2 Men In Black and White: An Honest Conversation

MARK HAYES (00:01.518)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting edition of Two Minute Black and White, an Honest Conversation. Here we go. We are live and we are talking about the emerging leaders in the Democratic Party. And we're looking for our Navalny, our MLK, our Kennedy brothers, those individuals who have the panache, the je ne sais quoi, if you will.

and the leadership message that goes along with it. And organically, appears, it appears if you're looking at it objectively on the blue side, that there's only one name that really stands out. You could argue too, I think.

Let's go up to the beautiful confines of the Upper Hudson River Valley. and Ellis joins us just outside New York City. Brock, mind meld, mind meld, who do you think that one name is?

BROCK GANELES (01:06.438)
I mean, I really just feel like the Democratic Party doesn't necessarily want to admit or acknowledge it. But AOC is the leader of the party in my mind. And I think it was the Atlantic that wrote the article and I and I didn't read the whole article, but I saw it in my feed. And I think someone wrote an article about like the star of AOC. And it was like and it got me to thinking about that conference in Germany just a couple of days ago where I think three Americans went over there.

Newsome went over, Rubio was there, and AOC was there, and they all gave speeches and did like town hall type of settings. And AOC just outshone the other two so dramatically. And it was just like, she does that all the time. When she went around with Bernie and the barnstorming, the rooms were packed.

MARK HAYES (01:36.142)
Right.

MARK HAYES (01:54.284)
Yes. Act!

BROCK GANELES (01:56.378)
When she walks down the hallways of Congress and just get to ask a question off the cuff, she'll stop and give like a 30 second clip. That's both funny and insightful and cuts right through. She's just, I think we just have to acknowledge that she's as talented a politician as we've seen come around in a long time. And cause she can, she has the charisma.

and the messaging capability of a younger person who knows how to do social media and those Instagram lives. She's also really good on policy and she's really good in those congressional meetings where they have the oversight type of meetings. She's great in the Q &A. She's well prepared and she cuts into it. I know she's young. She's a woman.

MARK HAYES (02:25.806)
Yep.

MARK HAYES (02:29.549)
Yep.

MARK HAYES (02:34.54)
Focus, I hear it. Yeah.

BROCK GANELES (02:45.445)
She's Latina. A lot of things against her that maybe make a lot of people not want to acknowledge that. But I think she's the voice of the party and she brings energy and brings the youth into the party. She's someone they can get around. They're not going to get around like Chuck Schumer. And, you know, I feel like Jeffries has fumbled the ball with the opportunity he's had because he's just too middle of the road, too political in a way, in a way that AOC shoots from the hip.

MARK HAYES (03:14.54)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (03:14.575)
comes across more genuine. Certainly, I think he's the...

MARK HAYES (03:18.892)
And you know, I absolutely, I agree with you 100%. And I think you're right about Mr. Jeffries. I wish he had come out guns blazing and given us the old Brooklyn Hakeem Jeffries instead of, you know, trying to walk this political tightrope, which is no longer an advantage anymore. You don't have to be a stakesman. You need to be a fighter, right? And one thing we can count on, and we saw it with the,

the barnstorm tour with Bernie and AOC is you know they're gonna fight for what's right. I mean, they didn't fill those rooms up with people that they paid to come. People paid to come see them. So, you know, stop telling me, you know, that Chuckles is still the lead. Chuck needs to go, his day is done, right? The day of writing letters and, you know, strongly worded letters.

Those days are done. People are throwing that shit. They're hitting that shit and putting it in the delete file immediately. These Republicans, you know, are playing, literally playing tackle football while we got a bunch of wussies on the D side, you know, with flags on, who refuse to put on a helmet and go make a play. And, you know, we need every fighter we can get. And, you know, I'm trying to be realistic.

I would love to point out Jasmine Crockett as your leader of the party, but I'm being realistic. I think as a Latina, she has a better chance than Jasmine of being at the top of the ticket. This Texas Senate race is gonna tell us a lot.

BROCK GANELES (05:03.107)
Yeah, but but AOC also, I mean, she's just been better on policy, right? She got destroyed on the Green New Deal. Now we have no climate change policy right now. Like we've it all out. There's no rules on on automobiles, any emissions anymore. Like we're back to the 1970s when there was so much smog in L.A., right? That no one could even breathe in the city. We've wiped away 50 years of legislation. She's on the other side of the coin pushing it when it's not popular. She chased

MARK HAYES (05:23.864)
Right.

MARK HAYES (05:31.148)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (05:33.072)
fucking Amazon out of the Queens when it wasn't popular. But boy, was she ahead of the curve on Jeff Bezos and not wanting that fucker in the neighborhood, right? Cause she saw it as exploitive. She saw it as gentrification. She saw it as a place that didn't treat workers properly. And she fought and won that fight. And look, eight years later, now it's sort of like mainstream, right? Now no one wants Amazon in their neighborhood. No one wants, you know,

MARK HAYES (05:43.052)
No doubt.

MARK HAYES (05:51.408)
He was right. Yeah.

BROCK GANELES (06:00.248)
ice warehouses in their neighborhood and sort of neighborhoods are waking up to the fact that you can fight against these things when you don't want them. So that's where she's ahead of Jasmine. She's also been, you know, she's been in the public eye longer than Jasmine. So in a way Jasmine's older than her, but Jasmine AOC is more experienced. She's put policies on paper. She's taken unpopular causes or stances where her, she just went by her gut, not by what the polls said.

MARK HAYES (06:08.566)
Right.

MARK HAYES (06:22.594)
Yep.

BROCK GANELES (06:28.473)
You know, Hakeem Jefferson still trying to not, he doesn't want to say to say this dismantle ice or, you know, dissolve ice because some polls have told them that that might not work in some, you know, tight districts in Wisconsin or something. But when you don't come strong, one wants to follow you when, when they think that you're tiptoeing.

MARK HAYES (06:35.096)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (06:44.158)
Or see or iowa that diner in iowa Still trying to get that talking guy

MARK HAYES (06:53.152)
Right, right. And you know, that's the thing. Jasmine has, mean, AOC has so much confidence when she delivers her messages and speeches. She is an incredible orator. Like if you've, you know, checked out a couple of her speeches, you know, and she's had some prime stages, you know, like at the DNC and done really, I mean, knocked it out of the park. Very Obama-like.

If you remember, we were introduced to President Obama at the DNC. And we were like, wow, who is this guy? Man, he's got it, right? And when we think back to it, obviously Ronald Reagan, but Bill Clinton in the 90s, Obama in the 2000s, Reagan in the 80s, and the Kennedys.

right in the 60s and early 70s until or late 60s rather and you know it's it's it is one of the hallmarks of the democratic party i mean you you look at the our side right now you know who do you point out as as the de facto leader over there they don't have any scars right now

BROCK GANELES (08:12.154)
David.

BROCK GANELES (08:15.589)
They're worried about who comes after Trump, right? That's why they keep talking about Third Term as he does. I mean, they're just, have such unlikable characters over there, right? Can you imagine that stage of DeSantis and Cruz and, and JD Vance and Rubio, right? I mean, they, they're just, just popularity wise. Forget the fact that their policies suck and that they've all kind of like sucked up to Trump, like just as...

MARK HAYES (08:18.378)
yeah!

MARK HAYES (08:32.993)
No.

BROCK GANELES (08:43.397)
personalities. There's just there's no charisma in the room. You know, that's the sad thing is Trump has a little bit of political instincts. He, you know, it's the worst instincts he plays to the worst of humanity. But he has like that ugly shitty street smart that he knows how to tap into people's worst fears and and he's a pathological liar. So he's kind of pulled it off on that side of the equation. And the other the other person that maybe was a leader on that side

MARK HAYES (08:48.567)
Zero.

MARK HAYES (09:09.633)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (09:12.897)
is Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's the rising star. I always thought she was bat shit crazy and certainly wasn't a fan, but for their messaging and the MAGA movement, she was there. She was it. And boy, she turned tail on mainstream MAGA.

MARK HAYES (09:18.583)
Right.

MARK HAYES (09:23.842)
We see it.

MARK HAYES (09:29.422)
Ooh, wow. Isn't it weird that we're using those two words together, mainstream MAGA? That's frightening. That is scary. Good thing it's about 18 to 20 % of the population, but she's going after them all. All the guardians of the pedophiles. She's seen the Epstein files. She knows what's in there. These 300 politically connected names.

She knows who they are and she's telling everyone I saw her on a podcast. I think with that loony tune The weight loss lady get fit on TV lady. I can't remember her name That yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, who's that shit crazy? She was telling her that it's all Donald Trump like all this is coming from Donald Trump. He's not getting bad advice He's giving out the marching orders

BROCK GANELES (10:11.097)
Jerry Michaels?

MARK HAYES (10:27.884)
So she's putting that out there for everyone to hear. And I don't think it's a surprise, but no one to this point has said that.

BROCK GANELES (10:38.863)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean.

MARK HAYES (10:39.342)
So, you know, we'll see where it goes. But, you know, in the meantime, you know, we got to we got to put AOC in some bubble wrap and get these stars out. I like a new

BROCK GANELES (10:51.205)
And I want the party to elevate her instead of her just organically gaining more and more traction and attention. know, the Ken Martin led party and with Jeffries and Schumer like they're, you know, they stand in her way. They don't, they don't elevate her. And it was interesting because of Barack Obama, who was at the NBA All-Star game and has been doing a few interviews over the last several days. He's also been talking about.

MARK HAYES (10:57.77)
Right.

MARK HAYES (11:04.045)
Good morning.

MARK HAYES (11:11.852)
No!

MARK HAYES (11:18.979)
Good?

BROCK GANELES (11:20.655)
you know, the fact that it's a young person's game and that some of the leaders on the Democratic side have sort of, you know, sort of aged out. I think that was his term. So it's not a direct message, but I assume he's talking to Chuck Schumer amongst others as they got to make some room for some younger voices. And just to go back to AOC on the Green New Deal, did have a quote in the chat here from BAM talking about the executive order on emissions can be rescinded.

MARK HAYES (11:28.5)
Right.

MARK HAYES (11:37.389)
Right.

MARK HAYES (11:40.77)
R.I.P.

BROCK GANELES (11:47.95)
And I get that. That's one of the things that Trump has done in terms of rolling us back out of anything climate related. We're also out of the Paris climate agreement, right? Where, I mean, he's re-promoting coal. I mean, we're doing some, you know, some idiotic shit, right? Relative to climate change in the aggregate, which is a topic that because there's so many more

MARK HAYES (12:05.048)
some dumb shit.

MARK HAYES (12:11.799)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (12:16.281)
would seem to more pressing short-term topics about our democracy. We rarely even discuss anymore. Is it even going to be a topic in the midterms that MAGA has rolled back decades worth of progress in terms of trying to deal with global warming and other climate issues? mean, are we just going to have another hottest year on record yet again for like the fifth in a row and ignore it?

MARK HAYES (12:20.642)
Right.

MARK HAYES (12:25.624)
that.

MARK HAYES (12:45.0)
And I think this is the message, one of the messages that we need to be delivering on college campuses, because Charlie Kirk wasn't doing that. Charlie Kirk was promoting the hate and the differences between us. But these young people got to understand in 25, 30 years, you may not be able to breathe over here, because we're going to go back to those brown outs. I lived in Denver, where you could see the brown smog.

just enveloping the city. And, you know, it is a huge difference, you know, from what that was in the early 90s when I got there to when, you you look at it 10, 12 years ago, five years ago. I mean, it's amazing in Denver, LA, the same thing, you know, but we've got to start taking care of that. We got to be better stewards of the planet.

BROCK GANELES (13:35.439)
Yeah, I mean.

BROCK GANELES (13:39.494)
16 year old that wouldn't would laugh if you talked to him about smuggle arts, right? That there were certain cities you get a you'd get a warning you get a warning that you You actually should not be breathing the air today You know, what are you gonna do? are you gonna do like be a shut-in? but you know LA among other cities just had the smuggle arts So it was just another place. I just use as another place where I thought AOC showed leadership

MARK HAYES (13:40.462)
That's

MARK HAYES (13:44.342)
Right. Never heard of it. Right.

MARK HAYES (13:50.208)
Right. Right.

MARK HAYES (13:59.946)
Yeah, it's crazy.

MARK HAYES (14:08.097)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (14:09.003)
on a topic that, you know, it just, he's going to just play it out to be quote, right yet again on that particular topic. So, yeah, I love that MTG is beating them up on, you know, is beating them up on the pedophile side of things. Thomas Massey is, is, is on that like a dog on a bone also. It's not Epstein files not going away. We could talk about that every day.

MARK HAYES (14:15.97)
Right.

MARK HAYES (14:29.336)
Kill it.

BROCK GANELES (14:34.187)
of new stuff that gets disclosed or trick or trickles out. mean, fucking Epstein was involved. He had his tentacles everywhere. Higher education, Nobel Peace Prize, right? Trying to undermine the pope, right? This fucking guy thought he was like a Svengali, right? Running the world from his Epstein Island.

MARK HAYES (14:38.562)
Right.

MARK HAYES (14:45.346)
Yep. Yep.

Thank you.

MARK HAYES (14:56.046)
I mean, it's frightening the shit he was into bro. Yeah, he had them all compromised. No wonder Russia loved him. You know, that's what they do. You know, he who knows, they might have paid him millions to set people up. You know, mean, exactly.

BROCK GANELES (14:59.129)
But he had everyone over a barrel, right?

BROCK GANELES (15:15.481)
Well, how do you get so rich? Right? How do you get so wealthy? We haven't haven't we haven't tracked the money yet. Right. That story the other day came out about about Deutsche Bank, like all these all these workers at the bank flagged all these.

MARK HAYES (15:22.636)
And that's what's next.

BROCK GANELES (15:30.886)
this wave of wire money being wired all over the place that was totally breaking their internal rules, international finance rules, wire fraud rules. You know, they, they brought it to their bosses and the bosses told them to shut the fuck up and or fired them because they were either compromised or they were just taking a cut. You know, money train was too good that no one wanted to ask the questions, the obvious questions.

MARK HAYES (15:47.243)
Right.

MARK HAYES (15:54.05)
Right?

MARK HAYES (15:59.756)
Yep. And that's the scary part.

BROCK GANELES (16:01.323)
MTG's asking them though. MTG is asking those questions and we thank her for it.

MARK HAYES (16:04.974)
Yes, she is. Right. And that's the blessing now that they're eating each other from the inside and turning on each other. That's a really good point. mean, that it's funny too because

know, MAGA has owned this space, right? The turn on, I mean, you know, the leader of the party is famous for this, you know, just for turning on people because they won't do what I want them to do. Oh yeah, there's BAM, talking about Southern California, 86, oh yeah, ooh. Yeah, that was a tough time. That was a lot of smog, 86 to 90. I remember being out there a couple of times after graduation in 89.

But yeah, but you know, this is the way MAGA does it. And this is why this can't last and we've got to stomp it out. Because this is no way to govern, right? We're not being governed right now. We are being looted. And everyone knows it. You know, all you got to do is look at, you know, how much wealth Trump has acquired, you know, since inauguration day. And it's ridiculous. You know, from the $400 million plane to the crypto scams, you know, to everything else.

BROCK GANELES (17:32.038)
and it related a concerning story about like they got to be stopped is, you know, sort of the headline of today was that the Iranian protests have fizzled out, right? Very, very large protests, extremely aggressive response from the government. A lot of people killed, a lot of people injured, and they're still chasing people down who they saw out on the streets, right? That's authoritarianism when it's entrenched.

MARK HAYES (17:43.31)
Right. Right.

MARK HAYES (17:52.428)
Yep.

MARK HAYES (18:02.103)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (18:02.327)
It's really hard to overturn authoritarianism once it gets those levers of power and gets legitimacy and the military behind them. That's where we can be in a couple of years from now. That's why this is the time for us to take action. It's too late once they've, they've wiped out democracy and turned it into an authoritarian rule. It's too late. The Iranian people have now,

MARK HAYES (18:12.855)
Right.

MARK HAYES (18:18.574)
Be careful.

MARK HAYES (18:27.17)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (18:32.165)
protested aggressively five, six times in the last 15 years or so where we kind of thought like, maybe, maybe this time they're going to topple the regime and topple the regime. A month ago I was optimistic. Hey, maybe they got it right. Supposedly we were going to help them. Don't think we helped them a bit. And, now we're kind of, you know, they're back to square one, right? And

MARK HAYES (18:39.938)
So all bins count down. Yeah.

MARK HAYES (18:51.597)
Yep.

MARK HAYES (18:57.122)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (18:57.795)
We cannot let authoritarianism take hold here. It's much harder to displace it than it is to stop it from coming into play. And we're at that tipping point where Trump's talking about voter suppression and figuring out how he's going to manipulate the vote. Already talking about how he's not going to acknowledge the results if they don't go in his direction. That's only because we think

MARK HAYES (19:10.487)
Right.

MARK HAYES (19:16.398)
But we can't.

MARK HAYES (19:23.352)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (19:27.663)
that he has decided that he can't cancel them. Rethink at this point. So he's moved on to strategy B and strategy C, but he ain't going quietly.

MARK HAYES (19:30.593)
Right.

MARK HAYES (19:36.363)
Right.

MARK HAYES (19:39.818)
No, we know that. That's for sure. Hey, speaking of another point of inaction, know, Barrow County where they had that school shooting probably about a year and a half ago, I want to say, at Appalachee High School, two students were killed, a couple of teachers. The dad is on trial. This is right in my backyard, you know, maybe a 10, 15 minute drive from me. And, you know, the

Dad is on trial for giving the kid access to the weapon he used in the shooting. So this will be very interesting because, you know, once we start charging the people who provide the weapon of destruction, I think you're gonna see a real change in how people, you know, definitely store their weapons. And, you know, they're not gonna be so quick to hand off, you know, an AK-47 or a...

What's that other gun of choice? The big one. The 15 something 15, is it an AR? Yeah, yeah.

BROCK GANELES (20:44.005)
AR 15 AR 15. Well, I feel like I feel like there's a shooting in Michigan where they went after where the parents also got indicted because I remember one of the five and I don't know what happened with that case. Something I feel like in the Georgia case, it wasn't just access to the weapon that maybe the father had actually bought it for the kid as a as a gift. But the kid was only 15 or 16. I don't know what the rules. I don't even know what the rules are down there. Like is there is a yeah, is 18.

MARK HAYES (20:51.758)
Yes.

MARK HAYES (21:02.232)
bought a fourth kid again?

MARK HAYES (21:07.17)
Right?

We don't have any. Assume everyone has a gun here in Georgia. Just assume it.

BROCK GANELES (21:15.205)
But is 18 supposedly the age that that's why the father's on trial because he gave the son the gun before the son was 18? Yeah, I have to look at the exact reason.

MARK HAYES (21:25.838)
Maybe, yeah, yeah. I look at the details, I mean, you know, again, you know, we let people drive at 16. You know, you could consider that a weapon, but you know, the fact of the matter is what's, what positive uses could a kid have with a weapon like that? You know? And if he's being bullied, you know, now you're really an idiot.

BROCK GANELES (21:30.981)
animals.

MARK HAYES (21:53.634)
You're gonna give a kid that's being bullied a weapon, right? Now he feels like he can do something about it. So, you know, apparently there's this wash of power that overcomes you, you know, when you have these weapons in your hand. I'm not a big fan of them. You know, I only bought mine, you know, because I see these Trump flags rolling through here.

BROCK GANELES (22:19.299)
Yeah, I mean, shit.

MARK HAYES (22:19.79)
You know, in between, I live in between Atlanta and Athens. So I'm in red Georgia. You know, Andrew Clyde is my representative. You know, he of January 6th was just a walk in the park fame. That's the moron that said that.

So, you know.

BROCK GANELES (22:41.317)
I mean, is there a jury in your jurisdiction that would like actually convict the father for giving his kid a gun? I mean, that's, guess if I'm, if I'm that father, I'm taking it to court and I'm fighting. I'm not, I'm not playing out. I'm taking my chances. I'm going to find someone on that jury, one out of 12 that thinks it's just, just fine. Give it to, give it to an eight year old, you know, whatever, you know, we need our guns. Everyone can have a gun except Alex Preti, right?

MARK HAYES (22:47.139)
Well...

MARK HAYES (22:52.972)
Taking my chances.

MARK HAYES (22:59.242)
Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Bye.

BROCK GANELES (23:08.869)
So the hypocrisy of the second amendment comes into play, but yeah, we'll, we'll keep an eye on that one. The other thing that bothered me today was stories about pharmaceutical companies basically just canceling their vaccine research. So one year into the RFK junior era of American healthcare, we're not going to be, you know, we're not our modern medicine. We're going to just

MARK HAYES (23:12.322)
Thank you.

MARK HAYES (23:21.025)
It's.

MARK HAYES (23:34.499)
So.

BROCK GANELES (23:37.894)
We're going to stop the next COVID comes around. We're not going to have a warp speed. We're just going to be shut-ins in our houses for the full three, four, five, 10 years if we even survive, because we don't need to have vaccines. So even with like the biggest measles outbreak in 20, 30 years, mumps in Maryland and other fucking shit that's been, you know, diseases that have been tucked away for decades. We're still going to let RFK Jr.

MARK HAYES (23:38.178)
This ditch?

MARK HAYES (23:45.378)
Alright, thoughts and prayers.

BROCK GANELES (24:07.823)
Create an environment where pharmaceutical companies don't even want to bother with vaccine research anymore because they don't see it as a business that could ever be profitable for them because they function in a country that doesn't believe in vaccines.

MARK HAYES (24:18.008)
Night.

Doesn't believe in vaccines, right? Isn't it amazing how the anti-vax crowd won? mean everybody I know is vaccinated as adults. All the adults I know are pretty much vaccinated. I don't know any 35 year old, you know, mumps and measles survivors. Like I didn't have any of that shit. Chickenpox.

BROCK GANELES (24:43.641)
Mark, the second amendment crowd won, the we need to protect the border because we're being overrun by caravans. Crew won the climate change climate change as a hoax. Crew won. Now, look at the idiocy that actually has won or is winning in America. Just absolute fucking idiotic ideas that are making us worse.

MARK HAYES (24:53.879)
and never shut up.

MARK HAYES (24:58.594)
in

MARK HAYES (25:09.974)
all over the fucking place.

BROCK GANELES (25:14.027)
shortening our life spans. The ultimate scorecard for a society is how long do you, maybe the quality of living, which generally ties to also the actual duration of life that's going backwards. Certainly our quality of life is going backwards. Pretty soon. Our wealth is going to go backwards. We probably it has for most Americans, we just have either finagled the numbers or quite

MARK HAYES (25:27.191)
Right.

MARK HAYES (25:35.843)
Right.

Right.

BROCK GANELES (25:42.598)
haven't quite acknowledged that most Americans are in a declining wealth scenario. So, hey, that's who we've let win. That's who we've let win. That's who we've empowered. And that's the ideas that are being implemented. Hey, Tahiji told us read project 2025. No one wanted to read it. was too long.

MARK HAYES (25:49.836)
Yeah. Declining health and Yeah.

MARK HAYES (26:08.086)
Nobody wanted to read the bullet points. They didn't want to read those. Didn't want to believe it. They put it all in writing. It's kind of like Jerry Maguire and his little manifesto that got him fired.

It was a mission statement. All right, buddy, let's talk a little sports here. The Olympics, the pressure. Man, is there a bigger pressure cooker in sports?

BROCK GANELES (26:23.897)
Losing statement. Troy Aikman liked it. He read it.

BROCK GANELES (26:41.667)
love the Winter Olympics, Mark. I can't play and never have any sport that is involved there. Can't ski, can't skate. Don't even want to be in the cold anymore, right? Not to mention bobsled and other shit. guess I've been on a sled and going down a hill. Rari Acres, that middle hill was pretty steep as far as it went. But I love the Winter Olympics, partially because I love it because the Americans aren't necessarily, we're not steamrolling the world.

MARK HAYES (26:54.52)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (27:10.341)
kind of like we do in the summer Olympics, right? You know, the athletes are not glamorous. They're skating in some ring 10 hours a day. They're not household names, right? They're kind of playing their speed skating. They're playing off-beats sports. They're not playing the biggest glamour sports in America. So they're easier to root for, I think really easy to root for. I really like our team, but it is amazing. It's a mental exercise in handling

MARK HAYES (27:12.607)
Right.

MARK HAYES (27:38.828)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (27:39.878)
the pressure of the world stage. And some have met the moment and some have crumbled and it's kind of, it's heartbreaking to watch like that our skater who was considered one, maybe on the brink of being considered the greatest of all time, the male skater, Ilya something, and he fell twice. Yeah. Yeah. Great immigrant, American immigrant, you know, certainly. And, um,

MARK HAYES (27:42.967)
Right.

MARK HAYES (27:51.042)
Get me in.

MARK HAYES (28:01.684)
Ilya Malinin. Ilya Malinin.

BROCK GANELES (28:09.177)
Yeah, it fell a couple of times. but, know, the ugly, you know, very often we're looked at as the ugly Americans in the world, right? But our winter Olympic team is beloved being rooted for by foreign fans. And there's such good, such great statesmen and sportsmen. This guy, Ilja had the worst moment of his life, a shockingly horrendous performance for the favorite. And he walked off the ice.

MARK HAYES (28:11.423)
Wow.

MARK HAYES (28:17.696)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (28:36.741)
and spent 30 seconds congratulating the guy who was about to get the gold medal. I couldn't even believe it. I figured he was going to be bawling his eyes out or just trying to get away from anyone. And then he did an interview for like 40, like two minutes trying to explain why he, and he admitted that just the pressure of the moment had gotten to him. So.

MARK HAYES (28:43.597)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (28:50.094)
Right.

Right.

MARK HAYES (29:00.886)
Yeah, yeah.

BROCK GANELES (29:01.891)
I'm watching everything. covered. I'm wall to wall. I turn it on when I wake up in the morning. I've been watching it all day, every day.

MARK HAYES (29:10.202)
Yeah, you know, I because I'm such a big hockey guy, you know, I have such a problem with the USA with Team USA. Oh, can you hear me?

BROCK GANELES (29:19.621)
Reid, I lost you for a second. I lost you for a second. Yeah.

MARK HAYES (29:26.37)
Yeah, I was saying Team USA hockey has been such a disappointment. Mike Arruzzione and those guys, remember cheering for those guys when they beat Russia. And people forget when they beat Russia, they still had to go and play again in order to get the gold medal. And that's what a lot of people forget. But, right, right. And came back and pulled that one off.

BROCK GANELES (29:47.223)
And we're losing going into the third period.

MARK HAYES (29:55.598)
And right now, you look at Team USA hockey and you just wonder how many of these guys are MAGA? Because we've seen the 1980 team, a good number of them with the Trump hats on at Trump rallies, standing for Trump and his fans.

BROCK GANELES (30:08.451)
Yeah, yeah, you worry about that.

BROCK GANELES (30:15.215)
Yeah.

BROCK GANELES (30:23.171)
Yeah, I hope not because the team's been pretty outspoken against ICE in particular. You know, if not just going after MAGA, to me it's all the same. But on another topic in terms of the women's team, I mean, if we're going to talk to things in an honest conversation in black and white, you have to be happy that one of the star players is a black woman from Cleveland Heights and scored like three goals in a row. So I imagine I would hope

MARK HAYES (30:31.97)
Yeah, right.

MARK HAYES (30:44.151)
Absolutely.

Yes.

BROCK GANELES (30:52.099)
that the women's team is not MAGA because they're in the locker room, shoulder to shoulder in the foxhole with a black woman as their teammate chasing gold. And I would hope that that changes their mindset in life because they're surrounded by black excellence as it changed my mindset in life. As I tell you all the time, cause I grew up around black excellence and I'm hoping that's the experience that the women's hockey team is getting.

MARK HAYES (31:06.155)
Right.

Right.

MARK HAYES (31:18.646)
Yeah, Layla Edwards, one of two African-Americans to play on USA hockey men or women and or women, has scored a goal like you said in every game. She is just a beast. An incredible player. And you know what's interesting too? As my son rose through the ranks in hockey, know, the better competition and the better teams that he played on, the less of the

racial stuff we heard, which was really very, I was so glad to hear that. And even in college, I think somebody may have said to him, I think you're playing the wrong sport, because he was aggressive out there.

But that, I mean, that's like the worst comment he had in five years of hockey, know, NCAA division one hockey. So, you know, I've always looked at hockey in a different vein because, you know, we had a coach who was, he was Marty Brodeur's roommate on some of those New Jersey Devils Stanley Cups. And his name was Jim McKenzie. If you ever need a good laugh.

Take a look at some of his fights on YouTube. And this guy has the biggest human head that I've ever seen. Like his head. I was like, how'd you get a helmet? Did they have to order special helmets? Cause your noggin is ginormous. And he was the nicest guy that, I mean, he loved Malcolm. I hated leaving his team to go play for another team.

Man, there was a comment made up in Detroit and coach let the other team have it. And I was just like, my God, I hope coach doesn't start. And we knew what it was all about, right? But coach had Malcolm's back and there wasn't a better guy in the country to have his back because he's a professional NHL fighter, which means he can take a punch too.

MARK HAYES (33:38.156)
But you know, he was the, and he was the nicest guy. Opened his home, we spent weekends in his home, you know, I mean, just the salt of the earth, nicest guy, you know, multiple Stanley Cup winner, and just as humble as you might imagine. And Malcolm had two coaches that were also, you know, just amazing. And one played for the Russian national team and the other,

was the third draft pick after Mike Madono, believe in the 87 NHL draft. Scott Pearson, just the nicest guy. So the 80 team just let me down, bro.

BROCK GANELES (34:13.669)
Well, I'm happy to hear that because I guess I still stuck maybe in 30 years ago where hockey was really racist. And I like to think it's coming around because you know, we always talk about it that like sports at its best is a galvanizing.

event. It brings people together. It's part of why I hate the NFL because they have such a platform and could do so much for the country, but it's owned by like 30 MAGA fuckers and they just like do window dressing, even though they do have a melting pot of cultures and races and all that in the league, but they don't embrace it. and they let the owners allow it to still be like this feudal system, right? Where whites run everything and blacks are the labor.

MARK HAYES (34:50.616)
No doubt.

BROCK GANELES (35:02.311)
But other sports do it so much better and the Olympics isn't perfect, right? It's a bunch of countries getting together. So it's like the UN. There's a lot of stupid shit. Like they, they banned the Ukraine bobsledder because he wore a helmet that had the like decals of, you know, lost soldiers in the war and it wasn't like an official helmet. So like they do kind of stupid shit like that.

MARK HAYES (35:09.591)
Right.

MARK HAYES (35:14.128)
I'm sorry, don't because you

Yeah.

MARK HAYES (35:23.118)
Right.

MARK HAYES (35:28.834)
You got the curling controversy going on.

BROCK GANELES (35:31.238)
You got a Canadian guy when elbows up, right? But in general, in general, it's good. In general, it brings out the best of us. In general, you're just watching people that are striving for something great. In general, the sportsmanship is great. In general, it shows that we can get along as people and that the differences are overplayed. And I think it just should, once again, as my final point, it should embarrass us a little bit as Americans.

MARK HAYES (35:43.137)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (35:58.948)
Right. Once again, MAGA is up in arms by different shit. You know, they're always pissed off about something and, you know, that and in the latest case, it was some comments about ice. You know, why? How could our athletes, you know, just shut up and ski, shut up and bobsleigh, you know, when we're supposed to be the country of free speech and we should be promoting our people out there.

MARK HAYES (36:06.296)
Nope.

MARK HAYES (36:12.343)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (36:15.948)
Yeah.

MARK HAYES (36:21.538)
Right.

A land of opportunity. And that's what I think makes... Remember the 72 Olympics in Munich with the shootings and the kidnappings and the political statements that were being made? Remember the 68 Olympics?

BROCK GANELES (36:38.565)
Well, Mark, you're Jewish, the 72 Olympics is like, I was six years old. It's coming at you from one of the first things when you can contemplate what goes on in the world, right? Because what they kidnapped and killed, well, they didn't kidnap, they killed seven Israeli athletes, eight Israeli athletes or something like that. It's the only time there's ever been, in essence, you know,

MARK HAYES (36:53.057)
Right.

MARK HAYES (36:59.742)
Athletes, Right?

BROCK GANELES (37:05.701)
I shouldn't say the only time there's been terrorism because there was terrorism in Atlanta, right? The bomb went off at the Summer Olympics. Yeah, but this was targeted, you know, political terrorism to a specific group. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of shit. There was politics in the Olympics going back to 1936 and Jesse Owens in Germany. Right. So there's always politic political overlay of the Olympics. You can't take it out of it when you bring the world together.

MARK HAYES (37:09.846)
Hey, you got me. Yep.

MARK HAYES (37:23.804)
Bye. See ya always.

MARK HAYES (37:35.127)
Right.

BROCK GANELES (37:35.322)
And we shouldn't worry about taking out of it. I mean, we've got to the violence out of it, but...

MARK HAYES (37:39.82)
Right. All right. Well, I'm going to start tuning in, man. Some of these things. I know.

BROCK GANELES (37:44.079)
Come on man, it's the last week, everything's heating up now. know, everything's fine, a lot of gold medal action in this last week.

MARK HAYES (37:51.628)
Yeah, Team Canada finished perfect in their group play. I think we'll see what the rest does.

BROCK GANELES (37:55.235)
Alright, Mark, we will... Yeah, I lost it for a second. Always a pleasure. And we'll pick it up again tomorrow. With AOC leading the charge for us.

MARK HAYES (38:04.141)
Yes, sir!

Sounds good.

MARK HAYES (38:11.468)
No doubt. Alright bro, see you then. Peace.

BROCK GANELES (38:13.253)
All right. All right, Mark. Take it easy. Talk to you tomorrow.