1684 Steven Beschloss + News & Clips

0:00and Hello, it's Monday. Welcome to today's episode of stand up. I've got a great brilliant guest as I do every day almost every day. Stephen Bacheloss is back. He was great a few weeks back for the first time his sub-stack America America is awesome. We have a great conversation. I think you're going to love it. But first I've got your headlines and a clip show. I do the headlines live during the 6 a.m. hour on sub-stack. You want to join me live? That would be great. Did it today? Just past 6 a.m. Then I'm headed up to Syracuse to hang out with mom and dad for a few days this week. So expect to hear from them somehow. Some way I hope you're doing okay. I hope you had a good weekend. I'm happy that you are here with me at the beginning of October. And I hope that you're part of our community. Our growing community, the stand up community, our Patreon, on sub-stack, on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. which will be this week on Discord anytime. So join us and sign up now. All right, let's do the news as it was today this morning just past 6

1:01a.m. East on October 5th, 2026. This past Friday was the first Friday of October. And therefore the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes out with its numbers and who knows if anything that comes out of the federal government is accurate. But they are saying at BLS that the economy added only 29,000 jobs in September. And that is far cry from what was expected 90,000 jobs, which still is not a lot. The economy is still growing albeit very slowly. And unemployment rose to 4.2% and growth in average hourly earnings fell to 3%. Well below the current rate of inflation. So there you go. How are you doing? How is your job security? How much more expensive have your bills and groceries, etc. become? And how is that

2:04affecting you and your family and your budget? Do you have a budget? How's that going? And let's move on. All right, more headlines. Brazil had a presidential election. I was today years old when I found out that they were having an election. I did not know that one of the most populous countries in the world was having a big election. And at first it sounded like Jolce. What's his name? Bolsonaro? He year Bolsonaro was running again. But no, it's his son. It's the same two names that we've seen in Brazil for a long time. Bolsonaro or De Silva. It's Lulu De Silva who wasn't prison. Now Bolsonaro's in prison I believe. But Lulu is president again. And there was an election yesterday and it looks like it's going to a runoff. It is going to a runoff. And the right wing guy won. The right wing guy's son run. Brazil's presidential election headed to a runoff. After surprise first round victory for right wing senator Flavio Bolsonaro will

3:07face leftist incumbent Luis Anaciel Lula da Silva. After neither secured more than 50% of the vote, which is the threshold to win outright. So now they have another election and hopefully they will get it right. And by right, I mean left. Did that make sense? Hopefully De Silva will win. This was big news over the weekend. All US Air Force bombers in the United Kingdom were returned to their home bases in the United States, following a suspected terror plot that US officials have suggested maybe linked to a run targeting US military facility in the UK. About a dozen B1 bombers were among the aircraft removed from royal air force base in Gloucestershire England, a US official telling Fox News the base of the only European forward operating location for America's heavy bomber. So we're retreating as a result of the war started. There's no other way to see it. Then as a result of the war started by Israel and the US. The US is now retreating abandoning escaping, taking its most precision expensive

4:14bombers. I don't know if they're most put there up there. The B1 out of its most forward operating base in Europe because of a threat because of a threat there. So in a related story, the, well, they're talking about that threat that took place at the Air Force base that there was three men. There were three vans of men and that they were somehow plotting still no evidence has been shown. So I don't trust the government intelligence. But if they're moving B1 bombers, it must be seriously. I've been questioning that case since it broke last week. But the other case that we heard about is the high D failed suicide bombing, I guess where the pilot, go pilot attack the pilot on a airplane and an airplane filled with Israelis. Well, apparently he was a quote loan wolf. He was an extremist. He was a loan wolf. Never should have been flying that plane because they people knew he was. But it wasn't Iran that was behind that. And I think that's important. It's important that we don't blame an entire country for a plot because that would give us more evidence

5:17to want to go to war with them. Oh, he's really important to know the evidence behind an accusation. Well, move it on. Did you know that there's a plan to put a nuclear reactor on the moon? Yeah, we have a plan. China has a plan. Apparently Russia does too. But in late August, NASA asked contractors to prepare a, to build a nuclear reactor that could survive a space voyage and then run without any maintenance near the moon's south pole. Imagine if it did need maintenance and if, imagine if that was your job, where are you going, honey? I got to go to the moon to fix the nuclear reactor. Might sound like science fiction, but the agency NASA wants it ready to be launched by December 2030. And Russia aims to have a lunar nuclear reactor by 2036, part of the secretive partnership with China. So there you go. There's going to be a potential nuclear reactor on the moon. And can't imagine what could possibly go wrong. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens with that.

6:23Sounds great. Democrats are leading gubernatorial races and deep Republican territory, according to the polls, turnout, the only thing that matters. But this is still good news, signs of good news. Democratic advantages in the races for governor in Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and Alaska reflect deep unhappiness with the president and the economy. And Republican also leading, however, in Texas, but we'll see about that in Kansas, rather in Kansas, but we'll see about that. The Democrats leading in Texas, both the governor and the senatorial race, I tell Rico, I was like a 70% chance of winning. Is that what I said? Is that right? Can that be possible? But your headlines in the comments if you're watching live on sub-stack, by the way. And if you're not watching live on sub-stack, you should be live on sub-stack in the 6 a.m. hour doing the news for you every weekday. Early sets the goal. There's one month before election day folks, voter dissatisfaction with the economy concerns about political extremism, frustration with our commander and the Democrats reaching

7:24to flip four Republican held governorships. So I just think that that's pretty good news. And so I want to mention that one. More like the department of Homeland Gryfftary, am I right? Did you hear about the story that the air time has? The Homeland Security Department signed a multi-million dollar agreement to buy five aircraft from a company owned by a political contributor to the secretary of Homeland Security right before she got fired. Yeah. So look at the story about Christine Knowham, who's just filed for divorce from her husband. Who went tits up. Did you hear about that? And the jokes that will have gone with it. And also apparently she got, she signed over a contract right before she was fired. But she's still working in government. She's like a special on by the and boy to the state department. So I think she'll be fine. She's very mad at the near times for this reporting. Also more wild ridiculous crazy and same behavior from the shitler. He publicly published

8:28Senator Tom Cotton's phone number, which is kind of funny because Tom Cotton sucks. He did it to Lindsey Graham, I believe as well. But the reason he did it is wild because of Trump wants to pass a new law that gets rid of daylight savings time. And he stayed it over the weekend. It's because one reason is because people for golfers, it'll make golfers happy. The Sunshine Protection Act was passed by the House. It's in the Senate, but there are senators like Tom Cotton and Arkansas who know that that would mean that families are going to be putting their kids on the bus in the dark. And that stayed the reason he's against it. I'm sure he cares about Arkansas's kids a lot. But that's a crazy controversy. I got punched in Ohio nearly 1400 laid off at a truck factory just days before Trump is expected to do a rally in Ohio. And at least some of those laid off

9:32voted for Trump all three times and now they're advocating for supporting Democrats. I write about that in the near time. So good. Look it up. A woman who worked at a Russian plague research institute in Siberia died. Now, to a suspected lab incident authorities are investigating whether a dangerous infection may have been released. I say they should send Putin in to investigate it because I'm sure he's covering it up. And there's a new study not that we needed one of 2.5 million children that finds no link between MMR vaccine and autism. That's right. The findings published in the pediatric infectious disease journal indicate the precise timing of the immunization was not linked to a child's likelihood of being diagnosed with the developmental condition. So we didn't need any evidence. We didn't need necessarily another study, but they did one. And there's no evidence that receiving the MMR vaccine before age 2 is associated with an increased risk of developing

10:35autism. Get your kids vaccinated. All of them listen to your pediatrician. Almost all of them are on the same page. And in a related vaccine story, apparently the shingles vaccine might actually slow down dementia. So get that one too when it's time. It would be groundbreaking for dementia, according to experts, if the shingles vaccine actually had that effect. Okay, moving on. Did you see the power to the people concert in Maryland, Columbia, Maryland over the weekend organized by Tom Marillo, Marillo of rage against the machine as well. I know his name and interviewed him and met him a few times. Great guy Tom Marillo. He's getting raked apparently for there being news that he didn't vote for Kamala Harris or something like that. Anyway, he had Tom Marillo had springsteen, it Dave Matthews, he had Dave Grohl and food fighters there. And a lot of people are talking about the fact that Jack Smith was also in the audience. Springsteen made an anti-ice speech before

11:40he played. But apparently Jack Smith was a star. He would just walk around with a beer. You said the pictures and the videos apparently Dave Grohl shouted them out. Said he was his friend. So that's pretty cool. Also, I guess it's hot in California. More than 35 million people are under heat alerts. Yesterday afternoon, a dangerous multi-day October heat wave continues across nearly all of California temperatures expected to short 20 degrees above normal this time of year, the 90s and hundreds in northern California, including the San Francisco Bay area to the Mexico border of that is crazy. That's crazy. And finally, today, the Supreme Court kicks off a new nine-month term of nightmares. I'll have Eric Segal live, Professor Eric Segal, constitutional professor at Georgia State University and president of their new Con Law Institute there. Eric Segal will join me at noon East right here on Substack. Now, let's get to the clips I've gathered

12:41for you from the weekend. Of course, the most important clip of all and ever and there will never be a more important clip. At least during this election cycle, I was going to go very hyperbolic and say ever would be the candidate for Republicans. The one they nominated that they themselves, obviously, probably don't like Vivek Ramaswamy. So Ramaswamy is doing a campaign rally. First of all, shocking they had as many people there, but he tried to pick up his son who looks like he's too big to be picked up. And it looks like it might have been rehearsed. But either way, with such a fail, it is the most amazing video and maybe the worst video sent for a politician on a campaign trail since Michael DeCoccus and his tank and his helmet. Remember that one. Anyway, here it is. Let's watch it together. The audience reaction alone is worth it. And the aftermath of it has been as you would imagine.

13:42And it looks like the Democrat in this election is going to just go out. Her name is Amy Akden. She's just going to effortlessly pick up children. She knows she can pick up and then just hold them effortlessly. That should be every campaign ad from now until the end of the campaign. All right, I thought that was really good. And so I wanted to open with that. This is brilliant. Here is the mayor of New York, Zora Mamdani, on Theo Vaughan's very popular podcast. The only reason he did it is because for some reason it's very popular. I guess Theo Vaughan was gone to New York. It looks like maybe Mamdani was in LA, but I don't know what this was, but it's great. Here it is. It's easier to categorize if you put everybody in a box. It's easier to categorize. And it also absolves you of responsibility. What responsibility is absolved you of? If you're a politician and you look at a voter and you say, well, they're in that box. It means that you don't have to try anymore. Oh, I see. You don't have to reckon with why they

14:42might have chosen that box. Right. So often people talk about this like it's faded. Like people are forever that thing. And to me, it's like every day is an opportunity to win someone over. And if you're just caught up in the fact that someone wasn't always with you, then you're never going to actually build something bigger than yourself. If you just want day ones all the time, then it's like, well, how many people were your day ones? Like shout out to your day ones, but you also need to build a coalition that goes beyond. Pretty brilliant stuff from the mayor of New York. He continues to effectively teach and message well. Don't give up on people. You never know when you might make a difference in their lives as someone working in government. You know, maybe you can dissuade someone. Maybe you can change the stereotype they might have about a government agency or person as a result of a program. And I've always thought that it's really important for us to support government is flawed as it is, as corrupt as it might be, like any entity out there. We should do our best to like good people

15:47to do good things in the public interest is that to Nambi Pambi. Sorry. All right, let's go on. Let's go to Alan Richardson. I love Alan Richardson. He is, of course, the actor who plays Reacher on Amazon, a show that I have been a long time fan of. He sat down with Dex Shepard on his very popular podcast. And well, he had some good stuff to say as he often does brave for a Hollywood actor who's trying to appeal to everybody. He feels so much right now just thinking about that because it's also like up to these people to to like want to create change in the world, right? Yeah. I can let go of the resentment. And then what does that do for the world? It allows these predatory fuckers to like just continue. Look at the politics that we do with right now. Like like the White House is in ruins. Oh, fucking UFC cage on the lawn. And like, man, just do it. You just fucking do it. And nobody says anything. And no consequences. Nobody asked. It wasn't done legally. There's no plan in place. Now you're asking for money secrets. It's like, it's like, what are we doing? And there's no consequences. And so you okay.

16:52So like, I'm just supposed to let go of my resentment that this fucking guy is just raping the world that he lives in for whatever game he personally can have. And I'm supposed to let that go. And then what? It fucking still exists. I'm not going to let him go. I fucking hate it. I hate that that shit still lives in the world. Yeah. Unabated unchecked, unresolved, yeah, unclansed. Look at the Catholic church and like the predatory behavior that is just going completely unmet with those victims that are still like unheard, unseen, no forgiveness, no resolution, no cure. And what is what is releasing the fucking resentment going to do for the world? Like I think we should hold on to some of that anger. So somebody gets guy rich eating wakes up in a pool of their teeth and blood. I love that he's a guy rich. He did not jack Richard or Richard. Okay. Okay, Alan Richardson. I don't think that's exactly how it should be worded. I don't want people to suffer. But I do want accountability. There's a huge difference. And that's what he is asking for. That's what he's demanding. There be accountability for bad things. And maybe we'll

17:55see that. Maybe we will. I talk a lot about that. My conversation with Stephen Beschloss coming up. Here's another clip though. I love this from Angie Nixon who is running for Senator on the Democratic ticket in the state of Florida. Does she have a chance? I think so. Let's listen to her in this very, very human moment. An interview with CBS reporter who covers Florida. It was really good. And so I wanted to share this with you as well. I'll tell you something personal. So I was a single mom for 12 years. And I was a single mom for 12 years and I struggled, you know. But I improved positive of what happens when government does the right thing. As a single mom, I was able to afford a brand, not a brand new home, but afford a home because the government, the federal government had a program that had money that trickled down to the state that trickled down to the local government. And at the age of 29, after graduating from the University of Florida and working for the state of Florida on a $28,000 a year salary, I was able to purchase a home for me and my

19:01daughter because government did the right thing. Those types of programs have been cut under Donald Trump, especially when he pushed this big beautiful bill, which I call the big BS bill. And so that is why my lived experiences are why I do what I do. My dad, um, where do you get so emotional? I get so emotional because I don't like to see people struggling the way I struggled. Um, I grew up in a house filled with domestic violence. And um, I left my mom at a very young age during a moment when she was under attack by my dad. And because of that, I run towards bullies. I will never leave people when they are being attacked, facing, um, oppression being harmed. That's what drives me. And look, Jim, you got me crying on TV. I'm supposed to be the strong black woman, you know, but like that's why I fight. That's why I fight.

20:07Clip alone is the best clip I've seen this election cycle because of its authenticity. I'm supposed to be. You got me crying. Well, to me, it looks like the kind of human that I think should be leading people, one who has been through it and one who can relate to it and one who understands solutions for it. Angie Nixon, four senators, I love it. I really, really love that clip. Obviously, I can't say enough about it. Okay. Well, I don't really love this one because Ron the man you will on meet the press. He is considering a run for president. Again, in this clip, I think he intimates, well, he's asked whether or not America's ready for a Jewish president. I don't think it's Judaism or his faith that progressives and Democrats take issue with ramen in you. Well, for, but here it is. Do you think America is ready for a Jewish president? Yes. And let me say one thing, Kristen, my faith is not your problem. The fact that Americans have lost faith in America.

21:12That's our problem. And we should work on that because I've seen a generation of people with an emptiness who've lost faith in America because they think America lost faith with them. That's our problem. It's not my faith. Now, three, Frank, if my faith is a problem for you, don't fall for me. I'm not changing my faith. My faith led me to struggle and fight the insurance companies that were denying kids health care. My faith led me to take on a failed education system where we were known as the worst city. And I walked out and we were the best city on education. My faith guided me to make sure that the American people and their families had what it took as a government fighting powerful forces, whether it was pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, or in fact, educational failed bureaucracy. So I believe as a member of Congress who got elected in the district many choose or a city without many choose. I believe in the goodness and the grace of the American people. But I will not change my faith. I worry about the fact that we have a generation of people

22:15who have lost faith in America and they think America lost faith with them. And then... Okay, all right. I've heard enough, but I don't think that's going to be the issue for him. John Othesauf is also Jewish and I think plenty of people would vote for John Othesauf for President United States. All right, here is Alex Gibney, one of if not the most respected and award-winning documentary journalists. I've interviewed him several times. He's got a new movie coming out. It's like four hours. It's about Elon Musk, a lot of controversy whether or not it will be distributed because everybody is afraid to show this movie because of threats from the world's richest man. But it's an exposure of a kind that we've not seen. Anyway, here he is with Mediason Zateo, very important. Is Elon Musk the most dangerous person on earth? Right now, I think he is just today or yesterday, I think Pete Hegseth made him what was a co-director of the new Defense Department plan for war in the future. With new...

23:15Gingrich. With Lama Lucky. Yes. So now you... It's a little bit like the Joker being handed the keys to the Manhattan Project. I mean, it's that existential because XAI is the most reckless AI company there is. I would say the Joker is smarter and more charismatic than Elon Musk and funny. Love that. The Joker is funnier than him. Let's go now to clips from the power for the people concert that I mentioned in the news segment. Here is Tom Morello on stage. I'm Tom Morello and welcome to the inaugural power of the people festival. This land does not belong to the billionaires in the oligarchs. It does not belong. It does not belong to the racist and the war mongers. It does not belong. It does not belong to the fascist and the would-be dictators. No. Brothers and sisters, this land belongs to you and me. How are the people?

24:20Oh and here's Chuck D as well and then Flavor Flavidian. This concert is not by Ed Sheeran and promoted. Free Palestine. Free Haiti. And please free a closed mind. That's too easy to say. I call it 47-45. No matter what, 20-28, you still got to shove them down. All right. That was fun. And now a message from award-winning actor Robert De Niro. The country's most important election ever and you have the power to change things. Power to the people. Use that power. Don't waste. Show up and vote. First, check your registration. Go to headcount.org. Make your plan and know the rules and deadlines in your state so you can avoid any last-minute problems at the polls. And if they send those ice goons to the polls to

25:24scare you, mumble every four letter words your mother told you never to say and keep walking to hand in your ballot. Okay? Don't be afraid of those people. And if you've checked your registration status and there's a problem, don't let them take your voice away. Go to voteriders.org. They'll help you fix your status so nothing stands between you and casting your vote. Voting is how we hire and fire our leaders. You're the boss. Not them. Your bones how you protect your freedom. You're rights and your neighbors. Your vote is much more powerful and they're fear, hate, and indecency. So don't sit this one out. Get out there and vote. Denero, nailing it as he has been known to ever since 45 came to power and then returned somehow. Here is Tim Snyder. On the Midas Channel, Tim is one of the most respected obvious voices. I say obvious. I think most people have heard of him when it comes to authoritarianism and fascism. And here is a new term he's come up with. Term that I came up with when I was trying to capture all

26:27this is super power suicide. I guess can't see an example of a country, a major country losing so much power so quickly as the United States under Trump. And that has the alliances are part of it. We've encouraged our enemies and we've made our allies not trust us. But there are other parts of it as well like that we've shown that we are incompetent with the basic with the basic instruments of state power. We're incompetent with trade and we're also incompetent with war. We've managed to decisively lose a war to a middle power in a matter of three days or four days or five days or six on the outside. We may not realize that because we're trapped in an American nationalist media bubble. But the rest of the world realizes that we lost a war to we lost a laughably conceived and ridiculously badly executed war to a middle power in a matter of days. Very well said, Professor Snyder. I like it. And now let's go to Cornell where we finally heard from the president of Cornell University, Michael Kautbeckoff with this statement that he

27:29put out. To Jane Doe in 2024 is deeply disturbing and will weigh heavily on our community for years to come. My heart aches when I think of what she experienced. It raises heartbreaking and troubling issues about sexual assault, dehumanization and aspects of party culture, alcohol and drug use. It also raises questions around the investigations conducted after the allegations were reported. I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say. We don't have all the answers, but we are committed to investigating and finding the answers our community deserves. I believe we as an administration and we as a community must do better. We must do everything we can to prevent what happened to Jane Doe and everyone before her

28:30and anyone after her from ever happening again. In conjunction with our Board of Trustees, I welcome the independent review by an outside law firm into all aspects of Cornell's handling of the 2024 matter, which the board will announce next week. We also support the governor's decision to turn the criminal investigation over to the New York Attorney General. But we will not wait for the investigation or the review to be completed before we act. Where we see opportunities to strengthen prevention and education, student support, mental health and substance use resources, investigative processes or coordination among our university offices, we will act. What happened to Jane Doe in 2024 is deeply disturbing? Well, there you go. Do you believe a word he's saying or do you think they are covering their ass and other universities around the country, institutions, organizations don't want the bad press that

29:33comes with bad things, but it gets a lot worse when they find out that you are not an organization that holds rapists or other crimes accountable. So that's my commentary on it. And here is comedian Beth Staling on the issue in general. I thought this is funny. Well, always be somebody who says women make these claims for attention. I'm just like, who would want that attention? Like what are the benefits? Are you imagining these women going to job interviews and saying things like, as you can see on my resume? Not only have I been raped, I've also been in the failing to work 24-7 because frankly, I'm terrified to be alone in my apartment. I thought that was a great joke. I also think a joke like that could be made by a man and should be. And I also think that that's, by the way, evidence as that you can joke about everything, including, yes, rape. People have always said that you're not allowed to joke about certain things, and you should never joke about rape. That was a complaint I got one time when I did a college

30:35performance that was also an anti-rape joke. So it's an anti-rape joke, but is it still a rape joke? There you go. You could decide whether or not you think Beth Staling's joke was appropriate or not. Okay. I also thought it was good to share John Asaf whenever possible. Here he is. And I don't know if you saw this. Now, the money that they took from you when they doubled your health insurance premiums, the money that they took from you when they slashed Medicaid and defunded hospitals and nursing homes to give yet another tax break to their corporate donors and the wealthiest people in the country, they're taking that money to buy corrupt taxpayer-funded political ads on national television to try to promote the failed and broken president who is now staring at this midterm election, recognizing that accountability for his corruption and misdeeds is coming. John Asaf on the campaign trail. Excellent. As always. And finally on the clip show today,

31:37it's the weekend update from Serena Live's this past Saturday night with Michael Chey. Well, this week, Defense Secretary and AA sponsors Nightmare Pete Hegset said that new US military standards mean, quote, no more drag shows, no fatties, no beardos, no weirdos, no whimps, no radicals. So basically, he's banning the entire career of Mike Myers. Also this week, the White House removed CNN from the press pool covering President Trump's Trump to Texas mid-flight. President Trump, who now has the exact same posture as Bullwinkle, said he convinced AI executives to sign a deal that is morally binding, you know, like the devil. President Trump is now claiming that the new White House ballroom will have armed drones and a

32:39mo and an elevator and a ways of gun and a giant water slide. During a Hispanic carriage month celebration at the White House in which President Trump showed attendees the new ballroom floor, he warned them about falling over the edge, but added only a Hispanic could survive that fall, which got no reaction from the crowd because people prefer racism to make sense. In an interview, Vice President JD Van said that in this year's mid-terms Republican space in uphill climb, but hey, they've done it before. A new report shows that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxden, who was running as Republican for Senate, has taken more than 275 out-of-state trips while in office. Damn, he must have needed a lot of

33:40abortions. Republicans in Texas are attacking Democratic Senate nominee James Tallariko by questioning his masculinity and calling him low-T. Tallariko said he wished people would stop saying that as he blew the seeds off a dandelion. In an effort to win back in Spanish support before the mid-terms, the Trump administration sent JD Vance to campaign in South Texas. And if that doesn't work, they'll send in the Chupacabra. You don't like it? Whatever, Colleague. Former Homeland Secretary Christie Knome has officially filed for divorce from her husband Brian Knome. And I guess we'll never know why. Christie Knome said that she's sad about the divorce, but is always happy to separate another family.

34:45Tennessee tried and failed to execute a woman on death row after injecting her with lethal drugs twice, said the woman, okay, now do a silly one. Of course, one of the big stories in the news this week is the sexual assault case at Cornell. And obviously, we don't want to make light of anything that happened, but it is a good time to talk about men holding other men accountable. And look, we all have that one friend that seems like a nice guy, but you know, they're definitely not. They can be someone you're close to or someone you work with. Maybe you can't prove anything. You could just look at him and tell those weird, privileged Ivy League types always got some nilks on the phone. And Colleague, did you want to add anything? What? Stop cutting to me. Don't want to help women, cool. Let's just give Dr. Josephson one hand for Colleague. Well, if the Cory Booker's own, no, he doesn't deserve it.

35:47Senator Cory Booker has introduced three bills to stop the White House from naming an aircraft carrier after President Trump, instead of honoring a Black War hero. Trump has proposed a compromise to name it after his favorite Black War hero, Robert Downey Jr. Close enough. All right, there you go. Some jokes. You had to see a lot of them, which is why you should watch instead of necessarily listen. But whatever works, I appreciate you being here and being you and supporting my work. I can't do without your paid subscription post. So please sign up now. At sub-stack at standup with Pete, if you're already signed up on Patreon, don't change a thing. Don't try to change things. Don't worry about it. Not changing anything. Appreciate everybody there. And you'll continue to get the regular notices until I decide that it's appropriate to change things over which I just might. And maybe I'll reinvent myself. Who knows? But I'm so happy to have you here. Where I get to talk to the most brilliant people I can find each and every day in this daily podcast and podcast. Steven Beschloss is my guest today because he is a very smart guy. He's an author,

36:52a commentator, an analyst, a journalist, a filmmaker, and he's been at it for a long time. I'm really happy to have him back on the show. You should follow him, support him on his sub-stack America, America, where he is real real smart. And obviously listen to his interviews over there as well. Real glad to have him back on the show as support the work of Lincoln Square, where he also appears as a regular correspondent and commentator. And I have as well a good line of folks over there. Let's do it right now with a very important conversation with the brilliant Steven Beschloss. Well, look who I found. Steven Beschloss, very excited to be talking to you. You've had an exciting week because of course you had this huge interview that you did with what's his name here at Rita Hunter Biden. I'm not familiar. Yeah. Well, he's had an interesting history to say the least and it's a remarkable thing that he survived it, both in terms of his own personal struggles with

37:55drug addiction, but just as much the very, very public struggles of dealing with a MAGA world that has worked aggressively to try to kill him in all kinds of ways. And that's a lot to bear for one human. The Biden family history is a fascinating American story filled with tragedy. And he is kind of, you know, the heir to a lot of it, but he went through so much. He's been doing a bunch of interviews. What made you want to talk to my watch is really good. And I learned a lot of things I hadn't yet. And I've been watching everything that guy says, I think he's fascinating. I think he's very intelligent, very vulnerable, very honest. And I also think he's a great role model for men, for addiction, for a lot of things that men I think especially need to see what, why did you want to talk to him? What did you learn? Well, two things. One is I was particularly excited by how honest he's been, how transparent he's been of late, how much he

38:57seemed to decide that, you know what, I'm going to just say exactly what I think and not feel fetter, not feel restricted. And you know, the way he put it in our conversation was sort of the gift of radical honesty. You know, he's sort of been through everything. And you know, there's nobody in his family who's running from off for office right now. He's in a place where he can be exactly who he is, right? He can, you know, I am a hunter bite and then and say exactly what I think he said. And you know, that to me seemed to be an awfully good place to start. And I thought, you know, here's somebody who has a very particular vantage point to look at our broken body politic. You know, he's been through the fire in ways that, you know, very few people do relentlessly, relentlessly attacks and and falsehoods and all kinds of other things. And I was particularly interested in him comparing what he's been through and what he's been sort of, you know, charged with

40:01compared to what we're looking at now with Trump and the Trump family. I forget which senator I think it is Ernie Moreno, who was friends with Don Jr. He was asked on a mainstream interview about Don having a Russian pay for his wedding. And he pivoted to Hunter Biden and that almost positive senator Bernie Moreno, he called Hunter Biden. He talked about how great a guy Don Jr. was, how good a friend he was and he wasn't concerned about this Russian oligarch pain for his wedding. And then he pivoted to Hunter Biden and called him and did generate. And I thought that was a perfect distillation of maga, of values of getting it exactly opposite wrong, a kind of gaslighting that we've been seeing for years we've almost gotten used to. Don Jr. is a great friend and a great guy, but Hunter Biden's at the generosity. Yeah, I mean, the levels of crime and corruption, you know, of the Trump family, you know, is just stunning and is disgusting, is disgraceful as appalling, as lawless as you know,

41:06you and I may feel about it. I expected that Hunter Biden would find it particularly grotesque to have to deal with it. And I appreciate it. One of the things that he said, again, he was leaning into a lot of this and he said, you know, I am, if the Democrats take back power, I am ready to testify under oath before the cameras, you know, in the lights, you know, under Ed Congress, as long as Don Jr. and Eric and how about Ivanka? How about the whole bunch of them are also testifying? Yeah, yes. Yeah, well, that makes a lot of sense. I wonder if we'll ever see that. You're actually working on a book right now about the history of accountability, which I think is such a profoundly important question and conversation, particularly for America, and even more specifics, Stephen, for our generation, I'll put myself in you in category. I think you're older than me, but I'm pretty sure however old you are, you haven't seen accountability for major, major

42:08scandals in our lifetime from Vietnam to the Iraq war, from the financial collapse to the, so many more things. I mean, the 2000 election, so we could go on and on. You do see white collar criminals being held responsible sometimes, but I think we're talking about the accountability of large-scale scandals that impact in my, in my generation, a whole generation of homeowners, because I bought my house in 2007 and then the housing bubble burst all over us in 2008, and we were the only generation of Americans who bought a house just outside New York and lost all of its value. That had never happened before and there was never justice for that, and that's just the beginning of it. Talk to me a little bit about accountability, and if you think we're going to see it for this administration ever, because that does seem to be the thing that slips through our grasp our whole lifetime in this country. Yeah, I mean, look, I think there are so many moments in American history we can focus on. You know, a lot of people have focused on the Civil War and

43:08Reconstruction and the failure to hold accountable, you know, at that time, you know, which led to, you know, a century of the so-called, you know, lost cause, the righteous cause of sub-owners who were convinced that they didn't lose, they actually won, and they, you know, they pursued Jim Crote and sort of proved that they were still able to hold onto power and have the world that they wanted. You know, there were mistakes that were made in terms of accountability then, you know, I've even, I'm even going back and looking at the, and this is sort of the effort that I'm underway right now, which is to go back and look even at the, the revolutionary war period and look at choices that were made and, you know, was, was, in essence, was just as served. And there's obviously there's an opportunity to do that. And what I want I've wanted to do is sort of track that all the way to the present. And no question, I've been more, I think like most people, I've been more motivated by the failure to hold Donald J. Trump and everybody beyond the foot soldiers for what happened on January

44:102006, you know, and insurrection, which is an act, the incitement of an insurrection, which is an act that would have should have ensured that, that that man would never be permitted by law, by the Constitution to be whole, to hold public office again, let alone the presidency, you know, let alone any office at any level. Instead, here we are and we can talk about, you know, why it didn't happen in the failures there, but I, you know, and I think, you know, there was a choice made and, and by the way, Hunter Biden, you know, when I brought this topic up with him, you know, his comment was, you know, that is in fact his biggest disappointment about the, you know, the Biden presidency and the which he called exactly a colossal mistake. And I couldn't agree with more that reality. And, you know, look, and it's, you know, we are now, the country is, though world is paying the price of, and of that accountability not being handled. Yeah, you know, I'm so disappointed

45:13that when I asked you the question about accountability, I didn't land on January 6th. And it's the most important event of our lifetime, because not only was there no accountability, he was reelected, and then he pardoned all the parties accountable. And then gave some of them jobs in the administration, which is a hard simulation to believe that we're in. It's a hard timeline to accept, but it's so so important. I've made it my job and partens and has been still trying to pay these people for for their service to him, his cause. Yeah, I'm really happy that you continue to write about and talk about January 6th. And I made it my, my business to become friends with four of those high profile police officers, Harry Don Michael Phenone, Gnell Akalino, and Danny Hodges. All of those guys were in, I think, an award-winning photo, leaning sitting behind Jack Smith this week. What did you think of the testimony that he gave? It's too many headlines in a way paid to Eric Schmidt's

46:15Blunder and not enough paid to the content, I think, of what Jack Smith said. And those four guys sitting behind them, they're always going to demand accountability. They're all high profile, not to mention so many other people that are sticking on this. What did you think of Jack Smith and his role as well as what happened this week? And the question of him, they called him the worst kind of names. And that was just, that was a hard thing for me. I had to take a break. I had to take a walk and a run and lift weights and then go to the target range after watching Republican senators go after Jack Smith. Yeah, I mean, look, I do think he's courageous, he's heroic. He's somebody who obviously respects the rule of law. Jack Smith is somebody who was prepared to pursue the case to the highest levels. And he had developed the case. He was ready to do the hard work of holding the former president of the United States accountable. And he said, in these last

47:17days, and it wasn't the first time that he had the material to be able to hold him accountable and to identify that he, beyond a reasonable doubt, did in fact commit crimes and commit insurrection effort to overthrow a constitutionally, you know, decided election with a free and fair election. And you know, look, you know, Jack Smith, I was grateful for him while, you know, while he was sort of doing his work. And I hope desperately that he was going to arrive early enough to be able to withstand whatever the Supreme Court was going to do. But, you know, July 3rd, it was a July 1st, 2024 is when the Supreme Court came down with its immunity ruling and that, you know, essentially stopped the work that he was doing. And, you know, that's a consequence, in my view,

48:17of a lot of foot dragging, you know, lots of legal people argue in different ways about, you know, quotative gone faster and, you know, don't hold Garland responsible or don't hold Jack Smith responsible for the fact that it didn't go faster because, you know, legal processes, you know, take, you know, XY and Z in terms of time. But the fact is, it didn't happen fast enough and we're paying the price. And, you know, at this point, you know, you hope that when, you know, when a new Congress comes in and there are, you know, Democrats in power, you know, that at least more of what Jack Smith has to say will come out. What is accountability? Well, we'll, we'll we demand it. Americans, you know, we have for it memory, a lot of people, I even in the chat here in live chat on sub-stack obviously reacting to how important accountability is, but can Democrats in Congress and the House and Senate, if they take majorities and they have the chairmanship of investigative committees, can they both get accountability for some of the wrongs? How do they

49:19prioritize what corruption they go after and who they go after? Patex at the RFK junior, obviously, the family? And can they also make America a little bit better? Like stop the bleeding for those on the margins when it comes to any number of issues that have been destroyed in the past year by the carrying out of Project 2025 and how much they've been able to get done? Can they both hold accountability and past legislation? I feel, I'll answer my question before I go to the expert. They did it already. When Biden was president, they held January 6 hearings, which I thought were pitch perfect. The best thing that I've ever did. They included a lot of Republicans as part of that to just make the point that it wasn't just a part as an effort. And they passed historic legislation that was supposed to improve American's lives if so much of it hasn't been clawed back. So I feel like they did get accountability and past legislation. Unfortunately, a lot of those gains have been lost or they weren't seen all the way. Can they do that? Can they do both? What can

50:19Congress even do? They can't arrest people? Well, they can hold hearings and they can do investigations. They can do impeachment. They can participate in prosecutions. This is setting this all up for it. And look, I think the first part of it is making sure that the people who are elected in one month from now are committed to this. So I think it needs to be Democrats up and down the line. It needs to be overwhelming defeat for the Republicans. There's no question that's that sort of first. But I've been trying to bang the drum for accountability as one of those things that does need to happen. And it needs to happen. Despite the fact the usual thing is like, look, we've got a lot to do to repair. We've got a lot to do to move forward. There's a lot of things we're positively trying to do for the country. And that one often happens is like, let's just move on.

51:22We don't want to get mired into the past with that. Let's just move forward. And I understand that mindset. But we're never going to get over this period if repair of that, if the truth and reconciliation as the South Africans did is not part of the equation of how the country moves forward. Yeah, I mean, we think about accountability in our personal lives. We think about forgiveness, redemption a lot and why. But it's on a huge scale for a society, for a country. We've seen it in other countries. In our lifetime, I think of South Korea or Iceland or other countries that have helped people account of obviously Hungary, Hungary did it through elections arguably. I just, I have a hard time because a lot of Americans like, I think I'm a big Barack Obama fan, very big supporter. And I think what he did in the end was probably right. But basically what he says, we can't look back on the Iraq war and on the financial crisis and the architects of that, we have to look forward. And that was kind of the pragmatic way of doing it. But as a result,

52:26one could argue here, we are because nobody was held accountable for their heinous crimes. And now I think this is different. I really do. I mean, I think when we're now, we're not talking about, you know, even a single war, which is a horror, we're not talking about a single decision, a single policy. We're talking about the wholesale effort to, you know, to steal the country, to end the democracy, to end our sort of reliance on rule of law and the Constitution, and by, you know, by a family and a regime that has devoted itself to stealing the country's, you know, coffers on a daily, we don't even know the full scale of the billions that have been stolen by these people. And, you know, I mean, it's, you know, were there one, one particular issue, one particular matter that was the basis for this? That would be different. But we're actually talking about, you know, essentially the wholesale operation, if I don't even want to call it a

53:27government, it really does have to be talked about as a regime that has been working tirelessly, relentlessly, you know, viciously to dismantle our system. A regime of Christian warriors, Christian nationalists will get to your piece about Pete Heggs at this week, but it's great, great how committed they are to their, uh, wrote task interpretation of Christianity, but you posted on blue sky where if people aren't following Stephen Beshloss, they should. And you wrote, uh, let's see, number one, Democrats win control, House of Senate, two investigations and prosecutions begin, three impeachment and removal proceedings, four, take back billions of taxpayer money corruptly taken by the Trump family and accomplices five rinse and repeat add to that your piece rats are fleeing the sinking ship right here on sub stack, America, America.news folks and just donate to John Assof. I'm contractually obligated to plug John Assof, um, because he plugged himself after every sentence. If you care about corruption, uh, vote John Assof, uh, but you talk about all of the

54:32specific, you have a list of people like Byron Donald's, uh, was running for governor and Florida, Republican Maria, Alvira Salazar, uh, and what she's come on said, Mike Rogers, Ronnie Percent, and Michigan, Iowa, Congresswoman Ashley Henson, you specifically cite just a few of those because they're running from Trump. My question to you, sir, is do you see a world end which it gets so bad, the rats are fleeing the sinking ship, the polling is so bad, he's so bad, Adam Kinzinger said in 10 years, people who supported Trump will say, I never even knew the guy. Do you see a world, sir, where the Donald Trump is impeached with Republicans in the Senate voting for that impeachment? Do you see it? Yeah, I mean, I think we have to look at what kind of a margin happens, right? What kind of a level of, of defeat happens in November. You know, I'm, you know, I don't want to jinx anything. You know, we're all, we're all a little bit nervous about how that's going to play out, but, but I think an overwhelming defeat, uh, and, you know, there's a lot of Republicans who are scared who are who are now starting to run away from him in very specific ways. You know,

55:35the same people who would, you know, only say privately that they didn't like what he was doing, and publicly they, you know, they, they cowardly, you know, just did nothing but, but, but, buff him up. And, you know, I think that's going to be at an end point. And, you know, maybe we officially, you know, and in traditional political terms, we would be talking about Elaine Doc. I mean, it's hard to ever talk about that as long as, you know, that guy is still breathing, but I think there's enough Republicans at this point, you know, who understand that because they've latched, latched themselves to him, you know, they are in trouble. Uh, and, and so I think, you know, the readiness to be able to take him on is going to increase enormously. I play close attention to the rats that are of right wing media, that are of MAGA media, and seeing them, many of them, not all of them sinking, you know, fleeing the sinking ship, I think it's really important to, and the causes are pretty obvious, but the most obvious one would seem to me the price of diesel,

56:36like, if I can't make money on my farm because I'm spending most of my money on gas for my tractor, if I can't make money, uh, on my trucking route, because I'm spending most of my money on diesel, if I can't afford my groceries, because they're all more expensive, apparently everything is more, everything, like that to me moves Republicans. I know this is hard for people to believe, and here it is for me too, but if gas continues to go up because of this mainly disastrous war, everybody knows what happens. Even I've been trying to fight apathy through comedy, and talk about boring issues and make them interesting for years, but I've always known. And thanks for trying. I mean, it works around the edges in kind of progressive media to keep people, you know, it's like NPR with a heartbeat, public interest, talking about boring, but issues and making them interesting, but nothing makes people, wakes people up more, then the cost of everything going up and then being able to connecting it directly to a war of choice in Iran.

57:37Yeah. And a trade war, what might I argue? Yeah, you know, again, plus corruption, you know, you know, Jared Kushner is making billions, you know, not involved in the negotiation for peace, he's involved in the negotiation for Jared Kushner and increasing his bottom line. I mean, this is, you know, and people can look at, you know, the guy who is busy building his ballroom and his bunker, who is busy building vanity projects for himself, like the, you know, his so-called, you know, memorial arch, you know, all the things that he's doing, all the destruction that he's doing in Washington, that, you know, in his sort of narcissistic and declining mind, you know, represent, you know, the apex of his capabilities and his, you know, the beauty of who he is, instead, you know, what it really exemplifies is, you know, this is somebody who's only interested in serving himself. And I think at this point, people see he's getting richer and richer while

58:40all the rest of us are struggling just to get along. And, you know, and then I think that dichotomy, that contrast is, is meaningful. It's, you know, it affects people's everyday life. And I think it'll affect people's decision-making when they go to the bail box. I hope you're right. Back in April at AmericaAmerica.News, Steven's sub-stack for people listening, many of you are here watching live, Euro back in April, that he needed to be removed in April. You're writing again on a piece, said, oh, we are facing a psychiatric emergency. The media needs to step up. Donald Trump needs to be removed from office. Make the case. But also, is this month going to be the longest year ever? Yeah. Well, I mean, look, even, even after this month, you know, no, the third is election day. I mean, November 4th and 5th and 6th are going to be really long days because we're also going to have this guy, you know, saying that it's a lie and it's fraud and, you know, it didn't really happen.

59:40And, you know, and the aggressive effort to try to undermine what the voters, what the will of the people results in. So it's going to be a long month. But do you see, you know, look, I, you know, part of the reason for my writing that piece, psychiatric emergency is that, you know, there's too much effort being made to adapt to reality, right? It's the normalcy bias where people, you know, can't imagine the things could really be as insane as they are. And so they find a way to just, you know, deal with what's in front of them. And, and we, we, by nature, we become accustomed to it. But the result is that you have this guy who's crazier and crazier on the daily, falling asleep at meetings, you know, telling that, you know, throwing the, you know, the, you know, reporters out of the Oval Office that, you know, forget free speech, forget first amendment. You know, when he was asked about it, he said, I don't want them in my office. And then he started talking about all of

1:00:44his building and how he's built L, L escalators. I mean, you know, there's, if we pay attention to what he's doing on a daily basis. And by we, I mean the media, I mean a particularly legacy or corporate media, you know, taking the responsibility to talk about what I described as a psychiatric emergency, the cognitive decline, the accelerating cognitive decline. And, you know, whatever the story is to build that into the discussion, you know, it can be a paragraph, it can be whatever. But, but make sure that that sort of stays at top of mine. And it's necessary, I think, because, you know, look, we've got a cabinet and we've got, you know, a Republican Congress that will not take action. And, you know, these are the ways that we sort of build the public's commitment to eventually this guy being, you know, held accountable. I don't know who you think is the worst cabinet member or who's done the most damage, I guess. But I think it's a, I think it's pretty easy. And it's not

1:01:48RFK. I think it's Pete Hegseth. I'm obsessed with him. And so my question you, Steven Bashlosses, you've been around for a while. You've had a really impressive career, an author, a journalist, a filmmaker. But what kind of man are you? You an alpha or you a beta? Are you a, a, a, a training? A beer, oh, a weirdo, a bearded, oh, a bearded, we're bearded. I I look at that performed of masculinity. And all types of guys, I know, including the quote most masculine ones. You know to me, as a comedian, as someone who threads, you see the humor and make fun of everything, like, it's so cringey, like I don't know anybody who would do that and, and be taken seriously. Like referring to yourself as Alpha is like saying, I'm really good looking, I'm very funny. I know, just be that, like be an Alpha or else, you're just performing. And what he did this week in the way he talks and his particular form of Christianity,

1:02:50which he wears very, and what he's doing in military, to me he's the most dangerous. You wrote about him this week and he made a lot of news to, that guy to me has caused a tremendous amount of damage just in terms of what he's done to respected leaders in the ranks across the military, and not to mention obviously and most importantly, leading a disastrous war. I just read there's any 10,000 more troops and an aircraft carrier group back to the Middle East. What do you think of him and his particular brand of performative masculinity, what it's done? Are you a beta cook, Stephen? Well, I'm gonna confess right away that I've written not once, but a number of times about how kindness and compassion are strengths, not weaknesses. I had backup from Joe Biden and Barack Obama and JB Pritzker and a whole lot of other people who said the same thing, but I'm sure in the

1:03:53Pete Hegseth Killer Pete Hegseth world where maximum lethality, toxic masculinity is sort of the highest goal where testosterone testing is more important than making sure that you have brilliant people who are actually serving the military. Does me getting on a statin mean I'm less than? I think you're gonna have to answer that question. I'm hopeful for you. I think Kamala Harris said when Jimmy Carter died, that decency is strength. Who's more masculine than someone like Jimmy Carter? Who's more a man than someone like me? Can we rewind and talk of the pride that Donald Trump, this is back to 2017, had the fact that he doesn't have a dog. Are you proud of that? That he doesn't have a dog and then he would use again and again the expression of like he choked like a dog. He acted like a dog and all of those things

1:04:55meant to be put down. So maybe he understood that a dog would be able to understand him and understand how ill-equipty is to be kind or compassionate or basically human. And it's no wonder that he chooses somebody like Pete Hegseth who's a weak and fox host who's more than ill-equip to be the leader of the world's largest military and the nation's largest bureaucracy and who has no interest more than to achieve his so-called warrior ethos and to strip away the experience and the talent and top military officers undermine, not promote women and people of color. I mean, all the things that he's done to try to undermine it are suggesting that diversity is, and this is his words, diversity is not our strength.

1:05:55I mean, this is a dangerous person. You can say that broadly, but you can also say it really specifically because then this is the person who is responsible for helping to decide the policy on the Iran war. And you know, he was part of that very early conversation again and again and again, of he and Trump talking about their no mercy, death and destruction all day long, those are Hegseth's words, and that the end of this, the victory of this war was already happened many, many months ago and here we are. So all of the masculinity is sort of a cover, the bomb-bast, the bellic acidity, the belligerence, all of that is essentially a cover of failure. I don't know if you noticed this week, you've been in the 1700s, but I'm sure the case for research for your book on accountability, which I can't wait for,

1:06:56but I'm guessing it was even worse than or similar that there were bad men everywhere. Yeah. And we've seen a lot of conversation about men and gender and obviously the results of this high profile rape, like Cornell and so many other places. And a lot of people, all kinds of different reactions, but I want to ask you just about what seems to be obvious that what do you expect young men to behave like if we are electing a rapist? So the question has always been since 2016, in November of 2016, when I promised my daughters that when they woke up, there would be a woman president. And they haven't trusted me on such things since and rightfully so, but not only do we not elect a woman, we elected a rapist. And he has appointed rapists and is friends with the most notorious rapist, a child rapist, and allegedly is one himself.

1:07:58Do you think there's a connection to be drawn about who our leaders are and how we ourselves behave in our own lives as men? You know, there used to be this idea that people would be elected based on character. And Trump broke that. And we're now looking at, I'm afraid, long after Trump is gone, that the metastasizing cancer of his abusiveness, of his sociopathie is going to continue to work its way through the bloodstream of the country. There's no question if you have a leader, that person is modeling behavior. And young people are picking up on it. I mean, it is a terrible danger. And I think about, I mean, he's been in our public life for a decade, at least in terms of the political world. You know, that means if you're looking at an 18-year-old, they were eight years old when he was essentially all

1:08:58that they knew about what sort of that level of leadership represented. I mean, we had a Joe Biden, we've had some other people that have come in, but that guy has continued to poison, you know, I'm going to say specifically, poison the minds of a lot of people and a lot of young people in particular. So I do worry about it. And this kind of quote, anti-woakness idea has come out in policy across institutions, industries, the corporate world, universities. And part of woakness is learning for men, especially about gender, about our history, about how to be a better man, about opening a creating opportunity and platforming women and not keeping an old boys club. That's a huge part of this wave of feminism, the Me Too movement, and the trajectory of our country, of our culture, of our society, which is already so patriarchal, misogynistic.

1:09:59And so the policy to get rid of any programming, any kind of DEI programming, which can be criticized for any number of reasons, but to get rid of that in the military, where there's a sexual assault and rape epidemic and on campus, where there's a sexual assault, to pull funding from any university, to use the full way of the federal government to make sure nobody talks about, nobody teaches these issues. And that, I don't know how to measure the impact of the actual policy. So it's not just rhetoric and behavior and this performative nonsense, it's actual policy and I wonder a lot and just on the case of gender, I believe in intersectionality, obviously, but just on that alone, before we get to sexual orientation, just how we think about and treat women, and by the way, fire most egregiously in one way, in my mind, that woman who became an admiral, I can't think of her name, but was a leader in the Navy, just fire her, even though she worked three times harder, probably every man, so much of that that has come out in policy.

1:11:00I don't know how much damage it's done, I don't know how to claw it back. Yeah, I mean, look, diversity, DEI, let's just start there, which was like the first thing that they wanted to focus on. If you break it down, and I won't go into this in detail, but sorry, diversity is a problem, we don't want diversity, equity, equity is a problem, we don't want that, inclusion, not to have an inclusive society, we don't want those things. So from the beginning, when you look at, they use sort of DEI as the words of a devil, to make it sound like a terrible thing, and then try to undermine all of the efforts that have been made, all across society, to try to create greater diversity and equity and inclusion. That's the first thing. And then in recent days, and it might have been even in Hegs S. Speech, on Wednesday, where he talked about that the amount of reported cases of sexual abuse are down. And he was presenting that as like a great victory, rather than the reality is that they've created

1:12:00such a hostile environment that whoever may be going through this is afraid to be able to admit that. Well, before I end, it's always been an issue because no one wants to report, because obvious reasons where you don't report sexual abuse, but when you take away the pathways and mechanisms and personnel that are the channel to report such things, then of course they're going to be down. There's nowhere to report them. Yeah, yeah, and this, and so that's part of the thing. If you create an environment where people are afraid to speak up, we've got a bigger and bigger problem. And if you create an environment where abusers, rapists, violent men feel unfettered to be able to live out their fantasies and their sicknesses, that's going to be a lot of work to get it back under control. I mean, again, when we look at what is the future hold and what is the nightmare set of tasks of a next president and a democratic run Congress,

1:13:05the list is enormous, but I think those are things that are on the list. Just checking in on the chat real quick, the live chat watching on Sub-Sack. Thank you, everybody for joining us. It's such an honor to get to talk to Stephen again. If you're not subscribed to his Sub-Sack, you should get a paid subscription because he's an American treasure. Your reputation is your currency and his is stellar. Some day he'll be as good and enough like his brother is. But Suzanne in the chat writes, am I weak? I cry every day. I'm 70. I feel like we're living in a nightmare. And my answer to Suzanne is no, you're very strong. You're a good person, you're a decent person. You're not alone. Many of us cry a lot because of the same reason. We feel like we're living in a nightmare. Part two, you're not weak, you're strong, you're decent, you're righteous, you're good. And if you're not crying or if you're not feeling that way and not emoting, then they're winning because they're scraping away at your humanity. That's my answer, what yours? Yeah, well, I mean, I think you said it well. I mean, this is a time when we want people to be open,

1:14:09we want people to be able to look at the reality that we're dealing with, not turn away, not hide, not pretend that it's not happening. And that's, if you're crying, it's because you're paying attention. And I agree, it's not a weakness. We need people who are willing to hold onto their humanity, not just in this moment, but going forward. And look, if that's stripped away, I'm all for the fight, I'm all for the combat right now because the Maga world has got to be overwhelmingly defeated. But it can't be at the price of stripping away the basic humanity for others. I just think these things have to go together because otherwise, you're going to not be focused on trying to build a future that actually is a compassionate one that does actually include a diverse population that does actually focus on equity and equality as sort of central ingredients, central values

1:15:12and principles of a good society. Yeah, my question of the week and something I've been exploring is, I've seen a lot of people reacting, good people, people I know and people I don't know to the alleged rapist, Cornell, by, there's kind of two reactions, I'll make it binary, obviously it's not. But there's like put them in the woodchipper or we can have accountability, we can have justice but we shouldn't be wishing for and hoping for suffering. I've seen this around that woman, Clancy Lindy Clancy, who murdered her kids allegedly, I guess, put her in the woodchipper. This week a woman who murdered another woman in 1995 was the first woman to be attempted to be executed in Tennessee. They failed and the irony, or maybe metaphor of lethal injection, failing on a woman meant for a man wasn't lost on a lot of people. But my question to you is like, I don't know, I have a, and I've been talking about this all week but I have a pretty strong, I think moral underpinning.

1:16:13It's based kind of been a loving kindness, meta, Buddhist philosophy, but I think that if I'm wishing for the suffering of people who I truly dislike or even hate, I'll use the word hate, but I don't want to wish for their suffering, I want accountability, I want justice, I want consequences, but I feel I'm in, this is kind of a moral question, a spiritual question maybe, but I feel like I'm a, I become them if I wish for suffering. I've come to people that I dislike and we've seen this throughout human history and it leads into bad ways. So my question to you is like, what's wrong with wishing for other people's suffering if they did terrible things? Well, I mean, look, there's sort of two things. One is, you know, you don't want to add to human suffering, you don't want to add to it, there's already plenty, right? We don't need more, we don't need to model that behavior. On the other hand, we have to hold people who are evil. Let's stay there, who are violent, who are dangerous, who are murderous, all those, you know,

1:17:15all the ways in which people need to be held accountable. You know, that needs to happen and that's not, you know, that's not, you know, because you want, it may be you hate them, it may be that there's vengeance behind it, but if it's working right, it's actually what's called justice and justice is a good thing, right? Justice is rooted in the assumption that there's a, you know, there's a right and there are wrong, there's a right way for people and societies to operate and there are wrong ways and, you know, the people who are adding to suffering and adding to pain and adding to, you know, death and destruction, holding them accountable is actually, I think, a commitment to trying to increase the amount of the good. You can hold them accountable without having capital punishment, right? Yeah, yeah. Capital, the death penalty. I know you got to go, I appreciate all of your time today. I hope when I grow up, I get to be like you. And so for that reason, he's one of the good ones,

1:18:17one of the good ones, give him a pay of subscription here on Substack and follow all the work that he's been doing because he's been doing it for a long time and has all the credibility that matters. I always appreciate joining you, joining me, but I'd more appreciate just reading your stuff and watching your interviews, you've been doing great, great work here. One of the best Substack accounts out there, Steven Beschloss, an honor. I really appreciate it. Everybody thanks for watching live. I'm at standup with Pete. If you wanna throw me a subscription, but let's do this again very soon and keep up the good work, sir. Thank you so much for all your time today. You too, stay healthy, stay strong, stay kind. You know, these are good things and I always appreciate talking to you. It's always fun. I gotta go pick up my crest door. Get him out of that. Thanks, buddy. Well, see you soon, everybody. Thanks, everyone. All right, there he goes. Steven Beschloss, thank you very much for listening, watching today's podcast. I can't do it without your support. Remember to sign up with a paid subscription. You have to stand up with Pete on Substack, like and subscribe on YouTube, where the more people I get subscribed there, the more likely I am to have revenue from this show

1:19:19on YouTube as well. Sign up on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, Threads, follow all those places where I'm posting regularly, but primarily, of course, the paid subscription on Substack is the place to go to. You can always upgrade your subscription if you've got one on Patreon and pay more and those are all the things I have to say about how I can keep this show being produced because while it is free, it is not cheap. That's it. That's all go out there and try to change the world with a smile, with a text, with a phone call, with whatever you can to ease your own suffering, to help others either change. You want to see in the world, John Carroll.org, everybody, and sign up, and support him as well as their other amazing creators in our amazing community. I will see you tomorrow, right here. Bye.

1:23:03Oh, hi. Don't be too close up. You got the show up. Ain't no better time to do it tonight. Oh, no need to plan your leaders to know once and try and rise up. Show a big issue to the boys inside. And listen well, and it'll tell you not to run that high to stand up. Stand up. Oh, got the stand up. Move, move on. To stand up. Everybody got to stand up in the dark. Because now I stand up. People got to come back. I won't be standing up. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, stand up.