Red-Pilled (with Tom Arnold)

Hello, and welcome to

the Bulwark next level Sunday interview. I’m your host, Tim Miller. We’ve got Tom Arnold today, and I gotta tell you we, you know, we did some comedy and we did funny stuff for a guy called the the forest gump of the resistance, but we also I think really cover some serious topics about reaching out to Magga World and and his relationship with Roseanne and her getting red pilled and him coming from a, you know, very Magga part of the world in Iowa a, a factory town, what he’s seen from the the folks that that grew up, that grew up there, and and what that tells him about how you maybe we can reintegrate these folks and and, and bring some people back into the light. So so we have, I think, a really nice chat with Tom Arnold, including some funny, memories from, you know, the nineties, glory days. But, before we get to him, I wanted to talk a little bit about Dean Phillips.

The the Arnold interview is taped about a week and a half ago. And we had to push it back because of the news in Israel. And so, you know, I think almost all of the stuff that we discuss is it’s still very timely. But, we’ve obviously had a ton of news since then. We’ve a live show in New Orleans since then.

Thank you to everybody that came. And, the big thing that has happened, since we last got together was Dean Phillips. Congressman from Minnesota officially getting into the race against Joe Biden. So I wanted to give you a quick rant about that before we get to Arnold. And, here’s the thing.

I I actually am sympathetic to the idea that maybe somebody should have got into the race against Joe Biden to provide an alternative just on the merits of the fact that we, you know, somebody that’s eighty two years old. I I think that there’s a legitimate question about whether, you know, the Democrats should have had the ability choose amongst themselves, about, whether that was the direction that they wanted to go. And and I I was particularly I think intrigued by that view about a year ago this time, October twenty, twenty two. This was before the midterms. This was before Joe Biden’s really deaf handling of multiple foreign policy crises at the same time.

It was at a time when inflation was worse. And I think that, you know, back then in October, I thought maybe it would make sense for probably one of the top tier candidates maybe wouldn’t get in, but but for somebody, you know, I I I, you know, everybody knows I’m fond of Jared Polis, though I I think it would make more sense for a person of color to have gotten in, maybe a Raphael Warnock. You know, back then at at coming off a big win hypothetically in Georgia. I thought maybe warnock might be a good option. So you know, I I’m not totally allergic to the idea that given the threat face from Trump, you know, the Democrats might have had to kind of you know, pull pull the emergency cord and say, hey, is there somebody else out there?

Should we, you know, should should we you know, run the traps on an alternate candidate from Joe Biden. And here’s the thing. A lot of stuff’s happened since then. Joe Biden’s had a really good year. It hasn’t showed up in his poll numbers.

And and I think that’s a legitimate thing to be concerned about. But after a surprising midterm win, after the management of, why, Ukraine was happening back then, but after the continued strong management of the Ukraine crisis, and then just this these last few weeks, the way that he’s handled Israel, the all the economic markers going the right way. Inflation still will still Hi. Of course. If you look at it cumulatively, but but everything moving the right direction.

Now here we are. We are three months away the first votes being cast. The idea that this would be the time for an unknown rich, right, white guy to get into the race without any really distinguishing characteristics for Biden, he is he he voted with Biden on everything, and instead his critiques of Biden are gonna be playing into, the rights talking points on on what’s happening with the economy right now. Based on based on his opening day launch, I I just There’s a right time and a right place for everything. I I have respect for my friends, Bill Crystal and James Carville and others who who think that a primary challenge is worthwhile Maybe it is worthwhile.

Maybe if there was a Moby Dick person out there, a young Bulwark Democratic young black Democratic woman, who you know, gets into the race and is dynamic and and and could offer a generational pitch. Somebody that could say, I love Joe and Joe Biden has done a great job. Giovanni’s done a fantastic job, but we need to turn the page generationally and and have their argument be totally electoral and generational. Again, I think it’s probably too late for that, but at least that would, you know, have a chance. At least that would be something that would, that could plausibly lead to a better outcome for Democrats.

Dean Phillips does not have a chance. Dean Phillips is not gonna be the nominee and and to bring in a former Republican hatchet man, like Steve Schmidt, and to reveal the Tim Alberta of the Atlantic. In day one of your campaign that your plan is to run a rapid response effort that puts Joe Biden on the defense every day. I think it’s just wildly irresponsible. So, I’m gonna have, more additional thoughts about about Schmidt and about this effort, over on YouTube here early in this week.

So so make sure you’re subscribed to the Bork YouTube page. We’ll be back Wednesday and you know, by then, I don’t know, Dean Phillips will probably be out of the news because I think this is, such a quick, sciatic and prop possibly irrelevant effort. But if that’s not true, we’ll discuss it Sarah Longwell JBL on Wednesday. But as of right now count me as a double thumbs down on the Dean Phillips effort I think that we are where we are in the in the cycle. Joe Biden has had really an excellent couple of weeks, couple of months as president.

And, right now, I think the energy and the focus needs to be unsure ensuring that the man that tried to end our democracy Donald Trump is not the president again. So that’s that’s what I got for now in Dean Phillips. Everybody enjoy their pre Halloween weekend you know Halloween’s like a month long festival now. I loved on the secret podcast that that Sarah Longwell just wants Halloween to be a holiday in our hearts year round. Maybe that that’s something to think about.

Go check out the Secret Podcast and join join Bulwark Plus if you haven’t. We will be back here on Wednesday. Up next, Tom Arnold. I promise you you’re gonna enjoy this. The the end of this podcast is was really a pleasant surprise and Rob looking for me.

So check it out. But before we get to Tom, our friends at Assertong, peace.

Hello, and welcome to the Bullworks Next Level Sunday interview. I’m your host Tim Miller. I’m here with Tom Arnold. What a world? How are you doing, my man?

I’m doing well. How are you doing?

Well, all things considered doing pretty good. We’re taping this on Monday. I have a feeling Jim Jordan’s gonna be the speaker of the house tomorrow, you know, and and we’ve got terrorist attacks happening. So that’s all not great. But other than that, I’m gonna pretty darn good.

Yeah. You know, Jim Jordan, you know, the whole thing with the guys he coached up in Ohio say, I know a lot about wrestling. Dad Gable, who’s the greatest wrestler, greatest wrestling coach of all time, is a buddy of mine for the University of Iowa. The whole thing that Jim Jordan, is when you’re an assistant coach with Resr. No athletes are closer than wrestlers.

Just by the nature of all the contact, and they are intimate with each other. And the assistant coach is like a big brother. That’s who Jim Jordan was to the Ohio State wrestling team. He’s the big brother. He helps with everything.

So let’s say and, of course, he knew what was going on. He’d heard the stuff about the doctor that was sexually assaulting people, but let’s say he did it. And then those young men came forward and were honest about it. There’s a hundred and fifty seven. Why didn’t he go at that time?

Whoa. Those are my guys, man. Right. Well, I’m gonna throw the full weight of whatever it is I do on this and support my guys because that’s what you do, but no, it’s fine.

Yeah. I mean, this is the thing with this guy, is that Jim Jordan, he’s always been like this. He’s always been self important, and he saw this opening to be a Maga Firebrand. And he has run with it. And all my the guys that were supposed to be the normal moderate Republicans, they’ve all folded.

They’re all just a bunch of pussies. Like, they all just fold, like, cheap suits.

Anyway, but let me say one more thing about Jim George.

Yeah.

What you learned at wrestling is if you lose, you have to shake kids with the winner. You do that in front of everybody. Point. You’re good at defeat. You know how to lose.

You say, and then I’ll get you next time. That’s what you do. So everything that he believed in at one time is out the window for Donald Trump, which is crazy. But, that’s that’s who he is now.

Not really. He might get the portrait out of it. It’s really something that’s the tale of our time. Okay. I didn’t mean to start with Jim Jordan, but, you know, you asked me how I was doing, and and, George Jim Jordan is hovering over my life.

But the Iowa connection that you brought up, it does Yeah. Yeah. Get to your origin story. You’re a Iowa guy by brand and all that. I was Yep.

Refreshing myself on your backstory, Man, your childhood in Iowa is kind of insane. Right? Like, your mother, like, leaves for a while, and the comes back and your sister’s a meth dealer. And I’m just I’m just, like, talk to us. Just give us a little bit.

Obviously, the whole podcast can’t be, you know, a year by year rundown of your childhood, but like, and, you know, about what that was like and how that influenced your world view.

Well, first of all, I bought it Tubua, which is in Waplow County, Iowa. And that used to be the most Democratic county in America. Maria Shriver said when they were coming through campaigning for ten or whoever, they always went to a trouble Iowa. And that’s what it was at the time. My sister, who’s also famous because there’s a documentary series about her called the Queen of Beth, because she was the biggest drug dealer in America at one time.

And people ask me, were you embarrassed that your sister was a drug dealer? And I say, Not what I was doing drugs, I wasn’t, because it was it was actually very handy. But I’m from a meat packing plant town. My grandfather worked at the meat packing plant for fifty years. My dad worked there, my uncle worked there.

And out of high school, I worked there on the kill floor of a meat packet plant, and people say, how do I get a job I don’t get fired from? Get the worst job possible. And that was one of them. I worked at Horbel and, you know, I needed to save money to go to college. I wanted to be at the University of Iowa.

Because I knew once I got there, anything was possible. I could be in a stand up comedian. I dreamed up. I just knew I had to get out of this and get there because there where I lived, everybody looked the same. Everybody did the same, sir.

But at Iowa, at the university, there was people from other places and around the world And so I worked very hard to get there. My BeePA Platt closed down. There’s a famous documentary called American Dream. The Barbara Copel directed about the Hornel beat packing, flat strike. And that was my flat.

Where the people at Austin, Minnesota, the home of Horbel, they went on strike. So we, their brothers, went on strike to support them. But this went on for a year and a half, and they got their jobs back. And then they fired all of us. And they had been off so long.

They couldn’t go back out And so they fired everybody, Horbell did, and just changed the name on the outside of the building to excel. Inside the building, it made exactly the same products, security, what haves, spam, everything they ever made, but they changed the name so they broke the unit and hired people at half the wages. That was very devastating in my hometown. It made it ripe for drugs. You know?

My sister, until she was Fourteen. She was the smartest kid in school. She was a great athlete, but at fourteen, she made a my mom, we’re raised by my dad. When my dad was twenty two, I was four. My sister was three.

My brother was one. And her mom had taken off. She’s She would say things like, I’m not maternal. I’ll never say I love you. You know, I’ll tap you how that he was for a while.

I knew she wasn’t a mom. My sister, his year younger, she was her hero. And my dad made the unfortunate mistake of, you know, my mom would show up at the house, drunk, she did drugs, fall into the Christmas tree, and my dad would just laugh because I think he thought he was taking the high road. So I knew it went okay. But my sister was like, that’s why you’re so when my sister turned fourteen, she moved in with my mom, and this happened very quickly.

My sister had met a twenty two year old pedophile at Skaitland.

Oh, god.

It was dating him. My mom found out and said, well, you got three choices. Break up with him. Which fourteen year old is not gonna do. I’m gonna have him arrested, or I’m gonna drive you guys to Missouri right now, get married.

And that’s what my mom did. One day, my sister was there. The next day she wasn’t, she was living with Bob. And, I mean, her life went off the rails at that point. You know, he beat her up.

He did all these things. They broke up, but you can’t go back to eighth grade. You’ve lived with somebody. You’ve had this life here It’d been married. You can’t go back and just pick up where he left off at the beginning of eighth grade.

So she had to figure out stuff to do. She did a lot of stuff. She had to sell herself. She did some drugs. She my mom was the first person all of us ever did drugs with.

So my sister though, they were running buddies, her and my mom. She saw people sell drugs. She asked them about it. And she decided, yeah, I’m gonna do this, but I’m gonna do it big time, like, professionally. I’m gonna make this a real career And I’m gonna do it as well as I can.

Her next husband was the head of a motorcycle club called the Grib Reapers, or as I called them, the Grivey Rapers, And it is funny because I thought that he was the bad influence. He was this really tough dude. Anyway, so they ran from the East Coast to the West and Iowa has interstate eighty there. So they are writing stuff out and dealing with the Mexican mafia and stuff and back and forth. And what’s the one one of the guys who get busted So my sister decided, why use of Mexican mafia?

Why don’t we build an underground lab here on a hundred and sixty acre farm in Humble, Iowa. I’ll get a chemist from Purdue University, undergrad. We’ll have all the bikers guarded. We’ll hire the police to work there, which is what she did, our local police. And our seventh stepdad was the chief of police.

Delmer.

Seventh was that seventh? Was that the word there?

Yeah. Yeah. And he hated me. He loved my sister, though, but we’re it was a lot. But that’s what she did, and it became this huge operation, and then she started buying her friends You know, like, the John Gotti tissue, buy people houses in our town.

So there was nobody that was gonna sniff on her. She had a new jaguar. Nobody had a tub of Iowa drives a jaguar. She had a new one, and the license plate said dealer. I mean, that’s how she rolled her out, and it just very cocky.

But I do. This is just it is badly. And then eventually, you’ll see this the thing to DEA age, it is pretty funny that it did the whole giant raid, because they could tell the local police. Right. Because they were working there.

So Big Gray got her in prison. They wanna put her in prison for life. I helped her. The first time and pleaded with the judge, got a great lawyer, Ron Beshpeshire out of Minneapolis, and got it out. Ten years.

She had a gun, so she had to do ten years. Got her job at the meat packet plant. It’s not Horbel, but whatever it was called then. Because I said, well, that’s the best job in a tub, well, you know, you’ll maybe get some benefits, whatever. And she worked there about two months.

Then I got a call. She’s not working here anymore. I was like, oh, boy. She’s drinking, which you’re not supposed to do if you’re a probation. And then I got a call from the D a guy.

She’s dealing again. And he said, we won’t arrest her if she stops right now. So I fly into a tubla, Get my six brothers and sisters on the oldest. I go, we’re gonna pose for a picture with dad. So he go down to Dorese Studios.

Our little photo place there at Tuebla. We do the picture. And then on the way out, I said, Laurie, they know you’re dealing. I talked to the d a guy and the sheriff and But if you stop right now, they’re not gonna arrest you. She’s like, mind your own fucking business.

And then, bam, That was it. Did they rest her the next week? Ten more years. And I got them to put her in the Martha Stewart prison the first time in West Virginia’s dice. It’s like a campus But the next time she went, it was hardcore.

And I used to blame her husband, Floyd, because he’s that motorcycle guy guy, but he died at Fort Levadworth. For the first bust. But he wouldn’t apologize, you know, he was a green beret. Then she met his second husband right away. And he died in prison.

So I’m like, oh, no. She’s the brains of this state. But she’s out now. She lives in Ohio. She drives a forklift, knock on wood, live it a a good life.

I mean, we could go down a whole rabbit hole do an hour on on drugs in America, which I don’t really wanna do here. But I think that it’s relevant to this podcast that I wanted to pick your brain on is like, you really are of these people. Right? I mean, there’s a lot of folks in Hollywood that come out and speak out against Megan stuff and they get on their fucking high horse. And it’s like nobody cares what you think.

You know what I mean? Nobody wants, you know, your little me Yeah. About this. Right? Right.

You don’t know these people Yeah. You understand Magaworld. I pulled up what you’re talking in Wapalo County. Oh, it used to be a democratic working. I mean, these are the classic Obama Trump voters.

Everybody talks about classic white working class voters, and it went sixty one thirty seven for Trump over by that. You know, a total landslide in a different county in Iowa. Ugh, I’m blanking on what it was in Northwest Iowa. Maybe it’s Calhoun County. One of those was the biggest switch in the country.

From Obama to Trump. Right?

Wow.

Same type of world. Wow. You must have some empathy for that. Right? And you’re just you you said you’re not spoken anti trump person, but I’m curious about your view on, like, why that has happened?

I mean, was it all that factory jobs went away? Was it a Bulwark guy became president, then the racism kicked in? Was it you know, something else.

Yeah. Well, the racism definitely kicked in. And then the next guy told him I’m like you. Basically, and this happens every generation in America, where some guy will come in and tell all the working class white people I got you. And I’m successful.

I’m gonna take you up here because the worst white person is better than the best black person. That’s what they believe. And I’m gonna erase that black guy from history, but I’m with you. I hear you. I feel you.

And it’s disappointing when I saw it happening. I saw Trump two thousand fifteen or sixteen at the state fair. Fly people on his helicopter. And I will say this. I’ve had this too where especially in my town and somewhat, the rich guys, you just knew they were better than you.

Because they’re rich guys. So you just kinda like, yeah, that person I can’t believe they spoke to me because they’re rich person. I get that. I mean, I think that goes through everybody, but this generates it. A bunch of my brothers were into it.

It still are some couple into trouble because they thought it was funny. Or they thought he was plain spoken or not this thing. But I would tell I’d known him forty years. He is exactly the same as he’s always been. And by the way, today, He’s exactly is a joys man.

He’s authentically terrible. That’s who he is though. These other guys that are enabling him, they’re the worst. And I think you see, Rod has said is that people go, he’s not authentic. I’ll not vote for him.

I’ll vote for the authentically terrible guy that lies to me. So that’s what happened. It was huge shift, the racism, because that is always there, man. I’m Jewish. And there’s four Jewish families today.

Tout. And the one dad would always say to us Not enough to hate. So don’t Yeah. Don’t spread it around.

I’m sorry. That four families that there weren’t enough families to hate or you weren’t quite dark skinned enough to hate.

Yeah. Got it. Choose. No. Not enough not enough juice to hate.

But, you know, at the meat packet platform, when Orabelle fired everybody, they hired all immigrants. They bust them up from the order to take these jobs

Yeah.

At half price. And that was a problem too. I think for a lot of people. Now I have say this There’s a lot of white people that won’t do those jobs. They’re too hard, and I include my brothers in that.

They are super hard jobs. So there’s that. But it was to give this people that were be at Overrod or these people or whatever Yeah. Kind of who’s laid out there for them. It’s a little bit different now.

People have integrated. You’ll hear nod says what’s in a while, but people have integrated. They have better food. In these little towns now because

they

have genuine Mexican food and people have integrated. But they’re still there. It’s bubbling.

I just I just stayed at La Juanita in Sioux City. Just last week, and it’s pretty darn good. Mexican food. Yeah. Shout out.

Sioux City. Yeah. That’s up by their debit. What’s the same debit, the guy that used to?

Devin Nunez. Yeah.

My god. That guy he’s got a a dairy farm with the brother up there. Yeah.

Anyway, the it was Sebastian. It comes to its Howard County, actually, northeastern Iowa. It had the biggest switch, but The thing that still flummoxes me. Right? And I I think you’re hitting on it a little bit.

This just, like, cares about us thing. So back in when you were growing up, the Democrats and the union guys. They had this, oh, care about us, working man kind of thing. And and maybe the Democrats are losing that brand a little bit, and Trump has taken it even though he’s full of shit, like he at least They think that he cares about them. But it it’s flummoxing to, like, think about the fact that, like, here we are having seen all that now.

And that part of the world I well, your old home, it’s gonna have the first opportunity for the Republicans to go a different direction. And, like, right now, Trump’s winning in a landslide, and it’s those parts of the state where he’s gonna do the best. The old factory parts of the state. I’m like, I don’t know. When you go back there, you gotta just be like, do you have any insight?

From your conversations when you go home on why that is?

It is a little better. Like, I’d never back down from I mean, out of this fight with Mark Burnett about jobs. And it’s safe back there. There’d be guys like, hey, you got a big I get I’m helping you, but I’ve never backed down from who I am now. I have seen people come around because coming into two thousand sixteen, the two thousand fifteen Iowa caucus, which He would all remember he lost, and that should have been the end of his campaign, by the way, when he bad about John McCain because these Fonies They’re always like, we’re so pro military.

And I’m talking about the voters. Yeah. That should have been it. It should have been the birther thing, by the way, in two thousand eleven. And I wanna say this, if the first Jewish president if Donald Trump had said, I need to see your birth certificate.

He would have never been even on television again because we would have all stuck together.

You’re playing into Kanye’s tropes a little bit there about your control of the media. But anyway, continue

No. I just need to stand up for, you know, it it’s such a big thing. It hasn’t happened, obviously. But it seems like it’s getting a little bit better But during my travels, when I’d Arnold had been Kevin McCarthy, host a thing for him because he thought it was hilarious. Arnold Short say, that were such different sides as a and Kevicarthy personally says, why do you hate trump?

I go, why don’t you fucking hate trump? That’s the real question. Yeah. I go. You care for the country or trump.

This is, like, two thousand twenty. He’s, like, well, the country, of course, and something that Gavin are governor here in California said it about four years ago on axios. He didn’t interview. He said, Trump is gonna go off a cliff. And all the Republican Party is gonna follow him off that cliff.

Now that’s what assumes happening. But man is taking so long and scary that we can’t take anything for granted. I mean, again, like Chuck grassley, My dad was that kind of Republican. He voted for Chuck grassley. Fifty years ago, whatever.

Chuck grassley used to be a legitimate

Right.

Legislator at in Iowa, in high school, we separated us between Democrats and Republicans and then we went up to the state house and passed bills. Literally sat in the Iowa state house and learned how to negotiate and compromise it. It was fun. And that’s what we learned. And you just can’t do that without.

There’ll be some risks of some cafeteria violence if you were separating people by party now in high school. You mentioned Arnold? Yeah. I wanted to catch some of your Trump era You like a forest gump of the trump era a little bit. You just kinda show up at random things.

They do wanna get into some of that, but I was just thinking about this this morning. It’s like, I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what the right year to ask this about. Like, nineteen ninety one or two, when you’re doing Roseanne, and you’re doing true lies with RN Holt like that era. I you you have to look back on that, like, would you would it ever have occurred to you the Arnold would be a governor and Roseanne would be an outspoken mega conservative and you would be like Yeah.

Did you guys all talk about politics back then? How did this happen?

Well, Rosanna, I bet in nineteen eighty three when I was twenty three. Basically, just out of the Me paying a platte. And She’s older than me, but we met doing a comedy show in the Midwest, and she was very, very funny. And I never heard somebody say they were a feminist. I had never heard the term people of color.

You know, I came from a beat pack you play, and I was, like, fascinated by her. And she was so liberal. And I said, I like that. I want what you got. I wanna learn from you.

Now, obviously, things have changed a lot. But in the early nineties, we both supported Tom Ark for president. He’s a buddy of mine. He’s one of the best ever, and then we support of Bill Clinton. And I got pictures of us, her and Hillary, and me and Bill, we hosted them and I hosted the Iowa, the Lincoln dinner.

What is it? The big Yeah.

The Democratic one would be the Jefferson Jackson dinner.

Jefferson Jackson. Yeah. I mean, we were all in on that. And then you get divorced, and people say, well, now with Arnold, I have to say nothing is surprising. So I knew he was a Republican.

I know Maria was a Democrat, but I also knew he really respected her family. He respected the legacy of what they had done, but he also was great friends with George h w Bush. He was his physical fitness guy. I don’t remember that. And I used to say Trump is so bad that I’m his physical fitness guy.

But you could see he had things going on in his head, and he had accomplished everything he’d ever wanted to and still is. But Roseanne, it was shocking. We got divorced, and people are like, are you guys still friends? If we can be friends, we would still be married. But I’ll send out getting ready to do my Trump show advice, and the Rosancho is coming back.

It’s all at the same time. And someone said, have you seen her social media? I go, no, I haven’t. You should check it out. And it was shocking.

She had said the Boston Bobber was a false flag. They she’d read a letter to every member of Congress, say that John McCain was a trader.

I got a couple of highlights for you. We’ve got in March, the comedian falsely accused of Parkland, Florida school shooting survivor of performing a Nazi salute. Valerie Chair at the Muslim Brotherhood, a planet of the apes had a baby. Do you think president Trump has freed so many children held in bondage to Pimp all over the world, hundreds each month. This is a q and a pizza gate thing.

She had retweeted infowars, reports on five point seven million illegals. Who voted in the election, shared a YouTube video titled confirmed, scalise at the same hospital that took out Seth Rich, as well as various other set rich bulletins. This was the theory that DNC staff or who got killed was actually behind the the Russia, collusion. I I mean

It’s a madness, and that she’s given this great opportunity on this new show. And that stuff I mean, it’s so over the top, but I I also knew that the first show did great. And Trump loved it, and Mark Bernad loved it, and people are bragging She’s your girl, but it was getting ready to come back for the second season. And the second season, she’d promised the network, we’re not gonna be so political. But she promised that Trump people is gonna be all Trump all the time.

So she had that dichotomy. And the weekend before the rider came back. And I was communicating with her daughter who was so worried and tried to give her help. Like

Take

away her freaking fault. But if I was married, her, You would not have her phone. She would not have WiFi. I found a phone on the internet that you’d sent anything you write into another server, not the big server, that someone else could figure it out before you tweet it, but she sabotaged it. She sabotaged it with the Valerie Jared A meme it is the worst thing, you know, a Bulwark kids have to deal with that by Ails.

And for her to do that, knowing, this is the most And I think if she had been busting on that, she would’ve done more and her pedophile stuff about the bidens and Hillary Clinton is very disappointing because she is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and she knew that I in adulthood had tracked down the pedophile that raped me and the other boys in our neighborhood. It was a big deal. I tracked him down. It confronted him and made sure he couldn’t adopt kids anymore. And, Terry Branstad was a governor at the time, and

he

helped me. He was some Republican, but this one, you do the right things. So she knew that was a big part, and she’d certainly spoken up about stuff. And it’s a serious issue. It’s a serious issue.

It’s like domestic abuse. You don’t mess with it. But then she’s all in. And she cannot say a comedian to be good. They’ve gotta say, oh, look at this.

Joe Biden is old. I hate it when he rides a bike. By the way, I do hate it when he rides a bike. It makes me so freaking nervous. But you make fun of this guy.

You do this when she could not say, one negative thing about Trump, a guy she used to hate. But we worked with Trump. She hated him He found a way to weasel himself into her HBO special, and then he didn’t pay the bill. They shot it at the Trump casino Yeah. Tower Castle or whatever out there And then she hated who he was.

And by the way, he hated her. Meladia Him and me and my wife went to the Elton John aids

Okay. Yeah. I’ve seen the picture. Alright.

We sat together. Yeah. And he looked over at me and goes, boy, she’s cute. I go, oh, thank you. So much better that pig used to be buried too.

It took my brother away. And first of all, you don’t wanna hear anything bad about your I mean, you can say stuff about your old relationship, but it was weird. It was weird. But it was fine because then he was just Donald Trump, the guy. And he’d come on by sports show.

He does have this ability to make you feel sorry for him.

It’s the runny danger field.

It does. And that’s what these people do. And he also has the ability to go. Yeah. But he’ll go.

I just wanna say before we start shooting the show, I’m only here because of Tal Bartle. And that gives you tangles. You’re like, wow, that’s a good feeling. So one night, he said, let’s go to the playboy mansion after the show. I want you to meet my new girlfriend.

And I was like, well, he did the show. He came out here. I’ll go over there. I don’t know if he’s a vodka or, tequila, his brand or something. And I went over there with him at road with his bodyguard shiller.

What year

are we in right now? What year is this?

It’s into two thousands. Oh,

yeah.

My sports show is two thousand one to two thousand five. So it’s right in there. Yeah. Two thousand five five probably. And We go there, and he says, this is my girlfriend.

It’s Karen McDougal, very pretty dressed in a buddy, outfit, and everything. And I was, like, very nice to meet you. And stuff. And then he’s like, oh, there’s Melania and my daughter. And they all posted a picture to you.

And I remember watching that because Bulwark with athletes that it’s a best transport show period. Athletes will they live some interesting lives, but I was like that guy has grass balled. That guy is doing that right here with everybody in public. He does not care. And that’s a thing.

He does not care.

I guess the evangelicals didn’t care either. There was anything so I I wanna give him backstrom, but, like, you have my, like, brain swirling over here. Given her victimization, I just Do you think there is something to that that just like you eventually you just kind of lose the thread? It’s much easier for me to understand why somebody who has not been successful. Who has resentment about society might look at Trump and be like, he can bring my people back.

Like, I have some empathy for people who like, lost it all in the financial crisis. So we’re underwater in their mortgage and are fucked. And, like, now I see a black guys president. It’s not okay, but I just I get it. Yeah.

Roseanne, I

Right.

That’s all this success, but then she that has this trauma in her life. You know, kinda you you know what I mean? Like, you must be mystified about that. Or do you have any insight?

I am. Some people don’t remember, but at what time Rosette had the number one television show, the number one movie with Merrill Street, the number one book.

Did she ever express any, like, aliens conspiracies to you or anything? Was there any hint of that there? Did she like to read the national enquirer? No. Well, we were in

the national choir lot. Okay. I I remember. She was involved with witchcraft. Okay.

And she considered herself a white witch which I didn’t take. You know, I’m very skeptical. All that. I know that after we broke up, she had a doll made of me. It says they do a thing where they stab it.

Vuda.

And it’s supposed to cause you great paid. But I Do you think

that was a stroke? Do you think that’s what caused the stroke?

It was much before that. It was much before that. But she did a little bit, believe, in sup mediums are different things, which a lot of people believe it. But she was also very rich. She made two hundred million dollars on the Roseanne show, the first run.

And it’s not like she blew it all. She did that, but she had talked to her, did this, this, and all comedians, all people you get to your career as you get older, and comedies will work till the day they die. And you don’t always have the it’s not always white hot your career. Right. Nobody’s is.

And then they accept it Ron DeSantis say, well, I love doing this. I’m gonna continue, or they try to figure out a plan b. And I think in her case, because of her ego. And a lot of people, my ex, the stepdaughter, and other people are like, well, it’s her mental illness. She has mental illness, but it’s beyond that.

Because she is specifically doing it. By the way, if my mother was out there doing interviews, which she did a couple, which is great. I would make sure to pull that cord if I felt like, you know, she would tell the inquire that was a bad Jew and stuff like that. Whatever. But I think

that Did she did do that or if she did that?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. She did it.

She did it. But, Rosanne, I can’t explain, but it is something cult like. Because she has no beliefs. There’s no morals. There’s no this is what I think.

It’s all about. I’m gonna say whatever I have to do. I’m gonna be posed with Terry Lake.

Yeah.

But pretend like we’re either Michael Flynn

Yeah.

Who is, you know, these are the guys now. And I just wonder if that’s gonna take her off a cliff. And I just assumed one day she’ll go, oh my god. I’m sorry. I was having an episode.

I’m back now, and I don’t believe any of the stuff I’ve been saved for the last fifteen years.

To me, it’s like, it is the contrarianism in the high level resentment. I just think drive so many of these people. Obviously, I don’t know with Roseanne, but, like, just this notion of Maybe you’re at a peak and you want that back. I because I watched her thing with the Yovan. And, like, she’s still smart and funny.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I get to it was not, like, interviewing an insane person who’s, like, you know, there are a few trouble people. Like, do you watch some of these interviews? And you’re like, whoa.

A couple of you people have just totally had a mental psychotic break and that was not the case. Yeah. It it almost seemed like it was I wanna needle these fucking people. Right. I wanna needle these people who think they know better, who think they’re so smart.

And if the best way to needle them is to be like, oh, There’s a secret pedophile ring out there in a pizza store and the election was stolen. Then I’ll just say that because that’s the thing that’ll needle them the most. I don’t know.

Yeah. Well, I know I said that. From the Theo bought a interview. And she was actually kind of funny, and she sent a couple of things about our honeymoon that were actually kind of funny and there’s sort of stuff she did back in the day. And I think that the thing about needling people and saying what she What

did she say about your hunting?

Oh, she was talking and this is true. We went to this resort Mexico and the security came because we were eating too loud. I swear that people could hear the forks or the Plates. That’s odd as to gone through. I thought, well, that’s funny.

That’s for the that that happened. You know, and I could tell she wanted to be funny too with the because a lot of her videos are just her Radhika Ravy, and it’s her son that films it, which is unfortunate, but maybe that’s a good thing. But this owning the lips

Yeah.

They she also is a very intelligent woman, very smart. So she has to know that there’s ways to communicate owning the lips. You know, there’s a Rob Schneider way or the Jim Broer way, which are disappointing. I was there when she sang to Nashville, though, but this is the old Rosie. We went down to San Diego.

And what happened is people in Hollywood, they would lie to you. They say, oh, you’re talented in every area. And god doesn’t work that way. If you’re a talented actor or a sitcom or writer, god’s not gonna make you a talented singer. I just know how we’re I And so she’d say, they won’t be seeing National last time in a baseball game.

I go, oh my gosh, do they? You know, the one ad is her husband, I want to support her It’s also my job to protect her Yeah. From her. So she went back and forth, and I knew it wasn’t gonna win the war, but I wanted to win one battle. I said, not Dodger Stadium.

We’re gonna go to San Diego, and you’re gonna sing to Nashville at them. And then if it goes sideways, no one will ever hear about it. And then so And, you know, she got out there. She’s singing all the buttered alpaca hated her.

And Why did she spit again? I was a kid. I don’t even know if you remember what.

Well, because the baseball player spit. Grab their clotches spit, and people are like, geez, it’s whole thing, everybody. She’s not a great singer and very brave of her. And George h w Bush was watching the game with press people. And he’s friends with the odor.

And he said, that’s a disgrace to America. I mean, he said that out loud. So by the time it got to LA, everybody in her the president’s hand. So packed with paparazzi, I ended up in a fight there defending her. And then to his credit business bush who I love.

Came forward and said, I think the woman is brave. Like, it was that thing that only they could do. But I went on Johnny Carson right after that and just trashed president Bush, George JW, and I wasn’t funny, trashing him. I was just me.

Yeah.

And the next morning, I saw Maria Shriver. She said, Oh, I saw I got Carson last night, talk about the president. I go, oh, yeah. She goes, that that was pretty rough. I go, oh, well, he doesn’t watch Johnny Carson.

She goes, I bet he does. I go, oh, boy. Well, he didn’t care what I take. She goes, I bet he does. At Thai, I do, how close Arnold there.

I go, okay. Well, I’ll write a apology, and she has the a pad of paper, and I wrote it right there. Mister president, I know you’re a public figure, But my jokes were made. For that, I apologize. Gave it to her.

And forty eight hours later, a secret service that came to my home with a handwritten letter from George Herbert Walker Bush to president of the United States. They said, Tom, of course you can make jokes about me. Right. Yeah. Do whatever you want.

And Jerry Weintraub loves you. I assume that was the only Julie doing all you. And he said, would you join Barbara and I for dinner this weekend? And I’m like, you gotta be kidding me. And from that point on, I would say the amount of George dummy Bush with all the other liberals, like, yeah, this and that, the war.

I go, no. No. Chaney and Rumsfeld, they’re monsters, but that’s a solid family that bushes. And so that that really happens. So that’s how H.

H. H w

is a gas integrity, and he still has all those letters. I want he they showed me over the Kenny Bunkport, and it’s just when when he was live, it’s just unbelievable. I wanted to ask you. I’m sure you’ve seen this or people on the internet that’ll be like, know, Tom Arnold, he’s out there doing this anti trump stuff and the trump tapes, which I’ll ask you about and all this. It’s like, it’s a grift.

He wants tension. It’s just the other side of the roseanne coin. What do you say to that notion? That that was the only rationale for this.

Well, I have to say that when you do the ads that drop stuff, it tends to affect your career in a negative way, especially show business because Then everybody thinks everybody’s

Also true in the public and ad making business, by the way. I get this occupation as well, but anyway, go ahead. Go ahead.

Yeah. But it’s worth it. Because my kids are ten and seven. I’m a single dad with a ten year old and a seven year old, and I genuinely care about their future. And if I have the opportunity to speak up a little bit about anything, about Israel, about this, about that, about Trump, did I have to do it?

And whatever I’d know, whoever I’ve gotten to know in the Trump world, I’ve also noticed that a lot of people close to Trump have reached out to me. Michael Cohen, these other people, and and then you say, well, my ultimate goal is to get Trump to retire to stop, being involved with politics, to whatever, and I can’t get the people in Hollywood to help meet Mark Burnett will dot Give me the tapes of the outtakes of the apprentice. But as he said, Mark Burnett, two thousand sixteen at Arnold’s FortSayers Christith Party, I mean, we had it out there. I shouldn’t have done it at Arnold’s party, Bulwark was like So

it’s after the election.

Yeah. And I asked him before the election, obviously. He’s like, buddy. Alright. Number one, and he showed me a picture of his son as Trump’s ring bearer.

And number two, trump wants the tapes, and you want the tapes. And I’m not giving it to either one of you. And trust me, he’s gonna be presidential. At one of his buddies said, Hillary Clinton is more like Hitler than Trump. I almost got into a fist fight.

I thought I gotta get out of here. So I get to my stand at Arnold’s house and there’d been an accident, Navelli. So I had to stand there for a little bit. I’m like, oh my god, because it’s all conservatives in there. And I’ll send Clint Eastwood comes up behind me.

And he’s like, trump is a bonus. You know, the worst part about running for bear, if you win, then you gotta be bear. And I thought, well, that’s pretty insightful. But he never even at that point, Arnold’s like, he’s gonna be presidential for this, forget all the stuff. This is who it is, and it didn’t take Arnold a long time to come around to that either.

So, yeah, you do want to get

Arnold is still kinda tough on And where are we could use Clint and Arnold? By the way, I was just asking about that. I want people to speak out. I totally reject the griff Yeah. Yeah.

Look, it’s not as if there aren’t some grifters out there in every group, but, like, we need more. More is more. Right? Like, I I, you know.

Is Johnny Sykes a grifter? The great Charlie Sykes, my hero, who Trump made swear. Is he a grifter? It was his background No. He’s a solid gold human being.

He’s my north star.

So Okay. And out from backstage, I’m gonna bring Charlie Sykes. I’m sorry. I didn’t have that Yeah. Oh, well.

But, yeah. I’ll make sure he gets the clip. Yeah.

I mean, if people wanna put you down for doing whatever, whatever they wanna bombard you on social media, troll you with the same stuff, this, that divert your attention, take you away from. You could say something completely legit and obvious about Donald Trump, and a thousand people will say What about your career? What about this? What about, they don’t take it in. And even Elon Musk doesn’t seem to be taking it in, the big picture.

And eighty one million people voted for Joe Biden in twenty twenty. And Joe Biden and Kamala Harrison only two people who could have won that election, and we owe them everything. This morning on a way to school. It took longer because Kamala Harris’s home. She lives on the block, my kid’s school.

I don’t hold that against her, but that’s why even Democrats are like, oh, we gotta get Kamala out of there. I go, that doesn’t work. There is no world where that’s okay. Well, we want Gavin. He’s a good debater and stuff.

I go, that doesn’t work. And the thing about Joe Biden, you don’t realize what all he’s doing because he is older. He takes his time. And all of a sudden, he realized, oh, shit. He’s done all of this stuff.

He’s not bragging about all the time he’s not doing this, but he’s moral, which is important. Mick Shagger’s eighty. Okay. Mick Chagger is Haiti. Would you like it president?

I don’t

think I want Mick Chagger. I know. That was it.

There’s how about Air support? There we are.

I’m I’m happy with Joe Biden. He walks a little gingerly. Yeah. And sometimes I’m just like, oh, I wish that he wouldn’t use the whisper voice. And so, like, project.

You’re killing. You’re doing a great job, but, Anyway, so I’m trying to think which of your weird Forest Gump areas to start with. So, like, you say that Trump people reach out to you, like, why is that explain to me. So on the very first one of these podcasts where we were trying to get people outside of the normal political pundit class to just chat about this stuff. We have you, Billy Corbyn.

We did the Jerry

Paulwell Junior dot. Yeah. We’re interviewing Billy, and he’s awesome. And and, listen, people should go back and find the interview. If you miss that.

I saw it.

But I we’re doing the interview, and it’s just like, we’re in the middle of it and he’s like, yeah. And then and then there’s this piece of evidence, and there’s that. And then, you know, then we really figured out he was having a threesome pull well, not really a threesome. He’s let the pool boy screw his wife because we got the tape from Thomas. I’m like, I’m like, wait a minute.

Yeah. I was like, how so how did that happen that you taped Michael Cohen?

Yeah. Well, here’s

When he was telling you that they covered it up, like, how did you find yourself in this situation?

Number one, people in my business look up to people in your business or athletes or musicians. We’re sort of in the same way. And it goes both ways. You know? There are people there.

For sure. Fascinating with Hollywood stuff, which shocks me. But what happened is Michael Cohen and I met in two thousand eighteen at June twenty second. And we met at the, Regency where he was stay I knew he was staying there, and I was filling my show, but I was actually wrapped I was talking to a guy from Rolling Stone who is following me for the last couple of months. And I I said it’s too bad.

I didn’t see Michael Cohen because I really wanna mean, I went to a lot of people’s places and talked to him. And all of a sudden, I look over his shoulder, and I go, Michael Cove comes through the door. And I jump up and I’m thinking, this is either gonna go well or terrible. And I stood right. The door there is coming into the rear seat.

And he’s like, hey, Tom. I knew immediately it’s gonna be good. Now he saw me as someone that he needed to. It went both ways. So I the guy took a picture.

I tweeted it. It became a

huge And what I’m sorry. Why did he think he needed you? I I just don’t I still have enough time.

He was aware of what I was doing about Trump. You know, that was

Oh, if it’s we’re

looking for the tape. He’d actually hired when he was still with Trump Trump had to hire a lawyer for a guy that I was criticizing from the, practice that was tough’s body bad that I knew had been to Russia with him and came back and told us all this crazy stuff, and now he is all shut up. But I put names out there. Him and Starmy Daniels and Cameron Deal, stuff that hadn’t been out there yet and said Michael Cohen had hired a lawyer for that guy. Keith Davidson, who ended up being a lawyer for sorry, Daniel’s the first and all these other people paid by Trump to represent the other person.

So we were we were adversaries of first. Anyway, by that time, he was considering flipping when I saw him. And I was like, you gotta flip. I had post that picture, and then he’s in a hotel. We started hanging out He goes, let me tell you what I feel.

I wanna do this. So that he was a hundred percent. And I said, well, let me take care. I’m gonna go on, Nicole Wallace show live. And I’ll get you squared away.

I’ll defend you. So I go out there. It’s a crazy interview. So I’ve got all the text back and forth because he’s sitting at the hotel watching it. It was very fun, though.

I love her so much. And he goes, oh my god. That’s terrible. I go, Hey, don’t worry. I’m gonna fix everything.

I’m going on see it at eight minutes. That interview went way off the rails.

And this was what you’re talking about the Jerry phone. No. This is the law.

This is just getting Michael Cohen to flip. Gotcha. And I said a quote, Nicole, that Michael said, what is he saying? I gave a quote He says he’s gonna take care of his family and the country, and he’s done with Dahlgebra. And he was very bad.

I said that. But a week later, He tweeted that himself. That’s a thing. So I said, it’s not just trumpets of people around him. So it’s Jerry Fall.

They was suspicious. Jerry Paul and Junior at his wife, and I’d heard rublings about a quote, quote, quote, pool boy in Florida. And a couple guys had written things about it, but they didn’t have all the And I said, I gotta find that guy. And so I I did call Billy Gorvin. I said, hey, I found it.

I did find John Carl Gradha, And I said, I think there’s other pool boys. I said, this guy is Mexican, and they’re anti immigrant. And, you know, I I it’s maybe not a gay act, but in something out of the door for a EVA jellicle. And Billy was great about trying to find Yeah.

I mean, by the way, if you wanna hire a pool boy to sleep your wife. That’s, like, all cool with me. I don’t have any any hang ups about all that, but it definitely is not within the bylaws of Liberty University. Well, it’s I’m pretty well familiar with the rules. That’s right.

Definitely seems

When I put

it so against the rules.

You know, that power thing where when he started it. They came, and they said, we’ll make your dreams go through. You wanna be a billionaire? You gotta believe big. That’s sort of how they came into it.

I mean, it was a sexual thing for sure. But Then when his parents found out, jock off, and they’re like, they thought of Jerry followed you, they’re like Jesus. Oh, you’re hanging out with Jesus and Berry. So that became a thing. And then when he’s trying to get out of it, they would not let him.

It’s like Jerry threatened to show John Carlos’s girlfriend a video Becky Paulwell and him having sex. Like, that’s how brazen Jerry Paulwell was blackmailing him, which is crazy. So, yeah, I figured out we gotta get all the information. Michael Cohen called me on that call, and we tape recorded each other on every call. Well, and,

you know, it’s a healthy relationship with a new friendship starts. So you feel like you have to record each other on every conversation.

That is good to get the facts. He does it just to get the facts. I said that’s why I’ll do it too. And part of that call was him saying, I did not commit those crimes slowly but surely going through the crimes that he’d been found guilty of because he couldn’t publicly say he’d been found guilty of those crimes. But if Tom Arnold serendipitously, taint him, say that, and posted it.

Right.

Well, that’s not his fault. And that was part

of the Yeah. Right. But

then he goes, said, the phone will take it. You’re all wrong about that. The gay stuff or whatever. And I go, oh, I’m sorry. He goes, yeah, they had a thing.

And there are some pictures. I went down a broker to deal with a Bulwark, and the pictures, and the pictures were not good. They kept talking said, you know, if you’re a grandmother, Becky, she’s got a nice body, but not you don’t want that out there. And I go, oh, okay. That’s bad.

I’ll quit talking about it. There’s a pause. He goes, I’ve still got one of the pictures after he did that thing. So I flitter the orc because I’m like, I gotta and he did. And but he had pictures of other people friends of Trump’s who’ve trouble do all these things and say I’ll help you out, but then he keep all these naked pictures of everybody.

And so that’s what happened. He had lied to me. But he lied because he was very close to Becky at Jerry Paulwell. And so I thought until the day he goes into prison, which I think was May sixth two thousand nineteen. I’m not gonna talk about it, but then he went to prison the next day.

I released all this tape stuff to some real journalists and that’s when it blew up. And then about that, he he was very upset on the tape because the Fallwells had not called him since he was arrested, had not done this, and he’d been their kids Christening’s, I guess, it’s called, and he bought them a shell purse for their baby or something. He’s very hurt. His things were So when he got into prison, then I found out the follow-up met with him the weekend before he got in prison and squared things away. And I assumed they paid him So Michael and I, we stuck together the whole time he said prison because he had phones, and we kept getting him to other phones to communicate with me.

And I’d share it with Swannell. And and Swannell will give him a courage message. I do all this. But when he got out, you know, we were kinda back to our normal stuff. And then he saw that I was gonna go all the way through with the Paulwell stuff.

And I said, I need you to do me a favor. You know, you were the fixer for the Paulwells, with the first pool boy, I need you to be the fixer for John Carlo Grande, this pool boy with the fall, the reverse. Because you’ve come full circle, Michael, And he said

Yeah.

Yeah. Our paths are different. We’re on different charities, and that was the hit basically.

The great evangelical hero Cuck Oldery, the playboy mansion with a wife and girlfriend. It’s been an interesting journey. Okay. I wanted to end with a couple of fun things, but I’m curious. You say you mentioned that you have pod you’re Jewish.

You might wanna speak out about Israel. I don’t have any idea what your view is on what’s obviously, I’m sure you’re unhappy with the terrorist attack. Yep. Where do you kind of fall on what the US can be doing, what we should be doing, you know, some of the stuff on the left flank that has been a little less than

what I

would say of Israel.

Well, there’s a lot of stupid people. They’re they’re stupid people on the far left, but they’re only about five or ten percent. The problem with the stupid people on far right is there’s like forty five percent of them. So that’s in forty five. Yeah.

Yeah. There’s a lot of it, LA here because they’re have a large area of community, very large Jewish community, You know, and I fell down at school today a little bit. And you get a lot of young people that are stupid. They don’t get what’s going on. They go do their protest at UCLA or whatever.

And You know, they they think they’re hard board for the Palestinian people. Israel has to Joe Biden is exactly right. We gotta have their back. This is awful. My grandpa helped liberate DACA.

I know where this could go. I know that the generational trauma that this has brought up and it’s horrible. Is disgusting. And, b b, I’m not a fan of that guy at all.

Who is?

And a lot of them are a lot of us are yeah. I mean, he’s gotta claim something he never will. Some responsibility, and there’s so many great people in Israel. A lot of the people that got killed were people that worked with palestinian families that reached out, aid, doctors, whatever. Abbas is just awful.

They need to be eradicated. And unfortunately, to do that, there is gonna be collateral damage as they say. Our job is America as we need to support Israel, but we needed to go, Hey, heads up, easy does it, you know, do your thing, but be aware I think that’s why they didn’t go in the first day because they’re trying to get these folks out of there. It’s terribly sad for all the children. Everybody surely can agree that this is having a terrible effect on all the children there.

And we gotta also make sure as best our ability doesn’t escalate. But if it does, then we gotta do our thing. But it it’s terribly sad that the palestinian people there because of Habas, I’ve been living in terrible conditions, and Babas had a great opportunity to lift its people up But they’re Bulwark, so they bully their own people. They do this and that, but they have to be eradicated. The Abbas.

I’m for a two state solution. We gotta figure this out a hundred percent. Most of the people of Israel agree. I mean, this was not helpful. But if this gave weirdos on the left, add on the right, the opportunity to go, hey, let’s, you know, we gotta And and it’s always funny to me that the right way evangelicals say they’re pro Israel.

And they said, well, we need Jews because of the rapture Do you know how the rapture ends? It ends with Jews being incinerated. I am anti rapture. I don’t want any part of that.

No rapture for you. Okay. I do also think that the evangelicals, some of them might have maybe like a whitewashed view of the Israeli Jews,

Yeah. Rashes

and understanding what is, you know, that they’re actually, you know, there’s a lot more air up there in the daily issues and

Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty close. It’s pretty close. And you you know Yeah.

It’s pretty close. My mother’s lebanese, and I’m like, you know, we’re just right across the border there.

Right. Exactly.

It’s right there. Okay. Let’s do some quick rapid fight. You have been divorced four times. You have a podcast, divorced party.

So we have listeners who are recently divorced or contemplating divorce? What are your top two pieces of advice around divorce?

Well, don’t be ashamed. It happens to a lot of people and you will move beyond it. There are certain things you gotta do to move beyond it and then begin the rest of your life. We have people financial advisors. We have lawyers.

We have therapists who come on and talk about all the stuff. We have my friends who have been divorced at Mautica Casey is my coast. You have her fancy friends, but people honestly I’m shocked how honest people are about their divorces. And I’ve certainly learned a lot of things about mine because my last one was with kids, and that’s super complicated. So it’s good.

People come on. They have a good time. The idea is You get divorced. A lot of people stay in that gray area, but what Monica did is have a divorce party, her friends took her out. They say karaoke, She got drugs.

She vomited. She made out with a guy. She did it all. And then she’s ready to move on to the next chapter of her life. But we we like

Fomet then make out or make out to a vomit.

That’s always my question. Which family first. And I’m a guy, so I know it doesn’t matter. Yeah. But it’s about you can move on and, you know, people to talk to about what you’re going through.

Because you are not terribly unique. None of us are, and share our stories, our strength, our hope.

I love that. Everybody gets this one. Is there something that as an adult you’ve changed your mind on? You’ve had a lot of experiences. Yeah.

Many marriages. What’s something that you’ve changed your view on? With some wisdom.

You do a lot of these different when you’re a parent. You know, the adult at AT did not, you know, I live did all kinds of crazy stuff and drugs and alcohol and all kinds of dangerous stuff. I think when you really become an adult and you gotta There’s little people around you. It changes. I mean, it’s a small six.

When I drove to school today, we have a long drive from sherbet Oaks to Brettwood. And I have breakfast in the car for the kids. We try to Why

do you do that to yourself?

Well, because I like this school, and I can’t afford to lived next to it right now, but I generally like it. That’s what we’re doing now. It’s only another year if I decided. It just seems to work. They’ve worked so hard You know, these teachers are amazing.

And I volunteer. You can’t complain unless you’re voluntary, and they’ve done an amazing job. So, you know, we do our best with it. It’s not gonna last forever, but we will. So my kids like, Daddy, you’re a good driver for an old person.

I was like, wow, that’s it. That’s good. And I realized I am very conscious. I will move around, but I look. I take nothing for granted.

I do this. Like, turning signal always. I hate people that don’t use their dirty signal, but I think when you’re sixty four like me, you’re sort of in that sweet spot. People if I fail with a turn eighty, they’re maniacs. Because they’re stubborn.

If they

don’t wanna give up their license, like, my grandma was legally blind and she wouldn’t stop driving. Nobody can stop her. We live in a small town. So I think there are things like that the way I don’t think of myself first. I’m I’m way more patient.

If I ever haven’t had a date six and a half years, But what I’ve learned from being with my kids is you have to do things that don’t seem fun. This seems stupid. And then you gotta figure out in your head and wait to make them fun. And that’s what I do with a lot of the stuff we come up here with the kids. I’m like, this seems awful.

Can I lay down while we do it, though? Okay. But you try to make things fun. And so I have many lessons to learn. Teeth skinned.

Take care of that.

Where’s teeth skin? That is true. That’s good good advice from the gays too. Yeah. Men out there, moisturized.

Lock time listeners Secret Podcast will know that I’m not a big turn signal person, so I apologize. So we may have found our one area of disagree. It’s supposed to be rapid fire, but, like, I need to have

a follow-up now. Don’t you

got Roseanne residuals enough, you know, let’s get in on Shermanos? You know

what, this I swear to god because every divorce is public record of California. You could look it up. I would not accept alimony. I would not accept I could add fifty million dollars easily.

Out of stubbornness. Yeah. Well, I thought I’d

I’ve I’ve got the students coming out this movie and stuff, but I regret it, I’ve been telling you. Because my that’s three wives took it. But you get residuals from the episodes I’ve written. I wrote a bunch episodes and little acting stuff, and And it’s not terrible. I will take Social Security next March six, though.

Because that’s pretty good.

The big influence that Roseanne had on my life is I don’t know if you remember this, but do you remember you had I think a single episode or maybe a two episode run with young Leo Decaprio.

Oh, yeah. He was at our wedding.

He was in your wedding.

He was at our wedding.

This was my gateway Oh

my gosh.

She’s my gay awakening in middle school. I was, like, all of a sudden, Leo, because, you know, I had confused feelings. I’m watching Roseanne and I was, like, kind of, like, darlene. She’s pretty. And then Leo comes on and I was like, oh, actually.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was the new cast member. And he was

he was Sarah Gilbert’s date. To Rosanodized wedding. Yes.

That’s right. I didn’t

even realize that my kids saw it. They go, with Leo de Campero, your wedding, I go, I don’t know which one. So anyway, yeah, thank you for saying that.

Okay. We’re gonna end here. I want a story time. I want you to close with one story. I’m giving you two people you can choose.

We’ve already done a little bit of Arnold, but I’m always hoping for other Arnold stories, or you once said that you were good friends with Michael Jackson. So I Will Saletan take a Michael Jackson story. So Michael or Arnold dealer’s choice, you know, anything you wanna share. I

was a good friends with Michael Jackson, but I had dinner with him a bunch. Barbara Davis who owned Fox at the Burriel’s hotel to speak oil guy from I think they based the dynasty on his family. He would host these big dinners and it’d be all these great Sydney, Claudia, Michael Jackson, all the Sanatra. All these are Oh

my god.

I’ll I’ll tell you a, Frank sinatra story, if you don’t mind.

Please. Okay. Great. Dealor’s choice. Yep.

Many years ago, Rosanna and I gave speeches about child abuse at the Marverson Otter Center, down at Palm Springs and she had this wonderful organization they took kids in. They gave a safe place for them, whatever. We shared our stories. And thanks a doctor was there. This is at two o’clock afternoon.

And Frank’s doctor was sitting right next to me right here with a scotch or whatever in his head and drinking it. And then as I tell the story about the pedophile from my hometown of what he did, I could hear Frank saying, well, that son of a bitch So, like, if he you can hear it. This is like a, you know, and I thought, well, that’s nice of him. And he was, like, so bad about it. He invited us over to his house afterwards.

And this is a day. His house said, Paul Freeds are where, he said, let’s go up to the bar. Now women couldn’t sit at the bar. And thanks Roger’s house in those days. You know, that’s how he was.

I mean, he was just great. And so we’re sitting at the park, And he goes, what can I make you? He’s the bartender. What do you what what are you drinking? I go, I’m not gonna drink.

I I just got out of rehab. I thought he’s not gonna understand that. Okay. I’m not gonna go through that whole story. And so I go, yeah, not drinking.

He goes, why? I go, you know, my old lady, She Will Saletan goes, let me tell you something. No broad could stop me from drinking. And I said, I guess she’d never been with a really big one. He just started laughing.

I love the guy. And then Roseanne told that story too, so but it’s true.

So it’s allowed now. Yeah. Because you did have some rules. I think on the divorce. Yeah.

About things we couldn’t talk about. But that’s allowed.

Out of out of the blue, she called was calling me to do a roast. We had spoken in many years, eighteen years. And I said, the roast producer called I go, don’t ask me to do the roast last minute. You know, I knew there was gonna be a roast. Don’t ask me.

Because I’d have to prepare. And then, of course, last minute, they couldn’t get other people. So comedy central said, you have to get Tom Arnold. So She left message at my house. I called the producer back.

I said, what is she gonna ask me? Well, she wants to dress like a waiter and serve her a drink during the roast. And I go, and not roaster? No. It’ll be hilarious.

I go, see, I’m glad I called you because I would have told her how unfunny that was, and she’d have been like, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I didn’t know what happened. Then the next day, she wants you to come and roast the other people of the dais, but not her. I go, well, people will hate that. So that’s not happening.

The next day is the day before anything you want. So now I’m like, shit. I gotta get eighteen jokes. And so I called my lawyer and said of doing this thing and they’re paying good money, he goes, you can’t be the same room together. If she makes fun of your petas, She has to pay you a hundred thousand dollars.

If you make fun of her vagina, it’s under they went all by lawyers in New York, tried to undo this agreement that we had that we can’t be in the same room. And then finally on Saturday afternoon, right before they go, okay. You could do it. And I’d I don’t have any jokes, but I had had jokes. Eighteen years, I hadn’t seen her.

It seemed like once a year, there was a joke in my head. So I went down there, and it went very well. And nobody believed I was gonna be there. I I didn’t know. They had me hit it.

So Jay Lynch says, And now Talvara will say some words. By the way, people have been making fun of me during that roast a lot. And then people laugh, though, that’s not happening. I came out and I could feel people gasp And the other comedians, Anthony Jesselnick, all these, you know, everybody was surprised, and I just start doing the jokes and whatever. I then I say something to be graceful like they used to do with the Dean Martin Rose, you know.

And then I turned her. I hadn’t seen the street. I assume she’s over here, but I hadn’t seen how other people do. When they’re done, do they shake her hand, or do they, whatever. And so it’s really awkward.

Hey. Hey. And then I get back say

and

I and I say, get by my golf. I’m getting out of because it went well. And she comes back and says, I just want you to know how much I appreciate that. And it’s good to bury the hatchet. And then as a photographer, like, listing a picture, and she goes, no.

I gotta go to the restroom. She went to the restroom, and I was like, screw that. I’m taking off. And I called my wife at the time She goes, did you take a picture with her? I go, no.

No. She didn’t want her. She went to the restroom. She could have taken her right there. She goes, you’re an idiot.

Your ex wife is not gonna take a picture with you until she looks at herself in the mirror. It went well, and then I hope that’s the end of it. So that’s the story.

Well, that is wonderful. And Jane Lynch is a big friend of the Bulwark. And so I’m happy

that she

was there. I gotta go. You’ve given me some homework. I wanna watch your Johnny Carson h w take down. I wanna watch Jane Lynch.

At Roseanne Barr, and I wanna watch your Nicole Wallace interviews. So we will go do that. I’m glad you did not break any of your divorce rules with Roseanne vagina jokes on this podcast. I don’t that’s what our audience is looking for. And, man, I’m just I appreciate your activism and continuing to speak out and doing this and holler at me any time as long as you’re not taping me.

Well, I I you you’re against my knowledge.

I’m a huge fan of yours. I read your book. I’m sad you cut your hair. I’m very sad about that, but I’m a huge fattier.

Thank you. I got some news for you. Men and ladies between the age of, like, fifty and eighty. All liked the long hair, and let me know that would compliment me. But then as soon as I cut my hair, I would occasionally start to receive DMs from men in their twenties.

Yeah.

Yeah. That’s true. And I

was like, to people have spoken. People have spoken. I’m sorry. I just need to respond to the market demands. Okay.

So anyway.

Thank you.

Tom,

I’m very grateful for that, though. Thank you

so much. Thank you very much.

We’ll be talking again, and we’ll see you next time on Wednesday for the next couple of people.

Bye bye.