Lively v. Baldoni 11 - "But the Times Did Not Care"

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:26 Thomas: Gavel in, gavel in. This is Gavel Gavel. Thomas. That's Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:30 Lydia: Hello, I'm ready to gavel it up. Don't know. I'm trying out some things.

0:00:33 Thomas: Double fisting the gavels.

0:00:36 Lydia: Well, you have to because it's gavel gavel.

0:00:36 Thomas: You got a gavel in each hand. Yeah,

0:00:38 Lydia: So, yeah, it's

0:00:39 Thomas: You can't use the same one. These are one -use gavels. Designed for now. They really...

0:00:41 Lydia: Not very eco -friendly.

0:00:44 Thomas: I know, but it's how it has to be. They need to give you the proper pop. Once, it's done.

0:00:50 Lydia: Once?

0:00:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:00:51 Lydia: Dang.

0:00:51 Thomas: It's one single use. That's why you need two. Yep. Well, I take my gavel seriously. I wish you would too. I keep sending you memos about it, but... So anyway, we we are going to dive into for the next Chex Notes, nine to, I guess, 11 episodes. Boy. This Baldoni Wayfaire v. New York times complaint. Right. It's nine parts and then another two parts where we actually bring a lawyer on. It's so long and well, you'll see. It is a long story. It Originally, we going to release that in big hardcore history chunks to the patrons and then episode it out for everybody else. But we kind of had to revise that plan for a few reasons. For one, just literally the size was getting to be so much that it's like crashing our computer to try to like edit it with all the little cuts. Because it's a combination of the sight and how insane I am with the editing that I make so many cuts that, like, even my ridiculously powerful machines were struggling. Talking like four, six, eight hours of thing with like, 10 you ,000 cuts, I don't even know how many it would be. But also we noticed that this a is really hard challenge to talk about because the complaint you're about to hear us get into is a bunch of text messages and screenshots and bad screenshots and Microsoft PowerPoint screenshots and Word screenshots of PowerPoint screens. It's really hard to get through. And so what what we decided to do after it just kept getting longer and longer and a more confusing was we're going to make sure to go back and give you in the outros the bullet points again to remind you kind of what you heard and to set up what's coming and to try to just be able to help everyone keep track. And we think that will be best if the patrons hear it as well, because it's so confusing. It's not like patrons are any less confusable, I don't think. Maybe, I know.

0:01:47 Lydia: It was pretty bad. Way to find out is to go to patreon .com slash gabapod

0:02:50 Thomas: Like to become less confusable? So that's what we're going to do. So patrons, you can go to gavel gavel 15. If you'd like to make sure you're not hearing any repeat of anything. But again, there's going to be new ish stuff because we're going to keep everybody up and repeat stuff and clarify. But if you are your patron, you've already listened to the first four hours of this thing, go to gavel gavel 15 and in the show notes. I will have the timestamp of exactly where you're caught up to. I don't have it now because we still have to like record the intro and stuff, but it'll be in that those show notes of gavel, gavel 50 patrons show notes, it'll have that timestamp for you promise. Can skip all these episodes if you'd like to skip straight to where you are. If you would like to listen again, or if you're not a patron, everybody else who buckle up.

0:03:32 Lydia: I feel like we say that with every piece of this entire scenario

0:03:36 Thomas: We're so buckled. There's a, everybody is like dangerously buckled you're, you're right to point that out. It's make Make sure you don't overbuckle is saying. It's happened. Now that we're all safely buckled in just the right amount. Long last, we're we going to hear from the other side of this. And by the other I don't mean the other from us. We're not on a side per se, the other of the lawsuits. So, so far we've heard from Blake Lively and we've from Stephanie Jones, essentially. And they're not exactly the same side, but they are generally the same Side of the thing. And now we are going to hear from Wayfair. We're going to Hear from Baldoni. There's actually a lot. How about I just tell you the names Of the plaintiffs in this. This is Wayfaire Wayfair Studios LLC, a California LLC. Baldoni, an individual. Jamie Heath, an Individual. Steve Sarowitz, an Individual. Melissa Nathan, an INDIVIDUAL. The Agency Group PR LLC, A Delaware Limited Liability Company. Jennifer Abel, an individual. And RWA Communications LLC, a California California LLC, Jed Wallace, an Individual. And finally, Street Relations, Inc., a California corporation. Wait, seems to be Jed Wallace' company, at least in California. That's all the plaintiffs. And in this one, The defendant is the New York Times, a New York corporation and does one through 100 inclusive. OK, well, see if those become important. But it's kind of the same thing that Blake Lively did, except 100 is a bit much. But all right. Of like she has 10 John does. I've got 100 John does

0:05:05 Lydia: Yeah.

0:05:05 Thomas: Next one is like a thousand. Is the Baldoni response. And who's representing him? Who's filing this?

0:05:07 Lydia: Brian Friedman is filing this. Brian Freedman of Freedom Friedman, Tatelman, and Cooley LLP out of L .A.

0:05:18 Thomas: Patrons know too much about Brian Friedman. We still haven't released that for everybody, we but will eventually because trying to find when to time that out. And we have a lot more to add. But patreon .com slash gavel pod. Good time to say if you join up there, you can also avoid the advertisement that you're about to hear because we're going to take our usual break and then we will dig into this complaint. And I just say this. To everything with an open mind. Suing anything like that, generally to Tends not be successful.

0:05:24 Lydia: Normies don't know yet.

0:05:53 Thomas: It's an uphill battle, shall we say, to say the least. And you were going to win, it better be a damn good case. So we'll see after this break.

0:05:52 Lydia: It's a ballsy move. Yeah? Yeah.

0:06:09 Thomas: Right. Well, we're going to dig in. And I think the best way to do this is we're, we're going to talk about the causes of action. Uh, I'm just going to kind of go through a very basic, not intended as real lawyer legal stuff, but this is, this is easy stuff. You can look up in terms of what elements you need to properly plead this stuff. Uh, And, it's pretty easy to get a general idea, which then we can use as we go through the complaint to kind thing to say, this one is in the County of Los Angeles Central District. This is Superior Court of the State of California. I will kind of like spoiler a little that this will end up in federal court with else. Everything And in this case, it's actually pretty important because the way California handles, anti you -SLAPP and defamation, all that stuff is I can't believe they filed this one in California. I mean, I guess maybe they kind of knew they were going to be in federal Court eventually anyway or something, because it really doesn't make sense. Like, that's the worst place for them to file this. It's one of one of the worst places for them file this, because in California, could be on the hook for, you know, attorney's fees like if this if this didn't survive an anti slap.

0:07:13 Lydia: You know, this was filed December 31st, 2024, and then corrected two days later because of violating reporter privilege. And so they had to remove stuff from the complaint based off of conversations that a reporter was having. These folks. And they requested that their name be redacted, the information be removed, and they had to refile it without those texts, without that data, essentially. Feels like it was more of like a convenient slapdash, put something together and file it. Yeah.

0:07:42 Thomas: It's the closest court. That's where they are. Yeah. No, Or, I mean, maybe they're that confident, but all we weirdly went through this exact thing in California and I you, I had some sleepless nights and got really crossed our t's and dot our I's uh once we were hit with an anti -slap trying to get rid of a defamation claim here in california this is the relevant you know I you know it's relevant to this I got really nervous because it was like shoot if we lose this I don't know what's happening like we might have to pay attorney's fees it's so it's scary um so I surprised they messed around with this I guess on one hand know that there's like money going behind this. On the other, we know that a lot of this is just as soon as possible to make a statement. And I think the fact that this is against the New York Times is telling as well, because honestly, this is a 90 page document and very little of it has anything to do with the causes of action against the Times. You'll see what I mean. It's I mean, well, let's a good to time get to that. We're sticking to the causes of action, which the complaint should, because that's what you're doing. Are talking libel. I started saying that. To plead libel properly in California, you have to allege a false and unprivileged publication by writing. One. Two, that exposes the plaintiff to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or obloquy. I always love that one. Which causes them to be shunned or avoided or injures them in their occupation. Three, that's published to a third party. Think at least one third

0:09:01 Thomas: Party kind of thing. And four, that cause special damages unless it is liable per se, which there's like categories of that where you don't have to prove damages if it's accusing someone of a crime or moral turpitude, that's where that comes in. So if you accuse someone of being horrible in some way that's like, lot you of this is old timey stuff. Like if you accuse someone of having syphilis or something. Yeah, it's like like that kind of thing. And I do remember from opening arguments that I think another category of libel per se, it involve like their job. If you're someone like, hey, this person is either know, they're a huckster.

0:09:17 Lydia: Adultery. Yeah.

0:09:31 Thomas: They're not. Yeah.

0:09:31 Lydia: Or like embezzling or something.

0:09:32 Thomas: They'RE like if it's something that directly threatens like the perception of how. Someone does their job. I think it's seen as like, well, you don't need to prove that causes damages because it's kind of obvious. That's kind what the libel per se part is. There's also the added thing of the plaintiff being a public figure. We know Justin Baldoni, 100 % a public figure. Jamie Heath, I think you could say 100 % as well. I mean, he's been out front in a lot of the stuff. He's the, you know, that kind of thing.

0:09:54 Lydia: Co -host some Man Enough podcast and

0:09:56 Thomas: Steve Sarowitz, what do you think there? I don't know. I don' know enough about anything. He is probably. The important case is going to be Baldoni. So we'll kind of focus on that. Going to speak with a lawyer at the end after we go through all the facts because they are long. I'll leave that for the lawyer. But let's treat this as though it's a public figure because it's what it's going to even though I think you could argue a few of them aren't. You could certainly I think Jed Wallace is not like

0:10:19 Lydia: Taking like yeah great care to not be a public figure.

0:10:23 Thomas: So that's interesting. Thing that's very fascinating is it's weird that these folks are all lumped together because I don't the claims against them are so different, you know, or so we'll get to that later. All right. So if the plaintiff is a public finger, which we're going to say, yes, they also have to plead and ultimately prove actual malice. That's the key. Might likely already know this, but just in case this is. The case, New York Times v. Sullivan, which the New York times knows something about and they have to prove actual mouse. They have to approve that the New, the New york times knew the statements were false or acted reckless disregard the truth. So they either have to know that what they're printing is a false statement. Or they have to have been so careless that you can still get them on that actual malice kind of thing. And I will tell you this, since New York Times v. Sullivan, which was a 1964 Supreme Court opinion that, you know, established this kind of actual malice standard and all that. New York Times in the roughly 60 years since then has never lost a libel case.

0:11:21 Thomas: So. This is your priors, as they say, should be that this is going nowhere. Now, there are a couple interesting cases where like there's a Sarah Palin one where they initially had to dismiss, but then she actually. Reversal of that. It's kind of like interesting technical legal stuff going on there. And not time to talk about it now. Also conservatives who really don't like this, like Trump doesn't like and a couple of the justices don't Like Times E. Sullivan.

0:11:46 Thomas: And so it may be that they undo, you last 60 years of libel law, likely. Yeah, we get the second cause, which is false light invasion of privacy. And this kind of just usually just overlaps with libel. This is a weird one, again, I think wait we'll to talk to a lawyer about this, but it's It usually goes along with the libel or defamation defamation stuff. And they are exactly the same, then usually this will get dismissed because like, okay, it can't be exactly the

0:11:45 Lydia: Clarence Thomas. Well, destroyed journalism as we know it, basically. Like,

0:12:18 Thomas: The false light invasion of privacy. So it's, it you has to be the defendant made a public disclosure. The disclosure placed the plaintiff in a false light. Three, the false would be highly offensive to a reasonable And four, actual malice, again, if the plaintif is a public figure. So here that sounds like kind of exactly the same. There's some subtle difference that I don't totally understand, but. Understanding is that these often kind of either rise and fall together like you're not going to win one without the other, usually, unless it's like, yeah, these kind of live and die by the same facts.

0:12:45 Thomas: But I do see that, like, if they overlap entirely, then they don't.

0:12:48 Lydia: Then what's the point of having

0:12:49 Thomas: Yeah, they usually dismiss one of them. But it's the kind of thing where, you you know, know, you want to do as much as you can. So they much always do both of them. Promissory fraud. Now, those first two are already an uphill battle. Second two causes of action, I'm you, are so dumb that to be hard to read this with a straight face. Promissory Fraud. There's nothing dumb about promissory fraud in a vacuum, but as applied to this case, we'll see. See, if you are someone who's listening along and you've only really heard stuff from us, like you haven't absorbed like much else, try to even think what this would be. I'm curious. And then you'll get a big reveal eventually. Promissory Fraud is when someone makes no intention of performing it. Intending to deceive the other party. So here's the you need. A promise was made. Two, the promise was false. Like maybe they

0:12:49 Lydia: To say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hmm.

0:13:36 Thomas: Never intended to, it can't be like, you know, some mistake or anything like they never, it has to be a lie essentially. Three, the promisor intended to deceive or induce reliance. The plaintiff justifiably relied on the promise. And five, the Like what would that even be? Well, just your best guess. Related for breach of implied in fact contract, again, it is a real thing, but does it apply to this? Like when you don't have a written contract, but all contracts need to be in writing. In fact, it's amazing how many don't. It's a really interesting area of law. This is when it's well, I'll just read the elements. I'll probably explain it best. One, a mutual intent to contract, as from conduct. Two, unambiguous offer and acceptance. So, offer and acceptance is something you need for regular contract stuff.

0:14:23 Thomas: So it makes sense that you still need all the contract stuff except just not written down, like that's what this is about. Again, by conduct, so not in writing. Three, consideration. That's another basic contract thing. That means both parties provide something of value, essentially. A meeting of the minds on essential terms. And I imagine there's going to be case law about what as that in this kind of thing. We won't get into it right now. Five, a breach And then six, resulting damages to the other.

0:14:49 Lydia: Would a good example be like are looking at wedding venues and a wedding venue that you're really interested in seems place and they're on board and like they giving you the indication that by all means, yes, that date's available. You can have it, et cetera, ettera. And you don't actually like sign any paperwork. You don't sign any paper work. And then all of a sudden, like the pulled out from under you kind of thing.

0:15:09 Thomas: I mean, again, I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds kind of like what it would be if you never had a written contract, but you had like all kinds of, you and it seemed really that you were in a contract, an oral contract with someone and then they breached it.

0:15:21 Lydia: And you like show up for the day and there's another wedding happening.

0:15:25 Thomas: Mean that sounds like a sitcom version, but yeah, sure.

0:15:27 Lydia: That's what I'm here for.

0:15:29 Thomas: And then you have to do both weddings at once.

0:15:32 Lydia: It's a wedding off.

0:15:34 Thomas: Are our four causes here. Keep those in mind. Going to dig in and look, as come into everything with an open skeptical mind. Know that sounds like a contradiction, but I'm open to whatever, but not going to last very long on this in of like forming an opinion, because as going to have to read quite a bit of the start of this because it really goes hard. And then we'll see when we can stop reading. Mean, I'm going to stop you a lot, but I mean like we can switch to a just summarizing thing, we'll see.

0:15:58 Lydia: Good. Sounds At 9 .46 p .m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, December 20th, 2024, New York Times reporter Megan Toohey requested plaintiffs' response to an imminent 4 ,000 -word bombshell story concerning their alleged orchestration of a smear campaign targeting Blake Lively, purportedly in response to Lively's disclosure of concerns about the working environment on the set of It Ends With Us. Film's production company, Wayfarer, its principals, Baldoni and Heath, and its public relations representatives, Nathan and Abel, were on the record comment and to notify the Times of any quote inaccuracies by noon Eastern Standard Time the next day on December 21st, 2024, a mere 14 hours overnight. Representative promptly denied Lively's accusations as reported by The Times and criticized both Lively and The Times' reliance on, quote, cherry -picked and altered communications stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead. Its claim to have, quote, reviewed these along with other documents, the Times relied almost entirely on Lively's unverified and self -serving narrative, lifting it nearly verbatim while disregarding an abundance of evidence that contradicted her claims and exposed her true motives. But the Times did not care. The breadth of the Article and the coordinated quote drop It is readily apparent That the times I

0:17:24 Thomas: Coordinated drop. We know what all this means because we've lived this. We've absorbed so much of this, but they haven't even introduced what that is yet, have they? The coordinated drop? Like,

0:17:36 Lydia: Well, they said a 4 ,000 Word bombshell story.

0:17:39 Thomas: Coordinating with whom? Coordinating? So going to be talking about like the article dropping with her complaint or something, but like they haven't even introduced that yet. They're just saying coordinated drop out of nowhere.

0:17:51 Lydia: Is readily apparent that the Times had been quietly working in concert with Lively's team for weeks or months. Times participated actively in the legal maneuvering at the heart of Lively strategy. Notably.

0:18:03 Thomas: My God. Okay, okay. So, so far, let's pause here. The Times did not care is so dramatic to me. It's silly. Suppose that it's sense to complain that 14 hours overnight notice is like that kind of is a little rushed, I supposed. In a vacuum, you might be like, that's a little rush. Given the full context of what's going on, for one, legally speaking, they don't even have to get comment.

0:18:06 Lydia: It is very dramatic. Yeah.

0:18:29 Thomas: They don't, they have no obligation to do that. That is something that they do out of, you know, professionalism. And it, it does help with a definite or libel claim because it's like shows that you weren't, you one more way to show you didn't act with actual malice is to like actually get, and remind you, if you want to go back, we did a episode on this article and they included quotes from the statement from, actually, Wayfarer, which was Friedman. To the top, by the way, like within several paragraphs, they say an attorney for wayfarer said in a statement, et cetera, et you quote Friedman is saying these claims are completely false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media. Also says that Mr. Friedman did not address her allegations about misconduct during the filming by Mr. Baldoni and Mr. Heath. He alleged that Ms. Lively planted, quote, negative and completely fabricated and false stories with media, unquote, about Mr. Baldoni, which he said was, quote. Another reason why Wayfair Studios made the decision to hire a crisis professional. They included that. They also include a link to his full statement, which I think I read the full one or had you read it. They excluded all that. Like, again, they didn't have the obligation legally to do any of that, but they did. So much stuff here that just doesn't strike me as anything. It's nothing legally wrong. OK, one of my biggest problems

0:19:48 Thomas: Says a lot of things with like a sinister undertone that you're supposed to believe are like bad because of that. They're actually just things that happen that are fine. Like if you say, well, the breadth of the article and the coordinated drop, they've been working in concert, quietly, by the way, quietly working in with Lively's team for a week or months. You can also read that as, hey, when the New York Times writes articles, sometimes what they do is they write, first of all, they write a deep article. So lots of breadth to it. That's a good thing. They, with sources and they talk to them a lot, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. For quietly, yeah, they usually don't announce that they are working on a story before they publish. That is like the... definition of what you don't do. You don't want to get scooped. You know, like you're working quietly. You're always doing that. So like every single part of that isn't anything. It's just, if you say it with these sinister words, then it sounds bad.

0:20:44 Thomas: Lively's team for weeks or months. Okay. What is that? Does that violate the law?

0:20:47 Lydia: Is that illegal? Yeah.

0:20:48 Thomas: Yeah. What are you talking about? Should they have only spent a day on the article? I don't know. The difference there? I mean, they're crying unfairness like they should have been consulted more, but I'm sure so would Weinstein or any like there's that. Nothing illegal about that.

0:21:03 Lydia: For weeks and months kind of demonstrates the care that they were taking towards writing this article.

0:21:06 Thomas: Tortious about it, I guess I should say. Right. Yeah. Especially because we know they had thousands of documents and texts and all that to go through. That takes time. There's going to call that out as we go. So many times where they just say a thing with sinister words, but it's actually just fine. Like you could, if you read it with a positive tone, it's like, oh yeah, that's how journalism is. Right. Now this is just, this is so stupid. Okay. Pick it back up here.

0:21:32 Lydia: Lively chose not to file a lawsuit against Baldoni, Wayfarer, or any of the plaintiffs, a choice that spared her from the scrutiny of the discovery process, including answering questions under oath and producing her communications. This decision was no accident. Need, I need to stop myself. So, Um, so um, filed the same day that Blake Lively's lawsuit was filed. Like, so like it aged, it aged so badly. Um as it was printed exactly. Uh, I that's a big risk to take in a document that you're putting together.

0:21:51 Thomas: So stupid. Yeah, literally, this was wrong as it was printed. Yeah.

0:22:06 Thomas: And it's just stupid. It's just dumb. You could sue her and then it would be discussed. You know, like there's no it doesn't avoid discovery by not filing a lawsuit.

0:22:16 Lydia: Discovery doesn't happen within 24 hours of being filed. Like, yeah. Yeah. All this stuff is.

0:22:20 Thomas: It's it's dumb. All of this is dumb. Decision was no accident. But again, as you say, this same day, the lawsuit was filed.

0:22:24 Lydia: All decision was an accident. First, her administrative complaint is rife with and egregious misrepresentations that would have subjected her to dismissal, if not sanctions.

0:22:38 Thomas: If not sanctions. Okay.

0:22:41 Lydia: Pursuing formal legal action would have derailed her true objective, an orchestrated campaign to rehabilitate her public image.

0:22:49 Thomas: That's funny because she did pursue formal legal action as this is your writing. The same day. Even know if there was any period of time during which this was correct. I think it was wrong immediately. And it's just dumb, too. It's just a dumb point. It doesn't make any sense. You could just sue her. In the world in which... story is true. Like, pretend Baldoni's story or Friedman or whoever I should say is true, then you have an amazing case against her. You sue her. She's subject to discovery. There's no different, you know, like it makes no sense. We're with that dumb point.

0:23:25 Lydia: Lively filed a request for a, quote, right to sue letter with the California Civil Rights Department. A procedural formality that does not require pleadings remains confidential unless leaked, as it was here. Leaked as like someone disclosing their own information is wild to me.

0:23:43 Thomas: Yep. On that later. But yeah, if it were leaked, it would only be by the other side. You don't leak your own thing. You just say, hey, here's my thing that I've

0:23:50 Lydia: Don't leak your own stuff. You just release it. You say, here's a document that is mine to share.

0:23:57 Thomas: Been I've worked very hard on.

0:23:58 Lydia: Yeah. Crucially, does not subject the complainant to discovery. While such a letter can precede a lawsuit, it is clear that litigation was never her ultimate goal. Checks docket.

0:24:10 Thomas: This is this. Imagine all in on that and being wrong immediately. Like, it's so dumb.

0:24:15 Lydia: Literally immediately. Yeah. Yeah, how much money do you think this costs Sarawitz?

0:24:21 Thomas: I don't I don'T know if any because like this is all just narrative. Like I don' t know how much it matters, but like. Is just such prime real estate in your complaint. Like this is so high up in your complain. We're And now on what paragraph? On paragraph four. But in terms of this stupid thing, we're on going on the second paragraph of dumb point. That's like prime complaint real estate. You're already like. Short sightedness of thinking like they must have been really confident she wasn't going to sue. And again, they could you could almost salvage this if she had sued like a week later and been like, ah, see, we we forced her to sue, we called her out her game. But like the fact that it was filed the same day, meaning it's literally impossible that like filed it in response to this because like that wouldn't have gone up on the court, you know, like it wouldn't gone up in time. It's just silly.

0:25:08 Lydia: Real intention was to weaponize the appearance of legitimacy conferred by a numbered legal document to launch salacious headline grabbing allegations and reshape her public persona at the expense of the plaintiffs.

0:25:21 Thomas: This is the lawsuit against the New York Times. Just reminding you.

0:25:23 Lydia: Not against Blake Lively.

0:25:25 Thomas: Here we go. Now we're going to tie it together.

0:25:28 Lydia: Found willing allies at the New York Times, which uncritically embraced her CRD complaint as fact and disregarded the plaintiff's emphatic objections.

0:25:37 Thomas: On. Pause there. That's weird. Because what I read was here. Let me go to the New it. And just to make sure, I'm going to go back in Wayback Machine. I don't want to misrepresent anything because they did make some revisions here and there. I'm back to this capture. The first capture on Wayback is at 1041 Eastern AM on the day it was published. So that is 30 minutes after publishing. Pretty sure that is the original version. Is titled, We Can Bury Anyone Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine. Okay. A legal complaint lays out an, oh, I can't read that word, was it? Alleged campaign to tarnish Blake Lively after she accused Justin Baldoni of misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us. I see the word alleged, alleged. We look up that? Webster's Dictionary defines alleged. Hard because it makes me want to reread a bunch of the article to show you how, like, here's just make this broad point that applies. The New York Times was a mom and pop newspaper that just started that day and wrote its first article and was like, we're going to try our hand at this journalism thing. The New York fucking Times. They're very careful. They are extremely

0:26:46 Lydia: Legal department.

0:26:46 Thomas: Careful with the legal department. All the language, it's actually kind of cool to look at, like how precise they are with all the language. There are things that they say happen, but here's the thing. The things they say happened where they don't say alleged are actually things that just happened and no one disputes it. Like during shooting, Blake Lively had complained that the men repeatedly violated physical boundaries. It say during the shooting, the men repeatedly violated Blake Lively's boundaries? No. says Blake Latively complained that they did. That is a fact. Is a act that she complained that she did. An art to look at how they do this. It was good Right away, it's saying she complained the men had done this. Studio Wayfair agreed to provide a full -time intimacy That's a fact because we have documentation of it. So you don't need to say, allegedly, Wayfairy allegedly agreed to... No, we know that's a act. Okay. Just I'll read just a little more of the language to give you an idea. But by August, the two men who had positioned themselves as feminist allies. OK, that's just a fact. Yeah. Expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them. Then it says, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. They are reporting on the legal complaint. Claims that their PR effort had an explicit goal to harm Ms. Lively's reputation instead. Again, they're very careful. This is the New York Times. They know what they're doing. Fact that said, uncritically embraced her CRD complaint as fact and disregarded the plaintiff's Emphatic objections. Well, they quoted the plaintiff's emphatic. Objections. What, what, are you talking about? Like complaint, we're not a legal complaint, but we're instead just a personal complaint. Okay. That's them saying, hey, you shouldn't listen to her. You should listen to me. And then what should have happened is instead of just including my statement and like, here's what they said, you should have been like, oh, and they're right. Here's what I said. And we agree with that, you know, like that. But that's not a legal complaint. That's just you wishing they were on your side. But there's no there's a law that says they have to be on your that's like how defamation works. Suffice to say the language is very carefully chosen. Did do updates like there is stuff that like so well, in fairness, initially it said a legal complaint. That was what the headline was, a legal complain details. And then very quickly it was changed to private messages.

0:29:01 Thomas: Of a legal complaint. Guess because technically speaking, the complaint wasn't a legal complain at the time of publishing. It was still an administrative complaint. But that's really splitting some hairs. But hey, you know who's famous for hair splitting? Journalists. So them making these tweaks is their effort to be as accurate as possible, which is a good thing and which is contrary to actual malice. An article had a headline for five minutes that was then changed, that's actually harder to say you defame me. By the way, it's a legal complaint versus an administrative complaint and it became a legal complaint four days later or whatever, how many days later, I don't think there's a leg to stand on anyway. But even if so, them making those updates incredibly quickly. Speaks to them not having actual malice. That speaks to being as accurate as they can. So why don't we continue on?

0:29:55 Lydia: Right. Even waiting for the response deadline of noon Eastern Standard Time on December 21st, 2024, the Times rushed to publish its inflammatory article, We Can Bury Anyone Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine, at 10 .11 a .m., nearly two hours early. Brazen disregard for journalistic integrity and fairness resulted in an article rife with inaccuracies, misrepresentations, and omissions.

0:30:21 Thomas: Okay. I let you get through that, but like, come on. Hey, Hey, if everyone give me all your lunch orders by noon, the latest. Okay. Hey, It's, a little early. It's about 1130. Everyone's giving me their order. Okay, I'm heading out now. Breached an implied contract. The deadline was not, hey, this is when we're definitely publishing this. And you have our, us, the New York Times, you have a personal guarantee. Publishing this at noon. No, they said, hey respond. Issued a response. The New York Times is like, cool, got your lunch order. I guess we can go to lunch now and pick that up for you at 10 .11 a .m. There's no, there is nothing to this. It's absurd. It is silly to what would have happened in the hours from 10 ,11 to noon? They're going to allege like, oh, we had a whopper of an email that we were ready to hit send on.

0:31:18 Lydia: Well, and again, if they sent it, we already have seen that The New York Times updates the article with with new information.

0:31:23 Thomas: Good point.

0:31:25 Lydia: They would have also updated the article With a revised statement with additional information, whatever was provided Friedman. By

0:31:32 Thomas: For this to make any sense, I think we'd expect the next part of the complaint to be, yeah, we had all this great stuff. We told the New York Times, well, wait, here's our initial thing, but hold on, we got more coming. And here was the great email we sent at that was awesome that they refused to include in their thing. You're right. They would have, like, if they had sent more of a response, if Baldoni or any of those parties had given an indication. That they needed more time, or that something was coming at noon, which would have inspired, I guess, of them, then I imagine the New York Times would have had a decision to make. But, you gave them a response. Like, you give them a written response, which they published in their article. What are you talking about? This

0:31:38 Lydia: Refused. Yeah, yeah. Yeah mm hmm.

0:32:12 Thomas: Is nonsense.

0:32:12 Lydia: Mm hmm. So one other thing that I think is worth noting is that the way that this complaint is written is that it it seem like The New York Times is breaking this story. Right. Not the case. Media outlet that actually broke the story was TMZ. They released their article several hours before The New York Times did at 7 .54 Eastern Standard Time.

0:32:35 Lydia: So I guess a couple hours. Yeah. I think there were some folks who were wondering if Lively had shared her complaint with The New the Wayfair parties are not suing TMZ for their reporting on the CRD complaint. Statement. TMZ before they issued their statement to The New York Times and just kind of like reworked it a little bit. So it's more included as like the narrative of TMZ's story. So what those things tell me is that when. Friedman et al. got the heads up about this story coming. Friedman, who has a connection to TMZ already, a decent, close connection, and we'll see him go on later on podcast and stuff. Reached out to TMz to try and get ahead of the game is, I think, what tells us. Up the DMZ article and again, published December 21st, 4 .54 a .m., 7 .54 p .m. Eastern Standard Time. In it, it says. Blake Lively has declared legal war on her former It Ends With Us co -star director Justin Baldoni, laying out her allegations of sexual harassment and what she claims is a coordinated effort to destroy her reputation. To the lawsuit obtained by TMZ, again,

0:32:50 Thomas: Interesting uh interesting

0:33:49 Lydia: This is December 21st. Things got so bad during filming. There was an all hands on deck meeting, etc., etc. The lawsuit lists the demands that were addressed. So it continually is referring to the CRD complaint as a lawsuit. A lawsuit did not exist at this point in time.

0:34:01 Thomas: Is that necessarily true? It wasn't filed, but could there have been a draft of the complaint that was given to somebody or are they just calling a CRD? I mean, it's TMZ, honestly. They might just call a CRD complaint a lawsuit, which in fairness, I probably would have too. Gone through, it is almost identical to the eventual lawsuit. It just doesn't have some of the legal stuff at the end.

0:34:13 Lydia: Is TMZ. But again, if the Wayfair parties are so concerned with defamation, TMZ referring to this as a lawsuit versus the New York Times not referring to it as a law suit, I would imagine that they would be like, hey, hey. Want to pursue potential legal action there as well. So, yeah, know. It's interesting.

0:34:41 Thomas: And there's going to be more information about this. The reason they published early, think I we'll find out later, is because TMZ scooped them. And, there's allegations going back and forth about why that happened. I think, we'll leave that for a later date. It is just hilarious to complain that they published, in a legal complaint, they published at 10 .11am instead of noon. It's like, what are you talking about? Lydia really wants to read this next paragraph.

0:35:06 Lydia: This has nothing to do with anything that we're talking about, but I just want everyone to hear this because like like it's just this is what a moment in an era where public trust in media has reached a historic low and outlets are increasingly criticized as biased and agenda driven. The Times has chosen to double down on sensationalism and oversimplified narratives.

0:35:28 Thomas: Sorry, did you start reading from a Facebook post of somebody? Or did he start reading From a... Weiss's sub stack?

0:35:33 Lydia: Yeah. Matt Walsh's Facebook. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:37 Thomas: Or is this a Fucking legal complaint? This is so dumb.

0:35:40 Lydia: Rather striving for accuracy and balance, it has prioritized hollow signaling over substantive reporting.

0:35:48 Thomas: Hollow signaling?

0:35:49 Lydia: Yeah, further

0:35:50 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, sorry. I missed it in the elements for libel. It says prove hollow signaling. OK, yeah, I see why they're saying that.

0:35:57 Lydia: Eroding its credibility and exacerbating the very mistrust it claims to combat.

0:36:02 Thomas: This is nothing I get that there's a lot of nothing. But like you're if a judge having to read this, you're like, OK, nothing. Skip, skip. There's nothing to do with this.

0:36:10 Lydia: Know. Red pen, right? A red pen in hand and start just like X -ing out the nonsense like

0:36:16 Thomas: Want to point something out again, not the lawyer, but I do know this. You have to point to a statement that is wrong. That is a very basic element of, yeah, of libel.

0:36:25 Lydia: Not as soliloquy about the state of corporate legacy media. Yeah.

0:36:29 Thomas: You can't be like, just that the whole, just the whole thing, just, just bad. No, you have to point with specificity to a statement that is incorrect. You have to say that's incorrect. Can't just be like this whole thing was a scam. I tell you, it was an absolute scam that that's nothing. To a point that I think I started to make earlier, what think people approach this one of two ways. There's what I think is the reasonable way to approach this whole thing, which is I take a look at this article, which I've, you know I've read a million times. We've read to you a million million times

0:36:34 Lydia: Sorry, Mm -hmm. Right.

0:37:09 Thomas: And look at the New York Times who I know is I have major disagreements with how the New York Times covers some stuff don't get me wrong um have major disagreements with their opinion section who they hire and stuff like that but it's not as though even the things that I vehemently disagree with them on their coverage coverage, they're with actual malice about stuff, I guess is what I'll say. It might be I disagree with their interpretations of things. I disagree a lot with their emphasis of certain things. There's a lot of that where I just think they shouldn't be covering certain things, so I have plenty of disagreements with the New York Times, but they are the biggest and most important newspaper. They've been doing this for a million years. Have a huge legal team. They know what they're doing. So I think you could look at this and you could look at the fact that they say, which I'll repeat for the millionth time, um, Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she These and other documents were reviewed by the New York Times. Totally open to counter evidence and there being more text because I've seen it. I've seen this happen. Like you can cherry pick. I'm totally open to, uh, and, or her legal team misleading us, or maybe not including stuff that looks bad for them. Absolutely open to that. When I look at the New York times and I see that, I see that they have reviewed thousands of pages of stuff they came to the conclusion that there's something here and that they They want to write an article from this perspective. What I'm going to go ahead and assume is that, well, there's a lot we haven't seen. There's probably some bad stuff in there. And there's probably a lot that establishes like pretty without too much room for doubt that there was a campaign to smear Blake Lively kind of thing. That's why they wrote the article from the beginning. Because believe it or not, I don't think the New York Times is in the business of just like, hey, celebrity comes up to them and is like, Hey, I want to do this thing where I make up a whole thing and just, you want to like help me make up a thing? Oh yeah, because, you know, we like to go after people who don't deserve it and articles

0:39:03 Thomas: That are lies in order to advance the interests of a random celebrity. So sure, like they don't do that. It just isn't how anything works. I think you have to have a very skewed view of reality look at this and say, that's what had to happen. What had to happened was they just didn't even look at the counter evidence. They didn't look at Friedman's stuff that he sent them it's I think is likely is that there might be some disagreement on interpretation of stuff and and there is and I think there's one major place where I Think it's possible the new york times was wrong in their interpretation but that's one instance and we know they have thousands of pages of stuff and we Know they're the new York times and we know that they have a legal department and we We know like like probably overdetermined that they have evidence that this thing happened. To me, that seems more reasonable. It doesn't mean I'm like blindly accepting it. But just in terms of probability, like that makes way more sense than the idea that like they just were ready to go on this conspiracy

0:39:57 Thomas: Thing.

0:39:57 Lydia: They're big Deadpool fans and, like, hoping for an autograph. Yeah.

0:39:59 Thomas: That big the hell's the

0:40:02 Lydia: Gossip Girl.

0:40:02 Thomas: Show you always say? Yes, I couldn't even do it. I tried to try to do a joke. Couldn't remember. Big gossip girl fans because just doesn't make sense But now. Let's get into it. We're going to go into part of this complaint that starts offering counter evidence, which we are all ears to hear and some of which is, you know, very interesting. We'll see how it shakes out.

0:40:19 Lydia: All right, so to introduce this section of the complaint, article's central thesis, encapsulated in a defamatory headline designed to immediately mislead the reader, is that plaintiffs orchestrated a retaliatory public relations campaign against Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment, premise that is categorically false and easily disproven. If the Times truly reviewed the thousands of private communications it claimed to have obtained, its reporters would have seen incontrovertible evidence that it was Lively, not plaintiffs, who engaged in a calculated smear campaign.

0:40:51 Thomas: Want to pause you right there. How can that be because the messages we know are from Abel's phone so like why would that contain incontrovertible evidence that it was Lively who I there might be a text that says from jenn abel hey I think blake lively's team is doing something but that that's very far from incontrovertible evidence so already I'm suspicious here all

0:40:58 Lydia: Not from Lively's phones. Yeah Plea communications demonstrate beyond question that plaintiffs had no intention of quote destroying or quote burying Lively through aggressive tactics. On the contrary, Baldoni consistently expressed his desire to avoid harming Lively and protect the film, but also recognized a legitimate need for public relations protection in light of Lively's false and damaging claims.

0:41:33 Thomas: Right so now we're going to get to their evidence. Here we go. First thing they highlight is from August, we're on August 19th. Not always clear though, because sometimes there's dates and then it's not clear how much of the screenshot applies to that date. It's a little, we can't be a hundred percent sure on some of this, but it seems to be, yeah, and it's Melissa Nathan seems to be responding to probably Justin Baldoni. We don't have what she's responding to, but it seems to be a response sharing with you a perfect example of why we don't use bots. I wouldn't even worry to think they've hired a team as a nothing to find and be they hired an awful team, which I've sent to our guy to track and pull so we have evidence of it. This below should answer everyone's question on what a bot team looks like when every single comment suddenly skews in her favor in a nonsensical way. And so as I manually type out this frigging link in the document to go to it, It is an Instagram post by Page Six, and it says Blake Lively has come under fire yet again for repeatedly using a transgender slur in resurfaced interviews. That that certainly seems like it could be part of this campaign or it could be part of the, you know, response. I don' t know, but I

0:41:53 Lydia: This thread began August 19th, yeah. Old Hollywood, yeah. And

0:42:43 Thomas: I guess they' Melissa Nathan is saying all the comments suddenly break in her favor in a nonsensical way. I don't know. Like they don't look obviously bot-like to me, but they could believe that they're artificial. Maybe they all do seem to be saying the same thing ish like same sentiment, but but so like me. Yeah. Maybe this is like a Blake Lively. Mean, when I hover over them, they they all have followers and posts and following and all that. But say this based on looking at these comments and there's a lot. So I don'T know if there was like any that Melissa Nathan had in mind. I will say that it's possible this is artificial in the same way that Jed Wallace is doing stuff, but I DON'T really see it as like such an obviously bad bot bot team that, that I don't see. Cause to me, this looks either mostly real or the convincing kind of thing that like Jed Wallace does, which it I, might be, I'm not, I

0:43:31 Lydia: Which seems to have occurred during the Amber Heard trial as well. That it's like, yeah, right.

0:43:34 Thomas: But, but a positive version for, for Blake. So like I'm, I am fully open to the idea that Blake would have hired somebody to do that at some point. I don' t know. I don' T have any evidence of that, but it's possible. It's also possible that like, I don´t know maybe a lot of people like her um it does seem like there's a lot of very similar sentiment so who knows I I could be convinced but I guess what I'm sure of is I'm looking through all these comments still scrolling I see like obvious bot accounts accounts accounts I don'T see like oh no no profile pic no followers no whatever I if I hover over like all of these they look like a plausible account it's

0:44:08 Lydia: So from Melissa Nathan's perspective, it's that if anyone is posting something positive about Blake in response to a negative story, then it's likely a bot. Like that's kind of what it reads then.

0:44:19 Thomas: Kind of yeah especially I was expecting worse Honestly, before I went to this, I was like, oh, maybe it'll be a bunch of the like, you know, no profile photo, zero followers, zero following. It's not that. So I to the idea that these are artificial, could be the advanced kind of thing. I pretty closed off to the idea based on actually looking at all of this stuff. Like I'm still scrolling through, I've looked through hundreds of these, that it's like an obvious bot team like that. I wouldn't say it's obvious. So she's saying um single comment suddenly skews in her favor in a nonsensical way at least sprinkle them in she needs to fire her bot team which I would say like I don't know seems like they're doing a pretty good job based on how I'm looking at um then justin says and this is the point of it this is this is circled so this is what we're meant to to look at justin says how can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this It looks like we are trying to take her down. And that was included in the New York Times article, if I remember correctly. I

0:45:12 Lydia: Seems

0:45:13 Thomas: Think that was the very one that was excluded in New York times that wasn't included in her complaint.

0:45:13 Lydia: Familiar, yeah? Of bolsters that protection against actual malice too if the new york times is including that um of is giving voice to justin's position that they aren't doing this right

0:45:35 Thomas: I Mr. Baldoni encourages the PR team, sometimes flagging social media posts for them to use. On August 15th, he proposes, quote, flipping the narrative on a positive story about Ms. Lively and her husband by using their own words against them. Other times, he appears to vacillate, seeking assurances about the tactics being deployed. When he notices a tabloid article critical of Ms. Lively, he sends a worried text. Can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this. It looks like we're trying to take her down. Another occasion, he wondered whether they were deploying accounts on social media. Quote, I fully confirm we do not have bots, Ms. Nathan wrote, adding that any digital team would be too intelligent to utilize something so obvious. Wallace's operation, she wrote, is, quote, doing something very specific in terms of what they do. I know Jamie and Jed connected on this. That's what's in the New York times article. So that includes that. Yet we've got a red circle look at this. How can we say somehow we are not doing any of this? But that's in articles. That's a little weird.

0:46:32 Thomas: So it goes on, um, the response to that. So how can we, again, it looks like we're trying to take her down. Melissa Nathan says it doesn't. And then it underlines this. They are doing all of this themselves. And it's really really obvious. This is bots, she says. And then, then she posts a screenshot of one of the comments. Yeah, Rouge underscore mommy. I right. I'm looking at this. Are, so many of them are private. Percentage How, of normal Insta accounts are private? You think like you, do you use it more as like a lot of them or yeah,

0:47:01 Lydia: Would say if it's women that's a lot of them uh

0:47:05 Thomas: That's fair. This is Rouge underscore mommy. So you got to figure, yeah, it's a private account. I don't know. It has 18 followers, 18 following and 43 posts. So it could be fake for might be a fake one. I don't know. Or it could be real. Somebody just doesn't use it much. But the comment was Zionist coming after her because she is friends with Gigi. We see through you. George J. Lo, Blake, all on the cancel list of Zionists. Don't fall for this. Didn't even know what that means, to be honest with you.

0:47:32 Lydia: Well because she's friends with gg hadid right and so um Hadid model spoke out on um behalf and stuff right um Blake is friends with Gigi hadid and so then like who the did they name George George Clooney uh

0:47:36 Thomas: Who's that? Oh, OK. It. Yeah. George Jalo, Blake. All cancel listof Zionists don't fallforthis. Now, here's here's what's interesting. Would be way out of left field and pretty diabolical to be a fake thing. Like if, you were trying to make Blake's case, it'd be weird. Like, wouldn't you, wouldn'T you point to Baldoni? Wouldn'T you be like, yeah, this is, this must be clearly, or like, I don't know. It seems like a non sequitur. I mean, maybe, maybe it's that level of sophistication that they're like, here's, what we'll do when when we'RE having these fake bot accounts defend you. We'll make it about Zionism. I it's possible if, if someone is really devious and is like, we'll pick another hot button thing. That'll be a way for people to look at it and think it's a conspiracy. I Guess that's possible, but it's like, man, that, I mean I'd want to see more evidence. Like I'm open to that, but like, I, again, I don't see this as like, obviously Blake's bot accounts. It's just, it seems either really good bot accounts, which it might be, or it's, I don't know, some amount of these are just people that are weird. I don' t know. Then Justin says, okay, please monitor. And it underlines things I'm more worried about is that we are planting these stories, which is not true, obviously. And that says gen able old number. Is a long one, but the the underlined part is um people saying that there are bots and this is a pr play on your side is a minority voice compared to the thousands and thousands who are calling it what it is and and this underlined reacting to blake's own actions and interviews um so what do we have here do we have incontrovertible proof that there wasn't any campaign of whatever um not going to say this is incontrovertible at all, but have been curious about the wording that Justin used from the beginning. Justin see what's happening, yourself in Justin's place based on either scenario, based on whether you're not doing a campaign against her or you are, how can we say somehow that we are not doing any of this? It looks like we're trying to take her down. It's interesting. I I would have said, is there some way to prove that we're not doing all of this? You know, like I, I Think I would've said something more like that. Like, like, if in my mind, we aren't doing this, I'm going to think, think hey how we like people the truth that we're not doing this how can we prove or illustrate that we are not doing this it's slightly weird to me to say how can we say somehow that we aren't doing this any of this know it's like it feels a little more guilty to me but also I guess it could be saying how can be say somehow as in is how a hard thing to prove that you are not doing something so I guess he could be saying that in fairness it could be like is Like, there's there any way we can somehow say we aren't doing this here?

0:47:53 Lydia: Interesting yeah I mean I'll be honest when I read these couple of texts like almost feel... don't I'm think that they're fabricated or anything like that. But it does feel like a little manufactured. Like thing that he's talking about here. I don' t know. The way that he approaches it, it just... It really skeptical about.

0:50:28 Thomas: Let me give a and evidence to that, because I think if you have either no memory or if you never looked at anything else, this might seem kind of convincing. Convincing but one of the main tricks here is going to be focus in on little bits of things that maybe make it seem like they aren't doing a thing while completely out all the evidence that they were doing a thing and that's what you have to do I mean just think about this if you are taking up a case where the facts are bad for you possibly just again hypothetically thing you would have to do is like, well, here's what we're going to do. We're going ignore everything we don't have an explanation for. We're just going to like not address it. We're gonna put in stuff that makes it look like our side is right. And that there wasn't a smear campaign. And to a certain extent, both sides are going to be right. But you when look at how much is happening here and how much they don't address, I think what this complaint is meant to do is cynically take advantage of the fact that people don't read And that if people do read, they're just reading your side.

0:51:23 Lydia: Specifically the stuff that you have highlighted that you've underlined that you circled right like not not all of the things that are plopped in there that

0:51:30 Thomas: So I want to remind you of some other evidence we have that is a We know that this happened. Melissa Nathan to Jen, Jamie. Nathan gives two quotes. One, 175K. This will be for a three, four month period and includes website, full Reddit, full social account takedowns, full social crisis team on hand for anything. Engage with audiences in the right way. Start threads of theories to discuss. Us. This is the way I want to read you this. Remember this. This is the Way to be fully 100 % protected quote to 25 K per month minimum three months as it needs to seed same as above this will be for creation of social fan engagement to go back and forth with any negative accounts helping to change the narrative and stay on track and here's a here's a big sentence that folks might have forgotten about that will maybe make this complaint not as convincing quote all All of this will be, most importantly, untraceable. There's a lot more to both these quotes, but easier to discuss via phone in terms of capabilities and what I have personally experienced in and out of crisis scenarios. And then reminder that there's the whole exchange where Baldoni is like not totally happy and is like, oh, I

0:52:37 Thomas: Don't know about this. To which they say, we can't just put in writing what we want to do, which shows awareness Awareness of not wanting to put incriminating in writing. So if your evidence is, but look at where they said, oh, no, we're not doing the thing that we definitely shouldn't be doing. Say that's evidence. I'm not saying it's not evidence. It's something you can consider, but it's Not incontrovertible. This isn't there's nothing in here that tells me like because they said hey, we'RE not doing this that they've contracted with somebody named Jed Wallace who it seems like on purpose they kind of don't entirely know what he's doing and

0:52:37 Lydia: Not feeling protected yeah right yeah exactly and they're also keeping justin out of the loop on what he's doing too because

0:53:16 Thomas: That there's no knowledge there's not like they're trying to kind of keep him free of all that let what we know is these are folks who are worried about untraceability, who have already said we already have evidence that they are mindful of putting things in writing. So, yeah, it's evidence. You could consider it as evidence. You could weigh it how like much you want to say. This mean they don't know what's going on? Like it's not incontrovertible, like it. It's very clearly they're conscious of what they're saying. And there's another thing. Could also say that Melissa Nathan and Jen Abel could be telling Justin what he wants to hear. Like it could entirely be that they are keeping Justin free of that kind of liability and knowledge and saying like, oh no, we would never, none of that is happening. And Justin is saying like yeah, it looks like we're trying, no, no don't worry. But that Melissa Nathen and Jen Able are doing that. Like Melissa Nathan is doing a retaliatory campaign. There's just no upside to telling Justin that and in writing and to like potentially stuff that's like going to get you in trouble legally in writing. So, like, there's plenty of reasons to think that they're not always just giving the unblemished truth in these messages.

0:54:26 Lydia: I think it's perfectly fair for especially us as you outside observers and reading these the messages that they decided we should see um us to remain skeptical about how truthful like their motives are in sending those text messages back on august 19th

0:54:47 Thomas: Everyone I know we just got our feet wet that's the end of part one

0:54:52 Lydia: Many paragraphs did we get through

0:54:53 Thomas: Got you know who's to say there's no yeah you can't I mean what is a paragraph where does it begin where does it end no science philosophers have struggled with that question but no seven seven is how many we got through how many are there total hopefully only eight like like eight, if there's nine, you know, bad luck, but you know.

0:54:57 Lydia: Who's counting yeah we're gonna really stretch these next episodes I guess then if there's only two more paragraphs

0:55:18 Thomas: Can't, they can't. Let me just check here. 112. God 112 paragraphs to this thing. And there's a lot to go, but go a little faster sometimes and a little slower sometimes, but here's what we, just to, just, to make sure we're all on the same page, on the same paragraph. Talked about the causes of action. I don't think I need to review that too much. It's pretty clear. We've got the deformation ones that are at least in the neighbor, comparatively in the neighborhood of plausible. And then we've Got the stupid contract ones, which are so dumb. So we went through that. Took a chunk of time in this one. We went Through those first seven paragraphs and let's suffice to say so far they're off to not a great start an inauspicious ambitious start. Whole thing where they're like, on purpose, didn't sue. And that was instantly wrong, you know, like that same day. That was bad. Stuff about the publishing early. I mean, we're only just getting our feet wet. So I feel like this one, we doesn't need that much of a summary. Themes so far and it'll carry on. I really think is that using like sinister sounding tone to describe totally regular things, you know, like they were quietly working in concert and all that. So, know we've only just begun but there is so much more and next episode gavel gavel number 12 are not only going to get to paragraph eight and some even some more but we're also going to get to the emoji heard around the world for the first time actually seeing that in its entirety that

0:56:05 Lydia: I know no right yeah just yeah

0:56:44 Thomas: Full thing so officially

0:56:44 Lydia: Officially I know I know we've had some questions about this too actually on patreon yeah they folks were what is this emoji thing tune

0:56:47 Thomas: We've teased about it oh really well there you go everybody there's a huge buzz yeah it's a good point lots of people are talking about it they're all we've watch this space. Watch this emoji space. That's coming next. You'll finally, if you're someone who isn't so obsessed as us that you forgot what you've talked about and what you haven't talked about, you're finally going to find out what the emoji is. So we'll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks patrons. You want to get a whole lot more ahead, make sure to go to patreon .com slash gavel pod. Right. We'll see You next time

0:56:54 Lydia: In tune in see ya

0:57:39 Thomas: Still don't remember how we intro this show. Different every time.

0:57:41 Lydia: We do do it different every time, yeah.

0:57:43 Thomas: Gavel in, everyone.

0:57:47 Lydia: Your gavels.