0:00

Don't Wreck Yourself features words and situations that are not appropriate for young listeners.

0:04

This show is only for adults and unsupervised juvenile delinquents of exquisite taste and refinement.

0:11

Each week, our hosts look into claims they find online, answer your questions, and say bad words.

0:19

Now your way is the only way and my way is the only way too.

0:19

Music.

0:23

Build a space between a hard place and a rock is all we do. But we'll entertain

0:28

the conversation that leads us to the truth What do we know?

0:32

We're chimps, we're telephones, and I'm no different to you.

0:37

Welcome to Don't Wreck Yourself. My name's Ryan Placetti, and I'm here to disentangle

0:43

you from the Gordian Knot of the Internet's Bullshit.

0:47

And my name is Ian Malden, and I'm here to help disentangle you from the Gordian

0:54

Knot of the Internet's Bullshit.

0:57

Or just make stupid jokes as Ryan does it successfully.

1:02

I just imagine myself as I carefully, meticulously unwind this Gordian knot

1:08

separating its Maldivian strands that hail from Moldova.

1:13

Uh, you're, you're back there behind me, just French braiding them back together.

1:19

Well, it's funny that you mentioned like meticulously and carefully,

1:23

you know, untangling because I'm the guy, like when my headphones get tangled,

1:28

I just kind of pull at it until it like magically untangles somehow.

1:34

Like, so it's just, we have different disentangling strategies.

1:38

Strategies you you tie it into a knot by pulling both ends and i unwind i un

1:45

i unweave the woven that's why we make a great team yeah it's true yeah it's

1:52

the forces of destruction and creation, all swirling together like a classic yin yang i love it i love it i'm not sure

2:00

which one of us is a yin and which one of us is a yang i don't know enough of

2:04

it i think i might be the yin yin. Determining whether you're the yin or the yang is the easiest sort of astrology that's out there.

2:14

Gotcha. Gotcha. It's like, are you a yin or a yang? It's just like two options.

2:18

You know, it's like, am I the fish or the crab or the centaur or the scales

2:21

of justice or whatever the fuck that is?

2:24

You don't have to think about that. And there's 12 different Chinese zodiacs.

2:27

Like I'm a boar in the Chinese zodiac, but I know that I'm a yin in real life.

2:32

What are the characteristics of yin and yang?

2:35

So yin and yang is obviously dark and light.

2:38

Yin is black and feminine and dark and is representative of.

2:45

So in traditional medieval Chinese society, you would expect the woman to have

2:51

command over the household, a.k.a. the dark spaces, whereas the man would be

2:55

the outgoing kind of face of the business as the yang.

2:58

So white is bright. It's in the sun. It's outside the house. It's.

3:02

You know, basically introvert extrovert is the way to think about it.

3:05

So yin is introvert, yang is extrovert, and there's a lot of baggage that goes along with that.

3:10

Okay. Like, and I'm more familiar with Korean than Chinese.

3:13

However, a lot of the Korean is based on Chinese and there are two words for housewife basically.

3:19

And it's, it's kind of heartwarming because the same sort of implied misogyny

3:23

of housewife exists in Asian cultures also, because Because in Korean,

3:28

you can call somebody your buin, which means house person,

3:31

or you can call them your chipsaram, which is the native Korean word for house person.

3:41

And it's always assumed that the house person is, in fact, a woman.

3:44

I will tell you that it is the position of this podcast that if you are a house

3:49

person in Asia, you can be a house person of any gender.

3:52

What a brave stance. I'm taking it right here, right now. Now you have Asia,

3:56

you have my permission to be gender nonconforming.

4:00

Take those roles and shove them. So yin is dark, yang is light.

4:04

Correct. See, I feel like I'm yin, but yang presenting.

4:10

That's just it. That's the beauty of yin yang. It's so like in the context of

4:16

like Western pop culture, you can do whatever the fuck you want with it. I love that. No rules.

4:21

You can. I assume that part of this philosophy is that we all have a yin and

4:26

a yang in addition to the families have a yin and a yang kind of.

4:31

Yeah, exactly. You know, it's it's everywhere.

4:34

And, you know, I mean, we could get into we could get into Taoism.

4:38

We could. We could. Oh, my God. And then inadvertently start accidentally talking

4:43

about Star Wars because this is just the light side of the dark side and balance.

4:49

Well, the thing that always struck me as the core truth of Taoism is this idea that the Tao is...

4:56

Infinite, and that any individual person can only perceive a part of the Tao.

5:00

So truth is gained not through a singular clear perspective,

5:07

but by kind of incorporating the perspectives of everyone who are in their own

5:13

right perceiving a part of that larger, grand, hidden truth.

5:17

I thought that was a nice thought. But speaking of hidden truths,

5:19

there is a hidden truth that I think you were excited to talk about.

5:24

It is the Gordian Knot of this episode that we are trying to

5:27

untangle it is what i'm

5:30

calling the kelsey swift protocol which is

5:33

the relatively new conspiracy that taylor swift is a deep state psyop and that

5:41

the nfl is rigging the playoffs and the super bowl so that travis kelsey wins

5:47

and taylor swift is then able able to endorse Joe Biden.

5:53

And I had to say it slow to make sure I got it right. I don't want to misspeak.

5:56

I don't want anybody to misunderstand what this conspiracy is.

5:59

This conspiracy is that the United States government is coordinating with the

6:04

NFL to get Joe Biden reelected by having Travis Kelsey date Taylor Swift.

6:10

Well, I would truly hate to misrepresent the people that are spinning this wild

6:17

conspiracy, you know, I mean, they show such care to not misrepresent.

6:24

The people and subjects that they speak about.

6:27

So. So I'm going to just hit you with a couple quotes.

6:30

This first one is from Stephen Miller, who was a senior advisor to President

6:34

Trump during his presidency. He says, what's happening with Taylor Swift is not organic.

6:41

And then I'm not sure if there's a gap here because I lifted this quote from a written publication.

6:46

Then he says, have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?

6:50

And I mean, let's let's go ahead and tackle that. She's been she's been working

6:55

pretty hard since, what, 2008. She's got about 20 years of. Yeah, this this look, I grew up in high school.

7:04

I'm an older person than high school age by about fucking 15 years at this point.

7:10

But you are getting old in high school.

7:13

I was the like music snob, right?

7:18

Like I my dad raised me on indie rock, which is like the hashtag blessed the hashtag blessed.

7:25

But it's the way to create a little shit in high school.

7:29

But in high school, I hated pop music is the is what I was trying to get at there.

7:34

So, look, I was never predisposed to like Taylor Swift music.

7:38

I have since become more of a pop fan, a pop culture fan, and my pop music has

7:45

really grown on me. I like there's a lot of it that I really like.

7:48

And I love a lot of Taylor Swift stuff. I feel the same.

7:52

So I feel like I've got a foot in

7:55

both worlds here but it drives me wild

7:58

when I hear people talk about not understanding how

8:03

Taylor Swift has become this global

8:06

phenomenon because she has been a hit

8:09

machine for so long like even

8:12

if you don't like it you have to understand that she

8:16

has wide appeal that clearly

8:19

is viral constantly how could you not understand

8:22

and not only that because she's so pervasive there are

8:26

new fans picking up her music every day like taylor swift released you know

8:32

performative albums like 15 20 years ago almost and people like me who may have

8:39

just like dismissed it as being oh just another pop well actually originally

8:43

country star and then pop star,

8:45

you know, it's easy to just kind of write it off and not not expose yourself

8:48

to it because you because you already have an understanding of what it is,

8:52

even if you don't, you have a you have a prejudice, really.

8:56

Right. But speaking of prejudices, this next quote comes from Jesse Waters, who is a Fox News host.

9:02

You may remember him from his days running around as Bill O'Reilly's bitch before

9:07

Bill O'Reilly got fired for wait for it. Surprise sexual harassment.

9:12

This is going to be a recurring theme at Fox women are not treated well speaking

9:16

of women not being treated well here's what he has to say about Taylor Swift.

9:20

Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon Psychological Operations Unit floated

9:24

turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.

9:28

I love this. I tried to verify this information that was broadcast on a cable

9:35

network with the word news in the title. And I cannot find any indication that this ever happened as a serious or documented proposal.

9:44

And if it did, it was probably just somebody offhandedly commenting about Taylor Swift's popularity.

9:49

Sure. which is by the way global and

9:53

not just with autocrats jesse waters took one

9:56

look at the bad blood music video it was like she's clearly

9:59

a sleeper agent she could kick anybody's ass do you think that's what the fact

10:04

checkers fact checkers like hey jesse i don't know if we can say that he's just

10:06

like no check this out they're like whoa and i haven't seen the bad blood music

10:11

video but you've described it to me as her playing like a james bond jason bourne-esque

10:16

spy yeah it's It's fucking cool. There's like, there's like three or four different segments of this music video.

10:23

It starts with her in kind of a, no, none of that yet.

10:26

Maybe the sequel. I don't know, but it starts with her in kind of an office

10:30

building, just kind of generally kicking ass.

10:32

And then there's like, I can't imagine her doing anything else in an office

10:35

building. Certainly not working in an office building.

10:38

She's probably like, you know, looking for the, there's always a USB drive with

10:43

nuclear codes on it. And then in an office building somewhere.

10:47

But anyway, It ends up being this epic team up with all these different characters. Oh, it's so cool, man.

10:52

And I bet, honestly, I'm with Jesse Waters on this.

10:58

You think the Bad Blood music video is actually a documentation of Taylor being

11:02

recruited by the CIA and her just putting it out there Illuminati style to let

11:07

people know that she's on board? Yeah, it's well, see, the footage leaked and she said, oh, my God,

11:12

I have to put this in a music video so that people don't think it's actually real.

11:18

But it is. But it totally is. So recent presidential race dropout Vivek Ramaswamy

11:25

had this to say on his account on X.

11:27

I wonder who's going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there's

11:31

a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped up couple this fall.

11:39

So that that is somebody who was ostensibly a serious contender for the Republican

11:46

presidential nomination. It's OK to laugh because Donald Trump has it wrapped up.

11:50

And the only thing standing between him and declaring victory in the Republican

11:54

primary is Nikki Haley trying to round up enough delegates to make an argument

11:58

that she should be their presidential nominee when he goes to jail or people

12:02

wake up and realize that he's been scamming them to pay his legal bills. If he goes to jail.

12:07

Good Lord. Well, as somebody who has recently registered to be a federal juror

12:13

at the request of the local federal courthouse,

12:17

I would like to remind everybody that it is important to look at things with clear eyes,

12:23

with fresh eyes, and with an impartiality befitting a person's right,

12:30

as defined by the United States Constitution, as the right to trial by jury of your peers.

12:36

And I am a potentially impartial juror.

12:39

Okay. Okay. Just waiting in the wings. Just waiting in the wings. Look, as a comic book fan, I would love a future

12:49

where a president rules the country from prison.

12:55

I actually love that idea for a comic book, just not for my country.

12:59

Right. Yeah, exactly. In fiction, it's great.

13:02

When Kingpin does it, it's sexy as hell. Like if you were telling me that Vincent

13:06

D'Onofrio was going to be our president, I'd be like, OK, yeah,

13:08

he can do it from prison. He can do it from Rikers.

13:11

Well, because Spider-Man goes to prison and beats the shit out of him.

13:14

It was actually Daredevil that went into the prison and beat him up, wasn't it?

13:18

I think they might have both had a crack at him in that way.

13:20

If one of them is about to kill Kingpin, the other one has to step in and be

13:23

like, hey, you don't want to do this. And obviously that's not true, but you got to keep the comics going because

13:28

Kingpin is a phenomenal bad guy. But speaking of phenomenal bad guys, although the MAGA camp would have us believe

13:34

that Taylor has been recruited by the government to support Joe Biden's reelection

13:38

bid, she tells a slightly different story.

13:42

She says, I'm just there to support Travis. I have no awareness of of if I'm

13:47

being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, brads and chads.

13:51

So, yeah, on top of that, there was some general complaints about Taylor Swift

13:54

being at the game and being on camera as if that's something that she can control.

13:58

Control right she shows up to the game and they point the

14:01

cameras at her because it's good for ratings yeah i

14:04

hate to break it to people but the nfl is a product and they are going to do

14:10

whatever gets them the best ratings and taylor swift fans are watching these

14:15

games to see her be adorable so this isn't some like wild you know plot this is just,

14:23

People like seeing Taylor Swift on screen, so they're going to show it.

14:27

But if you need deep state commentary on this, a Pentagon representative stated,

14:31

we all know too well the dangers of conspiracy theories.

14:34

So to set the record straight, Taylor Swift is not part of a DOD psychological operation, period.

14:41

Which is exactly what you'd expect them to say about a top secret psychological

14:45

operation. Like when the Pentagon comes out and we're like, no, nothing to see here.

14:48

That does not set conspiracy theorist minds at ease.

14:52

No johnny matters is out there like oh well i guess so

14:57

that that kind of takes care of the first part of this claim

15:00

the first part of the claim is is taylor swift a secret agent for the government

15:03

the answer is probably not but she wouldn't tell us if she was so we'll just

15:08

we'll we'll we'll put that out there well we're gonna launch that into the firmament

15:13

and just let it stay up there a constellation kind of hinting at the shape of a conspiracy,

15:18

but not in of itself provable or likely.

15:22

The second claim being made here is that the NFL is rigged. And that is not

15:27

necessarily a new sentiment. I've heard people say the NFL is rigged for a long time, right?

15:32

It's usually people who are members of a fandom that has gone without a championship

15:36

for a long time or immediately after a ref missing a call or blowing a call

15:42

or something to that effect. And I think we're at an interesting place politically politically and culturally,

15:47

where we have two major parties with very vocal cultural agendas.

15:52

And the right wing in particular has had a kind of acrimonious divorce from

15:56

the what they would call the mainstream media.

15:59

And they successfully kind of extracted themselves and created an independent

16:04

news ecosystem that's built on three prongs. Right wing radio,

16:09

which kind of started the whole thing. Right-wing cable news channels. And then the most recent thing is,

16:16

of course, the deepest bowels of the internet.

16:18

And so the way this tends to manifest is that rumors and conspiracies start

16:23

by percolating around in the depths of these right-wing online circles,

16:27

like on Twitter, which I'm not going to call X.

16:30

I mean, I'm going to acknowledge that it's called X, but I'm not going to be

16:32

like, well, on X, because they're going to be out of business before anybody

16:36

actually gets used to calling it X. So you may as well just keep calling it Twitter.

16:40

When it dissolves, it will be ironic that it's called X.

16:44

It's an X. It's an X social media platform. Exactly.

16:48

So, yeah, you'll find them on Twitter, Truth Social, Parler, Rumble and so forth.

16:52

And then the more classic mediums like the right wing radio and the right wing

16:56

cable news networks without confirming a conspiracy will say things like some

17:01

people are saying or they'll make an offhanded joke like the Greg Craig Gutfeld

17:05

show, which is ostensibly a comedy show,

17:07

similar in format to, say, Bill Maher's now also fairly conservative comedy show on HBO.

17:14

Boomer's going to boom. You know what I mean? So it lends it some credence just

17:18

by acknowledging it like, oh, the people at the news channel,

17:21

they have news in the name. They're saying it. Jesse Waters is implying it. It must be true.

17:25

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there are probably few things that are sacred in conservative

17:30

circles more important than the sanctity of sports, because if you're not at

17:36

church, you better be watching the game. And it's a perfectly acceptable conservative joke to have, like,

17:41

the doofy husband, you know, listening to the game in church type of thing.

17:46

But yeah, so you see all sorts of attacks from conservative culture warriors

17:51

on sports, specifically, you know, recently there's there's lots of attacks

17:55

on trans people being involved in sports.

17:58

And, you know, there's nothing that, you know, rings more true than conservatives

18:03

being upset about women's sports. Sports uh but it's not

18:08

just the the general sense that liberals are trying to

18:11

ruin things that conservatives love like guns and

18:14

football and country music and you

18:17

know whatever whatever else we've destroyed recently um that's pretty much everything

18:22

what should we set our sights i don't know just america america well yeah sure

18:29

as recently as the last playoff season there were were rumors that the NFL was

18:32

setting up the Kansas City Chiefs versus the Eagles in the Super Bowl,

18:36

capitalized on the success of both franchises.

18:39

And the fame of the Kelsey brothers. So Travis Kelsey, of course,

18:42

plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. And then in my backyard, Jason Kelsey is probably

18:47

the biggest hero on the Eagles football team because he wore a mummer's outfit

18:51

and gave an impassioned speech and drinks a lot of beer.

18:54

Like, he's just like he is. He is a very Philadelphia kind of guy.

18:57

He's a good dude. Not to mention Taylor's. Fun fact, Taylor Swift,

19:01

Eagles fan. She's from Reading, PA. Oh, wow.

19:04

So I'm hoping she'll be able to convince Travis to move over to the Eagles.

19:08

And then they got a real story on their hands.

19:10

That might convince Jason to not retire. Yeah.

19:13

So over the past several seasons, there's been a lot of discussion about poor officiating.

19:18

Basically, refs are missing calls, blowing calls, etc. But that's always happened.

19:22

The NFL's constantly tweaking rules, and it can seem kind of arbitrary at times.

19:27

And a lot of times what will happen is a ref will make a call and everybody

19:29

will be like, that's bullshit. And then the NFL will come back and say,

19:32

well, actually, that is the rule. Yeah. Yeah. So this idea that the NFL is rigged exists independent of the Taylor Swift conspiracy.

19:41

That case last year, you know, a lot of people were saying that,

19:44

you know, they want the Chiefs versus the Eagles. And it's like, well, there's a lot of setting up and a lot of them pointed to

19:50

the poor officiating in both the NFC championship and the AFC championship.

19:55

But the Eagles didn't really have a lot of trouble getting to the Super Bowl

19:58

because I don't know if you watched last year's Super Bowl, But Brock Purdy,

20:03

who was their third string quarterback, started the game because Trey Lance and Jimmy Garoppolo, the two guys seated,

20:10

seated ahead of him in the in the roster order, had gone down. But the 49ers. Yeah.

20:15

Yeah. So after week 13, Brock Purdy, who was like literally the last draft pick rookie.

20:23

Mr. Irrelevant, as they call him. Mr. Irrelevant. Yeah, that was his nickname. Yeah.

20:28

He gets injured like in the first quarter, just like a few minutes into the

20:32

game. He hurts his elbow and it ended up being like a torn ligament.

20:35

It was not a minor injury. He didn't just get a bump, bump, booboo on his elbow. He tore a ligament.

20:40

Then the fourth stringer, Josh Johnson, ends up playing. So at this point,

20:44

San Francisco is playing its fourth string quarterback.

20:46

He gets knocked out of the game with a concussion in the third quarter,

20:49

and they put Brock Purdy back in with an immobile elbow.

20:52

He can't toss the ball further than 10 meters or 10 yards, which is just barely

20:58

enough to move the chains and not enough to win a game against,

21:01

you know, the Eagles at one of the top teams in the league. Right.

21:04

So they didn't have to rig that game with bad play calling.

21:07

They put a bug in the ref's ear and they were like, we can take this one off.

21:15

Y'all can chill for this game. Yeah, just take a nap, guys.

21:19

They rigged it for us. So, yeah, the idea that the NFL has been rigged is nothing

21:25

new. However, a couple of players have come out and actually kind of made some allegations.

21:30

So Arian Foster, who previously played for several teams, I think his last team was with the Texas.

21:36

I think he was with the Texas Texans. Yeah, Texans. Yeah, that's the Texas Texans.

21:42

Texas, the Texas Texans, the Houston Texans. Yeah, it's Dallas Cowboy, Houston, Texas.

21:48

Got it. So Arian Foster has claimed on his podcast that at the beginning of

21:52

the season, a script gets dropped off detailing the season. and the season narrative,

21:55

including injuries, touchdowns, and so forth. And this has been commented on by sports writers as being a tongue in cheek statement.

22:02

And for what it's worth, I've watched the clip and it's actually Foster's co-host

22:05

recounting something that Foster told him prior to going on the air.

22:10

And then Foster just agrees with his story and adds a little bit of clarification

22:13

about how dedicated they were to maintaining the script. And he compared it to the WWE.

22:20

That said, people who know Arian Foster's sports writers, they basically said

22:24

it was a joke. And other NFL players have come out to adamantly refute the accusations that the NFL is rigged.

22:29

So and the NFL itself made a made a high budget commercial where they like kind of sarcastically are.

22:39

It's like a script meeting and Patrick, Patrick, all the stars are there.

22:42

And there's also some comedy writers there.

22:45

Like I think Keegan from Key and Peel is there and they're talking about like

22:49

what the script is going to be this year. And then like they'll be like and so and so gets injured and that player

22:53

will be in the meeting and be like oh come on man like you know it's like it's

22:57

pretty funny but like this was wild because I remember my boss asked me about

23:02

like did you hear that the NFL has a script and like you know like as if it

23:07

was a thing and then I went and I watched this clip and it's pretty clear that he's being.

23:12

Facetious like he has a very dry sarcastic tone,

23:16

and also like it's absurd to think that

23:19

they would plan an injury you know what i mean like well

23:23

that that's just it the the thing with a conspiracy

23:26

theory whether it be taylor swift

23:29

getting recruited by the government or the nfl being rigged

23:33

the one thing that ties all of these conspiracies together is

23:36

how utterly impossible they are like the idea that the 2020 election was somehow

23:40

rigged in local like basically at at the local level around the country to benefit

23:48

Joe Biden would require a conspiracy so huge that it could not be a conspiracy.

23:55

Yeah. Donald Trump couldn't even fake electors without getting caught.

23:58

And he thinks Joe Biden faked the entire election.

24:01

And I'm saying this, I'm saying that I personally believe what has that Joe

24:06

Biden has won the election based solely upon newscast.

24:11

If I were were in a courtroom and presented with facts to the contrary,

24:14

I, of course, would side with Mr.

24:17

Trump, our 45th president, 45th president, first insurrectionist.

24:24

If he gets elected again, is he the 45th still or is he the 45th and the 47th?

24:31

He's the 45th and the 47th. We played this game once before with Grover Cleveland,

24:36

who skipped a term before coming back.

24:40

I believe he He was the, I want to say like the 30th and 32nd, maybe, or 20th and 27th.

24:47

He was the founder of the city of Cleveland, right?

24:51

Fun fact, no, he wasn't. He was the founder of the Grove Park at the center of Cleveland.

24:57

Uh grover cleveland was the 22nd and 24th

25:01

president of the united states serving from 80 uh 1885 to

25:04

1889 and then again from 1893 to 1897 good

25:08

for him yeah i mean there is no better

25:11

comeback story yeah he do an insurrection in

25:14

his first term he forgot he forgot to do an insurrection maybe maybe there wouldn't

25:19

have been a gap i mean but the final claim being made by the mega community

25:26

in regards to Donald Trump is that it has been reported that,

25:32

and there's been a lot of reporting about presidential candidates lately.

25:35

They recently reported that Joe Biden apparently thinks that Donald Trump is,

25:40

quote, a sick fuck, which I can't, as a potentially impartial juror,

25:45

agree or disagree with whether or not he's a sick fuck or not.

25:48

I'm just reporting what the president said i mean

25:51

wouldn't wouldn't his fans wouldn't donald

25:54

trump voters agree that he's a sick fuck

25:57

like isn't that what they like about him they like the sick fuckery i don't

26:01

know that they necessarily like the title they want the benefits without the

26:05

optics fair enough exactly exactly so i was just like well how do we determine

26:12

who's more popular i mean we can we We could try to do it by net worth,

26:15

like who's willing to give these people more of their money.

26:19

And I think that the average Taylor Swift ticket is probably more expensive

26:24

than the average Donald Trump small dollar donation.

26:26

So we're comparing the fame of Trump and Taylor at this point?

26:31

Yeah, Donald Trump has allegedly stated that he is way more popular than Taylor Swift.

26:37

So apparently this is like this entire conspiracy theory has offended him.

26:42

He is now mad at Taylor Swift for being the object of MAGA fixation,

26:47

because how dare anybody else be the object of MAGA fixation, even in a negative way?

26:51

Well, if any moment on this show goes viral, let it be this one. Donald Trump.

26:58

I challenge you to release a

27:01

diss track against Taylor Swift with a music video as badass as bad blood.

27:08

It's going to be really hard to get the J6 choir out of the out of the pokey for this one.

27:14

I want Donald J. Trump in a miniskirt doing flips and kicking dudes in an office building.

27:21

You know what? I'm not going to make him wear a miniskirt and do flips in an

27:24

office building. If he wants to dress up like a kingpin, he can dress up like a kingpin.

27:28

Sure, sure. I think we both agree that Vincent D'Onofrio has given him permission.

27:33

Not directly. He didn't specifically say, Donald Trump, you have permission.

27:37

But I think that the existence of Vincent D'Onofrio as the kingpin gives Donald

27:42

Trump permission to take it, you know, just take a nibble off that steez.

27:46

Yeah. So the best way during an election season to determine who's more popular

27:50

is just to look at the polls. And you might think, hey, is there polling about Taylor Swift?

27:56

And the answer is, yes, there is. is you gov.com is

27:59

basically a data analytics survey site and

28:02

they have a most popular contemporary music artist q4

28:06

2023 ranking list all

28:09

right so they have two stats here one

28:12

is fame and the other is popularity so fame and popularity differ so popularity

28:19

is more like approval rating fame is more like name recognition sure at least

28:23

that's the way i'm understanding it based on the fact that you can sort by fame

28:26

or popularity and fame is higher for virtually everybody.

28:30

So that said, Taylor Swift is moving down the fame roster.

28:33

Apparently people have forgotten who they forgot about Tay. Who?

28:39

Exactly. So looking at the most famous contemporary music artists in terms of

28:45

popularity, Handler sitting right around number 15 overall with a 54 percent popularity rating.

28:53

Hmm. So 54 percent approval is a landslide in a presidential election.

28:58

Donald Trump's current approval rating, according to the most recent Quinnipiac

29:04

University poll, which is a very very respected poll in political circles.

29:08

So in terms of popularity within the Republican Party, 77% of Republican and

29:14

Republican-leaning voters support Trump and 21% support Nikki Haley.

29:17

So, I mean, I think if it came down to just Republicans, that 77% is higher

29:24

than 54%. So I think that Donald Trump could potentially beat Taylor Swift in

29:28

the Republican primary. Sure.

29:34

Although I would love to see that race Because I feel like there's a fair amount Oh,

29:41

there's a number of Swifties Of Republican Swifties She transcends political

29:46

divides She just can't cross into the Magalans You know,

29:49

when she sits up on Pride Rock with her father Looking out at all the light touches,

29:54

knowing that it's hers She sees that dark spot over there, and that's Magaland.

29:59

Now now i'm picturing maga hat

30:02

wearing hyenas just crawling around

30:05

laughing actually i think i got that wrong

30:08

so in in overall polling and get your

30:11

fucking facts straight man i know right

30:14

so republicans in general like

30:18

once you take nikki haley out of the equation 91 of republicans support donald

30:22

trump wow that's a pretty good number of people but what that fails to account

30:27

for is what percentage of Republicans would support Swift over Trump.

30:35

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, we don't know how they would stack up together

30:41

in a race just because currently Trump is very popular compared to the other Republican option.

30:49

Donald Trump's overall approval rating is somewhere in like the upper 30s,

30:52

maybe low 40s, whereas Taylor Swift's overall approval rating is 54.

30:58

That's kind of a landslide in terms of percentage, but in terms...

31:01

Get bodied, Donald. Get bodied. Another way to look at it is how much money did they raise this year?

31:09

Taylor Swift went on tour and generated over a billion dollars in revenue.

31:14

To my knowledge, Donald Trump did not generate a billion dollars in donations.

31:19

I mean, he also went on tour, so maybe... But he didn't. He did go on tour and I didn't see anything about him raising a billion dollars.

31:27

Not even when you start including like the PAC contributions and things like that.

31:31

Well, talk about the deep state, those super PACs. That's the deep state.

31:38

It's certainly the deep civilization. I don't know if it's the state, but it's it's a problem.

31:44

Right. So, yeah, in terms of raw dollars, I think I think Taylor Swift raw dogs them.

31:49

It's not even it's not even

31:52

close taylor swift has so much more money than donald

31:54

trump this year i think donald trump is probably losing money he's hemorrhaging money

31:58

first he was fined five million dollars for the defamation lawsuit with eugene

32:03

carroll and then he went back and doubled down now they find him another 87

32:06

million which i don't know the last time you lost 87 million dollars but that's

32:11

a pretty significant chunk of change oh if i lost 87 dollars i would be devastated statement.

32:19

It would change the course of my life forever. So well, thing is,

32:23

if I lost $87, I'd be really upset unless I deserve to lose it.

32:27

And Donald Trump certainly deserves to lose his money, I assume,

32:31

based only upon the jury recommendation and no preconceived notions.

32:37

You're doing a great job at this. I am still and I remain an impartial,

32:43

ideal ideal citizen of this country who believes firmly in the constitutional

32:50

powers invested in all of our government.

32:54

Ryan, I'd like to apologize for laughing while you were saying part of that

32:59

statement, because I understand that you're being totally sincere and you're

33:03

the most impartial candidate I can possibly imagine in my life. Thank you. Thank you.

33:08

I like to think that I I could look past any preconceived notions I have about

33:14

our 45th president and just, you know, just squarely thumbs up,

33:18

thumbs down. That's what the law says. That's not what the law says.

33:22

Determine and determine the consequences. If he's innocent, I'll find him innocent.

33:27

And I'm sure his legal team will make a compelling argument to that point.

33:30

They've been so competent thus far. Oh, my God.

33:34

Speaking of, he also spent something like $50 million on lawyers this year.

33:39

And to my knowledge, the only lawyers that Taylor paid $50 million to were the

33:44

ones who, you know, got their piece of whatever contract she signed to sell out stadiums in Tokyo.

33:52

She may have spent 50 million dollars on jet

33:55

fuel which is a very real and valid criticism of

33:58

oh yeah fox news fox news said that her

34:01

that her private jet landed belching co2 like fox news is very concerned about

34:06

the climate impact taylor swift yeah i mean valid but also fuck you unless fox

34:16

news ends up in a federal trial at which point i will,

34:20

to be able to neutrally judge whether Jesse Waters touched somebody inappropriately.

34:24

I'm not saying he did, but a lot of people are saying he has, which counts as news.

34:29

I mean, if you're Trump, yeah, a lot of people are saying it.

34:34

That's one of his catchphrases. But it is. It's the Fox News special,

34:38

I call it, because a lot of people are saying it gives you permission to say it. Yes.

34:42

And I guess the last way that we could compare the two of them in terms of fame

34:45

would be the total number of fans.

34:50

Well, we know that Donald Trump has, I think we could generously say he has

34:54

about 72 million fans based on the 2020 election.

34:58

Now, that is assuming that he didn't have any drop-off when he tried to overturn

35:03

the results of the election by sacking the Capitol, allegedly. Allegedly.

35:10

His followers did that, and that has reflected poorly

35:13

upon him in the public sphere and i

35:17

remain impartial as to whether or not he was responsible jack

35:20

my well let's let's i

35:23

want to give the full picture here because my i have

35:26

a conservative brother and what he says about the january 6th situation is that

35:32

babies are slippery and that's why he's not as smart as you so many things about

35:38

this are true at the same time it was totally Totally justified to try to sack

35:43

the Capitol because of the rigged election.

35:47

But it was a totally peaceful protest.

35:52

And also, Trump had nothing to do with it. When you give me a thumbs up,

35:56

I got a little we get a little icon now. Oh, that's wild.

35:59

That's nice because it kind of draws your attention. It's like a little cue there. What about this?

36:05

Well, now I'm just OK. So Ian is sticking his middle finger up at me and there

36:09

is no complimentary emoji. It's just...

36:13

You telling me to go fuck myself. But if there's one person who's guaranteed

36:17

to be more popular than Taylor Swift and Donald Trump combined and would never

36:21

tell me to go fuck myself, it's Rick Reynolds. Who has been kind enough to allow us the use of his hit song,

36:27

United, from the album Portals in Progress, which you can find on Amazon, iTunes, and Spotify.

36:32

Ian, would you like to tell folks where they can find your shenanigans?

36:36

Well, so hang on, though. Sorry.

36:39

Are we backing it up? Yeah. got back yeah well i

36:44

want to put a button i want to put a button on you

36:47

you listed the trump voters and like how many fans he has but we didn't get

36:53

to how many fans i think you were going to get to how many fans taylor swift

36:56

has yeah is taylor swift even on twitter at this point i don't know taylor swift

37:02

13 there she is that's right taylor swift is taylor swift 13 on twitter official official.

37:07

That's kind of badass. She is following zero and she is followed by 95 million people.

37:14

Nice. Get body Donald J. Trump compared to his voters.

37:19

Let's see what Donald Trump has. So he is the real Donald Trump, I believe.

37:23

Oh, I wrote the real Trump. That's not right. Because people could be hate following.

37:28

You know what I mean? Yeah, well, that's true for both of them.

37:31

So I think that we should just assume that everybody who follows them does so

37:34

with a degree of earnestness, like an earnest appreciation.

37:38

Donald Trump has 87.4 million followers.

37:42

Incidentally, that is the same difference. That is the same delta between his

37:46

number of Twitter followers and Taylor Swift's number of Twitter followers as

37:50

there was between him and Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

37:53

Just a seven, like, oh man, Donald Trump, always 7 million people short.

38:00

That's a win for the Swifties in my book. That's a win for the Swifties.

38:04

I've already plugged Rick Tell us where we can find your stuff,

38:07

Ian Yes, I am Ian And you can find me on Shrimp and Crits Which is a podcast

38:12

It's an actual play podcast With a southern twist I'm sure you've heard about

38:16

it Ad nauseum from my good friend Cap,

38:20

But just in case you haven't, you can find us on all podcatchers that I'm aware of.

38:26

And you can find me on, unfortunately, X slash what I would prefer to call Twitter.

38:33

You can find me on Blue Sky and all that stuff, too. The only thing I haven't

38:37

joined yet is like threads. But yeah, I don't know. I'm an actual play podcast producer. I make music.

38:44

I'm an amateur TTRPG game designer. So, you know, I don't know.

38:48

I've got my my hand in a lot of tills because I just love to gobble up that grain.

38:53

So you reach into the cash register, you and the till, and you get the grain

38:59

out of the cash register and then you gobble it. There's grain in my till.

39:04

My till's just all full of grain. Ian Malden, you heard it here first,

39:08

is living in a barter based society.

39:13

That'll be that'll be seven ounces of grain. Here's your egg,

39:16

sir. I've got only $87 to my name in terms of real.

39:20

And it's all tied up in grain assets right now.

39:25

At least it's not liquid, you know? He got robbed at knife point by a baker.

39:33

Hey, it's hard out here, you know? It's hard out here. I heard he's been brewing at night.

39:40

That's what bad bakers do. They brew. Bad bakers.

39:45

It's a solid band name. Yeah, Bad Bakers is a solid band name.

39:49

And I bet you'd crush it in Cleveland where Baker Mayfield made an ass of himself.

39:54

Or in Florida where he's having his resurgence as an NFL quarterback because

39:59

of the script favoring him this year.

40:04

And you can find wreck your pod at

40:07

www.wreckyourpod.com and

40:10

on most major social media platforms

40:13

except except for one except

40:17

for one that is run by bloviating dipshit i know it's hard to narrow it down

40:23

but i am i am of course talking about the social media platform formerly known

40:28

as twitter you can't get through with an episode without out some kind of dig at Elon. I can't.

40:34

I can't help it. The guy rubs me the wrong way, and he can dry his tears with

40:40

dollar bills and the fiery wreckage of, well, take your pick,

40:44

rockets, cars, whatever. So between now and next week, you find yourself wondering, is my life scripted?

40:52

And you don't know whether you've been recruited by the CIA to undermine Donald

40:56

Trump's rightful claim to the throne of America?

40:59

Then we encourage you to check yourself not wreck yourself don't wreck yourself,

41:06

it's a do not it's do and then there's

41:09

an end there and then an apostrophe which symbolizes the O that we have removed

41:13

and then a T and it's don't wreck yourself it's the name of the fucking podcast

41:19

I know and I fucked it up it sure would be a shame if you were responsible for

41:26

some aspect of the quality of this show,

41:30

All right, let me give you a clue. Music.