Generated by AI, so errors will occur.

Ted Rall: So Donald Trump? Yes, he was part of that scene. Pretty much.

Robby West: Yes, because he was present at those events. I wasn’t a big wrestling fan myself, but when you grow up with cable TV in the rural South, you tend to watch whatever is broadcast. For instance, WKRG Channel 15 down in the Florida Panhandle always aired wrestling, which was as popular there as NASCAR events. So it was one of those two dominant forms of entertainment. That experience served as my introduction to Hulk Hogan. I recall that he had a notable rivalry with Andre the Giant, which stands out in memory.

Ted Rall: That rivalry was, of course, entirely scripted, as is typical with WWE. It’s interesting to note that they used to be called the WWF, but they had to change their name because they were sued by the World Wildlife Fund, which shared the same acronym. The WWF, meaning the panda conservation group, had priority since they were established first. As a result, the wrestling organization rebranded from WWF to WWE. In a strange way, this redefinition helped position them more clearly as an entertainment entity. The term World Wrestling Federation might suggest a legitimate sport organization, whereas World Wrestling Entertainment explicitly clarifies its nature as staged performance. I initially thought that this change might cause many fans to stop watching. But surprisingly, they grew even bigger than before as a result, and I believe people fully embraced this shift. Essentially, any pretense that it was anything other than scripted entertainment was eliminated. I think audiences preferred this transparency, enjoying it without the fiction of it being a genuine sport. I must admit, I don’t watch wrestling myself. However, one aspect I’ve never fully understood is the concept of awards in this context. I’m not sure if calling it fake is the right term, since the action happens, real injuries occur, and the physical effort is authentic, but I don’t grasp the awards system. For example, you win a championship belt for winning a match, yet the match was pre-scripted. There’s no scenario where the outcome wasn’t predetermined. So how can you truly be said to win anything? I understand that outcomes in other sports can be fixed too. But there’s a distinction between two athletes competing, where judges might make an erroneous call leading to the wrong person winning, which is one issue. In contrast, when the entire event is rehearsed and planned in advance, it feels different. For instance, it’s like saying Robby and I are going to wrestle, and then you are designated to receive the title. That doesn’t make sense to me.

Robby West: Well, it’s somewhat similar to elections in the EU or Ukraine. The winner is often predetermined unless an extraordinary event occurs; the voters, or the people in those states, have little real influence. Yes, that’s exactly like the situation with a candidate in Romania who kept getting elected despite being the wrong choice, prompting the European Union to essentially suspend the elections. It’s comparable to France as well. For example, Le Pen was almost certainly going to win. And then, back when I was a kid—no, more precisely, when I was in elementary school—we nearly had a riot because there was a heated argument among the kids. The debate was whether wrestling was fake or not. Of course, one group insisted it was absolutely real, while the other group argued it was obviously staged. So we went to the playground, and it turned into a chaotic brawl. It was wild, and the contention was intense. When I was growing up, wrestling, football, and church were the major activities in the Deep South.

Ted Rall: Oh, I’m sure that’s true. Yes, and it’s funny to reflect on this. I never watch any sports now, but I can definitely see the appeal of wrestling. I think it’s worth considering how this works as a form of entertainment, like any other medium. So, how do you think someone like Hulk Hogan achieved such fame? I’ve never seen him wrestle in my life, yet I knew everything about him. I knew who he was and why he was famous. Even though I never watched, I was aware of Andre the Giant because of the Obey stickers. Those stickers were everywhere. How does a personality transcend wrestling to become a mass pop culture figure, even for people who have never stepped inside a wrestling arena?

Alright, let’s shift our focus. I want to highlight that his real name was Terry Bollea. He apparently died of a heart attack at the age of 72. This serves as a reminder that such health events can happen to anyone. You mentioned that he died a millionaire. One reason he died with significant wealth, though I’m unsure how much he saved from his wrestling career, depends on his earnings and how well he was paid, and he had a financial manager to handle his assets. Alternatively, in some cases, managers might steal the money. In other instances, they do an excellent job. If someone has a vice, like a cocaine habit, that money can disappear quickly, or it might be lost on poor investments or taken advantage of by friends. I keep thinking of the band Blondie. They famously snorted $10 million worth of profits in a single year in 1980, and they and their entourage ended up with nothing for a while. So things can get pretty chaotic at that level of fame.

He was the plaintiff in a notorious lawsuit. What happened was that at one point, he had a friend, Bubba the Love Sponge, another Florida personality with a podcast, with whom he did radio. They were hanging out together. I’m not sure if the following incident occurred on more than one occasion; I have the impression it might have. But Bubba suggested to Hulk Hogan, or Terry, hey, would you like to have sex with my wife? I don’t know if alcohol or marijuana had been consumed, but the point is that he did. Terry was present during this event. Some people describe it as a threesome. Others say Terry just watched and derived pleasure from it. Either way, what is known is that surreptitiously, Mr. Sponge videotaped Hulk Hogan having sex with his wife, not Hulk Hogan’s wife. I’m uncertain if Hulk Hogan was married at the time; I got the impression he was single. But anyway, this is a rather sordid story.

Bubba the Love Sponge’s video, I don’t know if he had a falling out with Hulk Hogan or not, but I’m unsure if it was leaked, stolen, or sold. You might remember the website Gawker, which was a news site very prevalent around ten to twenty years ago, run by an English individual. Gawker obtained the video and posted it. Obviously, it served as clickbait for them. Hulk Hogan sued in the state of Florida for defamation. And you know, as you know, as I know personally, it is very, very difficult to sue for defamation in American courts against a media company. Media companies have created numerous legal obstacles and have influenced judges’ temperaments, making them generally predisposed against defendants and in favor of plaintiffs in defamation claims against organizations like newspapers, websites, magazines, TV stations, and radio stations.

This trial was really sensationalistic, and a lot of people thought that Hulk Hogan would not move forward because of the Streisand effect. The Streisand effect is named after the singer Barbra Streisand, who sued paparazzi for taking photos of her secret beachfront enclave. Basically, nobody really saw the photos that appeared in the magazine. But after she sued, everybody went to look at the photos and discovered where she lived. So the Streisand effect means that by complaining about a wrongdoing, you might end up drawing more attention to it. I was worried about that when I sued the LA Times. Not everybody saw the scurrilous smears they published about me. And by suing them, I risked bringing further attention to something that many readers might never have heard of otherwise. So that’s like—

Robby West: I have a quick question. If he did it, and he obviously did, then if a news organization published a video, what crime do they commit? I mean, it wasn’t a lie that something actually happened. So explain this to me. I don’t understand it.

Ted Rall: Let me see if I can find a good summary of the lawsuit. Yeah, the claims included invasion of privacy. For example, in someone else’s house, there’s an invasion of privacy when he’s there having sex with his wife. There is an expectation of privacy when you are having sex behind closed doors, even if someone else is watching, because he didn’t consent to being videotaped.

Robby West: So it was a hidden camera then. Yes, it was a hidden camera. He didn’t know he was being videotaped. Gotcha. Okay, that I don’t fully understand. So it’s an ambush.

Ted Rall: This was in February 2006. The woman’s name was Heather Clem. He said that, and anyway, he also sued for infringement of personality rights. When you are a celebrity in particular, you are deemed to have personality rights; I think at this point, both of us could probably be considered to have them, though not quite on the same level as Hulk Hogan. And Hulk Hogan wouldn’t have the same level of personality rights as, say, Obama. But basically, it is scaled based on your level of celebrity. You have the right to control your public persona and image within reason. For instance, if you go shopping, the paparazzi can take your picture because you’re in public. But a photo of you naked and having sex with someone who is not your wife is particularly damaging to your brand. He also sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which most lawyers will tell you is a legitimate claim, but judges and juries tend to view it as a throwaway argument. Like, “oh, too bad for you, you were sad.” But you probably would be sad if you were Hulk Hogan and woke up one morning to find your group sex tape had appeared on the internet. Not just on the internet, not even on a porn site, but on a legitimate news organization.

So anyway, Gawker’s attorneys argued that he had originally sued for copyright infringement, but that was withdrawn. During the trial, Gawker argued that Hulk Hogan had made his own sex life a public matter. However, on cross-examination, when Hulk Hogan’s lawyer asked whether a depiction of his genitalia had any news value, editor AJ Daulerio said “no.” Then Hulk Hogan stated that comments he made in interviews were done in his professional wrestling character, which is not his real personality. So this was an exposure of his real personality that diluted his brand as an entertainer. Nick Denton was the CEO of Gawker at the time, and he tried to appeal, but ultimately, a Florida jury in 2016 ordered them to pay Hulk Hogan $115 million, including $60 million for emotional distress. The jury also awarded him an additional $25 million for punitive damages. So the reactions to this case depended on what you think is more important: your right to privacy or a news organization’s right to publish material it obtains.

News organizations, as robust as the New York Times, argued this poses a threat to freedom of the press because they simply received and published it. Probably this case would not have gone Hulk’s way if he hadn’t sued in Florida. But he was very popular there, the jury liked him, and the Floridians had a dim view of what was done to him. For example, they might think, hey, someone offers to let you sleep with his wife, and then secretly tapes it to give to Gawker. So it was a really interesting case. Anyway, it’s kind of crazy that when Gawker’s editors, including publisher Nick Denton, testified, they were really snotty about the whole thing. They brought their New York attitude to it, acting like this was ridiculous, that Hulk Hogan was just a wrestler, and that he brought it on himself. They didn’t care that he was upset.

Robby West: It completely misread the population. Yes, that might have worked in New York, maybe. Yeah, it probably would have worked there because nobody cares, even though people like wrestling here. But I think privacy rights are not considered that important. Back in the nineteen eighties, we had community access cable, and there was pornography on it in New York City. Someone sued under obscenity law and took it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Community access cable standards are based on community values, and the Supreme Court officially ruled that New York City doesn’t have community values. Therefore, the porn stayed. And so now, I would venture to say that even if you live on the Upper East Side, you probably wouldn’t be too happy about having something like what happened to Hulk Hogan occur to you. You know, it’s easy to laugh when it’s not you.

Also, part of the controversy I should mention is there was a political aspect to this. You’re going to love this. So you know who Peter Thiel is. He is a very famous right-wing billionaire tech figure, co-founder of PayPal, and former board member of Facebook. Anyway, he was hanging out with his Australian buddy, Aaron D’Souza, and they were discussing how this might be their opportunity to destroy Gawker. Gawker was liberal-leaning, and more to the point, Gawker had outed Peter Thiel as gay. Peter Thiel was really angry about that and held a grudge, saying this is nobody’s business but his own. So he was waiting for a chance to get even. He decided to finance Hulk Hogan’s case because there’s no way Hulk Hogan, even as a successful wrestler, had the money to outlast a big media organization like Gawker. So they decided to give him millions, $10 million, to fund this lawsuit.

Anyway, this dragged on. In May, Hogan sued Gawker again because they leaked sealed court documents in which he used racial slurs. The transcripts were then published by the National Enquirer. The WWE fired him for being racist. Gawker claimed they didn’t know anything about it, and the case didn’t go anywhere. Long story short, Gawker ultimately failed. They said they couldn’t afford to pay the $140.1 million judgment or the $50 million bonds needed to appeal. So they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, put themselves up for sale. Gawker was a large group that included Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jezebel, and Lifehacker. The Spanish company Univision ended up buying them. After the sale, they negotiated, and in the end, Hulk Hogan received $31 million.

Robby West: Isn’t Peter Thiel also one of our favorite werewolf, J.D. Vance’s big financial backers? Yes, that is correct. Because one thing—and I don’t know what it is about attorneys from New York or just people from out of state in general—back in the early two thousands, when Jeb Bush first ran for governor of Florida and got soundly defeated, he was running against Lawton Chiles, if I recall correctly, back in the nineties. They were doing a debate, and Lawton Chiles, who sounded a lot like me with that Florida cracker accent, was on stage. I remember watching this debate, and Jeb looked over at Lawton Chiles and said Florida no longer has room for old southern politics. And Ted, you could have heard a pin drop; it went completely silent. My dad looked at me and said, “that stupid Yankee has lost.” And it sounds like that’s kind of what happened here with these attorneys who came down for Gawker. They just viewed the electorate as backward and unsophisticated, which, to be fair, might be true. But if that’s who you’re drawing your jury pool from, it’s probably not a good idea to insult them and pretend it’s raining.

Ted Rall: Totally. Yes, that’s exactly right. And I mean, look, honestly, I was extremely concerned. As you know, I understand what it’s like to be defamed by a media organization. And I’ve worked throughout media my entire life. I started out at a small community newspaper. I’ve worked at big city dailies and national magazines. I’ve been on radio stations, big and small. I’ve been on television and worked for ABC News. You name it, I’ve done it. I’ve been an editor, a writer, a cartoonist, an illustrator, and a copy editor. I’ve seen it all. And I gotta tell you, I could not, for the life of me, understand what Nick Denton was thinking when he posted that video. It had zero news value whatsoever.

Robby West: It might have had news value, let’s say for argument’s sake, if it involved a different person, like Jimmy Swaggart or a TV evangelist. That would make sense.

Ted Rall: Exactly. Or let’s say J.D. Vance, whom you mentioned. Right? Like, anyone who’s a public figure with a conflicting image. So I remember a friend of the show, Scott Stantis, my best friend, and I arguing about Larry Craig, the Idaho senator who was caught soliciting men in the Saint Paul Airport bathroom. He claimed he had a “wide stance” because he was reaching into the stall, playing footsie with the person next to him. That’s how he got caught. Apparently, there’s a well-known gay meeting spot in that airport bathroom. Who would have known? Anyway, the point is, he asked why Craig got in so much trouble. I said, because he was an anti-gay married senator from Idaho who constantly criticized gay people. That’s why. And like, well, how come? I said, it’s like in England, it’s always a Tory MP you find in a scandalous situation, like hanging from the ceiling with a ball gag and a spatula involved. It’s never a Labour MP.

So the point is, of course, that’s right. And like Hulk Hogan, his brand was never I only have sex with my wife.

Robby West: His brand was wild man wrestler. No, his brand was an alpha male, I’ll beat your face in jock. That completely disrupted his brand. Now who would have thought? Yes, his friend. Yes, 100%. His friend should have been completely ashamed. It’s like, no, I guess, Ted, it would be like me, coming out as the right-winger here on “The TMI Show,” if it came out that I was secretly supporting Kamala Harris for president the entire time. Just something off-brand. Or, you know, being a Christian, if I found out I was having an affair with my neighbor while my wife and kids were home.

Ted Rall: Or, let’s say for me, if you found out I’m having a torrid affair with Ann Coulter, or I’m moving to that whites-only community in Arkansas we talked about this morning, and I’ve applied to join there. That goes against brand. Right?

Robby West: So it’s like, hey, they need cartoonists. And that is newsworthy. Well, it’s news, so I don’t think it’d be off-brand. Here’s what I’m thinking about this, Ted. I could 100% say I’m already disqualified. Had you, however, you can go in because you have a couple of things going for you. One, you probably don’t have to worry about someone playing the polar bear game with you on the subway. So you know, I got some black dude just rabbit-punching you. In this whites-only community, they need someone to handle their newspaper. They’ve got to have commentary and cartoons.

Ted Rall: I can prove, by the way, I’ve been working on my genealogy. I can prove that my lineage goes back at least four hundred years in France and Germany as Christian. So they’d be okay with me.

Robby West: Yes, we’re into politics. Yes, I’d be able to trace my genealogy back to about the late nine hundreds so far reliably.

Ted Rall: Oh, that’s amazing.

Robby West: And like, true story, I don’t know if the name rings a bell, but Captain David Morgan—he is my direct ancestor. He’s like my grandfather. So badass. Oh, 100%. So whenever it says that my ancestors literally came and conquered this continent, I’m not saying that. No, I know.

Ted Rall: I believe you, and that’s true. There’s a lot more of you in the South who can say that than in the North.

Robby West: Well, because it’s just so old. It’s old. It’s big.

Ted Rall: Yes, it’s also where some of the earliest settlements were, and then people didn’t really move much once they stayed. They got to the South, like in Georgia, and tended to stay or not go too far. But people arrived in New York and tended to disperse. So, getting back to Terry Bollea, it was crazy to me at the time how many of my friends in the media rolled their eyes and thought he had no case, that he shouldn’t have complained, that he had nothing to bitch about. Literally, I’m sorry, in this case, the only person—it’s not breaking news that a guy has sex. Right? And it’s just not. And this was between the only three people involved. You know, it was between him, the wife, and Bubba the Love Sponge, who liked to watch and film it and ought not to have filmed it.

Robby West: Did the wife know it was being filmed?

Ted Rall: I don’t know. That’s a really good question. She was involved, but I thought it was really disgusting what they did to him. And I think that if I’d been on that jury, because I followed that case very closely, I would have ruled in his favor and hit Gawker hard. I’m really happy about what happened to them. They were a disgusting publication with terrible news judgment, willing to ruin people’s lives for nothing, just for fun. They thought, let’s just mock this dumb wrestler. What’s he gonna do? But it goes back to the Peter Thiel thing. Like, oh, they outed him as gay. Okay, I don’t like Peter Thiel’s politics at all. But is it really anyone’s business, my business, your business, who he sleeps with? It’s really not. And it’s like, why are you outing people? This is his personal life. Well, he’s a rich guy, and he’s famous. So what? Leave him alone. And so I don’t blame him. Also, this part really drove me crazy. A lot of my friends were mad because Peter Thiel gave all this money to Hulk Hogan, without which he never could have prevailed. It’s like, well, listen to yourselves. You’re admitting that an ordinary guy, even one as well-off as Hulk Hogan presumably was, doesn’t stand a chance against a media organization when he sues for libel. Only with the equalizing influence of a billionaire can he maybe prevail. So I don’t see that as a grave injustice to Gawker or any other future defendant. I view it like Sarah Palin needs an infusion of cash to take on the New York Times. They treated her unfairly, and it was wrong. And I don’t care if you’re on the right or the left. I want to see defamation plaintiffs prevail. If I had that cash infusion, I would have prevailed against the LA Times. As it is, I gave them a great run for their money, and they couldn’t believe how hard I was to defeat. But it took five years. The thing is, if I’d had a Peter Thiel, it would have happened, and I would have taken the money. People might say, ew, that’s disgusting. Who cares? It’s like, those guys have filthy money. Why can’t I have filthy money?

Robby West: That’s one of the things I wanted to ask Achilles about on yesterday’s show. They’re talking about the LA Times going into an IPO. Personally, I hope the LA Times dies a miserable death, especially because of what they did to you specifically.

Ted Rall: Thank you. Well, it’s true. And I’m not the only one. When an organization behaves like that, you can be sure it’s not an isolated incident; they’ve done it to many, many other people. I got to know some of the others they mistreated. For example, there was a guy, a sports writer named T.J. Simers, who was in his sixties. The LA Times paid him a lot of money, but they decided they didn’t want to pay him that much anymore. Instead of talking to him like a human being and saying the newspaper business is struggling, we need a new arrangement—he had a contract—they just fabricated excuses and fired him. So he sued for age discrimination and won. When they did discovery, and I know this for a fact, the LA Times’ internal communications came out. And perhaps the most revealing one, especially for a jury in a city that is 50% Latino, was when they were discussing internally the young Latino sportswriter they got to work for one-sixth of his salary. The editors said, okay, so before we get rid of the old guy, is your Hispanic replacement ready? That’s charming. Yes, that’s just who they were. And the LA Times workers, there was no solidarity whatsoever. I think about the first paper I ever worked for. My editor got fired because she refused to fire me over a cartoon the paper had approved. I was 16 years old at the little Vandalia Chronicle in Ohio. When this happened to me at the LA Times, internally, they were all upset. Everyone thought it was bad news, but they were terrified. Not one person who worked at the LA Times ever tweeted to say what happened was wrong, and they knew it was wrong. So there was no solidarity; their union didn’t back me up because they were scared and sucking up to management. Forget them.

Robby West: Really, what’s the point of having a union if it just collaborates with the boss to screw the workers, like talking about Hulk Hogan sleeping with someone else’s wife? What’s the point of paying union dues?

Ted Rall: Yes, you’re 100% right. In Japan, they have a different system with official unions that have a seat on the board of directors. It’s a much more cooperative culture, and it works a little better. But here, a union should be oppositional. That doesn’t mean they have to be mean or rude or deliberately sabotage management, but they should oppose, be militant, and push for their workers’ interests only. And it is definitely in the workers’ interest that the company stay in business and remain profitable. So there’s a balance; you don’t want to go too far. But no, I agree. The LA Times union was not really a union. They were constantly posting things like, we’re so grateful to our management for supporting us in this difficult time. I’m like, what is wrong with you people? Anyway, in terms of the LA Times, they got away with it. And in a sense, I held them to account by making it hard for them. I think they would think twice before doing something like that to someone else again.

Robby West: Well, I sure hope so. And the thing is, more to the point, I know we’re drifting a bit from Hulk Hogan here, but it’s a premium episode. Who cares? I think it just shows how our culture, for lack of a better word, has imploded. Because last night when I was at church, I was talking to another churchgoer, and he asked, Robby, why do you think Biden didn’t release the Epstein files and that Trump is involved? I said, because it’s bigger than Trump. I explained that whoever is in these Epstein files will include people from both parties, people in business, finance, and industry. This is bigger than one person; it encompasses the entire upper echelon of the American leadership establishment. That’s the problem. Forget any foreign funding that might have come through foreign influences or intelligence agencies. I said Trump is lying. He’s doing this to protect the powerful, and he’s destroying his entire coalition to do it. In a big way, it’s like what the LA Times did to you. They circled the wagons. Management knew they were wrong, but they chose to side with the establishment and screw the little guy.It didn’t matter if they were right or wrong.

Ted Rall: And to put a finer point on it, once they committed to that action, there was no going back. Like, because now, when you’re talking about a defendant like the LA Times, they committed to a series of lies they had to keep doubling and tripling down on to cover up their cover-ups. Similarly, Trump knows what’s in those files. AG Pam Bondi has told him. He may have looked at them himself, though I doubt it since he’s not a big reader. But Pam Bondi has fully informed him of the contents. He knows he’s in there. I don’t think for a minute this is about Trump personally committing sex crimes. It doesn’t fit what we know about his personality.

Robby West: No, he likes middle-aged Eastern European models, not someone like Dolph Lundgren. And corn-fed women. Yes, there’s that. Now this is so much bigger. And talking about brand, I was discussing the Hulk Hogan brand, how people always knew who he was. Dan Bongino, I don’t think he realizes—well, maybe he does—but he completely destroyed his brand. When he’s done with the FBI, there’s no going back to Rumble anymore. His show is finished because he went against brand, unlike Hulk Hogan. You know, if you’re a wrestler, a big alpha male, no one’s surprised you’re with women. If he was with a man, people would be shocked. Yes, very much so. Dan Bongino came in, before his appointment, saying the Epstein files are out there, we need the truth, and so on. And now he’s saying, oh, there’s nothing there, it was a suicide. Everyone knows he’s lying. He was putting on a show as a truth-teller who worked for the Secret Service, willing to sacrifice everything for justice, truth, and exposing corruption.

Ted Rall And then a month in, you know Bongino is the only possible source of the leak that AG Bondi told Trump he was in the files, which came out a day or two ago. We know that comes from him. The base must know that. Bongino’s fans must know that. Does that buy him any currency?

Robby West: It will with the Trumpers. So it would have bought more currency if he’d called a press conference, released it, and exposed Trump. That’s what would save Dan Bongino. Just do a press conference, drop the truth bomb, commit political suicide, and set Washington DC on fire. He’d be a hero on the left and right, lionized. Instead, he’s like Hulk Hogan’s friend who betrayed him. That’s Dan Bongino. He is the jerk.

Ted Rall: So yes, that’s what happened here. Obviously, Bongino goes to work for the administration. Yes, he’s been told he’s number two after Pam, with a lot of power, but number two isn’t number one, and even number one isn’t number one because that’s Trump. So number one is Trump, then there’s Kash Patel, then Pam, then him. So he’s really at least fourth in the pecking order. I’ve always said you can’t really affect real change from the inside, only personal change.

Robby West: Unless you’re willing to set yourself on fire on a pyre. If you’re willing to self-immolate. Like, for example, I would like to—or what you’re really doing is declaring to the people, listen, my fate is in your hands. Now if you like, I sided with you, the people, against my former bosses, the government. Now I’m on your side. If you see fit to buy my book, support my podcast, and donate to my legal defense fund, then I’ll be okay. Because I’ve never been in this position, Ted. I never will be. I would like to think I have enough spine that if I were in Dan Bongino’s place with all this going on, I would have the guts to go on national TV and tell the truth. So, here’s what’s happening. When this is done, I guarantee you I’ll be charged under the Espionage Act and go to prison. Basically, do a John Kiriakou. I would like to think I have that kind of courage. I think I do. I don’t know, I’ve never been tested. I would like to think I’m that much of a disagreeable person to burn everything down, using myself as the match. It’s rough. Yes, it is. Because that’s the only thing that can change us. Because change really happens when people are willing to say, damn the consequences, this is wrong, what’s going on is wrong, this has to change, and then you’re willing to either literally or figuratively set yourself on fire to be the change that makes it happen. I’m not advocating going out and self-immolating at Walmart. But what I am saying is that if you’re in a position of power and know the system is completely corrupt, and you promised to clean it, you have a choice. Are you going to gain more power, side with the bosses, or sacrifice everything on principle? And nobody else can do it. We had a press conference because you can’t suppress that. No, you can’t.

Ted Rall: Yes. So what do you think is going to happen here? In the end, you and I both know Trump is going to fire Dan Bongino. You know he’s going to throw him to the wolves. And I guess the other question, there are a bunch of things here. Let’s handicap what will happen with the Epstein files. Speaker Johnson seems to believe that by kicking the can down the road to Labor Day, adjourning Congress early, he can suppress this whole controversy, keep it under wraps, and that people will forget about it. Something else will come up in the headlines to overshadow this, and people will forget, as they have about so many things regarding Trump and others in the past. There’s reason to think that might be true. My instinct says not this time.

Robby West: Not this time. And do you know why? Because the Republican Party is going against its brand. We just talked about that, but take the scenario from Idaho with the anti-gay senator who turns out to be involved with young boys. I mean, I felt sick thinking about it. The Republican Party champions itself as the party of family values, traditional Americana, and protecting children and the unborn. The Democrats never promised to do any of those things. The Republican Party does. So then you have a president who ran on that promise—Trump—talking about the media all the time. Yes, QAnon, all that stuff, Pizzagate. He talked about QAnon. Yes, he owns it. So Trump ran on transparency and draining the swamp. How do you drain the swamp? By going in, cutting down trees, draining the water, and slaying the alligators. That was his brand. He promised transparency. The alligators—no, you don’t. And so this guy at church I was talking to yesterday said, could you please tell me any time when Biden, running for president, promised to release the Epstein files? He said, well, he didn’t. Okay, but Trump did. Not only did Trump promise it, Kash Patel did. Dan Bongino did so on TV all the time. The entire world knew Trump knew Epstein. We always knew they hung out together. There were all those photos. There’s nothing new about those photos. So, curious, what did MAGA World think when Trump said he’d blow all this out of the water, but they also know Trump had an association with Epstein? What did they think the truth was about that association?

Robby West: I think most people are willing to overlook that because rich people hang out with rich people. They just do. It’s a very small circle of friends. Yes, Trump was a donor before he was a politician. So what do you do? You network, you go to all the parties. He invited Bill and Hillary Clinton to his wedding. Everyone knew.

Ted Rall: And Epstein was a neighbor down there in South Beach, Florida, living just two miles away from Epstein.

Robby West: Yes, so as far as that, no one cares. The issue is that Trump promised to be transparent and to drain the swamp, not only to drain the swamp but to make America great again by dismantling the deep state. Yes, and his whole thing about the 2020 election isn’t calling out of brand. Trump always talked about how he was a winner. Well, when he lost, he suddenly became the biggest loser and claimed it was stolen. So it’s like, you can’t be both. You lost, take your lumps, but he never could accept defeat. Then he ran again, saying we’re going to expose everything, we’re going to reveal the corruption. And then he starts telling blatant lies, and you see the control coming from the top. And one day, it’s like someone flipped a switch. You have Charlie Kirk and Cat Turd on Twitter and all these other people talking about how the Epstein files must be released. And then suddenly, oh, Epstein’s a non-story anymore after Trump complained. People are smart enough to realize this. And Ted, I think here’s the opportunity your side of the aisle has now. We have on the right a small group of people in Washington, DC, who are standing up, who are fighting. They’re probably going to face primaries. I guarantee you they are. Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to face a primary. Thomas Massie is going to face a primary. Rand Paul is going to face a primary. It’s up to your people on the left now, for at least some who come in through primaries or are elected, to say, I’m going to put principle over politics. I’m not going to stand with the party. I’m going to stand with these MAGA types on the right and collaborate, because the margin is so small, you don’t need a big majority. All you have to do is obstruct a must-pass bill, like one for automobile states.

Ted Rall: Marjorie Taylor Greene is from Georgia. I don’t know if Georgia is one of those states where Democrats can vote in a Republican primary. I don’t know the answer to that. So in that situation, you’d want to see some strategic voting. Although I gotta say, you and I both believe in a left-right alliance of convenience among populists. But I don’t think the Democratic Party or even the progressive wing of the Democratic Party sees it yet. Some people do. I see it. David Sirota sees it. Cenk Uygur sees it. Others see it. But that’s kind of the intellectual vanguard of the mainstream left in America, and they usually don’t listen to us.

Robby West: I disagree. They end up taking over everything. I disagree, and I think it’s going to be one issue. And this might surprise you, Ted, about how this alliance can come about. It’s because of the genocide happening in Gaza. People are noticing that. Like, AOC actually says she’s opposed to the genocide, but she’s going to keep sending money to Israel for their defensive use to kill Gazans. People see that. So if you start getting people on the left who are sick and tired of this Israel-first mentality, where American tax dollars are used not only to commit a genocide but then you start asking questions. It’s like, Epstein. Epstein. What kind of name is that? Oh, it’s a Jewish name. Oh, it’s a Jewish state. It’s the Jewish state committing a genocide. Then people will start asking questions, which you’re not supposed to do because Ben Shapiro says that makes you a Nazi if you ask questions. Well, who else is he calling a Nazi? Tucker Carlson for asking questions. So then you start getting this conversation going back and forth. We don’t have to agree on everything, but what we can agree on is no one should agree on everything. No, I agree. So we can agree on maybe we should defund Israel. Maybe we should cut them off. Yes, and the way I look at it is if they want to kill Palestinians, they can do it without my money. I agree. And I think that’s going to be the bridge, Ted. Really, honestly, I could be wrong, but I think that’s the way people are willing to start coming together, like the way Mamdani did. I don’t agree with that man on anything. But if I lived in New York, I would have voted for him because when he said, no, I’m not going to Israel, I’m staying here, whether he realizes it or not, that is an America-first position. Of course, take care of your home first by definition. Yes, that’s what we’re asking for.

Ted Rall: Yes, America First is not inherently a right-wing thing. No, not at all. But we’re told it is. Yes, I know. It’s like, I gotta say I never really understood the rabid internationalism on, I think it’s fair to say, the neoliberal Democrats like the Hillary and Bill Clintons of the world, who are aligned with a lot of corporatists. You can sort of see why they like it that way. Their money goes all over the place and lives in the Caymans, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. So they’re citizens of the world. I don’t think those people really care that much what happens to one country more than another.

Robby West: No, they’re globalists. They’re not Americans. They float around. Yes, they’re globalists. By definition, if you believe the entire idea of a nation state is obsolete, then why would you identify as an American? It’s like what we talked about earlier on this morning’s show. What is an American? You know, I think we could do a whole other hour on that. Oh, easily.

Ted Rall: The idea of the nation state, which is relatively new, really only 200 years old in its modern configuration. But it’s like if you’re going to get rid of a system or want to get rid of a system, you better have some idea how you want to replace it. I’m looking at you, George W. Bush, overthrowing Saddam. The globalists don’t. I can see in some airy way how and why we should have one world government. Like, we can address the great inequalities of wealth between the North and the global South. But the point is, I don’t see logistically how you’d be able to hold a whole world government together at this stage. I don’t think our communications technology is good enough. And when you’re in a world with thousands of languages and cultures, I don’t know how you could ever have a global system, sort of like in the lexicon of Star Trek. Everybody formed one world government once we went into interstellar space so we could have one government to represent us to the rest of the galaxy. We can’t do that yet.

Robby West: No, that’s going to be a really hard sell. That’s going to be a hard sell in Pakistan. I know if you go into a short lecture on them about gay rights and feminism. I mean, let’s be honest.

Ted Rall: Or it’ll be a hard sell in Greenwich Village when the Pakistanis are trying to sell Sharia law. So either way, most cultures don’t get along with each other. People have a hard time here in the U.S., and we all speak the same language supposedly. Yes, that’s just the whole problem. And it’s weird because Hulk Hogan was kind of a throwback to Americana. Now, you’re talking about a big, strong, individual, larger-than-life figure with a brand. That was his brand. And then, about a year and a half ago, this guy—something that really impressed me—was he converted to Christianity, and he and his new wife were baptized. When he was asked about it, he said that all his life he realized it was nothing, and that the strongest he’s ever been is now by surrendering to Jesus. And as a Christian, that resonates. It’s like, hey, truly, welcome, brother. That’s huge. I just think that as the country becomes more diverse culturally and ethnically, as the culture gets more diluted, as Christianity retreats, I don’t see another Hulk Hogan. I don’t see another symbol people can look at and say, that’s the guy, without any negative judgment one way or the other. It’s like, that’s Hulk Hogan. I don’t see the next Hulk Hogan. I don’t know if you’re ever going to have another Hulk Hogan.

Ted Rall: Well, I think that’s a really good place to leave it. And I don’t know that I’m going to argue with you on that. I think that’s exactly right. You’ve been watching a Rumble Premium edition of The TMI Show with me, Ted Rall, and Manila Chan. She’ll be joining some other episodes in the future. Filling in for Manila is producer Robby West. Robby, as always, it’s a real pleasure to do this with you. If you’re watching, please like, follow, and share the show. If you’re watching one of the clips, please check out the full show and subscribe. We’re very close to that magic 1,000 subscribers threshold. We need to start earning some money. And if you’re on Rumble, come over because you’re going to see a lot of spicy content here on Rumble that you won’t see on YouTube. We’re here Monday through Friday at 10 AM Eastern Time, 7 AM on the West Coast. So check us out, and take care.