Trump Hoax Hysteria: The Fake News No One Could Ignore

Trump Hoax Hysteria: The Fake News No One Could Ignore

Give it up for Josh Johnson. [Applause] This this weekend. Wow. It is for everybody. I’m I imagine this weekend was uh weird. It was weird because for like half a day we did think h half a half a day. That’s so long. Half a half of a day. It’s a very long time to think the president. And then, you know, we found out, oh, it wasn’t the case. And they they they posted, you know, the news reports came out. They were like, “President’s been found golfing in Virginia.” It’s like, “Don’t say found like that. Found like a lost senior found is insane. Just say he was golfing in V. Found in Virginia makes it sound like the White House didn’t know. I’m pretty sure they drove him. found [Laughter] 12 hours is too long to think somebody’s dead. My buddy lives with his grandpa. And every time he thinks his grandpa’s dead, he finds out in about 5 minutes. His granddaddy does that sleep you only do when you old. You don’t have sleep where you like I mean like I don’t know what I don’t know why but like it seems like after 70 people just sleep with a little bit too much neck. You know what I mean? Like his granddad can’t just go to sleep. He always hit the That’s a very dead way to lay. That That’s how old Talia died at the end of Dark Knight Rises. She’s like, the neck crank is a surefire way for somebody to put a spoon in front of your nose to see if you’re still kicking. He does it a lot apparently. You know, cuz his granddaddy sleeps pretty deep. There’s that whole thing about sleep being the cousin of death and I think it’s his granddaddy’s half brother because not even a snore, not even a, you know what I mean? He said he always thinks his grandpa gone when he take a nap because the way he fall asleep, which to be fair to my friend, this is I’ve never seen this in anyone else in my entire life, but he says, “Grand, go take a nap.” He’ll announce it, too. Like, I um lay down. Then he goes to lay down whether it’s on the couch or it’s in his room and lays his head back and he said the way his granddaddy falls asleep is he takes a deep breath. That’s a great way to look dead. This man goes to take a nap, lays on the couch, and goes [Laughter] now to be fair to his granddaddy, every time he wakes up, he does finish the breath. Said his granddaddy never wake up peaceful. He always wake up, [Laughter] but even then he’s never wondered if his granddaddy was gone for 12 hours. [Laughter] 12 hours. Jeez. And we we thought that because Trump doesn’t look good. You know what I mean? [Laughter] He just finally look like he act like, you know what I mean? Like if somebody listed everything a person did next to everything that they ingested, you’d be like, “That’s not a person who’s well.” And finally, he doesn’t, you know, he just doesn’t look like he doing great, you know, had had I I even know the term. He had some venous thing. Turns out that Venus thing was his was his ankles. His ankles. I don’t know if you’ve seen them. World leaders have seen them. [Laughter] World leaders have had to sit there and not look. [Laughter] In case you’re not familiar, look, Trump’s ankles are [Laughter] No, his ankles just sitting there looking, you know, caked up like I mean, he got some thicks under those socks. Trump’s ankles have quite a bit of booty. I can’t imagine what that must be like to be an aid in the White House and walking next to the president taking orders from the president of the United States, but all you can hear is his ankles clapping. Damn, it’s tough. [Applause] and stuff. It is like his ankles and then his wolf his hand. that hand, you know, like it this hand just black like this is [Laughter] Imagine Imagine being Donald Trump and turning black. [Applause] No one’s more upset than him. No, that’s bad. That is tough. you know, is over here trying to live. And if you just don’t have something on the schedule, people assume. Um, it’s it’s funny too because um I go back and forth with with friends. I I have friends that are sort of across the political spectrum. You know, I these friends who whether they tell me or not, I know that they voted for for Trump. At least one of them, I’m pretty sure voted for him three times. You know, every time he could, he did. And so we’ll go back and forth all the time. You know, we’ll mostly be arguing all the time and we argue about a bunch of things that aren’t Trump as as well. Like sometimes we’ll just argue about like whole social issues, whole different policies and everything. And maybe it’s because I’ve known him longer than Trump has been president that I feel like having those arguments is to me worth it. You know, I don’t ask anybody else to to do everything that I’m doing. But I I think that there is something to get to the bottom of and it’s and it’s what we are going to do when he’s gone. Do you know what I mean? Because I think that right now it’s easy to put everything that’s happening and how we feel about each other on one person cuz it’s sort of the catalyst for all this stuff, but the groundwork was being laid long before he ever became president. And so whenever he’s gone, you know, we’re all going to have to figure out a way to relate to each other cuz it’s not as if all of the problems begin and end with him. Yeah, he’s one of them. [Laughter] But I don’t know. No idea. It’s It’s maybe. We don’t know. It could be any day now. It could be 200 more years. I truly like my grandma was in the nursing home uh before she passed and I would go visit her and everything. my grandfather as well. at different times they were they were in nursing homes and when I go to visit them you’d see people who had to be 3,000 years old and it’s like I don’t know you know I you try to live a life that’s full of u full of love and like you try to make memories and moments with family with strangers. You want to have a full life. You you want to have a life that you look back on and you’re proud of the impact you you had on people, you know, and along the way. Try maybe, I don’t know, eat right when you can, but enjoy yourselves, you know, drink sometimes, not too often. maybe party a little bit when you’re younger and it wean off of it as you get older, but do your best to have a really impactful life. Even if you never become whatever it is, rich like like rich, famous, popular, you’re someone who by being in other people’s lives, their lives are richer. And same way that trees in the forest have roots that overlap, your life impacts other people’s lives, you create ripple effects and create positive train change in the world and hopefully by doing all the right things, you have a good long life. Or you could be the devil and probably live way longer. Like way longer. So many of those people in that nurse home were very mean. They were so mean. And I was like, “Mad, life must run off hate fuel. How do you How are you this old?” And and mad and mad you’re alive, too. Be sitting there. None keeps you alive longer than sitting in a rocking chair and not rocking. Imagine you. You got to really be a bad person to sit in a rocket chair, have the joy of rocking and not even want it. My my friend said, you know, he he went through a similar thing. and he would go to the nursing home visit his grandparents and stuff and he said every day there was this old dude in a rocking chair, not rocking, sitting there, arms crossed in the chair, everybody. Everybody walked by, people would say hello to him. Finally, he was like, “You know what? I say hello to this man when I pass him and we never really have a conversation. He doesn’t speak to me and I don’t take it personally because you never know what people are going through. You know, some people um you might think they’re being rude, but maybe they have something going on. Maybe they have dementia a little bit or maybe they’re trying to they’re in their own head about something, trying to remember something and doing something. So he said, “I’m going to make a point the next time I go there to have a conversation with him.” You know what I mean? cuz that’s the one thing he said he never saw anybody do. And so next time he went to visit grandpa on the way out he walked up to him. He was like, “Hi, how you doing?” Man said, “I’m alive.” He’s like, “Well, I hope you’re having a good day.” He’s like, “Why would it be a good day?” and well, you know, it’s nice outside and everything. Sun’s shining. You’re in a rocking chair. And he was like, “I’m in a rocking chair. I don’t like this rocking chair. I just sit in it so nobody else cares. [Laughter] It’s easy to put every everything and the way that we are now and all like all narratives and all discourse on just one person. It’s easy to do that especially when that person looks like they’re driving all of it, right? But the ground was laid for this person long before they came into any sort of political picture. You know what I mean? Like like for a long time people have felt like there was nobody who was looking out for them. For a long time, people felt like it would take somebody who could not be bought by uh Washington or Wall Street’s special interest money or couldn’t be um it couldn’t couldn’t be twisted in whichever direction by lobbyists or or was looking out for people because they weren’t motivated by money and they and they weren’t motivated by the promise of getting rich. And the thing that we came to believe as as a country almost you you saw this way before Trump ever entered the political picture is that if someone was at least independently wealthy maybe they wouldn’t be swayed by the money. You know what I mean? And and there were those people across political spectrum that felt like there was no one looking out for them. That slowly everything that was their quality of life and everything that they earned was eroding away piece by piece. Right? And that they just needed someone to step up who would stand in the way of all that. and wouldn’t be swayed by it. Unfortunately, that person never showed up. But like and so I have these arguments with my with my friend and there was one point where I’m going back and forth for a while cuz I felt like for everything that he said, I was saying something that was a reason why he shouldn’t trust Trump on it or why I didn’t think it was something that was going to happen, you know. And finally he goes, “Well, you know, he’s a businessman.” And and I had heard this before. And he said, “He’s he’s a businessman.” And I was like, “Oh, oh, oh, he’s a businessman. He’s a businessman. He is a he is a businessman. He’s a businessman though.” No, like he is a bis He is a businessman. He is a businessman. He’s a businessman. He is a businessman. You said he’s a businessman and he’s So he’s a businessman. You told me he’s a businessman. I’ve heard this before. He’s a businessman. He’s I’m just making sure that I understand what you’re saying. He’s a businessman. He is a businessman. He’s a businessman. So even you didn’t say good businessman. You said you said You said, “Oh, as in he’s one.” As in, “Yes, he does business. He’s a businessman.” Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He’s a businessman. He is. He is a businessman that bankrupted a casino. You know, casinos. You know those things you don’t generally leave money with? [Laughter] He bankrupted a casino. He’s a businessman. He bankrupted a casino. A ci a casino though. He’s a businessman. It’s a businessman. bankrupted a casino. And look, I’m not a businessman. And I don’t own a casino. In fact, I whenever I go to a casino, I don’t even gamble. I just do the show. I’ve done some shows at casinos and then, you know, I go I do the show and then I go back to my room. I leave like I I don’t know the ins and outs of running a casino. I hardly know what it’s like to really like enjoy yourself at a casino, walking through and playing games and stuff, you know? I’ve just I’ve I’ve walked with other people as they’ve wanted to gamble and stuff like that. I’ve been like awkwardly standing there, but I don’t know what it takes to run a casino. And maybe this casino, look, maybe I’m throwing this out there as an olive branch, one of many, I’ll extend maybe this casino, this this one maybe had those slot machines that they had those slot machines that really [Laughter] give you credit for how hard you pull them. You know what I mean? You pull that slot machine as hard as you can and the slot machine’s like, “Uh, okay, daddy.” Oh, [Applause] no. I I get you a little something for that. No, I don’t know. But he knows cuz he’s a businessman. He’s a He’s a businessman. Maybe. Look, maybe I’m throwing it out there that at this casino they had working for the casino blackjack dealers that were as bad at blackjack as me. maybe the dealer, you’d be at his table. And he was like, [Laughter] you said hit you. Sure. Okay. And you win again. Sorry. Wonderful. I don’t know. He He probably knows cuz he’s a businessman. Maybe this was one of the only casinos in all of America, maybe in all of the world. The only casino with clocks. [Applause] Who knows? Maybe just over the poker table was a was a clock and people are like 9 already. I should go home. I’ve been here for quite a while. I don’t know. But I’m sure he knows cuz he’s a businessman. He’s a businessman. Bankrupted a casino. A businessman. And look, it’s a casino. I can’t think of a better [Laughter] people come and drop off their money and leave. I can’t think. I am not a businessman, but I can’t think of a better business to make money. You can’t even have casinos everywhere. But you know, this is my thing. You you I a part of me does understand how someone could think all we need to do is get a businessman in there to fix everything. Because I think that America runs so much like a business, even in the parts that it shouldn’t, that obviously we’re going to think everything translates to business. You know, like I I didn’t, this was where I was naive. But I’ll tell you right now, I thought that even if there was no um national pride or or community or even if we couldn’t find some sort of like camaraderie as Americans, we at least at our very core loved money enough. I thought we loved money more than anyone loved him. I thought as soon as somebody messed with the money, we would all come to our senses and be like, “Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, not the money. That’s the only thing holding this together.” But then you see, there are people whose lives have already been ruined because of his policies. you could lay all the blame at his feet. And they’re like, I I’ll figure something else out. You’ll figure some You’ll figure something else out. That’s crazy. That’s a crazy thing to say. Especially when like what 12 months ago you were screaming about eggs. and now your business is in shambles and you’re like ah you know who can say that felt insane but also I think that if you look at America as a business it would make sense that you would want a a businessman in there but the thing is you can’t run a country the way you run a business you know a a a company if they in dire straits could lay off half their work staff and then try to keep things going, use that to stay afloat. A company can buy back its own stocks in an effort to enrich itself as a company, make those stocks worth more. A a company has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. A company technically does more for its shareholders than the government does for its people. And so I could see how people would be like, “Oh, we’d at least like to get that. That’d be nice. Some dividends or equity, something. We’d at least like to feel solvent.” But it just doesn’t work that way. And I don’t think it should. I think that a a business now is very different than a business before. like there there’s a there’s a thing that happened and I and maybe it’s only like my frame of reverence because of age and everything but I think that something happened in 2008 that we haven’t recovered from still which is that like for the first time ever companies that truly screwed up beyond measure like actually beyond measure like they they should have crashed everything. This is the type of stuff that you read in the textbook and then they, you know, hung everybody. Like that’s we don’t realize it, but that’s the level of like nasty that it got in 2008. If you had, you know, knocked off a couple hundred years and put in France, there would have been a guillotine. You know what I mean? And instead there was a bailout. But instead of a bailout of the people, it was a bailout of the companies because we believe in business so much. We believe that everything works like a business to the point where even the politicians naively maybe some of them sincerely were sure that if we keep the business afloat it’ll keep the people afloat because then people won’t lose their jobs and then people will uh still be able to get these services and people will still buy these products right and what ended up happening is that you know so many people were foreclosed on so many people lost their jobs anyway. People’s like 401ks and retirements were destroyed and then the people that they gave the bailout to sort of you know trickle down the economics uh something got stopped up right at the top and so people who had wrecked the economy beyond measure got a bonus. They got bonus for wrecking the usually when you break something. And ever since then it feels like business is about not being left holding the bag. That’s what real business seems to be now is that you do everything you can to extract as much value as possible and then you dip before everything comes crashing down. Whether you dip because you sell the company or you dip because you know you decide to shutter it after you’ve like fired everyone and ruined it as a service and everything. Basically private equity, right? So I believe he’s a businessman. I do because I’m sure, look, if we’re talking business to his credit, I’m sure that he was not worse off for bankrupting that casino. I’m sure it was the people that worked at the casino. I’m sure he stiffed some of the contractors who helped build the casino. But I’m sure that he found a way to leverage that debt cuz he loves debt. He found a way to leverage that debt into his next venture. And then he started selling stakes or whatever. I don’t know. like it was just spin a lot of products. You know, you know what else it is too is that you can’t focus too much on this one person. It makes him more important than he really is. I understand that he’s president. I understand he’s one of the richest people in the world, but as far as importance is about what lasts. You know this dude, this dude. No wonder we thought he was gone. He went on Fox New He was gone. Trump went on Fox News. Everybody forget this. Trump went on Fox News and just started randomly. No one asked him randomly talking about how he was trying to get into heaven. And it’s like then you know one thing my my buddy’s granddaddy never does is talk about the afterlife. [Laughter] Gets up, watches his shows, takes his naps, gets up and eats and repeats. If he was pontificating on heaven, I think people would just start assuming that every nap really was the last nap. And it’s because you know that man’s pan guys, he’s turning black. But I don’t look I I truly I I talk about Trump because he’s in the news, but I don’t really care about Trump. I care about people. What’s going on with people? All of this is going to outlast this one person, you know. And even in California, you see you see in California where there was uh one case it seems contained and already treated and everything but it is happening. one case of um plague. You know plague you you know plague plague. Uh some would ask which plague? Apparently the you know play from the producers of the Middle Ages play. [Laughter] You know plague. Don’t act like you don’t know plague. You know plague. It’s plague. The reason Europe’s not bigger. Plague. [Laughter] You know, plague. And no matter how much you may hate Trump, you got to admit this is some pretty bad luck. He two for two on presidential terms and plagues. [Laughter] That’s crazy. That is wild. Yeah. First one a fluke. The second one. [Laughter] How did a plague skip Biden’s era? play this [Laughter] plague because that’s the fear is that like yes yes yes they found one case they treated it you know they’ve even traced it back to uh a particular source because it’s really a climate change issue because um basically the the fleas that carry plague are thriving right now in the warmer climate And so then they’re hopping on more uh rats and then the rats might come in contact with people, right? And so there’s always the the fear, the possibility that it isn’t just that one case and it isn’t just contained to uh California. There’s a there’s a real fear and a possibility that plague could have spread to the president’s hand. Like I like It was possible cuz what we did and what we how do I put this? What what we’ve done in the US as far as presence is it’s not exactly like we’re picking young ones. You know what I mean? Whatever you do, whatever that thing is, whether it’s law, it’s military, or it’s business, we seem to want you to have a wealth of experience in that field because there’s going to be three branches of the government. And you may not be familiar with all of them. Even if you’re a career politician, you may not know how to like perfectly through all of them. But, you know, if you have a lot of experience in one thing, that could that could win you the the trust of the people. And we haven’t had a young president in a long time. I mean, like Kennedy was one of like young ones, like a young guy being president and we haven’t really done that again. like it. You know, we what we’ve done is we’ve let confidence and swag make up for youth. If you are the president and you present yourself in a way that makes us feel good, we will turn that back over to you and the sort of social capital that youth usually carries, right? Cuz we want you to have experience, but at a certain point, we have to be realistic, right? Like Bill Clinton wasn’t young, but he had a saxophone. [Laughter] We had saxophone. So we defended them. We were like, “That shows lung capacity.” Have you heard him play though? And then you had George George W. Bush. Look, George George Bush wasn’t young, but he [Laughter] I don’t know. He just had like a childlike wonder to his. You could always tell when he was a dress of the nation and he had also just learned a new word. Bush would be up there like terror. Did I do it good? [Laughter] And then you add Barack Obama. And Barack Obama was younger than some of the people who have been president, you know, before and since. But he wasn’t a baby, you know what I mean? Like he wasn’t he wasn’t in incredibly young, but he he had that exact thing I’m talking about. He had an energy that was like a mobilization behind him and he had some he had he had like some measure of charisma that made up for any youth he might have been lacking. You know, I remember when Barack Obama sang that Al Green. That was incredibly uncomfortable. [Laughter] No, cuz when it happened, I was at I was at a get together with with a bunch of aunties going, “Oh, Barack.” I’m like, “No.” Uh-uh. No. I’m trying to have my dinner right now. What you doing? Can’t eat meatloaf in these conditions [Laughter] and then you went from Obama to Trump. And Trump Trump had that energy. He had he had people behind him and he came off youthful cuz he was like a schoolyard bully. Anytime somebody said something, any interview that went arry, he was ready. Nick nickname, anything, he was just coming at you all the time. He It’s like he fed off of it. It was his favorite thing to fight with the media and get people riled up. That feels like youthful energy. That feels like it’s going to be here forever, you know. And then we went from Trump to Biden, who, to be fair, told us he was going to be old. I’ve talked about this before. We asked B, we were coming at Biden. We asked Biden and Biden was like, “Are you sure? I got a Worthers in my mouth right now. [Laughter] I’ll do it if you want me to do it. But my car does smell like poperri. So [Music] [Laughter] I’ll do it if y’all want me to do it. I’ll do it for real. If y’all if y’all like No, no. Like if if I’m the only one that can stop them. If I can if I if I need to do it, I’ll do it. But just know when I shake world leaders hands at the at the G7, G20, whatever, my hand will pop a lot. Whole handshake. It’s going to sound like Orville Redenbacher, [Laughter] but if y’all insist. And then we got Trump again after Biden and this feels very different. You go back and watch a rally of Trump from 2016 2017 and then you watch uh a press conference now very different. It’s very very different. I mean it seems like he’s dying like it’s [Laughter] Because look, I’m I’m not it’s it’s not lost on me that to be an American, to live in the US, you have to become or at least have an understanding of what you need to do to be a semi good capitalist, right? And there are people that ask the question, how can you fight for a more equitable world while you’re living in a system that is corrupt? And I look at it the way I look at when I travel and I meet people who live in the country but they don’t speak the language right like your native language is is compassion and charited. You you weren’t made specifically to speak the language of margin calls and derivatives dividends and everything. That’s a that’s a language you can learn to get by because you live here. But it’s not it’s not the language you were born with when when your when your parents are raising you or when you have fond memories of being a kid. They all come from things much much deeper than than money. And then as you get older, you clearly need money to get by. That’s no that’s no crime. Like you know, you have to function as society. So you learn how to move with money as best as possible. But you can get distracted. that can take you to a place that’s uh that makes it hard to remember your humanity. You know what I mean? Like some people look at anyone who has succeeded in business as someone who must have earned it, but that’s not how all business works. You know, I mean like if I if I own a house and I set it on fire and I run out of the house, am I a genius or did I just have an insurance policy? Maybe both, but maybe I’m a crook. You know, like the only solveny that you have to contend with is is your soul. You know what I mean? The solveny is defined by uh a company’s ability to pay its long-term debts, right? is if a company’s not solvent, you have no trust in that company and you probably shouldn’t invest in that company. And as long as we’re keeping it to financial terms, a soul works in a similar way. Depending on your belief system depends on if your solveny, your your long-term debt is to God or family, your community or a cause. But like you can tell the difference between um a a a religion and a cult by how they measure those solvencies. You know what I mean? I’m not saying that every major religion doesn’t have its blemishes. It has people. So it’s going to have plenty of mistakes in its history. But you know, a religion that only speaks to what is deeper about you and what is in you and what happens outside of all of this is uh is probably worth looking into, worth reading about. And anything that brings it all the way down to the material good is probably a cult. You know what I mean? Just cuz a cult usually wants your money. They start off pretty good. A cult usually starts off with like a great party or something and then like I don’t know in about 3 weeks they’re like, “Hey, how much do you make?” Dividends work the same way. Dividends get paid out. Companies will pay dividends to their investors and those dividends um go to go to shareholders. They go to investors. And if you have ever been the beneficiary of someone’s kindness or goodwill, then you have dividends to pay throughout your life, you know, and and I don’t know if that can be understood if you only understand business. You know, country isn’t isn’t a business. It just isn’t. You know what I mean? Like, [Applause] but who knows? He’s a businessman. Like, maybe he’s a Trump is a businessman the way JFK Jr. was a pilot. You know what I mean? Oh, no. You should groan. You’re on the plane. [Music]

Hi Friends,
This week the internet went wild over a Trump hoax that somehow turned into real headlines. A rumor spread, went viral, and had millions of people convinced before the truth even caught up. In this set I talk about how fast fake stories travel online, why everyone believed it, and what we have to prepare for in a different political landscape. Donald Trump has been at the center of countless rumors and viral stories, but this one spread faster than most. From trending hashtags to full-on news coverage, the hoax fooled millions before it was debunked. I hope this set about it brightens your day.!

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Video Recorded at Funny Bone in Albany, NY
Animation by Luke Stone