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Speaker 1: Well I podcast has returned. Robert Evans Behind the Bastards

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Speaker 1: Jim Baker Part two, Vic Burger guests, Hello, Hello, how

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Speaker 1: are how are how are just wonderful? That's good? That's good.

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Speaker 1: I am experimenting with using less words than normal, uh,

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Speaker 1: in the hopes that that will make me easier to understand.

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Speaker 1: So how's that going for you, buddy? Poorly? Yeah, poorly,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't doesn't work well. Um, But you know what

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Speaker 1: was working great in the nineteen eighties was Jim Baker's

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Speaker 1: grift fucking he's really hitting it out of the goddamn part. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: N seven would prove to be the high point for

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Speaker 1: Jim and Tammy Baker's empire of you know whatever you

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Speaker 1: want to call it. That year opened with PTL breaking

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Speaker 1: ground on the Crystal Palace Ministry Center, a hundred million

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Speaker 1: dollar construction project. So that's um. They have expanded quite

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Speaker 1: a bit at this point. Um. Now, and this is

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, where where is this again? At the time?

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Speaker 1: What Heritage USA? It's in I think South Carolina, South Carolina? Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: uh so the Crystal Palace Ministry Center was supposed to be,

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Speaker 1: like the Palace itself, was a gargantuan glass structure nine

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixteen feet long and four hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: feet wide. Uh. It was a full scale like representation

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Speaker 1: of like a Victorian era building from London. It would

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Speaker 1: have a three hundred seat auditorium and a five thousand

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Speaker 1: seat TV studio. Um. Jim Baker bragg to everyone who

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Speaker 1: listened that when complete, the Crystal Palace would be the

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Speaker 1: largest church on Earth. Uh So that's awesome. Yeah. By

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Speaker 1: PTL had more than employees and revenue of more than

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Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty five million dollars per year, the

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Speaker 1: Heritage USA theme park was hugely popular. More than six

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Speaker 1: million people visited it that year. Uh. In again, only

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Speaker 1: Disneyland and Disney World were more popular. So on the surface,

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Speaker 1: it's not crazy that they would embark on a hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollar construction project, right. That seems, you know, pretty

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Speaker 1: easily within their means um And yet on the very

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Speaker 1: day that ground was broken for the Crystal Palace, Tammy

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Speaker 1: Faye Baker suffered a calamitous mental breakdown. Now, when it

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Speaker 1: came to popularity outside of the evangelical Christian bubble, Tammy

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Speaker 1: Faye definitely outshone her husband her heavy makeup and regular

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Speaker 1: crying fits that sent it running down her face were

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Speaker 1: regular subjects for parody, like Bloom County made a lot

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Speaker 1: of Tammy Faye Baker jokes, but on that Phil Hartman

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Speaker 1: did uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he did a great

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Speaker 1: Sammy Faye like she that she's definitely like the one

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Speaker 1: who kind of cracked into the mainstream the most. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the hysterics were not like just something she did

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Speaker 1: for the camera or anything like. It was. She had

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Speaker 1: serious emotional regulation problems, in part as a result of

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Speaker 1: the stress of running a business that was constantly on

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Speaker 1: the edge of collapse because of the financial crimes they

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Speaker 1: were committing. Um, that's not great for your you. She's

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Speaker 1: not great, um. And so on that January day, she

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Speaker 1: had a mental breakdown and as Don Hardister, the former

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Speaker 1: detail had a security later called quote, they left me

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Speaker 1: in the house alone with Tammy and that's when she

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Speaker 1: started hallucinating. And I couldn't believe I'm there by myself

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Speaker 1: with this lady. And she'd taken her clothes off, and

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Speaker 1: Tammy didn't do that kind of stuff around me. We

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Speaker 1: all knew she had some prescription drug problems, so she's

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Speaker 1: is a bad breakdown. And two months later, Tammy's problem

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Speaker 1: grew serious enough that she required treatment for chemical dependency.

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Speaker 1: As had become the norm, the Bakers took to the

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Speaker 1: air waves and recorded a whole very special episode about

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Speaker 1: Tammy Phay's battle with drug abuse. And again this went

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Speaker 1: over well with their audience, Like the fact that Tammy

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Speaker 1: had been abusing narcotics, like didn't slow the donations down

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Speaker 1: at all or make them any less beloved by theirs.

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Speaker 1: You see their their faults and uh, you know, they

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Speaker 1: want to and they want to help. They want to

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Speaker 1: help her, help her problem exactly. What didn't go over

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Speaker 1: well with the audience was a blockbuster article in The

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Speaker 1: Charlotte Observer published just days later, revealing the sordid details

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Speaker 1: of the rape that Jim Baker had committed on Jessica Han.

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Speaker 1: So that comes out in eight seven too. And while

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Speaker 1: this is happening, the Observer continued to tear into Baker's

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Speaker 1: ministry for its flagrant misuse of funds. They published more

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Speaker 1: than six hundred stories in nineteen eighties seven alone. Um,

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Speaker 1: so they are, yeah, they are fucking tearing into this. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The Charlotte Observer once this stopped and they put in

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Speaker 1: the fucking groundwork. Uh, and they revealed this massive chain

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Speaker 1: of fraudulent fundraising, fake lifetime memberships, incorrect tax exemptions based

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Speaker 1: on its status as a nonprofit religious organization. Um. It's

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Speaker 1: revealed that the FCC actually launched an investigation into PTL

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Speaker 1: back in nineteen seventy nine over three hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: in funds raised from missionary work overseas that was just

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Speaker 1: spent on the theme park instead. Um. And it becomes

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Speaker 1: kind of clear that the theme park has been losing

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Speaker 1: money for a while, but because it's just so fucking expensive,

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Speaker 1: and all of these things that he keeps adding to

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Speaker 1: it are so ambitious. UM. So they're like raising money

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Speaker 1: for other things and then spending them on this theme

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Speaker 1: park because fucking Jim Baker loves his stupid theme park. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. So, Uh, Jim raised huge amounts of

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Speaker 1: money for overseas ministries, and his followers, you know, donated

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Speaker 1: that money in the hopes that he'd send out preachers

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Speaker 1: and provide humanitarian aid to impoverished areas. Instead, he rerooted

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars of this money and pumped up his

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Speaker 1: uh theme park. Yeah. So the park led millions a year,

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Speaker 1: and much of Jim's criminal behavior was dedicated to plugging

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Speaker 1: that hole in He was indicted on eight counts of

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Speaker 1: mail fraud, fifteen counts of wire fraud, and one count

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Speaker 1: of conspiracy to commit fraud. Between this and the big

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Speaker 1: reveal that Baker had spent another two hundred and sixty

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Speaker 1: five thousand dollars of church money bribing his rape victim,

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Speaker 1: there was no way for Jim and Tammy to stay

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Speaker 1: at the head of the PTL. So everything falls apart

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Speaker 1: very fucking quick. So we have found the line here though,

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Speaker 1: this is where it hits. So that's good that there's

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Speaker 1: a line. Um, this this proves to not be something

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Speaker 1: that you can like get on TV and be like, hey,

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Speaker 1: uh fucking this is what I did. And it's fine

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Speaker 1: because I'm giving myself up to God that that there

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Speaker 1: there is a line to how much you can do that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: or at least there was. Our old friend Jerry Fallwell

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Speaker 1: sailed into the gap to take over the ministry and

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Speaker 1: try to write the ship. Uh. And if he thought

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Speaker 1: doing this would be an easy way to turn a dime,

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Speaker 1: he was very very wrong. It quickly became clear that,

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Speaker 1: due to Jim's criminal mismanagement, the ministry owed nearly a

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Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to various creditors and more than fifty

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Speaker 1: five million dollars in back taxes. Folwell resigned less than

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Speaker 1: a year later and accused Jim Baker of being quote

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Speaker 1: probably the greatest scab and the cancer on the face

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Speaker 1: of Christianity in two thousand years of church history. Like

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Speaker 1: there's some genocides in there, and he's like, there's a

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a good let a fall just before

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Speaker 1: all that where he uh, they're like seventy million dollars

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Speaker 1: in debt, and he raised a goal if they wanted

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Speaker 1: to get twenty two million in a month, he would

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Speaker 1: go down the water, go down the water slide um suit.

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Speaker 1: And they raised that money, and he went down the

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Speaker 1: slide in his suit. Yeah, it's amazing. It's a twenty

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Speaker 1: two million dollars. Imagine asking people to do that. It's

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Speaker 1: so it's so good. It's good and cool. So Jim

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Speaker 1: Baker was quick to tell the New York Times that

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Speaker 1: without a miracle of God, we will never minister again.

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Speaker 1: But it was clear to every rational observer that he

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Speaker 1: and Tammy had just stepped back from the flaming wreckage

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Speaker 1: of their ministry to wait out for the inherent forgiveness

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Speaker 1: of the well meeting rooms who supported them. Alast for Jim,

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Speaker 1: he would have to weather a massive criminal trial before

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Speaker 1: this could happen. Tammy Fay escaped indictment, and there's a

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Speaker 1: great debate to this day as to how much she

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Speaker 1: actually knew. It's probably fair to say she was more

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Speaker 1: or less an equal partner and was fully aware of

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Speaker 1: the enormous intercontinental scam that paid for her house boats

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Speaker 1: and fur coats. But she escaped without legal consequences, and

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Speaker 1: her husband was not so lucky. Uh. Their former employees

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Speaker 1: rolled on him pretty much instantly. Steve Nelson, a PTL

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Speaker 1: employee who was responsible for the lifetime membership program, testified

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Speaker 1: in court that memberships had been deliberately oversold. The act

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Speaker 1: of betraying his boss and God to a court of

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Speaker 1: law was more than the old man's constitution could take,

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Speaker 1: and he collapsed on the stand. As the court sketch

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Speaker 1: artist later recalled when he fainted, it was this silence,

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Speaker 1: and a voice from the audience came up and said, oh,

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Speaker 1: he's giving his life to God, and Baker's attorney called

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Speaker 1: him up and said, Jim, Jim, as if there's going

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Speaker 1: to be a miracle, he can bring him back to life. Uh,

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Speaker 1: sounds like a fun court case. Good time. Nelson was

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Speaker 1: not dead, though, and as the trial continued Jim Baker

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Speaker 1: had a complete mental breakdown himself. That their next day,

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Speaker 1: he began hallucinating. The reporters outside the courtroom were insects.

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Speaker 1: His his head of security recalled. Later that night he

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Speaker 1: was curled up underneath his attorney's couch. I think the

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Speaker 1: weight of that trial and the weight of everything he

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Speaker 1: had done, good and bad, just crushed him. Yeah right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: well I would hope so. So. Baker was committed to

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Speaker 1: a psychiatric ward in the federal prison and the trial

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Speaker 1: was put on hold for six days. When things finally

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Speaker 1: concluded on October nine, Jim was found guilty on all

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Speaker 1: twenty four accounts and sentenced to forty five years in prison.

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Speaker 1: He was also ordered to pay a half a million

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Speaker 1: dollar fine. He appealed, but the court withheld his conviction.

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Speaker 1: They did grant him a sentence reduction hearing, though, and

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Speaker 1: dropped those forty five years down to just eight and

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Speaker 1: he only actually served five before being paroled in nine.

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Speaker 1: So that's great. Yeah, five years, steal millions of dollars,

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Speaker 1: rape a woman five years right right back in a

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Speaker 1: minimum security prison. Yeah, and his cell mate was Lyndon LaRouche.

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Speaker 1: It's so good, Oh boy, So I'll ask for Tim.

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Speaker 1: Tammy Faye was not a waiter. She filed for divorce

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Speaker 1: while he was in the clink and married a guy

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Speaker 1: named Rome Messner, a contractor who had helped to build

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Speaker 1: Heritage USA. Tammy knew how to pick him. In nine,

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Speaker 1: Messner was convicted to twenty seven months in federal prison

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Speaker 1: for bankruptcy fraud. So and weirdly have Tammy Faye dies

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Speaker 1: and I think two seven she gets cancered. But she

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Speaker 1: her second act is actually kind of sweet, Like she

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Speaker 1: becomes for purely for purely ironic reasons. She becomes a

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Speaker 1: gay icon because of her like makeup and everything. Like

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Speaker 1: she's seen as yeah, like a lot of like drag

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Speaker 1: queens and people like that will like want will like

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Speaker 1: emulate her makeup style just because it's like so garish

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Speaker 1: and out there and kitchen. My first exposure to her

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Speaker 1: was when she was on that vag one reality show

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Speaker 1: the Surreal Life, remember that with Sherman Helmsley and the

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Speaker 1: guy from smash Mouth. It's amazing. Yeah, and she um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: she'd said horrible things that has had her husband about

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Speaker 1: gay people in PTL. And I don't think she ever

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Speaker 1: like came out and just said like I was wrong,

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Speaker 1: But she did state later in life that, like, when

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Speaker 1: everything collapsed for her, the only people who were there

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Speaker 1: for her was the gay community because they Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: that's interesting, Tammy. I don't know what to say about

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Speaker 1: Tammy Faye Baker. She's an interesting person. Yeah. So, once

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Speaker 1: he was out of minimum security prison, Jim Baker wound

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Speaker 1: up briefly in a halfway house. Before his fall from grace,

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Speaker 1: he'd owned a fifty five ft houseboat at five dollar

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Speaker 1: Rolls Royce and at dollar Mercedes Benz, along with numerous

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Speaker 1: palatial mansions all around the world. Afterwards, he went up

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Speaker 1: living in a rented farmhouse in North Carolina. There, Jim

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Speaker 1: began to execute an epic plan to rebuild his empire.

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Speaker 1: It started with the publication of his second autobiography, titled

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Speaker 1: I Was Wrong, which is at least a better title

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Speaker 1: than If I Did It. Yeah. Yeah. In it, he

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Speaker 1: seemed to repudiate the prosperity Gospel beliefs that had dominated

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Speaker 1: his first ministry. He wrote, I was appalled that I

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Speaker 1: could have been so wrong, and I was deeply grateful

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Speaker 1: that God had not struck me dead as a false prophet.

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Speaker 1: So that's interesting. Um, the book was step one. But

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Speaker 1: if Jim was going to achieve his goal, which was

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Speaker 1: to just do the same thing he'd done before a

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Speaker 1: second time, uh, he knew he was going to need

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Speaker 1: to sell himself to a new community, a community open

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Speaker 1: minded enough to forgive someone like him. He found this

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Speaker 1: community in Los Angeles, California, at a place called the

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Speaker 1: International Dream Center, and according to the Washington Post quote,

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Speaker 1: there he lived in a Crampton crumbling room with his

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Speaker 1: son Jamie twenty two, and received visiting reporters eager to

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Speaker 1: chronicle his recovery. All glowing articles about the New Jim

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Speaker 1: Baker mentioned his rough life in the ghetto, including the

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Speaker 1: cramped and Yeah, so Jim throws himself on the mercy

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Speaker 1: of the black Evangelical Christian community, like that's who he

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Speaker 1: goes to when his chips are down. And as surprising

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Speaker 1: as it might seem, they took him in Uh. Some

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Speaker 1: of this had to do with the fact that, as

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Speaker 1: I stated, PTL had been very popular with the black community,

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Speaker 1: and the Bakers had always been relatively good on racial issues. Um.

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Speaker 1: So many of the folks that he reached out to

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Speaker 1: in l A remembered him from their childhood. But as

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Speaker 1: the Post's reporting continues, that's not the only reason he

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Speaker 1: was accepted. Baker's story of temptation, collapse, prison and loss

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Speaker 1: resonated with many poor black folks in l A. You

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Speaker 1: know this is obviously Jim's actual experience of of crime

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Speaker 1: and prison had no similarity. But yeah, he was good

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Speaker 1: at spinning it. Um. They at one point, like when

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Speaker 1: he was doing this sort of revival to her, they

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Speaker 1: interviewed a number of the folks who were in line

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Speaker 1: to buy his book in l A. And I want

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Speaker 1: to quote from that now. One of them is his

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Speaker 1: former cellmate at Jessup, Nathaniel Mathis, thirty two, now working

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Speaker 1: at a telephone company, who showed up to wish his

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Speaker 1: friend well. I can relate so much to him how

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Speaker 1: he was stripped of everything. Mathis says, like Jim, I

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Speaker 1: lost everything a hundred and ten percent. But the lord

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Speaker 1: works in the lowest valleys. Lawrence Drew and his friends

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Speaker 1: are all black men in their twenties, just out of

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Speaker 1: prison on drug related or similar charges. In four hours,

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Speaker 1: they have to show up at a janitorial job for

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Speaker 1: manpower for Jesus, their halfway house alternative. All are hopeful

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Speaker 1: that their lives will soon change, and they look to

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Speaker 1: back or for inspiration. Oh sure, all of us can

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Speaker 1: relate to him, says Drew, who has just paid twenty

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Speaker 1: five dollars for Baker's book and is waiting patiently to

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Speaker 1: have it signed. He's the underdog, and that's what we are. Underdogs.

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Speaker 1: He's real. He's very real. And now by which he

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Speaker 1: means after the prison term, I think he can be

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Speaker 1: more powerful than he ever was. Who Yeah, that's that's

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Speaker 1: not what you guess, right right right? What what is

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Speaker 1: going on there? What is like that mindset to I

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Speaker 1: don't get it. Yeah, it's people was like yeah, just

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Speaker 1: for like just ignoring exactly what he did. Is I

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Speaker 1: mean just like obviously it's like like the Maga folks

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Speaker 1: today are just exactly it's the same minded like whatever,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's he's fighting for us. I guess I

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Speaker 1: don't I don't know. I don't understand it. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: it's hard to understand. Some of it is just that

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Speaker 1: like as general rule, the Black Christian community is considered

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Speaker 1: to be is extremely forgiving, right. Like It's like a

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Speaker 1: number of prominent figures in the American history have like,

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Speaker 1: after doing something bad, like shown up at like a

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Speaker 1: black church and given a speech or something and like,

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Speaker 1: you know, done the Mia colpa there because it's kind

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Speaker 1: of a good place to do it. Um. And there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of complex reasons for that that I don't

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Speaker 1: feel competent to get into. But it's like it is

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Speaker 1: a trend, particularly for like white people who do something

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Speaker 1: really bad. Um, Like I'm gonna wipe this away by Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's a thing that happens, um. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So that's good. Yeah. Now. One of the things, ironically,

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Speaker 1: that helped Jim Baker in crafting his act too was

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Speaker 1: the fact that he had never been a very good

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Speaker 1: preacher in the theological sense. All of his sermons and

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Speaker 1: ideas were just cribbed from more original thinkers, people like

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Speaker 1: Oral Roberts. It was hard for him to come up

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Speaker 1: with much on his own. Because Jim had dropped out

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Speaker 1: of Bible College and never quite finished reading the Bible. UM.

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Speaker 1: And it would seem to me that this would be

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Speaker 1: a bad thing to reveal after you've spent thirty years

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Speaker 1: as like an expert on Christianity. But Baker leaned into

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Speaker 1: this successfully and he flipped it into a positive because

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Speaker 1: now he could start claiming that he had learned the

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Speaker 1: Bible in prison um and that like that taught him

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Speaker 1: more about his faith than than Bible College. And this

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Speaker 1: is how he starts to claim, like this is how

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Speaker 1: he learns prosperity gospels wrong, as while he's in prison

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Speaker 1: he gets to really focus on the Bible for the

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Speaker 1: first time. It's an amazing griftuh. From the Washington Post quote,

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Speaker 1: he learned above all that the meekschell and at the Earth,

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Speaker 1: that his forty room mansion, an air conditioned dog house

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Speaker 1: in twelve cars were part of an ungodly, arrogant lifestyle,

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Speaker 1: a realization he came to a few months after he

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Speaker 1: was initially denied parole. I believe the Bible said, above all,

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Speaker 1: God wants you to prosper well. When I went to prison,

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Speaker 1: I began to study the Bible, and I realized that

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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ didn't have anything good to say about money.

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Speaker 1: He says in his sermon, he called money the deceitfulness

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Speaker 1: of riches. He said, woe unto the rich. And this

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Speaker 1: plays really well to crowd a poor black people in

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Speaker 1: l A. And it's just it's amazing that this is

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Speaker 1: coming from this fucking guy's mouth. But it it works.

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Speaker 1: It's it's something else. I don't I don't understand. I

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Speaker 1: don't know that I ever will if guys like Jim

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Speaker 1: Baker are grifting on easy mode or if he's like

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Speaker 1: the fucking if he's just that good, it's impossible for

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Speaker 1: me to really tell um. But it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: So Jim reinvinced himself as a bold man, preaching the

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Speaker 1: word of God from the position of a sinner. He

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Speaker 1: talked about the little log cabin where he lived now,

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Speaker 1: which was really a seventeen thousand square foot home lent

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Speaker 1: to him by a wealthy follower, and he met a

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Speaker 1: new wife too, Lorie Beth Graham. She was a preacher

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Speaker 1: as well, with a harrowing history of abortion and drug

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Speaker 1: abuse to give her the kind of arc that really

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Speaker 1: sells to the evangelical crowd. But her real main qualification

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Speaker 1: in Jim's eyes was the fact that she was the

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Speaker 1: spitting image of his ex wife, Tammy, only she was

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Speaker 1: seventeen years younger. And it's worth noting that like his

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Speaker 1: first wife's Tammy, second wife's LORI, that's not for nothing.

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Speaker 1: Um right, there's something going on there, and you know

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Speaker 1: where else there's something going on. Vic. Where's that? The

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Speaker 1: products and services that support this podcast? Oh, let's hear

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Speaker 1: about that? Oh yeah, yes, wow, those were great products,

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Speaker 1: pretty good services. Better products and services, I have to say,

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Speaker 1: but that's a matter of interpretation, much like the Bible.

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Speaker 1: So with a stable base of supporters in California, Jim

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Speaker 1: began to tour the nation once more. He built up

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Speaker 1: his time in a cushy minimum security prison for massive

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Speaker 1: fraud into a journey through the eye of the needle.

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Speaker 1: The Washington Post reported on one sermon he gave in

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Speaker 1: Jericho City, he described the exact moment of his epiphany,

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Speaker 1: a story he calls his day in the Pit of Hell,

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Speaker 1: Speaking as if in a few state, he recalls vague

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Speaker 1: and spooky details, a door open, a madman singing la

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Speaker 1: la la, la la. At some point he looked down

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Speaker 1: into the possessed eyes, and the door locked behind him.

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Speaker 1: He was either in the insane asylum or in solitary confinement.

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Speaker 1: A man was dying in the next cell. A toilet

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Speaker 1: was overflowing. I had lost the will to live, he

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Speaker 1: tells the crowd. I had slipped into a corner of

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Speaker 1: hell as I was going insane. I've always cried out.

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Speaker 1: At the split second, I was leaving the world, it

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Speaker 1: cried Jim, I love you. At first he saw no one.

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Speaker 1: Then a vision appeared at the door, a man with

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Speaker 1: brown skin and brown eyes. I didn't know angels are black,

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Speaker 1: he says. I didn't know. That's his first thought. Not

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Speaker 1: then angel there, but they're black. Yeah, I didn't call

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Speaker 1: that one. Amazing. Amazing that this plays. Not long after

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Speaker 1: that speech, a wealthy followers swept in and donated twenty

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Speaker 1: five million dollars that Jim and his new wife, Laurie

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Speaker 1: could build a new compound to film their show from.

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Speaker 1: The Baker's instantly abandoned the flock they'd cultivated in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: but they were sure to use the story of those

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Speaker 1: people's generosity to reinforce the narrative of their own awesomeness.

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Speaker 1: During his tour of America, Jim sometimes would regularly refer

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Speaker 1: to his Los Angeles ministry as the inner City. That

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Speaker 1: was how he was supposed to, but he would generally

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Speaker 1: slip and just call it the ghetto, saying things like

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Speaker 1: I found healing in the ghetto. Those people love me

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Speaker 1: so much, God people. Glauri also had a number of

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Speaker 1: choice lines in that vein, telling one reporter this is

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Speaker 1: probably not PC, but out of all the races, white, Hispanic,

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Speaker 1: Afro American, the people of the black race have been

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Speaker 1: by far the kindness to Jim out of all the races. Oh.

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Speaker 1: A tip from me is, if you're starting a sentence

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Speaker 1: with out of all the races, stop the sentence, stop

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Speaker 1: the sentence. Whatever you whatever you're saying, don't. Oh Jesus Christ, unreal.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand three, the Bakers moved back to the South.

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Speaker 1: A wealthy supporter from Missouri, who claimed Jim had saved

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Speaker 1: his marriage, paid for them to get up and running

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Speaker 1: in the studio City Cafe in Branson. I love Branson,

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Speaker 1: by the way. It's it's the city where this happens.

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Speaker 1: And and yeah, Branson is like it's like it is

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Speaker 1: like for for this group of people like Las Vegas,

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Speaker 1: and like Las Vegas, like l A is filled with

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Speaker 1: all these like stars who are past their prime. And

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Speaker 1: so they get like, that's what Jim Baker is doing exactly,

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Speaker 1: He's doing his like show in Branson Um and so

399
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Speaker 1: like they do that for a few years and eventually

400
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Speaker 1: they're there. Backer uses his millions to construct a new

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Speaker 1: compound for them called Morning Side, which is basically the

402
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Speaker 1: same as their old compound, but somewhat more modest. It

403
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Speaker 1: is not as big and grand, but it includes like

404
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Speaker 1: a fake Main Street, USA, and like basically like it's

405
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Speaker 1: basically like a weird fake like that chunk of Disney

406
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Speaker 1: World that Jim Baker streets for himself. With this recording studio,

407
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Speaker 1: it's probably not nearly as cool. No churros um, No,

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Speaker 1: definitely not Chiros. So they move in there at two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight and they've been there ever since. And it's

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Speaker 1: worth noting that this millionaire Backer, Jerry Crawford, actually owns

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Speaker 1: the proper most of the property at Morning Side, presumably

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Speaker 1: because Jim Baker can't really own property anymore because he

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Speaker 1: still owes millions of dollars in back taxes. So there's

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Speaker 1: like some sketchy ship. Given his felon status. It's also

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Speaker 1: unlikely that Jim Baker could have convinced the I r

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Speaker 1: S to grant tax exempt status to another one of

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Speaker 1: his organizations. That is probably not going to happen a

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Speaker 1: second time around, Right, you know, fool me once, shame

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Speaker 1: on me for me twice. I'm not gonna make you

420
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Speaker 1: tax exempt again. Um. This is probably why he had

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Speaker 1: to discard all of the prosperity gospel nonsense from his

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Speaker 1: first rise to power. He can't ask people to blindly

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Speaker 1: send him money anymore, or at least not the same way. Now.

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Speaker 1: I'm not an expert in taxes, but i do know

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Speaker 1: that generally money you receive as a gift is treated

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Speaker 1: very differently from money that you receiving the sale of

427
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 1: a product. You don't normally need to pay taxes on

428
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: a gift, right, Like, that's kind of a basic rule.

429
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: Now stick with me, Vick, because this is where the

430
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 1: grift gets really complicated. This is this is the pivot

431
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 1: that he makes, and it's kind of it's objective, brilliant. Um. So,

432
00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 1: the main theological shift that Jim Baker undergoes during his

433
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 1: prison metamorphosis is to drop the prosperity gospel bullshit and

434
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,480
Speaker 1: pick up apocalyptic rapture bullshit. And it's the kind of

435
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 1: art that makes narrative sense so people don't question, you know,

436
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: Like I thought that it was all about money and

437
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 1: all about like bringing that in, but then I realized that, like,

438
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:19,399
Speaker 1: it's all about God and he's coming back and the

439
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,680
Speaker 1: world is ending, So wealth doesn't even matter anymore because

440
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 1: he can't So he can't promise people to make them

441
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: rich by donating money to him anymore. Um, So why

442
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: would you focus on wealth? So the question then is, though,

443
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,439
Speaker 1: why does he start focusing on the apocalypse? What is

444
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 1: the grift in the apocalypse? Well, obsessing over the apocalypse

445
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,440
Speaker 1: allows Jim Baker to hawk an endless line of survival equipment,

446
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: primarily Baker buckets, which are are dried food storage buckets

447
00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: for preppers. Um. And so we'll talk more about those

448
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:52,240
Speaker 1: in a minute. Now, selling a shipload of survival equipment

449
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: would normally mean you have to hand over a lot

450
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: of that money uh to the state and taxes, right,

451
00:24:57,119 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: Like that's how a business works. But this is not

452
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,199
Speaker 1: a business. See, if you know Jim Baker, you know

453
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: that the last motherfucking thing he's ever going to do

454
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: is pay a goddamn diamond taxes. Um, So he works

455
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 1: out a way to not do that. And here's how

456
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed describes the grift in Morningside Lingo. These traded supplies

457
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 1: or offerings are called love gifts. Technically, the Ministry isn't

458
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: selling these items. Instead, the organization's business model requires that

459
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: the ministry function on donations, and those donations are a

460
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 1: lot easier to get if people get something in return,

461
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: be it a mug or be it a bucket of

462
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: food for the apocalypse, So there's no purchasing happening gift

463
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 1: to the ministry. It's awesome. That is such a good grift, unreal,

464
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: and it's it's this is where you really, you really

465
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: see Jim elevate in my mind to like the ranks

466
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: of truly great grifters, because before I feel like he's

467
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: on easy mode, Like there's there's no artifice in in

468
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 1: just saying give me money, it'll make you rich. This

469
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: is a legitimately brilliant grifts and he's one that can

470
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,639
Speaker 1: like app so easily just like find out what the

471
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 1: next path is, you know. And he's been doing this

472
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:09,119
Speaker 1: since like yeah two thou, um So, he's he and

473
00:26:09,119 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 1: he you know, Barack Obama was a huge boon to

474
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:14,119
Speaker 1: his business. He claimed almost immediately that Barack Obama was

475
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: probably the Antichrist um and the end was nigh um

476
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 1: and yeah, and you might think that his boy Trump

477
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: getting elected would have like actually done some damage to

478
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: his bottom line, um, because he really supported Donald Trump.

479
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 1: But he was able to flip almost immediately into freaking

480
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: out about a black president to freaking out about all

481
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: the different natural disasters that we're going to batter the

482
00:26:35,240 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: that we're battering the US, and then also saying that

483
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: you know, if you're against Trump, that's God wanted Trump

484
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: in there, then you're you're for the devil. Yeah, it's

485
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: so good, It's just awesome, um so and thou. Fifteen

486
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,480
Speaker 1: NPR did a deep dive into his survival buckets, which

487
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 1: the prepper community tends to refer to as baker buckets,

488
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 1: and they are not well regarded amongst the kinds of

489
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: people who keep a lot of survival food in their houses.

490
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: They're not they're not considered good sawdust. Yeah, they you

491
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:13,280
Speaker 1: you've done so many videos there, just like focus deep

492
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: pans on like these fucking buckets like normal survival food.

493
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: You'll like, you'll like, you'll pour out like a little

494
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: freeze dried packet of what is and you'll pour in

495
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 1: water and you'll stir it together. It's like, look, you

496
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: got mac and cheese or whatever, right, baker like fills

497
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: up like a check getting massive tubs of this like

498
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 1: dried cheese, cheesey broccoli soup. We'll just be slowly stirring

499
00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: this like mash if what looks and has to smell

500
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: like vomit, and it's just stick. It fills ladle and

501
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 1: just eat right from the ladle. It's horrifying. What kind

502
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: of church is this? What is what is going on? Yeah?

503
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 1: The Jim Baker's ads will will play some audio from

504
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,400
Speaker 1: one of them later. His ads for food buckets are

505
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: I I find them eggs stentially horrifying. Are that was

506
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: a clock ticking down? Yeah, it's unlike anything else I've

507
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: ever seen? Um, But I want to read first before

508
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: you drop into one of those videos. I want to

509
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: read first from a two thousand and fifteen uh NPR

510
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: deep dive on his survival buckets quote among the freeze

511
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: ried products available on his website is a fifty days

512
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 1: survival food sampler bucket containing a hundred and fifty four meals.

513
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: It will cost you a hundred and thirty five dollars,

514
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: but the idea is you'll be prepared when food shortage

515
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 1: is hit. Imagined the world is dying and you're having

516
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: a breakfast for kings. The food We've got our hands

517
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: on a version of this bucket, which contains a variety

518
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: of hardy dishes, including buttermilk pancakes, vegetable chicken soup, creamy

519
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: stroke it off, black bean burgers, fetecchini alfredo, and mashed potatoes.

520
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: In October, three hour long segments were devoted to Baker's

521
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 1: assertion that we are the generation that will experience rapture.

522
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: Followers must be prepared to survive and continue preaching the gospel,

523
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: he says, and why not, as Baker urges, buy food

524
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: today so that you can have parties when the world's

525
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:06,239
Speaker 1: coming up heart. Save for the pudding, the dishes were

526
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: extremely salty and odd, lingering aftertastes, we couldn't agree on

527
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: which was worse the thick potato soup, but like eating

528
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: wet cement, the strong chemical overtones and the chocolate pudding

529
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: or the disturbing radioactive orange of the macaroni and cheese.

530
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: Christ And do you have a segment you want to

531
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: play about the baker buckets before, because that's yeah, there's

532
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: uh you're talking to me like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

533
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: there's I mean, there's like the cheesy broccoli rice. It's

534
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: just so like offensive the watch and it's to hear

535
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: the plops of you know, the broccoli dropping into the soup.

536
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: It's just like this bright yellow, like neon yellow. It

537
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: should orange should not. Yeah, it's almost love craft Ian

538
00:29:54,960 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, yeah, it's unsettling. No, And I don't know. Yeah,

539
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: you can't see them, so it's it's hard to Oh

540
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 1: my god it okay, look at this. Look look at this.

541
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: But what I love to put my hands in, but

542
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: it's hot this this. Look at the rocoley in there.

543
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: Look at that rockety that's why would you want that

544
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: at the top of a pizza? If I wouldn't gross

545
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: you out, I would eat right out of this shovel. Wow,

546
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: let's let's dump this in with the rice. There it goes.

547
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: We're dumping twenty two gallons into the right into the right. Now,

548
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: I have forty four gallons. What if you happen to

549
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: survive for two years or three years, you're gonna need

550
00:30:52,320 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: some more food. But h and it just looks like

551
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: it looks almost like powdered protein. It's just like like

552
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: I've I've I eat a lot of dried food. I

553
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: go camping, I do, like he's just eating it's so good,

554
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: so good. I I've never like, no one else sells

555
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:28,479
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with how people sell survival food. No

556
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:33,239
Speaker 1: one has this. The best is uh that he's like

557
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: he must have had like extra buckets. So now he

558
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: started selling buckets filled with bibles, which is insane, and

559
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: they recommend, you know, burying the bibles the bucket for

560
00:31:46,760 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: when they need it down the line. Completely insane, unbelievable.

561
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: I don't it's amazing. It's amazing. He's selling a twenty

562
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: buckets sampler there for donation or more po Branson Bizara,

563
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 1: unfucking real, dude, I'll never understand how this works, but

564
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 1: it does. I don't know. And some good lawyers on

565
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: his side, you know, I don't even know if anyone's tried,

566
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: like there's this is just the way the law works.

567
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: And it shouldn't. You shouldn't just be able to say

568
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: it's a donation, here's your product. But I guess it's fine.

569
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: We've all agreed not to stop this. Um, it's pretty

570
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: cool and good and I have to know. One of

571
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: the surreal things about watching modern Jim Baker's ads is

572
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: that he looks like David Cross in a costume. Like, yeah,

573
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: that's definitely part of it. He like you, I emerged

574
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: from prison. And then he kinda you know, he's wearing

575
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 1: a cap now and he's got this like beard. Yeah,

576
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: he's like, you've reinvented himself a little bit, you know

577
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: his look. Yeah, you have to when you do this. So, Vick,

578
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start selling buckets of slop. I mean, no

579
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: taking donations. If you donate to me, I will make

580
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: sure forty four gallons of something liquid and hot arrives

581
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: at your door. I'll find a way. So let's send

582
00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: the money over and in the meantime, check out these

583
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: ads for products that are not donation based and function

584
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:56,400
Speaker 1: within the regular economy and have to pay taxes. Yeah.

585
00:33:56,520 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: Jim Baker wound up on Donald Trump's side of the

586
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: election and his politic cool stances over the last few

587
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 1: years won't really surprise anyone. In August, he said this,

588
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton is a very wicked and Unchristian woman. She

589
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: supports gay rights and abortion. I would say she is

590
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 1: a bride of Satan. If America, alexir it could lead

591
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: to armageddon and cool. So she would have been so

592
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: much better of a candidate if she was married to

593
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: the devil, like less problematic than Bill Um. Yeah, but alas,

594
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 1: initially it looked like Trump selection would be bad for

595
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,280
Speaker 1: Jim's business. Like I said, Um, the whole president Hillary

596
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,839
Speaker 1: means armageddon lyon, I think he was really gearing up

597
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: for Hillary Clinton as president because he would have sold

598
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: the ship out of food and Bible books whole out.

599
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: Like you know they're gonna ban the Bible. You gotta

600
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: bury your Bibles, you gotta bury your food, bury at all. Yeah.

601
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: The best is like his live feed of the of

602
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: when the results are coming in. You know, they're just

603
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 1: like preparing for Trump to lose and to and to

604
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 1: start their grift again. And like the same thing with

605
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: Alex Jones. Yeah, they had to think on their feet quickly. Yeah,

606
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: how do we get through this now? How do we

607
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 1: get through this? Now and it was disastrous for Alex

608
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: Jones in the end, Um, it wasn't disastrous for Jim Baker.

609
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:16,359
Speaker 1: I and I I don't really know why other than that,

610
00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:23,760
Speaker 1: like Alex Jones is uh violent and and uh commits

611
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: a ton of crimes. And I think Jim Baker has

612
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: been pretty careful about committing crimes since all of the

613
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: crimes he committed sent him to prison. Um, I guess

614
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: that's I guess that's just it. UM. And I at

615
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: kind of the end of this here, I'm left trying

616
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: to wonder what Jim's followers seeing him like when you like,

617
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: you find and I think most people find these videos

618
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 1: from a show so profoundly unsettling that you were You've

619
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: spent dozens of hours of your life editing them into

620
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: the horror shows that they really are. To try to

621
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: like highlight that because I mean, a guess, can you

622
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: can you can you tell me about the first time

623
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: you ever came across one of these videos, Like what

624
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: it was like realizing this was all going on. There

625
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: had to be a time before you knew Jim Baker that. Yeah,

626
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought I came across the Baker bucket

627
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: like when he was making the cheesy brack of the

628
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 1: rice and the massive tubs. Um uh. My friend Tim

629
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: Heidecker found it. He says, you gotta do something with

630
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 1: this because it seems like it's like it's like a

631
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 1: skit or something. It just doesn't seem real, you know,

632
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: And like, I don't I don't know what's up with

633
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: the people that that. I don't know how anybody can

634
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: just watch that and not like be offended, like wow,

635
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: like why is this happening? How why would you give

636
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,600
Speaker 1: it this guy any money? But um, I think I

637
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: think it's a lot of because he still has a

638
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: lot of older people that you know, grew up with

639
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:51,800
Speaker 1: him in the seventies and eighties, and and he's this

640
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: cultural icon in a way. Um, and you know, it's

641
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of the cult mentality to there,

642
00:36:59,040 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: because like even you can actually like buy rooms in

643
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: his studio so you can people live there, live in

644
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: the studio. Yeah, so all old ladies pretty much. Uh yeah. Yeah.

645
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: But I've noticed recently, even before the coronavirus upbreak, like

646
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: the crowd has been pretty slim. It's like they've been

647
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:23,719
Speaker 1: trying to fill the uh the rose with like statues

648
00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: and stuff to make it, you know, fill the room

649
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 1: up a little bit. But yeah, I'd be curious to

650
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:32,479
Speaker 1: know how they're doing. Yeah there, Um, it's interesting there.

651
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: So this is like you do have to say, it's

652
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: his His current digs are much more, much less ambitious

653
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 1: than his original ones, and like, I think his studio

654
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: has about a sixty seat audience if Yeah, they're they're

655
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: kind of all older women, and yeah, it does seem

656
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 1: like there have been less of them lately for his reasons. Um,

657
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: but he did, uh, he did slip with the uh

658
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: with pushing the silver solution, Yeah he did. He got

659
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: in trouble for that. He's he's like the Missouri a g. Yeah,

660
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: I think New York to like, yeah, we'll see what

661
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: kind of damage that does. It's interesting because I think

662
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 1: he kind of backed off on the silver stuff once

663
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: he got sued. Maybe a little wrong on that, but

664
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,240
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, I know Alex did not. Alex Jones

665
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:20,279
Speaker 1: has just been like I think he's just kind of

666
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: being like, fuck it, let's see what they do. Ye

667
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:25,359
Speaker 1: come and get me, and like, yeah, Jim Baker's whole

668
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 1: life is testament to the fact that like they don't

669
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: do that much like you have to commit tens of

670
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in fraud and violent rape, and like

671
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: the rape didn't have any im back on a sentencing,

672
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:36,839
Speaker 1: as he wasn't charged for it. But I do think

673
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 1: it kind of played into the fact that like something

674
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 1: happened to him. Like I think if he just committed

675
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:43,360
Speaker 1: to financial crimes, I doubt he would have spent more

676
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: like a year in prison. But um yeah, it's quite

677
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: a quite a thing. Anyways, I wanted to kind of

678
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: end by trying to get into the heads a little

679
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 1: bit of the people who watch this and love this

680
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: and find him inspiring, because I will never really understand them,

681
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 1: but we should try to you a little bit because

682
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: it's important. UM So, I found a BuzzFeed article um

683
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: that that interviews a woman who's a big fan of

684
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 1: Jim Baker's uh, an older lady named Dave's Green as

685
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 1: her her last name. UM quote. I watched the show

686
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: because I can connect with Jim and Laurie. They seem

687
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,680
Speaker 1: to be such everyday people, she says, the stuff they

688
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: talk like, who they're like what. I grew up in

689
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:31,720
Speaker 1: the South, I know the rural parts of this country.

690
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone like Jim Baker, Like, what the

691
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 1: are you talking about? Um, Jesus. The stuff they talk

692
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: about the show, it's stuff that we everyday people struggle with.

693
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 1: And I guess that part is true because they do

694
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,320
Speaker 1: talk to you about that. It's helped me to be

695
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: a better person, So that part I get. Um Day's

696
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: Green is worried about many things, the Leviathan spirit, natural disasters, pestilence,

697
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,600
Speaker 1: bird flu, swine flu, Palestine, the Second Coming of Christ

698
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,240
Speaker 1: isis blast me an immigration, which is the amazing list

699
00:40:02,280 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, you should be worried about, you know,

700
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: diseases and natural Palestine. Wait, no, no, no, no immigration.

701
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,360
Speaker 1: Over the course of our conversation, she expresses fear that

702
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: the world is crumbling before her, that people are falling

703
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: further and further away from God. I am awake, Daves

704
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 1: Green says. People say that I am crazy, but I

705
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: am not crazy. Jim Baker is not crazy. We know

706
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:31,800
Speaker 1: that something is happening and we are trying to do something. Mostly,

707
00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: Daves Green says she has been called crazy by the

708
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: church she used to attend. She asked the church to

709
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:38,479
Speaker 1: preach on the Book of Revelation to reveal the truth

710
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 1: of the Bible that she believes people need to know

711
00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: because it's happening now. She uses a verse from Hebrews

712
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 1: five twelve in our conversation which chastises young Christians for

713
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: their dependence on easily digested topics of faith instead of

714
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 1: trying to tackle more meaty ones. Revelation, in her opinion,

715
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: is than meat. I guess I got thrown into the

716
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 1: fanatical group, she says, because her church asked her to

717
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: leave Dave's. Green's faith is tightly bound together with her

718
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: Paul Plitics. She says he is a Donald Trump supporter.

719
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 1: She wants the swamp in Washington, d C. Cleared out,

720
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 1: and she wants America to return to the America she

721
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 1: lived in during her childhood. There's a lot of it

722
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 1: there and that's why Main Street USA is the theme

723
00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 1: of his current like compound sort of church thing. Yeah,

724
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: they want to go back in time and they're very

725
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,719
Speaker 1: open about that. Um. I'm continuing the article because I

726
00:41:24,719 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: think this is important. Her biggest personal causes immigration. She

727
00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: wants her governor Greg Abbott to get rid of the

728
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,720
Speaker 1: sanctuary cities in Texas. In fact, Abbott recently signed legislation

729
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: banning them. It used to be a little shelf in

730
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 1: the grocery store that had a few little Mexican things

731
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:38,920
Speaker 1: on it, but now there's a whole section of the

732
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: store that's written in Spanish. She explains. They are supposed

733
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 1: to assimilate. It went from like five Mexican families to

734
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: like around us to like twenty. There are Muslim people

735
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: living in Graham, a nearby town. They took over the

736
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: convenience stores. She pauses, I don't want to have to

737
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: physically fight those people here on our own homeland for

738
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,280
Speaker 1: our Christian American values, but I will. They're an invading force,

739
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: I feel. Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's it's yeah, that's

740
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:10,160
Speaker 1: what that's. That's something though, I mean, because he doesn't

741
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: I think he does have like Muslim guests on his show,

742
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 1: you know, I think he could be wrong. Yeah, yeah,

743
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,439
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about that, but that's at least

744
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 1: what this lady takes. Yeah. Interesting, Yeah, it's it's pretty wild.

745
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: And the language that Baker used around Donald Trump is

746
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: pretty wild. Um, Like in the run up to, like

747
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: during the election, he said at one point, I'm not

748
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: supposed to tell you this, but I have eyewitnesses. Donald

749
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 1: Trump is a very tender man, and he weeps. He

750
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: wants to please God more than anything else. He wants

751
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: to be president of the United States and make things

752
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: right in this country because he loves God Almighty. Then,

753
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 1: with his eyes shining, Baker declared, God has called I

754
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:55,359
Speaker 1: believe Donald Trump. So yeah, and Baker says Trump called

755
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: him to thank him after his election. Uh and and

756
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:00,960
Speaker 1: they were invited to the inauguration, which they attended. They

757
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 1: were invited to the inaugural prayer, breakfast, and inaugural ball.

758
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: Uh so yeah, that's you get this guy, were walking

759
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: around the Whitehouse. That's normal, typical stuff. That's good good,

760
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:18,840
Speaker 1: it's good for good for America. Um. I mean in

761
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:23,439
Speaker 1: terms of the rapists in the White House, he's one

762
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: of them. He is among them on the list. Um yep,

763
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: that's our episode. Yeah, how does everybody feel like, Oh

764
00:43:37,880 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 1: my god, I need a bath. Yeah, a bath in

765
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:45,920
Speaker 1: one of those giant buckets full of cheesy brock. Oh

766
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: my Christ. So how um, how are we doing? Dude?

767
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:08,160
Speaker 1: All right? Yeah? M hm, yep, yep, Robert, m hm.

768
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 1: You're frozen. I know, we're all frozen, frozen, frozen, in

769
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 1: awe of the grifting talent of Jim Baker. Fucking incredible. Well, Vic,

770
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: you wanna plug your plug doubles? Do you sell gigantic

771
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: forty four gallon buckets of slop? I don't at the

772
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: moment that it. Yeah, if you're gonna get my dusty

773
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: food together, you mix it with a little water and

774
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 1: you can you can feed your family the good as

775
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 1: a general rule, the good dried food like that. You

776
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 1: open the packs and you can tell it's food. Right,

777
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: it looks like freeze dried and like shrunken and you know, desiccated,

778
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: but it looks like what it is, and like some

779
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 1: of it you can just eat dry and it's not bad.

780
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: Like Mountain House, you can eat that ship dry and

781
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. Um, Baker's food, Yeah, just looks like sawdust.

782
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: It's a slop. But it's like, yeah, pig should be

783
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: eating it. I don't know how he's put a trough

784
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: out there, and that's sucking incredible. Um right, oh yeah,

785
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: but you can, Uh, if you want to see my

786
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: re edits of Jim Baker videos, you can head to

787
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: my YouTube, Vic Burger. Uh, there's a number of them

788
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: on there. There's a lot of a lot of stuff.

789
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: They're a lot of a lot of fun stuff. You

790
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: can check me out on Twitter, Facebook, type in Vic

791
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 1: Burger and there I am. Yeah, there he is, and

792
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 1: I am also on the internet. He's I I write

793
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: okay on Twitter, We're at Bastard's Pot on Twitter and Instagram.

794
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 1: We have a t publok store where you can buy merch.

795
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 1: Robert also hosts a podcast called The Women's War. You

796
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 1: should check it out. I haven't verified any of this information,

797
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: so check up on it on your own, yeah, he said,

798
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: And thanks. Thanks for what you guys do. You guys

799
00:45:53,600 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 1: are doing important work documenting all this safely. Thank you

800
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 1: as well. Please, um, please continue doing I don't really

801
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 1: know how to describe what you do, but it's important. Um,

802
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: it's important documentation. I consider it a form of journalism, Vic,

803
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why. It's because the the the actual,

804
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 1: the baseline reality of these these videos doesn't do enough

805
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: to convey emotionally what happens to a human being who

806
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,880
Speaker 1: watches them in the time in which they're concurrent. And

807
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:29,720
Speaker 1: I think what you do provides that by by setting

808
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 1: the tone. That is important. Yeah, because I mean because

809
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: Jim is like he's doing you know, five six hours

810
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:38,479
Speaker 1: a week. He's like, you know, these shows are long,

811
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 1: and uh so yeah, I try to whittle it down

812
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: to the most horrifying moments. Yeah, it's pretty cool and good. So, um,

813
00:46:50,520 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 1: we're all gonna go wash our hands, wash our hands, cry, pray, pray,

814
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: pray about crying, cry about prayer. Yeah, it's gonna be

815
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 1: it's gonna be good. Alright, alright, thanks than on being

816
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: on VIC h M.