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That's code DSR26 at the DSRNetworkin.com/buy. Thank you and enjoy the show. 9, 12, 10, 28, 2, 23. This is Deep State Radio,
“coming to you direct from our Super Secret Studio”
in the third sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C.
and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world. Hello, welcome to Need to Know. I'm David Rothkuff, your host, and this week. As every week, we're going to talk to a newsmaker,
a smart person who's going to help. Help make it all make sense for you. This week, we've got our friend, Jennifer Welch. Jen is the host of the I've had it podcast, which is Vital Therapy for All of America and it's sort of
burgeoning into a bit of an empire with lots of different kinds of podcasts. How are you doing today, Jen? I'm doing well, you know, the weather's nice. I just like it for simple things. President Spatshed, I just saw a little meeting he had with his cabinet,
and that was just as bonkers as it could ever be. It was crazy. It was crazy. What stood out to you? I mean, I was watching my head was exploding. A couple of things stood out where he said that he doesn't care about the war,
and then the other thing that always stands out to me is the constant
bragging about the cognitive tests, which tells me he failed it. Any failed it miserably, and he is constantly trying to get ahead of it
“and provide cover for it. It's just, I think it's, I get a singular crazy person.”
You see a singular crazy person. You have a singular crazy person in your family, etc. The people, the bottom feeders that signed up to work for him, that tell him how great he is. Mike Johnson just made an up a new trophy to give to him. And the collective shamelessness of these people is what's so stunning to me, David. Yeah, and it just doesn't stop. You know, I mean, at one point during this thing,
you know, there's just, it's not just the cognitive test. There's the character flaws manifest themselves in it. It's not just that they say nice things to him. He apparently demands it. You know, and he got a question. Why did you, you know, why did you vote by mail when you're against voting by mail? And he said, because I'm the president of the United States.
And then he turned to Steve Wittkoff, and he said, "Well, can I tell him what the Iranians did for us?" He was referring to apparently a deal to let H ships through as a sign of their good faith. And Wittkoff said, "Well, you can do anything you want, sir." And it's like,
“"How needy is this guy?" There was another comment also in the whole thing. I think he was talking”
to Doug Bergham. And he said, "What will the Venezuelans put up a statute to me?" And he's seeing how he's really picking on Hexeth a lot and kind of blaming him for the war the last couple of days. And then today at this cabinet meeting, he said, "Yeah, somebody told me right to Hexeth." He's like, "Yeah, somebody told me that you were a bad hire that I shouldn't have hired you, but you were born to do this job." And I think that this humiliation
ritual is just part and parcel for what Autocrats do. He just wants to humiliate Hexeth and divide and rule. Well, this could give you a chance as an Autocrat, because I've heard you humiliate Hexeth a few times. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's very humiliatable. And he's such a religious fanatic. Can you see this prayer thing that he did recently?
I think he did yesterday.
seems to want to turn this whole thing into like a crusade, a holy war. And he's got of course
his tattoos, but what was yesterday? He was at the Pentagon and he did. He started quoting scripture and it was all the Old Testament, Hellfire, Bremstone. God is with us as we go destroy. It's just a really dark age iron age shit that I feel dumber for having heard, but of course I watched the
“full clip and he's just such an insane person. And I think the larger story with Pete Hexeth”
is the Christian nationalist movement. They are the most co-opted group in the United States. When Russia wanted to enter into the United States, they go to the prayer breakfast. And so we
have these Christian nationalists like the Speaker of the House, who claims that he talks to God
and God tells him he's Moses. And we have another one that's the Secretary of Defense. I refuse to call it the Secretary of War just for spite. And I think it's ridiculous. But the Christian nationalist something is I hope that Democrats really start addressing how Beninas that is. But J.D. Vance is also sort of glombed onto that, including up to lingering hugs with Erica Kurt, which is, you know, I mean, he's put his, he's not just
“talking, he's just walking the walk, but it does worry me because, you know, let's face it.”
Trump looks terrible. He's old. His ankles, his hand, his head is sort of sinking into his chest. He's rambling this and that. And you, and you go, this guy's an old dying. If this was your uncle, you know, you'd be like, you know, get your act together, you know, get your house in order, because it doesn't have long to live. But it does raise the question of what's next. And wherever you look in the Republican Party, you've got this kind of Christian national stuff,
even, even, national stuff, even Marco, little Marco, who, you know, is supposedly the Sainer one in the room. You know, prior to Trump coming in, all he did was tweet out Bible verses. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a little word. You come from the Bible belt. Does this
“resonate there still or do they realize what a scam it is? No, it absolutely resonates. And if”
the right accuses us of virtue signaling, and the left needs to start accusing rightfully, not accusing pointing out the, uh, Christian signaling that these men do. And a huge concern is J.D. Vance, because he's young, and he has a very wealthy benefactor, Peter Teele, who's side hustle is doing speeches around the world about the anti-Christ. Wherein, he sounds like he's describing himself. But the dismantling and the brand damage that needs to be done to the
Arab parents of MAGA needs to start now. J.D. Vance is a lab. There's all the rumors, obviously, about the couches and all of that. But aside from that, this man has changed his name three times and changed his religion three times. And the Democrats need to start hammering at any potential Arab parent, because what Trump is incubating is going to be worse. And they need to start attacking Tucker Carlson as well, who claims that he was attacked by demons in his bed while simultaneously
admitting that he sleeps with three large dogs. And so the problem with these, the Arab parents of MAGA in 30 second clips, they can sound really focused on something. You know, I know, Tucker sounds pretty good here. March, March, but Taylor Greenshire has changed. And so we have to start playing offense and really rough these people up in the American psyche, so they have, so they're constantly playing defense. And I can't for the life of me, David, find our leader that's leading this charge,
because it seems like the opposition is rather disjointed. But so let me ask a hard question about that, because I was with a bunch of senior dams the other night. And they were going, well,
you know what the answer is? Is that we need to own religion in our own way. And they said,
"Well, look at James Taloreco in Texas or look at Andy Bashir, a governor who's just put out a book talking about his relationship with faith." And I'm not saying people shouldn't have a relationship with faith. But it is a choice, right? One choice is to say, well, let's get a little bit more like them in all of this. And another choice is to call them out. And maybe that's regional,
How do you come out and all of them?
is a fool's errand. The people that triple Trump that live in Bible Belt countries will quadruple Trump, if he's able to, you know, go around the Constitution. They might say, "I'm mad right now. I
wasn't idiot, but when it comes down to it, the Republicans have done an incredible job, branding
all Democrats as demon rats and lived tards." And I know that is not deep and it isn't deep. And
“that's why we, the play that we need to take out of their playbook is not to go, "Oh, we're going to”
be fake Christians now." The play that we take out of their playbook is damaging their brand for being the hypocrites that they are. If we want to talk about faith as Democrats, then let's talk about how hypocritical the party of family values is with Elon Musk, fighting with baby momas online, and God only knows how many kids the man has. I mean, I've read articles that some people suspect that he's doing IVF stuff in Japan and other countries as well. And if we would just
call out that they have weaponized the one thing in rural America or in Bible Belt states or in flyover states, the one thing they have is their church. And the Republican party has weaponized the one thing they hold dear against them. And that is diabolical and they are liars. They need
“to call them liars and explain you hurt and you're in pain right now because the Republican party”
has lied to you. Well, never trickles down. The billionaires are not your friends. The immigrants
were never going to take your jobs. It's always been the oligarchs with the robots. And instead, see, that just makes me so fucking mad David to know that you're sitting there like, well, maybe we need to be more Christian. Attack on Sidmer. No, no, the friends, the senior Democrats, not you. The senior Democrats, you had a chat with. Instead of believe in something, call them out for being the hypocrites that they are, that will resonate more if there are
independent voters. Because on some level, people in the Bible Belt know when they go to their mega church and there's a coffee shop and a gift shop. And, you know, the pastor pulls up in a new Mercedes, they know they're getting grafted a little bit. That's the thing. Like, are you, that's the argument. Are you going to let everybody get theirs and lie to you on their way to
getting it? And I just, I get frustrated with democratic messaging because it always seems like they
want to somehow get this elusive Republican voter to vote for them. Somehow, that will make them happen. By Amazon, we come to work. I've done four thousand five hundred euros for Prof. Reiterbildung. I've been in the logistics center for a long time and I'm sure I can tell you, at least in the robot tech. So, that's my job, a career. Amazon, after all, started with more than four thousand five hundred euros per year for
Prof. Reiterbildung. The world's part of the United States. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. The whole, the worst impulse of Democrats is to say, well, we need to meet them halfway. We need to split the difference with them because if you're splitting the difference with an autocrat or you're splitting the difference with, you know,
“somebody who is just fundamentally a bad person, you're losing, right? And, you know, I think”
one of the, you know, I quote you all the time because you used this expression that, you know, we shouldn't be well, we should be dark-wip. In other words, we should own who we are. And I agree with that 100%. And there are also opportunities, like it looks like in Texas, you're going to have a Senate race in which the president said he was going to choose size and then he sort of chicken out on that. And, you know, Paxon could win and Paxon, like Trump is an example of somebody that
these churches should be excoriating, isn't he? I mean, and yet what's the strange appeal? I mean, very originally from Texas. What is the weird appeal there? So, for me, I understand this perfectly, this form of Christianity, this evangelical mega church, very white nationalist form of Christianity, is all about forgiveness with no accountability. So, when Trump got the evangelicals via Jerry Falwell Jr., to the one who was hired the poor boy to bang his wife, that one. When he got his vote,
it's just a true story listener. When he, when he got him on board, it didn't surprise me that the evangelicals went along with this, where my friends that are on the coast were like, how can these Christians support this? And I'm like, Trump is an evangelical preacher to his core.
He is a grifter.
up the divorces. There's forgiveness me, but no accountability. Zero accountability. And so,
“for him to be president, it makes all of the stuff that itches in their brains a little bit.”
Like, did the pastor really bang a secretary and have a kid with her? And now he's up here snotsling and we're just moving on from it. Like, it's no big deal. It gave them all a permission structure to say, oh, everybody's screwed up as we are. And the grifting, if you dive into like Donald Trump's website, all the grifting that he does, that is textbook, mega church, prosperity gospel stuff. So, this is familiar to them. This is a passive form of familiarity
where the person that they look to for moral guidance is a crook, is a liar, is a snake wheel salesman, but they think if they don't trust the pastor, they're going to burn and hell. And so, the the mirroring of evangelical Christianity and Donald Trump to me as a non-religious person who grew up in the Bible about, I'm like, oh, this makes perfect sense. Donald Trump is exactly the way these people are. Yeah, it's interesting because it's a, it's a special kind of a deal,
right? They say, we will give you just enough Jesus or we will give you just enough church. And once we do that, we can do whatever we want. That gives us the license, as you talk about no accountability. I saw somebody at the social media yesterday or the day before, I didn't see yesterday, say something to the effect of, or maybe it was this point, say something to the effect of, well, it seems like if you give them just enough racism, then you can do all the
grifting you want. Because they're out there and they're feeling bad for being a racist and then somebody comes along and says, oh, no, it's okay to be a racist and they're like, well, that's relief. And, you know, I'm with that guy because he makes me feel better about myself. So, you know, I don't care if the next thing he does is a, you know, crypto deal with whomever or he's, you know, he's, I mean, the Trump campaign is selling America 250 paraphernalia.
They're literally making a profit off of the 250th anniversary of the United States, which is
amazing. And so, I guess, I mean, is that the transaction, you give people just enough to feel
good about themselves and they'll let you have a pass on everything else? Yeah, I think that's a part of it. And I do think to the, the part thing you saw in social media, in, in the Bible belt, racism is still very prominent. It really is. And I think even Megan Kelly said it on her podcast a few months ago. We haven't felt normal since Obama and something about Obama ascending to the executive branch broke them. And then their racist
instincts were, you, they really had to suppress them, right? And maybe we started getting better, maybe things were getting better in that regard. And then comes the dog whistles. He's not from here.
“He's not one of us, Donald Trump, the way he did that. And I think that the, the worst thing”
about Donald Trump is he has unlocked in the followers of him, the cult base, that everybody caves to their worst impulses. Like all of the worst stereotypes about Americans is him. And then his followers just all cave to their worst impulses, where we all have had moments as human beings, where it's like, God, I really want to do this thing. It will be, you know, instant gratification, it will feel great. But if I play the tape through, I really can't do this thing. I need to
delay gratification. And this is a long-term deal. But it's going to be more painful. Donald Trump is right now instant gratification. The worst stereotypes of all of American culture into this blistering horrific orange zit. And I think he's just, he's provided a permission structure
“for a mass moral collapse on a huge scale. And I think David, I just get so pissed when I think”
about these Republicans that I've been friends with in Oklahoma City, that are all, we're all about national security, business people. And we like the decorum of the office, and that they have excused this behavior, and that all of the Republicans in the Senate and the House, that gets so sanctimonious to us about the dignity of the office and national security and
support the troops. And then it's all bullshit. It was all bullshit. It was always just all about power
Owning the lips.
I think Comer, Representative Comer, was on the news a couple of days ago. And he said,
“"Boy, I spent the airport sure is going to piss off the Democrats and that makes it all worth”
while." And I thought, that's it. That's it. Even if his own supporters are suffering, standing in line, missing their flights for three hours, as long as it pissed off a few lips, when, when. Yeah, you know, you know, you know, I'm a kind of a national security guy, and so you trigger something when you say they're supposed to be good at national security, because here we have a war with Iran going on right now, which is the stupidest war we've ever
gotten into. Literally, there was no planning. There was no thought. It goes against everything that any planner has ever thought before. And it's all because the guy in the White House acts without advice and is an idiot. And, you know, he doesn't seem to care about anybody else. But when you take a step beyond that, you see that the entire Republican myth of national security competence is belied by the facts, whether it's the Iraq war or the global war
on terror or spending six trillion, eight trillion dollars over the past 25 years, while the Chinese were investing it in building their society. We were throwing it away on wars that we ultimately lost. They're bad at it. And the same is true, by the way, about the economy. They say, well, we're good at the economy and Democrats create jobs, Republicans don't. Democrats create surpluses, Republicans create deficits. Republicans are bad at the economy. Stock market
actually goes up more when Democrats are presidents than when Republicans are presidents. And at
a certain point, even we get beyond the superficiality, the reality is, their Republicans are
lousy at all the things they say they're good at. They're good at making inequality worse, getting more money for the people who don't need it, taking money from the people who do need it, more power to the people who don't need it, taking it from the people who do need it. And so where
“does that leave us? Well, on the one hand, it's like, let's go on attack. But I think the other side”
of the coin, and I'm just interested in how you see the evolving in the context of this upcoming election, is the Democrats ought to own who they are because actually their better at economics, their better at making the country work better, their better at national security,
Democrats are always apologizing for who they are. And the record says something very different,
and yet somehow our first reaction when we get attacked by a Republican is to say, well, you know, maybe you're right, or there may be some point, and it just drives me bananas. And I'm just wondering what your reaction to all this. So everything you said is 100% true, but this is the important thing for us to note, and it's very simple, the Republicans are better messengers, even if that message is a lie. They have done decades of messaging, especially where I'm
from. There's no Democratic party in Oklahoma anymore. So the Republicans just outcrazy themselves. Oklahoma was mag a 15, 20 years ago, before Trump ever made the mag a movement.
“Just Christian Nationalists outcrazing each other. That's why what we spoke about it first,”
if there were a populist, whether they're Christian, like, Tolerico or not, but a populist, like let's take two different examples. So Zorn, Mom, Donnie, and Tolerico, that went in, laser focused, and said, particularly in flyover states and Bible what's if somebody said, they have lied to you, they are liars. And David, this is what I think about all the time. When Trump came to run in 2015, 2016, nobody wanted him. Fox didn't want him,
the Republican establishment didn't want him, but what set him apart? He bashed everybody on the stage. He bashed the status quo. He said, little Marco lying dead. He dismantled the entire Republican party debate after debate. And the Republican party finally came to heal and finally came to support him. Some of
there's some never-chirp Trumpers in the Lincoln Project or whatever, but the majority,
all switched, even though every Republican I knew in Oklahoma City, I would say good country-club Republicans, oh, and never vote for Donald Trump. This is during the primaries. Well, what did he do there? He lied, but he attacked the status quo. And he took the Republican party that George W. Bush sent off to the pastor. And he resurrected it. And the Democrats, the lesson in that is not to be a pathological liar, the message in that is to have the ability
To step in and criticize your own party right now and say, "Mary Garland fuck...
You know it. I know it. That was disgraceful. Joe Biden served us for a long time, but we cannot
“keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result. People in middle America, Donald Trump,”
and the Republican party lies to you. They weaponize your faith against you. Here is the facts. Here is the data. But like you said, they're playing defense all the time. Instead of offense, when we really have the ball, so it boils down for me to a messaging issue and that we have to start damaging the Republican brand in the same way that they have falsely via lies and propaganda, propaganda damaged the Democratic brand. And I don't know for the life of me, like we have
serious problems in what's incubating right now. Tucker and Nick Fuentes. And if we do not start actively damaging that brand, we are leaving an incubation center for people that have been left over that are just like craving an anti-status quo candidate. And a lot of times that comes in the form of a dimagog, like Trump did and like a Fuentes or a Tucker could. Yeah, but you know, you all said this other phenomenon, which is one that we've dealt with. You know, I was in the
Clinton administration and there were a bunch of well-intentioned people there, but, you know, the neoliberals who were essentially owned by Wall Street took over, put in a place a bunch of
policies that ultimately rewarded Wall Street, rewarded Silicon Valley as it was growing. And
really drove inequality in the United States. Same thing happened under Obama. Those people are lining up right now. And you hear them on talk shows all the time. And they're saying the place to win this is in the middle. Let's find common ground. Let's find a way to get along with those nice billionaires. Let's not criticize the billionaires in all of this. And it drives me a little crazy, because I know that essentially that is just Reagan light. That is maga light. That is just
sort of the center playing for its checkbook and ignoring all these things that you're saying. And that's going to peel away at some of the Democrats right now. We've got a midterm election coming
up. And I wish I could talk to you for hours. But in the last couple of minutes we've got,
how does it look to you? How does it look to our Democrats getting the message? Are you seeing this out there? Or are you worried that we're going to end kind of back where we were, you know, four years ago where there's a bunch of institutionalists and there's a bunch of neoliberals and there's a bunch of sort of corporate dams saying, okay, well, let's meet them out for it. So all of those people exist, but the base is different. And if you go back to 2016,
Trump took everybody by surprise, but the right-wing media ecosystem was not surprised at all, and everybody dismissed them. As, oh, their fringe, you know, we go by what Fox or with RNC says.
“And I think the DNC is going to be in for a huge awakening when they realize that what we're”
doing right now in our media ecosystem, how much it's grown, how much it's multiplied, and how many people in flyover states? Women that I know that were maybe independent, leaning Republicans are now woke as liberals. Like, I'm not vote for somebody who takes a pack of money. I'm like, okay, Debbie, I didn't even know you knew what a pack was. And so a lot of millions of people are off the corporate tip. And these leaders that you're speaking about,
they do not have the luxury any longer of feeding people, incremental propaganda on corporate cable news anymore, because people are now in the spaces that we're in. And so I think the DNC and the Democratic establishment, if we have free and fair elections where ICE isn't terrorizing people, they're going to learn very quickly. Oh, shit, our base is different. And I don't think that's clued into them yet, but I know it. You know it. Everybody in these
spaces know it. And you know who knew it in 2016? The Trump supporters knew it. They're like,
“this is a movement. Things have changed here. And that's what's happening on our side right now.”
And I think we're going to see the establishment go, oh, shit, they have really changed. They're not tolerating this. Look, it was around in New York. He took on billionaires, Cuomo twice, the DNC, and they're still not quite getting the message yet, but I think they're going to get it soon. I certainly hope you're right. I certainly think you're right. You know, Zoraan is a good example. There are other examples out there. People who are willing to stand
Up, willing to tell the truth, willing to call them out for what they are, an...
that the Democratic agenda is the agenda that actually plays to and motivates the rising
class of voters. You know, the millennials and the Gen Z that will be the majority of voters in
“2028. And we're seeing a change. And the only people who don't seem to see it, I think, are the leaders”
in the Democratic Party, the DNC, the Chuck Schumer's, and the others who are living in a fog, or who are married to the old and days where you don't criticize a pack or you don't criticize this reality. You don't criticize, you know, big institutions in the United States, and right now
“we got to do it. And so that's why I'm really, I implore everybody who's listening to this.”
If you don't go and listen to Jen and I've had it, you're making a big mistake. She has really
one of the most important voices that have emerged out there. And I'm so delighted to see the
attention that you are getting. I'm in the New York Times, the New York, very fancy. There are no people who read those in Oklahoma City. I do. I'm like holy macro. This is you are having an impact. But it's a, it's a coast to coast impact. And it really hits where we need to hit. So I'm so glad you could join us. I hope we can coach you back here again to continue the conversation,
but everybody, the first thing you do as soon as you get off is you go subscribe, follow what Jen
“is doing. It's really, really important. For now, thanks Jen. Thanks everybody for listening,”
and we'll see you next week, or see every day on each of the pods that we've got. Until then, bye-bye. [MUSIC]
