WEBVTT - The First Two Months (with Mike Rothschild) 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.480 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.840 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.559 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.680 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.840 our adversaries. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.760 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:23.560 theories large and small. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.280 Could they be true or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:28.880 This is Mission Implausible. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.680 So it's really great to have Mike Rothschild on again. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:41.680 Mike is a journalist, published author, and a foremost expert 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:48.120 in the ever changing Quanon conspiracy thing. Moreover, Mike explores 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.560 the intersections between Internet culture and politics through the lens 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.720 of conspiracy theories. He's a subject matter expert in the 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.880 field of fringe beliefs really important right now, and Mike 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.400 is a veteran Mission Implausible guest here with us for 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:04.040 the second time. 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:06.679 So Mike, welcome, Thank you for having me back. I'm 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:08.000 very excited, Mike. 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.560 So there's so much to start with, and so let 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.360 me start in the middle when we can work our 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.319 way around writers. This USAI D for me. I've got 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.000 a lot of friends in USA I D I think 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:24.000 John does two and it's destruction, taking it like Christy 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.600 Nome's dog, taking it down into the pit and shooting it. 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:32.360 All started out with a video falsely claiming that USAI 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:37.080 D paid Ben Stiller and Angelina, Joe Lee and other 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.200 actors millions of dollars to travel to the Ukraine. And 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:43.920 this was in an a clip that appeared to be 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.200 on entertainment news News And as it turns out, this 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.440 clip was actually Russian disinformation. And yet this didn't prevent 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.760 Elon Musk and President Musk President. 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:58.680 One, No, you were write the first time. 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.160 Co President Musk from using this as a pretext for 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.080 one of the pretexts for dismantling usa D, along with 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:10.720 another false claim that it provided fifty million dollars to 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:14.800 Hamas in Gaza for condoms, And of course the actual 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.280 answer was a little more complicated, but it did involve 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:24.600 aid to Gaza for people who were impacted, who were impactedgmatically. So, Mike, 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:29.480 where is the difference now between disinformation and conspiracy theories? 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.440 They have they melded into one, And how does if 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.079 the president can't keep it apart, how do we there 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.520 is no difference at this point. There really is no 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:46.040 separation between conspiracism, disinformation, politics, popular culture, internet culture, news 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.520 dissemination is it has all become the same thing. And 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.760 of course, so much of that really happened at light speed. 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.399 Really during the first Trump campaign he rose to political 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.840 prominence not because of his brilliant ideas there's tax pol 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.600 his plans for the EU. It was because he was 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.240 screaming about how Barack Obama wasn't born in the United 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.560 States and had the Hawaiian health official with the copy 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.240 of his birth certificate killed in a plane crash, and 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.200 how you know, Antoine Scalia was smothered by a pillow 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.280 and Hillary Clinton was part of a secret cuple. That's 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.400 the stuff that really got through to people, and it 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.880 had this patina of oh, he says the things that 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:27.359 the rest of us are just thinking. 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.040 Well, the rest of us are not just thinking it. 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.519 It's only a small number of people thinking, but that's 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.760 a very politically active group. So really, that rubicon was 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.880 not crossed last month. It was crossed in twenty sixteen, 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.280 and unfortunately, we're just getting further and further away from 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.280 the last bridge back to the same place. At this point, 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.040 our government and the very levers that control how money 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.040 is collected and spent in this country are being controlled 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:57.480 by conspiracy adult lunatics. It's its federal law enforcement is 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:02.160 being controlled by conspiracy adult lunatics. Is the worst nightmare 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.920 of everything journalists and researchers have been writing about for 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:06.680 the last decade. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:08.920 Mike, I think we should have probably known that some 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.600 of these things were false. Fifty million dollars on condoms. 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:13.560 I haven't even spent that in a last year on condoms, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.040 and that doesn't make sense. Yeah, it seems in college. 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.839 But yeah, what I wanted to go quickly to something 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.200 very personal with you, as we understand that your house 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.560 was lost in the fires and Alta, Dina and so 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.200 and I understand that the conspiracy theories have built up 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:32.279 around some of the fires and obviously the federal government's 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.880 response to the fires. And first of all, we feel 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:36.920 terrible for what's happened to you, but we've been to 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.039 send your thoughts on what you experienced and what you're saying. 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.320 Yes we did, we lost our house in the eating 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.120 fire in Altadena. We're safe, got the family out, got 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.240 the dogs out, got a few really important documents, lost 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.720 everything else, But we are doing better than a lot 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.200 of people. And as soon as it the initial gut 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.960 punch of losing the house subsides and you start to think, Okay, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.120 what's going to happen next? My first thoughts go to, Okay, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.400 how is this going to drive online insanity? Because that's 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:07.919 what I think about, that's how I interface with the world. 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:13.080 And I knew that because disasters bring conspiracy theories, and 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.880 particularly fires have been bringing these directed energy weapon conspiracy theories, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:19.560 I knew that would be a big part of it. 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.120 And of course, the fire takes place two weeks before 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.960 the second Trump inauguration, and he's already talking about all 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:27.960 the ways he's going to gut the federal government and 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.560 stick it to the deep state. So I immediately knew 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.279 that this would all get wrapped up in the sort 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:38.760 of the plastic cellophane of politics and conspiracism and tribalism 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.479 and this sort of weird Trump cult stuff. So immediately 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.080 you've got Trump blaming Gavin Newsom saying that, oh, they 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.040 didn't turn on the water spigett if they just opened 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:52.080 up the water and let it flow south and trucked 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.599 it down there, none of this would have happened. I'm like, you, 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.159 guys don't understand how any of this works, Like you 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.760 don't understand what happened that night and all of the 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.479 fact that went into the fact that there wasn't enough 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.520 water pressures because the whole city was on fire. The 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.040 idea that one house is destroyed while another house is standing, oh, 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.280 it means it was hit by a laser. I've seen 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.840 this in my own neighborhood. My neighbor two doors down, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.560 her house is still standing, the house behind us is 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.560 still standing. Everything around it is destroyed. That's just the 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:25.400 way fire works. It's very mysterious and it's complicated. But 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.960 that doesn't mean it's a conspiracy, except we seek easy 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:34.320 explanations through conspiracies. Hence everything about this fire has become 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.440 grist for this endless mill of paranoia. 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.039 Yeah, it's the same paranoia. So, Mike, I lived in 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.719 Hawaii and there was It started out with Marjorie Taylor 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.719 Green and the Jewish space lasers starting the fires in 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.080 California earlier, and then when there was the fire here 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.440 on well but on Maui, the Lahinea fire. It was 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.719 very quickly after that pictures started coming out of laser 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.480 beams coming out of the sky after pictures, and it 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.440 was the same set of conspiracy theories. And now with 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.239 the California fires, it's again the same set of conspiracy theories. 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.840 It's yeah, yeah, you're seeing a lot of the same stuff, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.320 but then there's variations on it. So the one thing 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.160 that we've had that other fires haven't had. There's been 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:17.360 a couple of things. There's the delta smelts that all 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.760 the water was like siphoned off to protect this endangered fish. 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.080 I mean, it's not true. But the other one that 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.120 was really hyperculture were driven is the DEI firefighters. The 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.960 people who were fighting the fires. They weren't qualified, they 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.800 were diversity HighRes It's ridiculous. I've watched the firefighters fighting 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.920 burning houses and you're not going to find people who 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:42.640 are more devoted to their community and more selfless about 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:47.080 risk than firefighters. Like blaming firefighters for this is a 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.840 level of insane that even I never thought I was. 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.480 Going to see. Douglas MacArthur had this famous quote that 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.520 old soldiers never die, right, they just fade away, And 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:01.160 so his QAnon died and faded away, or his transmographied 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:06.200 into the conspiracy theories that we're seeing now around USAID 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.880 and the deep State and all the rest. Is the 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.480 QAnon DNA still there, or the conspiracy theory is just changed. 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:14.720 Yeah. I think in terms of q andon, I kind 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:17.960 of look at it like a butterfly. It is left 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.760 the chrysalis. It does not need the codes and the 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.960 riddles and the message board stuff and the mysterious military 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.760 intelligence avatar. The people who either believe this stuff or 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.520 have no trouble monetizing it off. The people who do 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:39.360 believe it, they're running things now. Cash Patel has promoted qwanon. 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.560 He is running the FBI. We don't need the riddles 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.079 and the codes and the choose your own adventure stuff anymore. 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.800 They moved way beyond that. There's never going to be 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.240 a need for another q drop because Donald Trump tweets 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.280 this stuff every day. Now, also there's QAnon, and it 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.600 is transformed into something so much bigger and so much 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.880 more mainstream and more palatable than I think really anybody 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.400 could have imagined even a couple of years ago. 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:11.760 You're one of the foremost experts on conspiracy theories, and 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:14.439 since we last talked We've been through a political campaign 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.120 and we have a new administration, and we've already mentioned 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:18.760 some of the names of the people there who are 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:24.120 conspiracists or conspiracy theorists. Cash Pttel and he just put 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:28.000 in as a deputy, Dan Bongino, TLCA Gabbert is over 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.680 at the Director of National Intelligence. How has your life 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.000 changed and how do you find yourself talking about these 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.000 people and politics more and what's your view of those 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.200 specific people and any others you might think of. 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.640 I think all of these people are grossly unqualified for 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.800 the jobs they have. Ian Robert F. Kennedy Junior running 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.840 Health and Human Services is just mind boggling. This is 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.520 a guy who thinks that COVID nineteen was engineered to 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:56.840 avoid Ashkenazi Jews. This is ridiculous. It has taken over 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.440 every aspect of our lives, of our commerce, of our culture, 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.640 of our medicine. And now you've got these people who 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.400 are making these massive cuts to government, who are cutting 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.959 things like researching ways to defend against the next pandemic, 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.520 because then they're going to turn around and sell like 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.840 supplements and raw milk on their podcasts. That are the 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.000 things that are going to help you actually fight it. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.839 You've got the ameshment not just of sort of crank ideas, 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.120 but of crank commerce being pushed by the people at 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.440 the very top of this. It has changed everything about 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.440 our government and our culture and our politics. And we're 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.120 at the very beginning of this. I think the real 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.079 horrors of how this is all going to unfold are 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.120 really just ahead of us. You know, I was thinking 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.559 the other day about how we're cutting the FAA. I mean, 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.160 air traffic controllers are being fired. What happens when we 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.400 get to May and families start flying around the country 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.680 on summer vacations and this gutted FAA is trying to 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:55.880 control all these planes in the air. What if a 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.120 bird flu epidemic crosses over into humans at that except 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.480 I mean, the ways that this could go wrong are 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.839 just mind boggling. And they are inescapable. And it used 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.000 to be you could compartmentalize some of this stuff. You know, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.439 QAnon was bad and it was kind of everywhere, but 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.920 at least it wasn't like like Trump would talk about 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.320 it like once, but it wasn't running things. And now 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.760 these people are running things, and it's a whole new 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:23.040 level of bad and we're really just at the very 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:23.720 beginning of it. 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:25.800 More of this after a quick break. 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:31.800 All right, let's get back into it. 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.640 So I thought it was interesting that James Carr will 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.319 come out recently and said he predicts or hopes amps 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.720 that the chickens will come home to roost soon. Right, 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.160 that if you have your health policy where you don't 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.959 accept the germ theory of disease, or if you think 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.960 the Russians are your realize you destroy your alliances, that 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.120 there's real consequences to this, and when they hippen that 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.959 people will get it the vast majority and turn again 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.719 the conspiracy theorist because they because it's not working. I'm 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:08.000 not sure that's the case. So when conspiracy theories don't 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:12.800 come to pass, how do conspiracy theorists explain this away 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:14.920 like none of the q Andon stuff happened. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:18.240 I certainly hope the chickens come home to roost in 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:20.959 a way that is not horribly destructive for the country 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.800 and the world. I really hope there's not another pandemic 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.560 to prove how wrong they were. Nobody needs that. But 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:32.840 conspiracy believers have a remarkable way of taking the failure 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.720 of their prophecies and of their plots as confirmation that 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:38.960 the plots are actually true. They're just coming true in 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:40.840 a different way. There's the famous book for the nineteen 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.760 fifties when prophecy fails that it's a book that everybody 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.320 should read. It's the Study of a UFO cult. And 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.559 it's a very small group. But they go out of 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:52.120 the streets of Chicago and I'm freezing Christmas Eve, waiting 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.160 for the saucer to come down and take them away. Well, 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.440 the saucer doesn't come down and take them away. What 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:58.600 do you do? Then a few people drift away, but 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.960 the rest of these people go own away everything in 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.240 my life. I've left my family and my job to 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.200 live at the house with the great mother who gets 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:09.319 the automatic writing messages from the aliens. What am I 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.520 gonna do? I can't go back. And if I leave 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:16.160 and the saucer comes tomorrow, I'm gonna feel really stupid. 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.640 So you stick with it, and you rationalize it, and 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:24.360 you find ways to make yourself believe that it's still 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.720 gonna come true. It's just gonna happen in a different way. 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.720 So I think you saw that constantly with QAnon, with 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.959 these very very specific predictions that Hillary Clinton is going 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.319 to be arrested on October thirty first, twenty seventeen. Obviously 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:41.439 that didn't happen, and they rationalized it by saying Q 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.839 was actually talking about Saudi Arabia, not Hillary Clinton. I mean, 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.080 never mind that he literally said Hillary Clinton will be arrested. 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.440 It doesn't matter. Once you have talked yourself into believing 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:57.040 something outlandish, you will continue to believe that outlandish thing 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.720 because the alternative is saying I was wrong, I got fooled, 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:02.319 and now I have to go back to all the 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.720 people in my life and tell them I was wrong 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.520 and they were right. I mean, very few people really 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.720 have the ability to do that. Conspiracy theorists will come 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.680 up with new justifications, new causes for why the thing 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.200 either didn't happen or why it was actually a good thing. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.120 You're starting to see that already with this measles outbreak 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.680 in Texas. You're seeing wellness, people going, well, measles is 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.000 actually good. We all got measles when we were a kid, 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.000 and we were just fine. Well, like lot of people 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.280 weren't actually just fine when they got measles. But more 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.560 than that, like measles is the harbinger for things like polio. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.720 I mean, my god, can you imagine a polio outbreak 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.600 in this country right now? It's unfathomable. They'll find a 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.280 way to justify it and blame somebody else for it, 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.000 even when it happens to them. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:48.600 It's going to be very interesting to see how this 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:50.440 works out. So since Jerry and I worked in a 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.360 large organization, it was complicated. So Telsea Gabert is going 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.160 into the Director of National Intelligence Kesh Pttel and Dan 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.480 but Gino are going into the FBI. It's gonna be 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.560 really interest to see when they're in charge because they 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:06.080 are going to be responsible for a huge workforce with 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.240 lots of things happening, and they're going to be brief 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:10.920 every day. They could be brief. There's could be things happening. 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:12.360 It's things in the world. Is going to be arrest 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.760 there's going to be problems. There's gonna be and somehow 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:17.720 it's easy if you're on the outside, you can just 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.320 say crazy things because you're never held accountable or responsible 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.880 in any way. And now you're inside and at some 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:28.000 level you have to accept these people as your your 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.120 people who work for you, because you want your organization 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:33.000 to succeed. You want to come out and say I've 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.040 made the FBI stronger and now we're doing all these 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:37.720 better things. Are they just going to say, oh, well, 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.320 we got rid of all the bad people. Now these 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:41.160 are all geniuses and they work for me, and so 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.840 everything's good because it's easy from the outside to say 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.640 dumb stuff. When you're responsible for it. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.040 It's going to be different, right, you know, show us 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.000 the aliens. If they don't show us the aliens, then 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.520 they're also part of the deep state. They're captured by. 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.800 Yeah, if Trump had four years to you know, tell 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.680 us who really killed JFK and show us the saucers 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:02.800 from Roswell and it was always like, wow, I'm going 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:04.400 to release it in two weeks and it's going to 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:06.120 be mind blowing. And we got to just get these 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:07.800 couple of things out of the way. That's really where 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.720 QAnon came from. Is you get into kind of Trump's 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:16.480 first year in office, and he hasn't locked up Hillary Clinton, 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.560 he has not built the wall, he has not declassified 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.760 all the JFK documents and exposed Barack Obama as being 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.080 a Kenyan Muslim. You got to find some way to 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.280 justify why he hasn't done it. If you're a Trump devotee, 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.000 you can't say he hasn't done it because he's useless 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.040 and it was never going to do it. As an idiot, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.560 you say, well, there, the deep State is stopping him 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.600 from doing it, but we're on the inside, and we're 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:41.880 going to show you how it's really happening in a 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.000 way that can't be traced back to us. So you 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.600 get the codes and the riddles and the prophecies of QAnon, 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.920 and it's a way to continue to push conspiracy theories 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.160 even when theoretically you have the power to make all 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:55.120 these things go away. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.320 I think one of Trump's gifts is this ability to 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.440 pretend he's on the outside even when he's on the inside. 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.080 And so he created the deep state and he's doing 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:05.639 it now, like all of a sudden, he'll be like, 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.399 we don't know what's in Fort Knox. You're the president 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.119 of the United States. You work the frut, You can 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:12.880 go there any time you want. You could you get 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:14.520 the people who are there can show you what's in there. 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.600 Like that stuff works for him with a public who 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.240 doesn't understand the stuff either, so he can pretend like 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.040 he's one of them, even though he's actually in charge 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:22.679 of these things. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.360 People want to be told what's happening, and they want 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.159 an explanation. And when you have the president saying we 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.080 don't know what's in Fort Knox, you're the president, you 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:33.520 were already the president. You could have gone there at 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.840 any time, like you could have proven the gold was 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:41.119 or wasn't there eight years ago? What is taking so long? 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.040 So, like you've done a lot of study of cult 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.679 leaders and how they message and how they controlled their followings, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:53.000 and I'm curious as to what you think speculation about 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.360 this messaging now coming you know directly from the president 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.880 that joking but it's not really joking, and joking about 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.440 a third term and also calling himself king increasingly now 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:10.240 when a cult leader starts giving themselves complete control, where 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:14.400 the laws of political laws, in the laws of gravity, 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.439 by economics don't apply to them, they believe. So what 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:19.199 do you think is going on there with that? 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.360 If you watch these speeches? I mean, remember those cabinet 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.880 meetings from Trump's first term where you just go around 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:27.400 the table and every single person there would just lavish 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:31.280 him with praise. And those were sort of the non 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.919 Trump outsider people. Now he's nominating people who are just 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.359 conspiracy podcasters who just worship the ground he walks on. 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:41.960 You know, I know that there's always been this thing 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.119 of like, oh, do we take Trump seriously? Do we 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.760 take him literally? Is it just a joke? Is he trolling? 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.080 First of all, the guy has no ability to be funny, 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.080 so he's never it's hard to tell sometimes what he 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.760 means in the moment, and he's always been like that. 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:59.400 But when he talks about himself like a king, nobody 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.760 would say that unless they believed at least some part 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:04.800 of it. I think he really does believe he is 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.720 the king of America. I mean, do I think he's 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:09.399 going to try to run for a third term. I 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.359 honestly have no idea. I don't know if he's going 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.000 to be coherent in four years. But just the fact 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.000 that he continues to talk about this and he continues 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:21.400 to rile up his fan base to believe that he 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.240 has the ability to do this. The law just does 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.080 not apply to him. But you also fear for the 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:31.240 next iteration of Trump and whether that's jd Vance and 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.159 I don't think it is, but somebody may be a 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.320 decade or two down the line. Who takes the techniques 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.159 that Trump was able to use in his decades of 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.640 being on TV and being a tabloid fixture and actually 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.359 apply them to a coherent, competent version of fascism in 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:49.760 a way that really hasn't even presented itself yet. 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.280 Hold on just a second, Well we take a quick break. 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:57.200 Let's get back into it. 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:00.480 Jerry and I want to take advantage of your expertise here. 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.120 You can maybe help us with this as podcasters. Can 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:05.679 you help us monetize what we're doing, Like what conspiracies 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:07.560 can make us the most money? What should we jump 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:09.760 on where there's some money that we can sort of 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:11.040 go after. 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.560 Wait, I wish I knew, you know. I've had people 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:15.800 who've been like, oh, you know you understand conspiracy theories, 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.119 so well, why don't you start like an alternate, you know, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.000 anonymous version of yourself pushing this stuff and you can 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.119 cash in on Like, I guess I could do that, 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:24.760 but I just to be able to sleep at night. 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:29.320 There is so much money in the fear mongering and 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.760 the plot creation that these guys are able to do. 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:35.080 Bongino was able to do it because he was a 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.560 secret Service agent for a little bit of time, and 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:43.080 he parlayed that into this sort of screaming incoherence about liberals. 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.160 And it really is just taking the most hateful, most 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.640 paranoid stuff that really dials into the fear that has 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:53.959 been on the far right for a long time. And 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.960 there is just a limitless pool of money to be 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.359 able to fund stuff like that. I just think you 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:01.280 have to not have a soul or a conscience to 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:02.320 be able to tap into it. 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.639