Tim Pool Called Me Out. Let’s Get Into It.

0:00Irreverent news, talk, and opinion, satire. It's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. The U.S. is no longer a republic. From Newsweek. So popular podcaster Tim Poole spent the last portion of his podcast yesterday line by line talking smack about my most recent op-ed at Newsweek titled The U.S. is no longer a republic. Tim Poole is a very good broadcaster with a pretty decent following, much larger than mine, I must add. And I'm flattered that he spent this much time engaging with my work. So my inbox this morning was full of a TikTok video of just the first couple of minutes of Tim Pool going after me, the rest of which can be heard on the last 12 minutes of his podcast that dropped yesterday called Trump DOJ subpoenas Democrats over conspiracy against us.

0:51I'll link to that in the description, depending on the way you're listening, if you want to hear the entire thing. But let's go through at least the opening of his critique together, because this is a lot of fun, actually. And I'll tell you why I think he's full of crap as we go. The U.S. is no longer a republic. From Newsweek. They're director of Newsweek Voices and Radio, host of Newsweek Radio. My friends, I've said it for some time now, Civil War, or Revolution, whatever you want to call it. Really just depends on who's willing to fight. Stop. You see, that right there is the first red flag with this guy.

1:21Tim Pool is apparently a little obsessed with the idea of Civil War breaking out in America. And it looks like at first glance that he talks about it so much that it appears that that's what he's aiming for. I don't know a lot about Tim Pool. He sounds like a great talker. I have heard his name before, but honestly, this is the first time I've ever actually listened to him, so it's fun that I'm the subject matter. Let's continue. This article is a great window into the liberal, unhinged narrative and moral worldview. You see, I've already got to correct this guy again, and we're not even 30 seconds into it.

1:53First of all, this isn't a news article, as you will hear him refer to it several times here. He does call it an op-ed much further into his audio-only side of things on his podcast. But secondly, he's already called me a liberal when I'm clearly a never-Trump, libertarian, anti-woke to a free market conservative. Let's see how far we can get into this before I need to correct him again. But let's definitely keep going because this is fun. I don't need to keep stopping him. Let him run his mouth for a minute. The reason why we are fighting each other is largely because liberals don't know what is actually going on.

2:24Now, I met a nice man when I was at the Hard Rock. named neve who said be nicer be nicer what and uh i respect that i do and so i will try to be nicer but i must stress this to my young friend moulder than you are what i understand that not everyone's a raging lunatic running around beating people in the streets the problem is when you have what's called the banality of evil that is run-of-the-mill liberals who believe fake things and because of the malicious evil the fake news they lend their voice and power and finances to evil people. This article is an exemplification of that. How you manipulate people into believing things that are not correct.

3:06Okay, stop. There he goes again, treating my opinion piece like it's a news article again. And this is where I defend Newsweek's honor because the last thing I ever want to be called is a journalist. Even though opinion is a form of journalism, shut up. Because we strive very hard to keep our news separate from opinion. He's either doing this on purpose or he doesn't know any better. Because what Tim Pool is really saying here is that people must be too stupid to know the difference that what they're reading is clearly marked as biased opinion. I mean, if you are somehow dumb enough to be misled or seduced into alternative perspectives by not understanding the difference between opinion and news, the distinction itself is clearly already lost on you.

3:44Am I right? Yes, I'm right. Continue. This article is an exemplification of that. It's not an article. How you manipulate people into believing things that are not correct and easily debunked, thus driving them crazy so if you're a regular you know run-of-the-mill person in the united states and you don't really follow the news as much but a little bit you probably think trump is an evil psychotic despot because you open up newsweek you read a story like this and you are terrified see that just proves my point about this guy tim pool who was kind enough to spend the last 12 minutes of his podcast yesterday going after my recent op-ed line by line he just said if you don't follow the news closely you probably think that trump is an evil despot so if you do think that Trump is an evil psychotic despot by Tim Pool's own logic, you just simply don't watch the news as closely enough as Tim Pool does here.

4:32You're just uninformed and stupid. And now you're terrified because you somehow mistook an op-ed piece for a news article. Because you open up Newsweek, you read a story like this, and you are terrified. It's quite the jump in logic, but you know what? I get it. Tim Pool is just a professional shit-talker and he's good at it. Just sitting here spitting fire, I do it all the time too. It's infotainment, and it doesn't mean that he's right. It's just another opinion like mine. And you know what they say about opinions, right? They're just like assholes. Everybody's got one. And speaking of assholes, let's watch one more clip from our friend Tim Poole here.

5:02But when you actually do any amount of investigation, you find that it's just plum nuts and not correct, and you're intentionally being manipulated. And I'm going to prove it to you. This, my friends, is a window into the why of civil war and not the how. What is causing this division and making people go insane? Why are there seemingly so many people that believe everyone else is in the cult? There are Trump supporters who are culty. We get it. But it's not the majority of people who are supporting the Republican Party or Trump. Unfortunately for liberals, they either have no idea what's going on or they intentionally want a revolution.

5:36I should say more so the progressives. Well, here's a story from Newsweek. And oh boy, this will be fun. The U.S. is no longer a republic. where this man Jesse Edwards says, The only thing that can save the U.S. from Donald Trump is time itself, and that alone should be unforgivable in a nation founded on the principle of checks and balances. The oldest serving president in the history of our republic is now more beholden to decades of consuming copious amounts of McDonald's and KFC than he is to the people who either elected him to office a second time or enabled it to happen. Fool me once, shame on you.

6:10Well, that's where the TikTok video ends, but you can check out the last 12 minutes of his audio podcast, where you can find it there. He goes on line by line to read the rest of the article, which is pretty surreal to watch. I'm assuming you can see the whole thing on video somewhere else too, probably paywalled if I was going to guess. He goes on to address my so-called Trump derangement syndrome, which I fully happen to embrace because one would have to be deranged by watching a goon like Trump destroy the whole country from within, so I'll give him that. But I am not a liberal, so he's way off the mark there.

6:38We do apparently agree over the Epstein thing, which I find to be interesting as well, along with a few other topics. Regardless, he went on to call me insane and unhinged by the end of it, which I'm deciding to wear as a badge of honor. So thank you. Not only did it make my day, but quite possibly my entire weekend. But look, here's the real problem with Tim Pool's argument, or lack thereof. This isn't really about Trump at all. Tim doesn't actually engage with my opinion here, which is not that Trump is uniquely evil, but that our institutions no longer have a functioning emergency break when a dangerous leader of any party has power.

7:10That's a structural argument. I mean, instead of that, he turns the entire thing into a psychological case study about liberal hysteria, Trump derangement syndrome, and lunatics that think that fast food is conspiracy. Once you reduce your opponent to a mental patient, you don't really have to take their argument seriously. What's more revealing is the contradiction that he never resolves. On one hand, Trump is fine and institutions are just fine and nothing here is the apocalypse. On the other hand, we're apparently on the brink of civil war. Civil war or revolution, whatever you want to call it.

7:37It really just depends on who's willing to fight. And may no longer actually be a republic. Tim actually agrees with me by the end of the article, if even for argument's sake. But those two claims cannot both be true. If institutions are working, then civil war is not imminent. Because if civil war is imminent, the institutions have clearly failed. The one conclusion that Tim Pool cannot allow himself to reach is the one that I actually argue. This is a bipartisan structural failure that predates Trump and will outlive him if we let it. And that's where I think he and I really part ways. There's a whole genre of political commentary right now that fantasizes about collapse and treats civil war like our destiny.

8:15Civil war. I'm not interested in romanticizing the end of the republic. I'm interested in preventing the next demagogue of any party from ever being able to break it again. If that makes me insane, unhinged, or deranged, I'll wear that gladly. Because the truly dangerous position in American politics right now is not fear of tyranny. It's this comfort with the idea that collapse is inevitable. Civil war. If it happens, it's because people like Tim Pool perpetuated a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anyway, Tim, sincerely, thanks for the attention. This was a lot of fun. Let's talk again sometime. You know when the republic isn't supposedly ending tomorrow.

8:50Until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. Catch you next time. Bye. And we say bye-bye. Newsweek Radio is a member of the Trust Project. This man, Jesse Edwards, says, The only thing that can save the U.S. from Donald Trump is time itself. And that alone should be unforgivable in a nation founded on the principle of checks and balances. The oldest serving president in the history of our republic is now more beholden to decades of consuming copious amounts of McDonald's and KFC than he is to the people who either elected him to office a second time or enabled it to happen.

9:19Fool me once, shame on you.