WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.359 Hey all you cool cats and kittens. Oh no! I knew 00:00:03.359 --> 00:00:05.639 it! I knew we wouldn't get 10 seconds in without 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:08.080 you doing the voice. I had to. It is physically 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:10.580 impossible to see the name Carole Baskin and 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:14.830 not hear that specific, uh... slightly high pitched 00:00:14.830 --> 00:00:18.309 floral crown greeting. It's embedded in our cultural 00:00:18.309 --> 00:00:20.870 DNA at this point. It really is. It's the official 00:00:20.870 --> 00:00:23.309 soundtrack of the early pandemic, isn't it? You 00:00:23.309 --> 00:00:25.370 hear that phrase and suddenly it's March 2020. 00:00:25.850 --> 00:00:28.329 You're wiping down your groceries with Clorox 00:00:28.329 --> 00:00:30.070 wipes. You're trying to make a sourdough starter. 00:00:30.210 --> 00:00:33.990 And you are absolutely 100 percent glued to a 00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.710 docuseries about redneck tiger breeders. It was 00:00:36.710 --> 00:00:39.329 a total fever dream. But here's my question. 00:00:39.390 --> 00:00:40.750 And I want to be honest with you right off the 00:00:40.750 --> 00:00:43.560 bat. Are we really doing a deep dive on a meme? 00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:46.840 Because I feel like we all lived through the 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:49.340 Tiger King hype cycle. We laughed, we made the 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:51.060 jokes about the sardine oil, and then, you know, 00:00:51.079 --> 00:00:53.060 we moved on. Is there actually enough substance 00:00:53.060 --> 00:00:55.100 here for a full conversation, or are we just 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:57.880 rehashing old tabloid fodder? That is exactly 00:00:57.880 --> 00:01:00.920 why we are doing this, because the mimification 00:01:00.920 --> 00:01:04.829 of Carole Baskin. Completely swallowed the actual 00:01:04.829 --> 00:01:07.390 story. It buried it. You think so? Absolutely. 00:01:07.530 --> 00:01:10.030 When you strip away the dramatic Netflix editing 00:01:10.030 --> 00:01:12.590 and the music videos and all the internet conspiracy 00:01:12.590 --> 00:01:15.769 theories, you are left with a biography that 00:01:15.769 --> 00:01:19.469 is startlingly dark, legally dense, and believe 00:01:19.469 --> 00:01:22.549 it or not, surprisingly consequential. Consequential 00:01:22.549 --> 00:01:25.370 how? I mean, beyond being a pop culture footnote. 00:01:25.569 --> 00:01:27.329 Well, think about it this way. We treat her like 00:01:27.329 --> 00:01:29.670 a joke character, right? But this is a woman 00:01:29.670 --> 00:01:31.430 who went from being a teenage runaway slipping 00:01:31.430 --> 00:01:35.090 under cars to passing federal legislation that 00:01:35.090 --> 00:01:37.890 dismantled an entire American industry. OK, well, 00:01:37.930 --> 00:01:40.090 you put it like that. That arc from homelessness 00:01:40.090 --> 00:01:43.109 to literally a White House signing ceremony is 00:01:43.109 --> 00:01:45.390 wild. And it gets completely buried under the 00:01:45.390 --> 00:01:48.469 did she or didn't she kill her husband discourse. 00:01:48.730 --> 00:01:51.010 That's a fair point. I think most people, and 00:01:51.010 --> 00:01:53.049 I'd include myself in this, know maybe two things 00:01:53.049 --> 00:01:55.769 about her. She hates Joe Exotic and her husband 00:01:55.769 --> 00:01:57.769 Don vanished under mysterious circumstances. 00:01:58.189 --> 00:02:01.109 The rest is just a blur of leopard print. Precisely. 00:02:01.390 --> 00:02:04.909 So the mission today is to step out of the Tiger 00:02:04.909 --> 00:02:07.790 King editing room. We are going to look at the 00:02:07.790 --> 00:02:10.509 raw source material. We're talking court filings, 00:02:10.509 --> 00:02:13.169 real estate records, legislative history and 00:02:13.169 --> 00:02:15.250 her own biographical accounts. We're going to 00:02:15.250 --> 00:02:16.930 try and figure out who Carole Baskin actually 00:02:16.930 --> 00:02:18.930 is when the cameras aren't rolling. And I've 00:02:18.930 --> 00:02:20.750 looked at the stack of notes you sent over for 00:02:20.750 --> 00:02:24.729 this. I have to say. The early life stuff, I 00:02:24.729 --> 00:02:27.530 was not prepared for that. It's gritty. It feels 00:02:27.530 --> 00:02:30.930 less like a quirky documentary and more like 00:02:30.930 --> 00:02:32.949 a survival thriller. It creates a psychological 00:02:32.949 --> 00:02:35.129 profile that I think explains everything that 00:02:35.129 --> 00:02:36.669 comes later. You can't really understand why 00:02:36.669 --> 00:02:39.210 she fights so hard for big cats until you understand 00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:42.050 what happened to her in 1975. So let's start 00:02:42.050 --> 00:02:43.889 there. Before the cats, before the millions, 00:02:44.009 --> 00:02:46.699 before Joe Exotic. Who was Carole Ann Stairs? 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:50.020 Okay. So she was born in 1961 on an Air Force 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:52.780 base in Texas. But the story really starts in 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.419 Florida when she's just 14 years old. And this 00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:58.360 is a heavy place to begin, but it's the cornerstone 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:01.580 of her entire identity. She reports being gang 00:03:01.580 --> 00:03:04.000 raped by three men who lived across the street 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.439 from her family home. 14. My God. 14. And here 00:03:08.439 --> 00:03:11.520 is the part that seems to have just hardened 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.569 her against the world. She claims she received 00:03:14.569 --> 00:03:16.789 zero emotional support from her family afterward. 00:03:16.969 --> 00:03:20.789 Zero. She was in a strictly religious, very conservative 00:03:20.789 --> 00:03:23.449 household. And the sources suggest the attitude 00:03:23.449 --> 00:03:25.750 was very much don't talk about it. You know, 00:03:25.770 --> 00:03:27.990 sweep it under the rug. This is shameful. We 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:30.629 don't air our dirty laundry. I mean, that's isolating 00:03:30.629 --> 00:03:33.310 in a way I can't even begin to quantify. You're 00:03:33.310 --> 00:03:36.490 a child. You go through this horrific, life -altering 00:03:36.490 --> 00:03:38.889 trauma. And the people who are supposed to be 00:03:38.889 --> 00:03:41.300 your safety net just let you free fall. They 00:03:41.300 --> 00:03:44.599 cut the net. And so she reacted the way a lot 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:47.020 of traumatized teenagers react. She ran. She 00:03:47.020 --> 00:03:48.860 just bolted. She dropped out of high school. 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.219 She left home with an employee from the local 00:03:51.219 --> 00:03:53.520 roller rink. And this wasn't a gap year adventure. 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:56.120 This was pure survival mode. The details in the 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:58.740 research about this period are so intense. She 00:03:58.740 --> 00:04:00.719 wasn't just staying with friends. She was hitchhiking 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:03.340 up and down the East Coast between Florida and 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:05.860 Maine. Back and forth, sleeping under parked 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:08.120 cars to stay out of the rain, scrounging for 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:11.729 food. It's a really... bleak picture. But there's 00:04:11.729 --> 00:04:14.810 one detail from this era, what I call the Datsun 00:04:14.810 --> 00:04:17.629 truck era, that I think is the key to unlocking 00:04:17.629 --> 00:04:19.750 her entire psyche. I know exactly the one you 00:04:19.750 --> 00:04:21.910 mean. She eventually saves up enough money to 00:04:21.910 --> 00:04:24.529 buy this beat up old truck and she sleeps in 00:04:24.529 --> 00:04:27.389 the back of it. But she's not alone. She is sleeping 00:04:27.389 --> 00:04:29.910 in the back of a Datsun truck, homeless with 00:04:29.910 --> 00:04:32.790 her pet cat. It's such a cinematic image, isn't 00:04:32.790 --> 00:04:35.949 it? A teenage girl who feels unsafe in the world 00:04:35.949 --> 00:04:38.920 of men and betrayed by her family. curling up 00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:41.220 with a predator, albeit a very small one. It 00:04:41.220 --> 00:04:43.500 establishes the binary that I think defines her 00:04:43.500 --> 00:04:46.500 entire life. Humans are dangerous, they're unreliable, 00:04:46.579 --> 00:04:49.019 they're judgmental, cats are safe, they're accepting, 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:51.709 they're loyal. if you look at her life through 00:04:51.709 --> 00:04:53.930 that one lens the obsession with the sanctuary 00:04:53.930 --> 00:04:57.089 makes perfect logical sense she isn't just saving 00:04:57.089 --> 00:04:59.550 tigers she's surrounding herself with the only 00:04:59.550 --> 00:05:01.970 being she feels she can actually trust right 00:05:01.970 --> 00:05:04.089 it's like she's building a fortress against the 00:05:04.089 --> 00:05:06.290 world she escaped exactly a fortress full of 00:05:06.290 --> 00:05:09.410 predators who she sees as victims just like herself 00:05:09.410 --> 00:05:11.589 but you know you can't live in a truck forever 00:05:11.589 --> 00:05:15.100 she eventually lands back in tampa And this leads 00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:17.980 directly to her first marriage, which, reading 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:20.259 about it, sounds like a complete disaster from 00:05:20.259 --> 00:05:22.920 day one. It was absolutely a product of the times 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:26.000 and her extreme vulnerability. She's 17 years 00:05:26.000 --> 00:05:27.899 old. She gets a job working at a department store. 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:30.560 She moves in with her boss, a man named Michael 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:33.420 Murdock. The power dynamic there is already screaming 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:37.019 red flag. A 17 -year -old employee, her older 00:05:37.019 --> 00:05:40.120 male boss. A huge red flag. And she is very, 00:05:40.199 --> 00:05:43.040 very blunt about this in her biography. She states 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:45.579 clearly that she never loved him, not even a 00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:48.860 little bit. She married him in April 1979 for 00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:50.899 one reason and one reason only. Her parents. 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:53.560 Her parents. They were deeply disappointed that 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:56.540 she was living in sin. That phrase, living in 00:05:56.540 --> 00:05:58.839 sin, it really just anchors you in the cultural 00:05:58.839 --> 00:06:01.100 pressure of the late 70s, especially in the Bible 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:03.639 Belt. She literally trapped herself in a loveless 00:06:03.639 --> 00:06:06.439 marriage to appease the same parents who allegedly 00:06:06.439 --> 00:06:09.800 ignored her trauma. And it backfired almost immediately. 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:12.759 She becomes a mother at 19, but she describes 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:16.720 the relationship as deeply abusive, possessive, 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:20.480 controlling, violent. Which brings us to 1981 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:24.259 and the incident that changed everything, the 00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:26.259 potato incident. Okay, I have to pause here. 00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:28.740 When I first saw the potato incident in the outline, 00:06:28.959 --> 00:06:30.720 I thought it was a typo. You have to walk me 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:33.259 through this because it sounds completely absurd. 00:06:33.540 --> 00:06:35.680 It sounds ridiculous, but in the moment, it must 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:38.170 have been terrifying. It's a night in October 00:06:38.170 --> 00:06:41.730 1981. She's 19. She says Murdoch attacked her. 00:06:41.829 --> 00:06:44.389 In her desperation to get away, she grabs the 00:06:44.389 --> 00:06:46.470 nearest object she can find in the kitchen. A 00:06:46.470 --> 00:06:49.670 potato. A potato. And she hurls it at him. It 00:06:49.670 --> 00:06:51.329 apparently surprised him enough to buy her a 00:06:51.329 --> 00:06:53.490 split second of confusion, and in that moment, 00:06:53.529 --> 00:06:56.670 she bolts. It's literally fight or flight with 00:06:56.670 --> 00:06:59.490 a potato. She runs out of the house. She has 00:06:59.490 --> 00:07:02.610 no shoes on. She is barefoot. She is 19 years 00:07:02.610 --> 00:07:05.600 old. And she is running down Nebraska Avenue 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:07.660 in Tampa in the middle of the night. Now, for 00:07:07.660 --> 00:07:09.879 anyone who doesn't know Tampa, Nebraska Avenue 00:07:09.879 --> 00:07:12.540 in the 80s was it was rough. It was known for 00:07:12.540 --> 00:07:15.680 street crime, prostitution. It wasn't a place 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:17.459 you wanted to be walking alone at night, let 00:07:17.459 --> 00:07:19.939 alone barefoot and fleeing an attack. And this 00:07:19.939 --> 00:07:22.560 is where the movie script kicks in because a 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.879 car pulls over. A car pulls over and inside is 00:07:25.879 --> 00:07:29.379 a man named Don Lewis. The Don Lewis, the man 00:07:29.379 --> 00:07:32.600 who become the center of this decades long mystery. 00:07:33.209 --> 00:07:35.410 What was he like back then? Was he already the 00:07:35.410 --> 00:07:37.110 millionaire eccentric that we hear about? He 00:07:37.110 --> 00:07:38.949 was a self -made man and significantly older 00:07:38.949 --> 00:07:41.389 than her. He was already wealthy or at least 00:07:41.389 --> 00:07:43.470 well on his way. And importantly, he was married. 00:07:43.610 --> 00:07:46.370 Right. But he stops. He picks up this barefoot, 00:07:46.430 --> 00:07:48.970 terrified girl off the street. And that single 00:07:48.970 --> 00:07:51.389 encounter changes the entire trajectory of her 00:07:51.389 --> 00:07:53.730 life forever. I think the popular narrative, 00:07:53.910 --> 00:07:55.930 the one from Tiger King, is that she was a gold 00:07:55.930 --> 00:07:58.970 digger. Yeah. That she saw a rich guy and latched 00:07:58.970 --> 00:08:02.170 on. But the timeline doesn't really support that 00:08:02.170 --> 00:08:04.610 simple a story, does it? It's much more complex. 00:08:04.689 --> 00:08:06.389 They do start an affair. That's true. They are 00:08:06.389 --> 00:08:08.709 both married to other people. But she doesn't 00:08:08.709 --> 00:08:11.129 just sit around spending his money. She becomes, 00:08:11.269 --> 00:08:14.009 in many ways, the architect of his growing fortune. 00:08:14.589 --> 00:08:18.170 How so? Don Lewis was good at, let's say, spotting 00:08:18.170 --> 00:08:20.910 opportunities. But Carol was apparently good 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:23.509 at executing the details. She had this incredibly 00:08:23.509 --> 00:08:26.350 sharp, intuitive mind for systems and paperwork. 00:08:26.810 --> 00:08:29.459 This is the part that really surprised me. She's 00:08:29.459 --> 00:08:32.299 a high school dropout who'd been homeless. How 00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:34.919 is she suddenly managing a complex real estate 00:08:34.919 --> 00:08:37.559 empire? It seems she just had a knack for it. 00:08:37.620 --> 00:08:40.419 By 1984, she's the one handling the business. 00:08:40.700 --> 00:08:42.980 She's helping him buy and sell property. She's 00:08:42.980 --> 00:08:45.399 navigating the complexities of tax deeds. She's 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:47.779 dealing with foreclosures. This requires a level 00:08:47.779 --> 00:08:50.200 of financial and legal literacy that, frankly, 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:52.620 most people with MBAs struggle with. And she 00:08:52.620 --> 00:08:54.669 learned it all on the fly. So she wasn't just 00:08:54.669 --> 00:08:57.570 a passenger in his success. She was the co -pilot. 00:08:57.629 --> 00:08:59.789 She was actively building the wealth. Absolutely. 00:09:00.090 --> 00:09:02.330 She helped build the very wealth that would eventually 00:09:02.330 --> 00:09:05.309 fund the sanctuary. They both divorced their 00:09:05.309 --> 00:09:08.149 spouses. They married each other in 1991. And 00:09:08.149 --> 00:09:11.110 the very next year, 1992, they buy a plot of 00:09:11.110 --> 00:09:13.250 land and start a business called Wildlife on 00:09:13.250 --> 00:09:16.370 Easy Street. Easy Street. The irony of that name, 00:09:16.470 --> 00:09:18.509 given everything that happened there. It was 00:09:18.509 --> 00:09:20.759 anything but. Now, we need to clarify something 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:22.559 really important here, because I think a lot 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:24.960 of people get this wrong. When they started Wildlife 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:27.379 on Easy Street, it wasn't a rescue, was it? It 00:09:27.379 --> 00:09:29.860 was basically the exact kind of operation she 00:09:29.860 --> 00:09:32.820 fights against now. This is the crucial arc of 00:09:32.820 --> 00:09:35.399 activism that gets lost in the memes. You have 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:37.100 to understand where she started to understand 00:09:37.100 --> 00:09:40.960 where she ended up. In 1992, they were breeders. 00:09:41.589 --> 00:09:44.509 They were buying and selling exotic cats for 00:09:44.509 --> 00:09:46.669 profit. So they were part of the problem. They 00:09:46.669 --> 00:09:48.370 were the problem, by her current definition. 00:09:48.649 --> 00:09:51.570 They had leopards, ocelots, all sorts of cats. 00:09:51.710 --> 00:09:54.289 They even had a bizarre side hustle using llamas 00:09:54.289 --> 00:09:56.529 to trim people's lawns. Wait, wait, llamas for 00:09:56.529 --> 00:09:58.409 lawn trimming? You mentioned that, but I thought 00:09:58.409 --> 00:10:00.500 you were kidding. Not kidding. It was a real 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:03.059 business. They are hustlers. They were trying 00:10:03.059 --> 00:10:05.639 to monetize these animals in any way they possibly 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:08.360 could. They were part of the trade. They were 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:10.179 the people supplying the cubs that end up in 00:10:10.179 --> 00:10:13.340 roadside zoos and private hands. So what changed? 00:10:13.480 --> 00:10:15.379 What was the turning point? Did she just wake 00:10:15.379 --> 00:10:19.149 up one day and have a moral epiphany? Or was 00:10:19.149 --> 00:10:21.509 it a more gradual process? The sources point 00:10:21.509 --> 00:10:25.330 to a major shift around 1996 or 1997. And it 00:10:25.330 --> 00:10:28.210 seems to be the realization of the brutal math 00:10:28.210 --> 00:10:31.629 of breeding. The math. Yeah. Think about it. 00:10:31.649 --> 00:10:34.250 If you breed a tiger, you get cute, cuddly cubs. 00:10:34.309 --> 00:10:37.509 Everybody wants to pay $100 to take a photo with 00:10:37.509 --> 00:10:40.250 a cub. It's a cash cow for about 8 to 12 rents. 00:10:40.409 --> 00:10:44.110 But that cute cub grows into a 500 -pound apex 00:10:44.110 --> 00:10:47.049 predator in six months. It eats 40 pounds of 00:10:47.049 --> 00:10:49.379 meat a day. becomes incredibly dangerous and 00:10:49.379 --> 00:10:51.279 expensive, you can't keep it in your house. So 00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:52.659 what do you do with it? You have to sell it. 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:54.399 You have to get rid of it. And once you sell 00:10:54.399 --> 00:10:56.539 it, you lose all control of what happens to it. 00:10:56.740 --> 00:10:59.419 That's what she realized. She was feeding a pipeline 00:10:59.419 --> 00:11:02.139 of abuse. She started to see where her babies 00:11:02.139 --> 00:11:05.899 were ending up, in tiny, rusted cages in someone's 00:11:05.899 --> 00:11:08.879 backyard, in basements, or worse, killed for 00:11:08.879 --> 00:11:12.179 their parts on the black market. So they made 00:11:12.179 --> 00:11:14.919 a decision. They stopped all breeding. They transitioned 00:11:14.919 --> 00:11:17.559 from a commercial zoo to a nonprofit sanctuary. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.759 And this transition, this moral awakening, happens 00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:23.220 to coincide almost perfectly with the complete 00:11:23.220 --> 00:11:25.899 disintegration of her marriage to Don. The two 00:11:25.899 --> 00:11:28.019 events are almost certainly linked. Don Lewis 00:11:28.019 --> 00:11:30.600 was a businessman, first and foremost. Breeding 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:33.240 is profitable. Rescuing is a financial black 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:35.379 hole. You can just imagine the tension that creates 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:37.740 in a marriage. Let's talk about Don Lewis. Yeah. 00:11:37.740 --> 00:11:39.620 Because the Internet and certainly Tiger King 00:11:39.620 --> 00:11:42.100 has painted him as this sort of kindly, eccentric 00:11:42.100 --> 00:11:45.759 old man who was murdered and fed to tigers. But 00:11:45.759 --> 00:11:47.559 the documents from that time paint a picture 00:11:47.559 --> 00:11:51.360 of a guy who was, well. Complicated is putting 00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:53.899 it mildly. Complicated is a very generous word. 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:56.360 In her accounts, Carol claims he was sex obsessed. 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:58.600 She alleges he would regularly fly to Costa Rica 00:11:58.600 --> 00:12:00.620 specifically to have affairs with younger women. 00:12:00.779 --> 00:12:02.960 I remember that from the show. She even notes 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:06.360 this bizarre and humiliating detail that he would 00:12:06.360 --> 00:12:08.879 time these trips to coincide with her menstrual 00:12:08.879 --> 00:12:11.759 cycle. It's just a very specific and cruel detail 00:12:11.759 --> 00:12:14.240 to include if it's not true. It's deeply personal. 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:17.480 What else? She also claims he was diagnosed with 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:19.679 bipolar disorder shortly before he disappeared. 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:23.580 She describes him as a severe hoarder, not just 00:12:23.580 --> 00:12:25.899 a collector, but someone who would dumpster dive, 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:29.450 who would fill their 40 acre property with. Junk 00:12:29.450 --> 00:12:32.789 vehicles, scrap metal, broken appliances. So 00:12:32.789 --> 00:12:34.809 you have this pressure cooker environment, a 00:12:34.809 --> 00:12:36.830 property filled with dozens of dangerous big 00:12:36.830 --> 00:12:39.809 cats, piles of scrap metal, and a couple whose 00:12:39.809 --> 00:12:42.610 marriage is actively imploding. Exactly. And 00:12:42.610 --> 00:12:44.730 then comes the restraining order. This is the 00:12:44.730 --> 00:12:47.429 smoking gun for everyone in the Carole Did It 00:12:47.429 --> 00:12:51.309 camp. Right. July 1997. Don goes to a judge and 00:12:51.309 --> 00:12:53.929 files a restraining order. And in it, he explicitly 00:12:53.929 --> 00:12:56.700 writes that Carole threatened to kill him. This 00:12:56.700 --> 00:12:58.379 is the second time she has threatened to kill 00:12:58.379 --> 00:13:00.840 me. That's the quote. I mean, if you were a homicide 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:03.220 detective investigating the disappearance, that 00:13:03.220 --> 00:13:05.700 is Exhibit A. It seems impossible to get around. 00:13:05.980 --> 00:13:08.919 It looks incredibly damning on the surface. She 00:13:08.919 --> 00:13:11.559 threatened to kill me. It's right there in black 00:13:11.559 --> 00:13:13.600 and white. But we have to look at what the legal 00:13:13.600 --> 00:13:15.720 system actually did with that claim. And what 00:13:15.720 --> 00:13:19.179 was that? The judge rejected the order, threw 00:13:19.179 --> 00:13:23.120 it out. Why? If someone goes to a court and says, 00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:26.019 my wife is going to kill me. You'd think the 00:13:26.019 --> 00:13:27.940 court would err on the side of caution. You would. 00:13:28.570 --> 00:13:30.730 But Carol's counter argument, which the judge 00:13:30.730 --> 00:13:32.690 apparently found more credible, was that the 00:13:32.690 --> 00:13:34.690 dispute wasn't about a threat of violence at 00:13:34.690 --> 00:13:37.629 all. It was about the hoarding. About the junk. 00:13:37.970 --> 00:13:40.129 About the junk. She was clearing out his piles 00:13:40.129 --> 00:13:42.110 of scrap metal and broken equipment while he 00:13:42.110 --> 00:13:45.590 was away in Costa Rica. He got angry and she 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:48.669 claims filed the order as a legal maneuver to 00:13:48.669 --> 00:13:51.009 stop her from throwing away his stuff. And the 00:13:51.009 --> 00:13:53.990 judge bought that. It seems so. The judge didn't 00:13:53.990 --> 00:13:56.919 see a credible threat to his life. This is the 00:13:56.919 --> 00:13:59.379 most crucial part for me. Don continued to live 00:13:59.379 --> 00:14:01.320 with her in the same house after the order was 00:14:01.320 --> 00:14:03.200 rejected. That's the part that sticks for me, 00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:06.159 too. If I genuinely believe my spouse is plotting 00:14:06.159 --> 00:14:09.120 my murder, I am not sleeping under the same roof. 00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:13.429 I'm at a Motel 6. I'm gone. 100%. It strongly 00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:16.029 suggests the threat might have been a hyperbolic 00:14:16.029 --> 00:14:18.610 statement made in anger or a strategic move in 00:14:18.610 --> 00:14:20.730 a divorce negotiation that never happened. Because 00:14:20.730 --> 00:14:22.590 it never got that far. It never got that far. 00:14:23.049 --> 00:14:27.370 Because on August 18th, 1997, Don Lewis vanishes. 00:14:27.570 --> 00:14:29.529 The disappearance. He leaves the house early 00:14:29.529 --> 00:14:33.049 in the morning and just never comes back. His 00:14:33.049 --> 00:14:35.490 van is found a couple of days later. His van 00:14:35.490 --> 00:14:38.250 is found at a small executive airport in Pasco 00:14:38.250 --> 00:14:41.580 County. The keys are inside. But there is no 00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:44.399 flight plan filed, no record of him chartering 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:47.620 a plane, no sign of him on any manifest. He just 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:50.039 evaporates. And then the war begins, not just 00:14:50.039 --> 00:14:52.600 the police investigation, but the battle over 00:14:52.600 --> 00:14:54.759 the estate. Oh, it was vicious. On one side, 00:14:54.779 --> 00:14:56.899 you have Carol. On the other, you have Don's 00:14:56.899 --> 00:14:58.799 four adult children from his first marriage, 00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:01.000 and they despised her. They believed she was 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:03.320 a gold digger from day one. And then she produces 00:15:03.320 --> 00:15:05.919 the will. She produces the will. and a power 00:15:05.919 --> 00:15:08.419 of attorney, which gives her control of the entire 00:15:08.419 --> 00:15:10.980 estate in the event of his disappearance. The 00:15:10.980 --> 00:15:13.419 children cried foul immediately. They claimed 00:15:13.419 --> 00:15:15.679 the signature was forged. They said the language 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:18.440 about disappearance was suspicious. But she won, 00:15:18.559 --> 00:15:21.360 right? The courts ultimately upheld the documents. 00:15:21.639 --> 00:15:24.519 They did. After years of legal battles, the courts 00:15:24.519 --> 00:15:27.820 ruled in her favor. She prevailed. She inherited 00:15:27.820 --> 00:15:30.279 the bulk of the estate, which was valued at several 00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:32.419 million dollars, including the all -important 00:15:32.419 --> 00:15:35.460 sanctuary land. Don was declared legally dead 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:38.519 five years and one day after he vanished in 2002. 00:15:38.980 --> 00:15:41.539 Okay, we have to address the meat grinder theory. 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:45.159 Tiger King spent so much time on this, the idea 00:15:45.159 --> 00:15:47.419 that she killed him... put him through a meat 00:15:47.419 --> 00:15:49.840 grinder and fed him to the tigers. It's the most 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.299 gruesome and therefore the most memorable theory. 00:15:52.620 --> 00:15:55.279 It's the entire reason the sargine oil meme exists. 00:15:55.840 --> 00:15:58.879 But let's look at the actual forensics. The Hillsborough 00:15:58.879 --> 00:16:00.659 County Sheriff's Office searched the property 00:16:00.659 --> 00:16:02.700 extensively. They looked at the meat grinders. 00:16:02.779 --> 00:16:04.960 And what did they find? The meat grinders on 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:07.220 the property were commercial grade, yes, but 00:16:07.220 --> 00:16:09.500 for grinding chicken and other meat for the smaller 00:16:09.500 --> 00:16:12.730 cats. They were not giant industrial wood chipper 00:16:12.730 --> 00:16:16.090 style machines. To put a grown man's body through 00:16:16.090 --> 00:16:18.950 one of those, it's not physically plausible without 00:16:18.950 --> 00:16:21.789 dismembering the body into tiny, tiny pieces 00:16:21.789 --> 00:16:24.529 first. Which would leave a massive forensic mess. 00:16:24.710 --> 00:16:28.460 Yeah. Blood, tissue. A huge mess. And they found 00:16:28.460 --> 00:16:32.259 nothing, no human DNA, no blood evidence. And 00:16:32.259 --> 00:16:34.799 trust me, looking for trace amounts of blood 00:16:34.799 --> 00:16:37.159 in a sanctuary that processes thousands of pounds 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:40.480 of raw meat is hard. But luminol technology is 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:43.440 very good. They found nothing to suggest a murder 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:45.779 took place on that property. So despite the endless 00:16:45.779 --> 00:16:48.879 memes, despite the catchy TikTok songs, the official 00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:51.720 status of the Don Lewis case is? It is an open, 00:16:51.840 --> 00:16:54.720 active cold case. There has never been any evidence 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:57.299 found of a crime. No suspect has ever been named. 00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:00.240 No charges have ever been filed. So what about 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:02.700 that bombshell from Tiger King 2? I remember 00:17:02.700 --> 00:17:04.660 seeing headlines everywhere. Don Lewis found 00:17:04.660 --> 00:17:06.900 alive. They had a letter from Homeland Security 00:17:06.900 --> 00:17:09.299 saying he was alive and well in Costa Rica. This 00:17:09.299 --> 00:17:11.400 is a perfect example of why you have to actually 00:17:11.400 --> 00:17:14.079 check your sources and not just trust a documentary's 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:17.079 dramatic reveal. A lawyer for Don's family produced 00:17:17.079 --> 00:17:18.980 a letter, supposedly from Homeland Security, 00:17:19.380 --> 00:17:21.779 claiming that federal agents had made contact 00:17:21.779 --> 00:17:24.259 with Don in Costa Rica after his disappearance. 00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:29.719 On the surface, it seemed like the... Except 00:17:29.719 --> 00:17:33.700 for one tiny glaring problem that Carole Baskin 00:17:33.700 --> 00:17:36.900 herself pointed out immediately. The letter discusses 00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:39.839 events from 1997. The Department of Homeland 00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:42.920 Security was created in November 2002 in response 00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:46.059 to the 9 -11 attacks. Right. You cannot have 00:17:46.059 --> 00:17:48.579 a letter from a federal government agency five 00:17:48.579 --> 00:17:51.619 years before that agency even exists. It is a 00:17:51.619 --> 00:17:54.559 chronological impossibility. So the letter was 00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.950 a fake. Or just completely wrong. It was almost 00:17:57.950 --> 00:18:00.430 certainly a misinterpretation of a document from 00:18:00.430 --> 00:18:03.269 a different agency like customs or an outright 00:18:03.269 --> 00:18:05.650 fabrication. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's 00:18:05.650 --> 00:18:08.269 Office immediately shot it down. They released 00:18:08.269 --> 00:18:10.650 a statement saying we have not received any communication 00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:12.890 from federal officials that Mr. Lewis has been 00:18:12.890 --> 00:18:15.890 located. So no, Don Lewis is not sipping mojitos 00:18:15.890 --> 00:18:19.109 on a beach in Costa Rica. No, he is for all legal 00:18:19.109 --> 00:18:22.069 and practical purposes deceased. So Carol is 00:18:22.069 --> 00:18:24.700 now a wealthy widow. running a growing sanctuary 00:18:24.700 --> 00:18:27.579 and dealing with this cloud of suspicion. And 00:18:27.579 --> 00:18:29.920 what does she do? She doubles down on the activism. 00:18:30.119 --> 00:18:31.900 She starts going after other big cat owners. 00:18:32.059 --> 00:18:34.779 And that inevitably puts her on a collision course 00:18:34.779 --> 00:18:37.539 with the mulleted one. Joe Exotic, the clash 00:18:37.539 --> 00:18:40.299 of the titans, the irresistible force meeting 00:18:40.299 --> 00:18:43.119 the immovable object. I think a lot of people 00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:47.700 view their feud as just two eccentric, fame -hungry 00:18:47.700 --> 00:18:50.180 people. hating each other, you know, like a standard 00:18:50.180 --> 00:18:52.900 reality show beef. But it was actually deeply 00:18:52.900 --> 00:18:55.119 strategic and ideological, wasn't it? It was 00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:57.579 entirely economic and it started long before 00:18:57.579 --> 00:19:00.759 the cameras showed up. Joe Exotic's entire business 00:19:00.759 --> 00:19:03.420 model revolved around one thing. Traveling to 00:19:03.420 --> 00:19:06.059 shopping malls with baby tigers. The cub petting 00:19:06.059 --> 00:19:08.980 tour. Come pet a cub for 50 bucks. It was a cash 00:19:08.980 --> 00:19:11.319 cow. It's how he funded his entire operation. 00:19:11.740 --> 00:19:15.019 And Carol didn't just disagree with it. She attacked 00:19:15.019 --> 00:19:17.920 that revenue stream directly. How? She launched 00:19:17.920 --> 00:19:20.740 a digital insurgency. She had this army of online 00:19:20.740 --> 00:19:23.680 volunteers, her big cat rescuers, who would track 00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:26.029 where Joe was scheduled to appear. Then they 00:19:26.029 --> 00:19:27.809 would bombard the mall management with emails 00:19:27.809 --> 00:19:29.829 and phone calls. Do you know these animals are 00:19:29.829 --> 00:19:31.609 abused? Do you know the safety risks involved? 00:19:31.829 --> 00:19:34.490 Do you want this bad PR? That is incredibly effective. 00:19:34.869 --> 00:19:37.289 Malls are massively risk -averse. They do not 00:19:37.289 --> 00:19:39.670 want controversy. Not at all. And it worked. 00:19:39.869 --> 00:19:42.450 The malls started canceling Joe's shows. He would 00:19:42.450 --> 00:19:44.390 drive his whole crew halfway across the country, 00:19:44.529 --> 00:19:46.569 set up his tent, and then get a call from management 00:19:46.569 --> 00:19:49.250 kicking him out. He was bleeding money. This 00:19:49.250 --> 00:19:51.829 wasn't just Carol's being mean. She was actively 00:19:51.829 --> 00:19:54.940 bankrupting him. So Joe retaliates. Yeah. And 00:19:54.940 --> 00:19:57.420 he doesn't do it subtly. He does it on his bizarre, 00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:00.539 unhinged YouTube show. He films himself shooting 00:20:00.539 --> 00:20:03.819 blow -up dolls dressed to look like her. He makes 00:20:03.819 --> 00:20:07.900 endless, vile threats. But his biggest and ultimately 00:20:07.900 --> 00:20:11.279 fatal mistake was the trademark infringement. 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:14.140 This is where the legal weeds get really interesting. 00:20:14.460 --> 00:20:16.579 Explain this to me, because trademark infringement 00:20:16.579 --> 00:20:19.640 sounds so boring and corporate. But in this story, 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:21.819 it's the move that cost him everything. It was 00:20:21.819 --> 00:20:24.660 brilliant. Legally speaking, Joe realized that 00:20:24.660 --> 00:20:26.839 the name Big Cat Rescue had a good reputation. 00:20:27.059 --> 00:20:28.859 It was a well -known charity. People donated 00:20:28.859 --> 00:20:32.119 to it. So he decided to steal it. He rebranded 00:20:32.119 --> 00:20:34.380 his own roadside zoo and his traveling show. 00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:36.400 He started calling it Big Cat Rescue Entertainment. 00:20:36.859 --> 00:20:39.759 No way. Oh, yeah. He copied her logo design. 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:42.059 He even got a fake phone number with a Florida 00:20:42.059 --> 00:20:44.400 area code that would secretly route calls to 00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:47.660 his zoo in Oklahoma. That is diabolical. He was 00:20:47.660 --> 00:20:50.319 literally catfishing her donors. He was trying 00:20:50.319 --> 00:20:52.900 to create what the law calls consumer confusion. 00:20:53.400 --> 00:20:56.720 He wanted people to Google Big Cat Rescue, find 00:20:56.720 --> 00:20:59.920 him by mistake and give him their money. Or even 00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:01.779 better for him, he wanted people to think her 00:21:01.779 --> 00:21:04.000 legitimate sanctuary was the one bringing tiger 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.740 cubs to malls in order to destroy her reputation. 00:21:06.779 --> 00:21:09.680 So she sues him. This isn't just YouTube drama 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:11.839 anymore. This is federal court. She sues him 00:21:11.839 --> 00:21:14.480 for trademark infringement. And it is an open 00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:16.880 and shut case. The evidence was overwhelming. 00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:21.000 In 2013, a federal judge orders Joe to pay Carole 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:25.059 Baskin $1 million. $1 million. For a guy who 00:21:25.059 --> 00:21:27.279 was already bleeding money and living out of 00:21:27.279 --> 00:21:29.819 a trailer at a zoo, that's an impossible sum. 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:32.039 It was the financial death blow. He immediately 00:21:32.039 --> 00:21:34.980 files for bankruptcy. But Joe, being Joe, tries 00:21:34.980 --> 00:21:37.380 to cheat his way out of it. He signs over the 00:21:37.380 --> 00:21:39.329 ownership. of the entire zoo property to his 00:21:39.329 --> 00:21:43.309 mother for like $10. A classic fraudulent transfer. 00:21:43.509 --> 00:21:45.630 To hide the asset. To make it look like he had 00:21:45.630 --> 00:21:48.029 nothing for Carol to seize to pay the million 00:21:48.029 --> 00:21:50.890 dollar debt. Exactly. And the courts really, 00:21:50.910 --> 00:21:53.390 really frowned on that. It took years to unwind, 00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:55.670 but eventually the judge ruled that the transfer 00:21:55.670 --> 00:21:58.430 was illegal and void. And the remedy for that 00:21:58.430 --> 00:22:02.309 fraud, the judge gave the land to Carole. This 00:22:02.309 --> 00:22:04.069 is the part of the story that still feels like 00:22:04.069 --> 00:22:06.720 it's from a movie script. The court literally 00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:09.720 gave the Tiger King Park to his arch nemesis. 00:22:09.740 --> 00:22:13.390 It is the ultimate, most savage irony. In June 00:22:13.390 --> 00:22:16.150 of 2020, while Joe Exotic is sitting in federal 00:22:16.150 --> 00:22:19.210 prison, Carol Baskin is legally handed the keys 00:22:19.210 --> 00:22:22.910 to the GW Zoo in Wynwood, Oklahoma. So what does 00:22:22.910 --> 00:22:25.069 she do with it? Is there a Big Cat Rescue Oklahoma 00:22:25.069 --> 00:22:27.750 branch now? No. She didn't want the zoo. She 00:22:27.750 --> 00:22:30.289 wanted to destroy the idea of the zoo. She sold 00:22:30.289 --> 00:22:32.730 the property with a very strict legally binding 00:22:32.730 --> 00:22:35.390 deed restriction. Which was? That the land can 00:22:35.390 --> 00:22:38.269 never again be used as a zoo or to house exotic 00:22:38.269 --> 00:22:40.849 animals of any kind ever again. She salted the 00:22:40.849 --> 00:22:43.059 earth. She made sure another Joe Exotic could 00:22:43.059 --> 00:22:45.279 never rise from those ashes. That is ruthless. 00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:48.079 I mean, it's effective, but it's a ruthless final 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:50.680 move. It's perfectly consistent with her stated 00:22:50.680 --> 00:22:53.880 mission. Her goal was to end that industry. Taking 00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:56.660 the most famous roadside zoo in the world and 00:22:56.660 --> 00:22:58.579 ensuring it could never be used for that purpose 00:22:58.579 --> 00:23:01.339 again is the final nail in the coffin. We kind 00:23:01.339 --> 00:23:03.599 of skipped over the why is Joe in prison part, 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:05.400 but I feel like that's the part everyone knows. 00:23:05.579 --> 00:23:08.079 The mooter for hire plot. Right. After losing 00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:10.720 the lawsuit and going bankrupt, he became obsessed 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:12.940 and desperate. He was convicted of attempting 00:23:12.940 --> 00:23:15.480 to hire two different men, one of whom was an 00:23:15.480 --> 00:23:18.420 undercover FBI agent to travel to Florida and 00:23:18.420 --> 00:23:21.230 kill her. And he was sentenced to 22 years, later 00:23:21.230 --> 00:23:24.269 resentenced to 21. Correct. But what's really 00:23:24.269 --> 00:23:26.650 interesting is Carol's reaction to his conviction. 00:23:26.970 --> 00:23:29.730 She wasn't out there doing victory laps or gloating. 00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:32.670 She released a very sober statement pointing 00:23:32.670 --> 00:23:34.809 out that this isn't about one bad apple. It's 00:23:34.809 --> 00:23:38.250 about a corrupt orchard. She always, always pivots 00:23:38.250 --> 00:23:40.730 back to the mission. This just proves why private 00:23:40.730 --> 00:23:43.069 ownership of big cats is so dangerous and needs 00:23:43.069 --> 00:23:45.369 to be banned. Which brings us to March 2020. 00:23:46.009 --> 00:23:48.690 The documentary drops. The world shuts down. 00:23:49.130 --> 00:23:52.069 And suddenly, overnight, Carole Baskin is one 00:23:52.069 --> 00:23:54.589 of the most famous women on the planet. And not 00:23:54.589 --> 00:23:57.049 in the way she ever wanted or expected. We talked 00:23:57.049 --> 00:24:00.470 about the meme, but how did she react to what 00:24:00.470 --> 00:24:03.220 she saw as a betrayal? Because the story is that 00:24:03.220 --> 00:24:05.279 she thought she was participating in a very different 00:24:05.279 --> 00:24:07.920 kind of documentary. Yes. The filmmakers, Eric 00:24:07.920 --> 00:24:10.920 Good and Rebecca Chaiklin, pitched the project 00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:13.579 to her and her husband Howard as the Blackfish 00:24:13.579 --> 00:24:16.880 of Big Cats. For context, Blackfish was that 00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:20.359 hugely influential documentary that exposed the 00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:22.960 treatment of orcas at SeaWorld and basically 00:24:22.960 --> 00:24:25.910 tanked their public image. Exactly. Carol thought 00:24:25.910 --> 00:24:27.849 this was her moment. This was her chance to show 00:24:27.849 --> 00:24:30.569 the whole world the cruelty behind the cub petting 00:24:30.569 --> 00:24:32.630 industry she had been fighting for 20 years. 00:24:32.910 --> 00:24:35.509 They told her the Joe Exotic feud and the Don 00:24:35.509 --> 00:24:37.289 Lewis disappearance would just be, you know, 00:24:37.289 --> 00:24:40.269 background context. And instead, she got a seven 00:24:40.269 --> 00:24:42.549 part series that centered the mystery of her 00:24:42.549 --> 00:24:45.630 husband's death and a music video of Joe Exotic 00:24:45.630 --> 00:24:48.119 singing. You're a kitty kitty with a carol lookalike 00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:51.160 feeding meat to a tiger. She was, by all accounts, 00:24:51.259 --> 00:24:54.519 horrified and devastated. She felt the producers 00:24:54.519 --> 00:24:57.839 completely lied to her. She accused them of framing 00:24:57.839 --> 00:25:01.019 her for her husband's death using lies and innuendos. 00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:04.720 They gave Jo the sympathetic, lovable, rogue 00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:08.259 edit, and they handed her the classic crazy cat 00:25:08.259 --> 00:25:11.779 lady villain edit. The public reaction was immediate 00:25:11.779 --> 00:25:13.759 and brutal. I remember seeing the death threat 00:25:13.759 --> 00:25:15.779 she was getting online. It was a glo - global 00:25:15.779 --> 00:25:18.880 pile on. It was. But look at what she did next. 00:25:19.339 --> 00:25:21.500 This goes back to the resilience we talked about 00:25:21.500 --> 00:25:23.880 from her teenage years. She didn't hide. She 00:25:23.880 --> 00:25:25.839 didn't delete her social media accounts and disappear. 00:25:26.220 --> 00:25:28.579 She went on Dancing with the Stars. That was 00:25:28.579 --> 00:25:30.519 one of the most surreal moments of the pandemic. 00:25:30.779 --> 00:25:33.519 Watching Carole Baskin in a full leopard print 00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:36.680 ball gown dancing a Paso Doble to Eye of the 00:25:36.680 --> 00:25:39.420 Tiger. It was cringe inducing, maybe, but it 00:25:39.420 --> 00:25:41.640 was also a brilliant power move. She was saying, 00:25:41.700 --> 00:25:43.799 you can laugh at me, but you can't erase me. 00:25:43.859 --> 00:25:46.529 You can't banish me. She used every single interview 00:25:46.529 --> 00:25:48.769 on that massive platform to talk about the cats 00:25:48.769 --> 00:25:51.089 and legislation she was pushing. And she fought 00:25:51.089 --> 00:25:53.490 back legally against Netflix when they announced 00:25:53.490 --> 00:25:56.759 the sequel. She did. She and Howard sued Netflix 00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:59.079 and the production company to stop them from 00:25:59.079 --> 00:26:02.019 using any footage of her in Tiger King 2, arguing 00:26:02.019 --> 00:26:03.940 it was a breach of their original appearance 00:26:03.940 --> 00:26:07.319 contracts. Did it work? She ultimately lost the 00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:09.619 injunction on First Amendment groans, but she 00:26:09.619 --> 00:26:12.119 made her point very publicly. She refused to 00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:14.240 participate in any way. She told the press the 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:17.099 producers could lose her number. And while the 00:26:17.099 --> 00:26:19.319 entire Internet was busy making fun of her dancing 00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:22.599 and relitigating a cold case, she was actually 00:26:22.599 --> 00:26:25.529 in the final stage. of achieving the one thing 00:26:25.529 --> 00:26:28.890 she set out to do two decades ago. Let's talk 00:26:28.890 --> 00:26:31.329 about the legislation, the real endgame. The 00:26:31.329 --> 00:26:33.990 big cat Public Safety Act. This is the real legacy. 00:26:34.150 --> 00:26:36.539 This is the checkmate. What does the act actually 00:26:36.539 --> 00:26:39.079 do? Because a lot of federal laws sound good, 00:26:39.079 --> 00:26:41.380 but are ultimately toothless. This one has very 00:26:41.380 --> 00:26:44.180 sharp teeth. It was passed by Congress with broad 00:26:44.180 --> 00:26:47.140 bipartisan support and signed into law by President 00:26:47.140 --> 00:26:50.180 Biden on December 20, 2022. It does two main 00:26:50.180 --> 00:26:53.200 things. First, it bans direct public contact 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:56.099 with big cats. That means no more cub petting, 00:26:56.099 --> 00:26:58.480 period. That kills the entire business model 00:26:58.480 --> 00:27:01.420 of roadside zoos. Instantly. It evaporates it 00:27:01.420 --> 00:27:03.960 overnight. If you can't charge 50 bucks for a 00:27:03.960 --> 00:27:06.539 photo with a baby tiger, you can't afford to 00:27:06.539 --> 00:27:09.039 keep breeding them. It cuts off the primary money 00:27:09.039 --> 00:27:11.519 supply for people like Joe Exotic and Jeff Lowe. 00:27:11.660 --> 00:27:14.019 And what's the second major provision? It phases 00:27:14.019 --> 00:27:16.579 out the private ownership of big cats as pets. 00:27:16.859 --> 00:27:19.480 If you already own a tiger or a lion, you're 00:27:19.480 --> 00:27:21.859 grandfathered in, but you have to register it 00:27:21.859 --> 00:27:23.839 with the federal government. You are not allowed 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:25.599 to breed it and you are not allowed to sell it 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:28.180 or acquire any new ones. So once the current 00:27:28.180 --> 00:27:31.000 generation of privately owned pet tigers dies 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.680 off, there will be no more. That's it. In 15 00:27:34.680 --> 00:27:37.420 or 20 years, the era of the Tiger King in America 00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:40.400 will literally be extinct. Wow. That is a much 00:27:40.400 --> 00:27:42.619 bigger deal than I think people realize. She 00:27:42.619 --> 00:27:44.140 actually did it. She did it. And you have to 00:27:44.140 --> 00:27:46.839 understand, she spent 24 years lobbying for this. 00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:49.240 She started walking the halls of Congress in 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:52.500 1998. She was wearing out shoe leather in Washington, 00:27:52.660 --> 00:27:55.440 D .C., meeting with staffers, building coalitions, 00:27:55.480 --> 00:27:58.559 getting doors slammed in her face for decades. 00:27:59.079 --> 00:28:01.279 You know, when you frame it like that, the entire 00:28:01.279 --> 00:28:04.579 epic feud with Joe Exotic feels like a complete 00:28:04.579 --> 00:28:06.640 distraction, like a sideshow to the main event. 00:28:06.900 --> 00:28:09.289 It was a sideshow, a very loud, very... dramatic 00:28:09.289 --> 00:28:11.609 sideshow that got all the attention. But Joe 00:28:11.609 --> 00:28:14.230 Exotic was a symptom of the disease. The Big 00:28:14.230 --> 00:28:17.009 Cat Public Safety Act was the cure. Joe is in 00:28:17.009 --> 00:28:19.769 prison, his zoo is a vacant lot, and the law 00:28:19.769 --> 00:28:22.390 he spent years mocking and fighting against is 00:28:22.390 --> 00:28:26.150 now the law of the land. Carole Baskin won. It 00:28:26.150 --> 00:28:28.390 wasn't pretty, and she took a lot of personal 00:28:28.390 --> 00:28:31.170 damage along the way, but on every single major 00:28:31.170 --> 00:28:34.599 front, she won. And she's still evolving personally. 00:28:34.660 --> 00:28:36.900 We should mention she came out in 2020 during 00:28:36.900 --> 00:28:39.240 the height of all this. Yes. In an interview, 00:28:39.339 --> 00:28:41.839 she came out as bisexual. She said she's always 00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:43.700 felt that way, but grew up in a time and place 00:28:43.700 --> 00:28:45.220 where that wasn't something you talked about. 00:28:45.319 --> 00:28:47.460 And she's still happily married to Howard. Very. 00:28:47.700 --> 00:28:50.240 He, by the way, deserves some kind of medal for 00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:52.640 being the most supportive, unflappable husband 00:28:52.640 --> 00:28:55.160 in recent memory. Howard, the guy who was always 00:28:55.160 --> 00:28:56.819 there in the background, patiently recording 00:28:56.819 --> 00:28:59.019 those video messages with her. He really is a 00:28:59.019 --> 00:29:01.200 ride or die partner. He's the chairman of her 00:29:01.200 --> 00:29:04.279 advisory board. He has a Harvard MBA. He's the 00:29:04.279 --> 00:29:06.140 one who helped her craft the legal strategies 00:29:06.140 --> 00:29:09.579 against Joe Exotic and Netflix. They are an incredibly 00:29:09.579 --> 00:29:12.660 formidable team. So let's wrap this up. We started 00:29:12.660 --> 00:29:15.220 this deep dive by asking if Carole Baskin is 00:29:15.220 --> 00:29:17.549 more than just a meme. I think the answer is 00:29:17.549 --> 00:29:20.670 pretty clearly yes. She is a figure of massive, 00:29:20.789 --> 00:29:23.630 jarring contradictions to the Internet. She's 00:29:23.630 --> 00:29:27.210 a joke and the prime suspect in a cold case to 00:29:27.210 --> 00:29:29.230 the legal system. She's the documented victim 00:29:29.230 --> 00:29:32.170 of domestic abuse, trademark theft and an attempted 00:29:32.170 --> 00:29:35.329 murder for hire plot. And to the animal rights 00:29:35.329 --> 00:29:37.809 movement, she is a legislative pioneer who successfully 00:29:37.809 --> 00:29:40.289 ended a cruel and dangerous industry in the United 00:29:40.289 --> 00:29:42.789 States. It really makes you think about how easily 00:29:42.789 --> 00:29:45.829 we, the public, get manipulated by a good edit. 00:29:46.450 --> 00:29:49.109 Tiger King made millions of people sympathize 00:29:49.109 --> 00:29:51.549 with the guy who admitted on camera to shooting 00:29:51.549 --> 00:29:53.650 five tigers in the head to make space in their 00:29:53.650 --> 00:29:55.730 cages. Okay. Because he was funny and charismatic. 00:29:56.069 --> 00:29:58.509 Right. And it made us vilify the woman who was 00:29:58.509 --> 00:30:00.509 trying to pass a law to stop him because she 00:30:00.509 --> 00:30:05.109 was annoying, corny, a little awkward on camera. 00:30:05.230 --> 00:30:07.640 Because she was earnest. And because she was 00:30:07.640 --> 00:30:10.440 a woman in power who refused to be bullied into 00:30:10.440 --> 00:30:13.140 silence. And the Internet, as a general rule, 00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:16.440 has a real problem with that combination. That's 00:30:16.440 --> 00:30:18.160 the heavy truth right there, isn't it? What a 00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:20.619 story. But the scoreboard doesn't lie. The law 00:30:20.619 --> 00:30:24.000 is passed. The Tigers are safer. And Carole Baskin 00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:26.680 is still standing. Well, I am never going to 00:30:26.680 --> 00:30:28.819 look at a potato the same way again. Yeah. Or 00:30:28.819 --> 00:30:31.329 a Datsun truck, for that matter. The potato is 00:30:31.329 --> 00:30:34.410 a symbol of resilience, of using what you have 00:30:34.410 --> 00:30:37.089 at hand to escape. It really is. Thank you for 00:30:37.089 --> 00:30:39.730 walking me through all this. It was. It was so 00:30:39.730 --> 00:30:42.650 much wilder and more complex than I remembered. 00:30:42.869 --> 00:30:44.670 It's always in the source material. You just 00:30:44.670 --> 00:30:46.589 have to be willing to read past the headlines 00:30:46.589 --> 00:30:49.490 and the memes. Well said. All right. That's it 00:30:49.490 --> 00:30:53.109 for this deep dive. Our advice to you, don't 00:30:53.109 --> 00:30:55.809 buy a tiger. Definitely don't join a murder plot. 00:30:56.170 --> 00:30:57.569 And we'll catch you on the next one.