Hour 2: Enough With These Good Murderers (feat. Ronan Farrow)

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Speaker 16 This is the Dan Labatar Show with the Stu Gats Podcast.

Speaker 11 Always made happier when I see this radiant face. This guy zigs when others are zagging.
You don't care about journalism. You hate journalism.
He's great at journalism, better than just about anybody.

Speaker 11 And if you're a murder podcast person, he's not interested in the good murderers.

Speaker 15 He's interested in very bad murderers.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 19 Enough with these good murderers, man.

Speaker 15 I think I'm tired of them.

Speaker 11 Enough with these good murder podcast content.

Speaker 20 I'm tired of them.

Speaker 11 They wanted to go another way. Ronan Farrell with us.
He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, obviously, contributing writer at The New Yorker.

Speaker 11 He's got a new Audible Original podcast, not a very good murderer, and he explores the fact-checking process with a volatile source. By accident, we didn't actually do this on purpose.

Speaker 11 We were talking about journalism and the fact-checking process.

Speaker 11 And I'm wondering, Ronan, when you don't have a credible source or you have a volatile source, what goes into the reporting of this particular story?

Speaker 11 I'm always interested in the subjects that you choose. And thank you, as always, for joining us.

Speaker 20 Yeah, it's always a pleasure. It's always such a good conversation with you guys.

Speaker 20 I try to capture over the course of the four and a half hours of this series the answer to that question. I feel like

Speaker 20 this series doesn't neatly fall into one category. It's not one thing.
And one of the layers of it is at a time when the press is under attack, right? There's dwindling trust in the press.

Speaker 20 I wanted to show

Speaker 20 the mechanics of how a journalist goes about vetting, in this case, a really politically explosive allegation.

Speaker 20 And I headed off into this wealthy gated community in the desert, Paradise Valley, Arizona,

Speaker 20 to try to assess the question you raised. Was the source at the center of this credible? And then you have these other layers that flow from this.

Speaker 20 You have, you mentioned volatility, a relationship that is the backbone of this series that is really wild. I mean, this is

Speaker 20 about a former pageant queen. Her name is Cece Doan.

Speaker 20 And as I'm vetting her, I start to realize that she's been connected to this improbable series of unsolved crimes. There's

Speaker 20 an arson allegation.

Speaker 20 There's a period of time where the FBI investigated her for allegedly sending death threats to her own family.

Speaker 20 There's a police investigation into whether she tried to hire a hitman to kill one of her husbands, and then another investigation into whether she tried to kill another husband with Viagra,

Speaker 20 overdosing him deliberately was the claim.

Speaker 20 As I looked into that, to your point about volatility, the relationship with her became really complex because She wouldn't stop calling and she kept coming back for more interviews.

Speaker 20 So there was clearly an attraction there, but also she was furious.

Speaker 20 And at one point, you know, she threatens to punch me. Actually, now, as of our latest conversations, multiple points.

Speaker 20 So you get to really see this kind of rise and fall of a very intense, complicated relationship.

Speaker 20 And then finally, you know, I thought that this series was consequential because she represents someone who's at a lot of our dinner tables, at a lot of our like Thanksgiving meals, in a lot of our communities.

Speaker 20 She is very, very steeped in the kind of Fox News Breitbart spectrum of, at times, I'll just say it as a reporter where I'm very committed to the facts,

Speaker 20 it's disinformation at times.

Speaker 20 You know, I'm not saying everything on those platforms falls into that category, but some of the things that she embraces, like the idea that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Speaker 20 You know, the idea that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Speaker 20 There are certain things that come up in our conversations where it's clear that she represents a really significant part of this country's population in terms of disinformation culture.

Speaker 20 And that's something I'm very interested in.

Speaker 20 So the show kind of becomes a blueprint for not only can I solve these crimes and can I use this person as a source credibility-wise, but also how do we deal with this phenomenon in our culture of people who live in denial, maybe as in this case, about themselves and also about the world around them.

Speaker 11 So did she trust you and did you now confirm her already held belief that the media can't be trusted?

Speaker 20 I think that any treatment of this subject, no matter how delicate and sensitive and meticulous in the fact-checking, was going to trigger a firestorm and in her eyes, a confirmation of, you know, the untrustworthy leftist qualities of the media.

Speaker 20 I will say that over the course of this series, one of the leitmotifs that emerges is blackouts, that she claims to have blacked out her memories of many of these alleged crimes.

Speaker 20 You know, her response in a lot of cases isn't a firm denial. It's a, well, I don't remember.
And she attributes that to a combination of

Speaker 20 struggles with alcoholism, which, you know, I think is a part of the series that a lot of people and a lot of families will relate to.

Speaker 20 There's a very forthright discussion of the substance abuse part of this. And also, I think, to just not wanting to confront some of this stuff.
I think it's a mix of both. And so

Speaker 20 the silver lining here, in answer to your question, is there are

Speaker 20 parts of this show where she actually starts to confront some of these things she's done in her past and to acknowledge, well, maybe Maybe it's possible I did do this.

Speaker 20 Maybe it's possible I did say this. And like members of her family, for instance, have reached out to me.
It's a very complicated portrait of a family as well.

Speaker 20 And she's, you know, been accused of being abusive by her kids and so on.

Speaker 20 People have reached out and said this is a really cathartic series for them to watch within that family. And I've been also heartened to hear from people not connected.

Speaker 20 to this family who have just listened to it out in the world and said, this reminds me of my mother. This reminds me of someone I know.
And it's helped me process.

Speaker 11 Ronan, I'm sorry to do this to you in a public fashion, but Billy's quite the anarchist today, and he has pointed out to me, how can we trust anyone in journalism when this person, who's a Pulitzer Prize winner, clearly has fake books behind him?

Speaker 15 And

Speaker 1 thermostat growing out of one of your books there.

Speaker 11 We can't trust this person either, Billy's saying to me.

Speaker 11 And I can't even hear what you're saying because he's saying you're not trustworthy because everything behind you is almost literally fake news.

Speaker 1 Is that a real guitar?

Speaker 4 I don't even know anymore.

Speaker 15 You would.

Speaker 20 The guitars are not, are not wallpaper. The keyboard is not wallpaper.
The books are wallpaper. And you would be shocked how much conversation I wind up in about the wallpaper.

Speaker 20 Like people see the wallpaper. They love the wallpaper.
They feel betrayed by the wallpaper when they learn that the wallpaper is a stylized rendering of a library.

Speaker 20 It's, I promise you, in person, it's not pretending to be real books. Like it's it's painterly.
The texture of it is not, you know, photographic. It's supposed to be impressionistic.

Speaker 20 I didn't want real books in here.

Speaker 20 I wanted a painting.

Speaker 20 But yeah, I apologize. Those books are fake news.

Speaker 21 What's your favorite fake book that you've read from your wallpaper?

Speaker 20 You know, I think I did at one point

Speaker 20 like

Speaker 20 lean in really close and try to ascertain whether there's a title you can see.

Speaker 20 I don't think they're designed to have like full titles on them. Can you find one?

Speaker 11 Can we find one? Can we have you waste your time by scurrying around and trying to see if you can find a single real thing?

Speaker 20 That's going to require a separate booking, guys. You know, what we should do really is you should just report that there's some deeply cancellation-worthy book on this fake shelf.

Speaker 20 You know, there's a fake Mein Kampf on this fake shelf.

Speaker 15 We were all, all four of us felt that.

Speaker 15 He took it. We were all going to, at the same time, we were all going to yell Mein Kampf, but I didn't want the concept.
I knew you were.

Speaker 20 I just figured I'd do it for you.

Speaker 15 I was like, I'm not going to be a Dr. Seuss right.

Speaker 11 You also released earlier this week for the New Yorker, and I'm telling you,

Speaker 11 I am a deep admirer of this person's work because he's so meticulous about what he chooses and how he reports it.

Speaker 11 But your report on why the police refused to investigate a serial rapist, Sean Williams, and the prosecutor who blew the whistle on that, can you tell us how you came to report all of that?

Speaker 20 In 2021, I got an encrypted email from a person claiming to be a federal prosecutor and saying that they were chasing the case of

Speaker 20 they thought maybe historically prolific predator and being obstructed by the local police. This person thought that the cops might be protecting the alleged perpetrator.

Speaker 20 And it was such an incredible claim.

Speaker 20 And as I dug in from there, the specifics were so wild that I wound up spending four years just looking at every facet of this case and immersing myself in hundreds of pages of legal documents and interviewing dozens of people on the ground in Appalachia where this takes place.

Speaker 20 Wound up being about this prosecutor, Kat Dahl.

Speaker 20 She really was a federal prosecutor, and she had been assigned to Johnson City, East Tennessee.

Speaker 20 And she

Speaker 20 started to

Speaker 20 track strange events around the local businessman, a guy named Sean Williams. There was a woman who fell out of his fifth story window.
There was another woman who left his apartment,

Speaker 20 you know, super out of it, seemingly drugged,

Speaker 20 and was panicked and went off the road. She realized there had been years of police reports from women claiming that he had drugged and raped them.

Speaker 20 And various pieces of evidence recovered around him started to lead her to to believe that he might also be preying upon children.

Speaker 20 And as she worked on this case, actually, a bunch of people allegedly were assaulted while she failed to get the case across. So it became this kind of passionate obsession for her.
And

Speaker 20 the local cops seemed really uninterested in pursuing it. And you can read in this piece, in this week's New Yorker, all of the details of the ways in which they behaved strangely.
And

Speaker 20 through some combination of neglect,

Speaker 20 lack of interest,

Speaker 20 you know, just incompetence, and this is one of the things that emerges as the piece goes on, potentially corruption, they let him get away over and over again.

Speaker 20 I'm talking about she finally struggles and struggles and struggles to get an indictment against him. And then he goes on the run successfully for more than two years in total.

Speaker 20 He at one point gets caught by

Speaker 20 officers on a college campus by complete coincidence and is taken into custody and then escapes from a moving police van. I mean, it's stuff you don't expect in the present day.

Speaker 20 And over my years of reporting on this, the alleged perp, this guy Sean Williams, when he finally was in custody, started to tell me, well,

Speaker 20 I, through an associate of mine, was paying off the cops. They deny this, but I present all of the evidence and people can come to their conclusions.

Speaker 11 That's led to a new request for the reopening of Discovery, right?

Speaker 20 Yeah, there's now motion in some of the cases around this.

Speaker 20 There's a bunch of both civil and criminal proceedings that have flowed from this. And in at least one of the civil cases, there's been new filings based on some of this reporting.

Speaker 20 So maybe we haven't heard the last of this, and maybe there will be more answers. I do think think that one of the reasons that made me want to put this out now

Speaker 20 is that it's a story about state and federal oversight systems failing. And as I was reporting on it and saying like, hey, why didn't the FBI look at this more?

Speaker 20 Why didn't the Department of Justice writ large look at this more?

Speaker 20 Why doesn't this community have answers to these answerable questions about whether the cops were being paid off? What I started getting back in response to those questions was people saying,

Speaker 20 hey, buddy, the offices that you're asking for more and better accountability from are getting destroyed right now.

Speaker 20 So the Trump administration is dismantling a lot of these corruption oversight apparatuses, a lot of the systems for whistleblowers, like the one in this story, to come forward.

Speaker 20 They fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which is the office responsible for enforcing the Whistleblower Protection Act.

Speaker 20 They've done various other things things to try to erode the space for whistleblowers to come forward.

Speaker 20 They have downsized the public integrity section at the Department of Justice, which is the office that should be looking at corruption claims with respect to police around the country, to just a skeleton crew.

Speaker 20 So I think it's important as people read this to also have them know, like, this is why we need federal systems of oversight to protect people around the country.

Speaker 20 And what I'm being told by people around this case and other experts is with the absence or diminishment of those systems, we're a lot more likely to see more cases like this go unchecked.

Speaker 11 He is the face of horrifying news. Listen to his new Audible Original podcast.
Not a very good murderer. It is available now.
Honestly, like meticulously gathered.

Speaker 15 Horrendous. Well, but it's just horrendous.
I mean, it's just horrendous. I mean, he is.
Oh,

Speaker 11 I mean, just horrendous. Like, you hear him talking and it's like, oh, that's scary.
That's terrible. Okay, good.
Talking to you, Ronan. Thank you.

Speaker 20 Always a pleasure.

Speaker 15 Nah, not really.

Speaker 22 This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Man, these days are getting way too short.
It's dark at like 5 p.m. I'm instantly ready for bed.
And look, this time of year, it can be tough.

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Speaker 4 Don Lebatard. We're gonna win.
Stugats.

Speaker 15 We're gonna win.

Speaker 15 What an old reference.

Speaker 16 This is the Don Lebatar show with the Stugats.

Speaker 11 I'm going to wait until a home run is hit, preferably on the very first pitch the Marlins throw this season,

Speaker 11 to talk about the Marlins' new home run sculpture because they moved out a multi-million dollar colorful fiasco that David Sampson loves, but very few other people did, and now have a new home run thing that spews water.

Speaker 11 And so, we'll all get to see that together and then talk about it.

Speaker 11 David Sampson, incidentally, in the post-game with Jujugati, we're finally going to do that germaphobe off to see which of them is a little bit crazier. So that's coming up in a little bit.

Speaker 11 But before we do that, because I'm unsatisfied with our tournament, I want to create another tournament and I just want to play a bunch of iconic sounds here and get from you guys what the seedings on this are and should be.

Speaker 11 So the 16 seed in a different tournament, the one I'd prefer to do than the one Billy and others are trying to passive aggressively bother me with, but it's a great celebration of our fans who are in general population.

Speaker 1 So much, yeah. More than anyone.
By the way, the prize for that was supposed to be going to the championship game with you. That would have been a prize, huh? You would have liked that.

Speaker 1 And then they told me, no, we're not doing this.

Speaker 11 You put me in a position where I have to sound like I'm against watching a game with one of our most loyal fans because of how you've done this tournament.

Speaker 23 And because you don't like genpop, apparently.

Speaker 1 Atop your ivory tower. Yeah.

Speaker 24 Shangri-la.

Speaker 11 While wearing a silk robe of some sort behind a velvet rope, touch the hem of my garment. Number 16.

Speaker 23 What's that's that's AOL instead messenger?

Speaker 11 I asked for some of the most iconic

Speaker 11 in the history of sound.

Speaker 11 It's iconic for like what eight-year generation of people. Number 15

Speaker 11 Is that a sound or is that like

Speaker 15 curb your enthusiasm?

Speaker 11 That's a song.

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 23 If you cut it at

Speaker 23 and right there, that's a sound.

Speaker 11 Number 14.

Speaker 15 You've got mail. Two AOLs.

Speaker 15 Again. Do you know all about that, Dan?

Speaker 23 Again, it's a specific generation.

Speaker 11 Number 13.

Speaker 24 That's a song.

Speaker 15 This is a full-ass song.

Speaker 15 That's a song.

Speaker 1 Should let the whole two minutes play out.

Speaker 11 That's a song, though. That's not a sound.

Speaker 11 Get it out of here.

Speaker 14 Number 12.

Speaker 14 Sometimes you want to go where everybody is. What are we doing?

Speaker 11 This is not the correct way to

Speaker 8 produce this show.

Speaker 11 This is not the right way to do it. This is what you wanted, Dan?

Speaker 15 No! Number 11.

Speaker 25 In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous.

Speaker 25 In New York City, the dedicated detectives who investigate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the special victims.

Speaker 11 This is not a sounder.

Speaker 27 These are their stories. That would have been a good sounder.

Speaker 15 These are their stories. These are stories.
This is why you blew off our tongue tongue.

Speaker 19 Like, that's those are the things.

Speaker 11 Number 10.

Speaker 11 Song.

Speaker 8 You guys aren't.

Speaker 19 I don't know what song that is. I know it's something spoiled tonight.

Speaker 4 Number nine.

Speaker 4 That's a sound. That's a sound.

Speaker 23 Yeah, that's a sound. That's a sound.

Speaker 23 That's a...

Speaker 23 That's a sound. Yeah, go ahead.
What else we got?

Speaker 17 Number eight.

Speaker 12 She's just cartoon music.

Speaker 23 Oh, it's X-Men.

Speaker 11 Number seven.

Speaker 15 This is come on Amy.

Speaker 11 That is Back to the Future.

Speaker 28 It's a great sound, though.

Speaker 15 But it's a song.

Speaker 13 That's not a sound.

Speaker 15 Didn't we have another Back to the Futures?

Speaker 23 Yeah, the one you guys played the other day. That's a sound.

Speaker 15 That's true.

Speaker 11 Two AOLs and two Back to the Futures in the most iconic sounds in the history of sound. Mori.
Number six.

Speaker 15 Yokiro Tako Ber. Oh, yeah.
Triff. Dude, I don't.

Speaker 23 Well, you got... Yo, Derek, were you old enough for that?

Speaker 1 I know that. That's like one of the first things I remember in my whole life, honestly.

Speaker 22 Iconic Super Bowl commercial.

Speaker 15 That's truly.

Speaker 15 It's one of the first pop culture things that I remember.

Speaker 24 You're too young, Tony. That was.

Speaker 15 No, no.

Speaker 1 No, he's saying it's sad that I'm saying it's one of the first things I remember in my life.

Speaker 15 I'm a liar.

Speaker 4 There's no way.

Speaker 1 Am I a liar or am I lying? Lying.

Speaker 11 Number five.

Speaker 11 Now it's a song.

Speaker 11 You guys are bad at this. You guys don't know when to cut things off.
Like, they need to be sounds, not songs.

Speaker 27 You know what would have been a good sound?

Speaker 13 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 9 Or just him going, Nazis.

Speaker 15 I hate Nazis.

Speaker 1 Man, we all almost yelled Mein Konf earlier in the game.

Speaker 15 Number four.

Speaker 23 Oh, daily double. Yeah, that's a sound.
That's great.

Speaker 11 Number three.

Speaker 23 Oh, you know me, man. That's a sound.

Speaker 15 Well,

Speaker 11 for this to work comedically, they need to be short.

Speaker 15 That was short. I know.

Speaker 15 I know.

Speaker 11 No, I'm saying that that's the correct way to do it. That's not the incorrect way to do it.
Number two.

Speaker 23 That's a song. A great song.

Speaker 12 Doing a song nonetheless. How can we, how, how do our tournaments keep getting?

Speaker 27 Life finds a way, Dan.

Speaker 15 Worse. Life

Speaker 15 finds a way. Number one.

Speaker 15 Number one.

Speaker 15 Get me a new 16.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just let it play out.

Speaker 11 Get me a new 16. I want to do something different with all of this.

Speaker 11 Let's talk about March Madness in a different way. We're going to get to Jessica and Taylor.
Somehow, Taylor has invaded the show again.

Speaker 11 Les Taylor is a life principle for me.

Speaker 8 He's a good producer.

Speaker 15 Yeah, and he was on Pitch Pock yesterday, too.

Speaker 8 He had so much proof of that in

Speaker 3 the last season.

Speaker 15 To be fair, he wasn't part of that. Are you sure?

Speaker 21 Maybe evidence he's a bad producer because he didn't want to help Mike Malley.

Speaker 15 Throwing Mike Malley under the bus.

Speaker 21 Malley is a good producer.

Speaker 15 Malley's great.

Speaker 29 Check out Tony Brackett's, by the way.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love those guys. Ethan's on that one, though.
So maybe don't check it out.

Speaker 28 Me, Ethan, Mally, and Taylor breaking down the March Mattel.

Speaker 15 Are you trying to sell it or not? What are you doing? It's like, it's electric.

Speaker 12 Just this is happening.

Speaker 23 Just two hands out.

Speaker 15 Everyone's blaming everyone else.

Speaker 26 I know how to save that other sound tournament

Speaker 15 if you want.

Speaker 26 Go ahead, Billy.

Speaker 1 So that sound tournament, what you do is play the lightsaber one, Roy.

Speaker 15 Sorry, say again? Nothing, never mind.

Speaker 15 Lewis was talking in my ear.

Speaker 11 You guys do the rest of it.

Speaker 15 All right.

Speaker 15 Damn, no.

Speaker 15 No, we're going to miss you.

Speaker 15 No, Dan. No, please, don't go.
No, no, please. No, we're going to miss you so much.
How about we do a top five? I thought you'd never leave.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I got a good top five for guys before we get to the top five.

Speaker 14 Riley stole those cookies, right?

Speaker 15 Of course. Okay, of course.
I mean, I feel like we were being gaslit the entire time.

Speaker 12 You guys think the nutritionist has the power to tell LeBron what he can and can't have on the plane?

Speaker 15 LeBron has his own nutritionist.

Speaker 12 Look, you think the nutritionist has the balls, the balls, to make a decision like that? The unmitigated gall?

Speaker 14 Like, to say, hey, I'm not going to tick with Pat.

Speaker 24 I'm the boss here.

Speaker 1 Do you think that there's a chance that they did it once and then, as soon as they found out, it was an immediate like, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 We have to bring the cookies back because apparently the cookies were back.

Speaker 15 So maybe the nutritionist has a little slap on the wrist and then

Speaker 23 where's the nutritionist now do we know did the function

Speaker 26 we don't know we don't know if the person's still working for the organization

Speaker 21 still confused about the whole ice cream thing that part was just a joke it was a red herring which is a terrible flavor of ice cream yeah i said you had a top five

Speaker 15 yeah i did okay all right let's do that but you have to whisper it no i had to whisper it this is an exciting top five i can't whisper it

Speaker 27 here what are today's top five by the way ladies and gentlemen uh-huh brought to you by jimmy johns they're finally here and they're hot try the new toasted sandwiches that Jimmy Johns ordered

Speaker 15 one today.

Speaker 23 I have a Jimmy Johns shirt.

Speaker 12 I should have wore it today.

Speaker 15 Oof, you should have. All right.

Speaker 28 So, this is an exciting list of exciting whites.

Speaker 10 These are the top five secret sauce players still left in March Madness.

Speaker 29 Okay.

Speaker 28 Number five, the duo of Danny Wolf and Vladislav Golden for the Michigan Wolverines.

Speaker 15 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 They're scrappy players and they're bulldogs.

Speaker 23 Danny Wolf is an Instagram legend, man.

Speaker 28 Number four, Richie Saunders forward for your BYU Cougars.

Speaker 15 Wow.

Speaker 28 He's cerebral, deceptive speed, and he's sneaky athletic.

Speaker 12 Shout out to the Cougars.

Speaker 26 Number three,

Speaker 28 Sean Padula.

Speaker 28 Guard for old miss.

Speaker 29 Gritty, tons of heart, out hustles everyone. By the way, gained 15 pounds of muscle on the offseason.

Speaker 27 Allowed him to play big.

Speaker 15 Padulla. Guard, though.

Speaker 23 Italian?

Speaker 14 Maybe. Okay.

Speaker 12 Oh, boys. Yes.

Speaker 1 Don't do it again. Yeah.

Speaker 15 What are you doing?

Speaker 30 Is he Italian? I don't know.

Speaker 29 Do you know

Speaker 26 Grant Nelson?

Speaker 6 Alabama. What?

Speaker 15 Alabama. Who are you going to say the team, dude? Alabama.

Speaker 28 Final four, 6-11, but he's a student of the game.

Speaker 28 He's got all the intangibles. I mean.

Speaker 23 Royal's going to ask, but no school for him?

Speaker 29 Real high motor.

Speaker 23 Just hanging out.

Speaker 15 True gamer.

Speaker 28 Number one, Braden Smith from Purdue.

Speaker 17 He's a real lunch pail and hard hat kind of guy.

Speaker 28 Absolute gym rat. First guy in, last guy out.

Speaker 29 Every single time.

Speaker 23 That's every player who's ever played at Purdue.

Speaker 6 This top five is sponsored by Jimmy Johns.

Speaker 3 They're finally here in the hot.

Speaker 6 Try the new toasted sandwiches at Jimmy Johns. Order one today.

Speaker 23 You know my favorite Purdue guy? Who's that? That reminds me of Jimmy Johns.

Speaker 14 Zach Eady? Eat one more.

Speaker 23 And Zach Eady. I want to eat on Zach Eady.

Speaker 19 That's great.

Speaker 15 Thank you. Yeah, well done.
Yeah.

Speaker 17 Those are both.

Speaker 1 Look at you guys with puns, huh?

Speaker 22 We try, man.

Speaker 15 Wow. We try out here.
We're one big family.

Speaker 23 So,

Speaker 14 special sauce. Is that what you call them?

Speaker 27 The secret sauce. Secret sauce.
Secret sauce of March Madness?

Speaker 15 The white guys.

Speaker 23 Who do you think of? I've got a name in my head. Follow me if you will.

Speaker 23 Ali Farouk Manesh, who I guess is Persian with that name, but he looks white. To me, when you said secret sauce, white guy in March Madness, that's who I think of, right?

Speaker 15 Was it Northern Iowa or was it?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think so, right? Northern Iowa? Yes. That was amazing.
Dude, that was amazing. That run was remarkable because what it was about him, it was the receding hairline.

Speaker 1 It wasn't just that he was a short guy. It was the receding hairline as if he looked like he was already the 35-year-old accountant that he was destined to be.

Speaker 28 I was just informed that he just got the Colorado State job yesterday.

Speaker 12 What? Congratulations.

Speaker 19 How do you like that?

Speaker 15 That's amazing. Congratulations.

Speaker 21 Amin knew that. That's why he brought him up.

Speaker 12 Yeah, of course.

Speaker 21 You were paying attention to the news.

Speaker 23 Of course, yeah. I'm always tapped into the Colorado State job.

Speaker 1 Dievendorf,

Speaker 23 not special sauce, right?

Speaker 29 It's Snoggle.

Speaker 23 Special sauce. It's Noggle.
Special sauce.

Speaker 24 Marshall Henderson, not special sauce.

Speaker 21 You're right about Iranian, by the way. His father was a member of the Iranian men's national volleyball team.

Speaker 24 Bloodlines.

Speaker 1 Speaking of white guys in basketball, Amin, you and I were talking about this a little bit yesterday, but

Speaker 1 friend of the show, Zach Harper, has been launching a

Speaker 1 campaign

Speaker 1 to really push

Speaker 1 a nickname for Nikolai Yokic that is already out there, but isn't really his number one nickname. The number one nickname for Nikolai Yokic is obviously the Joker.

Speaker 1 It's a replaying off the back of his last name. But the nickname that Zach wants to push, and I want to support him on this, Big Honey.

Speaker 1 I love Big Honey as a nickname for Nikola Jokic. This giant polar bear of a man.

Speaker 15 Polar bears don't like honey, though.

Speaker 4 All right. Well, this giant bear of a man

Speaker 1 who is so smooth with everything he does. Did you guys see the pass that he made yesterday?

Speaker 1 I mean, he is so ridiculous out there. And he's so skilled.
And I just think the

Speaker 1 Big Honey is one of those throwback nicknames to like the 1970s when we had these crazy nicknames in basketball. I mean, look at this pass that you'll see.
I mean, he's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 And I love the idea of giving him a name, Nikola Big Honey Jokic. Does anyone here agree with you?

Speaker 23 I think it's a dumb nickname in the family. Why? Why? I've got it from Zach Harper.
It makes it even dumber. Oh, that's a two.
That guy's a hack, and that nickname's a hack.

Speaker 23 And the guy's name is Joker. It's a great nickname.

Speaker 15 Why is it?

Speaker 15 I don't, I'm not, I'm not privy to the lore.

Speaker 23 Why am I feuding with Zach? Yes. Because I have to do a podcast with him every single week.

Speaker 19 It's not a feud.

Speaker 28 It's like a long-standing

Speaker 4 eternal beef.

Speaker 23 Do the Hatfields and the McCoy's have a feud?

Speaker 21 I don't have a feud with anyone that I have to record with here. Bullshit.

Speaker 15 I don't.

Speaker 21 Who would my feud be with?

Speaker 27 Two Valley under the bus.

Speaker 21 No, we're friends.

Speaker 15 Arms locked.

Speaker 21 Love Taylor. I love all those guys.
The Amina.

Speaker 15 The dog is king.

Speaker 1 It's like a classic will they won't they? You know?

Speaker 23 They won't.

Speaker 15 Oh. Or unless they do.

Speaker 21 Billy, on the other hand, he has feuds.

Speaker 20 I do?

Speaker 15 Yeah, he does. With who?

Speaker 23 Tony?

Speaker 15 No, it's not. I have feuds.

Speaker 29 It's not a long-standing feud.

Speaker 15 It's a family feud.

Speaker 1 Very easy to get along with. Earlier, we were out in the commissary, and

Speaker 1 Billy walked up to Tony and Taylor and looks at both of them

Speaker 1 and goes, he goes, hmm, I got to change something that I said to you guys a while ago.

Speaker 1 I had told Taylor that he was in better shape than Tony, but Taylor, you're losing it. Tony's in better shape than you are.

Speaker 1 Which prompted, about 10 seconds later, both of them dropping to the ground and doing push-ups. I did more, by the way.
And of course, Tony did more to prove his manliness. But no,

Speaker 1 it doesn't just stop there, though.

Speaker 1 I have gotten them to agree to compete against each other in taking the middle school presidential fitness exams.

Speaker 15 I'm going to crush them. I'm going to crush them.

Speaker 18 I heard you guys yelling all my guys.

Speaker 15 I was like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 It just takes you going up and telling one of them they're in better shape than the other one. Then five seconds later, they're doing push-ups on the floor and they're doing the presidential.

Speaker 21 Just to clarify, Billy not only has a feud with Tony, it has a feud with Taylor.

Speaker 21 If you listen to Mystery Create this week, we rehashed, we will be rehashing the fashion show that we are going to have. Or Taylor doesn't want to dress Billy.

Speaker 21 He wants to dress Chris Cody because the two of them have a bit of a feud going on. No, no.

Speaker 1 Me and Taylor also, if I'm going to be honest with you, the one feud that we do have going on is Taylor was all in on this whole NASCAR thing that we were going to be doing, going to these races, going, driving the cars around, doing all this NASCAR stuff.

Speaker 1 And then Homestead Miami comes around. We go and we drive a car around the track.
We have the big race coming up. He's like, can't go.
Got to watch hoops.

Speaker 26 Real hoopers, no? Someone's got to do it.

Speaker 21 Someone's got to watch hoops around here.

Speaker 21 Me and Taylor are the only two people watching March Madness. I'm watching the women.

Speaker 15 He's watching the men's. Well, you should be talking about this,

Speaker 15 other than Tony Bracketts.

Speaker 23 You guys should do a segment together or something.

Speaker 15 Well, I have good news for you. What's that?

Speaker 21 We do have a segment together.

Speaker 15 What?

Speaker 21 It's called God Bless College Basketball slash God Bless March Madness.

Speaker 21 And you're going to listen to it. When?

Speaker 2 Right now.

Speaker 15 Wow. Right now.

Speaker 15 Now. Go.
Go pee-pee. Right now.

Speaker 18 Right now.

Speaker 17 Folks, the leaves are turning. The weather's getting a little chillier.
That means the football games are more important.

Speaker 15 That That means football time should be Miller time.

Speaker 3 Game day hits different with a Miller light in your hand.

Speaker 6 From jaw-dropping touchdowns to fantasy heartbreaks, my fantasy season's over already, but you know what makes that better? Miller time!

Speaker 6 It's the beer that's been there for every moment.

Speaker 7 50 years of great taste, simple ingredients, and that iconic golden color you can spot from across the room. And here's the kicker.

Speaker 10 It's just 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 6 The original light beer since 1975 and still hitting different five decades later. So whatever your game day looks like, remember Miller time is always a good time.

Speaker 17 Miller Light grape tastes 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com slash Dan to find delivery options near you.

Speaker 6 Or you can pick up Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller Time.

Speaker 10 Celebrate responsibly.

Speaker 6 Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces.

Speaker 17 Real quick, want to talk to you about how GameTime is the official ticketing partner of the Dan Lebetard show.

Speaker 10 Grateful that GameTime has been on with us as long as they have because I use this product all the time.

Speaker 14 I travel for football.

Speaker 10 If I'm in a new city, I like to see what concerts are in town. One of the very first things I check is my favorite app for the secondary ticket market, the GameTime app.

Speaker 22 Why?

Speaker 17 Because it gives me zone deals, favorites, panoramic seat views. Most importantly, the lowest price guarantee.

Speaker 7 Because if GameTime does not have the lowest price for you, GameTime will credit you 110% 110%

Speaker 17 of the difference.

Speaker 15 I've lived it, folks.

Speaker 6 I've been at a place where I saw cheaper tickets.

Speaker 26 They credited me.

Speaker 4 It's legit.

Speaker 7 GameTime ticket coverage means your purchase is covered with the most flexible customer service policy in the ticketing industry.

Speaker 26 Take the guesswork out of buying NFL tickets with GameTime. Download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code DAN for $20 off.

Speaker 30 Your first purchase, terms apply.

Speaker 26 Again, create an account and redeem code DAN for $20 off.

Speaker 22 Swipe, tap, ticket, go.

Speaker 26 Download the GameTime app today.

Speaker 4 Don Lebatard.

Speaker 31 Sub 500 seasons, it's been lonely.

Speaker 31 Now the best players on our side.

Speaker 31 Been losing and losing for much too long.

Speaker 31 But now we're back with New York Pride.

Speaker 1 Stugats.

Speaker 15 Jaylen.

Speaker 31 You've got us on our feet, Jaylen.

Speaker 31 We're gonna win the East, Jaylen

Speaker 31 without Randall we're still doing fine

Speaker 21 this is the Don Lebattar show with the Stugats God bless college basketball Taylor God bless college basketball Jess welcome back to God bless March Madness presented by Priceline dreaming about that trip book it and go to your happy price with priceline so you know we work for a show Taylor that just takes a lot of a lot of big dumps on things that they don't like or understand.

Speaker 21 And one of those things this past week has been March Madness.

Speaker 21 And I would like to be here to say, as someone who sat on the couch pretty much from Thursday morning until Monday night without moving, watching every March Madness game in the women's and the men's tournament,

Speaker 21 it was pretty fun. It was pretty exciting.
And people that are upset with the lack of upsets, well, there were some bangers of games. Is that accurate?

Speaker 14 That is accurate.

Speaker 14 We are in this office the two most ball watchers, ball knowers ball lovers it doesn't take much to be a one of the most ball knowers i will raise my hand up like the bar is the fact that i'm a ball knower in basketball the bar is did you watch a tournament or did you watch an nca basketball game before the tournament yes if you

Speaker 21 check that box you're in the one percentile here exactly um the houston gonzaga game was great houston blocked their game tying three-pointer uh the derrick queen buzzer beater in the maryland game was excellent these are all just from the men's tournament.

Speaker 21 Florida and Yukon down to the wire. Oregon, Arizona was

Speaker 21 just a nail biter. Oregon Duke in the women's tournament, too, was also a nail biter.
We'll get to that in a little bit. But this has been the most watched NCAA tournament for the men in 32 years.

Speaker 21 So despite what people on the show may say, everyone's very interested in the NCAA tournament. They're watching, and we're going to talk about it a little bit here.
First things first, we miss Dugats.

Speaker 21 We miss his presence. We miss, most of all, his weekend observations.
Taylor misses someone, having someone to text his errant thoughts to.

Speaker 21 He's just been texting, you know, a few of us, like his weekend observations, and we're like, Taylor, this is great. Like, why are you writing like this over a text message?

Speaker 21 So he's going to get them out of his system right now. So these are his round of 32 men's NCAA tournament observations.
Taylor, take it away.

Speaker 14 Death.

Speaker 14 Taxes. And Tom Izzo having his team playing their best basketball in March.
Sparty.

Speaker 14 Amir Khan. McNee State's manager.
Sister Jean just called.

Speaker 14 Even she thinks you're doing too much.

Speaker 21 So mean, but.

Speaker 14 Alabama. Do it against the school with a football team.
Coach Cal in the Sweet 16. Kentucky in the Sweet 16.
The rare win-win. Gonzaga vs.
Houston.

Speaker 14 The two longest active streaks of Sweet 16 appearances. You know what that means, Jess.

Speaker 21 Something you gotta give.

Speaker 14 Something out of give. You're on it today.

Speaker 21 I'm so on on it.

Speaker 14 If you looked up senior guard play in the dictionary, you'd see a picture of Florida's Walter Clayton Jr.

Speaker 14 Garrick Queen hitting a buzzer beater against Colorado State. You know what he did, Jess.

Speaker 21 What did he do?

Speaker 14 He called game.

Speaker 15 Ooh.

Speaker 21 That's a good one.

Speaker 14 You call him Dusty May.

Speaker 14 I call him Dusty March.

Speaker 21 No one likes a dusty anything.

Speaker 14 That is a good take.

Speaker 21 I mean, especially March. Do some spring cleaning.
Like, we got to get the dust out of here.

Speaker 14 The guy at work, who says I had that in my other bracket, respectfully, go to hell. Speaking of hell, our biles, Jess, those are the round of 32 observations.

Speaker 21 Well done.

Speaker 21 Well, great job with the beeps. Next time, we need to insert a top five in there to really get you juggling the fanfare and the beeps, but excellent, excellent work.

Speaker 21 So we've got even more basketball this upcoming weekend. Because the men's tournament was so chalky and the women's tournament, that means the next round is going to be highly competitive.

Speaker 21 The ratings are expected to go up even higher as we see some of these huge juggernaut teams compete against each other this weekend. One game that I'm super duper looking forward to, well, actually,

Speaker 21 there's a couple games, but I'll start with this one. Notre Dame and TCU in the women's Sweet 16 round is going to be, in my opinion, I think, prediction, I think it's going to be a really good game.

Speaker 21 This is a rematch of a game that was in November that TCU won. Notre Dame had a lead through three quarters.
TCU overcame the lead, came back, won the game.

Speaker 21 Haley Manlith, we talked about it on the show this week. She has a really interesting story.
This is her third school. You probably remember her from the LSU Iowa game last year.

Speaker 21 She also was on the USA Basketball 3x3 team this summer. But she is having a really great season with TCU.
And this is her first Sweet 16 in, I mean, I can't even...

Speaker 21 remember how long over a decade I want to say and Sedona Prince who is there big is also playing really well she's averaging 17 and a half points per game nine and a half rebounds per game and notre dame's gonna have to do a lot to match up with a big of her size but on the flip side of that notre dame has hannah hidalgo who is a finalist for national player of the year she's a phenomenal player if you like college hoops and you like seeing a guard who is averaging four steals per game like 24 points per game who is just getting after it on both sides of the ball defense and offense hannah hidalgo is your gal She is having a great season.

Speaker 21 So are Sonia Citron and Olivia Miles, the other two guards on that team that are probably going to be WMA lottery picks later this year. So I'm excited for that game.

Speaker 21 I'm also looking forward to the North Carolina Duke rematch of a game.

Speaker 21 This is like the rubber match, I guess. Third time they're playing against each other.
Series is split right now. Duke was a sneaky, sneakily won the ACC tournament in women's basketball.

Speaker 21 We figured they'd do it on the men's side. The women's team, their emphasis is defense, defense, defense, defense.
So they have the ability to really like draw out these rock fight type games.

Speaker 21 And so this will be a huge game for them against, obviously, their rival, Taylors Alma Mater, North Carolina. The last 2-3 game I want to talk about in the women's Sweet 16 round is NC State and LSU.

Speaker 21 Again, LSU is a team I think a lot of people are familiar with. Kim Mulkey, obviously the Hall of Fame head coach for LSU.
And Flajay Johnson, who's in all of the commercials this year.

Speaker 21 She's in all the Power Aid commercials. She's a rapper.
She's also a great basketball player. And Anissa Moro, her teammate, is averaging,

Speaker 21 I think it's 14, 14 rebounds per game. Like she's just crazy on the board.

Speaker 21 So LSU, even though they're a three seed, they had some health stuff at the end of the season that I think impacted their seeding a little bit. But

Speaker 21 not the best...

Speaker 21 uh not the best guard play on lsu's team which is the complete opposite of nc state which is great guard play so nc state was a final four team last year those two are now playing again in another rematch there's a a lot of rematches in the Sweet 16 round in the women's NCWA tournament, but that game is going to be, I think, really good as well.

Speaker 21 So tune in to all of the women's NCW tournament Sweet 16 games this weekend. They're also, the one seeds, I think they're all probably pretty easily going to go through, except maybe USC.

Speaker 21 Now that Juju Watkins is out, they're playing against Kansas State, the five seed. So I will be watching all those.

Speaker 21 Taylor, you're going to tell us now what men's games to look out for this this weekend.

Speaker 14 You mentioned a lot of rematches on the women's side.

Speaker 14 The storyline I'm looking forward to watching on the Sweet 16 is a rematch of a game from November where Duke won at Arizona and now they're playing against each other in the Sweet 16.

Speaker 14 I hate to say this. This is Duke's most complete team in decades.

Speaker 21 God, I hate that. You have to say that.

Speaker 14 And I have this as a, if not now, when season for John Shire because when you look at this Duke team, they really don't have any weaknesses.

Speaker 14 They have guards, Con Kineppel, Tyrese Proctor, Sion James, they all shoot better than 39% from three. And then in their front court, they have Malawatch, and then, of course, they have Cooper Flag.

Speaker 14 And if you're watching this Arizona team, if they are to pull off the upset, it's going to be because of one player, Caleb Love. And that name might sound familiar.

Speaker 14 He was a first-team all-Big 12 player this season for the Wildcats. And the narrative for this Wildcat team has been they're going to go as far as Caleb Love will take them.
In

Speaker 14 24 wins this season, he's shooting 46.7% from the field. In their 12 losses, he's shooting 31.8%.

Speaker 14 So he's a guy who's either going to win you a game or shoot you completely out of it. But there's also drama, Jess.
Ooh, I love drama. Yeah, people love the drama.
Caleb Love grew up a Duke fan.

Speaker 15 Oh, no.

Speaker 14 And he wanted to play for Duke. Duke took another point guard in their class, Jeremy Roach, and was like, hey, you two are going to come here.
We'll figure it out.

Speaker 14 Caleb Love was like, no, we're kind of rivals from USA basketball. This is not going to work.
So Caleb Love went to Carolina just because he wanted to play Duke.

Speaker 14 And then in 2022 in the Final Four, Caleb Love was the one who hit the dagger three to put the final nail in Coach K's coffin. What?

Speaker 21 Oh, I didn't know any of this. This is great lore.

Speaker 14 And if, you know, how sometimes you say, like, I believe something, but you don't really believe it?

Speaker 14 Like, I think Caleb Love would rather beat Duke and end Duke's season than win a national championship.

Speaker 21 I mean, I believe, based on the limited things I know about him, I would believe that.

Speaker 21 And I also think that a lot of college basketball fans are like, I'd rather see anyone else win than Duke this year and every year.

Speaker 14 Yeah, and Caleb Love is a,

Speaker 14 I say this as a Carolina guy, but he's a very easy guy to root for in terms of a March guy that can get hot, kind of like Kemba Walker.

Speaker 14 The problem for Arizona, it's hard to see him staying consistent for six games. But against a team like Duke, it only takes one game.
And I will say, if if Caleb Love pulls this upset off

Speaker 14 the statue, in the Dean Dome, I want his Arizona jersey of red.

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