Hello and welcome to opening arguments. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real life attorney

Matt Cameron, and we are joined by Jake Tapper. So happy to have you. How are you doing? I'm great.

Great to be here. Thanks so much.

Yeah, no. We're very excited about this. And love the book Race Against Terror. We're going to get into it pretty soon here. But before we get to that, I know there's something that our listeners are going to want to ask you about. You were involved on a divisive project in which you've exposed infightings and legal troubles, a lot of drama around a beloved American family, family beset by tragedy, something you're taking a lot of heat for. And of course, as anybody listening to this must know by now, I'm referring to your 2002 VH1 special winner's Skinner on Civil War. I was wondering where this was going to go. Should we roll the tape? Should we roll the tape? Let's take a look at it. Here we go.

What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Still touring? Still selling a million records a year. Yeah, I think they should play as long as they want. You know, I mean, hey, it's a great thing, you know, when you're out there playing and it doesn't matter how old you are, you can keep it going. I think that's a great thing. You really think that?

No. I mean, I don't think that. You got nine people in that band. Two of them are original members. Gary said that they're basically a tribute band. He said that? Well, good for him. He's come to realization. That's what it is. Perfect. I love it. Unironically. Hard hitting. Great stuff. No, no. I mean, and I also had that haircut in 2002, so no worries on that. I'm just so embarrassed by it. Everything about that look is wrong and upsetting, including the tightness of the shirt with the belly. There was a lot of bourbon in that that belly i'll tell you that um i will say this so i i joined v h one to learn about how to be a tv journalist i had been a print journalist and and uh and uh this was an opportunity to learn how to be a tv

journalist and the best way uh to learn as you know, is to make mistakes.

Do a Leonard Skinner.

Oh, okay.

And to do an hour special on Leonard Skinnerd.

Which time-honored tradition, yeah.

I'm proud of that documentary, which is still on YouTube, I think you can find it.

That was the late great Ed King, by the way.

Yes. Who came up with... Fantastic. That's him. There you go. He came up with that. Great guy. And you're a fan, I take it. What? You're a fan. Your Skinnered fan. Yeah, their music's great. I know that they were not that happy with the documentary because it exposed. And I love the seriousness with which I'm throughout the documentary. The rule of three was when after this horrible car plane accident, they decided that Leonard's Kennedy can continue, but they always had to have three original members in order to

continue. And I was pointing out the fact that they were going on, even though they only had two

original members. And, you know, if you're not really that upset about the violation of that

clause, then the documentary might not be for you. But I committed, I committed to the, was like, your palms are sweaty, you're ready to call them on this. This is your Frost Nixon moment and Frost Skinnerd. How great was that interview? You really think that? No. I was so good. I loved, Ed. I was very upset to hear that he was not happy with the documentary. And, you know, and no, I don't think anybody associated withnerd was, but. Well, you've never met anybody upset since then, so that's, he was, he was such a, he was such a, he was such a fun guy to meet. And that was, that was a fun documentary to work on. When it was about a legal case. I was not expecting, a, uh, uncivil war. That's war. That's what it was titled. Uncivil war.

We'll be linking to it so everybody can get a look for themselves to 2000.

Let me just please, let me just say also, I did not pick out the wardrobe for, when you work for VH1.

This is my current exact style. So I'll just stop trying. I'm just kidding.

You pull it off much better. I'll just say like when you work for like entertainment television like VH1, you're allowed to get free clothes and all that stuff. You're not allowed to do that in news in news news. But I will say like, yeah, there's a bucket hat in one scene. There's a lot of us. You're just Ed Helms from the office is all I'm seeing. It just looks exactly like... I just did his podcast, and we remarked on the fact that a lot of folks confuse us. I'm sure he asked about the same interview. Everybody's asking about it to the Leonard Skinner-Dun Civil War right now. Please watch it. Go watch it. My kids haven't seen that yet. My kids haven't seen it. Must get so tiresome to be answering question after question about Leonard Skinner done Civil War, you know. Yeah, I mean, when we found out that chick tap was coming on, I thought, well, great, we love musical litigation. That's one of our favorite subjects. I don't think there's any litigation. I think the point was that Van Zant's Van Zant's, uh, a widow, uh, was, was quietly permitting the band to continue to tour because it was, uh, it paid bills. I mean, I don't think, I don't think to court. If it did go to court, be like, your honor, my defense, bam, bam, bam, nah, nah, and you'd be like, in case closed. You're right.

I completely agree.

...