Theater CANCELS Comedian Andrew Schulz's Show After Trump Interview!
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Yeah, right. Got it.

Oh? Okay, noted. How are you doing? Is that so?

Uh-oh. Okay. Naturally.

If the public sees fit after the following confession to forgive me for my transgressions, which are voluminous and most scandalous, then you will know your answer. You will know how I'm doing. Wow. This sounds serious. The floor is yours, Liam Neeson.

As you may be well aware, information has come to light about one Sean Puff Daddy Paws. Oh. And certain social activities that he has presided over in the past. Activities that were positively bacchanalian in nature. Ha ha ha.

I don't know what that means. Rumors have abounded about various celebrities who have participated in these social gatherings. It is best you hear it from me. I, Liam Neeson, was one of those celebrities. Wow. Okay. Well, thanks for sharing that here. Yes. From what I've heard, you may be in a bit of trouble, Liam.

I am afraid you may be right, and I am prepared to face the consequences for my actions. I cannot excuse them in retrospect. All I can do is to try my best to set things right. You mean for the victims? What victims? What do you mean, what victims? Of the abuse. There were people there against their will who were drugged. That's why Diddy's in jail.

My God, this is worse than I thought. I swear I thought everyone who was there was there willingly participating, enthusiastically so. Well, apparently not, making these parties horrible crimes. What did you think people were up in arms about, buddy?

The lewdness, the bawdiness, the foul language. And God have mercy on my soul, I participated in all three, especially the bawdiness. You thought Puffy was in trouble over foul language, Liam? There were kids there. I am well aware of that. You saw children there, Liam, participating in all this? How old?

I don't know, 13, 14? I wasn't acquainted with them personally. And I can't say if they were participating. Sean made sure they were taking the same substances as we were, but obviously at that age they're still too young to truly understand what they were seeing and hearing. But we wished them to learn, certainly. Sort of a demonstration, a rite of initiation. Ah, this is making me sick. Liam, you may be in some trouble here. What substances did Diddy give these kids?

Puff Daddy gives teenagers Guinness ale at his parties? And what were they forced to see and hear? That's what goes on at Diddy parties?

Oh, that and more like it. And Sean Combs wouldn't have it any other way, that red-headed menace. Wait a minute. Was this at his L.A. mansion or his New Jersey one? Mansion. It was at his cottage in Enniskillen. In Ireland? Northern, yes. And this is music mogul Puff Daddy we're talking about.

Well, to us, he's just Sean Combs. These various nicknames are new to me. I saw them exclusively in the headlines. And Music Mogul may be pushing it a little far. He does have live music at his establishments, but I doubt it's a large source of income for him. What do you mean? Sean made his fortune by operating a string of taverns and inns in Ulster. Liam, I want you to do a Google image search for Puff Daddy. All right. Oh, dear. That...

Is a different Sean Combs? Yes. Very different. Why is his mouth always open? Okay, okay. Liam, I think there's a big misunderstanding here. Read one of those articles and I think you'll understand the mix-up. No need for his confession. Well, thanks for wasting our time, though. Oh, you mean I'm not in trouble?

I won't be blackballed for our Friday night chalaneries at Shawnee's. Even with all the bawdiness and poetry. I'm sure you're fine. We gotta go, though. Oh, this is such a giant relief. Thank you. Wait! What about the 14-year-old I had sex with? Boing! Boing!

A lot of people pulling their hair out over this election. Am I right? One of them, I think, is Andrew Schultz. I don't know if you know what happened, but Andrew Schultz had a very popular comedian. He had on Donald Trump as a guest on his podcast. Former president of the United States, maybe the future president of the United States. That is not okay in a lot of places. Listen to what

Listen to what happened to him. So, yeah. So it was an awesome interview and everybody loved it. And then a day later, Dove was like, oh, by the way, the venue you're going to shoot your special in canceled your shows. No, damn it. I made it. Within three hours. Doug, after

We interviewed him before the episode comes out. He goes to the venue. Everybody leaves. It's on Schultz's special team. All of them have to go to the venue, check it out. I assume everything is good. People flew in for this. Oh, yeah. So we've had these venues locked in for months now, a month, something like that. It's not like we might do it here. It's booked. It's ready to go. We're going on sale this week. We have the entire production team come out for the –

This is for the third time many of us are spotting the venue and looking at everything. We have the set design already curated. We're moving around seating plots, camera plots. It's ready to go. We're going on sale this week.

week. And we get an email three and a half hours out. After discussing with our board members, we don't think that it would be... There's email. You'll bring it up. But don't show any emails up. But it was a BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is a venue they've shot tons of specials in. And three and a half hours after the interview, they canceled shows. So...

Yeah, let's see if we can show the thing. Read the exact email because they're also – they're canceling my shows, but they're also begging Live Nation to not cancel future shows with them.

Like they still want business, but they're like, just not this guy. Now, I don't know if it's a Trump interview, but the day before it came out, we were ready to go and we're going on sale this week. And three and a half hours afterwards, we get this email. First off, I want to thank you for thinking of BAM for Andrew Schultz's upcoming comedy show. We are always excited when promoters consider our space for their events. After some internal discussions with leadership, it was decided that BAM is not the right fit for this show at this time.

That said, we really do appreciate you reaching out. We'd love to work with you in the future. And for future events, it might be a better match for BAM.

So if anybody has a venue, if you've got a venue for us, that'd be really great. I'd really love to shoot this special, and that'd be really awesome. The irony is this is your most personal special. Yes, yes, yes. It's not as political as that. It's you and your journey. Yeah, but also what's interesting about it is that, again, they canceled it three hours after the interview came out. So before the liberal media spun it,

in liberals' favor. So if they waited two days, they get the hero of the liberals. You just gotta send them.

So they canceled him for interviewing a former president and possible future president and not because he looks like a 70s porn star. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. Now, are we sure they didn't cancel him because this is his most personal journey special? Yeah. I mean, they should be- I'm going to text him. That's why he's canceled right now, actually. Don't you think they should be canceling him because-

It reminds everybody how much we miss Freddie Mercury and not for, and not for speaking to the next leader of the free world. I mean, come on. So, uh, here, now this, this is what the artistic directors for BAM look like. How this is BAM announces artistic director of fall season lineup. Is that leadership mentioned in the letter?

I feel like they would never know anything about him and somebody younger on the staff who still wears a COVID mask informed them. Correct. And they went, thank you for bringing this to our attention. So I think. Stop scissoring for five seconds to cancel. They're smiling because they just canceled Andrew Schultz. I think that. Look at him. Look at his smirk.

I mean, you better be an international dance team spinning ribbons around to a pan flute if you want to get booked at that theater, I guess. That's all I'm saying. Because an edgy comedian might accidentally nick one of those fragile moral hemophiliacs in the audience. Hey, here's the cast of their new show, Odd Couple. Except in this storyline, they both 100% agree about everything. Ha ha ha ha! Um...

This is how the left plays the game, says Simon Van Dyke, ironically named. This guy, Tim Cavanaugh, has the funniest joke. He said Dick Van Dyke had his own show on American television called

Which is crazy, considering that two out of the three words in his names are offensive to most Americans. What's the matter with Van? That was Tim Kavanaugh's joke. Great joke. Anyway, this is how the left plays the game. If you do anything, even having a conversation with someone they don't like, they don't agree with them, then they will turn you away and banish you from any space they control.

Yeah, it's called repressive tolerance. It's Marcuse, you know, the neo-Marxist, not the Marxist, the neo-Marxist. So that's what you're supposed to do is have a double standard and then do that kind of shit.

And unless, of course, they're funding your entire life and whatever university you work at to say this shit, you'll be ignoring their right wing nonsense. You'll just take it out on things that don't matter, such as Andrew shooting a special there, which affects nothing other than him doing a special. So I've been canceled by a couple of venues for my politics in Brooklyn.

So we used to play at the Bell House in Brooklyn, and they loved us. We'd sell it out three nights in a row or whatever. And then after COVID, they just stopped returning my... They won't return. They won't book us. They won't even acknowledge us. I played that. Fuck that place. I mean, these are all the... Everything is telling me I'm not like, not the Bell House, not Brooklyn. It's Brooklyn. It's Brooklyn.

So that I know there are pieces of shit. What do you think? Look, the whole scene in the whole BAM, like BAM is a place where Steve Martin goes to not be funny and talk about art and everybody's mad and wants their money back. That's what I remember BAM for the most. You know? Yeah. See, Martin will not be funny tonight. He will talk about a Rothko to you. So you give a shit.

So that's what Brooklyn's become, right? It's become this woke. We just did a whole segment on how woke is there to make you talk about identity politics and cultural issues so you don't come together as a group of people and oppose the oligarchy on economic issues. That's the whole point of wokeness. And it didn't start five minutes ago. It didn't start 20 years ago. It started after World War II.

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of leftists that want to live the good life. Yeah. They want to live like the people they would condemn and want to seize the means from. So those things don't really go together. It's like a boutique item. So here's another play. Here's another. So in Chicago, Thalia Hall. We've played that place for years, sold it out. And then what happened? We debunked Russiagate and...

And we told the truth about COVID and they don't want anything. They won't book us anymore in Chicago. It's my hometown. So Dahlia Hall went all woke. And so then I tried to play this other place called the Den Theater in Chicago, which is a new venue. And it's a nice venue. A lot of people, I wanted to play there, right? And I was told, I know the person, one of the people in charge, I reached out to and I said, hey, I'd like to shoot my special there.

I hear good things about it. My friend Joe Bartnick is shooting a special there. They came back with, you know what I was told? Yeah, that's not going to happen. And I said, why? I'll sell it out. I sell a lot of tickets in Chicago. They said, yeah, that's not going to happen. And I said, why? I sell it out. I sell a lot of tickets. And they said, let me just put it this way, Jimmy. The word is they're not doing politics right now.

That was what I was told. They're not doing politics right now. Really? A theater? First of all, all art is political. All art. Even if you're someone who says, well, I don't talk about politics in my act, that's a political decision. So what you're doing is you have a platform to talk about the status quo, and you've chosen not to.

So you are tacitly endorsing this. If you went up in 1934 Germany and you talked about dating, that is a political act because you're not opposing the Nazi regime. So you understand how you can't get away from it?

You can't get away from being political. This is why they're canceling Andrew because of this shit. And that thing of like, you have to be in our paradigm no matter what. Okay, fine. Maybe it is political, but I got a right to do whatever the fuck I want. I don't have to confront shit if I don't want. I might want to. If you fuck with me, then fuck you. That's always been my policy. So that thing, and this is where the left sucks ass. This is why I always hated leftists before Barry and then your show.

Is this shit where, you know, sometimes I got to work all day. People want to work all day and they want to be entertained. They don't want to deal with the nightmare going on outside. And always there's people that want to exercise their power. No, there's no escape from thinking about what I want you to think about. Yes. OK, but you're right. It is a political act. But when people get this argument, they always leave out the part. You got to write to any fucking political act you want here, motherfucker. Unless you're a fascist.

So, you know, unless they're fascist, that's why they don't want you having a right to. Well, that wokeness is very authoritarian. As we as we just talked about in our last segment. No, they get conflated because people don't know politics. So they go, I'm not political. So they don't understand that when you say it's political. So the Den, which is a venue I'd still like to play. It's a great venue. My friends, a lot of my friends played who are, by the way, just as controversial as me, except they don't know about it yet.

The Den, this is their mission statement. It says, the Den Theater believes in the power of human connection. Our mission is to bring artists and audiences together in the spirit of respect, empathy, and community. Okay. We are a center for entertainment and artistic expression, providing a warm and diverse environment where everyone feels welcome. Well, no, you don't. No, not everyone. I wasn't welcome there.

My audience isn't welcome there. The people who go against the status quo, who question COVID, who debunked Russiagate, who told the truth about Ukraine war, they're not welcome there. Why is that? Because so when you use words like everyone, you mean everyone who thinks like us. That's what you mean by everyone. By the way, they gather and play. Gather, play, create, create, create it.

Adult coloring books is what I'm imagining. A bunch of like, you know. That's a really long way of saying that they want their show calendar to look like MSNBC. But intercultural development statement, acknowledging that theater is inherently social and political. So if you already acknowledge that that theater is inherently political, what do you mean you're not doing politics right now? Because that's what I was told.

I thought this was Schultz's spot. This is the one that told you we're not being political. This is me. This is not Bam. This is me. This is the one I want. I still want to play there in Chicago. When I go back to Chicago, I like Thalia Hall. They don't like my politics. I remember I got canceled in Asheville after I got media smeared back in years ago. We saw what God did to them. So...

So they go acknowledging that theater is inherently social and political. We understand that we have a responsibility to actively develop a culture that is accessible and safe for patrons and artists to gather, play, create. We strive to develop a workforce that is at least as diverse as our community and to reflect Chicago's full spectrum of talent in the work that we invite them, that we invite to perform.

We strive to develop a workforce that is at least as diverse as our community, as long as they all agree and comply with us entirely. Isn't that an all white area, by the way? I've been to Chicago. It's real starkly white or black in many places.

So, yes, this is a I think it's on Milwaukee Avenue. I would say majority white. We believe that art is stronger and more authentic when we welcome all voices from diverse backgrounds to contribute to the narrative. No, you don't. I don't think you do.

I don't think they even understand what they're saying. I don't I don't think I don't think you do, because obviously my brand of politics, which, by the way, is the actual left. Woke ism is authoritarian. And and now you're it's censorious, which is fascistic. OK, they know what they're saying. They just don't believe what they're saying. That's right. What's called this is what is called a tactic. Back when I had some Chicago know nothings.

lecturing me on Facebook in the day they told me this stupid shit so the things they're saying the reason it's infuriating is because they're on purpose saying an inversion of what they think yeah because it's a tactic they're the lowest shit in the world you should never play the theater you should have them banned from Jimmy Dore is what I think and anybody that engages that's why when I that nothing club in Seattle

That I'm not mad about. I just wanted to humiliate the chick that sent that dumb email. And I showed her email. I didn't hide it to be professional. Because when Schultz brought up Live Nation, is Live Nation going to still do business with them? If I was Schultz and Live Nation still worked with them, I'd go, well, I'm not with you no more.

Because somebody has to draw a line with this. That's why I love Tyler Fisher for having that lawsuit. Because a bunch of dumb punk liberals are not going to make any consequences for these people. And they should have them. They should permanently have a swastika carved in their head like at the end of Inglourious Bastards so they can't ever hide and pretend they didn't do this. Just like they do to Trippie or Voter for Trump. We strive to curate a community where diversity is not only hardwired

Into the fabric of our organization, but that actively aspires to achieve, here it is, Kurt, equity. Yeah, I can already see the chick with blue hair and a COVID mask type choosing the words carefully from how to lie about what I think class and try to... This shit's dying. So, I mean, it's fun to laugh at it now, but I'm no longer bewildered. Let me just go back to this where it says...

We understand that we have a responsibility to actively develop a culture that is accessible and safe. What do you mean by safe? You mean like fire codes and wheelchair ramps? I don't think that's what they mean. They're talking about

not having political perspectives that don't sound exactly like the voices in their head. So that could destroy society. If the voices in my head aren't in control, Jimmy, see, no, you're not, you're misunderstanding us here. I'll play dingbat who wrote this. Um, yeah, it's inherently social and political. So we get to vote and we vote that we don't want your politics here. Yeah. You see? Yeah. So the, the, the empty head, empty skulled,

twit that wrote this they have an answer to every part of this and it doesn't make sense or it's that it's the same as the old corporation could do what they want it's just like and so when they say kurt when they say this we strive to create a community where diversity is not only hardwired into so by diversity they mean people who look different not people who think different right the thing that counts the least what you look like right outside

That's what this kind of woke shit is all about. Well, by the way, if you're a scientific materialist, what you look like on the outside is the most important. And that's what they are. You know, the historic materialism, which a lot of Marxists will tell you they are, which is one of the dumbest fucking things I heard in my life. That's why they're shallow. It makes them shallow and moronic. Because they believe in material completely.

So here's the last paragraph I'll read to you from their mission statement. It says, we consider it a privilege to be part of the discussion in creating a more inclusive theater. Inclusive for who? No, you don't. We understand that this is a process and that we must be willing to listen to our community, accept our missteps, and always strive for growth and scene. So they've been protested. They've been protested before. That's what that means.

That's what this means. They've been protested before because they booked somebody at their theater that some woke group of asswipes didn't like. And they probably saw, yeah, someone in the same, like some band and another band was jelly. And they're like, but their politics aren't good.

I've seen a bunch of these people where they have to look up your politics and where you grew up and shit. Because if they accidentally like the wrong thing, they won't be able to sit at their lunch table. I'm an actual lefty. I'm actually anti-war. I'm for bodily autonomy.

I'm for unions and working people and I'm for bringing people together on class issues and economic issues and not dividing them through identity politics. So the Dens mission statement is all about stressing identity politics. They're actually they're saying we're all about inclusive inclusion while blatantly doing the opposite.

Yeah, the identity politics thing. This reminds me of when I used to be in a doomsday cult, and I would get in theological arguments with people because we didn't believe in the holy trinity of the three-in-one God, which, by the way, is pagan as shit. There's nothing Christian about it. But also, who gives a shit? Like, I don't care if you believe God has three heads or not. I really don't. How do you act? Yeah.

What do you actually do? Your beliefs inside your head where I don't live, I don't – who gives a rat's ass? And now these people that look down on religion, now they have the same thing. Well, but your identity is the most important thing. There's no getting away from that.

There's no getting out. There's nothing inside you that's more important than the thing. I mean, even you individually being a color doesn't matter as much as the group. If you're the color they would prefer to have there and you don't have the right politics, you might as well be Jimmy Dore. You understand? It's really like just this absolute...

religious horseshit thing for people that have no religion and that's why they say they want to feel seen. I don't feel seen. Well, Carl Jung talks about this. Carl Jung talks about this in, I think it's called An Unexamined Life, and he talks about how if you don't have a connection to the transcendent, if you don't have an experience, a first-hand experience of God,

You're going to invent one outside and normally it's going to look like this. If you invent it, that's original. You'll turn science into a deity and they turn science into a religion that can't be questioned. People are too stupid to read about science. We'll do that. They do it to me, a guy that reads a lot. If you don't have an experience of the transcendent,

You are going to create that because your psyche has a need for it. This is all according to Carl Jung, the greatest psychologist in history. And he talks about it in that whole book. It's all about how people set this up externally through the state, through the government. They worship government, state. They worship a woke ideology, science, things like that.

So that's what this is. This sounds like a religion and it sounds like people who've been protested before and now they're actually afraid of politics and now they're actually afraid of inclusion and including ideas that actually challenge them, that go against them. It's the exact opposite of what they claim to be. It's a very cowardly stance to take that's contradictory and authoritarian.

Which is fascistic. Hey, you know, here's another great way you can help support the show is you become a premium member. We give you a couple of hours of premium bonus content every week, and it's a great way to help support the show. You can do it by going to JimmyDoreComedy.com, clicking on Join Premium.

It's the most affordable premium program in the business, and it's a great way to help put your thumb back in the eye of the bastards. Thanks for everybody who was already a premium member, and if you haven't, you're missing out. We give you lots of bonus content. Thanks for your support.

First up as our guest today is Dr. Christian Parenti, a professor in the Department of Economics at John Jay College. Previously, as a journalist, he reported from all over the world for publications including The Nation, Fortune, The London Review of Books, and The New York Times.

He's also the author of a number of books, including his latest, Radical Hamilton, Economic Lessons from a Misunderstood Founder. Please welcome back to the show, Christian Parenti. Good to see you. Good to see you too, Jimmy. Thanks for the invitation. I'm surprised that you haven't been canceled, is all I'm saying. I'm sure I've been canceled, but I didn't lose my job recently.

Last time I was on here with you was because of COVID stuff. I actually didn't quite have tenure yet, but I managed to get tenure. Really? It was, you know, to the right of the administration on COVID in terms of pushing...

vaccine mandates on the students and on as many staff as they could. And they even then ended up suing the custodians union and the security guards unions because those unions were like, well, you can our members can test or vax, whatever they want. But yeah, Manchester survived that bottleneck.

So it's great to be with you. It's they're bringing back man mask mandates in California. I don't know if you saw that bit of news until the spring, but that's for just for health care workers and all kind of settings and places like that. So nursing homes and what have you. And again, this is all based on not one study.

Not one study. Just to let people know, that's not based on, there's no science behind it. Just like Dr. Fauci said when he was testifying in front of Congress and they asked him about the six foot rule and they said, where did that come from? He goes, it just appeared. He said, not based on it. No, it just appeared. Okay. Yeah.

But I want to talk today quick about your article, The Cargo Cult of Woke. So I just want to – it's a fascinating look at woke culture. We've talked about it at this show a lot because it seems like it's being used to divide people. And let me just –

Give a little quip from your article. How did the Anglophone, which I looked that up, that means English speaking for all the people in my audience. Thank you. How did the English speaking left become the cargo cult of woke in which participants believe that social justice and perhaps even revolution can be achieved through the performance of safety orientated rituals and political etiquette.

So, let's just talk about that. How did the left become the cargo cult of Volk, and what do you mean by safety-orientated rituals and political etiquette?

Well, I mean, you know, wokeness is not just synonymous with identity politics. I think some people think that that's what it is. But identity politics, reductive identity politics are part of it. But woke subculture is this self-consciously left oppositional culture, which –

oddly right has spread even into corporate America but it you know if you're woke you see yourself as changing the world its methodology is not some sort of horizontal struggle against political and economic elites but very much a I mean vertical struggle but like a horizontal struggle against

very often people of your own class, your coworkers, who violate certain cultural norms, certain norms of etiquette. They don't speak correctly, they don't, you know, they don't show, they don't use the right forms. - Pronouns. - Or politically. Pronouns, land acknowledgements, these kinds of things, right? And the belief behind all this is that you're gonna actually totally transform social reality with this.

It also has at its heart a very intense concern with psychological well-being. So it's rooted in that whole post-World War II psychological turn that becomes really pervasive in the 60s and 70s. And...

Yeah, I mean that's what woke is. I mean what it does is it divides the working class. It obscures the real power relations in the society, which are fundamentally those of a super-rich owning class that calls the shots within the economy and allied to them but also somewhat distinct from that, a super-powerful

state apparatus with at its heart totally unaccountable secret intelligence entity services that aren't just involved in gathering intelligence on foreign wars for bombing runs, etc. But we have well documented, have since the 50s been involved in nudging and coaxing and participating in trying to shape indirectly and gently domestic political culture.

and a kind of crucial connective tissue in all of this.

is the philanthropic foundation scene because that's where the capitalist elites the ruling class the ultra-rich convert their wealth their personal well into political power not only you know it through you know they they also do it through donations to politicians but in a more cultural fashion foundations play a very important role in our society and the US left

is increasingly shaped by and beholden to foundations. And to some extent, that's a very old relationship. Foundations helped fund political movements prior to World War II. You know,

but not that much you know you look at the the politics in the nineteen twenties and thirties the role the foundations was not that large the foundations in those days tended to try and legitimize capitalist wealth by building libraries and symphony orchestras and stuff like that but you know in in I'm in WB de Bois his struggle with I'm book to Washington you know Washington got

foundation funding but it wasn't decisive after the war the cia starts reaching out to and collaborating with and also the foundations actually reach out to the cia a relationship develops in late 40s and 50s around managing the left because it becomes clear to the uh

the military intelligence the leads in Europe that they cannot get rid of the European left the Communist Party is very very strong in Italy very very strong in France all over Europe a communist and socialist are strong the Soviet Union for all its faults and authoritarian features has global goodwill from people because it has done most fighting its nazism and it becomes clear to the American

policy elite, particularly in the foreign policy establishment, that you're going to have to manage the left. The left is going to be a chronic problem that you never get rid of. So they start trying to nurture what they're, of course, repressing the communist left. But they also try to nurture what they call a non-communist left. And this was so open and common in the 50s and 60s that they just called it the NCL, the non-communist left, also known as the compatible left.

I should say a lot of this is not in the cargo cult of woke, which is in catalyst magazine, but that grew too large. And so there's a second half of it that's forthcoming, maybe in catalyst, maybe somewhere else. So yeah,

that's where this relationship between the foundations and the left first begins and so the foundations fund left-wing politics of all sorts and of course they don't fund the kinds of groups that demand redistribution and if they do fund them they tend to be rock reties them in and misdirect them and they they they're looking for other themes through which

Everyday people's resentments and legitimate concerns about the inequality and the suffering in this society can be channeled. And so, - So what you're saying is that, - Is this kind of constellation of issues that replaces class politics. - That's it. So that's the part. So some of the foundations, can you name some of the foundations? You mean like the Rockefeller Foundation, foundations like that? - Rockefeller Brothers, Rockefeller, Ford. I mean, the Ford Foundation is enormous.

Catherine Ferguson is the author of a book called Top Down. During the 50s, the Ford Foundation becomes very, very – sorry, the 60s becomes very, very political. McGeorge Bundy, who is national security advisor to Kennedy –

and then Johnson. I think maybe not, maybe it's just a Johnson. He leaves the administration and goes to head Ford. And this is in response to, right, the civil rights movement has been successful. They've got the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 64, 65. Now the black power movement is gaining momentum and that has much more of a class politics to it. Ford becomes obsessed with investing in black

Not just African-American social movements, but urban social movements in the north in general and steering them towards culture. It's all about people are pissed off in the inner city because they're suffering under slumlords, rising unemployment, et cetera, et cetera, poorly funded services. And so you can either as an elite deny this or speak to it and then dole out more money and, you know,

potentially lose lots of wealth and status or speak to it and divert people. So what Ford was all about was sort of acknowledging the suffering of black people and then steering it all into culture. They're really into theater and all this stuff. This is not to say that like, okay,

any kind of politics of representation and race are wrong or bad. No, not at all. They're real and they're actually important, but they can also be and have been and were used as diversion. So don't think about slumlords. Don't think about the redistribution of wealth. Like, get involved in a theater program that's designed to make you feel good about being black. Never mind the fact that, you know, your neighborhood is a place where the city is

refuses to clean up the trash as often as it does in wealthier neighborhoods, right?

So, I mean, that's a kind of archetypal example of a massive, and Ford was the biggest, it might still be the biggest of the philanthropic foundations, and it gets heavily involved in funding left political movements. And so, you know, out of this comes all the tropes of wokeness. So you're saying that this is...

Kind of stunning that woke culture seems to me a modern day invention, but you're saying it goes back to after the World War II and the intelligence communities and the combined with the foundations like Ford Foundation, Rockefeller and so on. And they decided to try to decouple.

the left from organizing around economic issues and class issues and funnel them into cultural issues, which is what woke ideology and woke politics is all about. It's completely decoupled from class issues.

struggle and issues, and it's all about identity and wokeness. However we're going to define that, I'll show the six ways that you define it in a minute. So you're saying that this didn't start recently, that this goes way back, and it comes from the top down. It comes from intelligence agencies, governments, and non-government organizations like the foundations, and

It was recognized that this was necessary for the establishment to contain control decades and decades ago, a half a century ago over. I mean, it goes even, I mean, if you really want to draw this logic back, you know, you can go all the way to Federalist 10, James Madison's Federalist 10. It's not a woke document. But in that document,

document, James, which is, so it's written to justify and convince people to, you know, ratify the Constitution. And in Federalist 10, James Madison is speaking to elite concerns at the time of their thinking, like, wait a minute, if you allow anyone to vote, what's to stop them from

up taking all our money basically the and Madison says well that's a risk however it's only risk if the vast majority people who don't have property come together however there is naturally occurring

all sorts of natural faction you've got regions you got different religions you know sorts it different divisions that that a afflict people that this is a kind of natural condition and in people what a similar to the wild later calls othering it's sort of like this this natural tendency with us and who they you know it's like and some Madison says the key to avoiding the dangers

a political democracy turning into economic democracy is to lean into the existence a faction to try and create as much faction which is just to say division in society as possible so that so that the main source affection that's most important which is that between those who own and those who do not write the those who control most to the property in society and those who are dependent on selling their labor

The risk is that those who are the working classes come together as a single group and then they can use political democracy in ways that would be dangerous for economic elites. And Madison's message in Federalist 10 is say the chances of that happening are not zero, but it's pretty hard to do because there's plenty of sources of faction and the trick

to essentially elite class rule within a democracy is to just continually turn up the volume on faction. Just keep faction developing. You want as much faction as possible. And this can even be invigorating and a form of rule and can create all sorts of innovations. Who knows what can happen? That's where you want the social discontent to go.

So, I mean, that logic is very old. Divide et impera. Divide and rule. So that's what's, you know, picked up and in the post-war era kind of emerges into wokeness. And I think that, you know, the role of foundations and the intelligence services are important because –

It's the intelligence services that are dealing with the fact that it starts in Europe, but then it's out throughout the global south. You're never going to get rid of opposition.

In a class society, you're never you're never going to have workers who are exploited and working very, very hard and not making enough to survive. They're never going to be happy with that. Right. So there's always going to be resentment and you just have to live with it. You're going to have to find ways to manage it and channel it into irrelevant, safe distractions. So, you know, that's what what.

That's what woke comes out of. It's not like all of these components in woke are preconceived as like, oh, we're engineering woke. We're here in the late 40s, early 50s, engineering this thing that by the year 2000 will be understood as woke. No. It's like they're nudging, they're intervening, they're responding to conditions as they develop. I mean, to some extent, the turn to foundations, though it's old and begins in earnest after World War II, it really takes off

after the late 70s when there were all these exposés, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, all these kinds of things that show, that reveal the existence of stuff like Operation Chaos, which was basically illegal CIA involvement in American politics. They're not chartered to do that. They're supposed to be focused abroad, right? And in response to that, you know, little bit of a crisis,

much more of the kind of political influence operations just goes off book. That's when the National Endowment for Democracy is- Right, invented. So the CIA could do their work, their dirty work under the guise of democracy. And there would be- Much more openly where it's just like, yeah, this is the National Endowment for Democracy and this is what they do. What are you going to do about it? You know, they-

So they fund opposition groups all over the world. I don't know if you saw Kamala Harris had an interview with Brett Baier and it didn't go well. But there was what's funny was they all a lot of the news organizations described it exactly the same. Kamala's testy interview with Fox News has the mainstream media all repeating the same line. This is from James Lee.

There's obviously something going on here. So I dug deeper, and what I found is maybe not the conspiracy you expect, but

but perhaps even worse. So let's watch this. What is going on here? Yesterday, Kamala Harris had a big interview on Fox News and the mainstream media coverage looks very sus. Essentially the same take across multiple outlets. By the way, for them saying that Kamala Harris's interview was testy, that's sexist because that's based on testicles.

Oh, and I can't say I can't say the other word that goes there or else I'll be demonetized. But anyway, there you go.

Using the word testy test Kamala Harris spars and Fox News anchor in testy interview Kamala Harris defends economic plan in testy Fox News interview look at that testy testy testy testy Jack Ramaswamy says never seen the word testy used so ubiquitously at the same time the media's level of coordination even in their choice of language makes one wonder how free our free press really is but today we're gonna try to figure out what's really going on here

Is it the CIA Operation Mockingbird? Could be, right? Large scale intelligence operation infiltrating media organizations for propaganda purposes could very well be. A couple of fun quotes. You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl for a couple hundred dollars a month. That was a CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor of the Washington Post. The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in major media. William Colby, former CIA director. There

there is quite an incredible spread of relationships you don't need to manipulate time magazine for example because there are central intelligence agency people at the management level william b bader former cia officer supposedly that program was halted decades ago but some say that it is still very much alive today i mean just look up catherine marr she is the head of npr and uh just take a look at some of her intelligence alleged intelligence background alleged

Now, I think there also could be another possibility, I think more probable. Some would say less insidious, but I actually think it's way, way worse, which is this. News agencies like the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse, the AFP, act as intermediaries between campaign and media outlets.

by collecting and distributing news to media outlets. So basically the Kamala campaign can draft an article, send it to AP, use these exact words, right? The exact framing that they want, attest the exchange with Fox News, and AP will distribute this to everybody else. And most of the time, the results are like this. They will just take almost verbatim what the initial PR release is and maybe edit it a little bit. But this is why you get this kind of

repetitive language. So is that better or worse than the CIA controlling journalists? I don't know. It might be. I mean, I think it might be worse because that means that journalists are just willing to parrot whatever the campaign wants them to parrot because at the end of the day, they all want that access. So with that, I will close with the wise words of Noam Chomsky, who said any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

Hitler did. Hey, this is like a well-known thing that nobody does in reporting. They just buy stories. There's like all the stories on all the major networks. They're buying from AP. And where he's like, it's either or. No, it's not either or. CIA, who do you think is running AP? It's called a cutout. It's bold. It's bold. The reason it's like that is because it's CIA. That's why they can say we stopped doing that. Get it?

So now they're not directly doing it like they used to. Just like the National Endowment for Democracy. They can say, no, it's National Endowment for Democracy doing it, not the CIA. That's what cut it. When I first heard the term cut out, Aramate told me what it meant. I had never heard of it. But that's so we can say, no, we don't pay him to do that. We pay a guy to pay a guy to do that. And they're all trained monkeys that just do whatever we thought, you know, whatever we hand them.

Like that's, that's why you're like, Oh, what are they? A CIA agent? No, these morons aren't even in on it. They're stenographers and, and like, you know, actors and dipshits and a hundred dollars a month. Yeah. They don't pay him shit. Most of them have to be rich to get into it now.

Because it doesn't really pay. That's why only rich twits like your Taylor, what's her name? The Washington Post. Yeah, you came from a good family and went to Columbia for journalism. And it's okay, you got all these crushing school debt because you're rich anyway. So then you can do an internship, right, and not get paid. Then you get paid too little. Or my girlfriend used to work at the Getty. All these maniacs still wearing masks. They're all rich kids. And they're deathly afraid of getting their parents sick because they're like, my parents, they have to show devotion to their rich parents, you know?

because they're losers that work at this Getty Museum and haven't done anything. So they overplay how concerned they are about their elderly folks.

It's like it's so simple to make this happen. And Dome Chops, he's right. He said that. And also, he said, there's nothing more further with JFK you need to look into. Yeah. So here's what remember that what Orff said. Watch this. Here's a similar thing that happened. Watch this. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically is the best Biden ever. He is sharp.

intensely probing and detail-oriented and focused. For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America. I mean billionaires in America. This is a man who is sharp, who is on top of his game, who knows what's going on. He's smart. He's on his game. His mental acuity is great. This is a very sharp president.

And the people that I've talked to say he's as sharp as a tack. He's fine. They say he's sharp. There's not a problem. He was sharp. He was sharper than anyone I've spoken to. The president is sharp and he is tireless. He is sharp. As sharp as...

as ever. And he's fine. All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong. His brain is good. He's still great. He is sharp in meetings. I believe the people who say that behind closed doors, Joe Biden remains sharp. In meetings, Joe Biden is sharp. He's sharp. He's fit. There is nothing to these challenges, these suggestions that somehow he's not sharp. He's sharp as a tack.

making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with COVID.

If Jesus finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President Biden, President Trump was right. He did beat Medicaid, beat it to death. Actually, Joe Biden is sharper and has more mental acuity.

than Donald Trump because more people believe that actually Joe Biden's mental acuity is better than Donald Trump's. I mean, he's sharp, he's funny, he's sharp as a tack. Kamala Harris says he is up to this task, he's sharp as a tack, and he's smart, he's energetic. One of the themes this election cycle

is that Joe Biden is too old to lead. And so everyone is seizing upon this. And it is a classic disinformation tactic. If you edit it in such a way, you can make it appear that he fits this narrative, that he is slow, that he is wandering off. I got my handicap, which when I was vice president, down to a six. And by the way, I told you before, I'm happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?

That's the biggest lie that he's a six handicap of all. I was an eight handicap. President Biden has proven himself to have a strong memory. He has a great memory. His mind is just as quick as that. He is sharp enough. Biden was sharp enough. President Biden is sharp. He's focused. He's bright. The president is sharp as a tack.

He's a sharp as a tack, as in good for holding a postcard to a wall. Anyway. Yeah. You know, Jimmy. What? I know when I sometimes when I personally when I accidentally sit on a tack, I laugh for two weeks. Anyway, we could stop it there. That's that's an amazing. He's still better than Kamala. You know what? I'm happy after watching this video. And after Kamala, I feel drained. I want to take a nap.

He's better than Kamala. Isn't it amazing how they all use the exact same words? What? He's sharp and he's focused. He's sharp as a tack. He's sharp as a tack. He's sharp as a tack. Behind closed doors, he's sharp as a tack. It's hypnosis. That's why you hear people repeat that to you verbatim. They're being hypnotized. That's the whole reason. Look, you know how you get ad copying? You got to say their points.

You hit these points for sure. It's like that, but times 11. And that's why people say, that's Putin propaganda. We got to run to the terrorist run to the sound of the guns. We fight them there so we don't fight them here. Yes. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

So here is Donald Trump's greatest hit. So he went to the... There's a lot of great jokes. I think his best joke was, he said, you know, I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to appear anywhere in New York City that's not accompanied by a subpoena. So I thought that was a great joke. But here's somebody... I think the Vigilant Fox put this together, his top five... I don't know who put this together, but I found it on Twitter. Here's his top five...

jokes from last night. I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying that men have periods, but then I met Tim Walz. Well, I better wrap up.

Well, I'd better wrap up because Mayor Adams told me earlier that I needed to make this one very quick, especially the city has reserved this room for a large group of illegal aliens coming in from Texas. Here's this number three top joke. A group called White Dudes for Harris. Have you seen this? White Dudes for Harris. Anybody know it? Are some of you here? White Dudes for Harris. It doesn't sound like it.

But I'm not worried. That's an ad lib. That's it. That doesn't sound like it. Here we go. It doesn't sound like it. But I'm not worried about them at all because their wives and their wives' lovers are all voting for me. Someone wrote that for him. That's a good one, though. Yeah. Yeah.

A major issue of this race is childcare, and Kamala has put forward a concept, a plan. A lot of people don't like it. The only piece of advice I would have for her in the event that she wins would be not to let her husband, Doug, anywhere near the nannies. Just keep them away. That's it.

That's a nasty one. That's a nasty one. Nasty one. Chuck Schumer is here looking. Now, this is my favorite of the night. This is my favorite.

Chuck Schumer looks like he's doing an impression of the hunchback of Notre Dame. I mean, just look at him. He's hunched over the whole time. But at least he's laughing. I'll give it to him. Watch this. Well, he told him not to go with Kamala. You can tell he told him not to. Yes. Follow the orders, you know? Yeah. Here we go. Schumer is here looking very glum.

This didn't look too lovely. It looks too lovely. But look on the bright side, Chuck, considering how woke your party has become. If Kamala loses, you still have a chance to become the first woman president.

That was funny. Those were all funny. Those were funny. And Kamala, big mistake, not showing up. It makes her look weak. Hey, become a premium member. Go to JimmyDoreComedy.com. Sign up. It's the most affordable premium program in the business.

Don't freak out. Don't freak out. All the voices performed today are by the one and only, the inimitable Mike McRae. He can be found at MikeMcRae.com. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. That's it for this week. You be the best you can be, and I'll keep being me. Don't freak out. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't freak out. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

Do not freak out.

Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to Election Day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances, it can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News. And every morning, my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand with just enough context so you can listen and hear.

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