Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at the recently declassified report from the US intelligence community on the 2020 election and try to contextualize how big of a threat influence from foreign actors is to our elections and our sovereignty as a nation.
And later on, we're going to discuss some issues that are coming up in gender specific sports with respect to efforts around the country to ban trans women from competing in women's sports. So we'll take a closer look at some of those efforts and what people are saying in response.
Joining me today is a man who likes his Jack Daniels shaken, not stirred.
Ogunlana Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde, you gonna drop some top secret knowledge here for us today?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I can't top what you just said. That was perfect.
That's funny. Not only was it great, but then I thought about it. It alludes to James Bond. And we're talking about an intelligence report about espionage. So good place, sir.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: You didn't have to tell everybody the whole inside piece, but, you know, it's all good.
Now recording this on March 29, 2021. And with the recent release of the declassified intelligence community assessment of foreign threats to the 2020 federal elections, we now have a public version of what the US Intelligence community observed in this most recent election. As far as foreign efforts to undermine the elections and the democracy.
One thing that was good to note in it was that it was determined that no nation actually rigged voter registrations or the votes.
But from this report, along with what the intelligence community said back in or about the 2016 election and the 2018 election, it pretty much appears that foreign efforts to influence Americans and our electoral process are like the new norm. So, Tunde, how big of a deal is this? Like, I read this stuff and it seems like a pretty big deal considering that we vote and, you know, people that foreign actors have, as you've pointed out before, have direct access to Americans now through the Internet, over the Internet and social media and so forth. But is there any good way to contextualize this? It seems like this is like we're on a road that goes to a dead end at some point.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know if there's a good way to contextualize it. I guess we could contextualize it, but I won't say it'll be in a good way.
What I would say is This, I think the way you brought it in is good because in reading the actual report and then just, you know, the stuff we've already known since 2016, I don't know how dangerous that is since it seems like now it is becoming the norm.
So I would say this. It doesn't feel good to know that other countries are openly kind of just playing around in terms of trying to influence us. And in turn, when I say us, I mean American voters in our own elections, I would say. But the fact that this is so known and out there, I think like many things, once, you know, certain things are novel and they're kind of a shock to everybody, but over time their effectiveness wears down if everyone's aware of it. So I think that that doesn't mean we, we shouldn't be concerned and all that. I just think that I, I don't know if as long as we keep as a, as a nation taking it serious in terms of our government and our int. Community as it appears they have been, I, I don't know how effective it will be more so than it's been.
What I would say though is I'm not surprised in, in terms of answering that part of the question.
We'll get into this report in a bit. So it, I wasn't surprised at who some of the other actors outside of Russia are.
And it doesn't surprise me that more countries are trying it because I think like anything else in life, just like if you have children, you know, if you don't stop them early on from doing kind of the wrong thing, they're going to just keep doing it. And I think that what we saw in the last two administrations, I mean, you know, the Obama administration knew that Russia was engaged in the type of things they were doing, and that was prior to 2016. I mean, we're reading in these intelligence reports that, you know, this stuff started 2012 to 2014, a lot of these real hardcore efforts by the Russians to just kind of sow discord in our society through the social media propaganda and all that.
And then the Trump administration clearly did not, you know, from, from the top down, want to push back on Russia. So I think what happened, what I read in this report is a lot of other countries saw the Russians doing this and not being really reprimanded by the big dog by the United States.
And so I'm not surprised, I'm not happy about this, but I'm not surprised that then, now we're seeing more countries
[00:05:25] Speaker A: attempting this because, and we'll, we'll actually talk. You know, I want to mention, you know, the country, like a couple of countries were singled out, Russia being one of them. The other being Iran. Yeah. Which was trying to get in there and mess around as well. One interesting thing was China apparently decided it wasn't worth it. And so kind of, even though it was said during last year that by some that, oh, we think China is the biggest threat, but apparently the intelligence community doesn't think China was really messing around. But, you know, big picture wise, this thing reminded me of economic hitman and how country, you know, one country goes in and plays around with the governance or the. The selecting of the governments or how those things are happening for another country. And so, you know, I don't know if we are basically content being in that frame now where people are doing this to us. These, these tactics that are. Usually it's the top of the food chain that comes down and does this to countries lower in the food chain or countries that have exposures. But it reminded me of that. And I would tend to agree with you, or maybe I just want to agree with you that once it becomes known that it becomes less of a threat from an absolute standpoint. But actually, this is smart, man, what's happening here. There are two main thrusts that I got out of what they were saying was going on.
The overall objective, at least from the Russia standpoint, Russia being the biggest one, messing around, but was just that they want to undermine the integrity of the election, the people's belief that the election was fair and that elections work and all that stuff.
But from Russia's standpoint, one of their tactics, to me seems to be something that would not.
So two tactics. Two tactics. One would be directly on social media, amplifying certain voices, creating things and hope they get picked up. But the other thing they do is they Tunde, or they seem to create stories or create narratives that then can get picked up by and laundered essentially by regular media, by American media. And then people don't hear it or see it as coming from a Russian bot. They see it as coming from a newscaster that they trust or that they believe.
And to some degree, this report indicated that that was kind of a symbiotic thing. Like some people knew that they were running with narratives that were coming out of Russian intelligence, but were okay with it because they believed it would help them, it would help them politically. And one thing, like the narrative that Biden was all tied up in Ukraine with a bunch of corruption was a Russian operation, so to speak. Like, that is a narrative that the Kremlin created and that we all heard about that a lot of times, but we didn't hear it as coming from the Kremlin. We heard of this coming from our media. And then if you, if it came from media sources that you trust, then that's something you took to the bank, so to speak. And so that is, it has a level of insidiousness that I think is not something that unless our media gets their act together and decides that, you know, it's going to be America first or whatever, and that we're not going to allow ourselves to be duped or whatever for partisan advantage, unless that's kind of a decision we can come to as Americans on both sides. One side can't unilaterally do that. You know, both sides have to want the system to work more than they want to actually try to win.
And, you know, if that's the case, then I don't know how we deal with that.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree with you, and that's why I'm saying that I, like I said, I'm not happy this is happening. But I think like anything else, the sting will begin to wear off a bit because just as the public's more aware.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: But you wouldn't, you wouldn't know, is my point. You wouldn't know. If you watch News Channel X and they are, they are giving you laundered Russian intel operation, you wouldn't get immune to that.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: I'm not saying that everybody. What I'm saying is, look, five years ago, you and I had no idea this stuff was going on like this. And now we do, and it's just like, you know, with the vaccines going in with this pandemic, the more people get vaccinated and herd immunity, the more the virus will probably go away over a few years. And I'm just saying that at some point, enough Americans will be, will be, will be, will be, will be, you know, kind of inoculated in a certain way to the way that the propaganda, let me say it, that way, was done in the last few years. However, one thing I'll say, and then I want to jump to a couple of kind of contextual things, historically, is you going back to Iran was interesting because when I was reading the report, it reminded me a lot. You know, Marco Rubio was very concerned about this in 2016, remember? And I respected what he was saying at the time because he was and still is on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So he had a little bit more, I think, look, into this early on than maybe other people in the political parties, you know, that politicians. And he said we shouldn't be so cavalier and accepting that this is happening just because Russia has hack helping hack the DNC and helping WikiLeaks go against Hillary because one day this could happen against Republicans. And what I found interesting is they were saying how the Iranians.
Basically, this is like 21st century lobbying.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: So instead of showing up for a meeting with a, with a guy that's registered as a foreign lobbyist or foreign agent and trying to sway, you know, political American foreign policy, they're just going straight through cyber and hacking us and doing all that. So just to finish the point is the report says that Iran was doing the same thing Russia's doing, but they were doing it to try and hurt President Trump's reelection chances.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: So I just thought like that.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: And the belief was that Iran wants to come back into the nuclear deal so that they can get the sanctions off.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: And so because basically them trying to create leverage by saying we're going to do the nuclear program is not working. Yeah.
[00:11:16] Speaker B: And that's why I say I'm not happy. Because what it basically looks like is that the United States is becoming a pinata of propaganda and getting beaten around for by other countries who want us to change our foreign policy stance at a government level, but now they're just doing it by selling discord and trying to get one person elected over the other. So in the end, it is unhealthy for us.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Well, but that part hasn't been fully unpacked yet, though, because one, I think actually helping the candidate is one thing, but trying to undermine the system, I think is actually worse and a bigger threat overall. I mean, and that kind of the, like the Iran piece and the Russia piece, as far as helping individual candidates is, I think actually that part about it is one that ultimately will probably get a pretty good handle on it. But undermining the system, particularly while there are people that are willing to amplify that message on the inside of America, I think, is a really big problem, because again, democracies don't exist without the consent of the people. And at a certain point, when the people get ginned up enough, as we saw, you know, in January, if you get ginned, some people, certain people get ginned up enough, then you'll see violence. You'll see things. And that violence will be against the operations of our political system out of our Constitution. It'll be against the Constitution, which is actually trying to overthrow The American government essentially. And so that part I think is the big concern that we have to get a handle on because that is not foreign policy. That is we don't want your stuff to work anymore. We don't think democracy works and we're gonna make it not work in your country. So when you look at this though, it's essentially attempting to exert influence on our government, on our political system.
And we have an open government, so to speak, government of the people and so forth. So we spend obviously more money on our military than everybody else in the world.
But we seem to have quite an exposure here with all that money in the military. Is our biggest national security exposure just Americans being targeted over the Internet or otherwise just trying to be bribed or useful idiots that will be laundering either for money for political gain or just because they are easily duped, laundering intelligence points from other nations. This seems to be, maybe we should spend some more money on this. And maybe they do. Maybe this is the intelligence community coming back saying, hey yeah, we got this, this is what happened. But this more seems like a post mortem as opposed to, and maybe it's classified what they're doing to prevent it, I don't know. But all I'm saying is that we spend a lot of money on military, but we're seeing attacks of our constitution right here that seem to be not getting the same level of attention as we, as our preparedness for somebody to march a million troops on our border, which is like very unlikely in any reasonable time period forward. So what are your thought on it?
[00:14:10] Speaker B: No, I think, look, it's been, we're right around the 60th year since a great president named Dwight David Eisenhower made a farewell speech that's now famous about the military industrial complex. So I think, you know, that has something to do with the amount of money we spend, which we, you know, we've got a nice lobbying system here in the US and that the defense community and the sector is, is, is well heeled in understanding how to play that game.
And so I think that's part of why we spend a lot of money on military or more than everyone, you know, so many other countries combined.
But I do think you're right in the sense that we are right now the general fighting the last war in terms of the way we're looking at this as a nation. And I think like anything else, you know, we're, it's like with the terrorism stuff, right? Like 9, 11, we got, we were the bear that was poked. You know, we're the big behemoth and with box cutters and low budget and pretty straightforward, you know, thing Al Qaeda was able to slap us in the face and shock us so but we've changed our M.O.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: basically.
[00:15:20] Speaker B: I agree. That's what I was going to say
[00:15:21] Speaker A: 11 and in a way that we have like right after 911 everything changed as far as you know, how we fly, how people that can get access to the cockpit, things like that. And in this scenario this has happened to us now three election cycles that are like where it's out in the open, like we're aware of it, we're aware we knew about it, we know it's coming and so forth. And it doesn't seem like we have a response prepared that will make us in fact more countries are jumping in now Russia concepts. Well let me make this point. It seems like we're going the wrong direction here. Now it may be that there are no good solutions as long as you want to maintain a free and open society. But I don't know that that's the case. If you look at for example our news media environment in this country, this is not, that's not how normal democracies operate where people have their own facts and so forth. But I think we had a 911 moment and I don't think we've responded is my point. Basically like we need to do something at least in terms of how information is going to be disseminated or who's allowed to call themselves. If you call yourself news, you have to base yourself in facts or something like that because the insurrection in January was from the standpoint of the results something similar. As far as a flashpoint similar to like 9 11. Like we saw the results of an intense campaign to discredit an election that originated overseas and had a foreign actor primarily behind it to try to convince people. Now people here jumped on it as well and amplified it. But it originated outside of the United States to say the election wasn't legitimate. And then we had people attack the U.S. capitol, like literally a siege on the U.S. capitol. And I just don't see maybe because the people and you've kind of insinuated this before, maybe because the people didn't weren't brown, they didn't have turbines on or something like that. However, they weren't easily classified as an other just our collective response wasn't the same of oh my goodness, we are in deep right now. Like it was kind of like oh yeah, well let's kind of, you know, we'll use law Enforcement and we'll do this. And now that's not to say that we need to go to war with somebody, but that is to say that we need to do something more than what we're doing in order to address this threat or 2022, it could be worse. If we're not gonna do, if we're not gonna step up to the plate and do more. Like this thing is increasing.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look at the end, it's about what do we want as Americans. Right. And I think you're absolutely right. There's, there's a.
Various factors as to why this is being handled different than 9 11. I think that, I mean, one I'll point to is, you know, that that was a kinetic strike kind of one time thing. It was easy. And okay, let's next time guys start taking flying lessons but aren't interested in landing, you know, we'll be aware of what that might mean.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Well, I don't want to compare the two. Let me say this. I don't want to compare the two because one had a lot more death, you know, like. And so the scale of death will also affect that as well.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: But let me keep going here because it's, it's, it's, you know, there's several factors. So that, that's all part of, that's what I mean by kinetic strike. It was a big deal. You know, we brought down, it brought down towers and big buildings and all that hit the Pentagon, you know, the heart of our defense. And it was like you're saying death and all that. And the way it happened also allowed for an immediate response that was pretty unequivocal. Like, we knew this came from quote, unquote, terrorists, you know, from different parts of the world. And that was about their jihad against America. And it was kind of a direct, like thing.
This one involves something that's much more difficult to see.
It's happened over a longer period of time.
And it, and it, and it also kind of runs against some of the things like, like it's a very. This, this is why it's so effective. I think as you were saying all that, I kind of realized our inability to deal with it means it's really effective. And unfortunately for us, it's effective meaning unfortunately for America.
And because we're an open democracy that has a First Amendment that enjoys the freedom of speech.
And so that makes it difficult. Look at what happens when Twitter starts banning people and Facebook and all this.
It causes more dysfunction and more infamous infighting in our country. So just by trying to deal with already accomplishes the goals that those who set out to sow discord are looking to do. Now the other things I think are there too, right? The cultural stuff we have in the U.S. like you said, I agree with you. Had those people looked different on the insurrection, not only do we all know what would have it have been a different response. I really appreciate Senator Ron Johnson from Minnesota because he said it.
He said it exactly like that. I wasn't intimidated basically because those are our people. That's the way he said it.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Well, see, but here's the thing. I think all the things you said before this are all just you trying to justify the conclusion after the fact. Because if that was foreigners to your point, if that was foreigners that took over the US Capitol, it wouldn't matter. Oh, it kind of developed over a period of time.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: No, no, no, that doesn't matter. No, but I'm not talking about the insurrection when I'm making my broad comment.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: I'm talking about, I am talking about the insurrection.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: Okay, well I wasn't, I was talking about just this whole thing, this, this, this messing with our country by using these new tools available through the Internet and social media and all that. That's what I meant. Like I'm talking about from the 2012 period to now that it, and, and, and I think the other thing that, you know, I don't like to think that this is a reality, but it is because people are self interested and it's. What you alluded to earlier is that whether willingly or unknowingly, right. People have parroted propaganda and lies for their own interest here in the US Like Americans that are politicians or news people for furthering their own careers. They're parroting things that are part of a disinformation campaign by a foreign government. And so, and so, and I'm sure some people know they're doing it and some people might be naively being, you know, part of this, this game. And so I think that that's what makes it a lot more difficult going back to Senator Johnson. That's why I thought of him as you were talking. Because the difference with 911 was we didn't have people in real power like senators and congressmen totally denying that that happened. Like think about it the way that Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, Howley, and there's the people in the 139 people that still wanted to not certify the election after the insurrection happened that night.
They're equal to if George Bush got on that bullhorn. On all that rubble and was like, we're gonna get who knocked down those buildings.
By the way, we know it wasn't from the Middle East. You know, you should look at the Democrats or you should look at somewhere else. You should look at the 400 guy, the base pound guy in a basement, or the Chinese or, you know, and it's just like. So when you have deflection and not a shared strategy at the top, I mean, this is where leadership comes in.
Then of course it's going to be easy for an adversary who's looking to sell discord to continue to do it. Because you've made a good point that the people that American citizens are supposed to trust, whether it be the news media that they watch or the politicians that they support and vote for, if those guys are in on also disinformation campaigns, then that's. That's where James, to me is like, that's the worst part of it. Because we can't necessarily stop a Russia or Iran or a China from trying to play games. That's what countries do to each other. But the difference, I think.
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Well, we can't. Unless we are all on the same page.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean. I mean, I'm sure we couldn't.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah. That.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: That it won't even.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. Actually, my point is that the problem here is I think that these other countries have seen.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: What's been proven here.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: You're right.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: What's proof here, actually, is that the political divisions in the United States are such that, particularly with certain actors, that they will. If you give them a carrot that incentivizes them in their best interest, they will undermine the country. And I don't know if it matters whether it's unwitting or whether it's sinister. Like, either way, that person is a threat. You know, a person that steals from you because they get tricked, or a person that steals from you because they are, you know, like they're not that smart. Both. Or. Excuse me. Or either they get tricked or because they're a thief. Either way, you're stolen from, and either way you got to deal with it. And so I think that actually is the real. The takeaway here because, like my point, the reason I was saying I was pointing to the insurrection was because you would think that that would be a flashpoint. Like we saw on live television, the seat of power be overrun in a lawless way. Like that's what we saw.
But because of who it was or because of what they had been told and by whom they had been told that we could not generate a collective response that would say, okay, this isn't going to happen again. So you know what I'm afraid of? I think it's going to happen again.
It's right there. As long as you do, if you're a foreign actor, as long as you do business with people who are willing to put the interests, their own political interests over those of the country and over those of the Constitution, you can get away with a lot of stuff in America. That's the standard operating procedure in America right now. And that to me seems like a really big concern.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: Well, no, I agree. And that's kind of my point. Right. Is that you're right. The proof of concept term is very good. And that's what I was saying earlier, that that's what kind of surprised me about this report. Not that this is happening because we've known this has been happening, but just that how many actors are now on board? I mean, they were talking about Lebanese Hezbollah.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: Is, is now messing around on the Internet trying to influence us. And it's almost like, you know, it's like when you, we were talking about something else in a different show and you said, you know, I, I, I feel superior to a mouse so I don't have to like prove my point.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: And that's when I started getting pissed off when I'm reading Hezbollah's doing this. That's what I felt like the mice are even like messing with us. But this isn't even a nation. This is like a terrorist group.
And, and they're over here playing this game on the Internet and all that. And, and it's working like they're selling discord and all this. So. I agree. And that's where again, I mean, we're meeting in the same place here, which is the difference between this and any other thing we've ever seen, whether it be 9, 11 or whatever, is just that this is the first time that we have a large part of our political leadership. And then I would say media, you know, and I, and I, and I, I don't want to allow, you know, kind of some on the right to get away with this thing about like, oh, it's all this mainstream and left wing media. You know, Tucker Carlson has the most watched show on cable news every night.
So you know, conservative media is huge and bigger than quote, unquote, liberal, liberal media. But I guess, you know, when, when, when they play the outsider all the time, they feel like they're not, I
[00:26:38] Speaker A: mean that's called working the ref, man. You're a high level athlete. You know about working the ref. Phil Jackson did it all the time. He got up, hey, the refs are against us. The refs are against us.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Even though I got Michael Jordan, the refs, the refs are unfair to me, that whole thing.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: Because yeah, like you've made this point before, the whole liberal media thing. Like you show me the corporate conglomerate. Liberal.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
Don't get me started.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Publicly traded billion dollar point is. But I want to get to the last point on this actually was because I think we hit it pretty good. But the, you know, whose job is it to address this? Because like I think the intelligence report reporting that's been done is a important part of this. And in my question, and where I am trying to raise an alarm here is the fact that it does not seem like, okay, somebody has raised, somebody has reported on this, somebody has told us this is what's happening. And we just saw on live television the results of this type of stuff or at least certain types of things.
And it seems, I don't see the concerted effort or the political will or just the societal will for us to be like, this is not going to happen to us again and we're gonna figure out a way to make sure this doesn't happen. And so whose job is that? Is that like Jack Dorsey's job because of Twitter? Or is that like Joe Biden's job because he's the president? Or is that something that's supposed to be done in the shadows by our intelligence community? I don't know. I'm asking, I'm gonna ask a question. I'll see what you say and see if I can come up with something.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: In the meantime, I would say it's more Biden than a Dorsey responsibility. I mean, in the end, that's it. And the reason I say that is more of, you know, the government and those that, you know, one other, by
[00:28:16] Speaker A: the way, I'm sorry, is it a Rupert Murdoch thing?
[00:28:18] Speaker B: You know, like I put Dorsey and Murdoch in the same boat. I mean, that's what I'm saying is, meaning they're, they're owners of private companies that are in the media space and you know, they're gonna, their, their jobs to run their business. I mean, I, you know, I would like to think that they're, that they're gonna do the right thing if they see too much shenanigans, but. And I think that's what Dorsey did, right? He bans people from Twitter when it gets a little bit out of hand. But their job isn't to go deal with foreign adversaries. So in the end the job is more tilted toward the Bidens of the world. Right. The leaders in our political landscape and our government because this has to do with national security. And so that's where I really feel that it's not going to happen. As long as we have a government that is made up of people that are so divided on issues as important is this. So that's why I want to be there.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: But then you're saying we're in a cycle then because the divisions are the opportunity that's being used or that's being taken advantage of to create further division. So it becomes this self fulfilling thing where we can't deal with it as long as we have divisions. And the divisions are what the basis of all the interference is really trying to really go in on.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: I don't want to say it's impossible to fix it because I mean, who knows what the future holds. But you're right that you know, I, I, I, like I don't understand and I don't understand how, because I'm reading this report, I mean there's Congress people right now and I'm not going to name names because I don't want to seem like I'm partisan. But I'm just saying, like there's people in Congress right now who I read their same names in the Mueller report three years ago.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: That were getting at information from Russian agents and, and people that were proxies for Russian intelligence. And all this is known.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: And that's my point. So how are they still in the US Government?
And that's what I'm. No, but that's my point. Like it's everybody's fault in the government because like seriously, I don't understand how at this point a president doesn't go to the head of the parties in the Congress, say we have this guy on tape talking to foreign adversaries and looking for dirt on an opponent here in the US like we got to cut this out and start fighting each other like the way we used to, like within our borders. And so that until that happens that both parties and all the politicians want to root this out of their parties, then it doesn't change and it gets worse.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Well so I mean that's an interesting point, man. Like I actually think that, I would disagree. I think that it is the government's job. I do agree with you on that part. The private companies respond to signals on what is profitable, what's legal regulation, things like that. And so the objective of the government is to as they maintain a market as things like that is to create an environment that is conducive to certain things like that don't make it so our Constitution can no longer be the supreme law of the land.
Once that gets at stake, then you'll have to do things to address it.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: But how are you disagreeing with me? We just said the same thing.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Well, but no but, but what I'm saying though is that what I disagree with is that there may not be anything to do. I think there is like what the anomaly here, the anomaly that we have here that makes us overly susceptible to this is the for profit nature of the news media. Not the media in general, just the news media, the people who are tasked with giving us information.
The for profit nature of that makes it so. The commercial incentives are to, are not to tell the truth per se. It is to tell people a story that is entertaining, that is engaging and that will they will want to continue to watch. And so as long unless we can, unless and until we address that. I think that's the root of it. Basically you have to address the fact that news media itself if you're going to hold yourself out as news media and I don't think this is that hard. I think it, it we see a little bit of this now with these defamation suits that are going on as far as by, they were filed by like Dominion, the voting company and stuff and they're suing, you know, entities like look, you knew this was false all along. And so I think that's part of the, the correction that needs to happen. But there needs to be more in place with that. Like there you cannot allow people who, if you hold yourself out as just entertainment, then whatever, fine, do what you want to do. But if you call yourself the news, that's false advertising. Basically you call yourself the news but you're not actively trying to provide news. You're actively just trying to keep eyeballs. You're in the attention economy and that's it, you know. And so on one hand that could be very difficult to implement on a wide scale. If you have, because anybody can get on YouTube and call themselves news, you know, like and so forth or. But you also have, there are big fish, so to speak that reach a lot more than just any guy who YouTube. So there are ways to do it where we don't create a, the for profit motive. In some industries, if it's unregulated creates a race to the bottom. If you have a for profit, totally for profit, unrestricted, and you're talking about coal mining, you know what they'll do? Just blow the top off of a mountain. Because that's going to be the cheapest way to do it. If you don't want them to just blow the top off of the mountain or if you don't want them to just cut down all the trees, you know, whatever. If you want them to use a little care in a way that takes the rest of society into account, then you have to create regulation, rules, laws, otherwise things that disincentivize that behavior that left unrestrained would be more profitable. So that's the way I look at it is that you have to attack the unfettered for profit operation of the news media.
Because right now I don't think we can come together unless we have some semblance of the similarity in terms of facts. And as long as there's no incentive or there's, there's only the ethical incentive, that's it. There's no financial incentive to tell people the truth in our news media, then we're going to keep, we're just on a divergent track and we're just going to stay on it.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Now you're right, and I see you morphing your, your, your disagreement there near the end because I was going to say I, I, I disagree with the idea that it's only because of profit, but I agree with you as you were finishing that, yeah, profit without regulation. Because I thought was my point.
[00:34:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I said it poorly if it was, if it was the other thing.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah, because I looked at, as you were talking, it reminded me a lot of kind of what happened in going into the great financial crisis. Like, oh wait, like, you know, mortgages and all that are not bad things, but when they're unregulated and people that you know are making 15,000 a year are given 110% mortgages, then they can ruin the system over time.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Yeah, and I said it poorly and I'm glad you raised that because yeah, what I mean by that is the unfettered for profit creates a race to the bottom. Like, and that like you have to put, and this is your term, you have to put guardrails up that allow us to still cultivate the type of society that we want and then create the for profit aspect within that. You know, like you create the rules of the game and then you let say have at it. But you can't just take away all the rules and just say, have at it, because then it's just a race to the bottom. Whatever. The quickest way to get profit, no matter what the long term effects, no matter what the societal effects are, then that's what people are going to do. I mean, people dump poison in lakes, you know, because it's the quickest, cheapest, easiest way to go. If there's no regulation against it, that's what they'll do. And so right now, people dump poison into the media because it is the quickest, cheapest, easiest way to make money. And so you have to put regulation in place to prevent that and put up some type of guardrails that allow you to still make money. But to do so requires some level of or some type of behavior that is still promoting the type of society that we want.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: So, like, for our second topic today, there's no easy transition, but it's something that we took note of in the past couple of weeks.
There have been several states lately that have looked to issue bans which stop transgender women from competing in women's sports.
And we've actually seen that they're making the argument, or some are making the argument that the efforts are just about transphobia. And they basically pooh pooh and say, oh, well, any claim that trans women would have an athletic advantage hasn't been proven.
And so now obviously both of us Tunde, we believe that all people should be treated with Tunde But what do you think about these types of arguments? Like I said, people say, oh, well, sports aren't fair anyway. Michael Phelps is 6 7. How is that fair that he swims against somebody who's six' one, and so therefore, maybe trans women should be justified in competing in women's sports.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: I don't know, man. I know I'm gonna get myself in trouble with this conversation, but.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Well, let me say something on this one real quick.
Let me jump off on this one, because my thought on this actually is I had a problem more with the argument than anything.
The absolutism of saying that, hey, anybody that has a problem with this or is asking questions about this is transphobic, I thought is not helpful at all to trying to move the discussion. And moreover, than. Or, you know, moreover, I would say that the claim or trying to say that, oh, well, you know, like, there's no proven that men would have an athletic advantage over women is unproven. Trying to attack it from that frame that. I know we had talked about this briefly before, that kind of struck me like, as a climate change Denier type of thing where you're going to try to take a really, really, really narrow view of science or facts and history and say, okay, well, with this narrow view, we can make this claim, but it's really kind of putting blinders on to the big picture and so forth, like the whole purpose of women's sports. And that's what I think this has to come back to. I definitely think that we should have some compassion here and we should try to figure out ways that everyone can do what is fulfilling to them and so forth. But we created. We as a society created women's sports to allow women to compete with other athletes having that same physiological disposition. That's not to say that everybody's going to be the same height or the same weight or the same dimensions or anything like that. But we do know that men and women have different physiologies, some of it related to childbirth and so forth. But.
And so if that's something that we created specifically, like, we didn't create women's sports as a matter of segregation because we wanted to make women's sports and say, that's, you know, that's the white bathroom, you know, and it's like, oh, yeah, you can only get into women's sports if we really. If society really likes you. Like, this isn't an issue like that.
This is an issue where we created women's sports because we wanted to create a playing field for women, you know, biological women. And so I would think that if we're going to consider saying, okay, well, let's open that up to trans women as well. I'm not saying absolutely that should never happen, no way whatsoever. But I think the burden should be on the people arguing for the chains to actually prove that there's no advantage or there's no difference, there's no advantage and so forth. I think they're the ones that have the burden of proof here, not the ones that are saying, we got to keep it the way it is, because again, we created this not to discriminate. We didn't create women's sports. And there's not Title nine to discriminate against women. It was to create a place for women. And so I don't think you could just throw that away unless you come up with some kind of. Unless you are the ones that come in with the proof and the studies and everything like that, and then those can be scrutinized and so forth. And then we see if that's going to really be something that undermines the purpose of what we create.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's.
That's why this is a difficult topic, because I think there's some of these things are in the eye of the beholder.
You know, you've alluded to this, this idea of classification versus identity.
And.
And I think that it's just an interesting. Because what we're also talking about are things that have been accepted by science and human cultures forever, which is that there are truly physiological differences between men and women.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: On average.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah, on average. And on reality, too. I mean, like. Well, no, but estrogen and testosterone. No, I get it. That there are men that could have repressed levels of testosterone.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: What I'm saying is this actually, like, there are women in the world that are taller than me. You know, like, I'm six feet tall. But, like, it's not like. But on average, the. What we've seen, numbers wise, is that men will be, on average, taller than women or, you know, different things like that. But I know you were going to go into other.
[00:41:03] Speaker B: Yeah, and. And so the point I'm making is, is that even different than climate change, because I read an interesting article about a transgender teenager named Mac Beggs out of Texas, who's now 22, but when.
When he was in high school a few years ago, he was a young lady born a female who transitioned during high school into being a male.
And, you know, that's. And. And part of the article I was reading was that in part of this transition, Mac had been taking testosterone and taking some other, you know, drugs, you know, legal drugs, you know, that was suppressing the estrogen.
And so my point is that the very science that you're using as one who wants to transgender is almost proof in itself that there are these type of differences in men and women. If you have to do this to yourself in order to make these changes. And so what. What was interesting about this story to me about, you know, Mr. Beggs, was that it almost proved to me why this issue specifically in the sports arena, I think is unfair, especially at the high school level and the kind of younger people, because here's a young lady that was taking testosterone, which testosterone is going to make her stronger and potentially give her an uncompetitive advantage. So it almost be like, like me or you being young kids in high school, if we took some sort of growth hormone or a steroid potential.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Well, I mean, to your point, like, in some competitions, that would be considered a performance enhancing drug if a man.
[00:42:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so, and so, and, and so. And that's one Thing I felt like, well, what about the young ladies that are playing the sports? And. And I would say this, that's maybe less of a.
An example as the one when I told you, you know, I finished growing at 15 years old. I'm 6 foot 4, and I hit 64 at 15.
My grandfather was 7 2, so everyone thought I was going to keep going, and I didn't, unfortunately, because I might have had a lot more money in my pocket if I. If I was 6, 10, I might have made the NBA. But the point I'm making is, is that, I don't know, I recognize that if I felt at 16, 17, that I, you know, should have been born a young lady.
Like you said, I think everyone deserves Tunde I'm not here to beat up on people that feel like they, you know, are trans, should be an opposite sex or that they feel that way.
But I also don't think it would have been fair in my high school to the young ladies on the basketball team and to other, you know, women's basketball players on other teams if at 6 foot 4, with the type of build I had at a young age as a junior and senior in high school, I mean, I was a big kid. I was 200 pounds before my 18th birthday.
If I said I felt like a young lady and that I should go play on the girls team, well.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: But I actually, let me tell you this, though, because I think that trying to pick out individual examples for things like this on either side is how we end up in this people just talking at each other thing. Like your individual example would trend against it, but then somebody else could throw some other individual example and try to go back against you for that. But because I try to agree with. Because of what holistic view of the thing?
[00:44:36] Speaker B: No, but I disagree with you because of what you just said. On average. That's the point. On average, there's.
[00:44:41] Speaker A: There's an average. But what I'm saying to you yourself, though, and say that on average, but
[00:44:47] Speaker B: I am an average guy when it comes to being a tall kid in high school.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: No, you're. You're tall. You're taller than the average man.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is I was the average example of a tall kid, meaning at 16, 17, I'm 6 foot 4 with a bunch of testosterone, and I was strong. I was doing windmill dunks at 17.
So my point is, is that because of the level of testosterone and strength I had as a young man at that point in my life, as compared to maybe in my 40s, now, compared to a woman, I'm probably, because my testosterone is lower now, I might not be as strong as I was back then. So my point is that how I could see that as totally unfair if I'm allowed to compete in a girl's team. To your point at the beginning, it's not about not having unisex sports, is that they created a girls basketball team at some point in the history of my old school because girls weren't making the men's team because they couldn't compete with the men, because men were bigger and stronger. And, you know, and at some point, it is a fact that men and women physiologically are different. And that doesn't mean that men are better or women are worse or anything like that. And I, And I, and I look at this much different, this topic we're speaking of specifically, than anything else.
I don't. I don't disagree at all. Like, I saw when they. Fred, the first group of women that made the Army Rangers units and some of these Special Forces, I think they have every right to do that. Yeah. Now, what happened, though?
I think if I remember correctly, there was like, 109 women that. That tried, and that's what the Rangers said. You're going to do the exact same thing as the men. Out of 109, nine women made it.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: You know what?
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Those nine women deserve to be Army Rangers. Yeah, of course.
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Of course.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: That's my point. And that's why I said I want to make it clear for the audience.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: I'm specifically talking about this issue of transgender kids in, like, these high school sports, because I think at that young age, the difference as men and women, young men and women, are developing is so pronounced that it's just unfair. And it's also a bit messy. Like, we're talking about the topic, and I don't think.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: I don't separate it out to high school like that. My point is different. My point is that we created the women's division be to. To account for the fact that, on average, a spread across a large sample size, the men are going to be bigger or whatever. Men are going to be a little or faster on average or whatever. And so we did that. And at the extremes, by and large, the men are. The men at the extreme is going to be. The median is higher, and the extremes are higher as far as size, as far as weight, things like that. And so we created the women's division for that. Like, I don't have a problem at all if a trans man wants to compete in men's sports because that is, we didn't create that division to try to sort people out from an identity standpoint. We didn't like that we created. We separated men and women's sports to create more opportunity for people who are of the gender that on average would be smaller or whatever. And so I don't think it goes both ways, though, is my point. I think that if a trans man wants to hop out and go to the NBA, when the. What was the girl's name? Sarah Fuller. Just like now, she wasn't trans. She was just, you know, just a CIS ginger woman. But she played power five football, went. Played kicker for Vanderbilt this past, this past football season. We. I'm all in favor of that. That's great. If you can get to that level, then do it. Like you pointed out with the Army Rangers, what they. And I don't think that they were trans either. It wasn't a trans.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: No.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Just to say that my, my point on this is it only goes one way. Like we created the women's division for a purpose. And I'm saying that before we allow that purpose to be compromised or even potentially compromised, whether it actually gets compromised or not, we don't. I'll give you that. We may not know yet. Now, I may have my belief on that, but I'll give you. We may not know yet. But I'm saying that the burden of proof, the person who needs to show it shouldn't be that the people who were.
Let me say this a different way. The people who have. Who should have to prove it and to have to show scientifically that you're not going to undermine the point of why we created the women's sports or the people who want to make that change, so to speak, and to make women's sports not about classification but about identity. And that's fine. And because honestly, I'm very sensitive to. I have empathy for the person in that scenario that it's like, man, because that's messed up. Yes, they're going to be picked on more. You know, they're going to be. They're going to have issues that it's really terrible that they're going to have to deal with. And so it's really in the abstract, it's messed up that it's like, oh, this too. But. But everything can't be just about the individual, though. As a society on a societal level, we create things certain times and when we do, if you want to, we did it for a reason. And if you want to change it Then show us that it won't matter or that it's. That it's still consistent with the objective of women's sports.
Then, then have at it. But don't put it on me. And then. And start saying, oh, well, no, no, you should have to prove that it's going to ruin everything. And it's like, well, no, no, that's.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: That's.
[00:49:47] Speaker A: We set this up already on the basis that this would have given the opportunity.
[00:49:51] Speaker B: But I think even from what you're saying, that's why I say it's messy in terms of not messy in, like, a bad way. What I mean, messy is there's a lot of things that spring out of this topic. Right. Because you make a good point that if a transgender man, meaning a woman who becomes, who changed to become a man, competed in men's sports, well, what if he does win and another man who's a. I guess, what do you call a cisgender man? A born man?
Do they have a right to ask, well, can I see how much testosterone was in your last thing? Because like you just said, if. If I took a bunch of testosterone, that might be considered performance enhancing.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: Yeah. There'd be certain leagues you couldn't play it.
[00:50:35] Speaker B: But that's what I mean. So if this person. That's what I mean. I'm not saying that you can't solve that problem. I'm just saying that it's messy because it brings up all these other potential concerns.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: It does.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: No, I. Now, the. Yeah, the. And the other thing I wanted to mention, that article I read was actually really good for my own learning and understanding because I want to say something too, about this topic. You know, I'm. I'm uncomfortable with the transgender topic, and I'm okay admitting that part of it is because I'm just not something I'm around. And I'm not around people that, you know, have these feelings, or at least that express them to me openly. And I think that's something I think that I realize in all topics, you know, whether it be, you know, stuff like us, the African American related stuff, whether it be stuff with, you know, this new stuff they're talking with, the Asian hate crime on the rise.
I think that everybody also needs to chill out in our society and allow everyone to also say when they're uncomfortable with something, just because I want to be able to say that, but also, like you said, at the same time, recognize that everyone deserves Tunde and that everyone's a human being. So I'm not saying I hate Anybody. I'm not saying that they don't have a right to feel how they feel, but I'm saying, for me, it's an uncomfortable topic because it's not something that I'm familiar with.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Now, you. But you say, and here's where you see that play out a lot. Like, some people will say they're uncomfortable and not maintain an open mind. And so, like, you're saying you're uncomfortable. And so, but so what I'm saying, though, is that that's hard to know. Like, you know, that as a black man, you know, like, somebody might express some feelings of discomfort about certain things, but. And you don't know what's coming next. You don't know if what's coming next is all right, so you need to leave this establishment or if it's, you know, okay, you know, I feel uncomfortable, but I'm going to try to understand things from your perspective. And so that's. I actually wanted to talk about this on our show because of that, because neither I knew you and I know myself. Neither one of us are looking at this to discriminate or to condone discrimination. Like, it's not something that, like, I want to try to figure out a solution. And that's why my point was that, hey, well, then if you're. This is what you're saying. You, you need to come. You need to do some studies. You need to don't just poke holes in what everybody else is saying.
And if people are saying you don't deserve Tunde I'm with you on that. I'm on your side on that. Like, or if people are saying this and that about you, I'm with you on that. But with all these issues that we do need, some of these, we need to look at a little more closely and just make sure that things that we may have set up for a purpose, we don't undermine our purpose or so forth. And I think that being able to have conversations like this with an open mind, though, is helpful. And I think it's a good point that you made as far as to say you added a level of discomfort with it. But, but I said, I wanted to point out also that you all, with that, though, you're still trying to keep an open mind, which I think is an important part.
[00:53:22] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: And it's not a given.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: Yeah, and, and, and you're right, it's not a given. That's who I am. But, but also. And that's why I point out things like, because I said that also doesn't bleed into other groups. You know, these are the other things that. I know that a lot of minority groups find comfort in numbers. So I. I can totally appreciate it. But my feelings are specifically with transgender, not with the other letters of the LGBT or LGB community.
[00:53:49] Speaker A: I do think it is specific, actually, to this competition environment and this environment where, you know, 34 or maybe 40, 50 or 50 years ago at this point, there was a concerted effort by our society, or maybe I guess it was more than that.
NCAA, 50 years ago made that concerted effort. But, you know, where we've had this concerted effort in our society to create an entire division, to create opportunities. And so, I mean, as we mess around with that as things, I'm okay with things becoming more complex, but we don't need to look as things are head towards more complexity. We don't have to necessarily take absolute positions for our own comfort or sanity or whatever. It's good to look at issues from a lot of different angles.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: So can I say that as I get older, I don't like complexity as much as.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Hey, that's Exactly.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: That's just this topic. This is everything. Yeah, not just this topic. Everything.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: No, that's. That's how people are. I mean, people.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: I'm scared of new stuff that's complicated. Maybe that's what it is. So it's got nothing to do with transgender people. I'm just getting to be an old fart festival.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: But you recognize that, though, that's my
[00:54:54] Speaker B: way to clean up the mess I might have made for myself.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Well, no, I think we can wrap it from here, though. But, you know, we appreciate everybody for joining us on this. You know, as we, you know, talk about a. A worrying topic and then also just a second topic, just a difficult topic sometimes to talk about. So till next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:55:10] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Online. Up.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: All right. Subscribe. Rate. Review. Tell us what you think, and we'll talk to you next.
