Trans Women in Sports, World Leader Organ Swaps, Epstein Survivors Make Their Own List

0:28This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. the One World Trade Center at Lower Manhattan. This is Newsweek Radio with your host, Jesse Edwards. Today's top trending headlines at Newsweek.com. Links are in the descriptions depending on where you're listening. First out of the gate, Malcolm Gladwell says he was cowed into supporting trans athletes. He shared his point of view on a video on Twitter, never going to call it X on Tuesday. Speaking on the Real Science of Sport podcast, he regretted his 2022 appearance at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of hold on to your seat level of fun, right?

1:01No, thank you. Where he moderated a panel discussing a path forward for the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports. Take a listen. If we did a replay of that exact panel at the Sloan Conference this coming March, it runs in exactly the opposite direction. And it would be, I suspect, near unanimity in the room that trans athletes have no place in the female category. I don't think there's any question. I just think it was a strange... I mean, I felt... I mean, I was... The reason I'm ashamed of my performance at that panel because I share your position 100%, and I was count. The idea of saying anything on this issue...

1:48I was, I believe in retrospect, in a dishonest way. I was objective in a dishonest way. Yeah, it's always really interesting to me when people like him are willing and able to change their minds publicly about big issues like this. It takes a fair amount of courage, and it makes me wonder how many other centrists like Malcolm Gladwell, and even other progressives who feel the same way deep down but are simply not living their truth because they're just caught up in the groupthink peer pressure of the moment. We have got to demolish this absolute lie that if you're not okay with trans women competing with naturally born women that you're somehow a bigot because that is absolute horse crap, especially when it comes to us.

2:27Lesbertarian types who do not care about your gender or your skin color or your religion for that matter. I say lesbertarian to be funny, but I'm sure that, you know, I mean libertarian. If you listen to the show at all, it's the beautiful thing about the libertarian approach to politics because libertarianism is the antithesis to identity politics. What do I mean by that? You see, when you ascribe gender, race, and religion, or any other individual trait as a key identity marker, you're giving away a piece of your individuality over to the collective niches of identity politics. Libertarianism, which focuses on the sovereignty and sanctity of the individual, is more about avoiding these reductionist labels that society uses to compartmentalize our souls.

3:04And once you hand over that individuality to a label, you're no longer a full person in the eyes of the collective. You're just a token in somebody else's argument. Libertarianism pushes back against that by saying you are indivisible. Your life, your choices, your dignity, they're not bargaining chips for a movement that's been co-opted by radicals. And that's why this whole trans-athlete debate actually matters. It's not about denying anybody's humanity. It's about protecting fairness while refusing to be bullied into silence by people who insist that disagreement equals hatred. You can believe in equal dignity without believing in identical biology.

3:35And you can respect somebody else's choices in life without rewriting the rules of competition. Only a complete wokester would call that bigotry. It's common sense and it's applied through a lens of individual freedom rather than collective coercion. Good for Malcolm Gladwell for being able to pull 180 and own it. It's such a rare trait in a world full of fakes and flakes around every corner. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies.

4:07Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

4:37exchange broadcast on state-run live stream. The conversation occurred as the leaders, accompanied by North Korea's Kim Jong-un, walked to the Tiananmen Rostrum during ceremonies in Beijing marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on Wednesday. I cannot be the only one watching the footage of these mental midgets hoping that AI or whomever is in control of the launch codes would just simply drop the big one on this dunce parade. Seriously, just one big beautiful bomb this thing already and do the civilized world a favor. You know this has captured the attention of Donald Trump, right?

5:09I mean, I can guarantee you that he's on the phone with doctors at this very moment trying to figure out if they can make it happen for him too. The sad part of it is I'm not even joking. And I could say beyond a shadow of a doubt that if she, Vlad, and Kim are talking about organ transplants, Commander KFC wants one too. And speaking of fast food, here's the next headline at Newsweek.com. McDonald's CEO issues economy warning as people skip breakfast. Consumers are under a lot of pressure in our industry, Chris Kempzemski said during a recent interview with CNBC. Yeah, customers are under a lot of pressure because breakfast at McDonald's is now like 14 bucks.

5:41And for that price, I can eat the best food in town for my favorite food truck. I mean, don't get me wrong, I actually enjoy a bacon, egg, and cheese with an OJ and a hash brown once in a while, but for 14 bucks, it had better come with a pint of beer. Here's the McDonald's CEO on CNBC. What we see is it's really kind of a two-tier economy. If you're upper income earning over$100 ,000, things are good. Well, wait just a goddarned minute there. I've got to stop you because it's incredibly out of touch to assume that things are good. Things are good. Just because somebody's making$100 ,000? $100 ,000 is the$50 ,000 of yesterday.

6:13Last I checked, it was 27 years ago that$50 ,000 had the same spending power as$100 ,000 does today. Roughly when I started my career in radio, which is what we called it before podcasting for you younger folks listening, 100k is lower middle class these days, especially with a family and a mortgage and a car payment. I think the McDonald's CEO has a rather weak McGrasp on the McSituation already, but let's Mc continue. Stock markets are near all-time highs. You're feeling quite confident about things. You're seeing international travel. All those barometers of upper income consumers are doing quite well.

6:48What we see with middle and lower income consumers is actually a different story. Wow, the brilliance of this guy. Now, let me get this straight, because clearly I'm not as smart as the CEO of a big global corporation like you are. You mean to tell me that poor people are having a hard time, but rich people are doing great? Wow, I stand in total awe of your dominating economic prowess, sir. Please, please continue. It's that consumers under a lot of pressure in our industry. Traffic for lower income consumers is down double digits. and it's because people are either choosing to skip a meal. So we're seeing breakfast.

7:25People are actually skipping breakfast or they're choosing to just eat at home. And so for our business, which has a significant group of consumers, which are in that middle and lower income, we needed to step in with something like what we're doing here. Yeah, well, in McDonald's defense, at least they are rolling out with some new value meals for struggling customers and even reviving recession specials. Yes. A strategy popularized during the 2008 financial crisis. Some of the new McDonald's value items include mystery McNuggets. It could be chicken. It could be beef. It might even be a little of both.

8:00What about warm ketchup soup? Hot water, three ketchup packets, and a side of shame for$5. How about a buns-only Big Mac? Two sesame seed buns stacked high with nothing but Big Mac sauce. Every day as a small business owner feels like solving a puzzle. One moment you're cruising along, and the next, there's a shipping snag that has you scrambling. But here's a surprise you will like. With Progressive, small business owners save 13 % on their commercial auto insurance when they pay in full. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes at ProgressiveCommercial.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

8:38Discounts not available in all states or situations. Next headline in Newsweek. Epstein survivors say they are compiling their own client list of powerful associates. Six survivors told NBC News in an exclusive sit-down that they have begun compiling their own list of powerful figures linked to Epstein. Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? Accusing federal authorities of dragging their feet following outright denials in July from the Trump administration that a fabled blackmail list of the disgraced financier's clients even exists. One of the survivors on the panel, Lisa Phillips, says that survivors are no longer waiting for the government to act.

9:12They have emails, they have flight logs, they have a list they've compiled, right? And I feel like if they're not going to release this list to the public that everybody wants to see, we want to know who it is. A lot of us survivors know. We've been compiling lists of our own and we have so many other survivors please come forward, you know, and we'll compile our own list and seek justice for, you know, on our own. I mean, I think that's what's going to happen next. You know, their willingness to do this is a very beautiful thing wrapped around a very disgusting and difficult situation. And I hope these ladies and all of the other survivors out there the very best of luck, but they're going to need some serious legal protection if they think they can just start accusing powerful people of being pedophiles on the island without any concrete evidence, because you're opening a can of legal worms at that point, which can and will lead to big, rich, powerful men using the full weight and might of their best legal offense to come after you for libel and slander.

10:09You're going to need some level of protection first because you're opening yourself up to the most severe kind of legal retribution, unfortunately. I seriously hope you do it anyway, but you're going to need the fallout to be so profound that whoever you're accusing won't be able to recover and come after you. But she's absolutely right in this idea that the United States government has already pieced together this disgusting puzzle, and to think that they don't already know who was and wasn't involved is asinine, or that they're somehow incapable of telling us who was doing the worst of the worst without revealing the names of the victims when they routinely redact that kind of information on a daily basis.

10:44It only takes one big beautiful black marker to make that happen and I'm starting to lose all hope that we're ever going to see this actual list. I'm not talking about the imaginary little black book that Epstein supposedly carried around in his pocket. That's not reality. That's Hollywood. I'm talking about the files that our government created before, during, and after the investigation. This is the thing that Republicans and Democrats alike are hiding with everything they've got. And every time they dump another 30 ,000 pages of information that's already been made public, it should be seen as a clear and blatant message from our representatives that they do not care what we the people demand because their interests clearly lie somewhere else.

11:21With a few rare exceptions like Thomas Massey and others who refuse to let this go, thankfully. The question then becomes where? If you're unwilling to comply with the demands of the people, whose demands are you adhering to? The shadow government? The deep state? An entire network of pedophiles? That runs through the very foundation of Washington leadership itself? I mean, we can only speculate. Because as of now, and after all this talk, we are still being completely left in the dark about the truth. And if they're lying to us about this, what else do you think they're lying to us about? It's a question I don't have an answer for.

11:54But I think it's the most important one we could be asking ourselves right now. Quick programming note, I'm not going to be here as often as I'd like to be over the next, I don't know, week or two. I'll let you in on a big little secret. The Newsweek radio is going to be transitioning. No, not like that. But we're going to be making a big move into the video platform, I know. Who needs to see my big ugly mug? Well, that's just the way podcasting is going these days, and who am I to fight it? You'll still be able to listen to the show here, but it might go to a weekly kind of program. You know, a half hour.

12:22Maybe on Fridays for a news roundup. Maybe a debate segment or two? Hmm, maybe I've said too much. And so 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. If you're upper income earning over$100 ,000, things are good.