Episode 409 · The Studio Revamp
The Presidential Debate & Eating Cats | The Tim Dillon Show #409
Sep 14, 2024 · 1:08:33 · 673,000 views · 25 segments, 140 moments indexed
Tim talks about 9/11, the Trump-Harris debate, who is eating pets, Starbucks, Middle Eastern Yelp reviewers and why he misses post-terrorist attack patriotism.
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- 2 min
I Love 9/11 (Cold Open)
#Tim opens by declaring his love for 9/11 as "the best day of the year," riffing that people should stop being sad about it and use the anniversary as an excuse to take some personal time at work.
4moments
- Tim opens by saying he loves 9/11, calling it the best day of the year.
- 9/11 is a good somber day to take a minute for yourself and step back from work.
- Your coworkers won't bother you if you stare out the window on 9/11 and say you need the day.
- The real point of 9/11 is taking time for yourself, breathing, and appreciating time with each other.
- 4 min
Tim reacts to the Trump-Harris debate, arguing Trump missed opportunities to hit Harris on the border and immigration instead of focusing on the "they're eating the cats and dogs" claim, while noting a real incident where a migrant assaulted his friend.
5moments
- Harris won the debate, but Trump missed layups—he was too angry and unfocused to attack her effectively.
- Tim on the cats and dogs claim: he doesn't know if migrants are eating them, but he did see immigrants roasting guinea pigs in Prospect Park and doesn't care because guinea pigs are just fat rodents.
- A friend of Tim's was hospitalized after a migrant attacked him for telling him to stop breaking into a car; the migrant had been caught and released six times in a year.
- Trump should focus the election on how immigration harms law-abiding citizens, taxpayers, and people who follow the law—not on pets being eaten.
- ABC News and the Springfield city manager say there are no credible reports of pets being harmed by immigrants, but people on TV claimed their dogs were taken for food.
- 2 min
He compares the cat-eating panic to haggis in Scotland, mocks ABC anchor David Muir for hogging the debate spotlight, and revisits the story of migrants roasting guinea pigs in a NYC park.
5moments
- Haggis is a sheep stomach stuffed with oats and herbs—it's kind of gross but that's what they eat in Scotland.
- David Muir is full of himself and in love with his own looks, dominated the entire interview and wouldn't let the other host speak.
- People roast guinea pigs in parks in New York and some get offended, but Tim doesn't understand the outrage over pets.
- Tim criticizes the idea that animals have replaced children in America—pushing dogs around in strollers as 'fur babies' is unhealthy and disgusting.
- JD Vance is kind of right about this, and Tim wants to play his own story on YouTube.
- 5 min
Selling Sunset's Chihuahua Funeral
#Tim goes off on the Selling Sunset cast holding a funeral for Jason Oppenheim and Mary Fitzgerald's dying Chihuahua Nico, calling it proof that childless narcissists have replaced kids with pets, and jokes that a migrant eating the dog would improve the show.
6moments
- Selling Sunset cast members are self-involved narcissists without children, mostly impregnated by Nick Cannon.
- Tim finds it deeply unhealthy and disturbing to watch unmarried adults share custody of a dying Chihuahua and cry over it.
- The cast pretends to sell real estate in Los Angeles while something is eerily disconcerting about their grief over the dog.
- Tim speculates about what would happen if a Venezuelan migrant ate the Chihuahua from the show.
- The cast held an actual funeral episode for the dog and had it tattooed, which Tim says means they should be in jail.
- Tim imagines how much better it would have been if a Venezuelan migrant grabbed the Chihuahua and barbecued it in front of the narcissists.
Selling SunsetNick CannonJD VanceVenezuelaJason OppenheimMary FitzgeraldLos Angeles
- 2 min
He plays and reacts to a Springfield, Ohio resident's viral city council rant claiming migrants grab ducks by the neck and eat them in the park, contrasting it with police focusing on traffic stops.
4moments
- Tim plays audio from Springfield Ohio city council meeting where resident testifies about immigrants catching and eating ducks from the park.
- Resident argues highway state patrol should stop harassing drivers for minor infractions and instead teach Haitian immigrants how to drive.
- Tim notes the resident claims videos of duck-eating are getting thousands of views and will only get worse without city council action.
- Tim summarizes: a gentleman claims firsthand knowledge of immigrants grabbing ducks by the neck and cooking them, which is what's disturbing him.
Springfield, OhioHaitians
- 2 min
The Real Issue Isn't the Economy, It's Mass Migration
#Tim argues the debate's real stakes are global mass migration and assimilation rather than the economy, Putin, or China, and says Trump's instincts on the border are closer to public opinion than Harris's.
4moments
- Trump looked a bit off his game in the debate; abortion will hurt him with swing voters but he failed to properly nail Harris on the border.
- The real biggest issue isn't the economy, Putin, or China—it's mass migration and how societies can assimilate migrants into existing economic and cultural spaces.
- Walking outside, you see migrants and refugees from other places camping on streets, and the question becomes: how many can any society actually absorb at once?
- Trump should spend most of his time talking about immigration because on that issue his views align more closely with the American people than Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.
- 3 min
He reads a fact-check revealing the infamous cat-eating woman is an American citizen from Canton, not a migrant, and jokes about how this complicates the political narrative around who's eating pets.
8moments
- Ohio woman accused of eating a cat is from Canton, not Springfield—she did drugs and ate a cat in a driveway.
- Trump may have been smart to bring up cats and dogs being eaten, given the country's current state.
- Our country is so diseased that Netflix is having a funeral for a Chihuahua, treating it like losing a child.
- Trump's angle: what if your child got eaten instead of a pet?
- The woman eating the cat is an American citizen, not a migrant—this complicates the political blame game.
- Tim questions whether Trump or Kamala wins this point in the election debate.
- If Tim were Kamala, he'd argue the difference: migrants cook guinea pigs, but this citizen ate a cat on bath salts—completely different.
- The cat was eaten in Ohio by an American citizen on bath salts, not by an immigrant—that's the actual story.
Donald TrumpKamala Harriscats and dogs eating
- 2 min
Tim narrates a body-cam/live-video clip of the woman being arrested for eating a cat in what looks like government housing, riffing on the absurdity and wondering who she votes for.
4moments
- Tim asks whether eating a cat is illegal, confirming it counts as animal cruelty.
- The woman in the video is squatting in what appears to be government housing, with a bloody or beheaded cat visible.
- Police body cam shows the woman admitting she killed two cats.
- Tim speculates on who this woman votes for, then pivots to the broader point that she's still an American citizen despite the crime.
- 1 min
A sponsor read for BlueChu, the online ED medication service, with promo code TIM for a free first month.
3moments
- Fall is a great time to have sex, and BlueChew delivers Viagra-like medication in edible form at a fraction of the cost.
- Tim pitches the service with "chew it and do it" and plays on "lasting impressions" as a tagline.
- Promo code Tim gets listeners their first month free for just $5 shipping.
- 2 min
- 5 min
Starbucks Wants to Be a Coffee Shop Again
#Tim discusses the Starbucks CEO's plan to bring back comfortable chairs and in-store hangout culture, comparing it to Dunkin' Donuts' scrappier vibe and riffing on homeless people and pet-store tarantula hair injuries, then describing the homeless "Deuteronomy from Cats" regular at his own coffee shop.
9moments
- Starbucks CEO wants to make the chain a coffee shop again after sales declined due to mobile ordering and phone pickup replacing sit-down culture.
- Tim recalls Starbucks as upscale hangout space versus Dunkin' Donuts, which catered to working people and was often occupied by homeless patrons.
- Tangent on tarantulas at pet stores: they shed defense hairs into customers' eyes and noses, sending them to Dunkin' with bloodshot eyes.
- Homeless people and junkies now occupy Starbucks too, which Tim sees as fitting consequence for progressive voters who wanted this environment.
- Tim describes a Brooklyn coffee shop where young white progressives with laptops sit uncomfortably while a homeless man in blankets walks around.
- The young professionals try to keep their eyes on their own work, like children taking a school test, staying focused on laptops when the homeless man is present.
- The particular homeless man in Tim's coffee shop resembles Deuteronomy from the movie Cats—shaggy, blanket-draped, walking the space unpredictably.
- Staff must give the homeless man free coffee without complaint because they cannot legally refuse service or confront him.
- Everyone at the coffee shop visibly relaxes once he leaves, but no one will admit the discomfort or acknowledge that the situation is unpleasant.
- 2 min
The Starbucks CEO's Commute and Peak-90s Nostalgia
#He notes the Starbucks CEO commutes by private jet from Orange County to Seattle, then wistfully describes 90s coffeehouse culture and the carefree Gen X vibe before 9/11 ended it.
5moments
- Starbucks CEO commutes daily via private jet from Orange County to Seattle, required three days a week in office.
- Tim recalls the 90s when people would sit in coffee houses for hours drinking oversized cappuccinos with no particular agenda.
- Friends exemplified the era—an actor and waitress casually affording Manhattan apartments while nobody cared about anything.
- The 80s cocaine-and-empire-building drive had subsided; people were wandering around in a Gen X wasteland of nothingness.
- Nobody appreciated how nice the 90s were until 9/11 happened and ended that entire era of history.
- 4 min
Where I Was on 9/11
#Tim recounts being in high school on Long Island when 9/11 happened, the confusion, classmates whose parents had died, and the strange communal vulnerability that followed, before praising George W. Bush's bullhorn speech at Ground Zero as the peak of American unity.
8moments
- Tim recalls sitting in Mrs. Rice's history class at Holy Trinity in Hixville, New York on 9/11, uncertain whether he was in 10th or 11th grade.
- Mrs. Rice pulled out of class to announce attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, noting the towers had been bombed before and no one yet knew they had fallen.
- Friends in study hall watched the second plane hit the towers while classmates who lost parents that day didn't yet know their parents were gone.
- The attacks created a feeling of vulnerability American teenagers had never experienced before, a realization that things could go wrong in America.
- In the immediate aftermath, there was a sense of community with candlelit vigils and memorials springing up across the country.
- Bush's speech at the towers—'the people who did this are going to be hearing from us all'—was the best moment of that era, and it was all downhill from there.
- Tim explains he loves 9/11 not because of the death, but because that moment was genuinely inspiring and marked the peak of national unity before everything deteriorated.
- As a high school student watching Bush's speech, Tim believed America would win and that victory was within reach—how quaint that belief seems now.
PentagonWorld Trade CenterSeptember 11George W. BushHoly TrinityHicksville
- 4 min
Bush's Bullhorn Speech and "We Need Another 9/11"
#He plays Bush's Ground Zero bullhorn speech in full and builds an escalating bit that America needs another 9/11 to recapture that lost sense of unity, since cat-eating migrants "aren't enough."
8moments
- Tim says America needs another 9/11, calls it the most beautiful time in the country's history.
- The country only works if there's a 9/11; he's choked up explaining this to children.
- America is at its best when 9/11 happens every day, that's when people hug each other.
- Tim references Bill Hicks's joke about needing a war to feel good about yourself.
- Starbucks needs another 9/11 so people would talk about it while drinking coffee.
- A terrorist attack will set the country on the right course and restore beauty.
- Migrants eating cats and dogs isn't enough to make people feel great anymore.
- Tim wants the USA champ played while the megaphone speech continues.
Bill HicksDonald TrumpStarbucksNew York CityConnecticutNew Jersey
- 4 min
Tekken 2 and the "They Hate Us for Our Freedom" Era
#Tim recalls being told terrorists hated America for shopping malls, amusement parks, and Tekken 2, then traces how the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war and decapitating regimes was sold as the fix.
7moments
- Tim explains the post-9/11 reasoning that terrorists hated us for our freedom—specifically for shopping malls, amusement parks, and video games like Tekken 2.
- The solution was to invade their countries, decapitate their leadership, and install democracy, based on the belief they wanted pro-Western leaders.
- Tim jokes that no one would fly a plane into a building if they had Tekken 2.
- Without invading Afghanistan and Iraq, Tim says, subways would fill with sarin gas or be hit with suitcase nukes on the way to Yankee games.
- Iraq turned out to be three warring groups that hated each other, kept in check only by Saddam Hussein's brutal dictatorship.
- Tim compares Saddam Hussein to an exasperated mother in a minivan threatening to kick everyone's ass to stop her fighting children.
- The neoconservative assumption that removing Saddam would make Iraqis grateful and pro-Western simply wasn't real.
Saddam HusseinIraqBush DoctrineAfghanistan9/11neoconservatismTekken 2
- 4 min
Saddam Hussein as the Minivan Mom and the Failure of Neoconservatism
#He explains neoconservatism and argues Saddam Hussein was actually the only thing keeping Iraq's warring factions in check, comparing him to an exhausted mother threatening her fighting kids, and describes how the wars bankrupted America without making anyone safer.
9moments
- Neoconservatism was about enforcing a rules-based international order through US military power and the unilateral promotion of democracy.
- The ideology was essentially that it's America's job to remake the world in our image so they don't attack us.
- The experiment failed—the US lost both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars after spending $8 trillion and killing roughly a million Iraqis.
- 9/11 and its aftermath created permanent distrust of the federal government on matters of war and peace for his generation.
- Covid's legacy is complete distrust in government on domestic issues, compounding the damage from post-9/11 foreign policy disasters.
- After bankrupting America on wars meant to eradicate radical Islamic ideology, the US now has to admit adherents of that ideology into the country.
- The Taliban were true believers who waited 20 years and came back after the withdrawal, proving ideology-eradication doesn't work.
- The inconsistency for his generation: people supposedly too dangerous to allow in America during the war are now being admitted.
- The dangerous ideology being addressed was never Islam itself but a perverted political fusion of Islam used to justify violence.
- 5 min
The Permanent Distrust Left by 9/11 and COVID
#Tim argues the lasting legacy of 9/11 and COVID is generational distrust of the federal government on foreign and domestic issues, and connects this cynicism to how Ukraine aid and endless war are being sold today.
8moments
- 9/11 left us with a legacy of buffoonery and the false belief that American capitalism could solve ancient cultural conflicts.
- Tim argues you can't solve Sunni-Shiite wars with a McGriddle — capitalism won't end conflicts that have existed forever.
- His generation became isolationist about foreign policy because they remember what happened 20 years ago and learned the lesson.
- Someone explained to Tim that war operates like interest rates — someone decides when to tick it up or down based on profit.
- Tim says we need another 9/11 because at least it contextualized our lives and gave us something we understood.
- The permanent legacy of 9/11 is that we have to forget every negative thing about our current ally whenever we're told to support them.
- People warned that invading Iraq wouldn't work because Americans didn't understand the culture, but those voices were erased from memory.
- When Kamala Harris talks about commitment to allies, she's really talking about permanent, unending, ceaseless war for profit.
- 3 min
Wishing Kamala Would Just Say "Remember 9/11"
#He fantasizes about Kamala Harris nostalgically invoking 9/11 unity to win votes, then discusses the lingering conspiracy theories (Loose Change, the 9/11 Commission, Saudi involvement) and admits some of his best memories are drinking Starbucks in a mall after 9/11 while cheering for the Iraq War.
10moments
- Tim imagines Kamala Harris winning him over by saying 'Remember 9/11' and evoking the feeling of drinking coffee and being present with people afterward.
- The bit: wouldn't it be nice if we had another 9/11 so we could all come together again.
- Tim discusses Loose Change, the 9/11 conspiracy documentary, and the movement to uncover the truth about what happened.
- He claims he doesn't know what he thinks happened—Saudis were involved according to the Atlantic, but he questions whether that makes it true.
- Tim notes that 19 hijackers trained in America and flew planes into buildings, but he doesn't know who trained them or why.
- The 9/11 Commission was set up to fail, with Bush and Cheney testifying together, and nobody can tell you exactly how that day went down.
- Tim argues the larger issue is what happened in the years following 9/11 and how it damaged America's credibility about making the world safer.
- Some of his greatest life moments were running around a mall on Long Island after 9/11, getting Starbucks and being happy.
- He wonders if it makes him a bad person that he was enthusiastic about the war in Iraq at the time.
- Tim admits he was very excited about the Iraq War back then.
9/11Iraq WarBush and CheneyLoose ChangeAtlantic magazine
- 4 min
A sponsor read for ExpressVPN built around a grim joke about a friend without a VPN being thrown in a river by hackers, pushing the three-months-free offer.
10moments
- Tim's friend didn't have ExpressVPN and was thrown in a river by hackers, whose bloated body was found days later.
- Hackers and the government are constantly trying to steal personal information from people online.
- ISPs operate like monopolies in their regions and use that power to exploit customers with data caps and bandwidth throttling.
- ISPs can keep logs of every website you visit, and third parties can see your browsing history even in incognito mode.
- ShipStation is essential for e-commerce businesses because the back office should be handed off to someone with experience.
- Automating shipping tasks and managing orders through one dashboard allows businesses to scale faster and save thousands.
- Tim's friend started a company selling small items using ShipStation and now makes a lot of money.
- Tim's medicine cabinet was full of things that didn't work until he cleared it up and reset his health with CBD from CBDistillery.
- In customer surveys, 81% experienced more calm, 80% said CBD helped with pain, and 90% slept better with CBDistillery products.
- CBDistillery has over two million customers and offers a 100% money-back guarantee.
CBD DistilleryExpressVPNShipStation
- 1 min
A quick sponsor read for CB Distillery CBD products, citing survey stats on calm, pain relief, and sleep, with a 20% discount code.
1moment
- Tim promotes CB Distillery with a promo code
- 3 min
YouTubers Hanging Out With the Taliban in Baghdad
#Tim watches and reacts to travel YouTubers touring Baghdad and Kurdistan eating kebabs and visiting Saddam's abandoned palace, joking that this pointless tourism content is the real legacy of the Iraq War.
3moments
- Tim questions whether the Iraq War's ultimate purpose was to enable YouTubers to travel abroad and film content with the Taliban.
- American interventionism has transformed every country into a superficial tourist destination obsessed with ratings and reviews rather than authentic culture.
- Tim suggests the entire war was waged so that content creators could eventually film YouTube videos inside Saddam Hussein's palace.
TalibanAfghanistanSaddam HusseinKurdistanAbdul Latif Rashid
- 3 min
Who's Running Iraq Now?
#He tries to figure out who the current president of Iraq is and what the job even entails, concluding nobody knows or cares, then pivots back to citizens eating cats as the era's defining issue.
6moments
- Iraq's leader ratifies death sentences and exercises random presidential powers.
- Tim on the Iraq invasion: we went in, made money, people are eating kebabs, it's fine.
- Citizens in a fentanyl haze are eating cats—is this a major problem nobody's addressing?
- Tim misses the small-town vibes right after 9/11, when strangers would hug each other in delis.
- After 9/11, he and his friends went to NYC to get fake IDs and buy drugs instead of letting terrorists win.
- We were right to go live our lives the way we should have after 9/11.
- 3 min
Small Town Vibes and the Post-9/11 Feast
#Tim wistfully describes the outpouring of community warmth after 9/11 — strangers hugging in delis, big Thanksgiving feasts, going into the city defiantly for fake IDs — and his mother's story about a Middle Eastern family who mysteriously vanished before 9/11.
7moments
- Tim recalls the feasting and outpouring of love after 9/11, eating for people who passed at Thanksgiving gatherings.
- His father used to frequent Windows on the World as a wine salesman but wasn't there the day of the attacks.
- Tim's favorite post-9/11 story involves a Saudi family in Oceanside and another in Florida who disappeared the day before or after, leaving their houses untouched.
- He tells the story to his stoned friend and mother about Middle Eastern people vanishing with all their belongings still in the house.
- While there were some hate crimes against Arabs post-9/11, Tim argues there weren't as many as commonly believed.
- The country came out and said it wasn't a religious war, though hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims did rise.
- Tim questions the scale of the rise in hate crimes, doubting it was as significant as the narrative suggests.
Windows on the WorldFloridaOceanside
- 1 min
The 48-Hour Rule for Post-9/11 Hate Crimes
#He argues hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims after 9/11 were fewer than people assume, joking about a real case of a man burning a Pakistani restaurant and proposing a "48-hour rule" excusing revenge arson right after the attacks.
5moments
- James Herrick pled guilty to pouring gasoline on the wall of a Pakistani American restaurant and lighting it on fire, two days after 9/11.
- Tim proposes a 48-hour rule: if you burn down a Pakistani restaurant within 48 hours of 9/11, it shouldn't be held against you.
- Tim announces a Netflix special coming October 1st about something from the 90s he's always loved.
- He expresses genuine satisfaction with how the special came out and says they could expand into cool, crazy places with future installments.
- The six-part series examines how Winston Churchill was actually the real villain of World War II.
Winston ChurchillJames Herrick
- 1 min
Tim plugs his tourdates.com listings and announces his new Netflix special/series releasing October 1st, a six-part show reframing Winston Churchill as the real villain of World War II.
1moment
- Tim announces his Netflix special and upcoming tour dates