Republicans have chosen guns over our children

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the Find Out podcast.

You're starting off with three of us today.

It's Tim, Rich, and Chris.

Luke will be joining us momentarily, and Zach has a very important top-secret Find Out podcast-related related project that he is working on that maybe we'll share with you someday so um unfortunately

yeah figure painting yeah we we've put him in timeout um unfortunately unfortunately we are starting with not a good topic that earlier today a gunman uh walked up to a catholic school i believe actually the church part of the school and started firing inside

And as of right now, we're recording on Wednesday at 2 p.m.

Eastern Time.

Two children have sadly, tragically lost their lives, lives, and 17 others have been hurt.

The gunman, luckily, is no longer alive.

I'm not including him in the count of lives lost.

People do that sometimes, and he does not deserve to be.

I don't even know what we say at this point.

I think we had to talk about it because we're on the air, but I'm sort of at a loss as to what to say about this stuff anymore because there are very clear solutions to reduce this problem.

And I'm going to just call it out.

Republicans refuse to do anything about it.

And I don't know what else to say about it.

You guys think this is going to change the conversation?

No.

I say that with a sick smile on my face because it's a stupid question.

Well, when do you think we'll hear thoughts and prayers?

Because you know what?

I am so fucking tired of that bullshit.

I don't even think they try with thoughts and prayers anymore.

I think they got called on it and they just stopped.

So it's kind of like, well,

what I'm looking for is for them to just shamelessly say, see, this is what happens in Democrat cities without pointing to the fact that the last time this happened in Minnesota, not, what, two months ago, it was a white assault rifle armed MAGA pretending to be a cop.

Trump didn't even call Tim Walls after that attack, by the way.

He didn't go to Minnesota because he was busy planning his fucking Nazi military birthday party.

That was when the former, sorry for folks who don't know, that was when the former Speaker of the House was murdered on her doorstep and her husband.

And her husband.

And Trump never never even called.

Those assassinations took place because a well-armed MAGA psychopath

had nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wanted to do.

And so we don't know at this point who

carried out this attack, but we do know it was a man in his 20s with too many guns for any human to possibly need for any reason.

And he killed a bunch of kids.

So if we connect the dots that have been laid well before us, I won't be surprised to see a bunch of common denominators here that have nothing to do with Minneapolis or Tim Walls or Minnesota or diversity.

It will probably be the exact opposite.

And

I'll be decent and leave it at that until we get the confirmation.

Well, I'm not going to be because I worked at every, I worked in this world.

Right.

You know, I met.

Allison Parker's parents.

Allison Parker is the reporter that was shot and killed on live TV 10 years ago.

It was 10 years ago this month.

Um, I met them a week afterwards, and you know, I sat in a room with them when they said, Can you help us open her iPhone?

We just want the photos, which about broke me in about 50 different ways.

And it just infuriates me that we allow families to go through such a tragic and horrendous

experience of losing loved ones, children, parents, friends, family, all because we don't want to have strong gun laws.

I do not get it.

I think the people who are against this are abhorrent.

I know we were just talking earlier about welcoming everybody into our side with open arms if they want to be, but like I just, when I hear that people are against universal background checks, they are against closing the what's called the Charleston loophole, which allows guns sales to go through, even if there's a flag, if it's if it's gone 72 hours or 48 hours or something like that, that we have a voluntary national gun

criminal history record system that we have to chase red states to

actually participate in.

It is madness.

We're also the only country that this happens in.

Like people go, well,

what about Canada?

I'm like, okay, you're in favor of licensing registration and training.

And then they say, what about Switzerland?

I'm like, the same thing.

So it is not.

that there are other places that are like this.

We are uniquely, uniquely violent.

And it is not because Americans are defective.

It is because we have widely available access to firearms essentially 24 hours a day.

And if more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on earth.

It is the one issue that I do not understand how there is

any argument.

that we should keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

And that is the position of the Republican Party.

And that is the position of Donald Trump.

And today we saw again two children died in a church

because we make it easy for everybody to have a gun in this country.

And it makes no sense.

The Second Amendment is a relic.

Like when we used to have muskets, you know, like if we want to just let people have muskets, I'm okay with that.

But AR-15s, long guns, pistols that have served no purpose.

It just, I lose my mind.

I lose my mind.

I can't like, it's just infuriating beyond belief.

the damage that events like this do uh are incalculable i i come from an industry as an extremism researcher where i know that

most of the people in my field right now there are you know there's a very small um

piece of america that has

good-hearted Americans who know about the worst and the ugliest parts of our society and they know where to find

the worst and ugliest parts of our society.

And there are right, I have no idea about anything about this, this particular shooting.

So I'm not going to pretend to know anything about the motive, the person who did it, or the victims or anything.

So I'm speaking in just very general terms.

And I do this deliberately.

Like I have seen a lot of violence in my life.

Part of my job in the military when I was deployed to Iraq was the photo documentation of victims of torture,

which included people who were riddled with bullets after they had been tortured.

So I don't participate in this anymore, but a bunch of my friends right now are

probably

seeing things that they'll never unsee because it's not just about whatever footage or photos may or may not be

broadcast from this particular incident.

All of the mass shootings before will start to flood news feeds.

Misinformation and disinformation, whether it's misinformation is people posting things that they are not doing nefariously.

They're just misinformed, right?

Disinformation.

There are people out there who, for clicks and likes and for

participation in the creator fund of TikTok or any other social media platform will just push whatever they can to get more and more views, right?

And violence fucking sells.

And it's a small piece of America,

in my opinion, some of the most patriotic and empathetic people in the world who right now are just combing through things that will leave them

change for the rest of their lives.

You know, I think that a lot of, and the reason that I bring this up is because a lot of Americans,

as

prevalent as gun violence is in this country, still don't have a connection to it.

And that is your answer, Tim, because this is just stuff that they see on TV.

It's not stuff that they've seen in real life.

You know, it's like I see these young MAGA chuds who are all excited to join ICE and put their hands on people.

You know, I don't, I have a few friends who are cops who've been in the NYPD.

You know, I'm, I, I served in the military.

What they don't show you in the recruiting commercials are the fucking sleepless nights, the things that you not just witness, but the things that you participate in when you wear a uniform, for example, but because you just see the fucking ugliest things in the world.

You know, it's.

All of this, everything about an incident like this just makes me so pissed off, not just at America, but at human beings.

You know, there are basic things that we can do to respect other people.

And one is to make it so that they're at least not a witness to horrific shit.

This analogy might sound fucking crazy, but hang with me for a second.

Being disengaged in

whether people should be forced to be responsible gun owners, forced by law to be responsible gun owners, is kind of the same thing as getting into your car and driving without a seatbelt.

You might think that,

well, you know, if it's, it's my choice, it's my life.

If I get in a car accident and I get thrown through the windshield, too bad for me.

It was my choice.

But these motherfuckers, they aren't thinking about the emergency responder.

They're not thinking about the school bus full of children that your fucking brains might be splattered all over the side of, right?

And I think that until a lot of people, myself included, I had to go to war to learn what kind of horror exists in the world.

I think a lot of people just can't imagine the effect that your

selfish decision, a decision that you truly believe does not impact anyone else, how that can profoundly shape someone's entire life for the worse.

And

that's what we're seeing today.

We have a member of Congress currently whose son was shot and killed in a convenience store parking lot because his music was too loud and i will let you know i will let you guess the color of his skin and the color of the skin of the person who shot him and no but we don't even need to say it because we all know and that is congresswoman lucy mcbath um and who that took her pain and turned it into action.

She's actually an amazing, amazing person.

She's a congresswoman in Georgia.

I've met her once or twice.

She's lovely.

But we allowed this, that story to be true.

Like we didn't do anything.

Like the guy went to jail, great.

But like, what the hell is he doing armed in a convenience store parking lot?

You know, the, the, the Sandy hook one, which nobody wants to talk about, which I understand.

We're six, 20, six year olds.

We're not just like movie shot.

And I think this is something that people don't get because they see it in TV and they see it in in movies where like you get shot, there's a little bit of blood, you fall down, you get to say your final farewells, and then you die.

These children were shot beyond recognition.

Beyond recognition.

Some of the parents have talked about this, and some of the parents said that they were given the options of seeing their kid or not.

And the one that haunts me to this day is the woman that said, I had to see him because he's my son and I needed to be with him.

Why are we allowing this to happen?

And I don't understand how the right has no empathy for this.

I'm not saying take away your shotgun or your handgun.

I'm saying let's get rid of guns that the sole purpose of them is to obliterate what is in front of them, which is an AR-15.

And they all mass shooters use it.

We had a ban.

It worked.

And then George Bush got rid of it.

And now we can't even barely talk about it anymore.

And I just, I guess people don't care about six-year-olds like being shot beyond recognition.

And we have to cope with that.

And we have to overcome it.

But man, every time I see one of these, I'm like, this is such an unforced, unforced error.

And we have ruined the lives of hundreds of people today because we don't take any action.

Well, this is one of my

go ahead, Rich.

This is one of my concerns with not just guns and shootings, but everything.

Everything that Republicans have done to this country over the past 30, 40 years, economically, foreign policy, with gun rights, with health, they

create this incredible instability to where people are more numb and more desperate and more tuned out and detached than ever.

And they want to blame like TikTok.

They want to blame the internet.

Fuck that, dude.

I met all of you guys through TikTok.

People, there are real relationships that are facilitated because of the internet, but that's what they do is they want it to be a distraction.

Say, well, everybody, if they, everybody put their phones down, there would be no violence or some nonsense bullshit.

Right, right.

It's always the video games.

Not

digress.

But they've created this.

this culture of numbness where sandy hook was the thing where it's like if not sandy hook if that's not going to drive any change and i mean fucking any change they have bullets that are specifically designed to shred human flesh.

And then they allow you to put 30 and 40 and 50 of those fucking things into one machine.

And then they give that machine a fucking bump stock.

Yeah, I mean, it will jump in.

I mean, Rich is exactly right.

And, you know, three of the four of us in this room have children, roughly around the same age.

At least Rich and I, roughly around the same age.

Chris is

younger.

I'm sure Luke has cousins and little kids that he interacts with.

And when you, when just like,

it's a really painful thing, but just think about it for a second if it was you.

You know, or if like somebody who's on the other side asked them about that.

They get mad, but it's true.

We're ripping families apart in this country for no good reason.

You know, the thing about the video games is nonsense.

Every country has these games.

Every country has these apps.

But you know what?

Every country doesn't have unfettered access to high capacity killing machines.

And we let it happen over and over again.

And it's one side of the political spectrum.

This is not an all-sides problem, guys.

This is a Republican and conservative problem.

And I would say that to anybody.

Donald Trump doesn't give a shit what happens to your children.

Republicans in Congress do not give a shit what happens to your children.

It is awful.

And the worst part about it is that we need national laws to make it really work because state-by-state ones are too easy to get around.

They help because you look and the gun violence rates are better in states that have stronger gun laws.

But we need national laws.

And people don't understand the loopholes that are in here too.

We're talking about children and like the party of family values, like give me a fucking break.

They have the nerve to call themselves pro-life.

Right.

Right.

Which they do nothing.

And there's another piece of this that we haven't talked about that is going to make this worse, which is the big bullshit bill just cut $1 trillion from Medicaid.

Guess where poor and working class families are able to get therapy paid for?

Medicaid.

That is now gone.

So they have made this problem likely worse.

It's already hard enough to get people people the care that they need, and it's going to get harder.

All the time, these miserable fucking pricks will sit there and tell you about how, oh, it's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem, while they actively rip the only thing that gives these people mental health care away from them.

So it's not a fucking, it's a problem that they're actively making worse while they tell you, oh, don't worry.

It's

in both areas, right?

Because it's really not.

Simultaneously on every front.

They're making everything worse everywhere, all of the time.

And they're making people afraid.

We're talking about, what were we talking, Luke?

We were talking about these like

drones.

This company wants to drone their

tools to identify shooters.

I'm like, how about some gun laws, guys?

How about instead of profiting off of the murder?

Yeah, anything.

Yeah.

And the thing about the mental health thing is if it was only a mental health problem, every country would have the same gun death rates per capita that we do.

And the ones that come close to us are ones that you don't want to live in.

It's not the Western European democracies.

It's not Australia who actually banned guns, most guns after a mass shooting.

And guess how many mass shootings they've had since?

Zero.

So it is just the party of family values is probably the biggest lie in political history.

They're just not.

They care about themselves.

They care about money.

They do not care about kids.

They do not care about families.

They only care about making sure that they're getting that NRA money and they don't want to hear it.

Yeah.

so how come, how come if you, how come if good guys with a gun or there's never any problems, how come the NRA doesn't let you bring a gun into their conventions?

Great question.

Or the Republican National Convention.

Or the Republican, yeah, or the RNC.

Why can't you bring a gun in there?

Also, I could sit here and probably tell you 10 to 15 mass shootings in which there were good guys with guns

that don't stop it.

They can't.

Because how do you stop?

How do you stop a mass shooting before it happens if you don't know who the gunman is?

You mean to tell me that Joe Dickhead that that walks around with a fucking nine millimeter that's got a red dot on it isn't going to be like some fucking magic man that can tell that a mass shooter is going to pull an AR out and shoot kids?

Because

that's just too far for me.

I think the Republicans are right.

I mean it's fucking ridiculous.

Colinbine.

Colin Bine had armed guards.

Parkland had an armed guard that was literally hiding.

Tucson, where Gabby Giffords was shot, there was an armed security officer in that grocery store.

Uvalde.

They sat outside for a while.

They sat outside for 90 minutes and let those kids die.

While parents tried to get in.

They were restraining parents from trying to get in.

And they were like kitted out.

They were millions of dollars worth of special fucking tactical gear kitted out.

Yeah.

And you know how the gunman got in?

A prop door.

Yep.

All that money.

There's something that

like we really need to bring in here, and that's the fact that

Fox News host and now

district attorney for Washington, D.C., Janine Pirro or whatever the fuck her name is.

She has said that she will not prosecute people for open carrying long guns.

Classic.

In Washington, D.C., as Pete Hegseth, another Fox News host, the Secretary of Defense is arming.

the National Guard.

The National Guard does not want to be armed, by the way, in D.C.

So what they are doing very deliberately and very fucking clearly is they are inviting people, protesters, let's be clear, protesters, to go take their long guns into the capital of the United States and face off with the fucking National Guard.

Yeah.

We're living in a country right now where the president of the United States is trying to manufacture

people who swore an oath to this country, who put their lives in the hands of the federal government, saying, I will follow any lawful order that they are given.

And they will do that.

You need to, a lawful order, carry a fucking gun in DC.

That's lawful order.

They can't refuse it.

Yep.

And

two Fox News hosts are creating the conditions so that National Guard, members of the National Guard, are walking around for no reason other than to be human targets so that the president can fucking claim that, you know, some crazy fucking Antifa whatever, when an incident does happen, when shit pops off, and a bunch of fucking heavily armed, probably not very well-trained people, whether they're in the National Guard or fucking civilians carrying long guns, are going to, you know, make

D.C.

look like a war zone.

And Donald Trump is going to use that as his fucking excuse to be even more of a fucking tyrant.

Like these, these things are directly connected here.

The Republican love affair with

violence and state violence and guns.

These chickens are coming home to fucking roost.

And we can't ignore it.

No, and it's the toxic mix.

And I think it's the sad reality is that there are a lot of people in this country that are all about it.

They want to make other people suffer because they feel like their lot in life is shit.

And so that's what, that is what the 30% that Hillary Clinton accurately called deplorables, because they are, you know, and everyone lost their minds about it.

And, you know, but it was true.

And, you know, they want armed conflict because they know if there's armed conflict, his poll rate, his poll numbers will go up.

People will stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein.

They will stop talking about the fact that inflation is going back up, that he hasn't done jack shit about the things that he has promised to do.

Instead, he has just decided to wage culture wars so that he could remain powerful and screw everybody else that's why they went to dc instead of memphis which is the most deadly city in the country dc's not even top 10 i'm not even sure it's even in the top 25.

also they're not going to anacostia or pgee county where the most of the violence in the in dc is now they're on the national mall which you know gotta look for other than watching that stupid movie i was telling about yeah well i was like i watched that movie civil war the other night and there's like an actual gunfight at the lincoln memorial that's the only violence that I've ever seen

on the mall because you would have to be a complete idiot because that thing, that place is already armed to the teeth, because there are park police, there are Capitol Hill police, there are DC police, like there are, and there's a sheriff.

I think there's a sheriff of the district as well.

There are like four

police organizations in that city.

We do not need the National Guard as well.

But you're right.

Like, they want, well, they want Democrats scared and they want people of color scared.

So everyone's walking around with AKs, long guns.

And it's just about power.

And I think that is the part to me that makes me the most sad about MAGA is just the absolute cruelty that they want other people to suffer.

And

Donald Trump just doesn't care about anybody and wants people to suffer.

It's Republican policies that have created this environment where people are more economically desperate

than ever.

And And

if we take this bait and allow it to just get worse,

if we respond to misery with more misery and we go to guns and conflicts and violence,

that is exactly what he wants.

And that's exactly where he's going to try to allow this to go as fast as possible.

Because I'm not of the mind that.

he actually wants to declare martial law and suspend elections.

I know a lot of we get a lot of comments and messages from people who

deeply believe that that is absolutely what he's doing.

I think it's much more immediate and superficial than that.

He wants to just win the narrative.

And so for him, winning the narrative means Democrats are defending criminals and Brown criminals, ideally, and Republicans are talking about law and order and justice and forgetting the broader context and forgetting the fact that people are angry and hurting because they don't make enough money and Trump is making that worse.

They don't have good enough health care and Trump is making that worse.

And where we're at today is the product of 40, 50 years of Republican policies destroying all of the foundations that allow Americans to be or that at least open opportunities for Americans to make more money and have better health care and be happier and live happier lives.

Well, and one piece that people don't, this has been kind of missed.

And our good friend Mike Nellis talks about this a lot when he actually goes on right-wing shows and yells at them.

But one of the things in the big bullshit bill was cuts to community policing, which means that there will be less cops on the street because the federal government is cutting it.

So, defunding the police.

Donald Trump defunded in Republicans in Congress, defunded the police.

Democrats didn't do it.

We never cut anything in New York City after all that.

Donald Trump is the only politician that has defunded the police.

And that is a fact.

So with that,

let's pivot.

I don't know how, as most of you will know, I am not a trained journalist or interviewer.

So I don't actually know how to pivot.

So we just make fun of it because I don't know how to go from something that dark, but like I think for all of our mental health, we need to move to something a little bit

lighter.

And all right, let me let me take this one real quick.

So in the last episode, I ranted and raved about how Trump is trying to ban abortion at the VA, which would affect

countless women veterans who put their lives on the line for the country.

Since I did a video on this the other day, and since we published our latest episode where we talked about how you can leave a public comment, I had watched an additional

8,000 comments come in.

And the spam comments are coming in at a slower rate, it appears at my first glance, at a much slower rate than unique, authentic comments.

I am going through the federal docket right now, and I am so thankful to our listeners for

doing these comments themselves, encouraging their friends and families.

The number of comments that have been made throughout the entire month um the public comment period opened on august 4th we just watched it double in three days after you know slowly going from like 1 000 to 6 000 it's it's now at uh 16 000.

so it's more than double

uh

so

we we are talking about feeling hopeless and and about how donald trump is is causing so much fucking harm and everything

but here is an example of democracy like doing the thing.

Here is an example of people rallying around protecting women veterans' rights because they understand that a ban at the at the VA

is

telling us how the country is going to go.

There's going to be a federal ban if we don't stand up against it.

And this is just such a

a heartwarming thing, really, to see people call, answer the call, because a lot of us have felt like

you can do a call to action and nobody actually does it because everyone's given up on democracy.

This right here, you can go to the Federal Register and you can see it.

People have not given up on democracy.

People are making their voices heard.

We can still fight.

We can still make a difference.

We can still protect people that we love.

As dark as shit gets, don't give up.

Keep fucking fighting.

It is absolutely worth it.

Also, that motherfucker's going to die eventually.

I take extreme, extreme solace in the fact that I'm not going to be able to do that.

We're not advocating for that by the way.

No, no, no.

I don't want to.

No, biologically.

But I'm going to live longer than that motherfucker.

Well,

the actuary tables are not in his favor.

Let's put it that way.

Especially with those goddamn cankles.

Yeah, but like, first of all, Chris, that is amazing.

And, you know, I think that's the thing.

Sometimes when you, you know, we are all moving more and more into doing this full-time or regularly.

And so we see a lot of the bad, right?

Because all of the news is like, Trump's taking this right away or Trump's doing this stupid thing that's going to hurt these people.

And it can be overwhelming.

But I do think it's important to remember there are more of us than them.

Now, a lot of them didn't vote last time, but they didn't vote for Donald Trump.

And Donald Trump, yet again, did not win a majority.

of the vote.

He won a plurality.

So there are more of us than them.

We have a lot of work to do to convince people to get back up off the sidelines.

And I think that's why it's exciting to see some of these younger candidates stepping up, like Azora Mamdani, for example, and reinvigorating the party.

And that's why we're doing what we're doing as well, is that we want this to be a community space so you do not feel alone.

We get emails from people in very, very red states that said, I thought I was alone.

And we're working right now to try to figure out better ways to make it so that you can all communicate with each other as well,

because it's really, really important.

And we're going to all need to be together next year when we bring that huge fucking blue tsunami and wipe these guys figuratively off the map and take control and then bring the, take back the White House two years from that.

And I really believe that those things are possible, but they're only possible if we stick together.

So with that, we are going to pivot to a new segment.

We're going to bring a little, I think probably a little joy or at least a little chuckle now.

We are going to start a new series called Hot Takes, where one of us gives a hot take that is probably, in our own minds, a little insane.

And

I don't, and I'm going to, Luke's going to be the first one to go because he had one that he then thought about and decided not to.

I'm going to still do that one.

I've decided.

Oh, you are going to do it.

I'm going to do that one.

All right.

Well, ladies and gentlemen,

I don't have the music up, so I can't do that thing like I did last time.

But

this is.

Wait, oh, actually, yeah, I can do it.

How about

ladies and gentlemen?

I don't like this.

It is time for hot takes.

What do you think?

It's the loudest thing I've ever heard.

I think it's really loud.

I still don't know.

Oh, there's a volume button.

I should have probably used that.

Damn it, Tim.

All right, everyone.

Hot takes.

Luke, the floor is yours.

Taylor Swift is not a saint, saint, and she uses parasocial relationships with her fans to distance herself from the

eat all billionaires.

I am personally not a Taylor Swift enjoyer.

I like her music, and I think she's actually a pretty good billionaire as they come.

But like the way that she interacts with her fans is explicitly done,

I think,

to distance herself from people saying, eat the rich.

So, So, all right, I'm going to step in it.

I'm going to step in it right now.

I know the Swifties are going to be fucking pissed.

I think that Taylor Swift is a little bit

delusional.

That's a harsh word.

That's a very significant word.

I think

that the power dynamic that she sees in her relationships

are a a bit inaccurate.

Now, to be clear, when she was a young artist, she was absolutely taken advantage of both by record labels, by men, all those sorts of shit.

But she kind of like stayed on to that when the power dynamic between her and virtually any other entity that exists, person or organization.

the power dynamic shifted.

She is bigger and stronger and more influential than anything that she interacts with at all.

So I kind of think in her music, her painting herself as like a permanent 17-year-old is a bit of a stretch.

Tim,

what's your take on?

There are so many angles to start with all of this as a musician, as a feminist.

Okay, but here's something I would like to say:

when is the last time that you had somebody that you cheered for a business merger ever

because business merger a business merger or a business acquisition when's the last time you cheered for something like that

never and i don't really never

yeah but taylor swift and i think people see her as an individual and what she really is is or her her music is is a fucking conglomerate like it's a it's a corporation yeah after selling all of her fans countless Taylor's versions of her own music because she didn't own the Masters,

and they bought them.

She bought the Masters, which I think is probably something she could have done the whole time.

And they cheered for it.

I'm not sure.

So here's.

Okay.

Here's my take.

Okay.

I disagree with both of you.

First of all, she was famous when she was a teenager, which I think is an incredibly challenging thing

to have, right?

I mean, all you got to do is look at Michael Jackson, Drew Barrymore,

any child actor, Corey, the Corey's, right?

Feldman and Haim.

And fame, when you are not fully developed, messes with you in a way that I don't think that any of us can understand.

And I mean, Michael Jackson's the most extreme case, right?

Like just all everything about him

is tragic and also horrific at the same time based on the accusations.

A guy who was famous from when he was six years old, his dad basically like, you know, abused him if he didn't perform a certain way.

Right.

Taylor, of all of the child actors and or musicians that I have ever seen, is the most well-adjusted of any.

She is very careful and protective of her image and her holdings, no doubt about it.

Getting royally screwed out of her masters.

By no stretch, am I saying that?

And I understand completely why she did what she did, which was, well, if I can't control this, then I'm going to re-record them and then I can at least control that.

I'm pretty sure that the proceeds that she got from both the Aeros tour, which she made over a billion dollars on,

and the reissues or remakes gave her the money to buy the masters.

Those masters were not sold back for $100 million.

No, no, no.

Those masters were probably

getting close to the bottom of the bank.

It's still a fucking business acquisition, right?

Right.

But but But do we

attack

Steve Jobs for merging or for picking our Apple?

Celebrate it is what I'm saying.

I'm not saying you attack her for it at all.

I'm saying people view it inherently differently.

Right, but someone stole something from her and she took it back in the only way that she could.

But

it's the vibe of it, right?

Like it's

a billionaire.

buying something back that

is like, yeah, it's important to her and stuff, but like it's a business deal.

And like the way that people treated it, it was like the fucking second coming of Christ.

And it was like,

is that her?

Is that her problem or her fans' problem?

It's the, it's the parasocial relationships she encourages.

So the thing that makes Taylor Swift different, there are many, she is a singer, she is a songwriter and a composer.

And she's a performer.

She owns, she created and owns the content that she has made her living off of, end to end.

Now, that doesn't mean there's not some guy or some woman, people in a studio who dial in the things and make it all sound really great.

But unlike almost every other famous singer in history, she wrote the songs that she is performing and then she performs them live when she's making what is actually where most of her money comes from on her tours.

Whitney Houston's greatest song was written by someone else she whitney houston

was by dolly parton whitney houston was

asking because i don't know how does this compare to beyonce does beyonce write her own music beyonce performs other people's music she she has songwriting credits but it's like

it is for getting her stuff back she and and and the only reason she and this is every musician so it's not unique to taylor which is my next point she

is in the was in the exact same position everyone else was in, which is when you have something amazing and you want to make it big, you have one choice,

which is to allow somebody else to own all of that shit intellectually, even though you might have created it, so that they can give you a bunch of money or they can fund a tour and they can try to make you a thing because it costs an enormous amount to become a thing.

And so, my issue with people singling out Taylor.

Well, to be clear, this is not an issue I only have with Taylor Swift.

Of course.

Well, and so that, and that's it.

So

people are.

She is the only one.

She is the only one who made it out.

She's the only one who's done what she's tried to, or what she has done.

All of the other men and women who have tried to ascend to that level where they own, they reown and they are in charge of their own destiny.

They didn't get sucked into drugs.

They didn't get killed or have some other or fade away.

She actually got through it and she's actually doing it.

And so for society to now zoom in on her, the one young woman who

did what everybody else has tried to do.

And now they're applying this double standard to her, which I think a lot of women will recognize based on my conversations with my wife and my daughter.

It is not a coincidence that she is facing a double standard that, like, people like Michael Jackson.

And I mean, we can talk about all the male pop stars in the world, and they're all billionaires and they're all doing their own thing.

And they're not, nobody ever once came to them and said, why are you not fixing society the way that people are coming to Taylor Swift?

So can she be a musician?

Can she be a billionaire?

Can she be a product of what is an innately bad capitalist system and still be a good person?

I think it's all relevant.

Say she wasn't a good person.

I said she wasn't a saint.

And there's a lot of people who are.

I literally pray to her at night.

She is about as good as you can be as a billionaire.

I mean, she gave away like $250 million on her tour.

That's fucking great.

No one is saying that's not, but like,

she's still a billionaire.

She's still on a level that none of us will ever get to.

And there is no way to get to that level ethically.

Not at all.

Whether it's selling merch that is from another country that's not produced sustainably, that is priced exorbitantly.

I mean, it's Martha Stewart's clothes.

Yeah, it's just not, it's not good.

And I feel like it's not necessarily like the role model.

At least that side of it isn't great.

This is a really weird way to congratulate her on her engagement.

She fucking murdered it.

Like the heiress tour is awesome.

Her music's good.

And I like her music.

And I think she is a tremendously successful individual.

But, like,

from a moral perspective, I don't like the idea of being a billionaire.

So, let me ask you this.

What should she have done to keep herself from being a billionaire?

Look at Dolly Parton.

She's single-handedly embracing Appalachia's fucking literacy to keep herself from being a billionaire.

Oh, I, well, but I, I bet if you looked at the amount of money that, I mean, Dale, I, you're certainly not going to get me to critique Dolly Parton, who is, by all accounts, an amazing, amazing, no, no, amazing, first of all, amazing person, amazing songwriter i mean she wrote jolene and i will always love you in the same day which is crazy those two songs which is insane

not a wonderful person but i think that taylor as probably as from a philanthropic perspective is maybe not that far off because she is that's that's the thing i think she does an ex a great job of it but like you watch what she does now and it's like okay she's still

hoarding wealth i i think i think just like there's no ethical consumption in capitalism, there should be no billionaire idols is maybe another.

That's my opinion here.

Okay, okay.

There's no billionaire idols.

I think, Tim, we completely whiffed.

We've really failed our responsibility to our listeners because we didn't contextualize this hot take

adequately.

So without anybody saying anything, Luke, why don't you tell us the top bands that you were talking about the other day just so we can understand?

No, no, no, no, no.

To be clear, to be clear,

those bands I was talking about are not

your favorite, your favorite bands of all time, Hall of Fame, Caliber.

Favorite bands of all time, they were not included.

That is

copyright history, Luke.

They are my favorite gym bands, maybe.

Okay, Luke.

Let's rock with it.

All right.

We got.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on a second.

Hold on a second.

We're recording this, right?

I'll just go through my gym playlist.

Here we go.

Here we go.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I'll be honest, guys.

I struggled to hang on during the whole Taylor thing.

I just honestly don't give a shit about any of the tips.

I'm trying to splay along.

We got some three days grace.

God damn it.

Okay.

I'm just kidding.

Somebody take the fucking DJ controller.

Take it away from them.

All right, I'm done.

I'm done.

All right.

We got some

favorite grace.

These are not my favorite bands.

That is a fucking, that is a misnomer.

These are saints.

These are not saints.

These are people I listen to at the gym.

They're called three.

They're all Christian rock bands.

They're called three different

things.

These are Christian rock bands.

Metallica's not a Christian rock band.

No.

Led Zeppelin's not a Christian rock band.

Oh, you're leading with all the good ones.

Shine Down is not a Christian rock band, I don't think.

Who's Shining Down?

Oh, God damn it.

I'm on

Ozzy Osborne, not a Christian rock band.

Breaking Benjamin, not a Christian rock band.

Disturbed, I don't like anymore because they're trumpers.

That's not.

Sleep token.

What?

Yeah, they're big Trumpers.

Oh, I thought he was like a pro-Israel guy, but I also heard there was some thing going on.

But, anyways, whatever.

Sleep token, not Trumpers, and are good.

Skillet, Trumpers, can't listen to him anymore.

It's really fucking shitty.

There's a lot of them.

Luke, this list is very different than yesterday.

This list hasn't gotten to Nickelback.

I've talked about Nickelback.

I like Nickelback.

I'm not going to fucking apologize for liking Nickelback.

Who's the other one?

Creed.

I like Creed too, and I'm not going to apologize.

Oh, God.

But to be clear, those are not my favorite bands by any stretch.

Those are the ones I listen to at the gym.

Scott Stapp's your favorite vocalist of all time, right?

No, that's a fucking lie.

Luke, on the topic of Saints, and again, this is a reach because I don't give a shit about culture stuff or music

in that way.

But Dave Grohl

is

one of the most talented

exists.

But he's also a shitbag in his personal life, apparently.

He's a bit of a

hated me.

He was worried about his wife.

Zach Bryan, major piece of shit.

He should be dragged way more than he is.

Dave Cole.

So on Dave,

I don't know the family.

Yeah, I've seen all that.

It's awful.

And I bought the first Foo Fighters album when it came out.

And I was like, holy shit, like, what is this?

And it turns out I didn't realize.

And I think even Kirk Cobain says he was the best guitarist in Nirvana.

Like, he is just a musical.

He's the drummer of Nirvana.

i don't but he was the best guitarist and everyone no no no no but that's what i mean is that he's a guitarist drummer bassist singer and a songwriter he's written i i think he's the primary writer if if not maybe the sole writer um in foo fighters as well he's he's he's just a he's just a i mean he's like

a worse taylor swift you know

oh god he's like the gen's the gens there are so many artists and actors

up i just don't get i don't get the idolization of these like huge pop people.

It's fucking, or even just pop culture people.

It's gross.

They get away with so much terrible shit that no one can get away with.

It's kind of almost like a religious experience, right?

You're someone on the stage and you're like, but I don't know what it is about, I mean, music,

it's human.

Zach Bryan should be dragged for cheating on his wife.

What are some other terrible ones?

I mean, I think you could probably

all the good ones are probably

before we could get to the end of the list.

There's just like, but they get or like fucking Tom Cruise is a huge Scientologist nutbag, and nobody cares about that.

He's short and handsome.

Mel Gibson.

Oh, Mel Gibson is a terrible person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Fucking John Wayne was an awful human being, and yet every fucking 80 or 70-year-old white dude loves John Wayne.

By the way, how did we manage to let Luke get away with the nickelback creed stuff that we gets completely sidetracked instead of just shooting all over those two bands?

I like Nickelback.

I'm not going to apologize.

He found a way to move on from that real quick.

But I think, speaking of moving on, see, that's how you pivot, Tim.

If we have time for a get-fucked, I want to nominate somebody in real time right now because I saw, you know, after we found out that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey were engaged.

Oh, are you going to nominate Charlie Kirk?

Because I would really, very, really, very much like to do that.

Charlie Kirk went on some dumb fucking thing.

10 times the issue with Charlie Kirk saying what he does than anything that fucking Taylor Swift does.

100,000%.

That shit is disgusting.

Okay,

so he said that

she should have more children than she has houses.

She and Travis should have a ton of kids, more children than houses.

He said that he was hoping that Taylor Swift has so many children that then she gets out of the woke bubble that's in her head and lives in the real world and realizes that being a conservative Christian is good and that America and patriots want to claim Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey as their own, and begged her to come over.

And then, what was the very last thing he said?

He said, I can't wait to go to a Taylor Kelsey show.

And said, if you don't.

Miserable, egg-headed, fucking gumthroated piece of shit.

Just went on and on about how Taylor is, you know, she needs to become the right-wing queen.

And she needs, and

I can't fucking stand it.

I cannot stand stand it.

That means you're not real shit.

The list of things that he needs to get fucked for is

miles long.

But this one's on the top, near the top for me.

I really fucking hate this.

It just shows you what they think of women.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Subservient to vessels.

Subservient.

Yep.

Vessels for children.

He specifically said, obey your husband.

And if you don't change your name, that means you're not committed.

And it's not.

And you don't really care.

And I don't really care.

While I don't like Taylor's billionaire status as a role model, I think that's icky.

I do think her status as a successful person and woman is super fucking good.

And it shits on that piece of shit, Charlie Kirk, all over it.

Well, he's never done anything good.

Yeah, he failed.

He dropped out of community college.

No, guys, is like

I have a question on purity tests for us.

Is it okay

to talk about how Charlie Kirk's face is too small for his head?

No, like, is I mean, is it okay to talk about

always be talked about?

I strongly approve of that.

Like, he's

got his teeth are too small.

You know, I've got almost

so I can't talk a whole lot of shit about having a forehead or a five-head, but like, Charlie Kirk has a seven head.

That's impressive.

He's got a fucking landing strip.

If he does this, he's got to get like a whole other hand to cover his forehead.

And his eyes are like, you know.

It is so funny, though, that like he is so desperate to prove how much more like manly and hard Corey is than Taylor Swift.

Same thing with which this is all coming from.

Right.

He's just trying to, he's trying to validate himself.

Yeah.

Just so he's got a bunch of fucking, yeah, it's an inferiority clip on losers.

These have you guys ever seen the video of Ben Shapiro like almost knocking himself out?

Yes,

but it's still not my favorite Ben Shapiro clip.

When he was in high school or college, he goes and he punches a speed bag, but he just punches it once and leans into it.

So the speed bag bounces and fucking hits him right in the face.

He goes down, gets up crying, and runs away.

No,

thing ever.

My favorite bench period.

Right there is why that insecurity, that like desire to prove you're tough, and then instantly literally nearly knocking yourself out.

That is the entire arc of all of these MAGA influencers.

Like all of these pieces shit, like

men are dominant.

Like if

my wife didn't take my last name, like, why should she?

She has a fucking career.

She has, she has her own name.

Yeah.

Like, that I, I'm bothered by that, you're the biggest fucking loser on the planet.

Like, if you genuinely think, oh, it doesn't count if they don't take your last name, you're a piece of shit.

I got a question for you.

Yeah.

Which is lamer?

Caring about that or caring about the Cracker Barrel logo?

Both are so lame.

And I am so disappointed at Cracker Barrel for capitulating to this bullshit.

But like...

They're bringing it back.

They're bringing the old logo back.

Yep.

Yep.

It's not Cracker Barrel.

They should have leaned into it.

I'm telling you.

I want a shirt that says I went pegging at Cracker Barrel.

Should we put that in the store?

So Pearl Mania 500?

Is it Alex Pearlman?

Yeah, Alex.

So the comedian Alex Pearlman did a great video on TikTok and all the other video platforms where he tried to explain to all of these people who are upset about MAGA

why they're changing the branding.

And that's because

it's a shareholder thing.

Like Cracker Barrel, like every other big fucking food company, McDonald's, Taco Bell.

Pizza Hut, who all used to have uniquely shaped physical assets, have removed that and turned them into square gray or tan boxes because they're easier to sell, right?

The land is an investment.

The business that goes on top of it, these multi-billion dollar corporations don't give a shit about, you know, your fucking eggs and bacon and shit, like your fucking gravy.

They don't care about that.

All they care about is the land.

And the land that all of these cracker barrels are sitting on, these massive fucking parking lots, like just off of the interstates, that's worth a lot.

And transforming everything into a square box makes it so that one day they can go, Cracker Barrel doesn't exist anymore.

Our shareholders all got the fuck out of here.

So all of this, like,

it's, oh, it's woke stuff is, is, it's always nonsense.

But these motherfuckers just need to understand, like, dude, you are, you are in love with a corporation.

That corporation doesn't love you.

Like, stop it.

Stop it.

It's just, all they care about about is the fucking literal space that the parking lot is taking up.

You as a human being don't fucking matter to them.

And the old man sitting next to a fucking barrel, the cracker, I guess, and the barrel is like, god damn.

They don't fucking care about you.

It's not a real person.

It's just a drawing.

Like, who gives?

Like,

I don't know.

I just think even more than like the idolization of fucking people, the idolization of these corporations is just fucking disgusting.

Yeah.

But Chick-fil-A is going to save my marriage, you guys.

Oh,

Chick-fil-A only tastes so good because it's powered by homophobia.

God,

I will not eat there.

And I don't eat there either.

It's powered by hate.

I will not eat there.

Luke.

They do use their money for bad.

They use their money.

They're profitable.

Terrible things.

No, no, no.

We didn't get the payoff, Luke.

So we got to back up real quick.

We didn't finish the segment.

Boy, this episode is so.

No, no, no.

We need to tie it off.

We talked about Charlie Kirk.

We talked around Charlie Kirk, but we never invited Charlie Kirk to get fucked.

And there it is.

That's all I, it was like a, it's like this unresolved equation.

God, we got to take that away from him.

He can't be allowed.

It's overstimulating.

Exactly.

If people don't fucking like leave us for this episode, guys, then

I don't know whether to be happy or upset about it.

I think that we might have to put a warning on the front of this for people with epilepsy because the whiplash that you're going to get from the beginning of this to the end is it's going to be like a Donald Trump rally.

We don't know where anything's going the next moment.

But we do know where this is going because you still have to make your pitch.

Yes.

Well, if you

if you're still with us, folks.

Uh we've got a I've got a couple of announcements that are really important.

One, we announced this the other day, but we have new merch in the store, which is selling incredibly well.

It turns out when we spend a little time and design stuff, people are more willing to buy it, uh, which is great.

And we thank everybody for doing that.

I think yesterday was our biggest sales day ever.

So, thank you.

Um,

really cool shirts.

What for

new shirts?

Uh, two of them are both the top sellers.

They're both like tide, which is the one with all of our faces, and uh, the one with the tree, which is my favorite.

I like the tree.

Uh, can I bring up the feedback about that one shirt?

Yeah, why don't you like the why isn't the one with the faces your favorite, Tim?

that's all the time we have today everybody

that's not the right one the find out team has a slack that's how we communicate because we're a business right so we have a channel that is listener feedback and uh

some of the feedback that we got and this i think is okay it's safe to say right where to go merch

I've forgotten the specifics because I think I blacked out after I.

So Jess Amon says to us, just listened on Apple Podcasts.

I immediately went and did the public comment thing for the women VA healthcare issue.

So thank you, Jess.

Thanks for bringing that to light.

I also checked out the new merch.

Whichever face is on the left, Tim, looks like he is

emoji with the mouth cover, something.

Ha ha.

So if you haven't seen this shirt

and you want to, and you maybe even want to wear it on your chest, it is available at

findoutpodcast.com.

Sorry, I screwed up the end of it too.

And I want people to post in the comments, what is it?

Finish the sentence.

What is it that Tim's doing?

What does Tim look like he's doing?

I think it was a, I think there was, I think that photo had degraded.

I don't think that was the.

Blame the photo.

I'm going to see that goddamn shirt on the street someday, and I'm going to swear at somebody.

It's going to be someone that likes likes the show, and then I'm going to be in a lot of trouble.

I'm going to get one of those sheriff badges from the local police station, and I'm just going to put it right over your face because it's on the far right.

And so

the rest, you know, are they all look pretty good.

I mean, I don't look good, but that's just me.

But, you know, you

we could have saved you, and yet this happened.

Everyone looked at it and approved.

You know what?

So it's all over for myself.

I'm just a regular person.

It's fine.

You know what?

Like,

I am fine if I look terrible.

I'm still not a little unclear what they thought I was doing.

I got some ideas, but

I promise you that that was a drawing.

I did not sit for that photo.

It was just not a painting.

I was sorry for like for like six days.

Like, you know, Chris was sitting there.

Not this Chris, but the other Chris was sitting there drawing my face as I'm wherever I was.

I think that's a good advertisement to go check out the store, guys.

Just don't buy that shirt.

Or maybe do if you like that.

Buy it.

ironically.

Buy it.

That shirt becomes the most popular.

And I'm relatively

in charge of merch guy.

Kind of, sort of.

If that becomes the most popular of the shirts, we are also going to use that print on the hoodie.

So whether you're holding Tim

or supporting Tim.

Yeah, Tim by himself.

Just him, just Tim, like a two-foot by two-foot square, just him right in the middle of the hoodie.

If we ever do a live show and I see people in the audience wearing that, I'm going to lose my mind.

But, you know, maybe you should go buy it because maybe I will turn into a prima donna and stomp my feet and make you take it down.

So, like, maybe it's only there for a limited time.

We don't know.

It's a limited edition.

There are many other options to choose from as well, which I think are good.

And the other pitch.

Now I think we're getting the hell out of here is to be a become a paid member of our sub stack.

We are trying to build this into something really big and really special, which we're already on our way.

But in order to do that,

we need to make some money on it.

So you can get it for $6 a month.

We're talking about adding some

perks for doing so, which we will do soon.

The show will always be free, but there will be some additional things that we add.

So you can go to find out findoutpodcast.substack.com.

Check that out.

Findoutpodcast.com for

really great merch and one okay shirt.

And

I think that's it for today, guys.

I appreciate you sticking with us.

This was a roller coaster today.

It was.

But

I think some really good conversations.

So let's see.

It's going to be out on Thursday.

So, everybody, have a great weekend, and we will be back next week with two new episodes.

Talk to you soon.