J.D. Vance and Tim Walz face off in the Vice Presidential Debates, the final presidential debate of the 2020 election cycle. The VP debate pits the two candidates against each other in a debate that will likely determine the outcome of the election. What will it take to win the VP debate? Will it be enough to change the outcome in either party? And will it have any impact on either candidate s chances of winning the election in 2020? Today's After Show Was Hosted By: Alex Castellanos ( ) John Avlon ( ) and Sarah Abdurrahman ( ) Special Guest: John Bolton ( ) Vice President Debate Presenter: J D. Vance ( ) Hosted by John Avlan ( ) Executive Producer: Alex Blumberg ( ) Senior Producer: John Rocha ( ) Additional audio mixing and mastering: Andrew Yang ( ) Audio Engineer: Matthew Boll ( ) Chief Technology Officer: David Axelrod ( ) Music: Jeff Perla ( ) Editor: Matthew Knost ( ) Additional production: Ben Koppel ( Editor: Patrick McElroy ( ) Additional mixing & mastering: Matthew Keyser ( ) Steve Kornick ( ) Producer: Mike McLendon ( ) Assistant Recording Engineer: Patrick McKirdy ( ) Technical Direction: Matthew Kaczewski ( ) Thanks to Rachel Ward ( ) Mike McLaughlin ( ) Recording Location: New York Times Radio & Social Media Strategy and Social Media: John Mckinnon ( ) Bill Clinton ( ) Social Media ( ) Media Strategy: Thanks to: John Deere ( ) & Matt Knostrom ( ) for the Podcasts ( ) Copyright ( ) ( ) Thank you for the Sponsorships ( ) Please Rate & Matthew Kucharek ( ) Our Sponsoring? ( ) Join us on Anchor ( ) Subscribe to the After Show? Subscribe on Podchaser ( ) Learn more about our Sponsored by Fite ( ) Become a Friend of Conservative Media? ( ) Get 47% Off Your Day Offs & More Subscribe to our new Single-Peech ( ) + Other Podcasts & Support Us On Social Media Links ( ) FREE Training & Training ( ) - Subscribe To Our Podcasts Join Our VIP Subscription Options Learn more at Fite & Learn More About Our Sponsorship Options & More! FREE Training Options (Auctioned Through The Righteous Lady Will Be Inaugural Presentation
00:01:01.000So, of course, is Pennsylvania, which is why a vice presidential debate has now taken on some added significance.
00:01:06.000When I talk about how close this election is, I should point out that at this point, even the Democratic candidate in Michigan Her name is Elissa Slotkin, is suggesting that Kamala Harris may be down in Michigan.
00:01:17.000Remember, if she loses Michigan, this election is likely over.
00:01:21.000Hell, if she loses Pennsylvania, this election is likely over.
00:01:25.000On the other hand, if Donald Trump loses North Carolina, this election is likely over the other way.
00:01:30.000Here was the Michigan Senate candidate for the Democrats admitting that she believes that actually Harris is running slightly behind Michigan right now.
00:01:39.000I'm not feeling my best right now about where we are on Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan right now.
00:01:44.000We have her underwater in our polling.
00:01:47.000Okay, well, that obviously is a big admission there by Elissa Slotkin.
00:01:51.000That means that something that usually doesn't make a huge difference, like a VP debate, could make a big difference.
00:01:55.000Because again, very unlikely there's going to be another presidential debate.
00:01:58.000Kamala Harris wants one on one of the left-wing networks.
00:02:28.000J.D., Yale Law School, bestselling author, really fast on his feet, really quick.
00:02:34.000extraordinary knowledge of the facts going into this debate, and Tim Walz, who's sort of a populist yeller.
00:02:40.000So the expectations for Vance are high.
00:02:42.000There's been an attempt by the Trump campaign to lower the expectations for Vance in advance of the debate.
00:02:47.000They've been saying that Walz has been through many debates before, and that, of course, is true, and he hasn't performed horribly in those debates.
00:02:53.000Meanwhile, the Walz team is trying to do the same thing with regard to J.D.
00:02:56.000They're talking about how wonderful Vance is, how Vance is going to clock Walz, how Walz is basically You know, just like a poor dumb teacher from the Midwest, despite the fact that he's a two-term governor from the state of Minnesota and he's been through this wringer before.
00:03:08.000The real question here is whether this has any impact at the top of the ticket.
00:03:13.000Vance is going to be to go after the target-rich environment that is Tim Walz.
00:03:17.000And Tim Walz is, in fact, a target-rich environment.
00:03:20.000In fact, we are now learning, for example, That Tim Walz claimed at a 2014 congressional hearing that he says he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
00:03:30.000Is there anything in this guy's biography that is true?
00:03:34.000Tim Walz has been a very radical character in Minnesota for a very long time.
00:03:37.000Here's a clip from just a few years ago in which Tim Walz talks about the beneficial effects of mass migration to Minnesota.
00:03:43.000He's so happy they're speaking 50 languages at the local public school.
00:03:49.000We have more refugees per capita than any other state.
00:03:52.000That's not just morally a good thing, it's our economic and cultural future.
00:03:57.000This beautiful diversity we see out in Worthington when I'm there, you see 50 languages spoken in the school.
00:04:04.000This is who Tim Walz is, the guy who said on national TV and just a few weeks ago, he suggested that socialism was just another word for neighborliness.
00:04:14.000With that said, it would be a mistake for JD Vance to aim his fire at Tim Walz.
00:04:18.000Understand that the audience for this debate is not going to be as big as the presidential debate, but it will be tens of millions of people.
00:04:23.000And this is the opportunity to label Kamala Harris for what she is.
00:04:28.000Meanwhile, for Tim Walz, his task is actually not going to be to attack Trump.
00:04:33.000He has to believe already that Donald Trump is well established in the public mind.
00:04:39.000Everybody already has their thoughts about Trump.
00:04:41.000Walz is going to go after Vance specifically.
00:04:44.000Walz is going to declare that he is weird, this has been part of his campaign, that he's too extreme, that he's too right-wing.
00:04:51.000That he's a representative of sort of a strange subterranean politics in America.
00:05:06.000So good luck to Tim Walls in that particular department.
00:05:09.000Well, Kamala Harris's campaign is all about emptiness, and her economic plan, if you can call it a plan, is a disaster area.
00:05:14.000Get ready for a massive tax hike, an almost 40% top income tax rate, 7% increase to the corporate tax, and ridiculous capital gains tax on unrealized gains.
00:05:24.000Also, she can add almost $2 trillion to a current $2 trillion deficit.
00:05:28.000You might be thinking it's time to make more of your savings tax sheltered and inflation sheltered.
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00:06:12.000Again, that's Ben to the number 989898 to get started.
00:06:16.000As far as preparation, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg
00:06:20.000has been the person who's prepping Tim Walz for the debate on the Democratic side of the aisle.
00:06:23.000Meanwhile, Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota has stood in as Walz for Vance's practice sessions.
00:06:30.000Walz apparently attended a multi-day debate camp in northern Michigan, according to the Wall Street Journal.
00:06:35.000Meanwhile, Vance is not expected to participate in preparations quite so formal, although obviously the reality is that Vance is a super smart guy, and while he's on the road, he is certainly prepping this thing.
00:06:46.000The bottom line is, will there be a major move out of this?
00:06:49.000Well, not unless there's some sort of major collapse by one of the candidates.
00:06:51.000Could it do damage to Kamala Harris' campaign?
00:07:04.000The most obvious front right now being this hurricane.
00:07:08.000Hurricane Helene tore through parts of the panhandle of Florida, then tore through parts of Georgia, and really, really slammed North Carolina.
00:07:17.000There are hundreds of people who are missing in North Carolina right now.
00:07:25.000Well, the response from particular governors has been pretty good.
00:07:29.000The response from Brian Kemp in Georgia has been good.
00:07:32.000The response from Ron DeSantis in Florida has been excellent.
00:07:34.000They had the electricity back on right away.
00:07:37.000Again, I think the underrated part of Ron DeSantis' appeal when he ran for president is that he's actually really good at being governor.
00:07:42.000He really cleans up the state when something bad happens.
00:07:44.000He makes sure that things are taken care of quite quickly.
00:07:46.000In fact, DeSantis said that he would rather see Joe Biden go to North Carolina than to Florida specifically because North Carolina has been so hard hit.
00:07:54.000He said, we have what we need right now.
00:07:56.000I think most of the effort should be in Western North Carolina right now because you still have active rescues that need to take place.
00:08:05.000It is amazing how when a Democrat does okay, like just okay with a hurricane, this is considered a great signal moment for the Democrat.
00:08:14.000Remember Barack Obama in 2012 with Hurricane Sandy, which hit the Northeast.
00:08:19.000And he and Chris Christie were hugging on the tarmac.
00:08:21.000It really helped him in the last days of the election cycle in 2012.
00:08:24.000And that was considered an amazing thing.
00:08:26.000Meanwhile, George W. Bush, who really did not handle Hurricane Katrina all that badly, was treated as though he were Satan, deliberately attempting to drown people in New Orleans.
00:08:51.000I think it's a really dumb trope of American politics that when something bad happens, you have to put boots on the ground of a major politician to show empathy or sympathy.
00:09:23.000So Donald Trump went and visited a disaster area in Georgia, and he talked about what was going on on the ground.
00:09:31.000We're here today to stand in complete solidarity with the people of Georgia and with all of those suffering in the terrible aftermath of Hurricane Helene, throughout the region, our hearts are with you, and we are going to be with you as long as you need.
00:09:48.000You're in our prayers, and we pray to God, and throughout this long week, the long weeks that lay ahead, you're going to have a lot of work, but the end result is it's going to be good.
00:09:59.000We just wish so many people weren't so badly hurt, and in many cases, sadly, no longer with us.
00:10:09.000Okay, so, the media are very angry with Trump for going there.
00:10:12.000They're also angry with Trump because they say it's politicizing.
00:10:14.000It's politicizing that he went to these places.
00:10:16.000And also, he got pretty overtly political.
00:10:18.000For example, he suggested that perhaps Joe Biden was sleeping right then.
00:10:22.000Have you reached out to President Biden about federal relief efforts?
00:10:29.000I think he's sleeping right now, actually.
00:10:31.000Okay, so everybody is fighting mad about this.
00:10:33.000On the left, Politico has an entire headline, Trump Turns Hurricane Helene Aftermath Politico.
00:10:38.000Now, this is really disingenuous stuff.
00:10:41.000Again, if a Republican is governor of a state and something bad happens in the state, the entire media turn that into a referendum on the evils of the Republican.
00:10:49.000If, however, a Democrat botches something, a natural disaster, or, say, a generalized disaster like East Palestine-Ohio, if the President doesn't do what he's supposed to do, if, for example, there's a massive fire in Lahaina that burns down the entire city in Hawaii and the federal government is completely AWOL, Then we're supposed to pretend it's totally apolitical and has nothing to do with the local state or federal governance.
00:11:12.000That is the double standard that rules here.
00:11:14.000But I think the American people can see through it, and they certainly can see the inauthenticity that springs from Kamala Harris.
00:11:19.000So Kamala Harris put out a photo in the middle of this hurricane.
00:11:25.000The photo is accompanied by the following caption, quote, I was just briefed by FEMA, Deanne Criswell, on the latest developments about the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Helene.
00:11:34.000We also discussed our administration's continued actions to support emergency response and recovery.
00:11:38.000I also spoke with North Carolina Governor Cooper about the ongoing rescue and recovery efforts in North Carolina.
00:11:43.000Our administration will continue to stay in constant contact with state and local officials to ensure communities have the support and resources they need.
00:11:49.000Doug and my thoughts are with all those who lost loved ones and those whose homes, businesses, and communities were damaged or destroyed during this disaster.
00:11:56.000Now, I'd like to point out at this point a couple of things.
00:11:58.000One, there's a very famous picture of George W. Bush during Hurricane Katrina flying over the flood area and he was dinged as being above it all.
00:12:07.000It was suggested that he had no empathy for the people on the ground because there he was in Air Force One flying above the area rather than being on the ground.
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00:14:01.000What was she actually doing in the middle of the hurricane?
00:14:05.000According to Matt Visor, Kamala Harris is at an LA fundraiser with Stevie Wonder, Keegan-Michael Key, Sterling K. Brown, Demi Lovato, Jessica Alba, Lily Tomlin, Alanis Morissette, and Halle Berry performing.
00:15:02.000And then all the government employees who have to, by law, clap for the vice president.
00:15:06.000They pretend that she's there to actually do anything, which, of course, she is not.
00:15:10.000Now, what actually would her policies be with regard to things like hurricane cleanup?
00:15:14.000I mean, she laid it out back in 2019, 2020 when she was running for president.
00:15:18.000She said that we should do disaster relief based on equity, which means based on race, which is against federal law and morality.
00:15:26.000It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.
00:15:44.000And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out at the same place.
00:15:57.000And if we want people to be in an equal place, sometimes we have to take into account those disparities and do that work.
00:16:06.000Sounds like she will make an excellent president for everyone of particular malevolent levels or something, because what she's talking about here is insane.
00:16:14.000Meanwhile, Joe Biden is in fact asleep at the switch.
00:16:18.000Now, he's speaking with these various governors, but it turns out that when you look like the bad guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the last crusade, like you drank from the wrong goblet and you're just babbling into the microphones, It makes you look terrible.
00:16:33.000Regardless of what you're actually doing, the presidency is, in fact, about optics, so if you're gonna do it, you gotta do it right.
00:19:11.000Okay, he said as he was reading from the binder.
00:19:14.000Okay, meanwhile, again, all of this is playing into a tight race in which every single little thing matters.
00:19:21.000One of those not-so-little things is the fact that we are about to have a major strike in the United States, the dockworkers' strike.
00:19:26.000You should go check out a YouTube video that we put out, an episode of Facts talking about the history of private sector unionization and strikes in the United States if you want to know more about the history and backdrop to what's going on right now.
00:19:38.000But there is a dockworkers' strike coming, and this comes amid the CNN polling which says that Kamala Harris is in particularly bad shape with union voters, actually.
00:20:04.000She's ten points off his mark, and the worst in a generation.
00:20:09.000So the dockworkers have now launched a major strike at ports from Maine to Texas.
00:20:13.000And the problem is, she's stuck in the box.
00:20:15.000If she comes out against the unions, if Joe Biden were to use the emergency powers that are available to him under the presidency in order to forestall some sort of strike, in order to create a cooling down period, which he can do, if he were to do that, then she would lose even more union votes.
00:20:29.000So you are likely to suffer from higher prices for the next several months because of what is happening right now, because she wants to win union votes.
00:20:38.000The unions know they have the leverage, by the way, which is why they are doing this.
00:20:41.000Well, Kamala Harris is vice president and Joe Biden is president.
00:20:43.000According to the Wall Street Journal, dock workers walked off their jobs at dozens of ports from Maine to Texas at midnight, launching a strike that threatens to rattle the American economy five weeks ahead of the presidential election.
00:20:53.000Members of the International Longshoremen's Association, which represents 45,000 dock workers at East Coast and Gulf Coast ports, began picketing early Tuesday at cargo terminals that handle more than half of American import and export volumes as their contract with port employers expired.
00:21:08.000Port employers, pressed by Biden administration officials to resolve the impasse, raised their offer on wages to a 50% increase over six years from an earlier 40% increase.
00:21:17.000Along with other improvements and benefits in the 24 hours before the strike deadline, it wasn't enough.
00:21:22.000The ILA is seeking a 77% wage increase over the next six years.
00:21:27.000a near doubling of their wages over the next six years, as a condition to even sit down and talk.
00:23:13.000You want to know why some some reasons why the costs are higher in the United States right now?
00:23:17.000It's because of already existing port contracts negotiated by these unions.
00:23:22.000With the government under Democrats putting their thumb on the scale in favor of the unions and against the employers.
00:23:27.000The walkout has shut down some of the country's main gateways for imports of food, vehicles, heavy machinery, construction materials, chemicals, furniture, clothes, and toys.
00:23:36.000The longshore workers walked off their jobs after the union refused to meet with the group representing employers unless they first agreed to workers' wage demands.
00:24:01.000The reason that this is all continuing is specifically because of the Biden administration.
00:24:08.000It's because of the Biden administration.
00:24:10.000And by the way, you have to add on to this.
00:24:12.000One of the reasons she's losing union workers is not because this administration is insufficiently pro-union.
00:24:18.000One of the reasons is specifically because I think that the Democratic Party, they just have the American people wrong, particularly blue collar workers.
00:24:24.000The Democratic Party seems to think that what blue collar workers desperately want more than anything else is heavy social spending and a new kind of masculinity.
00:24:51.000The phenomenon has developed over the past decade, but was supercharged by the pandemic, which derailed careers, schooling, and isolated friends and families.
00:24:57.000And the result has big implications for the economy.
00:25:01.000The labor force participation rate for males age 25 to 34 is under 90%.
00:25:03.000Those are young, healthy males, under 90%.
00:25:12.000Not just that, it turns out that if you keep on promoting a closed economy that only benefits certain small sectors
00:25:21.000of the economy, it makes it much more difficult for people to succeed.
00:25:25.000Americans are more and more reliant on government aid.
00:25:28.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Americans' reliance on government support is soaring, driven by programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
00:25:36.000The spending right now is at all-time highs.
00:25:40.000A much larger share of Americans are seniors, their healthcare costs have risen, but you're also seeing a major share of people who are now on disability.
00:25:56.000What Americans actually want is an opportunity to thrive, an opportunity to succeed.
00:26:00.000And for young men, they want an opportunity to actually live out that success in a masculine, aggressive way.
00:26:08.000But that's precisely what Harris and Walz are not promising.
00:26:12.000Here, for example, is the avatar of masculinity, Molly Jongfast, over at MSNBC, talking about the pitch that Harris and Walz are making to men.
00:26:24.000I do think that Democrats have been trying to offer an alternative vision to this very sort of destructive masculinity that we're seeing on the right being advertised.
00:26:46.000I mean, you know, the second gentleman is also, you know, trying to make a case for supporting your wife and how you can be a masculine guy.
00:26:56.000It is certainly not as far along as Republicans in their sort of embrace of masculinity.
00:27:02.000Oh, you mean because they actively alienate men, particularly young men, and then in return they offer them government dependency?
00:27:09.000And the only people who get a leg up are people who are allies of the Democrats, like the union leaders?
00:27:14.000Yeah, it turns out that might have some dire effects, not just on the economy, but on Democrats' capacity to actually win in this election.
00:27:22.000Hell, a lot of Americans are falling behind.
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00:28:29.000By the way, Republicans are finally, finally upping their spending in Senate races in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
00:28:36.000According to the Wall Street Journal, a group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is planning to pour tens of millions of dollars in an effort to crack the Democrat blue wall with less than six weeks left to go before Election Day.
00:28:46.000The Senate Leadership Fund is going to drop almost $70 million on TV, radio, and digital ad reservations in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
00:28:55.000All three of those are very, very close Senate races.
00:28:57.000Senator Bob Casey versus Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania.
00:29:00.000That one is basically a dead heat at this point.
00:29:03.000Eric Hovde, who I campaigned with yesterday in Wisconsin, targeting Senator Tammy Baldwin.
00:29:08.000And Alyssa Slotkin fighting Mike Rogers for the Senate seat in Michigan.
00:29:13.000Stephen Law, president of the Senate Leadership Fund, said that recent internal polling by the group showed Donald Trump competitive against Harris in those three blue wall states and said the Senate races in those places were tightening as well.
00:29:25.000He said, we've seen these races closing.
00:29:28.000Those three candidates, McCormick, Hovde, and Rogers, have all been outraised by their Democratic opponents.
00:29:34.000So, hopefully, as that gap closes in terms of spending, so too will the polling gap in those particular states.
00:29:40.000Meanwhile, Kamala Harris continues to run a lackluster campaign.
00:30:36.000As Matt Barnes and Steven Jackson, Steven Jackson looking like he wants to slit his wrists live on camera while he listens to this supposedly intelligent platitude machine talk about how she likes the OG Doritos and needs a napkin nearby.
00:30:49.000Well, I mean, in other inspiring news, she eats no for breakfast.
00:30:53.000So between eating Doritos and no, that is apparently her diet.
00:31:35.000Here's Stephen Jackson with Kamala Harris, where she explains making a pork roast.
00:31:41.000Look, from the time that the president called me and told me he wasn't running, I mean, it just like, everything was in speedy, speedy motion.
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00:34:41.000that 2024 vice presidential debate between Vance and Walls is coming to Dailyware Plus tonight.
00:34:45.000But let's face it, these debates are better with friends, especially friends who can spot every lie and false promise.
00:34:50.000That is why we are doing a special backstage with pre-show analysis from Matt Walsh, Michael Mills, Andrew Clavin, Jeremy Boring, and of course, yours truly, Plus, stick around for a post-debate breakdown with insights you're not gonna hear from the mainstream media.
00:35:00.000So instead of yelling at your TV alone, why don't you just come yell with us?
00:35:54.000He commented on this and said that, you know, this, this kind of thing should be illegal.
00:35:57.000And so I guess there was already a bill that was in the works that they kind of accelerated to get pushed through that would make this unlawful right around election time.
00:36:04.000You know, making parodies like this, um, definitely seems politically motivated to me, but it affects the Babylon Bee and our ability to do satire.
00:36:16.000Thankfully, they fight for freedom, and they're here to help us push back on this.
00:36:19.000So, Kristen, on a legal basis, the claim by California, presumably, is that they're just trying to crack down on actual misuse of face, and that when it comes to some forms of informational usage, that those could theoretically violate the law in terms of fraud.
00:36:37.000What's the problem with how they drew this law or are trying to draw these regulations?
00:36:40.000Well, they're claiming they have an interest in the fair elections, but yet what they're doing is using a sledgehammer to essentially crush the First Amendment rights of all Americans in the process, including Making jokes illegal.
00:36:53.000There are a couple of different statutes that are in place in California.
00:36:57.000The first one that the lawsuit is focused at is where California is saying that if there's any type of materially deceptive content, and of course California gets to decide what that is, that that content, if it could potentially harm a political candidate's chances of getting elected, It's illegal and it's not just the candidate that can sue, it's anybody, including you can be sued if you repost this information.
00:37:22.000So it's just a roadmap for censorship and it's a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
00:37:27.000So Seth, one of the things that they're apparently trying to do is suggest that you must label satire or parody as satire or parody.
00:37:34.000Apparently people are too stupid to recognize otherwise.
00:37:37.000Now, as a professional joke-making human, what does it mean if you would have to label everything that you do as satire or parody?
00:37:45.000Well, we've kind of wrestled with this for a long time because, as you know, the Batmobile has been fact-checked many times over the years.
00:37:51.000We've been accused of trafficking and misinformation under the guise of satire.
00:37:54.000That's what the New York Times said a few years back.
00:37:57.000And so there's always been this suggestion that we're misleading people on purpose, that we need to do more to make people aware of the fact that we're publishing satire.
00:38:05.000But it really does ruin the joke when you put a massive disclaimer.
00:38:08.000I think the requirement, Kristen can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the requirement in this law is that the disclaimer be at least as large as the largest font that's in the actual article or parody itself.
00:38:18.000And so if we have a headline that's got very large font, we need to have a disclaimer that's equally as big or bigger than the headline itself.
00:38:26.000it completely ruins the joke, and we're not willing to do that.
00:38:29.000So we're gonna continue to have to violate the law, which then puts our business in jeopardy
00:38:33.000because if we get sued repeatedly by state officials for violating this law,
00:38:37.000it could potentially bankrupt us and put us out of business if we're covering all their legal fees.
00:38:41.000And so then we have the decisions that we have to make.
00:38:44.000Well, do we want to publish these particular jokes because we could have these enforcement actions?
00:38:48.000That chills speech because then we're going to be withholding content that we would otherwise publish if not for these laws and their penalties.
00:38:55.000No civilization worth its salt can actually work if it doesn't believe that it ought to stand up for its own principles.
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00:40:00.000So, Kristen, you know, you mentioned that California here is trying to basically, you know, kill a fly with a sledgehammer.
00:40:06.000What would a more calculated approach look like to stop people from disseminating, say, a deepfake of you?
00:40:12.000That wasn't satire or parody, it was just you saying that you full-scale endorse abortion on demand and the transing of children or something.
00:40:18.000How could that be stopped should the government step in in those circumstances?
00:40:22.000Well, in a number of instances, there are already laws in place to do that.
00:40:26.000You know, whether they're election fraud laws that really are actually interfering in elections, whether it's defamation and there's actual harm to our reputation, we already have laws in place to deal with these types of issues.
00:40:39.000Adding this law, especially when it's impacting core political debate, is really just an attempt for the government to be able to put its thumb on the scale of speech that it likes. It's content discrimination
00:40:51.000because it's focusing on the subjects like political debate. This law only applies
00:40:56.000to candidates as an example or elected officials and it's viewpoint discrimination as well in that
00:41:03.000if a candidate or someone wants to post something for example that is positive about a
00:41:08.000candidate but untrue the law doesn't apply to that.
00:41:11.000And so there's just no way that this law is consistent with the First Amendment because of how it's being applied.
00:41:17.000It's also very vague in its definitions.
00:41:19.000I mean, the last person we want to decide what's true or false in our political debate is Gavin Newsom.
00:41:25.000And that's essentially what's allowing California officials to do.
00:41:28.000It will have a nationwide effect because actually you can get sued, I can get sued as a private citizen for just reposting something that the Babylon Bee puts out there.
00:41:39.000Seth, do you ever find it puzzling that you've become the center of so much firestorm over the course of the creation of the Babylon Bee?
00:41:45.000It really is kind of amazing how the Babylon Bee has, I would say, quasi-inadvertently changed the world in ways that you guys probably didn't intend.
00:41:52.000I mean, if it had not been for the Babylon Bee becoming apparently the focal point of every bit of left-wing ire then Probably Elon Musk doesn't buy X, which obviously changes the direction of free speech in the country.
00:42:03.000Do you ever, like, sit there at night and just wonder why it is that this thing that started as a fairly small satire site and that has now grown into a successful business, that that has changed the nature of free speech in the country so much and the debate around it?
00:42:17.000It's definitely not something we ever expected.
00:42:20.000We literally did just set out to tell jokes on the internet, try to make people laugh, be entertaining, speak truth to a post-truth culture using humor.
00:42:27.000Did not expect to be on the front lines of a battle for free speech in the public square.
00:42:31.000But this is where we find ourselves because there's so much opposition to the First Amendment and what the First Amendment protects.
00:42:39.000And you see it happening all over the place.
00:42:40.000There's op-eds being written about how maybe it's time to do away with the Constitution.
00:42:43.000You had John Kerry just the other day talking about how The First Amendment is, I think the word he used was roadblock.
00:43:14.000We're waiting for a judge to be assigned.
00:43:16.000I think you can also expect that a preliminary injunction will be requested as well a permanent injunction to stop the law from going into effect both on a temporary basis and then a long-term basis.
00:43:27.000It's very telling that this law went into effect immediately upon Newsom's signature, so that it's supposed to affect this election cycle.
00:43:36.000And I think it's just important to point out that when we allow the government to use code words like misinformation or disinformation, that is state-sponsored censorship, and that blurs the lines between democracy and dictatorship.
00:43:49.000That's Kristen Wagoner of Alliance Defending Freedom, always doing amazing work on the legal side.
00:43:54.000And of course, Seth Dillon, CEO of Babylon Bee, the funniest site in America, doing yeoman's work in making you laugh and also pointing out the stupidity of a lot of bad ideas.
00:44:01.000Seth and Kristen, thanks so much for your time.
00:44:10.000I never do this, but I'm going to savage a movie I haven't seen, because I have read the book, and what's coming with this movie, the amount of press this movie is going to receive, and the reasons for it, pretty gross.
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