Pod Save America
Pod Save America

The Splintering MAGA Media Rage Machine

1h ago1:02:5713,181 words
0:000:00

Will Sommers, author of The Bulwark's "False Flag" newsletter, sits down with Tommy to talk about the MAGA media world — including the right-wing personalities who may be considering a political futur...

Transcript

EN

(upbeat music)

- Welcome to Potset of America on Tommy VTor. As we speak, the mega media world is fracturing. And many of its leading voices are desperately trying to figure out what a post-Trump Naga Movement will mean for them.

For some, this is about business. They want to know if they can maintain the same level of clicks, of ad sales, of pay promotion deals, and a post-Trump political world. But for others, it's about influence.

And a desire to steer the Republican party to a new place, in some cases, a much more extreme place. What we're talking about is ultimately a battle for the soul and attention of the Naga Movement. And it's being fought as we speak

in the podcast YouTube and TikTok trenches. Often on shows or on platforms that most Democrats

have never heard of, but have enormous reach

in influence and conservative circles, especially younger and conservative circles. So to help me understand and track where the Naga Movement is going, I'm joined today by Will Summer from the Bull Work.

Will's newsletter, False Flag, is a twice-weekly deep dive into right-wing online culture in the communities around it and is a must-read for me every week. He is an unparalleled understanding

of who makes up this world, where it's going, what they're talking about, the weird petty pathetic infighting between them. It is fascinating stuff. Now, unfortunately for all of us,

right-wing media is incredibly popular, which is why we hear a crooked media are trying to create a progressive alternative.

The best way you can help us is to become a friend

of the Pod subscriber for about 10 bucks a month.

You get bonus episodes of the Pod Save America. You get ad-free episodes. You get deep dives into the latest polling data from Dan Fyfer and tons more bonus content. And you also can get discounted tickets

to our upcoming CrookedCon Conference and fun on-site perks. So check that out, go to Crooked.com/Friends to learn more. And now, here's my conversation with Will Summer. So Will, your co-workers, Sarah Longwell,

got a bunch of grief recently for saying that a surprising name keeps coming up in her focus groups when she's asking people who they think should run for president. Candace Owen.

And again, this is not people saying that they like Candace's content. It's voter saying they would vote for Candace Owen's for president. Now, I'm sure people listening to this

are thinking like, shut up Tommy,

that is dumb. This isn't saying she is bonkers. Into them, I say, sure I agree with you,

but I think the point is that a lot of people don't.

So just to start with a basics, who is Candace Owen's? And why do you think she is so popular and influential to the point where people want her run for president? - Sure, so Candace Owen's is a woman who emerged.

She's from sort of the right wing media ecosystem that got kind of these classic characters working for people like Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro. And then for the past year or so, past two years, she's become this sort of insurgent, right wing conspiracy

theorist, very anti-Semitic. She pushes a lot of crazy ideas about most notably Charlie Kirk's assassination. She used to work with him and they were friends. And she's sort of been building this

YouTube empire off of both conspiracy theories and also sort of more mainstream celebrity gossip coverage. And so I think she's managed to really sort of diversify her audience beyond just sort of people who listen to talk radio or watch Fox News.

- Yeah, I mean, so Candace's biggest, or at least sort of like splashiest most recent interview was a surprising one. It was with Hunter Biden of all people. Before that, like you said, she spent

months and months and months just relentlessly focused on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and spreading conspiracy theories about it of all shapes and sizes. Like planes were tracking Charlie

that there was like a false flag operation. She seemed to suggest that Eric, Kirk, Charlie Kirk's wife might have been the killer. And then before that, there was this endless series of videos she did alleging that French president

and Emmanuel Macron's wife is in fact a man. So just to folks who haven't listened to Candace much, like here's a clip of Candace on Pierce Morgan show.

But I think we'll keep you sense of the vibe

that comes out of a lot of our content. Let's watch. - Why are we pretending that we don't know why we ask questions like, like, you're a journalist, you can know this is your,

you're like, what's going on? What's going on? We want to know why these planes were tracking Charlie. And that is the reason why people are watching my shows because I'm the only one not treating them

like their absolute idiots. Don't have to us. You believe in magic, believe you. And you understand that did different planes should not have been tracking Charlie

even three times this year would be an anomaly. - Okay, they've been tracking him. We don't know where it's going to be. But we are going to keep asking questions until we get clear answers.

- So she was yelling about Egyptian planes tracking Charlie Kirk. I mean, like, what is her beat?

You mentioned, I mean, she was like celebrity stuff.

She has pop culture, but is her beat just conspiracy?

Like, how do you define it? - Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

I mean, I think she has sort of co-heard around this idea

that there are these sort of pedophile, Epstein class powers that be, they're very closely linked. Israel, closely linked to sort of centuries old Jewish cults and cabals. I mean, you mentioned Brigitte McCrone.

It's not just that Brigitte McCrone is trans, but it's that, like, the McCones are part of this ancient Jewish network going back to the Middle Ages. - Is that the frankest? - The frankest, yeah, exactly.

- Yeah, exactly. - To deepen the shit. (laughs) Even if you listen to it, it often, like, I can get this sense of it.

It can be kind of hard to describe because in part because it's just, you listen to it and it's, it's so crazy and she kind of, she doesn't really bother to, like, make a coherent theory per se.

She more just kind of throws stuff out. She goes, oh, isn't that weird? Isn't that weird? And then suddenly you find yourself that she's walked you to Erica Kirkmerder,

her husband or Brigitte McCrone is trans. And she often will sort of abandon things as they're just proven.

So, like, she'll say, I think that guy in the crowd

at the assassination is acting weird. And that guy will have an excuse and she'll say,

oh, well, never mind, you know, moving on, you know?

And so there isn't so much one conspiracy theory as this general sense of, like, anti-Semitic, capable, this sense of, like, a cabal runs the world. - Yeah, I mean, like, when I listen to Candace's stuff, I find myself getting lost in the sauce

and not able to follow her and we're like, down all these conspiracy roads. But the reason I lead with her and her and her next subject, Tucker Carlson is because the normies in my life

who text me about politics mentioned those to the most. So, like, much like Sarah's focus group, like Candace, I feel like, is very influential. And also, she's been waging this battle against

turning point USA, TPSA ever since Kirk's assassination. And TPSA, for those who don't know, was an incredibly influential media political, kind of voter turnout organization. But now, she seems to have done some damage to it.

Or like, it's that's the question. I mean, how much damage do you think Candace has done to TPSA through this kind of ongoing fighting? - Yeah, I mean, I think Candace and sort of the conspiracy theorists around her

have actually done a lot of damage to turning point. I mean, they have created this sense of, after the Charlie Kirk assassination, there was a lot of goodwill towards turning point.

A lot of, I sense that I think both Trump and that organization

were gonna capitalize on after the murder. But instead, Candace has said, well, maybe Erica Kirk kills her husband. Maybe this organization, she's picked out all these individual executives,

maybe they were involved in these murders. And I think, you know, anecdotally, if you look at like groups of conservative moms, they'll say, oh, well, we were gonna order some turning point shirts, but now, you know, we don't want to be associated with them.

Stuff like that. I mean, I think it's been at best for a turning point to big distraction. I think it's been a lot more damaging. - Yeah, do you think Candace actually has political ambitions?

'Cause it seems like she kind of flirt with maybe running for office in some of her answers, but I don't know, maybe that's just a way to keep yourself in the news. - You know, it's a good question.

I don't think it's hard for me to imagine her running just because I think she has such a good thing going right now. I mean, she's making so much money. She's making, you know, tens of thousands of dollars per video. She's putting out four or five videos a week.

I mean, you know, I think she has far more influence at the point where, you know, I think it's relatively credible reports that Macron complained to Trump and asked him to have Candace cut these things off. I mean, that shows you sort of the influence

that she enjoys. So I think she could run for office as she wanted, but I think right now, I think she'd be foolish to do it. I think she's happy right where she is until the French clean her out in this libel lawsuit.

- Yes, and now, some turning, you know, at least one turning point person is suing her. I think there's more to come. You know, her husband is this mega wealthy British guy. So they may be able to weather that,

but I think ultimately, these lawsuits, you know, just as Alex Jones was able to avoid it until he couldn't, I think she could face the same issue. - Yeah, not fun. - Okay, let's turn to another sort of heavy weight

in this fight for the future of MAGA, which is Tucker Carlson. So Tucker's career arc is fascinating to me. He was widely viewed as one of the best magazine writers of his generation.

Then he bumped along in various TV jobs for a while, including Stint at CNN and MSNBC. Those sort of eventually ended or failed in some way. Then he got picked up at Fox and was kind of like a weekend, journeyman, until he got on the Trump train early

and then part laid that support relationship, you know, I don't know, just focus into the highest rated show in the history of cable news before he was suddenly fired in 2023. And then after getting fired, Tucker started his own news network

and show, concurrently has about 5.6 million YouTube subscribers,

which is more than his old show in terms of the aggregate ratings. So do with that information, what you will, obviously not all of those people are watching every episode, but it's a lot. And then more recently he's kind of broken with Trump

on some issues, particularly on Iran and U.S. policy towards Israel, but a lot of the critiques were at times very harsh and very personal. So, you know, well in your opinion,

We're just Tucker rank in terms of kind of influence

in this media world we're talking about today.

Is he, is he number one? You know, it can be hard to quite figure out. I mean, I think he's very influential.

I think he sits at a unique point, which is, you know,

someone like Candace Owen, someone like Nick Fuente's, people kind of further than that on the right or more into conspiracy theories, they are sort of existing in this kind of insurgent anti-Trump from the right world. Tucker sort of straddles both camps.

I mean, he has a lot of influence in the White House. He's still seen as enough of a mainstream conservative figure to appear at turning point USA conventions, for example. On the other hand, he has this kind of growing credibility with the anti-mago right, you know, what might call themselves

the America First Movement, people like Marjorie Taylor Green, Fuente's Candace. And so I think he's sort of uniquely able there to mainstream these really hateful and toxic ideas, like having Nick Fuente's on his show for a very nice sit-down interview.

While also, let's say, having ties to the heritage foundation and getting support from that.

So in that way, I think he's very powerful.

And as you said, he also has a massive audience just on his own. Yeah. So let's watch a recent clip from the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, talking about a phone call he got from Tucker Carl.

So then I'll ask you a question about it.

- It told me ambassador, can you please take me over the list?

And I was shocked at all, what are you talking about? You don't mean I'm being attacked by the Jews, so maybe you have like a list, can you take me off of the list? So I waited for a minute and I told him, Mr. Carlson, we don't have a list.

You are being attacked because you're spreading lies. - It's an interesting phone call there. So of all the people will discuss today, Tucker seems to be among the most interested in shaping policy, or at least their Republican Party's policy views,

especially U.S. policy towards Israel. He's been a fierce critic of Israeli Prime Minister BB Netanyahu.

He's been a fierce critic of the warneuron

of U.S. policy towards Israel, generally. At times, as you mentioned, I think that criticism has veered into anti-Semitic territory on some really troubling language. Do you think that his general motive is policy-focused,

or is this political? Is this like kind of Tucker knows where the puck is going and he's skating there by becoming more isolationist? - I think throughout his career, I mean,

he mentioned these kind of different changes. He's done, you know, whether it's like a writer at the weekly standard, or then Fox News, or now this.

I think he's a guy who is very interested, maybe it's a mix.

I think he's trying to stay ahead of things. I think he recognizes that things like the Iran war are going to be unpopular with Republicans. It only get more so as the years goes on. So he's trying to avoid associating himself with that.

But I think also, being fired from Fox News really sort of radicalized him and sort of caused him to seek out these more extreme politics where he could sort of stake out his own position in a way that wouldn't just look like another

Fox News type person. - Do you think, I mean, a lot of people worry or wonder if he is setting himself up for a run for president? And I mean, I can make a pretty compelling case for it. I mean, he's a huge media figure.

He is probably universal name, ID, and the Republican Party. He has, I think, carved out this interesting lane. I don't know how big the lane is, but there is an isolationist lane in the Republican Party, right? And Trump was courting them

and then went back on everything. He told them in the campaign when he went to war with Iran. Do you view what Tucker's doing is some sort of political setup? - I think it's very possible that he could run for president

or some other office. I mean, I think if we look in 2028, the lane for someone who opposed the war who's kind of a more populist figure is pretty open. You know, JD Vance, I think is going to be damaged.

Both by is association with the Trump administration, but also by associations with people like Peter Teele, all these kind of tech oligarchs. And so I think if you have someone like Tucker Carlson who could say, oh, I hate AI data centers.

And we got to go back to, he's up in this cabin in Maine. He says, I just want to have, grow my family, and go back to the traditional American ways. I think that would appeal to some people. I mean, I think it would be a risk for him to run,

because potentially he kind of get crushed like a bug somehow, and then loses audience. But I think more so than Candace or someone else, I other media figures, I think he's the one I see most likely is potentially running.

He means fascinating, because so many people run for president, knowing they're going to lose, but they know they'll hand them a giant megaphone, and like Tucker has a giant megaphone. It's totally unclear to me.

Like you were saying with Candace earlier, like would getting in politics benefit or hurt them because there's such heavy weights already. It's just not obvious. Yeah, I agree.

And you know, he might also throw himself behind a gosh, like maybe Joe Kent, the counter tier chief, who resigned, I mean, seems like someone who's potentially setting up a run for office. So I think, on the other hand, he was very supportive

of JD van, so only to see that kind of fizz allowed and JD van's to support the war. So I could see maybe if he's like, you know, I gotta get this done myself. Yeah, so well, before we keep going,

kind of just ask, how the hell did you get on this beat?

Because we spoken a bunch of times,

like I have a whole bucket of questions coming up about the kind of like Nazi adjacent media space. You end up having to consume all of that content.

You have to learn about all these terrible people.

How do you get into this focus? So I was a sort of young teen Republican in Texas, and I just had a huge, I consumed a lot of conservative media. Talk radio and Fox News and all this.

And then during the second,

the George W. Bush administration, my politics change, I thought it was just awful. He did such a bad job. But I still was like, I still had such a passion for right-wing media.

And then, you know, a couple of years went by. And then I was following figures like Ben Shapiro, who's whole thing was that he was a virgin at the time. And you know, wasn't that novel? It was all these characters.

And then in 2016, I was at a party, and people were like, are you heard about Laura Loomer and Milo Eunopolis? And I thought, oh my gosh, people are finally interested in these people, and so I started writing about them.

- No, I see you were like, I'm just gonna make this my thing and focus on these folks. - Yeah, and you know, I mean, there's, you know, as we've discovered, I mean, there's really sort of an endless well of bizarre stories

about them. - Well, sometimes I'll find myself sitting in bed with headphones in not speaking to my wife at 10 p.m. 'cause I'm streaming something horrible.

And I wonder what it's doing to my mental health.

Does it, does it impact yours?

Are you able to divorce the two? - No, it's a good question. I think I just have a really high tolerance. I really enjoy the twists and turns, you know, whether it's kind of the personalities

or the appearance of a new idea or ideology. Similarly, you know, I do a lot while I'm cooking for my kids, and so I run through these videos. And my wife will come down and see, you know, five people hunched over a computer, you know,

broadcasting something. And she'll say, you know, that certainly looks like something you'd be watching. - Speaking of great replacements, we're gonna do onions instead of scallions in this.

- Yes, it would be, I mean, I don't know. (upbeat music) - Positive America's brought you by Sleepy. What was the last time you went to bed before? Midnight without your phone beeping,

blue light at your weary little eyes? (laughs) A while. - You know what I mean? - It's been a minute.

Nothing pairs worse with trying to fall asleep than having a full breakdown of the latest news cycle running on looping your head. That's absolutely true.

- But here's the thing, you're tired because the news is exhausting,

but you're also tired because your body didn't recover from the day. The good news is you can do something about it, and it's simply then you think, you can lower your bed temperature.

Enter chili pad 2.0, the water-based mattress top or that actively controls your bed temperature from 55 to 115 degrees all night long. You can suve yourself if you like. No new mattress, no renovation.

It fits over what you already have. I have a chili pad and I fucking love it. It's awesome. I can set my temperature different than the temperature. Ari sets their temperature too.

You can make your bed warm and your cold. You can make your bed cold when you're hot. Because a lot of people battle with their significant other about the temperature in the room. And during the day, it's okay.

At night this is an existential war for sleep. - Yes, some people like this sleep cold, some people like to sleep hot. And so, and by the way, you can rather than make the room really cold, you can keep the room at like a normal temperature, and then you can just make your bed a little bit colder.

It's awesome. I highly recommend it. Chili pad 2.0, actively cools or warm your bed using water. The new 2.0 comes with a redesigned dock quieter than ever with larger internal tank.

The topper itself is now premium performance great cover that unzips for easy washing and has built-in waterproof protection. And if you're sharing your bed with somebody who runs hot while you run cold as we discuss,

no problem, dual zones. - Dual zones. - But each of you dial in your own temperature independently. And unlike a lot of tech out there, no subscription. You buy it, you own it.

Two-year warranty, designed and assembled in the US, just north of Charlotte, North Carolina. I love it, genuinely, it's been great. So I have the chili pad 1.0 right now. I'm gonna upgrade to the 2.0.

- Where am I to do this? - I'm doing it. Visit www.sleep.me/curricate to get up to $255 off. Your chili pad 2.0 with code Crooked. That's www.sleep.me.

SLEEP.me/curricate free shipping free returns and a 39 trial so you can test out the chili pad, dream big and wake up better. The headlines will still be there in the morning. Now's for sure, you might as well wake up ready for them.

- Positive America is brought to you by Magic Spoon. God, I love Magic Spoon, just loving. Just reading this copy makes you wanna go out of, delicious bowl, I don't know, they probably frosted. - Yeah.

- Might go too, usually, but they have a bunch of new flavors. I'll get to that in a minute, we'll get to it. Magic Spoon is figured out how to turn treats into something you'd actually feel good about eating. Magic Spoon treats are crispy, airy,

protein-packed snack bars with 12 grams of protein, seven grams of fiber, no added sugar, only two to three net carbs and certified GF. - Good friend, oh, good friend. They're genuinely, they feel like a treat,

not like a sad, health bar. They're perfect for just tossing one in your bag, keep you on in the car, grabbing something between meetings or crushing it when a sweet craving hits at night.

Here's some flavors for you, marshmallow, chocolate peanut butter, double chocolate, and more. - Wait, they've introduced chocolate peanut butter. That's new. - I love that.

- That's new, because I was always mixing them together myself.

- It's one of the best. - And now they do it for you. - That's beautiful. - Come on. - There's the nostalgia, there's the dessert coated feeling, but without loading up on sugar.

These taste delicious, they're also pretty healthy for you.

And you know, if you're already a Magic Spoon serial fan,

you're gonna love these suckers. Magic Spoon is easy to find, just look for Magic Spoon at your local grocery store, and they just roll out treats nationwide at 7/11. And if you haven't tried them yet,

check out Magic Spoon's new protein pastearies, a high protein, low sugar take on the classic toaster pastry as you grow up with. You can get $5 off your next order, including protein pastries at magicspoon.com/curkid.

That's magicspoon.com/curkid for five bucks off, going right now. (upbeat music) - Let's get to the Megan Kelly. Megan Kelly, I kind of slot in with Tucker

and a sit in a bucket. Be it, I feel like their friends, they're lying. They talk to each other on their shows, but she is also broken with Trump in some notable ways recently.

It started again with Iran and Israel. But now, more recently, Megan's been criticizing Trump for like infidelity, which surprised me. What do you make of Megan's kind of rapid pivot

into Trump critic? Is this a business decision? Is this policy, some combo? - You know, I would say Megan Kelly is much more mercenary even than Tucker Carlson is.

I think she is someone who, they're very similar in some ways. They both came out of Fox News and these kind of more such as it is, moderate concerned, more traditional conservative environments.

But I think she is really seeing the way the wind is blowing

and she, number one, doesn't want to get targeted by figures like Candace Owens or Nick Fuentes, 'cause I think she sees them correctly as much more dynamic and much more able to make people look like dinosaurs

in the way that Ben Shapiro or Mark Levin have kind of been sideline. And so I think she really wants to stay out of their way. She's also, I think is trying to ride this wave of discontent with Trump.

And look, I think if Trump was at like 60% approval, I'm sure she wouldn't be saying, you know, shut up with the tweets and stop threatening to destroy Iranian civilization. But I think right now she's recognizing

where the wind is blowing and trying to stay on the right side of things. Yeah, you mentioned the daily wire. There's been a lot of coverage lately of the decline of the daily wire.

And in particular, the decline in viewership for America's favorite virgin podcast host Ben Shapiro. Last week, our last month, sorry, the daily wire CEO stepped down and handed the reins to this game show producer

and host named Mike Richard. So I think it's his claim to fame is almost becoming the host of Jeopardy. Before you actually, until some like old quotes from a podcast he did, resurfaced that were offensive

and got him bounced. Ben Shapiro is reportedly lost at least 80,000 YouTube followers this year alone, which is remarkable.

How do you think these issues are for the daily wire?

And to what do you attribute their decline? I think they're very real for the daily wire. I think there's maybe let's say two challenges they're facing. I mean, it's striking because just a few years ago, Jeremy Boring, who was the co-founder of the daily wire

and really kind of became the face of the company is for a while as Ben Shapiro sort of receded. He was being profiled as like the new Hollywood mogul in Nashville where they're based. He was going to change the face of entertainment.

They built out all these streaming shows. They built out a game of thrones knockoff that was like his passion project for,

it was like several million dollars per episode.

It was went way over Pendragon's cycle. It was tens of millions of dollars over budget. Yes, it's about King Arthur. He doesn't show up in the first season, but they felt really confident that there would be more.

It was all about Merlin. And so this was a dream of his that he had since college to make this show. And it looks great, but very expensive. They made a blue-y knockoff starring Chinchilla

to win over kids to conservatism. So they had all these side projects. And that cost them enormous amounts of money. So he got booted last year, essentially over these cost-over runs.

Now they're trying to retrench him a much more traditional kind of like, we're going to have a couple podcasts. Maybe we're going to have some documentaries from Matt Walls where he skewers liberals.

But I think the bigger problem they're facing is

that the kind of politics that Ben Shapiro wants to promote, which is sort of this anti-Trump. He's like, you know, a little cautious about Trump. He's not a hardcore Trump guy, like Sean Hannity. On the other hand, he agrees with things like

the war in Iran, he's very pro-Israel. And I think both of those that he's kind of wedged here between, he can't go anti-Trump, but he also doesn't love Trump all that much. So he's kind of trapped.

And I think that point of view is just not that popular right now on the right and then it's losing him audience. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You read these reports.

And there are these amazing financial challenges,

like you mentioned. I mean, I can't get enough of the stories about the Pendragon cycle and just like the reality of those so many of these guys are just theater kids who didn't quite make it. And we're trying to revamp their theater kidnists

in the conservative world. But the daily wire reportedly had $200 million in annual revenue in like 2024. Maybe that was a projection. I remember reading about their business success

and worrying like how it compared to us. You know, they're a subscriber account.

Then just something seems to like fall and off a cliff.

And I don't know what it is. But I mean, I think Ben Shapiro lives in Florida, but the companies in Nashville, maybe there's just sort of like a lack of business alignment as well as sort of like ideological and content, a misalignment with the party that you mentioned there.

Yeah, I mean, I think Puckets and reporting on how basically

the guy who followed Jeremy Boring was also seen as kind of bumbling around. There's been a lot of internal discord between Ben Shapiro and the other founders. But I think what we're looking at is that the daily wire

will probably retrench as something more like the daily call or like Stephen Crowder and speaking of like failed theater kids. Like it'll be a thing with a popular podcast and a couple other popular podcasts. But not like this kind of what they were going for,

which was sort of like a conservative entertainment giant. And yeah, they wanted to replace like a major studio and Hollywood with this conservative thing. And I just wondered like, is that even doable? Like there are enough audience or advertisers

and it seems like maybe the verdict is not quite yet. Or at least TBD.

Yeah, I think that's what they're looking at.

I mean, they were, you know, this was the idea as like while I subscribed to Netflix, Disney Plus, and my kids love the Chinchilla show. So I got to subscribe to the daily wire. Catch every episode of the Pentagon cycle.

OK, so again, tell me if you disagree, but I kind of mentally slot the free press into a similar bucket or basket is the daily wire. Now, it's less ideologically overt. It's a little more like trolley maybe.

But it clearly has like an editorial slant in a mission. So the free press is folks probably know

was bought by Paramount for $150 million must be nice.

Barry Weiss, the founder of the free press was named Editor-in-Chief of CBS News. That part of the kind of project is not going great. We've all been reading this week. You and I are talking on Wednesday, June 3rd about a horrible meeting

with the new 60 minutes executive producer where the kind of 60 minutes Uber anchor Scott Pellie dressed him down and was later fired, which makes me wonder how that show is going to even keep going. But that's neither here nor there.

But we're reading a lot about CBS and not a lot about the free press. What is happening over there? I feel like they've kind of disappeared. Like I just don't see their stuff anymore.

Yeah, I mean, I think the free press is trying to similar

to the daily wire and someone has become like a lifestyle thing. They're launching these events. They're going to have free press meetups in their town. So you can meet fellow heterodox thinkers, maybe data, whatever, they're trying to branch out in these various ways.

But I agree with you. I think the free press is kind of facing this drift as Barry Weiss focuses on who she's going to fire at 60 minutes or what have you. I think also, I mean, you know, it's also worth noting.

I mean, like they had a crazy high turnover of people. I mean, they brought in kind of other prominent people like Chuck Lane from the Washington Post. People may remember from the movie Shattered Glass, Michael Moynihan, who's kind of like a podcast personality, Andy Mills,

who founded the Daily at the New York Times. And they just, these people just quit really quickly, suggesting, by the way, it's sort of a foreshadowing of what 60 minutes in CBS News about how they're run now. So I think there is some amount of trouble there.

They're down to like Olivia Ryan Gold, who's kind of like a wannabe daily, Barry Weiss figure, who's like a bit alarming, you know, in her demeanor. I just don't find it, like, I don't know if people have, like, I hear it.

There was a journalist who was, you know, fairly or unfairly, you decide, mocked for taking video during the, the shooting attempt at the White House correspondent's dinner when the, there was a assassin, everyone calls an assassination attempt.

The individual got nowhere near Donald Trump, but there was a reporter who, who videoed, sort of like the aftermath of it, but have the camera turned on herself the entire time and got a lot of grief for it and me.

That's Olivia Ryan Gold. Yeah, and, you know, I mean, to get into like a larger structural issue,

I think they're facing and sort of these other figures,

you know, I think there's been a decline in interest in like anti-woke content. Yeah. As obviously Donald Trump is in charge, I think a lot of these companies have sort of retreated

from things like, you know, from like, woke entertainment, such as it is. So you, on the upscale end, you have something like the free press, which is going to have all these kind of cancel professors. On the lower end, you have people like Tim Poole,

or the quartering on YouTube, we're going to say, I can't believe they have a black Disney princess, or what have you. But all of those guys have said, you know, my traffic's going down, my views are down, 'cause we in Democrats are out of power.

There's just less wokeness to get out-raged about. Yeah, there's less things, less to be out-raged about.

It always struck me, though, that the free press

had an impressive elite audience, you know, like there's like smart, professional thoughtful people, I know, here in LA, consume a lot of free press content. That she clearly had a very barriwise, is a barrier barri. I don't know if I'm saying great.

I kind of think I don't know. Okay, I'm going on this with you either way. Ms. Weiss, Ms. Weiss clearly was able to build relationships with charm, otherwise, you know, get investment from billionaires, or, you know, elites

like the Ellison family.

Was that the secret toss of the free press only?

It was just like that kind of elite audience, and maybe not the mass market appeal that they need. I think Barry Weiss has had a lot of success, kind of having these, what appears to be like, a relatively straightforward, often admirable ideology,

like free speech, you know, all this stuff, intellectual pursuits. But often the boils down to, I think we can see this elsewhere in the right wing media, a sort of, like, respect rich people ideology, or like rich people should get to do whatever they want.

And obviously, that's very flattering to the tech oligarchs to people like the, you know, all these kind of, you certainly Elon Musk people like that.

And so I think that's why she was so successful

on the LA cocktail party circuit, and, you know, it's sort of similar to the Spencer Pratt thing, you know, I mean, different flavors of it, but this idea of like, you know, we got to clean up the streets, you know, so the, I think that has obviously served

very well, and I think got her that $150 million a purchase.

Yeah, a lot of it is just like, I find the people you find annoying, annoying too. And I'm gonna make fun of them on my website. So subscribe to me. Yeah, I'm gonna validate you for these opinions.

You might otherwise be uncomfortable having. Yeah, exactly. All right, now I'm gonna ask you about the kind of darker, more extreme fringe that people I worry about you listening to as you're making your kids and making cheese.

You probably, it folks have probably heard of Nick Fuentes, who is an openly racist, misogynistic, holocaust denying the streamer podcast host, whatever you wanna call him. His content really exploded, at least in my feeds

in recent months, especially after his interview with Tucker Carlson. But also, his episodes get clipped and shared everywhere. And if you kind of like make the wrong moves

on the Twitter algorithm, all of a sudden,

you're getting forced fed down your throat, then there's figures like Chud the Builder, which I'd love to get into a bit with you, who is just a truly awful new internet figure, who would literally run around screaming racial slurs

in an effort to bait black people into fights. And that story ended exactly how you'd expect it would end with him getting arrested for shooting someone in one of those fights. So, can you tell us about those two individuals

into any other big voices in this extremist fringe that you keep an eye on? - Yeah, so this kind of fits into the Gen Z streamer community you know, Dick Fuente is being the most prominent one. This right nationalist, he has a sort of unique demeanor

among racist, which is like he's a little fey. He's like a kind of a little guy. And so he appeals in sort of a strange way.

You know, to the extent that I think he has had

sort of a Candace Owens like breakout into the broader internet where people will, you know, play his audios and, you know, over their TikToks or what have you. I think Chad the Builder, as you said,

I think one of the most reprehensible people I've ever written about someone who goes around says the end word and then when black person says, what are you doing? He says, you know, stepped to me and I'll shoot you

and ultimately not only did he shoot someone

but he also do fist ended up shooting himself. - Did shoot himself. - So, yeah. (laughs) So now he's on trial for attempted murder. And so, even more broadly, we can look around

to people like whether it's climicular, the guy who's trying to look so handsome or these like dating podcasts where they bring in a bunch of women from only fans and they say, what's your body count? And then, you know, they go, oh my god, that's not Chad.

You know, and these things just kind of like whipping up hate against women or minorities. And it's all kind of united around a lot of it gets clipped as you said into these like, these one two minute segments that get a lot of social media traction.

And two point about the clipping, I mean, it can feel really hard to understand if these shows are actually big and influential. Or if I just see them because Twitter knows that I clicked on a bunch of Fuentez clips at one point

and now it's just constantly serving me more of them. Do you have an sense of like kind of the aggregate influence of this world? You know, it's interesting.

I think, you know, we can have there a couple metrics.

And as you said, it can be challenging, right? Because on one hand, we've seen these articles that say, you know, clipping, it's making it all fake. You know, there is none of this is real. None of these people are popular.

But, you know, it's similar to Rens is pointed out. I mean, someone like Klippicular was popular before he came to the attention of people like you and me. He's popular at kind of like a Gen Z. Here's this handsome oddball level.

And also, you know, if clipping, if this was all this fake thing, then, you know, everyone would do it. We would have a hundred thousand everyone killed. There's right, heaven, heaven for bit.

But like, you know, these are, it is a challenging world. And for me, it's often when it kind of spills over into the real world. So when Klippicular's out walking around and all these people are like, oh my God, it's Klippicular.

Well, clearly, there's some amount of fanbase there or when Chut the Builder unfortunately raises 300 grand after shooting a guy. I mean, clearly, there's some amount of Gen U and support. - Good.

Another size. So for us at Crooked, I mean, when I think about the technology and the platforms he'd focus on, it's like the standard podcast app from Apple, it's YouTube, it's huge for us,

Especially in terms of growth.

And then obviously we try to clip and share our stuff to on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. Obviously the conservatives use a lot of these same sites as well, but they're also, they use platforms that if you're like Democrats just don't really live on,

like rumble, kick, twitch is a little more, you know, broadly used. What are the biggest platforms you think for this sort of conservative Naga media world

and how important are they to the growth of these spaces?

- Yeah, so I mean, you mentioned kick, which is basically twitch. The people who were kicked off of twitch went kick and it's sort of a, it's basically funded all by gambling ads 'cause they couldn't have those on twitch.

So that's like the very unsafe people on kick and that's someone like a particular, for example. And then, if you kick off a kick, you end up where Chut the Builder ended up which is something called like brainpilled.info

or is that something along those lines?

- I've never heard of that.

- Yeah, it's like, I think I'm mangling the name, but it's these like really like, you know, you kind of backwaters of the internet. Now, it can all still get clipped and end up on Twitter and especially as we've seen

the mainstream social media platforms sort of pull back from moderating and really going hands off. I mean, a lot of it still happens on places like YouTube and X. And you know, as you mentioned, rumble, which is sort of the right wing YouTube alternative,

which just hosted, you know, with the main sponsor for the steroid games that were held recently. I mean, so that's kind of the world, the world they're operating at. - Yeah, the enhanced games were the enhanced games, yes.

I feel like everyone was sharing the picture of that one swimmer who looked like he had been inflated

with a hose, but then I don't think they broke any records, right?

I mean, you got some sort of natural athletes just smoke in the steroid guys. - Yeah, I watched it. You know, in a way, it wasn't as sinister as I hoped. I mean, they tried to make it just look like the Olympics,

but yeah, ultimately, really the guys,

you know, I think with especially things like weight lifting, these guys are on so many drugs anyway that, you know, it's kind of the same same. - And also, like I think it wasn't hosted by the guy Brian Johnson, who's like trying to maximize his longevity,

but in practice that means I guess tweeting out things, observations about his girlfriends, vaginal biome was one of them. - Yeah, he's a disturbing fellow, and he appeared with an umbrella 'cause so that he wouldn't get any natural sunlight. How does that space overlap with conservative media, or does it,

in my wrong? - I mean, I think there is some overlap. I mean, certainly someone like Brian Johnson who's trying to live forever. I mean, he's like a tech guy, kind of tech a Jason guy.

You have these guys who are like trying to, you know, it's someone like, "Clivicular," similarly, as Brian Johnson's trying to live forever, "Clivicular," is like trying to be as handsome as he can be. And so I think this idea, particularly among young people,

of like, you know, optimizing and having this kind of very, like, "Clivicular represents kind of like a very nihilistic view of the world," where it's like, if you aren't in the, like, 0.1%, you know, women are, they call it hypergamy. So, you know, the most handsome men will have 10 lovers,

you know, at the same time, and everyone else will be, will be an insult.

And so, you know, then your life is over, essentially.

And so you have to compete in these really intense ways. And I think we see that reflected a lot in this kind of really intense, like, Silicon Valley cultures. - Yeah, this is a very weird culture.

I mean, it's always interesting to me to kind of identify

points where the Venn diagrams overlap, right? Because I think Mahah, the Nica America healthy, again, agenda really did bring in a big community of people to the Trump orbit that might not otherwise have ever voted for Republican, right?

I mean, a lot of it was like, you know, out here in LA, it's like, Westside moms who were, you know, sort of, like, anti-vaxx in some way, kind of got drawn into the Mahahum who've been during COVID and end up voting Trump. And it's interesting, like, the sort of, like,

the longevity lifestyle health space can get, you know, coded conservative if Democrats are not talking to those people or communicating and alternative message. - I mean, there's this huge overlap between all these different groups.

So, you know, for example, let's take a look at Candace Owen's who got really into Blake Lively, Justin Baldonny stuff. And so she drew in a lot of people who didn't care about conservative politics, but it was kind of these, like, conservative coded, like, blame the woman kind of anti me

to type stuff. And they start, you know, combing through the court documents. And then, oh, you want to comb through something else? Let's go through Brigitte McCron's high school yearbooks or what, you know, or, you know, like the world of, like,

meme stocks where people, oh, I lost all my money on bed bath and beyond, then there championed by people like Bill Pultay, now our deputy, you know, intelligence chief or our director of national intelligence. And then, you know, then they get into Q and honor.

They get into other conspiracy theories because they feel that they've been wrong. - Extraordinary video going around the internet this week of Bill Pultay at a conference where he is trying to promote the bed bath and beyond stock.

And the speaker before him slaps another man in the face with the, with the, with the Dildo. - And then Pultay himself gets presented with a Dildo. So I mean, this is the, (laughing)

- And the trophy, I think, what it said, Bill Pultay fucks only the young was the, was the joke, I guess?

- Yeah, he loves the Taylor Swift song only the young.

- Yeah.

- I've unfortunately, but, you know, it's certainly regrettable

for raising.

- It is, if, oh, yeah, very regrettable for me.

This week alone, you got Bill Pultay talking about only the young and the Ivanka talking about buying an island. It was not a good week for moving on from the Jeffrey Epstein and the dialogue for the Trump administration. (upbeat music)

- Well, it's even America is brought to you by Mim Mobile when people hear that Mim Mobile plans are only $15 per month. They may wonder, what's the catch? Well, there is in one, neither gimmick nor gacha. Just on the way to talk text and data on the nation's largest

most reliable 5G network backed by their award winning care team. You know, you know, it's great, you know, you've switched him into paylust, you still have the phone. Still can be glued to that fucking thing that ruin your life, but for less money, you know, that's the beauty of it.

Mim Mobile took what's wrong with the wireless and made it right with premium wireless for $15 a month. You can even bring your current phone and your number. Choose from a 3/6 or 12 month plans and say goodbye to a monthly bill, ditch over price wireless with Mim Mobile.

It's so easy, sign up online and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. You can have Mim Mobile.

You never need to look at a person in the eyes again.

Let this phone consume you. You never be anywhere but in your phone. Anywhere you go, you are in your phone. That is the place you live now. You have a beautiful restaurant.

No, the phone's there, too. So you're in your phone, too. You're never alone with Mim Mobile. To get a new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month. Go to mimmobile.com/cricket.

That's mimmobile.com/cricket. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mimmobile.com/cricket. There is no catch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only speeds slower

about 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan, additional taxes fees, and restrictions apply seat. Mimmobile, four of details. Let's talk about the kind of manosphere world, such as it is. You have mentioned clavicular a few times.

You're right. He's been around for a while.

But I think he exploded onto the national scene a few months back and taught us all about

looks maxing in this weird lingo he has and hitting his face with hammers. And he also infamously went to a club in Miami with Nick Fuentes. We talked about earlier, the neo-Nazi content creator. And then a truly awful guy named Andrew Tate who was charged with, what is it? Human trafficking.

Ray, human trafficking, again, all kinds of stuff. Yeah. It's the genuinely awful human being. Who, by the way, was just in Russia with Candice Owens for some reason. We can talk about that if you want.

In a streamer named Sneaker. They all sang along to Kanye West song, "Hile Hitler," filmed it, chucked it on the internet. Are those folks, clavicular and your Tate, Sneaker, are they talking about politics these days? Like, how do you think about them and their influence in this kind of media world?

You know what's interesting? I feel like each of them has sort of a bespoke ideology on their own. Someone like a collicular famously said that, you know, JD advances too fat and he's going to vote for Gavin Newsom as a result, because Gavin Newsom just more handsome. You know, you have these figures that almost exist in sort of a right wing realm beyond

any even like Trumpian politics, where, you know, for example, you know, cliviculars representatives

will always say, "Oh, he's not right wing, you know, he likes Gavin Newsom."

But then when you actually watch him interact with women, he's like, it's like a caveman view.

Like a girl will say, like, "I'm going to college and he's like, what?

Why?" You know? So it's ultimately this very reactionary, ultimately, like, really like nihilistic view of the world, you know, someone like, you know, whether it's Andrew Tate, who obviously has all these sort of criminal allegations, you know, also in the club was this guy named

"Miron Gaines," who's, you know, sort of pseudonym because they're admiring his gains in the gym. You know, he's, these are guys who are really just pumping out this, like, hate content. And so it is interesting, I feel like when there's kind of a big political moment, they might discuss it, but they certainly aren't like orthodox conservative figures as we

might think of them. Yeah. I know it's interesting. But hearing you talk about it, it made me think that, you know, I guess if Candace Owens beat is conspiracy, their beat is misogyny and hate for women.

I mean, frankly. Yeah, hate for women sometimes hate for Indian people. That's kind of a rising one. You know, they're kind of just, these guys who sort of like, look, I mean, they just want more attention, essentially, is what they're after.

And they do, you know, it's, they can get, you know, someone like Chad the builder who's sort of an extreme example of this. They get sort of trapped in these, like, escalatory attention cycles. And so, sneakow converts to Islam. And then, you know, is caught drinking and all this stuff.

And so they, they live some pretty twisted lives. We are drama all the time. I used to listen to Steve Bannon's podcast all the time because I felt like it would tell me where mega was going at least a couple of weeks early. You hear, like, some crazy idea, and then all of a sudden, to be on Trump's true social

Feed a few weeks later.

I've fallen off on that listing habit in part because I just cranked out, like, what three, four hours of stuff a day, and I couldn't keep up for it. But also, I felt like in the beginning of Trump, 2.0, the Bannon wing of the party seemed to be losing. Right?

Like his enemy was Elon Musk. Elon Musk was sitting in the White House. He was, like, co-president for a while. I don't know. Maybe that's not the case anymore.

Like, where do you think Bannon in that media empire sit in the kind of nagging media hierarchy in space these days? You know, it's interesting. People are, people ask me this before, and I'm kind of trying to figure it out myself exactly what influence Steve Bannon has.

I mean, I think it's often sort of overstated because I think he's a pretty easy source for journalists.

And so, they're happy. He's often in articles. They're kind of sedated as his wisdom. He is, as you said, I mean, he still has these figures who are kind of like these, like, B tier operatives who will sort of reveal that something's going to happen.

Like, he'll have, like, John Solomon who's kind of this conservative investigative reporter

and is now joining the government, and he'll say, you know, Tulsi Gabbards, you know, basically

digging up stuff to interfere with elections, things like that. Which is very, you know, Tina Peters's lawyer was on and he said, "Teta Peters is going to get pardoned soon." Right? And so, I think, but as for his, like, actual influence, I mean, as you said, he was kind

of this, like, anti-tech, oligarch guy. I think we're seeing more of that coalition kind of congeal on the right. But at the moment, I think he's kind of just humming along, but not with any sort of particular amount of sweat. Yeah.

I think he was last seen pushing the anti-Sheria law, ballot initiative, and Texas, for example,

as a way to maybe turn out voter for packs. And he clearly, it's as hobby horses and as candidates, but yeah, I'm just sort of not exactly clear where he's at in the space. So, look, the whole point of this conversation was to talk about this mega media ecosystem and figure out what it tells us about where the party is going, because they're all kind

of clamoring to figure out what a post Donald Trump political reality will be even if it's, you know, later than we all wanted to be. We talked about Tucker in the policy fights around Iran and U.S. sports with Israel. Other ideological or policy splits that you're observing kind of bubble up in the space. I do think, you know, things like certainly AI, I think his emerging as a real issue, whether

it's data centers or like government oversight of AI, people like Steve Bannon have really been whipping up the idea of like, you know, we need more government oversight. Or I think there's also, you know, on sort of a more smaller scale, there's this growing sense on like places like TikTok where you'll have a video of a farmer being like, people keep asking to buy my land for a data center.

Now, you know, admittedly, I don't think that's much of like a sob story, you know, he can sell it or not, but it's giving people this sense of like, there's like sinister forces at play.

And I think that always really hits with the right, on the other hand, you have these people

like David Sachs, these tech people who are clearly very associated with the administration

who basically, you know, want to run a muck.

And so I think things like AI and tech in general, you know, Matt Walls should the daily buyer on the other hand is like a very anti-AI guy. So you can see these splits, I mean, certainly, as you mentioned, the Iran and sort of intervention is real in general is like a huge fault line. So I think we're as Trump kind of receives an influence.

I think this fight is going to break out more in the open. Yeah. The other thing I want to ask you is, you know, there's been some suggestion that a lot of the heat you see in the magma media world is just financially driven. Like there's a, a woman named Ashley St. Claire who is a former magma media influencer who

is probably best known to this audience is for having a child with Elon Musk and then kind of like talking about it afterwards. She recently said that the whole right wing influencer world is just getting paid. And that most of this post you see or that causes that kind of these magma folks take up happened because someone is cutting them a check.

And I think a lot of people have pointed the fact that like all of a sudden, Katie Miller, Steven Miller, White House advisors, Steven Miller's wife is talking about like what solar farms I think and people like interesting that happened. Is that true? Do you think is Ashley St. Claire right that there's a lot of folks on the take out there?

I think she is right. I think there's like a huge amount of paid a play or pay a whole washing around. I mean, whether it's people who were kind of like named figures like the talk radio is like Chad Pravey there or what have you or just these like meme accounts that are like

end-wokeness and have a million followers.

Right. Well, I just wrote this week about how suddenly a bunch of these people were saying Harley Davidson is so woken gay. We got to get did your Harley, whatever. And by Indian motorcycle, there's another motorcycle company called Indian.

And it was so strange that there wasn't at that time like a real like wokeness like a genuine wokeness controversy. And all of a sudden they all just started attacking it. And I think like I haven't proven it. But I think it's clear that this is a paid campaign whether by this rival motorcycle

company or some other third force to to just pump out these these articles and these

Posts.

Similarly, someone like Laura Loomer will suddenly be like, we got to straighten out

these Venezuelan oil export licensees. I mean, these things oil is a big one. They'll the gateway upon it had this thing. It was like, we got it. We can't stop keep sanctioning this Indian oil refinery.

I mean, these things like these guys, these people who normally just like base level culture were stuff are just like, I just am really passionate about the Indian Hydrocarbon. It's funny to all of a sudden have like dozens of influencers be like Harley Davidson is gay. I'm sorry.

What is it? What are you talking about? Where is that coming from? The other one that was very obvious to a lot of people.

I think Ashley St. Clair called out was after the White House Correspondent's dinner

shooting. All these influencers were posting essentially verbate and messages saying Trump needs a ballroom. And she suggested that that was clear evidence that there was a coordination of this message. And like, I don't know, maybe a discord chat room or something.

Yeah, I mean, I think clearly there's like group chats of some kind that whether I don't think that's certainly those people are being paid. But I think there is also this kind of like, there's like an access. I think you probably want to preserve with the Republican Party, with the White House. So you get invited to the events or the monologo.

And so they'll say, you know, the line is, you know, within like 20, 30 minutes of the shooting suddenly like it is unbelievable that Democrats won't let Trump have his giant ballroom. Yeah. We're going to be paying these folks. But if you do their bidding, then people like

Steven Miller will reply to you, share your content, help algorithmically boost you. So you have more followers and more engagement and can make more money out of future posts. So there's a whole smart griff to it. This episode is sponsored by Better Help, not everyone experiences summer as an endless parade of hot dogs, vacations and pool parties.

For some people, life's woes don't debate when the temperature climbs that days get longer. If you've got the summertime blues or simply feeling overwhelmed, better help is there when you need it. With over 30,000 therapists, Better Help is the world's largest online therapy platform

having served over six million people globally.

And it works with an average rating of 4.9 at a five for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Better Help Therapist work according to a strict code of conduct and it's fully licensed in the US. Better Help does the initial matching work for you, so you can focus on your therapy goals,

a short questioner helps you identify your needs and your preferences. And there are 12 or more years of experience and industry-leading match, fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored racks.

I actually took their quiz level, and I just want Harrison Ford. OK. Wow. That's right. Oh, the way to play it.

They're a shrinking, shrinking. I wanted Harrison Ford. I want to hand some senior who survived lots of playing crashes. This is a very specific quiz. Everyone needs therapy.

It's incredibly important this day and age, every day and age, really.

Probably could use it in the 12th century as well, so I'm sure they didn't even know they were missing. But also, you know, World Sox has a lot going on. He feels in this show. You're probably a little bit anxious about when I've been next, and so it's good to talk

to someone. It's good to talk to someone about your life, whatever's going on with family, friends, work. You don't have to say yes to everything the summer, fine support therapy. Open up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/PSA.

That's better at GLP.com/PSA. What do they think I want to ask you about? There's sort of like, there's this conservative gonzo media world out there. There's James O'Keeflos, a project veritas, was his whole thing. He's sort of still doing that kind of thing like the sting operation type reporting gigs.

A story in Politico this week about a Florida woman who is a former QAnon organizer who went undercover to seduce several liberal men who worked in politics, record them, and then release these embarrassing clips to right-wing figures like Stephen Crowder or James O'Keeflos. Is this a booming business, is it something that like anyone in Washington needs to worry about?

Yeah, I mean, I would say it is, so O'Keeflos clearly is just, so as you said, project veritas kind of imploded. O'Keeflos got pushed out, he was spending all this money on like putting on musicals that he was in. I mean, it was truly like crazy stuff. And so that collapsed, and now he's basically posted up in DC, and he's doing much cheaper

things.

Like we might remember, he used to like plant people in Democratic campaigns for a long

time. And now he just has, you know, beautiful women scrolling on Tinder, and they'll get a hit. And if it's anyone who seems at all like government or media, he recently got a guy who like worked at the Washington Nationals Baseball Team, like as a community relations guy, and they're like, this guy is woke.

I mean, so it often, it's kind of a scattershot approach.

It doesn't really, you know, always bringing in the big targets.

But at the same time, they have, they've gotten people to the Department of Justice, all this stuff. And so, you know, look, I would say if you're like a middle-aged ball, DC bureaucrat, and like, and this is a real one, like a 20 year old up-air in Georgetown just finds you so fascinating

You're talking about your job, you got to be on the lookout.

Yeah.

I mean, if someone is really, really interested in all the work you do at GSA and then

want to talk shit about Donald Trump, yeah, be on the lookout for that, it's interesting the way some candidates have or staffers of kind of dove into this super-right wing, the most extreme media world, and parlaid it to some success. Like, you were written about this right-wing nut in Florida named James Fishback, who's running an insurgent campaign for governor, he just tells us about fishback, what he believes,

and like the degree to which the kind of neo-Nazi adjacent kind of Nick Fuentes, French content creation world has helped him rise. Yeah. So James Fishback is a guy who's running for governor and the Republican primary in Florida, he's challenging by Randonalds, who's the sort of Trump in Doris congressman.

And James Fishback is a guy with a resume that is like, he makes someone like Bill Pultay look like extremely qualified. I mean, this guy really should not be anywhere near elected office. He had this whole thing with, he got fired from a hedge fund. He had all these kind of sleazy machinations that were exposed in court records where he

would like, he had an intern who he wrote for the free press, speaking of, and he was like, send them an email under a fake name and say, you want more James Fishback.

And so as a result of these machinations, he's now like $2 million in debt.

So he's easily running from his creditors, his campaign staff was saying, his couch might get repossessed. So at the same time, though, he has endorsed basically Nick Fuente's politics. He's sort of the first test of this like angry, like super racist. By Randonalds's black and James Fishback will call him a slave.

I mean, he'll, he all this racist, he will send him back to the ghetto, all this sort of stuff. And yet he's rising at the polls. I don't think he's going to win, but if you look at, you know, by Randonalds events, kind of lackluster, not that many people.

He's fishbacked me and while it's hosting these events, standing room only, huge overflow crowd. Yeah, I'm, I'm like really worried about the seeming lack of cost for this right-wing extremism. Like, one other individual that is made to splash this week is Greg Bavino, folks probably remember him.

He was the kind of like fascist, munchkin who is running customs and border patrol, who used to wear that long Nazi coat.

And he ran, you know, the occupations of Minneapolis before Donald Trump finally decided,

like, okay, this guy is too extreme, even for me, he popped up at a remigration conference in Portugal recently with a bunch of totally extremist far-right kind of neo-nazzi types. Remigration for those who don't know the term, it's, it's ethnic cleansing. It's the idea of like pushing out, you know, migrants from whatever European country. And, you know, Bavino did an interview in advance of this conference with some far-right

outlet. Out of nowhere, he brought up Irwin Rommel, the Nazi general, also known as the desert fox, it's sort of like an example of how their career tracks were similar, like this bizarre fucking shit. But like, I don't know, it's, it's, but Vino gonna parlay, you know, his work at CBP into

these like, alt-right spaces into something else, like, it's very worrisome stuff.

Yeah, you know, I think he's certainly gonna try to, I was just talking to someone who's

trying to run a sort of draft bovino for 2028 campaigns. But as you said, I mean, you know, it's interesting kind of character because he's wearing the Gestapo code, he's doing all this, this border patrol stuff, you know, you don't want to jump to conclusions. But it turns out, yes, he is a, you know, definitely, a admirer of Nazis, and it's kind of hanging

out with these fascists. As you said, remigration is a term I think, unfortunately, we're gonna hear more and more about. This isn't just deporting people who are here illegally. This is saying, you know, well, you're brown, even if you're a citizen, even if you're a citizen,

you gotta go back to your parents, grandparents, country of origin. And so he's hanging out with people like Austrian, far-right figures. This guy, it was organized by a guy who has a organization called Reconquista, which obviously was kicking the Jews and Muslims out of Spain, and he said, you know, why more problems call for why more solutions, like some kind of Nazi like movement.

And now this is, you know, who Greg Bovino's hanging out with and really kind of being embraced by these Gen Z Republicans. And sort of tying that back in with James Fishback, you know, Fishback is also faced these allegations of like having a sexual relationship with the high school student, you know, he hasn't been charged with anything.

But if you imagine a candidate that damaged and how much success he's having, how successful

could someone who doesn't have all that baggage do?

Oh, yeah. I mean, look, this re-migration concept, I mean, it's too extreme, even for like Marine Le Pen and the National Rally Party in France. I mean, this is really dark stuff. There's like the AFD, kind of neo-Nazzi's from Germany, we're at this conference in Greg Bovino

is there. And I think the day off, he tweeted himself like very much doing, I'm not going to do it. Hitler's salute. So yeah, you're going, like the mask is off with this guy, and he certainly doesn't seem to see a political cost in any way.

Yeah. And it's not like the Trump administration is, you know, grappling with the fact that this guy had a big role in the Border Patrol. Yeah, I think he care less.

Finally, so look, of all the people we've discussed, is there one that, I don't know, worries

You most, maybe worries the wrong word, but that has the most crossover appea...

and independence and the most influence is sort of drag people into this conservative space

or that maga space.

Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot that are concerning, I mean, my mind just instantly

jumps to Candace Owen. So I think he's done a lot to mainstream anti-Semitism to, you know, I was getting my haircut and the woman cutting my hairs was otherwise very liberal and said, but you know, but I think Candace Owen's is on to a lot. She's, she's just doing investigations, I mean, we saw Hunter Biden when he was on her show.

He said, you know, I love the questions you're asking if she's trying to ask for her time. It was gross. It was crazy. Yeah.

And so I think someone like that, and she's, frankly, she's very compelling broadcaster.

And so I think that kind of combination, I think is pretty concerning.

I put Fuentes up there too. I mean, like, I think that there's a lot of young kids in, like, fraternities at SEC schools who are listening to Nick Fuentes and like, to, to his credit, he's a compelling broadcaster. Like, he sits in front of a microphone for an hour, several hours a night, and just speaks into the ether.

And that is an incredibly hard thing to do, and he has skilled at it, and he also can be very, very funny. I mean, like, you see all sea clips of like Joe Rogan, another very famous comedian's talking about how funny Nick Fuentes is. And I worry that that really can help, you know, obscure or some genuinely, like, neo-nazi

scary misogynistic racist views. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I think, you know, and we can see not just with things like the way Fuentes has

promoted fish back, but also these sort of recurring Republican, younger Republican racist text message leaks and things like this. I mean, those views, this is not just one guy who has a sizable social media following. I think those views are really sinking in with younger Republicans and those people are, you know, unfortunately, the future of the party.

Yep, in their future of the party. And this kind of mega media world, I think will determine the course that party takes. And so, well, I'm so grateful for you for talking me through all of this. I find this endlessly fascinating. I could literally go on all day, but I'm grateful to you and everyone, again, should

subscribe to false flag your incredible newsletter, which, by the way, we're promoted

at the top two. Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. Thanks, buddy. Thanks again to Will Summer for joining the show, and John Favroge on Love It and I will be back next week on the regular Tuesday episode.

Pods in America is a cricketing media production, our show is produced by Austin Fisher, Sal Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Ferris Favroge, with Returlin, Elijah Cone, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hefko, Jordan Cancer, Charlotte Landis, Carol Pellavie, David Tolz, Mia Kalman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Sengel. Our staff is probably unionized with the writer's guild of America East. Hey, cricketing listeners. If you haven't become a friend of the party yet, you are missing out on exclusive bonus content, the drops, every single week.

If you do join, you're helping us grow cricketing media, which is one of the few independent, proudly pro-democracy media companies left in Trump's America. If you join, you also get ad free episodes of All Your Favorite Pods, ad free episodes of Potsay of America, love it or leave it offline. Pods save the world, you also get bonus content like our new extra episode of Potsay of America, called Potsay of America, only friends, Dan, Fight for his Polar Coaster. You also get access to all of our excellent sub-stack newsletters like Potsay of America, open tabs, and tons more great content.

So, stop what you're doing right now and go ahead and subscribe at cricketing.com/Friends. Check it out. [MUSIC]

Compare and Explore