Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
Speaker 1: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
Speaker 1: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
Speaker 2: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
Speaker 2: our adversaries.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories large and small. Could they be true?
Speaker 2: Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1: This is mission implausible. So today's guest is Brent Turhun.
Speaker 1: He's a comedian and podcaster. Some people know him as
Speaker 1: the right wing redneck on Facebook and social media, and
Speaker 1: Brett I'm a big fan. So it's really great to
Speaker 1: have you on.
Speaker 3: Thanks guys. It's good to actually meet two of the
Speaker 3: guys responsible for killing JFK. So it's just an honor
Speaker 3: to talk to you free for decades.
Speaker 2: It takes something me.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, at four, you're already well trained, so it's
Speaker 3: good to Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Guys, Hey, can you tell just a little bit about
Speaker 1: your background and how did you come up with this
Speaker 1: character that's becomes so popular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I'm a stand up comedian and I've been
Speaker 3: doing that for I almost like nineteen years. And then
Speaker 3: I started doing these videos pre COVID, and it's a
Speaker 3: guy that's rants in his truck. So there's no shortage
Speaker 3: of people that go and sit in their car after
Speaker 3: they just got booted from whatever business they were causing
Speaker 3: a scene in and then they go and record these videos.
Speaker 3: So I do that.
Speaker 4: So I'd just seen on everywhere but Fox News they're
Speaker 4: saying Trump is messing up the economy.
Speaker 3: That's a blatant lion.
Speaker 4: You know, you idiots are just playing checkers while he's
Speaker 4: playing double D chess. He knows some stuff about things.
Speaker 4: I don't even care about my four oh one K. Hell,
Speaker 4: I could barely finish a five K. What do I
Speaker 4: need all them ks for?
Speaker 2: Huh?
Speaker 4: I don't care if we going to a great depression?
Speaker 4: What do you think Zoloft is for? Just sprinkling the
Speaker 4: water like they do the fluor ride. Please just give
Speaker 4: me a truck that looks like Lord Croft's titties. Please
Speaker 4: just own the libs, because in this economy, that's all
Speaker 4: I can afford to own.
Speaker 3: People always ask me what the name of the character is,
Speaker 3: and I never expected the character to be anything so
Speaker 3: I guess I've called him alpha male because he's the
Speaker 3: quintessential alpha male. And you guys can see me on
Speaker 3: the camera here, I'm the peak physical specimen, so as
Speaker 3: most of those people are that record those videos. But
Speaker 3: it's a lot of reacting to social stuff or political stuff,
Speaker 3: big headlines, and then of course I have my take
Speaker 3: and I'm a I love maga and can't they can
Speaker 3: do no wrong. I'm a my president still your president,
Speaker 3: Donald J. Trump type guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm a proud boy, and I got the tattoo
Speaker 5: to prove it.
Speaker 3: But Trump said to stand by.
Speaker 5: I nearly creamed my genes, which I'm not allowed to do.
Speaker 5: We're like a fight club that talks about fight club
Speaker 5: all the top.
Speaker 3: Like we've rebranded. You know this ain't your daddy's KKK.
Speaker 4: It's pretty hard to fight Antifa is when you're wearing
Speaker 4: a robe and a hood and that's the only mask
Speaker 4: I'm gonna wear, by the way.
Speaker 1: And what kind of beer do you drink when you
Speaker 1: have thers have a beer in hand?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: It used to be bud Light, guys, but then it couldn't.
Speaker 3: It's a it's an emotional support beer, which it's a
Speaker 3: I have a kouzi and people are like, man, you,
Speaker 3: I bet you love that Trump is back in office,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, nope, But I always have an emotional
Speaker 3: support beer to raise to whoever we're currently boycotting. I
Speaker 3: also have some stuff they brought back layaway, so I
Speaker 3: put some eggason layway, so hopefully they're still good by
Speaker 3: the time I'm able to pay them off.
Speaker 2: So you're a hoosier. I've always wanted to ask somebody
Speaker 2: from Indiana.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is. I don't know what
Speaker 3: a hoosier? Is that your question?
Speaker 2: That's not my question?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: I told myself what is.
Speaker 2: The difference between Indiana sports fan puppy?
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know. Why don't you tell me.
Speaker 2: Puppies eventually grew up and stop whining.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought you were going to say something about
Speaker 3: dribbling or something like that.
Speaker 2: I used to live in Chicago and Indiana course is
Speaker 2: where we got all our legal guns. So that's you
Speaker 2: guys are really important part of it.
Speaker 3: We do have a two gun minimum to even be
Speaker 3: in the state.
Speaker 2: So so I have a question for you. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but the proud boys, what are they proud of? What's
Speaker 2: the pride thing that they have that I don't see.
Speaker 3: Probably stuff that they didn't control in the first place,
Speaker 3: was their whiteness and their being a male, stuff that
Speaker 3: they didn't even choose. But I don't know what they
Speaker 3: had to be proud of, because a lot of them
Speaker 3: will cover their face, and of course you usually cover
Speaker 3: your face when you're very proud of things, right.
Speaker 1: So what is it about politics that lends itself to humor? Like,
Speaker 1: how did you get into this character? How did you
Speaker 1: decide that this was the thing that you were going
Speaker 1: to go with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm and I'm still to not like a very
Speaker 3: political person. The character I do is very overtly political.
Speaker 3: But I just was watching. The impetus of the character
Speaker 3: was people burning nikes in their backyards. Of course, you
Speaker 3: know Colin Kaepernecks taking a knee, So then they're gonna
Speaker 3: burn all their stuff that they've already paid for, and
Speaker 3: rather than donate to somebody, they want to film a
Speaker 3: video and then also go watch the game on Sunday anyway,
Speaker 3: you know, like that's hypocritical to the bone. So that
Speaker 3: was the impetus of the character. And then I did
Speaker 3: two more videos, and then I realized this is refillable.
Speaker 3: There's no lack of things to talk about. There's no
Speaker 3: shortage of hypocrisy and politics. And also, I think in
Speaker 3: comedy you gotta punch up. You know, you can make
Speaker 3: jokes about a homeless guy, and sure it's funny if
Speaker 3: you think that's funny, but that guy is also the
Speaker 3: lowest rung of society with rich people and political people.
Speaker 3: I don't really feel bad about making fun of a
Speaker 3: guy that could lose forty billion and still be richer
Speaker 3: than everybody. So the other one, more recently, was like,
Speaker 3: I drove Trump's garbage truck because there was a guy
Speaker 3: that looked that we're doppel gingers. I even showed my
Speaker 3: wife and she goes, is that you. I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: clearly it's not me. But there's no lack of people
Speaker 3: that look like me. We're all on Storm the Capitol
Speaker 3: magazine coming up here soon the cover. But I gotta
Speaker 3: say it was an honor and a privilege to drive
Speaker 3: garbage force one. President Trump is just a normal everyday guy.
Speaker 3: He hopped in no problem. He said, how about we
Speaker 3: take this bad boy through McDonald's And I said, sir,
Speaker 3: I don't think she'll fit in the drive through. He said,
Speaker 3: it's all right. I used to work there.
Speaker 2: So Brent, how would the listeners of this, you know,
Speaker 2: not being on video, how will they know it's really
Speaker 2: you and not like say the editor of The Atlantic.
Speaker 2: There's a guy Benny Thompson who's being paid by the
Speaker 2: Russians or was paid by the Russians, and he's come
Speaker 2: up with the conspiracy theory that he spawn as a
Speaker 2: conspiracy and it was that putting Jeff Goldberg on the
Speaker 2: chat is five dimensional chess. They knew this would happen,
Speaker 2: and they were so basically like it was meant you're
Speaker 2: all taken in and the other like other competing ones,
Speaker 2: and I do mix them up. My right wing influencers
Speaker 2: is no, this is a deep state trick. This is
Speaker 2: John and I pulling the wool over the eyes of
Speaker 2: the senior most folks in the US. Covers two completely
Speaker 2: contradictory explanations for what happened. And this is what we
Speaker 2: struggle with is the the psychology of it, which you
Speaker 2: I think you touch on in your and dig deeply
Speaker 2: into in your broadcast, the psychology of people who want
Speaker 2: to believe.
Speaker 3: This stuff you've done a bunch of episodes of this
Speaker 3: show and then have worked in the CIA forever. What
Speaker 3: is it that attracts people to conspiracies like a moth
Speaker 3: to the flame?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Because in my head, part of it is it's the
Speaker 3: community aspect. It's very much like church. You may not
Speaker 3: even buy into the thing necessarily, but you want to
Speaker 3: be around people. They're documentaries like The Beyond the Curve
Speaker 3: or whatever, the Flat Earth one where these people have
Speaker 3: alienated themselves from their family, literally been cut off, and
Speaker 3: now they have no choice but to hang out with
Speaker 3: the flat Earth people. Is that something that you guys
Speaker 3: have delved into the community aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. We talked to a couple of people
Speaker 1: who are real experts on conspiracy theories. Yeah, we're playing
Speaker 1: at it and there's a variety of things. Is the
Speaker 1: community piece of it. There's the just human desire to
Speaker 1: pretend like you're in the know, so when you're a
Speaker 1: group of people you can say, oh, here's what's really
Speaker 1: happening and get attention. There's a variety of things that
Speaker 1: are very human because conspiracy theories it's not just politics,
Speaker 1: and it's not just in America. We've seen it around
Speaker 1: the world too. It's just it's a way of simplifying
Speaker 1: your world. And you can take this deeper and can
Speaker 1: go down to religion and number of things where something
Speaker 1: is really complex and maybe even can't be explained. You've
Speaker 1: got to create a pattern, create an explanation, and so
Speaker 1: conspiracy is just a far end of that process.
Speaker 3: And it's the thing of terrible things just couldn't happen.
Speaker 3: There has to be a guy pulling the strings, because
Speaker 3: for me to acknowledge that mass death happens regularly and
Speaker 3: not just as manufactured, my mind might blow up if
Speaker 3: I just acknowledge the truth.
Speaker 2: The three of us, I think, are kind of sort
Speaker 2: of in the same club for conspiracy theorists. The two
Speaker 2: real enemies are a people who deal in facts and logic,
Speaker 2: and as former agency guys, that's you know, we were
Speaker 2: all about facts, and the other one is being made
Speaker 2: fun of that punctures that puncture. So I'm a history major,
Speaker 2: and one of the things that dictators fear are comedians.
Speaker 2: Hitler crack down on community. It's really dangerous to be
Speaker 2: a comedian in authoritarian government, and it gets the more
Speaker 2: dangerous it gets, So.
Speaker 1: You're fucked in other words. Yeah, One of the things
Speaker 1: that is really interesting about and maybe even the first
Speaker 1: time I saw you, is that you clearly it takes
Speaker 1: a while to realize it's satire, right the first time,
Speaker 1: that there's so much stuff that is very similar to
Speaker 1: what you're doing by people who really believe this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so every time you do one of these, a
Speaker 1: number of the people who comment or attack you like
Speaker 1: you're AMaGA person. So do you get attacked by people
Speaker 1: who misunderstand or do people eventually get it?
Speaker 3: I do get both. And the thing is, it depends
Speaker 3: on what tone I've tried to strike with the videos,
Speaker 3: the garbage truck one and the one where the boat sings.
Speaker 3: I try to, like I said, no, have no clear indicator.
Speaker 3: But I've said things like I digest and I said,
Speaker 3: let me get a I don't know what it was
Speaker 3: in the Eating Animals one. Let me get a rent
Speaker 3: and stimpy omelet or whatever I said. What person says that?
Speaker 3: But also I'm pairting things that are already ten out
Speaker 3: of ten crazy. It's even the guys from South Park.
Speaker 3: They would do a Trump parody and change their character
Speaker 3: mister Garrison into Trump, and then he would they whatever
Speaker 3: he would say on the show, and then a week
Speaker 3: later he would just say things that were crazier. So
Speaker 3: how do you parody clown shoes? They're already big? So
Speaker 3: do you go bigger?
Speaker 1: You know, like.
Speaker 3: I'm starting in a ten yelling so I look like
Speaker 3: everything else. But then if you just listen, which is
Speaker 3: a big ask on the internet, you might. But then
Speaker 3: the worst thing is people will watch the whole thing
Speaker 3: and quote back things to me in the comments and
Speaker 3: still not understand. So I've gotten people that like their uncle,
Speaker 3: their right wing uncle will be he shares all the
Speaker 3: videos and it's not critical, he's like sending it to
Speaker 3: me and that he likes it. I get that all
Speaker 3: the time. And then I also get the left leaning people.
Speaker 3: They watch thirty seconds of a video and then they're
Speaker 3: quick to call me whatever. And I love a good roast.
Speaker 3: So if you roast me creatively, yes, But if you're
Speaker 3: like you're fat, we all know that I can see me,
Speaker 3: you know, like I get those two and I you know,
Speaker 3: I get a lot of hate messages depending on the
Speaker 3: topic too, and sometimes rightfully so. But I a big
Speaker 3: thing that I've learned is, man, if you're going to
Speaker 3: comment on something on the internet, at least watch it
Speaker 3: till the end. And you know, if I did a
Speaker 3: ten minute video, it's on you to also watch all
Speaker 3: ten minutes of it. You know, let's take a break.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm a federal employee. This is week two. Of
Speaker 3: the five things I did last week. Number one, I
Speaker 3: used Clippy to help write my manifesto. Number two, I
Speaker 3: got severed because I keep work at work. Number three
Speaker 3: I microwave fish in the break room. Number four, I
Speaker 3: enforced the dress code. I said, why aren't you wearing
Speaker 3: a suit? And he was like, I'm the janitor. And
Speaker 3: I said, well, you need to thank me because I'm
Speaker 3: out here making all these messes causing your jobs to security.
Speaker 3: And if you're so smart goodwill hunting, why don't you
Speaker 3: figure out why the break room is always thinking so bad?
Speaker 2: I do want to ask your sort of humor lends
Speaker 2: itself to a coastal thing. And yet you were you
Speaker 2: were in Indiana where there are a lot of people.
Speaker 2: It's mega country. That's just where I come from, this
Speaker 2: mega country too, right, Yes, I go up there, And
Speaker 2: what's it like being in Indiana? Must be like? Really
Speaker 2: great and really weird all at the same time.
Speaker 3: I think about that too with other states too, because
Speaker 3: as soon as you turn the election map on Indiana
Speaker 3: turns red, it just turns red. But then there are
Speaker 3: other people that are like me. So it's just because
Speaker 3: fifty one percent of the state voted one way. And
Speaker 3: then I when I go on the road and do
Speaker 3: stand up, I have people come out and it'll be
Speaker 3: in a Kentucky or in Iowa or the reddest of
Speaker 3: red Arkansas, and I get people that come to see
Speaker 3: me because they are like me in that state. It's
Speaker 3: just because fifty one per the percent of the people
Speaker 3: voted that there's other people, and it's always weird. When
Speaker 3: you hear artists like I'm not going to that state
Speaker 3: till so and so wins the election. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's your definitely your right. But also there are other
Speaker 3: people that are like you that would enjoy what you do.
Speaker 3: So people that are creators and stuff, I'm like, just
Speaker 3: don't give up because there are people like that. And
Speaker 3: I think videos like mine, I at least think help
Speaker 3: people not feel alone because it's you can see all
Speaker 3: day every day of the things you just said. Jerry
Speaker 3: of Oh, they spun it two ways of the signal thing,
Speaker 3: and they'll make you feel one way or the other.
Speaker 3: But then once you see somebody else, I think talk rationally,
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, there are people like me. And I
Speaker 3: get people all the time that say you got me
Speaker 3: through COVID or whatever, and I help me get through
Speaker 3: COVID and likewise because we could laugh or cry about things,
Speaker 3: you know. So to answer your question about what it's
Speaker 3: like to live in Indiana, and I'm on the road
Speaker 3: every week in different states, Indiana is everywhere like leading
Speaker 3: up to the election, and I was like, man, there
Speaker 3: are so many Trump flags everywhere and places you wouldn't
Speaker 3: even imagine would be there, and especially one of my
Speaker 3: favorite was in Pennsylvania where somebody had just took their
Speaker 3: twenty twenty flag and added a four at the end
Speaker 3: of it. I love that kind of stuff. But it's
Speaker 3: just a blue dot in a red state. And there's
Speaker 3: no shortage of guys with the biggest trucks imaginable with
Speaker 3: the flags. And I don't know how it's not against
Speaker 3: the law to be that flagged up and just in
Speaker 3: the view of everybody. But even in Saint Louis, there was.
Speaker 3: I took a picture of it the back somebody's tailgate
Speaker 3: of their truck. When when Joe Brandon stole the election
Speaker 3: and it was Joe Biden tied up in the back
Speaker 3: of the truck with a gag like that was in
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, and I'm like, God, it's like when you
Speaker 3: see a car with a bunch of weed stickers on it,
Speaker 3: You're like, you're just kind of asking for some kind
Speaker 3: of trouble, and you also don't care. You're proud of that.
Speaker 3: You spent like one thousand dollars to get that on
Speaker 3: the back of your truck. So it's everywhere, and we
Speaker 3: saw it in this past election when so many states
Speaker 3: were flipped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. I really frustrating when you see online
Speaker 1: someone says saying we should let Texas leave this country.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people in Texas. There's sensible, nice,
Speaker 1: normal that don't write off other Americans. Patriotism is like
Speaker 1: loving your country even if you really dislike your government.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Most of those folks are like really nice, Right, you
Speaker 2: move in, They'll bring your cookies. I don't want to
Speaker 2: filify forty percent of the population. Most of these people
Speaker 2: are like really nice, but there's something there that is ugly.
Speaker 3: There's a reason that the guy's president again, and it's
Speaker 3: whether he was the president or not. That stuff still
Speaker 3: exists that doesn't change hearts and minds. So that's the
Speaker 3: real thing of seeing all the January sixth stuff and
Speaker 3: everything that's transpired to the last eight years, and you're like, God,
Speaker 3: you still don't care. And at a certain point you're like,
Speaker 3: I just did it for the economy, okay, but there's
Speaker 3: more at stake there than money. So well, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: a stand up comedian. What do you think my change
Speaker 3: jar over there in the corner is I've had to
Speaker 3: do laundry a few times, so it's not doing well.
Speaker 3: But it's not surprising, but it is, and it's to
Speaker 3: write off a whole the whole state of somewhere is.
Speaker 3: But also at the same time, I'm like, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it. It's frustration. So what is the real
Speaker 1: brentter you? What's your non political comedy?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, behind me on the video. I know there's
Speaker 3: an audio platform, but I love horror movies. I do
Speaker 3: a horror movie podcast and it's a niche thing. But
Speaker 3: then Also it's like controlling. What is scary if I
Speaker 3: know it's a movie, like a horror movie. To me,
Speaker 3: is the news that's real and exists. So I do
Speaker 3: the that podcast called the They're Coming to Get You
Speaker 3: and you to remember it. It's like They're coming to
Speaker 3: get you Barbara from a Night of the Living Dead.
Speaker 3: And then the other I do another podcast called The
Speaker 3: Field Trip. It's topic based. I call it like pop
Speaker 3: culture Pope wri So every episode is different, and I've
Speaker 3: done my assassinations and I chose three of that. I'm
Speaker 3: probably you guys haven't covered, not the.
Speaker 2: Big ones, the two of them.
Speaker 3: But I'm just saying, yeah, if you did Julius Caesar,
Speaker 3: I'm impressed. E two John, it's top. It's famous last words,
Speaker 3: famous last meals. I just did one on a sideshow performers.
Speaker 3: But that's the kind of stuff is. I do my
Speaker 3: research and then I talk about it with a guest.
Speaker 2: More of this after a quick break. So this is implausible,
Speaker 2: and we do theories and conspiracies, and you're you've got
Speaker 2: us now, so give us either a your favorite conspiracy.
Speaker 2: You can ask us what's the yeah you want to
Speaker 2: know about our conspiracies, the CIA ones.
Speaker 3: I have the one that I'm to talk about, but
Speaker 3: one that I also want to bring up to you
Speaker 3: guys because I was scrolling through your archive on the podcast.
Speaker 3: Have you guys even talked about the Donald Trump assassination attempt?
Speaker 3: Because seeing my friends online the let more left people
Speaker 3: for years it was oh, you guys are nothing but
Speaker 3: saying to the right, you guys are nothing but conspiracy theorists.
Speaker 3: And as soon as that happened, man did this the
Speaker 3: flip the switch flip of oh it was a fake,
Speaker 3: it was an inside job or whatever. So do you
Speaker 3: guys have thoughts on all that, because I'm interested to
Speaker 3: hear your take on what that was.
Speaker 1: That's a great topic and we should do it because
Speaker 1: you're exactly right. Immediately, people on the left did exactly
Speaker 1: what they complained to the people and the right to and
Speaker 1: we didn't do it because, and I think I speak
Speaker 1: for Jerry is immediately, I would never suggest that was
Speaker 1: fake to try to I mean, to try to hit
Speaker 1: someone in the ear far away, even the simplest of things,
Speaker 1: like it's almost impossible. The one thing about having worked
Speaker 1: in CIA, and we talk about this on the podcast
Speaker 1: and having been involved in trying to maybe fool the
Speaker 1: other side or create conspiracies, if you will, however you
Speaker 1: wanted to find is we realized just how hard it is.
Speaker 1: There's so many moving parts in everything that happens in
Speaker 1: the world, and to control that is crazy. You might
Speaker 1: be able to control one or two factors, and if
Speaker 1: you simplify it enough, you can maybe fool somebody on something,
Speaker 1: but the notion that you could do this incredibly complex
Speaker 1: thing that all holds together and nobody ever talks is
Speaker 1: just insane. So immediately when people said that, it's just like,
Speaker 1: there's no this is ridiculous. There's just.
Speaker 2: We're really good at assassination. A great track. I could
Speaker 2: look at Don Castro right, you know, I was like, uh,
Speaker 2: that's right, and of course we got that took us
Speaker 2: ten years. The real world is complicated. And for anybody
Speaker 2: who's ever and I grew up around firearms, I hate guns.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you anybody who's ever dealt with a weapon,
Speaker 2: if they're talking about, yeah, I'm gonna put a bullet
Speaker 2: right by your ear, that sounds like people went to
Speaker 2: high school with you. Put a beer can on your
Speaker 2: head and put it'll be a big beer can and
Speaker 2: I'll take my ear right. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: Just yesterday, guys, I listened to JFK episode and the
Speaker 3: guy was like, Oh, that was an easy shot. He
Speaker 3: could have done it. So what is it, Guys?
Speaker 2: I need answers when you're on the inside, when you're
Speaker 2: not in government, we're not part of the deep state.
Speaker 2: You We do deal often, John and I did when
Speaker 2: we were seniors in the agency with senior political guys.
Speaker 2: And you know what, there's messed up and silly and
Speaker 2: foolish as anybody else. If somebody thinks there's like this
Speaker 2: special level of competence in any white house, like they
Speaker 2: are no different than the rest of us, and they
Speaker 2: fuck up and hold.
Speaker 1: On now, hold on, I'm going to take this the
Speaker 1: next step. Okay, we just saw the screenshots of them.
Speaker 1: They were knocking down apartment buildings to kill terrorists and
Speaker 1: admitted that they killed people in the apartment. Jerry, you
Speaker 1: and I were involved in lethal efforts to go after
Speaker 1: a specific terrorists, and you saw the amount of work
Speaker 1: to make sure you're the right person, one person that
Speaker 1: no one else was hit. And when that's done, it's
Speaker 1: done with such seriousness. There is no that communications line,
Speaker 1: there's no joking. It's all very careful. To see these
Speaker 1: guys like towel snapping each other and doing emojis and
Speaker 1: fist bumps. That is just inappropriate for any national security person.
Speaker 1: These guys are first of all, they're all unfit. They
Speaker 1: shouldn't be inop positions for the first place. But if
Speaker 1: you're going to do national security, you need to take
Speaker 1: it seriously. I found that incredibly distasteful, and then lying
Speaker 1: about it. They were cutting and pasting from clearly something
Speaker 1: that was classified and then telling us that it was
Speaker 1: all not classified. So it really so. Yes, I've seen
Speaker 1: serious pep and serious positions not be as impressive as
Speaker 1: you think, but this to me was really beyond the pass.
Speaker 2: This is a league of its own, and this is serious.
Speaker 2: But I really want to underline this to anybody. Listen,
Speaker 2: Like I was in a rock back when Isis took
Speaker 2: over and we were struggling to keeping keeping Isis from
Speaker 2: taking over the country and introducing slavery again and introducing
Speaker 2: rape is being legal. These are like really bad guys. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And when there was I just say carefully, I say this,
Speaker 2: when there was a strike that killed a senior isis guy.
Speaker 2: You know where I was, there was a standing rule.
Speaker 2: There's no cheers. Like what we have done was not good.
Speaker 2: It was just less bad because it was about saving lives.
Speaker 2: That's what you should be focused on, never taking. That's
Speaker 2: what separates us from them, is right. We take no
Speaker 2: one of the jures anyway, you take that. Yeah, no pleasure,
Speaker 2: no joy even in that. It's this is because the
Speaker 2: problem is if we don't, other innocent people will die.
Speaker 2: It is a serious, terrible sort of decision making for
Speaker 2: curR And yeah, you're right, John. The high fiving and
Speaker 2: cheering is inhuman in a lot of words, in many ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's guys, you're just not fun. Can we decide
Speaker 3: to go to a better question? See it's not entertain.
Speaker 1: We'll try again, try again.
Speaker 3: Your answers were good, but it's not what people want
Speaker 3: to hear of. Now. The other one that I've enjoyed
Speaker 3: watching and enjoy is the wrong word, but it's been
Speaker 3: the whole Quanon thing because I could see the same
Speaker 3: stuff I think that they were seeing. I can go
Speaker 3: on the four Chans and the eight Chans and the
Speaker 3: whatever chans and see the posts and then also, just
Speaker 3: a neighborhood over from me, I could ride my bike past.
Speaker 3: The house had QAnon pillows on the porch and then
Speaker 3: the QAnon flags. The whole porch was QAnon. Now it's not.
Speaker 3: Now it's just American flags. So thank god for that, guys.
Speaker 3: But it's I've seen the I would, oh, I should
Speaker 3: find I'm gonna get this free and show you guys.
Speaker 3: These were on telephone poles. I just thought of this.
Speaker 3: These were from info Wars. These signs it says.
Speaker 1: Collapse is coming, prepare yourself and that.
Speaker 3: So you see the info Wars that was on a
Speaker 3: telephone pole by my house. This is laminated to last,
Speaker 3: and then this one the mass do nothing. They are
Speaker 3: for control the Info Wars logo at the top right
Speaker 3: there too. I saw some I saw these are my neighbors,
Speaker 3: somewhere in the vicinity of where I live. And I
Speaker 3: love conspiracy theory stuff so much. I pulled the car
Speaker 3: over to take these down. These exist in.
Speaker 1: My What control does asking you wear a mask gets you?
Speaker 1: I don't quite get.
Speaker 3: It, I know, but yeah, that's like my big thing
Speaker 3: with not necessarily Quanon, but like the flat Earth or
Speaker 3: the fake the moon landing and all this, Like, if
Speaker 3: all that is fake, My my question is to what
Speaker 3: end to show that the government lies to you? And I, yeah,
Speaker 3: the government does lie to us. You guys worked for
Speaker 3: the government, and I think you would probably agree that
Speaker 3: there are lies that have been told. So that's that
Speaker 3: we all know that. So my thing is after the
Speaker 3: control and lie thing. Is it just money? Who's selling
Speaker 3: a lot of flat globes? Or like round? Is there
Speaker 3: a guy with a warehouse full of globes? Like, as
Speaker 3: soon as we get rid of all these and I'll
Speaker 3: just tell them it's flat. Like to what end are
Speaker 3: some of these conspiracies? Is the moon landing was fake? Okay,
Speaker 3: let's say it was? Or if we found out who
Speaker 3: actually did it, what are we going to do about it? Now?
Speaker 3: You can't. We all know we're being lied to. But
Speaker 3: at a certain point there are people starving and dying
Speaker 3: right now. I just don't know what end a lot
Speaker 3: of this stuff has.
Speaker 1: It's all a lot of times it's just about people themselves.
Speaker 1: They want attention. The world just needs to be centered
Speaker 1: around them and what they feel, their feelings. You're right,
Speaker 1: I can at least understand if you do a conspiracy
Speaker 1: to make money. It feels like it's gross and disgusting,
Speaker 1: but at least it seems to have some logical consistency.
Speaker 2: Fox and News makes they sell beers, snow tires, ed medicine.
Speaker 1: I got, We sell that on our podcast, So I'm
Speaker 1: pretty confident that that's to go past those But.
Speaker 3: What the ED stuff, guys, just hold on, talk to
Speaker 3: me about the ED stuff for quick for a friend, right, yes,
Speaker 3: but you can see, like Alex Jones will say the
Speaker 3: water's dirty and then also flip and be like, we've
Speaker 3: got the water purefire. They're telling you that they're selling
Speaker 3: you the cure of the thing that they just made
Speaker 3: up and maybe it is a real problem. But they're
Speaker 3: also selling you the super Ginka Boloba max pure that
Speaker 3: will fix your ED. It works. By the way, just
Speaker 3: so you guys know the.
Speaker 2: Human brain as it evolved over the last five thousand years,
Speaker 2: because it's that's how But yeah, but the amygdala at
Speaker 2: the base of it, the reptilian part, is still really powerful.
Speaker 2: It's the fight or flight, it's the fear thing, right,
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until later that we got higher functions,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, tapping into the amygdala response inside of
Speaker 2: human beings is always something you can make people afraid.
Speaker 2: Dictators have always done it, right. I mean, Hitler makes
Speaker 2: people afraid of the Jews, afraid of the Bolsheviks, and
Speaker 2: you got to make people afraid, and if you do
Speaker 2: that gives you a political control the even our own country.
Speaker 2: Hearst right. The Hearst Press started the Spanish American War
Speaker 2: with supposedly the main song, which was Spanish why the
Speaker 2: Spanish would sink the US's main and Havana Harbor. I
Speaker 2: don't know. So angertainment can be monetized and it's a
Speaker 2: that's a good word, political control, and we are biologically
Speaker 2: programmed to have because surviving is you hear Russell in
Speaker 2: the bushes? Do you go gee, I'm going to stand
Speaker 2: here and figure it out and see whether it's a
Speaker 2: sabertooth tigers. No, you run, because even if you're wrong,
Speaker 2: like you're still alive. It's a powerful force.
Speaker 3: So what about QAN nine do you guys have to
Speaker 3: say about that? I'm not up on my message boards currently,
Speaker 3: but it seems like they were like just wait and
Speaker 3: then nothing, you know, like right.
Speaker 2: Well, Nancy Pelosi of course is going to stay forever
Speaker 2: young and beautiful, because she's killing young children to get
Speaker 2: their adrenal glands. I don't know if people should get
Speaker 2: on there and take a look at what no offense Nancy.
Speaker 2: But what Nancy looks like now, it's like the adrenaline
Speaker 2: it's not working. She looks like an old lady. Right.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I'm using it. I'm clearly you're still
Speaker 2: young and handsome business.
Speaker 3: I'm actually eighty seven.
Speaker 2: But the other one, of course, is CIA and Ands
Speaker 2: and I keep waiting, like, let's okay, Trump's president. Now
Speaker 2: you've got to own these conspiracy theories. Right, he's Trump's
Speaker 2: gonna come in. He's going to expose the ped of files.
Speaker 2: He's gonna show us the aliens, the JFK stuff. Maybe
Speaker 2: not the Epstein files. Maybe they may stay under lock
Speaker 2: and key.
Speaker 1: But if you've seen recently, it's the Fort Knox thing.
Speaker 1: He's actually feeling. He's still a TV dude. He said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we don't know if it's there, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go down there and show it. Like you're the president.
Speaker 1: I say, you can send somebody there. You could be there.
Speaker 1: You can answer this in two seconds. He said, you're
Speaker 1: going to play it up like.
Speaker 3: It's with aliens. Is very interesting because Trey Crowder on
Speaker 3: his episode said, yeah, he believes in mathematically, I think
Speaker 3: it's to rule it out to say no is dumb.
Speaker 3: But also then you talk about are we talking about
Speaker 3: micro organisms? Is that an alien? Are we talking about
Speaker 3: guys that fly the spaceships? That's the I think there are.
Speaker 3: To say there's no other life in anywhere is short sighted,
Speaker 3: But aliens are fun to me. All of this stuff
Speaker 3: that we've talked about is is fun as whether you
Speaker 3: subscribe to it you know, and how much of you
Speaker 3: know if you.
Speaker 1: Have to tear it with you arm yourself because of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like when you find out that it's wrong, if
Speaker 3: you have to take off more than a bumper sticker,
Speaker 3: then maybe you've gone into deep with it. Like, all
Speaker 3: of it is fun and it's entertaining. And that's why
Speaker 3: I've always loved conspiracy theories because they're kind of.
Speaker 1: Scary conspiracies because it's entertaining or interesting, or you're asking
Speaker 1: questions like could there be aliens? Let's take this to
Speaker 1: see how far it goes? What could it be? What
Speaker 1: can is different from weaponizing or getting financial benefit out
Speaker 1: of conspiracy theories. And what I think your humor hits
Speaker 1: on a lot of times is with the political class
Speaker 1: using this stuff to get people angry, to spin people up,
Speaker 1: to get people out to vote. And a lot of
Speaker 1: this was in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen with Cambridge Analytical.
Speaker 1: They actually work specifically, this is Bannon and his company
Speaker 1: works specifically to use Facebook data to find people who
Speaker 1: who never voted. The people who were just were the
Speaker 1: angry people, and they spun it up and created such
Speaker 1: anger to actually get them off their couches to go vote.
Speaker 1: And they essentially created a class of very angry, very
Speaker 1: right wing people that now is called the base, and
Speaker 1: some of them, it's a small enough segment that it
Speaker 1: helps on elections, right one or two percent of crazy people.
Speaker 3: That's got a difference, though anymore, I want.
Speaker 1: You to see it now, like when you get to
Speaker 1: the point where you will use conspiracies knowing that someone's
Speaker 1: going to get hurt, knowing that someone's going to attack
Speaker 1: the capital, knowing they're going to that's to me, that's
Speaker 1: a whole different thing.
Speaker 3: I had a friend and we were coming back from
Speaker 3: a comedy festival and he's wearing the badge, and the
Speaker 3: gas station tenant was like, oh, what is that for,
Speaker 3: andings that we've just had a comedy festival, and the
Speaker 3: guy literally said, oh, comedy's not been funny since Trump won,
Speaker 3: which means all the Trump jokes, he doesn't care for it.
Speaker 3: It's you could. I think you should. Like I said
Speaker 3: at the beginning, we should be punching up no matter
Speaker 3: who is in charge, because they are in charge and
Speaker 3: we are not, so they are more open to scrutiny.
Speaker 3: And also it's more fun to laugh. Who doesn't want
Speaker 3: to laugh? It makes you feel better and it makes
Speaker 3: you It makes us. We have more in common than
Speaker 3: we have not and it shows that we are not alone.
Speaker 3: There's truth and humor, So when you laugh at something,
Speaker 3: you are admitting that there's truth to what I just said.
Speaker 1: Oh, Bret, thank you so much for taking the time
Speaker 1: with us and being on with us.
Speaker 2: And you're great. It's really been fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll continue to follow you, and I would encourage
Speaker 1: anybody listening to us to follow Brent to human on
Speaker 1: all sorts of social media.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, guys.
Speaker 6: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson Jerry O'shay, John Cipher,
Speaker 6: and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission implausible.
Speaker 6: It's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures for
Speaker 6: iHeart podcasts
Speaker 2: Oh