities. I don't know. I think it's, they're going to fight to death

And now to make sure that this— Well, she's been groomed by him too, though. The first time she met him, we now know is she was 16 years old and he was 31. Right. That's what we have to talk about is that it is on record that in reality, he was aware of her when she was as young as 15, met at as young as 16, and— Started dating the day she turned 18 type shit. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what they say. I mean, he had said in 2007 that he met her 10 years ago, at which point she would have been 6 or 17. Under 18 is the point. And you're saying, you know, you said you can't imagine why Diddy wasn't allowed out of jail, right?

I completely understand why he wasn't. He is a massive flight risk. He has information on so many people and he has shown in the past that when he was given more leeway, that he would try to tamper with the witnesses. So if I'm the judge, this is someone who has, you know,

Spent all of his goodwill and he's staying in prison. This person was running a really high level criminal enterprise to this day for decades. I'm glad he's in jail. I'm just, you know, pleasantly shocked that somebody with money is actually facing consequences this time, especially this kind of influence over the industry or whatever. But like.

I don't know. It's come home to roost. It has. I think we're seeing more and more of this sort of accountability for things that we never thought would be accountable. And people are having strong reactions. I don't think there's many people out there defending Jay right now. Certainly people aren't defending Diddy. I'm very eager to see what happens with Beyonce or how she moves because the other piece of this is not just, oh, he groomed her or whatever for success. She was

has said in the past that he was the only adult or first adult man that she'd ever been with. She might have to kind of be going through, I imagine, her own reckoning with this relationship and the ways, you know, that he wronged her. You know, she raised his man, she raised his kids. That's so...

Because she both did and definitely didn't. And you have to wonder, like, if you're Beyonce, do you have a therapist you can trust? Do you have someone, anyone you can trust when your husband is this powerful? Who can you go to for help with processing this situation?

If you were wanting to seek that. Well, her parents obviously allowed it, right? I mean, I never heard like there was any sort of resistance from the family to her being with Jay and she got this big career and everything. And

About 13 carriages. I know. Early 2000s, her being at the SNL after parties again and whatnot. And she always had this sort of like quiet maturity about her as a person because you knew that, you know how like child stars are so managed, like they have to grow up so fast that they don't act their age. They still are their age. But they're sort of taken into this adult world in a way that it seems normal even when it's not. And it's like,

I don't know. You know, that's... It's going to be interesting to see what happens there. And it's a terrible story either way. Right. It's really terrible that it...

people are forced to be developmentally so much older than they possibly can be. As we're talking about this 24-year-old woman, young adult, who was with Hunter Biden and we're saying, oh, that makes sense that that would happen around that time socially and emotionally. Especially early 2000s. 19, when you look around and it seems normal.

You don't have anything in common with a 31 year old man when you're 19 years old. You just straight up don't. Your life experiences are completely different. The places you can access are different. You can't even go to the club to see a show. You know what I mean? Like 1931 is a big spread. I understand that like, they're like, well, 51 and 30 isn't a big spread. It's like, no, no, no. But we're in a different place in our life there. That I could see that, that sure, that's fine. But when you're talking about just establishing yourself as a

a young person, not fully developed, and a 31-year-old, very successful already man, the power dynamic is going to be off. You just can't deny that. Now, some other people who are facing accountability, and the media doesn't know what to do with this either,

The UnitedHealthcare CEO shot in broad daylight in New York City in front of the hotel that I often stay at and will no longer be staying at. And the reaction from people is not, oh, my gosh, this father of two. It is I've seen people get tattoos of the bullets that say defend, deny, depose. Wow. Tattoos of it. There's T-shirts being sold on TikTok with the bullets that say that on it.

CNN was shocked that when they posted about it, there were 60,000 likes on the video, like happy emojis on the video. Has the class war begun? The demand for his jacket that he was wearing has skyrocketed online. That is like a Kate Middleton situation. First of all, they keep showing different pictures of what I think are different men. Like the jacket is different. The face is different. The nose is different. I'm not sure that all the, I think this is just what men in a mask look like. Like just the eyebrows and the eyes, like that's what dudes look like.

And on TikTok, there's been a bunch of men who are like doing this and they're like, it's not me. I'm not even good at riding a bicycle. Please, if you see me out, don't, you know. But there was a lookalike contest. There was a lookalike contest. I thought it was a joke. Like 50, 60 dudes showed up and there was a winner. Yeah.

to who looks like the shooter. The NYPD started with a $10,000. If you tip them off, you get $10,000. They're now up to $60,000. Hey, UHC, you did $30 billion in profits. What are you doing to try and catch the killer and avenge your guy? Nothing. They don't care about you. Take your vacation days and do the bare minimum at your job. They don't care about you. They're busy raising security for all their other executives and taking down their names from the website. Just so crazy, but

The shooter stuff is a fever dream, which is why we're bringing it up. Crazy. What did they call him, Sammy? A folk hero? The adjuster? The claims adjuster? The panty dropper. Oh, I called people... No, they don't call him the panty dropper. I've seen him referred to as a panty dropper. I can't believe that. This is crazy. I know. He's the new Menendez brother. Those boys aren't going to have any... I mean... I...

just think this is the most astonishing story, the most fascinating psycho-spiritual thing that is happening here because the fact that people are so willing to put their names on breaking these taboos around death really says something. It's not just, oh, like the insurance system is fucked up. It is cheering on this man's death

And hoping for more. People are hoping online for more and posting the names of other CEOs and stuff, which you should not do that because it is illegal, friends. Don't do that. But I feel the class war has begun, perhaps. What it has really marked a turn to is people are willing to entertain extrajudicial means of justice. And if I'm an executive at a company,

like a health insurance business. I'm really taking a hard look at what is happening here and what the risks are. My sense is that they're just like going to wait till Trump is in office and close themselves off more. But

The fact that they are in the business of death and life. And my sense is that this is a performance artist. I think this person is like a Joker-esque figure. That was kind of my first instinct when I heard of it because just what are the chances that... He's also doing too much, right? He's doing so many things that are... The monopoly money, the bullets. It's very professional. Yeah, very professionally thought out. Do you think it's professional? Or do you think it's just...

I don't think he's a professional assassin necessarily. I don't think you're right with the performance artist piece of it, that this is a –

You know, there was this thing where like people were self-amaliating, right, to protest. And it wasn't getting this kind of attention. People have been protesting, marching, doing all this stuff. And now this guy is like going to do – the way he's done this I think is so interesting and continues. It's like we're in Summer of Sam type thing. It's the Joker. It's the Joker, like this –

this return of like the 1980s serial killer thing. Well, he's not a serial killer, but the police are treating it like a, like a movie again. Like it's,

Oh, and then we found the Monopoly money in the Tommy Hilfiger jacket. And what does that mean? And, you know. Look, there's a difference between what the police are saying and what is being reported. Because, and I think that that's kind of confusing for people. Because the police have a strategy of releasing information, whether that means leaking it or that means announcing it, based on what I imagine is how they're calculating somewhere between not turning this guy into a hero, not turning him into a martyr, and actually

actually trying to get the public to help catch him. Reporters... The public ain't helping. The public are like, he was with me. Some might help, right? Oh, he's terrible. He was in my apartment. Right. But I think there are people who might, but they have to be careful.

what they let out. But that doesn't mean reporters aren't going to try to report something or Mayor Adams isn't going to fucking say something, but who knows? But it's very much, this is someone who wanted to start a conversation about the health insurance industry. He, I believe, sounds like somebody who in his mind calculated, he's like a murderous Banksy. He

He calculated that this man has killed more people, blah, blah, blah. And maybe I can save X more people if we make this a conversation by getting this, you know, it feels very much to me like a Marxist calculation that he was making and that he is someone who would, who has probably already considered the consequences of ending up in prison for the rest of his life. And I would even bet that he will, he has intentions to turn this, if

if there is a trial, into a circus. And

And that if he does end up in prison, okay, he probably sees it as like, I'll get my expenses paid for the rest of my life. Right. Yeah. Which is another point I bet he wants to make. Well, here's the thing. This is not going to be an inside job. There's some conspiracy theories out there saying that Brian Thompson was supposed to testify to the DOJ and he was going to lose all his money. His wife had already left him. And he is actually the mastermind behind all this. No, no, ma'am. I do not believe that Brian Thompson, uh,

has orchestrated his own like circusy murder. Like there's no way. It also tries to take away the sort of like power from whatever's going on here. It also suggests that like he couldn't find his way out of a problem, which I believe he knows he could. And if it were like United trying to hurt him, like they could find their way out of an investigation. But I actually literally just got a text as we're talking about this. Somebody says that he seems to have walked into a McDonald's

And I actually think at this point that his clues that he's leaving are trying to make a point too. He walks into a Starbucks first. He's now intentionally going to get a McDonald's. He leaves a plastic water bottle somewhere. I think he's trying to make points. The Monopoly money. The Tommy Hilfiger jacket. Yeah. I think he's trying to make points about society for his fanboys to pick up.

Now, you also earlier said that, you know, are all these companies just going to wait until Donald Trump gets into office? He's got the richest cabinet in the history of America. It's like all billionaire crazy people. I don't know. Don Jr. over the weekend said he believes that his father will face a third assassination attempt, which I think is like a

crazy ass thing to say. Like, why would you put that into the world? They're such like incendiaries like these ones. They like constantly throwing gasoline on fires and trying to draw attention to their selves. But

No one is ever trying to lower the temperature around here. No, and no one should try to assassinate Trump again. OK, like two times was enough for one lifetime. Leave. Don't do that. That's only going to make a martyr out of him. Like that's we don't want that at all. Never threaten to assassinate an elected official. OK, guys, it's not funny and it could get you in a lot of trouble and it's a bad idea.

Well, I mean, and now also this is where we record on Monday. So when you listen to this on Tuesday, maybe something will have come out more. But I guess allegedly there they think they got the guy in Altoona, Pennsylvania. They're questioning some guy in Altoona, Pennsylvania right now about this, which is just about the most random ass thing I could have ever thought to say to you about this guy. I don't know, man. I'll be sad if somebody ends up taking the fall for, you know, vigilante Batman out here. We'll see.

Maybe someone wants to fall for him. Maybe he wants to be fallen. You know, maybe that's like part of the conversation he has. Yeah. I'll tell you, his commissary is going to be full, though. Those books are going to be lit. He's going to be getting Santa Claus level fan mail in that prison. That's exactly what I'm saying. Like, I think he has already calculated this in the decision to do it, that he's like, OK, if I go to prison, high profile federal prison. Yeah, this

This is a person, I think, who wants to exploit these systems to make a point. Yep. He will have three hots and a cot insurance when he's in prison. So I guess that's better than a lot of us have. Three hots and a cot is something my mom used to say. I don't even know what that means. Three hot meals and a place to sleep.

Okay. Reha. Again, the lore of my family. We know people in prison. Not all people in prison are bad people. A lot of them are really good people. Happens. Oh, God. Like, maybe this guy. Maybe he wants to also make a point about the mass incarceration system. It's my guess. I don't know. Anyway, he's very interesting.

and we'll learn more about them. But this episode has been a fever dream. It sure has. We've been all over the map. It really, there's a lot happening and we will see you next week. We've got a bunch of cool stuff coming out for the rest of the year for you guys. We appreciate you being with us. Of course, please send us your letters. Please tell us where we should go. If we were to do a little pop-up show, come visit you in your city. Maybe Samuel brings some books. We

We love the book. Tell us who you think the possibilities for women who could have been involved in the Jay-Z diddy thing. Yes. We need to know your guesses there. Who was the woman who was helping them? And please send us your New York City young slut stories. Okay, we're going to read them on the Christmas Eve episode for our

Oh, not so holy nights series. Not so Virgin Mary's not so Virgin Mary's take us to midnight mass. Tell us about all the weird stuff that happened. That's just so unbelievable. Uh, you can be anonymous. I think it'll be a fun kind of like scandalous way to end the year. And me and Samuel, we'll throw in some stories of our own, uh,

And you can see if you can guess which one is Sammy and mine. It's more likely that it wasn't Sammy or I that was dating the older weird guy, but we definitely have friends that like we got caught up in their stories a lot. Drop your sins, Betches. This is the night. Drop your sins. I could maybe tell the story of how I got my Harry Potter scar.

Oh, yes. We're bringing back the lore. It's really not that interesting. We're bringing back the lore. Yeah, I'll tell you about how every time I got drunk in New York City, I took the train home to Connecticut because I was scared and I would make my dad come pick me up. Anyway, until next time, I'm Bea Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. Good night. American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.