 Oh no, Sam Cedar, what a- whoa, what a f***ing nightmare! I had no idea this was going to happen! Oh no, Sam Cedar! Gotcha, bitch! I am incredibly excited to talk about this story, and if you're wondering why I'm wearing a beanie, no, I'm not trying to cosplay as Tim Pull. I am repping my Teddy Fresh merch, um, because I'm a huge H3 fan. I've been a fan of H3, uh, both the YouTube channel and their podcast, since 2015, since back in the Ethan Bradbury days. I love Ethan and Ela Klein. I love everything about them. I think they're hilarious. And lately, the world of entertainment that I adore has kind of clashed with my world of politics and political commentary, and it's so interesting, it's fascinating, and it's- it's really, really entertaining. So basically, a couple of weeks ago on the H3 podcast, Ela and Ethan were responding to a clip from Joe Rogan, where he called Ela Klein an idiot, because she was wearing a mask outdoors, uh, during the peak of COVID or whatever. So they were responding, and they said something that Stephen Crowder then used to like, slam them over. Ethan said something to the effect of, look, we're wearing a mask because the government said, or the CDC said, so just listen to the government. And Stephen, like, took that as, ha ha, you're just sheep, you're listening to the government, I'm paraphrasing. But long story short, the reason why you have that background and context is because all of this led to Stephen Crowder getting tricked into debating Sam Cedar. After years of him dodging a debate with Sam Cedar. So it's funny because Stephen Crowder is this debate bro, right? It's like this flex, like it proves how masculine you are if you want to debate people. But he only debates college students, right? People who aren't media trained, but he doesn't want to actually debate people who know they're shit. Sam Cedar is one individual. So he is basically offered to debate Stephen Crowder for years. And Stephen Crowder doesn't want to debate Sam Cedar. In fact, he pulled out of a debate a couple of years ago at Politicon, saying that he got cold feet. This is what a Politicon representative told Sam Cedar. So after Stephen Crowder took some shots at Ethan Klein, they both kind of had this back and forth and then Stephen Crowder does what Stephen Crowder always does. Debate me, bro. Debate me, bro. You're going to debate me, bro. Yeah. So Ethan Klein decided to accept this debate. And he had a little bit of a trick up his sleeve. So he was going to have Sam Cedar stand in for him to debate Stephen Crowder on his behalf. Now, what's funny is that, and I'm going to show a video of Sam Cedar explaining this. When Stephen Crowder suspected that Sam Cedar would be joining the debate, he chickened out again, apparently. Like, we can only speculate at this point, but he very actively is trying to evade debating Sam Cedar. Take a look. Let Sam Cedar explain this. I get a DM from Ethan, like a week later or something like that. And he says, hey, Stephen Crowder wants to debate me. And he's like, I don't do a political show. He's like, I think you should come on and debate him as I'm on with him. And I was like, I would love to do that. Thank you. And so last week, you'll recall last Monday, they were scheduled to have a debate at 1 p.m. Eastern, which is 10 a.m. I think it was Pacific. And so you'll recall last week, we started the show early. We ended at 12 30 p.m., which was 30 minutes before the debate that 11 to 12 30. If you guys remember. That Crowder had planned with Ethan Klein on H3. And so we connect with H3 through Zoom. And like immediately after we're done with the show, and then four or five minutes later, they go, oh, we just got an email from Crowder's dad that Stephen had an emergency with his wife who's pregnant. And this is actually sort of disturbing. We were concerned. We were concerned. And I'm being serious about that, actually. And he can't do it. However, we will reschedule for next Monday at noon. And Ethan says they knew that you were getting off and getting off your show early. And they're afraid that you're going to be debating him. And I got to say that I was like, come on, Ethan. I don't think I said that to him because I was like, I didn't want to be, you know, rude, but I was like, I'm not sure about that. Like, would he really pretend that his wife who's pregnant with two kids is in jeopardy? I mean, this is the father. This is the grandfather of those kids. If I was that guy, I would be like, look, we have an emergency. Can't get back to you. I wouldn't give the details because why would I? And I'm like, it's an emergency. And I'll get back to you later in the week to reschedule. But no, they reschedule it for 12 p.m. on Monday, eastern, which is exactly when we go live. That's so weird. So I was like, all right, let's pre-tape the show. And I pre-tape the interview last week with Steven Wertheim. Great interview. Yeah. That's why I had to step out. Yeah. Well, if people watched the show today, they noticed also that we were stretched. And that is because we're back in the studio and we haven't quite set up our system to do the show and to output it. And so we were just like, oh, let's just run it. And so we pre-recorded the intro and the outro to make it for today at like 1030. And so what happened was Dan figured out some technological sorcery. Because we got him so good because we put the ball at his court. It was his Zoom call. They sent the link. They sent the time. They felt very comfortable that there was no way for us to get him. So we joined their Zoom link this morning. And Dan, as I said, figured out some black sorcery where he could zip Sam's feet. He could cross the feet. Ghostbuster style. Yeah. And so we got to the point where we're like, okay, well, let's do this thing. And then kind of Sam just popped up. And the result of it, which I don't want to give away, is just Stephen had a meltdown and he gave something away in his fit of passion that it will haunt him his whole career. No way. So in short, Stephen Crowder, this loudmouth tough guy, got tricked into debating Sam Cedar once and for all. And at the time that I filmed this, the debate just went live on YouTube. So I'm anxious to watch that. But this is just perfect. I have been wanting to see a debate between Sam Cedar and Stephen Crowder for years ever since Sam Cedar floated it. And I'm not necessarily someone who thinks that debates are super useful. I think that ultimately it's a performative thing and whoever gives off the best performance, regardless if they were more correct or not, is usually the individual perceived to be the winner. So I don't necessarily think it does a lot to change hearts and minds. Having said that, though, someone as idiotic and belligerent as Stephen Crowder to actually be confronted and debate someone who actually knows what they're talking about, like Sam Cedar, is just glorious. So, um, yeah.