Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
Speaker 1: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
Speaker 1: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
Speaker 2: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
Speaker 2: our adversaries.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories large and small.
Speaker 2: Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1: This is mission implausible. So today's guest is Joe Walsh.
Speaker 1: He's a political commentator and former radio talk show host.
Speaker 1: He has a podcast, he's on Substack. He's a regular
Speaker 1: on TV. You've probably seen him. He was a politician
Speaker 1: who served in Congress as a former TEA Party favorite.
Speaker 1: I think even ran for president in you one time.
Speaker 3: It was for a brief John, just a brief moment
Speaker 3: in time I challenged Trump.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: Well it's more than we did, so God bless you.
Speaker 1: So let me start out. One of the things you
Speaker 1: do that I think is really impresses is you travel
Speaker 1: and speak to groups who don't agree with you around
Speaker 1: the country. So how do you engage with people who
Speaker 1: espouse conspiracy theories like about the twenty twenty election or
Speaker 1: January sixth or Q nine or anything else with that matter.
Speaker 3: It ain't easy, John, Jared good to be with you both.
Speaker 3: Look and I know you know my history. I used
Speaker 3: to be a really divisive politician. I was part of
Speaker 3: the tea party class. I went to DC to raise
Speaker 3: hell and burn it all down. I voted for Trump
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen. Boom boh, what was I thinking? And
Speaker 3: then in twenty eighteen I came out against him publicly,
Speaker 3: took a blow torch to my career, and then I
Speaker 3: tried the primary him in twenty twenty. So I'm in
Speaker 3: a weird position. Of all the really well known never
Speaker 3: trumpers out there, I'm the only one that comes from
Speaker 3: the bowels of the Maga basse. I call myself a
Speaker 3: reformed maca gang banger. But because I had that start,
Speaker 3: I still engage with his supporters every single day. And
Speaker 3: because John, like I was really divisive. I think the
Speaker 3: countries dangerously divided. People like me help to divide the country.
Speaker 3: I'm on a mission the rest of my breathing life
Speaker 3: to try to do something about that divide, and so
Speaker 3: I engage on a regular basis with Trump's voters, but everybody,
Speaker 3: when you.
Speaker 1: Engage with them, do you try to change their minds?
Speaker 1: Do you try to sympathize? What do you find the
Speaker 1: best way to deal with people who really still are
Speaker 1: MARGA believers?
Speaker 3: You guys are more expert than I am. I will
Speaker 3: say publicly when I go on TV that my former
Speaker 3: party is a cult. So these folks, most of whom
Speaker 3: are good folks, most of whom used to be my supporters,
Speaker 3: they're members of a cult. And so that's my mindset,
Speaker 3: John and Jerry going in. I got out of that cult.
Speaker 3: I want to try to help them get out. And
Speaker 3: I've found that the only way to even have a
Speaker 3: shot to do that is to very slowly and respectfully
Speaker 3: just continue to put little nuggets of truth in front
Speaker 3: of them repeatedly until they're kind of up against a
Speaker 3: wall and they don't know where to turn. And I
Speaker 3: find that when I can get one of them in
Speaker 3: a place like that, then the potential for the light
Speaker 3: bulb to go off is there to one.
Speaker 2: Extent, Is this something we've always had or this is
Speaker 2: something that's being manufactured with entertainment and the news ecosystems
Speaker 2: that we live in and the news feeds that we
Speaker 2: consume you're on one team or the other. But what
Speaker 2: makes what turns it into a cult?
Speaker 3: I do think we are dangerously divided, and I felt
Speaker 3: this way before Trump got elected. I felt this way
Speaker 3: and I said it when I was in Congress back
Speaker 3: in twenty ten, twenty twelve. I think America is a
Speaker 3: married couple on the verge of a divorce.
Speaker 4: I really believe that, and.
Speaker 3: I felt that way before Trump. I think Trump is
Speaker 3: just like the ugly consequence of being a married couple
Speaker 3: on the verge of a divorce. So I think the
Speaker 3: divide is there. I think it's real. I think this
Speaker 3: two hundred and forty nine year old experiment in awesomeness
Speaker 3: is at a weird point. What Trump did was he
Speaker 3: took advantage of how divided we are and he fed it.
Speaker 3: Some politicians see were divided, were broken, Our social contract
Speaker 3: is frayed. Let's try to bring people together. And Trump no,
Speaker 3: fuck no, Trump does the opposite. This is how I'm
Speaker 3: going to win. I'm going to try to further divide us.
Speaker 3: I'm going to get Americans more angry at each other.
Speaker 3: So that was something new. And then and I gotta
Speaker 3: be honest, We've only got two political parties. I come
Speaker 3: from the Republican Party, my former party. I left it
Speaker 3: became fully radicalized. I say that often people like me
Speaker 3: helped to radicalize them. The Tea Party led to MAGA.
Speaker 3: But the base of the Republican Party has always been
Speaker 3: primarily middle age, older white people. And these middle age,
Speaker 3: older white people, for a long time have felt like
Speaker 3: everything's against them. All of our institutions, government, the media, academia, Hollywood,
Speaker 3: all left of center, and there's truth in that. So
Speaker 3: along comes Trump and he says, man, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be your guy. I'm going to go after all these things.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go after CNN, They're the enemy of
Speaker 3: the people. I'm going to go after Hollywood and all
Speaker 3: the rest. And so he enabled this white base to fully,
Speaker 3: proudly and loudly come out from under their rock and say,
Speaker 3: we are the Republican Party. Finally somebody's listening to me.
Speaker 3: We're going to get white Christian nineteen fifty four America.
Speaker 3: That's what they say to me.
Speaker 1: So when you talk to these groups, the ones that
Speaker 1: listen to you and seem to be taking it on,
Speaker 1: what is it that resonates. Is there certain issues that
Speaker 1: sort of matter to them? Is it the economy? Are
Speaker 1: a culture of things? What things? Do They start to say,
Speaker 1: I see where you're going to. Maybe maybe I'm willing
Speaker 1: to listen more.
Speaker 3: So I'm not a Democrat and I'm not a lefty.
Speaker 3: And even though I go on MSNBC a lot, I'm
Speaker 3: not an MSNBC person. So I come from their family.
Speaker 3: I come from Mauga's family. I left the family, and
Speaker 3: in a weird way, like they look at me as
Speaker 3: a trader because I left the family. But then in
Speaker 3: a weird way, they'll listen to me because they know
Speaker 3: I'm not of the left. So I have found I
Speaker 3: still have a lot of hate listeners. So there's always
Speaker 3: been a curiosity like, I don't get it, Joe, why
Speaker 3: don't you like Trump?
Speaker 4: Again? And I find that when I.
Speaker 3: Focus on relentlessly the rule of law, democracy, you lose
Speaker 3: a fucking election, be a man and accept the loss.
Speaker 3: Come on, Billy, that's what we do. That's what you
Speaker 3: taught your kids to.
Speaker 4: Do, right man.
Speaker 3: And so it's those kinds of things that kind of
Speaker 3: make them feel a little guilty. They know I'm not
Speaker 3: like I'm a big gun guy, a big gun rights guy,
Speaker 3: so they know I'm not going to come for their guns.
Speaker 3: So because they know I'm generally with them on most issues,
Speaker 3: they'll listen to why I most opposed Trump because he's
Speaker 3: a threat to democracy. And even if they don't agree
Speaker 3: with me, these are folks who always claim to adore
Speaker 3: the Constitution. That's what the Tea Party was back in
Speaker 3: the day. So come on, Steve, you can't send somebody
Speaker 3: into a l Salvador jail without any due process. Come on,
Speaker 3: that's not right. And I find John when you keep
Speaker 3: putting that in front of them, not pounding them over
Speaker 3: the head, but just trying to get them to think. Eventually, again,
Speaker 3: some of them will stay in dialogue.
Speaker 2: The cult thing is interesting. It gets thrown around about
Speaker 2: a lot, and I struggle with it whether that's a
Speaker 2: good metaphor or not. But when I talk to died
Speaker 2: in the world democrats, I'm riding with Biden to hell
Speaker 2: or high water, and then you can hear that conversation
Speaker 2: about what's good or what's bad about the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: But with mega folks, they find it really hard to
Speaker 2: make even one small concession like the ones you've been
Speaker 2: talking about Look, I watched January sixth on TV. We
Speaker 2: all did like it wasn't a day of love. They
Speaker 2: were beating the shit out of policemen. That's never okay,
Speaker 2: never okay, beat the shit out of policemen. And yet
Speaker 2: getting that extreme, that concession from them is almost impossible.
Speaker 2: And for me, that's the cult part.
Speaker 3: That's actually a fascinating case study. Because I was thinking
Speaker 3: about January sixth, and I've said this before, it was fascinating.
Speaker 3: For three maybe four days after January sixth happened, I'm
Speaker 3: on conservative talk radio around the country. Trump's most die
Speaker 3: hard supporters for three to four days were stunned and
Speaker 3: sickened and called in and said, oh my god, Joe,
Speaker 3: this is bad. There was a window there where even
Speaker 3: his most hardcore folk said nope, nope, nope, And that's
Speaker 3: really interesting. Then what happened. Then eventually Republican politicians started
Speaker 3: to defend and excuse Trump and Hannity and all the
Speaker 3: idiots on Fox News. Boom Boo boo went down the
Speaker 3: same road, and I swear to God, within two weeks
Speaker 3: all of those hardcore folks were.
Speaker 4: Joe yar wrong.
Speaker 3: The FBI was behind it. It was the deep state
Speaker 3: and they were gone. But there was like without the
Speaker 3: media or the Republican bullshitters in their faces, even the cult.
Speaker 4: They even thought.
Speaker 1: This is bad, which is interesting because that suggests that
Speaker 1: a lot of people know what they're saying might not
Speaker 1: be fully true. But in another way, it's bad because
Speaker 1: it suggests that the hatred for the other side is
Speaker 1: so strong that I would rather say something I know
Speaker 1: to be false than agree with the other side, like
Speaker 1: what Jerry said with Biden. Like Biden was the president,
Speaker 1: he brought it at least he brought in some smart people.
Speaker 1: But he screwed up Afghanistan. It was a complete debacle.
Speaker 1: It was terrible. They provided really poor support and way
Speaker 1: too late. I think for Ukraine too old. He should
Speaker 1: have left early. He should have just done one to
Speaker 1: all those things I can say, and I don't think
Speaker 1: of myself as a Democrat or Republican either, but at
Speaker 1: least yeah, you don't hear that from the mega side.
Speaker 1: Is it because they hate the other side too much?
Speaker 1: You know, we lived overseas working for our country, trying
Speaker 1: to collect intelligence on Russia, China, Iran terrorists, enemies of
Speaker 1: this country. But these people seem to think the enemies
Speaker 1: are the other party, not foreigners who want to do
Speaker 1: as harm.
Speaker 3: It was a perfect storm, a combination of who the
Speaker 3: Republican Party base was and how long they felt beaten down,
Speaker 3: and then along came this demagogue. I can remember John
Speaker 3: and Jerry when Trump first started running in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: and they had one of the very early debates with
Speaker 3: Jeb Bush and my Lil Marco and all those nuts.
Speaker 3: And I remember again, I'm on the radio, I'm on
Speaker 3: Fox New and all the smart Republican establishment people. Every
Speaker 3: time Trump would talk and he'd say crazy, stupid shit,
Speaker 3: all the Republican establishment people would say to me, Joe,
Speaker 3: this is a fucking joke.
Speaker 4: He's done.
Speaker 3: But at the exact same time, his voters, my listeners,
Speaker 3: my supporters were eating up everything he was saying. So
Speaker 3: right away then I knew there was something different that
Speaker 3: was going on. I think this had been building for
Speaker 3: a long time, the Republican Party establishment, and I wasn't
Speaker 3: part of it.
Speaker 4: They hated me.
Speaker 3: They ignored their base forever, and their base has always
Speaker 3: been really scared about the changing country, the changing demographics,
Speaker 3: the browning and blacking of America, the open borders, legit
Speaker 3: concerns where you need to sit these folks down and
Speaker 3: educate them and tell them how we welcome all God's children, white,
Speaker 3: black and brown. But they had real concerns about the
Speaker 3: changing face of America. The party establishment just ignored them.
Speaker 3: And then along came tea party people like me, and
Speaker 3: we inflamed them.
Speaker 4: So by the.
Speaker 3: Time Trump came along, and he came down that escalator
Speaker 3: and he said, I'm gonna build a fucking wall, a wall.
Speaker 3: Remember how stupid that first was when he said it,
Speaker 3: And I'm going to keep brown and black people out.
Speaker 3: And everybody laughed, except for Republican voters.
Speaker 4: They loved it.
Speaker 3: To them, he was the first one, after fifty years,
Speaker 3: who had heard their concerns. But they dug their finger
Speaker 3: claws into him at that moment and they've never let go.
Speaker 2: So let's take a break to be back in a
Speaker 2: Roman I struggle with things like like Russia. So just
Speaker 2: today it's out in the press that the Ed Martin,
Speaker 2: the guy who's up to be district attorney for DC
Speaker 2: guy just somehow forgot that he appeared on Russian television
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty times and never mentioned it. To Congress. Oh,
Speaker 2: is that a problem that Artie is an arm of
Speaker 2: the Russian intelligence services and Russian propagama machines. And how
Speaker 2: is this being accepted? Like the Russians are the bad guys,
Speaker 2: at least they were. And so you've talked to a
Speaker 2: lot of people, how did they square that circle?
Speaker 3: Part of it is because Trump's siding with Putin, because Trump, so, Joe,
Speaker 3: let's not question it. I get a lot of that
Speaker 3: the other aspect, and I think you'll find this in
Speaker 3: our history. And I come from the right. Look, the
Speaker 3: left has their issues, but there's always been a desire.
Speaker 4: For a strong man on the right.
Speaker 3: The right in America has always been more susceptible to
Speaker 3: authoritarian guys. When I was in Congress, I was the
Speaker 3: poorest member of Congress if I had a dollar over
Speaker 3: the last seven years, for every time a Trump supporter
Speaker 3: said to me, Joe, I don't mind that Trump's acting
Speaker 3: like a dictator, as long as he's given us back
Speaker 3: the stuff we need, as long as he's bringing America back.
Speaker 3: So part of it is a yearning for an America
Speaker 3: where men were men, women were women, and men married
Speaker 3: women and women married men. And Oh, by the way,
Speaker 3: there was that plant in town where my dad worked,
Speaker 3: and everything's changed, and we forget so many of us
Speaker 3: forget that even twelve years ago, Barack Obama and Hillary
Speaker 3: Clinton opposed same sex marriage. So to the base, to
Speaker 3: the Republican bay, this shit's been changing in a nanosecond.
Speaker 3: And so then you combine that with what I've found,
Speaker 3: which is they're yearning to have a strong man deliver
Speaker 3: that America back to them. I say often my party,
Speaker 3: they've given up on democracy. They call him the cult.
Speaker 3: I think it's an authoritarian, embracing cult. They want a
Speaker 3: strong man to deliver a certain America back. That then
Speaker 3: extends to Putin, it extends to Erdawan, it extends to
Speaker 3: strong men around the world, who, by the way, Trump
Speaker 3: has an affiliation with, and Trump knows that his base
Speaker 3: is very open to authoritarianism.
Speaker 1: I do think there's something in our country about masculinity
Speaker 1: in America. What's happening to young men and what I
Speaker 1: see about you and I see with Adam Kinsinger and
Speaker 1: some other people. They seem to be having some sort
Speaker 1: of impact on the mega folks because they talk like,
Speaker 1: you know, again, I'm a sixty year old white guy too.
Speaker 1: You know, I played sports and got in fights and
Speaker 1: stuff like, man up, man, what you're doing is wrong,
Speaker 1: get your shit together, like I think in some sense,
Speaker 1: people want someone who has occured to their conviction, says
Speaker 1: thing they believe. It sounds like when you first talked
Speaker 1: answered the first question you said, you're having an impact
Speaker 1: when you say to someone that's wrong, man up. Like
Speaker 1: that seems Oh, I get that. Like you're asking me
Speaker 1: to tough en up. You're right, John, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: I think that's perceptive. I certainly don't fucking talk like
Speaker 1: a normal politician. There's a yearning for authenticity in our politics.
Speaker 1: It's been there now for a while. Trump gives the
Speaker 1: illusion that he's authentic, which is bullshit because every word
Speaker 1: out of his.
Speaker 3: Mouth is a lie. But there's a yearning for that.
Speaker 3: This is the democrats big problem. They all sound like
Speaker 3: fucking politicians, and many of their male politicians sound like
Speaker 3: absolute whossies. It's a weird thing in that Trump's support
Speaker 3: among young men has really grown. It's a scary thing.
Speaker 3: And they listen to a lot of these podcasters like
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan and some of these other bros. There's a
Speaker 3: real problem, you guys, know, disinformation and lies that are
Speaker 3: spread out there. I believe in the marketplace, I believe
Speaker 3: in a million different places to go get informed. But man,
Speaker 3: what a dangerous world it is because you listen, if
Speaker 3: you get your news from a Joe Rogan or a
Speaker 3: Tucker Carlson, Hello.
Speaker 4: You're done.
Speaker 3: But yet they give the appearance of being tough guys.
Speaker 3: Tough guys. Are they tough guys?
Speaker 1: Though? Like I see jd Vance and I think of
Speaker 1: a high school loser, like I like it a musk.
Speaker 1: Is he really a masculine tough guy? Tryump? They look
Speaker 1: like weenies to me. And people are act like they're
Speaker 1: the toughest guys going.
Speaker 3: They're the antithesis of what strong men should be. They lie,
Speaker 3: they cheat, their corrupt, They never take responsibility for anything
Speaker 3: they ever do wrong. That's not masculine. But they don't
Speaker 3: give the appearance of being nerds. They give the appearance
Speaker 3: of being tough guys. And a lot of it is
Speaker 3: just through the smoke that they blow this disinformation. It's
Speaker 3: a real issue, and I'd argue that we've I think
Speaker 3: so much of this is just the pendulum swinging. We
Speaker 3: shit on men like a little bit and kind of
Speaker 3: shit on young white men a little bit, all good stuff,
Speaker 3: and we need equal opportunity for black men and brown
Speaker 3: women and everybody. But there's been a backlash because I
Speaker 3: think certain elements of the left push too hard on
Speaker 3: some of this shit, and along comes Trump and says,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna boom, I'm gonna get us back. So Trump's
Speaker 3: now going to be a dangerous overreaction in the other side.
Speaker 3: But we're living in a po feelus moment, and all
Speaker 3: that means to me is we need politicians who are fighters.
Speaker 3: Trump gives the impression of being a fighter and his
Speaker 3: people do even though John I agree with you, they're
Speaker 3: bullies and bullies are cowards.
Speaker 2: What's your sense now, of course this can change. What
Speaker 2: are the sort of the ultimate thols of politics now,
Speaker 2: especially on the right. Right now we're racing towards are
Speaker 2: already they're a face off with the Supreme Court. Is
Speaker 2: there a plan do you think inside of like the
Speaker 2: coterie of folks inside of the White House or inside
Speaker 2: of Manga Republic Party to like to break that. It's
Speaker 2: like we're going to go like we're going to disengage
Speaker 2: from the judicial system, and we're going to disengage from
Speaker 2: fair elections. Where does that go? Where does it take us?
Speaker 3: Let me sound like a conspiracist. I think the greatest
Speaker 3: failure of this Trump era to steal the nine to
Speaker 3: eleven commissions phrase, has been a failure of imagination. Yes,
Speaker 3: I think that we have not imagined how far Trump
Speaker 3: would go, how bad he would get. If us three
Speaker 3: old white dudes were sitting around twenty years ago talking
Speaker 3: and I'd have told you, you know what, there's gonna
Speaker 3: be an American president one day soon who's going to
Speaker 3: lose an election, and son of a gun, he's not
Speaker 3: gonna accept the result.
Speaker 4: Nope, first time he's not.
Speaker 2: Gonna do it.
Speaker 3: And then you know what, John and Jerry, he's gonna
Speaker 3: commit crimes trying to overthrow an American election. You guys
Speaker 3: would have thought I was smoking something. He did that
Speaker 3: that all happened. So are there going to be midterm
Speaker 3: elections next year?
Speaker 4: I don't know. Put a gun to my head, I
Speaker 4: won't say there will be.
Speaker 3: I firmly believe knowing people around Trump, they are licking
Speaker 3: their chops at the opportunity to use the military, law enforcement,
Speaker 3: and the military against Americans. On the streets because they
Speaker 3: are hoping and anticipating these protests are going to grow
Speaker 3: and maybe get violent, and they are just dying to
Speaker 3: stomp down on them. Declare martial law, invoke the Insurrection Act,
Speaker 3: and if things don't look good in twenty six for Republicans,
Speaker 3: the tyrant will come out and say, Nope, no elections now.
Speaker 3: So crazy talk. I just think you gotta prepare for it.
Speaker 3: The jackass is beyond joking about running again in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty eight. Go ahead and don't take him seriously if
Speaker 3: you don't want.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's scary, And I think there's true. I mean
Speaker 1: he's attacking law firms, he's attacking anyone that can hold
Speaker 1: him accountable, attacking institutions, education, all those things, and so
Speaker 1: it is a real threat.
Speaker 2: Do they have a plan?
Speaker 1: That's true. That's the thing is the way he's totally
Speaker 1: fumbled the economy. He suggests to me that he likes
Speaker 1: people coming to him, he likes being in charge, but
Speaker 1: he actually is not very smart and not thinking ahead
Speaker 1: very fast. Yes, he wants to be the strong man,
Speaker 1: but if he's blowing the economy in the process, is
Speaker 1: he at a risk of losing those people? He would
Speaker 1: need to support him.
Speaker 3: Like Trump, doesn't believe in many things except for Trump,
Speaker 3: but he believes in two things, both of which should
Speaker 3: scare us. He I'll say it, he adores Putin. I'll
Speaker 3: say it. He's a fucking Russian asset. And if he's
Speaker 3: not man, he's the most effective non Russian asset.
Speaker 4: That's ever lived.
Speaker 3: His devotion to carrying out Putin's agenda has always been there.
Speaker 3: And the second thing he's always believed in is tariffs
Speaker 3: from the time he was a young man. People who
Speaker 3: are with him believe that he believes with these tariffs
Speaker 3: there will be some a short term, but he really
Speaker 3: believes this will get to the other side and things
Speaker 3: will be great. Most people around him are poor tariffs,
Speaker 3: and they're trying to talk him off that ledge. That's
Speaker 3: one issue that could mess up his plans. But play
Speaker 3: the devil's advocate and running with conspiracies. If I were
Speaker 3: a conspirator, tariffs are actually a great way of exercising
Speaker 3: power because you can pick favorites and punish enemies for corruption,
Speaker 3: you get exactly right, corruption your ability to exercise power.
Speaker 3: Support me, you know, elon Musk, give me a quarter
Speaker 3: of a billion dollars and I'll support Tesla one thing.
Speaker 3: When we were on the inside at CIA, you know,
Speaker 3: CIA does not engage in economic espions.
Speaker 2: We don't do it. And one of the reasons we
Speaker 2: don't do it is say we get a revolutionary new
Speaker 2: widget that the Germans built, Right, we steal it from
Speaker 2: somehow for some reason. Who do we give it to? Right?
Speaker 2: Which US company? Right? We can't favor one over the other.
Speaker 2: And when I saw Trump just with Tesla vehicles in
Speaker 2: front of the White House doing this, you know that's
Speaker 2: corruption right now, if he had different there were different
Speaker 2: US car makers, that would be different, but just favoring
Speaker 2: one over the other. But that's power. And the other
Speaker 2: conspiracy is the press too, is I don't know. You
Speaker 2: look at Fox News and we're not really having all
Speaker 2: that big of an economic problem, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: only twenty percenty or four oh one case gone, like
Speaker 2: that's not a big deal. Who cares, right?
Speaker 3: But it is interesting though Trump lies as he breathes.
Speaker 3: He can lie about anything and everybody believes him. He'll
Speaker 3: have a more difficult time lying about the economy because
Speaker 3: we all live it. And even Fox News is going
Speaker 3: to eventually maybe have to report it. I think the
Speaker 3: only conspiratorial mindset that's in the White House right now
Speaker 3: is they want an absolute lock on power. They don't
Speaker 3: want to lose the twenty six elections. They'll do anything
Speaker 3: to prevent the elections from happening being fair. And they
Speaker 3: really do want violence on the streets. That's part of
Speaker 3: their equation. They're hoping that happens.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with you. I don't know. At least
Speaker 1: the national security area that Jerry and I worked in
Speaker 1: the FBI, the DoD see this way, the culture was
Speaker 1: such that I don't think people would follow illegal orders.
Speaker 1: Now that may change. They may have pushed it through.
Speaker 1: There may be enough people in the military that will
Speaker 1: follow things like like if we were inside Jerry and
Speaker 1: they said, okay, we want you to spy on Canada
Speaker 1: and invade Greenland and stuff, it just is so far
Speaker 1: gone people would quit or not do it. Although that's
Speaker 1: not you know, those are foreign policy decisions, and they're
Speaker 1: maybe stupid and you may not want to do them,
Speaker 1: but it's different from violence on the streets in America
Speaker 1: and going after Americans. That's a really it's a really
Speaker 1: dangerous thing. And what do we do.
Speaker 4: It's really dangerous.
Speaker 3: But look at the bad people he put in charge
Speaker 3: of Defense and the FBI and Justice.
Speaker 1: But are they smart enough to do this? Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so we worked in a big bureaucy in the CIA.
Speaker 1: You put Ratcliffe in charge, he's a dummy. He puts
Speaker 1: some he brought a deputy in who's never been an intelligence.
Speaker 1: They really just don't know how to pull those strings.
Speaker 1: I mean, the big organization, there's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: You don't just give some sort of order. You probably
Speaker 1: don't even they don't even know how to give an
Speaker 1: order through the system, like it's it's a professional organization
Speaker 1: with lawyers and people in different areas and different offices.
Speaker 1: So yes, you got bad people in charge, and eventually
Speaker 1: that could lead to really partisan institutions. But I don't
Speaker 1: think it's there yet.
Speaker 3: They could be wrong, John, but they think among rank
Speaker 3: and file, say in the CIA, they've got more support
Speaker 3: than we might think. They've told me that in the FBI,
Speaker 3: in the CIA, in Defense, in Justice. I don't I
Speaker 3: worry that it's there yet either, agreed, But I think
Speaker 3: part of the whole equation here is just to create
Speaker 3: chaos and then blame the left, like imagine a situation
Speaker 3: where things got really ugly next year and Trump did
Speaker 3: declare whatever, and our military was out on the streets
Speaker 3: and Donald Trump said, with all of this going on, man,
Speaker 3: we can't hold elections now. And some my home state, Illinois,
Speaker 3: a Democratic state.
Speaker 4: JB.
Speaker 3: Pritzker comes out and says, screw that, we're holding elections
Speaker 3: in Illinois. But then there's confusion in Illinois and half
Speaker 3: of the election workers don't want to work in Illinois,
Speaker 3: and you could envision just utter chaos where we couldn't
Speaker 3: have a functioning midterm election.
Speaker 2: Okay, shut it.
Speaker 4: All done, shut this.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna excuse me. I've just poured myself a
Speaker 2: shot of whiskey here and in the morning.
Speaker 4: This is why I drink taki legit irish.
Speaker 2: You gotta drink. You gotta drink whiskey.
Speaker 1: Hold on, let me ask quick question while you're thinking
Speaker 1: for good for it. The one thing is, yeah, you
Speaker 1: create that chaos inside so that you are in charge
Speaker 1: and you're more powerful, But in the meantime you are
Speaker 1: weakening the state. There are others out there. The one
Speaker 1: thing about the terrorists, for example, going after China, I
Speaker 1: think Trump's view of China is like a twenty year
Speaker 1: old version of China that he thinks they can manipulate
Speaker 1: them and they need to come to us to sell things.
Speaker 1: China has moved way ahead. They have incredibly these dark
Speaker 1: factories that don't have lights in them because it's all
Speaker 1: run by robots. Like they are moving ahead. They're becoming powerful.
Speaker 1: They're starting to become powerful militarily. These games that we're playing.
Speaker 1: Trump says silly things. His people may think that's oh yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's true, but it's not working. On the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. All of these other leaders are saying,
Speaker 1: this guy's an idiot, and we are making ourselves weaker
Speaker 1: visa each China in these other places in the meantime,
Speaker 1: and that can't be a good thing for United.
Speaker 3: I think because of that, John, I think ultimately Trump's
Speaker 3: gonna back down on all of this terrriff stuff and
Speaker 3: save face because I just I know the smartest people
Speaker 3: around him are anti tariff. So I can see a
Speaker 3: scenario where he walks away from tariffs and claims that
Speaker 3: some sort of victory.
Speaker 2: Let's pass for a second, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So you came from a Republican party that thought different things, right,
Speaker 1: So free trade was a good thing, all those type
Speaker 1: of stuff. The notion that you could invade Greenland, you can.
Speaker 1: We can probably get minerals and work with the Danes
Speaker 1: to get whatever we need from Greenland. We could put
Speaker 1: we used to have five or six military bases there,
Speaker 1: and we say we need it for defense. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we could build five or six military bases there if
Speaker 1: we wanted to. We don't need to take it from
Speaker 1: anybody to do that. You're saying the people believe in isolationism.
Speaker 1: If you're a former Republican, you don't believe that. So
Speaker 1: when you talk to those people, how do you talk
Speaker 1: to them in a respectful way? Would they start to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I see, we do need the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: It sounds nice to say we can do things ourselves.
Speaker 1: Totally get it, but that's not the world we live in.
Speaker 3: And here's why, John, that's a more nuanced conversation with
Speaker 3: the base, and I don't have as much success with that.
Speaker 4: Like I.
Speaker 3: We'll get into a conversation and okay, guys, you want
Speaker 3: to retrench from the rest of the world and leave
Speaker 3: Europe alone, And okay, fine, But when somebody invades France
Speaker 3: in the UK in fifteen twenty years, we're gonna have
Speaker 3: to do something about You can walk them through that history.
Speaker 3: They don't think that far ahead. It's a movement and
Speaker 3: a base that believes, damn it, take care of ours
Speaker 3: right now. Fuck the rest of the world, Fuck all
Speaker 3: these treaties, fuck NATO and all the alliances.
Speaker 4: Man, take care of ours.
Speaker 3: And like so he invades Greenland like that wouldn't even
Speaker 3: they wouldn't care about that. That's just that's fucking kicking ass.
Speaker 3: We're kicking ass. That's now part of America.
Speaker 2: One of my core concerns about the mega Republican Party
Speaker 2: is it doesn't have principles so much as it can
Speaker 2: be led anywhere. Pro galization, anti globalization, pro tariff, anti tariff.
Speaker 2: These things can change on a dime.
Speaker 3: All of my former Republican colleagues in Congress, and all
Speaker 3: of my former right wing media people, they've all made
Speaker 3: a practical decision to support him, advanced their career, stay
Speaker 3: in the game. All of that get elected. But the
Speaker 3: average Trump voter out there, I still believe most of
Speaker 3: them believe in certain basic things, and their devotion to him,
Speaker 3: their leader and they're they've been waiting decades to finally
Speaker 3: get a shot at revenge to everything that's been punching
Speaker 3: at them has blinded them to their I do believe
Speaker 3: most of them. When I can get them down on
Speaker 3: a conversation about the Constitution, most of them still will
Speaker 3: admit they fundamentally believe the Constitution. But they've put this
Speaker 3: over here for now because Joe. Sometimes Trump has to
Speaker 3: break the rules. Fuck do process, get these people out
Speaker 3: of here. But it's not constitutional, Steve, Joe, I believe
Speaker 3: in the Constitution, but right now Biden let way too
Speaker 3: many of them. Man not to excuse them, but I
Speaker 3: still think they have the potential to have the basic
Speaker 3: good belief there, most of them, not all.
Speaker 4: When you meet these.
Speaker 1: People and you're not talking politics, yeah these are Oftentimes
Speaker 1: they are nice people. We share a lot of common things.
Speaker 1: We share sports teams, we share living in America, we
Speaker 1: like to eat at the same restaurants, and all those
Speaker 1: kind of things. I think it's what Trump has done successfully,
Speaker 1: and it started like didn't start with the people like
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Is they create a false
Speaker 1: straw man, a false story, and then they attack that
Speaker 1: and tear it down. And so yeah, if you tell
Speaker 1: everybody that you know you're suffering because of those people,
Speaker 1: then yeah, you hate those people. But the problem is
Speaker 1: the first story wasn't true. Trump at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, if you actually look at what he's doing,
Speaker 1: it's not helping all those people that are so angry
Speaker 1: and they want the government to help them.
Speaker 3: And there's always but John, here's the beauty of what
Speaker 3: they do. And I used to do some of this
Speaker 3: when I was an idiot on the right. There's always
Speaker 3: a little bit of.
Speaker 4: Truth in what they say.
Speaker 3: Like, oh my god, five years ago, there was a
Speaker 3: grammar school in South Dakota that decided we're not going
Speaker 3: to sing religious Christmas carols. You can only sing Rootolph
Speaker 3: the Red Nose Reindeer. And you go on my radio
Speaker 3: show or Fox News that night. Oh my god, you
Speaker 3: can't sing religious Christmas songs around America anymore. So they
Speaker 3: take one little thing, blow it up. Oh, the Democratic
Speaker 3: Party wants to defund the police. No, a couple crazy
Speaker 3: leftists said that. So there's always just a little nugget
Speaker 3: of truth that they can grab onto and blow up.
Speaker 1: I mean, because you can live in Idaho and be
Speaker 1: upset about foreigners or that trans You've never seen a
Speaker 1: trans athlete in life, but it's, oh my god, that transience.
Speaker 1: It's like every rated these stories like I don't care
Speaker 1: about trans athletes, and I don't want criminals runn around
Speaker 1: our streets either.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's fear, John's it's fear I find
Speaker 3: at its core. That's at the bottom of every conversation
Speaker 3: I have with a Trump voter. And I love these people,
Speaker 3: but there's a basic fear that Trump's been able to pound.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about one size, I'll say it. The
Speaker 2: Democrats suck. It was like, really, that's all you can
Speaker 2: come up with, And I look at what the Democrats produce,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately only have two choices. It's like, really, they're
Speaker 2: pulling out the Toledo mud hens right to play the Yankees,
Speaker 2: and I don't know what to do about that. In fact,
Speaker 2: that's the opposite of a conspiracy. They fucking couldn't conspire
Speaker 2: to do anything. They can't make a plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Jerry, it's a real problem because and someone like
Speaker 3: me now for the last seven years, in essence, I
Speaker 3: am a Democrat temporarily, and they're a real problem they're
Speaker 3: a mess. Look for three months last year, I campaigned
Speaker 3: every single day in a battleground state for Kamala Harris,
Speaker 3: and everywhere I went, again, we're talking about regular people.
Speaker 3: Regular people would tell me, Joe, I know Trump's an asshole,
Speaker 3: but the Democrats are snobs who look down on me.
Speaker 3: I heard a variation of that everywhere I went. So
Speaker 3: regular working class Americans who aren't weird like us, they
Speaker 3: think about this stuff maybe once a month. They had
Speaker 3: a choice between an asshole who at least said he
Speaker 3: was going to do something about these Haitian migrants that
Speaker 3: are eating cats and dogs, or the Democratic Party that's
Speaker 3: utterly ignored the issue of immigration. So they went with
Speaker 3: the assholes. So the Democrats problem is, what the fuck
Speaker 3: you snobs, you elite us, wake the fuck up. You've
Speaker 3: lost touch with working class people. If they stay that way,
Speaker 3: oh my god, no matter how bad Trump is, they
Speaker 3: could keep winning.
Speaker 2: So they need assholes on the Democratic side.
Speaker 3: You know what, Jerry, they need fight, Hey, they need.
Speaker 2: Fi people could fight. Ye many people under the age
Speaker 2: of seventy five.
Speaker 3: Bernie's a fighter, but he's like eighty three. When I
Speaker 3: went to Congress ten years ago, college educated people sent
Speaker 3: me to Congress voted Republican. People without a college degree
Speaker 3: voted Democrat. It's utterly flipped. In the last ten to
Speaker 3: twelve years, the Democrats have become out of touch and elitist.
Speaker 1: The challenges this country faces and the challenge that the
Speaker 1: world faces at this time are so complex that one
Speaker 1: party really doesn't have the answers. There's no one politician
Speaker 1: that's going to be able to solve all these problems
Speaker 1: for people. And which goes back to your original tough
Speaker 1: guy thing is like sometimes Americans they say they're upset
Speaker 1: that the government's not helping them. More like, well, tough enough.
Speaker 1: Some of these things are not going to be solved
Speaker 1: for you. We have to work together to make the
Speaker 1: best of it for ourselves. And at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, as bad as we think it is, we
Speaker 1: live better than every generation for the last two thousand years.
Speaker 1: Americans for the most part are not starving. They're not
Speaker 1: scraping through the streets or not yet shooting each other
Speaker 1: in the streets. They have enough food. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have the world strongest computers in their pockets, so
Speaker 1: we didn't have to figure out we have to redo
Speaker 1: the narrative to suggest, yes, there's things that we need
Speaker 1: to figure out what are bad and we need to fix.
Speaker 1: We have to realize the rest of the world is
Speaker 1: moving forward. We can't just sit here. But the government's
Speaker 1: not gonna solve some of these problems for you.
Speaker 2: So you talked about a pendulum. Okay, we've swung too
Speaker 2: far to the left, and you're right. You know, gay marriage,
Speaker 2: like twelve years ago, my grandmother Irish immigrant, she couldn't
Speaker 2: have thought of she was hand to marry Irish. She
Speaker 2: had to marry Catholic. My parents like they had to
Speaker 2: marry Catholic, but they didn't need to pa they could
Speaker 2: marry Italian, you know. I you know, my parents just
Speaker 2: wanted me to marry a woman, right, you know, they
Speaker 2: didn't care whether it was a you know, and my kids, like,
Speaker 2: I don't get a HyET. I just hope they're happy.
Speaker 2: So that's a huge amount of change. But the pendulum
Speaker 2: did swing, So it's swinging down to the right. Are
Speaker 2: we gonna naturally Is there a law of gravity or
Speaker 2: fit political physics that's gonna bring us back towards the middle,
Speaker 2: or are we like freaking stuck on that is the
Speaker 2: ticker is like stuck on the right.
Speaker 4: Now, fuck that. I'm a dark irishman.
Speaker 3: You're not gonna get rosy scenariot of me. I think
Speaker 3: the jury's out. I know the pendulum has swung now
Speaker 3: far in the right. I don't know how long it's
Speaker 3: gonna stay there or close to over there.
Speaker 4: A lot of people voted.
Speaker 3: For Trump who are not part of his do or
Speaker 3: die base, and I remind Democrats of this every single day.
Speaker 3: They have already factored in how bad he is, in
Speaker 3: the bad shit he does. But I do think, I
Speaker 3: really do think we're at this moment where the country
Speaker 3: has to decide if we want to stay together. And
Speaker 3: I think we've been in this period now for eight, nine, ten, eleven,
Speaker 3: twelve years. I think we're gonna be in this period
Speaker 3: for a while. I think things are gonna get violent.
Speaker 3: Can't help but get violent, because we ultimately have to
Speaker 3: decide if we want to stay as one union. And
Speaker 3: I don't think we're close to that decision yet.
Speaker 1: It's tough because it doesn't break up geographically very nicely.
Speaker 1: It's neighborhood to neighborhood and those type of things. Joe,
Speaker 1: next time we want to slid our throats. We'll have
Speaker 1: you back on the show.
Speaker 4: And I told you this wouldn't be happy.
Speaker 1: Actually, thank you for what you're doing. Because you are
Speaker 1: out there, You're getting attacked from both sides. But I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're doing it, and I hope a lot of
Speaker 1: other people will start to do it because I think
Speaker 1: this country and the people live here are worth it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's at the end of the day. I
Speaker 1: think some of the people are going to come around
Speaker 1: and realize, hey, we looked at politics as entertainment too much,
Speaker 1: and we need to actually start thinking about it as
Speaker 1: solving problems. It doesn't solve all our problems, it doesn't
Speaker 1: entertain us, it doesn't make us kill off our enemies,
Speaker 1: but it needs to be able to solve problems. And
Speaker 1: so I thank you for what you're doing, Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming on with us, and we'd like to have you
Speaker 1: on again.
Speaker 3: I hope, Thank you, guys.
Speaker 5: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, Jon Seipher,
Speaker 5: and Jonathan Sterr.
Speaker 2: The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 5: Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable
Speaker 5: Pictures for iHeart podcasts,