Okay, everybody. There's no easy way to

start today's show. Eight days ago,

Charlie Kirk was savagely murdered while

doing what Americans love to do, debate.

And when someone is senselessly killed

like this, especially at a young age and

at the hands of another human, try to

make sense of it. It's only natural. And

uh it's hard to imagine anything worse

than a young father of two, just 31

years old, and entering the best and

most productive years of his life, being

killed by a 22-year-old who's barely out

of adolescence. Our hearts go out to the

Kirk family, his friends, fans, and

every American who understands that no

one should be killed for expressing

their beliefs. That's the core of the

great American experiment. So, let's

keep that experiment alive today and the

memory of Charlie Kirk by continuing the

great debate. Besties, there's a lot to

process here as a community, a country,

a society, and uh I just want to check

everybody's temperature at the top of

the program. We're obviously not going

to do a cold open here because that

would be inappropriate. But Shmath, how

are you processing the last 8 days? I

actually wrote down something as well,

which I normally don't do. I just like

to kind of react. But let me just read

that and then maybe we can just talk

from there. So to me, what Tyler

Robinson

illustrates is the emergence

of a lost generation that was shaped by

co

I see years of isolation,

a reliance on screens,

and an immersion in online subcultures

that have created a vacuum where some

young men are drifting in without any

grounding. No institutions, no friends,

no communities, no family. And out of

that void,

I think what comes out can at best only

be called ideological incoherence.

Somebody used the word salad bar

extremism.

These individuals

are not clearly aligned with any one

ideology completely, but they seem to be

assembling fragments of memes, of

conspiracies, of cultural signals

into an unstable identity and in some

cases now it's exploding into violence.

I think the

most troubling consequence isn't just

the facts themselves,

which is abhorentt, and I and I feel

incredibly bad for all of Charlie's

friends and his family and his children,

obviously himself. But beyond the act

itself, there's an enormously chilling

effect, I think, on public discourse.

When you express an idea, it cannot be

that then you risk becoming a target

because the ultimate outcome of that is

fewer people will then enter the public

debate.

And then what happens is the range of

acceptable dialogue really narrows

and it only leaves space then for the

most benign voices in the public square.

And if you have that kind of anodine

discussion,

I just think you have very bad outcomes

for society.

I've watched a lot of his content since

he was murdered and I'm still trying to

grapple with why people could not shout

the man down if they disagreed with him

and instead shot the man down. And I

think that that is a completely

unacceptable

response for what he thought.

That's what

>> well said. Uh Freeberg, your

>> I think it wasn't his controversy, it

was his effectiveness.

He was too smart,

too open, too honest,

too willing to engage in discourse, too

willing to debate. He was too effective

in changing people's minds. And I think

that's why he became such a cultural

threat. And it wasn't necessarily the

things he said because there are people

out there who say far more controversial

things than Charlie. It's that he

sounded sensible and he changed people's

minds through his discourse. And as he

changed people's minds, I think he

became a real threat to the ideologies

that he spoke up against.

And I think that's why he was targeted.

And it's obvious that if he wasn't as

effective as he is, if he wasn't as

smart, as empathetic, as optimistic, as

honest, as direct as he was, he wouldn't

have been a target perhaps. And it was

very sad. One of the things that we've

seen is the power of going direct. Sort

of like what we did with this podcast.

He went direct. He went to college

campuses, but he also recorded it and

put it on the internet. And millions of

people saw it. and that new form of

media, that new form of communication

where someone can actually have a town

square, the internet, that they can

stand at and speak their mind and be

heard. There's no longer these filters

and these controlling powers of

influence that decide what we get to

know and not know and what our opinions

need to be. The media and the

traditional kind of systems are being

degraded. I think it's important to

continue that. And I think one of the

things that I've been optimistic about,

I was very sad and angry the day this

happened. I called Jamaat. I was

actually tearful that day.

But since that time, I think it's been

amazing to see the optimism not just

from one side, but from a lot of

different people from different

backgrounds standing up and saying

discourse is so important and

re-underwriting this American process.

So, I'm very sad, but I'm very hopeful

that people take this as

a sign of how important this discourse

is.

>> Saxs, I don't know if you knew him, but

obviously he was instrumental, I think,

in um the MAGA movement, the

conservative movement, and moving so

many young people over to it.

Did you know him? Did you interact with

him? What was he like? And and and how

are you feeling 8 days into this? I know

this is the second

assassination attempt, third actually in

this recent

political season. Two on Trump and now

this one. So this feels um pretty dark.

How are you feeling?

>> Yes, Jason. I knew him and I considered

Charlie a friend. I started doing his

show, his radio show a few years ago. He

invited me on and I came on his show and

he proceeded to have me back. I mean, I

think I went on the show about half a

dozen times.

It was always on a wide range of issues,

but usually when I was on his show, we

talked about tech. We talked about

things like censorship. We talked

foreign policy. He was extremely

versatile in the issues he could speak

about. And you see that when he was

speaking on campuses, he would really

take on all comers and every possible

issue would be thrown at him and he'd

always have a wellthoughtout response.

But in any event, I always tried to say

yes to him. I always move things around

my schedule when he asked me to come on

the show. I just felt that he was a very

positive person, very upbeat about the

future. I think that he engaged in a

very respectful type of debate with

people. You see this on college

campuses. He saw every opponent as

someone that he could potentially

persuade and convinced to convert to his

side. You know, there are clips of him

going around where he explains that we

all have to engage in dialogue in a

democracy because the alternative when

we stop talking is that we become

enemies. and eventually it leads to

violence. And he was very concerned

about the rise of assassination culture.

He wrote about this months before his

death.

And so in a way he almost I don't think

he saw his own death coming, but he

definitely saw this disturbing rise of

violence as the alternative to free

speech and and open discourse. And he

dropped out of college when he was 18 to

start Turning Point. I mean, he was sort

of a force of nature who put together

this organization from scratch. and he

would go on these college campuses and

kind of put down his his soap box or

tent and chair under a banner that said,

"Prove me wrong." And he would engage

people in conversation. Liberals like to

use this term platforming. It's usually

the prelude to, you know, justifying why

someone needs to be denied

the opportunity to speak on a tech

platform, but Charlie wasn't platformed

by somebody else. He created his own

platform. You know, he created this

organization from scratch. And he was

platforming liberals or leftists or woke

or whoever. He was giving them the

opportunity to debate with him and his

crowds got larger and larger. People

liked to see him speak and engage in

these debates and he was platforming the

other side and giving them the

opportunity.

But like Freeberg was saying, the more

he did it, the more it became clear that

his views were very well thought out and

often times the other sides weren't. And

if one side became hysterical, it was

always the other side. It was never

Charlie. He was always sort of cool,

calm, and collected. And he was winning

the debate. He was winning the debate

very effectively and I think he was

revealing in a lot of cases that these

woke students had these very strongly

held views but they couldn't really

explain beyond the level of cliches why

they believe what they believe. I mean

when he would just start to socratically

ask them questions it was rare that you

would get someone on the other side who

could go multiple questions deep with

him and and debate him with the level of

knowledge that he had. And so I think

that that fundamentally is why he was

winning the debate. And that's why I

think that so many people of his

generation and younger were really

paying attention is because he was

offering them something that they

weren't getting elsewhere. They weren't

getting it through the school system.

The school systems were kind of drilling

into their heads this sort of woke

catechism about what they're supposed to

believe. And he was actually offering

them critical thinking and dialogue and

debate. And I think it's why young

people were flocking to him in in

droves. And I do think that ultimately

the reason why he was killed is because

he was so effective at engaging in this

kind of debate. And we have it in the

killer's own words. I mean, the killer

signed this

very detailed confession, I should say,

texted it to his alleged roommate lover

about why he did it. And he said that in

his view, Charlie represented something

hateful. And then I think the key thing

he said right after that was the killer

said, "I had enough of his hatred. Some

hate can't be negotiated out."

>> So in other words, there's no imperative

to engage in dialogue or debate or

discourse with people who disagree with

you, countering their arguments with

better ones. They just need to be

silenced by any means necessary. That's

basically the killer described his own

motive is that he essentially just

thought that there are views that just

have to be silenced with extreme

violence with murder and that that was

justifiable.

And I think this is what I think hit a

nerve for the whole country. I mean,

beyond those of us who knew Charlie and

considered him a friend and how much

sadness and grief that we have over

losing him and for his wife and and for

his kids are going to grow up fatherless

now. I think that we all felt that this

was a huge invasion of the town square

of the marketplace of ideas. This

happened on a college campus which is

supposed to be the ultimate marketplace

of ideas. It's supposed to be the place

where people engage in reason discourse

to work out our differences. And so it

felt like an assault on the citadel of

democracy.

>> Freeberg, you set up this amazing panel

we just released, which I think we all

agree was kind of a sleeper panel at the

at the summit with two of the heads of

colleges and we talked deeply at the

summit about dialogue and freedom of

speech and and nurturing that. um your

thoughts on sort of college campuses and

the free expression

>> whether it's the college campus or

whether Charlie Kirk and that genre

moves people via the internet. One of

the things we talked about with the head

of Berkeley and the head of Dartmouth is

that college needs to be a place that

teaches kids how to think, not what to

think.

And I think that was one of the things

that Charlie exemplified

better than anyone in this kind of

modern media genre is showing people

that you can have a discourse, you can

have a debate, you can have a dialogue

in the same way that as a group we've

had fights, we've had disagreements,

we've had different points of view that

we challenge each other on.

One of the things early on when we

started doing this podcast was people

telling me that they they thought it was

so cool to see friends argue like this

and have discourse and have debate and

we still do it

and I think Charlie exemplified that and

that teaches people how to think and it

allows them to form their own point of

view. I do not believe in this notion

that some system or some institution

should be telling us what the truth is

or what to believe or

what reality needs to be. They can

present us with the facts and the

evidence that they've sourced and they

can give us a recommendation. But

ultimately, we need to have agency as

individuals to form our own belief

systems, to form our own opinions, to

make our own decisions.

And I think what made Charlie so

powerful was his ability to teach people

how to do that, how to have a discourse

and reason your way to an opinion. And I

think that's one of the things that's

changed so much in the last 20 years is

just this idea that, you know, there's

truth and there's not truth and whatever

one institution tells you is truth and

the other institution tells you is not

truth as opposed to giving ourselves

individual agency. I wasn't his target

audience and so I was aware of Charlie

Kirk, but I I had only seen, you know,

flipping through social media once in a

while some of the clips. So, I took the

time to, knowing we're going to talk

about it here, watch at least 40 or 50

of these interactions, listen to a

couple of his podcasts. And, you know,

my takeaway from it was, to your point,

Saxi was incredibly respectful to people

he disagrees with, certainly more

respectful than you at times, Sax, when

we have debates. And he uh he was

actually playful. He was gregarious with

these kids when they didn't understand

something. Um, and there's a lot of talk

right now, people trying to, you know,

point out where he was wrong. By the

way, you don't get to murder somebody

because you believe they're wrong. I

know this sounds like uh the most

obvious statement in the world. But what

I came away with was he reminded me of

all the Catholics, my family members I

grew up with. He was for family values.

He was against abortion. He had specific

feelings on affirmative action or DEI

that we all might agree with. might have

said them at times in a spicy way or in

a in a really full contact debate, but

these were the same conversations I had

with, you know, growing up. And, you

know, this is

this is, you know, a situation where I'm

just perplexed and I guess it goes back

to where you started, Chimath, that

there are some number of people who are

sick right now in our society and it

seems to be young men. It seems to be

the co generation.

>> How does a person that is seemingly a

4.0 student on the right track getting a

scholarship,

how do you so severely go off the rails?

And then how do you end up in a place

where you believe that something like

this is even tolerated or justified? How

can a person that's that seemingly

intelligent

get to that place? from a conservative

family. It seemed like he had his whole

life ahead of him and was on a right

track at a certain age.

>> And if he's capable of it, how many

other people are going to end up in that

place? So what what is happening that

basically allows these young men to

become so unmed?

>> I think a lack of socialization and I we

don't know in this case but I I have

very deep concerns about these SSRIs

aderall. These kids have all kinds of

mental health issues and then they get

put on a lot of different prescription

drugs. We don't know if that's the case

here. So I'm I'm not speculating about

that. But just talking about this

generation in general, you know, if they

are permanently online, they're part of

these subcultures. If they are being,

you know, having their brain scrambled

with all these different drugs, many

young people are on two or three

different

medications. And I'm not necessarily

anti them, but I do have a concern of

them being massively oversubscribed. His

entire justification for this beyond the

fact that it's completely abhorrent and

unacceptable is also completely all over

the place. I actually asked my team

explain to me the things that this guy

wrote down like where did they come

from? One of it is from a video game

called Hell Drivers 2. Another one is

from the furry subculture. Another one

is a fascist theme from a Netflix show.

What is going on?

>> Yeah. Well, look, I mean, we know some

things about the killer's

ideology from what his family said, from

what other people who knew him said, and

and from what he put in his own text

messages explaining why he perpetrated

this murder. And I think a big part of

it was that in his view, the basically

mainstream conservative views that

Charlie was discussing were in his view,

they were hateful and they were they

were fascist. I think on one of the

bullet casings he etched catch this

fascist. He had this view that first of

all that violence is justified as a way

to end a political debate and that

relatively mainstream conservative

thought was so hateful and beyond the

pale that it needed to be stopped. And

I'd like to say that those views are so

unusual that nobody else has them. But

the truth is if you look at the data, if

you look at polling, you see that

there's been a huge rise on the part of

young people and particularly on the

left, although there's some on the

right, but it's mostly on the left. They

believe now that political violence can

be justified.

>> Yeah.

>> And so you look, I mean, there's there's

been many different uh ways of of

getting at this. There was a a study I

guess Rucker University the social

perception lab they asked about whether

the murder of Donald Trump or Elon Musk

could be justified

and

>> insane

>> 50% of left of center said yes 14% of

right of center said yes even that

number is shocking to me

>> how could it be 1%

>> but obviously it's it's three times

greater on the left then they asked

about destroying Tesla dealerships and

protests whether that could be justified

and roughly 60% of left of center said

yes and 23%

of right of center said yes. So

there is I think an increasing view on

the part of young people and this also

coincides with similar declines in

respect for the value of free speech.

They've been pulling people of all

different age groups and different

political parties for many many years on

whether they believe in free speech and

those numbers have been on the decline

again particularly among young people

and particularly on the left and so you

see it now in the data that there is a

generation of young liberals I mean

obviously not all to be sure but a

sizable contingent who believe that the

other side is so hateful

that it's okay to use violence against

them

>> and then you Yeah,

>> that is a huge societal problem because

democracy ends when we can't debate

ideas.

>> What's at the root of it? I I have two

things I think are at the root of this.

I mean, I talked a little bit earlier

about the medication uh that they're

putting all these kids on, and I'm going

to keep talking about it because we're

talking about, you know, upwards of 20%

of kids have been on SSRIs or on aderall

or or some stimulant right now. And it's

not possible that all these kids need

this. And there is many other solutions

to it. And then I'll add the algorithms.

Not that an algorithm is responsible for

the murder, but we are taking people

down rabbit holes online. And in fact,

Charlie's content was exceptional at

engaging people, right? Short form, you

know, really interesting debates and all

that kind of stuff. And that combination

of being online too much, being

overmedicated, being isolated, you put

all that together, Chimoth, I think

that's what leads to these kind of

extreme it

>> theories and disconnects from reality.

But we could also be dealing with

somebody who's severely mentally ill.

>> And we're trying to understand a

severely mentally ill person.

>> Hold on a second. Hold on. You're

starting to sound a little bit like Paul

Graham there. That this is just some

sort of random nut. Here's why it's not

just some random nut. First of all, we

have an extraordinarily detailed

statement and confession from the killer

giving us a lens into his motives. But I

would say the even bigger thing is the

reaction of hundreds of thousands of

people online

>> who celebrated this murder

>> who were gleeful

>> who expressed some degree of happiness

about it or

>> tried to downplay what the killer had

done by saying on some level that

Charlie Kirk deserved it.

>> So you have to ask Yeah.

>> Where does that come from? And I think

this has to do again with the ideology

of the left, not the traditional like

old left because I think the sort of old

left really believe in free speech.

Maybe anybody else, you know, like you

know, folks like Nent. And so and by the

way, I think guys who I would consider

kind of more old left like Bernie

Sanders and Ezra Klein

>> put out excellent statements denouncing

>> yes,

>> this murder, agreeing with this core

idea that political violence is never

acceptable. And then they were shattered

down which is insane to Ezra. He got he

got crushed for

>> that tells you something too. So look I

think that the psychotic break if you

will that is now occurring in a bunch of

different cases may be exacerbated by

who knows medication by isolation

experienced during co or what have you.

But there is clearly a huge ideological

component to this that there are huge

numbers of people even if they don't

commit the crime themselves who

celebrate it because they have had drums

into their head for decades now the idea

that the other side are fascists. Their

leader is like Hitler. What do you do to

Hitler? You have to stop him at all

costs. Right? And I think that is a

significant part of the problem here.

Now you ask now where where does this

ideology come from? I think it's coming

from the school system. I mean, we've

had now for the last couple of decades

this sort of woke ideology, this

cultural Marxism be taught through the

school system where they drum into the

kids that there are two kinds of people,

oppressors or oppressed, and they divide

people into these groups and say that

the oppressors have to be stopped. And

that's really as deep as the discussion

gets. And if you want to get a sense for

this exaggerated, destructive rhetoric,

just look at the new book that has come

out by Randy Weingarden,

who is

>> head of the teachers,

>> basically the head of our school system

because she runs the teachers unions and

they're the ones who have all the

political power. She wrote why fascists

hate critical thinking. And by the way,

this is not just an article. I guess

Rolling Stone did an excerpt. This is an

entire book. And the book is called Why

Fascists Fear Teachers. So she's

basically saying that Trump and all of

his supporters are fascists. They have

to be stopped. You've had this

hyperbolic rhetoric. For a decade,

you've had the press describe Trump as

some sort of new Hitler. To use Scott

Adams term, they've basically Hitlerized

him. And so you you asked, you know, we

don't know exactly where Tyler Robinson

embibded all of these ideas, but you

have to also take into account that

probably since he was 12 years old, the

media, the mainstream media has been

beating into his head that the leader of

the United States is a new Hitler and

the worst thing that could ever happen

is his return and his supporters are

fascists. And I'm sure this has to play

into, if not his thinking, the thinking

of the people who are celebrating the

death of Charlie Kerr because they have

bought into this idea that the other

side are fascists who have to be stopped

at all costs.

>> Yeah. I think it's important to point

out as you did Mandami, Nancy Pelosi,

gosh, AOC, Ezra Klein, they all came out

just very strongly that this is

horrible, unacceptable and and they con,

you know, obviously

think it's abhorent. So, I think that

leadership is strong and I think that's

what we need to see more of is people

trying to tone this down and and

yeah, not exacerbate it.

>> Look, I I think you're right. I think

that what we need to see from all of our

political leaders is a condemnation

of this murder in particular and

political violence in general without

any caveats whatsoever, without

intimations that somehow Charlie Kirk

deserved it, without this exaggerated

rhetoric that the other side are

fascist, that Trump is Hitler and so on.

There just needs to be an unequivocal

denunciation

of this crime and political violence and

the idea that we can settle our

differences in this manner.

>> Yeah.

>> And I give credit to any liberal or

Democrat politicians who say that. But

unfortunately, that has not been the

discussion. And I think that's been one

of the most disturbing things about this

is that if it had just been Tyler

Robinson and everybody agreed that this

is a heinous act, a heinous murder,

I think that we wouldn't have had the

same national conversation. So would

have been awful. But I think the reason

why this became such a national

conversation is that we can all see that

living among us, you have huge numbers

of people who've been indoctrinated into

what Scott Adams called this Hitler

bubble. And I think it's a real question

what we're going to do to get out of

this this bubble

>> because in order to have civil society,

>> we have to have the ability to engage in

conversations, to have political debates

without fear of violence or murder. And

when you have this sizable contingent of

people in our society who've deviated

from that, it makes you really worry for

the future of our society.

>> Absolutely.

>> And it makes you wonder, what are we

going to what are we going to do about

this?

>> And and there's a a whole trans angle to

this that is being talked about, but

maybe people are withholding a little

bit. but he was answering a trans

question when he was shot by somebody

whose I guess girlfriend would be the

right way to say it was was in the

middle of transitioning. So there's many

different angles here that we're going

to uh try to understand over time. Yeah.

>> Right. And then in response to that, you

saw an ABC News reporter describe the

text chain, which was a murder

confession, as touching,

>> you know, and so now I think that ABC

reporter has

>> published an apology. So, I'm not going

to dwell on that part of it, but I think

what you see here is an upside down

morality. What Tyler Robinson did was an

act of hate. The ultimate act of hate.

He committed murder. He left a wife

without a husband. He left two children

without a father. It was the ultimate

act of hate. But in his twisted mindset,

it was somehow an act of love. And the

question is, how do we get to this

place? And again, if it was just Tyler

Robinson, then we could just chalk it up

to the the random nut theory. But

>> well, and we don't know the random not

who shot Trump. Like we don't have any

information on that person either. So

I'm

>> right. But what bothers me more again

are all these people in Reddit groups or

online and blue sky which is just a

cesspool of hate now who are

>> celebrating

>> celebrating to some degree.

>> Uh no there there are definitively

people celebrating. Yeah. This is why I

really think one of the most

constructive things that we can do

coming out of this is we have to find

out how to course correct these people.

>> Actually JK Rowling had a really good

tweet on this. So she says that if you

believe free speech is for you but not

your political opponents, you're

illiberal. I mean I think we've known

that for a while and I don't know if the

woke left cares about that anymore. But

any of it, she then goes on to say, "If

no contrary evidence could change your

beliefs, you're a fundamentalist. If you

believe the state should punish those

with contrary views, you're a

totalitarian." And then I think the most

important one is if you believe

political opponents should be punished

with violence or death, you're a

terrorist. And I think actually this was

an act of terrorism in the sense that it

was designed to discourage other people

from speaking out. Again, it was done in

in the most public place in this town

square. But I think what what Rowling is

getting at here is that in order for

civil society to survive, we're going to

need some sort of minimum standard of

decency. You know, I remember when we

were in college, we used to have these

like thought experiment type questions,

which is how much if tolerance can a

tolerant society

tolerate, things like that. And I think

we have our answer which is listen you

can say whatever you want but our

minimum standard of decency in a society

is that you cannot use violence to

settle political disagreements. And if

you cannot accept that I mean really

that should be the pledge instead of

frankly Grover Norquist tax pledge or

even the the pledge about deficit

spending. I think we need a minimum

decency pledge that political violence

is unacceptable. And if you can't sign

that pledge, you should not be

participating in the discourse.

>> I mean, the fact that you have to even

suggest signing a pledge to not murder

people you disagree with shows how far

gone this all is. Um, and how disturbing

it is. Uh, that that just should be

something that is inherent in every

human being in their operating system.

You just don't murder people because you

disagree with them. Um, all right. It's

obviously, yeah, we're this is an

evolving story. We don't have all the

answers here, but

>> you see the Jimmy Kimmel

comments and should we play those and

talk about it?

>> Yeah, I guess it's a pretty good segue

here. Um, so, uh, political discourse

adjacent related uh, the fallout from

the murder of Charlie Kirk is going to

stay with us for some time here. ABC has

suspended Jimmy Kimmel from Jimmy Kemmel

Live indefinitely after he made the

following remarks and pressure from the

FCC and the affiliates of ABC. Here's

the 15-second clip. We hit some new lows

over the weekend with the MAGA gang

desperately trying to characterize this

kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as

anything other than one of them and

doing everything they can to score

political points from it. in between the

fingerpointing there was uh grieving.

>> And he goes on to show a clip of Trump.

>> Yeah. But I think you also left out that

sentence right after that where he says,

"Yeah, there was grieving, but it was

like a four-year-old grieving the death

of a goldfish."

>> Yeah. So, um yeah, pretty inappropriate

comments, I think. And here's the

timeline of it. So, cuz there was some

thinking this could have been a MAGA

person because the parents were

conservatives and during that breaking

news,

you know, maybe that first sentence

wouldn't be as off-putting or inaccurate

as it seems to be, but he said it Monday

night, and this was 3 days after we knew

about the anti-fascist bullet casings

that Chimath was referencing. Hey,

fascist catch, etc.

And this was one day after Utah's

governor was very clear that this was a

murderer who had leftist ideology and

one day after it was disclosed that

Robinson had been living with a trans

partner which may or may not turn out to

be relevant. Uh you could totally have

be gay or have a trans partner or any of

that and may have nothing to do with

this or it could have everything to do

with this. So we'll have to wait and

see.

>> And Jake, wasn't the the weren't the

text messages out by then at as well?

Well, the text message with partner

that's very good. Those those were

actually released on Tuesday after the

show aired and they usually tape in the

afternoons for those nightly shows, just

so people know that. So, there was

enough information here that, you know,

he was inaccurate or spinning the story,

however you want to phrase it. It was

clumsy. Megan Kelly put out a very long

description of everything that was known

prior to Jimmy Kimmel's remarks and

there was a huge amount of information

to indicate that this was someone who

was in the grips of a radical leftist

ideology and no evidence to suggest that

they were somehow part of MAGA. And what

Jimmy Kimmel did there was viciously

lie. I think implying or stating

outright

that effectively Charlie Kirk was was

killed by one of his own by a MAGA

person thereby I think diminishing

>> the crime somehow implying maybe that he

deserved it and then he diminished the

sincere grief and outrage that millions

of people are feeling. you know, beyond

those of us who were friends with

Charlie and knew Charlie, but millions

of people

>> that is but that is okay. You know, in

in free speech sachs, that statement,

>> that's his choice. He might lose

audience over it, but free speech

protects him doing that. The challenge

was did he say something that he knew to

be not true and declare it as fact? And

did that kind of

>> was the reaction that he got?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. And so if he said something that

he knew,

>> well, just reading his sentence, you

know, he was saying, "We hit some new

lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang

desperately trying to characterize this

kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as

anything other than one of them." So

he's referencing The Weekend. So he, you

know, you could say he's being

disingenuous here, but I think he's not

even supposed to be a late night

comedian.

>> It is inaccurate. It's highly

inaccurate.

>> It's a lie and it's a vicious lie. I'm

not defending it, but it was not

inaccurate that people were doing that

speculation. During a podcast on

Tuesday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who we

all know, said the FCC would look into

revoking the broadcast license of ABC

affiliates because Jimmy Kimmel Kimmel

was engaging in quote news distortion by

falsely claiming Tyler Robinson was

MAGA. On Wednesday, NextStar, one of

ABC's affiliates, uh, that has 28 local

stations, said it would be replacing

Kimmel show with different programming.

And there's now this backstory that

NextStar is buying a rival for $6

billion. So, the speculation is like the

CBS and Paramount situation where they

fired Colbear on July 17th that they

don't want to get caught up in uh having

the 47th administration gumming up their

M&A activity. And then ABC after all

that pulled Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely.

So I guess the question here s

>> pull up the ratings. Pull up the ratings

over time.

>> We'll get to all that, but I just let me

just

>> ask the question. Do do you have

concerns about the Sachs? Obviously

you've been very pro free speech here.

Do you think that this is overreaching?

If he hurt people's feelings, if he said

something inaccurate, do you think he

should be the government should be

taking him off the air or putting

pressure on them to take him off the

air?

>> Well, no. The government shouldn't be

ordering him to be taken off the air,

but neither President Trump nor the FCC

chairman Brennan Carr did that. The

reason why Kimmel lost his job is

because the two largest affiliates,

which is NextStar and Sinclair, told ABC

Disney that they wouldn't air it

anymore. And I think part of this is due

to the genuine offense that what he

said, which okay, I guess you can put

the best face you want on it. it was

false and it was a flip way of

describing something that was causing

pain to millions of Americans. Nextar

called his remarks offensive and

insensitive. That is true. And then

Sinclair said that they're going to air

a Kirk tribute in in Kimmel's time slot

on Friday. So look, I think this is

about the affiliates first of all

finding what he said completely

offensive, but then secondarily the

truth is that I think there's a lot of

opportunism in this and this is really

about poor ratings. Kimmel has even

worse ratings than Steven Colbear who

recently got cancelled because his show

was too expensive and not enough people

were watching it. And I think that

what's happening here is the ABC

affiliates are frankly they're seizing

an opportunity to rid themselves of this

money losing disaster and they're

they're getting back that hour of

television for other things.

>> The question is whether Carr should have

said we can do this the easy way or the

hard way. these companies can find ways

to change conduct and take actions on

Kimmel or there's going to be additional

work for the FCC ahead. That's what I'm

sort of referencing in terms of the

government putting pressure on these

folks to to cancel him.

>> Well, look, what Carr was asked whether

by I think he's on Benny Johnson's show

and Benny asked whether there's anything

that can be done about this and then

Carr said that there is a public

interest requirement with respect to the

broadcast networks. So if Jimmy Kimmel

show was on a podcast or on cable, that

public interest requirement wouldn't

apply. But because those affiliates

receive public spectrum for free, there

is a requirement that the reporting be

truthful to some degree and serve the

public interest. And I think he was

right to point that out. Now look, did

it ever get to the point where the

government ordered him off the air? No.

It didn't need to get to that point.

because the guy's show was a ratings

disaster. Look, even John Stewart, who

was a big late night host at one point,

said, let me just read you his quote on

not this topic, but about late night. He

said, "Being a late night host is like

operating a blockbuster video kiosk

inside a Tower Records." In other words,

the business model is totally obsolete.

And I think that's what's ultimately

driving this. Look, we never got to the

point where the FCC took an action. And

I think if we got to that point, then

maybe we debate this issue of what the

government should do. But we never got

to that point. And I think it's because

the affiliates decided on their own that

it was time for Kimmel to go.

>> Chamathy, your thoughts?

>> It's mostly that if you just look at the

ratings, the reality is that these folks

get a lot more attention than they

actually deserve. I mean, it is an

anemically

sad audience approaching zero.

160,000 people watch Jimmy Kimmel live.

More people hate stream our show in one

day on YouTube. You know what I mean? So

it's like I mean so what are we talking

about here? This is like the pimple of

the pimple of the pimple of the dog's

ass. So I think that people needed air

cover to make a decision to cancel it

today. And the reason why they wanted to

cancel it today was if they didn't take

this opportunity, they would have had to

wait another year or two for his renewal

to come up. And so I think that there

was a economic motivation that was

lingering for a long time before this

happened. His show sucks. It's not very

good at at a very basic social,

cultural, economic reality, as these

numbers demonstrate. Many many many

millions of Americans who had a choice

every day to listen to this guy voted

with their feet that this show sucked.

>> Let's move on. I will yeah say I agree

that they made a very simple decision

that was economic because these same

networks ABC and CBS were more than

happy when these shows were pulling in

serious ratings and serious money back

in you know 3, four, five years ago.

They were doing much better which shows

you how cable has come apart over the

last couple of years. In 2022 ABC signed

Kimble to three seasons 45 million. 2023

CBS sign on Coair to a three-year deal

that will be ending

and as you showed in that chart, it's

been plummeting since then. Quick note,

that's just for the very important 18 to

49 demographic. Obviously, they have a

bunch of old boomers watching it on

their cable channels. That's the

discrepancy in those numbers.

>> Nobody watches this.

>> But I do have grave concerns over myself

personally in what Brandon Carr is

doing. I don't think the FCC

>> can't do anything. Well, I can finish my

sentence maybe.

>> Okay.

>> Or you can just interrupt me every time

I start a sentence. And I'm We just

talked about having civil discourse. Do

you want to have civil discourse or you

want to just shoot me down?

>> I'm I'm civil

in the first sentence.

>> Please go ahead.

>> I do have concerns over both how the

administration is doing this. I think

it's disgraceful. I didn't like the

pressure they put CBS under to get Cobar

canled and I don't like the pressure

they're putting ABC News under. We

should have a tradition of free speech

and comedians should be protected even

if you don't like what they have to say.

This is the exact opposite of what many

folks and why they backed this

administration was to have less

censorship. And we sat here on this

program for many years talking about

Biden censoring COVID talk and Biden

censoring social media having the

Twitter files a direct line in there to

cancel this. I think that this can hold

on let me finish. It's a dark

moment for this administration

uh to be so obsessed with trying to

silence their critics and it's not going

to work. It's only going to drive them

to start podcast and do more of it. Yes.

Go ahead.

>> Can I ask you a question?

>> Yeah.

>> Well, first I make a statement. I think

your comments are insane. But here's my

question.

>> I think you're also sophantic to Trump.

>> What? What did I say? I said he didn't

do anything.

>> No, I think you're trying to suck it up

to Trump by saying it's a terrible show.

He's not funny. None of that matters in

terms of freedom of speech.

>> I'm trying to ask you a question. Do you

think because the government did

nothing? Let's just be clear. They did

nothing.

>> They threatened him

>> after he was already can't.

>> No.

>> And they shouldn't be doing any

pressure. The government should be

staying out of

>> Okay. Let me ask you a question. Yeah.

>> Do you think the people that made the

decision to dump Kimmel, what percentage

of it do you think was the economic

reality of a busted show? And what

percentage of it do you think was the

impingement

>> of free speech as you characterize it?

What percent How do you

>> Absolutely. I think they would have let

both of their contracts run out,

renegotiate them with smaller dollar

amounts, and reset the economics of

those shows if not for the pressure put

on them by the 47th administration.

I think they would have just rode these

shows out till their next contracts went

out and then they would have

renegotiated them at much lower amounts.

>> You think Trump is the reason why Cole

Bear got cancelled? What are you talking

about?

>> I think that the pressure

>> this is like a whole mythology now

that's been created.

>> Not a pathology. I think they wanted to

get the Paramount deal through.

>> No, no. I think getting the Paramount

deal through, the sale of the Paramount

>> and I think they've settled a lot of

these agreements because they don't want

going away.

>> Well, that that can all be true. Two

things can be true at the same time.

>> John Stewart understands the medium and

he says it's a Blockbuster store. They

can't wait to be rid of these guys.

These guys are overpaid. They're

entitled

because they're grossly overpaid. They

think they deserve this. By the way,

free speech does not mean you have a

right to an ABC show. Sorry. You

actually have to be able to get ratings.

You have to be talented. You have to be

funny, which none of these guys are

anymore. That's the reason they're

getting cancelled. And

>> exactly.

>> You know what? They're talking about

replacing Kimmel with, not another late

night performer,

Celebrity Family Feud. Like that's

they're going to replace it with a game

show. That's what they're talking about

replacing.

>> Great show, by the way. Yeah, great

show. It's It's a more affordable show.

They would not have cancelled either of

these folks if it wasn't from pressure

from the administration. The FCC head

>> basically said, "We're going to do this

one way or the other." So, I believe

that this is the kind of thing we don't

want to see out of the Trump

administration. And by the way, Tucker

Carlson, Glenn Greenwall, and I are all

in sync on this. We all think that this

is a bad look for Trump and the Trump

administration. You guys can disagree,

but that's what we do here. We have

several disagreements.

>> Where were all the people who were

complaining this when Gina Corano got

fired by Disney? Oh, I I absolutely felt

that was inappropriate. I think that

cancel I think there's cancellation now

on both sides the in and I understand

people are very hurt by what happened.

>> Are you cool with Roseanne Bar getting

fired?

>> I am against anybody getting cancelled

for their political beliefs. I was

against it when they did it to the right

and I'm against it when they're doing it

now to the left. Is that clear?

>> Let's talk about cancel culture for a

second. I actually think that Dave

Portoy had a great take on this. There

is a legitimate question here about

cancel culture, like should it ever be

used, when should it be used? And I

think Portoy made a really good point.

He says here, to me, cancel culture is

when people go out of their way to dig

up old tweets, videos, etc., looking for

dirt on someone. So, in other words,

they're going through 10, 20-year-old

tweets of yours. Maybe they find some

joke that was either off color

or impo taste or maybe it's just

something they can spin as being that

thing and it's done in an opposition

research type of way, right? They decide

they're going to go after you and so

they sort through everything you've ever

written. That's cancel culture. Okay. He

contrasts that with somebody who is on

live TV basically saying something that

a ton of people find offensive, rude,

and dumb in real time. So, in other

words, this was not like opposition

research. This was a spontaneous

reaction to a deeply offensive and

insulting

and dishonest and false thing that Jimmy

Kimmel said. And he already was on thin

ice because his ratings are terrible and

his syndicates want to get rid of him.

And like Portoy says, that is not cancel

culture. That is consequences for your

actions. And I think he's right about

that. And I am a free speech absolutist.

If Jimmy Kimmel wants to create a

podcast and say all the types of things

he said on ABC, I got no problem. That's

his right. He will not be censored. He

can do that. Okay. And my view on the

whole public interest requirement is

what we should do is just auction off

all the network spectrum. I think it is

a can of worms to basically say to all

these broadcast affiliates that we're

going to give you all this wonderful

free spectrum, but then you got to

uphold the public interest. It's way too

debatable what that means. I do think it

basically invites challenges to what

could be free speech. So, I think just

get rid of the public spectrum. Just

have an auction and we don't need free

public spectrum for broadcasting.

>> I definitely agree with that. In the era

of the internet, you do not need you do

not need public spectrum anymore.

I think that that solution I think that

that solution has a lot of positives

beyond this issue. I think that

>> the best use of that spectrum anyway.

>> And just to go back to this idea of

look, if someone in real time is

advocating for the murder of someone for

their political views or for any reason,

maybe that does justify a spontaneous

outpouring where it should be reported

to their employer, hey, this person is

saying this thing. if they're dancing on

the grave of of someone, if they're

praising that act of murder, you know, I

have to say that again, I have a minimum

standard of decency for civil society.

And that minimum standard of decency is

an unwillingness to engage in political

violence or to celebrate political

violence when somebody engages in it

because otherwise we're down the path of

civil war. I think we all understand

that. So, I have to say that if

someone's going to advocate for these

views, I'm okay with there being a

spontaneous reaction of people

complaining about it.

>> Yeah.

>> And if that means that Jimmy Kimmel does

a podcast instead of an ABC show in

prime time, I'm I'm okay with that. I

think, you know, the issue I have with

any of these cancellations is when the

president is asking the networks to

cancel people during his, you know, 17

time a day press conference and working

with a gaggle, he's literally telling

them fire the last two and then the FCC

chair is telling them to fire them and

that they'll figure out a way to do it.

That to me is the height of putting

pressure on these companies and I think

it's abortant. Okay, that's just my

personal belief. You guys don't have to

agree with it in this civil civil debate

we're having here. Let's talk about

Larry and David Ellison. They're making

massive media moves both in legacy and

social media.

Let's talk about the legacy stuff first.

Paramount Sky Dance merger is basically

a month old and already CEO David

Ellison, that's Larry Ellison's son, is

looking to acquire Warner Brothers

Discovery. As you probably know, they're

run by David Zazlov. They own CNN, HBO,

DC Comics, Discovery, a bunch of other

brands. And that would put the Ellison's

in charge of not just CBS News, which

owns 60 Minutes, they would also own

CNN,

as everybody knows, Larry Ellison, big

GOP donor in the past. And there also

are reports, interestingly, that David

Ellison wants to buy the free press from

Barrett Weiss for 200 million and put

her in charge of CBS in 60 minutes. That

would be seismic in the news business.

If you put those assets together, 200

million paid subs. HBO Discovery, 120

million paid subs right now. CBS reaches

80 million paid with Paramount Plus. And

the Free Press is obviously niche and

brand new. Uh but they're growing. They

got 136,000 paid subscribers and, you

know, almost a million followers across

their social media. The second piece to

this puzzle that's super interesting is

social media. Oracle is now the heavy

favorite to acquire Tik Tok and uh Trump

said that was going to happen as part of

the US and China

negotiations that are ongoing for trade.

So what are your thoughts here

Freedberg? You wanted to talk about this

is an interesting collection of assets

coming under the Ellison umbrella. Is

this strategic? Is this vanity? Is it a

nepo baby with a huge pay, you know,

blank checkbook? What are we seeing

here? And what do you think? I mean,

what do you do when you're worth a

couple hundred billion dollars and

you're 81 years old and you're thinking

about what legacy you want to leave

behind, except to perhaps empower your

kid to build the largest, most

influential media company in history.

>> And I think that's the story that's

unfolding in front of us. Not to

mention, I think that the Tik Tok deal

and Ellison's role in Tik Tok is going

to be instrumental in realizing

potential future distribution. So if you

think about the way media has evolved,

it used to be kind of centralized

studio-based production models, the old

Paramount, the old Warner Brothers, etc.

And then there's been a lot of streamers

that have come on that started to

syndicate that content and contract for

production of content like Netflix. And

obviously Paramount Plus and HBO Max

have their own streaming services to

deliver their own content. But at the

end of the day, there's kind of two big

behemoths that each come at it from a

different place. One is YouTube and the

other one is Netflix. Netflix has

historically been in the kind of

scripted production or contracted

production side and YouTube in the

social production side. The alternative

to that might be this consolidated

merger and Tik Tok and now Larry

Ellison's going to have a hand in both.

And so there may be and I do think that

there's going to be this convergence

between this kind of socially generated

content platform like a YouTube like a

Tik Tok and the high value produced

content like the studios like Netflix

has been doing. And the reason is

Netflix has had to compress margins on

the content creators and we talked about

this at our summit last week where a lot

of the creators now that went to Netflix

to get good deals or went to Amazon,

they're all finding that the budgets are

getting cut and that the only way these

folks are going to get paid is like cost

of production plus 10%. With cost of

production getting squeezed and budgets

getting squeezed by Netflix. So, as a

creator, you may actually make more

money by taking your content to a bigger

audience with sponsors or advertisers on

YouTube. And so, a lot of big-time

creators, by the way, the audience at

YouTube is over 10x bigger than it is on

Netflix. So, Netflix is only paying to

retain subscribers. Now, you know,

subscriber growth is kind of slowed down

a bit. At the end of the day, Netflix is

just spending money on content to keep

people on the platform. So if you take

the incredibly rich content and

production capabilities of HBO and all

the Warner Brother discovery media

properties and production houses

underneath this combined company and you

combine that with the direct to consumer

distribution of Tik Tok, there may in

the future be a merger between this

media company and Tik Tok or a deep

commercial relationship where imagine

going on Tik Tok and you can now get

premium content for 10 bucks a month or

two bucks an episode and watch all of

your HBO shows in the Tik Tok app or

watch all of the discovery or all of the

other content that's available. So, I do

think that the distribution that has

been delivered by this kind of social

media model like YouTube and Tik Tok

combined with the premium model may end

up creating a real category killer that

can challenge both YouTube and Netflix.

And so, I would kind of look at this

story as like a beginning of an

unfolding of something that may rewrite

the entire media landscape. I mean, when

you look back on it, Freeberg Kenberg ha

was maybe ahead of his time with Quibby.

He wanted to try to make this bridge

between the two the and and he just

might have been too early or just didn't

execute.

>> Well, think about the network effects.

What made Tik Tok so big and what made

YouTube so big is the long tail of user

generated content and that's what drove

the audience and that's what built the

the platform and mainstream, right?

>> And Yeah. Well, then you can do the the

premium stuff on top of it. Yeah. But

when you try and create premium content

in a small way like Katsenberg tried to

do, it's very hard to build the audience

to make the economics make sense.

>> And the economics are really challenging

already with premium content in the big

players as you can see with Netflix.

They're they're compressing budgets. So

I would I would argue that you really

need to have them both to make the model

work now because the audience is so

attuned to user generated content.

>> Here's what our partner Poly Market,

shout out to my guy Shane, 84% Larry

Ellison or Oracle kind of the same thing

here. They put a slash acquire Tik Tok

that's up over 20 percentage points in

the last couple of days. What do you

think all this means? The the

divevestature of Tik Tok, Larry Ellison

getting it as opposed to Google, Apple,

Microsoft. I mean, there was so many

people maybe even Elon who might have

wanted Tik Tok. What do you think of

this divevestature and then uh our

government gets the golden vote now? I

understand that the US government will

have a seat on the board of uh Tik Tok.

So the Chinese have given it up except

for the algorithm. What are your

thoughts?

>> Remember it's Tik Tok. It's Tik Tok US.

It's only 5% of the over it's only 5% 5

to 8% of the overall Tik Tok business.

So Tik Tok US is what's being spun out.

>> Yes. Correct.

>> Chimat what do you what do you think

here?

>> I think there's two things that are

important. The first is that in the

future and this may sound very dystopian

but he who controls the algorithm will

control what people think. And if you

think about it in that context, you

need, as you've said before, a

marketplace of very different approaches

and algorithms that are essentially

fighting for mind share. If you don't

have that, you'll have a massive zombie

group think culture. So from that

perspective, you have to put Tik Tok

into the hands of a completely different

owner than any of these other social

media sites so that they are motivated

to compete against each other. That's

one. The second thing is there's been a

lot that has been said about the Tik Tok

algorithm called Monolith

and a bunch of it has been already put

out openly and Tik Tok was very

transparent and they published a paper.

You can find it on archive. You can show

the link to it, Nick, maybe in the show

notes, but it's an incredible paper that

describes a very simplistic approach to

essentially moving people into different

directions of thought.

So if you put all of these ideas

together, I think where we are maybe all

the way coming back to where we started

this discussion about Charlie Kirk,

it is increasingly important to make

sure that the overwhelming majority of

how people get ideas is understood by

the rest of the people. Because if you

start to go down these rabbit holes in

ways that are algorithmically programmed

in models that you don't understand that

then push you into extremism, you will

end up in a very very very bad place as

will society.

And then the the outcomes of that are

completely avoidable as we're seeing.

>> Yes.

>> So I think that the Tik Tok thing is

going to be one of these important

moments where we shine a light on the

importance of these algorithms. It's

poorly understood. It's not well talked

about, but I think what the Trump

administration doing is important to

keep it away from everybody else so that

there's more competition.

>> Yeah, I'm gonna um strongly agree. I

think the Trump administration did a

great job on this one. Just calling

balls and strikes of not making sure

Meta got it or somebody who has already

a lot of algorithmic control over what

society seeing. And back to

>> just just on this, you know, the I give

a lot of credit to Elon too because his

algorithm is open source. We know what's

happening there.

>> He just did it two weeks ago. Yeah.

>> If that's open source and Monolith is

open source, then I think the next big

question we have to ask is what is going

on in Reddit? What is going on in meta?

How are we

>> how are we guiding and shaping people?

Why does YouTube sometimes for example

like our Tulsi Gabbard video is

apparently deemed too risque an adult

content? Who decided that? How did that

happen?

>> An algorithm. Yeah. Not not any human.

And you know the thing I think is

important to start thinking about here

is as an industry we're going to either

need to regulate this ourselves or be

regulated. I think that there should be

regulation and I'm not like super a fan

of regulation that algorithms must be

disclosed and you must have the option

given to you upfront to switch your

algorithm. There should be a b ya bring

your own algorithm. There should be an

algorithm store. And I I talked to Elon

about this publicly on on X many times.

If you could say, I want one that just

gives me a chronological feed. I want

one that is from the highest quality

sources. And then you should be required

to show what the default algorithm is

doing. And if you don't do that, I think

you should lose your section 230 because

an algorithm is more powerful than an

editor at the New York Times or an

editor at HBO or Netflix deciding what

we see, deciding what goes on the

homepage. The algorithm is a black box

and who knows who's controlling it. And

then what happens in society when young

men are pushed towards more and more

fringe content, more and more dark

content? Why not just have all this be

transparent? Why not let people see?

>> Unfortunately, they don't need to be

pushed to fringe content. All they need

to do is go to a school where the woke

curriculum has been mainstreamed. And

>> bingo. Randy Weingard's foot soldiers

are saying that conservatives are

fascists. So, you're acting like you got

to go through some weird rabbit hole to

embibe these ideologies when all you

have to do is attend a public school and

probably a lot of private ones, too. I

think Dalton's probably the worst. So,

again, I you're acting like the

radicalization's coming from the

fringes. I think what's so concerning

about where we are as a society is that

the radicalization's coming from our

institutions or a lot of these

institutions. You're not going to get an

argument with me. I think these schools

should be teaching, you know, basic

skills and they should not be involved

in the culture wars in any way. I don't

think any parent is setting their kids

there. And if you are a parent and

you're in California, I I would

encourage you to figure out what they're

teaching your kids. Uh, and here in the

great state of Texas, it's quite

>> totally agree. But hey, can I can I

>> It's quite different here, by the way.

And it's quite different here in the

great state of Texas, I can tell you,

having lived in both places with three

kids.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I get it. And look, that's

why a lot of people move to to red

states because they care about. So, but

hey, let me just did someone mention

that our Tulsi video from Allins Summit

has been

>> partially censored on YouTube.

>> So, what happened is I was I was at my

office yesterday

>> and I open up our YouTube channel cuz

Nick had sent out a link that something

new had posted. So, I went to go see

what had posted that day. So, I pull it

up

>> and I saw the Summit videos and I saw

that Tulsi wasn't there. I'm like,

"Wait, didn't we post Tulsi?" And then I

looked for it. I couldn't find it. So I

text Nick and he says it is there and

then I I clicked on the thing and it

said safe search is on. What does that

mean? I searched and apparently

if your network administrator on your

enterprise cuz I was at my office we had

like our network set restricted mode

it's called. In restricted mode people

can't like look at adult content on the

network and that kind of stuff. And when

you have restricted mode on YouTube

turns off anything that would fall under

mature audiences. So here it is.

activate restricted mode. So it prevents

a huge number of people.

>> Huge number of people.

>> That's a huge number of people.

>> This would be this would have been the

second most viewed video. I guarantee

you after the Elon video maybe and maybe

the most viewed and I was shocked. I

said, "How is it possible that this

video is struggling to be in the top

half and this is why?" And you can't

even see it. So then

>> you put up Well, it's unclear. So

certain videos then get tagged as being

for mature audiences and they don't show

up in restricted mode by the algorithm

on YouTube.

>> Oh, so it's the algorithm did it again.

It wasn't reporting it.

>> I'll give you guys my theory. My theory

is because she you the term Russia gate

comes up and those sorts of terms and I

think those terms are triggers if

they're in the transcript. They're

triggers to be under kind of safe

>> debunking Russia gate,

>> right? But I don't think Do you think if

it was a video espousing and promoting

the Russia gate hoax that it would have

gotten censored this way?

>> It's a good question. I don't know.

Yeah.

>> I mean, we can test that by looking for

other people discussing it. I mean,

>> you mentioned Scott Adams early. He

talks about it 17 times in episode.

>> By the way, this is a government

official in the White House who is the

director of national intelligence who is

providing an interview on national

intelligence and is being filtered out

as being for adults only. Very weird.

>> This is insane.

>> It's insane.

>> This is like when Trump as the sitting

president got banned from social media.

I mean this you're right. This is a

public official describing

>> intelligence investigation.

>> She is doing an investigation reading

reading out an investigation

investigation.

>> I mean putting aside the topic, it's a

it's a discussion. What who on earth

would think that this is something that

people shouldn't consume? Why is this

being flagged adult? what's adult about

it in any way? It makes no sense.

>> Or for it's for mature audience. Yeah.

Some some definition around it. But I

think that there's some keywords that

triggered it without acknowledging or

recognizing the algorithm. This is one

of the points Chimak was making. We

don't know how the algorithms work

because the algorithms cannot determine

that this is a clearly cannot determine

that this is an actual government

official and therefore should not be

restricting access to the content.

>> I don't know, man. AI's gotten a lot

better in the last year. It seems like

this would be an easy

algorithm. Yeah, it here's what YouTube

says about their filter. This helps hide

potentially mature videos. No filter is

100% accurate. No

>> I wonder if it's also people

>> Here's the question is with respect to

the error rate.

>> What percent of those videos are

conservative versus liberal in their

ideological

>> Bernie Sanders and Mandami getting the

same treatment? If conservative content

and liberal content are both subject to

the same error rate, then

>> you know, they have a leg to stand on,

maybe. I still don't think they should

be doing this, by the way.

>> I mean, look, potentially mature videos

should be

>> I just want to add one technical thing

here and then I'll go to this could also

be caused, I know in the past, by people

reporting stuff they don't like. So

people would do this report bombing, you

know, get 20 different people in a, you

know, signal group or in a Discord group

to go report this from different IP

addresses and file the reports to then

silence each. So that happens.

>> Wait for a second. Did did Tucker and

Cuban also get censored?

>> That's a debate. I don't understand.

Wait, what happened with that?

>> Anyway, Neil, can you check this out and

report back to

customer support here? Go ahead, Chim.

The Tucker Cuban debate was a perfect

example of civil discourse.

>> Yeah, there was a hug.

>> I think this is an example. There was a

famous media theorist, his name is

Marshall McLuhan and he had this quote

which is the medium is the message,

right? And what did he mean by that? He

meant that the characteristics of the

medium itself, meaning the way

information is delivered,

has a greater impact on society and

individuals than the actual content of

the message. What he's foreshadowing is

the importance of these algorithms and

these decisions that happen in the

shadows because the weight of those

decisions have all of these downstream

impacts. This is why they should be. Why

can't I see my YouTube algorithm? I can

confirm that Tucker and Mark Cuban also

get filtered.

>> This is insane. Well, basically because

Tucker So Tucker and Tulsi are getting

filtered.

>> All right, listen. Great segue here

because uh we didn't get to recap the

summit and we had

quite paradoxically we had a real

discussion about the importance of

debate friendship and you know the the

process we try to do here and at the

summit which has let a lot of people

speak and debate important issues of

which the Tulsi and the college

university heads discussions so many of

these were important discussions but

people didn't see our recap but just

going around the horn here. Great

moments you felt

were important or enlightening to you.

Chimat, did you have a moment at the

summit that you know one of your amazing

insights that you felt were particularly

insightful that you want to share with

the audience?

>> I think the most insights

>> I think the most important conversation

there was the one with Tulsi.

>> I really do. I mean, I think at a very

basic level, why does America go to war?

Why do we fight wars? Why are men and

women being killed? Why? And it it just

it's the same thing with Charlie Kirk. I

just get so agitated with this idea that

a human being believes that they have

the judgment

to take somebody else's life to me is

incomprehensible. It's just so wrong.

It's so immoral.

It's just so wrong.

And what she talked about and what she's

exposing

is the cascade of lies that causes an

entire generation to lose tens of

thousands of their brothers and sisters.

To lose your your son and your do I. So

yeah, it's um

that was the most important conversation

we had by a country mile. Freeberg, you

have a moment for you that was either

entertaining, enlightening, or

important. I I'll let you take any angle

on it.

>> I would recount our wrap-up that we did

at the end of day two.

When we first started planning the

content for the summit this year, I was

actually thinking about trying to get a

bunch of American speakers for day one

and then a bunch of international

speakers for day two where we could kind

of contrast the American perspective

from the global perspective and hear how

does the rest of the world view the

world and and view America and how does

America view America and view the world

and it was hard to kind of get the

scheduling right. So the way things kind

of ended up getting scheduled out, we we

tried to cluster the conversations into

different themes, but I didn't feel like

we were going to get the orientation I

was hoping for. And so we ended up

having just a bunch of conversations.

But what was really powerful for me was

that the similarity we saw with Elon,

with Tucker and Mark Cuban, with Alex

Karp, and we brought it up, I think also

with Eric Schmidt, is this idea that

much of what we see in terms of the

evolution of society in the West can be

viewed through a lens of

suicide. that the West may be committing

suicide

financially in our deficit spending in

terms of birth rate decline. So, we're

we're kind of destroying our dollar.

We're destroying our headcount because

of the birth rate decline. And then this

immigration policy issue where we're

potentially destroying cultures, which

was a topic that came up a few times,

and perhaps even thinking about the

Tulsi comments, destroying ourselves by

by thrusting ourselves into war and

chopping our heads off. And then we

heard a lot of optimism. We heard a lot

of technologists. We heard a lot of

folks talk about the options and the

choice we have and that we have a choice

to kind of reverse these trends and kind

of change how we're behaving as a

society. And so it all came together as

one long string. And we ended it with

this idea that there's choice and you

have a choice to kind of go forward or

you have a choice to commit suicide. And

then what really hit me was then we walk

out and then the Charlie Kirk murder

happened. And so it created this

emotional wrapper for me on the

conversations we had that there were a

lot of people that are going to make

different choices.

>> And so I I just wish we could do a

summary of what it was like at the

summit instead of each one of these

talks standing on their own. They work

well on their own. But I think that that

whole kind of set of conversations

leading to that point of view was really

important and poignant for me.

>> Did we end up publishing our final like

wrap-up conversation?

>> Not yet.

>> I want to we have not done it. What I

want to do is I want to do that with the

summary video at the end of the summary

video. So, I want to be like here's the

a couple of key points from the the