Trump Hoax Hysteria: The Fake News No One Could Ignore

Give it up for Josh Johnson!

This weekend, wow, for everybody I imagine this weekend was weird. It was weird because for like half a day? That's so long. Half of a day. It's a very long time to think the president. And then, you know, we found out, oh, it wasn't the case. they they they posted you know the news reports came out never like the president's been found golfing in Virginia it's like don't say found like that found like a lost senior, found. It's insane. Just say he was golfing in Virginia, found in Virginia. Makes it sound like the White House didn't know.

I'm pretty sure they drove him.

Found.

12 hours is too little to think somebody's dead.

My buddy lives with his grandpa.

And every time he goes to his grandpa's house, he says, I'm gonna go to my grandpa's house. And he goes, I'm gonna go to my grandpa's house. My buddy lives with his grandpa.

And every time he thinks his grandpa's dead, he finds out in about five minutes. His granddaddy does that sleep you only do when you old. You know that sleep where you like...

Do you know what I mean?

Like I don't know why, but like it seems like after 70 people just sleep with a little bit too much neck.

You know what I mean?

His granddad can't just go to sleep. He always hit the... That's a very dead... way to lay. That's how Talia died at the end of Dark Knight Rises. She's like...

The neck crank is a surefire way for somebody to put a spoon in front of your nose to see if you're still kicking. He does it a lot apparently, you know, because his granddaddy sleeps pretty deep

There's that whole thing about sleep being the cousin of death and I think it's his granddaddy's half-brother because Not even a snore not even a cook, you know, I mean

He said he always thinks his grandpa gone when he take a nap because the way he falls asleep, which to be fair to my friend, this is... I've never seen this in anyone else in my entire life. But he says, Grandale, go take a nap. He'll announce it too. He's like, I Like, I laid out. Then he goes to lay down, whether it's on the couch

or it's in his room, and lays his head back. And he said the way his granddaddy falls asleep is he takes a deep breath. That's a great way to look dead. This man goes to take a nap, lays on the couch and goes, huh! Now, to be fair to his granddaddy, every time. He always wake up... Huh!

-♪♪

But even then, he's never wondered if his granddaddy was gone for 12 hours.

-♪♪ 12 hours. 12 hours. Jeez. And we thought that because Trump doesn't look good.

You know what I mean? He just finally looked like he act like, you know what I mean? Like if somebody listed everything a person did next to everything that they ingested,

you'd be like, that's not a person who's well.

That's not a person did next to everything that they ingested, you'd be like, that's not a person who's well. And finally, he doesn't, you know, he just doesn't look like he's doing great. You know, I didn't even know the term. He had some veinous thing. Turns out that veinous thing was his ankles his ankles I don't know if you've seen them world leaders have seen them

world leaders have had to sit there and not look. In case you're not familiar, look, Trump's ankles are... No, his ankles just sitting there looking, you know, caked up. I mean, he got some thickums under those socks. Trump's ankles have quite a bit of booty. I can't imagine what that must be like to be an aide in the White House and walking next to the President, taking orders from the President of the United States, but all

you can hear is his ankles clapping. No. No. It's tough. It's tough. It is. It's like his ankles and then his, woof, his hand. That hand. You're not like, his hand is... Black. Like, it's... Imagine, imagine being Donald Trump and...

turning black. No one's more upset than him. No, that's bad. That's tough. You know, he's over here trying to live and if you just don't have something on the schedule. People are so.

It's funny too because

I go back and forth with friends. I have friends that are sort of across the political spectrum. You know, I have these friends who, whether they tell me or not, I know that they voted for Trump. At least one of them, pretty sure, voted for him three times.

You know?

Every time he could, he did.

And so we'll go back and forth all the time. Every time he could, he did.

And so we'll go back and forth all the time. You know, we'll mostly be arguing all the time. And we argue about a bunch of things that aren't Trump as well. Like sometimes we'll just argue about like whole social issues, whole different policies and everything. And maybe it's because I've known him longer

than Trump has been president that I feel like having those arguments is, to me, worth it. I don't ask anybody else to do everything that I'm doing, but I think that there is something to get to the bottom of and it's what we are gonna do when he's gone.

Do you know what I mean? Because I think that right now it's easy to put everything that's happening and how we feel about each other on one person because it's sort of the catalyst for all this stuff. But the groundwork was being laid

long before he became president. And so whenever he's gone, you know, we're all gonna have to figure out a way to relate to each other. Because it's not as if all of the problems begin and end with him, you know?

He's just one of them. But I don't know.

No idea.

It's maybe.

We don't know. It could be any day now. It could be 200 more years. I truly, like my grandma was in the nursing home before she passed and I would go visit her and everything. My grandfather as well, at different times,

they were in nursing homes and when I'd go to visit them, you'd see people who had to be 3,000 years old.

And it's like, I don't know.

You try to live a life that's full of love and you try to make memories and moments with family, with strangers. You want to have a full life. You wanna have a life that you look back on and you're proud of the impact you had on people, you know? And along the way, try maybe, I don't know, eat right when you can, but enjoy yourselves, you know?

Drink sometimes, not too often.

Maybe party a little bit when you're younger but enjoy yourselves, you know. And drink sometimes, not too often.

Maybe party a little bit when you're younger and wean off of it as you get older, but do your best to have a really impactful life, even if you never become whatever it is, like rich, famous, popular, you're someone who by being in other people's lives, their lives are richer.

And same way that trees in the forest have roots that overlap, your life impacts other people's lives, you create ripple effects and create positive change in the world. Hopefully by doing all the right things,

you have a good, long life. Or you could be the devil and probably live way longer. Like, way longer. So many of those people in that nurse home were very mean. They were so mean. I was like,

man, life must run off hate fuel.

How do you...

How are you this old and mad? And mad you're alive, too.

Be sitting there.

Nothing keeps you alive longer than sitting in a rocking chair and not rocking.

Imagine, you got to really be a bad person

to sit in a rocking chair, have the joy of rocking, and not even want it. Imagine, you gotta really be a bad person to sit in a rocking chair, have the joy of rocking and not even want it. My friend said, you know, he would do a similar thing. He would go to the nursing home, visit his grandparents and stuff,

and he said every day there was this old dude in a rocking chair, not rocking,

Sitting there arms crossed in the chair Everybody everybody walked by people would say hello to him

Finally he was like, you know what I say hello to this man when I pass him and we never really have a conversation. He doesn't speak to me. And I don't take it personally because you never know what people are going through. You know, some people, you might think they're being rude, but maybe they have something going on. Maybe they have dementia a little bit or maybe they're in their own head about something,

trying to remember something, doing something. So he said, I'm going to make a point the next time I go there to have a conversation with him. You know what I mean? Because that's the one thing he said he never saw anybody do. And so next time he went to visit his grandpa, on the way out, he walked up to him.

He was like, hi, how you doing? Man said, I'm alive. And he's like, well, I hope you're having a good day. Like, why would it be a good day? And well, you know, it's nice outside and everything's sun shining. you're in a rocking chair.

And he was like... I'm in a rocking chair. I don't like this rocking chair. I just sit in it so nobody else can. It's easy to put everything and the way that we are now and all narratives and all discourse on just one person.

It's easy to do that, especially when that person looks like they're driving all of it, right? But the ground was laid for this person long before they came into any sort of political picture. You know what I mean? Like, for a long time, people have felt like there was nobody who was looking out for them.

For a long time, people felt like it would take somebody who could not be bought by Washington or Wall Street's special interest money or couldn't be it couldn't couldn't be twisted in whichever direction by lobbyists or or was looking out for people because they weren't motivated by money and they and they weren't motivated by the promise of getting rich and the thing that we came to believe as as a country almost you you saw this way Before Trump ever entered the political pictures that if someone was at least independently wealthy

Maybe they wouldn't be swayed by the money You know, I mean and and there were those people across political spectrum that felt like there was no one looking out for them, that slowly everything that was their quality of life and everything that they earned was eroding away piece by piece, right? And that they just needed someone to step up who would stand in the way of all that

and wouldn't be swayed by it. And unfortunately, that person never showed up. But like... And so I have these arguments with my friend. And there was one point where, I'm going back and forth for a while, cause I felt like for everything that he said,

I was saying something that was a reason why he shouldn't trust Trump on it, or why I didn't think it was something that was gonna happen, you know? And finally he goes, well, you know, he's a businessman. And I had heard this before, and he said,

he's a businessman, and I was like, oh, oh! Oh, he's a businessman. He's a businessman. He is a businessman. He's a businessman. He is a businessman. He's a businessman, though. No, like, he is a, he

is a businessman. He is a businessman. He's a businessman. He is a businessman. You said he's a businessman, so he's a businessman.

You told me he's a businessman. I've heard this before. He's a businessman. I'm just making sure that I understand what you're saying. He's a business man, so he's a business man. You told me he's a business man. I've heard this before. He's a business man. I'm just making sure that I understand what you're saying. He's a business man. He is a business man.

He's a business man. So even you didn't say good business man. You said, you said uh. You said uh, as in he's one, as in yes, he does business. It's a businessman. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's a businessman.

He is a businessman that bankrupted a casino. You know casinos.

You know those things you don't generally leave money with?

He bankrupted a casino. He's a businessman. He bankrupted a casino. A casino though.

He's a businessman. A casino! A casino though. A casino though. A casino though. A casino though. A casino though.

He's a businessman.

He's a businessman.

He's a businessman.

Bankrupted, a casino. And look, I'm not a businessman.

And look, I'm not a businessman.

And I don't own a casino. In fact, whenever I go to a casino, I don't the show. I've done some shows at casinos. And then I go, I do the show, and then I go back to my room. I leave, I don't know the ins and outs of running a casino. I hardly know what it's like to really enjoy yourself

at a casino, walking through and playing games and stuff. I've walked with other people as they've wanted to gamble and stuff like that. I've been awkwardly standing there, but I don't know what it takes to run a casino. And maybe this casino, look, maybe, I'm throwing this out there as an olive branch.

One of many I'll extend, maybe this casino, this one, maybe, had those slot machines that, they had those slot machines that really... give you credit for how hard you pull them. You know what I mean? You pull that slot machine as hard as you can and the slot machine's like, uh... Uh... Uh... Uh...

Uh... Uh... Uh...

Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... No, I don't know, but he knows, because he's a businessman. He's a businessman. Maybe, look, maybe I'm throwing it out there that at this casino, they had, working for the casino, blackjack dealers that were as bad at blackjack as me. Maybe the dealer, you'd be at his table, and he was like... Pfft.

You said, hit. You sure? Okay. And you win again. All right, okay. And... And you win again. All right, wonderful. I don't know. He probably knows, because he's a businessman.

Maybe this was one of the only casinos in all of America, maybe in all of the world, the only casino with clocks.

Who knows, maybe just over the poker table was a clock

and people were like, nine already? I should go home.

I've been here for quite a while.

I don't know, but I'm sure he knows cause he's a businessman. He's a businessman. Bankrupt at a casino. A businessman.

And look, it's a casino.

I can't think of a better... People come and drop off their money and leave. I can't think... I am not a businessman, but I can't think of a better business to make money. You can't even have casinos everywhere. But you know, this is my thing.

You, you, I, a part of me does understand how someone could think all we need to do is get a businessman in there to fix everything because I think that America runs so much like a business, even in the parts that it shouldn't that obviously we're gonna think everything translates to business, you know?

Like I didn't, this was where I was naive, I'll tell you right now. I thought that even if there was no national pride or community or even if we couldn't find some sort of like camaraderie as Americans, we at least, at our very core, loved money enough.

I thought we loved money more than anyone loved him. I thought as soon as somebody messed with the money, we would all come to our senses and be like, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo as somebody messed with the money we would all come to our senses and be like yo yo yo yo not the money that's the only thing holding this together but then you see there are people whose lives have already been ruined because of his policies you could lay all the blame at his feet and they're like, I

don't know, I'll figure something else out. You'll figure some, you'll figure something else out. That's crazy. That's a crazy thing to say. Especially when like, what? 12 months ago, you were screaming about eggs.

And now your business is in shambles. And you're like, ah, you know, who can say? That felt insane. But also, I think that if you look at America as a business, it would make sense that you would want a businessman in there.

But the thing is, you can't run the country the way you run a business. You know, a company, if they are in dire straits, could lay off half their work staff and then try to keep things going, use that to stay afloat.

A company can buy back its own stocks in an effort to enrich itself as a company, make those stocks worth more. A company has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. A company technically does more for its shareholders than the government does for its people.

And so I could see how people would be like, oh, we'd at least like to get that. That'd be nice, some dividends, equity, something. We'd at least like to feel solvent. But it just doesn't work that way. And I don't think it should.

I think that a business now is very different than a business before. Like there's a thing that happened and maybe it's only like my frame of reference because of age and everything, but I think that something happened in 2008

that we haven't recovered from still, which is that for the first time ever, companies that truly screwed up beyond measure, like actually beyond measure, they should have crashed everything. This is the type of stuff that you read in the textbook

and then they, you know, hung everybody. Like that's... We don't realize it, but that's the level of, like, nasty that it got in 2008. If you had, you know, knocked off a couple hundred years and put it in France, there would have been a guillotine.

You know what I mean? And instead, there was a bailout, but instead of a bailout of the people, it was a bailout of the companies because we believe in business so much. We believe that everything works like a business

to the point where even the politicians, naively, maybe some of them sincerely, were sure that if we keep the business, naively, maybe some of them sincerely were sure that if we keep the business afloat, it'll keep the people afloat because then people won't lose their jobs and then people will still be able to get these services and people will still buy these products, right? And what ended up happening is that so many people were foreclosed on,

so many people lost their jobs anyway, people's 401ks and retirements were destroyed, and then the people that they gave the bailout to sort of trickle down the economics, something got stopped up right at the top. And so people who had wrecked the economy beyond measure got a bonus. They got got bonus for wrecking that usually when you break something and ever since then

it feels like business is about not being left holding the bag that's what real business seems to be now is that you do everything you can to extract as much value as possible, and then you dip before everything comes crashing down, whether you dip because you sell the company, or you dip because you decide to shutter it

after you've fired everyone and ruined it as a service and everything. Basically private equity, right? So I believe he's a businessman. I do, because I'm sure, look, if we're talking business, to his credit,

I'm sure that he was not worse off for bankrupting that casino. I'm sure it was the people that worked at the casino. I'm sure that he was not worse off for bankrupting that casino. I'm sure it was the people that worked at the casino. I'm sure he stiffed some of the contractors who helped build the casino, but I'm sure that he found a way to leverage that debt,

because he loves debt. He found a way to leverage that debt into his next venture, and then he started selling steaks or whatever. I don't know, like it was just, spent a lot of products. You know what else it is too, is that

you can't focus too much on this one person, it makes him more important than he really is. I understand that he's president, I understand he's one of the richest people in the world, but as far as importance is about what lasts, you know. This dude, this dude, no wonder we thought he was gone. He went on Fox News. He... No wonder we thought he was gone. Trump went on Fox News. Everybody forget this.

Trump went on Fox News and just started randomly, no one asked him, randomly talking about how he was trying to get into heaven. And it's like, then you know.

-♪

One thing my buddy's granddaddy never does is talk about the afterlife.

-♪

Gets up, watches his shows, takes his naps, gets up and eats and repeats. If he was pontificating on heaven, I think people would just start assuming that every nap really was the last nap. You know, it's because, you know, a man's pan.

Guys, he's turning black. But I don't, look, I truly, I talk about Trump

because it's in the news, but I don't really care about Trump, I care about people, what's going on with people. All of this is gonna outlast this one person, you know? And even in California, you see in California where there was one case, it seems contained

and already treated and everything, but it is happening. One case of plague. You know plague. You know Plague? Plague? Some would ask which Plague?

Apparently, the.

You know Plague? From the producers of the Middle Ages. Plague. You know plague. Don't act like you don't know plague. You know plague. It's plague, the reason Europe's not bigger.

Plague.

You know plague. And no matter how much you may hate Trump, you gotta admit, this is some pretty bad luck. He two for two on presidential terms and plagues. That's crazy. That is wild. Yeah, first one a fluke, the second one, shh. How Play. Because that's the fear is that like, yes, yes, they found one case, they treated it, you know, they've even traced it back to a particular source because it's really a climate change issue because basically the fleas that carry plague are thriving right now

in the warmer climate and so then they're hopping on more rats and then the rats might come in contact with people right and so there's always the the fear the possibility that it isn't just that one case and isn't just contained to California there's a there's a real fear and a possibility that plague could have spread to the president's hand.

Like I didn't like.

Like. Like. Like.

Like. Like. Like. Like. Like. Like. It's impossible. Because what we did and what we, how do I put this? What we've done in the US as far as presidents is it's not exactly like we're picking young ones. You know what I mean? Whatever you do, whatever that thing is, whether it's law, it's military, or it's business,

we seem to want you to have a wealth of experience in that field because there's gonna be three branches of the government and you may not be familiar with all of them, even if you're a career politician, you may not know how to like wade perfectly through all of them.

But, you know, if you have a lot of experience in one thing, that could win you the trust of the people. And we haven't had a young president in a long time. I mean, like, Kennedy was one, like young ones, like a young guy being president. And we haven't really done that again.

Like, you know, what we've done is we've let confidence and swag make up for youth. If you are the president and you present yourself in a way that makes us feel good, we will turn that back over to you in the sort of social capital that youth usually carries,

right, because we want you to have experience, but at a certain point, we have to be realistic, right? Like, Bill Clinton wasn't young, but he had a saxophone.

We had a saxophone, so we defended him.

We were like, that shows lung capacity. Have you heard him play, though? And then you had George, George W. Bush. Look, George Bush wasn't young, but he... I don't know, he just had like a childlike wonder to his... You could always tell when he was addressing the nation and he had also just learned a new word. Bush would be up there like, terror.

Did I do it good? And then you had Barack Obama, and Barack Obama was younger than some of the people who have been president, you know, before and since, but he wasn't a baby, you know what I mean? Like he wasn't incredibly young, but he had that exact thing I'm talking about. He had an energy that was like a mobilization behind him and he had some yeah yeah yeah like some measure of

charisma that made up for any youth he might have been lacking you know I remember when Barack Obama sang that Al Green. That was incredibly uncomfortable. No, because when it happened, I was at a get-together with a bunch of aunties going, oh, Barack, I'm like, no.

No.

No.

No.

No. No. No. No. What you doing right now? What you doing? What you doing? What you doing right now? What you doing? What you doing?

What you doing right now?

What you doing? Can't eat meatloaf in these conditions. Can't eat meatloaf in these conditions.

Can't eat meatloaf in these conditions.

Can't eat meatloaf in these conditions. Trump had that energy. He had people behind him and he came off youthful because he was like a schoolyard bully. Anytime somebody said something, any interview that went awry, he was ready, nickname, anything. He was just coming at you all the time.

It's like he fed off of it.

It was his favorite thing to fight with the media and get people riled up. That feels like youthful energy. That feels like it's gonna be here forever, you know? And then we went from Trump to Biden, who to be fair, told us he was gonna be old.

I've talked about this before. We asked Biden, we were coming at Biden, we asked Biden and Biden was like, are you sure? I got a Werther's in my mouth right now. I'll do it if you want me to do it, but my car does smell like potpourri, so... I'll do it.

If y'all want me to do it, I'll do it. For real. If y'all... Like, no, no. Like, if I'm the only one that can stop them,

if I can... If I need to do it, I'll do it. But just know, when I shake world leaders' heads, I'm not shaking the that can stop them, if I can, if I need to do it, I'll do it. But just know, when I shake world leaders' hands at the G7, G20, whatever, my hand will pop a lot.

Whole handshake. It's gonna sound like Or horrible Redenbacher. But if y'all insist. And then we got Trump again after Biden, and this feels very different. You go back and watch a rally of Trump from 2016, 2017 and then you watch a press conference now, very different. It's very, like it's. Because look, I'm not, it's not lost on me that to be an American, to live in the US, you have to become or at least have an understanding

of what you need to do to be a semi-good capitalist. And there are people that ask the question, how can you fight for a more equitable world while you're living in a system that is corrupt? And I look at it the way I look at when I travel and I meet people who live in the country,

but they don't speak the language, right? Like your native language is compassion and charity. You weren't made specifically to speak the language of margin calls and derivatives, dividends and everything. That's a language you can learn to get by because you live here,

but it's not the language you were born with

when your parents are raising you because you live here, but it's not, it's not the language you were born with.

When your parents are raising you or when you have fond memories of being a kid, they all come from things much, much deeper than money. And then as you get older, you clearly need money to get by. That's no crime. Like, you know, you have to function as society. So you learn how to move with money as best as possible,

but you can get distracted. It can take you to a place that makes it hard to remember your humanity. You know what I mean? Like some people look at anyone who has succeeded in business as someone who must have earned it,

but that's not how all business works.

You know what I mean?

Like if I own a house and I set it on fire and I run out of the house, am I a genius or did I just have an insurance policy?

You know? Maybe both, but maybe I'm a crook. You know? Maybe both, but maybe I'm a crook. You know?

Like the only solvency that you have to contend with is your soul. You know what I mean? The solvency is defined by a company's ability to pay its long-term debts, right? If a company's non-solvent, you have no trust in that company, and you probably shouldn't invest in that company.

And as long as we're keeping it to financial terms, a soul works in a similar way. Depending on your belief system depends on if your solvency, your long-term debt, is to God or family, your community or a cause but like you can tell the difference between

a Religion that occult by how they measure those solvencies. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that Every major religion doesn't have its blemishes. it has people, so it's gonna have plenty of mistakes in its history, but you know, a religion that only speaks to what is deeper about you and what is in you and what happens outside of all of this

is probably worth looking into, worth reading about. And anything that brings it all the way down to the material goods, probably a cult.

You know what I mean?

Just because the cult usually wants your money. They start off pretty good. A cult usually starts off with like a great party or something and then like, I don't know, in about three weeks they're like,

hey, how much do you make?

Dividends work the same way. Dividends get paid out, companies will pay dividends to their investors and those dividends go to shareholders. They go to investors and if you have ever been the beneficiary of someone's kindness or goodwill, then you have dividends to pay throughout your life, you know?

And I don't know if that can be understood if you only understand business. Country isn't a business. It just isn't, you know what I mean?

Like...

But who knows?

He's a businessman. Like maybe he's a... Trump is a businessman the way JFK Jr. was a pilot.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean?

Oh, all right. No, you should groan, you're on the plane.