The Megyn Kelly Show - Tim Dillon on Comedy in the Trump Era, Out of Touch Celebrities, and Alex Jones

00:00:00.540 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.100 Well, it's the first day of summer and my family and I are on summer vacation this week,

00:00:20.580 but we did not want to leave you hanging on your podcast feeds.

00:00:23.940 So we are going to re-up a couple of very fun episodes from the early days of the show

00:00:29.160 in case you missed them. We were just building an audience back then, so you might have.

00:00:33.320 Up first today is my conversation with Tim Dillon. He is awesome. This is from February of 2021.

00:00:41.840 Tim's hilarious and so perceptive on our culture and the state of comedy,

00:00:47.060 and he has blown up in the 15 months since the time he was on our show. I'm not taking credit.

00:00:51.620 I'm just noting that he's a star. We talked about Hollywood, out-of-touch celebrities,

00:00:57.820 cancel culture, and the revenge of the mediocre. Love that.

00:01:02.380 Mental Illness, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel, Ellen DeGeneres. He has thoughts on all of them.

00:01:08.460 Enjoy.

00:01:11.060 Tim Dillon, how are you?

00:01:13.460 Good morning, Megyn. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

00:01:16.660 Oh, the pleasure is all mine. I've been following you on Twitter and you're so funny.

00:01:21.780 And just the chance to talk to you was obviously what I was going to jump at,

00:01:25.880 but then I started to read up on you and learn more about you. And I love this description. I love

00:01:30.920 this. Conservative-leaning gay man from Long Island who says the average citizen might describe his

00:01:36.380 aesthetic as retired detective.

00:01:39.760 Yeah. I think that might cover all the bases.

00:01:44.240 What does that mean, retired detective? Like Lenny Briscoe, kind of?

00:01:48.060 I look like a guy who has left the forest, but he's always been tortured by one case and he sits

00:01:55.720 at a bar and he just wants to get back in to solve that one cold case from 10 years ago that

00:02:02.240 haunted him. I feel like that's the way I sound. That's the way my voice sounds. That's the aesthetic

00:02:07.160 I have. Just kind of that tortured Irish guy.

00:02:11.520 I'm thinking of like Sipowitz, remember?

00:02:13.920 Yeah, of course I do. I used to watch that show every day. I love that show.

00:02:19.140 But I think we're being too unkind to you because you're actually a handsome guy.

00:02:22.540 You are. You do.

00:02:23.080 Well, that's very sweet.

00:02:24.580 A retired detective, I guess, like maybe a little slovenly.

00:02:28.240 I do the best I can for the Irish. You know, the Irish are a race of people. We will never compete,

00:02:34.320 I think, with the other races in just pure looks. That's why we're funny and we tell stories and

00:02:40.660 we're fun to be around. And I think everybody's got, so I think I try to do the best I can with

00:02:45.300 what I have, with fair skin that's prone to get red. And, you know, I mean, this is just,

00:02:50.380 you got to do the best you can with the Irish aesthetic.

00:02:53.660 I can relate to all of that. All of that. I mean, thankfully I'm a gal, so, you know,

00:02:57.580 I wear makeup and I can make myself look better, but there is sort of a curse that comes with the

00:03:02.040 Irish heritage, but there's a balance in life where you're right. Like you tend to be funny,

00:03:06.480 tend to be a good storyteller. Um, and if you can't laugh at yourself, you get kicked out of

00:03:10.640 your family as, as an Irish kid. That's exactly right. You have to be able to roll with the

00:03:16.620 punches. And you have to be able to throw a lot of punches too. That's, that's exactly right.

00:03:22.720 And that's fine. You know, I was joking the other day that there's a Bridget Phetasy was on and we

00:03:26.520 were talking about how no Irish person has ever gotten offended at anything. You'll never hear the

00:03:31.100 Irish complaining about a joke at their expense because we're built to laugh at ourselves and to

00:03:36.840 think stuff like that is funny. And I just, I have yet to meet the Irish person who could be offended

00:03:40.600 by anything. Yes, that's true. I hope that stays true. I mean, my family, I remember that, uh, this

00:03:47.960 was a tough family that, uh, loved each other, but would fight, uh, and would argue and they would

00:03:56.560 debate and there were people that were right-wing people and left-wing people and people that didn't

00:04:02.620 believe at all in politics and people that were conspiracy theorists and it never mattered. So

00:04:08.980 it's, it's always strange to me in this new climate where if you disagree with someone, you're supposed

00:04:15.880 to exile them from your life or your community. That doesn't hold water with me at all because I just

00:04:23.160 remember growing up in these crazy environments with these large families where no one agreed on

00:04:28.980 anything and everything was still okay. So I think this idea that words are going to bruise you or,

00:04:36.960 uh, they're going to do serious damage that you can't recover from. I don't understand that at all.

00:04:44.360 I'm 36. That's probably generational, but a lot of it is my upbringing where it's like,

00:04:48.720 you know, a lot of people, uh, said a lot of things and then everybody kind of made up and,

00:04:54.800 and, and put it past them. Exactly right. And, and it's part of sort of, it's linked to,

00:05:00.220 I think being on the radical honesty program where I wouldn't say no feeling is spared growing up,

00:05:06.640 but it's pretty close. I mean, we definitely, my family and most of the Irish families I know

00:05:11.440 lean towards just saying it how it was. And I'll give you one example. Tell me if you can relate to

00:05:16.040 this in your own upbringing, but my family wound up becoming a blended family as I, I lost my dad

00:05:22.060 to a heart attack when I was in high school. And my mom got remarried four years later to a guy who

00:05:27.120 had three kids and he had lost his wife to cancer. So the three kids on his side and the three kids

00:05:33.440 on our side wind up together. And he had, um, two sons and a daughter. And the daughter at the time

00:05:40.660 was around 15 when she first came into our family. And, uh, she was a big talker. She liked to talk

00:05:46.080 their Irish too. She talked a lot, a lot. My brother, my older brother sat next to her dinner

00:05:53.560 one night and he interrupts her and he says, why are you telling me this story? Then he says,

00:06:00.840 look, if we're going to be in the same family, you're going to have to learn how to cut to the

00:06:04.900 chase. Looking at like, what the hell? But you know what? He did her a favor because everyone's

00:06:10.520 got to have that skill in life. Yeah. I mean, I, there's something beautiful about the Irish

00:06:16.540 experience where it's like, we feel like we're always underdogs. And I think that's part of it.

00:06:21.560 Right. So I think part of the Irish experience and my family's really, I, you know, my grandfather

00:06:25.200 came over from, uh, Cork and my nanny was from Galway and they, I mean, he came over at four years old

00:06:32.220 and they were tough and he grew up poor. And I mean, really poor, like it would move

00:06:37.060 every time the rent was due. And I mean, he, he had a large family and, uh, you know,

00:06:42.160 he built a business. He ended up being a general contractor. It took him a long time, but he built

00:06:46.020 a big, you know, beautiful house that he lived in, in Long Island. He was a devoutly religious guy.

00:06:50.860 He was very tough. He, uh, you know, I remember my father got in a bar fight. I think this was in my

00:06:56.620 father's note. My father's nose is still a little crooked. He called my grandfather and he goes,

00:07:00.920 you know, if you, if you gave me $5,000, I could fix my nose. I think my grandfather was like,

00:07:05.860 well, it's just a good thing. You're not a model and hung up. So it was kind of like figure it out.

00:07:10.080 You know, my grandfather had that attitude of like, he was a loving guy and he was generous,

00:07:13.480 but he was also like, you gotta figure your life out. Like, I think he had six, seven children.

00:07:18.960 One of them died of cancer, sadly, but he was, it was old school. Like it wasn't, you, you weren't

00:07:24.960 going to get your hand held. Uh, you were loved and you were supported, but you were also expected to

00:07:30.820 kind of go out and fight the way that they fought for whatever you wanted. And I think that that is,

00:07:37.680 you know, kind of that enduring quality of like that underdog, you know, mentality that Irish people

00:07:45.280 have, you know, and obviously we're not nearly, we weren't nearly as disadvantaged as African

00:07:49.700 Americans or, or, or other groups of people, but I mean, the Irish kind of had a little bit of a time

00:07:54.460 when they came to this country. So I think that that is, um, part of, uh, what makes us

00:08:01.700 into these, uh, storytellers. We talk a little too much. We, we make a lot of jokes where we're

00:08:07.660 trying to get a seat at the table. And I think that the way we try to do that is by wrestling

00:08:12.200 the attention away from who's ever speaking. And I mean, whatever we have to do, I mean, I have

00:08:17.700 aunts that will stand up in the middle of a family party and start singing a song, forcing everyone to

00:08:22.400 just stare at them. I mean, my aunt would sing memories from cats and I mean, she's a horrible

00:08:26.980 singer, but we would all just, every year we knew memories was coming when she'd had a few drinks and

00:08:32.020 we all just had to sit and listen to that. And she would just out of nowhere, start belting out,

00:08:36.680 you know, midnight. And we'd all, okay, here we go. So it really was just a fight for attention.

00:08:43.140 I think part of that, I guess, is that we all kind of feel like we're underdogs in a way.

00:08:47.920 So do you have that? Do you, do you love attention?

00:08:50.340 I do. I mean, I do. And you know, when you look back at my kid video, it's embarrassing.

00:08:56.260 When I was two or three years old, I would be hamming it up in front of the camera and doing

00:09:01.520 everything I can. I'd dump ice cream on my head. I'd do anything I could to get attention. You know,

00:09:05.800 most comedians have that in them where they just wanted to be the center of attention. And no matter

00:09:10.580 you know what, I mean, it's hard to watch because it's, they're just insufferable when you watch them

00:09:16.100 because it's a kid who's just demanding everyone looks at them. When he was two, three, just going,

00:09:21.680 I want all the eyeballs on me.

00:09:24.020 So, but how does that parlay from, oh, Tim's so funny. You know, he's a class clown. God,

00:09:29.020 that guy's hilarious into, oh my God, he's trying to make a career out of it.

00:09:34.560 Yeah. Well, you fail at a lot of other things. So that's important. I think failure is important.

00:09:39.940 And we don't ever talk about failure. Every motivational speaker goes out and tells you how

00:09:43.700 to succeed. And that's kind of maybe puts people at a disadvantage. I think you have to try the

00:09:49.200 things that you're not suited for before you find the thing that you are suited for. And I tried a lot

00:09:54.620 of things. I mean, I was in sales. I tried to, you know, be in finance. I was, I was trying to live

00:10:00.600 this life that wasn't for me. I love sales. Like I still like salespeople. I read about business and,

00:10:07.860 you know, but it wasn't for me. I wasn't as good at it as I could be because I didn't work

00:10:12.280 hard at it. And the reason I didn't work hard at it is I didn't really love it. And then when I found

00:10:17.480 comedy when I was 25, I started pretty late. I found the thing that I loved enough to work

00:10:23.280 so hard at that I would kind of sacrifice the rest of my life to just get good at this and to be good

00:10:31.300 at it. Cause when I was on stage, I felt like this is where I belonged, but it took a while to get

00:10:37.040 there. It took, you know, community college and it took debate club and it took majoring in

00:10:41.960 political science than dropping out because, and no offense, but all the people that were in

00:10:46.480 politics and journalism were insufferable. None of them were fun. It would, none of them were fun.

00:10:51.700 I remember we would go to these debate tournaments and I beat these two girls that were on their way to

00:10:56.080 Harvard. And I was, I was in a community college, you know, and they were crying afterwards. And I was

00:11:00.320 like, you know, and all these guys just wanted to talk about politics endlessly all night. And I was

00:11:06.040 like, and I, you know, me, I'm trying to make jokes. I'm trying to have fun. And everybody,

00:11:10.400 we took themselves so seriously and I was just turned off by it. I'm like, I don't want to spend

00:11:15.200 my life with these people. And then God, listen, we know that they exist and there's a reason for

00:11:20.000 them. But I was just totally like turned off by that. So I'm like, well, I don't want to be in

00:11:24.380 and I thought I was going to be in that. I thought I was a debate guy and I was good at debate. I was

00:11:28.380 really good at being in debate. And I was like, I want to, I'm going to be in politics. I'm going

00:11:31.760 to run a presidential campaign. I'm going to be, you know, whatever the case may be. And,

00:11:37.860 you know, I was running around, I was like, you know, 19 years old, you know, talking about how

00:11:42.980 we have to honor our commitment to the people of Iraq. You know, I had no idea what I was talking

00:11:46.260 about, but I'm like, this seems, I was like hardcore evangelist of George W. Bush thought,

00:11:55.220 you know, thought he was great. Thought everything we were doing was phenomenal. Now I look back on

00:11:59.800 it and I'm like, yes, some of that probably wasn't the move, but I really was going hardcore

00:12:04.200 into politics. And then I took a step, took a step back and I was like, all right, I'm going

00:12:07.600 to do finance. I'm going to be a business guy because I just want to make money. And then

00:12:11.520 I realized like, I don't love money enough. Sadly, like I love making a good living, but

00:12:15.360 like, I don't love money enough to make my life just about money. So then at 25 years old,

00:12:20.780 after the, um, uh, the, the, you know, 2008 when the, the, the, the market had collapsed,

00:12:26.000 I was like, let me just see if I'm funny and see if I can be funny professionally, which

00:12:31.700 I didn't even know what the route to it was. I had no, there was no blueprint. So I got

00:12:36.160 into it at 25 when I kind of had nothing else going on. And I spent the last 10 years just

00:12:41.380 getting as funny as I could on, on every platform that I could.

00:12:44.560 That sounds terrifying. I mean, I, first of all, I can relate to the first part so much

00:12:49.820 your experience of politics and, and debate and media. Um, and actually just listening

00:12:55.160 to you explain it, just, I was like, Oh my God, this is my life too. I just wasn't as

00:13:00.720 smart as you were to get out. You know, I just, I spent so many years in it thinking

00:13:04.420 like, why is everyone looking at me? Like I'm being inappropriate again. You know, I just,

00:13:08.460 right. Well, you did. I mean, I'm a bull in a China shop, right? That's how you feel.

00:13:12.100 I think, I think you did well. I think in fact, I wasn't as smart as you were to keep

00:13:17.360 going maybe, but feeling like a fish out of water is what I'm saying. Like you feel

00:13:20.580 like, yes, I don't know why, but I don't, these people are looking at me like I'm

00:13:24.160 inappropriate and I think I'm hilarious. Right, right, right. I just remembered like

00:13:29.180 going out after debate tournaments and we would like, you know, sit down at these

00:13:34.060 restaurants and I was like, okay, so the debates are over. Right. And then they never

00:13:38.080 would add. I mean, it would never end. It would never end. So I was like, does this

00:13:41.460 ever, can we ever just goof around? Can we ever talk about anything else? Life is

00:13:45.340 about more than politics. And this is something I tell people now life is about

00:13:48.700 more. I mean, you know, my aunt called me the other day. She goes now that, you

00:13:51.660 know, cause she was like hardcore, like she would call me every day. Trump is the

00:13:56.360 worst thing that's ever happened to us. Blah, blah, blah. And coronavirus is killing

00:14:00.640 every human being that's ever lived. And I'm like, okay, thank you. I don't need

00:14:03.280 this negativity, but I mean, every day she would call. And then finally Biden got

00:14:07.400 inaugurated and she called me and she goes, you know, me and your uncle, we went

00:14:10.300 birdwatching today and there were hawks in the trees. It was beautiful. And I'm

00:14:13.700 like, you could have been doing that for the last four years. Like there were hawks

00:14:17.720 in the trees. You chose to be miserable for four years. You chose that. And so to

00:14:25.340 me, I'm like, there's just more to life than this endless. Cause most people, you're

00:14:30.700 never going to meet Nancy Pelosi. Most of us, you know, I have uncles that, you know,

00:14:34.940 Nancy Pelosi is the center of everything that bothers them. And I'm like, this is,

00:14:37.920 you'll never meet this woman. You're letting someone affect you who you'll never meet and

00:14:43.300 who has, has some degree of control over you, but not nearly as much as you think. I mean,

00:14:49.200 truly not you. There's a lot you can do completely that doesn't involve what Nancy Pelosi does or

00:14:56.860 doesn't do or says or doesn't say. So to me, I've always been like, there's more to life than

00:15:01.040 politics. And the people that were deeply into politics never felt like that to me. They were

00:15:06.420 always like, no, this is the be all end all. And I'm like, this is so weird. You get a certain

00:15:11.260 amount of time on this planet and you choose one team and then somebody else chooses another team

00:15:16.640 and you just fight forever. And that's it. That's the only experience you want to have. And that,

00:15:22.300 that felt very empty to me and not fun. And I love having fun. And that just wasn't fun.

00:15:27.420 So it reminds me of when I lived in DC for a little while and I used to go out to the happy hours

00:15:32.700 there and this is, you know, I was much younger. I was whatever, 30 around there. And, um, you'd get

00:15:38.380 these guys coming over to you in the, in the bar. First of all, all the women would be wearing

00:15:41.780 sweater sets with pearls. And I was like, what, what, right. And then all the guys, uh, would come

00:15:48.260 over and like in their suits, these are like young aides to congressmen on Capitol Hill. And everyone

00:15:53.000 would assume you knew who their congressman was. It's like, I never, I never even heard of him. I

00:15:56.580 certainly never heard of you and I never even heard of your congressman. So I'm not impressed.

00:15:59.900 And they would put their hand out and they, to, to meet you and they would shake your hand or they,

00:16:04.480 they would shake it hard. You know, like they were trying to impress you with their muscle

00:16:07.360 and say things like, and how are you enjoying Washington? I'm like, oh my God, I am never

00:16:13.140 letting this guy get on top of me ever. Right. DC is too much. It's a great city to perform comedy

00:16:21.080 in because it's like everyone there is just morally compromised. And it's great to just point out

00:16:25.460 everybody in the audience and imagine, you know, what they do for a living. It's a lot of fun to

00:16:30.600 perform in that city. But to me, it was never a city that I could live in. I was just like,

00:16:35.100 I love New York because people in New York talk about real estate and food. I mean, that's really

00:16:39.080 what everyone in New York talks about. They go, who got what apartment where and how much and why

00:16:43.960 and how many roommates or no roommates and who's buying a condo and who's got the, and it's all about

00:16:48.580 real estate and it's all about where you live. And they took about neighborhoods and they took about

00:16:51.600 food. They took, we have, you know, brutal debates about restaurants and you know, you got to go to

00:16:56.740 this place. No, this pizza Supreme is better. No, they were good six months ago. They changed the

00:17:01.080 dough. It's all over now. The whole thing. And we just had these brutal fights about food and about

00:17:05.660 neighborhoods. And that to me was very fun and very local and it affected you. And, and that's what

00:17:11.120 people talked about in New York. They talk about money and DC is all about power and politics and

00:17:15.820 everybody wants to have a prestige position. And to me, it was all like, I don't know. It was just,

00:17:21.100 it wasn't funny. I don't like political comedy. Like I do a lot of social comedy. Right. So like

00:17:25.920 I took a lot of, about a lot of cultural things and I, I certainly touch on politics and stuff,

00:17:30.360 but like that blatantly political comedy never really was my thing. Like I, I respect the people

00:17:36.860 who do it. It's very hard to do it. Right. But to me, it just divides the audiences immediately.

00:17:41.980 And I always look at like the larger truth that's buried under this kind of horse race,

00:17:46.960 political, you know, angle that ever, that, that a lot of people are going for now. So I,

00:17:52.120 I always was like, not so much into DC, but I love, it's probably my fate. And ironically,

00:17:58.080 it's my favorite city to perform standup comedy in. And because there's a lot of tension there

00:18:03.780 and tension, releasing tension is what comedians should strive to do. And that city is always

00:18:11.200 tense. And when you can break that tension, it, people are really grateful.

00:18:14.900 Oh, those poor people are desperate to laugh. They're not allowed to laugh at all anymore.

00:18:19.320 Everything's so deadly serious. And most of all themselves to your point about New York,

00:18:23.780 I can tell you it's, it's the only city I've ever lived in or, or visited where it's like before

00:18:28.420 somebody comes, like somebody comes over to your house for the first time. And before they leave,

00:18:32.180 it's understood by all involved that they will be getting a full tour of your apartment. They will,

00:18:36.240 they will be looking at the master bedroom, the master bathroom. It's just understood. Of course,

00:18:39.640 I want to see your real estate.

00:18:40.520 Yes. You become a realtor. You talk about how much it costs. People have no problem in New York

00:18:45.400 going, let me ask you what you pay. I mean, there's really no problem asking you what you paid.

00:18:51.100 There's something fun about that to me. It's kind of fun. Real estate's hilarious to me.

00:18:55.480 I always say, I think it's very funny. I think it's silly. I think a lot of my videos that I do

00:19:01.500 online are silly. They're goofy. Right. And I mean, like, so to me, it's like, you know,

00:19:05.240 the discussion of bedrooms and bathrooms and finishes and marble and granite and

00:19:09.560 windows are very funny and kind of, they make me laugh. It's ultimately meaningless, right? It's

00:19:17.200 utterly me. I've lived in big houses and small houses I've lived in. I've had really nice cars

00:19:22.260 and I've driven beater cars and, you know, obviously it's better to have more money, but my

00:19:26.540 actual day-to-day happiness doesn't really change. If I have good friends and I'm laughing and I feel like

00:19:32.840 my career is going well, where you live doesn't, it's not as meaningful as people make it out to be,

00:19:40.080 but I just love, you know, the way people make it into the most important thing in the world is,

00:19:45.860 you know, your view. Somehow you've arrived. So just hearing you talk and actually having seen you

00:19:52.560 before, something that's standing out to me is you sound happy. Yes. I don't think of happy when I

00:20:01.860 think of comedians. I think of more of the sad clown and like they're wrestling and they're

00:20:05.820 tortured and they sort of, they're dark, but they're awesome and they're funny and they're

00:20:09.320 clever and they're really witty about society and observers of it. But happy is not a word that comes

00:20:14.580 to mind. I guess maybe ironically, given what they do for a living. Do you think you're an anomaly in

00:20:19.160 the comedy circuit? No, I think, well, I'm happy now things are going well. Like I think I'm happy

00:20:26.280 now that I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in a good place creatively. The things I'm proud of what I make,

00:20:31.400 I'm proud of the show I do every week, the podcast. I'm, I've gotten great opportunities to,

00:20:37.320 to do some of the biggest podcasts in the world and guys like Joe Rogan have helped me out

00:20:41.100 tremendously. And so the happiness I think just comes from the idea that I worked really hard at

00:20:45.420 something for a long time, but now it's starting to like come together and I have the freedom to do the

00:20:49.540 things that I want to do. But like, I think comedians, I don't think it's that we're miserable,

00:20:53.120 but I do think it's that we're all sensitive and we all are noticing things. We all feel things

00:20:57.780 and we all have to convert that to funny. So if I am upset, I convert it, try to convert it

00:21:03.960 immediately to humor, which can be healthy, but it also cannot be because it's a great way to,

00:21:09.140 it's a great way to just, you know, not acknowledge your problems and not fix them is by making them

00:21:16.200 funny. And this is the real problem with a lot of comedians. It doesn't matter what the problem

00:21:20.700 happens to be. You can easily make fun of it and not really address it. So there is that problem

00:21:27.800 with comedians and that's just been forever, right? That could be your love life, your relationship to

00:21:32.960 drugs, alcohol, food, depression, anything, your family, your past traumas. Like we make a living by

00:21:41.140 making those things funny. And a lot of times that's just putting a bandaid over them and not really

00:21:45.460 addressing them. So I think that's where the like sad clown comes from is the idea that we make

00:21:51.480 things that bother us funny. So, but they're still there. They still bother us, but that's kind of what

00:21:57.500 we do. That's how we come to be funny. So I think I'm happy because I think I'm, I'm grateful. I'm lucky.

00:22:04.880 I think a lot of us are, are, are lucky to do what we do. I think I'm lucky. I worked very hard to have

00:22:09.540 the job. I also feel lucky to have the job, right? So I feel like I'm lucky. I have all the

00:22:15.220 qualifications to do what I want to do. And, you know, so that, that makes me, you know, when you,

00:22:21.200 when you see what people go through all the time and this is, what's really been lost in this new,

00:22:26.780 you know, climate that we're in where, you know, when you, when you, when you look at who's a real

00:22:32.980 victim, who's truly in trouble, who deals with things with their own health or with their own

00:22:39.300 family and these really tough situations. Uh, the majority of people out there are very lucky.

00:22:46.380 The majority of us, I don't care where you come from or what you're dealing with. The majority of

00:22:51.420 us are just lucky to be here, to live here, to be in this time, to have our health, to have functioning

00:23:00.260 brains, to be able to work and pursue things that we want to do. So we can't ever lose sight of that.

00:23:08.300 Now, a lot of times we do lose sight of that because we're human beings, but I think I try to

00:23:11.980 remind myself that, that at baseline here, I'm pretty lucky to be a comedian for a living in the

00:23:20.680 year 2021 and to be able to earn money while many people are, are in trouble and suffering because we

00:23:27.640 have this horrible situation right now with, with a shutdown. And so I think that's where I try to

00:23:33.100 derive the happiness from just perspective. Back to Tim in one second, but first you never thought

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00:24:58.060 radio at home title lock.com home title lock.com. So what do you make of the, you know, all these late

00:25:10.740 night comedians going exactly the opposite way, right? They turn themselves from people who

00:25:14.940 make you laugh into people who make you upset and sad, angry. You know, I haven't watched

00:25:19.700 during the entire Trump presidency, but I see the clips and Kimmel. God, they're so dark now.

00:25:25.320 Something happened. And I I've talked to a lot of smart people out here in LA, which I'm getting

00:25:30.280 out of soon going right to Texas. But, uh, I talked to a lot of smart people here. Um, and we,

00:25:36.840 cause I've, I've always been interested in the, in where this started. And I think that it might've

00:25:42.100 started with when Tina Fey did that really brilliant and funny impression of Sarah Palin

00:25:47.220 on SNL. Um, and it may have also started with Jon Stewart, an equally brilliant guy who did a very

00:25:53.220 funny show called the daily show. But what started to happen eventually, uh, you know, was that people

00:26:00.100 started to believe that their job, uh, was to be a teacher, was to be, uh, somebody who, um,

00:26:08.280 would affect culture with, uh, political humor and that it would not be for the sake of being

00:26:19.940 funny. I mean, there's been political humor forever and I'm sure some of it was written

00:26:23.800 with the intent that it would, would, you know, affect people. But there became this idea and it

00:26:29.280 became rather explicit that the job of a comedian was to move the needle in a meaningful way in the

00:26:38.140 political world. And I don't know where that happened, but those are two good examples of

00:26:42.180 where it may have began, where it was that Sarah Palin, because that nailed Sarah Palin, that,

00:26:48.740 that impression was viral and people talked about it and people were saying that, you know, I don't

00:26:53.340 know if she could recover from that. It was so good and it was kind of right on. And then of course,

00:26:59.060 Jon Stewart, uh, did, did kind of a great job at, at, at being this, this, this political

00:27:04.220 comedian that did provide real information, but, but what has happened like everything else

00:27:09.240 is that it has, it has grown into a cottage industry of people who are putting their opinion

00:27:17.660 in front of their comedy. And this is a big problem because it's not always funny. And in fact,

00:27:25.420 it rarely is funny. And that's why you just use the word dark, which is a great word for it,

00:27:30.340 because when you're putting your opinion out first and you're not worrying about the content,

00:27:37.360 the humor, you're not recognizing the humanity of your opponents. You're not seeing the other side,

00:27:43.660 which is what comics should always do. It's how you can really be funny, especially about meaningful

00:27:48.740 topics is looking at someone else's. I mean, there's not a great lawyer out there who, who, who can't

00:27:54.780 argue the other side of their case. I mean, it's essential, right? It's the whole point of a,

00:27:59.380 of, of, of a great attorney, a great litigator is that they know what the other side is going to

00:28:03.160 do and they understand the strengths of the other side. And I think he's a great comedian whose job

00:28:07.820 is to make, you know, large numbers of strangers laugh. You have to kind of have some baseline respect

00:28:16.700 for them as human beings. And when we turn everything into this endless, you know, festival

00:28:25.880 of politics and politicized identities, we forget that the people that disagree with us

00:28:34.540 are human beings and that those people, um, you know, are not enemies. They're people that for

00:28:43.940 whatever reason have a different experience than you. So when I watch those late night hosts, I go

00:28:48.140 they're, they're at the, the, the best way to say it is they're not really doing their job

00:28:52.820 and they're, they're, they've carved out this, you know, group of people that want to hear them

00:28:59.020 say things they agree with similar to somebody on maybe Fox or MSNBC. And to me, it's not interesting

00:29:06.760 and it's, and it does get dark and it gets sad because they don't want to do it. You know,

00:29:10.480 when you look at Jimmy Kimmel, he doesn't really want to do it. You're just making so much money

00:29:14.720 and you become a cog in this Hollywood machine and you're getting $20 million, $30 million.

00:29:20.580 You, you were expected to do it, but they don't want to do it. You could see it in their faces

00:29:24.440 that nobody got into comedy to lecture people about what, who to vote for. Nobody.

00:29:31.000 Are you surprised to see like that these guys being treated as these sage advisors in this serious

00:29:37.260 suit. I mean, to me, it's just, it's antithetical to what a comedian generally looks like and projects

00:29:44.260 like and wants to be perceived as. Yeah. Well, what it is, is also, you know, people have Google,

00:29:51.280 people can remember that Chelsea Handler made a living doing race material. And now Chelsea

00:29:57.220 Handler does documentaries about white privilege. Jimmy Kimmel had a show called the man show where

00:30:01.920 they like, you know, did wet t-shirt contest. And now he's talking about health insurance.

00:30:06.120 Stephen Colbert did a show where he was a very funny, you know, kind of guy that was impersonating

00:30:10.740 Bill O'Reilly. And then now everything, you know, and he got away with a lot of saying a lot of crazy

00:30:15.200 things because it was satire and it was very funny. And now a lot of these same people exist.

00:30:20.640 They act like satire doesn't exist. And if you say something, you're dead serious about it. And if

00:30:24.800 you make a racial joke, you're a racist, or if it's a homophobic joke, you're a homophobe. Or if you make a joke

00:30:29.640 about trans people, you're diminishing a trans identity. And all of these people are very

00:30:34.480 Google-able. They've all had long careers. None of them felt this way years ago. And I mean, I don't

00:30:39.620 mean, you don't have to go back 10 years. You can go back right before Trump got into the primaries.

00:30:45.000 Like, this is a new, relatively new phenomenon in mass where all of these people are every day

00:30:51.420 tweeting. I mean, I have comedian friends of mine that are tweeting about trade agreements all day.

00:30:55.760 And it's like, what are you doing? They're tweeting at Mayor Garcetti. They're like,

00:30:59.300 you better. These people have roommates. They're on drugs. It's like, and they're going,

00:31:03.600 what's the budget of LA? The cops better be not getting more than this percentage of the budget.

00:31:08.120 I'm like, the budget? You can't afford a car. So it's a mind virus. Truly, it's a mind virus. And

00:31:16.980 people like me have been, I think, pretty well-received kind of pointing it out because a

00:31:23.140 lot of people are going like, oh yeah, man, that's kind of the way I feel. Like, they grew up watching

00:31:27.500 these comics. These guys were very funny. Colbert, Kimmel. These guys were really,

00:31:30.800 really funny people. But now I think they feel that for whatever reason, that that isn't their

00:31:36.340 job. They have to do what they're doing.

00:31:38.500 And I read something. It was you. It was a bit you were doing about him saying something like,

00:31:44.080 the comedians are the ones who get on stage and basically say, we're fucked up. We're fat.

00:31:48.740 We can't stop doing horrible things. Only a psychopath would look at us and say,

00:31:54.240 yes, show me the way.

00:31:56.300 I mean, it's crazy. I mean, could you imagine going out to a nightclub and then asking the

00:31:59.980 guy on stage for tax advice? We've lost our minds here. I mean, this is completely insane.

00:32:05.600 I don't go to my dentist laying the chair and go, let's be funny now. People got to specialize in

00:32:10.860 things. You can't be everything. And this flies in the face of a lot of the ethos of young people today

00:32:15.820 who want to be everything. You know, they're like, I want to be a YouTuber and a rapper and

00:32:20.560 a stock mogul. And I want to start an app and I want to be a venture capitalist and I want to be

00:32:25.520 an artist and write three books. And I want to be a chef and have a line of, I mean, it's like,

00:32:29.740 guys, we need to get good at a thing here. And then we need to start there and then maybe move on.

00:32:34.900 But like this idea that you would ever look at the comedian, hopefully we say things that are

00:32:41.740 smart. Hopefully we say things that are funny. Hopefully we make you think. I didn't tell anyone to

00:32:45.680 vote. I got flack for this. People are like, people go like this to get a voting plan. Comedians

00:32:52.020 were going on Twitter going, get a vote, get a voting plan. What are we doing? What is a voting

00:32:58.480 plan? Get to the poll and vote. I mean, you all got a Popeye's chicken sandwich. You can vote. Like

00:33:04.640 this idea that no one knows how to vote. We got to come up with a plan. We got to, the idea that I,

00:33:11.240 who put on wigs and say crazy things and I'm funny in a goofball and, and admit all these

00:33:17.020 embarrassing things about my life. I'm going to tell you who to vote for. It's just not my job.

00:33:21.400 It's not my job. If you want me to do that, then go somewhere else, go find another person who's

00:33:27.400 going to tell you to vote. And then it's so important to vote. It's just, to me, it's patronizing. I'm not

00:33:32.000 patronizing you. If you're going to vote, you're going to vote. If you're not going to vote, you're not

00:33:34.720 going to vote. It's absolutely none of my business. You know, it would be insane. It'd be like me being

00:33:38.760 on stage and like, you know, you know, looking at my audience and pointing out a guy in the audience

00:33:43.200 going, Hey, why don't you call your brother? Have you spoken to your brother recently? Why don't you

00:33:48.660 call him? What about your wife? Have you gone, have you taken a route? It's like, dude, what am I a life

00:33:54.520 coach? I'm trying to be goofy. Yeah. You know, it, it reminds me of, um, I was talking to my

00:34:00.580 decorator the other day and he's amazing and he's awesome. And he was, he submitted this plan and I'm

00:34:06.540 like, yeah, approved. And he and his team are looking at me like, really? And I'm like, look,

00:34:11.400 I'm going to be honest with you. When it comes to decorating a house, I don't have very good taste.

00:34:15.660 I don't know what I'm doing. You want to talk about Syria? We can talk about Syria,

00:34:18.700 but that I know how to do, but I don't know how to decorate a house. And they said, no one has ever

00:34:23.780 said this to us in 30 years of doing this. Right. You're right. Cause everyone's an interior designer.

00:34:28.560 Yeah. And we're, I mean, if you leave it to us, I mean, we'll have lace curtains, everything will

00:34:33.280 look like a funeral. You know, I'm very bad at it too, because it's an Irish person. I think

00:34:37.220 everything should look like a wake. So I'm like, we should just have big curtains and big couches

00:34:41.620 where everyone can sit down and cry. But, uh, yeah, everyone's a specialist in everything. So

00:34:46.440 the problem is you said it and I said it, dude, I do it too. I go to right. I'm one of the only dudes

00:34:52.260 who goes to a restaurant and I will go, you pick to the waiter or waitress. And they're

00:34:58.760 like floored. I do this. Cause you know why I go, whatever you bring to the table, I'm

00:35:03.600 going to eat it. Okay. And I'm going to say it's not good. So you just choose. I'm going

00:35:09.420 to complain about it probably on my show, not to you. I never do it to them, but I'm going

00:35:14.320 to go, I'm going to trash it on my show. I'm going to tweet about it. I'm going to say

00:35:18.080 I was very disappointed. And then I'm going to come back next week and probably have the

00:35:21.320 same thing. So it doesn't really matter. But I go to restaurants and I go, I love the

00:35:26.720 chef tasting menu. New York city. We just went out to dinner all the time, spent absorbent

00:35:30.040 amounts of money, sat there for three hours, drank martinis and ate food. I just have friends

00:35:33.940 that we never went near clubs. We just sat in restaurants for three hours and they would

00:35:37.920 just bring us food and we would just talk and drink. And I love the chef's tasting menu

00:35:41.900 because I go, I don't know what he should make or she, you make it, bring it to me.

00:35:47.380 I'll eat it. The idea of that is crazy now. Everybody now is a specialist in everything

00:35:54.340 and they're ready to tell you how you should do it. I mean, it'll be like me telling you

00:35:59.020 how to be a journalist. I don't know the first thing about interviewing anybody, about doing

00:36:04.520 research. Like to me, it would be like for me to tell you how to do it, it would be completely

00:36:08.920 absurd. I did red eye. I did red eye. It was fun. And red eye at Fox, like comedians

00:36:14.120 would come on and we'd sit next to John Bolton and they'd go, well, Tim, what do you think

00:36:19.020 about Syria? I don't, I don't have shows there. Like, I mean, it's just, I mean, it's like

00:36:27.080 I can make fun of it and I will. And maybe I have an intelligent take on it, but I mean,

00:36:31.320 it's like, I haven't done the research and neither is anyone else. Neither is Chelsea Handler.

00:36:35.920 They have also not done the research.

00:36:38.860 She's another one. I don't want to hear from any more. I'm so over Chelsea. I mean,

00:36:41.920 I was never under Chelsea Handler, but I really would like her to be quiet. I can't stand her

00:36:47.280 brand of quote humor, which as you point out, is really just lecturing all the rest of us

00:36:50.840 on how we're pieces of shit. And she's amazing.

00:36:53.800 Well, she was also mean for a decade and now we're supposed to, she was like mean and she

00:36:57.700 was like, her funniest was just being mean. Like, so I get it. Like she was just like,

00:37:01.160 I'm mean, I'm drunk. Every guy I've met's penis is too small and no one has money like I do. And

00:37:08.280 it's like, okay, we can get into this. And I thought that was bad. Now she's like talking

00:37:13.100 about the Gaza Strip. I'm like, oh, can you go back to that, please?

00:37:18.060 That's exactly right. Well, that's, you know, but there was an article over the, um,

00:37:21.920 over the weekend, I guess it came out on Monday talking about the bomb premiere of SNL this week

00:37:26.460 and how it's just not funny. Right. Because they, their King left Trump. They don't know what

00:37:32.600 to do without him. They, it was in the LA times saying something like, um, it was uninspired.

00:37:37.940 They said it was unfunny, lazy, crude gags scattered about and forgettable sketches.

00:37:42.840 They don't know what to do without him. And they don't want to touch, you know, the, the,

00:37:46.740 you know, the, the, the, the King and queen Biden and Kamala Harris.

00:37:51.500 Kamala. Right. Yeah. Well, it's interesting about SNL is like every guy

00:37:55.260 that I knew and gal that, that had like a working class background, never got hired for

00:38:01.560 that show. That shows staffed with collegiate, usually Ivy league, Northeastern liberal art

00:38:08.840 school kids who aren't that where their sense of humor is very specific. And, you know, I

00:38:15.660 had really funny friends that like were garbage that submitted packets to that show. I mean,

00:38:19.780 great standups make people laugh all over the country and they never got into that show.

00:38:25.260 Uh, and there's just this weird kind of the closed ranks around a specific type of person,

00:38:30.600 uh, that can't have an opinion that, I mean, I remember I knew somebody that was on the

00:38:34.500 show that wrote there for a year and he, he brought up, you know, I, I forget, I think

00:38:40.100 it was a Kennedy assassination. She brought up his, yeah, he's a lot of people think there

00:38:43.200 was some shady there. And the whole room kind of looked at him and just kind of dismissed

00:38:47.100 him. And he was bringing it up in the context of like, there's something funny about a

00:38:50.940 joke. It wasn't, he wasn't launching into a, like who killed Kennedy thing, but it was

00:38:54.960 just the idea that you would have any opinion outside of the very mainstream kind of establishment

00:39:02.100 take of, of, of liberal politics was so, was so alien to them that they're like, they looked

00:39:08.460 at him like he was a QAnon lunatic. They're like, what are you talking about? So that show

00:39:12.680 suffers from that problem of like, they want a very specific group of people and that's why

00:39:18.960 they're getting the type of comedy they get.

00:39:22.020 Well, that's interesting because remember they had Trump, he, he was the guest host and

00:39:26.620 back in 2015, and then they, they felt responsible for him winning. And Jimmy Kimmel, I mean, Jimmy

00:39:31.340 Fallon gave him, you know, a normal late night, what used to be a normal late night interview

00:39:36.320 and he messed up his hair and then spent the next four years self-flagellating over it because,

00:39:42.520 you know, he got flack for the mainstream press, like, oh my God, you gave him a pass. He's the

00:39:46.760 devil incarnate. And you just sat there next to him laughing. And then Jimmy Fallon tried

00:39:50.980 to play this role of a Stephen Colbert type, which was false and not believable. And he

00:39:55.720 wasn't very good at it. And they're all like SNL and some of these guys, they seem to bear

00:40:01.420 this sort of guilt when it comes to Trump and I don't know his rise to the top. And now their

00:40:07.140 responsibility to sort of give Biden, I guess, a pass, which so far is what SNL has done.

00:40:12.380 Well, it's also this weird delusion. It's like Trump had, Trump's victory had nothing

00:40:16.260 to do with SNL. It had nothing to do with Jimmy Fallon. This is like, again, they continue

00:40:21.740 to center themselves as the most important things in the universe. Trump's rise had to

00:40:26.660 do with a lot of people who were very frustrated with business as usual politics. And Trump,

00:40:31.300 in my estimation, is kind of a little bit of a huckster, had some good ideas, didn't do

00:40:35.340 much, but, you know, loved himself, loved Twitter, loved the rallies. But like his rise is kind

00:40:40.560 of very easily explainable. It has nothing to do with like Jimmy Fallon tussling his hair.

00:40:45.620 It was the idea that we had Jeb Bush going against Hillary Clinton. People like, is this

00:40:48.660 an oligarchy? We're sick of Bush's and Clinton's. And here is a bomb that we can kind of throw

00:40:55.020 at this hopelessly corrupt system. And that bomb is Donald Trump, who was incredibly funny

00:40:59.380 and would say things that nobody had ever heard a politician say. But this idea that no

00:41:03.880 one really cares about SNL, I think that's what terrifies these people, is that no one really

00:41:08.300 cares. No one really cares about The Tonight Show. I mean, I can go on YouTube and find,

00:41:12.460 you know, videos that have more views than SNL gets, and I could find them very, very quickly.

00:41:22.720 I don't think that those places are near the bastions of influence that they used to be. And

00:41:30.260 I don't think they're shaping culture in any way, really.

00:41:33.080 No, you're right. We're seeing a sea change right now when it comes to comedy. And I've seen

00:41:38.180 it in my business, too, news, where it's like the audience is moving from what used to be their

00:41:42.980 only option, linear television, cable TV and so on, to digital, to online, where whatever your heart

00:41:49.660 desires, it's there. You know, that's how I got to know you. I didn't see you on television. I saw

00:41:54.640 you online and then started watching your sketches. They were hilarious. So there's just this whole

00:41:59.340 alternate universe that makes SNL less relevant. You'd think they'd be bending over backwards right now

00:42:04.460 to reach out to your greater audience. They're like cruise ships, right? So when you steer a

00:42:08.680 cruise ship, you can only move it a few degrees one way or another. And then you have people that

00:42:12.360 are coming into the game that are like speedboats. So it's like when the guy does a crazy capital

00:42:15.660 riot, I have my producer, me and that producer can make a video lampooning that we could do within

00:42:22.020 24 hours, put it out and it's seen by a million people. It was literally the funniest thing I've ever

00:42:26.180 seen. I appreciate that. I appreciate you retweeting it. But SNL then that same idea has to go to a

00:42:32.220 writer's room, in a meeting. It has to get approved. It has to go through sales and legal

00:42:35.740 and marketing. Every bud network people have to okay it. It has to go through all of these channels

00:42:40.200 and then it gets made at the end of the week, seven days afterwards. The news cycle is kind of,

00:42:45.720 you know, it doesn't hit as hard as if you can get. So especially when it comes to comedy,

00:42:50.020 speed is important. Brevity is important. Putting out something that's quick and doing something

00:42:54.860 in a few minutes that's just as funny and as shareable as something that people take a week to do.

00:43:00.640 So I think that is really where things are heading. They're heading to these very, you know,

00:43:06.960 kind of independent, and obviously people always consolidate and it's human nature to kind of

00:43:10.800 collaborate and consolidate. So I'm not saying that these shows will die per se, or maybe they'll

00:43:16.040 emerge in other forms, but like, you know, you don't have a chance in hell to compete with people

00:43:22.140 that are utilizing the internet in a smart way to build a fan base. You just don't. I mean,

00:43:27.380 you know, I think that's the real thing that they're reckoning with right now on TV and Comedy

00:43:32.760 Central. All of these networks, they don't know what to do because they are completely being

00:43:37.940 outflanked by digital creators every day. And speaking of SNL and your online sketches,

00:43:46.160 one of the funniest things, I made my husband, Doug, watch it. It was so funny. I've watched it twice.

00:43:51.240 This brought me such pleasure. What is your bit on Hilaria Baldwin, who you say we're being far too

00:43:58.340 tough on. We really need to go easier on Hilaria. Yeah. Yeah. She wants to be fun. Let her have a

00:44:03.560 little fun. Let her make up an accent. Nothing. And maybe this is the Irish thing. I can't for the

00:44:09.060 life of me. I don't understand why certain things bother people. So if this woman wants to pretend

00:44:15.160 to be, again, a high-end Hispanic woman, like she's not saying like, I've had a rough life and

00:44:22.500 it's quite the opposite. She's going, yes, I'm rich. And I, and, and she just wants to tell these

00:44:27.400 fake stories from Spain that never happened where she went to the market with her grandmother and

00:44:32.120 they got, you know, the jamon, we got the jamon and then we make the tapas, you know, let her do it.

00:44:39.300 Like, I mean, to me, I'm like, let her do, I look at everyone on TV and I'm like, they've invented a

00:44:43.320 version of themselves. Kamala Harris used to be Indian. Now she's black. She used to be a

00:44:47.840 prosecutor. Now she's the hell gone with the police. She's, I don't know what the hell's going

00:44:52.500 on. So everybody's inventing versions of themselves in this country constantly. Why do I have to care

00:44:56.840 about Hilaria Baldwin? She's not making laws, you know, like I'm more worried about Elizabeth

00:45:01.380 Warren. It goes, I used to be a native American. This is a problem. So like if everyone can just,

00:45:07.360 these people all just inventing Hillary Clinton's got hot sauce in her purse. She's getting shot at in

00:45:12.120 Syria. I mean, it's like everybody's making stuff up all the time. I think Hilaria Baldwin is like

00:45:16.440 the least of our problems. It's so true. It's an alternate viewpoint. And that's another person

00:45:21.580 that SNL can't make fun of because their other problem is they're beholden to celebrities.

00:45:26.100 Oh yeah. They love celebrities. They want to go to the Hamptons and you know, everybody in SNL

00:45:30.740 just wants to hang out with the people that they make fun of. And like, I always make, listen,

00:45:34.980 my stuff's good hearted. I think that most people that we lampoon are fine with it. I do think that

00:45:42.120 I'm a ridiculous character. So I think, I mean, there are people, you know, Meghan McCain probably

00:45:46.340 doesn't love me. I know that there's people that aren't necessarily thrilled with, I don't think

00:45:51.620 any woman loves seeing me put on a wig and be them. I mean, so, I mean, I get it, but it's also like

00:45:57.280 we are literally just having fun and we're making, we're doing funny things. And so whenever, but we also

00:46:06.480 are not courting, like our goal, my goal is to be a really funny person. It's not to get invited

00:46:11.980 to a party in the Hollywood Hills and have everyone like me. I think if that became my

00:46:16.100 goal, my comedy suffers tremendously. And I think SNL, a lot of the problem is they have celebrity

00:46:22.400 hosts. They want celebrities to feel comfortable. They want big musicians to come in. And so they're

00:46:27.520 playing that game now of like, we want to make fun of celebrities, but also we want to do it in a way

00:46:32.680 that still makes them really love us and feel comfortable with us. And I just think that that's

00:46:37.340 the route to, to, to something that's not really funny.

00:46:41.420 Well, and now they're, you know, SNL, you mentioned how the, they have a preference for

00:46:44.920 these Northeastern well-educated, uh, advanced degree people. And you know, that's true of NBC

00:46:49.820 on a larger basis too. And NBC news, they don't hire the people from the, from the B tier schools.

00:46:55.840 And I would suggest to you, the news product shows that in a way that's not so great for getting

00:46:59.620 numbers. Um, but now SNL and other comedians have to worry about the woke craziness going on right

00:47:06.540 now, because you know how it is, you can't touch anything or you're a NIST, you're some sort of a

00:47:11.360 NIST, racist, sexist, you know, take your, take your pick. And I remember just, just as like a small,

00:47:17.160 I remember something like, I remember the stuff starting to creep into our language. I don't know,

00:47:21.980 let's say 15 years ago, we're like, you can't say that, or you can't do this. And I wasn't even

00:47:26.180 trying to be funny. I, I didn't know this was considered a derogatory term, but I got in

00:47:31.360 trouble at one point on the air at Fox because I referred to, I said, uh, that, you know, the guy

00:47:36.480 committed the crime and they took him away in the paddy wagon. And they were like, Oh, you can't say

00:47:40.160 that. I'm like, after I got off the air, I'm like, why not? Like it's, it's racist against Irish

00:47:45.900 people. I'm like, back to our original point. Like, no, it isn't. We're fine. We'll get one email

00:47:50.700 from an Irish person, but also how, how is it? And I learned at that time,

00:47:56.180 it, the paddy wagon is, is like a reference to all the patties who are out there boozing it up,

00:48:01.020 you know, having their too many beers and causing trouble getting arrested. Okay. So you can't say,

00:48:05.000 but now of course our woke world has gone, has lost its ever love in mind. And it's, it's crossed

00:48:10.500 over. The latest story that was in the news this week was, I don't know if you saw this, but how,

00:48:14.440 how Bernie Sanders is getting attacked as it was his privilege, that photo of him with the big

00:48:20.420 mittens that went viral. Um, there's some San Francisco high school teacher who wrote a piece.

00:48:25.140 Yes. I pulled it. I pulled a quote. Here it is. Um, what she saw was a wealthy, incredibly well

00:48:32.320 educated and privileged white man showing up for perhaps the most important ritual of the decade

00:48:37.000 in a puffy jacket and huge mittens. It manifests privilege, white privilege, male privilege and

00:48:41.400 class privilege in ways her students could see and feel Tim. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, you know,

00:48:48.540 the, the term is mind virus, you know, the term is it's a disease. It's gone to the brain. It is

00:48:52.800 spread. Uh, it is invasion of the body snatchers. It is a zombie movie. Uh, it is, it, I mean,

00:48:58.800 it really truly is all of these things. Um, the way I feel about when you look at the entertainment,

00:49:04.660 I go, people got to opt out, right? So if you're an entertainer and you're a funny person, you need

00:49:09.060 to build your own fan base. You need to do it online until you're not able to do that. Uh, you know,

00:49:14.680 you, you have to just opt out. You can't play the game. You can't try to get on SNL. Uh, you can't

00:49:20.400 try to get involved in mainstream comedy right now because it isn't funny. That's where a lot

00:49:24.580 of people that have great thriving careers in mainstream comedy right now are not by their

00:49:27.640 nature funny. They are, um, you know, careerists. They are people who know what to say, how to say

00:49:33.920 it. They love office politics. Uh, they love virtue signaling. They love having the right positions

00:49:38.540 in the right package. And those people do very well in writer's rooms at NBC and CBS. And, and,

00:49:44.080 and, uh, uh, and those are the people who are, um, you know, running HBO and running Netflix.

00:49:50.100 And those are the people that are, you know, for the most part, the, the dominant cultural

00:49:55.500 mode is, you know, get, go along, get along, don't ruffle feathers, don't rock the boat.

00:50:01.740 And wherever the prevailing winds of the day are, you just got to have no opinions and not

00:50:05.980 really, you got to be liquid. You got to take the shape of your container. So, and that's

00:50:10.740 what Hollywood is. People don't realize that, uh, Hollywood is people for the most part that

00:50:16.020 don't have strong opinions. They are really able to count. They're very malleable and they're

00:50:22.680 able to, you know, whichever way the wind is blowing. Okay. Are we unwoke this year? Are

00:50:26.980 we woke this year? Is this year the year of elevating, uh, Asian people? Is it the year

00:50:31.660 of elevating, uh, middle Eastern people? Is it the gay year? Is it the trans year? They

00:50:36.280 don't care. Their job is to, to buy a $10 million house in Beverly Hills and pay the

00:50:42.280 mortgage. So whatever does that. But if you're a comedian, you're a digital creator, you're

00:50:48.000 a podcaster, you're an independent person, you have a voice, a perspective, you're funny.

00:50:52.440 You need to just build your own fan base outside of that system because that system's collapsing.

00:50:57.280 And I can barely ask about this. And we were talking about rebuilding society or at least

00:51:01.420 building a new thread in society so that normal people who don't want to live like this,

00:51:05.680 as Douglas Murray put it, we're having to worry about secret trap doors opening up underneath

00:51:09.940 you no matter what you say and do. Um, and the digital world is going to have to be a

00:51:14.920 major part of that, right? Because I do think linear television has been overtaken by people

00:51:19.160 like that. And most of us don't want to live like that or have to consume information or

00:51:23.800 entertainment like that. So, but you, you know, as well as I do that the digital world, digital

00:51:28.380 world is not secure either. And we saw that after the whole Capitol Hill riot with Parler

00:51:33.140 being taken down and Trump being booted off Twitter and now all these YouTube videos get

00:51:36.800 censored. And I worry, I mean, I'm sure you do too about what about this lane? This lane

00:51:42.520 is not secure either.

00:51:43.860 I mean, it's a lane where I, I'm, I'm trying to make money in three to five years and I'm

00:51:48.580 trying to make enough money. That's part of the move to Texas. Cause you know, if I, if

00:51:52.000 I live in Cali, listen, I love Cali. I think it's a great city, but like, you know, Cali's

00:51:55.740 like, okay, so then you get a house in Malibu and then you got to get a house in

00:52:00.860 Bel Air. It's like, it's a no end to up, right? It's like, you got to constantly make

00:52:05.160 more money every year and be bigger and bigger and you make more and more compromises

00:52:09.760 and more and more sacrifices. And so the part of the move to Austin, Texas for me, other

00:52:13.960 than the fact that I think Joe Rogan, who's a good friend of mine, is going to try to really

00:52:17.100 build a thriving community down there is that I want to really make my money now because

00:52:25.120 I am and I want to save it. I don't want to give it all to Gavin Newsom. I want to

00:52:28.680 save my money for the exact reason you said. I don't know what's coming down the

00:52:33.080 pike. I'm a cynical guy by nature. I terrifies me that a joke I make can be

00:52:38.640 taken the wrong way and I can lose. Yeah. So what I'm trying to do is build a

00:52:42.680 digital infrastructure where I can have fans. I have an email list. I have a group

00:52:47.640 of people that like what I do and I'm living in a state where I don't have to give

00:52:51.100 all of my money away and the cost of living is less. And all of that is

00:52:54.820 really because I don't know what's coming down the pike and it is terrifying

00:52:59.040 for anybody whose career primarily exists online. That's why I, you know, I try to

00:53:06.460 just be funny. But again, is that going to be a defense, right? I mean, you know,

00:53:10.880 if you tweet a man could not get pregnant today in 2021, you could lose your

00:53:15.860 Twitter account. Okay. I don't know what statement that's going to be in three

00:53:20.080 years. So if you say, which was biological in the textbook and still is,

00:53:26.300 if you tweet something like that, you could lose your entire Twitter. So I don't

00:53:31.580 know what that statement's going to be in 24 months, 36 months, but I'm not, my

00:53:37.640 outlook isn't positive.

00:53:40.260 Yeah, I know. And now they're trying to crack down on podcasts too. So soon, soon

00:53:45.440 they're going to be going through the podcast with a, with a fine tooth comb,

00:53:47.760 trying to find offensive stuff, which will be no problem whatsoever. But you

00:53:53.000 know, the, the reach of big tech is getting wider and I think we got to get

00:53:57.420 into tech, you know, so I'm in this, I'm on this app clubhouse all the time and

00:54:00.300 I'm talking to people that are in the tech space. There is a group of people

00:54:03.300 that do not want this in tech. They are by no means the majority, but there is a

00:54:07.600 group of people that love comedy, like comedians understand freedom, know that

00:54:11.360 people need freedom of expression. And I think for whatever reason, like they,

00:54:15.260 they're, I hope they gain more power and I hope they get, you know, more of a

00:54:20.580 foothold on what's going on. I talked to some of these people, I know some of these

00:54:23.420 people, I know billionaire founders of apps that text me, I love your video, this,

00:54:26.280 that, the other thing. So there are people in that space that are very successful

00:54:29.900 that love you, that love, you know, people that we know and respect. And like, so I'm

00:54:35.540 hoping that there's a fight. Like I'm, I'm hoping that there is some type of, you

00:54:42.520 know, push back against this. I just don't know how successful it'll be.

00:54:47.000 Oh no, no. I mean, there is a fight. It's on, it's on on many fronts, not just on the

00:54:50.920 digital world. I don't like that app you just mentioned. What's it called again?

00:54:55.260 Clubhouse? Clubhouse. I don't like that because it makes me feel like I felt in

00:54:58.940 high school when I didn't get invited to the cool party. And you're like, I know,

00:55:02.120 but I feel, but I, I did get invited.

00:55:04.560 I know. Screw you.

00:55:05.560 You know, my friends tell me, they're like, I don't like the way it says about our

00:55:12.420 society that you need an invite to get on because I didn't get the invite. And I go,

00:55:15.680 okay. But it's, it's very, it's very childish. And sometimes we have to indulge our base

00:55:22.660 carnal, childish, ridiculous id, you know, and that's, but it's hilarious. They'll let

00:55:29.060 everyone on eventually. And you can, you can get on. Meggie Kelly could clearly get on a

00:55:32.520 Clubhouse. It's just a funny, it's a, it's a funny thing. And what's funny is that you

00:55:38.260 go on this and you are talking to these really, and they invite me in the rooms because I'm

00:55:42.280 funny. So they talk about Bitcoin or venture capitalism for eight minutes and then I throw

00:55:46.140 in a joke. So you need, you need somebody to keep it light a little bit, but it is very

00:55:50.060 interesting because like, you know, you know, the founder of Bumble was on the other night

00:55:52.980 and she goes, we got to put up guardrails online. And as soon as I hear that, I get a little

00:55:56.660 nervous because I'm like, well, what, what is her idea of a guardrail?

00:55:59.580 Yeah. She means me. Right. She means me every now and then when I hear like a white billionaire

00:56:05.360 female talk, I get a little nervous because they talk like this and they go, we're really

00:56:10.340 just trying to ensure that we're living in an era of respect. And I'm like, Oh, she wants

00:56:15.300 me in jail. Like immediately I go, this woman wants me in jail. I was hearing her talk going,

00:56:20.400 she wants me in jail, but it's good to hear. I don't think they're monsters. I just think

00:56:26.140 that like they want everyone to be nice. That's their whole thing. Cause they all have hundreds

00:56:31.560 of millions of dollars. They don't want to give you any of that, but they go, well, I

00:56:34.800 want to be the good guys. I want you to be nice. Everyone's got to be nice. And that's

00:56:39.280 terrifying. So, I mean, I hope that there's some pushback and that it's, you know, it's

00:56:43.400 successful.

00:56:44.980 I don't know. I mean, I think we are starting to get, they've overplayed their hand and I

00:56:48.880 do think there's going to be a massive blowback. And I think Trump being gone is that's one

00:56:53.060 good thing about him being gone is that they don't have to blame anymore. Now we just got

00:56:56.180 to fight. Now the gloves are off. It's bare knuckle. Let's go. You don't have anybody to

00:57:00.100 blame this on. Just you punch me in the face and I'll punch you in the face and we'll see

00:57:03.180 who's stronger, who has more people on their side, who has a better argument, who wants

00:57:06.980 to, you know, who's going to control the direction of America basically. Um, but I, you know, this

00:57:12.040 big versus little thing and then what you're saying about the tech, uh, people who are on

00:57:16.640 there. So some people who are secretly on our side is encouraging, but it, it, it made me think

00:57:21.500 of what's going on this week with GameStop and AMC. And what do you, what's your take on that?

00:57:26.540 Cause I know you've been tweeting about it. I confess, I don't totally understand it, but I guess

00:57:30.840 I get that these are companies. There's a Reddit called wall street bats are wall street bats,

00:57:35.860 which has got millions and millions of people in it. And all they do is discuss stocks. Okay.

00:57:41.280 And basically they wanted to, they were looking at all these hedge funds that were shorting

00:57:46.260 companies like GameStop, which means that they're essentially betting that the stock will fail.

00:57:50.840 And betting that, you know, the fundamentals of the business aren't good. And they're aggressively

00:57:55.320 shorting GameStop and they're aggressively shorting AMC theaters. And a lot of these guys

00:58:00.020 on wall street bets that we could do a short squeeze here, meaning that like we can pump

00:58:03.780 the stock's price up by buying it, forcing a lot of these big institutional players to have

00:58:09.200 to cover their shorts. And they're going to be out a lot of money and we're going to make

00:58:12.780 a lot of money. And again, absolutely legal, not insider trading, absolutely 100% legal.

00:58:19.280 It is collusion. My favorite new word of the last three years, but they're doing it

00:58:24.040 absolutely legally. This is what people do all the time. They go, here's a bet. Here's

00:58:27.500 a play. Here's what we want to do. So they started to do that and they pushed the shares

00:58:32.420 of GameStop 400%. Yeah. It was at 347 bucks last Wednesday.

00:58:37.640 Amazing. So then what happened was Robinhood, which is the app that it was a day trader app.

00:58:43.040 A lot of the people were buying these shares of GameStop on this app called Robinhood. Robinhood

00:58:47.420 then stopped trading on GameStop and AMC. It stopped trading on those two stocks, which is

00:58:54.100 illegal. Those companies are not being investigated by the FCC. There was no reason to limit trading,

00:59:01.300 limit buying of those stocks. But when you look deeper into it, Robinhood sells all their user data

00:59:07.060 to Citadel, which is a massive hedge fund. Citadel owns a lot of Robinhood's data. So when you are

00:59:13.660 using Robinhood, you think you're the customer, but you're actually the product. Somebody explained

00:59:18.280 it like that. You're the product. Your data, what you're buying, your information is being marketed to

00:59:23.760 other hedge funds who are paying for the privilege of knowing what you do online in the market because

00:59:28.780 they want to know what retail investors are doing. So it was very shady because Citadel also owned,

00:59:38.260 I mean, coincidentally, they were doing a lot of the short squeezes on these companies. So they're

00:59:42.460 losing billions of dollars. And then Robinhood, which again is, you know, one of Citadel's biggest

00:59:49.220 clients in terms of, you know, selling data, they stopped trading on these stocks. So it looks very bad.

00:59:56.540 And then the CEO of Robinhood said, well, it has to do with capital requirements and this,

01:00:00.360 that, and the other thing. But a lot of people, myself included, goes, this just looks very shady.

01:00:04.800 It looks like you're protecting your guys who are losing a lot of money by stopping people from

01:00:11.200 trading. So it became a big guy versus little guy thing. And of course, nothing is that simple

01:00:14.940 because there was a lot of big guys like Mark Cuban or Elon Musk or Dave Portnoy, the head of

01:00:20.800 Barstool Sports, who were very much in favor of this. And there were a lot of, you know,

01:00:26.260 organizations that purportedly are for, you know, the little guy, quote unquote, that were saying

01:00:33.520 that this was a, you know, chaotic and this was fueled by Trump. It's white supremacy. I don't

01:00:40.360 know. But I mean, there was a lot of people that you would expect. What it really was is people saw

01:00:44.540 an opportunity to make a little money. And what then happened was nobody is really satisfied with

01:00:50.560 the explanation of the Robinhood app CEO, who basically changed the story a few times.

01:00:57.260 And when you look at, so a lot of people felt like, hey, it's another thing. It's like, hey,

01:01:02.560 you don't like Twitter? Go on Parler. Okay. We're going to forget Parler. Okay. Hey, how about we

01:01:06.980 figure out a way to make money in the stock market and, you know, you know, wrest a little control back

01:01:11.400 from these hedge fund guys. And then all of a sudden they shut off your ability to purchase stock. So

01:01:15.680 I, it resonated with me on a level of like, number one, I thought it was funny because hedge

01:01:20.920 fund billionaires are crying on CNBC. That's hilarious. Number two, it wasn't the whole stock

01:01:27.720 market was in trouble. It was big hedge funds that are in trouble. They'll be fine. And this was to me

01:01:34.280 an example of the little guy causing a little bit of trouble. And I think that's good. I think that's

01:01:41.260 okay to cause a little bit of trouble and to say, hey, we're alive. We're here. I, by the way,

01:01:46.640 the election of Donald Trump is causing a little bit of trouble. It's people that are saying we

01:01:50.600 still exist and we're going to do something that's a little crazy to get your attention.

01:01:55.440 That to me is kind of what this, uh, GameStop AMC stock thing was. It was people going,

01:02:02.460 we are alive, we exist, and we want you to notice us. And, and they were very successful at that.

01:02:08.180 You know, it's interesting that you mentioned somebody like Mark Cuban or Dave Portnoy,

01:02:12.120 because those are self-made guys. They didn't come from a bunch of dough where they had life

01:02:15.960 made easy for them. They're scrappy. And, um, it's probably no accident that they were like,

01:02:20.420 yeah, this isn't bad. Let these guys, amateur investors, let them do what they want to do.

01:02:24.280 This is pretty cool. And, uh, score one for the little guys. But then you have people like

01:02:28.640 Jimmy Kimmel, who also was a self-made guy, but you know, we talked about him before saying,

01:02:34.000 maybe this was Russian disruptors. I mean, like you get these curve balls.

01:02:38.820 It's sad, man. It's sad to watch that. It's just the word, the term is like tragic when you watch

01:02:44.900 him do that. Why? Because he doesn't want to say that. You could see it in his face that he doesn't

01:02:53.260 want to say that. You know, he doesn't want to say that this is, he's in such a compromised

01:02:59.080 position. I guess you just make so much money. You know, you start buying the things that money

01:03:05.440 buys you. You're living a life now where you have to, you know, constantly, you know, please the,

01:03:11.840 the, the overlords. But it's just sad to watch a comedian dismiss people making money on the stock

01:03:20.100 market as Russian disruptors with absolutely no evidence. Like that is just sad to me. I go,

01:03:27.820 man, that's rough. Cause that guy was really funny and he just doesn't look like he has any life in

01:03:32.260 his face anymore. When he talks, he doesn't look alive. And I think I tweeted like, he doesn't

01:03:35.960 look like he has a soul, which was, that's a little extreme, but it really does. He looks like

01:03:40.400 just somebody who's his, his sense of, of, of, of, of, of not only comedy, but just being alive

01:03:48.240 seems to have been robbed from him. So that's what, that's what's sad to me. He just feels like

01:03:51.820 his reactions aren't his own reactions. His words aren't his own words. He seems like a vessel

01:03:56.480 and I don't know where he's getting this information from, but I imagine it's from

01:03:59.920 people that have an interest in putting it out there. So, well, but to me, to me, it was

01:04:04.320 scary because you, you picked up it. I heard you on Joe Rogan, you were talking a little bit about

01:04:08.640 Ellen and, and I, I think they're suffering from the same thing. Like you can get to the point where

01:04:14.900 you've been so successful. You've made so much money and you travel in these circles that are so elite

01:04:19.340 that you forget your humanity. You forget who you are, forget how to relate to real people and

01:04:26.180 what matters to real people. And I agree with you. She, she seems like she's not a nice person.

01:04:32.560 He seems like he's crossed over to this place where he just wants to preserve this empire he's built.

01:04:37.900 Um, you know, he says he won't even do, he doesn't want people who disagree with him on things like

01:04:42.480 the second amendment or healthcare watching his show. Okay, fine. Right. You know, we won't. Um,

01:04:48.320 and Ellen seems like she's in the same place. She's got like 75 houses all over the world,

01:04:53.320 perfectly decorated. She probably spends one day every three years in each one.

01:04:57.400 And people are like, I don't know if she's really nice. It's like, well, guess what? I can tell you

01:05:01.100 she's not the people who, who know her work for her. If you have told us, they've told us.

01:05:06.880 The real story to me is always more interesting than the facade. And I think that's why I'm a comic

01:05:12.040 versus another type of person. Like I don't buy when I see somebody, I don't buy it always. And

01:05:18.240 I'm like, what is, what's really going on there? And I know how hard it is to succeed or even on the

01:05:24.920 small level that I have in the entertainment business, very tough. Ellen's worked very,

01:05:29.740 very hard to get where she has, but it's also like she hasn't spent a ton of time thinking

01:05:35.660 about other people. This is not how you get to be Ellen's generous, right? It's not how you get to

01:05:39.000 be Chelsea Handler. It's not how you get to be Matt Damon, that how you get to be that is focusing

01:05:43.400 on yourself. You focus on your career, your craft. I mean, this is really the, like, nobody wants to

01:05:50.040 talk about this, but like, then you get to this position where you're thrust into the public

01:05:55.740 spotlight. And then you, you take on this role of like, that everything you do is this altruistic

01:06:01.360 pursuit and you're trying to help people and take care of people. But the reality is you don't really

01:06:06.600 know how to do that. A lot more goes into that than you would imagine. A lot of your ideas aren't

01:06:11.400 needed. You're not an expert. You've spent no real time doing research. You haven't met the people

01:06:17.580 you purport to care about. That's the other thing. You haven't met any of these people. You don't know

01:06:21.940 what they need. And so it's this crazy idea. It's very patronizing to believe that just because you

01:06:27.020 have succeeded in this business, you've made oodles of money, gobs of money that you somehow are in a

01:06:32.580 better position to tell people what they need and what's going to give them a meaningful life. It's like,

01:06:37.480 to me, I've never had an interest in that. I've never had an interest in looking at people and

01:06:41.780 going, here's what you need and, and here's who should give it to you. I don't have an interest

01:06:46.900 in that, but I guess at a certain point when you've succeeded and you just, you know, an interviewer

01:06:54.060 asks you like, Hey, how did you succeed? You can't give the answer. You can't be like, well, you know,

01:06:59.600 I sacrificed so much for years and I really didn't speak to my friends or family and I just networked.

01:07:05.800 I had to step on a bunch of people's heads. You know, I barely ate. I hollowed my soul

01:07:10.240 out. I learned to deal with rejection. I turned off all my emotions. The term is probably sociopath

01:07:15.400 or at least I was on the spectrum. You know, I didn't feel for many years. I would go to

01:07:19.620 Christmas and look at all these simpletons and be disgusted by them. And I just started

01:07:23.280 to be, you know, you can't do that. You have to go like, you know, what's really important

01:07:26.680 to planet and global warming and the green new deal. So it's like, it's a lack of honesty.

01:07:31.280 All of this comes from just a lack of honesty and, and who's willing to accept it. And a lot

01:07:36.220 of people are willing to accept the version of Ellen that she puts out to them because it's nicer

01:07:41.660 and more comforting. But to me, I'm like, it's not interesting and it's certainly not funny.

01:07:46.620 Can I ask you about, um, who came to mind when you were saying that was Prince Harry. Uh, because

01:07:53.320 you know, he Megan, he married Meghan Markle. And then not long ago, he talked about how he'd had an

01:07:57.720 awakening and awakening on, on white privilege and racism that, that we're living in a world

01:08:03.740 created by white people for white people. Meanwhile, this is Prince Harry. He's talking

01:08:08.800 to us from his castle or at least had recently left it. And he's trying to lecture the rest of

01:08:13.260 us on white privilege. By the way, the guy was wearing a Nazi uniform for Halloween when he was

01:08:18.260 a teenager. So it's like, okay, fine. He might've had a revelation, but like maybe it's not the best

01:08:22.040 person to be lecturing us on white privilege. It's also like these people are wrong. Like

01:08:28.240 Japan's doing great. China's like, there are lots of countries that have been thriving.

01:08:33.120 Like to say it's a world created by white people. You're talking about the post-colonial era.

01:08:37.420 You're ignoring antiquity. You're ignoring the ancient world. You're ignoring like these vast,

01:08:42.880 amazing empires that existed with Persians and Assyrians and all these, but it's the insane

01:08:48.020 Africa. Go back to Africa. Like it's just this ignorance of history. It's like all history starts

01:08:53.080 in the period of European colonialism. They're actually dumb. Like I think that's also the

01:08:58.680 problem. They're like not that smart. It's like, it's really this whole thing. I see cancel culture

01:09:03.080 and all this is like, it's the revenge of the mediocre. These are mediocre thinkers. They're

01:09:07.460 mediocre academics and they're, and they're just elevating themselves by, you know, they're not

01:09:13.940 that smart. I mean, if you look, listen to somebody like Camille Paglia, listen to somebody

01:09:17.880 who's actually intelligent, whether you agree with them or not, these people are actually have

01:09:21.860 a command of, of history and what they're talking about. It's like to ignore the, the hundreds of

01:09:28.480 years, thousands of years of history that predate all of your, you know, cute black and white

01:09:34.900 assumptions about everything. It's, it's absurd. It's just, it's again, it's an ignorance of history

01:09:39.700 that's baffling. A lot of these people have it to say that this is a world created by white people

01:09:45.200 for white people. We all know that racism major problem, you know, and has been forever. And it's

01:09:52.820 not exclusive to white people, even though the white people certainly in this part of the world

01:09:56.540 have, have practiced it and limited people's rights. And we all know that that's bad and has

01:10:00.700 to change. But at the end of the day, it, are you diminishing the accomplishments of like the

01:10:06.640 Sumerians? Like, what are you talking about? Like, are you diminishing the compliments of,

01:10:10.560 of, of mathematics that were, you know, that were happening in the Fertile Crescent? Like

01:10:13.760 these people are just, I don't know, I don't know where they went to school, but I hope some of them

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01:12:05.100 to Tim Dillon, I want to bring you a feature of the show we call Sound Up. This is where we bring you

01:12:12.240 some sound that we feel you must hear. Today, our old friend, Governor Andrew Cuomo is the star of

01:12:19.040 Sound Up. We learned this week in the New York Times that nine top New York state health officials

01:12:24.940 have quit working for this guy in recent weeks. Why? Well, likely because of comments like this,

01:12:31.980 which he made on Friday. Now, take a listen. You may have heard the very short comment at the

01:12:37.020 beginning of this soundbite we're going to play for you. It got some media play, but very little

01:12:40.500 attention was paid to the full comment, which is about as smug and gross as, well, just about any

01:12:47.640 of other of Andrew Cuomo's previous comments. Listen. When I say experts in air quotes,

01:12:54.940 it sounds like I'm saying I don't really trust the experts because I don't. Because I don't.

01:13:05.840 You want to talk about making mistakes. How did COVID come here for three months and nobody knew?

01:13:15.940 How did COVID leave China, go to Europe and come here and all these federal watchdogs, nobody knew it?

01:13:24.820 How did you let New York sit here for three months receiving passengers from Europe who had the virus

01:13:31.940 and nobody knew? How did you tell us that to spread the disease, you had to be symptomatic?

01:13:42.080 Which meant the sneezing, the coughing, that's how it spread.

01:13:49.960 Only to do a total 180 degrees later and say, oh, by the way, you can be asymptomatic

01:13:59.700 and spread it. What? That's all the difference in the world. It got into nursing homes because it was

01:14:11.420 here before anyone knew. It was brought in by staff. It was brought in by visitors. Once it was here,

01:14:20.760 they said it was spread by symptomatic people. That was untrue. It was also spread by asymptomatic people.

01:14:28.120 But then to play politics with it the way they did, that was mean. That was mean. When the Trump

01:14:39.640 administration was trying to divert blame, so they said, well, the state, the states, not just New York,

01:14:50.460 by the way, they blamed all the democratic states for the deaths in nursing homes. The politics wasn't

01:14:59.420 just here in New York. It was all the democratic governors. It was New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania,

01:15:04.980 blame all the democratic governors for the deaths in nursing homes. No, that was mean. Because if you lost

01:15:14.080 someone in a nursing home, then it put a thought in your head, well, maybe it didn't have to be.

01:15:21.040 Maybe my father died unnecessarily. And that was just cruel to do.

01:15:28.160 OMG. Is this guy effing out to lunch? Are you freaking kidding me? He's got the nerve to try to speak

01:15:38.600 on behalf of the families who lost people in nursing homes in New York state. I mean, I almost want to

01:15:44.740 call up Janice Dean right now and get her to participate in this. You know what she'd be

01:15:48.000 thinking, what she'd be saying. She's coming back on soon, by the way. It was mean to play politics

01:15:55.280 with it. It was mean to blame the nursing home deaths on, quote, democratic governors. No, you,

01:16:02.960 you, you, Governor Cuomo, you are to blame. You did sign an order requiring all the nursing homes

01:16:09.980 in New York state to take COVID positive patients in. Even though the risks were highlighted for you

01:16:16.920 and there were groups jumping up and down saying, are you insane? That's where the most vulnerable

01:16:21.160 people are. It's not like they have tons and tons of room here in New York city. They're going to be

01:16:26.160 stacked on top of each other, breathing all over one another. And it's the most vulnerable population.

01:16:30.060 And he said, screw you take them. And guess what? The early numbers were that 6,000 plus people died

01:16:36.620 in the nursing homes. As a result, Janice Dean, my pal and Fox news meteorologist who lost both of her

01:16:42.520 in-laws in New York nursing homes. As a result of this order was jumping up and down for months saying

01:16:48.000 it's more than 6,000. He didn't count all the patients who got transferred out of the nursing

01:16:53.260 homes and sent to hospitals where they died. He's eliminated those from his numbers. And you know what

01:16:58.100 his office said? She's not an expert in anything but the weather. She's not an expert. So my God,

01:17:04.400 it's so infuriating. I want to punch his smug mouth. And guess what? She was proven correct.

01:17:11.520 Uh, there was a, there was a attorney general report just last week confirming Janice was right.

01:17:17.620 He way undercounted the deaths in the nursing homes. Why? To make himself look better.

01:17:22.660 And now he's got the nerve to come out and play the victim. It's mean for anyone to say

01:17:31.300 that he's responsible. And don't try to lump yourself in with all the democratic governors.

01:17:37.580 You did it. You, Mr. New York tough. So take responsibility and stop acting like a baby.

01:17:44.860 Because I don't, because I don't. You don't believe the experts. You should have believed the people who

01:17:50.260 are warning you about this one. This one you should have paid attention to, sir. There's now a push to

01:17:55.840 get Janice to run for governor. Oh my God. It would be so amazing. It needs to happen. I've been ending

01:18:02.880 every tweet about this with hashtag run Janice run. I mean, can you imagine him trying to take her on?

01:18:08.940 She's the most sympathetic, kind, smart, funny, beloved figure. And he's exactly the opposite of all

01:18:16.180 those things. Okay. I'm really on a tear now, but this guy is who he always was. He's a bully.

01:18:22.940 He's self-pitying and self-aggrandizing at the same time. He's dishonest and he's got blood on his hands.

01:18:31.320 All it would have taken early on was a simple apology and ownership of a massive mistake he made,

01:18:37.180 but he refuses to this day, to this day. How would they know? It got into the homes before anyone knew.

01:18:45.520 Oh no, they knew. You, you were the one who said, put it in the homes. Take the people who have COVID

01:18:52.020 positive tests and put them in the nursing homes. We have it all figured out, sir. Don't play dumb

01:18:58.240 and don't play the victim. Okay. And that ladies and gentlemen is our sunny feature. We call sound up

01:19:08.060 back to Tim Dillon. I was at that Royal wedding covering it, not as a guest. And, um, you could

01:19:17.740 see the writing on the wall, right? They had all these guests there. They had George Clooney. They

01:19:20.860 had Oprah. They had all these people who you knew. They didn't know these people, right? They didn't know

01:19:25.360 them. They got connected to them because of their celebrity. It's also like a statement. Cause she's

01:19:30.060 like, is she like half black or something? Is that, that's the whole game, right? Is that she's like

01:19:34.040 diversity? Like, is that the whole thing? Well, good. I mean, good for her, but it's also like,

01:19:39.200 you know, she's just an attractive actress. That's all I see. I'm like, you're marrying an attractive

01:19:43.440 actress. Good for you. That's her Prince. You're marrying attractive actress. If you want to really do

01:19:49.200 something, marry me. Like, you know, like you're just marrying some hot, who can't like,

01:19:54.700 that's a, that's a seismic event that he married a hot actress. What are we doing? Like it again,

01:20:02.080 it's like, it's a disease. Like it's people that I look at who are like intelligent in every other

01:20:08.000 capacity, lose their mind when they go like, this is a really big day. Uh, because he's marrying a woman

01:20:16.020 who's not white. And I'm like, is that a big, that doesn't, I don't, that's great. I don't care

01:20:20.760 who he marries. I mean, it's like, I think it's great. I don't, I think people of different races

01:20:25.380 should get married. Of course. It's a strange. And have been for years. Right. And it has been

01:20:31.920 forever. Yes. So it's a weird, like to me, it's like odd. It's, I don't know. It's, you know,

01:20:38.180 I'm 36. I'm like getting to the point now where I'm like, you know, in 10 years, I don't think I'll

01:20:42.380 understand anything. That's what I'm like, make the money now. Cause in 10 years, I'm going to be like,

01:20:47.320 Hey man. And someone's going to go, yeah, no good. Don't say, Hey man. Oh, totally. Like I,

01:20:52.000 yeah, it's, it's coming. Well, that's like, you know, what we were talking about in San Francisco

01:20:56.560 that like they've lost their ever loving minds, but they tend to be scarily a harbinger of things

01:21:01.220 to come, right? They've just got rid of the schools with the names, George Washington,

01:21:04.440 Abe Lincoln, even Dianne Feinstein had to go right while their schools are closed. This is what they're

01:21:09.120 prioritizing. How about getting the kids back in school? No, it's about getting rid of acronyms

01:21:13.780 that, that they think acronyms are now a symbol of white supremacy. So they have to get rid of

01:21:18.060 them. Gay people don't over a certain age, don't understand any of this. It's like, truly, they

01:21:23.660 don't get it. So what's very interesting about the trans movement is how political it is, because

01:21:27.660 there's clearly like people that have gender dysphoria, people that are trans men that feel

01:21:31.940 like they're women, women that feel like they're men. And they, they, they, they correct that. And

01:21:35.700 that's a great modern scientific thing they were able to do. But then there's also this just

01:21:39.400 large movement of people who are like, well, I'm a queer or this or that. And it's all about

01:21:43.900 politics. I mean, it's just like, it has nothing to do with who they love or want to be in a

01:21:48.120 relationship with or, or, or, or even sexually where they're at. It's really just this political

01:21:52.700 movement where they're like, well, gender doesn't exist. And, and, and biology is, is a creation of

01:21:58.080 the white male patriarchy and, uh, and also communism's good idea. And it's like, wait a minute,

01:22:04.540 it, it, this comes with a lot. This doesn't, this doesn't seem to be solely about your gender

01:22:10.400 expression. There's a lot in this bag here. And so it's to me, I talked to other gay people that

01:22:16.100 are like completely confused, especially older gay men. They have no idea. And I grew up gay people

01:22:21.240 being very funny, very mean, very acerbic, said whatever they wanted. I mean, drag queens were

01:22:25.780 hilarious. We now have politically correct drag queens. This is how insane we are. There used to be

01:22:32.380 a drag show. It's absurd to get out and start talking about healthcare and like, you know,

01:22:37.300 like it's absurd. Like drag queens used to do these shows in New York city that wall street

01:22:42.020 guys used to go to because drag queens were hilarious. It was a six foot, six foot three

01:22:47.260 guy in dress like a woman who would be smoking a cigarette on stage and say whatever, uh, she

01:22:53.620 wanted to like whatever. And people would like, be like, Oh my God, your, your head was in your

01:22:59.340 hands. He'll point at members of the audience and destroy them. And, and it was just very funny.

01:23:04.760 And the, and the, and the reality was, listen, you can't hurt me. These are just words. I'm a six

01:23:09.840 foot three drag queen. I take the subway home. And if you, if you start a fight with me, you're going

01:23:15.340 to get a fight because these were tough people. They're very, very tough. And the whole idea here

01:23:20.020 was that words are cheap. They're funny. Life is short. It doesn't matter. It was a generation

01:23:25.000 that it just got done with AIDS. And, and, and now it's like we're, we're injecting political

01:23:30.960 correctness and sensitivity into, into even that where it's like you have these, these

01:23:36.780 crazy characters that are supposed to be by their nature over the top. They're not depicting

01:23:42.140 women. They're depicting this crazy idea of drag. It's supposed to be really funny and

01:23:45.680 inappropriate and, and not mainstream and, and outside of the lines by its very nature. And the

01:23:52.560 most, the funnest and coolest thing about it is that it's that, and we're making it this

01:23:56.880 very boring mainstream, like drag queen soccer mom thing. We're like, they're supposed to

01:24:03.820 be nice and they're supposed to be understanding and sensitive. And I'm just like, how boring

01:24:09.320 do we want planet earth to be? That's my only question. How boring do we want it to be?

01:24:14.340 And I mean, that's, that's my whole thing. I'm like, this is crazy.

01:24:17.520 Do you think that we were getting to the place, like I had, when Barry Weiss was on the

01:24:21.280 show, we were talking about the rise in antisemitism right now. And she was explaining to me why Jewish

01:24:26.200 people, and I quote, don't rank like in the field of perceived victims, right. In sort

01:24:32.560 of the wokesters field of perceived victims, Jewish people don't rank, notwithstanding that

01:24:37.440 whole Holocaust thing and, and lifetime of antisemitism, but okay, fine. That's, that's

01:24:42.060 why. And, and I kind of feel like the same thing is happening to gays and lesbians. Like

01:24:49.040 it's no longer exciting. They no longer rank. They have enough power now that they've been

01:24:54.200 booted out of the, uh, sort of LGBTQ. It's really just about the TQ crowd now.

01:25:00.040 Yeah. I mean, I think it's also just about what, you know, once you have a group of people

01:25:05.960 who've, you know, gone through something and they've attained some level of respect and success,

01:25:10.460 they are no longer going to be an ally of your radical batshit crazy ideas, right?

01:25:16.120 So you have to find people that are marginalized currently that have resentment for that.

01:25:23.620 And those are the people you're able, you're going to be able to, uh, mold into radicals

01:25:30.420 because people kind of lose that radical. They grow up, they get over it. They say, yeah,

01:25:35.560 you know, I, I'm, I found a stable relationship or I found acceptance and love in a community or

01:25:41.020 I found whatever. And they're not, you know, you can't go to a gay man or woman who owns a home

01:25:46.940 and has a job and is doing well and get them to believe a lot of the insanity that you can get a

01:25:53.940 17 year old to believe who's, you know, is just basically still figuring out who they are, what the

01:26:02.400 world is. So a lot of these nefarious forces are, they know that. So they are preying on

01:26:09.340 people that may have issues psychologically. They may have a trouble in their life, you know,

01:26:15.700 for whatever reason. And those are the people who they're going to convince. Yes. It's a great idea.

01:26:20.200 If we get rid of the police and cut everybody's mic, not let everyone talk, de-platform everyone in

01:26:25.940 mass, uh, burn the books, uh, take everyone's money. These are all great ideas. And when you're

01:26:31.220 17 years old and you have some issue with your sexuality or gender, that's probably you're like,

01:26:36.660 yeah, fuck it. Burn it all down. I don't want any part of that. You can't come to me and say that

01:26:41.720 you can't come to me and say, we're going to destroy every part of society and replace it with

01:26:50.080 this. I'm going to go, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't think that's a good idea because I'm

01:26:55.920 not an idiot. So they got to find people that are in their larval stage of being eight. When I was

01:27:01.200 17, I was kind of an idiot. So I was like, you could come to me and go, how about this? How

01:27:05.240 about we steal all your parents' money, take their, you know, and I might go, yeah, that's a good idea.

01:27:10.380 You know, uh, when you grow up, you start going, oh yeah, we can't do that. It's actually not going

01:27:16.680 to work. Whatever's coming down the pike is worse. You people terrify me more than homophobes ever have.

01:27:22.820 Uh, and, uh, yeah, no good. So, so that's what it is. It's finding people that are really amenable

01:27:30.380 to the message. It's like, how do we get this message in the heads of people that are, most gay

01:27:36.080 guys are having fun. They don't really care. They go out, they drink, they, they hook up, they have

01:27:41.940 fun. This is not, they're not, they don't, they're not sitting there reading Karl Marx. I mean, it's like,

01:27:46.480 it's this weird sexless generation of asexual weirdos that just are, you know, rehashing these

01:27:55.880 genocidal ideologies and saying that these are a good idea now. And it's like, you just need to go

01:28:01.220 to Chili's and go to two for one margarita night, like meet another human being. Well, that's really

01:28:07.480 what it is. It's kind of the cure all. It's everywhere. And it's not, it's not just, you know,

01:28:13.660 the trans community, as you know, sort of with this over the top stuff. And I know you've been

01:28:17.340 critical of the hypocrisy when it comes to the riots, you know, in support of BLM, if that's

01:28:22.660 what they were, those are, those are, those are good riots, but the, the riot on the Capitol,

01:28:26.300 that's a bad riot. And I wanted to get your reaction because I like, yeah. Well, cause I just

01:28:31.540 saw, um, over the past couple of days that maybe you saw this, but some Norwegian guy made the

01:28:36.740 nomination and black lives matter, um, has been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.

01:28:42.080 Interesting. Yeah. This is a movement that burned down police stations, occupied one,

01:28:48.340 tried to burn cops alive. Uh, some of the protesters did in, in, um, Seattle, the Antifa group that had

01:28:54.960 infiltrated them. I mean, uh, hundreds of people injured, 700 cops, people killed like the thought

01:29:03.260 that peace, like peace prize. Yeah. Well, I talked about this on Rogan and me and Rogan have discussed

01:29:09.200 this a lot. The biggest change and I'm again, I'm 36. I haven't been around forever, but the biggest

01:29:14.000 change in my life has been, uh, watching people from the establishment, from the media, from academia,

01:29:22.100 uh, excuse and promote violence and say that this is okay, that this is appropriate. This is a great

01:29:28.780 way to get your point across that you're allowed to riot and burn people's businesses and destroy

01:29:32.860 their property and attack innocent people that, I mean, you want to talk about a cultural shift

01:29:37.440 that was really not really like something that when I was growing up, you know, when people were

01:29:46.300 violent for the most part, it was condemned. It might've been, people might've said it was okay.

01:29:50.460 And some fringe part of the, you know, but, but it was pretty much roundly condemned by people that

01:29:58.280 should and did at that time, no better. Now watching that has been absurd to me, watching

01:30:04.980 people, excuse Antifa, BLM, uh, on the other side, people would say, well, the Capitol riot was cool.

01:30:11.040 And then, uh, what the Proud Boys do is whatever. To me, I I'm like, we need to just establish

01:30:16.620 something where it's like people beating each other in the streets, attacking cops, using, and that's

01:30:22.620 the thing. Rogan's a real fighter and Rogan understands violence, right? Rogan actually understands

01:30:27.660 violence. He's a fighter. The guy's a black belt. He, he, he's commentates on fighting. It's what

01:30:33.220 he's an expert in. So when he sees these people that are LARPing, you know, live action role

01:30:37.240 playing and they're going out and pretending to be fighters, they can't fight. They're all beating

01:30:40.940 each other up with hockey sticks. It's kind of embarrassing. They're like theater kids. We're

01:30:44.500 trying to fight or whatever's going on. You know, a guy like that looks at that and goes,

01:30:49.080 you don't understand that you're opening the gates of hell. When you just, when you use violence,

01:30:53.640 violence is becomes the language. And that means you're going to get violence back. And then it

01:30:58.000 just becomes an endless cycle of violence. Why nobody in the media or people that are writing

01:31:04.740 articles in, at the Atlantic and places like that, why nobody can have that position stuns me. Like

01:31:11.740 why no one can just go, should we be opening the door? Should we be legitimizing violence like this?

01:31:17.600 Should we be saying this is an appropriate way to express a political idea? To me, that's the

01:31:23.700 biggest shift. If you'd said to me like, what's the biggest shift? It's like the idea that you could

01:31:27.540 go burn down someone's business and then someone will write an article defending it in the New York

01:31:32.260 Times. That's the biggest cultural shift. And it's scary. Yeah, it was. Oh God, the CEO of Parler came

01:31:39.940 on the program and shortly before he was on, he had interviewed with Kara Swisher, who is,

01:31:46.020 you know, an established progressive and she writes for the New York Times and she's got a,

01:31:49.720 yeah. I mean, I like her. I actually have a friendship with her because I can be friends

01:31:52.820 She's an interesting person. I don't know much about her. I heard her and Sam Harris say it

01:31:56.500 Oh, she's super spicy. And she's like, she's a kick-ass person. Like I interviewed her at NBC

01:32:00.320 and this is how I first met her. And, and I was saying, you know, there are a lot of women out

01:32:05.000 there who are suffering from, you know, a lecherous boss or whatever. And they just don't feel like

01:32:09.820 they can speak up because they don't want to lose their job. I'm like, you know, and, and on the other

01:32:14.160 side, I said, there's, there's a lot of men out there who still feel like they can get away with

01:32:16.860 this crap with impunity. And what's your message? And she was like, I'm going to get you. I'm going

01:32:22.200 to get you off. I like her. So she's strong. We disagree on most things political, but I like her

01:32:28.540 anyway. But she was giving the CEO of Parler a hard time because he said that there had been a

01:32:32.960 piece in the New York Times defending looting. She said, absolutely not. No, they didn't. No,

01:32:36.580 they, the New York, no. And there was, there a hundred percent was a piece in the New York

01:32:40.920 Times talking about defending looting. And you're right. It opens up a very slippery slope

01:32:45.680 that then we saw people walk through. And I don't know whether we would have had the Capitol Hill

01:32:50.280 riot if we hadn't had the summer of BLM riots. But it's very difficult for us to take the media

01:32:56.120 seriously when they express outrage. Especially, I understand a police officer died and a civilian

01:33:01.760 died and other people suffered related deaths at the Capitol Hill riot. But, you know, the numbers

01:33:06.840 on the BLM protests were awful. I mean, I just, I, I was looking at it the other day after that

01:33:11.720 Peace Prize nomination. It was the New York Post put the number at more than 700 cops injured.

01:33:17.220 Forbes said just the first two weeks of June, 19 were killed, mostly black. Could be higher than

01:33:22.180 that. Hundreds of millions, maybe over a billion in property damage. So it's like, I'm not comparing

01:33:27.060 them. I'm just saying to, to say they have nothing to do with each other, I think is too close-minded

01:33:31.860 to. Oh, of course. They have, they have everything to do with each other. And then, you know, when AOC

01:33:36.120 goes, I felt like I was going to die. It's like, okay, but you excuse and promote the activities of

01:33:41.800 people that you tell them to go into restaurants and threaten Congress people. You tell them to

01:33:46.460 threaten senators they disagree with. You don't mind when people show up outside of Tucker Carlson's

01:33:50.320 house. You don't mind when people show up outside of the houses in Seattle and Portland. You're not

01:33:54.780 vocal about that. You don't mind when, uh, people are harassed at their homes in front of their

01:33:59.320 children. So I don't take people like her seriously. And, um, again, it's, you know,

01:34:04.060 it's, uh, it's unfortunate unless this changes and I don't see it's changing. I mean, we're,

01:34:09.160 we're living in the end here. I mean, we're living in like, this is the end of reason. This is the end

01:34:14.240 of all day. And the next step is just violence. The next step is like, unfortunately a societal

01:34:19.800 breakdown, which would be probably somewhat swift. We're like, you just have marauding groups of people

01:34:25.820 that have problems with each other that want to fight it out. And cops are going to be like the

01:34:31.420 hell with this. And I totally understand that. They're going to be like, I'm not giving my life

01:34:34.980 to get involved in this. So if people keep propping up this idea that the right kind of

01:34:41.720 violence is acceptable, I can't think of a worse idea for the future of this country than, Hey,

01:34:48.000 the right type of violence is good. I couldn't think of a worse idea. Like, yeah, the, and we'll

01:34:54.960 let you make that decision. The right, just violence is good. Yeah. This is one of the problems I have

01:35:00.780 with critical race theory, which is that, that basically is the right type of racism is good.

01:35:06.080 And it, it leads to a similar breakdown in society. I mean, if you think forcing all people

01:35:12.400 of all races into these mandated sessions where they're told they're awful and they're supreme,

01:35:17.600 they're supremacists, or so they believe just based on their pigmentation and that they have

01:35:21.500 to lament and repent and for sins of the father. Um, do you think that's going to make them feel

01:35:26.320 good toward people of other races or not good? Right? Like let's be, let's be real. It's so

01:35:32.000 divisive. It's going to lead to exactly the opposite result of the one that they want, but

01:35:35.320 you know, people got their blinders on. They don't want to see that piece of the story.

01:35:39.060 Yeah. Well, it's, it's really the institutions. Nobody wants this, right? Nobody really wants this.

01:35:43.280 It is truly academia. It's the media. It's now invading the courts. Uh, but people on the

01:35:52.140 street, people that you talk to, people in their day-to-day lives have no use for this. They

01:35:57.920 truly don't. Their concerns are largely economic. They want money. They want jobs. They want their

01:36:04.200 kids to have a good life. And they're this identity part, this rabid identity politics is,

01:36:10.500 and, and people like Bernie Sanders who were successful, you know, not using that. And

01:36:16.880 even though he, you know, lost eventually, because I think that started to creep into his

01:36:20.340 campaign more than it should have, but he was all about like class and working people

01:36:25.140 or whatever. And then the minute that, you know, he went on Rogan and then everyone turned

01:36:29.780 on him and they were like, he's an anti-trans guy. He's, it's racist. You know? And you're

01:36:34.640 like, wait, what? Um, so it's regular working people for the most part, I don't think have

01:36:41.100 a ton to gain from the adoption of critical race theory. A lot of this is about, I believe

01:36:48.060 people creating a hierarchy that they can kind of, um, move up in, whether it's, uh, you know,

01:36:55.620 at a magazine, uh, at a website, uh, you know, in, in Hollywood, whatever they do, they want

01:37:03.100 to just be agreeable and they want to be able to kind of push the fashionable ideas of the

01:37:09.520 day and critical race theory is one of them. But again, this is really for upper middle class

01:37:16.180 or upper class professionals who are trying to make lots of money. So what it really doesn't

01:37:24.240 benefit at all is the people they purport to care about, which is working people that are working

01:37:30.740 wage jobs. This doesn't help them get healthcare. It doesn't help them eventually, you know,

01:37:35.960 be in a position to own a home or anything. This is just this weird way for someone to guilt other

01:37:42.700 people into bettering their career. What, um, let me ask you about Rogan because you went on there

01:37:50.520 with Alex Jones of all people with whom I have some experience. Um, and so you went on there with

01:37:56.660 him and let me just start with what happened after, because there was some blowback. I would

01:38:02.120 submit to the jury that he did not receive anywhere near the blowback for having Alex Jones on as I did

01:38:08.200 for doing an interview. Correct. But, um, okay. So you show up there. How did that happen? Um,

01:38:14.540 wait, no, let me, let me start. You're a woman. I mean, listen, you're a woman talking. So

01:38:19.380 automatically there's blow, but you know what I mean? It's like, I mean, you do get, you do get

01:38:23.720 more. It is what it is. You know, I honestly, Tim, I've said this before, but I really mean it.

01:38:27.760 All the blowback in the world is just fine by me. Every time they, every time they do that to me,

01:38:31.840 I get stronger. That's just the truth. Right. If you can look at it that way and actually try to live

01:38:36.740 it that way, it's, it's fuel, it's fuel for your muscles. Um, but I saw all that blowback and I

01:38:42.680 thought, okay, so what is happening with Joe Rogan at Spotify and can this relationship possibly

01:38:49.920 last right? That how can he last at Spotify by putting on folks like, like Alex Jones and then

01:38:57.380 thumbing the middle finger, all of which I loved, uh, at the people who objected, but what do you

01:39:01.940 think? Can it last? I mean, well, what is it? It's a three year contract. I think, I mean,

01:39:06.600 I'm sure it'll last with the contract. I mean, they paid him the money, right? I mean,

01:39:10.000 they'll have meetings there. They'll, they'll talk about it. People will be upset. Employees

01:39:13.440 will be upset. They'll have tummy aches. They'll have, they'll need to have lie downs. They'll need

01:39:17.660 to take naps. You know, in kindergarten, we took naps. We would, they'd put the mats out and we'd

01:39:21.660 take a nap and then we'd go out and play kickball. So we're going to have that, you know, people are

01:39:26.060 going to have sad days. I'm very sad and they're going to have, you know, they're going to need

01:39:30.060 to express themselves and be heard. Uh, but at the end of the day, I believe that they're going

01:39:34.860 to keep their jobs because Spotify can get new people in there. Pretty, you know, uh, these

01:39:40.480 young kids that are upset about this, that can, you know, what are you going to walk away from

01:39:43.880 150 grand a year? I mean, Spotify, I'll get somebody else in there in a minute. So I think

01:39:48.180 that, uh, that it was going to be, you know, a lot of huffing and puffing, but they're not

01:39:53.520 going to blow the house down. I mean, I, I don't think they're going to walk away from Joe

01:39:56.640 and obviously Joe will honor his commitment and you know, what's going on internally is, is,

01:40:02.560 is very different. I think that what's being reported, I think what's being reported is

01:40:05.980 like, there's a lot of internal strife and there's all these problems. But I think at

01:40:09.460 the end of the day, it's like Spotify is a company. They have a lot of meetings about

01:40:13.460 a lot of things. I'm sure there are people with concerns, but I don't, I don't see any

01:40:17.600 evidence that they censored, uh, Joe or ever have. No, they stood by him. They stood by him

01:40:25.000 and I think that's what they're going to have to do. I think the CEO of Spotify like lives

01:40:27.520 in Sweden or something like doesn't care. He doesn't care. It's amazing. If he can make it

01:40:33.200 work, honestly, if he can make it work and, and like stand up to the, to the cancel culture bullies

01:40:37.940 there, it's a great model. And in the same way Joe Rogan's been on a lot of fronts. Um, but it's a

01:40:42.960 great model for other, for other people, for other employers in particular, like you can push back

01:40:47.200 against the woke bullies and you're the one paying them. You're the one with the beat, with

01:40:50.580 the deep pocket. If you would just take a stand, you, we could seize back control of reasonable

01:40:54.800 conversation. Right. That's, and we hope that happens. So what, what, how did you get to know

01:41:01.520 Alex Jones? How did that relationship come about? Well, Alex, interesting guy. Cause I'd listened

01:41:05.400 to Alex for a very long time since I was like probably 13 or 14 years old. I put Alex on, he

01:41:09.760 was on the radio and, uh, you know, he was Alex Jones. He was, he was very entertaining. He was

01:41:14.840 interesting. He was crazy. He was wild. I mean, he was, he's everything that he is now. And it's

01:41:18.920 just, he's become more of a, a, a figure now. He wasn't really a figure then, but I mean,

01:41:24.620 this was his, this is guy with the bullhorn that was showing up at like, uh, you know,

01:41:28.260 doing nine 11 stuff. He was, you know, he was an enemy of the Bush administration. He was

01:41:33.860 not loved by Republicans. And then, then he was a critic of Obama and then he infiltrated

01:41:38.720 the Bohemian Grove where they, you know, they have this, you know, elite weekend of all these

01:41:43.020 big media guys or, you know, whatever government people, they all hang out and run around. So he

01:41:47.320 had done all these things and he was always just kind of the thorn in the side of the

01:41:50.520 establishment. And he was kind of funny, kind of this weird grassroots Austin, Texas populist

01:41:55.620 that was interesting. Right. I mean, he was just a guy that was interesting to kind of, I'm

01:42:00.340 a guy that I stay up late, you know, me and other comics would smoke cigarettes and, you

01:42:04.800 know, two o'clock in the morning, what are you going to watch? You watch Alex Jones, you

01:42:08.440 watch somebody who is truly, um, outside of, and, and then when Trump brought him in the

01:42:14.980 fold and they started to, um, he started to become more of a political figure. Really

01:42:21.120 there was a huge target on him. Um, and obviously the Sandy Hook stuff, which again, and this

01:42:25.280 is not even a, I always, I know it sounds like I'm trying to like minimize my, I didn't listen

01:42:30.260 to him during that period. So like, I don't know how much he brought that up. He said that

01:42:34.360 he did it a few times. He probably did it a lot more than that. And I, I know that when

01:42:38.480 you are, uh, if you, if you host a show about conspiracies and you look in every news

01:42:42.180 story and you don't believe anything, some of your crazy fans are going to do horrible

01:42:46.580 things and what they did was horrible. And I'm, I'm not defending what he did. I'm certainly

01:42:50.300 not defending what they did. Um, but he's an, he's a fascinating person. It's like the

01:42:55.780 only, I don't know if you could have that job anywhere else other than America to be

01:42:58.920 like a full time conspiracy theorist. And I mean, the first time I met him was I was in

01:43:05.120 Austin doing Cap City, which was a comedy club there. I was headlining that and I called

01:43:10.760 Joe and I said, I was very curious. You know, I'd never, you know, I was just curious

01:43:15.680 about all these things. And, um, I was with my producer and I said, let's go do Alex Jones's

01:43:22.320 show. So we did a show and it was, you know, again, he's a force of nature, very talented

01:43:27.240 broadcaster, complex dude. There's demons there. There's problems there. I mean, you know,

01:43:34.180 as you can tell, you get it. Um, and then Joe was like, Hey, why don't you do his podcast

01:43:39.920 with me? And I was like, Oh boy, I remember talking to Joe. I was like, this is going to

01:43:43.800 be really something. He goes, yeah, you'll be great, mom. You'll be funny, mom. You know,

01:43:46.880 he talks very quick and like, you know, he's like, Hey mom, it's gonna be good, man. So

01:43:50.060 I was like, okay. And I, I did it. It was this massive thing. And I, I did, did a good

01:43:54.780 job, I think being funny on it and trying to like direct Alex or whatever. But you know,

01:43:59.520 wherever I am in life years from now, I will be able to tell people during 2019, 2020,

01:44:07.060 during one of the craziest periods in this country's history. And by the way, I hope so.

01:44:11.000 I hope 10 years from now, it's like, this wasn't like the, the calm, but I hope I'm able to say

01:44:15.960 that like, yeah, I was very curious. And like, there was a media operation, you know, in, in

01:44:21.480 the Valley of California, Joe Rogan that I was on, you know, seven times. And I was on this, uh,

01:44:26.860 other thing that this guy, Alex Jones was doing, who became like the guy and the, the public

01:44:31.780 enemy number one. And I, I saw his lair, you know, I went down there to that studio and I

01:44:35.780 talked to them. It's all endlessly fascinating watching the world change and watching it change

01:44:40.800 and watching the evolution of media is very interesting to me. So I want to get up close

01:44:46.040 and personal. I want to see these people understand them, try to figure out what's going on. I think

01:44:51.220 as a comedian and as somebody who does kind of dark comedy or comedy that, you know, you

01:44:55.640 know, is, is, is cognizant of what's going on. I, I do like to get, you know, in these spaces

01:45:01.100 and, and, and see these people. It doesn't mean I agree with Alex Jones and, you know, about

01:45:04.880 things, some of the things he's been right about, some of them he hasn't been, but it's

01:45:08.540 very interesting sitting in that little, you know, industrial park in Austin and, you

01:45:13.120 know, watching this little, you know, this, this, it's not little, it's a pretty sizable

01:45:17.100 operation. You were probably down there. I don't know where you interviewed him, but

01:45:19.660 like watching, yeah, you've been there and you're seeing how much trouble you can get

01:45:27.480 in with a few cameras. He's really wild.

01:45:31.420 I got a lot of feelings about Alex Jones. Um, I, he's the one person who I really get

01:45:37.780 hung up on when it comes to de-platforming. I'm really, I can, I can argue to the cows

01:45:44.580 come home about the importance of free speech. And I've said before, I'm, I'm, I'm a near

01:45:48.000 absolutist when it comes to the first amendment, free speech principles. Um, I've defended a lot

01:45:52.940 of crazies, a lot of crazies in their right to say crazy stuff because this is America,

01:45:56.320 but I will say I I'm it's, it's maybe ironic because some of the Newtown families were upset

01:46:04.620 with me for interviewing him. Um, for the record, I've pointed this out because NBC wouldn't say it

01:46:10.020 about me openly at the time, but there were 26 families, 26 Newtown families, six objected

01:46:16.500 and all the others either openly supported me or had no objection to my interviewing him.

01:46:22.240 Okay. So the, the six who objected to my interviewing him, even though they, you know,

01:46:27.300 this had never been a thing prior when CNN interviewed him or the New York times interviewed

01:46:30.820 him or many other people. Um, uh, you know, I, I knew that the right thing was to do the interview,

01:46:36.940 even though these are the most sympathetic people in the world, because he, his presence and his sort

01:46:42.940 of interference in business and lives had gone well beyond the Newtown families. And he had been

01:46:48.260 extremely disruptive and destructive for a lot of groups and it caused a lot of trouble, a lot of

01:46:54.320 danger. Um, and so I really thought it was time to shine a light on the guy. And, and now I'm actually

01:47:01.140 good friends with one of the Newtown dads. His name is Neil Heslin and he is a beautiful man,

01:47:07.920 beautiful man. And that guy, and he's a, he's a Republican. He's, you know, he's not anti-speech,

01:47:17.300 but Neil has said like on behalf of the other families too, like this guy, he, he needs like,

01:47:24.420 what he's doing is causing real harm. All the messages put in about this being a false flag and

01:47:30.200 it wasn't true. And it, Sandy Hook didn't happen. And you know, he held his dead son. You know,

01:47:35.480 it's like, I just can't, that's where my free speech absolutism stops.

01:47:40.600 It's very sticky. It's very sticky. And I completely understand the rage at Alex Jones.

01:47:46.120 I understand the anger at Alex Jones. I completely understand the danger of a guy like Alex Jones

01:47:52.320 to say that he's not dangerous is absolutely, um, it would be minimizing it, right? That there's

01:47:59.180 a danger in somebody being able to say whatever they want. The flip side of that is that there may

01:48:07.040 be a greater danger allowing these tech platforms to unilaterally without any process, without giving

01:48:17.180 someone the ability to defend themselves, without any type of hearing, without any evidence presented,

01:48:21.940 uh, to eliminate people's ability to speak, to earn money, to unperson them, to act in a coordinated

01:48:30.720 way where you have six or seven of these platforms doing this essentially overnight at once. That also

01:48:37.540 to me is dangerous. Now, what is the greater danger? That's a, listen, this is a debate. This is a

01:48:44.540 question. It's not, I'm, you know, when I read the Sandy Hook things, I feel horrible. I got flack from

01:48:49.740 some of my friends, not many of them, but there's a few of my friends that are like, you're better than

01:48:55.660 that. You shouldn't have done his show. I can't, you know, they, they, and these are good friends

01:49:01.780 of mine. They weren't like, you know, the hell with you, but they were like, I'm disappointed. I don't

01:49:06.900 know why you're choosing to sit down with somebody like this. Um, I'm like, listen, man, people,

01:49:13.140 and this is, this is, again, this is not, nobody wants to hear this, right? Nobody wants to hear,

01:49:16.480 um, that people should not be necessarily defined by their biggest mistake. Now, obviously when someone

01:49:28.860 makes a horrible mistake and it affects the lives of other people, it does define them, whether they

01:49:33.540 like it or not, that will define Alex Jones forever. Um, that is, Alex Jones has had a career

01:49:41.900 for 30 years. He's said a lot of things. He said Jeffrey Epstein was bringing people to an island,

01:49:46.620 have sex with them that were underage, and he was right about that. Okay. He was saying that years

01:49:50.420 before anyone else said it. He was saying things, um, about NAFTA and the WTO and saying that, you know,

01:49:57.400 a lot of these groups are, are, are going to be, you know, operating, you know, outside of the

01:50:03.460 public view and making huge decisions and there's going to be massive changes to the social and

01:50:08.780 global structures and economic policy. And I mean, he was, you know, but yes, that is an

01:50:15.160 indefensible part of whatever his legacy is going to be. And I don't think it should be defended.

01:50:20.960 I don't, I think it should just be a, he did the wrong thing. He made the wrong call. And then his

01:50:26.000 fans whom many of them are mentally unhinged people. That's the other problem, right? That is the

01:50:32.400 other problem.

01:50:33.460 That is the other problem. They're mentally unhinged people. They did things that they

01:50:37.000 should just go to jail forever for. In my opinion, I mean, it's like lock, throw away the key. It's

01:50:40.600 like, yeah, you're harassing a family whose children died. You, you have, as Bob Grant,

01:50:46.080 who I used to listen to on W, uh, WABC when I was a child, used to say, you've served notice on

01:50:52.260 society. Like you have basically, you have established who you are as a person. If you're willing to do that.

01:50:58.520 I think Alex regrets that. I think towards the end of the episode with Rogan, I think it eats him up.

01:51:02.840 I think it's why he's had issues with drinking and other substances. I think like, I think there's a

01:51:08.480 lot of problems there. And I, I just think I've never in my wildest imagination would ever even

01:51:15.540 defend anything, nor would anyone. My only thing is that I've always believed that if we give this

01:51:23.960 power to tech, it doesn't stop with Alex Jones, it's not going to stop. It will continue. It will

01:51:31.860 become a self-fulfilling prophecy and it will just spread like, like anything, just like violence.

01:51:38.920 I mean, I, but it is a tough one. In talking, in talking to the Newtown families after that whole

01:51:43.440 thing, some of them, um, I was in favor of, of his de-platforming. I just was, I saw firsthand

01:51:50.400 that the pain, his hitting the subject, claiming it was false, that they made up the death of their

01:51:55.320 children over and over and over. He did it repeatedly. What it caused in their lives. You

01:52:00.660 know, they, they, some of them have to go in disguise because they get harassed nonstop. They've

01:52:05.140 had death threats. One guy went to jail. It's just gotten so out of hand. And, and even in my interview

01:52:10.080 with Alex Jones, he, he didn't fully own it. He kept waffling back and forth and well, but there was

01:52:16.020 evidence. It was like crazy stuff. And I did, even then I was a first amendment near absolutist. And

01:52:22.640 I, and I, but I still thought this guy should go. And I, I noticed at the time, a lot of conservatives

01:52:27.320 saying this is slippery slope because you know, they always make bad policy in response to like

01:52:31.940 the worst one, you know, the worst one tugs at your heartstrings and you say, okay, let's change the

01:52:36.080 policy. And then that comes back to haunt people who aren't anywhere near as controversial. And you know,

01:52:41.600 lo and behold, that's, that's been true. So I don't have an answer. I, I think it's sad.

01:52:48.500 We can't establish like universal symbol or universal lines that we can all say, yes,

01:52:54.340 clearly that needs to not be there without completely bastardizing the principle and, and,

01:53:01.040 you know, wind up saying like, I would have felt better. Yeah. I would have felt better if there

01:53:06.400 was some way that Alice could defend himself and then he was removed. And then it was like, okay,

01:53:10.280 he was removed. If he had a chance to say, here's what happened. And then they went, no,

01:53:16.080 actually here's what happened. And there was some process. I would just feel better about it. If

01:53:21.880 there was a process that it wasn't just a unilateral decision, you know, at that point it would have

01:53:26.020 been a, it would have been window dressing anyway. They weren't interested in any defense he had.

01:53:30.860 Correct. And I think it's probably pretty defend like that. That's where the crux of it is. It's like,

01:53:35.380 it's kind of indefensible. So I don't know what his defense would have been. Right. So at the end of the

01:53:39.980 day, it's like, it's as good a reason as any to, to not be on social media. Right. So,

01:53:46.740 but it's just, I'm a little uncomfortable with like, not, there's no process, no, you know,

01:53:53.500 you know, you know, but it's a tough, tough one. And he definitely, he is suffering from some,

01:54:00.260 I think, mental issues. There's no question. And, um, yeah, that's a piece of this. And I actually,

01:54:05.840 if you don't, if you don't mind me asking, I noticed that you have some mental illness in

01:54:10.020 your own family. Absolutely. And, um, I wonder if you'd be willing to talk about it because I do

01:54:15.220 think too many people are afraid to talk about mental illness. My mother is, uh, is schizophrenic.

01:54:19.040 She was diagnosed schizophrenic probably when I was in my late teens. Um, she'd always been kind of an

01:54:24.200 eccentric, fun person, behavior, a little bit erratic, but nothing to, you know, collecting beanie

01:54:30.340 babies and McDonald's toys and Hess trucks and, you know, keeping odd hours and worked very hard,

01:54:35.340 but we got up at four or 5 AM because she was, you know, ran a swim program, started very early in

01:54:39.480 the morning and like was, you know, kind of this person that was very fun, but you know, there were,

01:54:46.000 there were real issues there. And she, you know, was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, which means that

01:54:50.720 she's got, you know, a few mental illnesses happening. There's, there's synapses firing that are not

01:54:55.520 really hitting the other side. Uh, and again, she's, you know, she's a person where we talk a

01:55:03.020 lot about physical illness in this country. We don't talk a lot about mental illness, especially

01:55:06.900 coming from an Irish Catholic family. Most people brush those things under the rug. They're not

01:55:11.600 spoken about, but, um, it's given me an appreciation for people that have struggles with mental illness.

01:55:19.260 And it's also given me kind of a contempt for what I consider the Instagram mental illness, where it's

01:55:28.840 like people that are using terms like depression and anxiety, but not actually understanding what

01:55:33.840 they mean. And they die, they diagnose themselves off like a meme and on Instagram, they don't really,

01:55:40.020 they don't have any clinical diagnosis and they're not really, you know, and it's given me a little

01:55:44.660 contempt for that because I think there's a fetishization of that. That's actually pretty

01:55:50.400 political where people are like, I, if you disagree with me, I'm triggered and I have to go lock myself

01:55:55.520 in a room. And I'm like, that's not what this is. Like my mom, my mother has real mental, like she

01:56:01.220 wasn't afraid of like, uh, uh, discussion. This is like legit mental illness. So when everybody, when

01:56:08.020 anybody co-ops mental illness and tries to use it as a way to get what they want or avoid uncomfortable

01:56:15.780 conversations, I'm like, guys, that's really not what it is. Or knowing what it is. So many people

01:56:20.280 today are declaring themselves, right. To be suffering from 40 different illnesses. And it's

01:56:24.400 like, correct. You know what? You're fine. Like you're fine. You're, they just, I talked about this

01:56:28.540 with Piers Morgan and he had some great examples, but it's like, that's the other craze in today's day

01:56:33.700 and age. Just declare yourself like suffering from this phobia or that disease or this disorder

01:56:39.520 or whatever. Because I mean, I honestly, I think it's because they've been told it's not cool to be

01:56:44.320 like a normal kid. You got to find something. Yeah. Well, the other thing is, I mean, my, my friend

01:56:50.420 who's not really succeeding at comedy and now is actually doing a lot better, sat down at lunch with

01:56:54.980 his father one day and he goes, you know, I think I'm depressed. And his father says, you don't have a

01:56:58.400 job. You don't have any money and you don't have a woman. You should be depressed. So at the end of the

01:57:02.940 day, there's some, there's some, you know, sometimes situational depression is situational

01:57:10.360 and you, you got to put yourself in another situation. And it's like, but my mother legit,

01:57:15.520 it does suffer. I do visit her. I talk to her. She's happy. I'm doing well in my career. She lives

01:57:19.500 in an institution. You know, it's legit mental illness. It's not like one man show mental illness

01:57:24.980 or I get profiled in Rolling Stone mental. It's legit. She has issues. So I do have an appreciation

01:57:30.720 for those struggles. And I do think a lot of people in comedy are crazy. I think a lot of

01:57:35.640 the people I know, you know, are struggling with all kinds of things. And I think that's

01:57:40.360 what makes a lot of them talented. And it's a double-edged sword. A lot of the greatest artists

01:57:44.500 throughout history have been people that have had these struggles and have been very sensitive

01:57:48.140 people and have suffered. And like, that's, you know, part of, you know, people contain multitudes

01:57:54.360 and a lot of the most talented people that talent does, you know, you know, and when you,

01:57:59.480 when you have people that are, you know, you know, you look at a lot of the comedy that's

01:58:03.540 coming out now or a lot of the music or whatever it is. And you go, yeah, this is, is this what

01:58:07.160 healthy people make? Because if so, let's go back to crazies because this is no good.

01:58:12.400 Do you worry at all? I mean, do you worry for yourself given the genetic condition?

01:58:16.440 Well, I've asked doctors, you know, I've asked doctors, they said that if I, if I was going to have

01:58:20.200 like a problem like that, it would have probably made itself known in the latter part of my twenties

01:58:26.560 or, you know, you know, I'm 36 now. I don't know that I'm super worried about that, but like,

01:58:32.160 you know, I don't drink. I'm sober. I've been sober 10 years, a little over 10 years, 11 or 12 years.

01:58:37.860 So I don't really do any drugs and I smoke pot. And I know that, you know, listen, everyone loves

01:58:41.840 weed, but like weed can exacerbate those things. I mean, nobody wants to admit that, but that is

01:58:47.320 clinical fact. Um, and I know that's not cool to say. Oh, I mean, I have tons of vices, right? I

01:58:54.780 mean, I'm a standup comedian. Uh, you know, that's a vice. I think, I think of wanting people to look

01:59:00.440 at you and laugh at you and validate you as a human being is probably the big vice. Um, but yeah,

01:59:05.340 I mean, food and, you know, occasionally I'll put a cigarette in my mouth and like, there's,

01:59:09.360 there are things that I, it's very, very hard to eat healthy and to exercise and to do the right

01:59:16.040 things and be honest all the time and a good person and caring and not think about yourself

01:59:21.320 and not, I mean, that's the thing when you, when you become a sober person, you realize

01:59:25.580 that a lot of your issues were not actually because of booze, uh, and drugs. They were

01:59:30.940 the result of, you know, just being an imperfect person and the booze and the drugs were the

01:59:36.100 medicine that actually kept those issues at bay. And so that when you sober up, you have

01:59:41.160 all these things to deal with your own self-concept, how you treat yourself, what you think about

01:59:45.640 yourself, what you think about other people. And I'm in a public business where people can

01:59:49.500 say whatever they want about me and I, and I respect that, right. And I just have to deal

01:59:54.160 with it. I have to ignore it or not listen to it or use what I think is useful and move

01:59:58.320 on. And you're in that position too. It's like you lose the right to, you know, to, to, you

02:00:03.500 know, control what people think about you. People are going to say things that are completely

02:00:07.660 untrue. They're going to say things that are somewhat true. They're going to say things

02:00:11.640 that they don't have an understanding of. They're going to mischaracterize things you say

02:00:14.620 and do. And you just have to go with it and go, Hey, that's cool. I know. I mean,

02:00:19.480 Rogan is incredibly good.

02:00:20.860 Totally sober is impressive. Like I have to say, I've joked with my brother. I'll never

02:00:25.560 become an alcoholic because it it's too important to me. I won't, I'll never refuse it to the

02:00:30.000 point where it becomes a problem because that, you know, after that stressful day, if you,

02:00:34.100 you know, you have that glass of wine or you have a martini, it's like, okay, I genuinely

02:00:38.080 do feel better. And it is a vice. It's a crutch for sure. And if, if you ever do like

02:00:43.260 a dry January or, you know, in my case with my husband, it's like the dry five days in

02:00:48.740 a row, which is about how long we'll go. You realize I'm, I'm using it for sure. I use

02:00:54.660 it to help me get through feelings of stress.

02:00:57.420 I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that like people do use, I don't

02:01:01.360 think there's anything wrong with that. I just think it's like, there are those people

02:01:04.800 that for whatever reason are unable to have a productive relationship with it. And that

02:01:10.240 is the problem. You know, George Carlin said it perfectly. When you first start using

02:01:14.640 drugs and alcohol, there's a lot of fun and a little bit of pain. There's a lot of

02:01:18.840 fun, a little bit of pain. The hangovers don't even bother you. You know, you're 17. I used

02:01:22.920 to be able to drink all night and get up and go to work and I was a lifeguard and I would

02:01:25.720 go to work all day. Not a problem. And as you progress, it becomes more, more pain that

02:01:33.600 offsets the fun. And the people that don't get off the train by the end of it, when people

02:01:38.680 are in the depths of an addiction, it's all pain and almost no fun. So it actually completely

02:01:43.540 reverses. And that's the Carlin point about drugs, which is very fascinating, that it actually

02:01:48.260 reverses itself completely from when you first start, where it's all fun, no pain, to then

02:01:53.780 mid-ground, a lot of pain, a lot of fun, to the end stage, all pain, very little fun.

02:02:01.740 Yeah. I heard a saying about alcohol, wonderful servant, terrible master.

02:02:06.960 Great, great saying. Yeah, there's a great book called Drinking a Love Story by Carolyn

02:02:11.980 Knapp, who ended up dying, but she was a writer. I think she was a journalist. Maybe she wrote

02:02:16.760 for the Boston Globe or something. She wrote this book called Drinking a Love Story and

02:02:20.620 it was about that she was in love with booze. She's like the uncork in the wine bottle, you

02:02:26.020 know, the sultry, kind of seductive way that the wine would enter the glass. You know, she

02:02:30.980 would just sit there and, you know, drink. And then it was this amazing way to understand

02:02:35.500 it. It was an amazing way to understand it. And she articulated it beautifully as like

02:02:39.740 that this is the great love story of her life was booze and she needs to get away from it.

02:02:44.800 Sad. Well, I tip my hat to you for living in the comedy world without relying on vices

02:02:49.700 because I know too often that becomes a thing. I want to ask you before I let you go, who are

02:02:55.360 your favorite comedians? Who are your, who would you say are your influences?

02:02:59.800 Chelsea Handler. No.

02:03:04.200 Patrice O'Neill, I think was one of the greatest comedians that's ever lived.

02:03:09.520 Greg Giraldo was amazing. People like Bill Hicks and George Carlin and Joan Rivers were

02:03:16.280 absolutely amazing. People like Eddie Murphy and Chris Farley, Mike Myers, you know, people

02:03:22.720 like Adam Sandler, you know, created the comedic world in which I live, Jim Carrey. They created

02:03:31.580 the world of which that's what I thought was funny, Will Ferrell. So there were standups

02:03:37.620 that were brilliant. And then, you know, there were people that in the sketch comedy world

02:03:43.340 created the things that I found really funny. And, you know, those people to me were brilliant.

02:03:49.360 Woody Allen's brilliant. Woody Allen's somebody that I grew up watching.

02:03:52.060 And there's just a lot of very, very funny people, even, you know, on SNL, you had people

02:03:59.580 like Gilda Radner and people like Jane Curtin and people, you know, that were incredibly funny

02:04:04.820 and again, helped form my ideas of what funny was. And those people later on became like people

02:04:11.280 like Sherry Oteri or Molly Shannon or Anna Gaster. Like it was, yeah, really, really funny people.

02:04:17.700 And then, you know, there's so many different comedic influences that are out there and so

02:04:24.660 many different funny people that it's hard to really pinpoint. But that's the, you know,

02:04:28.880 we all grow up in a world of funny. And I mean, you know, for my grandfather, it was Jackie

02:04:33.760 Gleason and Jackie Gleason's a genius. And for me, I can appreciate Jackie Gleason and go,

02:04:37.680 this guy was amazing. But my grandfather grew up in that world of like Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan and

02:04:42.100 Johnny Carson. And it's like, we go, I grew up in a world of David Letterman and Conan O'Brien and,

02:04:46.800 you know, all of these different, you know, people that have added something to what I consider funny.

02:04:54.380 I love all the names you just said. Most of those SNL characters, actors, whatever,

02:04:59.200 comedians I watched first time around back in the 70s when I would hang out at my Nana's house and,

02:05:03.500 you know, she let me watch endless hours of television. After she went to bed, there was nothing

02:05:06.960 on except for SNL, which was definitely inappropriate for me. And I didn't get much of the humor,

02:05:10.960 but those are the people who were on, you know, back then in the 70s and totally brilliant. And

02:05:15.160 two points. Number one, not a single one of the ones you named are political. Like they all managed

02:05:20.920 to poke fun at both sides, which is one of the reasons why we love them, why the whole country

02:05:25.760 loved them. Somebody like Johnny Carson, he got it. He knew exactly how far to push it with both sides.

02:05:32.740 And number two, I hope this is a compliment, but you remind me of Chris Farley.

02:05:38.720 Um, yeah, well, I always, you're as funny as he is. You are as funny as he is.

02:05:42.920 Well, I don't know about that. He's, you are, he's a, he's a real force. We're very different

02:05:47.580 types of com. We do different types of comedy, but he's a, you know, one of the funniest people

02:05:53.180 I think that's ever lived, I would say. And, uh, there's a few guys that are just really forces

02:06:00.780 of nature where their talent comes from somewhere else. It's like from another planet, you know,

02:06:05.840 and it's like, you're in awe of them, whether it, you know, Robin Williams was probably one

02:06:09.700 of those people. Chris Farley was one of those people. Eddie Murphy is one of those people

02:06:13.820 where you look at them and you're just completely amazed by the level of talent they have. And

02:06:19.100 it's just not something that we can, we can barely understand it. So, I mean, listen, it's

02:06:23.460 a very big compliment. I don't think I'm worthy of it, but you know, all of those guys are,

02:06:27.960 you know, tremendous Dana Carvey, whoever, Chris Rock. I mean, you look, all these guys are

02:06:34.160 tremendously funny and you just hope to be good enough that you have some small part of that

02:06:40.280 world and that somebody growing up will, will appreciate what I've done or what I'm trying to

02:06:44.120 do. And like, that's just the hope, you know, we're just trying to make people laugh here because

02:06:47.940 life sucks. You know, life's hard.

02:06:51.780 If you're looking to feel valued and validated, I hope you feel it right now. I'm feeling it towards

02:06:56.980 you and I have a feeling my audience. I appreciate it. You're the best, Megan. And thank you for

02:07:00.320 having me. I'm a big fan and I hope that, uh, you continue to speak because you're an important

02:07:04.880 voice out there. And, uh, we really appreciate you doing what you're doing. Oh, thanks, Tim. And

02:07:10.220 wait, before I let you go, how can people find you and support you? Tim J Dillon, D-I-L-L-O-N on

02:07:16.040 Twitter and Instagram. The Tim Dillon Show is a podcast that is weekly. It's on YouTube. You can

02:07:21.440 subscribe to the Tim Dillon Show on YouTube and find me on social media, Tim J Dillon.

02:07:26.660 And, uh, on, follow me on Clubhouse if you have the invite.

02:07:31.000 Shut up, you.

02:07:33.700 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - June 21, 2022

Tim Dillon on Comedy in the Trump Era, Out of Touch Celebrities, and Alex Jones ｜ Summer Re-Release

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