Trump's Reality-Based Iran Approach, Tyra Banks Sues Netflix, and How To Be a Great Dad, with Eiglarsh, Aronberg, Branca, and Berenson | Ep. 1342

25:44Dave Aronberg:It was a goal. We definitely expended some of their missile program and targeted some of their missile program. And there's the president being realistic about the fact that the Iranians are not going to agree to anything that looks like dismantling their missile program or we're not going to expend any more of our strategic military technology and trying to take it out. Here's the tweet he actually put out earlier, the true social. These fools who think I haven't been tough enough on Iran when the stock market just hit a record high and oil prices are tumbling down are either jealous, bad people, or stupid.

26:20Dave Aronberg:Make America great again. So he doesn't appreciate his newfound friends turning on him on a dime. And why are they? Because they're very, very worried about Israel. That's what they're worried about? Israel. Well, guess what? This needed to end for the sake of America, the country you've chosen to live in, the country that should be your first concern. All right. Israel's going to have to fight its own battles now. President Trump has learned that. Sorry, going to have to deal with that fact. There's more.

27:01Dave Aronberg:Do we play SOT-13, Deb? I don't think we did. No, we didn't. Okay, so this is on the question of, we played him talking about he was open to Iran enriching uranium, saying it's a little hard when other people do it and have it. And here's a little bit more on that in SOT-13. It is a little hard, though, when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It's always a little tough. You have to use a little common sense. Okay, there we go. A little bit more evidence on what he's thinking on enrichment, which seems to be he's going to allow it to some certain extent.

27:38Dave Aronberg:And on the subject that I was just discussing about Israel, the president has figured Bibi out. He's figured out Netanyahu. He understands. You know, the thing about Gaza, we all went through 10-7 together on this show. Don't you all remember the day that happened and we were on the air crying together? It was so brutal what Hamas did to Israel. It was so disgusting and depraved. And in the early months of that war, I mean, honestly, for like the first year of that war, it was very hard for me to look at Israel and pass any judgment whatsoever after what we saw them do to Israel. And I defended Israel at every turn, and I went on other programs and defended them, and I defended Marco Rubio for deporting people who were celebrating what had happened to Israel.

28:31Dave Aronberg:I just could not believe the lack of humanity against Israel, Israelis, and I still can't believe it. I still think it's depraved. I make no apologies whatsoever for the evil Hamas. But let's face it, it went on too long. The Israeli response was to carpet bomb Gaza out of existence. We've got tens of thousands dead, civilians, tens of thousands civilians dead. That's an agreed-upon number by both sides. Women, children, elderly. The amount of innocents who have been killed in Gaza so dwarfs the amount who were killed on 10-7 in Israel, that you truly have to be barbaric or heartless to not factor it in, in evaluating what happened in the Middle East over the past three years.

29:21Dave Aronberg:We have to look. And I don't even think that Israel's response needed to be proportionate. I told that to Piers Morgan like eight, nine months ago, that our response wouldn't be proportionate. You know, we wouldn't be concerned with that. If that happened to Dallas, Texas, or New York, or, you know, any place in the United States, we wouldn't say, oh, make sure it's proportionate. We would want to punish. And that's what Israel did too. But we also wouldn't commit a genocide. We wouldn't carpet bomb. And that's what they did. That's what happened in Gaza. And so Israel's in a really tough position now because it's lost the support of the international community.

30:02Obviously, they've become a pariah of the entire Democrat party,

30:07Dave Aronberg:of all of the independent parties, like all independents in the United States are completely against Israel. And now 40 % of Republicans, the latest numbers are between 30 and 40 % of Republicans have turned on Israel. They no longer approve. And it's as a direct result of all of this, what they did in Gaza, what they're doing in Lebanon now, they're trying to grab territory there. They say, oh, it's because we're getting bombed. We're getting bombed by Hezbollah. That's not the full story, friends. It's just not. And even the president has seen it. And people have turned on them because they got us into this war, obviously.

30:38Dave Aronberg:They convinced Donald Trump to do it. They told him all sorts of pie-in-the-sky stories. He believed it. We've never deprived President Trump of his own agency. But it was at their behest. They're the ones who pushed him into it. They had this Situation Room briefing with Netanyahu present and the Mossad chief coming in via satellite. And it was very clear how he was persuaded to do this, at least to me. And the president now has had his light bulb moment pushing back for the first time. We've seen it over the past couple of weeks. It's been getting more irritated as Netanyahu continues to queer every or try to every peace deal or every ceasefire that we enter into.

31:15Dave Aronberg:He doesn't understand you're the junior partner. While we're involved fighting your war, sit down and do as you're told. Now we're going to get out of it and we're going to tell him the same stuff. He's not going to obey. I think we're not going to get involved. But at a minimum, when we're holding hands still as BFFs, you're the junior. OK, we're the senior. You wouldn't have any of this ability if it weren't for us. And it's about to dry up. So here was the president talking about Israel's behavior in SOT-14. They've been a good partner. Again, I think they could do better with respect to Hezbollah.

31:53I'm not saying they shouldn't protect themselves. house. I'm saying when two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don't have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could behave better. And frankly, they could do a better job. I love them as a partner. They were terrific. But they could do a much better job with Hezbollah.

32:17Dave Aronberg:The president's sounding slightly under the weather there with a scratchy voice. we wish him well. Here's the bottom line. Okay, I'm going to wrap this up. Here's the bottom line. It's a great thing that this war is coming to a close. It's a great thing. And the president should be praised and you should not listen to these frothing at the mouth neocon hawks who want more war. When they rip all over this deal, what they're really pushing for is more bombing because there's no alternative to Trump right now. There is no alternative. The Iranians are not going to bend. They did well in this war.

32:48Dave Aronberg:They actually did very well against us. That's the reality. And Trump has accepted that reality and is trying to cut our losses. Good for him. Good for him. He's a practical man. Let's pray he does not submit to the pressure from these much more hawkish folks who have been cozying up to him for the past three months, who hated his guts prior and resume a bombing campaign. It is good that President Trump has learned the truth about listening to Netanyahu and these people. It is good that all future presidents will have this excursion as an example of what happens when you try Middle East adventurism.

33:33Dave Aronberg:Not just like, okay, I mean, we had that. I realize, you know, we had that with Iraq and Afghanistan. But we thought we could do the quickie here. We thought we could do the Venezuela. And we've learned the hard way you can't. You can't, not without major consequences. that are very negative for us, and look at the president's approval ratings, the Republican approval ratings, the fracturing of the president's coalition, white working class men no longer supporting the president. What? And anywhere near the numbers that they did. Blacks are gone. Hispanics are gone. Independents are gone. Gone.

34:04Dave Aronberg:All groups that were with the president are gone. So there's work to be done to regain the trust of those voting blocs, which do matter. And I but the upside of it is future presidents will look at what President Trump's war did to his own numbers. This was the Fifth Avenue moment. And they actually did abandon him. All but the very, very core MAGA did abandon the president when it comes to approval rating, which can be reversed. It can be reversed. So that's something that's a warning. And last but not least, Israel has been exposed. And the Hawks have lost their power. They've lost their power.

34:46Dave Aronberg:They are not credible sources of information. And their foreign policy predictions have been universally disastrous. So hopefully we can get back to thinking about America, governing for American interests, focusing like a laser on the U.S. economy. And we can stop focusing on the Strait of Hormuth, as Sarah says, my friend and hairstylist. Okay, we're going to take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to do a Great Kelly's Court. and then we'll have Alex Berenson on dads in just a bit. When it comes to your dogs, why does there always seem to be a compromise when we're talking about their food?

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36:43Dave Aronberg:Welcome to Kelly's Court. We have big updates in the Carmelo Anthony story. The judge in the trial speaking out, you never see that. Plus, author Amy Griffin is now suing the woman who alleges Amy stole her story for her bestseller, Vattel. You remember this book where she claimed she had recovered memories of growing up in Amarillo, Texas? Nobody knows who Amy Griffin is, but she's married to a very rich$6 billion man in New York. And she's used her husband's money to invest in various female empowerment type companies like Gwyneth Paltrow and people like that who then all promoted her book. So it became a bestseller.

37:27Dave Aronberg:And then she made the Time 100 as this terribly put upon Me Too victim. Like, feel sorry for me. I don't enjoy your$6 billion. And it turns out that, according to the New York Times, she may have stolen the story from a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who she grew up with in Amarillo, Texas, that these weren't Amy's recovered memories. These were her classmates' memories. And it tracks because Amy was from a very well-to-do family. She was very popular. She was like the head cheerleader or what have you. And that's not generally the one that the inappropriate, gross math teacher chooses to abuse.

38:13Dave Aronberg:Sadly, they usually choose girls from broken families, can be boys too, especially when it comes to childhood sexual abuse. broken families who can't threaten them as much or who can be demeaned or diminished or don't have means and so on. In any event, it doesn't mean it can't happen to a well-off girl, but there were holes in the story from the start. And then the New York Times found this woman who went to school with Amy who says she stole my story. And not only that, but then that woman filed a lawsuit against Amy Griffin saying, not only did you steal my story, you came out here, you met with me, shortly before the publication of your book, and you got me to send you a postcard as like, hey, so good to be back in touch.

38:58Dave Aronberg:And then you clearly co-opted that story for your book saying this other girl, Claudia, who you went to school with, who also got allegedly raped by the man you're claiming raped you, sent you a postcard out of the blue. And it seemed to you to be telegraphing that like, me too, after your memoir was published. And so this woman's like, you're a fraud. You stole my story. You asked me to have coffee. You gave me a postcard or asked me to buy one and then wrote out your address for me to send it to you. And then you wrote about it in the book like there's this other person named Claudia who was also raped.

39:32Dave Aronberg:But that's not the truth. Only I was, as far as I know, sort of says this woman. Not exactly, but like that. And you did it all to self-aggrandize so that you could wind up on Gwyneth Paltrow's show and Oprah's show and Jenna Bush Hager and wind up at the Time 100. Well, now she, Griffin, is cross-counter-suing that woman. And it's turned into a true she said, she said, where like one of them is absolutely lying. 100%. One of them is making up a bunch of stuff. And we just don't know whom. So it's a very interesting case. That's where we're going to kick it off. We've got three pals here today on Kelly's Court.

40:14Dave Aronberg:Mark Iglarge, co-host of Positively Legal on MK True Crime, which you should subscribe to at your podcast service or on YouTube dot com. Andrew Branca, who's host of the Andrew Branca show and Dave Ehrenberg, who's co-host of the MK True Crime show, who you can also find on Substack now because Dave's finally sharing his legal gifts with us in multiple forums now that he's no longer county attorney for Palm Beach. Great to see you all. Hey, good to be here. OK, so am I right, Mark? Mark, they can't both be telling the truth in this particular circumstance. It's either Amy Griffin or Jane Doe, as she refers to herself in the lawsuit.

40:52One of them is making up a bunch of whoppers. Right. This is one or the other. One is a horrible person, and I'm hoping through the lawsuit we're going to find out who it is. I'm so desperate to know that I can't just sit and wait. So like I'm like I'm investigating. I watched an interview of the attorney who filed the lawsuit, trying to gaze what kind of person. What's what's he about? You know, is he an one representing Jane?

41:25Dave Aronberg:Yeah. Is he an ambulance chaser? Is he just in for the money? No, man. The guy seemed legit. So he's willing to bankroll this lawsuit based upon the evidence that he has uncovered. that put a put a little plus in the in the column of there i i don't know megan but this is this is pretty bad i'm not ready to call her a snake yet you know you seem to be leaning towards you know she stole the story but we really don't know we don't know yet we don't know we don't know we don't make that clear i don't i don't want to throw amy griffin under the bus i actually know amy a little um she's always very nice to me it's just if if she did this she's a horrible we all agree That's very clear.

42:06Dave Aronberg:Yeah, but we just don't know because now, well, we didn't know at any point, but now this woman's come forward saying she is a horrible person. She did steal. And what Amy's saying in response, Dave, is that she never went out there and met with this. She's like, I never went to Palm Springs at all, which I guess is where the woman claims the meeting took place. And she's been able to produce no receipts to show otherwise because they asked her for documents. and she said, oh, I don't have any responsive documents. So she's kind of saying put up or shut up. But I mean, either the woman is totally fabricating that Amy Griffin flew out there and they met together and they did this postcard thing, or Amy is completely lying when she says she never met with this woman with whom she did meet.

42:52Yep, Megan, it's a binary choice here. One of them is lying and you can prove it. Just show the receipts, right? I mean, Amy Griffin is saying in her lawsuit that she has documented proof that she wrote out her account in 2020. And then she gave a formal interview with the Amarillo Police Department in 2021. And that's before the Jane Doe came out with her account in 2022.

43:19Dave Aronberg:And so it's no it's before Amy allegedly went and met with Jane Doe. Right. Correct. So that would that timeline really does in order to the benefit of Amy Griffin. Right. If she, in fact, wrote out her own story and gave a police report in 2021 before she ever met with Jane Doe, then that should be game over. It doesn't, though. Well, no, it shouldn't. I get I understand why you think that. But it shouldn't because the allegation by Jane Doe is that Amy knew all about Jane's sexual assault from when they were children, that she told Amy that that she borrowed Amy's dress to go to this cotillion.

43:59Dave Aronberg:and then gave it back to Amy after she, Jane Doe, had been sexually assaulted by the teacher and it had bodily fluids on it. And so she believes, I can't remember if the allegation is that she directly told Amy about it or that the dress made it clear and that there were others in the community who knew. And she's presuming Amy understood all of this long before. Otherwise, why would Amy have known to call her? Why would Amy have asked to meet with her? And then she also alleges Amy then, so in other words, she's claiming Amy wrote down that story before she met with Jane Doe because Amy knew it from her childhood.

44:33Dave Aronberg:She'd been told the story and that she just rounded back to Jane Doe to like firm up the story, maybe add a couple of details and possibly just to strong arm Jane Doe into giving her this postcard so that she could use it in the actual memoir. But isn't the 2019 coffee shop meeting really important here, right? In Palm Springs, Griffin says that she has documentation. She wasn't even in the area at the time. So, I mean, all these holes. That's bizarre. Yeah, that's a problem. Yes, I agree. That went that one threw me for a loop, too, as somebody who has has been critical of Griffin on this. Like if she wasn't there, if she like whatever, people can get dates wrong.

45:11Dave Aronberg:You know, it's possible. But if she never flew out and met with this woman, then the woman's a fabulous. Then the woman's Jane Doe is not telling the truth. You know, she did it, which is a possibility. Yeah. And she did a tactical move, Megan, because Jane Doe, she was able to get anonymity by filing the privacy lawsuit in California. So what Amy Griffin did smartly was to file a Nevada, a defamation lawsuit, which outs her, which actually produces her name. It's just not being named in the press. So this is a pressure campaign also to say, OK, you're not going to be able to hide behind anonymity much longer.

45:44Dave Aronberg:Yes. Well, here's the other thing, though, Andrew. They're not suing The New York Times, Amy Griffin, right? As far as they're not sued, but they're the ones who broke the story of Jane Doe. Maureen Callahan, actually, in the MK Media Network, first came out about the tell saying, I smell a rat. She had read the Amazon reviews where woman after woman was saying kind of what I said at the top, which is there's some like deviant math teacher who's raping young teens in an Amarillo school. No one ever heard a whiff about it. And he chooses the most popular girl in school, the prom queen, rich girl.

46:24Dave Aronberg:Like that does not track. That's not a thing. So Maureen did a segment on it. Then the New York Times did a deep dive in which they produced Jane Doe. They didn't cite her, but they found this whole new element to the story, which is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Amy's recovered memories are actual memories from this other girl. But it wasn't the teacher that Amy Griffin is accusing. It was a different teacher who then left the school. And the New York Times, Andrew, is standing by its reporting 100 percent saying it all checks out. we don't move one inch off of our reporting. Well, the problem is in the law, the truth is always kind of ephemeral, right?

47:04I mean, for example, juries never really know what happened. We try to get the closest approximation of the truth that we can. And the trouble with these cases is that they all happened decades ago. Statutes of limitation exist for a reason. And we see a repeated cycle of this. We see E. Jean Carroll accusing Trump over things that happened two, three decades ago. We saw Christine Blasey Ford accusing Brett Kavanaugh of things that happened 36 years ago. These events happened decades ago. There's no way for anyone to really defend themselves against these charges, just giving the passage of time.

47:38Dave Aronberg:My team's reminding me. Correct. She didn't sue the New York Times. Amy didn't. And that Jane Doe does claim in her lawsuit that she told her church group about her alleged sexual assault. She alleges as follows. During said church youth group meeting, which both plaintiff Doe and defendant Amy Griffin attended with a number of other individuals, plaintiff Jane Doe asked for Jesus's forgiveness due to the sexual assault by the teacher, which had occurred at the Sadie Hawkins dance. So I was right. She, Dave, that's the point. She, Jane Doe is alleging Amy Griffin knew since childhood that Jane Doe had been sexually assaulted by a teacher and knew the details of it and had the dress, which is something Amy tells as her own memory about herself in her book.

48:22Dave Aronberg:So she may have gone back to Jane Doe on, this is Jane Doe's version later in life after she wrote this book to like get a couple of extra details or possibly even just, just to get that postcard. but Jane Doe's position will be, it wasn't necessary for her to learn my story. But then she did send, so here's the other piece of it. I'm gonna let you respond, but I've been covering this so much. Jane Doe alleges that Amy then sent a movie, a private investigator posing as a movie producer to say, hey, I'm really interested in making your story. Now what? The guy didn't say I'm friends with Amy, but she's figured, I mean, this woman made of this whole thing?

49:02Dave Aronberg:this guy who she named, she just got a card with a name on it. And this person saying, I don't know this Jane Doe. I didn't do this. But the woman is alleging that Amy sent this PI who posed as a movie producer to get more details about Jane's story. And the movie producer is claiming that's not true. Or like the actual person named, whatever his name is, says, I didn't go out there. So it's hard to follow. But here's the other side of that, Dave. Amy admits in her own book that she did hire private investigators to run around investigating some of the details that she was offering. That's already been admitted.

49:47OK, now there are a bunch of contradictions between Jane Doe's lawsuit, Amy Griffin's lawsuit. So to go back to the church group, which you mentioned, you're right. Jane Doe alleged that Not only did she disclose the assault to the church group, but that Amy Griffin was part of the church group, that she wasn't in attendance there. But Amy Griffin actually directly addressed that in her lawsuit. She says that they were never part of the same church youth group. So that's one of the factual disputes here. And as far as the movie producer, it's another thing where the movie producer himself says, I don't know what you're talking about.

50:19I had nothing to do. I wasn't involved in any way. And he sort of he says he has receipts to show that he wasn't there meeting with her at the time. So this is something that you could say should be proven. I mean, this is.

50:31Dave Aronberg:But Jane, I think is I think Jane is going to say it was a P.I. posing as a movie producer. So Jane's not a sophisticated Hollywood person. So she's accepting this guy's name is whatever he tells her. No, that's that's right. But the question is, who is it? Right. Because it's this whole producer talent agent. That's that's the issue. apparently there's just a he said, she said here. And this is not like the 1970s. We actually have like phone data and all these other things that can show where you were at the time. So that's why I think we'll know, by the end of this, we'll know who's telling the truth and who's lying.

51:08Dave Aronberg:I hope you're right. All right, stand by. More Kelly's Court after this quick break. Don't go away. Feeling sluggish, bloated, not quite like yourself? Life constantly bombards us with silent threats, processed foods, artificial light, nonstop stress, all of which can disrupt gut health, drain energy, and weaken immune health. When that happens, it's not that your body is broken. It's that it might be missing the right inputs. That's why I want to tell you about Armra Cholestrum. It's packed with more than 400 bioactive nutrients that they say can work at a foundational level to fortify gut health, support immune health, fuel recovery, and promote whole body vitality.

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53:03Dave Aronberg:We are back now with Mark Eiglarsh, Andrew Branca, and Dave Ehrenberg. Okay, let's keep going because there's a lot more that we need to cover on other cases. Carmelo Anthony, the now 19-year-old man in Texas who was just convicted of murdering Austin Metcalf for no reason in a tent at a track meet, is now, well, saying that he's penniless and he needs a court-appointed lawyer to represent him on appeal. And at the same time, Mark Iglarsch, the judge is speaking out. The judge gave an interview. You never see this. It's so rare. But the judge gave an interview. and among the things that he spoke out about was why he did not allow cameras in the courtroom.

53:47Dave Aronberg:It's kind of interesting. Stop 35. We'll tell you, I got some reports of some things that were coming out of this courtroom and I wondered to myself, were they even in the same courtroom that I was? It's that bad. And I think that's tragic because I think really, if you just listen to the case based upon the facts, you'd understand it so much better. Do you think it reinforced your decision to not have cameras or streaming inside this? Sort of. I will tell you this. Sometimes I think maybe I should have at least the audio streamed or something so people could hear it. But at the end of the day, I don't think no matter what, people are going to distort whatever happens or whatever they hear into their own agenda.

54:24And so what's the point?

54:27Dave Aronberg:That was Collin County District Judge John Roach interviewing with WFAA, the Dallas ABC affiliate. So I don't know, Mark. I agree. At least audio would have been quite helpful. Absolutely. He asks, what's the point? The point is, at least there's people like me and the two other guests who would have said, no, that's not accurate what you're saying. We saw the testimony and we could say there's no way that occurred. We were in the dark. And so now we're reliant upon, I'll use air quotes, media entities who are telling us what's going on inside the courtroom. So, no, I think that he is actually reconsidering his decision.

55:08I think if he stayed on the bench, and I think he's gone soon, he would probably allow cameras. And likely, you know, that would change the energy of this whole thing. There were such distortions during this case. People claiming he knew the Metcalfs when he didn't. Like, you've got to have more disclosure for the public.

55:28Dave Aronberg:You know, this is your business, Andrew. You're an expert in self-defense. And that's what this case was all about, right? Right. Whether Carmelo was just defending himself. I know. Right. Exactly. He purported to make it such when he when he plunged a knife into Austin Metcalf for literally just laying a hand on him. Now you've seen the reaction in the wake of this verdict where some very bizarre collective of far leftists is trying to say this was self-defense. black boys have boundaries and Austin Metcalf found out the hard way. I'm not sure loons like that could have been persuaded if they had had a camera in the courtroom watching black witnesses one after the other testify that Carmelo Anthony was in the wrong.

56:13Dave Aronberg:They saw the whole thing, but it couldn't hurt. Well, the judge says people are going to make up lies about the case anyway, and that's true, of course. I mean, the Zimmerman trial, everyone, there's tons of lies about that, the Rittenhouse trial. The difference is we were able to watch. I watched every minute of both those trials. So when the lies are put out there, as they inevitably are, you can have a credible, informed counter argument, the truth to contest those lies. This judge stripped that possibility away. I mean, as my colleague says, now we have to rely on journalists. Frankly, journalists often have their own agenda.

56:48They're trying to spin their own narrative. But even when they're being honest. They're not lawyers. They don't know what they're not seeing. They don't know what's important. I kept looking for reporting on, you know, was this subjected to, was this preserved for appeal? And it's just not, it's not in the reporting. So we don't know. And because we can't have an actually substantively informed view about the proceedings, we see these lies on the internet, or at least we suspect their lies because they're so outrageous, but there's no informed counter argument. It was terrible what this judge did.

57:19And he could have protected those minors just by panning the camera away from their face. And we just would have gotten the audio.

57:25Dave Aronberg:Yes. Very good point. We've seen that done in many trials and he chose not to do it. Now there's always going to be this question about whether there was some critical failure to prove that this was, you know, it went down as we thought it did. Here he is, Dave, on a subject that we've been discussing, which is the absence of any black jurors. There were minorities, but there were no black jurors. And here is what he said on Sat 38. Like I told you before, as long as I follow the law, I sleep well at night. And I'm telling you, I follow the law in that case. Did I know what the perception was going to be?

58:03Sure. I knew in the back of my mind what the perception was going to be. But I'm not here to satisfy perceptions. I'm not here to satisfy agendas. I'm not here to do any of those things. I'm here to follow the law. and I did it to a T and I'm proud of that. Very proud of that. Hmm.

58:19Dave Aronberg:Good for him. I mean, it's going to be the appellate issue that ineffective assistance, don't you think? Yes. And but that's why we needed transparency and cameras in the courtroom, because now you have the public saying, well, you intentionally struck black jurors. This is an unfair trial. And that is terrible because you want the community to buy into it. And because there is no transparency here now, they just believe the worst. and there is no set quote on how many members of certain groups have to be on a jury. You just have to have a fair process. And if someone gave an answer in jury selection that gets them struck, as long as they're not being struck because of race, then it's a legitimate system and it's very unlikely to be overturned on appeal.

59:02In fact, judges get a lot of discretion when it comes to jury selection here. And so I think that even though they'll use that on appeal, it's unlikely to overturn this verdict.

59:12Dave Aronberg:Mark, there's this guy down in this area in Texas who's affiliated in some way with the parents or was like kind of representing them as a supporter for a while. And his name is Charleston White. And he came out shortly after the verdict and went off on Carmelo Anthony's parents, like flipping against them. Here's what he said. Listen to Stop 42.

1:00:05to. They wanted to start another GoFundMe. I said, no, I'm not doing the GoFundMe. They wanted to know after we pay for the pill, will the money go to them? No. The extra money don't go back to you. It goes back to the people who gave it. It don't go to nothing else. The money is for the pill. His daddy in the way. I don't like weak. I hate weak men. I'd rather stand with a strong daddy like that Melfcab man than his black weak father trying to play victim. You want to get the money, but then disassociate yourself from me? Nigga, I'm here for that boy. I'm here for your son. And if this money don't go directly to your son's appeal, you don't get this money.

1:00:56We sent it back. Okay.

1:01:00Dave Aronberg:Well, obviously there's some drama going on behind the scenes there between him and the dad. But my question to you is about these GoFundMe funds because they raised between 600 and$700 ,000. We know the family then moved into this mansion down in the area where they've been staying pending the trial. And I don't know, I'm going to guess that the lawyer representing Carmelo Anthony was not top shelf based on the performance that we witnessed. I don't think he's charging Mark Eichlarsh fees. But my question is simply, if the parents took the give, send, go money and spent it on themselves in some sort of lavish spending spree, I don't have proof of that.

1:01:41Dave Aronberg:But if they did, this guy seems to be intimating they were money hungry for themselves. Is it is there any way of getting it back? Is there any way of Carmelo Anthony suing the parents? Give Sango? How can that end up in something more just? Yeah, it's not going to go anywhere because this really bothered me. I don't know. I was told that Anthony had a public defender and that no one spent the money on a good lawyer. So is this a private lawyer that he had? He's not. He used to be. He used to be a public defender. He made so many mistakes. When I was in private practice. He made so many mistakes in that trial.

1:02:16Clearly, they didn't go top shelf, right? So I read the language that was posted on that. It's not GoFundMe. It's something else, but something like that. Gives, then, go. Yeah, whatever. And the language is so broad. It includes moving the family for their safety. And so technically that means what? Moving them. So buying them a home. In other words, they wouldn't they would survive a fraud accusation legally. legally but i think they were intellectually dishonest i think that most people who donated their money wanted this guy to get the best defense possible and for the bulk of the money to go for that and it didn't so what i mean is do you agree andrew nothing can be done yeah i don't think anything can be done i've i actually i've met the owner of give send go we talked about this case uh and the funding for it because a lot of these funding entities on the The Internet wouldn't involve themselves in this.

1:03:12And he was willing to. But I think that's right. I mean, the way that there's no question people thought they were contributing to the defense. Right. But they didn't read the language in this Internet form. They're putting their credit card information into. And it is so broad. It could be used for virtually anything. And it clearly wasn't actually used for his defense and won't be used for his appeal.

1:03:34Dave Aronberg:Meanwhile, the crazy messaging around this continues, Dave. the like the spinners out there spinning, you really, truly would think that Austin Metcalf killed Carmelo Anthony and just got off like that would dovetail with what we're hearing in the news about how black lives matter. Like, wait a minute. No, a white kid was killed. What do you why? Why are you even making it about race? There was no evidence at trial that this was about race. And the latest offender is Danielle Hairston. This is posted by Breitbart on June 13th. Listen here. You're holding someone accountable. Yes. Okay. You should be held accountable.

1:04:18But when we know, like scientifically, like your brain is not even developed. Like Carmelo Anthony's brain is not even fully developed at 17, even at 18, even at 19, even at 20. that's why they got people still on their parents um insurance insurance until 26 right yeah right because they know that they're not developed they're not always responsible and one bad thing can happen what's the name of the one the the white young person i guess who called rittenhouse but the one before him who shot the church in south carolina then they took dylan ruford And they took him to Burger King. Right. They took him to Burger King after he killed nine beautiful people.

1:05:02They took him to Burger King. They're sentencing him to over 30 years, Carmelo Anthony. But they took this dude to Burger King. This young boy, I guess he was a boy. So the adultification is traumatizing.

1:05:18Dave Aronberg:I mean, that's crazy. She's a psychiatrist who is the director of residency training in the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University College of Medicine, Dave. I mean, to compare the Dylann Roof situation, I mean, Dylann Roof is true evil. And they did buy. Shot and killed nine people. Awful, awful. But every case you have to look in its own merits and to say, well, they treated Dylann Roof. Yeah, there was a cop who bought a meal for him from Burger King. But that doesn't mean that Carmelo Anthony didn't commit murder here. I mean, you don't bring a knife to a shoving match. And Dylan Roof, he got the death penalty.

1:05:57Dave Aronberg:How is Carmelo Anthony being treated worse than the guy who's getting the death penalty? Yeah, well, they're saying the way the cops treat him afterwards. But that's like the situation we could talk about with the guy over in Great Britain, you know, the killers who were coddled there. Police sometimes make mistakes. Victim Digwa. Right, right, exactly. So police will make mistakes. But yes, you're correct. Dylann Roof correctly got the death penalty and deserved it. And when you're talking about Carmelo Anthony, he was given 35 years. He was he could have been given a lot more. So he actually got a sentence that was in line with what you get when you commit this kind of act.

1:06:36This is a large knife that he brought to a track meet for whatever reason. And he instigated it. He provoked it. And then he's the one who killed the innocent victim here in front of his twin brother. And it's just an awful situation. And to try to cast him as the victim turns it all on its head.

1:06:53Dave Aronberg:I know it's unbelievable. I know you got to run, Dave. Thanks for coming on. We stick with Andrew and Mark as we go forward. Andrew, what do you make of that? I mean, it's totally on brand for this woke Howard University medical professor to be espousing nonsense like that. God only knows what she tells her students who are going to go out there and be operating on and treating Americans coast to coast with that kind of psychosis introduced into their medical school education. Well, you know, I have to say I actually was really pleased how how black Americans responded to this event, because we did have a lot of people who struck me as crazy, like this woman strikes me as crazy.

1:07:33But there are also a lot of black Americans on social media saying, what's what's wrong with everybody? This was clearly a murder. They clearly had a realistic understanding of what happened. If you if we were back in the Zimmerman trial eras, it would have been impossible to find a black person in America who thought that George Zimmerman was legally justified, although a jury found he did. It would have been almost 100 percent cohesive in the black community that that was just a racist murder of a young black kid. It was very refreshing, frankly, in this case to see so many obviously productive, hardworking black Americans with a realistic understanding of what actually happened here and not buying into the Black Lives Matter type of propaganda.

1:08:14that. Yeah.

1:08:15Dave Aronberg:Well, unfortunately, though, you've got sort of the elite academic class, which she represents. And then just like the, I don't even know what to refer to the people who are outside of that courtroom who were like harassing, who are saying that Austin Metcalfe should be dug up and stabbed again. Like there was a contingent of the black community down there where the trial was held in Frisco that was absolutely abhorrent. It's not about being black, but it's about terrible behavior. Right. But it's no accident that this woman who's in the academy matched their sentiment as her takeaway. Right. It's absolutely no accident whatsoever.

1:08:53Dave Aronberg:And it's deeply wrong. I mean, we spoke with Jeff Metcalf a week ago and that family is still suffering and they do not need to hear talks about digging up their dead son and trying to hurt him and the family more. Some have a change.org petition to have his brother now arrested Hunter for alleged assault, which there was no proof of that whatsoever. What Hunter did was hold his dying brother in his hands. Another thing, these weirdest family, the parents are disputing, the family of Carmelo, their parents are disputing that. He was, the evidence is overwhelming. So this is what we're dealing with.

1:09:27Dave Aronberg:Okay, I want to keep going because there's a lot more to do. we've got Tyra Banks. Oh, maybe we should do Vikram Digwa before we get to Tyra, since you mentioned it. Let's do that. So there's an update in the Vikram Digwa case, which is his brother, who was right there with him, you guys, when Vikram stabbed poor Henry Novak and killed him in the UK. His brother was an accessory. He was a partner in crime. He participated. He's the one who called 911 and gave them a bunch of lies. In fact, We have some of that here in SOT 47. Listen, this is the brother. Yeah, we've just been attacked by someone racially.

1:10:09Yeah, this fucker. You're talking about verbally or physically? No, no, he's physically attacked my brother. We're Sikhs, we wear carbon, and he's attacked my brother. So I need someone here, ASAP, please. I hate you, just bear with me. I can't let him go until this gets sorted. I'm not being racially attacked and letting this get away with. He said this and he said that. What did he specifically say? Vic, did he racially say anything to you? Huh? Did he racially say anything to you? He called me a packie as well. He called him a packie. Okay. Is this guy fighting and struggling, trying to get away?

1:10:41At the minute, now he's lying on the floor. So he doesn't have any injuries? He's hurt his face. I think he's fallen. Okay, when you say an injury to his face, can you just tell me a bit more about that? So he's hurt his face from his mouth, and he's bleeding from the mouth.

1:10:55Dave Aronberg:He's obviously very drunk as well at the minute. Just to confirm, no one's seen any weapons? No, no. Oh, Mark, except the one your brother used to stab poor Henry six times. That guy's name is Gurpreet Digwa. And the police, I mean, the judge made really clear he had absolutely no belief that Gurpreet wasn't complicit. He did not like Gurpreet. It was pretty clear in the trial. And we heard him tell police we've been racially attacked by a white person. He said we are restraining him now because he has attacked my brother and taken his turban off. And he was recording some shit on his phone. He also insisted to the operator that there were no weapons involved, despite both brothers carrying Sikh ceremonial lives and said, I don't know what weapon they would be.

1:11:50Dave Aronberg:He said he added that, quote, the guy has fallen over because he looks like he's drunk. In fact, after Henry died, both brothers were arrested. And it's really unclear to me, to be honest, why the hell Gurpreet gets a pass. Yeah, it's unclear to me, too, unless, you know, politics made a decision. He's not going to be politics are alive and well in their system, just like it is here in America. I don't get it. At a minimum, he was misleading the 911. one. At a maximum, he was lying. So you're asking me? I don't know. I think that there was there was enough evidence there to prosecute him, especially because they take that, you know, race calling stuff, you know, so seriously that it's a crime.

1:12:36Well, what about falsely suggesting that that's what it was about?

1:12:40Dave Aronberg:Yeah. So I don't get it, Megan. Andrew, I actually look to see, like, did they cut a deal with Gurpreet? You know, sometimes you'll go to the lesser culpable defendant and say, give up your brother and we won't come for you. That's not that's not why he's getting off. No, I mean, have just said we reviewed all the all the facts and we don't see it. I mean, how do you not see it? It's right there. What could he be charged with? Well, he could be charged with being an accessory after the fact. There's all kinds of charges they could have brought against him. But, you know, we'd like to think that politics doesn't play a role in charging decisions.

1:13:13But prosecutors are politicians, too, at least here in the U.S. their politicians. And this is, you know, we have this complicating dynamic in the UK. They're really a multicultural nation now without assimilation. So you have these conflicting political constituencies where people are on teams and the politicians are very sensitive not to anger a constituency from a political perspective. And that's maybe the concern they were having here. But these charging decisions, when you have a politically charged environment, The politics are going to play a role more often than not, unfortunately.

1:13:47Dave Aronberg:This is outrageous. The mother was charged for hiding the knife. This guy was even more complicit than the mother. He's the one who led the police down the wrong path about what had actually happened there, directly leading to Henry's death. If they had shown up having a better understanding that, OK, you can lie, whatever you're going to say with self-defense about why this happened. But they lied about the fact that there had been a stabbing, that there were weapons involved, that Henry was bleeding to death as he called. This is so wrong. The U.K. law enforcement is nothing to be admired. I mean, every single thing that drops in the news about them makes me glad I live in America.

1:14:26Dave Aronberg:OK, turning the page to Tyra Banks. This is very interesting, Mark. She is suing Netflix for their fake documentary about her show, America's Next Top Model. We've talked on this show with our audience for years about how these documentaries on Netflix are nothing of the sort. You know, I wouldn't go so far as to say mockumentary, but they should be called docudramas. Because they take a nugget of truth, you know, a couple things that we know. There was a show called America's Next Top Model. Tyra Banks was its creator and host. There was drama involving models. And then they dramatize storylines.

1:15:03Dave Aronberg:I've heard this from so many people who have been connected to these products. And I have to say, good for Tyra Banks for doing something about it. You're going to tell me whether you think she's got a legal claim, but I'm glad she's calling attention to this. She says they manipulated her participation in their documentary on her show. It's a lawsuit accusing them of defamation through deceptive editing. She claims that the 3.5-hour interview she did for the series was heavily manipulated and cut down to only 16 minutes to create a false narrative. She says clips were stripped of context and resembled and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what actually was expressed.

1:15:48Dave Aronberg:She contends that the accountability she took for some of the more controversial moments in the show were edited out entirely of the docuseries. She says, look, I didn't limit the approaches or the topics that they could come at me with, but they sold this as a documentary and they made an active effort quite clearly to take out all context in my denials. There are two topics in particular. One, it's about season two and it's contestant Shandi Sullivan allegedly being sexually assaulted while on the show. In the series, Shandy Sullivan recalls the situation when the models were in Italy and male models who had driven the girls around Milan that day came over to their house.

1:16:31Dave Aronberg:She could be seen, Shandy could, in the original episode, drinking wine and partying in a hot tub before getting in bed with one of the men. Listen to Sat 43 with Shandy Sullivan talking about what happened to her in season one. I remember him on top of me. I was blacked out. no one did anything to stop it and it all got filmed all of it i didn't even feel sex happening i just knew it was happening okay so that's her in the documentary recounting this terrible thing that happened to her and she says i was i was hammered i think i had two bottles of wine by myself but this terrible thing happened to me and i was like holy shit what happened to me according to the lawsuit that tyra filed the series allegedly implies that banks knowingly allowed this contestant to be sexually assaulted and then did not even remember when asked about it.

1:17:29Dave Aronberg:OK, this is the Tyra Banks clip at issue from the so-called documentary Sop 44. A more difficult territory is Shandy. OK, you remember the story with Shandy? OK, so they show her eyes up, like searching. um tyra is not happy she's not asked about that at all she's not happy about that at all um she's asked about shandy a little bit more and here's more of it in sat 45 watch remember the story was shandy um uh i do remember her story it's a little difficult for me to talk about production because i'm that's not my territory i'm not head of story that's ken mock, but I did become a master editor.

1:18:20Dave Aronberg:It's important for people to know that we didn't put everything on TV. Okay. So the bottom line is Mark, she's claiming they made her look pretty heartless. Like she didn't even remember this girl. She had to search for it. Then she was kind of defensive. And in her lawsuit, Tyra claims that she was not aware that Shandy had classified what happened to her as a sexual assault. She says, had she been told that that was her perception She would have addressed it in that context. She would have explained the seriousness with which she treats such issues. And then she would have stopped the interview.

1:18:54Dave Aronberg:Then she claims that she didn't actually look up and search to remember who Shandy was. She says the implication is devastating and deliberate that Tyra cannot even remember the story of the woman who was assaulted. But that was false. The full footage, she alleges, is that the interview reveals two things that the producers cut out and didn't want the viewers to see. Before the upward glance, she nods affirmatively and unmistakably and immediately says, I do remember her story. by carving out the nod in the middle of the sequence and cutting off Ms. Banks' comment at the end, the producers ensured that viewers would see only the lie and not the truth.

1:19:39Yeah, that's what they do. I like this lawsuit for a lot of reasons. I think that if what she's alleging can be proven, then she meets the elements and she deserves to be compensated. They dramatically affected her brand and she should be compensated. But it highlights a bigger problem. We're all watching these documentaries thinking erroneously that they're being factually accurate. The best example recently was the crash. Most of us saw that they intentionally left out what was tantamount to an admission while she's laying in the hospital asking her, Mom, should we say this? Should we allege this?

1:20:17Had they shown that in that documentary, we all would have said this isn't a close call. This girl did what's being alleged. So they're doing it. It's a big problem. And whether she wins and ultimately gets a settlement out of it, Banks is causing Netflix and others to make sure that they get it right and stop being so creative in their editing.

1:20:38Dave Aronberg:I have to tell you from a journalistic perspective, you would never do this. Never, never. Any ethical journalist would know So that is totally unfair to our witness here, to our interviewee. You must include that context that she just offered where she says, I do remember her. And she quickly acknowledges her rather than making it look like she is searching. Katie Couric did this to a bunch of people on that gun story, Andrew. That's right. I do very well. She asked them a question about some gun control issue, and then the camera pans to the panel, and the panel is just clueless. For nine seconds, they're not saying anything to suggest they didn't have a response to the question.

1:21:23That was not their response. That was clipped in from another portion of the video just to make them look hapless. The difference there, however, is that those panelists, they knew they were going into a hostile environment, so they made their own recording so they could contest it. My understanding here is Tyra Banks does not, in fact, have her own recording of this interview.

1:21:44Dave Aronberg:No, because we don't have that to show you. Right. It's terrible. Or we'd be showing it to you right now. So learn a lesson, folks. She should have done it. She shouldn't have trusted them. If you're being interviewed by the media, make your own recording. So she did trust them. And honestly, like, I mean, I stand corrected. Obviously, a journalist would do this because Katie Couric did it. And some others have done it. Look at 60 Minutes, what it's been doing. However, no ethical journalist would do this. Trust me. I've been in enough edit bays over the years where we're making decisions about what stays in and what comes out.

1:22:11Dave Aronberg:In my experience, the producers, the editors, and the reporters on most stories understand there's an ethical obligation not to bastardize your witness, your interviewee. And even if you can't stand them, I mean, you've got to be fair to them. You've got to make sure their defense or their context that they've offered is in there. Here's the second one. It's also interesting. There was a guy in the show named Miss J. Alexander. That's what he went by, Miss J. Alexander. He was obviously a flamboyantly gay man. But he was a major part of the show. He apparently wound up having a stroke in 2022.

1:22:49Dave Aronberg:And they aired the following exchange with Tyra about Miss J.'s stroke, SOT 46. Did Tyra come and visit you? No, not yet. She just sent me a text that she wants to come and visit me. But no, not yet. Okay, about Tyra. That was Miss J there saying she didn't come to visit him. Even though this guy had a stroke, it's so sad. Tyra's a bitch. That's clearly what they're going for. She alleges the following. She says perhaps the most hurtful example of their deception involved Miss J. Alexander, had the producers informed Miss Banks of that part of the Netflix series and that it would include Miss J.

1:23:37Dave Aronberg:saying Banks never visited him in the hospital, Banks would have explained that she'd been living in Australia for two and a half years. She would have shared the text revealing that on a New York trip, she did reach out to Miss J. to say she wanted to see him, but he never responded. She would have shown lengthy text change, the chains that she was a part of where the show's crew, America's Next Top Model crew, and cast members were all trying to figure out how to locate Miss J soon after his stroke. She would have shown how hard she tried to get in touch with Miss J personally when she had initially heard the news of his stroke.

1:24:16Dave Aronberg:Then she says, she goes on with an example of Banks reaching out to a family member of Miss J, saying she would have shown the text message that arrived from Miss J's family member, who eventually texted back months later and apologized for not responding to Tyra's texts and multiple calls sooner due to her being focused on getting him better. Banks would have explained that after that contact, she and Miss J spent three years communicating. They spoke live on the phone at least once. They exchanged voice notes, many photos, video messages. They texted numerous times. As recently as Christmas Day 2025, Banks and Miss J exchanged holiday messages and he updated her about his improved health.

1:24:59Dave Aronberg:She replied, yes, can we speak this week? They never did speak. Just weeks later, the Netflix series streamed to a worldwide audience. This is so egregious. She has every reason to be pissed off. I'd be livid. So would you. They're essentially calling you insensitive. They're hurting her brand. But you keep referring to them as journalists. I look at them now as entertainers, and they're acting like they're journalists. They're not. So if we just now look at everything through that lens, every documentary that you see on any of these streaming platforms, look at it as entertainment. It's not necessarily factually based and in truth.

1:25:43It's just not.

1:25:45Dave Aronberg:I just to be clear, I was not referring to the Netflix documentarians as journalists. I was just saying no ethical journalist. And that's our business is interviewing people and putting them on would do this. So their standards are clearly very different from those that exist in the journalism profession, even if they're not always upheld. Andrew, does she have a claim, a legal claim for defamation? Oh, absolutely. I mean, this this is beyond what's required for actual malice. I mean, mere reckless disregard of the truth would be enough. They're actually fabricating the lie here themselves affirmatively by clipping these things together to represent a narrative that they know is not true.

1:26:22And they're doing it for self-serving purposes, to make money, to get more clicks and views. The only way to check this kind of behavior is to hold these people accountable and hit them in the checkbook for large sums of money. Then maybe the next time someone's doing a documentary like that, there'll be a check on it. But as long as there's only upside and not downside for these people, they'll keep doing this relentlessly.

1:26:43Dave Aronberg:I agree. Don't call it a documentary. Even so, you'd get sued for defamation. Even so, if you're going to take a real life person and bastardize her behavior like this, she's going to sue you. I mean, if people only knew like the number of sessions we've had with lawyers, you have to bend over backward. We don't always do it perfectly where I'm not perfect either. But we try, try to be fair to the person who's not there to defend themselves in the piece. or if you have one witness who's going to say all the terrible things about them, like factual stuff, then you go back to that other person, or you make sure if that person's filed a legal filing, you have that represented on the air.

1:27:18Dave Aronberg:In some way, you have to make sure you're not misleading your audience. And I just think they're in a lot of trouble, Mark. I predict this gets settled. Yeah, I do too. And you got to look to motive. If they didn't do what they did to Tyra, what do you have? You have a documentary about her being a nice person. She's compassionate. She's caring. saying, huh, ho hum, fewer people are going to talk about it. It won't make the top 10. And then they don't make their money. It's about motive. Same with the crash. If we don't make it look like it's a close call and maybe did she really drive her car into the building?

1:27:52Hmm, let's make it a close call. Let's get everybody talking about it. Yeah. And they have, they have more

1:27:58Dave Aronberg:money than God at Netflix, so they'll be fine, but they should just cut a check. And Tyra was right to go public with this and to do this. Not all lawsuits are about the money. Some are about calling attention to the dishonesty and despicable behavior of people who have a national platform. Guys, thank you. Thanks, Megan. Wonderful to see you, Mark. You as well, Andrew. Happy to be here. To be continued. All right. Up next, Father's Day is this Sunday. Pay attention, everybody. Father's Day is this Sunday. And Alex Berenson used to write for the New York Times, one of the greatest commentators during the whole COVID pandemic with real actual facts that he pushed back on when people were trying to spin the narratives, was censored, sued, won.

1:28:39Dave Aronberg:I mean, this guy, he's heroic in many ways. He's got some thoughts on fatherhood in America, not parenthood. He wants to draw a distinction between parenting and fathering. And we're going to talk about it next, just in time for the big day on Sunday. If you are heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, you're taking a risk most people don't even think about until it's too late and an unnecessary one. Summer colds linger. They can turn into sinus infections that last for weeks. Getting sick right before vacation can derail everything. And when you're traveling, finding a doctor and pharmacy is stressful.

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1:30:03Dave Aronberg:Father's Day is this Sunday, and we have a friend of the show here to talk about his latest book, which focuses on his experience as a dad and advice for all dads. Look, it's not too thick. It's a nice, easy read. It's like a booklet, and it's called The Fatherhood Manifesto. It's written by Alex Berenson, former New York Times reporter, the independent voice behind the popular substack, Unreported Truths, and the author of this book. The subtitle under Fatherhood Manifesto is a defense of fatherhood and 50 practical tips to be a better, more involved dad. Alex, great to see you. I love the idea of this, and I love the advice in this.

1:30:42Dave Aronberg:So what made you write this? Why did you think this was necessary? I mean, it's amazing to me that it is necessary to write something like this. But as I say in the beginning, this is sort of a two-part booklet. And the first part is a philosophical defense of fatherhood. And again, it's stunning to me that anyone needs to say this, but really for the last 30, 40 years, I mean, you can almost trace it back maybe to the Simpsons, married with children. We've engaged culturally on the left, but I would say even more broadly than that in a devaluation of of fatherhood of traditional masculinity of you know of structured parenting and we've really we've really listen moms are you know the center of a household but we have feminized parenting i think in a way that leaves almost no room for for fathers and so this what i have three kids and i think at some point i i was like where is there something positive that I'm seeing in the culture about being a dad?

1:31:46And I didn't see anything. And I thought, you know what, I should write this.

1:31:51Dave Aronberg:Yes. When I grew up, we watched Little House on the Prairie and the Waltons nonstop. And while those were, you know, they're kind of cute and a little hokey by now, but they had strong father figures, you know, Charles Ingalls. Even something like the Cosby show, right? I mean, from the 80s, right? But that's been gone really since then. So why do you say that fatherhood has been feminized? Well, so I think that, you know, so this is a broader issue. And one of the things about the Fatherhood Manifesto is the tips. Some of them are really specifically, I think, for dads, but some of them can apply to fathers and mothers.

1:32:26And the longest tip in the whole book is reject gentle parenting. Right. And so gentle parenting is this idea, essentially, that parents and children are completely equal and that, you know, you can never just tell your kids what to do. You can never just say, hey, you're going to clean up your room. I'm not telling you why you have to do this. I'm not negotiating with you about this. I'm not sparing your feelings about this. you are just going to do this. And it's because I say so, because I'm the dad, because I work hard to, you know, make money for this family and to provide for this family and to protect you.

1:33:03And that's good enough. That's enough. And, you know, mothers, mothers work hard and provide as well. But, you know, I think that we, we have an expectation sometimes that mothers will be more nurturing, more gentle. And, you know, that's a different role. But when we take away the authority role that I think that a father should have, we undercut him and give him sort of nothing to do. He then just becomes a lesser mom. But so the gentle parenting to me, that applies to both mothers and fathers, but it's even more important to say no to that if you're a dad.

1:33:40Dave Aronberg:Like we all have our moments of like, just do it. Just do it. That's okay. But you're saying - I'm saying that's okay. Yeah, it's okay. I'm saying there's a chain of command. In fact, it's better than the alternative of explaining everything and getting buy-in and negotiating. It's like, do it now. That's right. Life is not just one exercise in self-actualization. And sometimes to be successful in the world, you have to do things you don't want to do, you don't like to do. Everybody has responsibilities that they just have to do. And that's true. You know, that's a large part of what school, you know, is or should be.

1:34:16because if you're, I mean, look, obviously you need to learn, you know, a lot of facts. You need to learn how to think. You also need to learn how to behave and sometimes just to take instruction and orders. And that, that is an important part of parenting. And it's certainly an important part of being a dad.

1:34:34Dave Aronberg:Very good point. You write that, um, I believe fatherhood is a fundamentally conservative act. And I believe our cultural unwillingness to admit that has harmed our kids, especially our boys. What do you mean by the use of the conservative there? So conservative in not in a political sense, in a cultural sense, right? In a in a what we've just been talking about in a sense of there is an order in a family. And when and when the order is, you know what, we're all just equals here. And, you know, we're going to have negotiations and discussions about everything, that order breaks down, right? And that isn't good for kids.

1:35:18It's not good for boys in particular, but it's not good for either side. And I do think that when, by undercutting sort of traditional masculinity, there's been a lot of talk in the last few years about, you know, sort of this hyper, this hyper-masculine influencers who are out there, you know, know essentially treating women like trash encouraging you know boys and young men to treat women like trash that that's a terrible thing that shouldn't be happening i think you can draw a pretty clear line though from undercutting you know men who just who just want a parent who just want to be able to say i i am the dad here um and and the rise of those of those hyper masculine or you know they're almost parodic right they're almost parodies of men as I say, in the fatherhood manifesto.

1:36:10Dave Aronberg:You reveal in the book that you are relatively recently divorced and that you have custody of your kids and your very active father, obviously you've got custody of them, but you also have thoughts on fighting with your spouse in the children's presence. So talk to us as a divorced dad about that, because if you're recently divorced, that must've been a challenge if you don't want to fight in front of the children, your head into a divorce is going to be some arguments. Yes. And so, by the way, my ex-wife is also, you know, she's very involved with our kids. And so I don't want to make it sound like she is not.

1:36:47But and I don't go into any details in the in the book about my divorce. I don't think that's really appropriate. I don't think it's really and it's certainly not the point of the book. But what I will say is and what I do say in the book is you shouldn't fight in front of your kids. And fighting in front of your kids is a really bad sign for your marriage. And you really should do everything you can to avoid doing that. And the number one thing is you shouldn't fight about your kids in front of your kids. Because that, you know, first of all, it encourages in some cases, you know, older children to triangulate, to try to start fights so they can get what they want.

1:37:29And it's very unstable. And it's, you know, if you can't figure that out, you have to seriously think about getting divorced, I think. And so as I say in the book, I'm not the person to ask for marital advice. I'm not pretending to be that person. The reason I even mention my status is I do think, you know, I think obviously if I'm writing about fatherhood, people are going to wonder, you know, what my relationship with my wife or in this case, my ex-wife might be. And also because I have had a lot of time, you know, alone with my kids in the last several years. I think it's brought some of the stuff up for me.

1:38:06And, and by the way, I don't think that you should just tell your kids what to do all the time. I don't think you should order them around all the time. What I think is that if you have earned respect as a father, you, you will have a relationship with your kids. That's good. That can include them sometimes making fun of you, you know, like, but, but ultimately they respect you and it's, and you can talk about stuff and you can make decisions together sometimes, but in the end, your word goes. This is an infantry company and you're the captain. And so you can get advice from your first sergeant and think about things, but in the end, someone has to be responsible and that someone is the father.

1:38:52Yeah.

1:38:53Dave Aronberg:Doug and I live by these same principles and we don't fight often at all, honestly like i feel like once a year if that we just we don't have a lot of disagreements because we address everything every day with each other but we did have one fight one time that uh our youngest heard which i didn't actually know that he heard and he cried after i'm sorry it was such a good reminder like oh my god never do that like make sure if you're having an argument your kids are not there and i will tell you i've been vigilant about that we don't fight a lot but If we ever, like if Doug ever does anything that even annoys me in front of the kids, especially if it's about the kids, I hold my tongue until we can get into private to say, you know, like, don't do that in front of them or don't say that in front of them.

1:39:37Dave Aronberg:And there's just marriage. Of course, you're going to have little, you know, things where you're like, what'd you do that for? What'd you say that for? But it's, they have enough to worry about. They definitely don't want to have to worry about mom and dad fighting, possibly divorcing, because that's where a kid's mind goes every time they see a fight. And you need to be a united front about them too. If they've done something like and you and your spouse disagree with how to handle it, that needs to happen behind closed doors and not in front of the child. I agree with you wholeheartedly. But to your point about I'm not airing all of my like disagreements with my now ex-wife in this book, unlike Strangers by Bell Burden, which has been on the bestselling list now for all she does is like completely trash her husband and throw their family under the bus.

1:40:21Dave Aronberg:Yes. I think, look, there's a broader issue about the way, again, this cultural establishment that devalues men and masculinity. I was thinking about strangers. I actually wrote something on my sub stack about strangers and about imagine. Imagine. Oh, wait a minute. Let me just interrupt you. Forgive me for the interruption. This is so rude. But I just found out we only have one minute to 20 left in this hour. We have to take a break. And I want to hear this very badly uninterrupted. So I'm going to take a quick break. I'm going to come back. And we're going to start on your thoughts on strangers and then keep going through the book, which is called The Fatherhood Manifesto.

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1:43:34Dave Aronberg:We're back now with Alex Berenson. He is the author of The Fatherhood Manifesto. This is what it looks like. It's nice and thin. You can read it quickly, and it's a snappy read with really good reminders of what sane parenting or fathering looks like. All right, before we took a break, we were talking about the book Strangers, which is by Belle Burden. It's about her divorce and her allegedly terrible husband and how he left her. with no money to pay the bills, even though we would later find out in the papers that she's got a trust fund worth something like$63 million. So she's not exactly wondering where her next meal is coming from.

1:44:10Dave Aronberg:But in this book, I get it. She's pissed. The husband cheated and left her. It's not great. She completely trashes the husband who remains the father of her three children, Alex. Yes. And I don't think that's a good idea, as we were talking about before. Again, the fatherhood manifesto is not the marriage manifesto. I'm not the person to ask how to have a great marriage. But I did read strangers. I've read, you know, some divorce books in the last few years. Obviously, it's something that's of personal interest to me. And one thing I will say is that it's basically impossible for anybody outside the two people involved in divorce to really know what's happening, to really know what the dynamics are, to really know, you know, who's at fault.

1:44:51And often there's no one person at fault. Both people are at fault. And, you know, there's a narrative I could tell you about my divorce in which I'm absolutely the, you know, the saint and the wrong party. And there's a narrative I could tell you about my divorce where I'm a really bad guy. And, and that's true. I think of most divorces, what's interesting to me, isn't that Bell Burden isn't trying to get, is trying to get revenge on her husband. That's, you know what she's, she, he cheated on her. She's upset. Um, you know, she's trashing the father of her kids. She shouldn't do that, but it's an understandable human impulse.

1:45:24What's interesting to me is that culturally as a society, once the Wall Street Journal busted her on what was essentially, you know, I won't say lie, but lie about how much money she had and the risk of exaggeration, fib, you know, falsehood about the risk of her losing her houses, houses, right? a$12 million loft in Tribeca and a$10 million mansion in Martha's Vineyard. Once that happened, the feminist culture industry jumped to her defense and said, well, you know, he's a bad guy. He cheated on her. He didn't want to see the kids. OK, let's let's say all that's true. I don't know it's true. You don't know it's true.

1:46:10All the people saying you don't know.

1:46:11Dave Aronberg:And he totally denies the bit about not wanting to see his children and not taking care of his kids. That's right. He's very angry. He hasn't argued about the money stuff because he doesn't he clearly doesn't want to talk that much about that. But he but he has said that. OK, let's say that's true. I want you to realize that there is an industry now of women's memoirs, women's divorce memoirs that essentially say, go follow your bliss, go get divorced, go hurt your, you know, hurt your family if necessary, if you are tired and frustrated with your marriage. Now, I don't think that's right. Eat, Pray, Love.

1:46:45Eat, Pray, Love was the first, but there have been many of these books since then, okay? When I say it's an industry, I'm not exaggerating. And those women are trashing this guy, you know, Henry Davis's real name, you know, in Strangers. Well, what did Henry Davis do? Essentially, he followed his bliss. He decided he was going to have an affair. He was going to leave his wife. I don't think that's right. I'm not in favor of that. I'm certainly not in favor of the way he, you know, he didn't try to get custody of the kids. Obviously, I think fathers should be very much a part of their kids' lives.

1:47:17But he had his own reasons for that. And this, to me, is the cultural double standard, right? This is why I had to write The Fatherhood Manifesto. And you're right. It's a pretty short book. A lot of the advice, I think, if you're a reasonably good parent, is not going to strike you as that out there. I mean, I think there are a couple things I write that are actually going to be surprising even to pretty involved parents. but what's revolutionary the reason the reason that this book is revolutionary is that i had to write it at all and that's because you know we do we have new york magazine we have an entire like book industry now uh we you know and you know and sort of women's talk shows and stuff that is devoted really to running men down and to and to and to running traditional masculinity down and it's stunning to me and then you turn around and say well well you know andrew tate's out they're saying terrible things and encouraging young men to do terrible things yeah that's you know that's the boomerang that's what happened because for a generation you've given all this bad advice to you know to to women and you've encouraged them to you know devalue masculinity

1:48:27Dave Aronberg:yes i i completely agree i i don't like the bell burden example at all like they judge judy used to say you have to love your spouse or you have to love your children more than you hate your spouse your ex. That's right. And I think that's exactly right. No matter how angry you are in your divorce situation, you've been cheating on, cheated on all the stuff, like you're hurting your children. The more you trash your spouse, who your children love, the worse off they are. Now, some children are very angry at the other spouse too, because he abandons or he's just a prick or she's awful. The women can abandon too.

1:49:01Dave Aronberg:That's a different story, but in any event, very good. And I do think there's good advice in here. And like I said, good reminders. It's just like good reminders. Like you strike a good balance in your advice about like, look, have fun. You know, you're not all disciplinarian as a dad, but also you are a disciplinarian and, and reminding like simple things. The one that I highlighted here, there, there's a bunch I highlighted, but I love, first of all, play games. And second of all, once your kids are past seven, do not let them beat you when you are playing said game. That's right. That's right.

1:49:31Because frankly, you know, I mean, my, my son who's uh you know as i disclose in the book uh dislocated my thumb uh last year because he's such a good soccer player that kid's 10 he's beating me for real um you know and stuff now and and you know my daughter my older daughter's 13 she's very smart she you know uh you know she she can she can beat me for real at stuff too and so like they're gonna beat you for real pretty soon anyway so you know do not do not go easy on them i really do think that this idea that like you know kids should you know you should you should make sure your kids never have a bad day that's not true because your kids are gonna have bad days in life and they need to be able to deal with those things and be resilient and you know this idea also you know one of the bits of advice and there's really don't therapize your kids don't send them to therapy i mean look if if something truly terrible happens to them which fortunately is rare in the united states you know then maybe they need to go to therapy to deal with that.

1:50:34Dave Aronberg:But, but, and check this, check the therapist out that too. Absolutely. But like, you know, for normal sort of, oh, you know what? Like I'm depressed. My friends don't like me. I'm at a new school and things are tough. Like, like at most a school counselor, a decent school counselor can deal with that stuff. And, and going to therapy encourages your child to focus on her problems in a way that I think is not productive. And I think, I think the fact that, you know, this is the most therapized generation we've ever had of kids. And they also have the highest rate of mental health problems, right?

1:51:09Young, white American, not just white, but young millennial American women have tremendous rates of depression and anxiety. And I don't think that's like, I think that's essentially a feature and not a bug of therapy, unfortunately.

1:51:25Dave Aronberg:The not letting them lose, I would couple, I mean, they do let them lose past age seven, I would add an addendum, which is if they cry when they lose all the time, they need to lose more. And you do have to tell them, stop crying. You're not allowed to cry because you lose chutes and ladders. It's a no. Even if it's a struggle for them, you have to insist that they get through it because you can't have a child who's crying every time he or she loses. You know, this is not a piece of advice that I endorse. Okay. But this was something that my mother told me my grandmother said to her. And this is a long time.

1:52:07This is in the 50s. But she would say to her, if I don't break you, the world will. So I don't think you should try to break your kids. But I do think you should be aware that the world may try to break your kids, and you have to toughen them up. And you can't snowplow for them and solve all their problems. And so, you know, one of the stories I tell, you know, this is near the end, one of the last tips is, you know, fight your fears and let your kids do stuff on their own, right? And we've all been trained, oh, you know what, if you leave your child for three minutes in the mall, you know, they'll disappear and you'll never see them again.

1:52:49And, you know, that's just not true, okay? I mean, unfortunately, again, there can be a lightning strike where one in a trillion times that happens. but mostly it doesn't happen and you've got it you've got to sort of trust the world and encourage your kids to trust the world a little bit now now that doesn't mean that you know that that you should you know go off for hours without the a seven-year-old or whatever we're not talking about a two-year-old that's right we're not talking about a two-year-old but i say in the book i let my six-year-old go to a movie by herself in a mall now and this and this was even for me this was kind of a scary thing to do, but I knew, you know, I knew exactly where she was.

1:53:27I knew exactly how many people were in there and I wanted her to feel like, you know what, I can do this on my own. And she did it. And of course, you know, it was actually much more tense for me than just sitting there with her would have been, but, uh, but she was fine. And that, and, and I think she got something out of that. I think she got a little bit of self-reliance out of that. And I think, you know, over time you build that muscle, that self-reliance, that, that world, you know, the world's a tough place sometimes, but I can handle it. That's what you want your kids to think. And that's, and look, some of this advice is not just for dads, right?

1:54:01This is obviously is for mothers too, but I can't tell you even letting my kids walk, you know, uh, you know, on our very, very safe street in, you know, in, in upstate New York, I hear sometimes from the neighbors or I've heard from our neighbors. It's, it's crazy to me, the amount of, uh, you know, sort of the ultra low risk tolerance that modern parents have. You've got to fight that.

1:54:25Dave Aronberg:It's such a disservice. Yes. Yes. Yes. Because the other thing is, so I like, I mean, you talk about leading by example. I don't know if like courageous behavior is passed down exactly. It's good for them to see an example of courage. But I actually happen to think that like to become more courageous, you just need to do small courageous acts in your own life. Your child needs to do small acts of courage, and that'll be the building block to the big act of courage when they need it. But I think the opposite is true. Anxiety and fear are 100 % contagious. If you are riddled with that as a mother or a father, you are 100 % going to pass that to your child.

1:55:07Dave Aronberg:And so like, you have to at least act like you're not. That's right. You've got to fake it. How many times have you seen that? Yes, it's absolutely true. Neurotic parents get, you know, build anxiety in their children. You know, this is another piece of advice. And this one, I, you know, this one I would go to the mat for, for every parent. And you see this on the left, okay? Oh, I'm so scared of climate change and what the world's going to look like in 50 years or 100 years. Those parents, even if they believe that, and, you know, there's like zero evidence that we're anything but richer than we've ever been as a society and a species.

1:55:44Even if they believe that, don't tell your kids that. Don't tell your six-year-old that the world's a terrible place and it's going to get worse. Don't tell your 12-year-old that you can't have a car because we're all going to die in a flood one day. Don't do that. You are just making your kids neurotic and frightened. It is terrible advice. Yes. And I think, again, I don't think as a dad, You shouldn't fight with your wife, but this is something where you should communicate to your spouse. I don't think we should be doing this to our kids. Don't do it in earshot of your kids, but make sure, you know, if you're the man in the house, that your wife is not doing this.

1:56:29Dave Aronberg:This reminds me, I just had my team send it to me. um bill weir who's a reporter at cnn wrote this letter to his son um hold on steve sent me the highlight to his infant son about the earth that he will inherit i know where this is going here's a highlight i'm sorry i'm sorry we broke the ski the sea and the sky and shortened the wings of the nightingale. I'm sorry that the Great Barrier Reef is no longer great, that we value Amazon much more than the Amazon, and that the waterfront neighborhood where you are growing up could be condemned by rising seas before you're old enough to apply for a mortgage.

1:57:17Oh my God. Shut up and watch the Knicks with your kid, okay? Please. I mean, be a man. Just be a man. I can't believe I have to say this. And by the way, as I say in the Fatherhood Manifesto, I'm like, and I'm embarrassed about this. Like, I'm not the guy who knows how to like, you know, fix a car engine or do plumbing. Like, I'm kind of like, I'm kind of more useless, much more useless than I would like to be on that stuff. Right. I mean, it's the stuff where you just need a muscle and like a shovel that I can do. But like, but the actual, like actual blue collar work, I'm, I can't do that. And it's embarrassing to me, but at least I'm not this guy scaring his infant about the nightingale.

1:57:58Stop it.

1:58:02Dave Aronberg:I remember during COVID, Doug and I were still living in our New York apartment. And he was talking about how he was having this existential crisis where he's like, it just occurred to me that like, if we really became this, you know, fight for yourselves society, I don't know how to do anything. I don't know. How does the air conditioner work? I have no idea. Yeah, if I had to like build a refrigerator, my life depended on it. I have no idea how to do it. And I made a joke that our super to our apartment was starting to look a lot hotter to me.

1:58:32It is embarrassing, though, and I should be embarrassed. And, you know, I mean, am I going to fix it? You know, I'm already I'm already a middle aged man. I don't know if I can learn how to do this stuff. But talking to you makes me want to at least like take a couple basic, you know, home maintenance courses. Yes.

1:58:52Dave Aronberg:Oh, well, Doug had his friend had a great idea, which is the guys out there who know how to do all this stuff should somebody should open and operate something called Handy Camp. And a bunch of guys, guys can go for like a long weekend, maybe out in the wilderness. And you guys out there who know how to do all that very helpful stuff with your hands can teach the Alex's and the Doug's of the world how to do some basic things. I would, I would pray for that. That would be a lot better than like a therapy camp or like, you know, a teach you how to be a man camp. Cause that's just teaching how to do it without like BS crawling through mud or whatever.

1:59:30Like then I'd come back with some skills. That is a great idea. Somebody needs to do that. Right.

1:59:35Dave Aronberg:I feel like somebody does need to do that. If you want, just send us an email to Megan at Megan Kelly.com. If you would like us to help you start it, we'll be your first customers. We've got Alex, we've got Doug. I'm sure there's a lot of guys out there. Steve Krakauer says he'll go. Just like the basics. And I am so clueless. I don't even know what the basics are. You, the runners of handicap, will have to come up with the agenda of what real men must know how to do with their hands.

2:00:03Dave Aronberg:You're going to make a fortune. Okay. Be positive. You are the most powerful influence in your kids' lives. If you are weak and scared and negative, they will be too. If you are positive and resilient, they will be too. And then you write, what I do not do is discuss my feelings about it with them. Their problems are my problems. The reverse is not true. That's right. Thank you. That's right. Yes. That's what I mean. It's such a good reminder. That's exactly right. They're not there to help us with anything going on in our lives. No. And they're not our best friends and they're not, you know, they're not our gossip buddies, their children.

2:00:42Right. And, and again, the, the relationship, you know, it's, it's not quite like a boss to an employee, obviously, you know, like you love your kids, you want the best for your kids, you root for your kids, like, but, but they are not your equals, you know, certainly not, you know, as they're, as they're, you know, in their younger years and, and you can't expect them, you know, it may feel good to vent to them, but it's not good for them. and it's not good for your relationship.

2:01:12Dave Aronberg:Yeah, I agree. And you talk about, we touched on it a bit before, but like managing your anger with your children. So, yeah. That's an important one. I mean, it is. I think it's, and this is, again, I really disagree with the gentle parenting part of this view on this. I think it's okay to get angry with your kids. And I think it's okay to actually get quite angry with your kids if there's circumstances that deserve it. You know, most likely, if they've done something that could harm themselves or harm another kid, if they've really behaved badly. There are things that are over the line. What I say is it's okay to be angry and you want your children to respect you and to fear your anger, not to fear you, but to fear your anger and not to want to do things to make you angry.

2:02:02What's not okay, and I see this with people I know is to be constantly irritable with your children, to be sort of have this low grade, you're annoying to me. I don't, you know, like, I don't like the way you did X or Y that are routine things, because that's a sign that your children are behaving, you know, in a way that, that you don't like. And you have to figure out, is that because I just don't like this and I need to sort of get over it? Or is it because they're actually doing something wrong that I need to mold and change. So irritability to me is, is, is what you shouldn't be, but it's okay to be angry with your kids and it's okay to punish your kids.

2:02:43It's okay to say, and as I also say in this, if you're going to punish your kids, you shouldn't punish them frequently, but you should punish them in ways that actually matter to them. So, so, and that, you know, that's part of being involved enough to know what actually matters to your kids. Right. So, so the, you know, the play date with one kid might not really matter, but the play date with another kid who's, you know, who's the best friend or the one they've really been looking forward to. If you threaten to take that away and you do take that away, that's going to sting them a little bit.

2:03:12And you want, if you're going to punish them, you want it to sting a little bit for them. You don't, you do. And if you say you're going to do something, if you say, if you threaten a punishment, if some behavior continues and it continues, you have to follow through. And it's not to hurt them. It's to teach them that actions do have consequences and that they can't just kind of shock and jive their way out of a problem, you know, by being cute or smiling or crying or whatever it is. You told them, hey, don't do this. You gave them a warning. They continued it. Now the punishment is due. That's part of learning, you know, again, the world sometimes is just going to make me do things I don't want to do.

2:03:55Dave Aronberg:I would say I'm just thinking about positivity and negativity. And yesterday on the show, we had a brief discussion about Michelle Obama and how everything she says about Barack Obama is negative. I mean, literally. But the truth is, everything she says about her daughters is negative, too. And it does occur to me as a mother how damaging that is. you know you could be a public figure saying it on tv very damaging equally damaging is just being not a public figure and saying it to them or in with an earshot of them where they only hear negative messages from you about your feelings about them well see i didn't i i guess i don't pay enough attention to michelle obama to know that she does that that that seems so trust me so pointless.

2:04:43Like, what is the point of having children if you're going to run them down constantly and feel negative about them? You should be rooting for your kids, right? Like, you're, you are one.

2:04:52Dave Aronberg:She is rooting for them to get out. I mean, really, you're, you're one unit, you're, it's you against the world. Fundamentally, it's your family is, you know, and, and this is something else I say. And I think I even should have said it more in the manifesto, is that you can have disagreements internally, but when you face the world, you face it as a team. And that goes for siblings too, right? Siblings are not to run each other down. And they can fight privately. They're not to bully each other privately, but they can fight. But when it's time to face the world, you face it as a team. totally it's the godfather don't ever take sides against the family it's just true that's written in blood you don't side against your siblings or the family publicly that's that's a sin um how the subject of sin this is the last one god faith you have very good advice on this if you believe or if you don't tell us so yes my advice is if you do believe you should definitely you know, tell your children that, get them involved in whatever your religious tradition is.

2:06:05You know, obviously, United States, there's been a lot of talk about sort of loss of community, you know, churches and synagogues and mosques are all really good places to find community. If you don't believe, do not start telling your kids, your young children, I would say your preteen children, that you're an atheist, okay? Do not reveal your views on God. And in general, I don't think you should lie to your kids. I don't think this is lying. I think this is just not undercutting their feelings about, you know, little kids. They want to know about the world, where they came from, all the questions that, you know, bedevil us, you know, for our whole lives that we don't have, you know, answers to, we have faith about.

2:06:50Do not undercut their faith. Let them believe in God. Let them believe in sort of the, as I say, the ultimate father, the ultimate creator. And as they get older, they'll have reasonable questions and you can answer them. But when they're young, if you're not a believer, don't tell them that. If you are a believer, encourage them.

2:07:12Dave Aronberg:Yes, I love that. That's excellent advice. The whole book is, again, it's called The Fatherhood Manifesto. It's by our pal Alex Berenson, who has been such a light, a guiding light to us in some very difficult times. I mean, we were talking back in 2020, 2020, Alex, when we were at the height of all the craziness and there as here, you saw through the nonsense. Well, thank you. I mean, and the manifesto, you know, people, some people may remember what the COVID book booklets look like. It's sort of the exact same design. It's very simple. It's just meant to be, hey, you can read this quickly and hopefully you get something out of it.

2:07:47Hopefully you get some kind of truth that the that the that the legacy media is not giving you.

2:07:53Dave Aronberg:Can they get it on Amazon? You can get it on Amazon. You can get it on Kindle. I taped it. I actually think the Audible is a great, you know, it's about an hour. Unfortunately, Audible has not. It's still in the Audible review process. Hopefully, by the time this interview runs, hopefully, they're very close to approving it, but it has not been approved yet. But, yes, you can get it on Amazon. All right. So here's my recommendation. Go get the Fatherhood Manifesto by Alex Berenson. Give it to Dad. It's like, not like you need to do better. It's just, this is kind of a fun thing from a daughter or a son to a dad or a spouse to a husband.

2:08:31Dave Aronberg:And while you're there, I'm gonna make a pitch for Doug's book too. It's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. And the reason I'm making this pitch is because Apple Books just picked my husband, Doug Brunt's book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel as a best of the year so far book. Yeah. So Amazon did and now Apple did. He's had uniformly good reviews, not one negative review. It's doing so well. So it's called The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. And it's a great story. It's a thriller. It's about the rise of this guy named Emmanuel Nobel in Russia and the rise of this other guy named Joseph Stalin.

2:09:07Dave Aronberg:And that latter guy is the reason most people don't know who that former guy is. You're making me want to get this book. This is the story of both men. You're making me want to get this. I think you'll really enjoy it. I think it's actually a great Father's Day gift. All right. Well, Megan, I will tell my kids they've got to get it for me. Yes, or it can be a gift from you to you. Anyway, happy Father's Day in advance, Alex. It's wonderful to see you. Thank you. And I can only say I wish I had the marriage that you and Doug seem to have. Oh, you're so sweet. Thank you. Well, it's my second marriage, so I live and learn.

2:09:43Thanks, Megan.

2:09:46Dave Aronberg:Okay, all the best. Hey, everyone. It's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius XM. It's called the Megan Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megan Kelly Show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more. It's bold, no BS news. Only on the Megyn Kelly channel, Sirius XM 111, and on the Sirius XM app.

2:10:22Dave Aronberg:So let's talk about your money for a minute. With the conflict in the Middle East, Americans have been feeling the effect at the gas pump and in their grocery bills. Gold has been in a wild ride, and we talk about it a lot on this show just because we have Birch Gold as one of our main advertisers. So who better to talk to about what role gold should play in our financial futures and what's happening in this economic whirlwind than my next guest? Philip Patrick is a precious metals specialist with Birch Gold Group and a paid spokesman for Birch Gold, which, as I mentioned, is also a sponsor of this show.

2:10:57Dave Aronberg:Philip, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. So I think people are starting to feel like, you know, maybe a little better now that it looks like this conflict is coming to a close. But that doesn't mean that the economic hangover is going to end immediately. So just give us your take on the state of the economy right now in the wake of this war potentially wrapping up. Yeah, look, it's unquestionably good news that President Trump appears to have secured a ceasefire framework and obviously the reopening of the Straits of Hormuz. And the markets have responded exactly as we would have expected.

2:11:34Oil prices have fallen, stocks have rallied, and investors immediately priced out a significant amount of the geopolitical risk. However, as you cautiously phrased the question, we shouldn't confuse a reduction in risk with the elimination of risk. I think the agreement has now bought us time, but it doesn't yet eliminate the vulnerabilities. We have to remember the Strait of Hormuz remains the most important choke point in the global economy. One fifth of the world's oil and gas still moves through that corridor. So I think the lesson over the last several months is not that the danger has disappeared, but more that how quickly inflation fears can return when a critical energy artery is threatened like this.

2:12:18because energy isn't just what we pay at the pump. It bleeds through into the broader economy. It's food prices, transportation, and everything else. So the markets at the moment are celebrating because the immediate crisis appears to be easing. And I think that's reasonable. But the broader question still remains, right? A foreign policy crisis we now know can become an energy crisis, which can fuel inflation. And inflation obviously puts issue on the debt problem, which is one of the biggest issues we have. So I think the deal has turned the temperature down for now, but it hasn't changed the underlying vulnerabilities.

2:12:55Dave Aronberg:Yeah, the inflation is up. It's creeping up monthly now. The latest was May inflation rose to 4.2 percent year over year. That's the highest level in three years. And it doesn't seem to me that the inflationary numbers turn on a dime. It's more like an aircraft carrier where once it creeps up, it's very hard to get back down. They still hadn't received the price relief at the grocery store from the Biden 9 % inflation rate. And now here we are back at 4.4 or 4.2. So how does that like, how does that affect people? How long does that affect people? It's going to be tough to work out. You're absolutely right.

2:13:34Inflation becomes entrenched. When prices go up, they don't come down. The only thing that really brings it down, it's deflationary periods. I think the last time we saw one was in 2008, lasted a couple of weeks. So once prices are set in, they're set in. And that's the big problem. And that's why the economy looks so different to how it feels. We look at the headline numbers, GDP looks strong. You know, a lot of the positives are there, yet our lived experience just doesn't match. And I think broadly, it's because wage inflation isn't keeping up with real inflation. And I think it's going to be a lot of work until they can iron that out.

2:14:11We have to see as long as we're carrying as much debt and printing as much money as we are, I think inflation is going to be a persistent problem.

2:14:19Dave Aronberg:So gold is always out there as an option. And it depends, like people buy it for different reasons. I'll tell you, like the one that makes me feel best about gold is I don't know what's going to happen with our economy. I don't know whether our money is going to be worth anything in 20 years. Like I worry that like something's going to happen to the financial system where like all these savings are going to be kind of wiped out by our government, by a foreign government, by some massive change in the economy. And that's the appeal to me of gold is like, you got gold, you got gold bars, they can't wipe that out.

2:14:56It's so funny. If you talk to me 15 years ago, I would have 20 years ago, I thought gold was becoming a relic. And I think the current climate has been a reminder to me of how important it is. You're correct. The argument for gold is it keeps pace with inflation and it has an inverse relationship with the dollar. You could go back to biblical times and an ounce of gold would buy 400 loaves of bread. It basically does the same thing today. The biggest issue for me, and I'm definitely not a fear monger. I think we have real issues, but I think you touched on one of them. It's the money supply. At the end of the day, we have$39 trillion of debt.

2:15:37The interest payments alone on the debt are the second biggest expense for the federal government now after Social Security. We have a$2 trillion annual deficit, and we're printing money to meet that. And ultimately, at least in the context of all of history up until today, that looks like long-term devaluation of currency. And that's where gold comes in, right? When currency weakens, you need more weaker currency to buy gold. And I think it's why central banks have set records for gold buying consistently since 22. They see we have arguably an unsolvable problem when it comes to debt and deficit.

2:16:16And gold is a very good hedge against that.

2:16:19Dave Aronberg:And so how is gold doing now, like versus where it was a year ago? It's up. Listen, gold has been volatile, which historically it isn't. But we saw an incredible year last year. Gold went up 70 percent. silver went up 150 they started the year almost like a meme stock like i think in the first two weeks of this year silver was up 50 gold was up about 20 we saw them come down from the highs gold peaked at about uh 5500 we're running in the low 4000 range so there's been a dip in pricing but it's one that wasn't unexpected after significant growth and i think the iran war really made people stop and think we saw big movements to cash shorter term.

2:17:03That strengthened the dollar. And of course, it dipped gold prices. But for me, what I look at is the longer term fundamentals. And as I alluded to earlier, unless we can get a handle on deficit spending and debt, gold is going to continue to go up longer term, because if we can't handle that,

2:17:22Dave Aronberg:Do you have an estimate on, you know, if somebody comes to you and says, I want to get into gold, Like the people who get really into it, what percentage of their investment portfolio is typically gold? It's so difficult because everybody's comfort level is very different. We always recommend, to be very clear, diversification. You know, the idea is never to put all of your eggs in any one basket. As much as we think we know where things are heading, there's a lot of unknowns on the horizon. So I think diversification is key. What that means to an individual really varies. Like I'm seeing some people who have lost faith, right?

2:18:02They have major concerns and are losing, moving larger portions of their retirement into gold. And there are other clients who are just putting smaller percentages just in case, right? So it really is a very much an individual thing. What I would say to people is what you want to achieve with a hedge is one side of your portfolio goes down, the other grows and mitigates. So you want to have something significant enough to do something elsewhere, if that makes sense. What do people do if they don't have like a secure place to store it?

2:18:36Dave Aronberg:You know, we talk about when we advertise for birch gold, if you want to convert an IRA in whole or in part, you can do it to gold. But like, then does somebody ship all that gold to your house? What if you don't have a safe place? It's a great question. First of all, I've heard some crazy stories over the years. So people store in all kinds of places. But when it comes to an IRA, to be very clear, an IRA is a tax deferred vehicle. So if we were to ship that gold to an individual, it would be the equivalent of pulling money out of an IRA and it would be a taxable event. So actually, the IRA process requires the metals to be held in a third party Brinks facility.

2:19:16Metals are held there fully insured at all times. And the customer has access to them physically on distribution if they wish. or they can never see them, sell them in the IRA and just take cash out. So IRAs require third-party storage. When it comes to individuals and cash purchases, you know, some people have a safe at home. It's bolted down. It's secure. Others use a Brinks vault. So it really is personal preference. For me, I have mine in a Brinks vault. I live in Los Angeles. So, you know.

2:19:49Dave Aronberg:Yeah. Yeah. Someone I used to know was burying his gold in the yard. I'm like, okay. I mean, like you're putting a lot in the faith of the local German shepherds. I'd be very worried somebody would go on a digging excursion and it would be gone, but it's also an option, let's say. I've heard it many times. So yeah, you'd be surprised some of the places. Well, thank you so much for your support of the show and for the gold too, because honestly, A lot of our viewers really love this product. That goes all the way back to my time at Fox. I get it. You know, I think Republicans in general, conservatives in general, are a little bit more skeptical of putting all this money in the hands of the government or the stock market and just letting the very, very good, honest people there manage it.

2:20:35Dave Aronberg:So hedging sounds attractive in any event. Thank you, Philip. We appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. All the best. We'll talk soon. It's an interesting prospect, right? I don't know. How much of your portfolio would you put in gold? Send me a note and let me know. I'd be curious to know. Would you just like 1 %? Would you go as high as 10? Would you go higher than that with 30 % of your portfolio? There is something comforting about being able to touch it, hold it, right? As long as you can keep it secure and not just keep it in the funny money category where Who knows? The AI takes over the computers and suddenly everything's vanished.

2:21:18Dave Aronberg:I worry about that stuff. In any event, let me know. It's Megan at MeganKelley.com. Okay. So tomorrow on the show, we have something we've been working on for you for a while. It is an interview with attempted Ronald Reagan assassin, John Hinckley Jr. You're not going to believe this, okay? You're not going to believe it, but I hope you tune into it. I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you let us know how you feel about it. Megan at megankelly.com. If you wish to opine as our pal Bill O 'Reilly used to say, and, um, also have a great weekend and have a great, great father's day. We'll see you soon.

2:22:00Dave Aronberg:Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

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