 Last night on NBC Nightly News, Donald Trump told so many lies, for a second there I thought Brian Williams got his old job back. It's 3 a.m. Friday, May 11th, 2017. I'm David Feldman. We have a lot of show, so let's get right to it. On today's show, comedian Andy Kindler, our Miami bureau chief, comedian Bruce Smyrnoff stops by to describe cruise ship disasters. From the intercept, which is quickly becoming the go-to source for investigative news, Matt Ithias Schwartz talks to us from Capitol Hill about the Comey firing, Professor Cory Brett Schneider returns to give us our weekly course in constitutional law, and movie critic Michael Schneider stay with me. This is the David Feldman Radio Network. Welcome to the broadcast. I'm David Feldman, DavidFeldmanshow.com. Please friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter. Please do all your Amazon shopping via the David Feldman Show website. We get a small percentage of everything you purchase, and it doesn't cost you anymore. 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That's an example of some of the premium content you can gain access to by becoming a subscriber. Go to theDavidFeldmanShow.com. Hit go premium and we accept all major credit cards. If you're already a subscriber and you forgot the password, go to DavidFeldmanShow.com. Hit the contact button, email me and say I need the password and I will email you that password. Let's get right to it. On today's show, we talk with Mattathias Schwartz from The Intercept. That's Glenn Greenwald's website and I cannot recommend The Intercept enough. They do great investigative journalism. They also put things into context and keep you up to date with what all the other news organizations are writing. Mattathias Schwartz joins us from Capitol Hill, where you just got out of the Senate Intelligence hearings with the new acting FBI chief. Then we talk with comedian Andy Kindler, comic Bruce Smirnoff, Professor Corey Bretschneider and Michael Snyder. Stay with me. This is the David Feldman Radio Network. Andrew G. McCabe, the acting director of the FBI, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. McCabe replaces Jim Comey, who was fired by Trump on Tuesday. As head of the FBI, Comey was leading an investigation into whether or not members of the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian intelligence officials to influence November's presidential election. Comey had also led an investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. For more, we are joined on Capitol Hill by Mattathias Schwartz, who writes for The Intercept, which is quickly becoming the most serious website out there. I thank you for taking time to join us. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so happy to be here again. Well, thank you again. Thank you. And I'll praise you in a little while. You were at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings listening to acting FBI Chief McCabe. But before we get to that, how big a story is this becoming? It's a very big story, and it's still getting larger, and it's moving very quickly. And this is, I think, without a doubt, both the firing of Jim Comey and the manner in which it was done are the craziest things that we've seen Donald Trump do and the riskiest things. And we've seen him do a lot of crazy and risky things, but this is the biggest thing we've seen so far. And it's a huge gamble on his part that he will be able to get past this and survive it somehow and get an FBI director who's further under his thumb and that this won't bring the rush of stuff to a boil, which is we've been seeing that blow back for the last couple of days. And the question is whether he'll be able to tamp that down, which we've seen him trying to do for the last 12 hours. He did this last year. Old interview. He's trying to get back on top of the cycle again, so there's a sort of a lot of back and forth happening. It's very choppy. You're on Capitol Hill right now. What is McConnell's stance on this? Are the Republicans going to rally around Trump? Not too many of them are calling for a special prosecutor. The Republicans just keep saying, well, we need to know more. That's right. McConnell and the Republicans do largely seem to have Trump's back. I think we did see one Republican congressman from the Freedom Caucus, Justin Amash, start to talk about it was either a special counsel. I think it was a special counsel. I don't think it was impeachment. We did hear something interesting today. Immediately after the hearing, Senator Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, actually said that he really respected Comey and that he implied that he was sorry to see him go. That broke with what the president's been saying, saying that the guy dragging the guy's record through the mud and saying that he'd lost everyone's confidence. There's these sort of quiet murmurs about the president's rhetoric and his tone. We saw some others from Lindsey Graham and a judiciary subcommittee hearing. That was the one where we heard from Yeats on Monday. Graham was saying, we really need to get to the bottom of this Trump-Russia stuff. He wasn't happy with how the Flint thing had been handled. But then it's funny, you don't hear these guys talk about a special counsel. You certainly don't hear them talk about impeachment. You don't even hear Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer talking about impeachment yet. So it's still unclear which way the whole thing is going to break. I think the public is pretty infuriated by all this. But the congressmen and senators are still kind of waiting to see, and yeah, the Republicans are still standing behind Trump. Well, Comey was supposed to testify on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. What was he going to testify about? According to Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who's the Democratic Vice-Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, today, they were going, Warner said in his statement that he was going to ask Comey some very hard questions about what he's been turning up in the Trump-Russia investigation and where things stand. We know pretty clearly now that Russia made serious attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election in Trump's favor. What we don't know and what Comey was investigating with the FBI is, was there a collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government? Do we know that seems to be... Go ahead, go ahead. Do we know if it's more than just leaks that the Russians committed? No, we don't. We don't. I mean, I think... Are there rumors that it was more than hacking? I think you'd want to look at money. You hear a lot of people speculating about, including senators, about talking about shell corporations, talking about who's buying all these condos in Trump Tower. It's very hard to figure out exactly who because of the LLCs and straw buyers and so on. But then there's a question, like at what point does it become a conspiracy? You can scratch anywhere in any condo building, in any congressman's pocket probably, and find Russian money and Chinese money. There's Russian and Chinese plutocrats everywhere. Now at what point are they like government agents? That's another question. It's a pretty hard one to answer too. Right. It is a... We're behind it. Please, please. Law for a foreign government to donate hard money to a politician. That's correct. And we know that General Flynn had to amend some of his ethics filings, Flynn being Trump's former national security advisor who resigned in disgrace after warnings from the Department of Justice that he was vulnerable to blackmail due to statements he made that weren't accurate about his own contacts with the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak. But I'm sorry, it is very confusing, but we do know that Flynn was not honest on some of his forms and omitted money that he'd taken from Turkish interests and also from Russian interests during his time out of government and then had to amend those statements later. We know also that he was paid, I think, upwards of $40,000 by the Russian government to appear at this gala for Russia today in 2015, I believe, which is not long ago, where he sat next to Vladimir Putin. Could that be an oversight? Could that be an oversight by Flynn in terms of the forms? Yeah. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Yeah, I suppose it could be. I mean, they do have an awful lot of people, both at the White House and at the Office on Government Ethics, whose sole job it is to help these people fill out these forms. And this is the most important job of Mike Flynn's life. So I don't see why he wouldn't want to be thorough about it. And we also know that the Turkish interests actually paid him to write an op-ed against this person, Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, who's hostile to the current head of Turkey, Erdogan. And we know that these folks paid Mike Flynn, and then Mike Flynn wrote an op-ed supporting their position. And I mean, is it illegal? It is actually to file these forms inaccurately. But I think the law that Flynn is most likely to have violated is the Logan Act, which is that prohibits private citizens from negotiating a position with a foreign government that's different from the official position in the U.S. government. And the time in which Flynn may have violated this would have been during the transition during these calls with Kiflyak when the Obama administration was imposing sanctions on the Russian government or their interference in the election. You'll remember, you'll remember, said, well, we're not going to retaliate. And what we didn't know then is that Flynn was actually on the phone with Kiflyak, the Russian ambassador, during that time. And we don't know exactly what was said, but we do know from solid leaks and reports that some of what was discussed did have to do with those sanctions. And it's easy to see how that could be a violation of the Logan Act because we can really, you know, our system depends on there being only one president at a time. And the key question is, was Flynn acting on his own knowledge during these conversations or was he acting on the behalf of other folks in the White House who we'd looped in, in which case, you know, he'd be kind of more of a fall guy figure, you know, getting fired for it later on, saying the Pence didn't know anything about it. But that all remains to be seen. And I know it's awfully complicated. I hope I'm giving not too much detail. Now, you're fantastic. It is complicated. And I thank you for saying that it's complicated. Last week, Comey amended his testimony, which the Republicans used against him. What did he amend? And why would the Republicans have used that against him? Let's see, if he had said something about Huma Abedin's emails, Huma Abedin was Hillary Clinton's, you know, very close aide for a long period of time, worked with her on the campaign. And I believe Comey made a flip in his testimony and overstated the number of emails which Huma Abedin had forwarded to her husband because those emails were discovered on her husband's laptop. And this presented Trump with I think what he took to be the fact he had to amend his testimony gave him a window in his mind to, you know, that he could pounce on that and then choose this moment to get rid of Comey. I mean, that's sort of the guess connecting the two things. But one did happen pretty quickly after the other. But that was the error that he made was how many emails did Huma Abedin forward to her husband's laptop? That was a minor oversight by Comey, right? That's right. It was pretty minor. It did, though, sort of dig up these old wounds over Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. And there is pretty wide consensus among Democrats and Republicans that Comey talked about that investigation too much before the election. And Trump sort of tried to use this, I think, as the impetus to hope that that stuff could be dredged up and then Comey could be fired. And Trump used a memo written by the current Deputy Attorney General about Comey's actions during the election to sort of provide a rationale for why he was firing Comey. We're talking with Matt Ifay as Schwartz. He's the national security reporter for the Intercept, which is quickly becoming one of the great sources of information on the web, theintercept.com. You write for the Intercept that McCabe, who is the new acting FBI head, that he contradicted two White House key points, the first one being that Trump maintained he fired Comey because Comey no longer had the confidence of the rank and file inside the FBI. What did McCabe have to say about that? McCabe said that the rank and file are stand firmly behind Comey, that he considers it a personal honor to serve with Comey and that Comey's reputation internally was and remains incredibly strong. So I think that was in a very sort of a slow way. McCabe was pushing back on these kind of ad-homonym attacks on Comey's character that Trump can't seem to separate who someone is from the performance of their duties. And I think that McCabe was pushing back on that a little bit. You also write that White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the investigations to Russian interference in our elections was a small concern for the FBI. What did McCabe say about that? Yes, I think she said it was one of the smaller things on their plate. And then that quote was brought up. Her father's Mike Huckabee and his plate has so many large things on it. Russia pales in comparison. Sorry, go ahead. I can't resist. No, no, no. So yeah. No, it's fine. So that was Senator Angus King from Maine brought that up. And he's, you know, there are other Democrats who are noisier and do a lot of grandstanding. Senator King always has some of the sharpest questions that these intelligence committee hearings. And, you know, just in the ones that I've been to. Angus King from Maine? Yeah. Is he a Republican or a Democrat? He's an independent, I believe, actually. Or maybe he's a Republican who caucuses with the, I think he's an independent. I think he's an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. But so he asked, well, is it true, you know, that with the White House is saying this is a small, one of the smaller things on the plate? And here McCabe said, no, it's a very significant investigation. So that's very different from what Sarah Sanders said. Although to tell you the truth, you know, a lot of these things that with the White House, the White House press spokespeople, Sanders and Spicer, they don't have a lot of credibility. I think they often don't actually know what's going on. And they're often put in tough spots by the press corps and just have to say whatever comes on the top of their heads. So, you know, I don't think anyone, when she said that the first time, oh, it's not one of the larger things on the FBI's plate. I don't think anyone took that seriously before, you know. Wasn't Spicer hiding in the bushes after Comey was fired? Yeah. And I wasn't there, but my understanding is that he made a deal with the people there not to photograph him hiding in the bushes and that if he, no, this is pretty consistently, you know, told this way, you know, by a lot of the press who were there, that if you know, if you guys don't photograph me, then after that he was willing to talk to them. So it's too bad we don't have a photo, you know, but so it goes. He seems to be in the spotlight a lot less often now. I guess there are rumors that Trump's thinking about getting rid of him. The White House press office says that it's because Spicer has Navy reserve duty. That seems to be happening more and more often lately. We'll see. We're being told that Comey had asked for more resources to investigate the Russian story. What do we know about that? Did McCabe give any indication as to whether or not he would be asking for more resources? And is the request for more resources an indication into how wide a scope this investigation will be? So those reports came the day after from the New York Times and the Washington Post. There's probably something to him. I mean, who doesn't want more resources? I want more resources. Right. So what does that mean then? McCabe, well, at first people said more money, but then the justice just backed out on that. And they said, well, no, it's more prosecutors. Comey wanted more prosecutors. But now McCabe, McCabe today, his line was that, you know, we have everything we need, but I think some of that, it still could be true that they need more resources and more prosecutors. I mean, my interpretation is that McCabe, to a certain degree, this is his debut, and he really wants to be a good soldier for the bureau and represent the building and say, hey, look, we're going to do our job. We're going to get this done. We have what we need. I'm not a crybaby. As we're at now, I'm going to just follow the facts where they lead. And this isn't about Jim Comey. We have a job to do. And that's the line that you want the FBI to take, which is what we heard from kind of from Sheriff Gore is that this is what you want from an FBI director, someone who's independent, someone who is above the fray, someone who's not going to go tit for tat with Donald Trump or see this, you know, see the Comey thing. I mean, it's not really the FBI director, the acting FBI director's place to use the dismissal of Comey as a window to bang on Trump publicly, right? That's something that you'd expect maybe lawmakers to do, but not the acting FBI director. He's got to do the job. And part of that is maintaining some kind of professional relationship with the rest of the executive branch. And other people are going to remember what happened. But it's sort of his job to move on first and foremost. And I think McCabe did a good job of that. We're talking with Mattithaia Schwartz. He's the national security reporter for the Intercept, theintercept.com. You write that Trump has said repeatedly that Comey told him, I think three times, that it was not under investigation for the Russian hacking. What did McCabe say? Yeah. What did McCabe say about that? And how appropriate is that? How appropriate is that for a president to ask an FBI chief whether or not he's being investigated? You know, I think a lot of conversations that we don't know that happen behind closed doors, it is probably inappropriate. But I think there's probably inappropriate conversations that happen in the White House every day. They only become notable when the president chooses to memorandize them in a letter and is visible of someone that he was having these chats with. It actually is not supposed to happen and the FBI is supposed to be independent. I think they're former FBI directors who had sort of logged their coming and goings within the White House. I know this happened during Clinton's years to make sure that there was a record that they hadn't done anything appropriate. So today we heard Trump say that these three conversations, two were by phone. One was over what he called a quote, very fine dinner. This was an interview with Lester Holt. And that he sort of would ask whether he was the target investigation and Comey would tell him that he wasn't. And so McCabe was asked that today whether that's true or not. And McCabe said that he couldn't answer that or declined to answer that. He declined to answer whether or not Trump is under investigation. No, he declined to answer whether or not. I mean, they should have asked him that question. I'm not even sure that they did. That would have been a good one. He declined to answer whether Trump's statement that Comey had said to him three times that he's not the target investigation. He declined to say whether that was true or not, whether Comey had told Trump that or not. What happens if they do appoint a special prosecutor? A special prosecutor would be under the purview of the Justice Department, but separate from the FBI and the Justice Department. Is that how a special prosecutor would work? Yeah, pretty much. Although I think the law is changing in such a way that conceivably the deputy attorney general could fire the special prosecutor at any point. So he would serve under the deputy attorney general. Normally, he'd serve under the attorney general, but we know Jeff Sessions has recused himself from these Trump Russia matters. So it would be unlikely that Sessions would be the one to dismiss a special prosecutor. But yeah, I guess the right term is special counsel. I don't even know what the difference is, but you're supposed to call a special counsel now. But yeah, I mean, so a special counsel is not like a panacea. It wouldn't be completely independent of the executive branch. It would have a lot more resources. And it would have sort of like a freedom to roam, I think, in terms of how it depended on how it's sort of brief was drawn up. Because the FBI has sort of had specific duties and protocols. And as we saw with Ken Starr and Bill Clinton, a special prosecutor can sort of start in one place and then do a little bit of a, do a little bit of fishing and turn to a bit more of a dragnet type investigation, where you just want to come up with something. Yeah, as I remember, he still had an answer to Janet Reno, the special prosecutor. That's right. That's right. That's right. And of course, what they ultimately got Clinton for wasn't any misconduct that he had committed before the special prosecutor even got rolling. What they got him for was obstruction of justice, I think, with the special prosecutor's witnesses, if I'm remembering right. So it sort of creates a lot of opportunities for presidents to make mistakes once, you know, there's someone whose job it is, whose entire office it is to, you know, go after them essentially. Whereas like the FBI, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. You wrote something that I was kind of surprised by and I want to ask you about Rod Rosenstein. He's the new deputy attorney general. Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from this Russian investigation. And you write that Rod Rosenstein, the new deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein wrote a memorandum assessing Comey's performance at the FBI. Trump used that memo to justify firing Comey. And I didn't know this until I read your piece today in The Intercept. You write that Rod Rosenstein almost quit when he heard that his memo was being used as the justification for firing Comey. What's in the memo? Why didn't he quit? And what does this say about Rod Rosenstein? Well, we don't, you know, I did, we don't know that for sure. You know, as I said, this is sort of an anonymous source, said this to the Washington Post. So it's credible, but it's not totally backed up. And it's not totally triangulated. But the story, and it was good enough for the Washington Post, is that Rosenstein was angry that he was kind of being used as the prime mover for Trump's decision to fire Comey. And if you go and read his memo, it doesn't actually say that Comey should be fired. It talks a lot of, talks about ways that Comey screwed up, but it doesn't say that he should be gotten rid of. And then after that Washington Post story came out yesterday, it was interesting, you saw the White House actually issued a new timeline, came out of the press office where they said, well, what Trump did first was make it the decision. And then he sat down with the sessions and talked about it. And then they talked to Rosenstein. And then he called them back in. So, and then Trump said the same thing to Lester Holt today. So I guess it is a pretty credible report because we've seen the White House modify its storyline. In the beginning, they were putting in on Rosenstein, now they're putting in on Trump. Right, it was a decision in search of a justification. I want to thank you for taking time to be with us. Can you spare a few more minutes? Because I wanted to tackle one more area. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. You're being incredibly generous with your time. And your coverage at the intercept has been just great and clear. And one of the things I appreciate that you keep saying while talking to me and while writing that it's hard to keep track of this because you have all people. You were a tribute writer of the New York Times. You've written for The New Yorker. You're a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. I mean, you're pretty smart. And for you to say it's hard to keep track of, I think that encourages my listeners and especially me to follow this and be more forgiving of myself when I have trouble keeping track of this. You write, and I'm going to- I think it, yeah. Oh, no, please, please, please. You write, and I thank you for this. And this is why I called you. You wrote, this week, this is what you wrote in the intercept. This week, FBI Director James Comey joined Mary McCord, Sally Yates, and Preet Bharara as senior law enforcement officials who either resigned under Trump or were fired outright. As new officials are appointed to take their places, and this is why I called you, you write, as new officials are appointed to take their places, it's getting hard to keep track of who's responsible for the Trump-Russia investigation. Thank you for saying that. And then you mentioned three officials. And if you have time, I'd like to go over them and then I'll excuse you. But you mentioned the three officials we should be keeping an eye out for. You were going to say something and I interrupted you. Oh, yeah, I just think this- Yeah, well, I appreciate the compliment. And I think this is something that we need to be very wary of. I think it may be by design on the part of the White House to sort of keep all these balls moving in the air and sort of keep this rotating cast of characters going. And it's just another way for the president to sort of dominate the news and sort of impose his will upon the system, at least in the public consciousness. And what he's doing is he's going through people very quickly, and he's using, he's really redlining the sort of statutory limit of his powers. Now, the president does have the ability to get rid of an FBI director. It's never been done before, but it is something he can do. So it's not breaking the law, but Trump plays a very aggressive game of poker that he plays, and he is really kind of trying to just max out his authorities. And getting rid of someone like James Comey, who predates his rule and has a mind of his own, is a part of that. But I'm sorry, but please, please go on. Well, let's go through these three names very quickly. I knew who Sally Yates was in Pete Barrara, but who was Mary McCord? So that's a story that I was actually the first to break, because I was the first to hear about it. She was the head of the National Security Division, which is a component of the Department of Justice. So she was an assistant attorney general who reported to Jeff Sessions, who was a career public servant, and who was one of the most senior people in charge of the Trump-Russia investigation. And then she announced that she'd be leaving to take a position, I believe, in academia. And then Dana Buente is now, I think, he's acting National Security Division head. So he's the sort of interim in charge of her role in the interim. So there's a National Security Division within the Justice Department that would investigate the tampering of an election by a foreign body. Yeah, and would decide. So they'd work with the FBI, and they would decide which laws have been broken and whether or not to bring charges and whether the evidentiary standard had been met. And part of their purview is counterintelligence investigations, which is basically if there are spies for foreign governments who are trying to mess with the U.S. in one way or another, economic espionage, election tampering, intelligence gathering, what have you. Counterintelligence is bringing cases against those spies or people who've declassified information and so on. So that's part of what the National Security Division does. And why did she disappear? We don't know. She hasn't talked about it. So we don't know if she was fired or we don't know? It's pretty clear that she wasn't fired. Or if she was fired, she was extremely quiet about it. But yeah. And Preet Bharara was, as I remember, a pretty well-respected federal prosecutor here in New York City who was putting or trying to put some Wall Street people behind bars. Yeah. And he's someone who we haven't heard the last from. He's definitely a politician in addition to being a public servant and we'll probably see him running for governor or senator or something like that at some point, just based on what he's done since he's left and the speeches he's given. But so yeah. So Trump hired, I think, all of the U.S. attorneys after taking office, which is within his rights to do and isn't so unusual. I think he kept one, Dana Guente. And then he did, he was, I think, going to keep Preet Bharara, but then that fell through. And then Bharara wouldn't resign. And so Trump had to call and fire him. So that was like a little kerfluffle kind of in the beginning of the right after the transition. And do we know whether or not Preet Bharara was on the trail? Wasn't he looking into it? You know, that's a very good question. That's a very good question. We don't know. There are rumors that he was. But we don't know. We know that there is a grand jury meeting in the Eastern District of Virginia at the courthouse in Alexandria. And they're looking at Michael Flynn. And Comey came, and it's been reported there have been subpoenas issued about Flynn. And that's all coming out of the Eastern District of Virginia. We know that for sure. But there's also been talk that the Southern District of New York, which is where Preet Bharara was, was also looking at it. But that's not confirmed. Do we know how many grand juries are looking into this? At least one. And when you fire all the prosecutors, does that mean we have no prosecutors or we have acting prosecutors? It means you have acting prosecutors. So in the Southern District of New York, I think they're waiting for Trump to appoint someone. I think the Senate has to confirm that appointment if I'm not mistaken. In the meantime, Preet Bharara's deputy is running the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. And that's how it works. All the different U.S. Attorney's offices around the country. I think there's a few dozen. And I don't know how many appointments Trump's made to this spot. Right. So I have a lot of listeners who, when they heard that Trump had fired all the prosecutors, they began practicing inside trading and smuggling heroin into the United States. So they should be cautioned. There still are prosecutors. Yeah, I know everything that we do. They know everything still keeps going. I mean, you know, the turnover obviously has an effect. But, you know, there's like a... You heard about Sally Yates. No, please. You had a busy week this week. Sally Yates, who was the acting Attorney General when Trump came into office, he fired her. She testified, I believe, on Monday. You were there. Who did she testify before? She was testifying before the Judiciary, the Senate Judiciary subcommittee. So it's the Senate Judiciary Committee. They have a subcommittee on crime and terrorism. And they brought her in to talk to them about the Flynn-Russia stuff. And this was the first time that we heard Sally Yates' side of that story, you know, firsthand. Although a lot of parts of it have been reported quite accurately in the press beforehand. But she was the one who warned... She was the one who warned the Trump White House that Michael Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russian government. And then the Trump White House did nothing with that information for 80 days until the Washington Post was about to publish, you know, the fact that Yates had warned them. And then finally they let Flynn go. The thing that I don't understand about the blackmail is they could blackmail Flynn for lying to Mike Pence. That was the only thing that they could blackmail him over. Right? I mean... Well, I think, you know, you're right. You're right. You're right to be. It is a little hazy. I think there was broad sentiment among the intelligence community that Mike Flynn was a bad apple and had been compromised by the Russians. And I think this sort of blackmail narrative is an expression of that. But what it is essentially is that, you know, you had Mike Pence go on TV and say that, you know, Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador were innocuous and they never talked about sanctions. And then, you know, these people who were listening to Kislyak's phone in the intelligence community have transgressive conversations. They know that they were talking about sanctions. So their story was that, well, look, the Russians could then go to Mike Flynn and say, you know, we have proof that you lied to your boss. I see. I see. Do what you want. But there's also, like, soft blackmail where you just sort of elude or gesture to what you might know or you do it in a winking way. You know, supposedly the people, some people who are good at it, this is how they do it. So that's the blackmail story. There's something a little bit. It doesn't, I see, but that was, I think Yates, you know, was 100% behind it, though. I mean, she struck me as sort of like a real true blue public servant. But that is ultimately, and she consulted with other people at the Department of Justice and other people in the intelligence community and got a lot of people to sign off on the fact that this was a problem before she took it to the White House. She went through the established channels and did what she was supposed to do and brought it to them in the right way. Well, you've been very generous with your time and I wanted to ask you for three more names, three people we should keep an eye on. Very quickly, who was Dana Buente? You mentioned him earlier. And tell us why he matters and why we should keep an eye on him. We've talked about Rod J. Rosenstein. You wrote a great piece about these three people and this is one of the reasons I couldn't wait to talk to you. Just very quickly tell us about Rod Rosenstein and Andrew McCabe, the new acting FBI head. How independent. So these are, go ahead, how independent? Yeah, how independent do we think they are? I mean, as independent as they want to be, but they haven't been under this kind of scrutiny for very long and it's harder for someone, people who don't have the same public stature as a Jim Comey or as a Robert Mueller or as a George Tenet to stand up to the White House. And we all know that George Tenet kind of got ruled on the WMD thing anyway. These guys are going to have to grow an awful lot of spine pretty quick. So there's three of them. The most important one is Rob Rosenstein, Rob Rosenstein who's the deputy attorney general. Now Jeff Sessions has recused himself from everything to do with Trump Russia. Jeff Sessions is the attorney general. Rob Rosenstein is deputy. So Rosenstein then it falls to him to oversee the Trump Russia investigation within the Department of Justice. Dana Buente actually has two jobs that relate to the Trump Russian investigation. One is he's the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Eastern District of Virginia, which is where this grand jury is meaning to investigate Michael Flynn. Two is he took over Mary McCord's job and he's also the acting head of the National Security Division. So he has a lot of control over where this will go. Important thing to remember, I mean these are like independently minded people who've gone to law school been doing this for a while, but both Rosenstein and both Rosenstein and Buente are Trump appointees. So they're both in their current jobs because Trump chose them to be in those jobs. He did not fire Dana Buente. He fired like all the U.S. attorneys and he chose to appoint Rosenstein to be deputy AG under sessions. So that's worth noting. The third one is Andrew McCabe. He was Comey's deputy and now he's the acting FBI director. Trump will almost certainly choose, nominate someone else to replace him. They'll have to go through Senate confirmation. In the meantime, McCabe will be running the FBI. How frightened are these people getting fired? I always assume that if you're Comey, you can go get a job someplace else. Is it ego, loyalty? Is he upset that he was fired? I mean if you were I get fired. I don't really know. Yeah, I always think if I get fired it's terrifying, but if you're the head of the FBI, the sky opens up for you, right? And I think it depends on the circumstances. I think if Comey could play out the election campaign again, I think he said the opposite of what I'm about to say. But I think he would have done some things differently around the Clinton emails, the Clinton email investigation. We sort of saw his voice go up a few notes when he walked through this like, do I conceal or do I disclose? And his testimony a week ago about his decision to talk repeatedly about the status of the investigation in violation of longstanding FBI traditions to not talk about what they're working on. But in a way he was trying to compensate for present reluctance to say what he knew, which is that the Russians were trying to tilt the election. And there was a lot of conversation happening behind the scenes and Comey sort of, I think, did what he thought to be right. But the consensus is that he screwed up. Mattifyas Schwartz, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Mattifyas Schwartz is a national security reporter for The Intercept, theintercept.com. Read them every day. Can you stay on the line for a second? Thank you, Mattifyas. Stay with me for one. Yeah. This is the David Feldman radio network. My name is Land Tegotian. Land Tegotian is that? No, I think it's Land Tegotian. What is that expression? Land Tegotian. Are you the new Edwin Newman or am I the new Edwin Newman? I'm part of the grammar police, Edwin Newman. Edwin Newman was my go-to grammar reference. I hate to say you were wrong, but the Mitch McConnell seems like a pretty nice guy. You were really, you know, Paul Ryan. You said they wouldn't stand up for what's right. But I guess you were wrong, David. It's time for you to reconsider. Those guys went to the mat. They're going to go to the mat for what's right. Family values. I think their hearts are in the right place and they love this country. And we don't need, at this point, an investigation into the Comey firing. And from what I understand, McConnell is standing with our president, right? Hey, both sides do it. Both sides do it. Both sides. Both sides are responsible. Both sides are responsible for Mike Flynn. Both sides. Hey, Donald Trump isn't tweeting from a private server like you know who. Oh, thank God. That's the only thing that I've been happy about was that he didn't, you know, all this time I said the only thing that'd be worse than this is if he missed a small tiny C in one of his emails. If they tried to bury the classified information in an email to fool the person receiving it, he might not catch that. Thank God. Oh my God. All the stuff that she was doing, she was making a billion dollars a second on the Clinton Foundation. Unbelievable. Well, they're horrible people, the Clintons. She enabled him. Also, she's crooked. She's crooked. You hear about it? Yeah. You hear about that? Yeah. Who needs it? I don't need it. Mitch McConnell, his eyes are so beady. Long is the second part of this joke. His eyes are so beady. I know there's something good. They're so beady. They're so close together, they often switch. No, not good. He's not cross-eyed, he's star of David-eyed. You know why scientists have decided why people like him have like beady eyes? They've found out why. Why? Because he's a racist. I don't want to say he has beady eyes, but on Mardi Gras, I throw them at the floats. That's how beady. I don't want to say his eyes are beady, but they're available as curtains. I don't want to say his eyes are beady, but they directed reds. Hey, you know, David Seltman, you never told me that there was a woman in the studio when I was talking fake dirty last time. There was a lady in the studio. A lady? In the comic. A comic lady? She's a comic lady. So I direct message her. I followed her on Twitter. I direct message her and I say, I guess what I want you to know. I hope you weren't offended. I would never talk like that if I knew you was a woman there. Never heard back from her, David. Thank you. Thank you, David. You know why? Why? Because you didn't take your hat off when you sent that email to that nice lady. How many times do I have to tell you when you were corresponding with a lady comic, you're supposed to remove your hat? Oh, I didn't know that. Pardon me, ma'am. I had no idea. Well, if you had read Edwin Newman, you would know. Exactly. You would, boy, Edwin Newman. Go ahead. No, because I had nothing. Go ahead. Edwin Newman and Bill Sapphire, these grammarians, the PC police, they're policing language and it's wrong. I ain't going to look up ain't in the dictionary because I know it ain't there. Now what was wrong with our society that that became a saying? Ain't? No, people would actually go, I ain't going to look up ain't in the dictionary because I know it ain't there. I heard that. That means more than four or five people pass that around as a hilarious limerick. If you look up ain't in the dictionary, it ain't there. You see a picture of me. You see a picture of me with a pal of paint. Hey, if you look up inarticulate in the dictionary, you'll see like a, they'll have like a, don't have like a photo. If you look up inarticulate in the dictionary, it'll have like a, it'll be like a thing about and it will somehow wind up with me. Do you know that I looked up dictionary? And what happened? In the dictionary? Yeah, it said a compendium of words with definitions. Is that funny? I just don't, that never works. I think it's fantastic, but you don't go by me. I haven't had a joke that's worked since the 40s. My last joke that worked, I had a fantastic chunk. It was Y2K, Y9. I said, Y2K, Y not 2K. That's just how I opened it. And then I said, let me get this straight. Let me get this straight. And on 1999 at 11.59 and 59 seconds, what? Is my clock going to turn into a kangaroo? What's going to happen? Y2K people. And then what happened with Y2K? You know what happened, right? Nothing. It was like the Comet Cahotech? Did I get that one? It was like the Comet Cahotech. Remember the Comet Cahotech? Oh no, I don't remember that one. Is that like a Heraldo's vault? Yes, a Heraldo's vault. Oh, a gavalt. There was nothing in there. What gavalt was a Heraldo? There was nothing in there. Did you see when they did the remake of that, a Heraldo looking in Al Capone's vault, starring Rachel Maddow and the taxes? Yes. She knew there was a... She knew. Here's what's unforgettable. She knew she had nothing before the show. She could have said, oh, things got lost or it wasn't a big deal. But she was like, we have them here and we'll be talking about them. Watch this space. She had David K. Johnson on with her to go over the taxes. It was 20 minutes of her saying, welcome, David K. Johnson. And he said, you don't have to call me David K. Johnson. You can call me David Johnson. That was one minute? That was one minute. Then you can call me DK Johnson. You can call me... You can call me Rick. And then he said at one point, let's get this out of the way of the beginning, Rachel. He probably sent it to me. Let's get that on the record. Which he did say that he sent it to him. For those of you who aren't able to follow this, join the club. No, it's David K. Johnson, the author of... No, him I like. Him I like. I love David K. Johnson. He wrote it. But it's Rachel. I blame it all on Rachel because Rachel... You know what it is? Rachel didn't have to play the clubs. She didn't have to struggle in the clubs like Ricky Gervais did. You know what I mean? Ricky Gervais, he would put on disguise so you wouldn't know was Ricky Gervais coming to the club. You know that he put announcements on Twitter? It's new joke night for me. I'm working on my new jokes. Thinking about doing this joke tonight, but it's so offensive. Even I'm offended by it. That guy is the worst, right? I've gone past it being a friendly feud now. He's worse than Hitler. He's like if Hitler wasn't funny and then his material was written by Stalin. But the office was so good. It was so great. He's like Stalin. He's like Stalin, but he likes animals. But the shaky camera and then the cutaways. That was a great show. That was the best show. I watched that show. I made everybody watch it. Everybody. So this is the greatest show ever. So that's why this guy has a nerve. All I'm doing is pointing out that he stinks now. And now I'm the bad guy. I know you like Derek, David. You call me up every week. He goes, did you try Derek again? Did you try it? And I said, David, I don't want to watch a show that's about what they're talking about. They're soft-selling that he has mental problems. No, no. He says he doesn't have any mental problems in the show. He captured the really annoying boss that we all have. That was the greatest show of all time. I even liked extras, David Feldman. That show was, I never saw it, but I'll defend it. And he speaks power to truth at the Golden Globes. I mean, he got up there. Oh, he does. He does. Those are such an edgy joke. First of all, I can't even believe that someone have the ball to do a Mel Gibson joke. I mean, really? And it's so current, too, with the Mel Gibson jokes. That's dangerous. Mel Gibson still hates the Jews. Hey, you know, it's 2017, but Mel Gibson is still writing, I hate the Jews on his checks. I want to know if he hates the Jews so much. How come his name is Mel? That is a very good point. Maybe that's why he hates the Jews so much. But he's a guy who doesn't. Now, here's the thing. Whoopi Goldberg is friends with him. Is this a guy who just like, when he gets drunk, then the anti-Semitism comes out? Wait, Whoopi is friendly with him. It's, you know what it is? It's Gentiles with Jewish names. That's how you know who the real anti-Semites are. Oh, so when he said to Whoopi, you're one of the good ones, that she took it the wrong way. She thought it was black. She said, no, one of the Jews doesn't look like a Jew. Whoopi Goldberg, I really was wrong about saying that she wasn't funny because she has really brought so much to the table. She's redefined comedy as tragedy. Now you carry a check in your wallet. Yes, and this check is made out for one million dollars. It's made out of Whoopi Goldberg. And all it says in the memo part was she was funny. She was funny. And you get the check. Just was your favorite Whoopi Goldberg movie, Eddie? Do you know there was a movie called Eddie? No. Okay. The very first day of the industry is available for digital download. And you know, they say there's not a lot of money in this digital world. It costs 99 cents to download it. And after the first four million downloads, I get a penny. And they say, and they say this is a rough business? When they used to say you make a beautiful dollar in this business, did they really mean it was just one? David, you are my target audience. There's no reason to have even a career if I'm not talking to you. Now, I understand, is it a secret? Can I talk about the game that you're getting into? The racket? Why is it that you sound like Bud Abbott leading me into a who's on first material? Hello? No, you can talk about anything. Well, was there something secret? What happened? Did you know Bud Abbott was Jewish? I think I did know that, but Lucca Stella wasn't, right? Lucca Stella was Italian. I learned that from Shelley Berman in Vegas. I met Shelley Berman and he goes, it's not Iran. It is not Iraq. It's Iran, Iraq. Do you order Italian dressing? And he certainly put me straight. I said to him, Er, didn't know that. Yes. Er, yeah. And you said, I'm sorry, I have Bob Newhart and you have a line and his head exploded. Because the phone rang. That's the only reason he got exploded. Nobody gets that. Nobody's going to get it. I love that so much. You know what I can't, I love that. And I love the fact I love these old style feuds. These were the greatest feuds of all time, where people would argue over. Did he have a feud with Bob Newhart? Oh, he refused. Well, I just think he refused to talk. He just assumed that Bob Newhart took it from. You're breaking up. I don't know why. Oh, it's not me breaking up. It's me, Nova, acting funny. The Nova Cane? Yeah, I had Nova Cane. Did I tell you I went to the dentist today? Some teeth work done. My mouth feels good, but you know what the problem is? What? I still can't feel my career. Nova Cane, by the way, is what you used to call Michael Cane. After Alfie, right? That's true. That's true. And then you used to say, I've eaten so much of these locks now that I'm numb from them. It's like I'm from Nova Cane. Nova Scotia, you're saying. Nova Scotia Cane. Remember those jokes? And they worked because there wasn't a television back then. And there wasn't an audience who would have to tell you the joke wasn't funny. Right. Back then when we started, you only changed your act seasonally. You never changed the material. If it was spraying, you added some spraying material in there. But you never changed your material. We both played like two to three thousand vaudeville houses. Right. And so no one saw us. They'd see us once every four years. And then comedy on the road went on NBC in 1933. And the rest, right? We blew our act. We really did. You kept saying, don't let it be filmed. Don't let it be filmed. I said, what are you talking about? Then we can't do it live. Right. They're not going to come see us. Nobody was booking us live. That's the problem. These bits go on forever. And I noticed that I'm not, don't seem to be upping the level of the bit. You add some humor to it. I just keep beating the same comedic premise. Shelly Berman. Yeah. Was the best selling comedian in the early 60s. And he had the album, the album, right? And he had the phone call routine. He was the first guy to get on the fake phone. And you're saying that Bob Newhart then got on the fake phone. Well, Bob Newhart says that he didn't get it from Shelly. But I mean, I, I, I. He got it from Ellen DeGeneres from the time machine. I hear Ellen DeGeneres, she watched a lot of Lucy. You know that, Dave? No. She watches a lot of Lucy. But unfortunately she watches Hears Like. You're the only person who has ever gotten that joke. Da da da da da da da da da da. Viv. Viv. Won't Viv. Won't Viv. We both said Viv at the same time. Viv. Viv. It's Robert Wagner. Viv. Unfortunately she watched Hears Lucy. I love her show now though. You, I know you're addicted to her daytime show because, you know, let's have some fun for change. I like her because she dances and during the writer strike, she supported her viewers. What did you do during the writer strike? She supported her viewers. But, you know, she kept the show going. And she had her viewers. During the strike, nobody was thinking about the viewers. And I, that's. That's the thing. Yeah. You know, people make fun of her now. But back then she was thinking about the viewers. And so she, she continued to do the show and I thank her for that. We are the most agree. We just, you just started the most agreeable duo of all time. You sure? All right, Andy. Apple. Apple. William Holden. Apple. It's William Holden. I got an orange. I got an orange from his backyard. They would did that for five. Now what happened? They did that for five years where they would pretend that they were coming out to Hollywood and meet a celebrity. But they already were in Hollywood. I know. That's what fools me. I still can't get over the fact that Seinfeld was shot in New York. I mean, in LA. If you look up short-term memory in the dictionary, uh, what was I saying? Volare. I think Volare after every punchline now. Yeah, yeah. Are you a bit Colombo fan like me, David Selman? One final question, Mr. Kinla. Can you do Colombo? That was an all-purpose joke when I was a kid. But someone would do it. They go, how about doing the thing you said you were going to do? Yes, I loved Colombo. I did love Colombo. I loved it. I loved it. And it was the one thing where it's like he's on the ship. I think with Jack Cassidy. Jack Cassidy is in a few episodes. And this was woman singer is singing Volare. Oh, by the way, I've been pitching some shows to Intana TV. I just pitched something to them and they rejected. They said the picture is too clear. No one's going to buy it. No one's going to buy it. I pitched a show to the Intana TV. It's called Use a Co-Hanger and Lean Against the Window. Do you watch Intana TV? I do watch all the ones that show the old shows that make me forget that we're all doomed. I like Albert Hitchcock. Is it Alfred Hitchcock or Albert Hitchcock? It's Albert Sirling. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. I loved his hour show, The Black and White Show. Yes, I do too. And I watch any Colombo. But then the old stuff, I don't think, I don't know, you know, I was going to call you. I don't know why you've been telling me that my mother in the car is the greatest show that was ever on TV. I don't think it holds up. I'll give it another shot. Do you know how badly Laugh-in holds up? The TV slides down the wall when I watch it. How about a little Walnetto? Laugh-in doesn't hold up, you say. No. I'm doing Dan Rowan, by the way. It doesn't, you say. You say. Yeah. You know who holds up, though? George Slaughter in a bar, three in the morning. You know how many years he said to me at my show, Andy Kinla, what should we do with you? Andy Kinla. I love what you do. You don't love what I do enough to stop saying my name and do something. Andy Kinla. Do you know why I had a network guy once tell me? His name was Scott Schneider. He worked at Comedy Central. He told me, look, Andy. I love what you do, but I don't, you know, you know how the suits are. I said, you're one of the suits. He goes, I like it, but you know me. I'll run it by myself one more time. I can't get it by me. I can't get it by me. I'll run it by myself one more time. Maybe I'll take myself out to a nice dinner. Spring it on myself. My God. So as you hear about, I have a show that I'd like you to be in. I'm pitching. Yeah. Yeah. And I know what's going to sell. It's called Aging Jews. And it's all about when life gives you lemons, commit suicide. It's that whole filter. Everyone's depressed, but it's very slow. It's very slow going, very slow going. And then every episode, things get worse and their outlook becomes more cloudy. Didn't you used to hang out at Jerry's in the Valley and frag Armies Army? Well, I have sat. This is how sad my life is. I've sat at the Seinfeld table at the Jerry's on Cold War to Canyon and I said to myself, pretty sweet. The Seinfeld table. Depressing, isn't it? I mean, you know what? Why do I look at it that way? He's got a career. I have a career. We're both doing well, right? There's room for everybody. There's room for everybody. There's room for everybody. As long as one person makes $12 trillion. And I just download my new residuals tracker app. I actually have a residuals tracker app. Do you know that I got some residuals right before the strike authorization? I got a thick green envelope from the Riders Guild. And I thought, oh, yeah. I swear to God, they were all for two cents. There were like 50 checks for two cents. Oh, yeah. Now I wanted to start. I'm sure someone started this charity, but I want like a start charity with like every check that's under like a couple of dollars you could send into this place. And then they would cast. But I'm telling you, the overhead is going to be huge because I'm not flying coach anywhere, Dave. Can you imagine a guy starts this charity like pennies, every penny counts. And it's all about him using, but he insists on flying himself. You see that pie chart? 50% operating expenses. Andy, you have the highest rating on charity navigator. I mean, the highest cost. That's what they say. But Abbot, it turns out. You get what you pay for. Yeah. But Abbot was Jewish. But Abbot was Jewish. And he was investigated by the FBI. And he had a very large porno collection. Did you know that? Really? You'd say it was large? Well. Does he have every ass Wednesday that I have? That's the best I could do. Oh, you said he had a large. Does he have, I can't think of one on golden blonde. Do they have that one? Well, I'm going in a different direction. But Abbot was investigated by the House on American Activities Committee and they asked him to name names. And they said, you know, there's a lot of weird names of these communists. Mr. Abbott. I don't know on third base. Who was a Chinese communist? I don't care what the name of the fellow was. See a communist or was he not a communist? No, was, was the head of the Chinese Politburo. Don't. You know, it's a funnier bit when the actual information is boring. Do you know my joke about the blacklist? I say I'm the last actor who is still a victim of the blacklist. Not only was I communist, I never quit. I loved it. With Stalin, I was like making excuses. They look, look how roomy it is over there now. And Stalin take it over. It's with the Ukraine. No more Kuliyaks. Am I right about the Kuliyaks? What? Well, you can eat up the floor. I'll tell you, I don't normally like a rigged system, but they make it work over there. So I said that I was also willing to name names. I was going to say Gallagher's, Gallagher's a communist. I was just going to name comics. I didn't like their act. I would accuse them of being communists. Carrot Top. Huh? He was talking about red. What would you have done? Because Elia Kazan's granddaughter is getting trolled because her father... Well, she shouldn't get trolled. Why is she saying weird things? Well, she's defending her grandfather. Not for the communism, for raping Marilyn Monroe. Oh, well, that's different. Yeah. Did he rape Marilyn Monroe? I think he did. This is a horrible feel that we've attached ourselves to, but you can't quite remember. Let me think. I do believe he did. Did he rape Marilyn Monroe, or was he found in a fountain on the street fountain with 10 dead people in his trunk? Which one? Which one was him? Was it you who said if you're moving to Los Angeles, you said always book Pete Fountain? Oh, no, no. It was Bob Saget told me that his manager, good advice that his first manager gave him was, always take fountain. Right, but I was going for a Pete Fountain joke. Who's Pete Fountain? Pete Fountain. Wasn't he like a musician? And we'll be back with elderly Jews who either have dementia, or it doesn't really matter if they don't after these messages. So David, you started in Philadelphia. No, I told you. This is our version of the Sunshine Boys. No. And I just want to say one thing. Your stall tactic of talking slower to the material comes to you. I see right through it. How cold was it? Now you know what? Here's my new bit, my favorite bit to do. You know what, David? I tried to get foul on the chance. I just don't think he's funny. I don't know why you keep sending me these emails to watch him tonight. Because he's going to do a great voice. The other thing I love to do is go to cities like Portland and berate them for Trump. That's how I like it. Nice going, Portland. Great. Nice job. Don't you think people are overreacting to him? You know what? I was ready. You know me. I was ready not to like him. But I have to admit, I have to admit not as bad as I, I thought we would be all dead and radiated by now. Not too bad. Not too bad. You love this country. I thought my mother would be growing a third eye by this time. So you know what? It's not bad. Push, you know what? He keeps him guessing. He keeps him guessing. They've tried it for years with all of the president he knows things. And where did it get us? Trump. I think he's the worst. Not only do I hate his guts. I hate his face. I hate Washington. I can't believe one person would vote for that. He's like, everybody you hated. How many bullies in high school were voting in this last election? I love this country and you do. I wish him well. I mean, if he succeeds... I love that. I love that. That's my favorite voice that you do. Now, don't you. This is outrageous, Andy. You gotta wish him well. I mean, he's our president. If he succeeds, we all succeed. We're all in this together. You know what? If he comes to me with an infrastructure bill, I might turn it down. How could you say no to that? Yeah, I mean, the thing is, it's time for me maybe to look at some of the things I've done in the past. Like, been nice and cared about people. You, I remember you complimenting female comedians without permission. Yeah. You would just walk up to them and say, great set. Great set. I would say, and I'm not proud of this, but I have to say, and I used to couch it as a comedian thing. I said, I need to feel the temperature of your pussy before. It was different. It wasn't grabbing them. It was insert. I used to insert things up women's private parts for comedic reasons. You know, you did inside jokes and you would just... Right. Inside. That's right. I need to feel how moist it was in the woman comics. Oh, I'm the bad guy. Oh, I'm the bad guy. Because I say to the crowd, are you ready for a badge comedian? Oh, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. Hey, you're lucky it's not the day of the month that she's ovulating people. You remember my material. It was edgy, but it had an edge. Do you watch Saturday Night Live? You must really love the way they're taking on Donald Trump. Well, I hate Lord Michael. I'll hate him forever. I think the fish stinks from the top down and any other analogy. So I can't stand him. I think he's like the biggest Wizard of Oz fake. Oh, what kind of popcorn was Lord eating when he rejected that sketch? Wait a minute. He's in the room with me. Let me finish. The type of sketch comedy that that man brought to America is exactly what we needed. Call me someone who changes his mind. Call me mind-changeable, but I see a different view that you said that, that he's there in the room with you. I feel differently. Let me finish. No, I actually think the woman on the show are so goddamn funny. And the man on the show, I think they've done some good stuff. I loved Kate McKinnon doing Amica because I hate Morning Joe. You called me. I remember you called me at four in the morning. Right. I live in New York. You live in LA and you were weeping the week after Hillary lost and Kate McKinnon saying Leonard Cohn's hallelujah to start the show. I actually did cry. I actually did cry. Did you really? Yeah. Are you putting me on? Is this a bit? No, no, I like Kate McKinnon. I love her and I was probably crying just because she was singing a song. You know what the great thing about being Leonard Cohn is? He's dead. And he no longer has to hear the song hallelujah when somebody dies. I never really I love him. I never knew that much about him. Now I start to see things. What's where was I? Maybe I was a child. He once took acid and went on stage and tells a story about that. He was pretty nice. Yeah, he was a Montreal Jew. You know what they call Jews from Montreal? What's that? Jews. Oh, interesting. Interesting. Are you just working? Because you told me you might call me in the next couple of days just to work on the rhythm of your jokes that you didn't necessarily have material. But you want to run just like running the same old lines you've been doing that your grandfather did. Here's his jokes from my grandfather. You ready? A Jewish fellow, he jumps into the water and he's drowning and he can't swim. He starts to talk. He got out. He got out. Growing up. I have some questions I wrote down that I wanted to ask you. Oh, I thought you were there. I thought there was a purpose to your call. First of all, we can download your state of the industry addresses by going to iTunes. Give me instructions on how to download them because your state of the union address, state of the union, your state of the industry addresses are the most dangerous thing you can possibly do because you're biting the hand that used to feed you. Why do you say used to? I don't know. And then why did I respond to your funny line by just calling it out? You said used to. Well, here's the thing. They're not all available, though. They're only the first ones available and the more recent ones are available on SoundCloud. So there's a home of a lot of years. There's a lot to look forward to, David. I know, it's incredible. You grew up, were you the kind of kid? You grew up in New York, right? In Long Island? Queens. I didn't want to know who you hung out with growing. Am I asking? You grew up in Queens? You were talking about a female impersonator. I would say that was my mom trying to make dinner. You grew up in Queens, really? I grew up from normal parents? No. I like some Queens. Ask me what part of Queens I am from. What part of Queens are you? Flushing. Flushing. I'm embarrassed to tell you, so I'm flushing. Now, wait a second. Whitestone, where I grew up, is very close to flushing. I was 10 minutes from Shea Stadium. Growing up, did you sit in front of the TV 12 hours a day? Yes. I watched every single... By the way, I came up with another joke. You know, talk about female impersonators. If you wanted a good female impersonator, you should have talked to my wife on our wedding night. Yes, I grew up... I'm older than you, so I grew up older than you. But I watched all these shows. I watched every sitcom I could get ahead of. I watched the show that was our favorite show in our family, was the Superman TV show. And it was an awful show, but we couldn't stop watching it. George Reeves. I used to watch that. Oh, all day. I had, yeah, Lois Lane. Noelle, noelle. Noelle Neal. Right. I had a crush on Noelle Neal. I had a crush on the armchair and the porch. That's how horny I was when I was a kid. I kept saying to my mother, I get that we're related. What's the problem? Why do you bring this out of me? This is like the kind of material they try and bury. Did your family sit around and watch TV together? Yeah, we did. We definitely did. And we watched, you know, like my favorite memories are, we watched All in the Family together. We watched Rota together. Right. We watched all those shows, Mary Tyler Moore. Didn't you find yourself rooting for Valerie Harper? And by the way, Valerie Harper, and I'm not making a joke, she's still alive. As is Jimmy Carter. That's unbelievable. Now, how's she doing, though? I don't want to make a bad taste joke. I'm just holding back, but I noticed that Jimmy Carter met with Bernie Sanders yesterday. Right. And he looked great. And Valerie Harper, God bless the two of them. Yeah, there's no reason for it. You could have a real human moment instead of jokes. I'm not having a really bad taste joke that I'm going to hold back. Oh, okay, let's do it. But no, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. So you would sit around. Didn't you find yourself rooting for Rota back then? Well, I loved it. I had a crush on Rota. What happened when you found out she wasn't Jewish? Very upset. I'm still upset about it. You know, there's certain things I accept and there's certain things I don't accept. Like, I accept that in our one musical that we wrote to Jews, that we still have a song that says, Oh, we love the money, money, money, money, money, money, money. Yeah, I accept that. I accept that was a poor choice. No, you're wrong. He was saying, if I were a rich man. Right, but why would he want to be rich? That's just reinforcing the Jewish stereotype of wanting money. You might write about that. And Starsky and Hutch, Starsky or Hutch is in the original movie. Of Fiddler and the Roof? Yeah, I just saw it recently. And Topol, why would they have a teeth whitening? Yeah, that's the thing. For Topol, the smoke was tooth polish. If he came back to life, if Topol came back to life, the great Yiddish theater actor, would he be happy? If there was a smoker's tooth polish named after him? What do you think? By the way, Rembrandt came back. And Rembrandt came back. So the teeth whitening system. Why would they name a teeth whitening system after Rembrandt? All his paintings were dark. I know. If anything, have you checked out some of the teeth on his subjects? Yes. Believe me, the last thing you think about is a teeth whitening system. But the Rembrandt's heirs, even though they don't make any money, because I think it's public demand. Like, I could name, I could name something, Vincent Van Gogh, Vodka. I have Costco condoms. I remember this was your thing, and it was, you slept through art history class, but I remember you got me to invest in Vincent Van Gogh monocles. Right. I thought it was going to be big, figured. But it was the ear. I had the idea. I thought he lost an eye. I was told he had lost an eye. But who do I know? Who am I supposed to research every corner? Did you know that I sold Vincent Van Gogh earplug and earplug? I used to work at the Crazy Eddies. I sold Vincent Van Gogh and earplug. Your mother, as I remember, was a spy for the OSS. My mother, if you said Ethel Rosenberg too fast near her, she should spare her lunch up. His live with Lindbergh, what was the big crime with Lindbergh? He just wanted to come to America first. What was the big deal? Why was everyone mad at him? Lindbergh. He wanted to save lives. He said that. That's all he wanted to do. Not Jewish lives. Not Jewish lives. He didn't think we could win. That was all. He was just saying that he didn't think. You want to know what I think? I do know what I know. Okay, you know the Lindbergh baby. His baby was kidnapped, right? So that maybe sent them off the rails. By whom? Who kidnapped the Lindbergh baby? I don't know. Bruno Hauptmann, a German. Oh, a German family? I don't know the story at all. Oh yeah, Bruno Hauptmann, a German. No, you're mixing up. Are you sure you're not mixing up the Frank Sinatra Jr. Getting kidnapped story? Wait a second. You're not talking about compulsion, are you? Compulsion with Loeb and Leopold? Leopold and no frontal lobe. Those are the Trump brothers. But you know what? Hey, with the Trump brothers, I think I was the first person with this joke. Which one's Usain? Which one's Kude? Which one's Kool-Aid? Kude, I think his name was. Usain Kude. Wait a second. Is there a big story behind Lindbergh's baby? I had no idea. Who did kidnap Lindbergh's baby? Bruno Hauptmann. And he was a German? He was a German. And this was, I think, during the 30s before we got into World War II. So why would that have made Lindbergh more pro-German? Because of the Oedipal conflict. If the son secretly wants to kill the father and sleep with the mother, right? So Lindbergh knew that his baby wanted to kill him and sleep with Ann Morrow Lindbergh. So Lindbergh identified with Bruno Hauptmann because Bruno Hauptmann killed his baby and ended up saving Lindbergh's own life. So he identified with Hitler and the Germans during World War II. Wait a second. How did he say Lindbergh's life? By killing his son. How'd that save his life? Because the son secretly wants to kill the father and sleep with the mother. Oh, I see. I do. It prevented the Freudian thing from happening. But I was hoping you'd give me some actual information in there. Did they really know? I mean, the baby was killed, right? The baby, yeah. But seriously. Why? But seriously. Because... Why did they get ransom money or something? It was a... You know, in my day when we kidnap people, we gave a reasonable chance. It wasn't that everybody returned home safely. We would sometimes maim. Sure, we would maim our kidnapping victims. Be reasonable. Yeah, sure. Kidnap, maim, torture. But be reasonable. You know what an enhanced interrogation technique? It's Trump giving a steady... Better waterboard. Yeah, you better tell me. Even if you don't know. Yeah. Give me the wrong information. You just give me... Tell me anything. Tell me anything. Because I told... What's the guy's name? With a horrible show everybody watched and justified torture. 30, 34. A 24? I guess it was a good show. Except for the torture. Oh, Joel Cerno. Yeah, yeah. The half hour comedy hour guy. I went to the taping of that. I walked out on it. Joel Cerno tried to do, you know, a conservative version of the Daily Show. I called Joel up. I said, take a look at John Stuart's views towards unions. It's already a conservative. Hey, maybe we could make a deal here. You don't have to remake anything. Just change the way you look at the one guy. How about when John Stuart said the thing about it? You people aren't the problem, like the viewers. It's them. Oh, what a man. You people aren't the problem, viewers and voters. Washington. Oh, when he went to Washington, D.C. and told everybody to calm down. Calm down, and he also called all the networks and basically said, they're the problem, you're not the problem, people who paid to go to Washington and is already looking surly, like they don't know why we're here. Where do you get your news from? I get my news from the Washington Post. I get my news from anything, any service that has Max in the name. News Max. I get the news the same way. I get my news, but first of all, every week I tell myself, I'm going to watch the news hour. Right. But I never do. McNeil is gone. I didn't realize that. The McNeil news hour. You know what, I fell asleep when it... Well, thank God they have David Brooks on the show every Friday. Yeah, so he had a format, so he got a chance. We're going to wrap it up because once we get into politics. Oh, I'm the bad guy because after 45 minutes of being on the phone with you, I ran out of anything funny. Why don't you deny me water, lock me into a room, and when I'm having heat prostrations, then I see if I have a couple more more liners in me. Looked at the clock and I realized, oh my God. Is the same woman from last time there? Yes, take your hat off. But she really wasn't mad though, right? I don't even remember who the woman was. You had a woman comic in the studio, you said I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to you much. By the way, I stopped tape, so... Oh, thank God, thank God, because I was about to say something funny. I stopped tape. Wait, can you tell me a favor, when you have definitely stopped tape, please give me a heads up, okay? Okay, but we have stopped tape, so we're going to wrap up. But the thing that I need you to do... Yeah, you want me to kidnap the Pope, right? Have we stopped tape? We've stopped tape. You keep calling me, let's kidnap the Pope, we'll never have to work again. And I'm saying how we... No, no, no, it's a prank, it's a prank. I love it. You keep calling me, let's kidnap the Pope, the Vatican Bank has all this money, and I'm saying, Andy, this is dangerous stuff to kidnap a Pope. Hey, why don't you live a little? All right, we've stopped tape. This is how poorly I do the character who doesn't know that the machine is still going. We've stopped tape. Have you stopped tape? I've stopped tape, yes. Okay, because here's the thing I wanted to say. I'm recently getting sexually attracted to neo-Nazis and I'm a little worried about it. I can't masturbate without a swastika shoved up my puppet. Have you stopped tape? Oh, of course I've stopped tape. Okay, I found something in my colon. I know what you're going to say, what was I doing in my own colon? Andy Kinler, thank you so much. I love you, David. I love you too. I love you so much. Okay, buddy. Okay. Catch me on the rebound, right? Yes. Can we plug your new thing, your new venture? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to be on Berb Griffin tonight and then I'm hosting Mike Douglas all week. Thank you. I love you. I love you too. Be good. This is great. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. This is the David Feldman Radio Network. In order to land the Republican nomination, candidates of us now kiss Donald Trump's ring, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney. They've all come to New York seeking the Donald's blessing. Joining us from Manhattan is Donald Trump. Thank you, David. Yes, I am that important. The road to the presidency goes right through me, much like the healthy alternative brand muffins currently available at the fabulous new Trump Towers and Resorts Las Vegas. Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, you've become something of a kingmaker. I'm a man to be feared, much like Rosie O'Donnell. Ah, ah, ah, Rosie O'Donnell is a pig, David. You really have to watch it with the Rosie O'Donnell stuff. It's, I can't allow that. Now, Mr. Trump, are you implying that you? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. She's, she's a, she's a husband. She's on the Oprah channel and you know what that means. What does it mean? She might as well be on your show, David. It's gotten that bad. Now, let's get back to the, the camp. Sorry, I'm checking email. I have to multitask if I'm gonna be wasting my time with you. You're very small potatoes, David. And a man of my stature has to do at least three other tasks at the same time. So I'm multitasking. What are you doing? I'm doing your show. I'm retrieving email. I'm getting a colonic under the table. And I'm hurting Rosie O'Donnell's heart. Mr. Trump, are you saying that you have the power to block somebody from reaching the White House? Absolutely, David, dead in the tracks, like a fistful of Cinnabon's lodged in the New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie's lower intestine. See, but I don't see where you get me. It's huge. Okay, again. It's huge, David. Again, Mr. Trump, that's insensitive. We all know that Governor Christie clearly has issues with food. Issues. You're calling them issues? His only food issue is that the time it takes to chew, host his snowballs, prevents him from stuffing more of them into his big, fat, lumbering mouth. It's huge, his mouth. Okay, Mr. Trump, again, I'm glad you're doing the show, but we really have to watch these ad hominem attacks. Well, are you kidding me? Everybody loves ad hominem. Remember when Ralph Cramden used to do it? I would love that. You mean threatening Norton, threatening to- No, not that. When he would be the chef of the future and he would get nervous and he'd go ad hominem, hominem, hominem. It was very, very amusing, David. Very amusing stuff. Let's just stick to the Republican candidate. When Chris Christie takes a cardiovascular stress test, the doctor asks him to get on the treadmill. Okay, and? That's it. What's it? Getting on the treadmill. That's his stress test. Come on, David, you gotta- He's that out of shape. That's the joke, David. Okay. Now I understand why you didn't get the Ralph Cramden ad hominem reference. All right, let's wrap this up, okay? You're a Jackie Gleason fan, right? I love Jackie Gleason. Sure, I love Jackie Gleason. You know why? Why? Do you know why? Why? Why are you a Jackie Gleason fan? He's huge. He's huge. You're fired. People love it. Governor Rick Perry, who you met with, he seems to have- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is so large and repulsive. I can't believe he doesn't have my name on him. You see? That's me making a joke, turning it around on me. I have a sense of humor. It takes a very big man to be willing to make fun of himself, David. Now Mitt Romney- A huge man. Speaking of big men, how about that Rosie O'Donnell, everyone? Okay, can we stop with the Rosie O'Donnell already? Please, let's stick solely to the candidates. I am, David. Rosie O'Donnell is a perfect candidate for lap band surgery. He's huge. Now, this week- He's huge. This week you met with Republican candidate- He's huge. This week you met with Herman Cain, had you ever met with him before? Yes, David. I think I may have promoted a couple of his fights at the Trump Palace in beautiful Atlantic City. Herman Cain is not a fighter. You're telling me. That guy clinches more than me backstage at the Miss Teen Universe pageant. Coming up next spring on CBS. Forgive me, Donald. You're going to be huge. Forgive me, Mr. Trump, but Herman- It's going to be huge. Okay, but Mr. Trump, Herman Cain is- I know, I know. He's not a fighter. I get it. But, David, you want me to talk candidly about Herman Cain? Absolutely. You want me to be honest because some people might not like what they hear. I can handle it. Give us the truth. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you what nobody else in our party will tell you. Yes. And that is- Yes? Wait, did I mention Rosie O'Donnell as a pig? You were going to tell me about Herman Cain, the Republican candidate for president. Right, right, right. Now, you know, as well as I do, to prove their diversity, to prove they have a big 10, every couple of years, the Republican Party trots out someone like Herman Cain as the token pizza magnet. Token pizza magnet. Exactly. Two years ago, they made one the head of the party. But you're talking about the former GOP chairman, Michael Steele? Exactly. The pizza magnet. No, no, no. I'm pretty sure Michael Steele is not a pizza magnet. Oh, no, David. I've met him. Michael Steele is definitely a pizza magnet. Sir, Michael Steele is not a pizza magnet. I'm sorry, David. Who do you think you're talking to? I know what a pizza magnet looks like. I'm from New York where it's crawling with pizza magnets. And Michael Steele is a pizza magnet. Do you think Herman Cain has a chance? Look, David, I have to be honest. After Obama, I just don't think America is ready for another black Republican president. That's a great one, David. Honestly, if you had an audience, the laughs would be huge, right? I know I was going to say deafening, David. It would be deafening. You would have to wear earplugs to go along with your earplugs. What about Mitt Romney? Honestly, David, do you think America is really ready for a Mormon president? I mean, I've had three wives, but I have the decency to spread them out, David, in ascending order of hotness. Ivana, what was her name? Marlene. It was Marla Maples, Mr. Trimble. Now Millennium. And now Millennium, the hottest. Melania. Melanoma. Melania. Moving on. Okay. Texas Governor Rick Perry. Not a chance. Rick Perry is very stupid. He's a very stupid man. He's so dumb. Honestly, I can't believe the Republicans haven't already run him for president. That's a pretty good point. I know that. I'm very smart, David. I'm educated. I graduated from Wharton. Do you know Wharton? Yes, it's the business school. It's huge. What's the most important thing they taught you at Wharton? To tell people that it's huge. Anything else? To tell people you're fired. What about Michelle Bachman? I don't know. Too sinewy. Sinewy. You mean she's too thin. Is that what you're saying? I don't know. Maybe 20 years ago I would have thrown her a bone, but let's be honest, I probably would have ended up in her husband Marcus's mouth. Pretty good. I just came up with that one. Thrown her a bone, but then you would have ended up in her husband Marcus's mouth. That is correct. You can add, that's all yours. It's all yours. Keep it. Wait, wait, I'm doing the math on that last joke. Go ahead. It makes sense. Go ahead. Do you end up in Marcus's mouth because he's fat or because he's a closeted gay? I don't follow. I don't understand the question. I don't understand the joke. You said 20 years ago you would have thrown Michelle Bachman a bone. Right. But now you're afraid you would have ended up in Marcus Bachman's mouth. Hysterical. Even when you say it, that's how funny the joke is. Keep it. It's all yours. Thank you, Donald Trump. You're fired. People love it. Thank you. Leave it in. Leave it in. You'll be happy later. Time once again to check in with our Miami bureau chief, Bruce Smirnoff, who is covering Miami. I got it all covered. Hey, listen, I had such a great time being on your podcast about two or three weeks ago. So many of my friends went on and listened to it. Just incredible. Thank you for the opportunity. Well, thank you for doing this. Lovely to be connected. And I owe you an apology. Because I, you know, you forget absence. I forgot what a great, funny comic you are. Thank you. How far? You're in Boca de Berger? Boca Berger? Yeah, Boca Berger. I live in Delray Beach, Florida. I'm like 38 miles from Miami Beach. Okay. What's going on in the show business world? What big names are playing? Well, as we spoke about last time, nothing is going on right now. Zero. I will be performing at Valencia Cove, which is an over 55 community. You don't even know, wherever you live in America, and you listen or whatever country, and you listen to this, what you're going on. What's over 55? Over 55 means you have to be minimum 55 years old to live in this community. And the good part about it is like, if you don't like your neighbor, give it a week. Could be dead, could have a new neighbor. I have the great thing about it. Like let's say when I lived in West Hollywood, I had a barking dog situation, right? I knew I had a move because these was a young family's or Orthodox Jews. You want to hear that story? It's a very interesting story. Orthodox Jews in West Hollywood? In on Detroit Street. I guess it's not West Hollywood yet. It's about the farmer's market. So that's West Hollywood-ish. You know, Detroit Street, La Brea, that whole thing. So I was active with Schwartzi, who just recently passed. No, you knew him? You knew him? I used to do his Purim shows. I'll tell you a great story for any of you people, whether you like Jews or not, it's a nice story. And Schwartzi used to do a Purim show. You're popping your peas, so stop saying Purim. Purim. Then don't say Passover, don't say Popek or Pesach. Okay, so he did these shows at the comedy store every year for Paso, or Purim. And I was the emcee, and I would get the comedians. And the irony was the comedy store is owned by Mitzi Shor, who was a, they'd call her the queen of comedy, and she was a great, great influence, helped develop, as you know, so many great people. But the thing is she never liked me. In fact, she hated me. If she, in fact, I was synonymous with not funny. That's how bad it was. And yet, she had to donate the room, because all about Orthodox Jews, it's all about giving and doing mitzvahs and donating. So she would donate the room, and she really couldn't have a say in who was performing. So I would be on this show, I think we did about five years ago. She wasn't an Orthodox Jew, was she? No, but you, but everybody, they're like, it's like rubbing a dwarf at the racetrack. It's like, if you do, if you do, I used to hang out, will not mention his name with a big, big, big, big manager. And this guy was a psychopath, went to Hollywood Park in San Anita all the time, and I would accompany him. You know who he is, not going to mention any names, but he had this thing, like a twitch before the races. He would have this nervousness, and we'd be walking all around the racetrack, and I'd go, what do we, what would you go? I can't tell you, but, and there was a African American dwarf who used to shine shoes, and he would look for this African American dwarf, and he would rub them on the head. I went, oh my God! He goes, this is what we did in Virginia, this is going to bring good luck at the track. And I would sit there and go, I just watched this guy manage some of the biggest acts in Hollywood, have to rub the head of a black dwarf. And this is like, and then I would see Ray Sharky, you remember him, that actor? Sure, yeah. I love the idol maker, and that was what made him a big star. And this was like, this was just like two years later, and he was a full-fledged junkie at this point. And he would walk around, this was in the turf club, he had to wear like a jacket and tie, and he would have all that on, but it would be misplaced, like he'd have the jacket around his crotch and the pants over his head and the tie on his elbow. He was so messed up, and yet he was like a big star. I remember always seeing Sharky there, but yes. He dated somebody I grew up with, who was the daughter of a comic. Yes, and unfortunately, he gave her the disease, yes. Do we know how she is? You know, she's still alive, thank God. And she has a, you know, like a webpage, and she talks about her recovery and from all that. So fortunately, Knockwood, they have really made a lot of progress with those drugs, yes. Great. Her father was a very funny comic, and you used to do the Ed Selden show all the time. No, her uncle, her uncle was also a comedian up in the Catskills, too. Who? Well, let's not, let's not. I can't, I can't. Well, you know, certain things we don't want to talk about. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, where were we now? I don't know. The race crashed. Oh, oh, oh, Mendel Schwartz. I still get emails from him. As I remember, Mendel Schwartz was, I think, a lobovitcher or a very orthodox Jew, and he was instrumental in changing the attitude that people like you and I have towards the orthodox Jews. He was very embracing, very loving, very, you know, he included everybody because, you know, as you know. Mendel is the son of Rabbi, of Shlomo. Shlomo is the main guy that we're talking about. Shlomo Schwartz. And he was from the story I cobbled together. By the way, Shlomo is also what people called him as a putdown. Yeah, but that's his real name, Shlomo Schwartz. So, he was hired as the UCLA Habbad Rabbi, and then at some point he got into a cobble with them. So, he created this own thing called the Chai Center, and that was based out of his house. He has 12 children in the whole, and his big thing was to put Jewish single lost people, like myself, in a room and try to get them to meet each other and then get married, hopefully, and have Jewish children because the Habbad is different than all of Judaism, and they're an outreach, and they try to a little bit convert people to Judaism, where Judaism really doesn't promote conversion. But they do wonderful things, Habbad. But I did lose it on them when they sued the Seattle airport, and I just said, boy, even the good people overstepped it because they had the Christmas tree. So, of course, the rabbi in Seattle, which is all Gentiles, he has to come in and go, I'm gonna sue. I'm gonna sue this. No, I'm gonna sue that. What is a Mazuzzi, a lunatic? I'm gonna sue. So, that was the end of the Christmas tree. So, you know, new Nazi parties started in Tacoma, probably, and all because of Habbad. But that wasn't Schwartzi. He was an outreach of that anyway. But Schwartzi has these, Friday night, you go to his house, the wife makes dinner, and there's like 30 Jews there, and you try to hit on all the women, but you know, you try to do it under a nice way. But the funny thing was, his wife, such an Olivia, still around great woman, she would make this hummus. And the hummus must have had 800 cloves of garlic in it. So, here you were trying to meet guy-meat girl, and you'd eat this hummus, and your breath was vomit on vomit. So, you'd be standing, I would be in Marvista. The girl would be in Playa del Rey, and you'd be on a megaphone because everyone's breath was so horrible, you couldn't make a contact with anybody. So, they tried, but I once said to Olivia, because, you know, we're having one of their singles events, and it was the most misfitted Jews, the missing links of Judy as they come to their house. I guess me included. They liked me because I was funny. I kept it light. And I once turned to Olivia, I go, look at these Mieskites. These are unmatchable. Even if you go back to Fidler on the roof, no one would want these people. I go, what do you do when they hit like 50? And she just, deadpan, turned to me, and she go, we shoot them. That's just hysterical. Orthodox Jew, we shoot them, you know, with that look, with the rolling of the eyes. You taught me, and I always quote you, forbidden apunem. Yeah. I always, that you told me what a forbidden apunem is. Describe for my audience what a forbidden apunem is. Interesting. My mother used to always say, don't make that face. You'll grow into it. And, you know, that's like an old wives tale. And a farbisoner, well, you can see the movie, Austin Powers, Frau farbisoner. So, you know, they've got that. A farbisoner is, to my understanding, and I could be a little bit off the path, is someone who's sour on the inside, and it grows to the outside. And it's an amazing thing, because I'm 60 now, and I know people my whole life. And I know people who are like, like women who were like so hot when they were 14, 15. See, not that I was dating them before, they were in high school with me at 14. But I was saying, people I knew when they were 14, how beautiful they were, but they were sour people. And now, you see them like at 40, and the mouth grows into the downward pout, and the nose droops down, because their inside grew to their outside. And that's what a farbisoner is. Yeah, I've talked about that on the show before, and you taught me. Are you working the cruise ships? I've got to finish the Schwartzes. Oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. So, Mitzi Shor, every time I go on, and I kill at the comedy store, but I'm not, you know, she won't allow me to perform there. I kill, and every time I go to do my set, Mitzi gets up, leaves the room for this famous perm show in the main room of 500 people. And I don't care, because I just don't care, because that's just my lot in life. And so one year, this is after we did it five, this is a beautiful story. You know, the rabbi calls me up with the wife, oh, we're gonna do it at the comedy store. I go, not a problem. I can't wait to help you out. We're gonna have a show that's even better than last year. You know, the irony though, rabbi, is Mitzi Shor does not like me for whatever reason, and she does not feel that I'm very funny or anything like that. And I don't care, but it's just such an ironic thing. So, okay, I do the show, the kill, and I look over to where she was sitting. And of course, the chair is empty. She got up and left the room. At the end of the show, she's waiting for me backstage when she got up to leave. The rabbi's wife grabbed her and made her watch me. And she had only seen me like 15 years before when I bombed in front of her on audition night. And there was Mitzi backstage going, I can't believe how funny you've gotten. Please call me tomorrow. And that was in 1993. And from that day, until the day I left LA in 2001, I had the best spots. At the comedy store, I had every night of the week, I had main room on Saturday. So it's a beautiful story. And that was strictly because of the rabbi and his wife. So there was paying it, paying it forward. There you go. Wow. Wow. Now what do you want to know? Cruise ships. I have this fantasy about Florida. This is my fantasy about Florida. I never moved to San Francisco. I never tried to be the kind of comedian that I ended up becoming. Instead, I stayed in New York. I developed an act that was like a tank that could go anywhere. Yes. And now I moved to Florida. And in my 70s, 80s, life is good. I'm working in the condo circuit. I'm hanging out at Wolfies. Is Wolfies still around? No, that was owned by, that got bought by the guy that owns Jerry's Deli in LA. I'm blanking on his last name. I think it begins with a Z. And Jerry's, whatever his name, Jerry Z. But no one eats that food anymore. Not even Jewish people. There's just very few people can digest that horrific food. So it became what's called Epicure Market, which is like, what's the equivalent? What's the word Chasens is in LA? Where Chasens was, Beverly and Doheny, became that gourmet food market. So it became something like that. But it was so expensive, they didn't even have price tags. They just had spin the wheel. Like you'd go to the bananas and you go, how much of what's a pound of bananas today? They go, let's spin the wheel. And it would go from $5 to like $9 a pound. Really? So they just went out of business. Yeah, I'm exaggerating. Oh, okay. It's like a great market, but the prices were even too much for rich people. I noticed like the Carnegie Deli, you go in there, there'd be like a slice of cheesecake. I'm going to do this just because we're talking about the Carnegie Deli. Slice of cheesecake, the size of a Buick. Sorry, but, you know, Buick. Yes. Comedy would. People, Jews are not eating that kind of food anymore? No, no, these restaurants. You know, there's a man I was listening to on the John Bachelor show, the radio show, and he wrote a book about the last delis. I forget what it is, but there's something like 17 delis left in the United States. What are you talking about? There's like 17 delis. It's a book. You can look it up on Amazon. It's called Delis or the Last Delis. And there's like 17 left, where there used to be hundreds. I mean, listen, how many are in LA? Is Junior still on Westwood? I don't know. We don't live in LA. We've got in New York. And then there's Arts in the Valley. There was Langers. Maybe Langers opened up, but Langers used to close it too. Or maybe they closed it 215, but that's not, you know, that's like only open for a few hours. New York, Carnegie closed. There's the 2nd Avenue deli. There's the one that's down in the Lower East. No, the 2nd Avenue deli, I think closed. There's one I closed too. I think so. Listen, when you hire Al Goldstein, the publisher of Screw Magazine to be the creator at your deli. Cats is still around. Yes. That's the one I just went to a few months ago. But that's in that hip, hip area. So it's supported because it's just so cool that it's a throwback. So yes, but again, we're on one hand right now of delis. Down here, we've got, there's three Gs down here. There's just like Ben's deli, but this is a major Jewish area down here. And there's probably five delis. Jerry's deli in Beverly Hills across the street from Cedar Sinai. They closed. Oh, there you go. The clock, that's what this book is about. You're questioning me. I'm telling you, it's, we're coming down. You know, I was at Jerry's deli one time and they flew in Larry Hagman's liver because he needed a transplant. And it was like the biggest thing. You had like 100 press cars, you know, all the trucks with the satellites and the helicopter. And they were all filming the helicopter and it came in. The guy came out, jumped out with the lunch basket, you know, with the dry ice in it. And they had the liver for Larry Hagman. And he lived, he lived on that liver for a long time until he passed away. And you, it's like the biggest thing. Well, wait a second. So were you, you went to watch the liver getting? Well, I was at Jerry's deli and, and you could see all this action going on. It was, you know, it was, you could look right into Cedar Sinai parking lot from Jerry's deli, especially from the chair. I was sitting in and, and that's what it was. Did I know it was Larry Hagman's liver? I think so because the television was on. Something, it was, they were doing a live broadcast. So I just looked at the TV said Larry, Larry Hagman's liver being delivered. And like, just like Jerry's deli delivers and right out the window, they had all the trucks and everything. Yeah. Well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about cruise ships. Okay. Welcome back. We're talking with Bruce Smirnoff. He is our Miami bureau chief. That's so funny. Tell me about the cruise ships. I've never done a cruise ship. Well, I also have a day gig now where I work for an agency and we're one of the top agencies in the world and we book the talent on the cruise ships. And the name of the agency is, is Don Casino Productions. And Don was a great singer down here in that when we were talking about the heyday of Miami and Don was dating a beautiful woman named Candy. What was her name? Candy Scott was her show business name. And they got married and they didn't want to go on the ships anymore. So Candy created this agency. Ships used to, used to just mail away for your dates. That's how crazy it was. They were so eager to have entertainers 30, 40 years ago. And Candy created the agenting, whatever, liaison down here. And then she has turned it over to her daughter, Wendy, Wendy Garvis. And Wendy runs the company with Robin Cahill. And I work for them like talent liaison, which is a fancy word for I come in once a week. And I tell them, look, here's some people to put on the ships. But it's a big job because we got, we get like, I'd say 200 people a week want to be on cruise ships. You're asking me, what does it take? And you have to be really specific to work on cruise ships. You have to be everything that we were taught not to be when we were in the comedy clubs. You know, you're taught to be off the wall, edgy, push the envelope, all those things. If you do any of that on a ship, you basically could be fired within hours. So you kind of have to be vanilla-ish. You have to be kind of like everything else, but you still have to be great. So it's hard to, you know, to stand on both sides of the fence and describe it. But, you know, you have to be a little schmaltzy. And at the same time, you have to be really good. Well, somebody, if you're at the top of your game, like Rick Golds, or he's edgy, but he could have played a cruise ship, I would assume. Yeah, well, he's a star. So that supersedes everything, yes. Are there any instances where a star does a cruise ship and people could play? They used to. Oh, they used to use Norm Crosby a lot. They used Jerry Lewis. If you watch that documentary called Telethon, you can get it on YouTube. You ever seen that? No. By the way, have you seen that? Just go to YouTube, type in Telethon. It's some, somebody made a documentary. It's like Cinema Verité, where the camera is just on, and it just follows Jerry Lewis. I believe it's the 1982 Telethon in Vegas. Well, why didn't I know about that? I'm obsessed. Oh, this is phenomenal. I'm obsessed. Oh, you got it. You got to see it. And you remember Ralph Cardinale? Remember when Rick Corso was doing a vagorama in LA and we were all doing little parts on it? And Ralph was one of the henchmen. Well, Ralph was Jerry Lewis's right-hand guy. We never believed him. And there's Ralph, this whole documentary, you know, as his right-hand guy. It's really... As we're speaking, I'm looking up Telethon. It's two hours in like six minutes. It's not long enough. Exactly. It's not long enough. Telethon. It's amazing. Yeah. Black and white on video. And it's telling because it starts like three hours before the Telethon and it ends literally as he steps onto the stage. And it's the machinations that go on. But what's interesting about him is that he goes, which is what he was like... How did I not know about this? Oh, this is great. It's great. That only has 15,000 views. I know. And I've sent it on. I've told everyone that will listen to me to watch this and it's fascinating. As we're speaking, I'm posting it to the website. Hang on. He's addicted in this documentary time, which I never... My mother said you eat two ice cream sandwiches. You're going to get your stomach pumped. I think he eats like 12 ice cream sandwiches in these three hours that at least they show on screen. And he washes it down with red wine. It's amazing. Everybody has peculiar air and peculiar... Whatever it is the word I'm thinking of, but it's peculiar behavior. And yes, it's great. He goes like very serious. I need a shot. You have to put a 35 millimeter lens because he was very obviously very smart at this. And he is still living. And you know, he's like, you've got to use a 35. You can't use a whatever and a thing. And then all of a sudden, he sees Anna Maria Alberghetti. And he just goes like whack John. And you're laughing. He's like, you know, it's an amazing mind. Amazing, amazing mind. I mean, I never thought Jerry Lewis was funny. And then somebody who I really respect said, go back to the fifties and look at this stuff. And I went, oh, yes. Okay, I get it. The guys are genius. Yeah. It's the stuff that came afterwards that was funny, but for the wrong reasons. All right, it's now on my website. All right, I never enjoyed him as a child. And because, and then I saw that documentary, I believe it was Cinemax did it. And I just changed my whole opinion of him. And I went back and rewatched a lot of his stuff. And again, it's not my favorite, but like the Nutty Professor is great, but just the talent and his ability and who he was and how famous he was at 18, you know, 19, I think 47, 48, the way they had throngs of people and they would throw their, you know, they would, they'd be in a hotel like in Times Square and open the window and women would be screaming at them. That's pretty powerful. I mean, it was like Beatlemania in the late 40s. Pretty powerful. All right, it's up on my website. I telephoned the entire movie and it's under news from around the world. Yeah, they never, they never like, they haven't blacked it out because I think the guy who did it never got paid or some crazy thing. So he owns it. And, you know, I keep waiting for them to take it down. They never take it down. Wow. So that's one of those. So you have this stuff. So who's the best cruise ship comic right now? There's a few of them. I hate to mention names because if I don't mention someone's names, they're going to get pissed. But John Joseph, you must know John from New York. He is in very, very high demand. My guy, it's amazing. His name jumps out because he's very, very versatile. He can work what's called a mass market ship, which maybe has 6,000 passengers. So you've got people of all walks of life. And then you can put him on Cunard, which is like uppity, very high end British and US guests. And he will kill with them as he kills with a mass market ship. But what kind of life is that? What kind of life is that? It pays a lot of money. It pays more than any. There's nothing left on land anymore, unless you're in Branson, Missouri, or unless you're on television. So everything has been squeezed and all that's left are the cruise ships. And they don't even pay what they used to pay 30 years ago when I hear what guys made then. But still, what they pay today is really good money. And as we are speaking here on this podcast, I've got like three emails that came in the past two hours of people that want to be with us. Now, a lot of these people are lunatics. I mean, I had a guy, some of my favorite ones was a guy, because my last name is Smirnoff. He thinks he's gotten in with me. This guy's like from Ukraine or something. And he's living in Staten Island, and he plays the Balala, what's it called? The Balalaika. Whatever that thing is, it's a triangle shaped guitar. And he's dressed like a Cossack, which is always good to Jew running from the Cossack while they're trying to have a pogrom. And he's in his basement. This is where he films it. On his iPhone, in his basement, and the wife is dressed like an Orthodox Christian with those hats that look like, they look like cuckoo clocks. They look like they've got like a six foot hat they're wearing. And they're playing, he's playing the Balalaika and she's playing the piano and they're just singing. And this guy will not stop calling because he got my number. Smirnoff, ready to go on ship. Smirnoff, when I sail on ship, they pass by my window every day. I could just jump on ship, Smirnoff. And of course, when a guy is this insane, I got to call him back and go, we're working on it, Igor. We are, we are busy, busy, busy. I can't sleep at night, Igor. Smirnoff, when, when the ship coming, so then I read a book about the Russian mafia, then I stopped all of a sudden playing with this guy because people are gonna come and fillet me like a Maui fish in the Great Beach. So I stopped with the tormenting of the Ukrainians. That's, that's over with. You have done cruise ships. Have they all been here? Here's how it started. I, when I moved to Florida, I, you know, I was edgy-ish and I had, you know, dirty material. And so the condos got me clean because you have to be clean. So the next step was where the cruise ships. And I tried the mass market ships where people are from all walks of life and they didn't like me. Mike, Mike, you know, I'm a very funny guy, but it's not for everybody. It's, it's ethnic. It's whatever it is. And, and I didn't do well. So I laid off the ships for a few years and then I didn't realize, I never knew about these high-end ships where they're very wealthy people, very wealthy people like me because they're very, very elderly. And I'm like a throwback to the comics. See, everything as you get older, you always remember your point of reference is when you got married. So that's why the music, if you're 80, you still like the music of the 1950s because that was your wedding song. And you got married and you danced. You were still, you know, a lot of vibrant at that point in your life. So they remember the comedians that they liked were the ones they saw on the Ed Sullivan show and the Sticky and the Take My Wife Please kind of thing. And I'm like a throwback to that generation. So that's, I didn't know about those ships. So those ships exist and that's what my act is still like. So I did it. So they found me. And my first ship is a Regent Cruise Line. Phenomenal. And they send me to Alaska. And I'm all excited. And it's a charter cruise of funeral directors. The only me, right? Do they send me on a cruise of funeral directors? And the most amazing thing happens. They introduce me and I'm nervous because, you know, funeral directors are not peppy people. They're not that they party people, the opposite, but they're not, you know, they're very solemn people. They're around death all day long. So there's no energy in the room. And as they introduce me, the house PA system cuts out. It's being overridden by the captain. And I know this sounds crazy, folks listening, but I swear to you, I have, this is all true stuff. They interrupt. Someone is dying in the showroom. So you get an interruption. And you hear, bong, bong, bong. Code blue, code blue, showroom, code blue. Code blue is a medical emergency. So I look and as I'm coming on stage, so I can't even be heard because my microphone is automatically cut out. They're pounding on this guy's chest and everyone is looking at them pounding on this guy's chest and I'm just standing there. And then finally the people start to look at me and I don't know what to say. And the comic, the bad boy inside of me goes, hey folks, look at it this way, someone's going to be having a little extra business this week. And it was the worst thing you can see. It's funny, but it's the worst thing. And then I couldn't believe what I said next. I said, look at the bright side. You can write this trip off as a tax deduction. And they all got up like rows of corn. I would do a joke, row H, up, out. I would do another joke, row C4, up, out. And I got fired. I mean, they fired me. So I told the agent at the time, the agency that I work for now, they were my ship agent and I told them the story. They started laughing. I know this is not supposed to be funny, but this is why they fired me. So they go, no, this is amazing, this story. So they had me call the vice president because this was what they made a big deal about. They gave me like 20 weeks of work and they just fired me from all 20 weeks immediately. So they got the vice president on the phone. They said, tell him the story. So I very calmly told him the story. And this guy starts laughing. And he goes, look, we're making an exception. We're putting you back on. And they put me back on. So now I know, because this has happened now three times where people died or they have fallen and they're bleeding profusely, right as they're bringing me on stage. Now I know what to do. Now you go on like at the comedy cellar in New York or the comic strip in New York, these great clubs. No one's rupturing. No one's having heart attacks. No one's having seizures. Because people are 19 years old in these places. But now I'm so, I'm so, what's the word? I'm so akin to this. I know what to do. What would you do, David? I'm asking you, you tell me what would you do if you were coming on stage, someone starts rupturing blood. What do you do? And everyone's watching the blood rupturing. What would you do? Well, my instincts is to make fun of the guy. Right. So the last thing. That's not what you're supposed to do. So we know that you've got to rule that out. So what would you do? Well, obviously you just keep going. That's one option. But that is a good option. But I've learned now there's two options. What you do if the blood is gushing like over six, seven inches where it's really bad, you go, we're going to take a five minute break and you just walk off the stage. And, you know, it's stupid you're laughing, but this is these are the kinds of who knows what to do. I've learned what you do. Now let's say it's not that bad. Let's say they're doing mouth to mouth, which I just had down here a few months ago. You just do what you do. You just do your act. And it's the most amazing thing human nature takes over where they know what's going on. You know what's going on, but both you and them are going to pretend nothing's going on. So they kind of laugh. You kind of do your act. They keep kind of laughing. You keep kind of doing your act. The person either lives or dies or they take it out. And everybody, like it's like a draw when you can't beat the other person, you kind of shake hands and you go, this was like, wasn't great, but we're not going to tell anybody because we understand what happened, but nobody brought it up. So no one got hurt. No one insulted anybody. And we all live to live another day. And that's what that's it's amazing. It's show business. And you have to be skilled and versed at, you know. What happens for the rest of the day? You're on a cruise ship. I have a friend who used to do cruise ships and then he couldn't take it anymore. He said he would work one day a week and the rest of the time was just spent waiting for the show. It's killing time, but here's the big problem. Here's the worst thing. It's called the walk of shame. And it is very possible you can be on a ship for seven days, sometimes even 10. And they put you on the very first night and going on and whatever it is, you don't have a good set. In fact, you stink. And you are now involved in what's called the walk of shame because everywhere you go, these people look at you. Like let's say you have a bad set at a comedy club. You're never going to see these people again. When Michael Richards had that problem at the laugh factory, technically in his mind, he was never going to see these people again. So that's the end of it. Unfortunately, somebody had it on video. So that was a problem. But on a ship, you have to see these people. Not only do you see them, you see them all the time. And they look at you and they make facial, like if you see somebody with an arm, no arm, or they look at you and you see them make a recognition, like, ugh, that's that terrible comedian. And do you know how horrible? It's called the walk of shame. And what I do, it's happened to me about four or five times in my 10 years on the ships, I hide, you have to hide in a room and you come out like after midnight when everybody is sleeping. And you go and you gather, like you find hot water and you make an oatmeal. And that's your meal. I mean, that's your food. And you go back into your room and you just hide there sometimes for four, five, six days until it's over. You laugh and it's a horror show. But if you said to me, if I weren't a comic, all you have to do is one lousy show and then you get to hang out on a cruise ship for a week. No. It's not good. Not when you're a sensitive. Listen, the whole idea of being a comedian is that you're off your rocker and you rely on love, the fake love from strange people, which is the sickness that we are in. So when you know you haven't done what you're supposed to do and you know these people that are supposed to give you the fake, sick love are now giving you real hate, it's not good, it's the absolute worst thing. It's the worst, it's worse than the bullies that caused you to get into this business. They are people literally walk down the hallway and then like two feet after they pass you, they are like, what is it called? Sato vache, that's that guy that stinks. And you hear them go, that's that guy that stinks? Oh my God. And then you're back to the room with the oatmeal and you're looking at the watch, it's 2 a.m. There's nobody up, I can run out on the ship, I can get a couple of things done. Oh my God, it's the worst thing in the world. So you have to be so good that you have to, that you cannot, you have to be bulletproof on these ships, plus they'll fire you anyway. If you have a couple of bad shows, you're toast anyway because these people write reviews about you. These passengers who know nothing about show business who have never in their life even played a harp in front of another human being are going on and going, we didn't think Bruce Smyrnoff was clever or had any come back and it's all over, it's curtains. I'm selling big and tall clothing all over, yeah, it's all over. And if it goes well? Oh, then it's, you know, it's phenomenal. Then you're like the star of the ship, especially, I'll tell you a funny ship story. Do we have like eight minutes? Whatever you want, whatever you want. Okay, this is a funny ship. So I'm on a high-end ship and I've already done my show and I killed and I'm like, you're the hero because you're the comedian, you're the only comedian, you're the go-to guy. Everyone is a rich billionaire, boring person and they look to you as you're the guy, the magic lamp that you're gonna rub it and you're gonna make them laugh. So they have tea time. So I'm up in the area for the tea time and it's just a bunch of tables. It's like the bar, you know, the lounge. And I'm at the bar and then there's a quartet playing these four, it's always four women from like Eastern Europe or Ukraine and where they, you know, they're all big into music and they're playing, you know, like they play waltzes and they're playing classical music. So I'm setting it up. So there's these two tables that are sitting not next to each other, they're apart but they're in front of the quartet. And I just happen to know both couples, the two Jewish couples that are on the ship. There's not many Jewish people on this, but these are the two Jews because they like to, the Jewish people like to show how, you know, we know about the arts, we have to sit close because we're gonna give it the nod of approval. We're Jewish and we know what's good and we're giving it the yes nod. So you're, you know, you've been blessed like the pope coming in and going, good works. So they're sitting there and now I'm opposite them at the bar. So the quartet is in front of me and the two tables are in front of me and they watch so the, so all of the playing, you know, the blue Danube, it's wonderful. And then all of a sudden they play Handels. I believe it was Handel and it was a song that he wrote in 1740 but it's, it became Deutschland uberalis. It became the German national anthem. It still is the German national anthem, but, you know, Hitler took it up a couple of notches and made it, you know, like a big thing. So they start playing and one table of Jews gets up. I've never seen anything like it. They throw their silk napkins down. Stop, you will stop. I commend you to stop. And these four Ukrainian girls, they're 20 years old. They don't know from Jew. They don't know from, they don't know from anything. They just, they're just two passengers that are screaming at them, throwing their silk napkins on the ground. You will stop and they just stopped and they're frozen in terror. I'm going, boy, vase. And what the other table, because you have to know Jews, the other table gets up and they go to the Jews and they go, they will not stop. They do not know that that was the Nazi national anthem. And they look at the women and they go, we command you to play that song again. And the other Jews are going, I command you to stop. And they're going to two Jews, the four Jews are yelling at each other. The Ukrainian girls are sitting there, they're tripping, they're shi-fitzing now. They're in a drenching sweat because they don't want to go back to Ukraine. It's a horrible country. They're in war right now. They want to stay on a five-star ship and I'm watching this. I'm going, oh, Jews on the loose. And now all of a sudden, the two Jewish couples stop fighting and they look at me and they go, Bruce, what do you think? I turned into member Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs when Clarice Starling asks him for the business card and he kind of like comes around the corner and he just like hands her the business card and then I ran out of that bar so fast. That's all I remember. And it was just those four Jews standing commanding these four Ukrainians to not play, play, play, not play, play, not play. It was the funniest thing I ever saw in my life. Remember Leon Klinghofer? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Well, you know that joke, right? You know, that's supposedly the Peter Fogle story. What? You know, remember, there's that urban myth and I can't, I don't know if it's true or not, but I think it is, but I cannot prove it. That he was on a ship. Fogle's a wise guy, a Weisenheimer and he did that joke about, you know, I was at the bar the other day and I ordered a Leon Klinghofer, two shots and a splash. Helicopter came off the ship. They didn't, they didn't like wait to the next port. They sent a helicopter. So that's the urban story about him. Tell the audience who Leon Klinghofer was. Leon Klinghofer was on the Achilles Loro, which was a cruise ship. This was, I believe, 1986. This is the first instance of Muslim terrorism aboard a cruise ship, which hijacked the cruise ship and they shot, were you laughing at? Well, unless you count the Baba Ghanoush that they served. And they shot him. It's terrible. They killed him and he was in a wheelchair. It was like he was a defenseless man, but because they went through the manifest looking for Jews and he was a Jew, they shot him. So that's great for people to then do a Leon Klinghofer joke and, you know, when you're not supposed to do that. But hang on for one second about Leon Klinghofer. Yeah. As I remember, every Jew I knew in public would say, this is terrible. They took a poor old Jewish man and in a wheelchair and they threw him overboard the Achilles Loro. Yeah. Then in private, I think his son was like a program executive over at Comedy Central. Geez, I did not know that. Well, listen, when we finish this, we can Google it. But it was a terrible tragedy. Let me tell you something. The cruise industry, there are every year more ships coming out. These ships, David, they hold 6,000 passengers and the crew, that's not the crew. The crew is like 5,000. So you're talking about 11,000 people on a ship. It's bigger than some cities in the world. And they build these ships now. They have brigs because when you have 11,000 people, stuff happens. So this is the future of travel and entertainment and all-in-one packaging and all that stuff. And with the ice cab smelting. This is a terrible thing that happened. With the ice cab smelting. Yeah. We may have to live permanently on cruise ships. Boy, that'd be a lot of comedians working. Let me tell you. Are there people who live on cruise ships all year round? There's a cruise ship called The World. And it came out, I don't know, like 10-ish years ago. And this was like condos. You were, you bought a residence on the ship and the trip traveled around the world. I think Oprah Winfrey was, and they had a supermarket on the ship and you have your own in your own. You have like a, not just a cabin, but you've got like a one or two bedroom apartment. So you've got your own kitchen. You can eat on the ship in their restaurant. Anyway, I don't think it took off. I've been in port with it. And I don't think it became the hit that it was. But yes, there are. Could you live on a ship? If you didn't have to perform, would you? Could I live on a ship now? How long could you stay on a ship before you went crazy? I've been on six weeks in a row and I did go crazy. I've never been the same. When I come home now, and I'm still affected by it, I have like a big apartment and I just sit in my chair in front of the television set. You know, you get, that's one thing. When you work on a ship, your whole world is your laptop, your earphones, your portable hard drive where you've got movies and TV shows and books. And your whole world is the lights go off, headphones go in, your life is on your laptop, and you go from book reading to movies to this to that. I mean, if you're a drinker, which I'm not, you can go get wasted, I guess you can do things. But these are all non-productive things. But you know, whatever your life is, it's all in your laptop. Whether you choose to educate yourself or entertain yourself. It's a tough, it's tough. And the food can vary. Some of these cruise ships are the worst food on earth and some of the food is phenomenal on obviously on the more expensive high-end ships. I heard all they do is eat on these cruise ships. Right, because it's free. So I mean, you know, it's the Woody Allen joke. You know, what is it? Horrible food and such small portions, you know. Oh, the food is free. So you go to the restaurant and the food is... The ships are exactly the copycat of the Catskills. It's as much food as you can eat on demand anytime and entertainment up the yin-yang. And that's the formula of the Catskills and just taken to the corporate level and done to the nth degree. I mean, when I say the food is terrible, I'm a snob, I'm a whatever I am. But you know, there are people who are not, don't have great palates and they, you know, they like anything and to them, it's good food. So living in Florida, it sounds like you're happy. I love it here. This is the greatest thing I ever did. I have to go on the... Well, because when I was a kid, I grew up in Connecticut isolated and I didn't have very many friends because I grew up in such an isolated area and I must have had such a defective part of me that I caused people to bully me. So I was bullied by the few people that lived on my neighborhood. So I had like a very sad, lonely childhood, not looking for tears or anything. I'm just telling you the reality was so I lived in this nice home isolated and like my mother love, I love my mother so much, I miss her so much, but my mother was constantly concerned that I was going to get kidnapped. This is how Jewish mothers work. So I lived with a mother who believed that I was going to be kidnapped. So she didn't want to pay the ransom. She wasn't worried about she getting hurt. My mother would do things like, you know, like I'd go out to play. Well, I lived in an isolated area and I couldn't be seen because she was from the Bronx so she was used to that urban life. So if she couldn't see me, she was convinced the kidnappers had gotten the net on me and were taking me away to some location. So my mother would ring a bell. So no matter where I was, if I heard the bell ring, I'd have to show up at the house. I'm here, I'm okay. And then, okay, then I'd go back. And you know, so this was like a, once the bullies knew that I had to respond to the bells like Pavlov's dog, they would like tie me to the tree. And then that would cause big, my mother would call the police and the police. Oh, it was just terrible. So I'm just trying to give you a nutshell why I like Florida. So I would come to Florida, we'd come to visit grandma in Miami. And all of a sudden I was around kids and I was funny. So instead of these nitwits, meanwhile all these kids that bullied me growing up in Connecticut, they turned out to be junkies. Many of them killed themselves. These are the happy stories. I love telling stories. Those morons used to tie me to the trees to go, I think there's something wrong with these guys. I can't quite put my hands in what they were needling themselves like at 14 with heroin. And they were dead by 20. So they, I just have to grow up around like nine, not even nine, four defective people that made my life miserable. Anyway, they're dead. I'm still here. Anyway, so I come to Florida and I have the greatest, I even got action down here. I got my first action with the medical girl. That was like the last thing was going to happen in Connecticut. So it was great. So I had all these wonderful feelings of Florida. And I left LA in 01 because LA was all about my career. And I realized in 01, it wasn't going to, sadly was not going to go the way I thought it was going to go, even though I was absolutely convinced that it was, but it didn't. So I went to Brooklyn. I think we talked about this in the last podcast. And in Brooklyn, I was a fish out of water because I was living in that mafia neighborhood and I couldn't handle the winter because I had like 23 years of no winter in LA. So I said, you know what? I'll go to Florida. And this is, I love it here. This is not a great place for show business because there's no comedy clubs. So there are laments, but other than that, and nobody laughs down here. Like I told you, all my friends are on medication. So no one laughs at my jokes. You're the only, you're the only laughter I've heard other than in months. And but I live great. I just love it here. You should come and visit. You live in New York. You know, take a few days. You can come and stay here. I don't take big. I don't know how to relax. I don't either. But if you ever need to be down here, you can stay here at my place. How do you relax? What do you do to relax? I don't even know the beginning. Like reading to me or watching a movie. I read. What do you see? I was a terrible student. And I have, what I do now is I educate myself. I just, I spend about three to four hours a night reading and Googling. I'm just like walking around. I want to be tested. I take these tests on Facebook. I get 99%. It's amazing how much information. I don't know everything. I mean, I don't know like whatever. What was that period when the Renaissance? I don't know. I don't know that much history. I'm good on like 19th and 20th century history and non-mathematical stuff. I love reading, you know. Good for you. One more story. All right. What do you want? I don't want to hear the next week. We'll ask you about Rich Jenny's wake. That's just a little too. Oh, that was terrible. That was just such a sad thing. Yes. But I have a funny story about someone's wake. But yes, that was, that was just a tragedy. You want to hear a story about a comedian that I can't mention, but it's a good story. But we'll call him X or you don't like stuff like that. Is it Pete Fogel? No. No, it's a famous, famous comedian. Yeah. But I can't, I won't mention his name. Okay. Okay. Paul Newman had a son named Scott who unfortunately passed away from heroin abuse. So they named a UCLA, came up with a wings called the Scott Newman Drug Rehabilitation Center. And I was a doorman at the improv at the time. And when they opened this, they christened the night. The night was the following. You would meet at UCLA where you would cut the ribbon to the drug, drug clinic, then you got on buses and you were taken to the improv to see X who was the biggest comedian in the United States at the time. What year is this? I'm going to say 80, could have been 81. I'm not, all you have to do is see when the Scott Newman drug center opened up at UCLA. So it's that, it's them. But this is the hottest comedian in probably in the world. So it's seven o'clock. It's seven o'clock. Thank you, computer. So I'm it, I'm the doorman. And what I didn't know about the improv is everybody complained when you, when you sat people, I would have to see people and everybody was always like, you know, I don't want to sit here. It's always a pain in the neck. So I knew all these big celebrities and all these big people were coming to the club. And, and I was like dreading it and the buses pulled up. But because it was such a solemn event, you know, and Paul Newman and the whole thing, all these wealthy high connected people got off. And I just said, please sit. And everyone sat. But wherever I point, I said, you sit over there. They sat over there. No one said, do you know who I am? I'm not sitting over. So it was just this amazing thing. So I had the room seated in, I thought it was going to be 30 minutes. I had it seated in like nine minutes. So I'm killing time. And, and you know, they were all getting ready for the show. And I go into the bathroom and there had been a fight over the weekend in the improv bathroom. So somebody ripped the door off the stall. So they're, you know, the toilet is exposed. So I go in to use the urinal and X is on his hands and knees in front of the toilet. And X is poured, I'd say close to two grams of cocaine on the top of the toilet. And he's there with a straw or a $100 bill and he sees me and he knows me. He goes, would you like some? I go, thank you. I don't do that. And then X inhaled the entire whatever two grams of cocaine and then went on stage for the christening of the drug rehabilitation. And that's when I said, I don't know if I can stay a Democrat anymore. It's just like, I can't believe what I'm seeing. This is like, and they, and of course, 19 standing ovations, you know, and no one suspected that X was high. And there you go. There's your, there's your da, da, da, da, da. You know, that's when I realized, you know, when I've got stories of being around gay Hollywood. I mean, the things, I saw people on sitcoms, guys from like the Dick Van Dyke show in dresses, wearing a dress with a handbag. And I'm going, I can't believe what I'm seeing. Oh, I, I, I'm five years old when I saw all this stuff. I think I know who you're talking about. Shut up, Mel. Yeah. Yeah. Was that, is that, do we cut that out or do we keep it in? No, he, look, it's, you know, I actually researched him. He had no children. He's been passed away for a long time. Yeah, but if he was in the closet, we should respect that. He wasn't in the closet when I saw him, believe me. He was wearing a purple, he had gotten heavy. So he was working like a purple drape, like, like, like a drape that they just cut a hole out of. So he draped a purple thing. He had a Chanel, a woman Chanel. We better not leave this in, but he had a Chanel handbag. And it's like, hi, how are you? I'm like, oh my God. It's no fully, holy macro, you know, but yes. Oh my God. I'm keeping that in. Oh, you're keeping that in. All right, fine, fine. He was a great actor. But if you can research him, he always played that. It was a great, great character. He was, you know, lumpy's, uh, lumpy's dad on lead it to be the Billy Wilder Jimmy Stewart Lindbergh movie. Probably because I, when I did my research on him, he was in a, he was, he played serious. He was in very serious roles. Because he always played a serious guy, but you couldn't help but laugh because he was such a great actor. He wasn't trying to be funny. It just, they would always make him the funeral. Whatever he was like the comic relief in serious movies. But then his forte, of course, was comedy. You know, the sitcoms. Please tell me he was happy at the party. It was great. Yeah, yeah. That's when I used to hang around with, we'll call this guy X. And X was the big manager who used to take me to the racetrack. And X was gay, but X had children. And this is another podcast. You'll hear about how that crazy side of LA. Boy, that was a, that was weird. That was weird hanging out. We all, yeah, we all think, we all think, I can handle it. Right. You hear about, you hear about that stuff. And you think, I can handle it. And you get there. And you think you're handling it. And slowly, but surely your neurons in your brain break down. And you pretty much lose it completely eventually. Well, I'm writing as we speak. I can handle it because that, I'm not going to do it now, but when we continue this, that is a great line for the stories that deal with X, the gay person. Because all these guys that I knew wanted to meet him because he was so powerful. And I said, he's gay. Something's going to happen. He didn't do that with me because he liked me for another reason, but it wasn't sexually. Thank God. But I said, X is going to want his five cents worth. And he goes, all of them said the same thing, David. I can handle it. And of course, the stories end in complete comedy tragedy because they couldn't handle it. And then one guy peed in his pants. He got so nervous. I'll go into it. But some of them are very tragic stories. But yeah, if you want to go into that, we can do that. And how everybody you play for peas in their pants. Bruce Smirnoff is our Miami bureau chief. I'll talk to you next week. Thank you, David. Bye-bye, everybody. This is the David Feldman Radio Network. Joining us is our resident film critic, Michael Snyder. These are the films he's going to be talking to us about. Risk, new documentary. Burden, a new documentary. King Arthur, the legend. Snatched the wall. Paris can wait. Farewell. Well, something Stevens v. Farewell to Europe. It's Stephans vibe. Farewell to Europe. Oh my God. Sometimes I wonder about you. You're a smart man, I feel it. Come on buddy, Stephans vibe. We all know him. I'm not as smart as you. Tell me about the Julian Assange. Is this Laura Poitras? It is. Risk is, it seems almost like a follow-up to her incredibly good documentary. You are there documentary. About Edward Snowden, Citizen 4. But basically is her shooting right in the middle of the big Snowden crisis where he has to basically run for his life and find shelter, I guess, in Moscow eventually. Now she's done the same thing, maybe even simultaneously, with WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief and Bet Noir, Julian Assange. And the documentary is entitled Risk. And she interviews the guy. And it was easy for me to root for Edward Snowden, you know, the hacker leaker. For some reason, I'm like, on this guy's side as I'm watching him and his travails through her camera eye, not so easy to get behind Assange. You, politically speaking, seems like a rogue more than anything else. More like someone who wants to shake things up rather than actually do good. I know that sounds like, you know, the editorializing, but hey, whatever. But what happens is you see her following him around and interviewing him while he is reaching prominence, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10 years ago. And then when things start going awry, and he too likes Snowden goes on the run. But as I root for Snowden, it's difficult to root for Assange. And that kind of changed the way that this film risked struck me as opposed to Citizen 4. I mean, it was fascinating to be on the inside of Assange's story, but the guy is kind of a douche. I mean, he's not, he fancies himself, you know, V for Vendetta, the, you know, the sexualized thing about a revolution in modern day England, led by that roguish character V and the master was adopted by the Occupy groups. You know, this guy thinks he's V, but he's not. He doesn't have the nobility of the true spiritual revolutionary. And the movie itself seems to lack a consistent point of view. Like, as if Poitras is as ambivalent about Assange as I am watching it. What is your ambivalence? And what is your ambivalence about Julian Assange? I mean, I just feel he's... Go ahead. There is the accusation of rape. Did they discuss that? Oh, yes. And they deal with it quite directly. And that does tend to color things a little bit. One of these masters of the universe type, self-styled, who thinks he can get away with anything. But comes a sort of subtextual narrative as you're watching this. Is he guilty? Do you think he's guilty of this? Who knows? I wasn't there. You know, that's the thing that you have to consider. Here's what he said. She said, she said. I guess there were very two women involved. Anyway, it concerns a point of view. Are you on his side or not? But the absence of one from Poitras, who seemingly looks upon him in an adversarial way, in some ways, where I should felt a certain kinship with Edward Snowden, one would presume. So that doesn't make for a compelling filmmaking as I would have hoped. But still, it's fascinating to be at close quarters with this guy. I think he's very interesting. And I don't know. I guess the rape accusations, but he hasn't been found guilty yet, right? No, I don't think so. I think that some of the charges have been dropped. But you have a situation here where you see this guy who seems like he is raging against the machine. And I'm not going to let you root for him. But on the other hand, he seems like a screw you kind of guy, who doesn't care who he tramples. You know, so there's a question of humanity here. You know, and it's unfair to... Humanity or purity? Or purity. Well, I would say, you know, I sometimes question how humane the guy is when he doesn't seem to care who's left in his wake when he does what is self-styled. You know, morality pushes him to do. Are there people left in his wake? I do know that he works with newspapers and they redact certain things. Well, there may be some... I think there have been people who have been victimized by this who maybe don't deserve to be. But you know, I would generally talk more about how the man strikes me as I watched this by comparison to how Edward Snowden struck me. You know, maybe it's a question of demeanor. Maybe they are equitable. But I thought that Citizen 4 was a better film. You felt that you really had a, you know, a kind of... You had a rooting interest in this guy whereas this guy you're just sort of fascinated by. I will say this about Julian Assange. We live in a nation where Tribune is about to be bought by the right-wing Sinclair television group. Television radio and now newspapers are owned by basically five corporations. We don't have the money. Media does not have the money to do investigative journalism anymore. They're stifling it. They're stifling it. So he has filled the gap left by the greed of corporate America. You need Julian Assange and WikiLeaks because big media will not spend the money to do investigative journalism. That being said, we have Mattathias Schwartz on the show today. He's a national security reporter for the Intercept Glenn Greenwald's website, which I recommend everybody go to. Glenn Greenwald worked with Snowden and works with WikiLeaks. We need investigative journalism and somehow they say the money isn't there, so we need WikiLeaks. Well, you know what, Hazal, for that reason alone, he himself is very, very secretive because I guess he perceives of himself as a target. Even as he is trying to honor the truth ostensibly or for some of the misdeeds of those in power, speak lies to power. No, truth to power, whatever you want to call it. And you're right. It is a necessity. We need more revealed about what's been going on in terms of potential treason in our own country on the part of people who are in charge for whatever reason. That said, if you look at this as a piece of filmmaking, I do believe that this feels incomplete and less conclusive than the Snowden movie. We learn a little bit about the people around the song. Well, she, yeah, but she got lucky. Yes, in terms of Snowden. Yeah, she was there when it all broke and she was there with Glenn Greenwald who was meeting with Snowden. To be fair, she's also with the songs a lot of the time when like crazy, you know, the volcanic circumstances are occurring in his life and in his, shall we say, his struggle. Isn't he basically in the Ecuadorian embassy in London? For much of this film he is, you know, I don't know where he is today, tough to say. Burden. Chris Burden is an interesting case. He is now departed this mortal coil, but in the early 70s, he became one of the most innovative performance artists and installation artists to come down the pike. This is the man who made art of being shot, shot by a colleague with a gun at his own behest and he's also the man who had himself crucified on a Volkswagen, on a VW bug. He electrocuted himself. This is a guy who, okay, he locked himself up in a locker for five days. I mean, he did all these things starting when he was in school, you know, and as a would-be artist. And eventually, I don't know, actually let me amend this. I do know that you live very nearby, one of his most beautiful and memorable installations. You used to at least live near LACMA and the LA County Museum of Art has something called Urban Lights Outside It, which is a whole series of vintage street lamps that are in rows. That's him? Row upon row. He oversaw that installation and it's so beautiful and memorable. It's the sort of thing when people say, what do I go see when I'm in Los Angeles? Well, I'm thinking, sure, maybe you want to see a giant mastodon model stuck in the La Brea Tarpets, but walk a few other blocks and you'll come upon Chris Burden's Urban Lights and it's gorgeous at Twilight. So this is a guy who had a fascinating career and after all of this craziness, you know, and again, that's the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Open, I don't have the actual figures, but after all this craziness, he retreated to the hills essentially and began doing his work there and kind of lay low for a while. But he was incredibly innovative and this movie Burden doesn't tell the whole story, but it has a lot of archival footage from back when he was first starting and has some interviews with him before he died a few years ago. So if you're interested in cutting-edge art and artists and one of the most unique sculptors, performance artists, installation people to ever come down the pike, there's a movie about Chris Burden which incidentally is directed and co-written by Richard Dewey and a guy named Timothy Maraman. It's pretty cool. We're checking out. Better Than Elevated Rock. Did I remember that? That they took a rock at LACMA, the LA County Museum of Art. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They spent millions of dollars to bring a rock up from the Southland and people were rightfully infuriated by that. Some guy said, this is art and they paid millions to just hang a rock outside the LA County Museum of Art. And you wonder why people want to defund the arts. That might have been Chris Burden. I know that he dug a giant hole in the ground at LACMA. He was one of the people who did part of that excavation. Look, you know, you win some, you lose some. Urban lights, beautiful. And he got shot? Why did he get it? He wanted a performance, one film of someone shooting him and the guy was supposed to shoot him in, you know, just miss him or something, and actually hit him in the arm. And there you go. It's the idea was to graze him, but he got it full in the meat of the arm. And it was stunning. And you can see a lot of it on film. If that alone brings you to the Chris Burden documentary already. And he sang in the animals, right? That's Eric Burden. No relation. I know. What is it? The House of the Rising Dumb? Did he get it? King Arthur Legend. No, it's King Arthur Legend of the Sword. Now, how's this for a misbegotten idea? Guy Ritchie, best known for his gangster movies, set in modern day England, particularly lock stock and two smoking barrels and a secondarily known for being foolish enough to have married Madonna for a while and allowing her to scuttle his career by forcing him to make a remake of the great Italian film swept away starring her instead of a talented actress. Guy Ritchie kind of found his metier more recently in the wake of that bump in the road career-wise by making the Sherlock Holmes films that starred Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. So well and good. He's bringing a Batman sensibility to the Victorian-set Sherlock movies, which are kind of charming and bond-esque in their tongue-in-cheek approach. So now, in Bolton, he decides to take on the Arthurian legend, but it's told, even though it's set back in, you know, I don't know, ancient times, if you will, it's told British gangster style with art and his boys up against his vicious uncle who's on the throne and arse played by Charlie Hunnam from, among other things. Not Breaking Bad, but what's the one about the motorcyclists? Oh. The math cycle, you know, it's Katie Segal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, she was never watched. The name will come to be, but that's irrelevant. Sons of Anarchy? Sons of Anarchy. He's also in the Guillermo del Toro movie Pacific Rim about the giant robots. He's a good actor and he'll do most anything, what giant robots, motorcycles and young, funky, king-to-be Arthur. And Jude Law, who is so good as Watson in those kind of wacky Sherlock films, is here as his vicious uncle who has, you know, to allow people to die on his watch just so he can consolidate his power. So what you have is swords, a stone. You know, there's a lady at the lake. There are mages and peasants and swordfights but Arthur's gangs are like gunsles without gats, if you will. No guns, just swords and knives. I guess, you know, a guy in the east end of London will stick you with a ship and so would one of the soon-to-be King Arthur's not-so-nights. And there's a lot of modern cadence and slang. It just is flat. You know, it's big, it's noisy, it's crazy. It seemed like a waste of my time. I mean, I really love lockstock and two smoking barrels and I don't think I've enjoyed a single Richie film as much as that one. And there was a number of people including Richie contributed to the script and admittedly, you know, it's hard to hate a movie that has, among other people, Chimam Honsu, Aidan Gillen, Eric Banner has a small role in this thing but it just did not work for me. Well, you know... Yeah, this looks fun, snatched. That has Amy, Schumer, and Goldie Hawn. The trailers look fun. Yeah, well, wrong. Nice to see Goldie Hawn back on the big screen and she has aged well, I daresay, and her husband, holy crap, he's wonderful in Guardians of the Galaxy volume two, Kurt Russell, and Goldie, both on the big screen this weekend in various theaters and their son, Wyatt Russell, who is sort of Owen Wilson, next generation, and a good and charming performer too, showing up in various films. But this is not what I hoped it would be. That still has the great comic timing but here she plays Amy Schumer's overly protective mom as the two end up stuck on a vacation trip to, I believe, Ecuador that goes horribly wrong as in kidnapped for ransom wrong. You see, no one wants to go with the obnoxious Amy Schumer character on this getaway to South America so rather than piss away the ticket, she offers it to her housebound mom to get mom out of the house. Mom lost the husband ages ago. She's been caught up in being a homebody so Amy thinks Amy, Amy's character thinks this is going to be a tonic. And anyway, the mom, of course, turns out to be more than a match for the Latin American gang members who target the women and there are violent moments and Amy Schumer leaves blood and gore in her wake. You're willy-wee or hittgurtly in this movie and it's just not funny. Violent, some tired setups and unfunny and you're sweating the whole time as they're wandering through the Latin American jumble. Joan Cusack has a few good moments as the sweetheart of Wanda Sykes character they're involved on the periphery of this Ike Baronholz is insufferable as the obnoxious brother to Amy Schumer and the son to Goldie Hawn. Christopher Maloney has a brief run here. You know, you can't fault some of these cast members but, man, not a good film. I really, Goldie Hawn deserves so much more. That's too bad. And who is the comedic mind behind it? Did Amy write the movie? Well, you know, I don't think she had much of a hand in it if she did at all. The truth is, it was written by a woman named Katie DePolo who I don't think are de-poiled or deployed. I don't think I wasn't familiar with directed by Jonathan Levine. Let's think of the guy. You know, I just don't think the script is very good. Some people, you know, they can nail the comedy and in this case, these two women tried their very, very best. And again, I'm not a big fan of Amy Schumer's. I wasn't... Sacrolet, take that back. I like your TV show, her stand-up book, your stand-up comedian as well as a commentator and radio host and, you know, stand-up is a different thing. Sketch comedy is everything and acting and holding down a lead role all different. And I will say that her, you know, well-received starring vehicle from a year or so ago is a considerably better film than this one. And, you know, I just, she has yet to impress me, except as a sketch comedian and writing her own material. So she has impressed me, but, you know... How about all the lives she saves by appearing in a bikini? Well, I will say this. I am among those people who don't find her attractive. Well, what I'm saying is the body acceptance that she's forcing on American women to accept their own bodies, that's pretty important stuff. I don't, I don't mind a softened woman, frankly. Nor do I. I don't at all. I don't and, but I just want to tell you, I don't find her particularly attractive. She's not my type, although she's very smart and she has good comic timing, but the material she's been choosing film-wise is not impressed me anywhere near her skits on her own television program. Yeah. There are other things at play besides what you see. I notice this. There's a friend of mine who does a year of the godfather at the cellar and it's hysterical. He brings comedians up and they reenact the godfather word for word. One of the funniest things I've ever seen. And a comedian or a comic named Rachel Feinstein played Kay Corleone, the Diane Keaton part. Yeah, the wife of the wife of the Al Pacino character, Michael. She added a whole other angle to it, which was what an idiot Kay was. It was a very feminist interpretation. I found it very nourishing and enriching and I've seen the godfather like a thousand times. So it was nice to see people interpreting these parts comedically. But I don't see Kay Corleone as an idiot. Once Rachel started playing her, I thought, oh yeah, what a horrible role for Diane Keaton. I see her as someone who just acquiesces. I've always thought that the character is sort of a tragic and pathetic and desperate because she acquiesces and doesn't fight back. But it's the times and the nature, I think, of that life and that lifestyle and that milieu. The point I'm making is that we watch Snatched one way and I would assume other people see it a different way. Funny is funny is funny, David Feldman, and this is not very funny. And again, let me praise the talented Goldhorn and acknowledge Ian Schumer's earlier work as a sketch comedian. This movie's not good. It's a big studio film. It's a big studio film. I'm not going to point fingers at that. Well, I just did, you know, the writer and the director. But, you know, it didn't do it for me. I was taken to see going in style and I didn't feel like I was taken. I really didn't want to see it, but the person who wanted to go, I acquiesced and I didn't think it would be fun. I don't remember anything about it other than it was light. It was fun and it ended. Did you see going in style? Yeah, I thought it was a sort of a half-ass, let's make something familiar that we know so we can finance it. Otherwise, we can't finance a film and let's get guys that we can rely on and the characters. And I just thought it was just, you know, business as usual from Hollywood and not a great film. The original movie in its era was kind of entertaining, but I didn't think the original was that great either. I did like the performers involved. I just wasn't impressed. But, you know, we go to these things to get diverted. We don't necessarily go there to be enlightened at the movies. Well, I never go to a movie for diversion. I just don't. I only see serious documentaries or great comedies, which are diversions. But for the most part, the idea of going to see going in style, again, they're remaking it. I didn't, I agree with you. I didn't see it the first time, but it was fun. The wall with Doug Lyman. Do you know who Doug Lyman's father was? Lemon Lyman? The guy who invented that delicious soda flavor? No, he was the attorney during the Contrigate hearings. Well, la di da. And he let Reagan slide. Go ahead. What is the wall? Okay. It's a very tight, very tight, very tense. See, I just kind of repeated myself. And very exciting. The, and the latest from director Doug Lyman. Those of you who don't know who Lyman is, he's the guy who directed Swingers. John Favreau's kind of coming out party along with a variety of his jive-ass pals, including Vince Vaughn. And then moved on to direct, among other things, the best of the born movies with Matt Damon. Now this is a guy who takes a simple premise and two actors, one by the way, quite good and makes a relevant, but timeless thriller about a soldier under the worst kind of pressure. He's pinned down in the middle of the Iraqi desert war zone by a Haji sniper who has him in the crosshairs and manages to be able to taunt him by walkie-talkie. A British actor, Aaron Taylor Johnson, is unrecognizable as the USGI, but totally plausible. This is the guy who played the young John Lyman in Nowhere Boy, a wonderful kind of doc-drama biopic about the teenage years of John Lyman as he's just getting to know Paul McCartney. Aaron Taylor Johnson also was the star and title character in Kick-Ass, which is a wonderful takeoff on superhero movies, speaking of which, he was in Age of Ultron as Quicksilver, one of the Marvel heroes, and so on. He's fantastic in this. And then there's John Cena, who just has to be his hunky fellow soldier in the movie and does a fine job considering the limited needs of the role. And you're basically, it's a gripping film for an hour and a half or so as this two-person firefight with a corollary soldier involved, that being John Cena character, going down and you're hoping for all variety of resolutions and it doesn't play easily. It's kind of a torment. The tormenting of the viewer, but it does so very expertly. I really thought the wall was good. It's the best film we've talked about so far. Oh great, okay. Alex Bennett, who we have to have on the show. I was talking to Jackie The Jokeman-Martling from The Howard Stern Show and he was reminding me how Howard freely admitted to being influenced by the great Alex Bennett. When I was on the show about 20 years ago, he had Eleanor Coppola on to promote her documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now. I believe it was called Heart of Darkness. Great documentary, remember that? Yeah, first great documentary and she, of course, had the inside tracks and she was married to the director, Francis Ford Coppola. I would assume they're still married. I don't know. I don't know if they are or not. I haven't checked the society pages, David. Halfway through the Alex Bennett show, I turned to Eleanor Coppola and I said, could you give your husband a message? And she said, yes. And I said, can you tell Francis that the godfather does not hold up after the 3,000th viewing? And she just looked at me, stone-faced. And I went, it's a joke. It's a joke. I've seen the godfather 3,000 times. So it's a joke saying it doesn't hold up after you've seen it 3,000 times. Not? Yeah, nothing. Not nothing from her. Not even a slight bry grin. No. Just a glow. Wow, holy crap. Well, guess what? Her film, written and directed by Eleanor Coppola, Paris Can Wait, doesn't really hold up for one viewing. How does that grab you? And I'm not joking. This stars Diane Lane and Alec Baldwin as a sort of well-to-do couple. Yeah, you had me at Diane Lane and you had me at Alec Baldwin. And they are the wife of a very driven movie producer and they're in Cannes. But the husband is so busy, he asks his French friend and compadre to drive the Diane Lane character. Let me guess. Back to Paris. Let me guess. We're just going to... Wait, go ahead. So they're driving back to Paris and there's sexual tension between Alec Baldwin's friend and Diane Lane. Damn. It's like I'm talking to Cassandra because the other thing happens at the end. Yeah, you're talking tragedy. No. I have to say that you can't complain about Arnaud Villard who plays Jacques, the buddy. He's great. Diane Lane, she's top drawer. You love looking at that face. She's so good at what she does. Alec Baldwin, what's the old... You could read from the phone book and you'd be entertained. But this movie just... It's like the height of math. Right. You do get the French countryside and you get the dream of, oh, I wish I was taking this drive with people I care about instead of these two people. And not enough Alec Baldwin. I felt a little bit like, Alec, phone this baby in. You know, Eleanor said, I just need you for a day or two. And I will fly you to Cannes and then fly you to Paris. What do you say? Hard to say no about that. And again, this is the woman who wrote the wonderful... Directed The Apocalypse Now documentary, like you said, Hearts of Darkness. She does not have a way with comedy. I don't think... This is... You know, it's not bad. It just seems like a vanity project. You know, she was able to put this together. They had a ball making it. It just is not a great film. But it must look great. Um, it looks okay because you kind of wish you were on the trip. But the cinematography has... The cinematography has to be amazing. It looks good. I look, I enjoyed watching it because I'm traveling, you know, through the South of France. Something I love to do on the rare occasions. I get a chance to do so. And man, thank the fates that yours truly has had a number of occasions to, you know, travel through the South of France. One of my favorite places in the world. Can't complain in that regard. But this is not a very good film. It does not, as a romantic comedy. It also kind of takes some missteps in terms of plot and dialogue and your kind of role in your eyes at it. I just wish it had been better. Farewell to Europe. I won't say the first name. Stefan... Stefan... Stefan's like Farewell to Europe. This is a movie I saw a little while ago that was presented by the Edgar to Institute in Los Angeles, which is, you know, the German culture, you know, the German culture club, if you will. They're located in many big cities, particularly to my mind in LA and in San Francisco. And they present films and film series. And I got an early look at this film, which is just now getting at the actual release in the States. And it's all about a guy I didn't know anything about. A incredibly popular and well-read German language writer of the mid 20th century, Stefan Zweig, who was in fact a Jewish intellectual and was in Germany as the Nazis were coming to power and got out, despite knowing that he had to do something and say something about what was going on in his home country. And I mean, this is a man who longed to be in his home country, but couldn't for obvious reasons. So a large part of this film is set pre-war and during the war in Buenos Aires and New York and Brazil, where he's traveling and living while all of this tumult is going down in Germany and the surrounding countries in the late 30s and early 40s. So he has to kind of express himself as best as he can and, you know, rail about the situation from a distance. And at the same time, he's trying to find a place where he can feel comfortable in this side of the world. So Maria Schrader, who was a pretty solid actress, co-authored this and directed it. And Joseph Hayter is fantastic at Stefan Zweig and a familiar face as his wife, Friederike Barbara Sokawa, who's been in a boatload of films including I think some fastbender films. It's a pretty solid German cast and they did a great job. And this is something I didn't know anything about. It's a little dry, perhaps, for some people. But, you know, I thought very well done. And again, you know, it's rare. He talks about going to documentaries to learn stuff. And, you know, you don't necessarily want a trip to the movie theater to be, you know, like going to school. But I got schooled by this film, you know. And I learned a little bit about an historical figure that was, you know, somebody I had no knowledge of prior to seeing the film. What are you watching on Netflix? I am watching The Handmaid's Tale or as I have subtitled it, Pence's Paradise. I don't know what you know about The Handmaid's Tale. I thought that was Hulu. And now it doesn't matter. You want to talk about streaming. There's Netflix. There's Amazon. There's Hulu. But they're all out there doing their thing. The Handmaid's Tale has been fantastic an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's chilling, futurist novel about an oppressive theocracy, aka a twist version of America that seems all too familiar with every day where women are just birthing chattel and have no rights and are just there for procreation. And some women decide that they ain't too happy about that. Which is why I subtitled the show, The Handmaid's Paradise. You know, you get it. Theocracy? Mike Pence? Anyway, that is one wonderful piece of work, believe me. I'm very, very excited about that. I've been loving on FXX the latest iteration of Archer, the animated TV series about the tough guy spy slash private eye. And in this one, he's having this particular set of episodes. He's in a coma and he imagines himself a Raymond Chandler-esque private eye in Los Angeles. And it's a period thing set right after World War II. And he's got PTSD. And it's funny and it's just sharp and well done. Very H dose. John Benjamin as the lead voice and Ayesha Tyler as the girlfriend and Jessica Walter as the overbearing mother. And it's top drawer stuff. That Judy Greer is in the voice cast. I love Archer. I'm very entertained by it. And you know, there are other shows that are coming down the pike soon. Among them, the Return of Ocean Black on BBC America. There's a lot of stuff out there. You know, you just have to know where to find it. Are you watching any of them on Netflix right now? I'm excited this Sunday. King Charles III will be on Masterpiece Theater. Ah, I don't have not seen that. It's the play. The Broadway. I think it won a Tony. I'm not sure. Hey, and finally, the Giants. The Giants. How are the Giants doing? The Giants are not doing well. And they're breaking my heart right and left. And the San Francisco Giants baseball team, which of course began as the New York Giants baseball team, are like lifeblood for me day in and day out. I, you know, have no great stake in it. I don't cover sports per se. So my name is David. My name is David, not per se. Why do people keep calling me per se? Per se, be shea shea. That's a poet joke. Anyway, so listen, seriously, Madison Bumbarner, the greatest postseason pitcher, arguably, in major league history, and that's over a century, hurts himself on a dirt bike. The Giants ace about three weeks ago. He's out for two months. Suddenly their chances of the playoffs don't look as good as they did before. And their hitting has been subpar. The other pitchers have not come through. Their middle relief has been weak. And this is all while Buster Posey, perhaps the greatest player in all of baseball, is hitting the horse hide off the ball. He's been hitting 365, something outrageous in terms of his batting average. Yet there's nobody on base for him to drive in. So they have been struggling. And believe me, when the Giants struggle, Spoodleye, thank goodness, my Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association look like they're headlong toward a confrontation with their arch rivals, the Cleveland Cavaliers, in another NBA final coming up in a few weeks. I'm hoping the Warriors plow through, even though I spend so much time in Los Angeles and love it dearly, my heart sports-wise belongs to the 49ers, the Warriors and the Giants, up in the Bay Area. And how are you living with Edvin Scully? Well, you know, Dave, the young man from New Orleans, Louisiana, look, here's what I like to say. Ben Scully, a national treasure, too bad he was affixed to be hateful Los Angeles Dodgers all those years. Is anybody left from that generation or was he the last? Of that particular ilk? Yeah. Probably, but that old smoothie's probably the last one. I'm rather thrilled that he originally grew up as a New York Giants fan, and he ended up coming identified with the Los Angeles Dodgers, formerly the Brooklyn Dodgers, and they just about a week ago had a, they retired some, they put some kind of plaque up at Dodger Stadium at a game where the Giants played the Dodgers and the Giants pulled the game out. And I was laughing, I'm driving down the 10, listening to the game, and I'm like, take that, Ben Scully, take that, Dodger fans. You know, I'm not saying I hold a grudge, I'm just not, you know, want to give up on my home team. Michael Snyder is our resident film critic. We'll talk to you next week. Well, as soon as we can, my friend. Great. This is the David Feldman radio network. Time now for Tuesdays with Corey, but it's Friday. So it's Fridays with Corey, Professor Corey. Corey. Hello, Professor. Those sort of rhymes with Maury, I guess. Right, that's the key, the joke. Took me a while, but. Yeah. You're a hit on the David Feldman show. Terrific. Glad to hear it. Yeah. So thank you for doing this. Not only are you a hit with the listeners, but you're a big hit with my mother, because now she can nag me about my homework again. Right, exactly. She's You're about 50%, I think. You did the first one perfect, and then the second. Is that the pattern before we're familiar? Yeah. Well, Professor Corey Bretschneider joins us. You are leaving tomorrow for London. I want to talk about that in a second, and we're going to talk about the travel ban. But I got some insight into why Donald Trump is so dangerous as we were gearing up for today's episode. You are not letting go of the travel ban. You and Professor Tribe and all the other big names in law are writing briefs and fighting the travel ban. Last week, I had Howie Klein on the show. He writes the Down with Tyranny blog. And he won't let up on ICE and how they're separating families in Los Angeles. And I got insight into my own Trump fatigue. And it's very dangerous. I said to myself as he was talking about ICE, well, we've already been over this. We've already covered that. Anything else? What's fresh? What's new? Yeah. And that's the problem. You will not let up on the travel ban. But because I'm a gadfly, I go, yeah, what else you got? And you're saying, you're saying, no, it's kind of like you know, Korematsu, the rounding up of the Japanese during World War II. We need to stay on top of this. I know, but I have listeners and we want to keep things fresh and new with that whole rounding up of the Japanese thing. That was so last week, the Constitution that was so last month. You're not letting up on this. Yeah, I think it's a good insight if I'm pitching news outlets. Their sort of reaction sometimes is exactly that. Like, look, you've already written about that. Let's write about something else. And I hear it and I'm bringing it up with friends all the time and especially non-lawyers want to know, well, what else can we do? But I think the thing to see is that this isn't just any proposal, then now we can move on. First of all, it's an ongoing thing. He's still defending it. In fact, he defended it in court yesterday in the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia. But it also, I think, is important because it stands for something. I mean, it was one of his main promises in the campaign was to exclude Muslims from the country to have a Muslim ban. And then he tried to do it. And this is historic. I mean, I keep trying to explain this to people. It's not just any example or just a sort of one constitutional thing that he tried to do. It's that he did something which was basically tried to revive 19th century racism. There was a forum of what he did in the 19th century in exclusion of Chinese immigrants. But, you know, and we haven't seen anything this blatantly, I'll just say racist or animus-based in years and years. And so I think fighting it and more than that, making the lesson of its unconstitutionality public so that everyone can hear it and understand it in a deep way, that's the thing that has to be done. He has to be taught a public lesson in what the Constitution means. Well, thank you, thank you for saying that. The problem you're up against, I'm up against, and the country's up against is, I hate to reuse the word fatigue, but look at the healthcare, but look at the healthcare bill. We all celebrated about a month ago because it was rejected, but they keep coming back. That's right. They keep coming back. We all thought, okay, that's taken care of, Obamacare, if you go back and look at the coverage of the defeat of Trumpcare the first time, we had drawn a line in the sand. We stood up to him and now he's weak and then a month later, he's back. It's constant vigilance. Yeah. I just think what you're saying is so important because I hear about the fatigue from friends and from family, and I see it too just in talking to editors and elsewhere, but this isn't a fight that you just sort of win. I mean, there was an initial excitement, I think, when people started coming into the streets after his election, but the way that he'll be defeated, especially if he keeps up with this stuff, is not by a one march. It's got to be a constant, you said it perfectly, a constant vigilance, and it's not always going to be interesting. At points, there might be nuance and detail that people with a policy or legal background might find interesting, but some people won't, but we have to find a way. I mean, one way is through comedy or through, I don't know, the examples of the people who are affected, but to make clear that this isn't something that we can just forget about, we have to have an ongoing battle and discussion about it. Yeah, and I'm mad at myself because listeners of this show know that I got fatigued, that I got this surge of energy, and then something happened about, I don't know, a month ago where I thought, I just can't keep hearing the same lies over and over again, and then as I'm talking to you and other people, well, that's what they want. If you keep repeating the same lie over and over again, we don't necessarily believe it. We just say, enough, okay, fine, just leave me alone. Yeah, or it's exhausting, or I don't want to be political anymore, I want to go back to my own life. SNL, did you see the SNL skit about the Handmaid's Tale? Oh, yeah. The Handmaid's Tale? You didn't see SNL, I take it? I didn't see it, no. They had a really brilliant skit about what you're talking about. The idea is that it's the Handmaid's Tale, it's this authoritarian world, this dictator is taken over, and everyone is ruled by this crude religiosity, and the Handmaids are the subservient class who have to have the children of unfertil couples. I mean, it's the worst dystopia you can imagine. And the idea of the SNL skit is that they're in the middle of the Handmaid's Tale, and they're acting just as they do in the real show and in the book, and all of a sudden these bros turn out, who like haven't really noticed what's going on with the whole dictatorship thing, and they sort of heard about it, and they meant to go to the protest, but they're just kind of, I'm not doing it justice. Yeah, right. The way it's done is these guys are just oblivious. You know, the idea is it's boring to them, to think about this whole authoritarian thing, and if it's not affecting them, they're not Handmaids, so what do they have to think about it for, and yet this dystopia is taken over? And I don't know, I thought it was a brilliant skit because it gets to this idea that, look, it is exhausting and it is easier to just ignore what's happening, especially if it's not my loved one that wants to come into the country and are banned because they're from one of these countries. Not only the travel ban, but the removal of people. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean the case we haven't talked about that maybe you were talking about when you talked about with ICE, maybe we mentioned it, and it's as significant as there was a district court judge in the Northern District in San Francisco who struck down the executive order about sanctuary cities, that was a major development. Trump had been threatening cities that were refusing to cooperate with ICE with the removal of all of their federal funds. And Santa Clara in San Francisco, I think, is the second city, got together and said, you know what, this is unconstitutional, we're gonna fight it, and they won, just like they did in the travel ban case. To me, that's just as important as this other case. It's using the tools of federalism and fighting back against the due process violations that are happening with all of this removal, with this sort of really innovative argument that conservatives had pioneered, that you can't bully people, basically, with the threat of the loss of all federal funds. So that's another one that unfortunately isn't in the news as much, but it's as important in fighting. Yeah, let's review that for a second. Trump signed an executive order threatening to defund any sanctuary city. Correct. The cities of Santa Clara and... The city which I think is San Francisco. Challenge that, and the federal district court. Is that the fourth or the ninth? That's the ninth. The district court is the lower, it's within the ninth circuit, it's the trial level court, and eventually the appeal, I think, will be heard by the ninth circuit court of appeals. And that's a federal court. It's in federal court, exactly. Right, and that's a very liberal, that's a notoriously liberal court, right? It's mixed, there are conservatives and liberals, but yes, they have done, in the travel ban case in here, some... I don't know, in these cases, I really am hesitant to say liberal or conservative, because the argument that actually Santa Clara is making is a very conservative... Right. ...regional argument. It was pioneered by people who believed in the new federalism, Justice Rehnquist. And so they're using this conservative argument against Trump. It's an example, I think, of why his anti-constitutional policies aren't just normal liberal or conservative divide, they're anti-constitutional. And I don't know who the judge was that struck this down, but it could be a conservative or a liberal judge, because there's nothing in the argument that is necessarily liberal. I think it's a conservative argument about sanctions. Yeah. What speeds up a case like this? You know, the Solicitor General, as appointed by Trump, and he'll represent the Trump administration in the court. Well, it depends. I mean, sometimes he'll do it. The acting Solicitor General did the case yesterday in the Fourth Circuit, or he might have somebody who's a lower-level attorney in that office to it. And what determines the speed? It's up to the courts. I mean, in the Sanctuary City case, my understanding is that the Trump administration said, you know what, this is not that important, and there's no important matter before us, but the Santa Clara felt like their funds were truly being threatened, and the court agreed, and was willing to take the case and to stay the executive order. Is that the only Sanctuary City case that we should be keeping an eye on? Well, it's significant, because like the travel ban, what this judge did is he didn't just basically postpone or suspend the executive order for the purpose of his district. He did it nationwide. So it's just like the travel ban case where a federal judge has said, you know what, this is so worrying, and there's a substantial likelihood that it's unconstitutional, such that actually I'm going to keep them from doing this anywhere. So no, right now at least, no locality is at risk of having their funds revoked in retaliation for there being a Sanctuary City, at least while the case is pending. Use this as a teaching moment. Is this a 10th Amendment issue? Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's right. Great, Dave. I love it. Yeah, the argument is, it's kind of a hybrid, but the fundamental argument is that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution reserves powers to the states. And so if something is enumerated in the Constitution, a power of the federal government is enumerated, then Congress can enact laws consistent with it, or there might be an executive order consistent with that power. But if there's no federal power, then the 10th Amendment tells us that the power is reserved to the states. Now, there is a spending power in the United States Constitution that gives the Congress the ability to spend money. And what the court has said is they can tie that money to certain things if it's connected to the purpose of a grant, if there's a clear connection. I'm confused. Can you explain that to me? Yeah. What do you mean by that, the spending? So the kind of framework that you identified says, we have to find a power of the federal government to act. And in the absence of such a power, the states have the power to act. So now what do we do in this case? The question is, can the federal government, does the federal government have the power to use the threat of revoking all of a sanctuary city's money in order to get it to comply? Basically what's at issue to get to the details is they want to force sanctuary cities to hold people who are arrested for a variety of crimes, including misdemeanors, until ICE has time to come and get them and pick them up. And some of these cities are saying, you know what, we're not going to do that. So now here's the constitutional question. Can the federal government revoke the federal funds, all the federal funds, of a sanctuary city that refuses to hold these people who are arrested to hold them for ICE? And what this judge said is no, they can't, because there is no power of the federal government to use the spending clause that way. Does that make sense? Yeah, let me unpack. Is there a clause in the Constitution that allows the federal government to tax? Which amendment was it that gave us the income tax? I mean, that was under Woodrow Wilson. So there wasn't an income tax in the Constitution. So taxation for the federal government, is that enshrined in the Constitution? There is a power to tax and a power to spend, partly as a result of amendment and interpretation over time. Certainly there is a legal federal income tax, but there also is a power to spend money. There is a part of the original Constitution that talks about the ability of the Congress not only to raise revenue, but also to spend it. Why would there be a question as to whether or not the federal government could spend money in the state? Right, exactly. That's a great question. And you might say these sanctuary cities can do what they want, but they don't have a right to receive the money from the federal government, right? That's their power to spend or not spend. That's the argument on the other side from this judge. Reminds me of the Obamacare ruling in that Roberts ruled that the states cannot be forced to take funding for Medicaid. Exactly. It's the same kind of... I mean, that's the irony, right? That ruling, which was upsetting to many liberals, is now being used to exactly that logic that you just identified. Thanks, various cities. And I cannot fathom why anybody would resist being forced to take money. And are you saying our founding fathers had insight into this, that they knew that if the federal government forced money on the states, it would give the federal government too much power? Is that enshrined in the Constitution? But the way this works is that there are clauses that give us just a few words. And then over time, what courts have to do is grapple with these really hard issues. So I don't think that the founders could have imagined Obamacare or a sanctuary city or any of these issues that we're talking about. What they gave us were little bits of tax that do two things. On the one side, they give a power to the federal government to spend money. On the other hand, they reserve powers not granted to the federal government to the states. That's the 10th Amendment. And now what we're doing is using these very real world contemporary issues to grapple with the question of, well, which is it? Is it the power of the federal government to do this stuff, to revoke the money? Or is it the power of the states, in this case, the sanctuary cities, to resist? And that's what we're trying to figure out. I don't know that the founders knew anything about this, but over time, we've got principles and cases that can serve as fives. They did have a fear of debt. As I recall, the reason Washington, D.C. is where it is is because Hamilton worked out a deal where the federal government would assume the debt from the Revolutionary War. Jefferson was against the federal government assuming a national debt. And I never understood that because I was thinking, well, well, if the federal government wants to take care of my credit card, why would I be upset about that? Right. Another thing that they gave us, to me, the thing that really gives us the most clue, is why did they do this? Why did they set the system up this way? Why would they have limited power of the federal government reserve these powers to the states? I mean, people's eyes are probably glazing over at this point because, okay, well, states rights, federal government, what's the point of all this? And to me, there is a very simple point. They were worried that the federal government would act tyrannically, and that they would come down to the states and force them to violate people's rights. They would take them over or create a national police force or do stuff that violated individual rights. And that's why I think they created or insulated some power of the states. So to me, regardless of what you might think about the Obamacare ruling, this case, this instance of resistance to ICE really coming in and grabbing people and throwing them out of the country, that's the kind of thing that the federal government was worried about. And what the court is doing is vindicating the idea that the founders had, which is, you know what? The federal government can't do anything it wants. It has to be restricted both in its set of powers and especially when it comes to violating individual rights. So if I'm the mayor of San Francisco and I legalize marijuana and the DEA, the federal DEA comes in and starts kicking open the doors of people, this is what's going on right now. I think we better be prepared for it. That's the other really important 10th amendment slash rights issue. There was a case called Raish where the court said something that surprised a lot of people, which is that basically the question was whether or not the commerce clause, a different power, gave the federal government the ability to enforce drug laws, even when states like Rhode Island or Colorado, let me take your pick, were legalizing the growing and use of marijuana. And the court in that case reaffirmed the legality of the drug laws, but these are issues that are not going to go away for exactly the reasons you said. Okay, I shook things up and I apologize and I want to rein it all in because the issues that we're talking about are the travel ban, which is separate from the 10th amendment. That's more of a first amendment issue. Yes, in large part that's right and a 14th amendment equal protection issue. An equal protection. The issue of sanctuary cities, the idea that ICE can't round up undocumented workers if the mayor of a city says, or the city council says no, that is primarily a 10th amendment issue that has some similarities to the 10th amendment issue of medical marijuana being legalized in states even though it's against the law. Correct, you're batting 100%, terrific. And then the 10th amendment issue also of forcing states to accept Medicaid funding in Obamacare. That's a 10th amendment issue. Yes, correct. I think as we move forward, what will help me and the listeners is to hang the constitution and the specific amendments or clauses onto the various issues. And I apologize, my mind started to race and then it went off to... What you were doing actually was a natural but also a kind of brilliant thing which is you were just from your own knowledge starting to resort all of these different cases that you hadn't realized were connected. And once you start to do what you're doing, I mean you really are learning how to do constitutional law. That's the main idea is that we... That kind of organization that you just did for everyone is what defines the field. And that's doing it, that's doing the subject. Before we started, we were talking about the travel ban and I guess the Solicitor General in trying to uphold the travel ban cited some nasty Supreme Court rulings. What were they? Yeah, there was a controversy about a case involving segregation and public pools that... I haven't seen this so I shouldn't say that I saw him do it but I saw an article saying that it was cited at one point approvingly. I can't speak to whether that's right. I did send you that article. Yeah, I looked at it, yeah. It was shocking so I'll cite it. Yeah, you do it, yeah. Because I don't want you to get into any trouble. What I read is that there was a public pool in the South that banned African Americans and in 1971 they decided instead of integrating the pool they would just shut it down. And the Supreme Court ruled that it's okay for a city to close a public pool if they don't want it to be integrated. And I believe the Trump administration is citing that to justify... Yeah, I haven't seen that part of the brief so I just didn't want to speak to it but certainly that would be a bad case to cite approvingly. Seems like a terrible decision. And so when Rand Paul said that he would have voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 64 or 65 because the Supreme Court should not force Woolworth to serve Black people that would be a similar 10th Amendment issue, right? Yes, I mean I remember that well when he flirted with that position. There's a case it's commonly called Ollie's Barbecue about the constitutionality and a related one about Heart of Atlanta motel that are about the question of whether or not the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are constitutionally enacted. And there's a complicated history there where the court said eventually it was constitutional but not under the Equal Protection Clause. It was a matter of commerce because there was an effect of this hotel and restaurant and interstate commerce that that's what gave the Congress the power to enact the legislation. And Rand Paul was flirting with the idea that that might be wrong. I can't remember. I think he repudiated those comments eventually but he certainly was flirting with it. I think it's fair to say. Let's go back to the travel ban. Sure. Where are we with this now? I just need one second, David. I got to plug the computer and it's sorry it's running low on energy. Okay. By the way, I'm keeping all this in. Okay. It's a fifth Amendment lesson. Yeah. Okay, you ready? Yes. Where we're talking about the travel ban, where are we with this then? The travel ban is now, I mean as we said in the beginning, this is a slow process. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument yesterday in Richmond, Virginia, and they heard arguments from the Solicitor General defending the ban on the grounds that it's really not about Muslims or antipathy or animus towards Muslims as I contend and my colleagues do in the brief that we've written and as I have in an earlier article in Politico, he says it's just about security and they're using the same countries that Obama had identified as dangerous. And the response to that that we've offered is look at the evidence. The evidence is that there is an intentional animus towards Muslims that's really at the heart of the ban that's revealed not just in the campaign statements but in ongoing statements. And the judges on the panel, it was the entire set of judges on the Fourth Circuit engaged in both lawyers yesterday. And Korematsu right now is precedent that can be cited to justify banning Muslims. Correct, it's just like that case that you mentioned about the pool. It's a wrongly decided case that has never been formally corrected that could be cited but citing it is a bad idea. I mean, because no one thinks, I haven't heard. I don't want to overstate it but are there any serious scholars that think it was rightly decided? I haven't heard from any. I mean, maybe there are. It was a disaster of a case. I mean, clearly, clearly unconstitutional and a bad moment for the court. So to bring it up in any other context that doesn't repudiated, I find really frankly disturbing not just a mistake. Let me ask you about intent. And its relationship to the First Amendment. One of the things that I find interesting in talking to you, and this is what I've learned, is how important language is in establishing law. Lakumi, which by the way, I was very happy to see rightly featured as the main case, I'd say, that people focused on. So the listeners that went and read Lakumi you with your discussion. And I mean, in a way, you know, you might thought like, does this really have anything to do with the travel ban? And yesterday was clear that it's the central issue really in the case. Well, what I found interesting about this, and I had no idea until I, let's say, skimmed the Lakumi decision, which was Hialeah in Florida wanted to ban the practice of sacrificing animals. The Sanctuary Religion sacrifices chickens and pigeons and animals. And because of latent persecution for Santeria, they passed this ban on animal sacrifice that eventually was ruled unconstitutional. And the reason it was ruled unconstitutional because of intent, because they listened to transcripts of the city council meetings, they were able to divine that this was a racist law because they listened to what the city council said. That was very interesting. But I also wondered how much of a First Amendment issue that is because you're saying that in the travel ban, you have to go back and listen to what Donald Trump said when he was running for president. It's partly what he said when he was running for president, but it's also what he continues to say. So one thing that came up yesterday is that they still at the time of the oral argument, although I understand right after it, they took it down. There was something on the website talking about banning Muslims on the official website. So that the ongoing statements by Rudy Giuliani, who publicly said that he was asked to create a legal Muslim ban, Stephen Miller, who said the first ban and the second are essentially the same. All of these statements go to intent, and they're all relevant. But connection to the First Amendment is the free exercise of religion is guaranteed. You can't prohibit the free exercise of religion. And the thought is that in Lakumi, that what the councilmen were doing, and also by analogy what Trump is doing, is showing animus towards a religion, towards Muslims in this case and towards the centauria in that case. And that's an example of what it means to prohibit religion. But what is it related to about establishment? Right, but would an originalist say it doesn't matter what you said in the lead-up to the passage of the law or the executive order? Because that's a First Amendment issue, aren't you? Originalism keeps coming up. And so I want to say something about it. I do think that the original meaning of the Constitution is important. The text is. We certainly have talked about the text a lot and talking about these clauses. But what the law is isn't just what the founders thought or what the law meant at the time of the founding. It's what courts say. And the courts have elaborated this idea of free exercise of religion in terms of that case and the animus doctrine. So I guess that's what I want to say. You know, that case. What do you mean the animus doctrine? What do you mean? Sorry, that's a shorthand for the whole idea of Lukumi that we talked about, that they were intentionally discriminating and showing a kind of prejudice towards the centauria religion. That's the shorthand way of describing the whole. Okay, I want to discuss this because it will lead into Ann Coulter speaking at Berkeley. By the way, I got to say something about you're reciting the facts, particularly when we did it a couple of times ago. You know, you did that so well. So when somebody was asking me about this podcast, they said, well, how does it, how's it working? And I said, well, imagine that you're in a class and you ask somebody to recite the facts. And what you get is an Emmy award-winning writer telling the story of the centauria and Lukumi. So I just, I don't know. I wanted to give you, you're always praising others and praising me and putting yourself down. But you know, that really was so A plus. Well, gotta be, gotta be said. I should, in a previous life, I was Sandra Day O'Connor. I never talk about this. But I quit. Still alive, you know. I know, I quit. I quit the court because I wanted to write jokes. Want to lead this into Ann Coulter speaking at Berkeley in freedom of speech and your trip to London and where there are speech codes. Because I had a conversation with Judah Grundstein who writes for World Politics Review. He's in Paris. I tease the idea of censorship, that I believe the First Amendment can be overstated when it comes to freedom of speech. So I'm trying to get to a point, I think here, about the First Amendment and could an argument be made that the Supreme Court has no right to listen to what Rudy Giuliani said about Muslims, to listen to what Donald Trump has said about Muslims, or to, in Lakumi, listen to the transcripts of a city council meeting to divine the intent of a law. Isn't that a violation of the First Amendment to say, well, this is what you said before you made this law. So obviously you believe such and such. Shouldn't the law be interpreted solely on the merit of the law? Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, first of all, I'll do what you did before, which is just to clarify for listeners. The First Amendment has many clauses in it, many provisions and rights protections. One is the one that we've been talking about extensively when we were talking about Lakumi, and that's the free exercise clause or the free exercise of religion. Another related clause that's relevant to the case yesterday and to the travel ban is the ban on establishment of religion or the creation of an official religion. And under that clause too, I think there's a ban on disparagement of religion, and so that's why the travel ban is related. And now your question is, well, what about this other thing, one of the other rights that's protected in the First Amendment, free speech? Isn't the court in Lakumi, and what we're saying in the travel ban case, isn't it undermining this other right of freedom of speech because it's, I guess you would say, it has a chilling effect on people like Rudy Giuliani? It's an interesting issue, but no, I don't think so. I think you do have the right, let me put it in a kind of blunt way, the president has a right to believe whatever he wants as a private citizen. He can think that Jews or African Americans are inferior if that's what he thinks, or that Muslims don't have a right to be in this country. I'm not saying he does think these things, but if he believed that, he would have absolutely a First Amendment free speech right to believe those things. But the second that you begin to make law and to make policy, that's a different matter. What the free exercise clause and the equal protection clause mean is that when lawmakers try to impose their will and their elected officials, so it's not that they have no right to do this in any case, but when they're exercising that official capacity to influence others, to pass an executive order regarding who can come into the country and who can't, the absolute meaning of the Constitution is they can't do that based on prejudice. You can believe it as a matter of free speech, but you can't act on it if you're going to make law. And that I think isn't just a sort of, by the way, part of the Constitution. It's the core part of the Constitution. And it's the lesson I hope that the President is slowly learning through this public lesson of the travel ban. Then if you can cite what people have said to overturn a law. Yeah, it goes to their motive and their state of mind, their intent. An argument could be made that that's a First Amendment issue that a law should be able to stand on its own regardless of what was said in the lead-up to the passage of that law. I don't want to overstate it because I think that your view, if you look back at Lakumi, maybe you're sick of the case, but if you look at Scalia's opinion in Lakumi, you'll see that he says something very much like, he doesn't quite make the free speech argument that you're making, but he does say we shouldn't be trying to get in the minds of public officials. And we should just look to the text. So one really interesting question now in this case is imagine that the travel ban itself never said anything about Muslims. It did talk about prioritizing Christians in the refugee section over Christian refugees over Muslims. So there was a element of textual discrimination. That's a 14th Amendment issue, right? Well, the protection. Yes, right. The fact that there was this, that's partly equal protection, but it also goes to the intent of discrimination because the law, if it says we're going to discriminate, you can safely assume that the intent was to discriminate. I think that was part of the idea. And that's how Scalia wants to do it. He wants to just say, we can talk about intent under the free exercise clause, but we have to do so by looking at the text only. And that's kind of the view that you're pushing. And it's a real view in law, but it's one that I think is wrong because sometimes the evidence is so overwhelming, free speech or not. I mean, you could say whatever you want. If I tell you, hey, here's the intent of the law. I mean, imagine just to make it easy. Donald Trump was getting on television every day for the last 30 days and said, you know what, my staff can tell you what they want and the text doesn't say it. But I'm telling you, this is a Muslim ban. I think we'd be naive to think or lack common sense to not take those statements into account because he's telling us what his intent is. And people know what they mean to do, even if they try to hide it. The thing I'm worried about is by worrying. Hang on for one second, Professor. Sure. Slow me down. Okay. President will sign a bill. And then there's a signing statement. Sometimes, yeah. And signing statements are, I'm signing this bill. It's now the law. But here's what it really means because I'm the guy who has to enforce it. So forget all this stuff that I just signed. Here's what I'm going to do. Yeah. How does that fit into Lakumi and intent? Shouldn't somebody then be able to take the law to the Supreme Court and say, look, we just heard the president say he's only going to enforce these parts of the bill. The bill's unconstitutional. We know the intent now. Yeah. I mean, that's a, with Trump, these, all these kind of things are not hypothetical. They're real. There is a question about this executive order that he just signed about that's that case. That's, this is a different issue than the Lakumi issue, but related. What do you do when the president says I'm not going to enforce the law? And the executive order that he just signed, for instance, saying that he's not going to, well, he said it, this debate about what it actually says, but that he's going to give a break, let's say, to churches that endorse political candidates. 501c3 is a law passed by Congress that says if you're a preacher in a nonprofit church, you can endorse a candidate. Now, Trump doesn't like that, partly because he sees these preachers as potentially supporting him. This is the Johnson Amendment? This is the Johnson Amendment. So he just had an executive order that he said was going to undo the Johnson Amendment. Now, in the text of the order, you know, he doesn't seem to say that. He talks about not discriminating against churches. But to me, to go to your question, the fact that he told us I'm going to undo the Johnson Amendment, that suggests that we should be really suspicious of it, that his real intent is to undo the law, and that's not something that... Right. We're like a pebble skipping... We're all over. Yeah, but it's... The ADHD hour. Yeah, no, but no, no, it's my fault, but I'm making connect... They're all connected. They're all connected. You're going to follow it. Yeah. Yeah. We've done fewer jokes this time. Well, yeah. You're going to London. And again, this is a First Amendment issue. Yeah. We talked about the right of Ann Coulter to speak at Berkeley, which you say is perfectly fine for an outside group to pay her to go speak at Berkeley, and she should be protected by the First Amendment, because it's a government school, not a private school. You would agree that if I wanted to go speak at Bob Jones University or Liberty University, which are private religious colleges, that they would have a right to ban me. Correct. Unless they receive federal funding. Yeah. I think that, well, that makes it complicated. I mean, Bob Jones famously had its federal funding revoked because they refused to comply with basic... They discriminated against Black students, basically. They didn't allow interracial dating in the campus. They didn't allow membership in the NAACP. So even though the Constitution doesn't directly apply, the IRS in that case tried to sort of incentivize them being less racist using the spending, the fact of spending. Now, the way that turned out, interestingly, is that Bob Jones just said, you know what, we don't want the money anymore, and they just cut themselves off entirely from the federal government. So there is nuance to freedom of speech, and it seems to... I should say, too, actually, that was forced upon them. The Nixon administration revoked their nonprofit status, but they refused to comply with the demands of the administration. The Liberal Nixon administration. Yeah, in many ways. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom understand the importance of freedom of speech, but they understand nuance. And because they understand nuance, and because they understand that all speech is not equal, they have a smarter electorate, Brexit, not withstanding. They did screw up and they voted for Brexit without understanding what was in the bill. It's almost like the Republicans passing their health care plan. The French are smarter than we are, because somebody is saying, no, no, no, no, you can't talk that way. We have rules of the road. And in America, it's almost at a point where... I think we're five years away from people saying dictionaries are a violation of freedom of speech. Grammarians are violating freedom of speech. Language should mean, words should mean whatever you want them to mean, and facts should mean whatever you want them to mean. At some point, somebody has to reign in speech. Otherwise, it's chaos. It's Orwellian. Well, I would say this. First of all, I guess this is the time in the podcast where the comedians usually pitch their gigs, so I can apropos of this discussion today. Friday, I am appearing at University College London with Timothy Artengash, Jeremy Waldron. I'm pretty sure there are not going to be a lot of jokes. But the conference on exactly this issue, for the reasons that you are exactly identifying, there are two traditions of thinking about free speech. And the United States is an outlier. We have this extreme absolute protection. Now, I'm going to be defending it. I'm a fan of it. But you're also right to say, you know, the rest of the world doesn't do it this way for exactly the reasons that you're suggesting. And it's not that England doesn't have free speech or that these European countries or France doesn't have free speech. It's that they have decided that the way to protect it is to limit it and to not protect all viewpoints, not to protect fascism. And you go to jail if you deny the Holocaust in Germany. You go to jail if you defame Islam in France and their related laws in England. So you're just right. I mean, we do it really different ways. I wouldn't want to shut down that discussion, but I am a defender of the uniquely American approach, which is to defend all viewpoints. I mean, as I said, I don't think you can just do that. You've got to find other creative ways of combating things that are false. And partly it's about using language in ways that is Orwellian, that is fake news, the short end for it, but also racism, I think. And my faith in America is that we can have this robust protection of free speech and find other ways to combat hate speech. And as I said, product placement coming up for an academic book. And when the state speaks, what should it say? That's the argument that I try to make. But I also want to, what? You've got almost the presumptively correct argument because everybody else in the world does it your way. And you know, you're on firm ground there. I'm on firm ground because we're killing the planet. Yeah. You know, I mean these days, the best challenge to me is what if we lose? You know, what if these fascist views take over? And there are increasing in massive numbers in ways that are, when I wrote that book, I couldn't have predicted. But here's my challenge back, David. You know, what's the better model? France has just thankfully defeated a fascist, but she received a significant portion of the vote in a country where it's illegal to hold the views that are pretty close to the views that she holds. And yet a significant portion of the country voted for Marie Le Pen, who is the national front, is the name of her party, but it is a fascist party. And so the laws aren't going to save us. You need to care about the culture and you need to care about transforming it. And in a fact, I think in Europe, this is what I'll say on Friday, that there is a tendency to think that we solve the problem because the law says something. But the law doesn't result in the culture transforming itself the way you want it to. And so, you know, prohibition is not, criminalization is not necessarily the way to get your goal. I think we've got to be more creative. You can now keep your kid at home and teach creationism. Yeah, you know, but that's the failure of our education system and the wider culture. I mean, I think, for instance, that homeschooling is not an obvious right of parents who want to ignore fact. I think if you're going to do it, then you have to teach a curriculum. And part of the curriculum has to include the fact of what's happening with climate change and the facts of science. You can't just come up with your own rules. That's not a free speech violation. That's a matter of education. But that's exactly the kind of thing, I think, in our culture that we have to do if we're going to have these robust free speech rules. Well, what happens when you have a president and a press secretary who kind of use the First Amendment to say those are our version of the facts and we're free to say this? Well, you know, I mean, that's why we're in unprecedented territory. The president's obligation is to uphold the Constitution, to speak in defense of basic facts like the existence of climate change. And we have a president who is betraying his constitutional obligation and also basic obligation of the leader of a country to respect facts. What do we do? I mean, you know, that was the previous discussion. We're trying to fight him in courts. We need to defeat him in the next election. And if it turns out that he hasn't just done the things that we know about but has done more than, you know, these are other things on the table like impeachment. You don't think too much speech is dangerous. Let me I want to believe what you believe. I do. I know that you're right. And in many ways, I'm toying with the idea of censorship. Certain speech is hideous. The same way I don't want a strip club down the street from my house. I may not want a marijuana clinic near my house. Those are zoning issues. It's it's aesthetic. It's I don't want a billboard advertising the hustler club above my kids elementary school, which is actually something that I complained about a hustler club. They had a stripper on the billboard. It was right above my kids elementary school. It objectified women. And I said, you know, if you want to objectify women, I might as well homeschool this kid. They don't have to go there. I'm making a joke. But I have a right. I have a right as a citizen to say this is offensive. Well, I mean, that's the question. And I think that if we did it that way, then there are lots of different things that offend, you know, basically something offends everyone. You would be out of work. Think about your job. You know, you're affecting triumph. You, the Daily Show Bill Maher, your podcast on a daily minute by minute basis are causing offense. And if we really based the limits of the law on what offense people, you wouldn't exist as a, you know, you would exist as a person, but you wouldn't exist as a comedian. But there's a comedian would. But speech is monitored by the community. It reflects standards. So how could you do what you do if that was true? Because I'm not forcing this down anybody's ears. Well, that's right. And that is what makes the zoning. I was going to say that. That is what makes the zoning question different, that when people are forced to confront something, then there are ways that we can limit things when it comes to the time and the place, or as the court says, the manner of the speech. But that's very different from trying to control the opinion that people have. There also is a limit on obscenity, precisely because it's not about opinion. It's about something else. It's about sex. And that's different than coming in and saying what you don't want to say, which is because I don't like what you're saying, your views, your Democrat or Republican views, they offend me. If we use that as the criteria, then there really would be no free speech because, as I said in this culture, something offends everybody. Thank you for doing this, and I'm going to miss you. My pleasure. Next week. Only a week. Okay. I don't know how much history you know, so this might be an unfair question. I would assume after World War II, after the total destruction of Europe, and I mean total destruction of Germany, just obliterated, that people saw the dangers of incitement to riot. So they reigned in speech. Before World War II, and this is an unfair question, what were the speech codes in Europe? The history in the United States went the other way, that we had a long history before the Brandenburg decision in the first half of the 20th century of allowing for limits on speech that was considered dangerous. What is the Brandenburg decision? It says what I've been telling you, that you have a right to your own viewpoint and to not be restricted in it, unless you're going to cause basically a riot, imminent danger, imminent threat of lawless action. Is that where you get fire in a crowded movie theater? That's the original formulation of it, that Holmes created actually much earlier in the early 20th century in a case called Schenck. Okay. He uses what's now become a cliche, but at the time was a profound and important explanation of his views of the law. But despite him saying that, the law was that if things basically were posed a clear and present danger, that's how the court put it, if they in communism was thought to pose such a danger, then they could be limited. And so routinely, communists were or anarchists or radicals of different form stripes were arrested. Now, after World War II and pretty well after, in this decision in Brandenburg, the court said, you know what, we're not going to do it that way anymore. If you have an opinion, and it's not causing an immediate risk of harm to somebody, like the fire example, it's protected. Now Europe did the opposite. They did impose these restrictions and have a very different tradition. The tradition of what's sometimes called militant democracy. It says we're going to protect speech, but we're not going to allow Nazism or fascist or racist speech. So it's two very, very different histories and different reactions to events and war and the events of the first half of the century. And the two countries really split in completely different directions. But in the lead up to World War II, you had Mosley, you did have Nazis. Yeah. These speech code laws are after World War II. Well, just to be clear, in the first half of the century, you have lots of examples of, I mean, routinely it's the left, actually, that people are going after, but you could have gone after extreme right wing groups as well under the same laws. But at the state level and the federal level, people are arrested because their views are considered anti-American or radical. And it's not until after the war, in this Brandenburg decision that the court puts really an end to those prosecutions. I'm going to leave you with a thought. Sure. And then we'll talk again in two weeks. I want to hear about the biking trip through. But if in Europe it's against the law to deny the Holocaust, I happen to think that's a good thing. I know you don't, but I know that there are people in London who have been fined, professors, writers who have been fined for questioning the Holocaust. I think laws that ban the denial of the Holocaust are genius because the brain is so resilient that when it can't fathom some horrible deed, it denies it. That's why you have men who sneak off in the middle of the night and do horrible things to whomever and then come back, crawl into bed with their wives and are just, it never happened. They don't know, they deny it. So I do think Holocaust denial, I hate to say it, I kind of think Germany is pretty smart for not only teaching the Holocaust, but to make it against the law to deny what they did. And if I were African American, I think my life would be a lot better if after the Civil War it was made against the law to say that the South seceded because of the 10th Amendment, because of states' rights. I think that argument, that revisionism that the South perpetuated after the Civil War led to Jim Crow and this country's inability to deal with our original sin of slavery and the Civil War. I mean, the South never really accepted responsibility for fighting a war to keep slavery, which in many ways is a Holocaust. Well, I mean, look, I think I'd love to continue this discussion away, we're just sort of getting into it into the beginning of it. Right. I'll leave you with one thought, and then maybe I'll give you a homework assignment on these topics. The thought is, imagine that counterfactual that we tried to just enact laws banning these beliefs. And then what I want to know is, I mean, maybe you're confident about this, but would it work? And I'm just not convinced it would. I think what you might get, in fact, what you would get and what you got in Europe is a reaction where people dig in and they say, you know what, you're telling me I can't believe that, it must be true. Instead of doing what we more effectively have been doing and need to do way, way more of, which is pulling these views out into the public and challenging them, not with threats of going to jail, but with reason and facts. And in the end, the only way that reason and facts are going to prevail is if we use reason and facts, not if we use threats of imprisonment. So that's my response. Very quickly, I want to ask you about your bike trip. I think what we learned today, though, I think this is what we've learned today. I think we've learned about the 10th Amendment, that the 10th Amendment is in the Bill of Rights and that all powers not granted to the federal government revert to the states. That's what the 10th Amendment is. The 14th Amendment is equal protection under the law. And the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it also protects the right to practice your own form of religion and to prevent a state religion. They're all connected. Everything's all connected. What's our assignment again? Do you think I could assign my own book? What do you think of that rule? Sure. That's the constant thing for professors who have anxiety. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Signing their own book. Yeah. I mean, I haven't tried to steer the conversation this way, but we've sort of have happened upon my subject, I guess, of academic expertise and the thing I've written the most about. So if you want to read, I mean, if you don't want to buy it, you could actually get for free online the introduction to my book, which is called When the State Speaks, What Should It Say? Published by Princeton University Press. And it's on their website. It's also on amazon.com. And then I would recommend the introduction and the third chapter. I think we could skip, you know, just kind of get to the meat of the argument that's relevant to what we're talking about. And you'll see that all the issues that we've been talking about today are, that's what the book is about. It talks about some of the history, about the contrast between European approaches and American ones, and it gives my view, which is a defense, ultimately, of the American approach to freedom. Well, I have two weeks, and I'm going to do that. Yeah. That's great. It's a double assignment. Very quickly, so then you're going to London and then you're riding your bicycle. I am. Yeah, my wife and I are going to travel around the Burgundy region and we're going to eat and ride bikes. That's in France. It is in France, yeah. Well, Professor Corey Bretschneider, follow you on Twitter, and when you come back, I know you'll be writing pieces for mainstream publications, and it is an honor for you to talk to me. I know that. It is. It is an honor. It's funny, but also an honor. Yeah, I just, I know. And the American people thank you for educating them, really. I mean, today in particular, there wasn't a lot of humor. It was just sort of nitty gritty con law and how great for a comedy podcast. I hope that you still, you know, I work in this town. I know it's difficult for people to say thank you, but I know that it must be intimidating talking to a man of my stature, but I think you're relaxing around me, and it's getting easier. Thank you. Interrupting us. Stopped asking me for divorce advice. Okay, I'm not going to even go there. Go have a fun time. We'll talk to you in two weeks. Thanks so much, man. Thank you. I thought that was a great one. Yeah, absolutely. It was great. That's our show. I'd like to thank Corey Bretschneider. Make sure you pick up his book. Go to The Intercept and read Mattifyas Schwartz. Special thanks to Michael Snyder, Andy Kindler, and Bruce Smirnoff. Remember to friend me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter. Do all your Amazon shopping via the David Feldman Show website. I got a small percentage of everything you purchase. It doesn't cost you anymore. You're taking money out of Amazon's pocket. 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