Hollywood Power Grab, AI Glasses, and Farm-Belt Socialism

Hello and welcome to Filtered. Hollywood isn't just making movies. It's being fought over. The struggle for control of Warner Brothers discovery has turned into a bare knuckle showdown between Netflix, Paramount, Skydance with Saudi money Jared Kushner and eager Donald Trump hovering over who who gets to own one of the world's biggest storytelling machines. At the same time, Google is gearing up to put Gemini smart glasses. No, these are not smart glasses. They're just regular glasses attempting to make me look smart. But Google wants to put their Gemini smart glasses on millions of faces, promising seamless translation, navigation and AI on demand. And raising fresh questions about whether we're sleepwalking in into wearable surveillance. Your feeds are already under siege from AI fakes, including a bogus food stamp interview that never happened, but still drove outrage, racism, and even fooled Fox News. Hollywood stars are walking the red carpet in Saudi Arabia as Mohammed Bonsall Salman, as I call him, MBS uses film festivals, pop culture and money to rapidly liberalize, believe it or not, a once closed, deeply conservative society. And Donald Trump is rolling out a $12 billion farm bill out that looks a lot like socialism and affirmative action for his most loyal. And more today right here on Filtered. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker Foreign hi and welcome. Thanks for joining me today. I am coming to you live today from Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. On assignment here today, but wanting to come to you every day as I do, talking about the top stories of the day. Let's first check in on market vitals. Yesterday the S P 500 closed at 6,846. That's down 0.35%. The Nasdaq Composite closed 23,545, down 0.36, down 0.36%. Always keep in mind the long term perspective. S P 500 over the last 25 years has gone up 8.32%. The Nasdaq 100 has gone up 9.09% on average for the last 25 years. So, so please, please keep that in mind. Okay, let's dive right in to our top story of the day. It's getting a lot of headlines and I want to do a little dissection here for you. According to CNBC, Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile all cash$30 per share bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, valuing the company above $108 billion. A hostile bid, keep in mind, simply means Paramount is by Warner Brothers Discovery leadership and appealing directly to shareholders, something that is legal to do now. It's a Move typically used when a board refuses to negotiate. It's legal, but it signals deep distrust and often alarms employees, unions and regulators. But the financing behind the bid is what's drawing political fire. Part of the equity comes from Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, other Gulf sovereign wealth funds, and Jared Kushner, the first son in law. Yet many in Hollywood aren't cheering for Netflix either. Absorbing Warner Bros. And HBO Max would give the number one streamer control over a huge share of premium film and TV Production. Writers, actors and directors fear fewer buyers for their work, downward pressure on wages, and a cultural landscape ruled by one or two tech giants. So the dilemma is stark. One bid looks ethically compromised, the other looks economically dangerous. No wonder so many in Hollywood feel both paths lead to a less competitive, less independent future. So what's the real message here? Netflix buying Warner Brothers Discovery, that stinks. It's bad for competition. Paramount buying Warner Brothers Discovery, that stinks to you know where from corruption. They're both bad deals. This is a company that does not need to be sold and it shouldn't be. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. So a lot of people initially thought, well, Paramount's going to get this. It seems like the Ellisons have unlimited deep pockets. They've got Trump in their back pocket. And then Netflix came in, surprised a whole lot of people. And it was surprising, in fact, that Warner Brothers wanted to deal with Netflix and only sell part of the company. But it looked like that was a done deal. And then, oh no, Paramount came back with this hostile bid. Now, I would urge you to take a look at Tim wu's column in the New York Times today. He was a high ranking regulator and in the Biden administration. For those of you who think all things Biden are bad, you know, you might not want to read it, but for anyone who is a sane, sensible centrist, as I am, I think you have to take his arguments into consideration from an antitrust standpoint, meaning from the perspective of what's good for consumers. Neither one of these deals really makes sense because it is eliminating so much competition right now. If you've got a great idea for a fantastic TV show, the White Lotus, you can shop around. You can shop around to hbo, you could shop around to Netflix, you could shop around to all sorts of people. But if Netflix owns hbo, guess what? A lot fewer potential buyers. And that means a real crunch on producers, writers, stars. It's going to mean less choice. Now, Tim Wu makes a brilliant point about how in the past there was strong Regulation to keep these companies separate, to keep them from gobbling up each other. So you had Disney doing one style of cartoons and you had Warner Brothers doing Looney Tunes. Something a little different out there. Everyone had to create their own unique positioning that was good for the marketplace, it was good for choice. But as you consolidate with fewer and fewer choices, it's going to mean homogenous content, it's going to become boring, and it's frankly going to be much harder for traditional screenwriters, movie directors. Now it's easy for me to say, why doesn't everyone just do what I do? Get a camera, hit, click, and you're on. You're on TikTok, you're on YouTube. Okay, but let's be real here. If you are Martin Scorsese, you can work with the most brilliant actors, screenwriters in the world. Okay, maybe you're happy with a movie appearing on Netflix. It doesn't have to be in the big screen as he did. But that's a little different from TikTok videos. It just is. I understand you can watch YouTube on 100 inch screen TV at home. I know I do. But still, there is the stamp of societal approval, the sense of this is something big. This is a big deal. It's a big cultural event that a major movie released on screens signals. Do we really want to make it harder for big movies to come out? Now, you could make the case that they're basically faltering in the marketplace right now. If you look at all the major comedies and dramas that were released in September, October, November in the United States this year, not a single one became a hit. So it's already drying up. This will make it worse. So let's dive through the case here of the particulars now, Netflix. When news came out that Netflix was acquiring and it was announced as if it were a completely done deal, well, regulators have to approve this. And in really normal times, you could make the case that regulators would not approve this. It's too much concentration in the marketplace. But in these abnormal times we live in, you can also make the case it's unlikely to happen because Donald Trump has said he's going to be involved and he's always thinking about how can I line my pocket if Paramount buys it. That lines my pocket a couple ways. The old son in law makes more money. My fellow dictators in the Middle east make more money. And I potentially can get rid of critics on cnn, which in fact, the Ellison boy has essentially promised to the Trump administration based on reporting from Mediaite. So that makes it very delicious, the eyes of the Trump administration, to say, nope, we're not going to let Netflix acquire it. We're going to say Paramount can acquire it. Let's look at some more facts here. Again, the paramount offer is $30 per share, all cash. The Netflix offer is 72 billion. Paramount is 108 billion. But it's not an apples to apples comparison. Paramount wants cnn. Everything Netflix doesn't want to have anything to do with the cnn, some of the other cable properties. Now, Hollywood fears Netflix dominance if it absorbs hbo. That's essentially taking away completely one of the biggest buyers, not only of TV shows and movies, but of the highest quality. The prestige shows. Think the Sopranos, Curb youb Enthusiasm Succession. Some of my very favorite shows are all made by the brains at hbo. Not quite the same thing as Netflix. Now, you got to give Netflix credit. They did House of Cards, also one of my favorite shows ever. But it's like anything else in life. If there's less competition, if, you know, okay, I can greenlight this project on my own terms and they really have no place else to go, you're going to be a lot tighter with the dollar and you have more incentive to play it safe because you're going to make money anyway. Now, Netflix claims zero planned layoffs. Well, you should take that with a grain of salt. Anytime one company is merging with another company, you have to predict layoffs. Why else do they think they could get more value than if each company were separate? It doesn't make sense when you look at the average amount of profit and revenue per employee Netflix has versus Warner Brothers. I mean, there is no comparison. The Netflix company is just wildly, wildly more successful. That's why their stock price is so much higher. That's why they're such a valuable company. It's also why you have to. You have to assume they would cut massively into the personnel at Warner Brothers because they're going to. No one wants to be less profitable per employee. That's simply not how public publicly traded companies want. Now, it should be pointed out the Warner Brothers previously rejected the same $30 a share offer. Paramount never got a reply from the CEO David Zaslav, after they accepted the bid from Netflix. I gotta tell you, this Zaslav guy is one of the most bizarrely overpaid executives, if not the most overpaid executive in the history of the world. This is a guy who's been paid hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of millions of dollars to be the CEO of a company that has lost 60% of its stock price value in the last few years. It's extraordinarily unprecedented. He's a good political operator, he's a smooth talker, there's no doubt about that. But I think either company that takes over has got to get rid of this guy because, I mean, he apparently knows where the bodies are buried. He's been in cable tv, broadcast tv, streaming tv, his entire life. But at some point, to become a billionaire, which I'm assuming his net worth has to be close to that now, if it isn't already, at the same time, your company has lost 60% of its value. Now, you can make fun of Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos all you want, but they took a company from an idea in their head to becoming trillion dollar companies. The fact that they are billionaires is no big surprise, no big shock to our economic system. But when you're taking big old companies losing 60% of the value, as Zaslav has done, and you end up making hundreds of millions of dollars, it is bizarre. So this is one of the odd situations. It's hard to really tell who to root for because the incumbent management, I won't say corrupt, I mean, he struck these deals, his board of directors paid for it. You've got a situation where Netflix, who I do see as kind of the good guys in all of this, they've done something really remarkable. But I don't want them to have even more power over every creative show coming out of Hollywood. And Paramount just seems the absolute worst in crony capitalism these days. Promising Donald Trump, oh, we'll get rid of your critics on cnn. There's going to be new management at cnn. That just seems like a horrific thing. And the idea of giving the Saudis power over the premier cable news network in America now they can say all day long, oh, wouldn't have any binding vote. Once you start taking billions of dollars from people, I don't know about you, someone gives me a billion dollars, all of a sudden I'm going to be saying, yes, sir, how may I help you, sir? That's just human nature. So when you have Saudis who think it's perfectly okay to saw up journalists for asking tough questions, to give them the keys or even part of the keys, or even the back door key to the basement, to cnn, I think is profoundly troubling, to say the least. What do you think? I'd love to hear from you. Let me know your position on what you think should happen with this merger, this acquisition, whether it's Netflix, whether it's paramount of Time Warner. I'm in favor of it staying as it is. We need more competition when it comes to the media, not less. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Thanks so much for joining me. I'm on the road today. You may see a little bit different backdrop coming to you today from Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam on assignment. And we'll be here all week in Taiwan next week and then back to the home base in the United States the week after. Back in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my Five Book Success Library for $9.95 at tjwalker.com books. It's the fastest way to level up your communication. Imagine being the most confident person in the room, whether you're on Zoom or on stage. That's what thousands of professionals are learning to do right now. Through my online communication courses at Media Training Worldwide. You can access my complete training library on demand. Affordable and actually effective. Whether you're preparing for media interviews, client presentations or TED style talks, I've got you covered. Check it out mediatrainingworldwide.com. you'll never wing it again. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com Advertisement welcome back to filtered Google's new AI glasses versus old fears Google's promising a smarter, more careful reboot of smart glasses. According to Bloomberg, its Gemini powered eyewear is due in 2026 with both display glasses and lighter audio only models. But the history here matters. Google Glass 5 flopped a decade ago for very concrete reasons. A fifteen hundred dollar price tag, short battery life, an awkward cyborg look, and above all, a hidden camera that sparked bands in bars and theaters and gave us the insult. Glass hole Meta's Ray Ban smart glasses show these anxieties never went away. They can stream 1080pd or excuse me, 1080p video and photos directly to Facebook and Instagram, and the latest display version adds an AR screen. But academics and regulators keep warning about people being recorded without consent. A recent viral clip from a New York subway captured a woman smashing a man's Meta smart glasses online. She was hailed as a privacy hero, even as lawyers pointed out she'd almost certainly lose in court. Gen Z, in particular, is pushing back on being always filmed in gyms, salons and trains. So Google's challenge isn't just building better software. It's convincing people that this time smart glasses serve them, not surveillance capitalism. Okay, so what's the real message here. Google's trying again to get you to wear smart glasses, and they didn't succeed at first. Facebook isn't a huge success yet, but mark my words, smart glasses are coming for your face and the faces and heads of everyone around you. It's only a matter of time. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. I say that not because I don't take people's privacy issues seriously, not because I don't think there are legitimate concerns about surveillance and surveillance capital. All of those things are real. And I think we're going to see more examples of like we did on the New York City subway last week. A woman going up to somebody, I guess, apparently snatching the glass. And these are not Google glasses, by the way. Snatching them off and breaking them. We're going to see people. People feel passionately about this. But Google does understand one fundamental thing about human beings. And Amazon understands it. Facebook understands it. We humans are lazy. And I say this not casting fingers at other people, but at myself. I'm a lazy person at some level, we all are. And to not have to reach into your pocket, pick up a phone, turn it on, scroll, type in a password, simply have your glasses on and talk to them or have something pop up telling you where to go, it really plays to human beings laziness. And I'll tell you, very few people have ever lost money betting on some company that is pandering to human being. Laziness might not be a nice thing to say, but it's true. Let's face it, it's been a long time since there's been any technology innovation from a consumer product scale that's had any impact. Yeah, I know AI is everywhere, but I'm talking about, we went from the Sony Walkman, I'm old enough to remember that. To the ipod, to the, to the cell phone, to the iPhone, to iPads, to smartwatches. And then, you know, what have we had really in the last decade? It is time for some kind of meaningful device. And I think the glasses are the logical case. The $1,500 was too much, apparently. Should there. Will there be legislation regulating when you can use cameras? Yeah. But again, let's think about all the possible positive uses of the camera. Let's say you're going on a nature hike. It's just you in a beautiful wooded area. It'd kind of be nice to have glasses on. Your Google glasses or your Facebook glasses could tell you every single species of plant and tree you're looking at. A particular squirrel walks by or runs by, it's black and you're curious. What is that all about? To have your glasses give you a few data points on it right away you get on a movie or a plane, you're too tired to read and to just have a movie showing right on your glasses seems like it would be a pretty nice thing. Now I've talked about this on the show before, but I'll say it again every time. The last few months when I go to the mall where I live in South Florida, I stopping the lens crafters and I ask the sales reps there, what do people think about the Facebook Ray Bans smart glasses. And every single time the salespeople or say yeah, people really like it. And I can tell they're not just trying to sell me because they're telling me I couldn't sell it to you today if I wanted to. They were sold out for months. So people do seem to like the convenience. Now when you look at Google's track record for pretty much anything beyond search engine and ad sales, not that impressive. But it doesn't mean they can't succeed. A couple occasionally and I frankly will be shocked if we don't see some real competition here between the Google glasses and the Facebook glasses because it's obvious you're going to get attention. If you could literally strap something onto people's eyeballs and you're in the advertising business, what could possibly be better than that? And these are the two best companies or worst depending on your perspective in the history of humanity at sucking out attention from human beings to make money off of it. There's going to be a lot of money from this. Let's look at some more of the facts here. Okay, so the Meta Ray Ban Gen 1 is now about $224 on sale, obviously much better than 1500. The new Ray Ban display package starts around $799 in the United States. So they've got some some higher end level glasses as well. If you have tried these, please leave comments. Whether you're watching us live today on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, any platform, or if you're watching this on demand, let me know. Have you ever tried any of these smart glasses? Number one? Number two, what did you think of it? Number three, if you are against it and it's perfectly okay to be against it, how strongly do you feel against it? Are you willing to specifically support political candidates who support legislation making it illegal to have cameras on? Because let's face it, some people do consider it a huge violation, violation of privacy. You're in a restaurant. Let's say it's a public restaurant. Or let's say, let's say you're in a restroom, for example. You don't want someone even if it's a public restroom with glasses on. Hey, how are you doing? It could obviously be uncomfortable and a gross violation of privacy rights. How should we as a society take that into consideration? I would love to hear from you. I don't purport to have every aspect of this worked out in my head. I don't know necessarily what the best policies are, but I do know that when you can combine the world's most powerful technology companies in such a way as to really play to human laziness and human convenience and do things that are entertaining and interesting and useful, it's gonna happen. Doesn't mean we couldn't have regulation to slow it down or make it more efficient or do something, but it will in fact happen. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Back in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise want to become a better speaker, leader or communicator? Start with the TJ Walker Success Library. It's five of my most practical books, covering everything from public speaking to media interviews and persuasive messaging, all for only $9.95. I've trained presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs, and now you can get the same wisdom in a fast, affordable format. Go to tjwalker.com books and download your copies instantly. Thanks for listening. If you like today's episode, you'll love my online courses@mediatrainingworldwide.com check them out now and level up your skills. Welcome back to Filtered. I appreciate you joining me today. Let's join in on issue three. AI fake videos are here. Our systems aren't According to reporting in the Times, we've already hit the oh moment for AI video. In October, a TikTok clip made with OpenAI Sora showed a woman casually admitting to failing to selling food stamps for cash. None of it was real, but nearly two thirds of more than 3,000 commenters reacted as if it were many, with open racism and attacks on SNAP as Congress debated Trump's proposed plots. Fox News, unsurprisingly, even ran a similar fake as real news before quietly pulling the story. So a lot of stuff going on here that is very interesting to say the least. Platforms say they have guardrails, visible Sora labels, invisible metadata, and rules requiring AI tags. In practice, labels get blurred out, stripped by editing apps, or added after millions of views. As one expert told the Times, they should have been prepared. Another warned individual vigilance can't work when your entire feed is polluted. These tools are already turning up in Russian disinformation about Ukraine, sectarian smears in India, and fake leaked Trump audio. And yes, OpenAI soar is just one of dozens of systems doing this, including Google's vo. The deeper problem isn't just deep fakes. It's platforms making money off engagement, even when that engagement is fueled by lies. Okay, what's the real message here? The world is a wash and fake AI video. When you see a video online and it completely outrages you and it shows somebody you don't like, or a politician, another party you don't like doing something outrageous, the first thing you need to ask yourself is, is this really true or am I being played? Let's dig a little bit deeper here. According to some of these AI videos that came out last month, two thirds of viewers believe that obvious fakes were reality. So here's the problem with that. It's all well and good to sell. Freedom of speech. Freedom of speech. Okay, fine, everybody loves freedom of speech at some level. But at another level, democracy can't really survive if most of the information swirling around that people absorb and think to be true is fake. Let's say someone runs for office, gets elected on the platform of improving the economy, and the economy grows by 20% a year. Inflation is zero. Unemployment is here. They've done everything better than ever. But every single news source comes back telling you we're in a Great depression. Things are worse than ever. Unemployment is 50%. If you're bombarded with that all day long, then that politician will be voted out of office. Now, the opposite is true. Imagine someone completely destroying the economy, but every single piece of information tells you it's never been better. So democracy can't really thrive in a situation like that. It's especially susceptible to extremists of both sides. But let's face it, here in America, the far right is much more comfortable with this sort of manipulation, as we saw already with these fake IA saying, oh, yeah, I'm selling food stamps. Yeah, it's great because there's a lot of people have a strong visceral reaction to those people. Poor people, inner city people, maybe. People whose skin doesn't look like old TJ's they get very angry about that. So when you give them some raw meat, some raw digital AI fake meat, they eat it up. And that's the real problem. Now, not surprised. And I'm sure this could happen to any news organization. But the fact that Fox News ran this particular type of story about a woman claiming to sell her food stamps, which panders into the worst possible stereotype that conservative voters, Fox News fans have, I think does say something. It's almost as if, well, imagine this scenario. MSNBC does a story where Donald Trump talks about, yes, I love slaves. I have some slaves at my hotel in Dubai and I don't pay them anything and I just beat them. I mean, imagine if MSNBC just ran a story completely fake and made up. Now they haven't done that. I think there'd be a lot of outrage on Fox and mainstream media for doing that. But that's essentially what happened in reverse on Fox News. Now this is having a huge role in international relations. The Russians, they might not be good at artificial intelligence in most areas. They might not be good at running a great economy, they might not produce much other than vodka, but wow, they're really good at disinformation. And they're using all sorts of Sora style fakes to smear Ukraine's leadership. AI videos in India right now are denigrating Muslims to inflame tensions. Prime Minister Modi doesn't seem to be too bothered by that. That's kind of his, his trademark. So I think this is profoundly troubling. And I won't purport to tell you I know exactly what the line is, what should be permissible when it comes to free speech. But I could tell you, if no human being in a democracy has even a fighting chance of figuring out what's reality and what isn't, we are all doomed. Democracy is doomed. And you may say, well, teacher, I don't really care about democracy. I want a republic or I want a, you know, a smart oligarchy. Sorry, but that's not gonna work either. If everyone is completely having their head spun with complete nonsense, then everybody hates everybody. There's not gonna be support for a democratically elected president or a prime minister, but there isn't necessarily gonna be a support for your oligarch either, or your dictator, or whatever form of government you want. We could devolve into complete, utter chaos. And then again, how would you even know if it's chaos? Because if your AI video is telling you everything's great today and you're sitting on your couch, you still might not know. So we as a society, we as human beings have got to figure out. Okay, yeah, people can be creative, people can put out nonsense, people can have opinions about all sorts of stuff. But we're going to have to figure out some way for basic facts. I won't use the word truth because that scares a lot of who are you to decide what truth is? But at some level, if we're going to be functioning not just democracies but capitalistic societies, which I'm assuming if you're watching this show, you do favor some, some form of capitalism, even if it's, you know, Danish style social democracy, you favor some kind of capitalism. It's simply not going to work if we don't figure out a way of communicating facts about what's going on in the world that has some semblance with reality. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered More in just a moment. Please stay tuned. Filtered is brought to you by the following get the deeper takes. I don't post anywhere else. Subscribe now@substash.com jwalkersuccess and stay in the loop. For years, people have asked how they could get one on one coaching from me inexpensively. Well, now you can. Anytime, anywhere. With the TJ Walker AI clone, It's like having me in your pocket ready to help you prep for a speech, polish a pitch, or calm your nerves before a big meeting. You talk to it, it responds like I would based on my real world coaching of thousands of leaders and communicators. Check it out at tjwalker AI. It's not just smart, it's personal. Want to support the show? Skip the ads and buy me a coffee. That's buymeacoffee.com TJ Walker welcome back to Filtered. I'm TJ Walker. Saudi Red Carpet Whitewashing or the best Kind of Hypocrisy? According to Showbiz411, Hollywood celebrities swanning down the Red Sea Film Festival carpet in Jeddah are oblivious to Saudi Arabia's human rights record. From the murder of journalist jamal Khashoggi in 2018 to ongoing repression and impunity for officials. None of that's wrong. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman still runs an authoritarian state, but he's also pushed through the most aggressive social liberalization project in the region right now. Under Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia lifted a 35 year cinema ban, allowed women to drive, loosened strict gender segregation, and opened the door to public concerts and mixed gendered events. For decades, Western pop culture was literally illegal in Saudia theaters today, the Red Sea film festival, its fifth edition is screening 100 plus films from over 70 countries and flying in stars from Hollywood, Bollywood and beyond. Is this image laundering? Of course. But it's also real change. If young Saudis are staying up late to argue about Marvel movies, K pop and box office returns, that's time. They're not being recruited by religious extremists. You want people doing things for money, careers and status, not martyrdom. So yes, keep criticizing MBS on human rights and at the same time admit that opening the doors to movies, music and capitalism is genuine progress. Okay, what's the real message here? All these holier than thou types saying how, how dare you movie stars go to Saudi Arabia? How dare you have gotta wisen up and realize we want people doing things for money as opposed to religious martyrdom. Letting Hollywood stars into the Middle east, into Saudi Arabia is opening doors. It's getting people there, young girls, young boys, realizing there's a world beyond worshiping one true religion. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now, this issue came up with the big comedy festival last month and so much criticism heaped on these big name comics for taking 200,000, 400,000, $800,000 paychecks. I gotta tell you, nobody's more critical than I am of Mohammed bin Salman taking a hacksaw or giving the order. To say, cut up a journalist in a hacksaw and kill him is truly a despicable thing. Would I vote for him if he were on the ballot to run a country and there were other candidates? No, I would not. But if you purport to care about the world, about making the world a better place, you can't deal simply in terms of what's perfect all times. You have to focus on what is going to make incremental improvement, what's going to nudge things directionally to a better place. And as much as I am not laundering the fact that MBS is a stone cold murderer or an accessory to murder. Any objective analyst of the Middle east east today would say, look, Saudi Arabia is one of the better places. They're liberalizing more than a lot of other countries over there. They're opening doors. They're allowing women to drive and have jobs and appear without their veils on, they are in fact liberalizing. So the idea that a Hollywood star is supposed to set a. Okay, here's a part of the world where they've not wanted us for years, for decades, ever. They've said we're bad. They said their people can't watch us because they need to stay at home worshiping one book all day long. And they don't let the women read or act like anything other than property of their fathers or husbands. Now they want us in there. They want to learn from us, they want to celebrate from. They want to enjoy our culture. They're inviting us over and we're supposed to say, nope, you were bad in the past, so we're never going to deal with you. There's something fundamentally screwy about that logic. This is the same sort of logic that it's not specific to those on the left, but quite often it can be. It's as if people who are pro gay rights were saying, no, Obama, because you initially, in the earlier parts of your career did not embrace gay marriage. We're always going to hate you, even though later on you went from not being in favor of gay marriage to pro gay marriage. We're going to condemn you forever. Well, that's not how most people treated President Obama. Like it or not, the Saudis are liberal. It's not a liberal society. Let's not kid ourselves. But they are liberalizing. What makes a society generally more liberal? Being open to different people from different places, different ideas. So when you invite comics in, when you invite creative types, movie producers, directors, stars, that's bringing in new. That's what we want. So I have to condemn the people who are condemning these Hollywood stars for going over there. Now, if you're a big movie star, if Meryl Streep goes over there and says, I just want to say, anyone who would criticize MBS as anything other than Martin Luther King Jr. He's never harmed anyone in his life. This is the greatest place for free, for human rights ever. If she said that, fine, go ahead and criticize her. Go ahead and condemn her. But guess what? She. She's not saying that nor have any. And as far as I know, she didn't even go over there. None of the movie stars have gone over there and read scripts somehow absolving MBs of civil rights atrocities and human rights atrocities or of murder. They're not doing that. They're just going over there talking about their art, talking about their creative vision. The same with the Hollywood or the comedians. The big comedy festival a month or two ago, they weren't over there saying, hey, everyone over here is great. This is the freest society ever. And it's all a bunch of nonsense as criticism about how they're bad for women and gays. Nobody said that. That's not what happened? They went over and did their comedy. What is comedy? It's poking fun at authority figures quite often. Guess what? We want people in Saudi Arabia to get used to the idea of criticizing those more powerful. That's what a liberal society is all about. So, yeah, I understand that the comedians had to sign documents saying they wouldn't make fun of. Of the leaders of the country or their religion. I get that. But you know what? Most of those comedians, that's not what their act is about for the most part. They're American comedians. They made fun of Americans, American pop culture. Their whole act was not making fun of a particular religion. So it wasn't really asking them to have some huge sacrifice. So I am. I'm very much in favor of anyone from the west who gets invited to Saudi Arabia or any repressive place and can talk about what they do for a living and doesn't just have to spout off propaganda promoting that regime. Do it now. Where I draw the line is something like what the President of the United States did just last week when asked about MBS ordering the hit on the journalist murdering, cutting him up in pieces for the bone saw. He's like, stuff happens. Get over it. Basically, that's where I draw the line. That's really doing PR for thugs. But I haven't seen any Hollywood stars or comedians doing that. What's your take? Would you do whatever your profession is? Would you provide that service or make that product for people in Saudi Arabia? I would love to know. Feel free to leave comments if you're watching live. If you're watching On Demand, let me know. I would love to hear.