The Podcast Election, Why Markets Predict Trump Victory, Trump Goes To McDonald's, Daniel Penny Trial
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It was just America.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the pod. Couple of quick notes before we get into the podcast election. First, no idol this week.

We're going to sort of pause while we do another tally of votes. We've gotten, you know, we've had quarterfinals for, I think like four weeks at this point. And you do have one last final chance to throw some votes down and you better because it seems like you guys lost steam as the weeks went on. Right now we've got Jesse, Cardick, Molly, Andy, Miles, Chris, Olivia, and Jack in the lead.

And it's, I mean, pretty heavily loaded to the front of the last four weeks. I think you guys maybe forgot you had to be voting. So if you, Kevin, poor Kevin with one vote, Rob, Grant, Patrick, I mean, this is your last chance to be voting for these guys. Otherwise, they are cut out of here. Benito, gone. Don't want to see their face around here anymore. Except Kevin, you'll probably see again because...

Breaking news, he now works at Pirate Wires. Fantastic.

We're not going to have a podcast next week because we have Hereticon next week. So you'll be getting a bunch of updates in your inbox from us from Miami for Hereticon. We will, however, be sending you guys just a bonus interview on the week off with... Well, I won't say who it's with just yet. I think it's interesting. I hope you'll find it interesting. I think it's an important interview. More on that next week. But now...

Onto the pot. So speaking of pots, we have watched really, I think, the really fascinating story of the election. There have been a couple, I think, big stories in this election in terms of media stories and the way that we conduct election type stories.

The podcast has been one of the big ones. And this is a story that we've been talking about since before it was a story, both on social, in the daily. And John actually just shared. Oh, first of all, fuck, John, welcome back to the pod. Thanks for joining me. I need a big victory laugh. That's why I'm here. Yeah, John's here. John, I mean, we're working on a reticon together. And so we're just, it made sense to come on and for him to save me this week.

But John, the last time, I don't know if it was the last time. It wasn't the last time. It was five months ago. I've been on like twice since then. So like five months back, we were talking about just what we want to see in an election or in a debate format or how do you learn about the candidates. And I've always been a...

Not always, but for a while now, I've been an anti-debate person. I think that they are not really good ways to learn about candidates and nothing. They never matter other than the one debate with Trump and Biden, which ended Biden's career. But other than that, they seem to not actually do anything. Whereas a podcast, we were saying, as John said in the last one, you know, that would be great. A three hour Rogan podcast would be great. I think that I will vote for whoever does a longer uninterrupted podcast appearance.

I think both candidates should do three hours on Rogan. Ideally, I loved when Bernie went on there, Andrew Yang. I think it's a great format and I think it's really, really good for just us to be able to just sit back and see how this person has a conversation for a couple hours. Well, this has been the election of the podcast. There is a, you know,

So every, I feel like, I mean, at this point, every major show has had one of the two candidates on, whether it's, you know, starting with the all in pod and Trump through, I just saw JD Vance on Theo Vaughn, which Trump did.

That's crazy to be going on Theo Vaughn. And now, of course, obviously, call... What is it? Call her daddy. On Call Her Daddy. Or Call Me... What is it? Call Me Daddy? Call Her Daddy. Call Her Daddy, right. Sorry, I don't listen to it. I know Riley is a huge fan. Hey, hey. The big one is the most hotly, I think, anticipated of them all is...

Donald Trump on Joe Rogan. I mean, both candidates, you know, you want on Joe Rogan. Everyone is sort of when you think of the podcast, that would be epic if a candidate sat there for three hours just talking uninterrupted. Well, interrupted by the host, but just allowed to sort of tell us who they are. It's Rogan's the go to. What do you make of the podcast election?

Yeah, I think it's a good step forward for actually getting to know the candidates. I like the podcast format. I mean, there's this maybe apocryphal story about how if a cop or a grizzled investigator is interviewing someone who's accused of murder or they're a psycho killer, if they just get them talking and they talk for hours and hours and hours, eventually the shroud will fall and a pyromaniac will just start talking about fire.

even though they know intellectually that they shouldn't be talking about fire, they will bring it up. And so the three hour unedited podcast is you, you can't memorize three hours of talking points. It's just impossible. And so by that, by hour two or three, you are off script. And that's where I think we get to know who these people are. And, and so I, I was pushing for this when I came on, I was really, I think I said that

you know, I'd vote for whoever did the longer podcast. And, um,

And I think it's, I think it's good. The one thing that I, I haven't seen that I I'm wondering if will happen in the last week is crossovers. So when I saw the Dana bash interview with Harris and Waltz, I was like, Trump should go on down a bash immediately to set a level playing field and say like, I can outperform in the same context. He hasn't even done bread bear. And I,

I mean, that would be kind of like bias, but like, like Trump should go on, call her daddy. And then I think that would force Kamala to go over to a Theo Vaughn or a Rogan or a Logan Paul. And then we'd get to see a different, a different mixture of this. Um, but right now on poly market, um,

there's, there's betting odds on obviously the election, but then there's also betting odds on, uh, whether Trump will go on, uh, Rogan, which is now at like 99%, uh, whether Kamala will go on and how long they will be. So the Coogan parlay right now is you want to bet on, on them both going on Rogan, one of them being longer than the other. And then that person winning the election. And that's how you express the, the, the, the,

The Coogan parlay. So just for some context, I do want to do a more thorough reading of just to give you guys a sense of all the shows they've been on. We've got Kamala Harris on

All the Smoke, Call Her Daddy, 60 Minutes, The View. I don't know if that... Does that count as a... Do we count that as a... That's a podcast. Yeah, even Breath Bearer. The Breakfast Club. And then, I mean, the Breath Bearer, it's a podcast, but it's really... It's a sit-down interview. Yeah. Over in the Donald Trump category, we have...

I forgot about Logan Paul. Logan Paul, June 13th. Then it was the All In podcast. Sorry, Jason Calacanis. The Great America Show, the Sean Hannity Show. I think these sort of don't count. Let's see. The more interesting ones would be Theo Vaughn, as Coogan said earlier. You have Lex Friedman. I forgot about that one. Lex is crazy. I mean, Aiden Ross is crazy. A lot of people don't know, but he's like this very wild streamer, like not...

like a political pundit really. Like he's just like a kid streaming, basically doing whatever's in the culture. And for him to have that interaction, that's just a very, very un, uh,

It's unpresidential in some ways. It's like we've never seen anything like that. We jump straight from like going on Rogan or Lex feels like what we predicted would happen. Jumping all the way to Aiden Ross is like streaming. It's crazy. Then you have the Ben Shapiro show. You have the Full Send podcast. Obviously, Flagrant, Andrew Sullivan's Bussing with the Boys. I don't even know what that one is. That's a Dave Portnoy property. There was a Lucy ad in that episode.

Congratulations. The Glenn Beck program, Six Feet Under with Mark Calloway, another person that I don't follow at all. And the Dan Bongino show, which I guess that makes sense. But I mean, that's huge. We've never seen any presidential election like this when it comes to the podcasting and how important and essential it's become. I do think

It's good for us as the voter for all the reasons you were talking about, John. I totally agree. I think that three hours is enough time where you just have to show someone who you are. There is no hiding at that point. But also...

It's just very clearly an indication of where the media landscape is. It is so fractured now that you are not able to reach people unless I think you're doing things like this. For me, the Trump podcasting thing made more sense in a way because you expect the right wing candidate to go find alternate media sources.

media platforms. But for Kamala to have to do it on Call Her Daddy, that's even more interesting to me. That says to me that the left-wing media dominance, that feels threatened in a way. That says that they're looking at internals and they're seeing we are not able to reach our constituency, even across the left-wing press, even across things like The Daily Show, even across things like The View. That's not enough.

You got to go to call her daddy. And the fact that they were even considering Rogan is that's really, really interesting. Rogan is, I mean, it should be a bloodbath. And I would love to hear Riley and Brandon, maybe what you make of this first before we talk about Rogan, which is recording today with Trump at the time of the release of this on Friday. What do you guys make of the trend?

I also love the strategy. I think our politicians should be real humans who can think on the fly and not like empty vessels. But I do wonder about the success of it a little bit because you've had, you know, politicians in the past who were like the podcast candidate, like Andrew Yang comes to mind. Oh, yeah. You know, came to prominence, you know, from Rogan.

And granted, he was like a total no name before then, whereas like, you know, Trump is like the most well-known person in America. But I still do sort of wonder about the success of the strategy because it's not the most like reliable voting demographic. It's like young dudes who vote at a much lower frequency than like old boomers on Social Security. So I guess we'll see if it pays off. But isn't that kind of valuable if you can draw someone in who's not a likely voter? Like that's.

Not to draw them in so much. And this is where I think it is the only thing that you can defend going on Rogan at this point, two weeks out, sort of you have the lead. It seems like Trump has the lead at this point. I think you defended on voter turnout grounds that maybe these people who actually do sort of like you, as we've seen, I mean, men in general, certainly younger men. Yeah.

This is what it's going to take. It's going to take him appealing to them directly and saying, you need to actually vote this time because their voter turnout is low. And...

Separate from that, I don't really know. While it's good for us as the voter, I think it's not wise for him as the candidate. You guys can push back, but my immediate sense, once it turned out he was going to do it, Kamala wasn't. He's doing it two weeks out. He already has the lead. He no longer needs Joe Rogan. There were a few years ago where it seemed he really could have benefited from Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan,

has made not liking Trump part of his brand. Joe Rogan has made not having Trump on his show part of his brand. He's very much like, I am the sort of middle of the road thoughtful guy. I'm over here talking about Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders. I'm not like the other right-wing podcasters. I'm a cool right-wing podcaster. So he scorned Trump. And now I think that

Knowing all of that, my sense is his approach to this podcast, if he did Trump, if he did Kamala for both of them, he's going to go hard. And it's going to be three hours of him being like, Jamie, pull it up. We're fact checking the shit out of this. And

Trump will probably thrive. I mean, he's a savant level entertainer. I've said that before. He's the god of clowns. You are not going to defeat him, I think, in hand-to-hand or verbal combat on a podcast. But it will be that, which means it is a risk. And so that makes me question what is the upside? What is the upside that makes this risk worse?

worth it? That makes Trump potentially looking stupid to Joe Rogan fans worth it? And I don't know. I could be just really overthinking this. People push back a lot when I floated this online. I don't care. I do think that I'm right. But we're going to find out. We're going to find out. It could act as just more pressure to get more Kamala appearances to happen and more opportunities for gaffes and analysis. So it's like he's stacking up that huge list. He does Rogan.

What's her answer? She's already done. Call her daddy. Maybe that maybe she needs to go bigger and do something, you know, significant just for the attention. Cause I do think that just the raw number of eyeballs really, really matters. There's like this crazy availability bias. You, you tend to like people who you just like hear their voice and see them a lot. Like I, I think that that is somewhat important. So today, maybe it was yesterday, uh,

Bernie Sanders went on Lex Friedman and it's interesting because I actually don't know if Bernie is just a straight up surrogate for Kamala this cycle because he's been on Theo Vaughn. He's now been on Lex. And so you could view, I mean, obviously he's not going to endorse Trump, but he's going to be a little bit cagey about going full into Kamala and that, and at least for the part that I listened to, he wasn't really pushing on that. But what I thought was interesting about it was that he like, you know,

you could like his policies or not, but he was very, very, he's been very clear about tactically what he wants to do to bring, uh,

healthcare to America or like revitalize healthcare because that's his whole thing is universal healthcare. And so he walks you through it and he says, well, we're going to start with Medicare and then we're going to lower the age. And so it's 65, then it's going to be 55, then it's gonna be 45. And it's this very tactical strategy that I feel like if you're down with that, you can see a path to the legislation changing and

his vision becoming real. And I still have yet to get that from Kamala on the abortion issue. I know that she cares about it. I know that it's a big deal, but I haven't heard like, okay, what we are going to do is we're going to pass a national law or we're going to do X, Y, and Z and the

here's exactly how and maybe it's on her website. Maybe she's put out policy papers around it, but it's not something that she's been able to just reach across the aisle, go to a neutral or semi neutral or center right leaning space and say, look, all the things that you're seeing about me not having a clear plan, actually, I do have a plan that you could go repeat to a friend. And whether you agree with this vision, that's up to you. But at least you know that I

I have steps in my mind to achieve what I'm saying. Yeah, I just don't think that she has that at all. And I don't think that she wants to. I don't think it's tactically... It's not even that she doesn't have it. Oh, she's an idiot. She doesn't have it. I think it's like they've thought about this and...

Her positions in 2019 were insane, farther to the left than any of the candidates on the stage, I believe, including Bernie Sanders in some domain. I didn't hear Bernie Sanders talking about free sex change operations for illegal immigrants, right? Bernie Sanders is a socialist, but there's a difference, I think, between socialism and clown world leftism. And they've just decided we're not going to talk about anything. We're just going to be not-

Not Trump. And then also a blank slate that can reflect whatever you're giving out. So if you have something in your mind where you're like, I want a national abortion law to make it legal, it's like you can imagine that that would happen under a Harris administration or it's more likely to happen. So I'll vote that way. Yeah. But people just don't think about politics like this. It's just like Kamala says, I am going to save abortion. And you think,

Well, the president is the king. And so if that's what she thinks, then it'll be fine. I think that's almost the extent of it for most of the people who are not decided at this point. Because, I mean, to be an undecided voter at this point is, I don't know, that's a certain kind of person, I think. I think the podcast thing...

is not going anywhere. I think that it's really interesting to wonder or imagine four years from now what this looks like. Where are the most dominant media platforms? Is it podcast? Is it something else? Is it some kind of streaming thing? Is it some other app that we don't know about? Is it the impact of AI? I have no idea. I know that I've been talking to a lot of media people who have been feeling the...

Twitter, the link embargo has really starved a lot of people to the point of death, some of them, and everyone is feeling this. It is this really radical shift. First of all, the fragmentation of media that Twitter caused, but then also just there's a business component to it. If you're not watching your news on television and you were used to picking it up online, at least in these big aggregated or these big siloed

I guess, corners of the internet, let's say, they're not growing anymore. And so I just, I don't have any idea. I have a very strong prediction here. So this is all kind of part of that going direct milieu that we talk a lot about online and tech. But

people have yet to fully segment out the tears of going direct. And so right now you can see that Trump and Kamala are starting to do more with alternative media where they go on Rogan or Lex or call her daddy and they engage that audience. And that audience is separate from the mainstream media, but going direct is,

Can also mean just your own podcast, your own platform. And so the next iteration of this, I believe would be a major party candidate hosting their own show and inviting other people on talking them, talking to them. And so imagine a presidential candidate who says, I'm going to do a weekly show. It's going to be two hours and I'm going to bring on my, my guests.

like the person who will advise me on transportation, the person who will advise me on immigration, and I'm going to talk to them for two hours. And you're going to learn a lot about how I think about this problem and the people that I associate with. And then you're just going directly to me. And then that will be syndicated. And Rogan will have to react to what happened on the Trump or Harris podcast or show. But it will be direct in the sense that they have full control over the organization.

over like the content that they're producing. And no one's really done that. I mean, Trump obviously has his own Twitter account and every campaign does like little segments. Like the Harris campaign has put out those little like phone calls when they announced something, but, and then the rallies are kind of a form of that, but no one is just straight up hosting their own content in like, in like the true sense.

That's because to make it work, it has to be entertaining. And to make it entertaining, you have to be open about what you believe for multiple hours every week. And to do that is to basically make impossible the standard type of politician you see from Kamala Harris to the Bushes and back. That whole type of politician has to just end for this to happen. And then maybe in a world where you only see people like

Donald Trump running for office, but I don't know that we're going to see that actually. I don't know that they have an incentive. I understand the media incentive. I understand the power of the platform, but the platform gives and it takes. You have the ability to reach everybody, but then also they have access to you. And you lose a lot as a politician trying to appeal to many, many, many different people in a two-party system. We don't have...

Yeah. So how I would see this playing out is like we saw Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders go on podcasts in 2016, I believe was when that cycle happened. They both went on Rogan. I think that was 2016, maybe 2020. And it was probably 2016. And then, and then,

And so there was like the precursor where like the edge candidates, the fringe candidates, the ones who are long shots, they tried the strategy and it wasn't really successful. And then the mainstream candidates kind of adopted it. And I think we might see that. So the next cycle, 2028, you might see a long shot candidate.

kind of try and own their own platform, their own media, put out a lot of content that they control. And it's just like, okay, yeah, this one candidate is really out there, but they're putting out a lot of stuff. And so I can get to know them and they don't need the permission of Rogan to get platformed. I can just go to their YouTube channel or their podcast feed and hear their plans and how they think through things.

it'll be a long shot. And then 2032 comes around and one of the major party candidates then kind of adopts it and says, hey, I want to try that strategy. Let's do it. So I do think it'll be a while, but I think that's probably where it goes. Well, we'll have to tune back in in four years. Actually, we'll clip this segment and see how much it has taken shape. I think it's going to be

I don't think any of them are going to be having their own show by then. The fireside chats for the modern age would be funny to see. I just think they don't have the incentive. And I think most politicians are not like Trump, but John is saying it is. So just remember that in four years, one of us is going to be wrong. John, you alluded to Polymarket a little while ago. And we do, I want to talk about Polymarket. It is time.

Thank you, Paulie.

Polymarket has shown Trump to have a 61% to 38% lead over Kamala Harris at the time of this recording. This has led to Polymarket being accused of Maga whales inflating the market and Peter Thiel investments propping up Trump and Vance. However, our own John Coogan believes that everyone is wrong about Polymarket. Let me just tee up...

Because I share some of the Polymarket, I don't want to say concern, but curiosity. I was looking at, after the Waltz debate, I mean, Polymarket got that totally wrong. And we've talked at length about that and why it was interesting to me. It wasn't just that it was wrong. It was that it changed during the debate, which means they expected...

They didn't just expect the media to call it for waltz. They really expected waltz to win against JD Vance in face-to-face combat. And that's not very informed, in my opinion. So anyway, moving on to present day, that wild gap between Trump and Kamala, it just says to me, if Kamala wins, it will look bad for

It'll be a giant question mark, I think. It seems like people are pretty confident and that's probably just my misreading of how these things work. Coogan, I know you have some pushback. Take it away. Yeah. I mean, so there's a few things. First,

people don't seem to do very well with processing percentages. Like 60-40 is not the same as 99 to 1%. You could go get a six-sided dice, roll it, a one can come up, a two can come up, and all of a sudden you're 60-40. It doesn't really feel that accurate. These are percentages...

People tend to get really excited whenever there's any sort of deviation, even when it was like 55-45. People are like, oh, it's over. Trump guaranteed to win. And it's like, that's not how the percentages work. And Nate Silver, when the first Trump election happened, he didn't predict the Trump win, I believe, but he had Trump high.

higher than other pollsters. And so that kind of cemented him as, okay, he was like a little bit more correct. And so something similar could happen where, you know, Trump could lose, but by a, but, but by a slimmer margin than, than other pollsters are predicting and polymarket could still look like the most reliable source. And then also there's just the fact that like, like this is an unknowable thing. You can't,

There is no insider trading because no one knows how the election will actually play out. Right. The way that people – this is not my – my concern is just people are not as smart or they're not smart enough. Maybe the financial incentive that you have does not mean that you have a better insight into what's going to happen here or whatever. Right.

The attack that you hear much more of is this is something that could be manipulated. If you have some giant whale who wants Trump to win and somehow the Trump polymarket odds are going to help him win, they're going to put tons of money into it and tilt the scales in the favor of Trump. Personally, I never thought that made much sense. I think it's like,

then other people would just take the other side of the bet. It seems like easy money at that point. I mean, why wouldn't you just do that? But we can now confirm, not maybe not confirm all of them, but one of the biggest whales, um,

Polymarket actually ran an investigation to see who was betting because there were some giant whales that were betting. Turns out Polymarket has identified user Freddy9999. This is the guy who bet $45 million on Trump. And it turns out he's just a French national who loves to bet.

generally speaking, and really does think Trump's going to win. He's not a giant Trump whale supporter guy, or he is a whale, but it's just a straight up bet that he's making because he thinks he's going to make a lot of money, which is what the markets are designed for. That

It seems like they're working as intended right now. We don't see any straight political manipulation of the kind that the most hysterical leftists online seem to think. Yeah, I'm always skeptical of conspiracy theories that rely on the suspension of belief in markets.

It's very tricky when you... I always go back to the moon landing because if the moon landing was fake, Elon Musk would have a massive financial incentive to be the first person to land on the moon because he could debunk the fake moon landing and then reap all...

all that benefit from being the first man on the moon. And yet he's not doing that. That's not his goal. And so, um, I'm, I, and there's like a bunch of other examples of, of that where, uh, conspiracy theories are like, okay, so with the moon landing, like Elon's also in on it. And then all the investors are also in on it. And it's like, okay, well now we're in just like Illuminati runs everything. You're in the Truman show simulation. And it's like, okay, like, you know, and so with this polymarket thing, it's like you, in order for you to believe that, that,

this right-wing whale is swinging the election or swinging the votes that much. And you have to believe that there's no left-wing person that wants to make money or no rich billionaire who supports Harris and wants to swing it the other way. And we know that Reid Hoffman, Soros, these guys have donated to the Harris campaign. So why wouldn't they want free money if they know that

the odds are off. And then there's also like the, the smaller side too, of just like, you know, there, there are, there is liquidity on other markets that you can arbitrage against. And so even, even small dollar, you know, betters could come in and say, yeah, it's mispriced. I'm going to place a little bit of a bet. You know, I do think people really do believe in the Illuminati though. I think they genuinely do think this. And I was, I was on Instagram last night

I follow a lot of cooking stuff and homesteading stuff and canning stuff. I just find it soothing. I always... I was a kid. I'm waiting to see how this links to the Illuminati. Exciting. And one of the homesteaders, I forget what crazy thing she...

The internet fed me of hers. That led me to go look at her page. I was like, who is this woman? And then as you start scrolling down, I think it was her story was compelling. She started all this in 2020 and it was inspiring music. She's like, I started canning and homesteading so my family doesn't starve to death after I saw the world unravel in 2020. I was like, oh, relatable. Let me see more of your stuff. And then she starts talking about the Illuminati. And then apparently she'd been on Dr. Phil where she to her face was like,

Yes, you're in the Illuminati, clearly. That's how you have all of this power and wealth or whatever. And just like straight up to his face telling him this. Let's go. I don't think it's a gimmick. And the one part that I think was a little bit was

A little bit of a gimmick was when he said, do you think I'm wearing a mask right now? And she goes, I don't know, let me see or whatever. And she stood around him to go check for the mask. But does she think that there was a moment where someone came up to him and said, you could have a lot of money and influence, but you have to sign this contract in your own blood? I think people think this. And I think that it's...

I think, I mean, this is the Blue Anon thing meets the QAnon thing. I spend a lot of time on the internet and it was all fun and games for a while. And I was like, oh man, everyone's saying crazy shit. And there came a moment where...

Over the last couple of years where I realized a lot of these people are not joking around and crazy ideas are proliferating and belief in crazy things is proliferating. And so, long story short, I think the polymarket thing plays directly into this belief structure, especially once you include the Peter Thiel piece, which is, I mean, full disclosure, obviously...

I work for Peter Thiel. I know Peter Thiel forever. So take what I have to say about Peter Thiel with a grain of salt. I might be covering up for him, but he didn't make an investment. Everyone says Nate Silver was bought by Peter Thiel. Okay, let's unpack that. Nate Silver...

took money from Polymarket, which took money from Founders Fund in a round led by Joey, who worked for Peter Thiel. That's the connection that we're talking about. But they just... I mean, that's not how it plays online. How it plays online is that fucking the Founders Fund German, that commercial. Not actually... Just play it for us. Let's... It's fantastic. From social networks to rocket ships, I'm not a politician.

And it's time to rebuild America. There it is. Music to my ears. There is one genuinely interesting question with the polymarket stuff, which is, is polymarket

Is there a chance that this election, Polymarket is upstream of voter decision making? And what I mean by that is Polymarket has become so popular.

like, rarefied in terms of its predictive abilities, that there are a lot of people that look at it and believe that this is what's going to happen. They see Trump at 65%. They think it's guaranteed that he's going to win. And so there is a potential that polymarket could... There could be some factor in the voter base where if...

Polymarket showed Trump at 30%. A lot of Trump voters would be like, "He's a loser. He's going to lose. I'm not going to show up and vote." But higher polymarket odds would actually spur higher turnout. So there would be an incentive to try and shift the election if you could benefit specifically from a Trump victory beyond the money that you make on polymarket.

But I don't know if that's how that works because very quickly, A, I don't know that many people that are like, oh, I only want to vote for the winning candidate. Most people have other ways of deciding who they're going to vote for. And it doesn't sound like this French guy is really going to benefit from a Trump election. No. And also, it's just not clear...

If you benefit or if it detracts from your campaign, this sense that you're winning or not. Yeah. And so you have this conversation every year with the polls. It's never really clear. People say, oh, you're lying in the polls. But people on both sides accuse people of lying about the polls. It's not actually... If you're down in the polls, does that demoralize you to the point that you stay home? Or does that galvanize you to run out and vote, especially if it's really, really close? I don't...

I don't know. I don't know which way that goes. I'm not sure. What was that, Brandon? The media definitely believes that, Coogan. Yeah, totally. Because otherwise, the manipulation claims don't make any sense. If you're actually concerned about manipulations in the market, you're concerned about those on the other side of the bet because they're the ones being manipulated. Yeah.

If the betting markets don't have any effect on the election, then the only victims here are the people that are on the wrong side of the bet. So I feel like the manipulation concern is like, it's like a weird form of cope from the media. And it's also, it's like misplaced.

You know, because it really does belie their belief that these polymarket odds are somehow going to affect the election, which I think is a flawed premise. I mean, whatever the deviation between the polymarket results or like the polymarket prediction right before the election and then the actual results, that's going to be baked into the mind of everyone that views polymarket for the next four years.

So, you know, if you think about the like the the original Clinton Trump election where the pollsters were off by a few percentage points leaning left, a lot of people took that forward. And now they think, oh, yeah, the polls like they like the Trump voters don't really pick up the phones for pollsters. And so the Trump like the the pollsters tend to lean left. And then going forward, people might think, oh, polymarket leans right. But because it's a prediction market.

people should flow in and say, okay, well I can a handicap my, my belief off of this. Like, Oh, if the, if in the 2028 election, the Republican, uh,

candidate is only up by two points, you're like, oh, well, he's going to lose because we know Polymarket leans right. But then also there should be a financial incentive for people to come in and say, oh, well, like last time Polymarket was off by 5% to the right. So I should, if the polling data is saying it's 50-50 and Polymarket's at 55, I should be buying, buying, buying to, you know, make that free 5%.

We haven't had a chance to talk about McDonald's. And that's crazy to me because, I mean, it feels – I was talking about this with Matt just before the pod started. It feels like Trump went to McDonald's years ago at this point. But actually, it was just over the weekend, which means we haven't had a chance to unpack it. Now, while I think that the Rogan thing was –

I think it will. It's not this slam dunk that people necessarily think. It could go in a couple of different ways. I think the McDonald's thing was unambiguously genius. I did from the moment I heard about it straight through watching it. Every second of it was just iconic Americana, just pure...

pop art, which actually is, I think, what Trump mostly is. I've called him a... I mean, there's this sort of court jester thing that he does, but he's a pop artist. He is like an Andy Warholian figure come to life. And in fact, I mean, I feel like if Andy Warhol saw... If he were alive for this, he'd probably be a Trump supporter, to be honest. And... But that's either... I don't know. I'm going to... I wanted... So the McDonald's there. Okay.

Trump goes to McDonald's and obviously people love it overwhelmingly. He fries some fries. At this point, I mean, it goes wildly viral on every single platform. And I think at this point, just because it was so fun to watch and people were experiencing the joy, shall we say, of the election.

You could have just ignored it if you were a Kamala supporter, and I think that you should have. You should have just said nothing. Instead, what we got was a bunch of articles and reports from MSNBC and beyond about how...

Oh, God. It was everything from this is very cringy and weird and strange and why would he ever do this, which is just stupid, to he didn't actually fry the fries correctly. There were people who I think it was the New York Times interviewed people who had worked at McDonald's and said he was doing it wrong and whatnot. And you just – it was – but I think what that was coming from was this place of you had witnessed –

One of the more powerful moments of the election and didn't know why it was powerful, you just felt compelled to talk about it in some way because you were witnessing something that did just reach down inside of us as Americans and touch something. It was this... Like I said, it was like Andy Warhol. It was what's that guy who paints all the... Norman... Norman Rockwell. It was just...

And I can't explain it, but it was powerful. What did you guys, I mean, were you hungry for McDonald's after, uh, were you ready to go buy a big Mac and a, and it is a beautiful, like full circle moment because there's been these like rumors and pictures about Trump eating tons of McDonald's before. And it's been kind of part of his like lore and his whole like,

diet like he doesn't drink i don't even know if he uses caffeine like he's like pretty straight he does because it's diet coke he drinks diet coke drinks diet coke but he doesn't he's like he he like is golfing all the time but then has this like trash diet but then like seems like

Like he's getting... This is why it wasn't just, oh, he went to McDonald's. It's stupid. It's cringy. It's weird. It's we know that he loves that shit. Yeah, he does. We know that he loves it. So when he went there and was just like playing around with a fryer and asking questions, that felt authentic to me. I was like, man...

And this guy is living out something that he's wanted to do for a long time. There was one tweet that fucking killed me talking about how – because there's a moment where he's talking to the guy with the – he's talking to someone about his experience. And he discovered – he's reassuring the man in the drive-thru. He's reassuring him that he never –

had to touch the fries. And this is something that he's thought about. He's like, I've wondered about this. That would be gross. But nope, you don't have... No hands touched the fries. And the tweet was like... And he said no human hands. Yes. But the tweet was like, you can tell that he's thought about this for years. And he's so pleased that no hands have touched his French fries. Yeah, it just felt real. It felt like this is like...

It was a photo op. It wasn't real, but it felt it was effective because it was very authentically... It was just super on brand, man. It was very on brand for him. It was on brand for America. It was... Riley, I do wonder... Give me the Zoomer perspective.

My Zoomer perspective is I really love all the discourse about McDonald's moving away from seed oils after this. This was a concurrent discussion about them going back to using beef tallow in their fries. And it's really weird to me that that has gone mainstream because for a while it was just in weird, edgy, Ray-P corners of Twitter where I like to hang out. But now it's like boomers on Facebook posting about it. Break down what happened with Bobby Kennedy.

Yeah. So, I believe he tweeted a picture of him and JFK or his dad and JFK eating fries. And it was just, go back to beef tallow. I'm not sure exactly what the caption was, but it was essentially like they should go back to using beef tallow instead of canola oil in their cooking. Which we stopped in 1990. So, I was born in 85. And so, my only memories of McDonald's are sort of post-1990s.

We're frying it in trash now. And before that, the heyday of, you know, I don't know, like this idea in America of like a sexy young people at a drive through and they're like women with roller skates flying around serving you milkshakes.

That was the age before seed oils. So, you know, maybe we just switched up with beef tallow and tell the vegans to get fucked and we'll all be skinny again. I don't know. That's sort of it is when I saw him Trump at McDonald's after a big part of Bobby Kennedy's

thing with Trump was you're going to let me run health stuff and heal America. I thought this is very on brand for Trump, but very weird for Kennedy. And I almost posted about it and I thought, do I need to get into beef tallow right now? And then he fucking tweeted. I was like, I knew it. But I do, I want the beef tallow. I want it. I deserve it. We deserve it. I've been thinking a lot about my diet lately. I'm

The corn subsidies, the soy subsidies, maybe I've just absorbed the virus from them. They're like the based health virus. But it is definitely something that I'm certainly open to. And I like that Kennedy is taking it there. He's like, let me take this moment to remind you all about beef tallow. That's great. I bet McDonald's feels very...

like very happy right now. Like in 20, just because like in 20. So, so the McDonald's thing has been, you're right. Coogan, like it's part of the lore, but if you guys remember the New Yorker, I mean, when there was like an expose on Trump's diet, uh,

And it went viral. He apparently would eat like two Big Macs in one sitting and he would follow it up with fries and like a chocolate shake. This happened in 2019. And the media just had a, you know, they were like, this is bad and disgusting. Sometime that year in 2019 as well, he served as a really famous picture of him

serving a college football team that had just won the national championship. Yeah. A huge buffet of McDonald's and Domino's and a few other fast food restaurants. And the New Yorker wrote an article about it called The Pure American Banality of Donald Trump's White House Fast Food Banquet.

And so Trump has been long on McDonald's, and I think McDonald's probably sees that now. Well, they have this PR response. The McDonald's PR response was good, I thought. They were like, we invite everybody into McDonald's, and we don't take any political stances. We're golden, not red or blue. I remember that was a good- They said that? We're golden, not red or blue? Yeah, we're not red or blue. We're golden. I love it.

Upon learning of the former president's request, we approached it through the lens of one of our core values. We open our doors to everyone. McDonald's does not endorse candidates for elected office, and that remains true in this race for the next president. We are not red or blue. We are golden. Let's fucking go. Let's fucking go, McDonald's. We bleed yellow in this house. We bleed yellow. I love it. It's amazing.

Yeah, they went on after that. I mean, it was a whole long thing. It was really beautiful. I found it touching. I wanted McDonald's afterwards and I want it now. And then I remember what it came with. You know when someone died or something, right? There's like this massive E. coli scandal that stocks up. Oh yeah, that was right after that. I don't know anything about it. All I know is Donald Trump eats there and they bleed yellow and the doors are open. The golden arches are open for everyone. I love it.

corresponds with my American values. I do think there probably has not been a... This is effectively a celebrity and a free celebrity endorsement. This is like maybe one of the great celebrity endorsements of the last decade at least. I was trying to think of something more impactful than this. If they had actually signed some kind of deal where he were doing commercials and actually doing multiple appearances, maybe it would be, you know,

Then I think at that point, it would be on par with the Air Jordans. I really do. Just because it was this one experience, probably not, but it feels momentous. I think that people are going to start eating McDonald's. I really do. I think that large swaths of the country are feeling excited about McDonald's right now.

Well, you know the whole reason why he chose McDonald's and stuff. It's not just his lore. It's the whole Kamala claim to have worked there, but there's very little evidence. Well, I mean, listen, there were a million... That was one of the things. It's like...

McDonald's separate from even his lore and Kamala Harris saying that she worked there and there's no proof of that. What is it? The Free Beacon reported that early on and tried to make it a thing. Which I don't really buy. It's just grown to be more and more of a like, they're like, this is a conspiracy. It's like, is it more of a conspiracy than the fact that the left wing people are saying Trump

actually stages on assassination. I don't know. I feel like everyone has this point. This one feels a little more believable to me just because maybe I'm part of the problem and I want to believe it, but because it's funny. What do you think Kamala could do to respond?

Well, she should prove that she worked there and that would put everything... But I mean in terms of like a stunt like this. Like clearly Trump has forced her hand on like the podcast thing. Like she has to go on Call Her Daddy because Trump is doing like these like alt podcasts. Like Trump goes to McDonald's. But there's nothing because listen, the other part of it, separate from his lore and her backstory here with like did she work there or not, it's what does McDonald's represent? And Brandon, you were sort of alluding to this I think a moment ago with the New Yorker piece. It...

The Democratic base sees McDonald's as disgusting, as core to the middle America, sort of obese, cheap, tasteless sort of thing. This is like the John Kerry...

saying that he preferred a roogla or whatever, or no, ordering... Oh, no, that wasn't what it was. I remember a poll back then where it said the Democrats preferred a roogla over iceberg lettuce. But I'm thinking of John Kerry getting the wrong cheese at that cheesesteak place, famously, in whatever election that was.

It is partly about their stories, but then I think it's also about what the story itself represents to America and for who. And it's not going to be a hardcore Democrat. It's going to be more of a right of center to center right is sort of what he's targeting. And I think that it was extremely effective and only he could have done it. She can't do it. She can't go to McDonald's. There's no fast food place that she can go. I mean, there's nothing that she can do that's going to activate the center right.

the same way that that did i don't think biden did have stuff like this like he was like the car guy yeah there were a number of photo ops of him like in muscle cars american cars and like it was kind of part of his lore uh she needs to build up some lore man she needs he's a bit well he's a pennsylvania guy and she's a san francisco girl no one believes that a san francisco girl is going to mickey d's whereas biden what's she gonna do go to birding man

Yeah, it's like there's nothing she can do. She's from a very unrelatable part of the country, I say lovingly. I love San Francisco, but it's not relatable. Yeah. I think she had a good start with her laughing joyously while cooking some good-looking food and drinking wine. I agree with that. She should have gone down that path. The wine thing, that's very relatable.

Yeah, she should just lean in at this point. She's like, you know what I am? I'm drunk right now. Aren't you drunk? Don't you want to be drunk? Aren't you tired, America? Drink with me. Way to win on Rogan. You go on there. He's going to offer you whiskey. He's going to offer you cigars. He's going to offer you nicotine pouches. If you pull out a bottle of red wine, you start chugging that thing. That's going to go viral. It's going to be relatable. That's a great idea. You got to do it. No, I actually got my own wine. Especially, I'm imagining her keeping the bottles open.

on the desk as they she goes on the second one exactly I mean Elon smoked weed on Rogan like the bar is so high for entertainment you got to do something to stand out I can't fit I don't

I don't know. Do that because it makes me insane. Yeah. One puff, man. I'm out to lunch. I don't know how you sit for three hours. I get anxious just thinking about that because I get, that's why I hate it. I feel paranoid. I'm like, oh my God, what are people thinking? How do you, that's, that's a nightmare. You know that like 10 million people are watching what you're doing. Like,

And it's also recorded, so it's going to live on forever. Right. The anxiety you would feel while stoned in the circle of friends, like, oh my God, I got to get out of here. People are thinking about me. People are seeing me. It's actually true in the Rogan case. It's like worst case scenario, but not as bad of a scenario as Daniel Petty is facing in New York City. Smooth transition to violence in urban America. Riley,

Break down the story, sir. Sure thing. So jury selection began for the trial of Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran who restrained that homeless guy who was acting crazy on the subway resulting in his death. Penny has pleaded not guilty to second degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges.

We talked October surprises earlier in salon. I think you mentioned this could be one of them and very well could be because there's going to be a lot of eyes on this. Although I guess the judge has said it could take two weeks just like seat the jury. So we'll see if anything comes out even in time for Election Day. But while that trial is starting up, one viral tweet was making the rounds on X where a woman was talking about a guy on the subway harassing women.

And she lamented the fact that, quote, the guys just stood around. The guys around just stood silent. And, you know, I wonder why. And of course, because there's always a tweet, I guess that same woman had previously said when the Daniel Penny incident happened, that it was nefarious and exploitative to only bring up violence against women when it comes at the expense of another marginalized group. So the Twitter lady very much wants to have it both ways there. Yeah.

Yeah. There have been a handful of these people tweeting about violence happening to them and then they go back and you see them trashing Penny. We've definitely talked about this when the Penny case first happened and I knew the case was going to be a huge deal. This is very much like...

So America is going to project itself onto this trial and it's going to be a huge deal. The question is just, as you mentioned, does it start before the election? Maybe not. I didn't realize that it was going to take so long for the jury piece. And that will work certainly in Kamala's favor because you do not want this case to be reminding people about what has happened in terms of really, I mean, violence in every single one of these cases.

In every American city. It's really crazy to me that you have a DA in New York City who's releasing serial criminals and going after Daniel Penny this aggressively for trying to protect people in a car from a violent, crazy person. And I don't know. What are you guys making of the story? I think what struck me... I mean, I agree that like... So a lot of the people were dunking on the tweet. Yeah.

responding to it being like, Daniel Penny is why you were not protected. And I totally agree with that. But the first thought I had when I read that tweet was actually...

That it's totally relevant to trans like the conversation about trans that we've been having for the past two years or ten years or so and specifically it's like so the past decade or so like it's been taboo to say that there are basically any differences between men and women and I think like

That specific thing actually probably led to that scenario or played a part in that scenario that that lady described on her train. Because if we had not made it a taboo to say or to recognize that, you know, men might be able to, might be bigger and more powerful than women and should maybe be the ones to bear the burden of conflict when, you know, order is threatened, then,

I think that you would, you might not be in a situation now where it's just like everybody's equal. And so, you know, nobody's responsible for anything here, you know? And I kind of, I, that was the first thing that occurred to me was like, we need to get back to gender norms because without them, it's kind of chaos, you know, that's just every person for themselves. It's atomizing. Nobody cares about anybody else. And I think, you know, just under just sort of,

acknowledging them might lead to a situation where the two sexes are actually in a little bit more harmony than they are now, you know, because it's sort of like an agreement in a way. I think I really agree with that. I think it's a beautiful way that you just put it. I wonder more than when I think of gender norms, it's not like, oh, I want these people to

to act a certain way based on their... Maybe I sort of do. I want shame. I want men to feel ashamed for not protecting women on the subway. And this woman who tweeted that thing, I think we probably all agree with. Actually, she's right. Some guy should have stood up and protected her. The problem is her. It is to go back to her other tweet, she has been

I'm not sitting here saying, oh, you've hurt men's feelings and now they're sad. It's more like they're confused. I think men don't know what they're supposed to do right now. And I think that it's like everything in society is telling them that to –

It's telling them both. It's telling them you're not different, but also you have to be different in the context of dating and things like this. And I just don't think guys know who they are or what to be. And I think this is a story that we've seen beyond the Daniel Penny thing. It's just the Daniel Penny thing really makes it pronounced. We see this in dating, online dating. We see this in men dating.

really failing even pre-college and post-college, it's not doing well in America. I think guys just don't know what to do right now, what to be. And what you really see with Daniel Penny, I think, is the kind of guy that maybe we all grew up wanting to be like, being totally demonized now by the state for it. We've also seen this before. There was a case before any of us were around, I think it was the 80s, when New York City was reaching the zenith of its violence. And some dude killed some people on a train

And the nation was divided in exactly the same way where people were like, fuck yes, he's a hero, but also he was being, I think he was tried. Yeah. Bernie goats, 1984. Ooh, what a year for any story to go back to Bernie goats on December 22nd, 1984, Bernie goat shot four youths on a New York city subway train in Manhattan after they allegedly tried to rob him. All four victims survived. The one Darrell cabbie was paralyzed and suffered brain damage as a result of his engineer injuries. Um,

Um, the incident sparked a nationwide debate on crime in major US cities. And it was divided very, very similarly to this, where you had common sense people saying, this is what happens when you don't police the streets is people have to either defend themselves or die is what there is this situation they're now in. And now you're demonizing them for defending themselves. And I...

I'm pro self-defense all the way. I think that at this point, the state is not going to protect us. You have to protect yourself. And if they then punish you for that and not the criminals, I don't even know what kind of government... I don't even know what that is. I'm not even sure what form of government that is. I have a shorthand for this, this

this concept. I refer to it as hero's blood. And I always joke with my wife and friends that I have hero's blood because I've had two very odd interactions where something very low level has just kicked in my brain. Once I was in a grocery store and there was a guy who was trying to steal a bottle of vodka. And you know how they have those anti-theft devices on the top?

He was like trying to smash it off with a potato, which was very ironic. But everyone else was just looking around and just being like, oh, like I'm just going to do my shopping. And the guy like the store manager came out from the back. It was like, hey, like stop thief. And.

the guy was running towards me and my roommate at the time who was like kind of a little guy he like dove out of the way and something just kicked in and I lowered my shoulder and just tackled this guy. Well that's

It was insane. And I'm not, I've got like trained in Brazilian jujitsu or anything. Like I played football, but like, I don't know. It was just like, this is what you do in this situation. Like you stop the thief. And so like I knocked him back, his hat fell off. And then the guy like stood up, jumped back, jumped back,

and ran around the vegetables and was like, yo, I have a gun. I have a gun. I'll see you outside threatening me. And I was like, he was just doing this? And I was like, he doesn't have a gun. And I was just yelling to everyone, don't worry, he doesn't have a gun. And then he just ran out the front and the security guard didn't even do anything to stop him. And all of my friends and my wife were like, that was the dumbest thing you could have done.

Like you, like you don't, you don't have, you're not a shareholder in this business. You don't have any incentive, like, but, but something just kicked in. And then a few weeks later we were, we were driving and, and there was this, uh, this like car accident, like two cars, like kind of T-bone each other. And, um,

Something just came over me and I got out of the car, went over to the person that had been hit, opened the door, pulled them out in the middle of the street to try and clear the accident. And this guy just gave me a hug because he was so rattled. And he was like, am I okay? Did I kill anyone? He was really rattled. I was like, you're okay. You just need to move your car. Get out of here. We got to get this thing moving. And my wife's just like, why are you doing this?

Like this is such a waste of time. And I'm just like, I can't help it. I have hero's blood. And I think that concept, there's something there. I don't know if like, I don't think I was trained to do this, but I think that there's something there that like, you just can't, if you have that impulse, like you can't beat it out of yourself because it is. You're talking about a sense of right and wrong. Yeah. And you have a sense of right and wrong and also a feeling of,

ownership or something over society when you're saying like, oh, you're not a stakeholder in this company. You're a stakeholder in society. In society, exactly. It's like, are we in this or not? What are we? We can't just be these little

I'm a subway train with no attachment to each other or anything else. Are you like six foot eight too? Yeah. I'm also very tall. So maybe it's easier or something. I'm also a boy scout, Eagle scout. And like, I was trained from an early age that like you help the old woman across the street, you know? And so,

I don't know, but it is weird because like there was, there was definitely no like cognitive process where I was thinking about like, Oh, like I should stop this person from stealing this or help this person with this car. It was just something that like kicked in. There was another reply to that tweet that Riley was referencing who he said something that I definitely understood, which was, he was like, look, like another reason why you might not have been protected is because people

Any guy that's not a like a marine or that is not obviously going to overpower this crazy person is

is risking a lot and you actually don't know what's going to happen if you're a man. And you also... You might accidentally punch too hard, right? Exactly. And knock the guy out. Huge downside risk. Or you might get... Huge strategic downside risk. Yeah. Or you might get your ass kicked, right? You might get sued even just for hurting someone. Yeah. And this is a little bit weird, but the flip side is like if there's a group of women shouting this guy down, there is...

the social situation there is a little different, right? Like the dynamics are playing out in a way different way

And again, that made me think about how much men and women don't understand the different social worlds each inhabits. There is this language between men that we really don't talk about enough. And it's like, I think because when you see another man and when you interact with another man as a man, you know certain things and they're not expressed ever. Right?

But they come out in situations like what was described in that tweet.

And I just wish we all could talk about this stuff more. I think women have a sense of it too, though, in the context of something else we've talked about here quite a lot, which is Karen and the role of a woman that a man, I think, cannot fill in social policing. So the reason that a Karen is so important in the movie theater, for example, when someone's talking in a theater and it's important that a woman gets up and says, hey, excuse me, be quiet, is because it is not acceptable at all to meet her with violence. Whereas if a

if a man were to talk to another man about being quiet in a movie theater, it is immediately escalatory. There's like immediately a chance of like significant violence happening. And so it's just like this really essential role that was taken away from us over the last few years, which was in women policing movies

And then when things get really out of hand, that's when men are expected to step in. And all of these things are implicit and sort of understood on some other level that we don't, like you said, Brandon, often express. But there is a role for each and it is a gendered role. And I think that's a really good point.

And right now we are feeling the lack of both. We're feeling back the lack of the strong woman and the lack of the strong man in these situations. I think there's some legal precedent or rule where if someone's bleeding out and you aren't

a doctor, you can still go up and like try and put pressure on the wound and just help. And you won't immediately be liable for that person dying. If you like did slightly the wrong thing, as long as you're acting like not grossly negligently and you're doing like what a prudent person would do. And it seems like we kind of have lost that, uh,

benefit of the doubt towards these like other civil actions that happen. And then there's something, yeah, yeah. It's just, there's just something about like this, this low level risk of like, oh, like I could face legal consequences or I could be, you know, shouted out of society if I, if I just step up and take some sort of risk to solve a problem that's happening.

Yeah. I mean, this one is really caught up, obviously, in the race stuff. You have a white guy killing a black guy on a subway, and it doesn't matter that the entire train car was on the side of Penny, including another black man was helping him. It just is like you have these DAs in that city that are super radical, and they like this divided race narrative, and they want to drive it forward, and they want to ignore what Penny was. Not Penny, I'm sorry, Neely. Neely.

they want, they want to drive this, this idea forward that Neely was like this innocent victim because really whose fault is it that Neely is out there on the streets? It's the city's fault. So the city is the reason that this crazy person is left roaming the streets and attacking people. And now the city is prosecuting the man who stepped up to defend people from the train. You can ignore the race piece completely and should. And, uh,

And the story, in my opinion, it's very simple. It's if you want to live in a world with more people standing up for something horrible that's happening or not. And if you do, then you got to free this man. Anyway, we'll be seeing more of that. I want to just to sort of... Riley, I want you to tell me about the biker, the bicycler, the cyclist.

The most insane group of people in our society, man. Okay. So there is a $350 million proposal in New York city right now, uh, that would remove car lanes on fifth Avenue in lieu of expanded sidewalks, longer crosswalks, all to make the area more pedestrian friendly, uh,

Notably, the proposal also includes protected bike lanes. Although as one insane biker in my mentions noted, I guess it's like even the bikers don't love this proposal because it's like the bikers are... The bike lanes are only on one side. Anyways, that's not the point. The point is this. Bikers are a bunch of...

primitive animals they are let me give you the con so i wrote a take about this proposal and i also referenced the story in utah where this out of control menace boomer cyclist you know accosts this innocent teen who's just trying to go skate with his boys um opens his car door yells like i have more rights than you um all because the teen allegedly got too close to him on the road

I get on X the following day and it's World War III. So I have boomer cyclists in my DM saying how callous I was being. Some would say the digital equivalent of trying to open my car door and yelling at me. That's what it felt like.

I have bikers in my comments mad at me. And it just reinforced for me that like, you know, we mentioned a bike buyback program in the take as sort of like a mandatory bike. It was, you know, a lighthearted proposal. But I think it is time to get serious because these people are menaces to society and they need to be off the streets before more innocent people like me and that Utah teen are are accosted.

I have been almost hit many times by, what do we call them, by the way? They're not bikers. Are they bicyclers? Are they cyclists? Cyclists. The road version of them. I don't have a problem. If you're a mountain biker on some mountain bike specific trail, not a hiking trail, you

Go have fun. If you are cycling around the city, I'm already angry. I feel like it should just be fucking illegal outside of San Francisco on the PCH, like up in the mountains. That's crazy. Get off the road. But in the actual city now, why do people on bikes not have to obey...

the stop signs and red lights and shit like that. I'm as a, not a car driver where they're all like, fuck cars. And it's like, I, you have, I'm in danger by you, not cars. I am almost getting hit by people on bikes who are blowing stop signs and red lights. You're, why am I,

as someone walking around treating like a second class citizen to these people. They're out of control. It's like you get on a bike and you actually do think you're doing... There's like a self-righteousness attached to it somehow, maybe because it's good for the environment. You're probably also a little scared because there are cars flying around. I understand the adrenaline is pumping. But at the end of the day...

bikes are for children get a car and leave the child speaking of children alone man that was a crazy video opening your door trying to drag him out of him when he gets out and he goes why are you so cranky and he seemed like i don't understand zoomers man i just like don't get them but i appreciate them and that was like very much one of these moments where i was like i don't understand these kids but i don't want them to die at the hand of an old biker that was a crazy story

See, I completely disagree with this. I think that there's a great way to let innovation solve this problem. So there's two bikers, cyclists in my neighborhood. One has an electric bike that goes almost like 40 miles an hour. It has an electric motor on it. And another one has a sit-down bike that has three wheels.

And so I think if we combine these, we could have like a four-wheeled bicycle with a really powerful electric motor that goes like 60 miles an hour. You don't have to obey any of the traffic laws, but it effectively works like a car. Wait, what? You do have to obey the traffic... They're not like... They do have to obey the traffic laws. They're not actually exempt. You're on a bike. You're just on a bike. It's just a four-wheeled bike with a huge electric motor that goes 65 miles an hour. I think we're focusing on the wrong thing. The problem is not the bikes. The problem is the...

weird tight spandex clothes that they wear have you guys ever seen like one of those biker videos where they're not wearing the weird spandex clothes it's like when they put the clothes on that's when they become crazy yeah buy back the clothes also it's horrible to look at

It's weird to see the dick imprint. That's strange, right? Like put a pair of shorts on. It's unseemly. Why do they got, what's with the shirts too? They're like, they're, they're not, they're not actually sponsored by the, like what's on the, like, yeah. Like a logo on the back. Like they're sponsored by them. Like you just bought that for, for 50 bucks at the,

Patagonia shop or whatever. You could maybe make an argument if you're an Olympic trainer. You're like, I got to be able to go just like a half a second faster. But you're like a 60-year-old guy on a bike. Like a fucking t-shirt's fine, bro. You're not in a race. No one cares what is going on. You're like, I don't get it. It's sort of like those old guys in the gym who also walk around naked. It feels spiritually...

linked to me in this way it's like you just want people to see you like this it's very strange and um yeah i don't know what i don't know what to make of it other than i don't like it was there like a maybe like a zoom or group chat riley where you guys all talked about it a

If not, there needs to be because we need to do something about this. This is a problem. What about BMX bikes with pegs? If you can do a front flip, do you get an exception? That's allowed because they do that in a bike park. They don't do that on the road when people are trying to drive. And yeah, it's a crisis and we need the buyback program. Well, the story ended happily because in the end, the cop

So the dude calls the cops. He does like a citizen's arrest of this kid. Calls the cops. The cops show up and...

and give both of them a citation. First, he gives the kid a citation because the guy is alleging that this kid tried to run him off the road. Then the kid shows him his footage of the guy holding him down and not letting him leave and fucking with his car and everything. And he gave the old man a citation, older man, older gentleman, a citation, which was, I forget what the actual citation was, like public disorder, I believe. Disorderly conduct. Disorderly conduct.

The guy then was like, oh my God, can I just take it back? Can I say sorry to him? Please, man. Come on, man. And they were like, no, you can't. The cop was like, absolutely fucking not. I saw it. It was deranged. You don't have a right. You can't just hold someone down and call the cop. He was like, but I had to make sure he didn't leave. And he's like, that's not your job. That's crazy that you think that you're just in charge of the streets. So then on further evidence,

The judge, because the kid's mom gets on X and is like, my son was accosted and I'm so proud of him. He handled himself so well. Good job, honey. They go to court and the judge looks at the footage. He's like, yeah, we're throwing the ticket out. The kid's fine. The old man is crazy. Moving on. Society. So it was a great feel good story. And Skater Joe, Skater Zeke? Pierce. Pierce was his name? Yeah. Yeah.

Skater Pierce is free to skate another day. Yeah, last thoughts about any of this stuff, guys. We need a buyback program. Get these people off the streets. And into mental asylums. We do need to reopen mental asylums. We need a bicycle buyback program. We need forced... What is the word I'm looking for right now? They have a fancy word for it when you force somebody into a mental asylum. Institutionalize? Institutionalize.

Yes, but it's called... They have some euphemism for it. Conservatorship. Oh, okay. It's a Britney Spears thing? Yes. And guess what? Is she better or worse than she was? I mean, that's whatever. She's not as bad as bikers. So...

Free Britney, fine, but the bikers belong in institutions. It's been real. Next week, again, we are off for Hereticon, but we will hit you up with a pretty cool interview. I guess, below our mentions, last call, you got to vote on your Pirate Idol contestants before we come back to you with the semifinals. We're getting there, guys. It's been real. Have a great weekend. See you. Ride or die. Bye. Thanks, John. Yeah, no worries.