Trace Gallagher: When I Faced My Fears & Looked Like A Kardashian

Adam Carolla Show

Adam Carolla hosts Fox News journalist Trace Gallagher to discuss his new book and the concept of 'safety culture' in California. The conver

Key takeaways

• Trace Gallagher uses the increasing number of beach signs in California as a metaphor for growing societal restrictions.
• The hosts argue that Gavin Newsom's pandemic mandates were driven by a desire for control rather than scientific necessity.

Main topics

• California politics
• COVID-19 restrictions

Notable quotes

Your civil liberties are taken away one at a time, and it's always for your safety.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a critique of regulatory overreach and an argume

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Well, this episode, Trace Gallagher from Fox comes in. Good dude. Talked to him about everything. Dawson's got the news. We'll do that right after this. BetOnline. Hey, this is Adam Carolla from The Adam Carolla Show. The next big football moments, well, they're waiting for you at BetOnline. Back your team on a Sunday or ride with a primetime underdog. Build a same-game parlay, chase a player prop, or jump on live odds. while the drive is still moving. From the biggest NFL matchups to college football Saturdays, every angle is covered at BetOnline. And when the final whistle blows, hundreds of slots, table games, and live dealers keep the night going. Enjoy the freedom of online gaming where the action moves with you, and every moment is yours. Visit BetOnline today and discover where the action never stops. Speaker 8 (0:58) Hello, and welcome to PlutoFoam. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV, where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Speaker 6 (1:11) Fantastic. Speaker 8 (1:11) The Matrix Trilogy. Welcome to the real world. Speaker 6 (1:15) Mean Speaker 8 (1:15) Girls. Shut up. Titanic. I'm the king of the world. And so much more. For showtimes, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so fast. On Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never. Speaker 4 (1:35) From Corolla One Studios in Glendale, California, this is The Adam Corolla Show. Adam's guest today, the host of Fox News at Night, Trace Gallagher. Plus the news with me, Mike Dawson, and now, Adam Corolla. Yeah, get it on. Speaker 7 (1:50) Got to get it on. It's just a minute. You get it on. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for telling a friend. Trace Gallagher also has a book out. Turns out they were right all along. It is out as we speak. Good to see you, Trace Gallagher. Great Speaker 3 (2:03) to be here, Adam. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it very much. Speaker 1 (2:07) I appreciate you. I watch you on Fox all the time. Thank you. Speaker 3 (2:11) I see Speaker 1 (2:11) you in the building on occasion. You know, Speaker 3 (2:13) there's an open chair for you, right? Anytime you want to come in, sit down, talk about whatever topic you think is top of mind, we would love to have you on. Just so you know. Speaker 1 (2:22) I would love to, and I will definitely take you up on it. I always... There's a lot of people have a lot of rules about stuff. Like I do this, I don't do that. I've always just been like somebody, my number one answer when people go, why'd you do that guy's podcast? I go, he asked. Right. So I just went, fine, we'll figure it out. We'll make it happen. We have very few rules. Our Speaker 3 (2:43) rules are that you come on, you say something interesting, you be compelling and you are, you have an open invitation. Speaker 1 (2:49) It's a misnomer, and I get it all the time when people go, you go on those Fox shows, you echo their talking points, Speaker 7 (2:57) you read from the script, and you cash the check and you leave. I always go, you don't get paid, and they don't tell you what to say. But other than that, you're two for two. Speaker 3 (3:08) And the opposite, I would say, because you actually give us talking points. There was something you were talking about a couple of weeks ago where you went to a beach and you were talking about the signs at the beach, where in the old days you would have a sign at the beach that said, you know, do not bring your dog on the beach or something. And now the sign on the beach goes from, you know, one thing to 600 things that you cannot do on the beach. I'm glad you brought that metaphor Speaker 1 (3:32) up because it's sort of a metaphor, but it's also an example. of sort of where we're at. And I just want people to picture this. The beach sort of historically, it's like where the Mayflower landed, you know, and the pilgrims and the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, you know, like the beach is sort of landing freedom America. Right. So it's sort of symbolic that way, but it's also has a modern day symbolism. Like when they show. movies or TV commercials like from the 70s. They're on the beach. They got a Michelob. They got a bonfire. They're playing music. It's at night. The guy's making eyes with the girl. And it's like, it's Speaker 7 (4:16) a Speaker 1 (4:16) freedom. Like if you really think about the beach, you talk about people who surf, they just go freedom. Just being out there, just being on that wave. You know, it's so the beach is freedom. California is one big beach. And now it's one big sign of stuff you can't do on the beach. They don't let you throw a Frisbee anymore. Speaker 5 (4:38) And so my metaphor is they never take anything off the sign. They just add stuff onto the sign. And now, 30 years on, that sign's full of a lot of stuff you can't do, but it's just a metaphor for California. All they do is add rules. Speaker 3 (4:55) And not only just adding rules, but they make it more complicated as it goes. Like, I live in Manhattan Beach, and when you go down to Manhattan Beach, you have to figure out, okay, tell me what this flag means again. Does this flag mean that there is some riptides out there? I'm not quite sure, because this flag used to be here. This flag is this color. Now it's an X flag. It looks like an Indy 500 race, but I'm not sure what that exactly means. Can I go in the water? Can I not go in the water? And then you get the lifeguards going back and forth all day long looking to see, are you... Do you have a bottle? Are you drinking anything? Are you drinking something that maybe is nefarious inside of that thing? It's crazy. If there was one Speaker 5 (5:32) place that was literally, if God made a place for smoking, it's the beach. Right. It's one giant ashtray. Like, if you really break it down, ashtrays, you should have sand. There's buckets with sand in it. There's no fire. There's also... Nine knot breeze coming off the ocean every time. There is no secondhand smoke. It's just, and everyone is spread out. If Speaker 1 (5:57) you lit a cigarette on the beach in California, you would be arrested in no time. But if you want to just go to Venice Beach and slam heroin. Fine. Fine. So it is insane. But understand everybody. Speaker 1 (6:18) Your civil liberties are taken away one at a time, and it's always for your safety. It's always for your safety. Everything at that beach is for your safety. And you're like, look, if I want to smoke, I should be able to smoke. If I want to have a beer, I should be able to have a beer. And also, I will risk. getting hit by Frisbee so that other people can enjoy throwing the Frisbee. How about that? Speaker 3 (6:46) You touched on it. You said, listen, the beach is about freedom. And you had the governor of California this week saying, hey, remember when we were shutting down the beaches? Man, that was really a bad idea. Shutting down the beaches. But they were told that. The experts told them the place for people to be is on the beach. Let them go to the beach. The best place to be is outside. You keep stuffing people inside. You're doing the detrimental work that we are asking you not to do. Not to do, but they continue with that. And that was the point. You have Newsom saying, oh, yeah, we shouldn't have closed down the beaches. Yeah, but now you want to shut down AI. You want to shut things down. It's your first reaction. And you are adamant about, oh, we got to shut down this AI now. We shouldn't have shut down the beaches. We shouldn't have shut down the schools. But we do need to shut down AI. Speaker 1 (7:31) Right. My thing with Gavin Newsom is your excuse is. Incompetence. Essentially, you go, I didn't know anything. Speaker 7 (7:42) No Speaker 1 (7:43) one knew anything. First off, they do this, Speaker 7 (7:44) nobody knew anything. I knew it. Plenty of people knew it. You deplatformed them and fired them from their jobs at Stanford and canceled them. But people knew stuff. You didn't ask their opinion. Fine. Speaker 5 (7:58) This new thing of we made a whole bunch of mistakes, but it's because we didn't know anything, means you need to step down. Now, you're basically, it's me going, I'm a sea captain of a tanker ship and I ran it into the rocky shoals and I destroyed the sea sanctuary. I didn't know what I was doing. But by the way, put me in charge of the fleet now. And it's like, oh, you didn't do it on purpose. No. I'm incompetent. I didn't know the rocks were there. I had no idea the rocks were actually there. Well, Speaker 3 (8:35) that's your job to know the rocks are there. That's why you have a navigation. That's why you have these things. You're an Speaker 5 (8:39) incompetent sea captain, and you must be fired now. And it's an interesting thing. Speaker 1 (8:47) I connect it to the feminization of our society, which is men want to punish. So men, you know, the football coach goes, you know, the guy goes, I forgot the snap count, coach. Take a lap. By the way, you take a lap. Everyone's taking a Speaker 5 (9:02) lap and you can blame Higginstaller because he forgot the snap count. That's right. Now women come in and go, he forgot the snap count. Leave him alone. He didn't do it on purpose. Women always do the, he didn't do it on purpose. Leave him alone. And men are like. We need to punish and we need to discipline. And the more feminine we get, the more we realize is Gavin Newsom didn't do it on purpose. He was incompetent. That's right. And then his whole thing is now you can leave me alone because I caused millions of dollars of damage. God knows countless lives. How many people are set back? Who got hooked on drugs? Who became an alcoholic and who killed themselves? I don't know. Who put on 40 pounds locked in their apartment? I don't know. You did all that, Gavin. You did all of it, but you didn't know what Speaker 3 (9:47) you were doing. Right. You didn't know what you were doing. You're saying, I don't know why we did that. And then two seconds later, you come out and say, now we should do this. And you think, wait a minute, why don't you get some feedback? You knew this stuff was wrong when you did it. You knew the schools. You did it because the teachers union said close the schools. And now you want to shut down AI because you have people in your party and you have people who think that they can control your bid for the presidency if it goes that way. And you're now taking advice from them to say, shut it. down. Shut it down because there is, the downside is worse than the upside is high. And Gavin Newsom is just sitting there like, you know what, this is a good idea. I'm going to jump on this until I say two years from now, boy, that was a bad idea. Let's try this. Speaker 1 (10:32) You know what I realized? This is the Democrats and CNN and MSNBCs and the Gavin Newsoms and come on. This is their, this is their new ivermectin. Speaker 5 (10:44) You guys. didn't know shit about ivermectin. You still don't know anything about ivermectin. You know nothing about ivermectin. Somebody told you to call it horse paste and all you stooges dove and all jumped in line and he didn't know shit. about AI. You still don't know shit about AI, but you're stooge and somebody told you to attack AI and you all got on the same page overnight. Just like you all got on the same page about ivermectin. You didn't know what it was. You didn't know how to pronounce it. You'd never heard of it before. All of a sudden, overnight, everyone at CNN became an expert on ivermectin. Speaker 3 (11:20) And they have been asked again and again, and we ran on the show a couple of nights ago, where they have been asked again, so tell me about AI and tell me why you think this needs to be put in place. And they leave the microphone. They walk away because they don't have an answer for this. The only answer they have is when someone told them, okay, the briefing is this. You need to go out there and say we're going to shut down AI. And when she gets here, Trump needs to be tough with him because, you know, this whole kissing she's. butt is getting old and you can't do that. And then you got to tell Xi that we're going to shut down AI and he needs to do the very same thing. And it's laughable. And then they turn and they walk away from the microphone because they don't have any more answers. Speaker 1 (11:57) Yeah. Let's tell India and China Speaker 7 (12:00) to watch their carbon. use as well. Right. Good luck. Right. Yeah. Speaker 3 (12:04) Let's ruin the U.S. economy. Ruin the U.S. economy is totally fine. But China and India are going to keep going. They're going to keep dominating. And then you're going to say in five years or 10 years, man, we shouldn't have done that. Maybe we should have waited to see if they were going to jump on board. And they didn't. And we did. And boy, we're awfully sorry now. Speaker 7 (12:23) Remember, everyone, safety. Speaker 7 (12:27) is your friend if Speaker 1 (12:30) you're working on an oil derrick but societal wise it's the enemy everything is done under the guise of safety nobody says i'm a maniac who wants control and that's why i'm shutting the beaches and outdoor dining right Speaker 7 (12:45) they Speaker 1 (12:45) don't say that they say it's for your safety everything they tell you you can't do is Speaker 5 (12:52) for your safety it is a plague It's a problem. I've told my assistant over in the kitchen there, I leave, she'll go, have a safe day. Everyone says, I go, stop saying that. She starts laughing. I go, I'm not kidding. Stop with the safety. Stop with the fucking safety talk. Every dude's a puss. They can't drive a stick. Everyone's wearing, they wear a helmet to leave the house. Fuck that. Get some balls and let's get back to it. The safety thing destroys civilizations. California, And Los Angeles, all they do, everything they say is safety. Every freeway sign says slow down. I'm going nine miles an hour. I'm stuck in traffic. What do you mean slow down? Click it or tick it. Slow for the cones up. They don't say drive like champions. They don't say use your blinker. They don't say anything. Safety, Uber Alice, it's part of the gynofascism. It's pushed by women. COVID, we all just got fucked by COVID because of the guise of safety and because so many women sort of were weaponized by safety. Speaker 3 (13:56) Well, remember, I mean, the whole the whole idea behind the vaccine was, is that the reason that we are firing you from your job, the reason that we are pulling you out of the military, the reason that we are pulling you out of military school and so on and so forth is because you're putting other people at risk by not getting the vaccine. Who are vaccinated. That's right. And then you said and then and they knew and we have the documents to prove it. They knew when they said that that you the vaccine didn't stop you from getting it or spreading it. It was a personal decision that you. and you only should make. Nobody should tell you because it did not stop you from giving to somebody else or getting it and they penalized you Speaker 5 (14:34) for not taking it. You had to get vaccinated for them and their safety and then you had to wear a mask for them and their safety. I just go, I don't want to wear a mask. I don't care. You're wearing a mask. Yeah, but you got to wear a mask for me. All right. So it's... It's all narcissism and it's all safety. By the way, there are no other human beings who rail against safety like I do. And Speaker 7 (14:57) I've Speaker 5 (14:57) told Speaker 7 (14:58) this, and Dawson, you can find me with Chris Cuomo challenging Gavin Newsom on shutting the beaches. I'm sure Trace would enjoy watching that clip. I race cars. When you get into a race car, everything Speaker 1 (15:15) is safety. It's one big safety film is a race car. You have to memorize every flag. You're talking about memorizing flags. Every flag. It's not just the checkered flag or the green flag to start. There are flags. There are 10 other flags. You've got to memorize. It's a full course caution. It's a local caution. It's a red flag. It's Speaker 5 (15:35) a Speaker 1 (15:35) black flag. You've got to know what all the flags are. You have to. Speaker 5 (15:40) I had a brand new, what I thought was a perfectly conditioned helmet and an expensive carbon fiber helmet. I mean, like a $2,000 helmet. And my world was like brand new. Uh-uh, too old. It was like eight years old. You got to buy a new helmet. Hans device, I had to buy a new head and neck thing. It was too old. I had to replace the seatbelts or the harness in the car. Too old. Expired. Safety, safety, safety, safety, fire suits, everything else. I do it. It's an Speaker 1 (16:12) environment that's dangerous and you want safety. So that makes sense. When they closed down Laguna Speaker 5 (16:20) Seca one year because of COVID, a big outdoor environment in Monterey, I said, no, I don't need that kind of safety. I need to ride a motorcycle, put a helmet on. Safety, not Speaker 1 (16:35) bullshit, shut down outdoor dining. Safety. This is me on the Speaker 7 (16:42) debate night and Gavin Newsom was Zooming in and he didn't know I was there. He wasn't warned that I was there Speaker 1 (16:52) and I wasn't warned he was Zooming in. They told me two minutes before he Zoomed in. Gavin Newsom's coming on. You got a question for him? They weren't setting me up. They didn't know anything. So I thought of a quick question. Speaker 7 (17:04) Adam Carolla here. Governor, why did you shut the beaches in California during COVID? Speaker 2 (17:13) Yeah, I think we all were working on information at the time. We had no basis of deeply understanding the virus. I think they did the same thing. So Speaker 7 (17:22) you didn't know Speaker 2 (17:22) anything, so why'd you shut the beaches? States like Speaker 7 (17:24) Florida. If you didn't know anything, why'd you shut the beaches? Speaker 2 (17:27) Well, we didn't know. Speaker 2 (17:30) Yeah, because people were concerned early in the pandemic. Information was coming out as it related to how it was transferred, the disease, and people were cautious trying to keep people alive. And I should say this, Adam, you should know this. So you didn't let him go in the sunshine and get vitamin D and Speaker 7 (17:44) exercise, so you shut the beaches. Okay. And you arrested a guy who was paddleboarding in the bay. So Speaker 2 (17:50) on Speaker 7 (17:50) Health Speaker 2 (17:50) Wealth and Speaker 7 (17:53) it's always good to see Adam. Yeah, Speaker 2 (17:55) any science behind that? Speaker 7 (17:55) Any science at all behind shutting down outdoor dining? Why'd you shut down outdoor dining? Speaker 7 (18:02) Go ahead, go ahead. It's good to see you, Adam. The debate tonight... It's not a debate. You shut down Speaker 5 (18:09) outdoor dining. You've canceled businesses. It has nothing to do with science. All right, let him finish. Go ahead. All this Speaker 2 (18:17) happened with members of Speaker 5 (18:20) the Trump Speaker 2 (18:20) administration. Speaker 7 (18:21) Members of the Trump administration. Right. We didn't know anything. Speaker 5 (18:24) His favorite line is hindsight is 2020. It wasn't hindsight. I knew a lot of people that knew what the facts were. They knew. You ran them out of town, you fucking coward. They knew. By the way, who wants a leader, whether it's a... Who wants an airplane pilot going, hey, in hindsight, I wouldn't have hit the volcano. Speaker 3 (18:42) We all Speaker 5 (18:43) wouldn't have hit the volcano in hindsight. Speaker 3 (18:45) It was a bad move. I actually should have pulled up on the yoke. It was a bad move in hindsight. But hey, listen, can I fly that 747? Can you let me fly the 747 now? Because I think I can do it. I've learned a lot. You know, in hindsight, Newsom does this all the time. He talks himself into a hole. He spins himself deeper and deeper and then comes out of it with some excuse like, well, we didn't know. We didn't have the information. Yes, you did, because we provided the information for you. We gave you and your press office the information for you. And you came out and you still did it, even though you had the information. And you can say maybe they didn't hand it to you, but you had the information because we confirmed that you had the information in your office. Speaker 1 (19:26) Well, here's an interesting, maybe psychological dynamic. If there's something you want to do versus something you don't want to do. So you go. Speaker 1 (19:40) well, what governor would want to shut the beaches and the parks and the whatever? And then somebody comes up to you and goes, hey, how about COVID? Well, if you didn't want to do something, then you would go search for information to not do it. But if you wanted to do it, you would ignore that and search for information to do it. So what I'm saying is, if you're, let's just say your wife said, look. I heard you have to get a prostate exam every Friday. Every single Friday, you got to get a prostate exam from your doctor. Speaker 7 (20:14) And you would think, geez, I don't want to go in every Friday and get a prostate exam. And then what you would do, you would set out immediately to Speaker 5 (20:25) look on your phone, prostate exam, Speaker 1 (20:27) figure out whatever. And then you would present your wife. You'd go, no, no. says that the Mayo Clinic suggests only once every other year. That's after the age of 70 or whatever it is. You would make your case if you didn't Speaker 5 (20:40) want to do it. If you wanted to do it, you would go find information. So you have to think about the mindset of Gavin Newsom. There is no data that says shut down outdoor dining. There is no data that says shut the beaches. There is no data that says shut the parks. There's no data. But he went and did it anyway because he wanted to do it. If he didn't want to do it, he'd say, like the prostate exam, hold on. Speaker 3 (21:05) Right. I want to see the data. And he would be the first to acknowledge that, oh, no, no, no, no, we didn't, as he did on here, and we didn't have the information. Well, then seek out the information. Find the information. Because we do this all the time. I mean, the bottom line here is he shut down the beaches not because he thought it was a good idea and it was going to save lives to shut down the beaches. They shut down the beaches the same reason they want to shut down AI. It's control. They want to control the situation. They want to control the beaches. There was a bathroom in Noe Valley in North. California. It took four years to build. It cost $1.6 million four years ago when they finished it. And it went through 32 different regulatory things, including the Forest Service. And you're like, what is the Forest Service? Well, it's all about safety. No, it's not. It's not about safety. It's about control. You want to control the situation and you're not doing your homework. You're not saying if I'm going to get the prostate exam every Friday, I'm going to damn sure find out why it is I have to get this prostate exam. Speaker 1 (22:08) Right. But now here's the bigger problem. Gavin Newsom is Gavin Newsom. He's a sociopathic dope who wants control. Who votes for Gavin Newsom and why do they like it? And I'm telling you, we have a growing number of people who want to be crate trained. They like the feeling of it. They think. So if you said to them during COVID, I'm not shutting any beaches, I'm not shutting any schools. You're on your own. This thing can't be controlled. It's invisible. You can wear a paper mask. Good luck. I can see the side of your face through the stupid mask because you've got the band twisted Speaker 7 (22:47) around your ear. And I don't know. Use all the pre-roll you want. It's Speaker 1 (22:52) not going to do anything. People feel scared and out of control and panic. So what I do is I come in and I go, hey, crazy housewife, would you like to not get COVID? She goes, yeah, I'll do anything. Every time you pass a telephone pole, you walk around it twice and you say, Olly, olly, oxen free, and you won't get COVID. And she goes, I'm listening to this guy. Speaker 5 (23:15) Yeah. And that's what we just experienced. Those people didn't know shit. And if you guys weren't such idiots, we wouldn't put up with this stuff. I processed the whole thing. I had like three people tell me. Speaker 5 (23:29) Bean Speaker 7 (23:29) from Kevin and Bean. Speaker 1 (23:31) I remember clearly. Speaker 7 (23:33) Kevin and Bean show. Remember K-Rock? Of Speaker 3 (23:35) course, yeah. Speaker 7 (23:36) Bean moved to England, I think he was at, and he got COVID. And Bean is a particular guy. And I knew he'd do everything they told him to do because he's a little Howard Hughes-y, right? And Speaker 1 (23:49) he goes, Adam, I washed my hands. I did all this stuff. I quarantined everything. I wore the mask. I did everything. And I still got COVID. And all Speaker 7 (24:00) I heard was, good, I don't have to do anything. Because if you did everything and got it. then why would I do everything and get it? Why not enjoy myself and either get it or not? And so I heard do nothing when he said I did everything. And I talked, everyone led their story, by the way, especially the Hollywood pussies. I did everything. I did everything. Like they were going to get executed if they didn't Speaker 5 (24:27) do everything. I did everything right. I stayed home. I wiped everything down. I triple masked. I didn't travel and I still got COVID. And first off, shut up. But secondly, good. I'm doing none of it. Speaker 3 (24:40) Right. And then there was the flip side of that where you had people, the smart people like Bhattacharya saying you're putting people in a bad position because you are literally trying to embolden people by saying, listen, put one of these dumb masks on. Put the bandana on and put it below whatever you're doing, however you're going to wear it. And then go into Costco and feel bold, feel strong because now you're protected. And so they send everybody into Costco and everybody's got the masks all over the place. Nobody's got a good mask. Nobody. And so you go into Costco. And what do you do when you go into Costco? You get COVID and you walk back out and you get the rest of your stuff. And that's the part, the problem where you think this is what they did is not only did they want to control you, but they were putting people. And I don't know why Costco was open and the local liquor store wasn't open. They didn't explain that, but they send you into Costco and they send you into Walmart and you got a mask and you stay six feet apart and you're like, oh, good. Oh, good. What's the six feet for? We don't really know. And why are you wearing a mask? And why are you feeling like you are empowered? to go into this store and you think, oh, look at me, I'm bulletproof now because I'm six feet away and I got a mask on. You walk out and what'd you get? Well, I got some coffee, some toilet paper, and I got COVID. Boom, there, off you go. I Speaker 1 (25:53) got some coffee, got 900 rolls of toilet paper, and I got COVID. And I got COVID. Thank you very Speaker 3 (25:59) much, Speaker 1 (25:59) California. Well, listen, everybody, I'm sorry to say this, but you're going to have to stop being pussies. You're going to have to wake up a little bit. Go ahead and take a bump and a bruise. Stop wrapping everyone in bubble wrap. We're nuts with the safety. I cannot tell you. And there's a relationship with safety that we don't have, and it's killing us in this sense. Speaker 1 (26:29) There's two things we're suffering from right now