Episode 31 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Torching Bridges (with David Angelo)
with David Angelo
Feb 7, 2017 · 1:03:16 · 17 segments, 119 moments indexed
- 1 min
Show open with the network's tagline about examining billionaires, dictators, and CEOs.
2moments
- 0:00Tim introduces the show as a critical examination of society's most hated figures: billionaires, dictators, and CEOs
- 0:16GaS Digital Network branding closes the cold open
- 2 min
2:30 AM Mud Pie Sundae and the Super Catching Him in a Robe
#Tim describes ordering a delivered mud pie sundae at 2:30am and then being interrupted by his building's superintendent checking for a gas leak while he sat in a robe.
4moments
- 0:36Bakery near Tim opens at 3 a.m. and will deliver entire cakes at 2:30 in the morning.
- 0:47Tim got a mud pie sundae delivered via Seamless at 2:30 a.m. last night.
- 1:20His super, described as a Nazi, knocked on his door at 2:30 a.m. claiming they smelled gas.
- 1:43The super asked if he could take a shower while Tim was in a robe eating the mud pie sundae.
bakery
- 3 min
History of Rock and Roll at Molloy College with His Mom's Crew
#Tim recounts taking his mother, aunt Donna, and Lucille Betelucco to see the Drifters and the Platters perform for an elderly Long Island crowd, describing the raunchy old singer flirting with the audience and an awkward Black History Month announcement that spirals into an oddly Trumpist rant from one performer.
9moments
- 2:10Tim took his mother, aunts, and family friends to see the History of Rock and Roll at Molloy College
- 2:39The show featured the Drifters and the Platters, with almost all original members dead except one survivor
- 3:10Tim realizes the Drifters and Platters are legendary bands despite being mostly deceased
- 3:31The Platters performed 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' and Tim found himself actually enjoying it
- 3:52Tim compares it to attending Lincoln Center with his mother's church group and a coach bus full of 75-year-old women
- 4:04The elderly attendees' bodies are literally breaking down from entropy and age-related digestive issues
- 4:18The musicians clearly don't want to perform, and this appears to be their best gig in six months
- 4:37Tim reflects that these gigs are rough for everyone involved and admits he's performed in that same theater
- 4:48Tim questions whether the women in the audience showed up because they were once sexually involved with members of the Platters
The DriftersThe PlattersMolloy CollegeLincoln CenterLucille BeteluccoAunt Donna
- 1 min
Tim briefly acknowledges their guest is waiting before continuing to riff.
1moment
- 4:52Tim teases that the guest has arrived but won't be introduced right away
- 4 min
Tim formally introduces guest Mr. David Angelo, a Daily Show writer and comedian, framing him as a rare voice willing to push back on liberal groupthink in comedy.
7moments
- 5:26Drifters performer opens with sexual commentary about women, shocking the audience despite his age.
- 5:51Tim notes that sexually explicit heckling from an 80-year-old performer gets a pass because of his age and talent, while the same behavior would cause police to be called at a modern comedy show.
- 6:34The Long Island venue had barely any Black attendees despite introducing the show as a Black History Month presentation.
- 7:02Audience clearly indifferent to Black History Month messaging, wanting the performers to just play music.
- 7:26Drifters performer launches into a political rant about young people pulling up their pants and turning their hats around, referencing Donald Trump.
- 7:53Performer claims he fought for the country and tells his son to stop listening to rap music, receiving thunderous applause from the crowd.
- 8:16Tim observes the performance gradually becomes like a Trump rally, building momentum toward increasingly extreme rhetoric.
Donald TrumpLong IslandThe DriftersRichard SpencerBlack History MonthThe PlattersLucille BetaluccoWilliamsburg
- 4 min
David and Tim discuss the industry-wide 'nervous breakdown' after Trump's win, why pundits missed it despite huge rally crowds, and the fixation on the popular vote as a coping mechanism.
7moments
- 9:01David Angelo approaches things from a libertarian perspective and is good at fleshing out arguments and showing where they're wrong.
- 9:57After Trump got elected, people in the industry and comedy had a nervous breakdown as a mass.
- 10:58David knew Trump would win because nobody thought he would, and the shock is what everyone is still processing.
- 11:27The biggest red flag was Trump pulling 25,000 people to rallies while news outlets claimed he had no support and Hillary had tiny events.
- 11:56Hillary won the popular vote by 4 million, but if it were a popular vote election, both candidates would have campaigned in different places entirely.
- 12:24The popular vote obsession is part of coping with the loss, like a stage of grief—it's denial.
- 12:41In New York City, unless you were a Democrat you wouldn't vote because you know the state isn't going your way.
- 5 min
They dig into Trump cabinet picks like Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions, arguing the outrage is driven by teachers' unions and inconsistent partisan standards rather than principle.
11moments
- 13:08People were more proud to vote for Hillary than Trump, and people lied in the polls about supporting him.
- 13:24At shows with 200 people, nobody admits they support Trump, but someone always does.
- 13:54Being Mexican in Texas is safer than wearing a Trump hat on the New York subway.
- 14:20Tim considered himself liberal relative to Bush, but his opinions haven't changed—the world around him has.
- 14:35When Trump said elections are rigged, everyone reflexively denied it, but election rigging is real.
- 15:23Hillary and the DNC had clear shenanigans like Donna Brazile giving debate questions in advance.
- 15:45Comedians now feel they have a job to educate people and beat them over the head with activism every day.
- 16:29Comics were like this with Bush, but went full revolutionary within 48 hours of Trump becoming president.
- 16:55Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary seems unqualified, but the outrage around her is exaggerated.
- 17:19The Jeff Sessions racism accusation comes from him supposedly calling someone 'boy,' plus a witness from the 80s who later recanted.
- 17:50All this stuff with DeVos is so flimsy—why are people so emotionally upset about it?
Donna BrazilBetsy DeVosDonald TrumpJeff SessionsHillary ClintonAl Franken
- 5 min
David discusses comedians feeling pressured into activism post-Trump, his own risk of career fallout for going against the grain, and his controversial stance that punching Richard Spencer is not something progressives should defend.
8moments
- 18:09Tim argues that partisan media coverage of cabinet appointments like Betsy DeVos filters down through political action committees and bloggers to ordinary people without children who care about education policy.
- 19:11Celebrities and Hollywood figures have essentially no political effect, citing the failed "unfollow Trump" hashtag campaign that backfired when his follower count increased instead.
- 19:58The school system has been broken for decades and needs a massive overhaul that will probably never happen, but Tim won't pretend he's defending Betsy DeVos specifically.
- 20:45Progressive critics lack consistency—they demand diverse cabinets but then call any minority who meets with Trump a race traitor.
- 21:22During the Obama administration, military interventions in Libya and Syria went uncriticized by the same people now calling Trump a fascist.
- 21:47Working for the Daily Show while saying things outside the approved talking points marks Tim as an extremist in an era where everyone's unhinged.
- 22:31Tim's position on Richard Spencer being punched: progressives can't justify violence based on someone's views, even if getting punched is a reasonable expectation for those positions.
- 23:07Liberals have put Tim in the awkward position of having to defend Richard Spencer against their activism.
Betsy DeVosRichard SpencerEzra KleinBlackwaterDaily ShowDonald Trump
- 4 min
David describes the danger of being 'co-opted' online, including having tweets retweeted by Richard Spencer and Ann Coulter, and describes vowing after the election to just be funny rather than engage in Twitter wars.
9moments
- 23:18Tim's eight-year position: stop giving power to the federal government, or you end up with a Trump who has too much power.
- 23:49The media manufactures fake outrage daily—like the time they said Trump photoshopped his hands.
- 24:07Saying you need to violently stop someone you disagree with is fascism, not antifascism.
- 24:30Tim protested the Iraq War in college and wanted to engage with people he disagreed with to discredit them through debate.
- 25:04Nazis and white supremacists are the easiest people to debate, so why are activists afraid to face them?
- 25:44A comic with 200 followers in the liberal show business circle called Tim a Nazi sympathizer on a factual tweet about Richard Spencer.
- 26:27Tim insists nothing he says is particularly bad and doesn't even have a pinned tweet supporting Trump.
- 26:53Stop denying facts: the travel ban isn't technically a Muslim ban, but it does primarily affect Muslims.
- 27:11The ban affects everyone it targets, even if it doesn't cover all Muslims.
- 7 min
They debate whether Trump's travel ban is technically a 'Muslim ban,' discuss the no-fly list precedent under Obama and John Lewis, terrorism statistics versus Kim Kardashian's toddler-gun tweet, and open-borders protest chants.
11moments
- 27:22The no-fly list affects American citizens who are predominantly Muslim, yet there's no outcry because it's on the liberal agenda.
- 28:13Tim pushes back on claims the executive order was sloppy, asking what specifically was changed and challenging news hysteria versus the actual order.
- 29:14Calling it a Muslim ban is semantics—the actual policy can't be described that way when you look at what the executive order says.
- 29:29Kim Kardashian's tweet claiming armed toddlers kill more people than terrorism is completely bullshit and represents madness in the debate.
- 30:01Starting terrorism statistics on 9-12 instead of 9-11 is a trick—3,500 people didn't just stop mattering the next day.
- 30:38Since 9-11 there haven't been large-scale terror attacks, and the supposedly thwarted attacks seem like weird FBI sting operations.
- 31:18Most guys caught in terror plots are already surveilled by FBI—so why does stuff slip through when 22 intelligence agencies are involved?
- 32:20You can't deny terrorism is real and then debate Trump on the travel ban; you have to acknowledge the threat to have a serious conversation.
- 33:04The Bush administration used war powers and color-coded threat systems to expand executive power under the guise of fighting terrorism.
- 33:58Countries are actually at war with the U.S.—we're droning Yemen and Libya—so blaming a travel ban for radicalization while bombing them is absurd.
- 34:25MSNBC and Rachel Maddow are pushing for war with Russia while simultaneously criticizing Trump's foreign policy, which is madness.
John LewisKim KardashianRachel Maddow
- 6 min
Discussion of whether terror plots are real threats or FBI-engineered stings, US foreign wars in Libya, Syria, and Yemen creating blowback, and the contradiction of MSNBC wanting war with Russia while calling Trump fascist.
9moments
- 35:06Tim points out the contradiction: liberals simultaneously claim Trump will take us to Armageddon while saying he's not tough enough on Russia.
- 35:41Protesters chanting "no borders, no nations, no deportation" don't seem like adults are in charge anywhere, because you can't function without a nation or borders.
- 36:19The difference between right and left: even super liberal anti-Trump people have good intentions, but when Tim applies the same logic to himself, he's attacked as not caring and being an asshole.
- 37:03Working at the Daily Show as someone with contrarian views is tough because he's the outlier there on some of the business.
- 37:52Tim decided after the election that trying to argue politics on social media was pointless—like getting an insurance quote on Grindr.
- 38:32You can't control what happens to your tweets: if a white supremacist retweets something saying you love your family, it doesn't make you wrong, just coopted.
- 39:17Tim gets more criticism for not attacking Trump than he thinks should be necessary, since everyone he knows already does it constantly.
- 39:55Ann Coulter retweeted a joke of his from 2012 that he didn't even understand himself, and he panicked about being associated with her.
- 40:23If anything gets a hundred retweets, Tim wants to delete it—he'd rather stay anonymous than become a thing on social media.
Michelle WolfDonald TrumpDaily ShowAnn CoulterRichard Spencer
- 3 min
David talks about losing friends and being called uncaring for taking measured positions, comparing arguing online to 'getting an insurance quote on Grindr,' and deciding to just focus on being funny.
6moments
- 40:39Tim criticized liberals for inconsistency on the travel ban, then Richard Spencer retweeted it to his audience.
- 41:35Blocking Spencer on Twitter because his fans would associate Tim with that world.
- 42:21Tim got into a Twitter war with Dan Kim, CEO of Red Mango, over their frozen yogurt not being self-serve.
- 43:03Someone replied to Tim's tweet about Dan Kim with a racial slur for no reason.
- 43:31After the election, Tim realized Twitter made him cede too much control to trolls and bad-faith actors.
- 43:59Future plans: whether Tim wants to write a political show or continue as a writer.
- 4 min
David discusses not wanting to become 'the political guy,' his unpaid Fox News Red Eye appearances alongside oddball guests, and getting called a monster on Grindr after a Daily Show clip of his Obama-crying-about-guns joke went viral.
9moments
- 44:30Tim explains he already has a staff job, so his next career move needs to be self-directed rather than another traditional position.
- 44:47He doesn't want to become known as a political guy because political fans are awful—they abandon you the moment you deviate from their expectations.
- 45:19Tim used to do Red Eye twice a month for over a year without pay.
- 45:38He was on Red Eye with John Based Out, the infomercial abs guy, and felt like he was participating in a deranged carnival.
- 46:06Tim decided not to do Red Eye again because making people laugh without tangible benefit while potentially being branded as a Fox News guy made it feel like a freak show.
- 46:49The real problem: Red Eye has negative potential for being branded that way but offers no actual benefit—no payment, no career boost.
- 47:21Tim made a point on Red Eye that Obama cried selectively about guns while presidents are generally sociopaths who control their emotions.
- 47:44The Daily Show clipped his Red Eye appearance, and he got a message on Grindr from someone calling him a monster for not caring that kids died.
- 47:57Tim received no payment for Red Eye but got publicly attacked and lumped into a montage with people making ten million a year.
The Daily ShowRed EyeBarack ObamaJohn Based OutMegyn Kelly
- 7 min
They discuss whether tweeting political opinions is compulsive like a cigarette habit, and David explains his Iraq War-era disillusionment with media propaganda as the root of his need to be provably right.
9moments
- 49:04Tim asks if posting about politics feels like an addiction, comparing it to compulsively smoking cigarettes.
- 49:48Tim describes his nervous breakdown during the Iraq War, working near CNN's Crossfire studio while watching propaganda about weapons of mass destruction unfold.
- 50:26His motivation for posting online: proving he wasn't a lunatic at the time by documenting the obvious bullshit nobody else would acknowledge.
- 51:19Social media has impaired meaningful conversations, reducing everything to character limits while people with no historical knowledge make Holocaust comparisons.
- 52:30Tim criticizes Hollywood for refusing to say that justifying violence against political opponents isn't smart, even if you think someone is a fascist.
- 53:21Younger comedians face career risk for taking contrarian positions, unlike established comics like Rogan, Carolla, and DePaulo.
- 53:52Tim stopped writing long-winded political posts because he realized they weren't funny and his voice only matters when it makes people laugh.
- 54:56Hollywood actors get away with unfunny garbage as long as it promotes the right political agenda, but comedians face consequences for the opposite.
- 55:34Tim says he has to criticize the double standard because it's bullshit, even though it costs him money and keeps him from becoming a millionaire.
Iraq WarJoe RoganCNNNothing's EasyNew York TimesAdam CarollaJim NortonNick DePaulo+1 more
- 5 min
David argues Hollywood liberals can say unfunny, empty political content and be revered while dissenters are punished, then they pivot to student loans inflating college costs the way subsidies inflate everything else.
11moments
- 55:58Tim's formula: 5% funnier as a comedian and he'd be a millionaire; 30% less funny and he'd be a multi-millionaire.
- 56:30Kids choosing to become plumbers making $200,000 versus PhD sociology graduates working at Starbucks will eventually force a reckoning in higher education.
- 57:02Student loans created the college affordability crisis—in the 1960s college cost $40 and nobody needed loans, but removing market incentive for price control made it a disaster.
- 57:30Government subsidies on anything—housing, education, healthcare, war—drive prices through the roof, just like if they subsidized orange juice it would cost $20.
- 57:56Tim has been critical of Trump and doesn't think opposition to him is a crazy position despite acknowledging he has problems.
- 58:27Trump campaigned explicitly on a Muslim ban and won, so the travel ban shouldn't be treated as out of the blue.
- 58:47If the travel ban is just step one of incremental rights erosion, people who've already cried wolf will have no credibility when stage two arrives.
- 59:40Yemeni protesters at Brooklyn City Hall are reasonable, but it's worth asking what threshold they should be protesting at if not government overreach.
- 59:57Odd that protesters focus on the Muslim ban rather than the four-year-old kids getting shot in their cities due to policies both Obama and Trump were involved in.
- 1:00:08The U.S. levels countries, drone strikes weddings, and destabilizes civilizations for oil and rare earth minerals—Hillary's Libya intervention and Syrian policy are unconscionable but she ran on experience.
- 1:00:40Tim Dillon is performing in Los Angeles for the next two weeks with premiere shows; tickets available at TimDillonComedy.com or @TimJayDillon on Twitter.
Donald TrumpHillary Clintonstudent loanscollegesBarack ObamaLibyaLos AngelesHaiti+2 more
- 2 min
Closing debate over whether the travel ban is step one of something worse, criticism of protesters focusing on the ban while ignoring US-caused civilian deaths abroad under Obama and Hillary, including Libya and Haiti.
5moments
- 1:01:14Tim announces he's hosting a University of Kentucky show with Mila Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer.
- 1:01:37Tim jokes about opening for David Duke on the Southern leg of the tour.
- 1:02:01Ray Cump says he'll probably be at Arby's, raving about their horsey sauce.
- 1:02:15Tim announces next week's episode will air live from the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet.
- 1:02:47The Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet episode turned out sadder than anticipated.
David AngeloDavid DukeGaS DigitalMila YiannopoulosLiberty UniversityUniversity of Kentucky
- 1 min
Guests plug their social media and tour dates including a joking bit about hosting alongside Milo Yiannopoulos and Richard Spencer and opening for David Duke, followed by show plugs, upcoming episode teases, and the sign-off.
1moment
- 1:03:03Tim's closing advice: live your truth