Episode 29 - Do More AG Barr. Gator Bait and Chief Canceled. Nestor’s PrimeTime Debut.
Episode Stats
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Summary
Florida Rep. Cedric Richmond and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz get into a heated exchange about the color of their children. Rep. Gaetz responds to his own son, Nestor Richmond, who is a black, immigrant from Cuba.
Transcript
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Welcome to Hot Ticks. This is Congressman Matt Gaetz. Let's talk about the news.
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My family was in the news over the last 24 hours, and I can't say I was expecting this to happen this
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week, but I certainly don't mind that it did. Here's Tucker Carlson's set up last night of
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the interview that I had with my son Nestor. Democratic Congressman Cedric Richmond of
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Louisiana argued that some people just shouldn't be in the debate because they're the wrong skin
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color or their children are. Richmond's claims started off with a fight with Florida Congressman
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Matt Gaetz. You all are white males. You never lived in my shoes, and you do not know what it's like
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to be an African-American male. Are you suggesting that you're certain that none of us have non-white
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children? Because you reflected on your black son, and you said none of us could understand.
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Matt, Matt, stop. I'm not about to get sidetracked about the color of our children. We're talking
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about black kids. I reclaim my time. It is not about the color of your kids. It is about black males,
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black people in the streets that are getting killed. And if one of them happens to be your
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kid, I'm concerned about him, too. And clearly, I'm more concerned about him than you are.
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So let's be clear about that. You're claiming you're more concerned for my family than I do?
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Who in the hell do you think you are? If the shoe fits, you don't know how much we care about
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our families. This is outrageous. You should take those words down. I'm letting you care about your
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family and love your family. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman will suspend. The time
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belongs to the gentleman from Louisiana. Cedric, would you yield? Was that a nerve? Yeah, you
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did. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana. When you attack people on the basis of their race
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and their children, you get exchanges like that. It's disgusting. Of course, Cedric Richmond will
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never be disciplined for it. Afterward, Matt Gaetz issued this statement on Twitter. For all those
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wondering, this is my son Nestor. We share no blood, but he is my life. He came from Cuba legally,
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of course, six years ago and lives with me in Florida. Nestor is the best thing
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that has ever happened to me. I thought I'd just take a moment and share a little bit about
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our story. When I was a young state legislator in Tallahassee, I met a wonderful woman who
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was working in a catering establishment in Tallahassee, our state capital. She was kind
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of the go-to person to set up events for legislators, hosting constituents from their district or fundraisers
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or other things. Gosh, I ended up having just about every event I could where she would be the catering
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director because I had such a crush on her. We ended up dating. She was from the island of Cuba,
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was born there, had immigrated to the United States with her father when he won the visa lottery.
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After six months of dating, she went back to Cuba because after eight years of waiting, her mother
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mother and her little brother were going to be coming to the United States. And I knew that her
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mother had been quite ill with breast cancer. And when she went down and came back, she came back only
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with her brother and their mom died 10 days later in Cuba. I had a chance to talk to her a time or two
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in Spanish. I told her she was one of my heroes. And I just think about her so often, even though we
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never met in person, her last trip from that deathbed was to go to the consulate and pick up
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those visas and put Nestor on that airplane with his sister to the United States. And so he gets here
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just, you know, obviously dealing with the grief of the loss of his mother, but also amazingly filled
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with opportunity and love for this country and just an eagerness to embrace it. He didn't speak a word
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of English. He didn't have a single friend. And so we spent a lot of time together, as you might
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imagine. And my Spanish was pretty rusty, but he helped me get it better. And we worked on English
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together. You know, most nights we would work on Rosetta Stone because it was so hard for him in
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school and it became frustrating. I mean, I can only imagine if you put me in a classroom where people
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were all speaking the language I didn't speak, it would be hard to focus and hard to really make a
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meaningful contribution. And I would remember those nights, you know, we would, we would sit there and
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he would cry and tell me that he thought he would never learn English and you know, that, that it was
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too hard and that he used to be such a smart boy in Cuba and he didn't want to be a dumb person here,
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but he just wanted to understand people. And seeing all the successes now, I'm so proud of him. He is 19 years
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old. He's graduated from Choctatchi High School in my district, and he's off to Troy University where
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he plans to study nursing. And, you know, I, I know that sometimes you don't always end up studying
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exactly the thing you plan on studying, but he talks about, you know, the care that, that he gave his
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mother, uh, in her, in her final months. And, uh, I have seen the way he shows compassion to people and
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he's always the first to rush up to give someone a bandage or assistance or to help someone up.
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And so I think he'd be a fantastic nurse and I would be super proud of him, uh, if he chose to do
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that. Sadly, uh, things didn't work out with his sister and I for reasons that I'm sure were more
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my fault than hers. And, uh, so he spent, you know, time with me and his sister. He's, uh,
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spent time with his biological father in Miami. Uh, he spends time with our,
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with my parents and with family friends in Northwest Florida. As I, uh, work in Congress,
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I, I sort of feel like a single step parent at times. And either of those things are tough.
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I know, but when you combine them, it's a unique set of challenges. I do feel a special kinship
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with step parents all over. You know, there's a certain kind of love that, that you can give
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to another human being, you know, that is not your own flesh and blood. That's not your own kid,
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but you love them as much as you would love anyone that, that was your own child that you
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couldn't imagine loving them anymore. And I don't have any biological children, uh, but I absolutely
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have a son and I couldn't imagine him being any more a part of my family or a part of my life. So,
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uh, it was, uh, it's been, you know, just a great experience for me and I hope a great one for him
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along the way. Some people on social media have asked, well, you know, why, why have you kept him a
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secret for this long? And the bottom line is this isn't a secret. Uh, if you go and look at my social
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media page, you see a number of the people who know me, my friends, people I've worked with over
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the years, acquaintances of mine, even, even Democrats, even people who don't agree with me
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on things saying, yeah, you know, Matt, uh, stepped up for this young man. He helped him out.
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He raised him as his son. And you know, the criticisms of our family are just hateful and,
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and weird and mean. Uh, the other, their other, you know, criticism people say is,
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oh, well, you know, how come you don't have, you know, adoption paperwork and all this. And look,
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you know, uh, he's 19 years old now. Our family was never defined by paperwork or blood. Uh,
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it was truly defined by the love we have for each other. And, uh, we got the chance to tell our story
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to people magazine. And so we'll post that up as well. Uh, if you're interested in it, but, uh,
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never expected I'd be sharing this much about my personal life and my family life this week,
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but I'm certainly proud to do so. I'm proud of Nestor and I'm proud of our family and the great
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work that he will do in his life going forward. Teenagers always think they know everything and
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that their parents don't, and that they're really the ones teaching their parents. When I called Nestor
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and told him that as a consequence of some heated debate in the judiciary committee that
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folks were going to learn about him and our family, uh, he said, well, Matt, everyone already
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knows about our family because, you know, when we go to our favorite burrito shack in Fort Walton,
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everybody knows that we're father son. You know, when we go to church, when we go to the soccer games,
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uh, when we hang out around his school, you know, there, there is obviously an awareness that
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I'm the one taking care of him and you know, that, uh, that we're a family. And so it was funny that,
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you know, he kind of conceived of the world like that he lived in as his whole world and that, well,
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you know, the people in Fort Walton, they all know. So Matt, don't, you know, that already.
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And then I said, well, buddy, you know, I, I get that the people in Fort Walton know,
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but maybe not all the people in Washington knew yet. And they're going to be finding out. And he said,
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well, Matt, don't they have Instagram? Uh, because Nestor and I have, have for years,
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you know, posted pictures with one another on our personal Instagram. And I want to thank my,
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my lovely, wonderful sister, Erin, for sharing some of those pictures that she had saved on social
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media. Uh, it was a very heartwarming for us yesterday to be able to live all these great
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moments together. My former boss, Florida Senator and former high school standout defensive back,
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Marco Rubio has filed legislation to protect the NCAA from litigation. If they make changes to allow
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players to get financial benefit by leveraging their name and likeness. I think this is a great
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step forward in both Florida and California. Our governors have expressed support for legislation
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that would allow college athletes. Again, these are, these are men. These, these are not minors.
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They're over the age of 18. They could be drafted. They could go die in some war for our military,
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protecting our country. They could go, you know, serve in any other number of capacities for our
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government, but they can't get the economic benefit from the fact that they have built a brand around
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their own skill and excellence. And that's just not capitalist to me. It's just not American. So
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Florida governor Ron DeSantis supports allowing them to sell autographs, to sell photos, that type of
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thing. Gavin Newsom agrees. And a group of current and former NCAA players have filed a lawsuit against the
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NCAA seeking damages for having not been given that right. So this is a smart group of lawyers. They've gone out
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and said, well, if this right is going to be vindicated, there might be some question as to
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whether or not there's a legal claim for it having had existed before. And thus, there should be damages
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paid. That would be how the lawsuit would be laid out. And so Marco Rubio goes and essentially files
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legislation saying, well, if they change the law, we don't want them that to serve as an admission.
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Because if it did, then you would entrap current people in the system as we were trying to resolve
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disputes over people previously in the system. And that's not a very efficient way to resolve that
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conflict. So Rubio says, if the NCAA makes this change, they will be protected from liability.
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We will fix this going forward. And I would consider that great progress and economic justice.
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Online technology platforms are principally managed, governed and directed by very far
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left wing folks in Silicon Valley. And if left to their own devices, they will do everything in
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their power to steal this election from Donald Trump. It's why I've been so forceful in calling for
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action against big tech when big tech cheats. And the fundamental reason why Donald Trump was able
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to avoid big tech's theft of his election in 2016 is that they never thought he could win it.
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But he did. So here we are. Here's the news. The Department of Justice has very recently just
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endorsed reforms that really Senator Josh Hawley honed into legislation over in the United States
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Senate. These reforms would repeal some of the protections that big tech has from liability.
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But here's the problem. The Department of Justice is not doing enough today to enforce antitrust laws.
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That's right. Usually I am not a critic of the Trump administration. I support the Trump
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administration, but they need to be doing more. The Department of Justice needs to be doing more.
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Bill Barr needs to be doing more to enforce antitrust laws in litigation, in actions against the companies
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that utilize their market power to redefine the nature of speech in this country. And so while I
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appreciate the attorney general support of Senator Hawley's legislation, I am losing confidence in
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legislation as the mechanism by which we're going to solve this, this problem. Because so much of
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Congress is bought off by big tech. And I know how, you know, one, two, three, a small group of senators
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could totally block any major legislation. It's frankly, a travesty, a great nation should not get
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held hostage by a small band of senators. But that is the system that they have designed over there.
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And so if this president wants a fair shot at getting reelected, he needs to direct his attorney
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general to utilize the antitrust laws of this country fairly, apolitically, but actively against
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any social media platforms that are improperly censoring speech. And by the way, whether that's
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right wing speech, left wing speech, middle of the road speech, if it's whatever it is, if there is
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unfair censorship, if there is, and by the way, here's how you figure that out. You go file the
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action, you get to discovery, and you force them to disclose the ways in which they determine what
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content is elevated and what content is suppressed. And when you find content that's been suppressed or
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shadow banned or demonetized, you then have a way to probe that decision making process. And what you're
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going to find is that it's freaking political. And so we need that, that not an executive order
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strategy, we need a litigation strategy against big tech. Otherwise, we could have the greatest ideas,
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we could have the best branding, we could have the best slogans, we could offer the best vision for the
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country. But it is not one that will ever be fairly absorbed or fairly even presented. Because these
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online platforms have developed too much power to constrain and control speech. And it's time we
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speak out against them. And it's time we speak through lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice
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and antitrust actions filed by the Department of Justice. Let's get on it, Mr. Attorney General.
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Cancel culture getting its latest two victims, the gator bait cheer from the University of Florida,
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and also the term chief itself. That's right, the blaze is reporting that in Duluth, Minnesota,
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community leaders are questioning whether or not to eliminate the term chief from fire chief or
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police chief or any other type of chief that they may have. And I'm just wondering, like,
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to what extent is this reaching the absurd where, like any root word or title that could at any point
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have been used in any derogatory way? Like now we're all too snowflake to be able to deal with that.
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I mean, whatever happened to the people who said that if there's bad speech, the best response to
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that is more speech? Like, when did we reach a point in our society where instead of confronting the
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things that were uncomfortable or challenging, we just we had to cancel them and anybody said it was a
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racist? We may be getting to the point in America where, like, there are more racist hunters than there are
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racists. And so we have to have this construct where things that aren't really racist, like calling
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the police chief the police chief or the fire chief the fire chief, has to be labeled as racist so as
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to satisfy the appetite of the racism hunters. That's really what this feels like in Duluth, Minnesota.
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I mean, the country music singer Eric Church had an album named Chief. Does he have to rename that?
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You know, the university that I attended, Florida State University, we have a Chief Osceola.
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You know, the Seminole Indian tribe is one of the most sophisticated and successful businesses
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you could imagine. You know, they go out and engage in a lot of entrepreneurial activity. They're even
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partners, not only from a business sense, but from a cultural development sense and an education sense
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in a healthcare sense with Florida State University. It is a great honor that we share with the Seminole
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tribe to be able to do more to recognize their heritage, their background. And part of that is
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Chief Osceola being a part of the ceremony that we conduct before a football game. So do we have to
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rename him something? The Seminole Indian tribe doesn't have a problem with it, but maybe the
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folks in Duluth, Minnesota would. But speaking of the great state of Florida and the universities that
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reside within it, the University of Florida is now discontinuing the Gator bait cheer. So they're the
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Florida Gators and they do this obnoxious cheer, and I can say this as a Seminole, where they kind of
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raise up their hands in a clapping motion and clamp down like the chomp of an alligator while the band
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plays at like a almost Jaws-like ominous, you know, music and Gator bait is what they cheer.
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Now apparently there's some story from time in like the early 1920s that says that at one point
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in Chipley, Florida, African-American children were allowed to play in shallow water as snipers
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from far away would shoot any alligators that came toward them. Now, I just can't even believe this,
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how ridiculous it is. First of all, in Chipley, everyone is saying this is absurd and ridiculous.
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Even the Chamber of Commerce came out with a statement calling this characterization a lie.
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Second, there are people hanging out by the water with guns all the time, and there are also children
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playing in the water all the time. That's what happens in Chipley. That's what you do. You get your
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guns and, you know, go down to the old watering hole, maybe grill something up, let the kids play in the
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water. And so might there have been a possibility where there was an African-American child playing in
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the water and somebody shot an alligator? Well, sure, but that didn't make the child Gator bait of any kind.
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And by the way, like, where does it stop? Well, the alligator was obviously going to eat the
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African-American child in that scenario. So is the alligator racist? Should the Florida Gators have
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to change their name altogether? And why even have names? I mean, you know, Seminoles, that comes from
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something. And hurricanes, I mean, by having the Miami Hurricanes, we are really trivializing the negative
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consequences of climate change, aren't we? You know what I mean? So I think there is a reason
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that anyone can be offended about anything. But to get rid of the Gator bait cheer is just nonsense.
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I mean, in Florida, the Gators have been playing a little bit better college football lately.
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The Seminoles lost to the Gators pretty badly in their last contest, I hate to say, as a Seminole.
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But at least at Florida State University, we haven't canceled Chief Osceola yet. Meanwhile,
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down at Gainesville, I guess they're too woke to cheer Gator bait. We have blown past a thousand
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ratings. Thank you, everyone, so much for your reviews, positive, negative, or otherwise. I love
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reading them and seeing what everybody thinks about the show. Keep up those ratings. If you haven't done
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it in a while, you can actually do it again, and it will count. Have a great weekend, everybody.