Speaker 1: So I don't really even know what to make of this, but radical, deranged, delusional
fantasy world religious televangelist Pat Robertson, of course, known from the 700 Club,
which has been around for decades at this point, he did a mostly accurate and pretty
sober and precise assessment of police killings, including specifically of the killing in Minnesota
of DONTAE.
Right.
It's almost I'm kind of joking here.
It's almost like Pat Robertson became WOAK, and I'm joking because I don't actually use
that term.
But check out this video.
Pat Robertson's co-host pointing out the entire Taser versus gun confusion that's being claimed
is a terrible explanation for the officer involved in the shooting.
Tasers and guns are kept on opposite sides of police.
Utility belts, guns and tasers feel totally different.
And then Pat Robertson, I venture to say here, delivers an impassioned statement about the
issue facing our country.
Check this out.
Talking about George Floyd and Derek Shoven, the Dante Wright shooting police and more.
I don't know.
It's Pat Robertson.
Take a look Speaker 4: what else I'm going to say.
You know, I think a lot of people are thinking like I was, that both gun belts, a gun and
the Taser would be put on your dominant side.
But it's not that would have to have to cross the hill.
So you actually have to reach across yourself.
So, yeah, it's definitely just as I say, they're not making Tasers in the shillitoe, really
more than regular in blacks.
They're making them yellow.
Not how she made the difference when she shot that poor guy to death, saying this is what
this is.
I think it was my taser.
And if you can't tell the difference in the feel a little is crazy and she deserves.
But, you know, I am told police folks, I think we need the police, we need their service
and they do a good job.
But if they don't stop this onslaught, they cannot do this.
You know, the police and Virginia picked up a lieutenant in the army.
And again, they give him trouble.
And our our our state police are highly trained for why they stop this and this thing that's
going on in Minnesota.
But the Derek Show, I mean, they all put him under the jail.
He has caused so much trouble.
But nailing on the deaths of George Floyd is just I last night.
It's just terrible what's happening.
And the police, why don't they open their eyes to what the public relations are?
They've got to stop this stuff.
Speaker 1: So there is Pat Robertson at the age of 91 years coming across a good take.
Somehow it happened.
Now, you know, OK, some of what Pat Robertson is saying seems to be that lots of this stuff
just makes police look bad versus it's actually bad that I understand that maybe there's an
aspect of that here.
I've never seen anything like this from Pat Robertson.
Now, this doesn't make Pat Robertson a progressive beacon of hope, hope.
But but as he pointed out, even Pat Robertson seems to realize that the situation in the
country has become completely absurd.
There is an opposite interpretation as well.
If Pat Robertson is actually able to see this situation for what it is, doesn't it make
it more likely that he realized all of realizes, all of the other stuff he's saying is bogus,
but he says it anyway in order to get donations or clicks or ratings or to placate his right
wing religious audience?
I don't know.
The other thing is there are some instances in Pat Robertson's past where he'll say something
kind of logical and then there will be blowback and then he'll just backtrack a week later.
I think this happened once with with cannabis legalization, where he said something that
was pretty, pretty logical.
His audience went nuts.
And next thing we knew, he had basically recanted his view.
But I do think that the one may be consistent takeaway is that there are lots of people
who, when they're able to separate themselves from their partizanship and their tribalism,
they realize at a deep gut level what's going on with guns and or with police shootings
is not OK.
They get it.
Then very often after they have the gut reaction, they turn on Fox News or whatever and they
realize, oh, there's partizan talking points I have to get in line with.
But there's like this brief moment of clarity that they seem to have.
Then the NRA comes in and they say, no, no, no, this is evidence.
We need more guns, police should have more guns and people should have more guns and
they should be easier to buy.
And then they mostly fall in line.
But many of these people, I think for a moment, get it anyway.
No need to now start praising Pat Robertson more than he deserves.
But it's an interesting segment, certainly.
Not something I was expecting to see, and maybe there's like some glimmer of hope here
that there's maybe an opportunity to get consensus on the issue of guns and police if we can
separate people from their reflexive partizan reactions.
And that's not easy.
There's a reason that if you go back to the Sandy Hook shooting, which was what was that,
2012, it's insane that it's been almost a decade.
If so, you go back to the Sandy Hook shooting and you had an 88 to 90 percent approval rating
from the country saying we need 100 percent universal background checks.
It didn't happen even with that level of agreement.
It didn't happen.
And we have almost nothing in this country where you have 88 to 90 percent agreement.
But people had the gut reaction.
Wait a second.
There are some gun transactions where you don't need a background check.
That doesn't make sense at a fundamental level.
Then in came the NRA.
In came the Republican politicians and nothing got done.
So maybe the takeaway here is not Pat Robertson, beacon of WOAK or beacon of hope or whatever,
but that there's an opportunity there, brief as it may be, where there may be more agreement
on these issues than it sometimes seems.