The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - Christmas Pre-Record ｜ The Return of the King

00:00:00.680 A month ago I did a live stream on my Sargon channel saying, look, basically everyone's

00:00:06.160 beginning to fall into line and I called it. Everyone is literally bowing at the throne

00:00:12.520 of the great Golden God Emperor Donald Trump. And the BBC have recognised this. They've

00:00:17.880 noticed, hang on, everyone is just, I mean literally, coming to pay fealty and homage

00:00:22.800 at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. And I just thought we'd read through some of this. Just a nice

00:00:29.120 victory lap, to be honest, for anyone who supports Trump. I'm a massive Trump supporter.

00:00:32.820 And I just wanted to go through this because it was fun. And it's nice that the BBC just

00:00:37.820 have to be like grinding their teeth and like, everyone loves Donald Trump now. Yeah, you're

00:00:42.960 angry and that's great. So they tell us that Monday, so when you're watching this about

00:00:49.400 a week ago, a week and a half ago, during his first press conference since winning the US

00:00:53.880 election in November, Trump appeared to revel in the breadth of his support. The first time

00:00:57.880 is everyone fighting me, this term everyone wants to be my friend. It's like, yeah, that's

00:01:01.520 true. Because they thought they could defeat Trump and Trump has beaten them all, right?

00:01:06.480 Trump has beaten everyone. And they know it and they've come to terms with it and they're

00:01:10.120 like, yeah, okay, he's in charge. We will accept our position in the hierarchy beneath

00:01:14.820 Donald Trump. That's superb. That is just spectacular.

00:01:19.360 In the past, in just the past few weeks, many of the president-elect's former critics and

00:01:23.620 adversaries have made overtures. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sam Altman

00:01:28.760 of OpenAI have pledged million dollar donations to Trump's inauguration festivities. Great.

00:01:35.700 But this is literally like the, you know, Caesar coming back. And again, I wasn't overreaking

00:01:41.180 it at all. This is literally like Caesar coming back into Rome and all of the aristocracy being

00:01:46.480 like, okay, fair enough.

00:01:47.420 I hope it isn't this, because in about a year, that would mean something bad.

00:01:52.600 Yeah, yeah. I hope he doesn't end up getting Caesared. But the point being, they're all

00:01:58.640 recognizing, yeah, no, he's won. He's beaten us fair and square, even after 2020. And we

00:02:04.440 just accept. We concede, essentially. We concede that Trump is the guy in charge. TikTok's

00:02:09.960 CEO Xiaozichu met Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And Trump was planning to ban TikTok.

00:02:17.420 And now he currently opposes the ban, because of course, Trump is very much a friend-enemy

00:02:21.880 guy. If you are a good, hearty friend of Trump's, you're brilliant. Come into the club.

00:02:27.880 If you're not Trump's friend, then you're the enemy. And so, prior, he wasn't a fan of TikTok.

00:02:34.780 Now, TikTok's top platform. TikTok's fine. But apparently, it's been, it's on, I can't remember

00:02:44.660 if they're actually going to ban TikTok. But the BBC are telling us the ban is scheduled

00:02:48.620 to go into effect before Trump is sworn into office. So, that must be fairly soon, then.

00:02:53.400 Well, I mean, he could, he could revoke it. Of course he could.

00:02:56.560 So, I don't see the, I don't see the point of it. Yeah, it's, it's, I don't think it's

00:03:00.100 going to be a problem. But like, I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to ban TikTok,

00:03:03.620 either. Yeah, I'm not a massive fan. No, I'm not a fan. But, um, I just think it's interesting

00:03:09.540 how the dynamics are reversed, right? Biden's on the outside. Biden's regime and everyone

00:03:14.240 connected to it is on the outside, crushed, completely defeated. All of the, um, the 0.97

00:03:21.000 recognition of legitimacy and the sort of grace that the society gives is funding to Trump

00:03:26.200 now rather than to Biden. And Biden's, like, team and the structure around Biden is not

00:03:32.120 used to that. They normally were able to tap into everything. You know, oh, we're, we're

00:03:36.540 progressives. Great. Here's every corporation under the sun. Here's all the media. Here's

00:03:40.860 all the institutions. They're all on your side. And now they're all coming and paying

00:03:44.500 literal homage to Donald Trump, bending the knee and saying, what is your will, my Lord?

00:03:49.800 Um, Trump must be pretty bloody happy with himself.

00:03:52.660 I mean, they have to.

00:03:54.660 Yeah, I know they have to. Well, they, well, they don't have to. That's the thing. In 2017,

00:03:58.040 they didn't, right? It was nonstop war when Trump came in and they were at war with him.

00:04:03.320 Which is not just constant total war and Trump won. And so now they're just like, okay,

00:04:07.880 well, life has to go on though. Well, I would say so too. But I mean, apparently Hitler has 0.90

00:04:12.440 just been elected to the presidency of the United States. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's

00:04:17.660 literally like, no, no, he's Hitler. And everyone's like, okay, well, I'm going to go 0.73

00:04:20.780 bend the knee to Hitler then. It's just like, well, either he's not Hitler and you were 0.75

00:04:25.320 lying or actually these guys are just secret Nazis. Uh, Google head Sundar Pichai is also

00:04:31.160 planning to have a meeting with Donald Trump. So literally all of the platforms he was banned

00:04:35.820 from are coming. I mean, you know, Elon taking over Twitter was great. And obviously that's

00:04:41.520 flipped that all of the, all of the social media platforms that banned him for trying

00:04:45.840 to overthrow democracy and are coming and bending the knee to him. Like the scale of this victory

00:04:50.880 is just superb. I, it's, it's genuinely like Lord of the Rings-esque, this sort of, you know,

00:04:57.540 gargantuan win. I absolutely love it, man. Uh, and, uh, Trump appeared on the floor of

00:05:03.280 the New York Stock Exchange to ring the open bell, uh, and his, mark his announcement as

00:05:07.220 Times Person of the Year last week. Have you seen the cover?

00:05:11.040 Yeah. So, and I saw that they, the way they compared, uh, Biden and, um, Trump on the front

00:05:18.340 page and the way that, uh, it was covered was the following. When it came to Biden and Harris,

00:05:23.920 I don't remember who he was. I think Biden, when he won the election, he was, he was on

00:05:28.720 the cover of Time as Person of the Year. He said he was covered in the cover of the

00:05:33.040 Time, just like, you know, Gandhi. Yeah. Martin Luther King. But this time it's just

00:05:37.440 like Hitler. This time it was just like Hitler. It was in like 1938. Like Hitler was 0.95

00:05:42.180 Times Person of the Year. It's easy journalism. They make money. Oh, it's so lazy. It's so

00:05:47.220 lazy. But the, the point. It's actually non-journalism. Yeah, no, it's not. It's just puff

00:05:51.200 piecing. But, um, but the point being, again, how much more, how much more correct and victorious

00:05:58.680 could Trump have to be, right? He has conquered not just the institutions, not just the journalists,

00:06:03.880 not just the opposition, but he's conquering the culture. And you've ever seen everyone

00:06:07.820 doing his little dance and it's like, okay, no, Trump has won everything. I mean, there's

00:06:12.620 just nothing left for him to win at this point, right? Like what more could he win? And it's,

00:06:18.240 you can tell it's been a long and grueling battle for him as well. You know, this has

00:06:21.980 been, what, no, eight years, nearly 10 years, something like that of him slugging this out

00:06:27.320 with everyone. Yeah. Yeah. It is a long battle, but I, I'm of the opinion that he was planning

00:06:33.560 it way before for decades because everyone says that he's very spontaneous and he is, but

00:06:38.980 I don't think that he doesn't show me that he cannot do also long-term planning. And it

00:06:44.460 seems to me that he, this was a live goal for him. He spent his whole life creating

00:06:49.680 an image around himself that he weaponized in order to win.

00:06:54.740 If he wasn't directly planning to become the president, he certainly set himself up in a

00:06:59.840 way that allowed him to leverage it. Yeah. So you are completely correct. But anyway, Mark

00:07:06.720 Benioff, head of Salesforce and owner of Time magazine said, quote, this marks a time of great

00:07:12.260 promise for our nation. It's like, mate, I thought Hitler had just been elected. Like 0.96

00:07:15.360 what are you? We look forward to working together to advance American success and prosperity for

00:07:21.300 everyone. Man, they've just changed their tune so much, haven't they? You love to see how

00:07:25.620 turned around they all have to be. It's like, no, we love Donald Trump now. So you didn't

00:07:29.600 10 minutes ago, you liars. Um, but, and that's, that's one of the things I like about this. 0.94

00:07:34.420 The fact that Trump has humbled them all. Right. I think, I think that's precisely what

00:07:38.500 he has done. And his rhetoric was, I'm not going to, I'm not going to cooperate with

00:07:43.680 anyone and I'm not going to form agreements with anyone. And he gives this impression,

00:07:47.840 but what he actually does is he says, no, you're going to come to me and we're going

00:07:51.880 to negotiate. Yeah. Or yeah. And Trump now is going to negotiate from the position of

00:07:57.120 utmost strength as in I'm the incoming president. I, I might do something terrible to you.

00:08:02.760 I might start legislating out of existence, you know, especially, uh, he's won everything.

00:08:06.860 He's a house, Senate and presidency and judiciary. Like they literally have nowhere to go. Like

00:08:13.780 he could be like, no, I'm going to start, I'm literally going to start legislating you

00:08:16.640 out of existence. If you don't do what I say, he could say that he hasn't said that, but

00:08:20.000 like he could say that. And they, they can see they're like, okay, no, we've just lost

00:08:23.620 this battle. We played our hand, we lost everything. And now we're basically powerless

00:08:28.240 and he controls everything. So we've kind of got to do as he says, and they're, they're

00:08:32.180 falling into line and it's just great to see. And I love watching them eat humble

00:08:35.660 pie. Basically, you know, all of these insufferable woke pricks who like, in fact, Joe Scarborough 0.55

00:08:42.080 and Mika Brzezinski from MSNBC, who went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with him last month. And

00:08:46.420 clearly again, bent the knee, paid homage, you know, gave their, um, you know, earth and

00:08:52.480 water to the King of Persia. Right? Like this, this is, it's so good watching because they 0.98

00:08:57.700 were so high handed. They were so high and mighty. They were so, oh, we're so great.

00:09:02.440 You're racist. You're wrong about everything. And now Trump literally standing at the top 0.97

00:09:06.380 of them, looking down as they're offering up to him their respect. And it's like, deal

00:09:12.860 with it. Deal with it.

00:09:14.140 We need to watch an episode of The View now to see how they're going to be like.

00:09:17.920 Oh, we covered it on Ladshead, didn't we?

00:09:19.620 Yeah. But you know, it's fun to see, you know, two, uh, one month afterwards.

00:09:23.580 Well, you could see them coping with it. Like they were, they were like, right, well, this

00:09:26.840 has happened. This has ruined everything. Um, anyway, so ABC News, which is owned by

00:09:31.680 Disney, uh, announced it was paying Trump, uh, $15 million in legal fees to settle a defamation

00:09:36.640 lawsuit related to remarks made in March by presenter George Stephanopoulos. So they see

00:09:41.760 they were calling him Hitler and pay him some money. Again, just everything. Trump just keeps

00:09:48.400 winning everything. And there's just nothing more to win. Uh, the BBC tell us in Washington's

00:09:53.620 corridors of power, a similar dynamic seems to be at play. Senate Republicans have been

00:09:57.160 wary of confirming some of Trump's more controversial appointees, such as Fox News host Pete

00:10:01.280 Hezgeth, the Secretary of Defense, are falling in line as they face pressure, not just from

00:10:05.800 Trump, but from his supporters who won dire consequences for the uncooperative. Great.

00:10:10.940 That's brilliant. Uh, dire consequences being getting BTFO'd on Twitter, basically. Um, and

00:10:17.700 people going, oh, you prick when they drive past, uh, but in an American accent. Um, anyway,

00:10:22.900 even some Democrats are reaching out to the incoming Trump administration, such as John

00:10:26.700 Fetterman, who said he would consider backing Hegseth, uh, Hegseth, and has expressed Trump

00:10:32.360 support for some Trump picks because Fetterman, um, was a woke progressive. Then he got brain

00:10:38.700 damage and was like, oh wait, I don't believe in that anymore because what was going on? I think

00:10:44.620 the biggest revenge Trump can have against the Democrats is if he unites the country and brings

00:10:52.740 a sort of bipartisanship back. Yeah. Because the whole narrative is he's the divider, not

00:10:57.820 Obama. Yeah. But I think the truth is the opposite. I think so too. And he has the opportunity

00:11:02.540 to do it. I don't know if he will. I hope he does. And Trump is a magnanimous guy. I mean,

00:11:06.680 the reason he's accepting the fealty of all of these people is because, no, everyone should

00:11:10.640 be on my team. That's how he believes. And so if someone comes along and goes, okay, maybe

00:11:14.080 I will with you, he'll bring them straight in because he's an incorporator. You know, he'll be

00:11:18.100 like, no, this is all mine now. I want everything. And this is why I like, he'll accept Fetterman.

00:11:23.880 He'll accept any of them that come across and bend the knee and say, okay, we'll do things your

00:11:27.600 way. You know, and that's good. Um, and another interesting one is Bernie Sanders, which again,

00:11:34.140 you would think, I mean, Bernie Sanders has been calling Trump Hitler for years now. So suddenly he's

00:11:39.200 like, yeah, okay. He might be Hitler, but I like RFK. And again, what's interesting about this,

00:11:44.320 a lot of these guys are ex Democrats, right? Trump, RFK, they're all Democrats. Tulsi Gabbard,

00:11:50.300 democratic Senator for Hawaii. Like these, a lot of these guys or gals, uh, were Democrats who

00:11:56.540 essentially kicked out the Democrat party for, for liking America is essentially what their

00:12:00.860 reason was for not being woke globalists. And now Trump is the revenge on that. And he's like,

00:12:06.280 this is great. Get in. Um, and so, yeah, anyway, uh, Bernie Sanders is like, yeah, RFK does have a

00:12:12.760 point about America's food, which is poison, by the way, just in case you didn't know. Um, I,

00:12:18.100 I like America and I like Americans, but I hate traveling to America because you've got to eat

00:12:23.580 American food. And as soon as you start eating, you start ballooning on weight. It's terrible.

00:12:27.380 The problem with it is that food has lots of artificial sweeteners and all sorts of poison

00:12:33.300 inside. And I've watched, uh, you know, um, in Las Vegas, there's the heart attack burger.

00:12:38.760 Oh, isn't it? Yeah. There is a 20,000 calories burger that people, if you don't eat, they spank

00:12:44.080 you. Man, last time I went to America, I went to, I went to, um, just some barbecue place,

00:12:50.240 which was lovely. Don't get me wrong. And they gave, gave you a plate of food and it was a fair

00:12:54.540 amount, but it wasn't that much. I mean, I respect it though. No, wait, you say it wasn't that

00:12:59.940 much. Cause what I actually, what I hate about eating outside is if I pay and they give me a small

00:13:05.920 portion. I just want to take the plate and smash it on a wall. Well, they don't, they don't do that

00:13:11.680 in America. They give you big portions in America. The thing is in America, they've got a habit of not

00:13:15.300 clearing their plate so that if you use, if you don't want to use, leave it or they'll give you a

00:13:19.800 bag to take it home. Obviously we don't do that in England. In England, it's rude not to clear your

00:13:25.040 plate. It's, you know, so you don't give you something, don't give someone too much and you're

00:13:29.400 expected to eat it all. And so I took that English habit to America. I ate all of this plate and I guess the

00:13:35.600 Americans are like, Oh my God, I think I must be really hungry. It must've been on like five or 0.96

00:13:40.560 6,000 calories. Cause literally a solid day and a half later, I just hadn't felt hungry at all. I

00:13:46.220 just hadn't eaten. I've been full for like nearly 48 hours. And I was like, this is weird. I've never

00:13:51.060 had this before. Anyway, RFK is right about American food, by the way. That's what I'm trying to get at.

00:13:58.220 Yeah. Um, uh, they said in the BBC saying this time around, such evidence of resistance is

00:14:03.740 difficult to discern, uh, Kentucky, Kentucky Republican Senator, Mitch McConnell, the

00:14:08.760 tortoise. Uh, they don't say that. I call them that. Uh, who's the Senate majority leader,

00:14:13.480 criticized Trump in 2021, uh, and offered stern warnings about the dangers of an American first 0.99

00:14:19.140 foreign policy. Why? What'd be wrong with an American first foreign policy? I mean, it worked

00:14:24.400 last time. Peace in the middle East, peace with North Korea, peace with the Russians, peace 0.85

00:14:30.580 through strength is literally what Trump's policy was. And it works because anyone who knows anything

00:14:35.260 about international relations knows that weakness is provocation. Anyway, bitch McConnell, I'm sorry, 0.98

00:14:40.660 Mitch McConnell down. Uh, I hate Mitch McConnell. I hate him and Lindsey Graham, man. I hate them. 1.00

00:14:45.880 That's disgusting people. Um, but anyway, they stepped down from his leadership position and will 0.99

00:14:50.840 is unlikely to seek re-election in 2026 cause he's 82. Um, and so basically the way is beginning to

00:14:58.220 clear for Trump and his supporters. Um, you've got, uh, a dozen congressional Democrats that

00:15:03.940 will skip Trump's inauguration, obviously, but that's only a dozen. Yeah. You know, that

00:15:10.000 means a lot of them are going to go, which is interesting. If Trump's kind of nice to

00:15:13.680 them, maybe they'll start. But also they understand that the, the, the, the narrative was a narrative

00:15:19.100 and maybe they didn't get high with their own supply. Yeah, maybe. And maybe they're just

00:15:23.680 like being political realists about it. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe you'll do some good stuff.

00:15:28.360 Who knows? You know, maybe we can get some communist stuff past. Who knows? Um, but, uh,

00:15:32.700 but anyway, of course they, they say, well, Trump for Trump and his supporters, the party's in full

00:15:36.780 swing. Uh, yeah. And why wouldn't it be? They deserve a victory lap. They've won it all. They've

00:15:41.480 won everything and they deserve to be proud of themselves. Cause man, the slings and arrows,

00:15:46.000 and this is why I've just been such a big supporter of the MAGA movement is because they were right

00:15:51.740 about the basics on everything, right? We, they should be pro America. They should be like

00:15:56.240 not anti white people or anti male or anti, you know, straight or anti family or no, these are all

00:16:04.040 normal and good things. And it's perfectly fine to be in favor of them. And it's perfectly fine to

00:16:09.680 view your own country with preference, right? That's essentially what MAGA is about. It's the

00:16:14.900 genuine spirit of America expressed through the popular base. Every person I've met from

00:16:21.600 from the U S and every relative I have living there, they seem to me to be very, you know,

00:16:27.120 cheery and happy. Yeah. They're great. And misery just doesn't bode well with them. So when someone,

00:16:34.540 a politician comes and tells them essentially that, you know, all of your worldview needs to

00:16:39.480 be structured around misery, it's just, it feels foreign. I just can't see them having it.

00:16:44.780 Yeah. It's weird that they got so far to be honest, but, um, but yeah, so Trump represents,

00:16:50.760 I think a genuine spirit of Americanism, uh, he, you know, and that's authentic and, you know,

00:16:57.160 there's a, you can call Trump a lot of things, but inauthentic just isn't one of them. Um, you know,

00:17:02.820 not someone who's, who's got, uh, he's not like wearing a mask, you know what I mean? Um,

00:17:10.080 and I think that this is appropriate and good for America. I think it's good for countries to be

00:17:15.700 authentically what they are, you know, and to genuinely express the kind of honest spirit of

00:17:21.120 their own nation. And I think the Democrats don't do that. I think they're calculating,

00:17:25.300 ideological, cruel and vindictive and horrible and callous and scheming.

00:17:31.700 I think they're going to do the same also for the next elections.

00:17:34.660 Maybe.

00:17:35.220 I think they're going to do precisely the same.

00:17:37.980 Entirely possible. But, um, but anyway, so that's why I like MAGA so much and I'm so glad to

00:17:42.760 see them win. Uh, and I'm so glad to watch all of his opponents just eat humble pie.

00:17:47.600 It's a good, no, yeah. Scoff it. Scoff it losers. Uh, just, I love to see this so much because I've

00:17:54.100 got loads of friends who are just, you know, MAGA guys and I love to see them winning because for

00:17:57.680 years they've basically been under the heel of the Democrats and the, the vast machinery of

00:18:03.760 administrative left-wing government. And it's so nice for them to overthrow it, you know,

00:18:09.000 to be in a position to overthrow at least anyway, you know, to have actually fought,

00:18:12.760 against Sauron and won is so good. I am loving it. And I, I, I jealous. I wish we could do the

00:18:19.080 same here, but the British public just isn't having it for some reason. Um, but anyway,

00:18:24.040 so, uh, the BBC are like, yeah, well, once Trump takes office, he's going to implement his agenda

00:18:28.400 of mass deportations and trade tariffs. Brilliant. That's so good. Um, but anyway, so, and the,

00:18:36.200 I, the, the, the best part about this for me, um, is the fact that the journos are crying

00:18:41.520 and they know, they know, but they love it. I think I love crying. I think, I don't know.

00:18:48.340 I think a lot of them are getting a bit depressed actually. Uh, the, the, the industry they work

00:18:53.100 in is cratering, right? So tens of thousands of journalists have been laid off in the past

00:18:58.380 decade. Uh, and it's because everyone hates them because they can't be honest ever. If I'll do

00:19:04.640 another thing at some point, just going through some of the lies and not just lies either. Right.

00:19:08.760 Like it's one thing saying like an interpretation of an event is, well, it was this, but it was

00:19:14.600 really that right. It's one thing, but at least you agree an event happened. But the, the thing

00:19:19.260 about the journalists, especially in America is they just make up events that didn't happen.

00:19:23.640 So it's worse than a lie. You know, it's a fabrication of something to lie about. So it's,

00:19:28.800 it's worse than normal. Um, but I'll, I'll cover it another time. But, um, I just thought this

00:19:33.720 is just some fun. And again, just if you're sitting at home eating the, uh, the leftos of

00:19:39.640 Christmas dinner, I hope this is just something that you can feel very satisfied about because

00:19:43.440 this is like the, the, uh, the end of the hero's journey for you guys. You know, you've actually

00:19:47.300 won. You've Trump has gone through the underworld. He has defeated the dragon and now he's coming

00:19:53.800 back with the rewards. Uh, so yeah, let's look for the press heading into a second Trump

00:19:59.200 administration. There's a balancing act between being prepared and being fearful. There's one thing

00:20:03.500 the journalist should be as fearful. Okay. It's a power of Trump. It was called journalists

00:20:09.060 enemies and talk about retribution against those who feel he's feels has wronged him.

00:20:13.880 Has news executives nervous? They have four years of news now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

00:20:19.380 that's why they said that numbers are going to skyrocket. Yeah. But the, but the point being

00:20:23.980 is that they're like, okay, so we did everything in our power to ruin him. We 95% negative coverage.

00:20:31.220 We made up a bunch of stories when other people made up stories that the piss dossier, we publicize

00:20:36.500 them. We wanted everyone to know that we hate this guy. We called him Hitler every day and now 0.96

00:20:41.020 he's in charge and he hates us. It's going to be rough. Uh, good, good. I'm glad this is going to

00:20:47.140 be rough for you. Right. You, you are scum just out of, just in case you don't know. Um, but, uh,

00:20:52.740 perceived threats are numerous lawsuits of every sort efforts to unmask anonymous sources,

00:20:56.660 physical danger and intimidation, which of course you shouldn't do, uh, and attacks on public media

00:21:01.480 and liberal protections, day-to-day demonization. Well, you did that to yourself, didn't you?

00:21:05.620 You did that to yourself. You spent all your time demonizing everyone who disagreed with you,

00:21:09.160 everyone who disagreed with the left-wing agenda. And now you're like, oh, people are demonizing us.

00:21:12.720 Boo. Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo. No sympathy whatsoever. Uh, and they, they point out that George

00:21:18.060 Stephanopoulos is just like, yeah, here's loads of money, Trump. Uh, and, uh, Bruce Brown,

00:21:22.900 the executive director for the reports committee for the freedom of the press says the news

00:21:26.820 administration is heading to this next administration with it. The news media is

00:21:30.420 heading to this next administration with its eyes open. Uh, some challenges to the free press may be

00:21:34.820 overt. Some may be more subtle. We need to be prepared. And to remember that our most important

00:21:39.820 audiences are the courts and the public as if you've been serving the public until this point.

00:21:45.740 Uh, but one prominent editor warned against going on war footing with an administration that

00:21:52.000 hasn't taken office yet. Well, where was this in 2016? Like you were on war footing from day one

00:21:57.660 before Trump had taken office. And, but Steven Engelberg, the editor-in-chief of ProPublica says,

00:22:03.620 there may be a moment to cry wolf here, but I don't think we've reached it. Uh, really? Well,

00:22:07.600 that's interesting. So again, it's like the last eight years didn't happen. It's like, we don't

00:22:12.020 have a memory of everything up until this point. It's like, well, let's not cry wolf. It's like,

00:22:15.440 you called him Hitler 10 minutes ago. Anyway, Trump at this, uh, press conference on Monday

00:22:22.620 said, we need a fair media. We have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt,

00:22:26.460 almost as corrupt as our elections. The press is absolutely corrupt. Um, I'd say way more corrupt

00:22:32.000 than the elections, to be honest. Um, so yes, he's completely right. The media themselves,

00:22:37.180 there has to be an accountability for this, right? They can't just get away with lying.

00:22:41.720 They make up lies all the time about loads of people. I've been lied about, you know,

00:22:45.940 loads of people lied about, like they can't just keep making up lies. They can't keep

00:22:50.060 assert, asserting this political agenda in the face of what is actually true. It has to stop,

00:22:56.600 right? But, um, the, uh, editor of, uh, Washington post editor says, uh, it's apparent that the,

00:23:03.460 uh, new administration will come after the press. I do think he'll use every tool in his toolbox.

00:23:07.480 And there are a lot of tools. Well, uh, you had this coming. Maybe if you weren't just implacable

00:23:13.020 enemies of the choice of the American people, uh, this wouldn't be happening to you, but you did.

00:23:18.700 And it is so you can cope. Um, so Andras Pethos and investigative, investigative journalists for

00:23:26.280 Hungary is like, well, it's going to be like Victor Orban, uh, as in Trump supporters will take 0.88

00:23:32.320 control of media and they won't hate him nonstop and say, yep, that's going to suck for you. Um, 0.92

00:23:37.700 but he says that it's important for journalists not to portray themselves in any sort of, as any

00:23:42.000 sort of resistance, because that just makes it easier for the government to dismiss them.

00:23:46.440 Interesting. Cause that's all we've heard. I mean, they literally called themselves the resistance

00:23:50.060 up until this point. And he says, instead, even when they were in government, even when they were in

00:23:55.460 government, they called themselves the resistance. And he says that, look, instead you should just do the

00:23:59.560 work. It's like, really do some journalism says one journalist. And the journalists in America are

00:24:05.060 like, but we don't know what that means because all we do is take press releases from the government

00:24:09.980 or from corporation and read them back like stenographers and say, well, there we go. There's

00:24:14.120 the truth. And it's like, that's not the truth. That's the lie. Anyway, he says, to be honest,

00:24:19.400 we all have to accept and admit that our power as media has declined. Uh, our stories don't have the

00:24:25.060 same impact that they had a decade ago. And that's true. The media has burned up

00:24:29.500 all of their credibility attacking Trump and it failed. They lost, he won, they screwed themselves. 0.98

00:24:36.020 And like he says, they should just do the work, which is a great, great position to begin new

00:24:41.780 year, new year. And I would say, you know, all of Trump's enemies humbled Trump returning as the

00:24:46.900 king, uh, to set the world to rights. Uh, things are looking quite bright in America in 2025,

00:24:52.940 I would say, which is superb. Um, have a, have a great new year folks.

00:24:58.380 Merry Christmas and a happy new year. And what you should be doing is using your new Lotus Eaters

00:25:03.540 gift subscription, that new feature we've got on the site to watch all of our premium content where

00:25:07.620 you've got lots of downtime over the holidays. I hope you're having a nice time. Also check out

00:25:12.060 our Twitter where we post links to everything that we're putting out. Thank you very much for

00:25:15.360 watching. Have a nice holiday and goodbye.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - December 27, 2024

Christmas Pre-Record ｜ The Return of the King

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript