WEBVTT - The Conspiracy Business: What Do We Do Now? (with Will Sommer) 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.800 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.520 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.680 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:13.680 and in war zones. 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.759 We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive our adversaries. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.520 theories large and small. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.280 Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:33.199 This is mission implausible. Well, today's guest is Will Summer. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.559 Will is a senior reporter at the Pullwark Or. He 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:39.239 writes the False Flag newsletter about right wing media and 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.600 the MAGA fringe. He's also worked previously for The Daily 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.479 Beast and The Washington Post. He's the author of Trust 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.199 the Plan, The Rise of QAnon, and The Conspiracy The 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.200 Unhinged America. So Will, let's talk a little bit about 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.280 someone You've written about, someone who's actually quite important in 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.480 our nation security space now that I never thought would 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.440 be Dan Bongino. He's the FBI deputy director who was 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:07.760 a right wing radical and conspiracy theorist with his own podcast. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.960 I'm telling you there could be some national security problems here. 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.760 Because ladies and gentlemen, nobody knows how much material people 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:24.160 have on Jeffrey Epstein, who was videoed where those videos are. 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:25.800 I was told by. 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.280 Someone a long time ago, a very knowledgeable reporter, and 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:29.680 so my information, I'm not hiding me. 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.720 Oh you're hiding up for some foreign government you're protecting 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:33.880 I'm not protecting anyone. 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.120 I'm only telling you what I was told that some 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:43.320 governments around the world may have some material that's related 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:44.440 to the Epstein thing. 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.760 Bill Clinton was knee deep in this. Man. I have 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:50.720 a very very good source. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:55.000 He was on the plane with Bill Clinton and Epstein 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.080 on one of Epstein's planes when Bill Clinton was on 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:01.920 the plane with some women who, according to my source, 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.760 looked under age, like I killed himself, and now nobody's 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:07.200 gonna know. 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.120 My buddy was on the plane. 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.840 He didn't see anything directly, but there was like apparently 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.120 some area in the back of the plane where everybody 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:20.480 went to go whatever, do their thing. I've told this 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.320 story a thousand times, and it's amazing how because it's 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.560 the Dan Bongino Show, where we've been right about just 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:28.080 about everything, everyone in the media ignores it. 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.359 Even though this source is still out there. 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.200 But he seems to be having a hard time squaring 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.399 his new work overseeing the FBI workforce with his previous 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.200 fan base who he told he was going to destroy 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:40.800 the FBI. 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.040 You know, just the age that were in Deputy director 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.400 FBI Director Dan Bongino doesn't seem that crazy, but then 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.359 you think about it, you go, wow, that's really crazy. 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.639 I mean, I you know, being in DC, I used 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.400 to hear him on like he would call in the 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.000 local talk radio. He was this ex Secret Service agent. 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.120 You talk about how awful it was working in the 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.800 Obama administrator. And so I thought, all right, I'll never 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:03.760 hear of this guy again. I guess I was wrong. 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.119 So this is a guy now obviously he's working under 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.600 Cash Btel. He's his podcaster. Famously, he couldn't take over 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:13.079 the FBI until his podcast ad sponsorships run out. I mean, 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.760 so a real serious situation here, and now he has 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.480 this he just has all this pressure on him because, 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.160 like Cash Battel, he was saying, you know, the FBI 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.760 is a bunch of crooks, the Democratic deep state is 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.320 run amuck. All these people should be indicted. And now 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.760 that he's in charge, he hasn't indicted anybody. I mean, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:31.400 some of these conspiracy theorist thought they were going to 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.400 get fifty thousand indictments and now no one's been busted. 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:36.320 So the heat is kind of on for Dan Vongino. 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:41.960 Well, Dan Vongina's problem is he trusted the plan right 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.200 from cue and I so, but trust the planet. I'll 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.240 be I got to pay them their due. Some of 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:52.240 the stuff came true insofar as Trump's back, right, I mean, 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.080 we haven't seen the Adrina chrome or people are not 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.880 getting older because they're like killing babies and things like that, 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.440 but they haven't been arrested for that either. So for 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.040 me just to what was the plan and if they're 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.160 trusting it, where should we be with the plan now? 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.360 So, I mean, you know, in the QAnon case, they 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.880 love the phrase trust the Plan, and then sort of 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.720 more broadly in Trump is you know, there's maybe like 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.240 a slightly more watered down version of that, but basically 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:24.239 it's the idea that these democrats, this cabal of people 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.480 in Hollywood and banking and finance, Yeah, they're running the 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.159 world and they're drinking children's blood and all this stuff, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.080 and that ultimately, you know, if only we could get 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.080 in office. If only Trump could control the FBI and 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.680 the Justice Department, then all the secrets would be unveiled. 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.000 And what we're seeing is we don't have the mythical 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:46.880 Epstein client list. The JFK files haven't revealed much of anything. 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.160 All this stuff, and in Dan Bongino's case, they thought 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:51.960 he was gonna You know, this is the guy who's 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.160 saying the FBI's out of control. We got to root 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.600 and vine perform it. And now he's just tweeting all 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.320 the time. I'm working really hard. You can't quite see 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.719 what I'm working on. But just again, as you said, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:04.839 trust the plan is basically what he's asking people to 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:05.640 keep doing forever. 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.200 For example, one of the guys that they had made 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.000 into a boogeyman that they're going to go after is 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.440 this FBI agent named Stephen Jensen, who was appointed to 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.520 lead the Washington Field office recently under Bongino and Patel, 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:20.560 and he oversaw the investigations of January sixth. So to 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.839 Bungino's Maga faithful, he's a demon who went after the 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.279 Proud Boys and all these other kind of things. He's 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.159 trying to tweet it away, but do you see this 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:30.839 causing a real problem for him? 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:33.800 I do. I mean, as you said, this Stephen Jensen 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.360 guy is agent who in the broader world I had 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.080 never heard of him. But if you're a January sixth 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.320 person or like, really follow that, cause this was a 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.160 key FBI guy in terms of the January sixth response, 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.920 which I think for normal people would say, oh, good 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:49.839 for you, But in this case they see him as 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.400 sort of like a devil figure. And the idea that 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.920 he's been promoted now to run the Washington Field office 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.320 is crazy. There's this whole universe of like ex FBI 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.200 whistleblowers such as it is, people who were talking how 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.160 much they hate Naga inside the FBI, and that now 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.520 these people have podcasts and they do media appearances, and 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.159 they say Longino and Cash Mattel are throwing us under 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.200 the bus. They're not really gonna in this case expose 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.839 the truth about J six and how we were all innocent. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.400 So Margo's going to destroy Maga. Naga is not Maga enough. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.000 You can never get like too far. If Dan Dongino 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:25.840 in his I'll use the word ilk. 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:26.560 I love that word. 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.720 It's like, I'm not sure what an ilk is but 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.560 Damigino in his ILK who were saying that they had 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:37.279 the inside scoop. If they become establishment, are they leaving 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.360 the space open from QAnon guys coming and say, oh, 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.480 they've been they've been turned, or they've been you know, 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:46.520 sort of recruited by the deep state. 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:53.200 I gave up everything for this. I mean, you know, 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:54.960 my wife is struggling everything. 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:56.000 And I'm not a victim. 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:56.760 I'm not Jim Coleman. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:57.320 It's fine. 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:59.560 I did this, and I'm proud I did it. But 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.280 I think we're there for tea and crumpets. Well, I mean, 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:06.200 Cash is there all day. We share our offices are linked. 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:07.320 He turns on the faucet. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:07.800 I hear it. 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.280 He's there at he gets into like six o'clock in 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.800 the morning. He doesn't leave till seven at night. You know, 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.560 I'm in there at seven thirty in the morning. You know. 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:16.560 He uses the gym. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:18.920 I work out in my apartment, but I stare at 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.080 these four walls all day in DC. You know, by 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.800 myself divorce from my wife, not divorce, but I mean 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.240 separated divorce. And it's hard. I mean, you know, we 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:28.760 love each other and it's hard to be a part. 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:31.800 People ask me all the time, you know, do you 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:35.000 like it? I say no, I don't, but I didn't 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.120 the President asked me to do this to like it. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:40.440 You know, you nobody likes going into an organization like 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:44.080 that and having to change things and make big, bold changes. 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.000 But you know, I was at one of our facilities 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.600 yesterday down in Winchester, and a woman who worked there, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.480 very nice, said, you know, I used to watch your show. 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:51.960 I miss you. 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.000 I said, you know, I miss me too. You know, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.080 part of you, part of you dies a little bit 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.239 when you see all this stuff from behind the scenes. 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.440 And does that leave room on the far right for 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.440 like a new version of Q and one point two 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.280 or now that they're in, you know, they can control 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.320 their own crazies and it's not going to happen. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.880 There's no nothing gets to the right of them. So 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:15.760 what's your sense on that. 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.320 Is there going to be a new sense of conspiracy 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.600 theories with these guys now at the center of it? 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.560 Or no, once they're in, it's over. 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.920 Yeah. I mean, I do think people like Dan Bongino 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.600 and Cash Reteller are at risk of being outflanked on 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.440 the right with people saying you've gone Washington, you're going 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.280 to these Georgetown cocktail parties already. In the case of 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.160 Pam Bondi, for example, she tried to win over these 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.240 right wing influencers with her Epstein Binder. Then it turned 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.199 out to all the old information people started saying, maybe 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.040 Bondi is part of the cover up. You look at 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.880 someone like RFK, maybe like the ultimate hero to anti vaxers, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.000 and he even grudgingly has to say, well, I guess 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.480 two kids are dead, Maybe you should vaccinate your kids 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.160 for measles, and suddenly they're flipping out at him. So 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:01.320 there's really no satisfying these people on the right because 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:02.920 I think a lot of it is decades of right 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:04.760 wing media. They've been told like you can kind of 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.200 make your own reality. We saw in the Fox News 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:09.480 lawsuit the emails saying, oh my gosh, if we admit 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.600 the election wasn't stolen, we're going to lose all our audience. 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.680 So I think Bongino as like a hybrid right wing 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:19.800 media guy and politician. He has to. He's very conscious 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:21.320 of this, and I think that's why he keeps tweeting 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:21.839 about it. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.360 It's interesting to me to see that Telca Gavard and 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.680 Radcliffe and Bongino, and they continue to tweet and have 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.040 this sort of public face, which is really unusual. We've 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.160 never seen previous CIA or d and I directors or 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.680 FBI people constantly out there trying to have a public 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.600 face as well as do the work. So it's really interesting. 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.040 And you follow right wing media, and so I think 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:45.600 a lot of us are just learning about how big 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.719 it is and how much of it's based on podcasts 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.080 and all these alternative media. And I see now that 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:53.520 some Democrats are going on these kind of like gro 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.120 podcasts and stuff. What is your sense of that and 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.600 where that's going the right wing media and how to 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:00.280 best engage with it. 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.520 Yeah, I think it's a real challenge for Democrats. The 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.000 idea that you know, I thought such a useful dample 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.640 during the election was that these podcasts like Joe Rogan 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.680 or Theo Vaughn were reaching people who did not really 0:10:10.720 --> 0:10:12.640 actively seek out you know, let me load up the 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.880 New York Times or sit down and watch CNN, but 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.760 who brushed up against media, brushed up against the news 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.240 or politics. And so they're listening to Joe Rogan because 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.000 they like comedy or UFC or whatever and then he'll 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.000 casually say, you know, well, I think Democrats did this 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.080 conspiracy theory or something, and they go, okay, I guess 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.240 so and so. In that way, I think Democrats have 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.160 really struggled. And you know, even the sort of progressive 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.880 YouTubers or people on Twitch or whatever, their content is 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:40.280 often also about how much they hate the Democratic Party. 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.160 And so I talked to this guy who's kind of 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.280 like a hip hop YouTuber named Adam twenty two, who's 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:47.720 very successful, very like normy Democrat, but this is also 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.320 a guy who films adult films with his wife and 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.959 posts them and all this other kind of unsavory stuff. 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:54.840 I mean, I think several of his co hosts just 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.000 caught Rico charges and this is the He's desperate to 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:00.720 become like the liberal Joe Rogan. But at the same time, 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.000 for Democrats, that's going to mean making some compromises. Maybe 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:05.520 it's a good idea, maybe it's a bad one, but 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:07.280 that's kind of a I think when people say we 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:09.400 need the liberal Joe Rogan, that's often what that's going 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:09.840 to look like. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:15.599 We're going to continue in just a moment, we'll be 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:16.120 right back. 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.840 So I'm ashamed to say, I watched an entire episode 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:36.760 of Tucker Carlson recently. 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.240 And the reason I did that is there was a 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.960 former colleague of John and I a CIA officer, who 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:43.720 was on it, and I wanted to see sort of 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.600 like what was going to say it. One of the 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.120 things I thought was really interesting coming out of this 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.600 is squaring the circle as to how it is that 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.640 former right wing guys who claimed they knew about QAnon 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.640 who are now establishment figures who aren't coming down in 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:01.720 the One of the things be forward by Tucker Carlson 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.480 is that he claims he knows senior politicians in the 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:09.680 US and Congress and in the Senate who supported Trump 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.920 and supported some of these right wing conspiracy theories, and 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.400 when they go into a skiff, which is one of 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:21.360 the rooms that protected from eavesdropping, they go into the 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.880 skiff with some CIA officers alone, and when they come out, 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:27.840 they're different, and. 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:31.560 So he's he's basically Tucker Carlson was saying that basically 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.760 we're brainwashing people inside of these skiffs, and it's an 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.800 interesting way of squaring the circle so that the conspiracy 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.960 he's now spun is that these aren't bad guys, but 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.240 these are guys who were actually been captured by the 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:44.760 d state. 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:45.920 We need to free them. 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.240 It was interesting to wat Check, the CIA officer, who 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:49.600 knows what goesana this is in methods. 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.600 We should change the name from skiff to truth rooms. 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.040 They went into a room and they were different. 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.600 I guess I'm just utterly gobsmicked by the inventiveness of 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:01.560 the right, and I was wondering if you could go 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.760 into like, you know, do you think there are any 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:06.360 limits on. 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:08.920 Where they can't go? 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.280 I would have thought it was like Nazis or JFK 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.360 Junior coming back, but it's I can't seem to see it. 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:16.719 Across long time. 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.040 I know, I know, I know, but you're you're an 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:20.920 expert with q andon, So what's your sense of that 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.240 are there any limits? Because I worry about authoritarianism and 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:25.520 losing our democracy, so. 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:27.760 Of course, yeah, no, I mean, I to be frank, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:29.920 I don't think there are like really any obvious limits 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.000 that people are bumping up against. I think the there 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:35.080 is kind of this challenge now that Trump people are 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.680 in office that we've underlined with Bongino and many others, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.520 where there is like a baseline level of reality that 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.240 these appointees realize they need to operate in in an 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.959 rfk's case, because Okay, we can't just keep having more 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.000 kids die, so I'm going to have to reel it 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.199 back in a little. And then that's causing people to 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.360 flip out. But at the same time, you know, you 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:56.080 mentioned the Hitler kind of revisionism, and this kind of 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.160 goes into the whole world of like bro podcasts too. 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:00.800 The idea that Tucker is from to this guy, this 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.360 guy who gets martyr made, guy who gets out there 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.760 and says, I'm working on a podcast about World War 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.080 Two and my big discovery is that Churchill is the 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.360 main villain of World War Two. And you listen to 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.280 it and it's like, well, you know, I wouldn't even 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.440 put him at you know, top five, top ten, you know, 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.199 I mean, even in the most kind of crazy idea. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.760 But there is kind of this whole sale kind of 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.920 on the right, this attempt to sort of like reimagine 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.120 history and and and you know, and and in that 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:28.720 way kind of our shared reality. So I think up 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:30.720 until I think the when we see this with the 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.240 tariffs too, it's such a wide ranging thing where this, oh, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.560 we're going to restructure the whole economy. I mean, so 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.160 there is kind of a sense to I think, make America, 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.840 and a lot of that involves, you know, remaking what 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.120 we understand to be the world and our country. 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.880 And frankly, that's not unusual what Jerry and I lived 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.280 in places overseas, former communist countries, or we're author darian governs. 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.120 Crafting a false history or crafting a false narrative for 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.160 people to believe is something you do to keep power 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.680 and to control your people. So that's not that unusual, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.000 at least with a more simple question, how did you 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.120 come up with a name for your newsletter the false Flag? 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:07.880 The false flag? Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I mean, 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.800 I was brainstorming about what I wanted the newsletter be about. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.960 I mean, it's about writing media, the fringe, conspiracy theories 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.800 and often you know these days, how that stuff plays 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:19.960 out in the world we live in and the government, 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.560 and so in that way, I mean, false flag obviously 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.160 is a big kind of byword on the right or 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:27.920 by phrase, because they think everything that happens in the 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.840 world is a false flag event, or that there's a 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:33.480 shadowy force behind it. Things are not as they seem 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:35.360 and so given that that's the world we're living in 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.880 now and that kind of thinking is informing what happens, 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:39.680 I figure I go with it, you know, And it's 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:42.800 kind of it's evocative, kind of hopefully catchy, a little punchy. 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.120 So where we go? One we go? 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:45.560 All? 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:47.760 I think that was a really you know, it's a 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.000 little long for a bumper sticker, but it's still pretty cool. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:52.640 But are they going? 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:52.960 All? 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.040 Do you see any fracturing with looking back? 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:00.960 Historically way you have extreme political movements, they often begin 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:04.320 to fracture into different people try to take control of it. 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.480 So are you seeing fracturing on the right now that 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.280 they're facing reality? And or as long as we have 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.480 the figure of Trump as the central figure, that the 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.640 messiah like figure, they can all sort of rarely around 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.400 that that's not happening or not happening yet. 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:21.760 So what's your sense of that? 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:24.040 You know? And this is maybe a bit of good 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.880 news that I see so much fracturing and factionalization, all 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.000 this stuff that I mean, I could fill a newsletter 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.760 twice a week with examples of backfighting or backfighting and 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.280 all this scheming. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.640 easy to be a united movement when you're out of power, 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.800 whether it's business Wall Street types who want lower taxes 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.800 versus like religious zealots or anti vaccine people, you can 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.480 all kind of unite together. But then when you're in office, 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.560 you actually have these policies, let's say in the case 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:52.600 of tariffs, that are going to infuriate business people, but 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.440 you know, perhaps these work where blue collar people want it. 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.440 I mean, all this stuff is you know, we're seeing 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:00.560 people splitting. It's just a couple off the top of 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.440 my head. I mean, now that even Republican appointed judges 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.800 are starting to restrain Trump on immigration, I'm seeing a 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:09.520 lot of attacks on the Federalist society, who, of course 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.879 were very involved in stocking the judiciary with Republicans. So 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:14.320 a lot of people on the writer are saying, you know, 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.200 I think the federal society, you know, there are a 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.879 bunch of deep staters and stuff, which for people, you know, 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:20.760 perhaps liberals, I mean great, you know, if you want 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.200 to go after the Federalist society who handed them the judiciary, 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.160 that sounds like a great idea. Or attacks on Amy 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.280 Cody Barrett, all this kind of stuff. So I do 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.440 think there is like a huge amount of fracturing. I 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.800 think we're seeing a lot of people who maybe got 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.600 into trump Ism because they were sick of wokeism or 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.160 pronouns in bio, these things that I think in retrospect 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.680 they're coming to realize we're minor annoyances that suddenly they're 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.320 realizing like, wait, who have I thrown in with? Who 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.119 are these nuts who are now running the country. 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.480 Yeah, the term that Jerry used there was a QAnon 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.120 term just for people who don't realize it. And one 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.879 person who famously said it publicly was Michael Flynn, a 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.199 former army general, three star general, who Jerry and I 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:00.080 know very well. 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.000 He was selling merch with that. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.000 There was so much So where is he now and 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.760 why hasn't he been brought in? And how is he 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:08.840 responding to the new people in the Trumpet mission? Is 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.240 he even supportive of is he staying away from it? 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:12.400 Is he just trying to make money? 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:13.199 What's what's he up to? 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.080 Well, you guys are gonna love this one. So Michael 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.520 Flynn is he was a hero in the q and 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.640 On community. But all these things, you know, they eat 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.200 their own and so really, just in the past week, 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.280 or two. Michael Flynn has really been targeted by QAnon 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.679 and conspiracy theorists who say he is a deep stater. 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.159 They're looking at his brother, who I believe was in 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.520