I Can't Love without God (an ex-atheist argues badly)

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The thinking atheist. It's not a person. It's a symbol. An idea.

The population of atheists in this country is going through the rule.

Rejecting faith. Persewing knowledge.

Challenging the sacred. If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth.

Not because I put my hand on a book and made a wish and working together.

For a more rational world. Take the risk of thinking, feel self.

Much more happiness. Truth, fusion, wisdom will come to you that way.

Assume nothing. Question everything. And start thinking.

This is The Thinking atheist Podcast. Hosted by Seth Anders.

Man, I've seen some nonsense floating around this week.

Couple of articles sent to me that I just have to start with.

First, on the agenda today is one of those stories that we hear from,

often from apologists who are defending God, and they usually start with,

while I was an atheist. I used to be a non-believer in God, but something was missing in my heart.

I had sacrificed the true religion of usually its Christianity.

The true religion of Jesus, love and Christianity.

And I had accepted the religion of science.

Dun, dun, dun, you know, the godless religion of atheism.

And then they will sort of throw that out at the beginning as a supposed credibility.

Builder, and then they came back to God, and it was all kumbaya hunky-dory.

And their life now has wonderful meaning and purpose.

So there is an article that just got posted on the 12th of this month in the Atlantic.

Now, I like the Atlantic. I read the Atlantic.

This is an off-ed by Luis Perales titled, What Atheism Could Not Explain.

Uh-oh. We can see this when coming, can't we?

Well, allow me to unroll this series of straw men and just bullshit ideas.

Honestly, I'd kind of like to have this guy on the show to talk about his story.

Christopher Bayhaz's path to atheism began in college.

Close encounters with death. A brother's car accident.

His own cancer diagnosis led to a period of disenchantment.

I love these parts of the story, right?

If you are disenchanted with religious explanations,

well, it's because trauma happened in your life.

This is sometimes the case, but articles like this have a de-legitimizing approach to it.

Often, it is a cage-rattling experience that causes people to re-examiner, re-evaluate where

they are in their lives. But the way he phrases it is, well, there was a car wreck,

and there's cancer, and he became disenfranchised with God.

Back to the article. He picked up Bertrand Russell's anti-religious

diatribes and started skipping mass, which he attended since childhood.

And I find this next sentence interesting.

In the years that followed, he immersed himself in the work of atheists,

such as Albert Camus and Arthur Schopenhauer.

Well, I'm an atheist activist, but on the front lines for 17 years,

who the hell is Albert Camus and Arthur Schopenhauer?

And why was Christopher Bayhaz relying on these guys?

Who are they? So I had to look it up.

Albert Camus was a Nobel Prize winner for literature in the mid-20th century,

and an atheist, he's a political activist, and then this Arthur Schopenhauer guy,

he wrote a book that was published around 1800.

So we're talking about a guy who was active more than two centuries ago,

and yet these are the influences for this guy, Christopher Bayhaz, back to the article.

As he grew older, something shifted.

In his new book, Why I Am Not An Atheist Bayhaz,

a novelist and former editor of Harper's magazine describes why he ultimately rejected the

conclusions of these thinkers and others. The choice was, in part, due to philosophical

objections, but he describes another motive for his return to faith, a refreshing counter to

how religious conversions and religion more broadly are frequently talked about today.

In short, he fell in love.

Now hang on just a second. If he decides he's going to return to religion for reasons of philosophy,

that doesn't sound to me like he is approaching religion because he evaluated and accepted evidence.

No, no, no, this is a philosophical interpretation of how the world should be approached.

The article says comparisons between faith and romantic love crop up throughout the centuries,

appearing in the Bible, the song of songs is one long love poem, and the reflections of early

Christians, such as origin and saint Augustine. All right, hang on. So the song of songs, which is

also known as the Song of Solomon Old Testament book, often referred to when people talk about how

prudish Christian energy is, and the pastors and apologists say, oh, hang on just a second,

you haven't read the song of Solomon, which talks about physical love between a man and a woman,

and the song of Solomon to me is just awesome. The phrasing of physical love breasts are compared to

fawns. A man's penis is sweet fruit. Fruit to be eaten. His genitalia is a bag of

merr. I don't know about you, but I mean, I don't mean to be crude, but does anyone else think

that a ball sack is like merr? A woman's genitalia is a garden of pomegranates that should be eaten.

The woman has lips and a mouth like honey and milk. Okay, hang on. I got to just read you just a

little bit of this, and I'm going to add a little music in because we definitely need the full

experience for this. All right, I'm stealing the idea from David Fitzgerald, an author,

atheist activist friend of mine who actually did this on stage. I think you played porn music

in the background. All right, here we go. Song of Solomon.

Your lips distill nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The scent of your garments

is like the scent of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride. A garden locked

to fountain sealed. Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates.

Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates with all choices, fruits,

henna with nard, nard, and saffron, gallimus, and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense merr,

and allows with all chief spices. Say, garden fountain, no well of leaving water,

and flowing streams from Lebanon, Jesus Christ. And it goes on and on. And on. Come, my beloved,

let us go forth into the fields and lodge in the villages. That sounds sexual. Let us go out early

to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the great blossoms have opened,

and the pomegranates are in bloom. There, I will give you my love. Okay. So apparently,

the former atheist being addressed in this article fell in love with a woman and felt a stirring

in his genitalia bag of merr and decided that only God could explain the sensation

and specifically only the Christian God, again, back to the article.

In his 1923 biography of Francis of the CC, the British critic G. K. Chesterson remarked that for

the medieval saint, religion was not a thing like a theory, but a thing like a love affair.

A proposition echoed by David Brooks a century later when he wrote that faith is more like falling

in love than it is like finding the answer to a complicated question. With both faith and romance,

the comparison suggests abstractions and proofs only approximate what experience reveals.

Ineffable wonder, a shout-it from the mountaintops elation, confidence, and the unconditionality

of another's love. For Beha, though, falling in love was more than merely analogous to having

faith. It was a catalyst. More than a decade after first reading Russell, he began seeing someone.

Oh yeah, it's getting even better. So now we've got an almost totally emotional response to

a theological or even a scientific question. He began seeing someone. It went poorly at first,

he acted wooden and self-conscious and rambled about his literary ambitions while she nodded politely.

He said she was not the kind of person who judged other people on what they did for a living,

but once he changed course and tried to make her laugh instead, she taught him two things that he

could and that he was still capable of both being happy and making another person so. Within a year,

they were engaged. That wasn't the only change he quit drinking. His depression receded. The

thought of having kids, something he had previously written off as a futile act now appealed to him.

As he tells the story, atheism became untenable, not primarily through an argument,

but because of its inability to explain how his future wife had changed him. My life was filled

with love, he writes, but there was something in this love that demanded I make sense of it.

Are you shit me? He got Twitter pated for a woman, wanted to improve his life and become a

better person, therefore God. The article, the various forms of atheism espoused by the thinkers

he'd read seemed unable to provide an explanation. The scientific bent exemplified by atheists such as

Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett offered in his view a reductive account of his love,

flattening it to a physical sensation, a neurochemical process in the brain, a handshake between

dopamine and oxytocin. Romantic idealism, Beha's term for the belief of atheists such as Friedrich

Nietzsche, that each individual must fashion meaning in a meaningless universe could not contend

with the fact that Beha hadn't brought about his newfound sense of meaning on his own. It was

external at the mercy of someone else. Yeah, Beha, we have a word for that, it's called

external stimuli. And in this case, it was another human being.

To Beha's surprise, the Catholic faith that he thought he had left behind

provided the meaning that he was seeking. Oh, that's awesome. So now he is allowing the long time

Catholic corporation and pedophile cover-up operation. He is allowing the people who run it,

fancily dressed men who do not keep the company of women. He is allowing those people to help

define God's model for his earthly love. Inspired by medieval Christian mysticism, a tradition

that emphasizes contemplation and a willingness to live with perplexity. I'm sorry, I read that

as a willingness to remain confused. And the New Testament claim that God is not just loving,

but love itself. He started attending mass again. Jesus Christ, this is the criteria for God

belief. Beha's wife, however, has remained an atheist. Although, quote, completely supported and

mostly good nature to bound it, she was admittedly mystified by his return to faith. Did her husband

really believe in this? She wondered the miracles, the social doctrines, the resurrection. Beha's

response is to describe himself as a, quote, skeptical believer. For him, moments of certainty

co-mingle with moments of doubt. Does this sound like true conviction to you? Like, I believe it,

but, ah, shit, this makes no sense to me. And I'm kind of confused by it and be wildered.

Does that sound like true belief? Sometimes skepticism, he says, seems willful and obtuse,

yet he persists that belief is not after all something that is done once and for all.

I gotta finish the article, I know you probably frustrated, hang on.

Other recent conversion stories share Beha's focus on both love and what their authors come to

view as the limits of atheism. The philosopher Matthew Crawford described to the free press, how he

became a Christian after meeting his wife, as he put it, faith opened a previously unseen layer

of reality that scientific explanations miss. He says a lot of very thoughtful people who once

believed reason and science could explain everything are now feeling a genuine hunger or something

more. The Pepperdine University political science professor Jason Blakely wrote in America magazine

that his atheism began to crumble when he realized that he had been, quote, surviving on a meaning

that came from outside himself. His conversions, Genesis as with Beha's, was his future wife's love.

I see a pattern. Somebody gets infatuated, they feel warm and fuzzy,

they feel attraction, the desire to share life, they feel an innate and organic and naturally

explainable attraction and love to someone else, and they say, wow, this is so powerful,

it couldn't exist just in nature. It must be God. And then it's interesting that they gravitate

back to the specific religion that is in their circle to begin with. You're not seeing Beha run

over to Allah. He didn't crack open the Quran and go, oh, thank you. Thank you, Muhammad,

for writing the Quran and leading me to the great author of love, Allah. He didn't go into a

Hindu faith. He didn't go into like new age spiritual and he went back to the Catholic mass.

This emphasis on love has potential pitfalls. It may strike some readers as sentimental.

And many people argue that at some point a religious person must commit themselves to

particular doctrinal claims and practices, the details of which Beha in his book does not

extensively explore. He doesn't explore or analyze or explain the doctrines of the faith that he

says are now true. His accounts and others are nevertheless valuable because they depict a path

to faith that's an alternative to the one portrayed in many prominent conversion stories,

which paint Christianity as a sort of cultural antidote for civilizational decay. Now, I've got

to stop again. Remember the atheist Ian Hershey Ali? She escaped Islam. She tells her story in a book

called Infidel. It's a powerful story of how she had gone through genital mutilation as a young girl

and had escaped a high control Muslim faith and found her new path here in the United States. And a

few years ago she came forward and she said, you know what atheism isn't giving me what I want.

And Christianity kind of feels good. So I'm just going to go and be a Christian and she wrote this

article explaining her path into that specific faith. And if you read the article, there is no

theology. There is no doctrinal claim. There is no tethering of her belief to the evidence that

there was a Jesus or the authenticity of the scriptures, the proof of miracles. There's none of that.

The whole article came down to, it just kind of makes me happy. And I'm just going to do it. And

that was it. And lo and behold, the article mentions Ian Hershey Ali in 2023. After many years as a

committed atheist, she described her conversion to Christianity as being motivated by a desire to

fight off the formidable forces of authoritarianism. Islam, and quote, woke ideology. Uh-huh.

It was the woke progressive lib atheist that made her jump over into, I mean, I think she's got

some conservative ideas. By the way, she made absolutely no mention of Christ or of love in her

explanation for going back to the faith that a 2021 conference JD Vance over invoking JD Vance

described his conversion to Catholicism by saying, quote, I really like that the Catholic Church

was just really old. I felt like the modern world was constantly in flux, the things that you

believe 10 years ago were no longer even acceptable to believe 10 years later. The British rapper

Zubi, Zubi, Zubi or Zubi. Now I feel old. Zubi, Zubi posted on X a few years ago that quote,

the West is absolutely screwed if it loses Christianity. That post received nearly 2 million views

and earned a reply from Elon Musk. Elon Musk who replied, I think you're probably right. The

article's almost overbearing with me. Is it possible to understand Christianity as a bulwark

against social change and still hold on to faith sincerely? I think so. Ali and Vance have

elsewhere also reflected more personally on their conversions, for example, but describing one's

religion primarily as a tool to harken back to the past or as a way to defeat your enemies'

risks overlooking the humanizing power of belief. This is what makes Bayhaw's book so worth

while. For showing how religion at its best offers more than a theory of cultural renewal,

as is there and back again story conveys faith can foster humility of the mind and of the heart

and it desire to see others with the love they believe God sees in people. Why the hell would you

need God to have humility of the mind and the heart and desire to see others in love?

It is such weak sauce. The empty calorie vibe of that article actually masks or tries to mask

a more sinister message and that is one that we often hear from religious people in our orbit

and that is you can't properly love unless you believe in God. You can't properly have a fulfilled

life unless you believe in God. You are incomplete. There is a God-shaped hole in your heart and

your mind and your body and your soul if you don't believe in God. Well, this is it's really a

sinister message because it delegitimizes everybody who either doesn't believe in a God or

believes in a different God, be it a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu, a Sikh, a whoever. The whole love

angle is really a Trojan horse for judgment. You can't be a complete you without my God.

Anyway, that was on my mind and I just wanted to vent about that and who better to vent to than you.

This is vicarious venting as well. This is a communal vent that is happening and I'll tell you

something else. It's been driving me crazy and it's all the freaking podcast bros who are all

looking around, bewildered, going, hey, wait a minute, the world's on fire and shit's not happening

as promised. How did this happen? And of course you and I want to take them by the shoulders and

shake them. But there's a guy who writes for the Daily Beast and he also has his own sub-stack

and he gave voice to our frustrations. He just said it so well. Let me take a short break when I

come back. We're going to go after Joe Rogan and his pals. Hang on.

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at patreon.com slash Seth Andrews.

I am guessing that you are like me. In your frustration that we live in a society that seems to

dismiss, starve and even, I don't know, punish. Experts, advocates for public safety and they are

bringing us forward into a more enlightened and advanced age technologically and otherwise,

we don't even give a shit about them. Most of these people make a meager living in no one knows

their name. But we are more than happy to make rich and famous, the Kardashians,

TikTok influencers, people who there's a woman, she is rich. She lives in California and I

shit you not. She's making six figures a month selling boob sweat. She goes out to a pool in the

hot sun swimming pool. She gets hot, she perspires, she takes a jar, scoops it up, seals it,

puts it online, people pay hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars for boob sweat. These are

the people that we reward as a culture. Joe Rogan has the most successful podcast in the world and

is making a squillion dollars and that guy is as dull as a sack of wet mice. We as a culture have

made him rich and beyond the fact and I don't have a problem with rich. I don't know,

be successful. Be millions of dollars successful. I'm happy for you. But what the hell? Joe Rogan

walks into the room with you. You are still alone. And beyond cluelessness, what's frustrating

is his incredible power. His power to spread nonsense by bringing in every Alex Jones RFK

junior anti-science crank and crackpot on the planet and talking to them like they have a legitimate

point of view to be considered. Well, the comedian and actor and writer Michael Ian Black, he's got a

sub-stack article and he went hard recently after Joe Rogan and he just said it so well. He just

nailed it. And I'm going to read for you what Michael Ian Black said in regard to the podcast

bros. The article is titled Joe Rogan would like you to know he feels misled. He said, we're

starting to see a few miserly may occult as emerging from the loose knit collection of influencers

who went to bat for Trump in 2024. Fuck him. I don't need to see Joe Rogan shaking his head and

disbelief at the events unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz or Theo Vaughn aw shucksing it or the

Strait Freddie Mercury and Rue Schultz feeling misled. These guys and others like them allowed

themselves to be seduced by the lies for the clicks. They helped create an ecosystem predicated

on believing conspiracies, ignoring evidence and distrusting experts. Now they feel played.

I guess that's the difference between playing an idiot and being one.

Rogan Vaughn and Schultz are distinct from people like emerging Trump critics like Matt,

what is a woman Walsh and Tucker Carlson. Those guys are primarily activists. The podcast bros

are primarily entertainers. The world they created emerged out of disquiet with what they perceived

as heavy-handed political correctness, which bled into sympathy with right-wing complaints of

censorship and religious freedom, which then turned into Covid is a bio-weapon. 9-11 was an inside

job and we didn't land on the moon. By the way, he's referring to Joe Rogan, who used to think

that we faked the moon landing. This is how thick Joe Rogan is. Yeah. Somehow all the same

guys who were happy to just ask questions about everything else were more than willing to swallow

Trump's obvious bullshit hole. Why? Because they're f*** not sure. But also, Michael says, because I

think they aptly represent a cross-section of American men frustrated with a changing culture

that they believe seeks to lay world's problems at their feet. You know what? They're right to

think that because right now the world is on fire and it's their f***ing fault. That's what

happens when an infotainment ecosystem pinches itself off from reality. What a bunch of

meatheads jerk each other off for three hours at a time on their interminable podcast, which are

then fed into the eardrums of millions of dumb guys. I'm using dumb guys as a single descriptive

working shit jobs who correctly feel betrayed by the empty promise of the American dream.

A dream Trump and his cronies are doing everything in their power to undercut by funneling more

and more of the nation's wealth into fewer and fewer hands while desperately trying to direct the

fury of the American people toward trans swimmers or something. God were dumb. Even the George W. Bush

years as stupid as they were didn't plumb these depths. If you recall, Bush talked about being

engaged in a reading contest with his chief of staff Carl Rove. Can you imagine Trump doing anything

similar? Believe me, I'm not giving any credit to George W. Bush for anything. I'm just making

the point that the man we thought would go down in history as the dumbest American president.

Now shines as a paragon of intellectualism compared to his Republican successor.

Imagine looking at the Bush years and thinking to yourself, let's go dumber.

What frustrates me most about these podcasters is all of them possess genuine curiosity about the

world. They want to know stuff but choose to place their faith in the least credible people because

those people feed them a story they want to believe. As a UFO fan, I'm all too familiar with these

kinds of stories. Stories of vast conspiracies, ancient wisdom, secret cabals, techno-optimism combined

with paranoid delusion mixed with a soup con of race science. For a certain kind of fella,

it's a heady brew because it creates a carnival mirror-style structure of victimization for

dumb guys who resent marginalized groups advocating for themselves because they associate equal

rights with somebody taking their stuff. Nobody wants your shitty jet ski braxton.

And now that they see what they brought, they want our grace? I'm inclined to give it to them.

Yeah, fuck him and all that. But if a few influential podcasters are man enough to own their mistakes,

then I'm willing to grant them whatever forgiveness I can muster. Right after I rub their noses

in the stink of their own mess. But unlike love, the thing about forgiveness is that it comes

with a price tag. It's conditional. It requires something beyond a roofal monologue about how things

got weird. I'm not interested in these dudes performing brand management. You don't get to walk

away from the fun house you built when people are wandering around inside, lost. What accountability

would actually look like is this. Admit that you were wrong, not just about Trump, but about the

epistemology that got you there. Admit that maybe the experts you mocked were at part of a global

cabal, and that the boring, unsexy work of evidence and expertise actually matters. Admit that

entertaining every crackpot theory doesn't make you an iconoclast. It makes you a sucker.

Most of all admit that millions of listeners took cues from you that the dumb guys weren't just

abstract avatars and your download metrics. They were people forming their understanding of the

world through your shows. When you normalize paranoia and contempt for expertise, you are exacerbating

whatever problems you sought to fix. So yes, I'll accept the apologies when they come. I'll even

welcome them. But the price of rejoining reality is admitting that reality exists.

And if Rogan, Bond, Schultz and the rest truly want forgiveness, they're going to have to do

something radical for the podcast age. Start telling their audiences the truth, even when it's

boring, even when it's complicated, and even when it doesn't get nearly as many clicks as the lie.

Pretty good article from March 12, Michael Ian Black. Joe Rogan would like you to know he feels

misled. He articulates my feeling exactly. We never expected genius from Joe Rogan. He will never

be missed at a Mensa meeting. And I'm okay with having conversations. If you understand the

context and responsibility of those conversations given the power of a platform, if you're going to

bring some crackpot in fine, but challenge the hell out of them and have someone on your show at

the same time with the credentials, education, and expertise to properly do so. Nobody will ever tell

me who I can and cannot have on my own show. But I'll tell you this, if somebody shows up and makes

some bad shit claims, the responsible thing to do is to say, hey, wait a minute, you're going to have

to demonstrate that. You're going to have to cite some sources and back that shit up. I think that's

fair. Okay, I have one more thing that I want to read for you. I'll tell you this. I have no business

even thinking this. I'm sure I'm not going to do it. It will be stupid to do it because I have almost

no bandwidth left. But I actually thought about a third podcast. It wouldn't be a lot of prep

for me because I would a few times a week be reading for you some of the most interesting stories

op ads. I don't know, some of the stuff that I browse when I'm trying to get informed about the

world. Usually there's one or two, maybe even three pieces that are published that either provide

information I hadn't been aware of or encapsulate the information in such a good way that I just think,

wow, you know, this really is a great summation or provides a ton of facts and sources. And I thought,

well, you lead a busy life. You don't always have time to sit down and read all this stuff because

you are not a full-time activist. What if I could narrate what if I could read for you the articles

that I am finding that I find fascinating and then I could just link them in the description box

so you could go and see the sources. And I would of course credit everybody. But I thought, well,

wouldn't anybody even want that? And what would you even call it? Articles? I can't imagine

anybody would be like, oh yeah, I can't wait to subscribe to that show with Seth articles. I

don't even know what I'd call it, but I thought about it. And there is a piece that I'm about to

read for you that made me again think about it. Let me take my last break of the show and we'll do it next.

The US Virgin Islands invites you to discover the stunning beauty of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John.

The US Virgin Islands is truly a magical place, one of a kind and unlike any other destination,

with incredible food, warm hospitality, vibrant culture and breathtaking beaches. It's everything

you could want in a vacation. And the best part, no passport is required when traveling from the US.

No hassle, just easy travel. Whether it's the world famous truck bay in St. John, that was voted

the best beach in the world, the picturesque Megan's Bay Beach, or the stunning point you doll,

America's easternmost point. USVI will take you to a place that no other Caribbean destination

can match. For most, the US Virgin Islands is just a quick nonstop flight or a simple connection

away. Stop planning your getaway to America's Caribbean at visit usvi.com. That's visit usvi.com. USVI

naturally in rhythm. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this

spring? Make sure you take some time for self-care with savings on all your favorite hair care

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It was published on the 16th of this month on the social media platform for a mighty girl. Now

a mighty girl is a website and it is a social media platform that empowers women. It provides

resources for women. There are blogs that talk about the empowerment of women. It celebrates

very high profile women who have gone on to great success and shares a lot of their stories

and I don't know how I got subscribed to it but I am and I found this piece fascinating.

Came out just a few days ago, actually fascinating and enraging. I'll just read it for you.

March 16th, 5pm from a mighty girl. When ABC News is Miriam Khan as Trump on Sunday about a new

fundraising email that used a photo of him at a dignified transfer ceremony for six.

US service members killed due to the war he started with Iran. An email urging supporters to

donate up to a thousand dollars beside an image of a flag draped coffin. He said he thought it was

appropriate. Then he said he hadn't seen it. Then he asked who she worked for. When Khan said ABC

News, he called the network maybe the most corrupt news organization on the planet.

When she tried again asking why five thousand Marines and sailors were being deployed to the

Middle East, he shushed her and said you're a very obnoxious person. Now, you know, I have to

actually play the audio of this for full effects and yes, it is enraging.

If you have to take the bike transfer and the pack is also promising an access to

the secret. Well, I was happy to take the fine transfer unlike a lot of other people.

If you have the appropriate email to send, you're pretty excited about your fundraising.

I didn't see it. I mean, somebody said that we have a lot of people working for us,

but there's nobody that's better to the military than me and all you have to do is look at the election.

Look at the election results. Look at the kind of votes that we get. Look at the bold numbers.

There's nobody that's ever been hired as a president that may be with the military.

You do the same thing to the six day military.

ABC News.

The work of the worst, most fake, most corrupt.

You do the same thing to the government.

You know what, ABC News? I think it's maybe the most corrupt news organizations

for the planet. I think that's terrible.

I don't want anyone from ABC News.

Back to the article, the day before,

Trump had taken to truth social to attack New York Times White House correspondent Maggie

Habermann, calling her maggot Hagerman and another sleazebag writer in the ads sleazebag in all caps,

while threatening to drag her into his $15 billion lawsuit against the Times.

The apparent trigger, Habermann appeared on CNN earlier in the week to discuss

how Iran's retaliatory strikes on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz were driving gas prices up.

A conversation in which she and anchor Caitlin Collins noted they've been flooded with

alarmed texts after Trump publicly suggested higher oil prices were good because, quote,

we make a lot of money.

Americans watching their gas bills climb didn't find that as reassuring as Trump did.

Habermann, who was covered Trump for two decades and authored the Trump biography

Confidence Man, said nothing Trump's own advisors would dispute. He attacked her anyway.

Two attacks on female journalists in two days. But the pattern didn't start this weekend

since returning to office, Trump has targeted female journalist at least 16 times,

with gendered insults at a staggering and escalating clip.

The targets include Caitlin Collins of CNN, stupid and nasty, on Truth Social,

told in the Oval Office to smile while asking about Epstein's survivors.

Catherine Lucy of Bloomberg, quiet, quiet piggy, Katie Rogers of the New York Times,

ugly both inside and out. Nancy Cortes of CBS, are you stupid? Mary Bruce of ABC, a terrible person.

Rachel Scott of ABC, obnoxious, terrible reporter, Ouija Zhang of CBS, and Libby Dean of News Nation,

both told they'd be incapable of passing a cognitive test. Laura Hernandez of News Day,

totally unprepared, Leslie Stahl of 60 minutes, washed up, Trump hating. Yamesh Alcindor of NBC

called aggressive, told to take it nice and easy. Natalie Allison of the Washington Post,

very bad attitude, and unidentified CNN reporter, what a stupid question for asking if Iran takes

his thread seriously. Liz Landers of PBS, rotten reporter, presiding his own attorney general's

conclusion that the 2020 election wasn't rigged. And now Maggie Haberman, maggot, sleaze bag,

and Miriam Khan of ABC, very obnoxious person. Piggy, ugly, stupid, nasty, maggot, rotten,

obnoxious. The vocabulary isn't aimed at journalism, it's aimed at women.

What connects nearly all of these attacks is what the reporters were asking about when Trump

lashed out, Epstein, dead soldiers, war spending, gas prices, election fraud, deportation,

policy. These aren't gotcha questions. They're the questions Trump most desperately wants to stop

being asked. And every time a woman asks one, he doesn't answer, he attacks her. Khan asked

about fallen troops. He shushed her. Collins asked about trafficking survivors. He told her to smile.

Lucy asked about Epstein. He called her a piggy. Haberman discussed the economic cost of his war.

He called her a maggot. The insults aren't a side show. They're the tell. They reveal exactly

which questions he can't afford to answer. Trump's degrading insults are no accident. They represent

a calculated pattern of gendered attacks designed to intimidate, demean, and ultimately silence

women journalists who dare to ask challenging questions.

Elisa Lee's Munoz, executive director for the International Women's Media Foundation,

told the Guardian, President Trump's targeting of women journalists is nothing new.

His appearance-based insults are gendered attacks meant to shut women journalists up.

While name-calling may seem harmless, coming from the head of our government, it often

sets in motion a torrent of abuse toward the journalist, which not only impacts her ability to work,

but also sends a chilling message to other women journalists who are confronting him with hard-hitting

questions. But here's what Trump doesn't understand. Intimidation only works if we let it.

As Catherine Jacobson of the Committee to Protect Journalists reminds us,

what reporters do is really hold power to account.

News-guild CWA, President John Schlauss, put it perfectly,

the United States government doesn't get to control the media. It's called a free press for a reason.

Trump insults female reporters because he can't answer their questions. That should tell you

everything about the questions and everything about him. To help female journalists,

breaking barriers and refusing to be intimidated in the US and around the world,

you can support the critical work of the International Women's Media Foundation.

And there is a website, the link is iwmf.org. That's for International Women's Media Foundation,

iwmf.org. Now, I want to finish with part of a speech. This sounds kind of lame, but it's actually

really good. It's a short segment from a Freedom Awards presentation, the award given to the executive

director of the International Women's Media Foundation, Elisa Lee's Moones. She was on the stage

talking about some of the challenges that women in journalism face. And I thought, well,

why would I say it in my words here when she can say it in hers?

Two thirds of women journalists worldwide have been victims of harassment according to our research.

And an astounding 60% experience these attacks in their place of work.

Who would have thought that a female journalist is in greater peril at the hands of her

colleagues and supervisors than she is in the field? But the online world is where journalists

experience most threats and attacks and intimidation today. According to iwmf research that

will be published later this summer, 90% of respondents to our survey believe that online

harassment is on the rise. Female respondents believe that their gender is the leading contributor.

These experiences have a profound and long lasting effect on journalists. At least a third

of respondents to our survey have symptoms similar to those of PTSD due to online harassment.

The effects also run deep in the heart of the industry. 30% of respondents report

practicing some form of self-censorship and 29% have contemplated leaving the profession altogether.

Attacks against female journalists are personal. They are often violent in tone and misogynistic

and they are driving people out of the profession which should worry all of us.

As I accept the 2018 Atlantic Council Freedom Award on behalf of the International Women's

Media Foundation, I challenge each of you to help change the status quo. This is a roomful of

leaders and influencers. If each of you simply asks whether you are receiving balanced information

by noticing the gender of your newsfeed and choosing to click on articles written by women,

commenting to media outlets when you see a lack of diversity and standing up for those you see

being harassed online and in person, you will be part of the solution.

As our friend and benefactor Howard Buffett has said, if there are people out there trying to

shut women journalists up, let's make it hard for them. Such a good point. How many other

journalists were right there? And they should have immediately refused to take another question

or they should have shared outrage. They could have taken a stand right there on Air Force One

or in the White House briefing room or wherever Trump happens to be speaking. I sure would like

to see more direct pushback when this kind of thing goes down. I'm sure you feel the same.

Okay, that has been kind of a popery of whatever's been on my mind. I've just been bouncing around.

Some people enjoy when I read to them other people want called driven shows. They enjoy listeners.

Maybe they want special guests. They just want me to rant off the cuff. I don't know. I try to mix it

up. I don't know if today was your cup of tea or not, but I'm so glad that you stuck with me

until the end. And I will have another show ready for you next week. Let's rendezvous then.

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