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00:00:50.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:58.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:03:09.000You predicted Donald Trump becoming president in 2008 and you said it again in 2014.
00:03:14.000And I do want to walk through this, Adam.
00:03:17.000You're one of the last comedians, I think, in America where we have someone that actually tells the truth and is unafraid to kind of challenge some of the kind of conventional orthodoxy.
00:03:28.000Adam, do you think that Donald Trump, because of Hollywood's reaction to him, do you think that he has killed like comedy in America?
00:03:35.000I mean, I find a lot of these late night hosts, they are clapping.
00:03:39.000A lot of the audience, they are clapping instead of laughing.
00:03:42.000It seems as if you're not able to tell jokes anymore.
00:03:46.000And I know you walk through this in your book.
00:03:49.000So what is it about President Trump that bothers the community of comedians so much?
00:03:55.000Well, I have multiple thoughts about that.
00:03:57.000One is the Hollywood community does not like Trump for a multitude of reasons.
00:04:03.000But one of the main reasons that no one ever really talks about is style.
00:04:10.000Those people are attracted to an aesthetic.
00:05:40.000The other thing that's going on with comedians, and this is interesting, which is they look at it and have always traditionally looked at it as your job is to push back against society.
00:05:55.000Your job is to push back against the man.
00:05:58.000So, you know, Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor or George Carlin, they were going to push back against the man.
00:06:19.000The man are people like Gavin Newsom who are shutting down their states and telling everyone to stay in their house and giving them protocols for Thanksgiving.
00:07:49.000Well, and we have seen throughout the last couple years, especially how the comedians have almost considered themselves to be part of the communication arm of the Democrat Party.
00:08:01.000If comedy is supposed to be contrarian, it's supposed to be provocative.
00:08:05.000It's supposed to call out truths that we all see, but we're afraid to say.
00:08:10.000And it was really easy to be a comedian when George W. Bush was president.
00:08:14.000That was when every single comic was pushing back against George Bush's accent or his, you know, his way of going about governance.
00:08:23.000And you kind of saw under Obama, there were still plenty of people that, you know, challenged conservatives and Republicans, but it kind of made this transitional phase from comedy being a place where it was an equal opportunity offender to that now comedy being almost agreeable with the culture.
00:08:39.000You talk about this in your book, and I want to make sure we continue to mention it.
00:08:46.000Adam, I was just reading it about an hour before this interview.
00:08:48.000I couldn't stop laughing through parts of it.
00:08:50.000My favorite part is how we're now going to classify airplane crashes and how many support animals are on board.
00:08:56.000And as you put it, the white chicks will be more upset with the dogs that are lost in the crash than the human beings that are lost.
00:09:06.000And I love the pictures you included with the woman that had two emotional support animals.
00:09:10.000And you asked the question, does she have double the anxiety?
00:09:14.000And it's just, again, you're not the reason I love this book is you're saying things you're not allowed to say, which is exactly what comedy is supposed to be.
00:09:21.000Let's just take a bigger picture question about your book, Adam.
00:11:41.000It's like, it's basically like when you go to a remember when you used to be able to go indoors and eat at a diner?
00:11:48.000You know that thing where it's like you and your friend, and you're eating at a diner and you partied pretty good the night before, and all of a sudden some elderly couple pulls up in the booth right behind yours, and all of a sudden the conversation changes, right?
00:12:01.000You're not quite as freewheeling with it because elderly couples within earshot.
00:12:07.000That's kind of what a lot of stand-up is and a lot of other stuff is.
00:12:11.000But the book, that's you in a diner booth in the middle of the Mojave Desert with a bullhorn.
00:12:34.000As a matter of fact, if you've told me to take it out, now it's really, it's really in.
00:12:38.000And that's exactly what I think is so hilarious about it.
00:12:42.000And I think that comedy really is saying things that are deeply true that people know to be true, this people are afraid to say it.
00:12:48.000And that's why it's the kind of, as Tucker endorsed your book, as the revolution hits its most humorless and radical phase, the people that are saying things that are true are all of a sudden considered to be more funny than it would have been even 20 or 30 years ago.
00:13:29.000Why would you possibly be attracted to this expression with this free expression of ideas known as comedy and then start editing yourself to try to curry favor with this group or that group?
00:13:46.000Getting in shape doesn't have to be about losing a specific amount of weight or a magic number on the scale.
00:13:51.000It's about building healthier habits and feeling better about yourself.
00:13:59.000They do physical, psychological, and social movements to make you a better person.
00:14:06.000Specific lessons you learned about psychology or habits, the ease of just 10 minutes a day, the tone of your program or anything you loved.
00:14:12.000It is so easy to log your food and it's also very flexible.
00:14:42.000And so one of the funniest things I've seen you do, Adam, is when you were testifying in front of Congress.
00:14:48.000There's a whole part of your book about this.
00:14:49.000Mr. Corolla goes to Washington and you hold up the notepad and you say, Can I keep this?
00:14:55.000Because if I can, that's a pretty big deal.
00:14:57.000And so you're talking about free speech and what's happening on college campuses.
00:15:01.000And I want to build this out with you.
00:15:02.000That's a lot of the outreach that we do on university campuses.
00:15:05.000And I don't think that what we're saying is, albeit that controversial, but the goalposts have moved so much, the Overton window has changed that students feel the need to get to safe spaces and they need trigger warnings.
00:15:17.000You have trigger warnings throughout this entire book, by the way, which I think is perfect.
00:15:21.000You did a whole documentary with Dennis Prager on this, No Safe Spaces.
00:15:25.000And you talked about in the book here where your opinion of the death of free speech, not just the death of free speech, but the need for people to have playrooms and listening sessions really is not just a troubling trend for a civilization, but it's also just made us less likely to explore new ideas.
00:15:48.000Can you talk a little bit about the documentary and how you how you kind of weaved it into your this book of in the chapter academia nuts of where you think the status of higher education is in our country and how it has changed so much in even the last couple of years?
00:16:04.000The joke lands better if you say academia nuts.
00:17:51.000So why do you want to create this zero gravity environment for your kids?
00:17:55.000They hear ideas they don't like, and instead of strengthening themselves emotionally by pushing back, they shout the guy off stage or they go into the room with their huggy bookie and listen to a nursery rhyme.
00:18:20.000You need, everyone needs something to push against to strengthen themselves.
00:18:25.000You put in the book here where campuses really get absurd is with safe spaces.
00:18:28.000For those of you unfamiliar with this term, congratulations.
00:18:31.000A so-called safe space is an area for students to escape with stuffed animals, counselors, coloring books, and support animals for when Jordan Peterson or some other monster comes to campus.
00:18:41.000And think romper room, except instead of four-year-olds, it's for 19-year-olds who think like they are four-year-olds.
00:18:47.000And just for all the listeners, and I have to continue to tell older audiences, this is not exaggerated.
00:18:53.000This is on campuses all across the country.
00:18:57.000I just wrote down the zero gravity example.
00:19:00.000I'm going to use that and I'll reference you sometimes with that because it is phenomenal that when I remember to, because there is no muscle mass being built with young people in higher education or in academia at all whatsoever.
00:19:15.000And when they go to these university campuses, college should be a place where they get tougher, they get more, they get stronger to be able to encounter a difficult world when the exact opposite is happening.
00:19:28.000They're actually becoming weaker and less likely to be able to endure the inevitable suffering that is life.
00:19:36.000And so, so, Adam, what do you attribute a lot of this to?
00:19:40.000Jordan Peterson has a highly intellectual theory.
00:19:43.000What warning signs do you think we ignored 10 or 20 years ago that led us to the place where we now send our kids to university campuses where they have to be around play-doh dolls or nursery rhymes?
00:19:56.000What was it that led us to this point?
00:19:59.000Was it really us sacrificing the terrain of higher education to radicals?
00:20:03.000Was it political correctness, which you touch on in this book, which you're obviously criticizing a lot of the political correct culture?
00:20:16.000I would look at college as a business, you know, and you have to constantly cater to your clientele.
00:20:25.000And your clientele is more and more growing up in the self-esteem movement, right?
00:20:31.000Being told they're number one, the participation trophy, which it's everyone gets a trophy group.
00:20:39.000And participation trophy, I never liked that as an example because I played seven years of pop warner football and I got a participation trophy every time.
00:20:50.000It's like I wanted most valuable player, best defensive lineman.
00:20:54.000But the clientele are the, I mean, think about, think about what the politicians are doing now, promising this, promising, you know, free, free education, free healthcare, free this, you know, rent control.
00:21:08.000All they're doing is trying to tell their clients what they want, right?
00:21:14.000So if you have a whole bunch of pampered kids who grew up in the self-esteem movement and they're coming onto your college campus, well, that's your business.
00:22:31.000So your theory is that it's really an issue of what happens, not just before college, but also just to look at it as a business.
00:22:38.000And also, I think it's pandering to the loudest voices and the most radical voices.
00:22:42.000I think it's very weak college administrators, just as if you mentioned, you know, the very cowardly comedians that are afraid to, you know, push the boundary.
00:22:50.000The same could be said for these administrators that basically their negotiating position is, I'll give you everything you want.
00:22:56.000Just stop yelling at me to the 5% of the college radicals that are at a university campus, where 20 or 30 years ago, they would have said, no, you're nuts.
00:23:06.000We're not going to give you a trigger warrant.
00:23:08.000You're not going to give you trigger warning safe spaces.
00:23:10.000And you even mentioned in the book at the University of Kansas, there is the Angry White Man Studies, and you recommend that this book should be the textbook.
00:23:17.000I completely agree, which I find to be hilarious.
00:23:21.000And the things that are actually taught at these university campuses outside of just the culture and the curriculum is creating a country where young people have very little understanding of the world they're about to enter into.
00:23:36.000And also I think the depth and the complexity of our country and everything they learn is our country is awful.
00:23:46.000It must be disintegrated at all costs.
00:23:48.000So, Adam, you also talk about in the book a little bit about your story and where you came from.
00:23:53.000I think it's a great story because it is a story where you just decided to apply yourself and you have achieved an enormous amount of success.
00:24:01.000And I think we're losing that a lot in our country.
00:24:04.000Can you talk about how you think that with all these different contributing cultural factors, whether it be the political correctness movement or the zero gravity movement, it almost has created young people to be more fragile, less likely to take risks and more likely to just try to look to other people?
00:24:22.000And you have a whole chapter on this where you say, I'm trying to pull it up, but it's around victimhood, where it seems as if there's a competition to try the highest level of become a victim at all costs, almost the oppression Olympics.
00:24:34.000Can you talk about how dangerous you think this is for our country where everyone wants to be a victim at all costs?
00:24:40.000Well, all you have to do, if you want to sort of know what works, like you go from the macro to the micro.
00:24:50.000So if you're just talking about diet and exercise, you know, you go, well, I have a, I have a teenage son and you'd go, okay, well, let's see.
00:25:00.000Let's get him on some low carbs and some high protein and get him working out and blah, blah, blah.
00:25:08.000Then if everyone ate more vegetables and less fast food and exercised more, it's not like, well, that would work for your boy or his boy or her boy, but it wouldn't work for the culture.
00:25:29.000So anybody who has a child with a handicap, like confined to a wheelchair or dwarfism or some handicap, spina bifida or something, right?
00:25:43.000Well, you would be the worst parent in the world if you were convincing that kid every day that they were handicapped and less than others in their class.
00:25:55.000Good parent would be, well, you're confined to a wheelchair, but that doesn't make you a victim and that doesn't make anyone any better than you.
00:26:03.000And yeah, you're going to have to outwork some of these people, but let's do it.
00:26:07.000So if you had someone with a handicap, a kid with a handicap, then that's all you would tell them.
00:26:11.000And you'd be a good parent to tell them that.
00:26:14.000So then why is it somehow noble when a politician explains to an entire group like the black community, you have a target on your back.
00:26:43.000A new app called Thinker, you guys have heard me talk about it, thinker.org slash Charlie, T-H-I-N-K-R, has solved that problem by summarizing the key ideas from new and noteworthy fiction, giving you access to an entire library of great books in bite-sized form.
00:26:55.000Reader listened to hundreds of titles in a matter of minutes, including old classics like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.
00:27:01.000If you want to challenge your preconceptions, expand your horizons and what?
00:27:19.000And you can see that in how many people have, not many people, how the population has refused to push back against a lot of these lockdowns.
00:27:29.000And they have almost willingly asked their leaders to take care of them instead of saying, wait, why is it?
00:27:37.000Are we still locked down after nine months and we're trying to slow the spread of the virus or stop the spread?
00:27:43.000And it just seems as if there is one failed promise and almost like I want to be taken care of at all costs, no matter like I want to be the victim.
00:27:54.000And it's that, as you know, said before, and Greg Gutfeld and Dave Rubin have said this, it's almost like it is the oppression Olympics.
00:28:01.000The book is I'm Your Emotional Support Animal.
00:28:05.000You also have a chapter here on commercial grade.
00:28:09.000Can you build out this chapter a little bit, Adam?
00:28:10.000I found it to be very interesting, kind of the examples that you use throughout the entire chapter.
00:28:16.000It says, made with love makes me hate.
00:28:21.000Well, obviously, Madison Avenue has to stay on top of the shifting winds of society.
00:28:29.000And think about the commercials you see now.
00:28:33.000So when I was growing up, if there was a commercial for a truck, they talked about torque and towing capacity, and they would always talk about warranties and fuel mileage and, you know, best fuel mileage in its class, best warranty, you know, 100,000 miles on the powertrain, you know, 100,000 rust-through on the body with Bondarized steel.
00:28:56.000You know, now a Subaru is made with love.
00:29:42.000And you have seen almost this increasing demand through, as you mentioned, commercials and communication, not to actually, you know, sell the best thing, as you say, but instead want to win over the audience in some emotive argument.
00:29:55.000Chapter seven, you say, sick of hashtag Me Too, Me Too.
00:30:01.000And I'm glad you do because of the double standard and almost the creation of a culture where we are telling young women to go out of their way to try to find ways that they have been offended or ways that they have been wronged by men.
00:30:20.000You talk about Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and you have a lot of nuance, by the way, when you go through all of them.
00:30:25.000You talk about Louis C.K. What is the bigger point you're trying to make in the chapter with Me Too that you think our audience should be made aware of?
00:30:34.000Well, it sort of dovetails into let's not, you know, first off, stop convincing everyone they were victims.
00:30:41.000There's plenty of women I know where somebody grabbed their bun cheek or something and they just shoot the guy's hand away and they moved on with their life, you know.
00:30:52.000There's versions of that that happen, happen to men as well.
00:30:56.000Let's, you know, I probably said in there since they started all of these seminars in the workplace about sexual harassment, I will bet you that sexual harassment lawsuits have gone up 2,000 fold.
00:32:23.000No matter how hard I work, I feel as if I'm just barely treading water.
00:32:29.000This book is pretty blunt, where it says, apply yourself correctly.
00:32:34.000Stop blaming other people for your problems and try to have a little fun along the way because the world is not as serious as some people try to make it seem.
00:32:42.000I think your message is pretty inspiring to students and to young people, which is stop being a victim.
00:33:27.000You don't have to be the top of your class.
00:33:29.000Just show up hungry and have a kick-ass attitude about work and you'll stand out immediately amongst these super soft, woke contemporaries.