Ryan Grim Lore REVEALED: Jesse Watters Fist Fight, Socialist Past

Ryan Grim's relentless curiosity and anti-establishment stance stem from his upbringing outside the typical Washington D.C. elite pipeline. Growing up poor and not being 'born into' the system meant he never assumed its answers, fostering a natural skepticism and hostility towards its perceived injustices.

Grim states, 'if that's the route that you take, not not choose to take, you're just born into that like where it would be very hard to generate a lot of the like anti-establishment or like hostility to to the system because to you it's just all water.' He later adds, 'living in poverty gives you a chip on your shoulder.'

Grim maintains relationships with sources, even those he criticizes, by affording them respect and honesty. His method involves pre-warning sources about negative reports and sometimes exaggerating the potential severity of the story. This allows sources to prepare their superiors or organizations, making them feel less blindsided and potentially viewing the final, less severe report as a 'win' or a concession.

Grim explains, 'people are fine if you like criticize them, if you hit them hard... as long as they think it's honest and and often like that they've been warned ahead... Often times I will exaggerate actually I shouldn't tell the people this, but so what I'll do is I I'll exaggerate what we're how how bad it is going to be for the person.'

Grim recounts a physical altercation with Jesse Watters after the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The incident was sparked by Watters' egregious ambush journalism of Grim's colleague, Amanda Turkl, who was followed for three hours into rural Virginia for a story O'Reilly had instructed Watters to pursue. Grim confronted Watters, who admitted Bill O'Reilly told him to 'get her,' then stole Grim's phone, leading to a scuffle broken up by Sean Spicer.

Grim details how Watters 'followed her for three hours deep into this town... and stick a camera in' and that Watters 'said on camera... Bill told me to get her.' Grim then states, 'So then he stole my phone... and he's like he's like I'll mail it to you next week.'

Grim's early intellectual development in high school and college was shaped by nihilistic Beat Generation writers like Charles Bukowski, who provided 'the right itch' but no remedy. This evolved in college with the influence of Noam Chomsky, particularly through a professor who was Chomsky's protégé. Grim even debated Chomsky, arguing for a link between his linguistic theory and politics, which Chomsky eventually conceded.

Grim mentions reading 'all the beat stuff' and Charles Bukowski, which was 'more nihilistic' and 'had the right enemies but had no real remedy.' He then describes taking a 'Chomsky' course, meeting Chomsky, and arguing that 'his linguistics and his linguistic theory and his politics were completely separate and I made the case to him that there was a through line between them.'

Grim posits that capitalism, particularly its hyper-individualistic American form, is the primary force behind the breakdown of family structures globally. He argues this destructive capacity predates and is distinct from the feminist movement, as it stems from a societal veneration of the individual over community, a core tenet of capitalism.

Grim states, 'capitalism has done it everywhere in the world that it has been... you see families fall apart.' He elaborates, 'the US was always set up to to be destroyed because we are we have this like you know Puritan work ethic thing where we we are this like hyper... capitalism created basically by the English... and it has this like vicious element to it.'