March 13, 2025

America's Triple Threat - Climate Denial, Russian Bromance, and Musk's Social Security Chainsaw!

Patrick Gutfield delivers a comedy knockout as he exposes the EPA's war on clean air, Michael Douglas's confusion over our new Russian friendship, and Elon Musk's terrifying plans for Social Security!

Show Notes
Transcript

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Callaroga shark media from Washington, d C.

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Where if you paid into Social Security for forty years,

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it sucks to be you. This is ballot, that's right,

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or as Spelcheck has it in my script, ballet you

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write it, I'll read it.

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Let's hit this.

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Hi, I'm Patrick Gutfield, and you know how you distract

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everyone from noticing you're destroying the environment. You threaten social security.

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But let's start with the EPA. EPA administrator Lee Zelden

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just announced what he's calling the most consequential day of

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deregulation in American history. I don't know about you, but

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when someone starts bragging about deregulation, I immediately think, oh good,

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my drinking water needed more zazz. Zelden wrote an essay

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in The Wall Street Journal where he declared he's driving

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a dagger through the heart of climate change religion because

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nothing says reasonable policy discussion like describing environmental science as.

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A cult that needs to be stabbed.

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He's rolling back thirty one environmental rules, including those on

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pollution from coal fired power plants. You know what they say,

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if you can't see the air you're breathing, is it

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really air? Zelden also wants to rewrite the two thousand

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and nine finding that greenhouse gases in danger public health.

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It's like deciding gravity is just a theory we can

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ignore if it's inconvenient. I guess all these guys figure

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that they'll be dead by the time the food chain collapses.

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Screw it, let's make some money.

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Climate scientist Michael Mann called this just the latest form

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of Republican climate denial. Meanwhile, Russell Vought from Project twenty

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twenty five is thrilled, while Jason Rielander from the Center

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for Biological Diversity said the Trump administration's ignorance is trumped

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only by its malice toward the planet. You know, when

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I first heard Michael Mann is warning about climate change,

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I thought, wow, the guy who directed heat is really

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concerned about rising temper turns out it's a different Michael Man.

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This one studies actual heat. If the director Michael Mann

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made a climate change movie, it would be called Collateral

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Damage and feature Tom Cruise as a rogue meteorologist racing

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against time to convince politicians that hurricanes are bad. Climate

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scientist Michael Mann keeps telling us the planet is experiencing

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the perfect storm, but unlike the movie. This one doesn't

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star George Clooney on a fishing boat. It stars all

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of us on a rapidly warming planet. When climate scientist

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Michael Mann talks about the Last of the Mohicans, he's

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not referencing the movie. He's talking about the last of

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the glaciers that used to cover North America. The director

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Michael Mann gave us Miami vice while scientist Michael Mann

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is warning us that soon Miami might need a vice

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grip just to stay above water. Climate scientist Michael Mann

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is trying to get us to focus on his public

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enemies list, but instead of John Dillinger and Baby Nelson,

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it's carbon emissions and.

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Fossil fuel executives.

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Director Michael Mann's movie Thief was about stealing jewels, while

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scientist Michael Mann warns about how we're stealing from future

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generations with our current climate policies. Okai, writing team, we

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get the joke. Speaking of movies, nice segue. Michael Douglas

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just woke up from hibernation, and boy is he confused

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about America's new best friend. The eighty year old actor

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popped onto Instagram after a two month absence to basically

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ask did I miss something.

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We're buddies with Russia now.

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Douglas seemed genuinely baffled, saying, I thought they had been

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trying to destroy us for the last seventy five years,

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which is fair, and it's like finding out your high

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school bully is now dating your mom. But President Donald

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Trump seventy eight apparently has no issues cozying up to

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Vladimir Putin seventy two. I guess Trump figured, why fight

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with Russia when we have plenty of perfectly good allies

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to aliens. Douglas quickly changed the subject, probably realizing that

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questioning our new Russian friendship might get him on some

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kind of list. Instead, he started bragging about two movie anniversaries,

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the fiftieth anniversary of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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and the twenty fifth anniversary of Wonder Boys. Speaking of

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Cuckoo's Nest, watching America's foreign policy these days might make

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you feel like you belong in that institution. And Wonder Boys, well,

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we're all wondering, boys and girls, what exactly is happening

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with our international relations? Hey, Michael, who is the guy

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who played the guy who taught us Green as Good?

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Seems like a few people in power took your movie seriously.

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Oh yeah, social.

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Security, we should get to that because Elon Sure, did

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you know? Elon is off the rails when even Trump

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is distancing himself. Elon Musk went on Fox Business and

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decided to swing his doge chains off at what he

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called entitlement spending, and now the White House is scrambling

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faster than a tesla on autopilot near a fire truck.

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Musk told Larry Kudlow that most of federal spending is entitlements,

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and that's the big one to eliminate, which is exactly

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what you want to hear from the guy who's supposed

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to be making government more efficient, not eliminating grandma's monthly check.

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The Trump administration rushed to clarify that they're not cutting

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Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. They even said President Trump

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himself has said it over and over and over again,

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which is their way of saying, please, don't make us

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play the clips of all the times he actually said

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the opposite.

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The White House.

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Statement then bizarrely attacked journalist Jake Sherman, calling him fake Sherman.

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I haven't heard a nickname that creative since third grade

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when the kids called me Patrick no Field because I

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couldn't catch a baseball. Trump's team claims Musk was only

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talking about waste in these programs, you know, because when

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someone says they want to eliminate something, they obviously just

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mean the bad parts. That's like saying I want to

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eliminate this sandwich and then clarifying you just meant the crust.

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Portions of today's program were made with decades of hard

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work by you, a billionaire who wants to take your

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money away. And some AI jokes about some second tier movies,