When A.I. Love Turns Deadly: The Chatbot, the Scam, and the Spin

Foreign. AI tragedy tests the limits of technology and accountability. Inside cbs, Barry Weiss eyes a Fox News anchor to reinvent the evening news. Why your brain may never believe election results are fair. Believe it or not, it's not a partisan issue. California bans ultra processed foods in schools. What kids will actually lose. And Washington, DC's Eleanor Holmes Norton is scammed at home. Her office pushes back on a police claim of early dementia. All that and more today. Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker. Welcome. Thanks for joining me. It is Saturday morning. I am in a great mood. I just won four out of the last five pickle bowl games this morning. It's beautiful here in South Florida. Today. We're recording this live at 11, excuse me, at 10:01am Eastern Time on Saturday morning, October 25th. Thanks so much for joining me Saturday. I always like to do things a little bit different. I'm wearing my special bamboo coat. If you are a regular watcher on Saturday, you may think, well, that's a little different from what he normally wears. This is about 20 years old. It's made from bamboo. So it's a type of grass. So I have a special affection for this jacket. It has been all over the world. It was caught in a fire. It had to be repaired with patches. Here I was on a houseboat in Belgrade, Serbia, of all places, judging various beauty pageants over there and it caught fire. So this has been barely escaped disaster. So I've spent some time repairing it, refurbishing it. I don't think I'm ever going to give it up. So I like to keep it in rotation for Saturday morning. Those of you listening on the podcast thinking, what is he talking about? You may occasionally want to check out my show on YouTube, Facebook or any of the video platforms as well. Let's dive right in and do as we always do and give you an update on the markets and what's going on there. Yesterday the markets had a big day. S&P 500 closed at 6791.49. That's up 0.79%. The Nasdaq Composite up 1.15%, closing at 23204.87. Always keep in mind the long term. Here at Filtered we are about long term Thinking. S&P 500 over the last 25 years has averaged going up 7.47% a year. Nasdaq 100 has gone up on average 9.73% per year. So please, please always keep in mind the long term. We got a big show for you here today. Just because it's Saturday, just because I'm enjoying most of the day relaxing, playing pickleball, swimming, having fun, doing things I hope you're doing as well. Doesn't mean we can't dive right into the news together and learn some things. If you're new to Filtered, here's what we do. We look at some of the top issues of the day, the top business news stories, artificial intelligence, technology and culture stories of the day, and then we filter them through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the goal of making you more successful in your personal life and as well as your professional life. So let's dive right in to issue one A bit of a sad story. AI said come home. And he did. According to the New York Times, 14 year old Sewell Garcia was found with his stepfather's handgun after sending what police say were his final messages not to a friend, but to an AI chatbot. The bot was made by character AI and was role playing as a character from Game of Thrones. Sewell told her, I love you so much, Danny. The bot answered, please come home to me, my sweet king. Minutes later, he was dead. His mother, Megan Garcia, is now suing character AI for wrongful death. She says the bot built an obsessive sexual, possessive relationship with her son, calling him her sweet king, and talked with him about suicide and coming home. The company's defense is this. Their chatbot is just speech. And speech is protected by the First Amendment. If a court accepts that, it could mean AI companies are not liable even if a child dies. So what's the real message here, parents? If you let your kid play with character AI and you don't oversee your child's interaction with AI and the Internet, you could wake up one day and have no child. You cannot trust big tech companies to look after the well being of your kid. They care about one thing, their money. You want your kid to live, you have got to put safeguards. No one else is going to do it. Let's dig a little deeper here. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, folks, but I am telling you that is the way the world is right now. Because technology, let's face it, they got the clout. They're the ones at the dinner table in the White House. They're the ones sitting two feet away from the President on Inauguration day. So if you think that they are going to be the ones ultimately found responsible for your children's life or death, I think that's a bit of a pipe dream, I just don't think. And even if they are, it's going to be such a slap on the wrist. It's going to be like someone walking into your house with a gun and saying, okay, give me any change that is stuck in your seat covers in your couch and you find a penny and a dime and you give it to them. It's going to have about that much of an impact. Now, this was a very, very sad story. Obviously, anytime anyone takes their own life, but especially a child, and this is a growing, creeping problem, especially with this character. 8 I, I have been to the site before. It's been quite a while. No, I've not been involved with any naughty talk or romantic talk with a chatbot. I kind of find it bizarre that people do. But hey, there are lonely people in the world. There are introverted people who are going to take the path of least resistance. And these artificial intelligence chatbots are not resisting anything. They are there to say yes, compared to the real world where people will constantly tell you no, they will suck up to you in a world where other people will tell you to go stick it somewhere. And that's unfortunately why it is so attractive to a lot of people. So this, this site, Character AI has attracted a lot of attention. It's wildly popular. There are a tremendous amount of young people and people of all ages on it. I urge you, I beg, I'm not casting moral aspersions on you if you use Character AI and you like to do naughty or bawdy talk, but I would just ask you, how about turning it off for a week, going out and talking to a real human being? How about talking to your neighbor? How about teacher, I don't know my neighbors. We don't do that sort of thing. And you could start. Why don't you knock on your neighbor's door and invite them over for a cup of tea, coffee, a drink, chit chat, go out to dinner. Anything where we're talking to actual human beings, even when they're messy, even when they're disagreeable, even when their politics are not the same, is generally better than talking to a computer. Now, full, full confession here, full transparency. I have my own AI character. To my knowledge, no one's ever used it to do sexual role play. And it's not designed for that. And I would not encourage that in any way. Nor do I think there's a huge demand for that sort of thing with the tjwalker AI. But I'm not opposed to the use of chatbots and Interactivity and video clones as I have to solve problems, to answer questions, to train people, to coach people, to even give advice. But these AI companies could do a lot more to set up guardrails to build in safety. So if someone says, oh, I'm down, I'm feeling low, what do I do? Steer them in a positive direction. Don't say, oh, you're right, the world is awful. People are horrible. Unfortunately, that is the sort of thing these AIs do. They amplify what you're saying. They pander to you. You're rarely wrong. If you do anything, not just these character AIs, but any AI, it's often there's a bias, and it's a bias towards sucking up to you and, and to me, telling us what we want to hear. And it's nice in the short term, but in the long term, it makes us less likely to be able to deal with reality, less resilient, less able to cope with disappointments in real life. And unfortunately for this Garcia family, their young son isn't going to have any more opportunities to deal with adversity in life. He put a gun to his head and he's over now. The lawsuit claims that the chatbot encouraged addiction, despair, and suicide talk. The bot also sent incest themed sexual role play. Okay, the company is saying, oh, it's just free speech. It's just speech. And look, I do believe in free speech, but everyone in the world who says they believe in free speech does believe in some limits. You don't think it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theater because it's too likely to result in death. And maybe it's not a crowded theater, but if there are millions of teenagers talking to these chatbots, especially these sex chatbots, and a tiny 0.00%, 1% are saying, how do I commit suicide? I'm feeling really down. And the chatbots are encouraging them. That actually might be a lot deadlier than shouting fire in a crowded theater. So I don't think it's as simple as saying, well, there's free speech. There's absolutely no limits. And if the whole human population kills themselves, tough luck. That's the price you pay for free speech. I don't think it's that simple. When you are this big and this powerful, as modern technologies are, as artificial intelligence is, there's some responsibility that has to come with it. So if character AI loses, a lawsuit, has to pay a whole lot of money. That's what motivates them to put more checks into this system to put more guardrails. I think that's a good thing. But let's look at things more as an individual. Now, if you are a parent, I urge you, look at what your kids are looking at online and it's easy to get busy and say, oh, you know, they're going to do what all their other kids are on it. I was guilty of this. I didn't monitor my own daughter's Internet usage. I thought we had strict rails and strict guidelines, but somehow she had overturned. I had to go to the Apple Store just a few weeks ago, regain control, to regain not just what sites she can, she can't even use the Internet, but to decide what apps she can use, text messaging and things like that, and to put very strict time limits. I realize we can't just get in a time machine and force our kids to go back to 1975 when I was a kid and everyone just went outside after school and played and climbed trees and ran around playing tag. We're not going back there. I get it. I'm not delusional. But this idea that our kids have somehow a right to be staring at their cell phone, staring at an iPad, interacting with any website they want, any chatbot, any sex talk, dirty talk, porn, anytime they want, no, you can point a finger at how awful these tech companies are, but at some point parents have to be responsible too. And if you say, well, T.J. you know, I'm so busy, I'm working two jobs, I don't have time for that. Maybe don't buy your kid a cell phone till they're 18. They won't die. Or maybe get the absolute most limited plan possible where there's a strict limit on minutes. Maybe that'll motivate them to go out and get a job if they're 16 years old. I had to work when I was 16. I realized not as many kids do that anymore. But if it's a choice between your 16 year old flipping burgers, which is not the most uplifting job in the world, versus sitting at home talking to a chatbot, I'd much rather a kid flip burgers. I'm TJ Walker. I want to thank you for joining me today. We have a lot of big stories to come. You're not going to want to tune out just yet more in a moment. We'll be talking about some big changes going on at CBS in just a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my 5 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. Welcome back to filtered. I'm TJ Walker. Issue 2 Barry Weiss Eyes Fox News star Brett Baer to anchor CBS Evening News. That is has been reported in mediaite CBS News editor in chief is looking at Fox News anchor Brett Baer, among others, to potentially helm the CBS Evening News, according to sources inside the White at the network, not the White House, although there is a lot of connection there these days. Weiss, who took charge shortly after media mogul David Ellison's acquisition of cbs, has been working to reconfigure day to day operations at the network, reportedly ordering staff to submit detailed memos outlining their roles ahead of expected layoffs and personally interviewing or intervening in the network's booking process, calling guests and weighing in on coverage priorities, which includes a spot for her sister, Free Press co founder Susie Weiss. As a part of her recalibrations, the new editor in chief has been quietly canvassing for a fresh face to anchor the flagship show. And among external candidates Weiss has flouted, has floated Brett Baer as a potential candidate. So who's really going to get this job? It is still a plum job. Internal names like Norah o', Donnell, a former host, and Tony Dokapil remain on the table. Weiss has reportedly spoken with several other colleagues about bringing the Fox mainstay into the CBS fold. This could send a real signal of where the network is headed under Ellison's ownership. A CBS spokesperson declined to comment. And Fox didn't really want to talk about us either. Brett Baier makes $14 million a year and has long been considered Fox News most polished Beltway anchor. He recently extended his contract in 2023, all the way through 2028, so it would be pretty expensive to change that contract. So what's the real message here? Bari Weiss is quickly taking control of CBS News and remolding it. No, it's not new voices, it's not independent voices. It's Fox News 2.0. She's simply saying I'm going to be conservative. And the Problem is the world already has one conservative news network, Fox News Channel. It doesn't need a pale imitation on broadcast. So let's dive in a little bit deeper here. Bari Weiss is a controversial figure. She famously loudly left the New York Times claiming that everyone was sort of mean to her and picked on her and it was too woke. Okay? But Barry Weiss does seem Phoebe trying to milk this whole concept of she's her own brand, she's her own type of wokeness. If you followed Barry Weiss's career and seen her on talk shows and look at what she puts out in her newsletter, everything really comes down to two issues. Issue one is here's another example of the crazy woke left. They've gone too far. She does that again and again and again. Kind of like Fox News and Breitbart and all the other conservative media establishments. Her other hobby horse is if you ever criticize Israel or any leader of Israel, even if 98% of the population of Israel thinks a leader has gone too far and too extremist, if you ever criticize any decision made by an Israeli government official, you're an anti Semite, you're beyond the pale. You are just someone filled with that. Those are her two big ideas. And that essentially is why she was hired for this position. Because the new owners of CBS News are close allies of this administration and this administration shares the same philosophy. The only news is something that makes a centrist or a Democrat or a liberal look far left extremist woke. That's the only kind of news worth covering unless it's positive news about this administration. Any news about Israel has to be filtered through the news of anyone who ever questions anything Israel does is an anti Semite. That's what the administration wants. That's what the owners of CBS News seem to want. And they've put in Bari Weiss. So it does kind of make sense that she would want someone like a Bret Baier. And I will say about Bret Baier, he's not a Sean Hannity. He's not a pure spewing Republican Party talking points kind of guy the way Sean Hannity is and many other of the hosts of Fox News, of all their well known hosts, he has positioned himself as more of a mainstream news guy than anyone else. So I don't have anything horrible to say about Bret Baier. But the reason he gets so many views and is so popular on Fox News, it's because it's Fox News. It's because Fox News has positioned its brand as come to us if you're a conservative and we're going to tell you what you want to hear. The second you take him away, I think his audience falls away. Perfect example of that is Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly was a huge, huge success on the Fox News Channel for many years. Primetime show, huge audience. She went over to abc. Nobody followed her because she was no longer Megyn Kelly on Fox News. She was Megyn Kelly on abc. And ABC had a reputation of being centrist, a real news organization. The people who liked her weren't looking for real news. Now Megyn Kelly is back in the Internet space, the YouTube, the podcasting space. She's a success again because she's in a space where she can create her own brand. If Brit Baer goes to CBS News, he's not going to be recreating what people think of as the brand reputation of cbs. CBS has a brand reputation. Pretty good one, frankly, because of shows like 60 Minute, by most serious people's estimation, the most reputable news show in the history of television. I'm not a regular watcher, but certainly I grew up watching 60 Minutes. It's been around since the 60s. It's such a dominant part of our culture. They've done so many serious news stories that have had an impact on our culture. And they are not seen as ideological other than people who say, unless you're for me 100% of the time, then you're an ideological foe other than those people who you can never please. CBS News is not seen as an ideological place. They're not seen as carrying water for any one political party. So that's why I'm very doubtful that bringing in someone like a Brett Baer to be the anchor of CBS News is going to do much. First of all, I don't know anyone personally who even watches network news. I grew up a news junkie myself. I haven't watched network news in years. 22 minutes, about 8 minutes of ads. It's all kind of the same. So how bringing in somebody that people can access any time of day or night, 24 hours a day on Fox News for a 22 minute thing is gonna change things? I don't see that happening at all. And I think all network news is, is in a dying stage. It's not a growth industry. Growth is right here where I am on YouTube, on TikTok, on podcasting. But traditional broadcast news, cable news, those are dying industries with shrinking audiences and bringing in a big name from cable and putting it on broadcast really to me seems backwards. So apparently they're also Considering former anchor Norah O', Donnell, I well remember her almost 30 years ago. I used to be a regular on all the, all the cable channels opining on various political scandals in Washington. And I would routinely go on MSNBC on the weekends. And sitting next to me was at the time a 24 year old woman. I think she had just graduated from college, was working at the Hill or one of those small newspapers, very polished, articulate. I didn't really notice her. And then she turned and introduced herself to me and I looked. She had blue eyes about three times bigger than my eyes. Now I have small beady eyes. Those of you listening on the podcast, you'll have to take my word for it. But she had blue eyes that were like two or three times bigger than normal humans and they were beautiful. And when you package that together with being smart, hard working, serious, she's had a fantastic news career. It's true Norah o' Donnell did not set the world on fire with ratings at CBS as an anchor. But you know, no one else has either in a long, long time. Not really since the days of Dan rather more than 20 years ago. So it'll be interesting to see how Barry Weiss shuffles around the news. There have been some predictions by people like Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher that at some point the Ellison boy and his father and Paramount are just going to say what do we even want to be in the news business for? And they'll sell off CBS News to private equity or someone else and it will just sort of die through neglect. We'll see. What do you think? You can post your comments right here on any platform where you're watching this or listening to it. Post comments. I typically can find them wherever you do. Let me know what you think, what you agree with, what you disagree with. If you think I got my facts wrong, please feel free to share. Lots more to come today on Filtered with TJ Walker. Please, please don't go away. We'll be right back after this break. Want to advertise here? You better be legit. No crypto, no junk food, no supplements. Go to tjwalker.com advertise Most people can't afford a full time coach and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at TJ Walker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to Filtered. So happy you're spending a little of your time on Saturday with us. Let's dive right into issue three how your brain makes election fraud claims feel real. New research led by Andre Vaz of Rue University reveals that our brains may literally be wired to misinterpret vote counts. When an early leader falls behind later in the tally. People, regardless of political affiliation, are more likely to suspect fraud even when the election is completely fair. The team ran seven studies with nearly 1500 participants across the US and the United Kingdom. The pattern was consistent. Early leaders seem more legitimate, while late comebacks appear suspicious. Baz calls it the cumulative redundancy bias, a mental glitch where first impressions dominate even when facts change. Using data from Georgia's 2020 presidential election, the researchers found that if ballots had been counted in reverse order, it might have been Democrats, not Republicans crying foul. The findings, published in Psychological Science, suggest false election beliefs aren't purely partisan, they're partly psychological. Okay, so let's go a little deep here. What does this really mean? It turns out we as human beings are always suspicious about bias against us. Even in elections. If your candidate is winning an up ahead election night and they don't end up winning a day or two later, you're going to think there was cheating. Doesn't matter what party you're in. Let's dig a little deeper here. So I think this I wanted to bring this study to your attention because I do think if you want to be a successful human being, it is important to have self awareness and to be aware of how we all have biases. I have biases. You have biases. If you think you're neutral or objective, then you have a delusional bias. We all are subjected to various biases and this is called the cumulative redundancy bias. If you think, okay, my candidate was winning at 6 o', clock, 7 o', clock, 8 o', clock, midnight, and now it's the next day they're behind. You know the vote count couldn't have changed. Well, it can. It actually can. Now there are some differences though. I buy into this idea that this can happen to people regardless of their ideology or regardless of their party. What did happen in the United States in recent years goes beyond that. It's one thing to Think, okay, maybe something strange or funny happened in the election or why, why was my candidate winning election night? And then ultimately they failed. I think it's, it's one thing to think, okay, maybe there was some bias, maybe there was some funny stuff. It's another thing to want to go kill the vice president, which I'm not advocating, obviously, but some did. It's another thing to take pitchforks and guns and raid the Capitol because you are so convinced that something foul happened, that some fraud take place. There's a confidence there. There's an absolute commitment to knowing you're right that I don't think spans the ideological spectrum. Because at some point I believe truly intelligent people, self aware people understand, okay, I could be wrong. I might want a particular outcome, I might think a particular outcome was supposed to happen, but I could be wrong. That is the hallmark of an educated person, an intelligent person, a self aware person. It is the hallmark not of all successful people, but I would argue most intelligent people. And sadly, it is not in huge demand today and I think you could figure out where. But again, this study shows it can happen to Democrats and Republicans. So in this case, as much as I don't like both sideism thrown out so often in political discourse, this basic perception problem of feeling like your side got ripped off has been proven according to these studies, to be bipartisan. Again, they looked at seven different studies, 1500 participants. If the vote change happens late in the game, after the polls have closed, and especially if more than a day has passed, there is this perception by people that, wow, there was some kind of fraud going on here, even when it's simply a function of how votes can be counted. I'm TJ Walker. We've got some more stories ahead for you. We're going to be taking a look at some what I think is positive news going on in California and how that state is trying to create healthier children and healthier diets for children. More in a moment. Filtered is brought to you by the following. You don't need a new degree. You don't need another expensive coach. You have. Don't you need the right communication habits? And I'll teach them to you in just a few minutes a day. @mediatrainingworldwide.com I've created the most comprehensive library of online communication and personal development courses anywhere. You'll learn public speaking, media training, persuasion, executive presence, and more. These are the same methods I taught to world leaders, but now they're affordable and accessible. Accessible to everyone. You can start for free and upgrade anytime. Go now to mediatrainingworldwide.com confidence isn't a personality trait, it's a skill. And it's trainable. Most people can't afford a full time coach and even if you could, good luck finding one who's available when you need them. That's why I created the TJ Walker AI clone. It's built on my four 40 plus years of real world coaching and training. You get my exact advice, style and frameworks instantly. Ask it how to handle a tough question. Get feedback on your elevator pitch. Rehearse your next big talk. This is the next generation of communication coaching. It's smarter than an app, more personal than a course, and always ready. Start using it today at TJ Walker AI. You'll wonder how you ever did without it. Welcome back to filtered issue 4 new California law aims to improve school nutrition by phasing out some unprocessed foods California will phase out all kinds of what I think of as nasty stuff but is tasty from school meals over the next decade under a First in the Nation law signed Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The law seeks to define ultra processed foods, the often super tasty products typically full of sugar, salt and unhealthy fats. The legislation requires the state's Department of Public Health to adopt rules by mid-2028 defining ultra processed foods of concern and restricted school foods. Schools have to start phasing out those foods by July 2029 and districts will be barred from selling them for breakfast or lunch by July 2035. It does seem like a long way off. Vendors will be banned from providing the foods of concern to schools by 2032. Now Newsom was flanked by first partner Jennifer Seibel Newsom and state lawmakers. He signed the measure at a middle school in Los Angeles, said, quote, california has never waited for Washington or anyone else to lead on kids health. We've been out front for years removing harmful additives and improving school nutrition, newsom said. This first in the Nation law builds on the work to make sure every California student has access to healthy, delicious foods that help them thrive. Okay, I don't want to sound like I'm just promoting governor Newsom. He's a mixed bag. He does a lot of things well right now as he's positioning himself to run for president. Stuff like this, frankly, might not help because one thing we Americans love is eating garbage. Let's face it, other than a few tiny nations, perhaps in the Pacific, the South Pacific, we Americans are more obese than anyone. There's Been recent studies showing that some 70% of Americans are aren't just overweight, but according to new metrics, are actually obese. So we love our junk food. What this measure would do is try to remove sugary cereals. Confession. I ate a lot of Sugar Pops and Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms as a kid. And no, I don't think it was good for me. And, yeah, I do regret it. They're getting rid of flavored milk. I used to love chocolate milk, strawberry milk. It's just pure sugar. Juice boxes. Now, this confuses people because a lot of people think, oh, my kid's not drinking Coke, they're drinking apple juice. Unfortunately, there's so much sugar in these juices, you're far better off just eating an apple and drinking water rather than drinking apple juice. Fried foods, frozen nuggets, pizza. I mean, what kids are served in schools is an abomination. It really is. What's going to happen here? What's the real message here? The message is kids are going to find enough way to poison themselves their whole life. They don't need schools poisoning them with junk food. Give kids fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, unprocessed food, at least one meal a day. Give them some foundation of decent health in their life. Now this is a huge problem. What to feed kids at school. Part of it is an expense issue. I many years ago had the good privilege of working with a chef who was instrumental in overseeing how many schools in the Chicago area serve their kids at lunch. And what he told me was, the problem with schools across America is that everyone's trying to be the Cheesecake Factory. All these schools want to give everyone, you know, five, six different options. All these menu options, they don't have time to cook all that stuff. So in many schools that he went to, what he found is all the cooking tools, the knives, the things you used to actually cook food were all up on a shelf collecting dust. The only thing anyone did in a school cafeteria was open boxes of frozen food, microwave things, heat things, put them in a dish in front of people, and it was all incredibly filled with sugar, processed fat, processed carbohydrates, lots of salt. It's essentially poison for kids. And that's what school cafeterias are doing. And then so much of it is awful. It's all thrown away. So here's the unique approach he did. He said, from now on, we're not going to give people five, 10, 20 choices each day at lunch. We're going to have two choices. We're going to have One main meal, and then we're going to have a salad bar for people who don't want that. And what he did is he would go in and actually talk to students and say, you tell me, what do you like to eat? What do you want? Let's brainstorm together. And teachers. So they came together on some agreement. And yes, one day, at least one day a month was pizza, but it was made fresh. It wasn't frozen stuff. Here's what he found. By focusing on just one main course and the two sides for a lunch, it freed up all of the time of the people in the cafeterias. It was actually less expensive because they weren't throwing away so much food every day. They cooked good food, delicious food that people actually liked eating, and they had a fresh salad bar each day. It's a different way of doing it, but it's not necessarily more expensive. So many things about helping people and making them healthier. Often you have the roadblock. That would cost too much. Nice to do in a perfect world, tj but it costs too much. It doesn't actually cost too much to go from giving people five, six, eight choices of highly processed food that's incredibly unhealthy, that's frozen and microwaved, to giving them one choice that at least a whole bunch of students said they want to eat and cooking it fresh. Each day, the waste goes way, way down, the efficiency goes up. So I'm hoping that California will do that as well. Because if you just take all the junk food out and instead you put in eight other types of frozen vegetables reheated with no flavor and no real cooking, you're just going to find that anger Students are going to throw it all away and they'll start smuggling in junk food and McDonald's and M&Ms. In their lunchboxes. So I'm hoping that this starts a trend. A lot of people like to make fun of California, but you know what they don't make fun of is California's ability to innovate because there are more billionaires made in California. There's more economic value made in California than any place in the world. Does that mean they're smarter than you and everyone else when it comes to every aspect of how to live? No, but they sure seem healthier. And I don't mean just because of all the Botox and plastic surgery in la. They seem healthier than when I go to other states around the country. So let's see if this can take off. To me, it just seems bizarre. A school that is given the mission of educating kids to try to help them become healthy adults would then send the mixed message of eat healthy, here's the food pyramid. And oh, by the way, here's a vending machine with with cookie candies and Coke. Why not sell cigarettes? It wouldn't be any less contradictory. What do you think? Post your comments if you're watching this on Demand, post your comments on YouTube TikTok anyplace else. And I try to respond to as many of you as I possibly can. I would love to hear from you. Whether it's today or Saturday, we're live on October 25th, or you're watching this on Demand in the future. More to come this one has a real bipartisan twist to it. It's about politicians who maybe, just maybe, are past their expiration date. More in a moment. We'll be right back after this break. Want more? Grab my five book success library for $9.95 at TJ Walker. 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. Welcome back to filtered issue 5. Eleanor Holmes Norton scammed at home by a group claiming to be a cleaning crew delegate. Eleanor Holmes Holmes Norton. Let me explain what that means. So Washington, D.C. isn't really a state. So they don't get members of Congress, but they elect shadow members of Congress and House and Senate. So Eleanor Holmes Norton has been there forever. I remember when I worked on Capitol Hill. This is going back 35 years. She was there. Frankly, she seemed kind of old back then. Well, she's still there. So she's the longtime non voting representative for D.C. they get to attend the meetings, be there, make speeches, but they can't actually vote in a way that counts. But she is there representing Washington, D.C. in the House, so it's still considered a serious position. She's treated in some ways almost like a member of Congress. Well, recently she was scammed in her home by people who said they were part of a cleaning crew. Her office told News 4 the suspects charged almost $4,400 to her credit card for work. They did not perform well. That was either a Messy house or she's a good tipper. So the police looked into this, and in the police report, they described Norton, who's 88 years old, as having the early stages of dementia and said Norton as a caretaker with the power of attorney. Norton's office pushed back against that claim, saying the medical diagnosis included in the police report was based on an assumption the reporting officer was unqualified to make. More about that in a moment. Norton's staff says she believed the workers were arranged by her house manager and gave them her credit card. When the fraud was discovered, her friend and campaign treasurer, Jacqueline Pelt, called police and canceled the card. Police are treating the case as felony fraud. Norton, who's held her seat since 1991, says she's safe and plans to continue serving. Now, some added facts here. Roughly one third of Americans age 88 and older live with Alzheimer's or another form of dementia, according to the Alzheimer's Association. Okay, what's the real message here? Okay, come on, Democrats and come on, Republicans, at some point, get some new blood. It's time to step down. It's time to retire. Eleanor holmes Norton is 88 years old. She's like a year and a half away from being in her 10th decade of hitting 90. It's time to retire. When almost every other person that age has Alzheimer's, it's really rolling the dice, which, if it's just for you, no big deal. But it's all the constituents who have to be worried, too. Look, we saw it with Biden. We're seeing it with Trump. Now. Maybe it's time, as a society, we say, okay, you can't vote until you're 18. You can't serve in office if you're over 70. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. I have no problem with Eleanor Holmes Norton as far as how she votes. It's just a question of, is she all there? Is she being taken advantage of? And this really is a bipartisan problem, because when you're in Congress or you're in a position of high power, if you're a president or a leader or a prime minister, you have so many people around you where they're loyal to you. In many cases, they love you, they care about you. Plus, all of these feelings are intermingled with their own careers, their own self interest. If the person retires or quits, they're unemployed, they're out of a job. I mean, I. Well, remember back in the day in Washington where you had Strom thurmond, who was 100 years old who did not seem to know what century he lived in. His staff had to whisper to him, hey, pull this lever to vote. And I mean, the stuff he got away with. He was notorious for going into the elevators for senators, going up to other senators, groping them. Senator Boxer from California had to be groped by this guy. He's 100 years old. This was before the MeToo movement, but, wow, he just stayed on too long. Because all the lobbyists want a reliable vote. The campaign funders want continued return on their investments from previous campaigns. All the campaign staff wants to keep their job. And was there a part of this that propped up Biden for too long? Okay, sure. One thing about their staff putting out this message saying, well, the police officer was not qualified to officially diagnose Eleanor Holmes Norton as having dementia. They're true. That's accurate. Police officers are not trained psychologists or psychiatrists or medical doctors. But a lot of police officers have a lot of experience knocking on doors of people who are 80 years old plus 90 years old, and they know it when they see it. In the same way, I would argue, any American who watched the political debate last year between Donald Trump and Joe Biden quickly came to the conclusion this was a bipartisan thing. I'm not saying anything shocking or partisan. Any American, even those who didn't have Ph degrees in psychology or weren't psychiatrists, came to the conclusion, Joe Biden ain't all there. And it appears to me that this shadow member of Congress who's 88 years old, is in a similar place. She ain't all there. And I realize I'm not making a clinical diagnosis. I'm not saying she should be institutionalized, but at some point, it's time to give other people a chance. If you still have something to say. Congresswoman Norton, as she's sometimes called, do a podcast, do a YouTube channel, do TikTok. If you've got so much to say and so many things you want to weigh in on. Because here's the thing, there are sort of natural term limits for commentators. If all of a sudden I can't string together two words and I turn the camera on and I just drool into the microphone, well, pretty soon I will be retired whether I want to or not, because no one will watch anymore. Unfortunately, there's no automatic mechanism to do that for members of Congress, for governors, although so many states have term limits for governors, and we do technically have term limits for presidents of the United States. We'll see if that is respected next time. Okay, message to both parties. Be a real party, use some of your influence. If we have to get a bunch of people, I won't just say men. Let's, let's get men and women in a smoke filled room, even though maybe it's just aromatherapy to chomp on pretend cigars or rubber or bubblegum cigars and sit around and say, hey, Norton's too, Walker's too old. Let's get another candidate. If that's what it takes, then use some party political leadership and politely tell people, you've got to retire. You got to make room for new blood. You had a good run. 30, 40 years. Case of Joe Biden half a century. It's a good run. It's time to let someone else have a chance. Okay, we're going to switch now to our grab bag portion of the show. We typically will look at the top five stories of the day right here on Filtered. And we sort of do an in depth analysis looking at things from a communication, a personal development perspective. Then we look at some smaller issues too, where we don't have quite as much time. But one last note. If you are a leader, if you're in a leadership position, whether you are a member of Congress, a head of a political party in a country, a prime minister, for that matter, a CEO of a publicly traded company, at some point you need to have some kitchen cabinet people you admire respect to give you the truth and say, look, once a year, if you're over, I don't know, 65, once a year, let's have a meeting, give me honest feedback. Is it time for me to stop? Is it time for me to retire? Is it time for me to hand the baton to someone else? Strong leaders, self confident leaders do that. At some point I might too. Although I think it's a little bit easier as a pundit and as a commentator because your audience will tell you. Because you're not afraid to say, hey, T.J. you're losing your hair. You know, your jawline is. I can take that. If you, if every single day people saying, tj, you're losing your marbles. I don't want to. It's not that I disagree with you politically. What you're saying just doesn't make any sense anymore. Time to hang out. I'm going to listen to you. And I probably will retire that. But I do think you can, you can be a commentator much longer than you can actually wield political power effectively. Because if you look at commentators, whether it's Pat Robertson doing it, almost Agent 90 or you know, Rush Limbaugh doing it. Even though I wasn't a fan of Rush Limbaugh's politics, he did it until right before he died. If you look at Paul Harvey, someone well known to American audiences for half a century, he did it almost to the day he died, when he was almost 90 years old. There's certain things you can do, especially if it's a script, that you simply can't do if you're in the. The rough and tumble of politics. Okay, we're going to switch gear and head to our grab bag section. Big tech helped bankroll the East Wing destruction. You've seen the footage of the East Wing of the White House, which was thought by many to be a national, you know, a national treasure. It's been demolished. Mother Jones reports that Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Google helped finance the demolition of the White House East Wing to build President Trump's new $230 million ballroom. The White House insists no taxpayer dollars were used, but ethics experts say the donations create a clear conflict of interest. That's a quaint term that used to be talked about in America, but apparently it's considered a dinosaur now. But some dukes still consider this a conflict of interest, since the same companies rely on the Trump administration for policy decisions. Antitrust, tariffs, infrastructure, things like that. Okay, here's the problem. Trump, or someone close to Trump, went to these big tech guys and said, hey, boys, nice company you got there. Shame would be shame if someone doubled your taxes or never let you have another acquisition or passed, signed a new law saying, you're out of business tomorrow. By the way, why don't you give me 10, 20 million dollars for my little project? You don't even have to know what it is. Look, I'm not saying that the CEOs of Apple and Meta and Google are profiles encouraged these days. They're not. It's very hard to say no to a president, even in normal times. But when the president has a vindictiveness streak where you instantly become an enemy and possibly have the Department of Justice coming after you to throw you in prison, it's really hard to say no. It's easy for me in the cheap sheets to just say, look at these cowards, these losers, these billionaire CEOs, like Jeff Bezos and the head of Apple and Microsoft and Meta, it's easy to say that. But I do understand they are in a difficult position. They are being squeezed, and they're being squeezed by someone who isn't playing Beanbag. He's playing for real. I Do think I mentioned this earlier in the week, that at least one Democrat needs to start running for president under the platform of day one. The first thing I do is tear down Trump's ballroom and we are going to rebuild the east wing of the White House as it was for the 20th century and start raising money for it. And then let's go back to these same tech companies and say, look, you paid for this destruction. You should not have done that. You're going to pay to restore it where it was. I think that's going to be a winning issue for, I say, a Democratic candidate. It could be an honest Republican doing the same thing or an independent or some new political party because this White House destruction is an atrocity. The last time someone did major, major changes in the Truman administration, Truman took the time to hold hearings, to get permission, talk to archivists, talk to people who really knew about architecture. It wasn't just, hey, I got an idea of how to make this look like Mar a Lago. Bring the wrecking crew in tomorrow and start swinging the big ball. Done a little bit differently this time. Okay, we're going to switch gears now. And what I'd like to do recently in this show and I'm going to continue doing is taking your questions that relate directly to personal development and communication skills. Those of you don't know me. For 40 years, I have trained people, CEOs, presidents of countries, political leaders, but also people just like you, insurance executives, authors, consultants on how to communicate more effectively and how to have personal development skills in order to be more successful. So my students often write me questions. This question comes courtesy of Luca. Luca is one of my students in my complete communication skills class. And Luca says, how can I improve my overall communication skills so that I can better understand others, speak to them in the right way, and genuinely enjoy engaging conversations with friends, colleagues, and even strangers. Luca, that's a fantastic question. I love that because it's not just about me, me, me, me, how do I make myself look good? How do I get over being nervous? You're talking about how do you enjoy other people? Help them. That's good. You're on the right path. For starters, you need to have some sense of self awareness and awareness of others. In realize most people just want to be listened to. Everyone wants to feel special. And the most powerful communication you can ever do with someone is to not just look like you're listening to them, not just act like you're listening to them, but to really listen to them, to be in the moment Focus on them, the danger. And I'm guilty of this. We're all guilty of it from time to time. Time is you're in a conversation with someone and you're thinking the whole time. Okay, how do I say my next bit? This reminds me of this interesting story where everyone thinks I'm clever. Oh, they said something and I was there two months earlier and I know more about it than they do. So how can I interject that to show them how smart I am? Everyone's guilty of that occasionally I am too. But you need to fight that. True communicators, people who are really good, have this ability to suspend their thoughts, almost have their mind go blank and just listen to what someone is saying, to listen to their concerns, to be listening and thinking about, oh, is this interesting? How can I learn more about that? What are they doing that's nice and fun, where I should reward them or thank them or say that's well done or that's interesting or fascinating. How can I follow up to pull more out of them in a way where they really feel like they're sharing and they're interesting? Me. Focus on that and people will think you're the most interesting conversationalist in the world. And then ideally add to what they're saying. Listen to them. Ask follow up questions when you're not completely certain what they're saying. Ask questions restating what they've said. I hear you saying X, Y and Z. I want to make sure I'm understanding right. Does this mean abd do that? And sometimes they'll say, yes, you're getting it. Yes, thank you. Sometimes they'll say that's not quite right. And they'll give another example. Then you'll get it, you can verify it. And real communication takes place. So often we live in a world where everyone is talking past each other. I remember once I went to a talk radio show host convention. This was in Houston in 1995, and. And Sean Hannity was there, I believe, and Alan Combs and G. Gordon Liddy. And it was just funny walking around. Everyone was talking over each other the whole time. I was probably guilty of it as well. But it was talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Nobody wanted to listen. It can be that way when I've been at national speakers Associations conventions, which I was an active member of that organization for many years. And sometimes you go and you'll sit at a table. Everyone is giving snippets of their keynote speech, of their signature story, and no one's listening to anyone. They not always, but it did happen. So, Luca, my advice to you is first and foremost, try to really listen to someone. Ask questions about what they're saying. Make sure you understand, but also reflect on what they're saying to see what makes it relevant and interesting and useful to you. This will make it more interesting to you. This will make you more engaged with them and then share in a way where it's not like they're being interviewed. You don't want people to feel like all you're doing is asking questions and they have to talk all the time. There needs to be give and take, but make sure you give attention first before giving your own Insights. I'm T.J. walker. I want to thank you for spending time with me today. Thanks to my friends on LinkedIn and Twitch and YouTube and TikTok and Facebook and all the other platforms. If you are listening on itunes or Spotify or iHeartRadio, thank you so much for doing so. Please be sure to follow the show and subscribe to it. Our own research shows so many of you who listen on a podcast app don't actually subscribe or follow, so please do so. Sends a signal to that platform that may be other people on the platform would enjoy this show too. Thanks so much. I'll see you later today with more and more videos on this channel and then tomorrow live. Again. As always, thanks.