Theater of the Aaron Rodgers Absurd: Share & Tell w/ Wyatt Cenac, Domonique Foxworth & Pablo

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out.

I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.

Is murder.

Right after this ad.

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I got an Olympic comedy album called Peekaboo Street Jokes.

Peekaboo sounds like it's a syllable away from problematic.

Didn't she name herself?

That's the thing, right?

Is that right?

I thought that's how she got the name, is that whatever.

Yeah, I'll just let Pablo look it up before I say something offensive.

Peekaboo Street.

Her parents parents decided to let Peekaboo choose her own name when she was old enough.

So for the first few years of her life, she was called, quote, baby girl, end quote, or little girl.

Oh, there's another great Olympic bit in that.

Yeah, oh, yeah, no.

This is, yeah.

I mean, I would go the easy route.

She's white, right?

You were.

You were wondering if a child who got the power to name themselves was white.

Oh, my, my whole bit.

And who became a skier,

my whole bit if I did Olympic stand-up would be

about

black people named like this

and white people named like this.

Letting someone name their

name themselves is a

I cannot relate to that power.

Well, let's do it right now.

What if you could name yourself?

What would you name yourself?

I would have named myself like

uh

the

Wolverine

Wolverine Bernard Ceesantor III.

Okay, so you have to take all scenarios into account.

Like, you would be fine introducing yourself as Wolverine.

That's right, Bub.

It would be terrible.

Deep cut-men jokes all the time.

I got it.

What would you name yourself?

I don't know.

I like my name.

There was a guy,

I remember a story years ago about a guy in, I believe, in New York, who named his kids Ghostface and Rayquan.

Oh, and he was a white guy.

He was obviously.

Yeah, yeah.

That tracks.

This kid's going to be fine because he's got a trust fund.

Ghostface killer, or is this Ghostface or do you give him the killer?

That's a good question.

You got to go full in.

You can't go Ghostface Richard Johnson.

You got to go Ghost Face Killer Johnson.

Inspector Charles Johnson.

Deck.

Deck.

Why?

What's your name?

I don't know.

I feel like, like you, I like my name.

Yeah.

Wolverine would be terrible.

I like my name too, by the way.

Like, I don't like being boxed into this.

You're the only junior, and clearly.

I'm not a junior.

What are you?

The third?

I'm a third.

There you go.

So, clearly, disrespect to your family.

Yeah, I'm a junior.

Oh, word?

Yeah.

Maybe that's also why I feel a certain connection to it.

But why am I

shamed for choosing to be Wolverine?

We're here on Wolverine.

Torre finds out.

Welcome to WTFO.

It would make the show a little bit better.

That's a way.

We're going to have nudge Photoshop that.

Oh, gosh.

I just don't get it.

Like, I guess you were going for the joke.

The joke.

The joke.

It's not a joke.

It's if you gave a kid the power to name themselves.

No, I didn't say, Pablo, pretend that you are two years old and name yourself.

I said, Pablo, what would your name be?

And you said, I would choose Wolverine.

Yeah.

now

then all right

now what would you choose wolverine

logan yeah logan wolverine's ultra ego yeah i'm into more serious adult versions of wolverine now this the best part is you have not fully shaved your facial hair that's right you got a little wolverine pattern you know what that is the nicest thing diamond has ever said to me and you're wearing and you're wearing a yellow shirt which is kind of like wolverine like you just need a little wait you guys hear that no I don't you hear that sound no snicked that was wait is that is that gonna be the sound that but the way you did it they sounded your your claws sounded so just meek and just snicked do you mind if I cut you snicked

I'm gonna stab you stabby stabby stab tab snicked that was the worst

it was the worst it was like you remember the old flash gordon movie where it was like flash aww

that's that's what you just did snicked is I didn't feel I didn't feel uh I got you good about that one

as

Shing?

Yeah, I think I'd rather be a Shing than a snick

how dare you I mean I would be I don't mean felt racist.

I'm not sure how I felt I could tell that's where you were going with that

Wyatt, you want to talk about crows?

Sure.

Yeah.

I should bring a computer in next time.

Do you want me to introduce the crows?

Ravens are crows.

I play for the ravens.

That's right.

Yeah.

And I'm from Baltimore.

Also, very smart birds.

Also, somebody told me that Blue Jays are crows, too.

Are they?

That's what I was told.

Yeah.

um yeah i want to talk about my conspiracy that i believe in that's not rooted in systemic race are you gonna say birds are cameras

considering it gonna put that off to the side maybe

i'm talking about isn't that a thing though yes all right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i know people have never seen like a dead they've never seen like a dead seagull and it's like where do they go like the ocean but also are they like are they saying they're cameras for spy organizations i have to it's paper.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I said it's down the wrong way.

Well, no, because that also, though, makes me think about there was this, there was this weird thing that this is going to sound conspiratorial.

Wire is grinning way too much for this to be anything but a tremendous, tremendously dangerous tangent.

There was a thing, and you can look it up.

It was a real thing that the U.S.

government did where they tried putting microphones in cats so that they like sewed microphones microphones into cats so that they could spy on

on people uh on like you know i believe it was like russian uh like on some russians this was obviously years and years ago uh it has like a name like operation uh danger kitty or something incorrect project acoustic kitty there it is yeah

1962 uh the office of technological service came up with a plan they would implant a microphone and a tiny transmitter into a cat's ear canal canal and train it to follow audio cues towards a target.

I feel like the guy on Joe Rogan who's googling stuff and reading it.

So I should say that this actually links into my conspiracy that I had, which is the con of mammals, which is that we care all this about all these mammals because we are mammals too, and we see their pain and we believe them to be smarter than us.

And meanwhile, not smarter.

Well,

sorry, the mammals are smarter than everyone else.

I mean, we are the mammals, and so we are smarter than everybody else.

But that's because we call ourselves mammals.

They may not see us as mammals.

They don't identify as mammals.

Yeah, they don't.

Like we're saying we're of you.

And they're like, how the hell you are not?

The thing, the animal that I feel the most for, though, in this theory that I have is, of course, the bird.

Because there's an insult.

that is very common, bird brain.

And so this article in the New Yorker, which is titled, I want to get this right: The Magic of Bird Brains, subtitle, subhead, Crows are smart enough to pick up trash, why won't they?

And it turns out that so many people throughout time, scientists, dismissed the interior lives of birds because avian brains, bird brains are smaller.

And so they seem to be idiots.

But it turns out that they're actually just dense with neurons.

This is an actual like scientific revelation to bird researchers, even.

And so these birds got used to in a program by these organizations to see if they could train crows, Corvids

is their family,

which includes crows, jays, magpies,

to pick up trash

because they could do stuff like this actually.

Everyone knows crows are smart.

They recognize faces, they can make and use tools.

But how smart?

And how do they learn?

That's where one of Aesop's fables comes in.

It's the one about a thirsty crow that dropped stones in a pitcher in order to raise the water level so it was high enough to get a drink.

Seems unlikely.

But in fact, experiments have shown that new Caledonian crows, once they're trained to pick up and drop stones, which is not something they do a lot in the wild, can figure out this problem pretty quickly.

They use the stones to raise the water level to get a piece of floating food.

Are you guys impressed by that?

I am impressed.

Dominique's not impressed by the bird.

Oh, no.

I mean, I've seen this before.

I've seen them.

I haven't seen that specific video, but I've seen them do this and I've seen them

like break down more complicated puzzles than that.

But yeah, it is incredibly impressive.

So let me point this out then, coming off of that video, is that crows, can it turn out,

read each other's intentions.

They can plan for the future.

They can solve puzzles using abstract reasoning.

All of which is to say they trained him to do stuff like pick up trash and they said, f ⁇ you, no.

And they're like the one animal that is cohabitated with us basically in our spaces lived in our spaces and maintained their independence um and that is this mark of their genius so crows yeah why the do we want slaves so badly

like we can't we just can't shake slavery pick up your own trash pick up your own trash why can't we just teach ourselves to use a trash can but no we're like we got to find a slave to do that and they don't want us using people anymore how about crows and when the crows don't do it okay, well, why don't we, I don't know,

let's find like a kitty cat.

Let's see if we can get cats to do it.

We just need slaves.

Get a robot.

Whatever.

We just, oh my God, we can't shake.

We can't shake this slave addiction we got.

I was going to say, like,

you guys are going way too far with this crow racism bit.

And then I was thinking of like, what was the actual program called When America Was Racist?

Jim Crow.

Well done, Pablo.

Even a blind crow finds a rock every now and then.

Yeah.

Birds, underrated.

I mean, there's some pretty dumb ones, too.

Like the shoebill, it's a very scary-looking bird, which apparently is not that bright.

So, like, we're talking about us mammals and us humans as a group.

And I'm sure there are some humans that we've talked about and some we haven't that all of us would like, no, I'm not like him.

So I think that birds are probably separate also.

The shoebill crazy them they be like eating like mammals and stuff like large very scary i'm sure you'll put up a picture to yes shoebill is like uh shoebill stork fake it looks like a dinosaur at like a puppet uh what do you got a puppet studio oh sure yeah yeah yeah yeah like a puppet workshop yeah a workshop yeah how does the shoebill stack up against the cassowary

they great kickers yeah they're great kickers that like velociraptor like talon velociraptor talons they got a bone mohawk They do have

a bone mohawk?

Yeah, they got a bone mohawk.

And there's some great video online of cassowaries, just like

somebody trying to put a broom into a cassowary pen, and the cassowary just rips it to shreds.

This guy uses a pick shield to protect himself during an attack.

So more like running at you and kicking you and jumping at you with those feet, and like a velociraptor.

They're going to shred you.

He looks mangoed.

yeah that's what's that's better the right than you pretty much that's what we reckon there's a cassowary everyone run away from the cassowary right the deadliest bird on on the planet is the cassowary watch watching pablo try to figure out how to spell cassowary and then try to figure out how to how to find a cassowary without writing he put bone head bird he put all types of nonsense just write it man give it a shot google a guess it i was briefly looking up the uh wikipedia summary for a movie called bone tomahawk starring kurt russell oh when was that made?

2015.

Oh, wow.

I thought that was going to be like 1970s for sure.

No.

Nope.

It grossed over $480,000 in theater sales.

Oh, that's cool.

That was in like our theaters?

Where was that?

I don't never heard of that.

No.

I thought it was going to go straight to streaming or something.

Yeah.

Maybe they only put it in theaters to try to get it like Oscar contention.

Maybe.

So that's why it's not.

But that's how it grossed 400.

It was just one weekend in a couple of art house theaters.

Maybe it wasn't meant for us.

Maybe they marketed it to some other

Democrat Gazette called the film racist, calling it, quote, the equivalent of having as villains a sect of Orthodox Jews.

What?

What?

Oh, gosh.

Are crows the only birds that, as a group, are called a murder?

I think so.

I believe so.

Which,

that's impressive.

Gotta say, feels a little racist.

Yeah.

Unless they chose it, unless it was like, hey, crows, what do you want to be called?

They reclaimed it.

Yeah, and they were like, we want to be called a murder.

I'm sorry, a murder.

There we go.

We're a murder of crows.

It's murder.

If you're looking to add something special to your next celebration, try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

This smooth, flavorful cognac is crafted from the finest grapes and aged to perfection, giving you rich notes of oak and caramel with every sip.

Whether you're celebrating a big win or simply enjoying some cocktails with family and friends, Remy Martin 1738 is the perfect spirit to elevate any occasion.

So go ahead.

Treat yourself to a little luxury and try Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royale.

Learn more at remymartin.com.

Remy Martin Cognac, Feen Champion, Orfin Alcohol by Volume 40 by Remy Control.

USA Incorporated in York, New York, 1738.

Centaur Design.

Please print responsibly.

So Dominique is already exasperated by the Aaron Rodgers topic that I wanted to bring in, which I do understand.

Yeah.

I mean,

yeah.

So I agree, by the way, I agree that that's a reasonable response to this.

It's funny how this played out

because before all of the stuff happened this week, which by the way, I guess we should say that this happened this week.

In 2013, when CNN's Pamela Brown was covering the Kentucky Derby, she was introduced to Rogers.

Hearing that she was a journalist at CNN, Rogers began attacking the news media for, quote, covering up important stories.

Rogers then brought up the Sandy Hook shooting and said the news media was intentionally ignoring that the shooting wasn't real, that it was a government inside job.

I remind you, the shooting, of course, was very real, very tragic.

20 children and six adults were murdered that day.

When Pamela Brown asked Aaron Rodgers for evidence of what he was talking about, Rogers then began sharing various theories that have been disproven numerous times by evidence.

Rogers falsely claimed to Pamela Brown that there were men in black in the woods by the school, and he asked if she thought that was odd.

Brown says that she found the entire encounter disturbing.

And then, like minutes before we sat down here, Aaron Rodgers tweeted out his first comments after everybody, of course, started talking about this.

Because by the way, I guess I'm backing into a lead here, which is that Aaron Rodgers is one of the two top contenders to be RFK Jr.'s vice president.

Sure.

He says this, quote, As I am on the record saying in the past, what happened in Sandy Hook was an absolute tragedy.

I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place.

Again, I hope that we learn from this and other tragedies to identify the signs that will allow us to prevent unnecessary loss of life.

My thoughts and prayers continue to remain with the families affected along with the entire Sandy Hill community.

Heart emoji

hashtag thing.

So that happened after I wanted to do a thing about Aaron Rodgers.

But your first reaction, I guess, to Aaron Rodgers now saying, clarifying, actually, no, no, no, have never believed the thing that now CNN has accused me of saying to their reporters.

I want you to read it again because it sounds like based on what he told Pamela Brown,

he says a thing happened.

He just thinks the thing was some conspiracy.

Oh, you see an immunized

legal.

Yeah.

So this is what he says.

It's a good point.

I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place.

And then he hopes that we learn from this and other tragedies to prevent unnecessary loss of life, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's an absolute tragedy.

The events did not take place is not a thing he believes.

And so, look, we're just doing the thing again, Dominique, which I guess is why Dominique was exasperated when he sat down.

And I was like, I think I have Aaron Rodgers takes.

I don't like talking about any of this stuff.

I know we need to.

I think the interesting thing for me was when we first found out he was going to potentially be the running mate of RFK is

that we all joked about it.

Yes.

Yeah.

And it was like,

we joked one other time about a candidate

and that ain't turned out so great.

And so I guess it just wasn't, and I guess this feels a little bit more far-fetched or whatever, or does it?

I don't know.

It's just an uncomfortable place to be in.

And also just generally just kind of embarrassed that he, and this is before we even get to the Sandy Hook stuff.

Exactly.

It's just like, what are we doing?

Yeah.

New York Times reports this, and it's immediately like, oh, we're doing this now.

Right.

We're doing the thing where Aaron Rodgers is in our discourse in a way that dares us to take him seriously.

And so the serious part, incidentally, is when people begin to do exactly that.

And they're like, now officially, you know, reporting stuff, the political presses, in ways that reveal that actually Aaron Rodgers' whole persecution conflict with the sports media is actually nothing compared to what would happen actually if he was a real candidate being vetted by all sorts of political campaigns.

Right.

Yeah.

He's definitely in a world where he's insulated because he has a perceived value.

And in a weird way, probably getting injured was the best thing to happen for him because it only gave another year for that value to kind of increase because people were like, yeah, maybe he's going to come back and save the Jets.

And it's just for a guy who probably loves attention more than he loves winning championships, he is getting it.

And that's what it seems like.

It seems like, yeah, this is a guy who constantly wants attention.

And

there's no, there's no world in which,

A, if RFK were a candidate that were taken seriously

and then RFK were to win,

there's no way that Aaron Rodgers would be content having to be a politician.

And having to, and not just having to be a politician, having to be a vice president.

Like, that's basically.

The Nathaniel Hackett of politicians.

I was going to say it's backing up Brett Favre.

It's, it's, you know, it's, it's that thing of like, oh yeah, no, this is a person who wants the spotlight at every turn.

And

I, and for anyone who's in his life when he retires, woof, I hope, you know, get him interested in golf.

I.

Rarely.

So like I

get excited, I think, or when we get an opportunity in sports to take on some real things.

And it's happened more and more recently.

And I kind of feel like,

yeah, this like the other stuff is fun, but we actually get an opportunity to talk to people who are outside of our whatever bubbles we live in through sports because there are lots of people from all different political spectrums who are willing to listen to me who would not turn on or read the same things that I read.

And I think that's what I was trying to investigate my exasperation because, like, I mean, it's not really affecting me.

Why does this stress me out so much?

And then it hit me that, like, I should be excited because this is my opportunity.

But I think more than anything, it's just reinforcing that

I don't know how much progress, if any, has been made.

I don't know where we are going.

I don't, and I also don't know what to do because through all the like, through, I don't know what to do or say because through

COVID and

whatever racial

a reckoning or whatever we called it that period.

There it is.

Love a reckoning.

Oh man, it was one of the happiest stretches of my life.

White people was listening.

Getting phone calls.

Oh, I was getting random phone calls.

Apologizing.

Like, hey,

you know, all this racism shit?

My bad dog.

That's all I wanted.

And then, like, through the

campaign of Donald Trump and through his presidency, like we're all finding ways to do whatever part we can.

And it, and you like convince yourself that you're actually like

taking some risk and making some progress.

And then we get out of it.

And it's like, hey, you know what?

Is anything that much better?

Is anything that much worse?

And that's what I think I was confronted with was like, now, how do I handle this in a way?

Because I made mistakes through those stretches.

Like, I have regrets on things that I said and things that I did.

But by by and then you started in on Aaron Rodgers as lots of us did.

And then you sort of modulated being like, okay.

Yeah, because I mean, I

like

that don't get you anywhere.

And so that's, I think that's what was stressing me out.

It's like, how do I handle this?

Because it's absurd.

And like making fun of it is fine.

But like,

what do you actually say about it if it's real?

I don't know.

But maybe is it, do you think on some level it's the absurdity of it?

Because when I think about what you're talking about as having this platform to be able to maybe engage in different conversations with people who are sports fans and getting them to kind of open their mind and be empathetic to a different perspective.

When you say that, I think about people like, you know, when Greg Popovich and Steve Kerr and Doc Rivers were during, you know, 2020 talking about,

you know, police violence.

I think about when Carl Anthony Towns was talking about how COVID impacted him.

And And those are real things that feel like pegs that you can talk about, where you can say, okay,

to any COVID deniers, here is a basketball player that you potentially root for, and he just lost his mother.

And that to me feels like it's much easier to peg a story around that than

the absurdity that Aaron Rodgers often exists in, whether it is he may be the vice president, the vice presidential candidate for a third party candidate, or his claims on COVID or his Joe Rogan appearances, they're all in the theater of the absurd.

Yeah, but I think so around COVID stuff, like the message is simple.

Get vaccinated or stay home.

The tough thing about this is like, what am I, what is the message that

celebrities shouldn't be politicians

or Aaron Rodgers shouldn't be taken seriously.

And I think that's what I was having a hard time with.

It's like, I don't want to say he shouldn't be taken seriously because we thought that it once upon a time.

He should be taken seriously.

But I also know that if I say, you know what,

don't vote for Aaron Rodgers, like that's not the right thing to do either.

That's not going to be properly.

You're endorsing Aaron Rodgers.

Can you Photoshop that image?

Oh my gosh.

You know how to get me to never come on this show again.

But can I say that the reason I was interested in Aaron Rodgers and the reason why I was interested in him before even the Sandy hook stuff, which he says or is trying to make us think he does not believe now, at least,

is because he is kind of like this one-man

like Overton window, right?

This guy who is a line at which I guess we have to figure out, are we just going to let this guy just say stuff and not take it seriously, seriously anymore?

It's this line where it's like, oh, what is the line beyond which we need to say

with like some amount of seriousness, this is fed up and you shouldn't be taken seriously.

Well, that's where even with his statement, his statement doesn't actually respond to CNN's claims.

His statement doesn't respond to those conversations.

He's just saying, I never said that.

And it feels like, okay, well, then somebody needs to hold his feet to the fire and say, why would this person say that the interaction they had with you at the Kentucky Derby was different than like.

He's actually even not saying I didn't say that.

He is saying, as I'm on the record saying in the past, what happened in San Diego was an absolute tragedy.

I am not, have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place.

Yeah.

And then he goes on to say that it's I just had a lot of mute juleps at the at the Derby and got loose.

But but I think the question of Aaron Rodgers, it gets to like, do we find him interesting enough to wonder how he got this way?

And so what is funny to me about this, beyond the fact that RFK Jr.

turns out in, I guess, leaking, his two top vice presidential candidates are Jesse Ventura and Aaron Rodgers, that he's really, really cornering the

Democrats, former Democrats who believe in 9-11 conspiracy market, right?

Beyond that, it's Aaron Rodgers went on this three-hour paywalled podcast that I had Ryan Cortez listen to.

I am sorry, Ryan.

Yeah.

Because

I got a text from Sub.

Sensible legally, Ryan.

You should call a lawyer.

Unless you just became red pills.

Cortez will eat garbage when it comes to television and love it.

And this was like something he actually pushed back on and I made him do it.

And

that is exhibit A.

That little audio clip that Cortez, that is exhibit A in your lawsuit.

It was three hours long, and he sent me a long, embittered summary of what he found out.

But I want to play one of the clips because it proves that A, this guy, Eddie Bravo, is a real person.

I thought this might be a like a literally like a satire of like an Aaron Rodgers podcast episode that doesn't exist, but it turns out it exists.

And Rogers said stuff like this.

Tartaria is interesting to me because

I just don't.

I have a natural skepticism

paired with a true curiosity about

history.

I studied history in college.

When I was nine years old, I studied Egypt,

and that's why I'm so fascinated by Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson and their theories about Egypt.

I love their podcast with Joe.

And why does that history matter?

Because

there's been

probably thousands and thousands and thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands maybe years of extremely advanced civilizations.

Why does that change things?

Because

everything that they've told us could be a lie.

And so Eddie Bravo is like a QAnon

adjacent guy, it seems.

The theory they're talking about is the Partarian Empire, which is billed, according to Bloomberg, as the QAnon of architecture.

And it also proceeds, if we have that video of Roger saying his origin story about like how he started questioning things,

it gets back to RFK Jr.

if we have that clip.

My thing on politics is I've always thought it's a sham because the majority of them are all juiced in and the rule and it's run by the big banks, the big pharma, the lobbyist, the big everything, right?

That doesn't give a shit deep down about the American people.

All they care about is profits, power, and control, right?

So my

antidote to that is RFK Jr.

Because I think although he has the pedigree of family being in politics, the last real president was the first president I studied, which was JFK.

And that's what got me into questioning things because I did a sophomore project on JFK, life and death.

For a guy who doesn't believe in vaccines, it's weird that he would call RFK the antidote.

But I play all of this to point out that there are some things where it's like, hey, Aaron Rodgers, you're not a problem if what you believe is the pharmaceutical industry is a problem.

Cool.

I agree.

It is.

There are many, many issues with big pharma.

If your whole take here is that, like, we should do more psychedelic drugs, also, also on board.

Cool, let's talk about that.

If he's even like anti-mainstream media, like, okay, I'll hear you out on that.

If it's a JFK conspiracy thing, I'm like, not scandalized by this.

But the question is, where is the line?

And I feel like the line is somewhere around the QAnon of architecture and Sandy hook trutherism.

And he's clearly on the other side of a line that just feels like we should say,

the issue with you as a candidate is that you believe some that's just actually deranged.

How the human mind works is still a mystery to a lot of us in many ways, or I mean, to all of us in many ways.

Except for Wyatt.

However,

and correct me if I'm wrong, it feels to me like, I'm going to use this sports car analogy, is it feels like Aaron

has a sports car like in his head as far as like horsepower is concerned, but he's a drunk driver.

Like it's just like, it just feels like because and

you should not be trusted

to drive us, to drive this country.

Or just himself, you know, so like I don't, I'm hesitant to say that he's smart.

And smart such a like loaded word because it like oversimplifies intelligence.

Like you're either smart or you're not.

You can be intelligent in a bunch of different ways.

But for the sake of this conversation, it's clear to me that he has some like above average level of like brain power.

But where he chooses to focus it and what he does with it is the concerning part.

The other question that comes up to me is you talk about the line.

I don't know where the draw of the line is.

We all recognize that some Sandy Hook

trutherism or whatever they're calling that is across the line.

But

the kindest thing I can say about Aaron Rodgers is like

people like him with that impulse are like necessary because I know we all understand this.

We are being lied to about something.

Sure.

And

somebody like the journalistic instinct to like be skeptical all the time and question everything is something that we need to have in society.

Yes,

again, like the whole like, we got to find out stuff is, yes, I embody this.

Sure, but I feel like

there's a line that needs to be drawn between

curiosity and conspiracy theorist.

And to me, what's interesting about seeing Aaron Rodgers

over the years is that he very much seems like he falls into the camp of conspiracy theorist.

And there are a lot, and there is maybe something to unpack about the psychology of conspiracy theorists because whether they're current, whether they're QAnon, whether they're hoteps, there is this large population that seems to just be growing of conspiracy theorists.

And what is it in that particular makeup of a person?

that is driving them that way.

Are there things that

Aaron Rodgers has in common, psychologically speaking, to a lot of these other people.

And maybe that's something we should be looking at and focusing on because the danger is, especially when these people have voices and platforms,

they then just popularize not just their way of thinking, but the anxiety, narcissism, and other things that drive that thinking.

You know, I was wondering about like how Aaron Rodgers in his psychology was going to respond to this.

I now am persuaded that he's going to go with the immunized loophole, careful rhetoric.

I think Wyatt's right now that I keep on looking at this statement about the Sandy Hook stuff.

But I think when it comes to how he got to be this way psychologically, you know, I think he's going to describe at some point.

He'll do the thing he always does.

He'll complain about being canceled, how he has opinions that are too brave, and all that stuff.

I can see that happening.

It might be happening as we speak right now.

But the funny thing about his persecution complex is that Aaron Rodgers has actually been a fascinating experiment because he used to be beloved.

All the people who are his critics now who tend to be loud about it,

he was

their guy.

He was a friend of Dan Lebetard's show.

He was in Mina Kimes' home because he wanted to, which is weird, especially now to think about in retrospect, that he wanted to visit her as she was profiling him at ESPN.

He was somebody that I admired because it seemed like his brain power was being used to be interesting and thoughtful while also being one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

And the question then for him is, okay, why did he then feel like everybody turned on him?

And I think, or why is it, the question might be, why does he feel like he lost that audience?

And he would say, I think, because of the woke mind virus, because he said some things that cut too close to the truth.

And these people are sheep and they're not

awoken and all that stuff.

And in reality, I think the answer is you started trafficking in shit that we cannot possibly even begin to defend.

And he never seems to consider that that is actually the answer.

He's always looking outward at people don't get what I am putting down, and therefore it's them and not me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel pretty sure that there was,

I think there was something that happened before a game in

Green Bay where Aaron like admonished the Packer fans for booing a Muslim person, I believe.

It was the attacks in Paris that happened in 2015.

Yeah, go ahead, explain it.

Okay, so religious extremists killed at least 129 people in Paris.

And a fan at a game appeared to shout, quote, Muslims suck during a moment of silence.

And Rogers said after the game that, you know, that he was very disappointed with whoever the fan was who made a comment that I thought was really inappropriate during the moment of silence.

It's that kind of prejudicial ideology that I think puts us in the position that we're in today as a world.

That was Rogers.

I don't sound like, yeah.

And I think

not knowing exactly what pushed him to the point where he is now.

I think part of what happens

in life is there are guardrails that you bump into or like you kind of if you're like uh

you're born with like uh you're like a raw material as you tumble down this hill things will like bump and knock and erode you into a point where you're smooth able to operate within society there's something to be said for being an exceptional person in some realm because while Aaron Rodgers, I'm sure, has had many challenges to overcome as an athlete, a lot of the social experiences and a lot of the demands that are placed upon you as a growing young adult to an adult will have you conform to some degree.

And if you're a great quarterback,

there's nothing there there's hardly anything and you're in Green Bay all the time.

There's hardly anything that like forces you into that spot, which I think Aaron would argue is why he is on to the truth.

But I would argue what you did with that freedom is like dangerous.

And that's the scary part.

And that's why like I don't know what to say about any of this.

It feels irresponsible for him to use his platform in a way that does not display critical thinking when his influence is meaningful, let alone actually resulting in political power.

And so I guess why what I, what I am struggling with too, as I listen to Dominique on that is simply, I don't want to be a skull.

I wanted to do the thing about, can we get Eddie Bravo and like that podcast, play some clips and laugh?

And now I'm like grappling with, do we have to be the people who are the guardrails?

Is it incumbent upon us in sports to be like, we've been covering this guy forever.

He's not trying to be an actual vice president of the United States.

He's daring us to take him seriously.

And if that happens, what happens?

Well, but it also feels like if we've lost the ability to actually hold people accountable to the words, and they have to then respond to them, not in a tweet, but to sit across from reporters and have to answer these questions and have to be presented with facts and truth, whether it's Sandy Hook or even, I'm assuming the Egypt stuff he's talking about is like the Egypt alien shit, which even that stuff,

there is a thing there that is rooted in some deep racism.

That is

Africans couldn't have built all that.

Aliens did.

And so

if you want to have these conversations, you can't just go on Joe Rogan or Pat McPhee.

And I call him McPhee because I assume Aaron asked him to move both the A's into his first name so they could be more alike.

But you can't just go on shows where people are just going to kind of let you blow by and say whatever the hell you want.

But it can.

That's the thing.

But that's what I'm saying.

But it can.

And that's the point that I'm making.

It's like, I don't know.

Well, and that's what feels like, that's what's so problematic and where it feels like we're not going to find a solution to it if we can, if we continue to exist in this economy where anybody can have a podcast, anybody can kind of say what they want without any checks and balances.

And this is where Aaron Rodgers is somewhere out there and people like him and his coalition are saying, you guys are doing the same thing you're accusing me of doing.

You guys agree with each other.

You're talking.

You're laughing together.

Ha, ha, ha.

It's the same exact thing.

And Aaron, you are welcome to come on this show and we'll put it behind a paywall if you like.

And we can have the conversation.

If you're listening, yeah,

we can have that conversation.

Ryan Cortez is walking out the door as Wyatt says that sentence.

You know what I think that just landed on me that is really annoying for or really confusing for me is I'm talking about this as if there is another side, whereas this does not, there is no other side, because that's what I'm thinking.

It's like, all right,

if I accept that I am not going to convince people who are in this camp, I accept that I'm not going to convince them.

And I accept that they come with this new world that we are in.

Then I'm sitting here thinking, all right, this is a good conversation that we're having.

This is not something that I would have thought of by myself.

But now, since I'm talking to people, it tells me that what I really need to do is work aggressively

on the opposite end of what he is putting out there.

Yeah, we have to debate a Sandy Hook truther, Dominique.

That's how we get to be fair and balanced.

I mean, even if you're not talking about directly at that specific idea,

I just think that this group of people who are talking about this people they don't they don't fall perfectly into like right or left they're in a different that's like the whole rfk party we're the conspiracist party we're democrats who believe that there's bullshit on all sides and so if my belief is that it's our responsibility to make sure that we are taking as much advantage of this new uh world

then I should be propagating something as extreme as him, but on the other side.

And I'm like, what the hell is that?

It doesn't exist.

So I'm supposed to say, America is so honest and so good.

America never lies to its people.

No, the Egyptians built all that shit by themselves with their hands.

And you know what?

The Egyptians built this building that we're standing in right now.

They traveled in time and did it.

Like, what is the opposite of a conspiracy theorist?

It sucks.

You can't fight against that.

But it also,

it's, It's funny because as you're saying that,

I'm reminded that I spent a lot of time working on a show, a television show, where

the host would

go and say,

let's bring Jim Kramer on and I'm going to debate Jim Kramer, or I'm going to go on Bill O'Reilly's show and I'm going to debate Bill O'Reilly.

And the reality is nothing changed.

It wasn't actually helpful to the conversation at all.

All it is is clickbait.

And it then spawned other people saying, oh, yeah, let's do some confrontation for views

and that's all it that's all it really is and to you and so to your point it's not about okay

yeah i will counter with this it feels like sadly the counter is

structural it is it is weirdly it's the harder work of like de-radicalizing conspiracy theorists well it's the harder work of like we need to make a society that doesn't reward that stuff a society that doesn't reward that stuff but also we need to re-engage people with access to education that makes them critical theory critical thinkers and not conspiratorial thinkers that like a lot of this is you know i i hate to go back and be you know the person who's like well the problem is our schools are fed up but on some level our schools are up our social our social safety net is up now we're good at the internet wyatt the internet's our school now i mean and and uh I know, yeah.

But if those things were stronger, then

I'm not saying it eliminates

any of that stuff.

I'm not disagreeing with you.

I am just going to point out the fact that it's because we're racist.

Like,

our schools are f ⁇ ed up because we're racist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like,

our social safety net is f ⁇ ed up because we're racist.

Yeah.

Like, all of these things were born as a result of white people not wanting black people to have sh ⁇ that they didn't have or have anything close to what they have.

That's why our schools are fed up.

That's why our communities are segregated because we are fucking racist.

And it's, I mean, it's a point.

It's not a novel point.

It's a point that's been made before, but racism is bad for all of us.

And until we understand that the found, the fundamental

like principles of this country are based on racism.

And that's why the white grandma can't get surgery is because we can't have health care because we're fing racist.

Like that's like,

it's all

there's a great plug for my podcast that didn't wind up going

Everything's racist.

Yeah, so to be clear and I think that maybe not everyone is as critical a thinker and critical a listener.

So I will take my time and be clear that I am not saying that every white person I walk into today is like some radical extreme racist.

I don't know y'all.

I don't know everyone, but I do believe that the systemic issues that our country faces that impact us all is a result of race.

I don't know how we got here from talking about Aaron Rodgers being conspiracy theorists, but that is, it's not a conspiracy.

It's real.

But also as a person,

what you're talking about is also

to sort of bring it back to sports, it's teamwork.

And it's the idea that, well, the white guy might have gotten knocked down or might feel like he's getting knocked down.

But if the offensive line,

if they don't have the tools they need, if they don't have the resources they need, then yeah, you're going to keep getting knocked down because they're getting knocked down too because they have less than your ass.

And they don't recognize that we're all on the same team.

But I want to modernize your analogy.

I mean, a lot of quarterbacks are black now.

Well, I was just thinking about Aaron Rodgers.

No, it's a perfect analogy.

I think that we don't recognize that we're on the same team.

And we're saying, so like if to confer this analogy, which could be useful, I'm, I'm using this again at some point, and I may or may not credit you, but we got there together.

Um, did we?

Nah, it's kind of like slavery, man.

You did the work.

I'm going to take it.

So, who's who's who's Tarad Taylor in this metaphor?

All right.

The point that I'm going to say America's the Jets.

The point

I'm going to make is that assuming that if black people represent the offensive line

and we're like, hey, these deep tackles are whooping our our ass.

Why don't you give us some help?

And the quarterback is the white person.

He's back there getting sacked.

Like, I can't help you.

I'm getting sacked all the goddamn time.

It's like, listen, bro.

You know what would help us all?

Is if we took care of this offensive line, then we would no longer get our asses kicked and you would no longer be getting sacked.

But we don't view it that way.

We view ourselves in many ways as on opposite teams.

And I'm not, I find myself in that position all the time where I'm looking around like

they don't give a dust about us, they don't care, they don't want to do anything.

But the fact of the matter is, all of this stuff is connected.

And I think that is probably the most appealing part about conspiracy theorists: they see that there are some connections, they're just connecting the wrong dots, they don't have the numbers on the connect the dot game.

They just like these numbers: 1, 12, 14, 66, boom, bam, bam,

exactly.

Wait.

So here's

an update to the Aaron Rodgers story.

Hello.

So, and we'll have to fact-check this because we're doing this live, Rogan style.

But someone ran Aaron Rodgers' statement that we started this episode with.

through an AI detection software, and it was detected as written by AI.

That's like a ridiculous 2024 experience.

I got all that together.

I got to check this right now.

AI detection.

Yeah, I think somebody just made that up.

I would love if there was some flag football game that was let AI call the plays for one team

and just see like AI versus Rex Ryan.

I hate that this is a thing that I'm like, oh, God.

I hope this is real, but also, is this all like a meta third-level prank?

I mean, the truth of the matter is he's, what, in Costa Rica?

He's not really...

Whether it was AI or whether it was his agent, isn't it really the same thing?

It is the same thing.

It was detected as written by AI, by this

website called undetectable.ai.

Jeez, because we trust that website?

It's f ⁇ ing man.

I feel like that's kind of the perfect addict.

I don't f ⁇ ing know anymore.

And I'm tired of trying.

I'm finally tired of trying to find out.

But I can only imagine how tired I would be if I didn't have the following people.

Because Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Michael Antonucci, Ryan Cortez, Sam Dawig, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Loman, Rachel Miller-Howard, Ethan Schreier, Carl Scott, Matt Sullivan, Chris Tumanello, and Juliet Warren.

Our studio engineering by RG Systems.

a post-production by Andy W.

Vost, our theme song by John Bravo.

I'm going to turn off my computer and go to bed.

I'll see you on Tuesday.