2 Men In Black and White: An Honest Conversation

MARK HAYES (00:01.548)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting episode of Two Men in Black and White, an Honest Conversation. And folks, if we're being honest, they're not being honest with us. It appears that a lot that's happening in the Iran War or the Epstein strikes is not being accurately reported and we are not getting the stories back here on Terra Firma in the U.S. of A.

that we should be getting. There is a lot of misinformation being bandied about. And a lot of it has to do with artificial intelligence. You know, I'd never even liked the title of that, artificial intelligence. Let's dive deeper. Brock and Ellis joins me now live from Harlem, USA in Brock. Day two of you in Harlem. How's it going?

Brock Ganeles (00:57.601)
Oh, it's going well. is me in a t-shirt. 75 degrees out up here in Harlem. You know, Mark, remember they always say, well, what's the definition of an oxymoron? It was like, oh, military intelligence. Right. So now we've layered artificial military intelligence on top of it. And we've already incorporated all these machinations of our geniuses from Silicon Valley into our warfare.

MARK HAYES (01:00.588)
Whoa, you gotta love it.

MARK HAYES (01:09.532)
Right.

MARK HAYES (01:24.872)
Ugh. Right.

Brock Ganeles (01:27.555)
and

hard not to make the connection that like one of the first bombs we dropped landed on a school when AI is somehow being utilized as for target selection in Iran. We're probably never going to know the truth as to why we quote erroneously bombed a school and killed 175 kids. But it doesn't take a huge leap to think that we are using some technologies that weren't ready for prime time.

MARK HAYES (01:53.399)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (01:59.379)
When we're talking about the incompetence that are currently running the show and the fact that, you know, Musk is whispering in people's ears and the Silicon Valley guys are overhyping everything they do and Palantir wants all this AI so they can track all of us, meaning me and you, people like me and you who talk against the regime so that they can track our every move. So not only are we being lied to, I don't even think we have are in the ballpark.

MARK HAYES (01:59.842)
Sure.

MARK HAYES (02:16.269)
Right.

MARK HAYES (02:20.957)
Mm-hmm.

Brock Ganeles (02:29.282)
park of having a sense of what and how technologies are being used both internationally in our warfare and domestically in terms of how we're being tracked.

MARK HAYES (02:40.47)
Yeah, we already know that people are getting sick and dying from some of these processing plants, these data processing plants that are ginormous. And the water runoff that's being used to cool these huge computer farms, basically, we got acres and acres of farms of hardware that need to be cooled. And that toxic runoff is spilling into people's bodies.

Right? And it's getting people sick. They're getting all kinds of weird cancers. You know, people are getting throat cancer who don't even smoke. Right? Rare forms of throat cancer. You don't smoke, but you've got this rare form of cancer that's only associated with smokers. Right? Like we know, we know about environmental racism and we know where they're going to put those, those hardware.

Brock Ganeles (03:31.71)
Yep. I was about to ask what backyards are they going in?

MARK HAYES (03:35.734)
Damn, we already know, baby. We already know.

Brock Ganeles (03:38.305)
which leads us to two, in essence, turf wars, right? Because no one wants the concentration camps and the warehouses in their backyard. That also saps the resources of the local community, because now you got septic and water and heat and electricity has to go to these major facilities. And you have the data centers so that we can keep this AI machine going that has absurd amounts of money and absurd

MARK HAYES (03:46.632)
Hmm. Hmm. Right.

Brock Ganeles (04:08.258)
which has both sides courting these huge donors because they can move the needle and they're just trying to make sure that they can get their data centers built so that they can keep their AI machine going.

MARK HAYES (04:25.858)
Yep, keep the money coming in. What about the other aspect of this, Brock? You know, we're heavy on the media, heavy and critical, very critical of the media. What about the fake information that's being created by AI? You know, manipulated images, false video, you know, all these deep fakes are all AI driven. And...

you know, some of these explosions that we're seeing, are they real or are they artificially intelligent? You know, because that's how, know, Brock, it wasn't that long ago that, what was the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie where they talked about, you know, the telecom magnate taking over the world, right? Fake videos and so, I mean, look, this stuff,

used to be sci-fi. Now it's here. And the people that are making the decisions as to how it's going to be utilized are too fucking greedy to care about any ethical or legal concerns.

Brock Ganeles (05:39.393)
The technology is so far ahead of us on this front that how would we as individuals have any idea how to discern between an image and video that we're seeing that is real versus one that's fake? mean, we used to say you need a healthy skepticism about anything that you hear, but I find now that I can't, I won't react to anything until I see it in like three, four, five different places. Because my first reaction is to wonder, that, is that

MARK HAYES (05:53.838)
Right.

MARK HAYES (06:06.051)
You're right.

Is it real? Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (06:09.346)
real, not to react to it, you know, not to, you know, viscerally react immediately is this, you'll have to stop yourself and go, wait a second. might be in bullshitted here. Cause it's so easy to trick us.

MARK HAYES (06:22.626)
Yep, yep. And remember, we're dumb. We're dumb. What is America reading at the sixth, seventh grade level now? Right? So nobody's double checking, you know? And of course, with the rise of social media got even worse. Now it's on the internet, it must be true. So many people think that way. What do you think the R word, the Republican party operates?

Brock Ganeles (06:31.135)
Hey.

Brock Ganeles (06:44.788)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (06:52.086)
Right? I mean, you put anything online and they'll believe it. And they do.

Brock Ganeles (06:58.752)
And Trump's the king of the deep fakes, right? Maybe they even fucked around with like Matt Kachuk, one of the hockey players right from the US and they superimposed him doing some shit against Canada when he happens to play on a team in Canada, right? And he's had to apologize for it ever since. But he's like, I couldn't control it. Right. There's all these, Ben Stiller was out the other day, right? Because they were using clips from his movie as a part of like an Iran war promo. But he had no recourse, right?

MARK HAYES (07:17.377)
Right?

Brock Ganeles (07:28.726)
except to go on and complain about it. I mean, I guess he could take him to court and try to get an injunction and blah, blah. But like by the time he gets it, they're done using it anyway. And they've moved on to the next one. So there's no way for us to corral this. I'm definitely worried that we keep that I keep reading about it here and about how we're AI in our weaponry. Because it kind of equates to me, like how I feel about electric cars.

MARK HAYES (07:41.42)
Right. Right.

Brock Ganeles (07:58.579)
and autonomous vehicles, not electric cars, I autonomous vehicles, how like, they're safer and they're gonna take over the roads, there's not gonna be real drivers. And I'm like, really? Because I saw in San Francisco, as soon as there was a rainstorm, all those cars stopped in the middle of the street, because it created a software glitch. And I'm just like, really? they, like, are we really there yet? In terms of autonomous vehicles that I'm like, are we really there yet? We really would want AI.

MARK HAYES (08:06.171)
MARK HAYES (08:15.661)
Right.

MARK HAYES (08:22.978)
We're not.

Brock Ganeles (08:28.482)
to be making decisions about how our multi-billion dollar weaponry is used and we're gonna trust the precision bombing and we're gonna trust that AI has scoped out the targets for us. Like we really think that technology is there to make those decisions now already. When most of us had never even heard the term AI unless you're watching Star Trek or something, I hadn't even heard the

term till what two years ago maybe like this is not this is nascent technology right yeah there's most people in the world and every company is worth a billion dollars heading to a trillion and everyone's on chat GPT thinking that every answer they get from them is the gospel but is it really ready to make life or death decisions I'd say the answer is no and someday when there's a post-mortem on this Iran war we're probably gonna find out that of the other

MARK HAYES (09:02.261)
Right. Right?

Right.

Brock Ganeles (09:28.322)
1100 civilians that were killed in Iran many of them were because We were using AI To do what we thought was called precision bombing and there's no fucking such thing and the technology Isn't and wasn't ready

MARK HAYES (09:30.286)
Good.

MARK HAYES (09:44.046)
And the thing about it, remember, there's no accountability for anything in this White House. So nobody's going to jail for it. Nobody's going to be held accountable. And the people who created it are still going to get their paychecks. So we're going to keep throwing good money after bad, because you know what's going to happen next is these 83 jackasses at the top of the food chain

Brock Ganeles (09:53.973)
No.

MARK HAYES (10:11.01)
are gonna say, you know what? We've got a plan to help rebuild Iraq. know, pay us billions and billions and billions and we'll go over there and start rebuilding. See Halliburton, all right? See some of these companies who have made tens of billions of dollars rebuilding war-torn country sides.

Brock Ganeles (10:28.799)
Get.

Yeah, it's probably already got PowerPoints of the resort hotels that can now be built, you know.

MARK HAYES (10:35.95)
No doubt and and it's sad man because you know the these people don't care about humanity They don't care about democracy The Elon Musk the Zuckerbergs as you said, they're already social Mitzvahs. Anyway, I mean How come how come nobody's been getting all over? Yeah, Elon Musk about his you know 14 kids and 15 baby mamas

Brock Ganeles (11:05.79)
No one cares.

MARK HAYES (11:06.742)
Right?

Brock Ganeles (11:07.006)
Right? No one cares about him. But also, mean, I saw something the other day is like 29 % of all the spending on political campaigns comes from billionaires now. And that number is rising. Think about that. Like a hundred people are like almost 30 % of the funding. And the problem is that candidates has to have to chase them down to get that money to be competitive and therefore serve their interests. And that is hugely problematic, which is why

MARK HAYES (11:24.878)
Well.

MARK HAYES (11:28.589)
Right.

MARK HAYES (11:33.666)
Yep.

Brock Ganeles (11:36.883)
by taking money out of politics and certainly corporate money out of politics and capping contributions has to be on that list, the Project 2028 list for the Democrats of things they're gonna work to change immediately upon getting into office. Because our democracy is being purchased even when the elections are fair, you know?

MARK HAYES (11:47.746)
Yep.

MARK HAYES (11:55.169)
Right.

MARK HAYES (12:00.396)
Right. And that purchase is almost always for the benefit of the few. There's just a few people benefiting from all this money that's being spent, these billions and billions of dollars. Those 29 people are all on the same page trying to do the same thing with each other. So you need this section.

Brock Ganeles (12:28.072)
lower regulations, no unions, more data centers.

MARK HAYES (12:31.534)
Yep. Boom. It's the same.

Brock Ganeles (12:34.976)
Musk wants his autonomous vehicle. So don't worry if they run over a couple of kids at the elementary school crossing. Hey, you know, it's safer than drunk drivers. So look the other way that our software hasn't even been tested. We're out there on the roads, right? What is Zuckerberg? Hey, don't crack down on the fact that we're trying to get your nine year old addicted to social media. You know, turn the other way that we're feeding porn to your 12 year old. Whoopsie. We'll fix that.

MARK HAYES (12:38.552)
No.

MARK HAYES (12:58.412)
Yeah, right.

Brock Ganeles (13:05.0)
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. you know, meanwhile, behind the curtain, we got all this surveillance technology that's being, being roped in. So you'll be able to handle protests easier down the road. We'll know exactly who's involved. We'll crack down on them. And, you know, there'll be less to worry about for us here at the top. mean, this is where things get scary. And I feel like the Iran, this Iran war is almost like a foreshadowing of the way

MARK HAYES (13:13.164)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (13:35.083)
the powers that be wanna function in the global society, right? There's a dominance, there's a lack of concern about.

MARK HAYES (13:42.413)
Yep.

Brock Ganeles (13:49.055)
the regular people, right? We're committing war crimes, right? You're not supposed to, in the rules of engagement, be bombing targets that serve the people, like the desalination plants for the water. In war, you're not supposed to target things like that, because it's the innocents that get hurt. But we as a government don't care.

MARK HAYES (13:51.53)
he-

MARK HAYES (14:05.922)
Right.

MARK HAYES (14:13.422)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (14:16.444)
Our oligarchs don't care like. The Iranian government doesn't care, but the Iranian people. Are the ones that are going to suffer and get hurt? And do we care as the American people? Of course we don't, because we don't even care about the people in our own country.

MARK HAYES (14:18.508)
You know the Iranians don't care.

MARK HAYES (14:24.896)
are the ones taking it. They're taking it on the chin, which is so sad.

MARK HAYES (14:39.168)
Right. And we're not going to anytime soon because there's never enough for the Epstein class. Right? Like how many yachts can you water ski behind? Doesn't matter. They still need to make a billion dollars tomorrow. know, Trump will never be able to loot the government enough. Even when there's nothing left to loot, he still wants more. And you can see that

you know, by the amount of money that he's been able to get his hands on just since he's been in office. He's going to leave office with what? If he lasts five years with what? $5 billion? Five and change?

Brock Ganeles (15:22.932)
Mark, let me ask you this. If we're gonna just go back to talking about kitchen table issues, how is America gonna afford to stay in this war in Iran at a billion plus or whatever a day? Now there's supposedly talk that this engagement may last until September, per some briefing that went on with senators today.

MARK HAYES (15:23.106)
Crazy.

Brock Ganeles (15:46.215)
At the same time, while we're cutting corporate taxes, less money coming in, cutting taxes on the wealthiest, less money coming in, billion dollars a day on some ridiculous award in Iran, that's more dollars going out the door. How are we squaring this in our own personal checking and savings account, our own P &L here in America? How are we doing these things at the same time?

MARK HAYES (16:14.478)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (16:14.566)
except for the fact that we're taking away resources to everybody else in America. But how many food stamps can we cut? How many programs can we cut here to the 98 % of the citizenry to afford to do these two things at the margins, the tax cuts and the spending on a war? How?

MARK HAYES (16:20.78)
Right.

MARK HAYES (16:37.602)
Yeah, I don't... Bro...

Who knows? Look, if the financial professionals don't care whether or not the math is mapping, how are we going to care? They don't even want to tell us why the math doesn't map. They don't want to give us any of the real data that's impacting. Think about all the small businesses that use that data to figure out how they're going to budget, how they're going to manage those businesses. Small businesses,

can easily make $25 million. If you look at the small business guidelines for the US Department of Minority Development, what they consider a small business, it could be 10, 20, $30 million. And you think that information doesn't help these businesses plan and create

opportunities for themselves. What about if you've got a government contract and you need the actual data, the real data? So you can play, you know how many businesses are going to be turned upside down because of the stupidity of the Trump clown car and their inability to be able to do the jobs at the positions they were given? And we're not saying they were

given the positions, we're saying they were given the positions in terms of they're not qualified, but yet they're in the job. Linda McMahon, how long is it gonna take us to fix the education department? How long is it gonna take us to fix the Department of Interior where the lady is running around on private jets with her boyfriends, funneling money to her other boyfriend and her husband's company? Like, I mean, dude.

MARK HAYES (18:38.754)
The corruption is so rampant. We won't know anything until we get in there and get a good solid check of the books.

Brock Ganeles (18:48.348)
It's going to be expensive to rebuild all these.

departments. So we're either going to have to cut the defense budget that's never happened in our entire lifetimes, ever, ever, no one will even talk to it. Right. So that or we're going to have to raise taxes, which no one ever wants to talk about because even raising taxes on the wealthy and the corporations won't be enough to rebuild all these fundamental blocks underlying building blocks of American society.

MARK HAYES (18:53.193)
my god.

MARK HAYES (19:13.11)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (19:21.858)
that have been stripped away. So yeah, we have an expensive rebuild ahead of us. And who really wants to be on board for that? But every day we strip it away, the more it's gonna cost us to build it back. Something's gonna have to give. Yeah, we got so many problems ahead of us, but that's only if we actually restore sanity in America, get rid of Trump and Naga, and get like real actual leaders and legislators

MARK HAYES (19:24.184)
Right.

MARK HAYES (19:27.854)
Right.

MARK HAYES (19:33.39)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (19:51.771)
back in that are concerned about the well-being of the masses, the most of us. Even that's in question.

MARK HAYES (19:57.74)
Yeah. Yeah.

MARK HAYES (20:04.664)
Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (20:08.0)
That's going to take a ton of time and resources of all of us away from other things, even just to make that happen. Right. We're going to have to protest. We're going to have to make noise. We're going to have to have economic strikes. We're going to have to do boycotts. Right. We're going to have to do a lot of things that actually inflict some pain in order for us to get to the other side. We got a lot of problems ahead of us. I don't know if the American people are ready for that. I don't, I don't think they all.

MARK HAYES (20:16.494)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (20:37.954)
because we keep thinking it can happen the easy way and I don't think there's an easy way to turn this ship around.

MARK HAYES (20:45.526)
Well, but look, look what happened the last time we weren't, we didn't have the appetite for it. Right. Last time we didn't have the appetite for something difficult. Merrick Garland sat on his hands for four fucking years. Right. The most punchable face in America did nothing. And he could have saved us from this Trump 2.0, you know, vendetta tour, you know, grifting package that we're getting here.

Brock Ganeles (21:12.64)
But Mark, we fucked up because January 21st, the day after Biden's inauguration, why weren't we all screaming from the hilltops that we wanted

Department of Justice to start an investigation into Jan 6, top to bottom, day one of Biden's presidency and we didn't want to hear shit about anything else he was doing and that was the number one priority that we expected.

MARK HAYES (21:47.374)
You're right.

Brock Ganeles (21:47.391)
And we weren't going to vote for anyone in the midterms. weren't going to listen to any of Biden's shit. Nothing. We didn't want to hear anything until there was accountability on insurrection in this country. So we have to take some responsibility for it. I'm not absolving Merrick Garland. That fucker should have done his job. He shouldn't have needed me and you to tell him what his job was, but we should have been telling him anyway. And us as citizens, can never let that happen again. Like we have

MARK HAYES (21:58.158)
Right.

MARK HAYES (22:02.434)
Right.

MARK HAYES (22:10.196)
Exactly.

Brock Ganeles (22:17.314)
have to dictate and fucking be loud all the time. Lesson learned, right?

MARK HAYES (22:22.582)
Well, here's what I'll say as the black guy in the conversation. That is fucked up. That we get to sit here and watch white men in power commit crimes in broad daylight and not be prosecuted for them. They said, I saw a report last week and I forget where I saw it. Jeez, I gotta start writing this stuff down. I'm getting old. But there was a report that said,

Donald Trump knew Jack Smith had him dead to right. He knew it. Of course he did. He knew what he did. You know, that was before he totally...

Brock Ganeles (22:56.638)
Of he did.

Brock Ganeles (23:00.36)
He left his vice president there to get killed! We let that happen! We let that happen without accountability! What are we fucking kidding?

MARK HAYES (23:03.95)
See

MARK HAYES (23:09.43)
Right? And black folks are saying, man, I'm not coming outside to protest nothing. This is ridiculous. You prosecute us for shit we didn't even do. shit you thought we did. know, I mean, black folks are irate about this shit, bro.

Black folks are irate about the fact that Donald Trump, not even a smart white guy. One thing if we had a smart white guy, you know what I mean? Who was manipulating shit and we found out about it 20 years later. He's doing the shit in broad daylight. He's telling you he's doing it. And he doesn't care. And he's still getting away with it because people are too afraid, too scared, too concerned about what other people think.

Brock Ganeles (24:00.214)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (24:03.694)
And our government has let us down as a society in general because, you know, white folks are going to suffer because of this too, right? It's not just the others, the Black, Brown and others. White America's taking a hit too because of Donald Trump's incompetence. So yeah, bro.

Brock Ganeles (24:29.376)
What?

White America let it happen. White America didn't demand it. White America didn't demand it of Biden and Merrick Arlen. People like me didn't demand it that other white people needed to be prosecuted. And I'm not just talking about the Yahu's actually ran through the fucking Capitol with their Confederate flags. Like the masterminds behind it, the funders, the Ginny Thomases and the fucking Alex Jones.

MARK HAYES (24:53.902)
Right. Right.

Ugh.

Brock Ganeles (25:00.786)
Right and the Roger stones right these you know the fuckers the brains behind Turning loose they just turned the animals loose right they got him there riled them up and turned them loose but The people with the money and the smarts didn't get touched. They're now just still floating around society That Steve Bannon's and all that right, but we let it happen white America let it happen white America didn't have the stomach for

or a real reckoning. Maybe we were still in denial. I don't know. I can't even remember. Four years ago, why? Why wasn't I, five years ago, more aggressive and adamant about what needed to happen right away?

MARK HAYES (25:49.856)
Right. Yeah, man, I just, you know, when we look at these two different worlds that we walk in, you know, we have, you know, dramatically different perceptions, you know, we're starting to understand why. But, you know, the next battle is obviously going to be, you know, whether or not we're going to be even able to have. Are we going to be able to even have?

midterm elections. Much less are we going to be able to keep them safe? Are we going to be able to keep the vote safe? You know, Donald Trump has used the media with just incredible aplomb to get them to buy in, you know, to his fuckery in terms of, you know, fake news. And, you know, they cover it like what the guy says is gospel.

They covered like this guy didn't tell what? 10,000 lies his first time around.

Brock Ganeles (26:49.866)
still still still lied to every day of this guy's life and he's been in the public eye for a decade and still anything's taken on face value when he's saying Iran has tomahawk weapons also maybe they bombed their own school I mean

MARK HAYES (26:57.134)
Right.

Right.

Brock Ganeles (27:09.856)
How the fuck do you even hear that and even give that a second of credence, right? Stop with the respect for the office. Oh, well, you know, a president said it. So therefore I have to give it some credence. We know it's total bullshit. Like, what are we doing? We don't need AI to tell us it's bullshit, right? We can trust our gut. We know what's going on right in front of us.

MARK HAYES (27:13.728)
any greetings. Right.

MARK HAYES (27:30.872)
Hey!

MARK HAYES (27:36.032)
Right. And it's sad, man. It really is. That this is what, you know, this great country has, you know, has fallen to. I would have never imagined we'd be at this point in our country's development. I mean, we're literally going backwards now. I know.

Brock Ganeles (27:55.809)
We should have imagined it though. When a bunch of, when 2000 people could storm the Capitol, scream for the vice presidents had erected gallows as if they were going to hang them in broad daylight. Like it was the, you know, 1806 or something. And

in the process they were going to basically threaten and intimidate the Congress into not allowing the electoral votes that we could have a peaceful transfer of power. Why are we surprised what comes after it? Right? What would it, you know, as I'm saying it, I'm almost can't believe my own complacency in the aftermath.

MARK HAYES (28:28.366)
Hmm.

Right?

Brock Ganeles (28:42.238)
that there wasn't like a scorched earth like there should have been hundreds if not thousands of people on trial for treason. Forget desecration of an office building or disruption of an official proceeding and all these bullshit minor fucking traffic violations that we went after talking about flat out treason.

MARK HAYES (28:52.315)
my god.

Bye.

MARK HAYES (29:06.382)
All right.

Brock Ganeles (29:08.914)
And we all let it slide by because we didn't have the stomach for it because we couldn't believe that that was the direction that our country had gone in. Maybe, maybe we just didn't want to face who we are. And therefore, we didn't do anything about it.

MARK HAYES (29:23.554)
Right.

MARK HAYES (29:27.214)
Yeah. Yeah. And, know, Brock, if you'll remember, think back to 2016, 17, 18, 1920. This is we kept hearing this is not who we are. It is who we are. It is who we are, bro. I mean, this country was founded on the brutality and the violence of slavery. I mean, that's where that's that's where we came from. That's that's where birthplace is rooted. Right. In the violence, the rape.

culture, the brutality. And have you ever been to some of these museums that

I can't say pay homage to, memorialize the slave trade. There's an amazing little museum here in Atlanta called the Apex Museum. And they've got an actual slave ship rebuilding. And it shows you how the slaves were packed. I don't know if you remember in Roots, but in Roots, they talk about tight pack and loose pack.

And that's how people were chained together in the dark for days and weeks at a time, right? With no, there were no porta potties on these boats, right? And you look at it and you just wonder how anybody made it. You just wonder.

Brock Ganeles (31:02.975)
Yeah.

To answer your question at the top, I've been to one, the African American Museum in DC, is the only museum that I've ever been to that memorialized that. And I'm curious, as you were saying that, was wondering what the demographics are of the attendance at that Apex Museum in Atlanta. Like, do white people go? No, they don't want to think about it. They don't want to think that their people, so to speak, were the ones that did that.

MARK HAYES (31:08.686)
Okay. And DC, yep, good point.

MARK HAYES (31:24.876)
All black.

Brock Ganeles (31:35.603)
so they don't want to face it.

MARK HAYES (31:39.096)
Bye.

Brock Ganeles (31:39.745)
Just like someone in chat the other day was like, lighten us up, right? Me, I kind of personalized it right about like, you know, why you got to talk about race, whatever you do, people think that you owe them something, this and that. And I'm just like, that's not, that that's not the case. Just because you talk about it doesn't mean it divides us. Why don't when people say like, I don't talk about race, it only divides us. Like, no, it doesn't have to. We can acknowledge our differences. I'm like, I even responded, was like,

MARK HAYES (31:56.462)
Right.

Brock Ganeles (32:09.698)
Do you acknowledge other people's genders? Do you acknowledge other people's religions? Do you acknowledge other people's ethnicity? So why wouldn't you acknowledge, I mean, race is a bullshit construct, but like, just because you acknowledge I'm white and I acknowledge you're black doesn't mean that's not divisive. That's not in its, a divisive statement. It's just an acknowledgement that we have differences. That doesn't have to separate us. We could respect each other's differences.

MARK HAYES (32:12.216)
Right.

MARK HAYES (32:32.791)
No!

Hey!

Brock Ganeles (32:39.618)
and still love each other and care about each other. It's a choice to make those topics divisive. They don't have to be divisive. When I talk to a Catholic person as a Jew, is that a divisive topic? No.

MARK HAYES (32:43.792)
Yup.

MARK HAYES (32:48.066)
Yup.

Brock Ganeles (32:56.318)
So that's your religion. Okay. On Sunday, you go to your church. Other days, I may not go to my church. Does that mean that it doesn't necessarily drive a wedge between us? Shit, my wife's Catholic. Like clearly it didn't drive a wedge between us that we had different religions. We acknowledged it. We moved on.

MARK HAYES (33:06.978)
Doesn't have to.

MARK HAYES (33:11.298)
Right.

MARK HAYES (33:15.094)
Yep. Yep. And that's the thing, Brock, is like why our conversation is important and why more people need to be listening to it because you and I do this every day. We talk about how we see things in black and white and we get finished after talking for an hour or whatever. Neither one of us are annoyed. Neither one of us is angry with the other. It isn't. It isn't. But you know what is divisive? When people start assigning blame.

Brock Ganeles (33:35.584)
that divisive?

MARK HAYES (33:44.899)
when people start saying you're responsible for my failure or the lack of my opportunities, right? And the blame game starts way up above our pay grade. And when the blame game comes, that's why you're seeing what we're seeing now here in this country. That's why, and then, you know, these phones, social media, the greed, the quest for stuff.

You know, everybody's concerned about what we call it, selfish toxicity, toxic, selfishness. I mean, that's all we're caught up in. You know, my big soccer van, my soccer mom truck, you know, my vacation, my big home, you know, my big this, my rich that, right? It's all rooted in style. What do they call it? All hat and no cowboy. You know, I mean,

Brock Ganeles (34:20.542)
Yeah, toxic stuff.

MARK HAYES (34:44.43)
That's where we're at, bro. And that's why we don't know our neighbors like we used to. Remember you used to be able to go down the block and say, oh, I know who lives here, here, here, here, all the way down the street. You got no idea.

Brock Ganeles (34:55.42)
I just did it when I was home two weeks ago. Knew I was driving by, remembering every name on the block. Knew them all. Knew everyone.

MARK HAYES (35:00.556)
Yeah, yeah, not anymore. Because people look out the door at you and they won't even open it and ask you what you want. Won't even open it. Scream through the door. What do you want? Leave me alone. I'm not interested.

Brock Ganeles (35:17.012)
Yeah. But my biggest, my biggest takeaway, and I'm going to, you know, we're to maybe keep fighting this battle all the time in the chat rooms and this is that speaking about a topic is not divisive by nature.

MARK HAYES (35:35.182)
You're right.

Brock Ganeles (35:36.287)
Making anything about who we are as people divisive is a choice that we make. doesn't have to be, it could be interesting, it could be compelling, it could be eye-opening, it could be educational, right? The conversation could be all those positive things. It can be divisive if that's the route you wanna go.

MARK HAYES (35:42.882)
Right. Right.

MARK HAYES (35:59.2)
Mm-hmm.

Brock Ganeles (36:00.051)
It's a route, but to understand it's a choice that you're making and sweeping it under the rug. Doesn't make you, doesn't solve it. Doesn't pretending it doesn't exist. Doesn't make it not exist. You know, have the conversation, ask a question. I'm so frustrated by some of the commentary we be at, get, but I get it. That's, that's where people's heads are at. You know, they think the topic alone.

MARK HAYES (36:04.108)
Right.

MARK HAYES (36:09.293)
Right.

MARK HAYES (36:14.925)
Right.

MARK HAYES (36:18.669)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (36:26.283)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brock Ganeles (36:30.134)
somehow chips away at who they are. It's a weird way of thinking.

MARK HAYES (36:33.813)
Right. Right, just because you've said it, you must believe this, that, or the other thing. It's terrible. All right, buddy, you got a quick hit for me?

Brock Ganeles (36:42.688)
Yeah, let's go black and white. I'm going to come at you with one of your favorite black guys. You know who's decided he's not running for president in 2028? Taking his hat out of the ring early. Didn't know his hat was in the ring. Stephen A. Smith. Stephen A., your friend Stephen A. Smith.

MARK HAYES (36:47.806)
come at me!

MARK HAYES (36:53.071)
who could that be?

MARK HAYES (36:59.789)
Cory Booker? Who?

MARK HAYES (37:06.315)
Fuck him.

Brock Ganeles (37:07.346)
Not running, not running for president. Thank you for telling us. I guess I should make my announcement as well shortly. I'll be calling a press conference over the weekend to announce my intentions in 2028.

MARK HAYES (37:13.15)
Exactly.

Yeah, me too.

You know, his ground team must have told him he didn't have a very good chance of winning.

Brock Ganeles (37:24.798)
He says, because he doesn't want to give up all the money he's making. Little does he know, as Trump has taught us, being president can be the most lucrative job on the planet. Just sprinkle in a little corruption. What do you got for me today?

MARK HAYES (37:27.616)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (37:33.118)
Exactly. He doesn't even take a salary. Yeah. How about the two police officers that got arrested now facing federal charges in New York for ripping off prostitutes? What in the world is that all about? Yeah, they cuffed a couple of police officers known for robbing ladies of the evening, and those guys are facing federal charges. So I guess...

We haven't undergone the sensitivity training in some of our police departments, including NYPD. So yeah, that's... Can you possibly get...

Brock Ganeles (38:10.642)
Okay, let me just ask you this. How much money? Wait, I'm assuming these are women. Maybe that's a sexist assumption that the victims were women. But how much money were they carrying that it was worthwhile for these police officers to steal from them? Aren't there just more lucrative targets out there?

MARK HAYES (38:18.711)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

MARK HAYES (38:30.23)
Well...

MARK HAYES (38:35.329)
Well, and who carries cash anyway? What do you got to do? Okay, look, you cash at me the money that you just made from that John over there or else. What? Like, who's got cash? I don't know, bro. Like, yeah, Justin McMillan, Justin Colon, indicted Tuesday on charges of felony conspiracy.

Crazy, crazy. They stole the brothel key, then robbed and groped a sex worker.

Brock Ganeles (39:08.544)
Protecting to serve, they even sprinkled in some groping too. The theft wasn't enough.

MARK HAYES (39:14.925)
Yeah, yeah, Breaking and entering wasn't far enough. They had to go a little further. Son of a biscuit. All right, buddy, we had to it on that positive note. Things are looking up.

Brock Ganeles (39:28.704)
Alright Mark. Alright, always a pleasure planning to go for a drink at the Red Rooster tonight.

MARK HAYES (39:37.545)
Red Rooster. Samuel, Marky Samuelson. Yes, yes. Well-known international chef, excellent food. Enjoy that, my friend. I'm so jealous. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, make sure you do some small plates or something. Get something to eat while you're in there.

Brock Ganeles (39:40.756)
Marcus Samuelsson's place.

Brock Ganeles (39:52.512)
We'll talk a little about it tomorrow.

Brock Ganeles (39:58.496)
Can I afford those small plates over there? Marcus is pretty high-end. We'll see. I'll let you know. Okay, it's a small plate. Small plate. Big plates. Alright, Mark, talk to you later.

MARK HAYES (40:02.517)
Yeah, go to small. You should be able to some cannabis. All right, buddy. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Peace.