Good morning, one and
all, welcome to
the damage board.
I'm John Arilla, very excited to be coming to you once again with
a full day of news and very soon, very exciting guest is going to be joining us.
We have a lot to talk about today, everyone.
I'm gonna need you to prepare yourself.
Thankfully, while we have a number of different news stories that I think
are deeply distressing,
they don't hit you in the face as hard as some of the sorts of news that we have.
It's even kind of a little bit of fun, some of these.
So while you still do need to hold onto your butts,
you do still need to prepare yourselves, not as much as in some cases.
So relax just a little bit on this fine Thursday,
we are going to be talking about Clarence Thomas.
Turns out he might be a little corrupt.
And I know what you're thinking.
Wait, is it like Groundhogs Day?
Haven't we already talked about that?
Yes, we have many times.
But all of this is new and we will be jumping into it.
We also have Donald Trump's updated defense when it comes
to the E Jean Carroll civil rape lawsuit that he's facing.
We got some video of Trump responding to what's going on and
Herschel Walker back in the news.
Kind of thought we were done with Herschel Walker, but we are not, however,
done with Herschel Walker's potential crimes.
We're gonna be talking about that and then we've got other exciting news, too.
And definitely stick around for the aftermath, everyone.
So if you're on linear platforms or on the podcast,
know that you can always go to our YouTube channel@youtube.com, the Damageport, and
see extra bonus content that you might have been missing this whole time,
because we're gonna be diving into AI.
There is a lot going on, things are changing fast.
Dark Brandon has now gotten involved with AI.
So we've got that, people defending Tucker Carlson and a whole lot more.
So along the way, if you wanna comment on any of these stories,
let us know about breaking news as it develops.
Maybe make a little joke, see if you can get a chuckle.
You can send us comments, tweet, super chats and all that.
And myself and my mystery guests will respond as we go.
You also, by the way, will have a chance at a $100 Blue Apron gift card.
And I just made this shrimp dish from Blue Apron yesterday, it was delicious.
So if you can get in on that, it's worth the comment.
So send those in and I'll respond as we go.
But with all that said, I'm ready to start the show,
so why don't we jump into this thing?
Clarence Thomas, you've been a really, really bad boy,
it turns out, in increasingly novel ways.
Here's a fun one where he's benefited from his incredibly close,
lucrative relationship with GOP mega donor Harlan Crowe.
Back in 2008,
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grand nephew,
who, according to him, he was raising like a son, to Hidden Lake Academy,
a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia.
Now, you need to understand that tuition at this boarding school ran more than
$6,000 a month.
In 2008 dear Lord, these people live lives unlike ours.
But here's the interesting thing, despite that very big bill,
it was not Clarence Thomas who actually footed it.
In fact, thanks to the analysis and investigation of ProPublica, we got this
little document where we actually found out who was paying the $6,200 a month.
And do you see it?
If you zoom in and enhance grid G6, you can see Crow holdings.
And you might think, isn't that one of the criminal organizations from Batman?
Probably, I haven't seen all of that.
I can't attest to that.
But what it is, is Harlan Crow's business, one of them.
And so, once again, Harlan Crow to the rescue when the disaster
is Clarence Thomas having to pay for things for himself.
So a bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court
filings, shows that that was the person who paid Martin's tuition for that month.
But here's the thing, it wasn't just $6,200.
As distressing as that would potentially be, the payments extended well beyond that
month according to Christopher Grimwood, former administrator at the school.
Crow paid of Martin's tuition the entire time he was a student there,
which was about a year.
But even that isn't all of it.
Before and after his time at Hidden Lake, where I think they make ranch dressing,
Martin attended a second boarding school, Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, which,
again, sounds like the sort of place that incredibly wealthy, privileged people go.
Harlan said he was paying for the tuition at Randolph-Macon Academy as well,
according to Grimwood, recalling a conversation he had with
Crow during a visit to the billionaires Adirondacks estate.
Isn't it nice to have an estate?
Do you appreciate your estate on a daily basis?
You should give some respect to your estate anyway.
By the way, the school administrator is going to the billionaires estate.
This is all just so incestuous and dirty.
In any event, the exact amount that Crow paid for Martin's education over
the years and through multiple fancy private schools remains unclear.
But if he paid for all four years at the two schools,
the price tag could have exceeded $150,000,
according to public records of tuition rates at the schools from that time.
So you might be wondering, why would this guy be paying potentially
$150,000 for the grand nephew of one of his buddies?
Well, whatever the reason is, we know what it isn't, and that is corruption.
So get that right out of your mind.
His office sent a message saying, it's disappointing that those with partisan
political interests would try to turn helping at risk youth with tuition
assistance into something nefarious and political.
Look, if we could normalize billionaires spending their wealth to help at risk
youth rather than all of the nonsense that they get up to, I would be fine with that.
And is that in some sense, what this is?
Maybe, but there is a lot of measures that can be taken to protect this at
risk youth that don't, I think, rise to the level of paying many thousands of
dollars a month for a number of different private schools, particularly for
a guy who the uncle of which was a Supreme Court justice at that point.
And so, look, I don't know if you buy what Harlan Crow is saying about why he decided
to do this charity in this one case for an incredibly well connected young kid.
But even if you do, that still leaves Clarence Thomas.
So what do we think about that?
Well, interestingly, Thomas did not report the tuition payments from Crow on his
annual financial disclosures.
Now, that fits in with everything that Clarence Thomas has done.
But here is where it gets interesting.
Several years earlier, Thomas disclosed a gift of $5,000 for
Martin's education from another friend.
It's not clear why he reported that payment, but not Crow's, says ProPublica.
And they do need to say that because they're a very responsible journalistic
outlet.
The rest of us, though, can think it's probably pretty clear why he's in it in
the one case and not the other.
First of all, it's way more than $5,000.
Second of all, it's a guy who has repeatedly had business
before the Supreme Court, and so you might have a vested interest in protecting
knowledge of one of them and not the other.
But before we gloss over that, he got $5,000 from another friend too.
I will remind you Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court justice.
He had been a Supreme Court justice for many years at that point.
They make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year,
just purely based off of their tuition.
And they make tons of other money from things like the private teaching gigs that
we were talking about earlier this week,
as well as speeches and book deals and all of that stuff.
Why was Clarence Thomas so desperate to be given money from billionaire
buddies to help out his nephew when he definitely has the money to do it himself?
That's interesting, perhaps we'll return to that.
And by the way, we're focusing on this most recent development.
But if you haven't been following all of the news that's come out primarily,
by the way, to the great credit of ProPublica, thanks to their efforts.
Here is a little bit of a recap of just some of the distressing news when it comes
to the possibility of the perception of corruption when it comes to
Clarence Thomas.
Last month, they reported that Thomas accepted luxury travel from Crow virtually
every year for decades, including international super yacht cruises and
private jet flights around the world.
Crow also paid money to Thomas and
his relatives in an undisclosed real estate deal.
After he purchased the house where Thomas's mother lived,
he poured tens of thousands of dollars into approving the property.
As well as buying neighboring properties, then demolishing them so
nobody would live nearby her and play music loud.
Roughly 15 years ago, Crow donated much of the budget of a political group
founded by Thomas's wife, which paid her a $120,000 salary.
He paid, I believe, half a million dollars,
which is an amazing individual donation from one billionaire.
And it would be bad enough if that just went to the political activities of
Jenny Thomas's pack.
Money is money, they don't need to raise it from someone else or
spend their own money if they get it from Harlan Crow.
But the fact that she was drawing a salary,
that is just a transfer of $100,000 a year.
$120,000 a year from a right wing billionaire to the wife of
a Supreme Court justice who presumably has a good relationship with that wife.
This is a massive, massive multifaceted issue.
Millions of dollars being transferred from just one right wing
billionaire who has a long established vested interest in turning America's
judiciary towards a more rightward direction.
And we're supposed to just be okay with this.
But here's the thing.
While I think that's insane, you could probably gather that from my tone.
My fear is that a lot of people probably will just be fine with this,
because remember when I was going over all the other issues of corruption?
They've already accepted super yacht vacations.
They already accepted another $150,000.
It's weird how that number keeps popping up in buying the property effectively and
then improving it just gift after gift after gift,
endless hundreds of thousands of dollars.
At this point, honestly, we keep asking after each one of these,
why did Clarence Thomas not report this?
And the answer, I still think the best answer,
the easiest answer is because he was attempting to hide it.
But we are starting to develop, I think, plausible reasons to believe
there's another reason he hasn't reported it because he's getting so
many gifts that he honestly can't track them all.
Like, how are you supposed to keep track of all the vacations and the schools and
the houses and the Bibles and the Lincoln busts and the political Pac donations?
I'm not a big fan of Clarence Thomas, but a person could only hold so
many things in their mind.
Maybe he just slipped on a few of these.
But look, if you're listening to this and you're a right winger, you are obviously
predisposed to not care about any of this because Clarence Thomas is a right winger.
And look, let's keep it real.
You don't care about the corruption.
You just care about what he does when he's on the court.
Well, I will remind you that while Clarence Thomas has been outed as by far
the most corrupt member of the Supreme Court.
The rest of the court has not fared well with the news cycle of the past couple
of weeks.
Not only Neil Gorsuch selling a house to another incredibly wealthy person that
had business before the court at above market rates.
Not only the many justices that have been given these incredibly cushy,
well paying, effectively foreign vacations to teach abroad.
Which does not just include the right wingers,
it includes those nominated by Democrats as well.
But we now find out that Sonia Sotomayor also didn't recuse herself from
a Penguin Book case, despite having received $3 million from that publisher.
That is obviously a conflict of interest.
And she should have recused herself in the same way that Clarence Thomas should have
recused himself from any of the business that Harlan Crow had before the court.
And I am glad that we know about this.
It is yet another reminder that corruption runs deep across the entire court.
And I will use this as an opportunity to remind you that every member of the court
is insisting that no oversight is needed.
They are not gonna be testifying before the court,
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has already stated that very clearly.
And so this is another reminder that Clarence Thomas is the worst, but
they're all pretty bad.
But I will also point out that the reason we know about this deal,
the Sotomayor thing, is because the right wing blog Daily Wire reported on it.
Now, they're right wingers, you might think, well, this seems like it's probably
just a reason to sort of draw attention away from Clarence Thomas.
And if you would like to make that case, you can pretty much just cite the final
two paragraphs of their actual reporting, which we're gonna bring up right now.
In that they talk about a seemingly coordinated push in the media to accuse
conservative justices of misconduct.
They're literally in the process of doing a media push to smear Sotomayor.
Rightly, she did it.
It should be pointed out.
But you're clearly just using it to try to balance the scales.
And they say that we criticize the Supreme Court more than anyone,
even though we're attempting to distract from it right now.
And even in that they say that the media is overreacting about things like
Neil Gorsuch selling a house and what's going on with Chief Justice John Roberts.
So all of this is like pretending to be oversight, but
the end goal is not what it would seem like it should be.
If you're participating in needed journalism unveiling the corruption of
the Supreme Court.
Well, then the end result of it, of it when we find out that Clarence Thomas
is corrupt and my God, Neil Gorsuch.
And there's the Kavanaugh concerns and Jesus now, Sotomayor, God.
And Kagan was doing those trips abroad, well, then clearly something
needs to happen that does not appear to be what they're pushing for.
Even though they are pointing out that Sotomayor has issues,
I would like to thank them for their contribution to the story.
I think that it is yet more of a reminder that we need far more ethical,
not just like guidelines or whatever, but legal ramifications for
the sort of corruption that we're seeing.
They need to submit to oversight when justifiable concerns are raised.
They don't appear to be pushing for that, but I think reasonable people should.
And thankfully, in some cases, like with representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez,
actually are.
Okay, that is your Clarence Thomas Supreme Court corruption update for the day.
Tune in tomorrow for more.
Okay, I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna take an early break so
we can try to link up with our guests for the day.
But don't go anywhere because we've got a rapidly developing situation when it comes
to the civil rape case against Donald Trump.
We're gonna have more on that after this.
[MUSIC]
Welcome back, one and all.
If you're just joining us now, someone else is joining us now.
Nina Turner's on the show.
Nina, we talked a bit during the break, but for those who listen on the linear of
the podcast, it's good to have you here as always, thank you.
>> It is so great to be back with you, John.
>> Great to have you here.
I will not accept the silencing of one Nina Turner, okay?
So anyway, glad to hear your voice.
Sorry for the issues.
I've been dealing a little bit with like, a sore throat too, and
it's not particularly bad.
But ever since 2020, anytime I start to feel a tickle,
I just instantly think, dear God, I wonder when that instinct will go away.
>> I don't know if it ever will.
It's gonna haunt us.
It's gonna be haunting us for a while, I think.
>> I am worried about that.
Okay, with that said, we got a lot more news everyone.
If you're just joining us, please hit the like button, and
we're gonna jump into more news, starting with this.
>> Trump, why are you here instead of in New York for your civil case, please?
>> Because we have a long-standing agreement to come here.
We've had a tremendous reception, a beautiful reception.
The people of Ireland have been great, and we have a tremendous success.
And I hear we're doing very well in New York.
>> [CROSSTALK] >> Okay, so
that is what passes for the former President United States' official
statement on the civil rape trial that he is currently facing in New York.
He hears that we're doing quite good.
Okay, well, he had previously already had his legal team be warned by the judge
that they need to rein him in for his deranged social media posts about this.
I don't know if that's maybe what he's referencing when he says that we're
doing well.
They've spent the past couple of days viciously attacking E Jean Carroll for
every way that, in their view, she has failed to live up to their ever-changing
expectations of what the perfect unicorn survivor of sexual assault should act like
and speak like and when they should speak out about it and when they shouldn't.
And I don't think that's received a great reception that legal strategy.
So I'm not sure if that's what he's referencing.
They also apparently are gonna present no witnesses in this trial,
although they will be able to refer to some past testimony.
So maybe strategically he means that they're doing well.
In any event, the entire thing has been absolutely disgusting.
We are reaching actually very quickly the end of this trial, so
perhaps soon we'll know if anything is gonna come of it.
I have other details for you, but, Nina, I wanna give you a chance to weigh in.
I don't know how much you've been tracking this trial that's going on, but
it's been many trials involving women making accusations against powerful men.
It's been gross.
What do you think?
>> Yeah, it has.
And I think they're making closing arguments maybe as soon as Monday.
So we will see.
This is just Donald J Trump being and doing what he is.
We remember that video with him saying that he could just grab him and
do whatever he wants to do.
And obviously, he is a common denominator.
I mean, accusations are one thing when you got several upon several, upon several,
upon several women making similar accusations about you over the years,
come on, Mr. Trump, you're the common denominator here.
So in terms of the strategy,
not having him testify probably is a great strategy as far as they're concerned.
But we will see.
I mean, it is in the hands of the judge and in the hands of the jury.
We'll see what happens.
But this is classic Donald J Trump.
>> Yeah, I mean, what do we expect he would say if he actually were to testify?
Just incredibly gross things about how E Jean Carroll isn't attractive enough for
him to rape, that sort of stuff.
Just probably beauty.
>> As if he's a beauty himself.
>> Yeah.
I guess John, his testimony would be similar to what he tweets out or
what he puts on Truth Social.
It would be the same.
It would be how he interviews exactly.
We know exactly what he was saying cuz he said it before, he's done it before.
There's nothing new here with Donald J Trump, so
we'll see what happens in this case.
>> By the way, almost the only statements from Trump that were played by his
legal team to the jury are, as you say, not new.
They actually played clips from an October 2022 deposition where he
was asked whether he'd ever contacted Bergdorf's after the allegation,
he says, I didn't have to reach out to anybody.
It's the most ridiculous, disgusting story.
It was just made up.
If it did happen, it would have been reported within minutes.
Contending that shoppers and employees at the very busy store would have heard
a commotion and alerted authorities.
Look, he's using this as his defense because he knows that some people will buy
it, particularly if they like him.
They're never gonna accept any of this.
It doesn't matter if there's ten or
20 or 50 or 1000 women who come forward with these sorts of statements.
It doesn't matter if their experience lines up with his own stated in
the Access Hollywood tape strategy for getting women,
which is to just maul them because you're a celebrity and you get to.
That's what his defense is at this point.
And so it's gonna come down to the jury.
Remember, this is a civil lawsuit, everybody.
So manage your expectations.
For even if the jury is on the side of E Jean Carroll, he's not going to jail or
anything like that.
But we'll see if there can be any compensation whatsoever for
the horrific experience that E Jean Carroll has gone through.
And in particular, because that's what this case is about,
what she sees as the defamation that she's experienced by him, in her words,
lying about what she underwent.
As a result of this civil rape lawsuit that Trump is facing, other accusers have
been forced to once again recount the experience they've had with him.
And we have one who's talking about what happened at Mar-a-Lago.
This is Natasha Stoynoff, former writer for People Magazine,
testified through tears this week that Trump forcibly kissed her against her will
while showing her around his Mar-a-Lago estate just after Christmas in 2005 for
an article about his first wedding anniversary with his third wife, Melania.
And so I don't know what it is about these important dates between him and
Melania that seems to trigger these incidents.
But if this is reminding you of what happened with Stormy Daniels just a few
months after she gave birth to their first child, well, apparently the first wedding
anniversary also resulted, according to Natasha Stoynoff, in this incident.
She said the horrifying part to me was that I worried because I didn't say
anything at the time, other women were hurt by him so I had to regret.
And I feel terrible for her that she would experience that feeling.
I understand why she would fear that.
She sees all of these other women come out with their experiences and
fears that maybe something could have been done to stop it.
But to whatever extent,
I can reassure Natasha Stoynoff to not worry about that, I will.
Even though my argument is a little bit depressing,
I don't think you need to worry about that because I have a feeling that you would
have received the sort of response that all of these women have.
All the people who love and adore and worship Trump won't accept it.
It doesn't matter how public you are.
It doesn't matter how immediately you come out after the experience.
People especially back in 2005, didn't have a single minute to give to people
making accusations against powerful men.
So that may make us worry about a lot of other aspects of American society, but
don't worry about your own culpability and what happened.
Anyway, Nina, what do you think?
And your point, John, about the fact that something is triggering Trump,
no excuse for what he's doing, but, my God, a reporter is coming there to talk
about your wedding anniversary, and this is what you do.
Dude, I mean, whether it was a triggering event or not, just even the thought
of this, she's in the home where Melania is and this is what this man does.
There's obviously something wrong with Donald J Trump.
These women are just exposing it time and time again, not just for
his political side, but mainly for his personal behavior.
It seems, John, he doesn't have impulse control.
>> Yeah, [CROSSTALK] you're 100% right.
But also, it really goes to his often-stated defense against these
accusations, which is, if I was going to rape someone, it wouldn't be them.
They're not attractive enough.
Does anyone think that this is about Donald Trump just wanting someone
attracted?
He's married at this point.
He's been married multiple times.
Yeah, he's cheating right after his wife gave birth.
It's not about that at all.
>> He likes victimizing people.
He likes having people in situations where they feel they can't get away and
he preys on them, whether it's a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman,
whether it's someone who's been brought to sit next to him on a plane,
whether it's bringing them to his house.
He feels like, I can do whatever I want in this situation.
There's nothing they can do.
That's what he likes about it.
And that explains a lot of these assaults, exactly.
>> It's a power dynamic, and people should not forget that.
Even though when Trump comes out, he's so convincing in what he says,
and he says it with such authority that people do tend to believe him besides
the fact that he is an authority figure.
But he says things so convincingly that people can be sucked up into it.
So it's not about attractive or not attractive.
This is about power, pure and simple, just raw power.
Whether it's Donald Trump, as you laid out,
a lot of powerful men have done this over the course of time in this country.
Well, worldwide, women can be victims to men, but it's especially when they
are powerful, when they have a platform and they have a cachet.
And certainly Mr.
Donald J Trump, former President of the United States of America, has all that.
And let us not forget what happened also to Monica Lewinsky and
how she was villainized for a very long time, John.
She's just not coming out again where there was totally a lack of understanding.
Even some women's groups did not support her,
even when the facts were there, because people can allege a lot of things.
Let me just put that out there.
People can allege a lot of things.
All allegations do not mean that they're true.
But when you lay the facts out and the facts they're there and they're solid,
then you got to kind of say, okay, this is more true than not.
And that was the case with Monica Lewinsky in this country for decades,
allowed that young woman to suffer under the weight of powerful people.
And it's just really a shame.
>> Yeah, and I'm glad that you clarified that.
What you are doing is providing an amazing,
robust response to generally right wing arguments from people who don't
give a damn about sexual assault when it happens.
Who will throw the label believe women in the face of people.
Implying that what it means is, just anything that anybody says,
whether there's evidence or not, no that's not what it means at all.
People can be intelligent and reasonable and think about things in logical ways as
Nina just pointed out, we don't just turn off our brains.
It means do not just immediately say,
you're accusing a guy that I like being in office.
I don't care what happened to you.
Honestly, go away.
We're not gonna listen to you.
>> That's right.
Yes, okay.
We are going to mix things up, talk about another powerful man who is alleged
appears to have taken advantage of his position, but in a very different way.
So whenever we're ready, why don't we jump into this?
Herschel Walker is back in the news.
Don't worry, he's not running for office again just yet.
No, in this case, emails have now emerged implying that he appears to have solicited
literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in kind of fake political donations that
rather than going to his campaign to be spent on his effort to become a senator,
instead just went to his business, effectively went to Herschel Walker.
We are still very much in the allegations phase of this reporting, but
we do wanna give you the details.
So apparently at one point he emailed a representative for
billionaire industrialist and longtime family friend Dennis Washington back in
March 2022, and they were talking back and forth about money for his candidacy.
So the guy decided to give him the money and
he appears at least based on official communications, to have believed that he
was giving it to the campaign to be spent on campaign stuff.
But we now find out what really happened.
According to emails obtained by The Daily Beast, and that have since been
verified by a person with knowledge of the exchanges showing that Walker asked
Washington to wire $535,000 directly to his company, HR Talent, LLC.
The emails reveal that not only did Washington do it,
but he was under the impression that these were, in fact, political contributions.
So we can show some of these emails.
The important part from this is that at some point the representative reaches out
to Herschel Walker saying, after our call, a redacted name reached out to me and
said with you that any funds sent to the HR Talent account can't legally be
used for political purposes.
So you need to sort of transfer them over.
Look, we don't know what other communications might have been happening,
but if we assume that all of what we're seeing is legit and
these were the only communications,
it seems like the billionaire wanted these to be kind of on the level.
As much on the level as over half a million dollars being given to a super Pac
that's obviously coordinating with a single candidate can ever be.
But anyway, he didn't want to just give the guy a half a million dollars.
That apparently rises to the level of bribery.
And so legal experts have been saying that best case scenario,
this is a violation of federal fundraising rules.
Worst case, it could be wire fraud.
It could even be wire fraud like defrauding the right wing
billionaire in the end.
Look, we don't know in the end exactly what happened.
It is possible that he refunded this money.
There's no evidence of anything being done of a variety of different ways to correct
the situation, though.
And so as of right now, it still does look really worrying.
And I think this should bother a lot of different types of people, not only people
who worry about money and politics, but if you're a Republican, he lost.
Maybe he could have used that $500,000 for his campaign.
So anyway, Nina, what do you think about this?
>> Why would he even in the first place ask this donor to donate it to his
company?
The red flag should have went off,
no pun intended, to the donor right then and there.
Why am I sending this money to somebody's personal company,
number two, who was managing Herschel Walker?
Because any campaign manager or finance director worth their salt
would not have allowed their candidate to do this without protest.
And maybe, like you said, there are some things that we do not know.
Maybe people on this campaign team did protest, but
I'm just putting that out there as somebody who has been through this and
have helped people go through this.
There's no way in the hell that a campaign manager or finance director would have
allowed their candidate to do this without warning them that this is wrong,
it is illegal, this is not where this money is supposed to go.
And why did he think that this donor was going to give him money for
his talent agency?
What sense this for what, dude?
Demand your run.
That's just common sense.
But my grandmother always said that common sense is not common.
And then lastly, John, in a way it's unfortunate, but Herschel Walker,
even though he lost,
he fits in with a lot of elected officials that are on the heel right now.
They may not be asking multimillionaires and billionaires to donate personally to
their companies, but maybe there's so many loopholes by which they
can use to get money to get these kind of cushy platinum level jobs when they leave.
And also to do insider trading.
I don't know, John.
Insider trading this, it seems like to me, Herschel Walker,
unfortunately, would fit right in with the gang down there.
>> Yeah, it's timed really well with AOC and
Representative Gates rolling out their bill again.
Yeah, if they needed another demonstration of money in politics and all of that.
By the way, I expect that today it's gonna be wall to wall coverage on Fox News of
this story because as we all know, they hate the deep state,
they hate people manipulating politicians behind the scenes,
and they also hate the elites having so much power.
This is a huge amount of power.
This and the Clarence Thomas thing.
I mean, come on, that's their whole rundown for the full day, right?
Because they don't want billionaires sticking it
to the left behind silence conservatives.
I have a feeling they're gonna be fine with these.
He's gonna run again I bet.
I mean, look, especially if he gets away with this, you can get so much money.
He ended his campaign still having $5 million, which,
again, if you're a Republican in that state, how angry should
you be that he had millions of dollars he could have spent to try to win that race?
>> They should be angry John, you got to use that money.
I mean, you got to use it because you don't want that, what if fact.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, that's why people are donating the money, so
that you can use it to try to win, not for you to hoard it and save it.
Like I said, I don't know what kind of operatives he had working on his campaign,
but obviously his felon as a candidate and I'm not saying that because he lost,
I'm talking about in the way they operate is very telling.
You could have used that $5 million to buy a more convincing fake police badge.
You could have spent it as hush money to stop some of your prior partners from
coming out with their horrendous situations that they had with you.
>> The shade John, the shade.
>> Sorry, I just try to be helpful, Nina.
>> [LAUGH] >> Anyway, okay, well, with that,
why don't we go from a Senate race of the past to a Senate race of the future?
Let's talk about this.
There's definitely a target on Ted Cruz's back as
we roll towards his reelection bid, and he's now facing another Democrat.
I expect that there's probably going to be quite a few people trying to
take him down.
But right now, we have US House Representative for Texas, Colin Allred,
civil rights lawyer, former NFL linebacker,
who's gonna be going up against Ted Cruz.
Here's a little bit of the video he rolled out for his announcement.
>> When I left the NFL, I thought my days of putting people on the ground were over,
then January 6 happened.
>> [NOISE] >> I
remember hearing the glass breaking and the shouts coming closer,
I texted my wife, whatever happens, I love you.
Then I took off my jacket and got ready to take on anyone who came through that door.
And Ted Cruz, he cheered on the mob.
>> We will not go quietly into the night.
>> Then hid in a supply closet when they storm the Capitol.
But that's Ted for you.
All hat, no cattle.
When Texans were freezing in the dark, he jetted off to Cancun.
He'll do anything to get on Fox News, but
can't be bothered to help keep rural Texas hospitals open.
Spends months trying to whip up phony culture wars, but
not a minute trying to raise wages or lower drug prices.
The struggles of regular Texans just don't interest him.
>> So, look, I'm still just now learning a little bit about Colin Allred position on
some issues.
I've been doing some research on his positions on things like Medicare for
all and all that stuff, but I like that ad in that it both hits Ted Cruz for
all of the reasons that he's such an embarrassment.
He's a coward, he's a liar, he is a political opportunist, but
then also transitions back to the obligations that a senator should have to
improve the life of those living in the state.
So obviously we wanna hear a lot more about that sort of thing,
a positive view of the future, a plan for the future when it comes to policy from
any of these candidates, we're going to try to take down Ted Cruz but
you can't run against Cruz and not mock the guy.
He is eminently mockable.
Nina, what do you think?
>> Yeah, that was a touchdown.
Let me use the proper sports analogy since we're talking about a former football
player who certainly is comporting himself much better than Mr Herschel Walker did.
But yeah, that ad is everything.
I mean, he really lays out, you took the words out of my, coward is the first
word that comes to mind when I think about Ted Cruz and liar is the second.
And certainly the representative made a great case as to why he should be unseated
as the US Senator from the great state of Texas that the voters, in fact,
in summation, really deserve much better than what they're getting from Ted Cruz.
And I love that the Cancun reference that he made when Texans were freezing, and
also this dude hiding in a closet pride cloth as the capital is being stormed.
Meanwhile, you got the representative saying, hey, I'm taking off my jacket,
I didn't call my wife.
And anybody that come through this door, baby, I'm ready.
>> 100%.
I like the all hat no cattle.
Yes.
Now, in defense of Ted Cruz, he does have some kind of animal clutching his chin or
what passes for a chin.
It's not cattle.
And so look, I wanna learn a lot more about Colin Allred.
I'm not ready to like, yeah, I'm not Michael Shore.
There's hundreds of Congress people I don't know about all their backgrounds or
whatever, but I would love to have him on the show, learn a little bit about him and
see what kind of competition he's gonna have inside of the Democratic Party.
Hopefully we can have a good contested primary because got to take down Ted Cruz,
not only cuz he's terrible in Texas deserves, as a person who lived in Texas
for a number of years, I know that Texas deserves way better than Ted Cruz.
Every state deserves better than Ted Cruz.
But also, considering the incredibly difficult Senate map in this cycle,
the Democrats need every opportunity they can to actually pick up a seat.
And so we're gonna be reaching out to Colin Allred.
I will just very briefly give you response from Nick Maddox,
spokesperson for Ted Cruz, who says!
Allred wants men to compete in women's sports,
isn't serious about addressing the crisis at the border,
wants to take away law-abiding Texans guns and is soft on punishing murderers.
Bottom line, Allred is too extreme for Texas,
his voting record is completely out of touch.
For over a decade, Senator Cruz has been leading the fight for jobs,
freedom, and security in Texas.
No word on if Nick Maddox chuckled at all while reading that last section of
the statement, but yeah, buddy, Ted Cruz a real leader in any aspect of his life.
And I love that they had in the ad that he's trying to gin up, like,
fake culture wars.
They led with he wants men to compete in women's sports.
These are not serious people.
They're not good people, but they're certainly not serious people.
Any final point, Nina?
>> They have nothing else to stand on.
And it's not just Ted Cruz.
This is the playbook for the entire GOP so whether we're talking about US Senators or
GOP members in the House of Representatives, or GOP members that lead
red states like Texas or Florida, etc, etc, etc, this is their playbook, John.
And they're hoping that people will be so confused and
not pay attention to the real issues, which is their quality of life,
their jobs, their communities for businesses, especially small businesses.
What is the government doing to help those and lift up those small businesses?
Or are they only answering to their corporate owner donors?
That should be the debate, not this other stuff, so culture wars is all they have.
And without that, they absolutely have nothing because they do nothing.
You got states that are changing child labor laws, for God's sake, John,
just for one example, scaling back protections for children in workplaces,
and these fools sitting up here talking about sports.
>> 100%, yeah.
Okay, well, we're gonna talk a little bit more about what's going on in some
of these states on the other side of this break, but sending your comments, and
we'll respond during this.
[MUSIC]
Okay, everybody.
Again, if you're just joining us, please feel free to hit the like button so
people know we're live.
We're about to jump into some really serious stuff, so apologies in advance,
but let's talk about this.
I've been talking about this for some time, but Republicans,
some of them are saying, don't worry about our positions on abortion,
we're not extreme or anything.
We're not crazy.
Well, take a look at this.
Missouri Republican has offered legislation that would allow women to be
charged with murder if they get an abortion in the state.
Missouri, by the way, has already been at the leading edge of taking away rights.
They were the first state to enact a trigger law banning abortions
when Roe v Wade was overturned last June.
The state's law now prohibits all abortions except in cases of medical
emergency Which is not the provision that you might think it is.
We've seen an increasing number of stories from around the country of
people who have attempted to use those sorts of provisions and
found that they don't reach it for one of a million different reasons.
Doctors are terrified of going to jail, and
horrific situations have developed as a result of it.
Well, even beyond that, we now have this.
So Senator Mike Moon has this bill,
it would give fetuses the same rights as human beings, which would allow for
criminal charges to be filed against anyone who gets an abortion,
helps someone get an abortion, or provides abortion care.
It does allow for a duress defense and does not allow for criminal charges if
the abortion was performed to save the patient's life again,
your experience may vary or if a doctor accidentally aborts a fetus during a life
saving medical procedure on the pregnant person.
We don't yet know if they're going to be charging people with murder,
if they get abortions in other states and then come back to Missouri.
And I don't know exactly if this does become law, exactly what the charges will
be, but I do know that they have the death penalty for murder in that state.
And so just bear that in mind when supporters of this bill,
like Bradley Pierce, president of the foundation to Abolish Abortion, say, I
hold the supposedly extreme position that murdering anyone should be illegal for
everyone because everyone is created in the image of God.
Yes, if you're pregnant, you shouldn't be murdering that fetus, it's wrong.
And if you do it, you should be murdered by the state,
because that's right I guess, that might be coming to Missouri soon.
What do you think?
>> I mean, it makes total sense to me, John, what you just said, not,
make this make sense, these people are so cringe and they're fringe.
This is the party that purports itself to be about freedom, about individual freedom
and liberty, yet you want government just small enough to fit into a woman's uterus,
her womb, that's what you want.
They're cowards, they're absolute fools, they are the extremists and
they are not pro life by any stretch of the imagination, John,
they are totally pro-birth cuz they don't give a damn about the baby as it grows,
a child, they don't care about this family.
If they did, they would support increasing the minimum wage, if they did,
they would want paid family and medical leave.
If they did, they would support unions and the pro-act, if they did,
they would support universal lunch programs across the country.
If they cared about life, they would not be trying to strip away
the protections from children in terms of child labor laws.
So please, America, stop being fooled by these self righteous,
do nothing ignorant behind.
I wanna say something else- >> [LAUGH]
>> Republicans who are power hungry and
they only want to control a woman's body and I'm gonna tell you something.
How many bills like this are passed to control women's reproductive,
I mean, men's reproductive health?
>> I can't remember one.
>> Cuz it does not happen.
These people are just outrageous and
whether I don't know a lot of people who are pro-abortion.
Matter of fact, I don't know people who are pro-abortion,
I know people who are pro-choice.
And that really is what this is about.
And then they want to elevate who's more worthy to get it if we should let you get
it, the whole divide and conquer.
This is dangerous, what they're doing is utterly ridiculous,
It's unAmerican, unpatriotic.
I mean, we need to throw, democrats need to throw their words back at them but
these people are dangerous as hell.
>> Yeah, look, thankfully helping the Democrats,
who they do talk a little bit about abortion, I still don't think enough but
what's helping them in this case is people see through all this.
They see how incredibly extreme and outrageous this is, they don't support it.
Now, we don't live in a democracy, so the fact that people don't support it doesn't
really seem to matter when it comes to these laws being passed.
But at the very least, if you're watching this and wondering if
you're out of step with the mainstream, no, you're not, these people are monsters.
And I'm just going to very quickly throw we have one more story to talk about, but
before we get to that, we also have a situation developing in North Carolina.
A Democrat there, representative Tricia Cotham suddenly changed parties,
which now provides a veto proof majority to the Republicans
against Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.
They recently unveiled a 12 week abortion ban,
they are so proud of this ban that rather than roll it out as its own legislation,
they just snuck it into another bill, by the way,
cuz again, they know that they're not supported by the people on this.
Tricia Cotham by the way, has been an advocate for abortion rights throughout
her tenure in the legislature, earlier this year co-sponsored a bill to codify
abortion protections alongside her then Democratic colleagues.
Since her party switched, she says she's open to passing abortion restrictions.
So they elected her as a Democrat, they elected a Democratic governor,
being told that they're gonna be protected from these sorts of legal switches and
then, what do you know?
Like life in Jurassic Park, the right wingers found a way, they flip her over,
she pulls a 180 on her supposedly core political beliefs and
now they're going to get to restrict abortion even though
people thinking that they were living in a democracy have done everything they
can to stop that from happening, it's amazing how this country works.
>> She wasn't true to that in the first place, John,
she was a fraud from the beginning because your party affiliation should not change
your core beliefs.
>> Yeah.
I mean if a party affiliation changes your core belief, beliefs,
then you had no core beliefs.
In the first place, she was a fraud from the beginning.
>> Yeah.
Look, I don't know her,
I don't know how she convinces herself that this isn't a massive betrayal.
Obviously, people can do it, cuz Kirsten Cinema seems pretty happy with herself.
But imagine being this is, this is the thing that makes you a national figure.
This is the thing that makes you notable is giving a middle finger to all
the people who voted for you, all the people who organized for you,
all the people who knocked on doors for you, all the people who donated to you,
and then especially to do it, to allow them to override a Democratic governor and
strip people's rights away.
That is like you almost just want to stand up and clap for how above and
beyond this effort to flip off democracy actually is.
>> I hope that her district has the power recall.
>> Yeah, I don't know.
>> Yeah, I don't know either, so I said I hope because each individual state has its
own rules and guidelines, but I hope that they do because she deceived the voters,
and so why should she serve out the rest of that term?
Cuz she ran under false pretenses.
>> Yeah. >> That's one thing to
change your mind about certain issues.
You had an epiphany, you feel a different way, does that mean you go ahead and
change your party affiliation too before the end of the term?
I mean, she owes it to the voters who put her there as a Democrat to
stay that until the next election cycle at least.
>> Yeah.
Yeah, I'm just wondering,
maybe ProPublica, if you're watching this.
What did she get for this?
What led to this massive flip not only of party identification, but
of this incredibly contentious political issue literally turning 180?
What did she get?
Is it promises of a position after this?
Is it, what is it?
We're being reminded on a daily basis of how corrupt our political system is.
I don't have a proof of anything,
I just have to speculate considering the country we live in.
>> This is incredibly consequential to the state, to the people living in it.
Maybe it was consequential to her and her situation as well.
In any event, we are regrettably out of time for the first hour.
Thank you, everyone on the linear platforms listening on the podcast,
for watching, for supporting us.
Thank you for being here.
We got more coming up in the aftermath, though.
Reminder as always, if you're listening to the podcast, that there are other clips
that you're not yet seeing if you just listen to the podcast.
So go to our YouTube channel.
You can get access to that.
Reminder to everyone by the way, that we also produce original content for
Instagram, Reels and TikTok as well.
So lots to enjoy.
We're gonna be back in just a few.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to the aftermath of one and all.
I'm John Arolla.
The queen of unbossed herself.
Nina Turner joins us once again.
Nina, as always, thank you for being here.
>> So good to be here with you, John, and the Dragon Squad.
>> Thank you.
I'm sure everyone here obviously familiar with your work, but if you're new and
if you don't know, Youtube.com Unbossed TYT to watch every weekday.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay, everybody.
>> We're coming up at four John.
Four o'clock Eastern time.
>> Eastern Time, the weird time, but 01:00 here, and I'm kidding, 04:00.
I still mostly think at Eastern Time.
I haven't lived in East Coast.
>> You know where to down.
>> You know how many times.
>> I know east coast supremacy?
Anyway, with that said, we got a lot of news to get to everyone.
We will in just a SEC.
First, I want to read a few of your comments.
NorCal Girl sent in a super chat to say happy Star Wars Day.
May the Fourth be with you both always.
And also with you.
Thank you, Grandma sunshine dragon.
Hey, Grandma Sunshine.
Dragon says, I was thinking, since you all never paid me for my work on the TDR promo
and today's my birthday, maybe I deserve the Blue Apron card puff puff best.
You definitely do.
Apologies, I am contractually not able to give it to anyone who requests it.
But you're the best.
Thank you for being here, and
I will keep an eye on your other comments going forward.
>> Happy birthday.
>> Did she say it was her birthday, John?
>> Yes. Also, happy birthday.
I hope it's a fun one.
I mean, it sounds like there's some puff puff passing going on, so
I assume it's going to be a good one, but hope it's a good one.
Okay, descender.
Dragon says, hi, John.
And Nina. I just
got my Connecticut medical marijuana card to handle my anxiety induced seizures.
I no longer have to drive to Ma for legal weed here's to lessening my seizures and
reclaiming my life.
I'm originally from Connecticut.
The hell is wrong?
Why is it legal in one state and not in another?
I will never understand how it is 2023 and
people are still like, I don't know about that.
Marijuana, it'll kill you.
>> Makes no sense.
People don't usually get into fights or anything.
You wanna calm people down, get a chill going, go ahead and legalize marijuana.
People cheer.
All they want to do is eat.
So go ahead and legalize marijuana for recreational medical use.
They are such in the dark ages on this, John.
It makes no sense.
They can regulate it, tax it.
Hello.
>> Thank you.
Yeah, look, to quote Logan Roy, we're not serious people.
As a country, we're just not serious people.
Okay?
>> Not at all. >> We're little kids playing little
kid games.
I mean, obviously we know that it should be legal, but our elected officials Jesus.
Okay.
Holy beard, dragon.
Thank you for gifting that sub.
Much appreciated.
I see a lot of your other comments.
I apologize. I'm going to get to as many as I can, but
first we have other news.
Let's jump into this.
This is a dark one.
A Queen's woman who a few years ago drove her car into protesters
at a Black Lives Matter rally has now reached a plea deal with prosecutors and
will only face a few hours of community service as a result of that.
Now, before we get into more of the details how this deal was reached,
we wanna remind you of what this sort of thing looks like.
Here is the actual incident.
[SOUND]
[INAUDIBLE]
Yo, yo,
yo, yo,
yo, yo.
>> What?
>> [INAUDIBLE] Look, that is, I think we can all agree, absolutely horrifying.
It brings to mind similar terror attacks that have happened in some cities.
People using their vehicle as a deadly weapon,
mowing down people who are in their path.
And that's what we saw there.
And it was important for you to see that, as difficult as that is to see,
because you need to understand that Kathleen Casillo's defense of her actions,
who was facing seven years in prison by the way, for it, said that
the protesters were being too aggressive and she panicked and hit the gas.
So what you just saw was many discrete choices to continue to accelerate and
then stop and then accelerate and then stop hitting people and
then hitting more people.
This was not an incident where everyone masked around the car and
then there was a moment of panic, which you're still responsible for what you do.
This was many individual choices to do that.
But that said, that's my view,
apparently my view was not well represented in the legal deliberations.
She is gonna perform 5 hours of community service and
we'll see her plea to misdemeanor, reckless endangerment get knocked down to
disorderly conduct if she fulfills the terms of her plea.
They say, by the way the prosecutors that they did not pursue more severe plea terms
with Ms. Casillo because she had no criminal record,
did not leave the scene of her crime and in their estimation,
did not intend to hurt the protesters she hit with her vehicle.
Well, it is, after all, all about intentions, I suppose.
By the way, she's not the only person that has been let off with barely even
a slap on the wrist.
There was in Minneapolis, there was a similar instance.
A man drove his car and a protesters on a highway.
Charges were dropped.
A man who drove his car and a protesters in Seattle also had his charges reduced.
There was the guy in Texas who was looking at a possible pardon from Greg Abbott for
bringing an assault rifle to one of these and gunning down protesters.
He might end up walking as well.
Nina it's like the worst kind of Groundhog Day.
We just keep seeing this same thing happen.
>> It's disgusting.
John and I argue that these lenient charges and being able to
plead has a lot to do with who the protesters are or who they were not.
They are because they are.
But that's really what this boils down to.
And as much as people don't wanna deal with this, this has very much to do with
the race of the protesters, that it was a Black Lives Matter protest.
Why the hell was she driving down that street anyway?
When you see a whole bunch of people walking down the street in the middle of
the street, whether it's a protest or not, your car can be used as a weapon.
She did that deliberately.
And shame on the prosecutors because she didn't have a previous record.
I mean, to you, it wasn't like she was littering.
It's one thing to pull garbage out of your car, for God's sakes,
which I think that is criminal in and of itself.
Don't get me wrong, it is a crime to do that.
I hate people who litter, but I digress.
She wasn't throwing paper, John, out of her car.
She was using her car to plow down people as if she was a bowling ball and
they were bowling pins, and there are real life flesh and blood consequences to that.
But she gets the tiptoe through the day.
Tulips?
>> Yeah.
>> The prosecutor is at fault here.
100%, yeah, I agree with you on the lettering too, by the way.
By the way, so we have a comment and says, to maintain fairness, John,
intent is what a lot of the law is about.
No, no, I understand that, and that's a fine comment.
What I am saying is, you, not you, but I'm saying like the royal you
trying to invoke intent about something that is not disputable,
that hitting someone with a car endangers their life.
At that point, okay, maybe somehow you didn't intend to do it, but
it doesn't matter at that point.
Any reasonable person would know what the intent of doing that is.
If someone's in front of your hood and you go into them,
you are going to damage them.
Intent should, to me, not matter at that point.
You could shoot a gun at a crowd of people with no intent to hit them, but it doesn't
matter how honest you might be in your intent, you very well might hit them.
And by the way, I'm not frustrated with you, your comment's totally right.
But I think we all understood what the actual intent was.
And again, I don't know the person,
I don't know how scared she was in the moment or whatever, but
I know each of those choices was a choice to risk killing someone.
That's what it actually was.
>> She was in the car, though, John.
And I get there have been circumstances where so called mobs conversion a car,
as you laid out, that was not that [CROSSTALK] very clear.
And she kept going and stopping, and going and going and then plowing through.
First of all, again, why did she take her car down that path?
But she couldn't see those people till she got all the way up on them and
she's the one that's scared.
Please give me a break.
Again, it was because it's a BLM rally and
a whole bunch of black people marching down the street.
And we know that there are disparate treatment steel in this country in
the 21st century when the victims are black.
And that's on full display.
>> Wait right there, 100%.
You remember the terrible footage of cops?
There was one particular video that I can never get out of my head of cop SUVs just
plowing into a bunch of people.
I never heard about any charges for that either.
I mean, look, if they're not gonna get a random woman,
they're definitely not gonna get cops.
Let's be clear about that.
And it's like the right loves to talk about this as a tactic of terrorists.
They care so much about it when it's that.
But if it's protesters,
then they're literally passing bills in multiple states trying to make it easier
to get off with intentionally hitting people with your car.
>> Yeah. >> Okay,
with that, we're gonna mix things up.
Go a little bit lighter in just a sec.
First, I wanna acknowledge a few people out there, hold on.
339409 says,
can I still win a blueprint gift card if my comment was AI generated [LAUGH]?
Well, I don't run all of the comments through an AI scanner, so
probably yes, you could.
Shayla Lynn has been here for 26 months on Twitch, thank you.
Queen of hats for 27, thank you as well.
Who's a boomer for 20, thank you.
Glad to have you here.
YTP renewed has been here for 27 months.
As such is always the case with replacing government services with private charity,
it leaves you beholden to moneyed interests however sincere or
insincere their charitable nature is.
Before the Clarence Thomas scandal, there was Jerry Falwell notorious for
his remarks about 911 with the likes of Sean Hannity,
trying to launder his reputation by speaking of his charity work.
Always be suspicious of those who don't want the government to cut in
on their charity action.
Yeah, I think that's a reference there originally to the Clarence Thomas story.
Thank you for that.
Okay, everybody, let's mix things up.
We ready to go with this?
Okay, stand by, it's time for AI.
>> I will be back.
[INAUDIBLE] Sorry, John,
I'm afraid I can't do that.
>> A lot of people concerned about AI, where it's already at,
where it might be going.
But don't worry, Dark Brandon is on it.
For better or worse,
we find out that the White House is going to be meeting with the executives behind
a number of these different AI systems to discuss some of the risks inherited.
They apparently plan to impress upon the companies, we're told,
that they had a responsibility to address the risks of new AI developments.
The administration also pledged to release draft guidelines for government agencies
to ensure that their use of AI safeguards the American people's rights and safety,
adding that several AI companies had agreed to make their products available
for scrutiny in August at a cybersecurity conference.
Biden has previously weighed in on the recent national conversation about AI,
saying it remains to be seen whether it's dangerous.
And some of his top appointees have pledged to intervene
if the technology is used in a harmful way.
Look, a lot of people are concerned about the ways that it's already being used.
So I guess, best case scenario,
the Biden administration is gonna be kind of late to the party, but
they're at least trying to reassure people that they are having conversations.
Nino, what do you think about the White House potentially weighing in on all of
what's going on with AI?
>> Well, they should, and he should deploy, I mean,
they should deploy a special team only to deal with AI.
Because this is a serious matter of technology,
it's only going to advance more.
And a lot of times when we talk about art imitating life, you and I and
the viewers know there have been several movies over the decades that have been
really much ahead of predicting that we will be where we are right now today.
And there are unintended consequences, some intended consequences, but
also unintended consequences.
And yes, the White House, the federal government as a whole
should keep not just an eye on AI, but to continue to take a role in
ensuring that AI is not used in a destructive and disruptive way.
>> Yeah, I definitely think,
look, I think as individuals need to be talking about this.
Obviously the CEOs should not, I think, no CEO should be, but especially
in a potentially risky technology like this, be totally free of oversight.
And so we'll see what comes of this little meeting or whatever.
But a lot of people obviously afraid.
My question, though, should we actually fear AI?
Because it turns out that it might be nicer to us than humans are?
I recently saw this article,
ChatGPT might show more empathy than doctors when you ask it medical questions.
Researchers, apparently, at the UC San Diego, they took a randomly drawn
sample of about 200 patient questions from the AskDoc sub-Reddit.
Then both human doctors and ChatGPT answered the questions, and
then evaluators looked at which of the responses they liked better.
They preferred the response by the computer nearly 80% of the time over
the human doctor's answer.
In large part, it says, because the AI demonstrated more empathy for
what the person was going through.
And then we get this explanation as to why.
Lead author John Ayers says, it's pretty obvious why, it's not constrained by time.
You could take a simple query like, I have a headache, can you help me?
And you'll immediately see that ChatGPT says, I'm sorry you have a headache.
The doctor knows that, they feel that,
they just don't have time to say it, which,
look, that's a real situation that doctors are apparently rushing all the time.
But it also is just kind of an explanation.
If the AI is more polite, then people are going to prefer that,
maybe this is something that we could learn from.
But anyway, look, there's obviously concerns,
Nina, about people going to AI to answer medical questions.
It can tell them something that isn't true and
it will be just as certain of its answer as something that is well supported.
And the issue is that we are in a country where a lot of people don't have
access to the health care, and especially mental health care that they should.
And so I think I could see a lot of people potentially turning to ChatGPT rather than
spending 50, 100, hundreds of dollars to go to a doctor.
And maybe that'll be fine in a lot of cases, but sometimes it can be disastrous.
>> And it will be.
And the question you ask, should people fear AI?
And anything that human beings have created is going to have a flaw at
some point.
It's just a matter of time of when that flaw catches up.
So, absolutely, we should be concerned, maybe not totally fearful,
because I don't want anybody living in total fear,
but your point about not having universal health care in this country,
and how it can push people to think that that type of prognosis is the end all,
be all, can end up being dangerous for those people.
Now, lastly, about the AI being more polite.
Hell, the AI ain't under a lot of pressure,
they ain't got to deal with people and their personalities,
they don't have to deal with home life, work life balance.
The AI got a leg up, so to speak, no pun intended on the flesh and blood doctor.
So spare me on [LAUGH] how polite the AI is being held.
AI ain't got all the problems that human beings got, so
that's why they can afford to be polite all the time.
That's true, yeah.
The weird thing is, and I mentioned this to my production team when we were talking
about this, so it's polite, kay, it can be polite.
The weird thing for me is, and I don't know if you've been using ChatGPT much,
I'm polite to the AI, I say please,
way more than you need to say to a thing that doesn't exist.
But there's just something about it where you start to see it as a person, and
I'm a little bit worried about that.
Once this thing has a face or whatever,
imagine the attachment people are going to have.
It's just nice to have someone treat you politely.
>> You're not by yourself on that, John, you're not by yourself, I argue with Siri.
Siri, I argue with her, cuz she pops up all the time, that makes me nervous.
I ain't push you, Siri, why are you jumping into this conversation, Siri?
Goodbye, Siri?
So, [LAUGH] >> Yeah, you asked Siri a simple question,
and then all of a sudden Siri wants to tell you about this new feature,
or something like, I just wanted the one thing, sit down, shut up, anyway.
>> I hear you, John, I hear you.
>> Okay, I think no, we have a couple of minutes.
I'm just going to briefly mention, so
we've been talking about how AI could get involved in our health care system,
i.e replacing it because it's not accessible to most people.
It's also already impacting our criminal justice system.
A man in Detroit spent 30 hours in jail after AI technology misidentified him
in a criminal case.
He said, I was arrested for no reason.
Basically, what happened is in 2018,
security cameras captured a person in a store stealing watches.
Years later, this is in 2020,
a black man named Robert Williams was arrested in front of his wife and
two young daughters for the crime, which he had nothing to do with.
Even worse, he wasn't informed of the reason for his wrongful arrest,
he had to spend 30 hours behind bars, he was hauled away in front of his family,
who had to wonder, is this based on something?
They didn't say that it was just AI that had said that it was him.
Now, following his wrongful arrest,
the Chief of the Detroit Police Department says there are a number of checks and
balances in place to ensure ethical use of facial recognition, including use on live
or recorded video is prohibited, supervisor oversight, and weekly and
annual reporting to the Board of Police Commissioners on the use of the software.
Good, that reassures me.
I don't think it reassured the guy who spent 30 hours in prison without
being told why.
So maybe spare us your oversight, because it clearly isn't stopping
the system from contributing to the sum total of injustice in America.
Any thoughts, Nina?
>> Yeah, they need some different kind of oversight, and people can lose their jobs.
I mean, let's put this aside, these types of things have very real life
consequences, that person not being able to go to work, that person's reputation
impacted, and then all of a sudden you find out they were wrong.
Well, the damage has already been done, and there are studies out there that point
out very clearly that this facial recognition technology, some of this AI,
does have biases within it that definitely targets black people and
other people of color more regularly than anybody else.
So I wonder why, so it goes back to that anything that human beings create,
we need to watch out for, there will be flaws.
So depending totally on this technology should be a non-starter,
especially within the legal system.
>> Yeah, 100%.
Okay, we're going to jump into our last story in just one second, really fast.
Shiva member for three months says John AI de Rola, my gosh,
[LAUGH] you thought of that before I did, I'll give you credit for that.
Keday, member for 27 months says, months keep going by, I am once again asking for
you to continue the awesome commentary to bring us the news,
May the Fourth be with you.
Thank you Keday, glad to always have you here.
Real life jolly, member for four months says sorry, what?
You're having a daughter, John.
Yeah, I guess I wasn't actually coming out and saying that I just revealed,
how did I miss this news other than the obvious of forgetting to look at
the YouTube stuff rather than the podcast?
I guess it's out there, we're unscripted,
sometimes we reveal things we're not supposed to, but yes, that is the idea.
Okay, and thank you, Victoria, by the way, member for 28 months,
glad to have you here.
Okay, with that, let's jump into one more story.
In the wake of Tucker Carlson's text messages,
which are generally referred to, I think, as the white men don't jump a text,
a number of different right wing chuds are tripping over themselves to reassure their
audience that they are at least as racist as Tucker Carlson.
Here's a great demonstration by Charlie Kirk.
>> You're not allowed to even say the w word, you can't say the white word,
in fact, MSNBC says it's kind of this statement that white people are better
than this, that white people would never do such a thing.
That's not what he said, at all, in fact, if you want to actually get to the truth
that Tucker was saying here, is that, this is a fact, no one wants to say this.
There is a disturbing pattern of blacks jumping people of all races
in the urban corridors in America.
That is a fact, I don't like it, you shouldn't like it, it's horrifying.
But it's a pattern that we are seeing.
Tucker Carlson was sending a private text message basically
piggybacking on that fact.
By the way, you know who the blacks are jumping more than anybody else?
Asians in the streets.
There are thousands of videos of blacks ganging up on their victims.
It's not racist to say that, it's not racist to see pattern recognition and
say wow, we usually don't see this.
It's not to say that one race is better than the other.
I know Tucker Carlson, unlike these mockingbird media apparatrics,
he does not have a racist element of an entire being.
In fact, he deplores racism, he hates racism,
he argues against the black only dormitory, the wokism.
>> I love that his defense against the idea that Tucker Carlson is racist is to
then him point out some of the reverse racism narratives that they try to spread.
Good job, good job, Charlie Kirk, you natural broadcaster,
you, okay, so there's a lot there that sucks.
I'm going to leave it to Nina in one second to explain it.
I'm just going to say that if I could go to my grave, never once again hearing
him yell the word blacks over and over, I would really be fine with that.
I don't even like repeating it.
But the way he says that just has a lot baked into it and I don't like it.
Nina, what did you make of what you just saw?
>> I'm with you, John.
This is what some of your viewers were referring to the show yesterday,
because this set me all the way off, got all of my adrenaline flowing.
The blacks, first of all, Charlie Kirk is a bold face liar.
Now that is a fact, and never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
And because there is in this country a predisposition to always see black
people as somehow as more criminal.
Than anybody else is the reason why him and
people like Tucker Carlson can get this off because there is a predisposition.
And unless white people in this country are willing
to deconstruct their construction on that,
we are all socialized in a society that says just that about black people.
And it plays out time and time again for Tucker.
And because it was a personal text, then it makes his racism and bigotry and
anti blackness okay.
The fact that he said that white men wouldn't comport themselves that way,
he didn't use the word comport is a damn lie.
Most of the race riots of the 20th century were started by white men.
I'm remembering very clearly the summer of the red summer of 1919,
following World War I when black soldiers came back, white people were up in arms.
They even attacked black soldiers,
riots broke out in 26 cities across the United States of America.
And guess what?
Guess what, family and friends it wasn't just fringe groups like the KKK and
other white supremacy groups.
It was good old down home white people who decided to gang up, and fight and
beat, and kill, and
maim black people all across the United States of America mainly white men.
I ain't going to let the white women off the hook, but it was mainly white men.
So spare me, Tucker Carlson, where white men don't do that, no, they do it.
They've been doing it historically and they still doing it to this damn day.
What Charlie Kirk is saying and what Tucker said, John, is a historic period.
>> 100%.
>> They're a bunch of fools.
>> Also, by the way, they're completely ignoring that the video Tucker
was responding to was a group of white men jumping someone.
>> Right. So that doesn't bother them, by the way,
it doesn't bother them as a representation of the fact that their point is wrong.
It also doesn't bother them that it happened, to be clear [CROSSTALK].
>> I wouldn't mind if they killed him.
But then he said, I got to pull myself back from that.
>> Then he backed up a little bit, exactly.
Yeah, also, we're just gonna show this graphic for one sec.
Matt Walsh effectively said the same exact thing and
I don't wanna hear his voice today, so
we're not gonna play it, both of them saying, you all are kidding yourselves.
Every video I see is of black men jumping people.
Is it possible just I'm gonna leave you with this thought that the videos
you're seeing on the sorts of websites that you go to and
the people you fall on social media are not, in fact, representative of reality.
Is it possible that you guys are spreading those videos because
it's convenient to you to spread a narrative,
not because it's an accurate reflection of what's really going on?
Consider that anyway, fortunately, that is all the time we have for the show.
Nina, it is always a pleasure to have you on.
Thank you so much.
>> It was all mine, John, thank you.
>> Thank you, everyone definitely check out unboss later on today.
Nina, I'll talk to you soon.
>> All right.
>> Thank you, everyone out there thank you for joining us.
By the way, it was pointed out by someone in the audience that I experienced
a gender reveal disaster, but at least mine didn't start a forest fire.
Everyone, don't spread it, okay, keep it private,
cuz eventually I'm probably post on my Instagram.
I'm just getting the explosives together.
So anyway, thank you for being here, tomorrow, Brett joins me we're going to be
throwing away garbage people today, so go to the community tab and go vote.
Indisputable is up next, so don't go anywhere for now,
though stay safe out there.
Stay sane out there, we'll see you soon.
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