Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noelah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben.
Speaker 4: We are joined as always with our super producer Dylan
Speaker 4: the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here.
Speaker 4: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty five, welcome back, welcome back. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: can you guys believe it? Twenty twenty five?
Speaker 5: It seems like one of those futuristic numbers you see
Speaker 5: in like sci fi movies from the eighties. I mean,
Speaker 5: I guess it is almost have a flying car, didn't
Speaker 5: I see?
Speaker 3: We uf flying cars? Okay, we're almost there, guys, we
Speaker 3: have flying cars.
Speaker 4: We don't have them, but civilization does have some flying cars.
Speaker 2: And somebody's got drones that are the size of SUVs,
Speaker 2: so that's cool.
Speaker 5: Somebody, I haven't drone the size of my fist. That's
Speaker 5: equally impressive, right, And we also have further conspiracies. Afoot
Speaker 5: fellow conspiracy Realist toward the end of the year. One
Speaker 5: of the last recordings we did in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: we looked at the case of Luigi Mangioni and we
Speaker 5: took a moment, and we paused, and we said, let's
Speaker 5: hold off on chapter two in hopes of acquiring more
Speaker 5: information about this ongoing, deeply divisive situation. I think we
Speaker 5: left off talking about that epic purp Walk, which has
Speaker 5: been memed six ways to Sunday. It looks like the
Speaker 5: cover of the most badass gangster ap album ever made.
Speaker 3: Ted Kaczynski could never did you.
Speaker 2: Guys see the pictures that were comparing Luigi Mangioni's the shirt,
Speaker 2: the collared white shirt that he was wearing, and the
Speaker 2: overshirt and then the one the JFK's assassin was wearing
Speaker 2: in that moment when he is that the moment when
Speaker 2: he yelled out he was a patsy. No, that was
Speaker 2: a different moment.
Speaker 3: You're saying that they were fit twins? Is that what
Speaker 3: you're saying?
Speaker 2: It looked they looked like twins.
Speaker 3: It was so frit right, and then it goes.
Speaker 4: It reminds me too of the extensive armchair speculation on
Speaker 4: the CCTV shots of the guy getting a drink at
Speaker 4: Starbucks versus the shots of Mangioni, some of which are
Speaker 4: entirely AI slop.
Speaker 3: By the way, who.
Speaker 4: Is Luigi, you may be asking, Please listen to chapter
Speaker 4: one before continuing. We'll tell you the brief, quick and
Speaker 4: dirty for recap here right now. The headline is Luigi
Speaker 4: Mangone is a guy from a prominent Maryland family who
Speaker 4: is currently in custody on suspicion of murdering a United
Speaker 4: Healthcare CEO named Brian Thompson.
Speaker 5: I regular William zan Zinger. Sorry, I was a Bob
Speaker 5: Dylan reference. He was part of a good family that
Speaker 5: was involved in the politics of Maryland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but isn't it weird hit the trust fund that
Speaker 2: that family has, it's only around four million. It's only
Speaker 2: around four million, And then you compare that, like just
Speaker 2: to say that we're like a well off, influential family.
Speaker 2: They only had a trust a four million, which is amazing.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine having that.
Speaker 5: I was about to say, Matt, you're really making me
Speaker 5: feel that poor. No, No, I love it, I love but.
Speaker 2: Think about the actual power players like in any city
Speaker 2: like that, their trusts are.
Speaker 5: In measurable perhaps, But so are you saying that you
Speaker 5: think because he was from a less prominent family that
Speaker 5: he was maybe made of patsy or I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: It's to put the put the pieces of Sorry, yeah,
Speaker 2: sometimes just trying to the concept I'm putting together here
Speaker 2: is that the way it's spoken about, like he was
Speaker 2: a high achiever in academics. He you know, he was
Speaker 2: a part of this family that is wealthy and somewhat influential, right,
Speaker 2: but it's nothing compared to the person that he killed,
Speaker 2: and like that person's family and the people that run
Speaker 2: in those circles.
Speaker 4: And it's nothing compared to the fast food cabal of
Speaker 4: families that clearly run Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Interesting, and it.
Speaker 5: Does certainly seem like he is being made quite the
Speaker 5: example of.
Speaker 4: Let's just say yes, yes, Mangione. Going back to the
Speaker 4: Purp Walk idea had received a ton of political theater.
Speaker 4: The Mayor of New York was there during the Purp Walk,
Speaker 4: as were other notable movers and shakers. Timothy McVeigh, who
Speaker 4: was responsible for the nineteen ninety five domestic terrorist attack
Speaker 4: in Oklahoma City, didn't get half the people that Luigi
Speaker 4: Mangioni had on his purp walk, and that again is
Speaker 4: another tea leaf that people are reading into to our
Speaker 4: earlier question about setting an example.
Speaker 5: I mean the photo op of it all where Eric
Speaker 5: Adams is concerned with his police background and the whole
Speaker 5: show of force, the pageantry, like you say, Ben, of
Speaker 5: the whole thing.
Speaker 3: It's pretty stark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could almost feel Batman perched up somewhere in
Speaker 2: the background of Gotham City just watching we got him.
Speaker 3: Well, all the memes we're comparing him to the Joker.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's like a big thing that's all over
Speaker 5: the internet, comparing my guess to the Joaquin Phoenix kind
Speaker 5: of joker more than like freedom fighting bring down the
Speaker 5: Man Joker than the Watch the World Burn Joker.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of a I mean, it's not kind
Speaker 4: of there's no kind of about it. In that we
Speaker 4: see a larger context. We see a condemnation of the
Speaker 4: observer society, the passive observer society that has sprouted and
Speaker 4: blossomed in the in the wake of the information age.
Speaker 4: Because there was an excellent question we were asking in
Speaker 4: chapter one, what if Mangione was not so as we
Speaker 4: say photogen or camera ready, what if he was schluppy,
Speaker 4: what if he had bad hair or was snaggle toothed,
Speaker 4: you know, just a.
Speaker 3: Four pack rather than the eighth that he's clearly sporting.
Speaker 4: Right without the gutters. And you know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 4: fans of Rick and Mortar. Ah, yes, yes, those gutters.
Speaker 4: So please do listen to chapter one before continuing. We're
Speaker 4: gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and then
Speaker 4: we'll return. If you're not from the United States or
Speaker 4: you took a holiday break from the news, we'll give
Speaker 4: you a brief recap of the events in the most
Speaker 4: factual way possible.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts.
Speaker 2: Hey, it is December fourth, twenty twenty four. Oh, it
Speaker 2: feels like such a long time ago. Now almost exactly
Speaker 2: a month from the day that we're recording.
Speaker 3: Are you serious, right? Only that long? It does? It's
Speaker 3: really wild. It was, as Adam Durrett said, a long December.
Speaker 3: Oh jeez. The reason to believe is what do you believe?
Speaker 4: And that's also one of the songs I was playing
Speaker 4: on repeat, you guys, uh with feels so good by
Speaker 4: Chuck The.
Speaker 3: Smell of hospitals in winter.
Speaker 4: A line Okay, it's it's just it's fantastic lyricism.
Speaker 3: It's not good. Nine, it's not bad. Oh the way
Speaker 3: the light reflects off a girl.
Speaker 5: Crowded room with the girl. Yeah, I'm sorry, now, it's
Speaker 5: that dure. It's a real romantic.
Speaker 3: Much like Arboy, Luigi Menji romantic.
Speaker 2: All right, so several years ago rings were so shiny.
Speaker 4: Sorry, so several years ago. It was December fourth, twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four. It's early in the morning.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare, was leaving.
Speaker 3: The Marriott he was staying at.
Speaker 5: Was this a fancy Marriot or just kind of a
Speaker 5: regular Okay, all right? When I hear Marriott, I guess
Speaker 5: I don't really think fancy. But in New York there
Speaker 5: it's a brand. There's certainly are high end Marriotts.
Speaker 3: It's a great term.
Speaker 4: It's an term like that's how there are different kinds
Speaker 4: of cancer one hundred.
Speaker 3: Percent, thank you, bed.
Speaker 5: So he was leaving the Marriott the fancy area, mind you,
Speaker 5: that he was staying at, which is across the street
Speaker 5: from the Hilton, the New York Hilton Midtown, where he
Speaker 5: was attending an investor conference for United healthcare in one
Speaker 5: of those you know, hotel ballroom type situations.
Speaker 4: And what would have happened at that investor conference. What
Speaker 4: would Thompson have said? We don't know. He did not
Speaker 4: make it to the conference. He's walking along West fifty
Speaker 4: fourth Street. Pull up a map if you wish. It's
Speaker 4: about six forty five am local time. He's an early riser.
Speaker 4: He is shot from behind by a person wearing a
Speaker 4: mask and a hoodie wielding a mysterious handgun. Thompson is
Speaker 4: shot three times. Essentially six shots are tempted, but only
Speaker 4: three land. He's transported to local hospital, where he's pronounced
Speaker 4: dead at seven twelve am.
Speaker 5: Would he have been pronounced dead in transits or is
Speaker 5: that something they don't even officially do until they get
Speaker 5: him into a room in a doctor season?
Speaker 3: Right? Was he doa It seems like he likely was
Speaker 3: pretty doo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we know the official pronunciation of death occurred there
Speaker 4: at the hospital, and it did not take very long. No,
Speaker 4: a lot of murders happened in New York. It did
Speaker 4: not take very long for the authorities to put their
Speaker 4: top men on the case.
Speaker 3: Well, guys, I'm sorry, I don't mean to repeat myself.
Speaker 3: I just want to hit it home one more time.
Speaker 5: I heard about this on one of those television monitors,
Speaker 5: those LCD monitors that you have in elevators and like
Speaker 5: office buildings and hotels, and.
Speaker 3: I had no idea that it happened in New York.
Speaker 5: But I was in New York and our offices, which
Speaker 5: is just a couple of blocks from this exact site.
Speaker 5: And I was so crazy slammed that day that I
Speaker 5: just didn't really even give another thought. I had no
Speaker 5: idea that it had happened right down the street from
Speaker 5: where I was.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 3: Wow, again, it feels like ages ago.
Speaker 2: Before we get even further into exactly what happened that day,
Speaker 2: can we just quickly talk about how strange it is
Speaker 2: that whoever the killer was was outside of the exact
Speaker 2: hotel entrance exit that Brian left from. Because it know
Speaker 2: the well they're released that agree there were at least
Speaker 2: three exits. Yeah, in this moment, we don't know that,
Speaker 2: but it is very strange. And maybe it was just
Speaker 2: a calculation about the closest way to get from Hotel
Speaker 2: X to Hotel Y, right.
Speaker 3: For sure, but it's so specific.
Speaker 5: I'm really looking forward to maybe that's a weird way
Speaker 5: of putting it to finding out how this guy stalked
Speaker 5: and managed to get all of these details just right.
Speaker 3: And it's not super easy.
Speaker 4: Whomever that person may be, right, because Mangioni has not
Speaker 4: been legally convicted. Mangioni has in fact pled not guilty
Speaker 4: to all the charges, which we'll get to. We talked
Speaker 4: about it a little bit in chapter one. One interesting
Speaker 4: thing that the investigators know that I don't think the
Speaker 4: public knows yet to the point about mapping out the
Speaker 4: route or planning the hit. Which hotel room specifically was
Speaker 4: Thompson in, right, And what was the relation of that
Speaker 4: hotel room to the exit, and which exit was most
Speaker 4: convenient for reaching the Hilton there? These these are questions
Speaker 4: that the public doesn't have the answers.
Speaker 3: To you, Was there a little bit of luck involved?
Speaker 3: You know? I do wonder that as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And was it good luck or bad luck? I
Speaker 4: guess it depends on your perspective, right, And.
Speaker 5: I know we're going to get into it, but I
Speaker 5: just think the not guilty plea in and of itself
Speaker 5: is mega interesting for reasons.
Speaker 4: Sure, right, right, Because often when people are ideologically motivated,
Speaker 4: they want to plead guilty, they want visibility, they want
Speaker 4: to further proselytize for their cause.
Speaker 5: Well, it sure as craps seemed like he wanted to
Speaker 5: get caught. It seems like something out of a comic
Speaker 5: book in terms of like what he had on him, how.
Speaker 3: Available he wants more or less.
Speaker 5: I mean, it almost feels like the scene in seven
Speaker 5: where John Doe puts his hands up and walks out
Speaker 5: and says, detective.
Speaker 3: You know it was God. Seven was great.
Speaker 4: It's a rollicking buddy comedy that's perfect for feel good. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it feels so good.
Speaker 2: Well, it also seems almost too perfect.
Speaker 4: Right a little bit, a little bit, yes, it does.
Speaker 4: And this is an excellent setup levels to that one.
Speaker 4: Because Mangione was apprehended he is currently in custody. On
Speaker 4: December ninth, you know, several years ago. Five days after
Speaker 4: that shooting, authorities arrested a twenty six year old man
Speaker 4: named Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He
Speaker 4: was quickly charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, along
Speaker 4: with a rogues gallery of other related charges, including, you know,
Speaker 4: illegal possession of certain firearms and paraphernalia, terrorism charges. They
Speaker 4: hit him with everything they could.
Speaker 2: Initially it was weapons charges, just to get him out
Speaker 2: of that McDonald's and into you know, a holding cell
Speaker 2: for a little while until they brought the other ones.
Speaker 2: But yeah, oh yeah, they threw a book.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they got a legal foot in the door, right,
Speaker 4: And then once they had possession of him, habeas corpus
Speaker 4: and so on, they were able to add on the
Speaker 4: other charges, indeed, the ones that they were truly looking for.
Speaker 4: So this guy takes the Internet by storm. He becomes
Speaker 4: a full keyro to some and anti hero to others,
Speaker 4: clear and present danger to a lot of billionaires. If
Speaker 4: we're being honest, we all remember when gosh, it was
Speaker 4: either Elon Musk or Adrian Dittman who went on X
Speaker 4: and said, hey, guys, it's not based to kill CEOs,
Speaker 4: it's not Jesus.
Speaker 3: Indeed, it's actually what's the opposite of base acidic? Now,
Speaker 3: I don't know, whack is sort of old school.
Speaker 5: There's definitely something that's the opposite of based cringe lame,
Speaker 5: Oh cringe, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think cringe works. Yeah, goofy. Anyway, so just weird,
Speaker 3: it's a little weird.
Speaker 4: It's it's oddly specific if we're being diplomatic. So we
Speaker 4: talked about this in chapter one. There's a vast narrative
Speaker 4: war continuing now between the public and established media outlets,
Speaker 4: as well as institutions of power, law enforcement, the judiciary,
Speaker 4: and you know, the financial people.
Speaker 5: Well, it does kind of make you think of the
Speaker 5: whole idea of like one person's terrorist as another person's
Speaker 5: freedom fighter, or like thinking about Robinhood, who was a menace,
Speaker 5: you know, to the Sheriff of Nottingham and all of
Speaker 5: the nobles and all of that, but in fact he
Speaker 5: was kind of murdering people and at the very least
Speaker 5: stealing from people committing crimes. And so depending on which
Speaker 5: side of that divide you are on, you know, he
Speaker 5: was either you know, enemy of the state or you know,
Speaker 5: doing you a solid. And then it becomes the question
Speaker 5: of like how do we view these corporations, Like are
Speaker 5: they villainous enough that in this fight for equity and
Speaker 5: the ability to live a I guess what's the dignified life?
Speaker 5: Like are these companies and the CEOs that level of
Speaker 5: villain that they should be executed?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: What are the consequences? And we have to understand the
Speaker 4: larger context here. If you are tuning in to this
Speaker 4: show and you are not from the United States, or
Speaker 4: you have never visited this crazy, crazy place, then you
Speaker 4: may not be aware that there is a bit of
Speaker 4: a There was a bit of preface to this. There
Speaker 4: has been an increased division of haves and have nots
Speaker 4: in this country, which is approaching the Gilded Age of
Speaker 4: the nineteen twenties. There are things like or cases like
Speaker 4: the Sackler family in the world of medicine, which clearly
Speaker 4: got away with aiding and abetting and escalating an opioid
Speaker 4: crisis which continues today. The public by and large is
Speaker 4: primed to consider this socioeconomic demographic of the haves as
Speaker 4: enemies one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: I just I saw a video yesterday actually on Instagram
Speaker 5: where it was a British reporter going around to people
Speaker 5: on the street and ask them how much they thought
Speaker 5: certain medical supplies cost in America, and they were shocked
Speaker 5: that people were like, how much do you think an
Speaker 5: EpiPen cost? They're like eighty dollars, Like, no, six hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: You know, how much do you think an ambulance ride costs?
Speaker 5: And the guys well, I guess it depends on where
Speaker 5: you live, but what one hundred dollars, one hundred pounds,
Speaker 5: twenty five hundred dollars, it's wild.
Speaker 4: And then add to that, of course, add to that
Speaker 4: the follow up question where they say, well, what if
Speaker 4: someone dies because they can't get insulin?
Speaker 3: And then the Americans go, oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that happens, and it's just fine, that's it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I actually have a quick story about this, guys,
Speaker 2: and just to bring it personal for a moment, right
Speaker 2: after all this stuff went down, not right after two
Speaker 2: weeks after all this went down with Brian Thompson's stuff,
Speaker 2: my dad kind of had a little heart situation while
Speaker 2: he was out with my mom and had to get
Speaker 2: picked up in an ambulance. And that hasn't it's only
Speaker 2: happened one other time. And it was really scary because
Speaker 2: I just got a phone call, you know, and h
Speaker 2: headed that way where they are, and it was a
Speaker 2: medical emergency where like he needed that ambulance. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a you know, it was It's nice that an ambulance
Speaker 2: could take us there. My dog is playing in the background,
Speaker 2: but he he got one of what do you call him?
Speaker 3: Ben uh non consensual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, you got one of those.
Speaker 3: That's it. I do call them that, yes, yes, so.
Speaker 2: We got one of those. And uh, he is in
Speaker 2: his seventies, so he you know, when he worked for
Speaker 2: a long time, he had really good healthcare with his job,
Speaker 2: good healthcare again, like one of the higher levels of
Speaker 2: healthcare that you can get. Now he's on Medicare and
Speaker 2: he's he's old enough to get those benefits. It didn't
Speaker 2: actually hurt him that much financially to take this ambulance
Speaker 2: right in to then get seen by a specialist to
Speaker 2: then you know, have a bunch of tests done on
Speaker 2: him and get drugs so that he can leave. And
Speaker 2: he was okay. But for anybody else who's not in
Speaker 2: their seventies, who didn't work all their life in that way,
Speaker 2: paying into that system, that situation of needing to be
Speaker 2: picked up because there's something wrong with your heart and
Speaker 2: then you have to go hang out in the hospital
Speaker 2: and they want to keep you and run tests and
Speaker 2: all of that, that is a life changing event, not
Speaker 2: for your health, but for your ability to pay for
Speaker 2: everything else in your life. Because that just sits there now.
Speaker 2: It will break you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it may be astonishing for people from other developed
Speaker 4: countries to hear this hard truth. The majority of US
Speaker 4: citizens are one medical catastrophe away from poverty, and it
Speaker 4: is incredibly expensive to be poor in this country. The
Speaker 4: safety net is continually eroding, and it's a long pattern.
Speaker 4: You can look up phrases like starve the beast, We
Speaker 4: welcome you to that related conspiracy. And I think it's
Speaker 4: also fascinating that while we're giving a quick recap of
Speaker 4: the Mangione situation conspiracy series of events, we're immediately also
Speaker 4: talking about the larger context of healthcare. This is front
Speaker 4: of mind for everybody as soon as they learned the
Speaker 4: identity of the shooting victim. And it's weird too, guys,
Speaker 4: because it seems, despite this huge divide now between the
Speaker 4: haves and have nots, the public and the establishment media,
Speaker 4: one thing everybody or the majority of people seem to
Speaker 4: agree upon is that Mangioni, while not yet convicted, is
Speaker 4: the murderer. The majority of people think the guy did
Speaker 4: it based on some of the evidence we explore in
Speaker 4: chapter one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they're stoked about it, like they think it
Speaker 5: was a great thing to have done.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We mentioned what was found in his backpack, right,
Speaker 2: I think that was episode one.
Speaker 5: It was Yeah, Canopoly money and what has been determined
Speaker 5: to have been a ghost guy, which I believe was
Speaker 5: made up of three D per into components. The kind
Speaker 5: of schematics can be downloaded and then you know, you
Speaker 5: can actually print them yourself if you have the right equipment.
Speaker 4: As well as a suppressor, yeah, which was key, as
Speaker 4: well as a purported manifesto.
Speaker 5: We hit the internet pretty quick, and although a lot
Speaker 5: of people were skeptical about the veracity of the stippets
Speaker 5: that were being seen or passed around, it did turn out.
Speaker 3: That most of them were right.
Speaker 2: Really Okay, See, I wanted to ask you guys about
Speaker 2: that because I've seen a couple of different versions. Maybe
Speaker 2: and then you know, I'm hearing that a lot of
Speaker 2: it is false, But then a couple of them were real,
Speaker 2: And then I think it was The New York Post
Speaker 2: made a whole documentary that they put on there, yea,
Speaker 2: and they read directly from it, which made me feel
Speaker 2: a little better. Even though it's a New York.
Speaker 4: Post, right, but the documentary is given the time constraints
Speaker 4: the documentary is working under. I think they did a
Speaker 4: pretty good job the title. The title in aurse to
Speaker 4: Humility was New York Post presents Luigi Mangioti monster or.
Speaker 5: Mart see Brownie points for making up that title?
Speaker 3: Is good, Okay, I to check it out.
Speaker 4: We're the first people to uh pay respects and give
Speaker 4: credit where it's due on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Do we love the New York Post overall as a source? Pass?
Speaker 4: But do we like the documentary well done with the
Speaker 4: information available at the time?
Speaker 3: Is that fair? I think so fair? But Ben, did
Speaker 3: you notice though? So?
Speaker 5: Do we feel like we do know in some part
Speaker 5: the contents of that manifesto? Has the full thing been printed?
Speaker 5: Is that what's in the documentary?
Speaker 3: There's a war on truth? I would argue that's interesting.
Speaker 5: You still feel that it's it's it's iffy.
Speaker 4: The courts will decide, which I know is such a
Speaker 4: non answer. But parts of it, parts of it have
Speaker 4: been repeatedly reported.
Speaker 3: I guess that's what I would.
Speaker 4: Multiple sources confirm different parts of it. But yeah, in
Speaker 4: the in the documentary, to Matt's earlier point, they do
Speaker 4: read directly from it, so we know that the press
Speaker 4: does have what is agreed to be the manifesto actual.
Speaker 5: All I was getting at, was that the snippet that
Speaker 5: I saw right away ended up being repeated later as
Speaker 5: this is this is accurate, This is like.
Speaker 4: Oh the parasite statement, or that's the statement on supporting
Speaker 4: the Feds.
Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It's just so tough when this kind of thing happens,
Speaker 2: because we're because we are in the same boat as
Speaker 2: everybody else, trying to go trying to figure out, okay,
Speaker 2: is that the actual thing? And who says that to
Speaker 2: the actual thing?
Speaker 4: Again, I'm going to lean into the phrase a war
Speaker 4: on truth, and perhaps the man Gione case is already
Speaker 4: a casualty of that continuing war. So previously on stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know, we chose to hold
Speaker 4: off on chapter two and hopes that more details would emerge.
Speaker 4: Just like you, folks, we have been tuned in, We
Speaker 4: have been following things, reaching out to folks in some cases,
Speaker 4: and now we have returned. There will doubtlessly be more updates,
Speaker 4: maybe even a chapter three or something on Strange News.
Speaker 4: We'll have to see how it works out, but perhaps
Speaker 4: for now we'll take a break for a word from
Speaker 4: our sponsors, and then we'll dive into the current affairs.
Speaker 4: And the larger context. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: Can't remember exactly where we put a bow on this
Speaker 4: in chapter one, but I do believe we mentioned MANGIONI
Speaker 4: had after his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, he waived his
Speaker 4: right to an extradition hearing, which is where you could say,
Speaker 4: don't take me out of Pennsylvania. He said, yeah, no, fine,
Speaker 4: do it take me to New York, right, which is
Speaker 4: again where the murder occurred. We know the judge that
Speaker 4: will preside over the current legal proceedings, that is Catherine
Speaker 4: Parker of Magistrate Judge. The trial date I think is
Speaker 4: yet to be determined still, if convicted on these charges.
Speaker 4: We gave the list of the charges in chapter one.
Speaker 4: If convicted, he will probably face life in prison without
Speaker 4: the possibility of parole. So it's not a death penalty situation.
Speaker 4: I think is the big differentiator here.
Speaker 2: And yeah, since that time, he's pled not guilty in
Speaker 2: a court and said no, that is not me. I'm
Speaker 2: not guilty to both this murder charge and the terrorism charges,
Speaker 2: the heavier stuff. I think it would be pretty tough
Speaker 2: to plead not guilty to the weapons charges that he
Speaker 2: faced in Pennsylvania. I don't know how all that's going
Speaker 2: to play out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, at the end of the day, I mean, despite
Speaker 5: how damning the stuff he had in his backpack might seem,
Speaker 5: isn't this all relatively circumstantial evidence?
Speaker 3: That's the thing? Right, So the.
Speaker 2: Idea that he had was fake, It was fake, but
Speaker 2: was used at that hostel in New York.
Speaker 5: Okay, Okay. All I'm saying is it's not illegal to
Speaker 5: be sketchy, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that's all we know.
Speaker 3: So it is true.
Speaker 4: But it's an excellent question about what defines circumstantial right.
Speaker 4: The concept of circumstantial evidence has been unfairly weaponized against
Speaker 4: people in the US in the past. There are countless
Speaker 4: examples of that, and you can see you can see
Speaker 4: some terrifying and disturbing examples of that in shows like
Speaker 4: Wrongful Conviction with our pals Jason and Maggie. Do you
Speaker 4: check it out? We also know to this narrative war.
Speaker 4: We also know that different social media platforms we're shutting
Speaker 4: down support of Luigi Mangioni. We're not condoning any actions. Again,
Speaker 4: we try to be very fair in saying this individual
Speaker 4: has not yet been convicted of a crime. But to
Speaker 4: your earlier point, Noal, there were people lauding this man,
Speaker 4: romanticizing them right like Ted Bundy back in the day.
Speaker 2: Oh dude. In that New York Post documentary, there's a
Speaker 2: comedian named Jordaane something, a very funny comedian who works
Speaker 2: out of New York, who had a show at the
Speaker 2: Comedy Seller in New York that night, and he describes
Speaker 2: how as soon as he got on stage, he started
Speaker 2: talking about the situation, how the CEO of United Healthcare
Speaker 2: got killed, and how much support, how there was laughter
Speaker 2: and clapping at just the fact that this healthcare CEO
Speaker 2: got murdered, and they wanted like he made a joke
Speaker 2: about other CEOs and everybody was laughing and clapping and
Speaker 2: applauding right after it happened.
Speaker 5: And I guess it was on SNL, but Chris Rock
Speaker 5: made a pretty good joke talking about like, oh, it's
Speaker 5: anytime a person with family and you know, kids or
Speaker 5: whatever is killed, it's a tragedy and nobody should be
Speaker 5: excited about this.
Speaker 3: But sometimes drug dealers shot yes, oh.
Speaker 4: You did say that, and and this, uh, that's clearly
Speaker 4: comparing Thompson to you know, a drug dealer and pointing
Speaker 4: to one of the great divides of the discourse here,
Speaker 4: which is how directly do you have to be involved
Speaker 4: in a murder or someone's death to be considered the murderer?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, physically pulling the trigger or
Speaker 4: green lighting an AI slot program that denies claims. The
Speaker 4: news is still coming out. A lot of medical professionals
Speaker 4: have come out and without condoning the murder of Thompson,
Speaker 4: Let's be careful with that. They have said that in
Speaker 4: their experience, United Healthcare killed people. That that's effectively what
Speaker 4: they've said. They have submitted this claim. This person's in
Speaker 4: a coma, for instance, desperately in need of some sort
Speaker 4: of circulatory or cardiac medication and UHC or their bought
Speaker 4: their chat GPT said no, this, this is so crazy
Speaker 4: because we also see the stressand effect I think we
Speaker 4: referenced in chapter one. Reddit was removing threads about UHC
Speaker 4: and Thompson. There was a fundraiser to pay Mangioni's legal
Speaker 4: fees and go fund me removed it. Certain establishment print
Speaker 4: and online institutions in the media have been scrubbing their
Speaker 4: comment sections when they release, especially tone deaf op eds
Speaker 4: like the one who said Brian Thompson is the real
Speaker 4: working class hero.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Don't know if that's entirely accurate.
Speaker 3: So all right, we knew.
Speaker 2: It's a tough thing for all of us, I think,
Speaker 2: to grapple with, right, So you gotta sympathize with every
Speaker 2: human being that is taking in what has occurred and
Speaker 2: then trying to form their own thoughts on it, because
Speaker 2: it is it does feel weighted in one direction, at
Speaker 2: least to me, which is resource.
Speaker 4: Yeah, with every source you read, you know, the discourse
Speaker 4: on x or Twitter is very different from what the
Speaker 4: New York Times wants you to take away from the
Speaker 4: reportings very easy with just a few tweaks, you know,
Speaker 4: a few philosophical editions of a seraph to change what
Speaker 4: people take away from factual information. And if something doesn't
Speaker 4: fit the narrative, as we'll see in our later Stockholm episode,
Speaker 4: it's devilishly easy to downplay, diminish or remove that entirely.
Speaker 4: Mangioni is adding to his legal team. He has one
Speaker 4: of the best lawyers in New York right now working
Speaker 4: with him. He also recently took on the services or
Speaker 4: the advice of a guy named Craig Rothfeld. Craig Rothfeld,
Speaker 4: former inmate him self, known as a defense strategy consultant.
Speaker 4: He was most recently and most prominently in the news
Speaker 4: for consulting with Harvey Weinstein from earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting thing, a prison consultant, like, I
Speaker 2: don't know how to make your time in there better,
Speaker 2: how to communicate better outside. I don't really understand it.
Speaker 2: I've read that in page six. Yeah, right underneath there
Speaker 2: it says like a gossip or something. So again, with
Speaker 2: a lot of this information, it's just trying to figure
Speaker 2: out is that just something someone is saying and then
Speaker 2: page six is saying it, or is it actually happening.
Speaker 3: He did appear.
Speaker 4: We know that Rothel did appear in some legal proceedings.
Speaker 4: Okay with Mangioni. In terms of what this defense strategy
Speaker 4: and prison consultation may be, how we define it. You
Speaker 4: can find quotes in page six is a tabloid, let's
Speaker 4: be honest, but you can find quotations with Rothfeld saying
Speaker 4: stuff about how to help someone survive the first ninety
Speaker 4: days of lock up, which are incredibly frightened. You know,
Speaker 4: prison is, especially in the United States, somewhat of a
Speaker 4: hostile environment just.
Speaker 2: To pend Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, and guys,
Speaker 2: by just off of that note, we need to look
Speaker 2: into what's going on with Fulton County's prison system. There's
Speaker 2: some craziness going on. We need to do some deep
Speaker 2: dives into that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I don't think I've heard the scuttle butt there, but
Speaker 5: I don't doubt it. I know there's been some pretty
Speaker 5: gnarly stuff in the past.
Speaker 3: But human rights violations, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Stuff, Yeah, letting people die essentially, like denying them needful care.
Speaker 4: And we're not talking about oh gosh, I'm glad we're
Speaker 4: we have to do an episode on it. We're not
Speaker 4: talking about cosmetic stuff, you know. We're not talking about
Speaker 4: having Mana Zuma's rev or just a bad weekend of pooping.
Speaker 4: We're talking about people who died and could have been
Speaker 4: saved quite easily.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like bedbugs and stuff that end up taking your life,
Speaker 2: which is it's a whole thing.
Speaker 4: Dirty water, that's a huge thing. Sanitation or lack of
Speaker 4: sanitation is still killing millions of people every year.
Speaker 2: But the hey, but the prison Luigi Mangioni's in is
Speaker 2: a little different. Yes, it's a little nicer. It doesn't
Speaker 2: mean it's happy or safe.
Speaker 3: It's still hostile.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's like frenemy hostile instead of you know,
Speaker 4: enemy soldier hostile.
Speaker 3: It's a rough one.
Speaker 4: Nobody wants to be there so far, because inequality has
Speaker 4: not quite gotten to the point yet where a bunch
Speaker 4: of people are purposely tried to get into prison. I
Speaker 4: would argue, it's all the way. I would argue, Unfortunately, it's.
Speaker 3: All the way.
Speaker 4: We already see isolated cases over the course of this
Speaker 4: show wherein people will purposely botch a bank robbery just
Speaker 4: so they can get locked up. It's again a damning
Speaker 4: condemnation of the current state of affairs. Have you guys
Speaker 4: been looking at these polls various groups, not really media
Speaker 4: groups all the time, but nonpartisan boffins and eggheads have
Speaker 4: been conducting polls in the United States, and they have
Speaker 4: found an astonishing divide between pupil One pole was about
Speaker 4: a thousand college students, and they asked these college students,
Speaker 4: what should happen if Mangione has found guilty.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that is a good question, because it seems like
Speaker 5: so many of his supporters already think that he is guilty.
Speaker 5: So like, immediately my mind was jumping to, like, will
Speaker 5: there be like riots in the streets, like justice for Luigi?
Speaker 5: But all the people that would support him already think
Speaker 5: he did.
Speaker 4: It right, right, And we do have to just in
Speaker 4: the spirit of knowing about the world old around you,
Speaker 4: we do have to say it is always important to
Speaker 4: talk about jury nullification as a concept. Maybe not in
Speaker 4: this case, but I don't know about you, guys. I
Speaker 4: was surprised to see how many people we're picking up
Speaker 4: that old and very important concept and propagating it. Do
Speaker 4: we want to say what jury nullification is real quick
Speaker 4: for anybody who hasn't heard it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm always a little bit fuzzy on it, and
Speaker 5: I know it's the kind of thing that people if
Speaker 5: you say it, you're supposedly if you say you believe
Speaker 5: in jury nullification when you're getting picked for jury duty,
Speaker 5: that they will exclude you. It's one of those like
Speaker 5: hacks people talk about. But yeah, please do remind.
Speaker 2: Us, well, the whole point of trial by jury is
Speaker 2: to have a unified decision by that jury. That jury
Speaker 2: comes through and says this is what we the jury
Speaker 2: feel happened. Right, Is this person guilty or not guilty,
Speaker 2: and what are they guilty of? And if you've got
Speaker 2: one person on that twelve person team that stands up
Speaker 2: in those the little meetings you know that happen in
Speaker 2: the back after the trial is concluded and says, no,
Speaker 2: I don't think this person is guilty.
Speaker 3: Is not just a hung jury though? Is that the
Speaker 3: same as jury nullification?
Speaker 4: What I think we're getting toward is the idea that
Speaker 4: jury nullification says, look, we're jurors in a criminal trial,
Speaker 4: and be the one person, to your example, Matt in
Speaker 4: this scenario, who stands up and says, I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: say he's guilty. I'm not going to say they're guilty
Speaker 4: because I know they broke the law. Sure, but I
Speaker 4: think the law is wrong. Yeah, So you're putting the statute,
Speaker 4: the law, the policy on trial instead of the human individual.
Speaker 5: Hence, coming forth in the selection process and speaking out
Speaker 5: like in favor of nullification could be a red flag
Speaker 5: for the attorneys that are going to pick you or
Speaker 5: cut you.
Speaker 4: How would you respond if this case was for felony
Speaker 4: possession of cannabis And if you're there with you know,
Speaker 4: like a fish shirt on, and you've got your hemp
Speaker 4: necklace and you say, well, I think everybody should have
Speaker 4: more weed, then they're probably not going to pick you
Speaker 4: for that jury.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if you guys saw some of
Speaker 2: these op eds in some of the main news publications
Speaker 2: that are saying things like, all you people out there
Speaker 2: that are trying to get on the jury for you know,
Speaker 2: to nullify this case, you should really just abstain and
Speaker 2: like that'd be way more noble than trying to trying
Speaker 2: to sneak onto the jury so you can make him not.
Speaker 4: Guilty bass haabotage the case, yes, to trigger a mistrial
Speaker 4: or ye?
Speaker 2: Well, because that's the scary thing with jury nullification. It
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be a caricature of a person, right
Speaker 2: that goes up there for a case. It could be
Speaker 2: just any old person that pretends to not have been
Speaker 2: wronged by healthcare in the past, who pretends that they're
Speaker 2: just going to go on and be a completely objective
Speaker 2: observer of this trial. But really they're going in as
Speaker 2: almost an undercover agent.
Speaker 3: But would that not be considered contempt of court?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: No, not contempt of court.
Speaker 4: Contempt of court would require them to do interruptive behaviors
Speaker 4: to to make a scene.
Speaker 3: Basically, sure, but if you're being dishonest for the purposes
Speaker 3: of screwing the whole system up, isn't that in and
Speaker 3: of itself an act of contempt towards the court? How
Speaker 3: do you prove it?
Speaker 2: How do you prove that if somebody did that unless
Speaker 2: you unless that person then goes on a bunch of
Speaker 2: you know, goes on Mari cre But whatever goes on,
Speaker 2: it talks, you know, to to Heraldo for a long.
Speaker 4: Time, publishes a book while the trial is ongoing. Now
Speaker 4: that's a good point called why I sabotage the Manchioti trial?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh then then also, you know a good example of this,
Speaker 4: of course, the seminal work Twelve Angry Men.
Speaker 3: Do.
Speaker 4: Also check out an amazing film, Devil's Advocate. There's a
Speaker 4: jury selection scene in there.
Speaker 5: The new Clinice would movie Juror number two is actually
Speaker 5: quite good and has some shades of this kind of
Speaker 5: thing in it as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and in the Devil's Advocate jury selection seen specifically,
Speaker 4: you can see a defense crew working assiduously to kind
Speaker 4: of plumb the depths of the human personalities in their
Speaker 4: favorite Yeah, or like whatever is advantageous to them.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, and that's that's happening now, And.
Speaker 5: That happens on both the prosecution and the defense side,
Speaker 5: and they're both allowed to do that, and it's like
Speaker 5: kind of the name of the game.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's why they make the big bucks. If we
Speaker 4: go to this poll we mentioned earlier, College Pulse conducted
Speaker 4: a pretty small sample size. They asked a thousand college
Speaker 4: students what would happen if mangio And was found guilty,
Speaker 4: and most people did respond. Thirty two percent of the
Speaker 4: participants in the survey said he should be sentenced to
Speaker 4: life in jail. Well, but he should have the possibility
Speaker 4: to be paroled, and fourteen percent said no, put him
Speaker 4: in jail for life, never parole him. Twenty six percent
Speaker 4: essentially said just give him a couple of years, give
Speaker 4: him a fixed term, and then let him out. And
Speaker 4: then two percent said, I don't care about the laws,
Speaker 4: he should get the death penalty.
Speaker 3: Who strong wonder what class those people belong to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I think even more telling is when the
Speaker 2: poll goes further and asks if the respondent sympathize with
Speaker 2: the suspect.
Speaker 4: Yeah, more than fifty percent of those respondents say they
Speaker 4: strongly sympathize with MANGIONI because a hard fact about living
Speaker 4: life in the United States is that you know someone
Speaker 4: who died because of the privatized healthcare system. It touched you,
Speaker 4: you know, and what was it. A further percentage said
Speaker 4: they somewhat sympathize with Mangoni and twenty six percent said
Speaker 4: I'm neutral about it, and only about a fifth of them,
Speaker 4: well around twenty percent said they either don't sympathize or
Speaker 4: strongly do not sympathize.
Speaker 3: What was the sample size of this one thousand college students?
Speaker 3: Oh jeez, that's a pretty small sample size. It's a
Speaker 3: small sample size and pretty specific background. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, but isn't that interesting college students? I would I
Speaker 2: would pause it. And maybe I'm wrong here. Someone that
Speaker 2: age probably hasn't gone through a lot of health crises
Speaker 2: in their life yet, at least for personally right, well,
Speaker 2: maybe for their family like.
Speaker 3: You and your dad and stuff. They could have certainly yeah.
Speaker 2: Again within the family or something, so they know, and
Speaker 2: as you said, Ben, they've been touched by it, but
Speaker 2: they themselves have not probably gone through a lot of
Speaker 2: things like twenty six year old MANGIONI went through with
Speaker 2: his like the pins that he had in his back,
Speaker 2: and that's the problems that he was having.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just interested to know like the thinking of
Speaker 2: somebody who is that young.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting because again, you're you could say you're
Speaker 4: directly affected by a tragedy if it happens to someone
Speaker 4: you love. But there is a differentiation there, Matt, in
Speaker 4: terms of being physically yourself affected by an injury or
Speaker 4: a medical condition. And the reason I started out this
Speaker 4: poll pointing out that small sample size is because there's
Speaker 4: another pole from Noork, not NARCNORK. NOORK is the National
Speaker 4: Opinion Research Center out of University of Chicago.
Speaker 3: It's the wonkiest name of all time.
Speaker 4: They changed it, just like the Learning Channel morphed into
Speaker 4: TLC when they stopped caring whether people learn stuff, and
Speaker 4: now National Opinion Research Center is just Noork in o RC.
Speaker 4: Their pole is fascinating because they found seventy percent of
Speaker 4: the people they asked about Mangione they said he does
Speaker 4: not hold all the respect onsibility for Thompson's.
Speaker 3: Murder, even if he did it.
Speaker 4: Wow, which is a weird bit of cognitive Parkour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who did it?
Speaker 3: Well, he sort of did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, he printed a gun and traveled and
Speaker 2: did all the research and stocked. The guy pulled the trigger.
Speaker 4: But you know, yeah, that's such a weird. That's such
Speaker 4: a weird, like Jersey shrug.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2: That is if Luigi Mangione actually is not convicted.
Speaker 3: Not convicted yet. Uh.
Speaker 4: And we also know groupies have started gathering outside the
Speaker 4: facility where he's held. We talked about that lookalike contest
Speaker 4: that occurred, or the series of lookalike contests that occurred.
Speaker 4: There's already a documentary out we mentioned earlier. New York
Speaker 4: Post presents Luigi manjouan monster or martyr And going back
Speaker 4: to our earlier thing about war on truth, Ai Slop
Speaker 4: has also entered the chat. Did you guys see the
Speaker 4: fake mug shot?
Speaker 2: No, I'm gonna look at it right now. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Over on threads, which is kind of meta Instagram's attempt
Speaker 4: at Twitter. There was this picture that went viral which
Speaker 4: appeared to be the official New York mug shot of
Speaker 4: Luigi Manjione. It was later pretty soon after it was
Speaker 4: confirmed to be AI generated, but the damage was done.
Speaker 4: You know, you print the wild claims on the front
Speaker 4: page and do retractions on wait for it, page six.
Speaker 3: Hey they call backs, we're doing. It's a callback episode.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think this is a tangential point, but perhaps important
Speaker 4: for upcoming explorations on this show. It's misinformation, right, it's
Speaker 4: not disinformation. People aren't necessarily attempting to sway the narrative
Speaker 4: through deceitful means. But it's spreading because people are mistaking
Speaker 4: alive for the truth. And we're going to see I positive,
Speaker 4: you guys, We're going to see way more misinformation in
Speaker 4: the man Gioni case as it goes on. The narrative
Speaker 4: is deeply divided. I don't want to sound like a
Speaker 4: broken record, but we also see some claims that go
Speaker 4: against the official narrative. Already there is a looming war
Speaker 4: on truth, weaponized AI disinfo and miss info is only
Speaker 4: going to grow, right, It's it's unstoppable at this point.
Speaker 4: A favorite conspiracy theories, you guys, one of the ones
Speaker 4: we've mentioned just a little bit in chapter one, the
Speaker 4: idea that Luigi Manjona was framed, The idea that despite
Speaker 4: having a manifesto, having the ghost gun components, having the cash,
Speaker 4: and you know, looking a hell of a lot like
Speaker 4: the guy on camera that he was somehow framed. He
Speaker 4: said he did not have that tenth in US cash
Speaker 4: and I think two thousand and foreign currency. He said
Speaker 4: it was planted on him, that someone just slipped ten
Speaker 4: k into his backpack.
Speaker 2: Luigi himself stated that.
Speaker 3: He did very interesting.
Speaker 2: Interesting. I mean, well, now we do know Ken. I
Speaker 2: feel like it's confirmed. We do know that he was
Speaker 2: somewhat disconnected from his family. His family was searching for
Speaker 2: him because he had been living in Hawaii for a
Speaker 2: while and then lost contact with his family. I mean,
Speaker 2: that feels like a situation where if you do have
Speaker 2: some money, maybe you're carrying around large sums of cash
Speaker 2: with you if you're just traveling from one place to another,
Speaker 2: which is not illegal, no, but I mean it seems
Speaker 2: like something you might do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it seems like a reasonable and plausible action,
Speaker 4: right you're on the move. This goes deeper. The Internet
Speaker 4: is getting nuts and bananas for this. There are so
Speaker 4: many unverified claims and wild speculation blossoming across every social
Speaker 4: media platform. You can imagine somebody is probably on Farmers
Speaker 4: Only talking about this right now. I feel like we
Speaker 4: should set off twenty twenty five by mentioning Farmers Only
Speaker 4: in every episode, in every episode, every episode, boarding every
Speaker 4: episode Farmer's Only. So I rewatched all of Rick and
Speaker 4: Morty and it is getting too bitch shows. But it's
Speaker 4: crazy because this kind of stuff, misinformation or speculation, it
Speaker 4: is asymmetric. It's so easy to create it, and it's
Speaker 4: so difficult to tamp it down. It's whack a mole,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, look, there are platforms trying to
Speaker 4: shut down things. The rationale can be any genre of
Speaker 4: we know best, but they're playing real life whack a mole.
Speaker 4: For every one statement that they don't like that they
Speaker 4: take down, ten others spring up in its wake.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's it's a digital version of a hydra. It's the
Speaker 4: Barbara streisand effect times a million.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because anyone can say anything, and with something
Speaker 2: happening as high profile as this, with as many eyes on,
Speaker 2: and the way the New York Post documentary puts it
Speaker 2: is that this thing caught fire almost immediately because of
Speaker 2: those small circumstances, right, I mean that just have huge implications.
Speaker 2: So everybody went, WHOA, what is going on here? I
Speaker 2: need to know more. And as soon as anything comes
Speaker 2: out anywhere, especially with the way we consume the dang
Speaker 2: TikTok and YouTube and Instagram videos that just have captions
Speaker 2: and no context or no citations, you're just like, oh, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: that's happening, and then that'll get put into some small
Speaker 2: opinion piece that then other places report on or just
Speaker 2: copy and paste, and oh my gosh, it spreads.
Speaker 4: Okay, So here's if we can get cinematic for a second,
Speaker 4: you guys, here's what we know happened. At some point,
Speaker 4: people are trying to find answers. People want explanations, and
Speaker 4: somewhere in the hinderlens of internet thought, a guy looked
Speaker 4: up in the darkness. A guy was trying to figure
Speaker 4: out this whole Mangione thing. He looked up in the darkness.
Speaker 4: He shook his fist at the sky and he said, Pelosi,
Speaker 4: Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 2: Isn't that a weird thing? Because Nancy Pelosi went through
Speaker 2: something very strange a little bit after this, right, a
Speaker 2: little bit after the shooting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the AOC Democratic kerfuffle wherein Pelosi was accused of
Speaker 4: stabotaging Ocasio Cortez's attempt to help make committee in Congress
Speaker 4: based on seniority of people who were already in line.
Speaker 3: Pelosi.
Speaker 4: Wait, but she also got hospitalized hospitalized, that's true.
Speaker 2: I know that was I just remember seeing that was
Speaker 2: being connected up, like, oh man, something's happening with Pelosi now,
Speaker 2: and then all of this other stuff just avalanched.
Speaker 4: Q Charlie Day, right, because also, you know, there are
Speaker 4: very valid accusations and allegations regarding insider trading on Pelosi's part,
Speaker 4: and to be completely fair, across all the aisles of Congress,
Speaker 4: they've had a problem with insider trading and ethics for
Speaker 4: quite some time, and there is no accountability.
Speaker 3: Let's be honest.
Speaker 4: There are no consequences when those folks break the system.
Speaker 3: That's all true.
Speaker 4: Pelosi is a recurrent character in so many political conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4: But here's the here's the juice of this one. This
Speaker 4: is the umami, this is the Charlie Day moment. Who
Speaker 4: wants to introduce it? We can always we can be
Speaker 4: safe and just freeze it in the interrogative, you know,
Speaker 4: just make it questions, Okay, I can do it.
Speaker 5: What if what if United Healthcare Ceobrian Thompson was preparing
Speaker 5: for a testimony against Nancy Pelosi for potential insider trading.
Speaker 2: What I remember I remember specifically seeing this on an
Speaker 2: Instagram reel, someone just stating it as though it was fact,
Speaker 2: although they know they did it. In the what if
Speaker 2: they did it exactly like this, Yeah, and then they
Speaker 2: lay out all of this stuff about Nancy Pelosi buying
Speaker 2: shares of this one specific healthcare company and all this
Speaker 2: other stuff, which may have actually been true stuff, but
Speaker 2: the way it was stated it was just so.
Speaker 3: It's it's this leady you know.
Speaker 4: It is also that kind of whatevery is definitely tagging
Speaker 4: base in a conversation, you know, it's it's it's up
Speaker 4: there with a move where someone says, you know what
Speaker 4: I was going to say, and then they just say
Speaker 4: the thing as the they have like little sheep's clothing
Speaker 4: over what they were what I was gonna say?
Speaker 3: Tag base? What if?
Speaker 4: I'm just asking questions? Fine, but don't weaponize it. There's
Speaker 4: red string logic here. We remember the earlier cyber attack
Speaker 4: that UHC experienced in twenty twenty four, many years ago.
Speaker 4: Now it seems I can't believe December felt so long.
Speaker 4: December felt so beat me here at Tennessee. December felt
Speaker 4: so long? Is it because we took a break from recording?
Speaker 5: Well, you know that whole liminal space between Christmas and
Speaker 5: New Years does sort of extend into a black infinity
Speaker 5: of nothingness sometimes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't believe it, Like it's Friday as we're recording,
Speaker 4: I didn't know what day it was until yesterday because
Speaker 4: we had to record something. Anyway, that's unrelated, very low stakes.
Speaker 4: The cyber security thing is interesting because Nancy Pelusi or
Speaker 4: her financial arms invested after the cyber attack. They invested
Speaker 4: in a security firm called Palo Alto Networks, and not
Speaker 4: too long after that investment, the company won a contract
Speaker 4: to investigate the cyber attack against UHC. Hmmm, I mean,
Speaker 4: is it a nothing burger?
Speaker 2: Oh? Who knows? I mean, that kind of stuff is
Speaker 2: a it's that's a whole episode in itself, right, I
Speaker 2: mean you could we could drill down into that as
Speaker 2: as deep as we wanted to, and there's probably some
Speaker 2: weird stuff going on there because it's money. It's so
Speaker 2: much money and influence, and think about putting that on
Speaker 2: a resume like just for that company, Oh we investigated this,
Speaker 2: you know, massive attack on the largest healthcare corporation in
Speaker 2: the United States.
Speaker 4: Or you know, also we would have to drill down
Speaker 4: because imagine the.
Speaker 3: What is the amount of investment?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: We know Congress gets away with insider trading. That conspiracy
Speaker 4: is true, it is unethical. They just have access to
Speaker 4: more information than the public. But also investing a little
Speaker 4: bit of money can happen very easily if you have,
Speaker 4: as these books doubtlessly do. If you have a fiduciary
Speaker 4: or you have your a firm that you contract out
Speaker 4: to and they invest in a bunch of stuff, you
Speaker 4: may not know right. An investment doesn't automatically put you
Speaker 4: in shark tank territory. You don't automatically own seventy percent
Speaker 4: of something because you invested in it. That may be
Speaker 4: the case, we would just to your point, Matt, have
Speaker 4: to look further into it.
Speaker 3: That's that's the thread.
Speaker 4: And as these threads continue, each connection gets more and
Speaker 4: more tenuous. We want to talk about Maryland. Mangeoti and
Speaker 4: Pelosi are both from Maryland. H boom case solved. Well,
Speaker 4: this whole courts out.
Speaker 2: Of order makes you want to growl a little bit.
Speaker 2: What else we got, right?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: So Pelosi is you know, the US portrays itself or
Speaker 4: used to portray itself as meritocracy. Unfortunately, that's kind of
Speaker 4: not true. Pelosi's father and her late brother were both
Speaker 4: mayors of Baltimore. Pelosi's father was a US House rep.
Speaker 4: And because the Mangione family is prominent in real estate,
Speaker 4: especially Luigi Mangioni's grandfather, folks are saying these two powerful
Speaker 4: families exist in the same city.
Speaker 3: They had to interact.
Speaker 2: But the family owned a golf club or something like
Speaker 2: a country club, Yes, which is what we know. That's
Speaker 2: where some of the stuff goes down down on the green.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but is it granted?
Speaker 4: Is this not a lot like saying Deliverance was set
Speaker 4: in Georgia, so therefore everybody in Atlanta is awesome at banjo.
Speaker 3: Or like a pig.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of, but I don't know that's so uh okay.
Speaker 2: If everyone had a banjo, yeah, like a flying car.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, If everybody in Georgia had a banjo, then
Speaker 2: you could assume, well, maybe everybody's going a banjo because
Speaker 2: of Deliverance.
Speaker 3: Because of Deliverance, that's really like a Pig.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I've forgot about that one.
Speaker 3: That's one of those films that.
Speaker 4: I appreciate but don't want to rewatch, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a bummer. Yeah, the book was good, but
Speaker 3: still we digress.
Speaker 4: Maybe, right, Matt, maybe there is more sand to it,
Speaker 4: because we know the Mangioni family and the Pelosi family
Speaker 4: did have a relationship. Powerful families do often congregate. You
Speaker 4: want to hang with people who are similar to you.
Speaker 2: The one weird thing that I maybe didn't understand with
Speaker 2: this whole line of thinking was, Okay, let's imagine Brian Thompson,
Speaker 2: if let's just imagine it's real for a moment. Brian
Speaker 2: Thompson is going to testify against Nancy Pelosi for insider trading.
Speaker 2: So a contract killer in the form of someone known
Speaker 2: to Nancy Pelosi is hired to kill Brian Thompson because
Speaker 2: he's going to testify, and Nancy, somehow, because she has
Speaker 2: some connection to them, hires this person who is fully
Speaker 2: known to her, who would have a direct connection to her.
Speaker 4: M Right, that's the question when we play the game
Speaker 4: qui bono, who benefits?
Speaker 3: Right? And why would you not? Why would you not
Speaker 3: choose a more direct method.
Speaker 4: We have a quote from Nancy Pelosi's brother, Thomas J.
Speaker 4: De Lessandro the third, and this is in nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: five where he talks about his relationship with Luigi's grandfather.
Speaker 4: So in nineteen ninety five, Thomas J.
Speaker 5: Alessandro the third, who is another Baltimore mayor, former Baltimore
Speaker 5: mayor rather and brother of Pelosi, chatted about his relationship
Speaker 5: with Luigi's grandfather at Nicholas Manzio in the Sun, which is,
Speaker 5: you know, pretty charitably can be referred to as a tabloid.
Speaker 5: He had this to say, Nick Mangioni is foremost identified
Speaker 5: as a family man. That's his calling card, even before
Speaker 5: he became a successful businessman. He is maybe a little
Speaker 5: rough around the edges and maybe with an aggressive personality,
Speaker 5: but a man with a big heart. He earned his
Speaker 5: success the hard way.
Speaker 4: Okay, so the patriarchs are friendly, but we don't know
Speaker 4: whether Pelosi and Mangioni ever met. It's it's difficult to
Speaker 4: draw hard evidence from this, especially if we're constructing a
Speaker 4: mousetrap level conspiracy, not not referring to an actual mouse trap,
Speaker 4: referring to that awesomely inconvenient game. Yeah, the board game
Speaker 4: mouse Trap.
Speaker 5: I don't know that I ever played a full round
Speaker 5: of that thing. I always just put it together and
Speaker 5: triggered the trap.
Speaker 4: It was so it was so fragile, and also the
Speaker 4: trap is so appealing, like why would you why would
Speaker 4: you play the game?
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 4: Look, there's a larger context here. We'll keep it brief
Speaker 4: because this is an ongoing case and we want to
Speaker 4: be careful about making any unfounded statements. It is clear,
Speaker 4: it is a politically objectively clear. The American healthcare system
Speaker 4: is broken, and the state of that system, the terrible
Speaker 4: state of healthcare in this country, has been inextricably tied
Speaker 4: to Mangioni or to the assassination of Brian Thompson. We've
Speaker 4: got stats here that we don't have to get into,
Speaker 4: but just for the highlights, we said it in chapter one,
Speaker 4: the US has, by all accounts, the worst performing healthcare
Speaker 4: system among all developed or high income countries. Guys, it's
Speaker 4: just terrible. Think about it this way. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: the US life expectancy in the five best states for
Speaker 4: surviving as long as you can it ranged from like
Speaker 4: seventy nine point nine years to eighty years. In comparison,
Speaker 4: the shortest life expectancy among all the other high income
Speaker 4: nations is eighty point four, meaning the best states for
Speaker 4: healthcare in the United States are still worse than the
Speaker 4: worst other developed countries. That sikes, Yeah, that's sobery. That
Speaker 4: is a national defense gap. I would argue.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So eighty point four shortest life expectancy in the
Speaker 2: UK and then eighty or less than eighty in the
Speaker 2: best states, got it? Okay? Oh wow?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So maybe when you get in your sixties, time
Speaker 4: to consider moving, you.
Speaker 2: Know, shoot, when you get to the point where you
Speaker 2: might need to, I don't know, have parts of your
Speaker 2: body exammed that you've never had examined before because you're
Speaker 2: getting older. They can prostate other you know, things like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe that's when you leave a little scappy. Yeah me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Some friends of mine who live in Berlin actually I
Speaker 5: guess immigrated there from the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3: I guess it was before Brexit so it was easier
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 5: But talking to them about healthcare, you know, they just
Speaker 5: the concept of having to worry about your elderly parents
Speaker 5: and dealing with their care and making sure they live
Speaker 5: a humane life. You know in their in their twilight
Speaker 5: years is just alien to them. It's just they don't
Speaker 5: worry about it. It's all taken care of by the state.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's one of the things that Maggioni's grandfather,
Speaker 2: Nicholas Maggioni started. He started like a country club and
Speaker 2: then a series of elder care facilities, and that's like,
Speaker 2: that's his business.
Speaker 4: That's a durge business to be it. Well, but if
Speaker 4: you're not too fettered by ethics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I wonder how the healthcare, like the healthcare
Speaker 2: connection is furthered there, because it does feel like, at
Speaker 2: least in this country, Medicare would often be the program
Speaker 2: that folks are using more often than not when they're
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, because you'll run out of your personal savings
Speaker 4: very quickly.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4: In the US, everyone massively overpays for healthcare and all forms,
Speaker 4: including dental vision, and despite paid so much more the
Speaker 4: care they receive by any metric.
Speaker 2: Well, it sucksah, because it's not about anything besides generating
Speaker 2: profit for shareholders. Right, It's all about windfall for shareholders,
Speaker 2: especially when you have corporations that large. It's not about
Speaker 2: helping people. It's about saving money.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. And this is this is in the front
Speaker 4: of mind of every American who is thinking about the
Speaker 4: mangionic case. Everybody knows, regardless you're demographic. Everybody knows the
Speaker 4: problems with healthcare that we have just mentioned. And that's
Speaker 4: why so many people are saying, Look, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to condone murder, but not condoning murder means I both
Speaker 4: refuse to champion the homicide Brian Thompson, and I also
Speaker 4: refuse to condone the fatal decisions of private healthcare companies
Speaker 4: because their business model depends on making money year over year,
Speaker 4: and they make more money when they deny claims.
Speaker 2: Dude, I've got an idea. Yeah, from now in perpetuity,
Speaker 2: we do this as a collective group of Americans. The
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've seen some of the lottery
Speaker 2: numbers for like these huge you know, the crazy lotteries
Speaker 2: where it isn't one but for once in every three
Speaker 2: months or something four months, like somebody will win the
Speaker 2: crazy lottery where it's like a billion dollars or five
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars. Everybody who wins the lottery from now
Speaker 2: on takes one hundred million as their winnings for their lottery.
Speaker 2: Then the rest of it gets put into a fund,
Speaker 2: and once that thing hits like five billion, we use
Speaker 2: that fund to pay for everybody's medical costs and everybody
Speaker 2: gets rid of healthcare, and then we just we just
Speaker 2: fund it with the lottery.
Speaker 4: Every time a collective walkout, Yes, but it's also that's
Speaker 4: I love it. We're in the brainstorming phase. There are
Speaker 4: no wrong answers. It reminds me of the just the
Speaker 4: quick math on the billionaire class. Right, you could give
Speaker 4: one hundred million to every person in the United States,
Speaker 4: and several of those people who did that, you could
Speaker 4: give ten million at least, and several people who did
Speaker 4: that would still be billionaires several times over. Like this
Speaker 4: is just ludicrous. This is not uh normal, and that's
Speaker 4: what we.
Speaker 3: Have to remember.
Speaker 2: Well, then we freak out when we say, wow, it's
Speaker 2: insane that everybody identifies with the guy who killed this
Speaker 2: healthcare CEO. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Mm.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, and I think none of the three of
Speaker 5: us are certainly advocating for an armed uprising necessarily or
Speaker 5: for like you know, killing people of power like that.
Speaker 5: But it just the sentiment is not that hard to
Speaker 5: wrap your head around.
Speaker 4: That's all one hundred percent, yeah, especially when we're considering
Speaker 4: the perspectives and the very real experiences of other people.
Speaker 4: We know public officials are intensely concerned with the possibility
Speaker 4: of mangio and becoming a clarion call right, inspiring copycat action,
Speaker 4: inspiring you know, to the point armed revolutions or armed
Speaker 4: uprising similar to the Arab Spring, which is a whole
Speaker 4: other episode, and that's a rabbit hole too.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: I was just going to ask you guys too, like,
Speaker 5: what is the next step of this conversation becoming so
Speaker 5: front and center, Like, I mean, how do you fight
Speaker 5: back against quote unquote just like the way it is,
Speaker 5: that's just the way our economics in this country work,
Speaker 5: Like short of burning everything down and starting some sort
Speaker 5: of armed uprising, like, is really no mechanism for changing STU.
Speaker 5: I mean certain people would argue that, oh right, your congressmen,
Speaker 5: you know, vote, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But I just don't see it.
Speaker 2: We start a fund with the lottery winnings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they okay.
Speaker 4: But to Devil's Advocate again, which is a great film,
Speaker 4: please watch it.
Speaker 3: To do the Devil's advocate thing there.
Speaker 4: One of the billionaire responses or one of the Kissinger
Speaker 4: level responses would immediately be simple, We'll just break the
Speaker 4: lottery so a guy wins, dang it, dang it, So
Speaker 4: we need we need to start our own lottery, Okay,
Speaker 4: run by the people for the people, and you can't
Speaker 4: participate if you make too much money.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's very intriguing, no question.
Speaker 5: But it's also like, you know, we've got this new
Speaker 5: administration coming in that is all hot to like change
Speaker 5: the status quo and all of that good stuff.
Speaker 3: But they're certainly not talking about these issues.
Speaker 5: Because it's not a popular issue for the millionaire billionaire
Speaker 5: business class, who they seem to be the most beholden to.
Speaker 4: One would argue, yeah, we also know the US is
Speaker 4: most likely entering a new era of privatization, so things
Speaker 4: that were formerly considered public and part of the you know,
Speaker 4: the quote unquote common good may may be commodified. We're
Speaker 4: not making a judgment call on that yet because it
Speaker 4: hasn't occurred yet, but the trend is there, there's something
Speaker 4: in the wind. Maybe we end on this. I love
Speaker 4: the questions you brought up here at the end. Noal,
Speaker 4: we like the rest of this country, have to wonder
Speaker 4: at this deep and accelerating divide, not just in the
Speaker 4: narrative of one case, one murder, but in the larger context,
Speaker 4: and we have to ask ourselves what comes next? Is
Speaker 4: there something they don't want us to know? And if so,
Speaker 4: what is it? We love your help answering this question.
Speaker 4: We are going to call it a day. We're off
Speaker 4: on the broad horizon of twenty twenty five and we
Speaker 4: want to hear from you. Thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: Please contact us via email, telephonic device, or on the
Speaker 4: social media platforms we just dunked on hard for like
Speaker 4: an hour.
Speaker 5: That's right. You can find our show at the handle
Speaker 5: space heirac Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our
Speaker 5: Facebook group Here's where it gets Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter,
Speaker 5: and on YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are
Speaker 5: Conspiracy Stuff show. You can also find us as individual
Speaker 5: human people. I'm how now Noel Brown on Instagram.
Speaker 3: In a burst of unprecedented creativity.
Speaker 4: You can find an account associated with me as at
Speaker 4: ben Bullen on Instagram at ben bullan hsw on x.
Speaker 4: You can also visit the website Benbollin dot com. Again
Speaker 4: super creative with the names here, Matt. There's an excellent
Speaker 4: trailer on your social media that I saw recently. Where
Speaker 4: could people find you?
Speaker 2: Ah, that's easy. Just head over to Instagram and look
Speaker 2: up Unlikely Gems. That's me. You'll see fun videos of
Speaker 2: me and a hat standing around with a microphone. It's awesome. No,
Speaker 2: I have one. And there's a trailer for Monster BTK
Speaker 2: which you can check out right now. The official trailer
Speaker 2: is out. But what you handle, buddy, I don't have
Speaker 2: one Unlikely Gems?
Speaker 3: Is that true? Are you being funny? I don't understand
Speaker 3: you do how you see it's being funny? It is
Speaker 3: not true.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's just my favorite Instagram.
Speaker 3: They're great.
Speaker 4: Also, shout out wizards with guns. Hey there we those guys.
Speaker 4: So there's another way to contact us, not just as individuals,
Speaker 4: but as a show.
Speaker 3: There are a couple of ways.
Speaker 4: What happens, Matt if someone's holding a telephonic device in
Speaker 4: there in their hot little hands right.
Speaker 2: Now, Well, first, put that phone down, you go outside,
Speaker 2: look at the trees for a while. Do that for
Speaker 2: long enough. Then you come back in, pick up the
Speaker 2: phone and call one eight to three three std WYTK.
Speaker 2: That is our voicemail system. When you call in, give
Speaker 2: yourself a cool nickname and let us know in the
Speaker 2: message if we can use your message and your voice
Speaker 2: on the air. If you've got more to say then
Speaker 2: could fit in a three minute voicemail. Why not instead
Speaker 2: send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 4: we receive, aware yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Speaker 4: Would like to give a special shout out to fellow
Speaker 4: conspiracy realist Darcy, who wrote an epic series a saga
Speaker 4: of limericks quite enjoyed. Expect us, Darcy, But we'll be
Speaker 4: out the way soon. If you want to be part
Speaker 4: of this strange, strange adventure, this continuing mission, join us
Speaker 4: out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.