Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to the Call It Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss the ongoing detention of WNBA star Brittney Griner in Russia, the role our government should play in trying to get her released, and how these kinds of messy geopolitical matters get even more complicated and unsettling when they're based on someone's life or liberty, or life and liberty, as opposed to things like trade policy or border disputes and borderlines.
And later on, we'll react to Elon Musk's effort to back out of his agreement to buy Twitter.
Joining me today is a man who has lived in both the northern and the southern hemispheres and is our very own international man of mystery, Tunde Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to show us your powers of intellect?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I don't know about all that, but I'm flattered.
That was great. You made me feel special.
That's a lot better than the financial planner, you know, guy I get on the Monday 9 to 5 title, that man of mystery.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: So live out your dreams, man. Through the pod.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: That's like when I'm in the Metaverse, dude, that's my dream. I'll be an international spy.
Some James Bond type. So cool. Now I'm ready to go.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Now you're ready. You're fired up now.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Let's go.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Now we're recording this on July 11, 2022, and we've been following for several months what has been going on with seven time WNBA all star and two time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner and her detention in Russia. Briefly, to sum up the overall arc, she was initially detained all the way back in February, on February 17, 2022, after officials at a airport near Moscow claimed to have found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.
Now, she's been held in Russia since then with minimal contact with her family and loved ones here in the US and more recently, we've had some some formal things happening. On July 1, her trial began with prosecutors charging her with carrying a vape cartridges with traces of cannabis oil. And on July 7, she pled guilty to the charges, but claimed she didn't. She'd lacked the intent to commit a crime. So at this point, now we're waiting, everyone's waiting to see what will happen and if our government will be able to do anything to bring her home.
So to get us started, Tunde, what are your thoughts on Griner being held in Russia? And do you think the Biden administration and our diplomatic community is and has been doing enough to help her?
[00:03:07] Speaker B: I'll start with the second question.
I don't know if they've been doing enough or not because I haven't been involved with that process. That's clearly negotiation for citizens of one country that are held in jail in another country are usually done behind doors by said government. So I don't know what they're doing or not.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: A lot happens that's not a lot of media posturing.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Type of thing.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Correct. So my point is, I think on purpose both countries keep those kind of negotiations quiet because.
And I'll go back now to answer the first part, just my general thought, you know, I think you said something very specific to me that, or not to me, but in your intro, which was she was found to have had like a trace amounts of this cannabis related oil in her vape.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: I think it's like less than a gram according to Russia.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: So clearly it's not like she was trafficking, you know, a kilo of drugs to go sell in Russia and all that. So my point is it appears from the outside, especially looking at our culture as Americans and our legal system, that this is a little bit overblown.
And understanding that she was detained in, I think March of this year was reported March 5th. Yeah. But it actually detained in February.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: We found out that it was actually February 17th when she actually did get detained.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: Yeah. My point is, is that that was exactly a week before the invasion of Ukraine. Yeah. So because I think that was on the 24th, the invasion of February. And so the point is, is that knowing the Russian government and how they've operated for years, this appears to me more on its face that, you know, they were throwing a lot of lines out there, understanding that they were going to go to war. And this was one of the lines they cast as probably a just in case, you know, like, hey, you got somebody that we can turn into some sort of conversation with the US Government when the time comes. And the fact that she is somewhat of a notable person in the United States, meaning, you know, she's a sports figure who is well known amongst people that follow basketball and especially WNBA and college basketball as well, which is well followed here, women's basketball in college, that maybe we can disrupt the narrative in the United States if we detain her here while we're doing this excursion and maybe get something in exchange for her like they've done with other Americans they've detained.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: So yeah, it seems like it would be Like a preemptive type of leverage play.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: You know, and so. And that, to me, I think you combine all that, actually. And my initial reaction is just to feel really bad for her and her loved ones. Like, and that's what I kind of alluded to that in the intro. It's just like these geopolitical kind of disputes. This stuff happens all the time. Like, in terms of, oh, you know, you guys did this, or, you know, trade policies, tariffs, borders, you know, specifics of borderlines or claims to water resource or this or that. And so all of these discussions, all of these plays for leverage and stuff like that is happening all the time. But anytime it happens to a person and a person becomes that. That geopolitical football, basically, and it's like, hey, we're going to use this person to try to advance our nation's interest or to try to put this other nation in a compromising position. It's terrible. It's heartbreaking to see that, because she certainly didn't sign up to become some. Some pawn in Russia's game, say, hey, we're going to invade this country, so we want to, you know, let's grab her and then see if we can extract a concession out eventually for letting her, you know, for. For. For having her. And so that, to me, is where I. I always start with this. It's just like, that's. That. That's. It's just. It's really messed up that she has to go through that as a part of Russia's game, so to speak.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: And, you know, like. And in terms of the Biden administration, our diplomatic community, you're correct, there's no way to know if they're doing enough. But I would say that with things like this, most likely, like, it doesn't appear that it's completely on the back burner like that they don't care at all. But it's a touchy type of thing because Russia is specifically using this to try to create problems for the administration. And so you're almost. They're limited in terms of how much they can do anyway, because it is, on its face, a trap. It is, on its face, a way to compromise you. And so, on one hand, you're trying to. There's the human aspect. It's like, yo, she doesn't deserve this. We got to do more for her. But what you can do, Russia knows that. So they're specifically asking for or demanding things that they know you're not going to do, or they know that you would be very disinclined to do, like, and so doing enough probably isn't the best way even to ask that question.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It's a tough question to ask because I think for some that I've seen that are more aggressive in the way they'd like to, in their verbiage of how they'd like the administration to respond in preparing for today, I started thinking like, yeah, what is the ultimate enough? I mean, the ultimate enough would literally be sending in a Navy SEALs 6 team again in a stealth helicopter like they did from bin Laden and you know, go, you know, just storm into this jail. I mean, like, that would be the.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Tanks on the border and be like, turn her over or we're invading. Like, that's the.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: No, but that's what I'm saying. That would be the ultimate, like, what do you do? And that's my point is saying, okay, and this is where it's such a terrible way to discuss this, right? Because she, like you said, she's a human being that's sitting there, at least in our opinion, as the American side unfairly been in prison for what looks like bs, Right?
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Well, and she didn't sign up for, she's not even like in the military or in the intelligence game. Like, she didn't sign up in this kind of stuff. And so, and like, honestly, the reason I did ask it enough in that sense is because I wanted to get to the point that whether, whether the Biden administration is doing enough is probably depends more on your own personal connection to this or your, how you feel about this. You know, the greater you feel from an emotional standpoint, like, this is inexcusable, this is something then they're not going to be doing enough. But the more rational, so to speak, and that's not to say rational is better or emotional is worse, because if you're, if you're her wife, I mean, of course it's better for you to be emotional about it. Like, but in any event, if you're more rational about it, you understand that this is something that there is no real direct path. Russia is trying to make this difficult, you know, like, so it's like, oh, well, doing enough is keeping, keep the pressure on, so eventually you get her back. And whether it happens in three months or six months or a year, in the, in the kind of diplomatic game, those are just, those are reasonable time frames, you know, like, and, but to us, it's like a year. What, like, somebody must have did something wrong if it takes A year. But like I said, from it, from diplomatic standpoint, that's not really that long compared to how long these kind of things drag out.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Well, no, that's a good point, because there's an American, another American named Paul Whelan, who was detained and imprisoned in Russia in 2018 on accusations that he was a spy when he was there for his friend's wedding. And there's no. I mean, obviously, I guess if he was a spy, we wouldn't know that. Right. That's the idea of a clandestine officer, that he's not gonna be advertised to the rest of us as a spy. But, you know, looking at his background, which I did in preparation for the show and all that, it doesn't appear that he had that kind of military service. And he was actually dishonorably discharged from the marines for stealing 10 grand.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: Yeah, not like.
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Like that's what I mean.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: Like, oh, yeah, this guy's serious. Guy makes him kind of look not serious.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And he also was found to be lying on several job applications about where he worked and things like that. So it's just, you know, it just doesn't seem like the kind of guy that was. That was steeped in the intelligence community for. For his career. Long story short, the reason I bring it up is because, as you said, this guy's been detained since 2018, and, you know, the Trump administration was diplomatically trying to get him released, and now the Biden administration is. And it's been four years, and it takes a long time, like you're saying. And so I think it's interesting, this Griner case, because, like, as you said, even I remember first hearing about Paul Whelan a few years ago, and before I looked into him in preparation for the show, I just assumed, oh, he's an ex Marine. Maybe he wasn't Marine intelligence or something, you know, and just maybe he was part of this whole kind of thing, and he should have known better than to go to Russia as an ex US Military guy, you know, that they. He. He might be a reason. That might be a reason for them to detain him for whatever reason. And to your point about Brittney Griner, that's where it kind of just really looks suspect. When they did this to a basketball star who had already been in and out of that country many times, who's played there, who's earned a lot of money playing in the Russian professional league. And I'm sure if she went there with a vape pen that has some cannabis in it, it's probably not the first time, meaning her. Her way of being in that country probably didn't change on this trip, is my point. And so what I'm saying is that's where I think this got the public a little bit more disturbed in terms of the public that follows basketball and things like that, and maybe more on, let's say, getting to the periphery of that, maybe LGBT rights as well, because she is a member of that community.
My point is, is that they usually aren't steeped. Those type of fans usually aren't steeped in geopolitics. So I think maybe there's a lot of people that don't realize the messiness of this kind of stuff and how long this can take, but it is totally unfair to her. It appears from the outside that she is now a pawn in this game, in a geopolitical game. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of the conversation. The Russians trying to use her as leverage for what? We're supporting the Ukrainians with, you know, billions of dollars of military equipment, blah, blah, blah.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Oh, I mean, it's no coincidence that it happened a week before they invaded. Like, we didn't know they were going to invade on that day, but they did, you know, so there's no coincidence. That's not a coincidence. And, yeah, I mean, I think you're right in terms of Russia. Like, the intelligence analysts on our side that are looking at this are saying, like, yeah, what? This is a technique that you do, and so you use her. She's like a higher leverage target, so to speak. And the objective being to have people that are close to her or have feel they have a more connection to her, to turn on United States and say, hey, you know, you're abandoning her. And we've seen that. You know, we've seen some reports now, I think her wife has been. Her wife, understandably, is emotional, but by and large, I know initially she was on board with how the State Department was going about it, and more recently, it seems to be that she's on board. But I know there was a background.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: She wasn't. You just clarify, because you said she was on board both times, which.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: No, initially. And then there was a time period when she did seem to be questioning whether or not. And I think some of that was justified because, remember, there was the issue where the Griner was trying to call, and then the embassy didn't have anybody working on it.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: The State Department dropped the ball for sure.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: They dropped the ball there. So that would make anybody start Questioning like, hold up, are you guys. But her previous statements, if you go back months, seem to be kind of understand that and be on board with the State Department and her more recent, you know, last week or so have been kind of on board with the State Department. And in between, there seemed to be some friction there. But we've seen women's basketball coach, you sent this to me where she's like saying, oh, if this was a male athlete or if this was not a person of color, or if this was a person who was straight, then the administration would be treating it differently.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Can I help you for a second?
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Oh, please, please, go ahead.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: No, her quote was, specifically, this shows that the Biden administration that they don't care about blacks, gays or women. She said it like that. And what I'm saying is, that's what I mean is, I guess your focus is your reality because she, I mean, not to knock her, right, but she's a basketball coach, so clearly she hasn't really spent much time following these type of topics in geopolitics. Because that's my point. Like, if she did, she'd know that you don't. Trying to do anything with Russia in the middle of a war when they're on the other side of this conflict probably isn't going to be fast. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: I mean, and honestly, you remember when we talked about this offline, I was like, well, man, I mean, like, if anything, you know, like, conceivably if this was LeBron James, then Russia would be holding it over heads even more, you know, like, so it's not one of those things, at least to me, from the outside, it doesn't appear like, oh, she's getting like, our country is not taking it as seriously because of who it is. It's still a prominent person. Like, just. And again, this isn't the first consideration, but it's still embarrassing to the United States and it's still a feather in Russia's mind in their cap that they have this to hold over the United States. So, I mean, to me it's. Well, no, go ahead, go ahead.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: No, one other thing. Cause I wanted to kind of say that because we have so many Americans. And look, I can appreciate in the last 10 years, with social media, the Internet, there's a lot more information for all of us to digest. And naturally that means a lot of people have a lot more opinions than they may have before. And a lot of people feel like they're experts. You know, it's kind of that dumb.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Part of that though also is that people's focus narrows and so they have a less well rounded understanding of.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point too.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: That they're not more narrowed of just this particular band of, okay, here's where.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: My focus is, because they're going down rabbit holes. And part of the Dunning Kruger effect, which we've mentioned on the show previously in other conversations about psychology, is that, you know, when people feel they have, that they're very knowledgeable about something, they're actually not that knowledgeable about. And I think that's, you know, our.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Well, it's summed up really, it's a bias that basically it results in the whole little knowledge is dangerous, you know, because essentially people who have, who lack or I should say, who have a smaller amount of expertise tend to overestimate their level of expertise. You know, like, the more, you know, a lot of times, the more you realize that you need that. Where the holes are in your logic are the holes in your knowledge. The less you know, you don't even know that. You don't even recognize what you don't know.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And so, and the reason why I have a tough time sometimes bringing that specific psychological condition up is because it sounds condescending, because it kind of sounds, oh, you know, these people don't know what they're talking about. But what I think it is, like you said, it's a little bit of knowledge can be sometimes more dangerous than no knowledge. Because people then take that little bit of knowledge they have and go, you know, let's say they, between 0 and 100, they have 5% of knowledge. They'll take that 5% and allow that to occupy the remaining 95% of potential information. Yeah, and so, and so it's, it's how conspiracies get started, all that kind of stuff. And so one thing that, because I, the reason why I thought to bring this up is because what my point is, we have so many Americans now that are bitter about our country. They, they, no matter what side, left and right, they, they, everyone's crying about all these problems we have and all this stuff. And what this Russia thing made me appreciate was, you know, we're still the best dumpster fire on a block full of dumpster fires in that sense. And so what happens is we have the ability of due process in this country, and in Russia, they don't. So someone like this can be arrested, not given. I mean, she's given an attorney in this case, but she doesn't have to be in that country. And they can lock her up for however long they want. They could, they could say this is a life sentence if they wanted to. They're saying 10 or 15 years, I think. But I think a lot of Americans, a lot of.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Oh, no, I was gonna say a lot of people have a lot of, again, experts who look at these things are like, actually the trial isn't Russia convicts 99% of people. Like the trial is for show to make everyone say, okay, yeah, she had a fair shot or whatever. And that gets into why she pled guilty is that they're trying to work on her getting a lesser sentence. It'd be an easier to maybe do a prisoner transfer back to the United States. Like they're working bigger pictures here as far as her team over there and here trying to get her home. But I think I wanted to go back to what you brought up about what the coach, the women's coach said, because remember I mentioned to you this offline, that statement struck me as a person with an agenda that is using this occurrence to push that agenda. Because she also brought up the issue of, of pay equity and how, and how women aren't paid as much. And so that's why they have to go barnstorming or go play in all these different locations around the world to get more money. And I know you had some things you wanted to say on that, but I thought that it's interesting though, because that gets thrown out, but it always gets thrown out because it's agenda related.
It's divorced from context. It's never like, oh well, the women get paid so much less. That's messed up. But it's never like, oh well, do you know their league earns less? You know, there's much less revenue. Their league operates at a loss, whereas the, the, the NBA doesn't. And so while you would want proportionally things to be fair, for sure, you can't necessarily snap your fingers in a market system like this and say, well, you know, if this league is generating 1 million and this league is generating 1 billion, that, and I'm just giving an example with the numbers that the people who work in both sides should be paid the same, you know, and so like, but again, proportionally, definitely that's what we want to strive for is whatever the leagues are bringing in, we want people to be paid proportionately, if that's what a basketball player is worth of the revenue, so to speak. But I know you, I want to open it up for you because I know you had some thoughts that you want to get in on that?
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting the, the, you know, because I thought when I heard that. It's exactly what I thought. Oh, here we go. It's agenda time. And everybody can get caught into having agendas from all sides of discussion. So clearly, you know, that's not a knock on her personally. She feels passionate about this topic. But not all of these are the same. So to your point, is there a such thing as pay inequity between men and women in the United States? In certain areas, yes. I mean corporate America, we've all seen the kind of data and the stats where a man and a woman would be doing the exact same job in the exact same company and the man's paid 25% more just because he's a dude and his boy was the guy who hired him or something like that. So that exists. But to your point in this.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: And that's bad, you know, like nobody's.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: Acknowledging that it does exist in some areas. But I think in this area of sports, which is like you're saying, truly like those of us that enjoy the market based systems, this is the ultimate market based system. Because as you said, I think it's pretty obvious that the NBA has a much higher revenue annually as a league and then per team, blah blah blah than the WNBA. And that's not a knock on the WNBA, it's just that the NBA year.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: Heads or 50 year head start.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And it just attracts more fans, period. And for whatever reason anyone wants to think it's just a fact that more eyeballs watch the NBA on TV so that those channels that play those games at that time can charge more for ads than during B A games. And then the second thing is, you know, the stadiums get fuller on NBA games. They'll fill up 20,000 sea stadiums for every game where that's not the case for wnba. So it's not to say that the women don't deserve to get paid as much as men, is that the league itself doesn't bring in the same kind of revenue so they can't afford to pay the same. So that's number one. So it's not about female discrimination in that case. The second, and I'll pass it back to you for a second here, was what we identified as kind of Russia and other countries. I just don't want to pick on Russia for this because who we discussed the similarity to the live golf tournament that we discussed a couple of weeks ago that Russia also does sports Washington. And that's why they're paying, literally, they're paying these women, some of them, a million dollars a year to come and play in Russia. And so the coach was kind of saying, well, if we had pay equity here in the United States and women could generate the same level of pay as men in these professional sports, or.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: How come they're getting paid so much over there and not over here?
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Yeah, she wouldn't have had to go to Russia to earn this pay. And that's again, first of all, the stuff we said about, well, you know, the leagues don't generate enough for them to get paid a million dollars a year. And the other thing is the teams in Russia are owned by the same oligarchs who are getting sanctioned now. They all got their money dirty. So you got guys literally making half a billion to a billion dollars a year in income. And a part of that income they use to sports wash. You know, they want to make themselves look good and look like magnanimous people that own sports teams and own newspapers and own these other things.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: In the same way, like you said with the live golf tournament, where their interest when they have a women's team isn't necessarily profit.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: It's reputation management. So, yeah. So when the coach asked, well, how come they can get paid a million dollars in Russia and only 100,000 or 200,000 here? And it's like, well, that's the reason, you know, like that money is blood money to some. Some degree.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah, but no, that's a great point. I want to say of the live, because I didn't think that way, that. Because when we did this show, we did talk about how they were going to have a loss. Yeah, but Saudi Arabia. Yeah, the Saudis have so much money, they don't care if they're losing. For now, I'm sure in the long run they will, but. Because if they can just get enough attention in 10 years, they'll make a profit. More money, more money than they need on this.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: But remember, the concept of sports washing, though, at its core is that profit is secondary. The biggest thing is to attach yourself to something that's popular so that when people think of you, they think of the popular thing and not the other stuff that you're known for, what you do. And so. And I do. I want to look at, just briefly, though, in connection with this. Like, you see something like this, you also see something like in Saudi Arabia, the White House now looking to move past, at least in some respects, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist, the Washington Post Journalist that was murdered by Saudi.
The rulers there, or at least allegedly, and they want to reset relations with Saudi Arabia. And people say, oh, oil, this, this, you know, and all that kind of things.
But why do you think these. These types of seeing these kind of international machinations always seem to leave us, or oftentimes at least seem to leave us just dissatisfied. Like, it's never. We don't see these types of things and be like, ah, yeah, you know, that's just how it is. You know, we got to keep it moving or, you know, bottom line, you know, bottom line business. Like, it's always the. The it always feel it either is dirty or it feels dirty. And, you know, it's just like, what do you think? What do you think's going on there?
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Well, I think that's just. I think this is messy. There's no other way to kind of look at it.
Clearly the Saudis are, you know, one of these kind of interesting allies where we're not, you know, we don't have really an antagonistic relationship with them. But I mean, without really pointing the finger. Right. Everyone kind of acknowledges that they were the ones behind Wasabi, sorry, Wahhabi Islam, which led to Al Qaeda, which, you.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: Know, they are not behind Wasabi. I will not have any Wasabi slander.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: You're right. Those are the Japanese. And that's sushi, sir. I apologize. That's. It is. Yes, we are.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: But no Wahhabism. No. Go ahead, go ahead.
[00:26:15] Speaker B: So. No. So. So we all know that they kind of are this murky place. Yeah.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: With all that, we don't have an adversarial relationship with them because we choose not to have an adversarial relationship. If we wanted to, we could come up with. We could point to reasons why we would.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: No. And it comes down to, obviously, we know that there's strength in the oil market and just all this kind of stuff that I think is well known in the history at this point. So that's what makes this weird because it's an interesting thing you make. We don't have an adversarial relationship because we choose not to. Because remember when we did the show where we talked about theocracies? They are one of only seven theocracies in the world. Every other theocracy, we tend to look down on countries like Iran. Right. Like, you know, and we always say how bad they are. Saudi Arabia got religious police walking the street ready to cane you if you are not, you know, obeying Sharia law in whatever capacity on the street. Remember Women just got the right to drive in 2018. So before that, we went into Afghanistan. Besides the bin Laden thing, remember all that stuff on the News back in 0102 about the women and the burqas and we're going to go change their lives. We never did that to Saudi Arabia. So there's a.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: They got people in political prisons. They got all of this.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the ultimate authoritarian regime because it's not only a theocracy, it's also a monarchy, unlike at least Iran. They have elections and they're more of a theocratic democracy.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: Saudi Arabia. Right. It's Saudi Arabia because it's the House of Saud.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Yeah. It's their country. Literally.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Family.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it's their. It's like the House of Windsor. If you change the name of Great Britain to just this is Windsor land, you know, like, you know, charge, actually. Yeah. And so. And so. And so I think you're right that it feels messy because it's another reminder to us that we have to be in bed with a country that has a different culture and a different way of playing than. We like to see things done on the surface, and we're okay if someone's assassinated behind the scenes, but this was kind of sloppy because it was done kind of out in the open. And let's not forget Jamal Khashoggi was a U.S. resident. He wasn't a citizen, and he worked for the Washington Post. So he was also, I think, you know, because he was. He lived in America and all that. I think a lot of people felt like, hey, man, this is kind of one of our guys. What are you doing just killing him just because he's criticizing your country? And I think, again, going back to our founding and our. And our laws, we don't understand that because we do have freedom of speech. And as much as people think we've got this hot political discourse and all that, I mean, the choice is, would you rather be able to say something and maybe hear something you don't like from an opponent politically, or would you rather have the Saudi Arabian style where if Joe Biden doesn't like what you're saying, then he's just going to send someone to assassinate you. And if it's, you know, and if the Republican wins, if it's the next time in 24, it's Republican and you're a Democrat and he doesn't like all that stuff. Right.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: He'll have you killed or have you audited by the IRS or something like that.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: So. Yeah. So.
So My point is, is that we don't. Again, it's another way for us to say that freedom of speech, the, the freedom to criticize your own government is something we so take for granted. And we cry as if our country is so oppressive when it's not. You know what I mean? It's not.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: But we do have a problem with it, so to speak. When we see it in other countries, when we see someone out there killing a journalist, we're like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. But at the same time, we say.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: We hate journalists here.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. We don't seem to appreciate it. What makes that happen here. So you made a good point to me earlier about this and I want to reference it. And that was just. You talk about how, you were talking about how people just really like simplicity at their core. And I think that really is like, this is, like you said, this is just messy. Geopolitics is messy. And so these types of things. And I think when it involves a person and not just some, some issue, you know, some more abstract concept, it really gets into us because there is these, without the simplicity, there is no outcome that'll happen that you'll just feel great about. Like, oh, okay, yeah, you know, it was tough, but we made it through these things. It'll take time, and that time you can't get back, you know, and like Khashoggi's wife doesn't like deserve this, you know, like, I mean, Khashoggi didn't deserve this, or Khashoggi, excuse me, but he doesn't deserve, he didn't deserve this. His wife doesn't deserve this now and so, and then. But Biden, they're, they're moving on. Like Russia's starting wars in the world and we got oil is at it. Like, we got to make sure there's a supply of oil. And so they're like, we got to go where that is. So it's, it's kind of like, it reminds us of that how, how things can't just be simple and clean. Like, oh, well, if you don't stand for this, then we just won't do business with you and yada, yada, yada. Yeah, it, that's kind of like that, that's, that's the kind of the six year old approach to, to, to geopolitics. But for grownups, it doesn't always work out like that. And so, I mean, I think that's, that's why it always leaves us feeling a certain way though, because we see these things, we have A problem with them. But it's almost like from a grownup standpoint, there's certain things you definitely can have principled stands, but there's going to be trade offs. And a lot of times those trade offs are not things that we're either prepared to or able to make. And so we end up trading off on these principles and say, all right, well, we don't love it, but we're going to do this. And then that's automatically going to leave you feeling a certain way.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think to me, the concern I would have going forward is it's only going to get more complex with things like geopolitics, as resources have become more scarce due to climate change, as we're seeing with droughts. We're about to have the stuff hit the fan in this country. Out west, they were talking about with this Lake Mead drying up, that we might see rolling blackouts in the Southwest and the western United States this summer. So my point is that as things like this continue to break down, people are going to be looking for answers. And that's where those who have simplicity and who have the gumption and the cojones to go out there and speak that way are going to rule the day. And that means most likely authoritarians. I mean, that's because it feels easy. Yeah. Like, oh, let's build a wall. Well, that sounds easy.
You don't want to talk about the complexities of. Well, they're going to keep coming. If we don't have the State Department, USA idea, maybe go to those countries and stop the conditions that are causing these people to come here. Because splitting up the kids at the border didn't work. Clearly the conditions there are so bad in these countries that no matter what we do, they're going to keep coming.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: They're willing to risk it all. Yeah.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: If they build a wall to figure out a way to get above it or below it, you know, there's always. You can't keep.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah, like, that was.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Hold on.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: That was.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: The Berlin Wall. Didn't work. You know what I mean?
[00:33:06] Speaker A: But that was always one thing that blew my mind about this. Like, these people are traveling on foot or like, and not for like two months, for months. And it's like, we build a wall, I guess they'll just get there and like.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: War zones, I think.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: I think. Yeah. And so. And that's my point. Like, it's not to knock people that have a concern. As I've said many times on this show, I believe in secure borders, in A nation's sovereignty. I don't want open borders, all that. But there's just.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: But the thing is, to your point, you should. We should have a concern. But the concern. The secondary thing on that is that. Oh, no. Well, we need to come up with answers. And simple answers, a lot of times can capture attention.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and that's why the last point I make here is just a reminder of some recent things that have been in the media the last few years. Remember A$AP Rocky being detained in Switzerland.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Or Sweden. Sorry. Because he got into a fight and broke their laws. And that became a big thing where our president was all up in there, up in arms, trying to, you know. But hey, that's Swedish law.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: And that. Well, but in that one is particular because that's a country we have good relations with.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: You know, and so. And that was. So they were. Their government would be inclined to try to us out. And there still had to be a process for that to happen.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: And the other one I mentioned quickly here is if the listeners remember, in 2019, I believe, the CFO of the company Huawei, the Chinese chip and I guess telecom type of company, Internet company, was detained and arrested in Canada. She happens to also be the daughter of the founder of the company and it's the largest company of this type in China. So that would be equivalent to Bill Gates, his daughter, being arrested in China if she just went there to visit.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: And if, you know. And then she was in prison in Canada for two years.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Speaker B: And my point is, is that. Imagine if China invaded Canada over that. You know, I mean, I'm sure they were pretty upset about.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah. They grabbed a couple of Canadians, too, and locked them up and. Yeah, I mean, that's.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. If you're paying attention to this stuff, this isn't a surprise that Brittney Griner's been in jail for four months and is not out. Like this stuff. Like you're saying it doesn't happen fast, that these things get. Get settled.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's a good example too, because that was at our behest. Like Canada grabbed her and held her on and then we're looking to extradite her and then they released her once she came to an agreement with our U.S. authorities.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: And so, like, think about how messy that is.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: That would be like. That would be like Hungary detaining a basketball player on behalf of Russia.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: And then us having to negotiate with the Russians to get this person out of a Hungarian jail. Yeah, I mean, that's what I mean. So all these games are played when you get to that level. And it's a dangerous game. That's a dangerous game. Unfortunate for her. She's a pawn for sure. This isn't her. Like, well, that's. Then that's.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: I think that's the point. Like, it's the real messed up part. This stuff happens. But the real it'd be we wouldn't have the same emotional attachment and really the same level of concern if this was just over a trade policy. If this was like, oh, you guys got to drop this tariff, you know, and it's like, yeah, yeah, talk tough to him and go get them. But when it's a person, it's just like, you know, there's no good feeling out of that. It's just like, you know, it's just unfortunate. You hate to see it, but I do, I do want to move us on. You know, something else happened in the past few days which was very interesting and something we, you and I have talked about it just back and forth a little bit, but I wanted to discuss with you on the show, and that's Elon Musk. Now, initially recall he had bought some shares of Twitter and didn't actually comply with all the regulations in doing that and built up his holdings and then got on the board and then ultimately submitted an offer to buy them and signed a binding agreement to do so. And now, just to put it politely, and I'll let you get more into the details, the market conditions have changed, and so now he is trying to get out of that deal. And this is going to lead to just, I mean, I can tell you as an attorney, this is going to just lead to a lot of negotiations and some settlement, most likely eventually, with the everybody being a little upset, but you know, whether he's paying some money or something like that. But nonetheless, seeing Elon Musk trying to back out of this agreement to buy Twitter and Twitter's apparent intention to force him to honor the agreement. And again, like I said, that's most likely a bargaining position. But what's your reaction to seeing this?
[00:37:30] Speaker B: You know what I'm reminded of, Remember when it first got announced in the first quarter? And what did I tell you? I said, why the hell is this guy buying a tech company in a rising rate environment?
I was like, if you understand that part of the game, the system, rising rates always kill growth companies in the short run. I mean, long term, it all works out. But I was just thinking, man, this stock's going to get pummeled with the rest of the Nasdaq. And it's like that played out. So it's just interesting to me that going into it just without even understanding the whole Twitter and how it's made up and what the valuation is and all that, I was just thinking, this guy's trying to buy a tech company in the middle of a sell off in tech. Due to rising rates and growth, companies are getting killed. Now this guy's gonna overpay for it no matter what if he's bidding 50 for a share at the time. Because at the time I think it was at 40 or 40, like 41 or 44. Yeah.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Low to mid-40s. And he was way overbidden.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So had he offered 40, you know, a dollar over what the share price was and let's say, you know, they dropped another 10% from there. You could say, okay, you know, he's got enough money overpaid, but he was already way, you know. Yeah. And I just, I just kind of look at it as.
It's funny, I'm not that wealthy, but I kind of look at guys like him.
I'm like, no, I get why your.
[00:38:52] Speaker A: Caveat is you're not as wealthy as the wealthiest man in the world.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: No, no, what I'm saying, a joke here is now I kind of get why the old money always hates the new money.
Because I feel like this guy's all new money all day. I mean, look, I don't really know what's going on. I appreciate that he might force some transparency into the bot thing with Twitter and the whole thing, but I really don't like the way he's going about it. I think it's sloppy. If I was a shareholder of either Twitter or Tesla, I'd be beside myself right now.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: If I was a big. I'm talking a large stakeholder, not 100 shares. But if I. Yeah, if it was a big part of my thing, if I owned a hedge fund or a mutual fund, I had a big holding, I'd be really upset because the Twitter stock was. I'm sorry, the Tesla stock was gyrating initially because there was concerns like, hold on, you're going to leave this baby you created and that you've been running to go run this one? That's might. That might hurt Tesla.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: And then when he started doing all this public kind of back and forth about what he wanted to do with Twitter, then the Twitter share started suffering. And it's kind of like as a shareholder that's how I'm looking at it. Number one, I'd be like, dude, what are you doing? You're supposed to be serious guy paying attention to this stuff.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: Number two, as a guy that's in this industry and understands it and enjoys it and likes kind of likes the regulations that came after the crash of 29 to create more transparency and more trust with the public, I think that's the important key.
I don't like what I'm seeing because what he runs the risk of doing is derailing certain parts of the trust.
And I also don't think it's fair because it's like some of the behavior of other well known public figures today. And I mean, in this recent era, we're in this last couple years, what they're going to do is force the system to have to do something in a very public way and it might be painful for the country. Like what Elon Musk is doing is playing a game of chicken with the securities Exchange Commission, the sec.
And he's either going to force them to look bad because they don't do anything, which is going to derail public trust, potentially trust and the institutions, which is bad, or they're going to. He's going to force them to have to do this big reprimand and all that, which may cause distrust for the kind of. A lot of the people in the country that feel that there's too much regulation, the government's too mean and bad and they don't. People don't understand the importance of these kind of regulations in the financial industry specifically.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: And I think how habitually he has skirted these lines as well. Like if the SEC or I mean, if they're looking at enforcing law, securities laws on them, I mean, no matter what, whether it's regulation, whether it's law, if they come down hard. And that's actually that, that's my big takeaway is like he's going to keep doing stuff until he either breaks the SEC and they just give up and say, look, you're too big for us, we can't do anything. Or the SEC hits him so hard that it's going. That's going to create a ripple effect. And, and so to me, it reminds me that so many of our systems are built in a way where you kind of people have to play in good faith. Like there are systems can be str. Broken if actors, large scale actors, big, big time actors, are willing to go after something, consequences be damned. And so, and I think you were kind of indicating this as well. Like, you see this in the political arena. As far as our democratic systems, they only work if everybody kind of agrees to abide by certain things. Like, once people start saying, you know what, no matter what, if I lose, I'm going to say that I won. And if I only got 2% of the vote, I'm still going to say that I won and it was cheated. Like, so once you, once that becomes the thing and it's like, because that way I can create maximum leverage, I can extract concessions out of the guy who won and then, you know, get something else out of it once. We're not going to engage in those types of things in good faith and really demand that our fellow citizens do as well. I mean, and that's really the thing, like, because it's not everybody that's skirting the rules, but when we see these people who are habitually skirting the rules, always playing, coloring outside the lines is a term you use a lot of times. And we see that we should want the system to rein that in because that is what the system is built on. We can't have these systems that are built basically on consent, on all of us agreeing to operate in a certain way or within certain bounds. In my profession, we see it, you know, like when, when attorneys go start lying and doing all this crazy stuff. I want the bar there, the bar, you know, the bar.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: I want the SEC hammering Bernie Madoff. You know, I don't him in business because it hurts people like me that are trying to do it. Right. Because the public needs to be able to trust those of us who are in these positions of service. Like, like you're saying, you know, and that's kind of my point, James, and I'm going to digress quickly, but it'll be quick because I felt exactly this way. And I'm not going to name name, because everyone can go look this stuff up, right? But. And I'm not going to name the names on purpose for the gravity of it. Right. The Supreme Court's an important place in our society, right. The nine people, justices that make important decisions for our country. We recently discovered lifetime appointments and all that. We recently discovered this year that there's one justice on the court whose spouse his wife was texting and it's in writing, the chief of staff of a president of the United States to try and overturn an election that there was no proof that there was any, any, any issues with and that, you know, was a fair election.
My point, you know, I felt the same way when all that came out, because I thought what a self centered people these people are of how selfish because they're so worried self centered about themselves. Oh, you know, I didn't win, my side didn't win. And I'm gonna try and, you know, do all this stuff that they're forcing this country to have to make these choices. Right. Because if, think about it, if you don't do anything about that. Yeah, It'll continue and it's gonna destroy this country because people are gonna continue to behave that way who are already in positions of power or spouses of them.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: It's a signal that encourages that. It encourages that. So if you don't demand it, you encourage more of the same.
[00:45:09] Speaker B: Just like not reprimanding a child that's having a tantrum. Right. But if you then go after this justice's wife and say, hey, you gotta come in and go to court and explain what the hell were you talking about there? Because you're kind of in an influential position being the wife of a Supreme Court justice and you're sitting there because you have access, because me and you can't text the chief of staff or the President, United States. I'm pretty sure a lot of people wouldn't be giving her access if she wasn't the wife of a Supreme Court justice.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: So my point is just.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: And the ability to exert pressure.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Correct. So my point in digressing there is saying that what this all leads to me to believe when I'm seeing all this, this last kind of five to seven years of our life, of this kind of disruption of our norms is. It's unfortunate, but we've talked about this in other shows that America is a beautiful experiment because it was an experiment in the Constitution is supposed to be what is held in the highest esteem. And what I've seen in this last few years, this goes back, I'll bring it back to Elon Musk is idolatry. And I'm not a religious guy, man. And I'm seeing idolatry. I'm seeing golden calves all over the place. Idolatry in politics, idolatry now with the Supreme Court, idolatry with people like Elon Musk because he's got 100 million Twitter followers and people are starting to follow him like he is the guy that knows what the hell he's talking about. And that's my concern, is that the SEC might be scared to go after him because of his public Persona. And what's that going to do is promote the next guy to come out and be one of these kind of loudmouth guys with a lot of money. And we've already seen a lot of them in public, whether they're entertainers.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: But it's a moral, it's a moral hazard because you actually, that shows that that is the blueprint. Being buttoned up, being, being someone who is, has integrity, being someone who doesn't, you know, like, try to blow everything up. If they don't get their way, that person won't get respect. But the person who will try to blow everything up if they don't get what they want is the person that everybody's using with kid gloves because they don't want to work. They don't. The people who would do something about it don't want them to blow up the system. And so, and the thing to me about the, the musk Twitter thing, it always struck me I didn't have the level of the depth of knowledge as you, as far as saying, hey, this environment might not be the best thing. But it always struck me as something that was more impulsive than anything. And so it's not a huge surprise if you're impulsive one way that you might be impulsive and say, hey, you know what, screw that, and I'll just get myself out of it some way. But the thing is, is that being impulsive, like you said, when people are, when we have idolatry, then the people who are following you don't see that as impulsive. They're just looking at what you did and they're supporting that. And if somebody stands in your way, then they're showing up with pitchforks because, oh, why are you standing in the way? Regardless of whether on the merits what you were trying to do made sense or was something that was justified or legitimate. And so that kind of personality that will, you know, just kick the rules out, screw the rules. I don't care if you come at me. I'm just going to come back at you even harder because it embodies and put a different way than what you just said. This win at all costs mentality and our systems are the things that are going to be. The cost basically is screw these things. I just got to. I got to have it. I got to have mine. And so, you know, in this deal, basically, from what I understand, the binding agreement that must sign has a billion dollar penalty for him to back out. And it's like, well, now if he wanted to be, if he just wanted to get out of it, he could.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: Just pay that billion dollars.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: But of course he's not going to do that. He's going to threaten this and threaten that.
[00:48:47] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: That's how the legal system now, let me say that's how the legal system works to a certain degree is you create, you try to create leverage and then do a settlement. I'm not going to pay a billion. Hey, because you did this, you did that, even if you're full of it, you know, like, and you say, but I'll give you 600 million, you know, like, so I get a negotiation and all. But it, this one here, it's so transparent that it wasn't really that serious in the beginning. You know, it was always kind of, it was always some gamesmanship going on. And so it's, it's really corrosive. Like. And I think you put it well to the trust that we can have in our, in our systems.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: No, that's why, in my opinion, because I'm laughing because when you said, yeah, and he'll negotiate down to 600 million and then the additional be. Yeah, and paid over 20 years.
So that's how they all get settled out, of course. But no, I mean, honestly, I mean, I usually am not this emphatic and how I feel about something, but I definitely, you know, I hope this guy gets reprimanded by the SEC in our system. I mean, this is, if this is the precedent that is beginning to get set by the new rich guys that all have a few billion from these, all these tech deals over the last few years. You know, this is going to be a disaster in. Because there is, look, it's interesting, I was joking with My son, my 11 year old about etiquette because we were away last week and we were somewhere. Oh no, that's when we were playing mini golf.
And then I started getting all serious about etiquette. He starts hitting the ball when he's not. So, hey, there's a way you do this, you know, and it's funny. You're boating. There's an etiquette, there's etiquettes in different spheres of life, right?
And it's like in certain sports, other sports, you know, and so there's an etiquette in business, there's an etiquette in negotiation. And the joke I made about old money and new money, it came to mind because I was thinking in preparation for the show today and just reading up about this, this Twitter and Elon Musk thing, again, I thought this is why I appreciate guys like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn and some of these older school guys because they're serious people that just do the deal and it's quiet. That's how you know they're serious. They don't need to advertise it and they don't have this ego that everybody needs to know what I'm doing. And you know, it's like, nah, I'm gonna go.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: But that's a different game though, because that does. That doesn't build idolatry.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Like, that's my point. Like.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: Shows a level of insecurity almost that. That he has to let everyone know what he's doing instead of doing it.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: But it also. No, I actually, instead of insecurity, what it does is it reveals that the true intention isn't necessarily just the financial spoils, but it's also like he wants to be Tony Stark.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: He doesn't want to be almost like a grandiosity.
[00:51:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Like I not. I only not want to be rich, but I also want to be the guy that everybody looks at. Like he's so amazing. I want to be the idol.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: And I just want to say this too, as much as I say that negatively, and some people think I say it negatively about Elon Musk, that I hope he gets reprimanded by the system. I also thought when I was preparing today, you know, I do give him credit and props. First of all, he's a smart guy that came up with a great companies between SpaceX, Tesla and I give him props for being the guy that made the electric vehicle proof of concept.
[00:51:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:47] Speaker B: That the American consumer will get this and now every other car comes. So I want to get that out on air that I respect the guy's game from that perspective, but it's just that he's turned that stuff into. Now this is almost like Kanye west, you know, guy who's a great producer and a great artist, but he turned into something else once he got famous. And I think Elon Musk is showing the same thing.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: Well, so I think, and I mean, we can rap, you know, from here. But I do think that when I.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: Start mentioning Kanye, it's time to rap.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: Well, no, but it's important though. Anytime you criticize what someone does, you can criticize what someone does or their course of conduct without saying that the person is unredeemable.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: The person. That's why I wanted to say what I said.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: The criticism here is about these actions that are running afoul apparently of securities laws and breaching contract and the ripple effects that can have on the systems that kind of keep this stuff going. Like 100 something years ago, there were guys acting like this, and then we had the Great Depression, you know.
[00:52:45] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: And then they put all these rules in place to try to prevent that from happening again. And then people are skirting the rules and it's like, well, hold on, we know how this plays out. If it becomes the wild, wild west with the securities again, you know, it's interesting.
[00:52:58] Speaker B: Well, but let me, let me.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: I mean, I think that it's important if you're going to look at these things and be genuine and authentic to be able to criticize someone's actions and not necessarily say, I hate that person or I hope terrible things happen to that person. Because that's not what we're doing here. We're saying his actions are the problem. Him, himself, he is who he is. You know, I'm not here to judge him as a person, but I am going to say as far as his actions seem to be harmful to what we're trying to do here from an economic system standpoint, and so therefore somebody, the people who are supposed to do something about that should be doing something about it.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I was just going to make a point that I know that a lot of us don't like regulation in general and have been conditioned to think it's negative. But I think in areas like this, like financial markets, it's so important that the public trust is maintained in general. I mean, people don't appreciate that's what makes the United States the world's economic hub, is not just that we produce great ideas and all that kind of stuff is that people trust the American system of title. They trust the property rights in this country. They trust the stock market, that generally, if companies are printing their numbers, income statements and cash flow statements, that it's real numbers, it's not fake. Think about the way we hear about China. No one trusts their numbers. Right. People aren't running. No.
[00:54:26] Speaker A: I mean, and all over the world, rich people all over the world don't trust their own governments and their own institutions. Correct. With, you know, the way they trust ours. And so they put their money here for that reason, and we benefit from that. And so the ability to maintain a system that's trusted is a leg up for us internationally.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: So. So keeping the honor system specifically in the areas of like finance and law is very important. To your point about the bar, like, I look at some of the attorneys that represented the side of the big lie.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: And some of them have gotten slapped on the wrist by some bars and some haven't. I'm wondering.
We need all of them to be disbarred from every state that they're barred in, because, again, it sets precedent. We need attorneys to be thinking when they go up in front of judges, I gotta have facts and be telling the truth here. And so, I mean, there might be. Because they were attached to a White House, that might be a little bit different, but in terms of their ability to get away with this. But it's just. That's what I mean. Like, once you start losing.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: Well, particularly the ones whether they like the extent. I'd say with that, and I do want to wrap this up, but there were some attorneys that would get up and lie. And I think that's where we really have. From the legal standpoint, we have. Like, there were other attorneys that would get in front of a judge and say, no, I don't have any evidence.
[00:55:40] Speaker B: Yes, exactly.
[00:55:41] Speaker A: I put the allegation in. Haven't found any evidence. Like, that's a little bit different. And so you don't want to chill. The entire profession of trying to find things.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: I agree.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: You can't be out there lying, you know, like that. That, to me, is the thing that is like, all right, you're saying stuff and, you know it's wrong. Like, that's. We go to that. That's a path that we can't really recover from as a profession, we being attorneys. So I think that all attorneys should be rooting for any attorneys that's doing that kind of stuff. Like, they got to get out the paint.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's where I'll just say, with Musk, it's the equivalent of, you can't have the CEO of a publicly traded company who has a public Persona just out there. Yeah. Like wantonly just saying, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. It's just manipulating the stock price. And he's sitting there. Who knows how much he's buying?
[00:56:20] Speaker A: And he got slapped on the wrist for that back in 2018. And he's. He. They. The reports were that he kind of chilled out for a little bit, but he's back up doing that stuff again. But I think we should wrap from here, man.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: You know what I'll say, too, in the end, it is, you know, the beautiful thing of the system is it is going to be ultimately, too, with his existence in his companies up to shareholders in the board.
[00:56:39] Speaker A: That's true, too.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: So at some point, you know, you could have a shareholder revolt where they just enough people just say, you know, this guy's got to get fired. And so that could happen. I saw that the CEO of the Gap just got fired by the board because she couldn't turn around the company. So that is the good mechanism about at least that part.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: So, yeah, there are other mechanisms, levers that can be placed if the erratic behavior, the unlawful behavior continues. And that is good to know. I mean, that's something that, I mean, as we pointed out many times, our system has a lot of redundancies in it because it's like, it's easy, force of personality or a lot of money to take over one system or another system, but it's hard to line them all up and be able to take it all over when there's all these redundancies and different things. So, yeah, but we can wrap it from there, man. We appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See It. Subscribe to the podcast, Rate it, review us, tell us what you think, share it with a friend. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:57:31] Speaker B: I'm tund.
[00:57:32] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk to you next time.
I.
