Episode 360 · The Studio Revamp
Bobby & Cheryl | The Tim Dillon Show #360
Sep 9, 2023 · 1:31:00 · 673,000 views · 21 segments, 148 moments indexed
Tim sits down with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and actress Cheryl Hines about his presidential candidacy, the genesis of the Ukraine Russia war, national parks and how his wife is handling all this.
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- 2 min
Blackout in the Studio During RFK Jr. Interview
#Tim explains that during the taping of this special episode with RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines, the studio suffered an unprecedented power blackout that broke the flow of the interview, and he sets up the episode with praise for both guests.
5moments
- The studio experienced a blackout 30 minutes into the RFK Jr. interview, the first time in seven years of podcasting.
- They lost about 15 minutes of good audio during the outage before getting back on air.
- When the lights went off, RFK Jr. reacted like someone was trying to kill him, given his family history.
- Tim believes RFK Jr. could be an incredible president based on listening to him talk.
- The blackout disrupted the podcast's rhythm, though RFK Jr. and his wife were good sports about it.
- 5 min
RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines join Tim to discuss moving to California, and RFK Jr. describes the collapse of San Francisco's Union Square shopping district with boarded-up stores and massive office vacancy rates.
9moments
- RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines join the show as fellow Californians
- RFK Jr. moved to California in 2014 for love, initially reluctant to leave New York
- California's weather and geography—ocean, mountains, mild winters—make it unbeatable compared to the East Coast
- California is the world's fourth or fifth largest economy, a massive engine of American GDP
- Tim asks how RFK Jr. internalizes California's homelessness and addiction crisis given his own recovery
- RFK Jr. argues addiction and homelessness are separate issues, not necessarily connected
- The real issue is housing availability; zoning laws in San Francisco prevent high-density housing
- During the Monsanto trials, RFK Jr. exercised daily at Union Square and watched the iconic American stores
- Today those same Union Square stores are boarded up with plywood, turning Fifth Avenue into a wasteland
Cheryl HinesRFK JrCaliforniaSan FranciscoWest VirginiaMonsantoFifth AvenueUnion Square
- 8 min
RFK Jr. lays out how BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard dominate the S&P 500 and are buying up single-family homes across America, driving up prices and locking young people out of homeownership.
10moments
- Ubiquitous experience of cash offers snatching homes from buyers right before escrow.
- BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard own each other and control 88% of the S&P 500.
- These three companies are on track to own corporate control of 60% of single-family homes in America within six years.
- Cash offers usually come from LLCs with shell corporation names that trace back to Vanguard, State Street, and BlackRock.
- Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, sits on the World Economic Forum board promoting the Great Reset.
- World Economic Forum's stated goal: "You will own nothing and you will be happy."
- Wall Street Journal and other publications running articles promoting shrinking houses and less living space as a trend.
- Young people competing against BlackRock for homes while BlackRock gets the lowest interest rates on the planet.
- Kids with 600 credit scores pay 10% interest while competing against investors getting 3% rates.
- Without home ownership, people stop caring about their communities, schools, and investing in making neighborhoods better.
Black RockState StreetVanguardLarry FinkWorld Economic Forumprivate equityD.R. HortonLos Angeles+1 more
- 8 min
RFK Jr. connects lack of home equity to lack of access to capital, describes Americans' paycheck-to-paycheck struggles and predatory credit card rates, and argues the Democratic and Republican parties have swapped their historic bases of rich versus poor.
10moments
- Homeownership gives access to capital for starting a business through second mortgages, but renters and the unhoused are locked out of that wealth-building tool.
- Renters face rising costs controlled by corporations with no equity stake, while 48% of renters live with anxiety and over half of Americans can't access $1,000 in an emergency.
- Cheryl's experience: a check-engine light becomes apocalyptic when you're paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford a mechanic, spiraling into losing transportation and eventually homelessness.
- Tim climbed out of poverty as a struggling comedian; generational poverty locks people out of homeownership, credit, and jobs due to criminal records from things like marijuana busts.
- The Democratic Party once positioned itself as defender of working people and economic justice, but the wealth distribution has flipped.
- 70% of U.S. wealth is now controlled by Democrats versus 30% by Republicans and independents, with 9 of the 10 richest counties now Democratic—reversing the pattern from when Tim was a kid.
- Tim's housing plan: Uncle Sam co-signs mortgages at 3% for first-time homeowners who work and live in the community, starting with 500,000 mortgages for teachers to keep them near schools.
- Fund the program by selling tax-free 3% bonds, not increasing debt, bringing typical mortgages down by $1,000 per month—matching what people already pay in rent.
- Post-WWII programs like the GI Bill built an American middle class that generated historic wealth and innovation, but now it's being dismantled because people can't access capital without home equity.
- BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are buying up farmland globally; the Ukraine aid includes austerity programs forcing the country to sell its richest farmland to corporations.
Black RockState StreetVanguardUkraineDemocratic PartyhousingFranklin Rooseveltgenerational poverty
- 11 min
RFK Jr. proposes a new class of government-cosigned 3% mortgages for first-time buyers and teachers, funded by tax-free bonds, and argues for antitrust enforcement against monopolistic conglomerates like BlackRock, drawing parallels to the Gilded Age and Standard Oil.
13moments
- RFK Jr. argues the U.S. has corporate crony capitalism and monopoly capitalism instead of free market capitalism, with BlackRock as a prime example of vertical integration.
- Vertical integration in Hollywood between streamers and studios mirrors the problem—they fix prices and labor costs, killing competition and innovation.
- Younger generations reject capitalism because they see BlackRock and call it capitalism, but that's actually plutocracy and corporate kleptocracy, not free markets.
- Tax code changes could penalize corporations owning too many homes while lifting regulatory burden on small business and increasing it on large corporations.
- Big corporations get subsidized corn and cradle-to-grave subsidies because they have lobbyists writing rules that favor monopolies and punish small business.
- During the Gilded Age in the 1880s-1890s, monopolies like railroad and steel trusts owned state legislatures outright—even Pennsylvania's couldn't be bought because Rockefeller owned them all.
- Citizens United in 2008 undid a 100-year-old law banning corporate donations to politics, throwing the country back into a second Gilded Age.
- Teddy Roosevelt dismantled Standard Oil—the mother of all monopolies—after muckraking journalists exposed corporate corruption and populist movements elected him.
- Senators must raise millions from $10,000-per-donor call centers next to the Senate, making them invisible to anyone who can't write huge checks.
- Average American income is around $34,000-$35,000 per year, but basic human needs cost $39,000—meaning the average American runs a $5,000 deficit annually.
- Americans put their yearly $5,000 deficit on credit cards charging 22 percent interest, a rate the mafia would go to jail for, with Visa and Mastercard sending predatory cards with $250 activation fees.
- BlackRock owns Visa and Mastercard—they operate like a vacuum cleaner sucking money out of poor people trapped in cycles of debt.
- Tim references an ExpressVPN ad read, shifting out of the policy discussion.
Black RockTeddy RooseveltCitizens UnitedStandard OilJoe BidenJohn D RockefellerVisaDonald Trump+6 more
- 1 min
Tim reads an ad for ExpressVPN, explaining how it encrypts data on public networks and offering a discount code.
3moments
- Tim vouches for ExpressVPN adoption among everyone he knows
- VPN scrambles IP address and prevents hackers from stealing personal data
- Tim questions whether everyone he knows could possibly be wrong about using it
- 2 min
Tim reads a DraftKings Sportsbook ad promoting a bonus bet offer for NFL week one using code Tim Dillon.
3moments
- Seven months without an NFL game — the drought is finally over.
- All customers can get two new offers available every single game day throughout September.
- Tim pitches the fundamental appeal: it's fun to bet and you make money.
- 4 min
Tim explains they lost footage from a mysterious blackout and picks the conversation back up with RFK Jr. discussing neoconservatives resurfacing as Democrats pushing the Ukraine war, plus Eisenhower's warnings about the military industrial complex and JFK's fight against the CIA.
8moments
- The studio experienced a blackout in the middle of recording, something that's never happened before.
- Tim transitions to discussing the Ukraine war and eight trillion dollars spent on post-9/11 interventions.
- Neoconservatives who were discredited after Iraq are now resurfacing as Democrats promoting endless war in Ukraine.
- Kennedy's uncle figured out Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex turning America into an imperial surveillance state.
- Kennedy was lied to by the CIA about the Bay of Pigs and wanted to shatter the agency into pieces.
- Kennedy's administration spent a thousand days fighting to keep the country out of wars the CIA wanted.
- Neoconservatives, a movement from the early 1990s, published the Project for New American Century declaring America's right to rule the world.
- Since 2001, America spent eight trillion dollars on regime change wars in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
military-industrial complexProject for a New American CenturyAlan DullesCharles CabellRichard BissellIraq WarNeoconservativesUkraine war+1 more
- 7 min
RFK Jr. gives a detailed alternative history of the Ukraine war, covering the 2014 Maidan uprising, banned Russian language laws, the Minsk Accords, Zelensky's reversal on peace, and Boris Johnson allegedly torpedoing a 2022 peace deal.
14moments
- Iraq invasion killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein and created a proxy war with Iran.
- The Iraq and Syria wars created ISIS, sent two million refugees to Europe, destabilized democracies, and contributed to Brexit and French riots.
- American middle class was bankrupted by wars we couldn't afford to pay for.
- Ukraine war narrative depicts Putin as the new Hitler wanting to invade Europe, but the actual situation is far more complex.
- Putin resisted going to war; Russia has warned since 1992 that NATO expansion east would provoke a violent response.
- Russia was invaded three times through Ukraine, with Hitler killing one out of every seven Russians.
- In 2014, the U.S. spent five billion dollars funding the Maidan uprising to overthrow Ukraine's duly elected neutral government.
- The new pro-American regime made Russian language illegal and banned Russian political parties.
- Eastern Ukrainian provinces voted to join Russia, but Putin rejected the annexation and instead proposed the Minsk Accords as a peace treaty.
- Zelensky won election on a peace platform in 2019 with 70 percent support but pivoted after threats from ultranationalists and U.S. neocons.
- Putin invaded with only 40,000 troops, not the million-plus available, suggesting he wanted negotiation rather than conquest.
- By March, few had been killed; Putin returned to the negotiating table and worked with Israel and Turkey on a peace accord.
- Biden sent Boris Johnson to torpedo the peace agreement that Zelensky and Putin had both initialed.
- Since the failed peace deal, 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in unnecessary tragedy on the front lines.
IraqBoris JohnsonSaddam HusseinVolodymyr ZelenskyySyriaUkraineNATOAdolf Hitler+9 more
- 6 min
RFK Jr. and Cheryl Hines reveal their son secretly joined the International Legion in Ukraine, fought as a drone operator and machine gunner in the counteroffensive, and has since returned home and finished law school.
9moments
- RFK Jr. and Tim disagreed on the war in Ukraine, though Tim respects his son's decision to fight there.
- Tim jokes he wouldn't even fight if Manhattan Beach were invaded, and would only tweet about it being sad.
- RFK Jr.'s son fought as a drone operator and machine gunner in the Kursk offensive for the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.
- RFK Jr. discovered his son was in Ukraine through credit card charges in Poland after he refused to say where he was going.
- All of the people RFK Jr.'s son served with have either been killed or are hospitalized.
- Tim argues the U.S. isn't pushing for peace talks in Ukraine, and people are making money off the conflict.
- Mitch McConnell admitted the money going to Ukraine isn't really for Ukraine—it's going to U.S. military contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed.
- Companies like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street own the defense contractors profiting from the Ukraine funding.
- The DNC doesn't want RFK Jr. in the primary and wants to prevent Biden from debating or having unscripted conversations with voters.
Mitch McConnellUkrainemilitary-industrial complexBlack RockBoeingGeneral DynamicsLockheedRaytheon+6 more
- 2 min
RFK Jr. explains Mitch McConnell's admission that Ukraine funding really goes to contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed, then describes DNC rule changes designed to disenfranchise votes for him in early primary states.
4moments
- RFK describes being viewed as a colossal nuisance by the DNC and their efforts to rig the primary results.
- The DNC made a rule where RFK's votes in Iowa and New Hampshire automatically count for Biden instead.
- Another rule being passed would strip RFK of Georgia delegates if he campaigns in Iowa or New Hampshire.
- Tim asks whether RFK and Marianne Williamson are being forced to fund the entire primary themselves.
- 5 min
Cheryl Hines talks about the unexpected joy of meeting voters on the campaign trail across party lines, then RFK Jr. describes founding the Waterkeeper Alliance and suing Hudson River polluters, plus the Monsanto Roundup lawsuit over a groundskeeper's cancer.
8moments
- Cheryl didn't expect campaigning to be fun but found it interesting after joining Bobby in South Carolina.
- Meeting people in small communities across Middle America revealed struggles and hopes that Los Angeles life doesn't reflect.
- Bobby founded and runs the Waterkeeper Alliance, now the biggest water protection group in the world, started in 1984 defending Hudson River fishermen from pollution.
- The Waterkeeper's legal work forced polluters to spend five and a half billion dollars in penalties and remediation, transforming the Hudson into the richest waterway in the North Atlantic.
- The success on the Hudson spawned 350 waterkeeper organizations in 46 countries, each with patrol boats to track down and sue polluters.
- Bobby's law firm sued Monsanto over Roundup after a groundskeeper wearing it developed lesions, and the company never called him back despite internal discussions.
- The Monsanto case won by proving Roundup caused lesions and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in the groundskeeper, establishing a major victory against a huge corporation.
- Standing up to corporations by producing their own internal emails as evidence that they knowingly withheld information about harm.
- 4 min
RFK Jr. argues the USDA has been captured by big agriculture and chemical companies like Monsanto and Cargill, leading to nutrient-poor food, and cites America's poor health outcomes and high COVID death rate despite huge healthcare spending.
7moments
- Americans eating bread and pasta get gluten allergies and celiac disease, but the same food causes no problems in Italy because of chemical differences in how it's grown.
- After 40 years suing the agricultural industry, the speaker has brought more lawsuits against factory farms like Smithfield, Tyson's, and Purdue than nearly any other attorney.
- The USDA was created to protect small farmers and ensure a wholesome food supply, but now functions to destroy small farmers and protect Monsanto, Cargill, and industrial polluters.
- America has the highest chronic disease rate of any country in the world while paying $3.3 trillion annually in healthcare—two to four times more per capita than other nations—yet ranks 79th in health outcomes, behind Mongolia and Cuba.
- During COVID, America had 4.2 percent of the global population but 16 percent of deaths, the highest kill rate of any country—200 times Nigeria's death rate.
- The solution isn't more regulation but eliminating agency capture and financial entanglements that advantage chemical agriculture over regenerative farming.
- What's needed is support for farmers who want to produce healthy, nutritious food and take care of the soil.
USDAfood safety and agricultureCargillMonsantoSmithfieldTyson'sPilgrimPurdue
- 3 min
Cheryl and Bobby recount meeting at a Waterkeeper ski fundraiser years before reconnecting after their respective divorces, and discuss what it's like joining the famous Kennedy family, including relatives who work in the Biden administration.
7moments
- Met Cheryl at a Waterkeeper fundraiser skiing event that Larry invited him to.
- Six or seven years later Larry brought her back to another event after starting Curb Your Enthusiasm.
- Both were going through divorces when they reconnected and got together.
- The Kennedys play charades competitively, which Tim jokes they didn't expect.
- Playing Trivial Pursuit becomes weird when your uncle is a worldwide legendary figure.
- If the family voted, Biden would beat Bobby Kennedy in a hypothetical matchup.
- Five family members work in the Biden administration, making things awkward.
- 1 min
Tim reads an ad for Nutrafol hair growth supplements for men, describing hair thinning statistics and a discount code.
3moments
- Nutrafol promotes whole body health approach for men with hair growth supplements, no drugs or compromises.
- 80 percent of men will experience hair thinning in their lifetime, but it doesn't have to be inevitable.
- Nutrafol clinically shown to improve visible hair thickness and scalp coverage as the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement.
- 2 min
Tim describes the Bespoke Post subscription box service and this month's camping gear box, giving a discount code.
2moments
- Tim questions what "neutral support" actually means in the context of hair growth claims.
- He describes receiving a camping and outdoorsman gear box from Bespoke Post that he was happy with.
- 1 min
Tim reads an ad for BlueChew, a chewable erectile dysfunction medication delivered discreetly by mail, with a promo code for a free trial.
3moments
- Tim claims everyone he's met uses BlueChew and likes it.
- BlueChew's special offer for listeners: first month free, five dollars shipping with promo code TD.
- Tim reacts with disbelief to the five-dollar shipping cost being the only charge.
- 4 min
RFK Jr. pushes back on being labeled anti-vaccine, arguing he only wants proper placebo-controlled safety testing and opposes mandates on bodily autonomy grounds, while discussing pharmaceutical advertising laws.
7moments
- People running major charities maintain strong relationships with NIH and government.
- Tim clarifies he's accused of being anti-vax as a pejorative to silence him, but supports vaccines if properly tested for safety and efficacy.
- Opposition to vaccine mandates stems from a general belief in bodily autonomy, the same principle applied to abortion.
- His positions on vaccines—that they should undergo placebo-controlled testing like other medicine—align with what most Americans believe.
- Americans take three times as many pharmaceutical pills as Europeans on average.
- Pharmaceutical drugs are now the third leading cause of death in the country, behind heart attacks and cancer.
- Only two nations in the world allow television advertising of pharmaceutical products: New Zealand and the United States.
vaccinespharmaceutical industryHunter BidenJoe BidenNew ZealandNIHSpecial Olympics
- 4 min
RFK Jr. details America's overmedication compared to Europe, the explosion of ADHD and benzo prescriptions, and a mysterious spike in allergies, asthma, and autoimmune disease starting around 1989 tied to vaccines, Roundup, and flame retardants.
9moments
- American drugstores have 10 aisles of medications while other countries have two or three, yet the U.S. remains the sickest country in the world.
- Tim suggests "we are the sickest country in the world, let's fix that" as an RFK campaign slogan.
- Nobody addresses root causes of mental health issues—diet, situational factors, clinical problems—so doctors just throw pills at people.
- The medical and pharmaceutical industries profit from a sick population in a feedback loop: more chronic disease means more drugs to sell.
- The U.S. issues 120 million benzodiazepine prescriptions, 120 million SSRIs, and 118 million Adderall prescriptions annually.
- Kids now suffer from autoimmune diseases never seen before—rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile diabetes, Crohn's disease, lupus—and peanut allergies appeared ubiquitously around 1989.
- The explosion of allergic diseases and autoimmune conditions coincided with 1989, when the vaccine schedule exploded, and these conditions are listed as side effects on vaccine products.
- Around the same timeline, Roundup became ubiquitous, PFOAs were added to children's pajamas and furniture, and cell phones appeared.
- Children are swimming in a toxic soup: contaminated food, air, and water with impacts on mental health, physical health, and spiritual health.
- 6 min
RFK Jr. argues NIH's $42 billion budget isn't directed at root causes like autism, that COVID lockdowns opened the door to banning harmful products like high-fructose corn syrup and glyphosate, and Tim notes some body-positivity campaigns are secretly funded by junk food companies like Nestle.
6moments
- NIH has a $42 billion annual budget given to 56,000 scientists, yet none are investigating what's causing the autism epidemic.
- COVID lockdowns made it culturally acceptable to imagine implementing big solutions like banning entire product lines for public health.
- Tim argues you can now say we shut down the economy to prevent COVID, so let's prevent chronic diseases that are worse than COVID was.
- Parents trusted the government enough to feed their kids fast food and Lunchables, assuming the FDA wouldn't allow genuinely harmful products.
- Controlling the NIH to produce good science linking high fructose corn syrup to obesity and diabetes would unleash plaintiff lawyers regardless of industry lobbying.
- Body positivity campaigns have been backed by corporations like Nestle, which profit from selling junk food.
high fructose corn syrupNestleFDAautism epidemicRoundupbody positive
- 7 min
The conversation closes with reflections on how political anger feels manufactured to distract from bigger problems, Cheryl's observations of Bobby uniting Republicans and Democrats on the trail, and RFK Jr.'s story of Ted Kennedy's genuine friendships with Republicans like Orrin Hatch, ending with campaign info and thanks.
8moments
- People aren't allowed to disagree anymore without hating each other—something shifted during COVID toward discourse at one of its lowest points.
- Bobby Kennedy attracts crowds of Republicans, Democrats, and independents to events, with people from different parties saying they want to listen and solve problems together.
- Couples married across political divides—Trumpers and Biden voters—have told them the show is keeping their marriage together.
- Tim describes the political anger as orchestrated and manipulative, comparing it to someone jangling keys while robbing the bank—distracting people from real problems.
- Both parties fight over wedge issues affecting a tiny sliver of the population—bathroom access, pronouns—while the actual wealthy rob the country.
- Ted Kennedy had his name on more legislation than any other senator in history by befriending Republicans, including Orrin Hatch, whom he'd bring home on weekends.
- Ted Kennedy and Republican senators like Orrin Hatch and Robert Byrd wrote songs and poetry for each other despite their ideological differences.
- Tim's solution to bringing people together: give Putin a guitar and figure it out.
Bobby KennedyTed KennedyOrrin HatchVladimir PutinRobert ByrdSouth CarolinaLos AngelesBobby Lee