Today, Dan and Jordan welcome Erica Lafferty to the show to discuss her experience as the lead plaintiff in the Connecticut case against Alex Jones, her medical situation, and much more. Click here to check out Erica's GoFundMe
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, saying we are the bad guys. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Knowledge fight. | |
| Dan and George. | ||
| Knowledge. | ||
| Fight. | ||
| Need money. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stop it. | |
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| It's time to pray. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Andy in Kansas. | |
| You're on the air. | ||
| I love you. | ||
| Hey, everybody! | ||
| Welcome back to Knowledge Fight. | ||
| I'm Dan. | ||
| We're a couple dudes like to sit around, worship at the altar of Selene, and talk a little bit about Alex Jones. | ||
| Oh, indeed we are, Dan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Quick question for you. | ||
| What's up? | ||
| What's your bright spot today, buddy? | ||
| My bright spot today is right here. | ||
| I have finished the construction of this Lego set of the tall neck. | ||
| It's beautiful. | ||
| From Horizon Zero Dawn. | ||
| It is quite tall. | ||
| And it has a neck. | ||
| What would you say? | ||
| 15 inches? | ||
| Something like that tall? | ||
| I'd say over a foot. | ||
| Over a foot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Took the better part of a couple hours. | ||
| Not as long as I expected, but it was such a gratifying time. | ||
| I had a great, I had a blast making it, and I'm going to get more Legos. | ||
| I believe you. | ||
| I love mini blocks. | ||
| Year of the Legos. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Uh-oh. | ||
| No more years. | ||
| What's your bright spot, Jordan? | ||
| My bright spot is, Dan, I found, or I downloaded and started playing the new Jedi Survivor game. | ||
| Ooh, yeah. | ||
| Fantastic. | ||
| Positive reviews of it. | ||
| Fantastic. | ||
| I've never played those Souls-like games before where the bosses are extra hard and you have to die a bunch. | ||
| Like masochists. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| It's really difficult, but it's so much fun. | ||
| It's like there have been a million Jedi games, obviously. | ||
| I've been burned by Star Wars licensed products. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Totally. | |
| And so I'm a little bit reluctant to... | ||
| This one has some solid, you feel like a Jedi, jumping around, flipping, slashing, shooting for stuff. | ||
| From what I understand, there's a make-your-own-lightsaber kind of thing, which people really enjoy. | ||
| Yep, you can make your own lightsaber, you can customize stuff, you got a home to build stuff in. | ||
| Yeah, you got it. | ||
| You got it all, buddy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wait, wait, wait, wait. | |
| I'm on board. | ||
| I know, I was waiting until you were on the show to tell you. | ||
| Yeah, I know. | ||
| That way you couldn't download it before we started the show. | ||
| We gotta pause the recording. | ||
| No, you know my weak spots. | ||
| If there's a school and a game or a homesteading feature, I can't resist. | ||
| Without further ado, we have a guest today, so let's not annoy them further with rambling and talking. | ||
| Very excited to have this person on the show, someone who we have recently been in contact with and we're thrilled to have. | ||
| Erica Lafferty, thank you for joining us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, hello. | |
| I'm so excited to be here with you guys. | ||
| For those who are unfamiliar just by your name, you're the daughter of the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School and one of the plaintiffs in the Connecticut case against Alex Jones, which is more or less how our orbits intersected. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| I had the absolute privilege of being the lead plaintiff in that case. | ||
| Was that something that was negotiated? | ||
| Was there a drawing straws process? | ||
| I mean, I'm not going to lie, I would have thrown hands for me to have been at the top of that. | ||
| But it was just kind of like, who's up to take this beating? | ||
| And, I mean... | ||
| So who was up to take that beating? | ||
| I mean, I was, for sure. | ||
| I'm like, I got this. | ||
| Like, I'm feisty. | ||
| I crushed this. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, yeah, because it is, you know, the case, as it's titled, it's Lafferty et al. | ||
| Again, versus Jones. | ||
| And so, like, you are really forefront in terms of that. | ||
| And I remember, I believe it was one of the jurors had a question of, like, Is the person first named, or is there anything to the order in terms of, like, the, like, priority? | ||
| Yeah, did somebody abuse this person more, and then there's a lower ranking as it goes on, which would be a very strange system. | ||
| Like, aha, yes, this person got... | ||
| Yeah, that'd be crazy as shit. | ||
| Yeah, the hierarchy of oppression gets weird. | ||
| Yeah, no, so it was, like, just totally random. | ||
| Yeah, it was totally random, and our legal team was just kind of like... | ||
| Who's up to get their ass kicked because somebody's name has to go first. | ||
| And I was like, yeah, I'm here for it. | ||
| Well, that is quite considerate of you towards your fellow plaintiffs. | ||
| So to start things off on a little bit like less of a heavier note or less of a complicated note, you in our email, you'd asked for an explanation of some of our show's lingo because we have a little bit of a... | ||
| Unaccessible nature to some of the terms that get thrown around. | ||
| This could be useful for some of the newer listeners, too, who don't know. | ||
| I have another one to add to my list today, too. | ||
| I think the wonk thing, first and foremost, that is how I found you. | ||
| And then... | ||
| I was called the Honorary Raptor Princess, which I was just like, yo, that sounds so badass. | ||
| I'm like, I want to do that, but like, please tell me what it is. | ||
| And then, yeah, and then today, this wonk, wonderful wonk, Drew L., his donation was brought to me by a giant intimidating bag of gummy worms. | ||
| Just wanted to know if there was anything behind that. | ||
| Sure, sure, sure. | ||
| So, to start at the top, the wonk thing is sort of a catch-all name for our listeners. | ||
| It started, I guess, based on our third or fourth episode or something. | ||
| Alex Jones said that he's a policy wonk, and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, because he doesn't know anything about policy. | ||
| Or anything. | ||
|
unidentified
|
True. | |
| But the term is used for somebody who's a real nerd, who reads bills and is really in the weeds. | ||
| And I thought it was so funny that he called himself a policy wog. | ||
| And so I just started playing the sound effect fairly repeatedly. | ||
| And it took as a name for listeners. | ||
| Do you want to feel the raptor princess? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| As far as raptor princesses go... | ||
| That's kind of, well, we've done these Project Camelot episodes wherein we've talked about Carrie Cassidy and her cadre of space weirdos, people who are conspiracy theorists, but, you know, with aliens and the like. | ||
| And so one of the main characters, Captain Mark Richards, he insisted that he was married to a raptor princess. | ||
| The raptors are a species of alien that he is allied with. | ||
| And so he got married to the princess of the raptor aliens. | ||
| And so we have a little ceramic raptor princess here. | ||
| Oh, I love that. | ||
| Someone has made some other artwork featuring. | ||
| That is just so good. | ||
| So it's just basically another little title for folks that we bestow. | ||
| And I'm comfortable saying that you qualify. | ||
| You can be a raptor princess. | ||
| 100%. | ||
| I love that. | ||
| And then The Gummy Worms is about Bill Ogden, one of the lawyers in Texas. | ||
| He, in a deposition, he was taking a deposition of Owen Schroyer. | ||
| And he was intentionally eating gummy worms in a really menacing way to, like, gesticulate. | ||
| Just kind of like almost a threatening level of calmness that he was trying to express. | ||
| And so that's kind of become a little bit of a joke for folks as well. | ||
| During the Austin trial, somebody sent him a gigantic gummy worm gift as a thank you and the like. | ||
| Yeah, our listeners are real cool, but also... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whimsical. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Whimsical is a good word. | ||
| Capricious and whimsical. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, like, I love the attention to detail. | ||
| Like, I really love how they can pick up on, like, the super weird shit and just, like, make it the best thing ever. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We got lucky. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm not sure exactly what we did, but... | ||
| Community of folks who've gathered around are so thoughtful and also exactly what you said. | ||
| They pick up on a little thing and play with it in the right way. | ||
| That's real cool. | ||
| And very, very generous, which I suppose takes us to the next part. | ||
| First off, let's get into the GoFundMe. | ||
| You have a GoFundMe campaign right now to pay for your medical bills and the like. | ||
| Could you talk a little bit about your diagnosis and how long this has been going on and where we are in the process and the like? | ||
| Yeah, so I'm gonna... | ||
| Okay, so I'm gonna preface this with, like, I work with some wonks, right? | ||
| Like, I work at a non-profit that gets, like, real, legally... | ||
| Actual wonks. | ||
| Real policy wonks. | ||
| Like, actual policy wonks, yeah. | ||
| Wonks who politicize. | ||
| I never heard the word wonky. | ||
| Until I started at this job. | ||
| And now they're always like, Erica, you're getting too in the weeds. | ||
| And I'm like, listen, I work with a room full of fucking lawyers every day, all day, and you did this to my brain. | ||
| So if I start talking too, like, science-y, just be impressed because I failed biology 97 times in my life. | ||
| Don't worry, we will. | ||
| I can label you a raptor princess, but I can't do anything about those grades, unfortunately. | ||
| I don't have the power to bestow an honorary degree. | ||
|
unidentified
|
My principal mother loved it. | |
| Okay, so back in 2014, I went to the eye doctor because I inherited my mom's crap vision. | ||
| And I was there for just a regular checkup, and they found this little spot behind my left eye. | ||
| And the eye doctor was like, eh, kind of don't like that, but it's probably just scar tissue. | ||
| Let's just keep an eye on it. | ||
| Which we did. | ||
| I went to the eye doctor more frequently just to have it measured in both size and location. | ||
| For nine years, it stayed exactly the same. | ||
| This past December, December 22, it was literally only, like, 12 days, I think, after, like, no, 10 days after the 10-year anniversary of my mom's murder. | ||
| I go to, like, my routine checkup, and the doctor's like, your scar tissue grew. | ||
| And I'm like, how does scar tissue just randomly grow after almost a fucking decade, right? | ||
| So he's like, yeah, you should probably go to a neurologist. | ||
| And I'm like, okay, never done that before. | ||
| So let me, like, establish myself with a neurologist, which if anybody's done that, it's not an easy thing to do. | ||
| There's long, long weights, whatever. | ||
| So by the time, so from that initial eye doctor appointment to the time I got to the neurologist, my, what I thought was scar tissue, had tripled in size. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whoa. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, so that's some interesting scar tissue. | ||
| If that were scar tissue for real, this would be an issue for Dr. House. | ||
| This would be a medical marvel. | ||
| Correct, yeah. | ||
| Right? | ||
| And like the cane and the abuse of opiates and all that good stuff. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Looks like you're using that eye too much. | ||
| Try an eye patch. | ||
| Oh my god, I have the best eye patches. | ||
| They have like pretzels and bananas and stuff on them. | ||
| I have apples, I have seashells. | ||
| Oh my god, it's so cool. | ||
| I've been trying to work in a TLC reference somewhere because of the left eye aspect. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| We've been going for this so long, both of us have been staring furtive glances. | ||
| Is she going to light her house on fire? | ||
| That was Andre Risen's house. | ||
| So, all right. | ||
| I'm a neurologist. | ||
| Sorry, my dogs are... | ||
| That's Roxy. | ||
| She's an asshole. | ||
| So I'm at the neurologist and the neurologist is like, I don't like to look at this. | ||
| Unfortunately, you're now going to get a bunch of fan art of Roxy the dog. | ||
| Oh my gosh, she's so obnoxious. | ||
| So I'm at the neurologist's office and the doctor was like, yeah, I'm not really comfortable with letting you leave here and not setting up an appointment at a different doctor. | ||
| That's what she said, a different doctor. | ||
| And I'm like, What kind of different doctor do I need to go for if it's not a doctor for something with my eye that's near my brain and you don't want me to see my doctor. | ||
| You don't want me to see a brain doctor. | ||
| But she hadn't said oncologist. | ||
| A different doctor. | ||
| So she's on the phone. | ||
| She runs out, gets her cell phone, uses her actual cell phone in the room with me to make an appointment with an oncologist and was like, okay, Erica, you need to leave here and drive to this oncology office. | ||
| You're going to have a biopsy like today. | ||
| Whoa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Cool! | |
| Yeah, you love it when doctors are rushed. | ||
| What in the actual shit? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Right. | ||
| Like, if there's not a reason to be terrified in that, like, I don't know what on earth to be scared of. | ||
| So I go and they do the biopsy. | ||
| They, like, they take this giant tuby thing up my nose, like, little, like, grabby laser thing and, like, rip out part of this massive tumor that's pre-folding in my fucking forehead. | ||
| And they're like, alright, have fun waiting three weeks for Verzo. | ||
| Like, oh. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Cool. | |
| My god, you're so annoying, Roxy. | ||
| Sorry, guys. | ||
| No, no, no, it's great. | ||
| This cuts up the seriousness of the story quite well. | ||
| Tension breaking. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, totally. | |
| Yeah, this dog is killing it right now. | ||
| Roxy's got timing. | ||
| Dude, and she's on Prozac. | ||
| Like, there's no reason for her to be acting like this. | ||
| She takes Prozac every single day. | ||
| Wow, you want her to be quiet? | ||
| I'll tell you how to do it. | ||
| So, thankfully, the results don't take three weeks, right? | ||
| It was only like four days before they called me and they're like, yeah, that's actually the primary orbital tumor and we're calling it age two lymphoma, like B-cell lymphoma. | ||
| And I'm like... | ||
| Cool, what does that mean? | ||
| And they were like, you have cancer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
A not good cancer. | |
| Generally, you want to start on stage one. | ||
| I feel like if you're going to get that diagnosis, you want to skip a stage. | ||
| That's probably tough news to swallow. | ||
| I'm going to try to do something about the dog. | ||
| So we're going to go for a little adventure around my house. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| So, um, So, yeah. | ||
| So that was like one of the biopsies that they did that day. | ||
| They also did biopsies on my lymph nodes and my neck. | ||
| And those results came a bit... | ||
| See, there's my pretty mommy. | ||
| I'm judging your decor. | ||
| Your home decor. | ||
| After labeling Mark Bankston the tapestry king, I am now very... | ||
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| I mean, I have cows on my walls and all crazy stuff going on here. | ||
| Okay, so the lymph node biopsies came back about two weeks later. | ||
| And those were significant masses, they were called. | ||
| And I'm like, okay. | ||
| But they were a stage zero cancer. | ||
| So, with it being two weeks in between the two diagnoses, we kind of had this plan happening for how we were going to treat the orbital tumor. | ||
| And the properties of my orbital tumor were very, very similar to that of a thyroid cancer, which is why they chose to do a radioactive iodine treatment versus targeted radiation. | ||
| So, when I find out that I have, like, the stage zero lymph node masses, they were like, alright, we're also going to add chemo to this, like, treatment plant. | ||
| And I'm like, uh... | ||
| Just toss it in. | ||
| At the same time? | ||
| Just toss it in a little bit. | ||
| And they're like, yeah, yeah, like, they're going to run concurrently. | ||
| And I'm like, okay, yeah, sure. | ||
| Let's just, yeah, let's pile that on. | ||
| And I'm like, does that mean like I have to come here every day? | ||
| And they're like, no, no, no. | ||
| You can take a chemo pill, right? | ||
| And it's the best thing for you specifically because like my grandfather had this thing called prambocytopenia, which is like a form of leukemia. | ||
| And like I'm predisposed to like have all of this like horrible shit happen to my body. | ||
| So I'm lucky, right? | ||
| And I get to take these chemo pills every single day for five weeks. | ||
| Very lucky. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I'm... | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, I understand. | |
| I'm fucking psyched about it. | ||
| Right, of course. | ||
| Compared to the alternative. | ||
| And all of this, like, you know, you know, 50 years ago or whatever. | ||
| Yeah, so all of this, like, right, like, and I'm doing this, like, during the radioactive iodine treatment and, like, that, like, basically you go and I took three pills and I sat there and then they did a little scan to make sure that, like, the radioactive iodine, like, activated or whatever and then I came home and I went directly into isolation for a week and a half. | ||
| Well, good thing we've had a lot of practice with that, you know, in the last few years. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And, like, right, and, like, that's how I had to explain it to my stepkids. | ||
| Like, guys, even when I'm, like, not locked in the room anymore, we're going to practice social distancing. | ||
| And they're like, we know how to do that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And I'm like, okay, it's like, thank you, COVID. | |
| Convenient but a bummer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's both lucky and the saddest detail. | |
| I have Incredible Hulk COVID. | ||
| We're used to lockdown is not the chant that you want to... | ||
| Right? | ||
| And they're just like, yeah, we know how to social distance and we practice this at school and isolation's no big and we talked to you on FaceTime. | ||
| We did that with our teachers for a year and I'm just like, what the fuck? | ||
| These four children in seven years of life should not have had to go through this much shit. | ||
| But anyway. | ||
| So, fast forward from the, like, oh, you have this stage zero cancer to when I'm, like, talking to a social worker and a healthcare advocate and my oncology team and, right, like, this is the type of drug that you're going to be on. | ||
| And, by the way, Erica, your insurance doesn't cover it. | ||
| They're saying that it's not necessary. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| That's a thing. | ||
| What? | ||
| I thought that's why you're supposed to have insurance. | ||
| I remember spending most of my life being told that if I don't have insurance, then a catastrophic health problem will wipe me out. | ||
| Now, if I understand correctly, it doesn't fucking matter. | ||
| It does not fucking matter. | ||
| It does not. | ||
| There we go. | ||
| I work in the violence intervention. | ||
| In space, right? | ||
| And I, you know, there was a couple years that I was, like, married to, like, the world's biggest asshole. | ||
| And I got to a point that, like, I needed to get, like, restraining orders and this kind of stuff. | ||
| And, like, it was a real shit thing to go through. | ||
| But, like, I'm looking at this insurance thing like I'm looking at our domestic violence laws. | ||
| Like, the cops were straight up like, no, Erica, there's not anything we can do until he hurts you. | ||
| Sorry, we're not going to cover your chemo until you're literally on your deathbed. | ||
| Yeah, like, is there a delineation point for when the insurance is like, okay, now this is necessary? | ||
| Maybe when it's, like, actual, like, takeover. | ||
| Oh, it appears that you're bleeding from your nose. | ||
| I think we can cover it now. | ||
| I can see drips of blood falling from your nose into your mouth. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Like, yeah, I don't know. | ||
| Like, you're turning, like, a certain shade of yellow that, like... | ||
| We have, like, on our color scale. | ||
| We pay you yellow. | ||
| That's the good yellow. | ||
| Oh, that's the stuff. | ||
| You don't want the greenish tint? | ||
| That's we don't pay. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| It's that real, like, jaundice yellow, you know? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| It does seem a bit terrifying that an insurance, like, an actual insurance policy would treat, like, you know, something... | ||
| Like, stage two cancer. | ||
| The same as, like, a cosmetic... | ||
| Cancer, period. | ||
| When the word cancer shows up, they should be like, fine, we cover it. | ||
| That feels obvious to me. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So then I, like, start looking through my policy. | ||
| I'm like, I can go have, like... | ||
| Like, what's that surgery? | ||
| Like, the lap band surgery. | ||
| And they would cover, like, a weight loss surgery. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But not my fucking cancer. | |
| Hmm. | ||
| I keep hearing about the BBL. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I keep hearing people reference that. | ||
| Never heard of it. | ||
| The Brazilian butt lift. | ||
| What? | ||
| Is that what it's called? | ||
| All right. | ||
| Now we're talking. | ||
| I keep seeing tweets about this. | ||
| You keep seeing tweets about it? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like celebrities are doing BBLs. | ||
| What are you following? | ||
| I'm not following anybody. | ||
| Twitter's a mess. | ||
| We're learning so much about you. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Twitter's the worst. | ||
| It's a straight-up dumpster fire. | ||
| Elon Musk is making me learn about BBLs. | ||
| I don't know what's going on. | ||
| That is an interesting choice for the man. | ||
| I accept it. | ||
| That almost feels cruel, the way that is designed. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Who's your insurance company? | ||
| Can we be mad at them? | ||
| Is it Blue Cross Blue Shield? | ||
| I'm not saying it's not, but I'm not saying that it is. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So Jordan's a shit-stirrer. | ||
| Listen, when it comes to insurance companies, I will drink their blood. | ||
| I don't give a shit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So, I mean, right, so, like, I think, like, having cancer that, like, may or may not kill me before my 38th birthday has taught me a couple of things, right? | ||
| One, all right, so let's be fair. | ||
| Like, on December 14th, 2012, my mom was murdered. | ||
| Very shortly after that, I realized, like, shit, Erica, you're born to advocate, right? | ||
| My cancer diagnosis definitely taught me that I'm just about done on guns. | ||
| And I know what's coming next. | ||
| The personal journey leads a bit of the advocacy. | ||
| I'm a walking fucking billboard for America's policy fails. | ||
| It does seem that way. | ||
| A lot of the times, I think a lot of these issues, people have a difficult time grasping a lot of them until they either happen to you or someone you love and it becomes a lot more clear. | ||
| I think that Maybe some of that is a difficult hurdle that we need to somehow figure out how to work into the way we have these conversations. | ||
| Yeah, it's very difficult not to force on, to focus on, you know, just like, what the fuck, fucking, what, what, Jesus fucking Christ, I can't believe that anyone would allow this fucking shit to happen. | ||
| What do we, what do we, fuck, fuck! | ||
| You know, like that's... | ||
| It's insane. | ||
| Scream from the rooftop. | ||
| Irritating. | ||
| It's like a life or death version of that Seinfeld episode with the reservation. | ||
| Keep a reservation. | ||
| That's why I have the reservation. | ||
| We don't have the... | ||
| Yeah, it's very frustrating. | ||
| To be insured about things. | ||
| You file those taxes and you can get fined if you don't have insurance. | ||
| Why do I have insurance when they're like, you're going to be lucky to walk away. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Only paying $100,000 out of pocket. | |
| $100,000? | ||
| Like, that's more than I make in a year. | ||
| I work for a fucking non-profit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, my job pays my bills, but it doesn't pay $100,000 in medical bills. | ||
| Like, I'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life because I had the audacity to get cancer? | ||
| Well, I mean, that is on you. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| At your age? | ||
| How could you? | ||
| How could you do that to us? | ||
| I really fucked up. | ||
| I really fucked up. | ||
| Yeah, that kind of reality that you can have insurance and still walk away with $100,000 in medical debt for... | ||
| It just... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| You just want to shake things like an etch-a-sketch. | ||
| You just got to figure out, like, because there is a better way. | ||
| Oh, man. | ||
| Oh, boy. | ||
| It seems like the system that we have, there's no reason to be married to it, you know? | ||
| Any child can look at it and be like, oh, no, absolutely not. | ||
| Shake it over and start again. | ||
| Start from scratch. | ||
| I'm realizing as I'm talking that your response is just constantly, fuck it, fuck it, fuck it. | ||
| And mine is like, this is no good. | ||
| Those are the two voices. | ||
| Well, of that activism and the like, I suppose now is a good time to get into the trial. | ||
| You were the... | ||
| Well, also, on that note, on some level, I mean, if you're looking for some kind of a bright spot or some silver lining, at least this didn't happen during COVID, like the worst part of COVID, and it didn't happen during the meat of the trial. | ||
| I can't imagine, like, having to go through all the things that you've had to go through, I can't imagine that on its own. | ||
| But then if you compounded all of that, that would be, I can't imagine. | ||
| Yeah, I had a solid two months before the cancer, after the trial. | ||
| I mean, I did have to, like, you know, mush in that, like, pesky little 10-year anniversary of Sandy Hook. | ||
| But, like, I had a solid two months to, like, completely get my life and shit back together. | ||
| After the trial. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, that's a bright spot. | ||
| Yeah, that is a bright spot. | ||
| Some small mercy, I suppose, from the universe. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, could you talk a little bit about your experience there? | ||
| Like, you were at the trial, right? | ||
| Yeah, I missed one day. | ||
| You missed one day? | ||
| I did miss one day. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I had no idea what to expect, right? | ||
| So, like, we didn't... | ||
| All the families, like, met. | ||
| A couple blocks down, and then we would walk to the courthouse together every morning. | ||
| And it was like... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Picture the fucking Oscars, right? | ||
| And there's gates and just media. | ||
| And it's like you're walking the red carpet of death into go deal with this shit, right? | ||
| And as soon as you got like... | ||
| A block away. | ||
| Like, you just hear that, like, click, click, click, click, click, click of the camera. | ||
| Which, like, is so fucking triggering because we had to deal with that so much in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like... | |
| How is the click of a camera going to trigger my fucking PTSD? | ||
| But it does! | ||
| Oh no, it makes perfect sense. | ||
| And just even the inordinate amount of attention probably is in some ways uncomfortable. | ||
| It's interesting to me the way you're describing this because we mentioned we were at the trial in Austin and it was absolutely not like that. | ||
| Dead. | ||
| Like, well, maybe not totally dead, but definitely didn't have the, you know, lots of clicking cameras and, you know, it was pretty... | ||
| I mean, to a certain extent, I have a hard time not thinking that some of the fact that the Austin trial became so, you know, public, it became so famously famous for a massive... | ||
| It amped your media attention up. | ||
| The text message revealed. | ||
| Totally, yeah. | ||
| All of the big high drama moments almost certainly led to an increase of media attention because they're thinking, oh, well, we're going to get the same fireworks from Connecticut. | ||
| So sorry about that. | ||
| That's my fault. | ||
| Definitely all your fault. | ||
| But also, we're in Connecticut. | ||
| This is like the Sandy Hook community. | ||
| There are not many people. | ||
| You know, above a certain age that are like, oh no, I have no idea where I was at the time of the city. | ||
| It's like 9-11, right? | ||
| This was the 9-11 of gun violence. | ||
| But yeah, just like the walking in was intense, right? | ||
| Like I said, I had missed one day. | ||
| I think it was the first Thursday I wasn't there. | ||
| And the only day, no matter how we staggered or tried to walk, not as a group, or we walked in like... | ||
| Not with our husbands or, you know, the family switched it up to try to trick people. | ||
| The only day I didn't get completely smoked with reporters is the day I cut 18 inches off my hair. | ||
| Well, you learned. | ||
| I was like, I'm coming in with short hair. | ||
| And they didn't even look at me. | ||
| And I was like, I wish I would. | ||
| And I was like, I remember thinking, like, oh, I should, like, shave my head for, like, the day of the verdict, right? | ||
| So, like, they won't notice me. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And now I'm like, oh, fuck, I have cancer. | ||
| I'm probably gonna have to shave my head. | ||
| You could have gotten some practice with wigs. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| You could have had all kinds of different wigs. | ||
| Right? | ||
| I know. | ||
| Could have gone with the Groucho Marx glasses. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That would have worked. | ||
| Missed opportunities. | ||
| Where was my foresight? | ||
| I don't know, right? | ||
| Jesus. | ||
| But, yeah, I mean, actually, like, being in a courtroom was wild. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like... | |
| I never paid attention to this fucking guy, right? | ||
| Like, I knew he was, like, some crazy fucking lunatic. | ||
| And I knew that I was being threatened and stalked and harassed and, you know, like, literally tortured in my daily life because of him. | ||
| But, like, couldn't tell you anything about him. | ||
| Never went to, like, I went to his website, I think, one time. | ||
| The first time I, like, connected the name Alex Jones to the show. | ||
| And I was on the website for like 13 seconds before I was like, yeah, fuck that. | ||
| That's long enough. | ||
| And nothing about him. | ||
| You know everything you need to know. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, that was enough for like seven lifetimes. | ||
| Yeah, it was enough for seven lifetimes. | ||
| You spent 13 seconds. | ||
| So like the things that I learned about him. | ||
| Like the things that I learned about him during this trial, I'm like, how can anyone think of me fucking seriously? | ||
| Yeah, it's hard to believe. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Turning frogs gay? | ||
| It is a little bit weird for us whenever we talk to people outside of our world where they go, how could anybody believe it? | ||
| And we're already so far past that. | ||
| We're like, ah, you're never going to convince people not to believe it. | ||
| Like, we're already on the other side of that. | ||
| You can't fix these people. | ||
| I have a slight nihilism about misinformation. | ||
| It's tough once it has an emotional appeal to people to really grasp the ways that things don't make sense, unfortunately. | ||
| It's wild, for sure. | ||
| One thing I think must have been really nice, or at least it's something that came through, I felt. | ||
| With watching the trial, we did watch the live streams. | ||
| It seemed like there was a real great solidarity among the plaintiffs, and that probably had to make all of that a little bit easier to bear, I would assume. | ||
| I would not have gotten through those weeks without the other families. | ||
| You know, like my husband or my sister would say, like, you know, we really don't want you to go to court alone. | ||
| And I'm like, how the hell am I alone? | ||
| Like, I'm never alone when I'm with these families. | ||
| Like, I'm with my other family. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like, I never once, even if it was just me walking in, felt alone. | ||
| You know, there was always a handhold or somebody passing me tissues or Jolly Ranchers or, you know, sneaking me a bottle of water. | ||
| It was really the bright spot of the trial. | ||
| We've all been so isolated and so tortured in our own forms of torture for so many years that we really lost that connection if it ever existed. | ||
| This really gave us the opportunity to catch up and get to know what's going on with each other's lives and see the types of work that we've been doing. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It's like a tragic class reunion. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Listening to the testimony of the other plaintiffs, I learned so much about my mom. | ||
| I learned so much about my own story that I had blocked out, but the parts of their story that they were telling filled in gaps that I've been trying to fill for a decade. | ||
| I'm like, Oh, my God. | ||
| So that's how it happened. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| You were the guy that I, you know, handed the thing to on that random day. | ||
| Like, it just connected so many pieces. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And, yeah, it was really surreal. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Was there pretty significant catharsis that came along with, like, at the end of that trial, whenever everybody's there after the verdict, like, did that culminate into something that all of you, like... | ||
| Celebrated huge, or was it more like a somber, like, finally we're done with this? | ||
| I mean, right after the verdicts were read, we walked out of the courthouse, and it was just like, we are doing this, and we are doing this together. | ||
| We all waited in the lobby. | ||
| We walked out at once, and then there was that little press conference. | ||
| Everybody had the opportunity to speak, and we were just like, so together. | ||
| I feel so much more supported in what's going on in my life currently as far as my medical issues and all of that. | ||
| So many of the families that I went through the trial with are contacting me on a near daily basis. | ||
| Had that trial not happened, had I not been on that plaintiff list with these families, I wouldn't have that support from these people who literally mean the world to me. | ||
| That's really great. | ||
| I mean, awful circumstances, but that's so great. | ||
| I was thinking, too, that probably such a large part of that comes from y 'all sharing... | ||
| Such a unique kind of trauma, you know, a unique experience that is, you know, what is underlying the lawsuit itself of, you know, the denial of your loved one's existence and that it's, you know, that's something that a lot of people probably have no idea what that experience is like, but they do. | ||
| And then I was thinking about it a little more, and there are other people, though, too. | ||
| You know, it's... | ||
| It's kind of scary to think about that there are other folks outside of even just the loved ones of people who were killed at Sandy Hook, you know, who have had that experience as well. | ||
| That's, man. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, the only thing obviously worse than any of that is having to experience it alone. | ||
| So it is, yeah, I can't imagine that concept. | ||
| Yeah, and I mean, there's been so many times that, you know, myself or one of the other plaintiffs would just be like, this isn't a money thing for us. | ||
| It's never been a money thing for us. | ||
| This is to ensure that we are doing everything we can possibly fucking think of to prevent other families of mass tragedy from having to deal with the fucking torture that we have for the past decade. | ||
| And I would do it again in a heartbeat. | ||
| As much as it hurt, as much as I had to put out there for the world and literally expose the worst things that have ever happened to me, I would do it again. | ||
| That's very brave. | ||
| Since then, do you feel like you're done with this whole chapter, this whole Alex Jones thing, all of this noise? | ||
| You've finished it? | ||
| I know. | ||
| Obviously, you're shaking your head. | ||
| No fucking way. | ||
| I very much kind of knew the answer to that question beforehand, but I was, you know, hope springs eternal. | ||
| Well, you're a creditor now, right? | ||
| Yeah, well, that's the bankruptcy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| So there's that. | ||
| I mean, I meant not meaning that, but like, you know, psychologically, this experience of, do you feel like you won? | ||
| That's more, I think, what I'm asking. | ||
| That face doesn't say yes either. | ||
| No, so like I look at this, this is a multifaceted thing for me, right? | ||
| So Alex Jones will forever be in my life. | ||
| He has imprinted the worst of the world into my brain and shown me the true depths of hell that exists on this earth. | ||
| And he will be forever part of my story because of the horrible actions that he took after my mother was gunned down in the hall of an elementary school, right? | ||
| He was found liable for all of the horrible shit lies that he spread. | ||
| I was able to have my day in court and hold him accountable for those lies. | ||
| But that's not going to be the end of Alex Jones. | ||
| He is... | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's a fucking monster. | |
| And he's not going to stop. | ||
| Yeah, that's something that Jordan has stressed over and over and over again. | ||
| There is no stopping. | ||
| And it's his cult following, right? | ||
| So even if Alex Jones never says Eric Lafferty again, it doesn't matter. | ||
| Because he's already put it in the brains of... | ||
| God only knows how many humans, right? | ||
| Like, when they were breaking down the impressions during the trial, I was just like, no fucking wonder I'm agoraphobic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, what the fuck? | |
| Right. | ||
| I didn't know the true scale of how many people were an asshole to me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Seriously. | ||
| Like, there are that many fucking assholes in the world. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And it's like, okay, well, like, and that was, like, so, like, like, almost, like, satisfying to me. | ||
| Like, I am not crazy in the fact that I'm terrified to walk into a grocery store. | ||
| I am not crazy that I've moved five times since the shooting. | ||
| I am not crazy that I travel under an alias. | ||
| I am not crazy that I lease cars so that I don't have to have taxes owed in my fucking name publishing my address. | ||
| Like, they could be, it could be anyone, anywhere, and you, like, I never know, and, like, seeing that, like, true scale was really fucking validating. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But also pretty fucking scary! | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, because... | ||
|
unidentified
|
There's that many people in the world that think, like, I'm fucking lying? | |
| Yeah, and it's not just that they think that you're lying, it's that by the nature of the lie, you are... | ||
| Like, running a con on the country in order to facilitate, like, a One World Order takeover. | ||
| Like, essentially, it's... | ||
| I mean, the accusation of the lie is so much more severe than just, like, you're lying to people. | ||
| Yeah, it's not just that, oh, Alex says, oh, this is something that's not true. | ||
| It's that something that's not true is part of, you are a... | ||
| A murder cult. | ||
| Yeah, you're an agent of the devil. | ||
| You are part of the group killing the entire world. | ||
| So that justification allows people to indulge in the absurd amount of abuse they've spewed at you over the past... | ||
| And it's crazy, right? | ||
| There are people who I went to high school with that have straight up questioned whether or not my mom was killed. | ||
| And I'm like... | ||
| You fucking knew my mom! | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That... | ||
| You know, that's one of those, though, that you're like, oh, the human brain is just fucked up-able. | ||
| You know, you can really just get in somebody's brain and change things in a way that I don't think any of us are really kind of... | ||
| Prepared to deal with the truth of that. | ||
| And I think a lot of people misunderstand the idea of if there's smoke, there's fire. | ||
| If a hundred people are talking about this, there must be something to it. | ||
| I think people can get twisted on that a little bit. | ||
| Yeah, there's something to be said for groupthink. | ||
| It was a wild, wild, wild experience. | ||
| The day... | ||
| The one day the man had the balls to walk into the courtroom. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Like, I made damn sure that I was, like, on the defendant's side of, like, the bench, and I gave his two, like, giant security guards that were paid, like, 80 grand to fucking be there. | ||
| I gave them, like, six inches of space to share, right? | ||
| And I'm just like, I'm listening right next to you. | ||
| Nice. | ||
| You know, and then, like, he gets up and he testifies and Maddie's all, like, you know, being badass, Chris Maddie, and Jones is, like, you know, fucking head veins and neck veins and, like, all boys ragey, right? | ||
| And Chris, like, he would slam something down on Jones and then turn around and look at our families and just smirk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, I wish the live stream showed that. | |
| I think it came out in his tone a little bit. | ||
| I think there was a little smirk you could ascertain, if not visually. | ||
| Yeah, generally he was very calm and even-keeled, but there was definitely times when you're like... | ||
| See, here's the difference between you and Erica, Jordan, is that she bullied these security guards, whereas you refused to sit next to them because you were scared. | ||
| No! | ||
| I invited them to sit next to me and then got very scared. | ||
| And sweat. | ||
| Oh, okay. | ||
| So the story, what happened was I was in the court. | ||
| I was seated at the very back pew to avoid bringing attention to my useless self. | ||
| Well, and Mark Banks said there was only one seat for one of us up front, and I took press. | ||
| So I had to sit in the back. | ||
| And his security guards came over and they stood right next to me. | ||
| And I turned and I was like, oh, you guys are those guys. | ||
| Do you want to sit right next to me? | ||
| And then I realized that that was a terrible idea because they immediately moved away and then they dispersed around the room and then just started staring back at me. | ||
| At regular intervals. | ||
| So I got so nervous that I started to sweat through my entire shirt all the way down. | ||
| Oh, all the way down. | ||
| There's a heavily mocked picture of freedom with about four inch pit sweats. | ||
| Oh, indeed. | ||
| The expert witness on journalism made fun of me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was a day. | |
| It was a day. | ||
| It was a whole day. | ||
| It was a whole day. | ||
| Yeah, no, but I was just like, I was like, yeah, here, you fucking 250-pound men, you get six inches to share. | ||
| And then, like, I kept, like, scooting closer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then, like, Jones gets off the stand. | |
| Then Jones gets off the stand, and they're all, like, with their little, like, fucking earpieces. | ||
| And they're like, we gotta go. | ||
| And they rush him out of the courtroom. | ||
| And I'm like, I'm sorry. | ||
| Do you think that I'm a threat to him? | ||
| I'm fucking 5 '4". | ||
| That's probably how they experience it. | ||
| Yeah, on some level, you probably are quite a threat, if not physically. | ||
| Big bad Erica Lafferty! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Five inches or five feet and four inches of her, she's coming for you. | |
| But what if Alex accidentally has a feeling looking at you and feels regret or something? | ||
| That's a danger to the business. | ||
| That could ruin the entire gig. | ||
| So, I had one question. | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| So, there was one day. | ||
| Hold on, though, because I'm going to lose this. | ||
| You will regret it. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| There's one day, right, and it's raining, and I'm walking into court, and Alex is there, and his security guy is, like, under the umbrella, right, and he's, like, walking through, like, our little, like, red carpet of death, like, in between, like, the gates or whatever into the courthouse, and Alex walks in, and the security officers are like, Holding me out in the rain. | ||
| And mind you, I have curly hair. | ||
| And it was before I cut the 18 inches. | ||
| So it was down to the bottom of my back. | ||
| I blow-dried and straightened my fucking hair. | ||
| And they're trying to hold me out in the rain to wait for Alex Jones. | ||
| So I literally made a point with my hands and spread his security guard. | ||
| And I was like, I'm not waiting in the rain for that fucking asshole. | ||
| And walked through his... | ||
| And I'm like... | ||
| You paid $80,000 for these giant bitches to let me just walk through them? | ||
| That's assault. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Actually, I think $35,000 was the umbrellas. | |
| They're very expensive umbrellas. | ||
| Oh my god, I can't. | ||
| He's out there with a book like, fuck you, Alex. | ||
| I had a great moment where there's a picture from the Austin trial of Alex and his lawyer, Andino Reynal. | ||
| And Alex has a piece of tape on his mouth. | ||
| And I think it said, like, First Amendment or something like that. | ||
| And I saw him put the tape on his mouth, and he was posing with his lawyer. | ||
| And, like, I see that picture, and I know that, like, maybe four or five feet away, I am standing with another person who is a listener of our show who was at the trial, and I'm just like, look at this asshole. | ||
| We're just pointing at him standing alone. | ||
| With tape he put on his own mouth. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| The question that I was going to ask before Jordan very rudely interrupted you. | ||
| I was going to say not rudely. | ||
| I'm pretty sure it was me screaming like, I'm going to lose this and you'll regret it. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It was Jordan. | |
| It was my fault. | ||
| Jordan was the rude one. | ||
| I'll eat this one. | ||
| I think one of the things that sticks out the most from the trials, outside of, you know, the family members and other plaintiffs' testimonies, was Norm Pattis' theatrics, perhaps? | ||
| And I didn't... | ||
| I don't know how one would take some of the things that he said, because a lot of it was very offensive. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, direct attacks at us. | |
| I couldn't understand, because we've not spoken before today, really, and I don't know how someone in your position would take something like, is this awful, or is it almost like... | ||
| Like, surreal on a I-can't-believe-this-person level. | ||
| So, I wish... | ||
| What I wish you could have seen is, like, how he was in the time leading up to the start of court. | ||
| Because I sat in the front row almost every day. | ||
| I sat as close to, like, his side as I possibly could as many days as I could. | ||
| There was, like, one of his, like, fucking patted pony hairs, like, hanging off the back. | ||
| Back of his chair for the entire trial. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But anyway, he would be like, oh, you're here alone today. | |
| Or, oh. | ||
| Like, to me and one of the Soda sisters, like, are you guys the sisters? | ||
| And I'm like, no, you know damn well that we're not the sisters. | ||
| Wait, wait, wait, wait. | ||
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Norm was misidentifying you in court. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| Correct. | ||
| All right. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Good. | ||
| Also, the way you're... | ||
| So then one day... | ||
| I have to just make sure that you're not implying that he was being flirtatious. | ||
| He probably could have been. | ||
| It sounded like it could have. | ||
| Like, the one interpretation of the way you were describing this is, like, almost flirtatious. | ||
| But, like, I don't know, because then there was the day that he talked to me about his wife, the fucking psychiatrist. | ||
| If anyone needs to be married to a psychiatrist, it is Norm fucking Pattis. | ||
| Let me just say that for the record. | ||
| But he tells me. | ||
| His wife has barely spoken to him in months for taking this case. | ||
| Why would you tell me that, sir? | ||
| Because he's a real piece of shit. | ||
| I think he probably thinks it bolsters his integrity or something like this. | ||
| I have consequences for standing up for Maloney. | ||
| No, he was showing off to you. | ||
| Probably. | ||
| He was trying to get you to like him. | ||
| He was like, oh yeah, my wife, she's a psychiatrist. | ||
| And I was like, oh, that's lucky for you. | ||
| And I just turned my fucking head. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, you have a lot of problems with the insurance business, but Norm has some problems with the woke insurance. | ||
| Yeah, the behavior that he was allowed to get away with. | ||
| Like, the shit that, what was it? | ||
| It was Maya. | ||
| The shit that she let him get away with. | ||
| It was like, in the morning, you would hear her get the lawyers together and be like, Norm, here's all the shit you can't do. | ||
| And then at the trial, she'd be like, hey, I told you not to do that. | ||
| And then eventually she'd just stop stopping him. | ||
| There were so many times. | ||
| What was it like to experience him essentially saying the same shit Alex was? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, it was wild, right? | ||
| And there was so much about me personally that we couldn't talk about because of the nature of my work and the nature of my volunteer work. | ||
| The fact that Owen makes this whole fucking video like, oh, fuck you, Lafferty, you know, and like that couldn't even be presented into evidence because it was too political. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Right. | ||
| They didn't want they didn't want the fact that they didn't want the fact that so many, if not all of the family members of the and people at the at the trial have. | ||
| Charitable organizations work for non-profits, you know, do all these things. | ||
| Well, no. | ||
| For the most part. | ||
| They did not want a lot of the reality, but claiming that you were trying to take everyone's guns is somehow, like, that was still something that Norm Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| No, that's still fine. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, no, no. | |
| That's totally fine. | ||
| Yeah, and, like, that was totally... | ||
| And then, like, during, like, the redirect in my testimony, that, like, back and forth with me and Maddie, like... | ||
| Do you know his stance on this? | ||
| No. | ||
| Do you care? | ||
| No. | ||
| Do you know his stance on this? | ||
| No. | ||
| Do you care? | ||
| No. | ||
| And that was just, like, the highlight of the trial for me was just me and Maddie going back and forth, like, boom, boom, boom. | ||
| I'm hearing the Rocky theme. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Running up and down the court steps. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, like... | ||
| I got to meet Bankston, too. | ||
| He came up, and I was just like, oh, my God! | ||
| Yeah, Mark is pretty fun. | ||
| He's a neat dude. | ||
| The thing with Norm that I thought was the worst, and maybe you'd agree or disagree, was the, like, directly implying that you all were exaggerating your grief. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That, I thought, was almost inexcusable in an opening or closing statement, in any context. | ||
| I mean, in a private conversation where no one else but him is talking to a mirror that is fucked up to do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| And it's like, you know, and he like, he like balanced that with like, her grief is because her mom was murdered. | ||
| But he's saying the mom, my mom wasn't murdered. | ||
| Her grief is being exaggerated. | ||
| Her life really isn't, you know, that impacted. | ||
| Bro, I was on the stand testifying about the fucking rape threats that were sent to me when Alex Jones was holding court outside with the press. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Mm-hmm. | |
| Trying to fucking pitch his book. | ||
| He did have a copy of his book out there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He walked into court with it. | ||
| Like, yeah. | ||
| Rape threats. | ||
| You're telling me that I'm exaggerating about trauma about rape threats? | ||
| Yeah, I still don't... | ||
| I'm still not able to quite hang with how much shit he was allowed to get away with. | ||
| Especially with all the tut-tutting that was going on immediately. | ||
| Hey, we told you this is not a good idea to do. | ||
| You shouldn't have done that. | ||
| Like... | ||
| Yeah, we're way past I shouldn't have done shit. | ||
| Come on now. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But then, like, if Coscoff or Maddie ever fucking did that, like, it would have been a whole different story, but it's just like, oh, Norm's Norm. | ||
| Can't control him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Fuck you. | ||
| That's your job. | ||
| You're supposed to control him. | ||
| You don't play by the rules, so we can't enforce rules. | ||
| So there's nothing you can do. | ||
| Like, what are you fucking talking about? | ||
| Oh, boy. | ||
| Well, we know your client's not gonna listen, so... | ||
| Like, if that was me up there, like, she wouldn't just be like, oh, yeah, well, do your best to get her to listen, Maddie. | ||
| Yeah, she just yells a lot. | ||
| What are you gonna do? | ||
| Yeah, and I mean, like, the amount of poise and patience that Judge Bellas showed, like, I wouldn't have been able to do it, but, like, what do you do when you have someone who's so... | ||
| Chris Maddy. | ||
| And then someone who's so Norm Pattis. | ||
| Like, what do you do when you're trying to balance that? | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| I feel like Judge Bells was this, like, fucking preschool teacher, like, trying to rip the asshole kids apart. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like... | |
| Yeah, I... | ||
| Like, they are so different. | ||
| Visually... | ||
| Stylistically, just everything. | ||
| I mean, the problem really is he's done so much, Norm, that in a regular real-life trial with real human beings involved, he wouldn't be allowed, he would be kicked off. | ||
| He wouldn't be allowed to do this. | ||
| But because Alex is there. | ||
| But because it's Alex, there's just no one else who will do it, and they won't just be like, fine, trial over because Norm sucks so bad. | ||
| You lose. | ||
| Because Norm sucks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's why. | |
| And he tried to quit. | ||
| He tried to quit. | ||
| He tried! | ||
| Yeah, that's true. | ||
| And they were just like, no, no. | ||
| We're done with it. | ||
| They pretend that didn't happen. | ||
| Alex and Norm both seem to have forgotten that. | ||
| Should have had to defend himself. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I have the honor. | |
| I have the honor of representing Mr. Jones. | ||
| The honor. | ||
| I hate to be disrespectful at all, and I hope this doesn't come off that way, but when I was watching the trial... | ||
| And I saw when it got to the verdicts, I believe it was Robbie Parker was the first name read. | ||
| And I didn't know what to expect, but I thought maybe a couple million. | ||
| And when it was as high as it was, I blurt laughed sitting alone in my apartment because it was just like it was such a tension release and a like I found it amazing. | ||
| Yeah, we were both we were both waiting for it to be. | ||
| Way too low. | ||
| We were both waiting for them to be like, oh, there's a fucking disagreement in the jury because of some asshole or any number of things. | ||
| Yeah, that's our pessimism. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| But I mean, we're just so used to not seeing consequences for anyone. | ||
| I mean, the problem, of course, now being is that the consequences are very, very slow! | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But yeah, whenever the numbers... | ||
| So slow that they might in fact kill me. | ||
| Well, that's the other thing. | ||
| I appreciate that you are Revealing how stupid and pointless and useless our medical system is, our insurance system, the legal system, the bankruptcy system, the... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| You're probably not paid enough. | ||
| So the non-profit system, any number of different... | ||
| Why are you still a nice person? | ||
| That seems absurd to me. | ||
| There's no villain origin story better. | ||
| I feel like if you had control of weather weapons, you've got free license. | ||
| What if? | ||
| Hold on. | ||
| Hear me out on this. | ||
| What if this chemo gives you superpowers? | ||
| Oh, shit. | ||
| Then you can turn evil. | ||
| Then you can turn evil. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You get full license from Knowledge Fight to turn evil? | ||
| Yeah, we'll allow it. | ||
| You're a raptor princess. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, my God. | |
| I love this. | ||
| I love this. | ||
| And I'm going to spin off this. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, I... | |
| Okay, so one of the other St. Hook plaintiffs was like, Erica, you totally need to get a journal, and you need to start, like, writing things down. | ||
| I am going to write my evil villain story in my fucking journal. | ||
| Hell yes. | ||
| Because Jordan is right. | ||
| I mean, like, there are lesser wrongs that have created comic book villains. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Yeah, so have you been following along too much with the ongoing bankruptcy stuff? | ||
| Have you been getting regular updates, or are you kind of just like, Let that be handled by other people. | ||
| So our legal team does like they'll send an email anytime something like biggish happens and they're just like, hey, family meeting and we'll hop on a doom. | ||
| They'll explain the things that we should be retaining and they're like, we'll let you know if we need you to do something kind of thing. | ||
| I was Doing a better job of keeping up with stuff until... | ||
|
unidentified
|
No, that's a fucking lie. | |
| Fair, fair. | ||
| I was like, I was really trying. | ||
| But then I was like, well, it was really only until like, it was like that first month, right? | ||
| Like, because, you know, the trial ended and then it's like, I had a couple weeks to breathe and I was like, kind of paying attention. | ||
| But then it's like, we're rolling into Thanksgiving, I get slammed with the 10-year, and now my tumor thing, and my life just went completely batshit. | ||
| With perfect circumstances, this is still even complicated to keep up with. | ||
| I can't even imagine trying to carry that. | ||
| But it's got to be still just like, even if you're not following, it's still just got to be annoying, I imagine. | ||
| It's still lingering. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It just won't, like, it won't end. | ||
| It just won't end. | ||
| So, like, I, it haunts me that I have this narcissistic, sociopathic, roid-ragey, vodka-drinking monster that owes me, like, a hundred million fucking dollars. | ||
| And I am crowdfunding. | ||
| For life-saving treatment so that I don't die before I turn 38. That is the reality that I'm living in right now. | ||
| It takes me a lot to hate someone. | ||
| I am not going to lie and say, I didn't hate Alex Jones. | ||
| I fucking despised the man. | ||
| But now? | ||
| Give me those evil powers. | ||
| Oh, it doesn't take much for me to hate people. | ||
| And believe me, it goes far beyond Alex Jones in this whole situation. | ||
| You've been failed by... | ||
| Beyond the number of people that I can even comprehend, and I hate all of them. | ||
| So that helps. | ||
| If that helps, then I give you permission. | ||
| You got the wrath of Jordan. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it's absurd. | ||
| If I think about it for too long, I really start to go blind. | ||
| Like, it really does make me very, very, very, very angry. | ||
| And I think one of the problems, too, like, especially as it relates to this bankruptcy, and even to some degree, like, the trial stuff. | ||
| What the person who obviously is to be hated, Alex, is doing is exploiting things that are meant to protect well-intentioned people who get caught in these systems. | ||
| Various legal loopholes and chapter 5 protections and reorganization of businesses. | ||
| It's just malicious abuse of these things that are meant to protect people. | ||
| And it's just fucking stupid. | ||
| Here's my theory, alright? | ||
| As far as the list of creditors goes, whoever has cancer is the number one creditor and gets taken care of immediately. | ||
| I feel like that's simple. | ||
| If you've got an emergency, just do that first. | ||
| It's an emergency. | ||
| You can handle all the other shit later. | ||
| Why would you ever think that you should be allowed for a year of bankruptcy court to go on? | ||
| That's fucking insane! | ||
| Yeah, that could be life. | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| Is there people to call? | ||
| No, they don't give a fuck. | ||
| They're lawyers. | ||
| They'll just send a letter saying, stop calling us because they're the people who can do shit. | ||
| I'm doing all right. | ||
| I'm okay. | ||
| And meanwhile, like I have this GoFundMe and I am sending a personal thank you to every single donation that comes in. | ||
| I am still working full time. | ||
| I have my husband. | ||
| I have five siblings. | ||
| I have my grandmother who like... | ||
| Bless her sweet little heart. | ||
| Like, I talk to as much as humanly possible. | ||
| I have five asshole dogs, my three stepkids, right? | ||
| Like, the house. | ||
| And I'm trying to do all of these things. | ||
| But at the same time, like, fundraising is my top priority to not die. | ||
| Despite the fact that this asshole's like, $40,000 a month isn't enough to live on. | ||
| Fuck off, Alex Jones! | ||
| Yeah, if I think about that too hard. | ||
| I start to go blind. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He should auction off one of those umbrellas his security guards had. | ||
| Oh, boy. | ||
| Give it to the GoFundMe. | ||
| Yeah, no kidding. | ||
| Hey, in the budget, we can afford $100,000 every month for security. | ||
| But we're going to have to figure out the creditor situation later on. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| Sorry about that, Erica. | ||
| It is such a difference between, like, the... | ||
| Good luck with the cancer, kid. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because he has, you know? | ||
| He has all these resources, and it sucks. | ||
| It is bananas. | ||
| But I'm glad, you know, at least in the... | ||
| You know, sense that there is some positive that people are supporting and rallying around. | ||
| Although, just today, I believe there was that Vox article that came out, and you were talking about how there's this bittersweetness. | ||
| I believe it was Vice. | ||
| Oh, Vice, excuse me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| There's this bittersweetness of the, you know, that you are getting support, and then at the same time, it's predicated on your mother being murdered. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that is... | ||
| So hard to wrestle with, that reality. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know, and it's fucking crazy, right? | ||
| Like, I've been living my life on this very public platform for the past decade. | ||
| I was thrown into that. | ||
| I didn't really have a fucking choice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That gave me what I need. | |
| To survive. | ||
| It gave me name recognition. | ||
| And it gave me... | ||
| I mean, I don't know how else to say this. | ||
| If I didn't happen to be the daughter of a victim of a high-profile mass shooting, people wouldn't give a fuck. | ||
| And I would not be able to raise the $100,000 that I need to survive this. | ||
| That is just a fact of life, right? | ||
| So like, there's two crazy things here. | ||
| There's one, a reason that I almost feel I need to be thankful that my mom was murdered, which is fucked up all on its own. | ||
| And two, it's largely in part because of Alex Jones that I have found any sense of External support. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Because without Alex Jones, there would not be you two. | ||
| Without you two, there wouldn't be the wonks. | ||
| Without the wonks, there wouldn't be the $20,000 spike in my GoFundMe. | ||
| So it comes full fucking circle. | ||
| You know, if it weren't for Alex, maybe we would have had gun control and we wouldn't be here. | ||
| That's kind of one of those situations where I recognize those kinds of Cognitive dissonance aspects to it. | ||
| You know, it is like... | ||
| It's kind of literate. | ||
| Like literature kind of irony, perhaps. | ||
| But it's still like... | ||
| It's too much credit to give him. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's none of him. | ||
| In spite of him. | ||
| It is actively against his wishes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I like that. | |
| In spite of him. | ||
| Right, and I love that, and I love that because there are other people in this world that feel about Alex Jones, how I feel about Alex Jones, that I am getting the support that I desperately need. | ||
| Well, we're thrilled to be any part of that. | ||
| It's great. | ||
| I mean, I think one of the things that's been really wonderful about doing this as a whole is like... | ||
| Being able to, in some way, take something that is so awful, which is Alex and his content, and transmute it into something that can be positive for folks. | ||
| And that, I mean, definitely never was what I expected, but it's so fantastic. | ||
| It's a testament. | ||
| Do the listeners. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh, absolutely. | |
| Oh, no. | ||
| When I started comedy, I was planning on talking about my penis for the rest of my life. | ||
| I was going to be like, this will do it. | ||
| This is going to take me to the top. | ||
| I have the most interesting penis. | ||
| So fucking interesting. | ||
| It'll fuel a comedy career. | ||
| It'll be the end now. | ||
| And here we are doing maybe the thing that is most honorable that I can think of to do in my life. | ||
| I am grateful to the Wonks more than anybody else. | ||
| Definitely. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| The best collection of humans. | ||
| That guilt, though, is so fascinating to me. | ||
| I don't want to press on it, but I've been thinking about that since I read that article. | ||
| That dynamic of something that is the trauma of your life also It's fascinating, | ||
| and then at the same time, there's that offshoot of it that you had that is the, if it weren't for this, you wouldn't be in a position where people were rallying around and giving support. | ||
| I think, obviously, there's such a tragedy that's built in about the insurance system. | ||
| And then, I don't know. | ||
| How do we create something where people who aren't in your position who need help get that help? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, really, what we're talking about here is none of this would be necessary. | ||
| You wouldn't even be feeling this if we had a medical system that fucking functioned. | ||
| You know, like, we wouldn't be here. | ||
| You wouldn't have to feel grateful towards any of this bullshit. | ||
| It would be taken care of because you're a human being. | ||
| They're like everybody fucking else, you know? | ||
| And so it is a tragedy not of anybody's individual actions so much as it is the entirety of society is organized wrong. | ||
| I think I spent, after my mom was murdered, 10 years trying to reduce the number of gun deaths and injuries that we see in this country. | ||
| And I think this just gives me a focus for my next. | ||
| Decade or several. | ||
| Better be. | ||
| That's fantastic. | ||
| I think we'll all look forward to seeing what comes out of that and what advocacy follows. | ||
| And I think, I feel like we just got to find obscure GoFundMes. | ||
| That's what we should do. | ||
| Maybe. | ||
| Maybe we should just dig and find obscure GoFundMes and try and help people. | ||
| I know. | ||
| My husband and I were saying, like, anything, right? | ||
| So, like, we opened this whole separate checking account, and, like, every single penny from the GoFundMe is going in there, plus, like, we have, like, the... | ||
| Did you guys see my wristbands? | ||
| They say Lafferty V. Lymphoma. | ||
| Oh, that's great! | ||
| That's great! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fucking what? | |
| Yeah! | ||
| Lead planet! | ||
| So many of the wonks, right? | ||
| So many of the wonks. | ||
| Monks have been, like, emailing Lafferty Dube Boma, like, at gmail.com to, like, get the fucking wristbands or whatever. | ||
| I'm like, so all this money, like, right, it's going directly into this other, like, medical-specific account. | ||
| And my husband and I keep saying, like, okay, as soon as I'm, like, they're like, okay, you are cancer-free, kid. | ||
| We are going to, like, hunt through all of the GoFundMes. | ||
| And find the situation most similar to mine and just donate 100% of whatever is left. | ||
| And I cannot wait to be the person that the wonks have been to me and just... | ||
| Oh, that's fantastic. | ||
| Relieve the stress. | ||
| And... | ||
| That's not supervillain shit. | ||
| What are you doing? | ||
| You need to be building machines to take over the world. | ||
| What is wrong here? | ||
| That's for my journal, and that's for act two. | ||
| See? | ||
| There we go. | ||
| No, I think you're on act four by now, honestly. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You've got a lot more acts than anybody could imagine. | |
| You've got Titus Andronicus level of acts going on here. | ||
| So I'm so grateful for your generosity with your time. | ||
| It's been really nice to talk to you. | ||
| It's been amazing. | ||
| I have one other question, though. | ||
| I do notice. | ||
| We used to have a phone number that was our call in line. | ||
| I was trying to find an anagram of something. | ||
| Oh my god, you're going to ask the same question? | ||
| I was going to ask the same question, but anyways, keep going. | ||
| The only thing that I could find as a phone number that made words was tat guys. | ||
| And so Jordan and I decided we were the tat guys for a little while because we both have tattoos. | ||
| And I saw on your arm you have some prominent tattoos. | ||
| And I was wondering if you had any that were particularly cool tattoos. | ||
| I was legitimately waiting for the chance to ask you this question. | ||
| He got there first, that asshole. | ||
| Oh my god. | ||
| Alright, so this one is probably my favorite. | ||
| It's my mom's signature. | ||
|
unidentified
|
With a heart and smiley face. | |
| Yep. | ||
| So this was left on a note that said, Dear sweet baby Erica, please stop drinking right now. | ||
| You're scaring me. | ||
| Smiling face harsh, mommy. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You didn't get the whole message tattooed on your hand? | |
| I would have been like, what? | ||
| And then, yeah. | ||
| So this is my mom's quote. | ||
| Be nice to each other. | ||
| It's really all that matters. | ||
| I used to have rubber. | ||
| Well, I still have rubber wristbands that say it, but I got sick of... | ||
| So it's just, like, there. | ||
| I have an apple. | ||
| And then this is, like, allow yourself to fly. | ||
| And fly high are things that, like, my mom frequently says to me in dreams. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Pie is my oldest nephew's birthday. | |
| Is that fly high on your middle finger? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fly high, motherfuckers! | |
| Exactly. | ||
| So, alright. | ||
| This is the sleeve. | ||
| Oh, wow. | ||
| Nice. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's Axel and Jinx. | |
| Oh, so these are the dogs. | ||
| And Jackson and Roxy. | ||
| Oh, that's beautiful. | ||
| And I still have one getting jealous. | ||
| It's like right by the camera right here. | ||
| Brooklyn and Bella still need to get worked in. | ||
| And then I have disheartened hate. | ||
| I got that after the Pulse nightclub shooting. | ||
| I have so many. | ||
| Is there something that the dogs have to do to qualify for tattoo status? | ||
| They have to become raptor princesses, of course. | ||
| I feel like maybe it's like a sainting thing. | ||
| Do they have to perform a miracle? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Three posthumous miracles in order to be eligible. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I mean, if it was up to me, like... | |
| You know, if I had, like, the money that Alex Jones owed me, I would get every dog I ever saw in my life tattooed on my body. | ||
| I would probably have to gain, like, 5 million pounds. | ||
| And I would also need the money that I'm owed to be able to afford it. | ||
| To gain 500 pounds, you're going to need that. | ||
| And, you know, live long enough. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, sure. | ||
| So there's that, too. | ||
| What the fuck? | ||
| Yeah, but, yeah, no. | ||
| So I can really get behind cat guys. | ||
| Awesome. | ||
| Our phone number doesn't work anymore, so no one should call that. | ||
| It's pretty impressive, though. | ||
| I think it was maybe an interview that you did, and I saw also the sleeve of tattoo, and I was like, for some reason, I saw you testify, and I just never thought sleeve of tattoo. | ||
| It didn't come off. | ||
| So my lawyers were like, air cut. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There are some really conservative people on this jury who need to not look like you. | |
| And I'm like... | ||
| Oh, no. | ||
| You can't be a tat gal. | ||
| It's 2020 goddamn two, okay? | ||
| I was like, I have three tattoos on a hand. | ||
| Like, on my Bible hand, bro. | ||
| I can't hide them. | ||
| Yeah, Jordan has a hand as well. | ||
| Yeah, I got a full hand tattoo. | ||
| Wedding ring. | ||
| I can hide mine. | ||
| My tats are very... | ||
| Yeah, I have both hands. | ||
| Yeah, I'm like, I can't hide on my hands. | ||
| I can't. | ||
| So, yeah, I was all like principal's daughter that day and not like the hellion that the principal actually raised. | ||
|
unidentified
|
The one that can't drink. | |
| Right? | ||
| Well, we should probably wrap this up, because we've been going for almost a good hour and a half. | ||
| Yeah, give or take. | ||
| So, you know, I don't want to take up your whole day, but thank you so much for chatting with us. | ||
| I never would have imagined in a million years when we started this podcast that we would end up having a friendly conversation, sort of... | ||
| Not that it would be unfriendly. | ||
| I was going to say, what was the other alternative? | ||
| Very formal. | ||
| That makes more sense. | ||
| Kind of conversation with a plaintiff in the Sandy Hook case. | ||
| It seems like everything is very surreal. | ||
| We have a lot of respect and admiration for what you've gone through and how you've... | ||
| And we're grateful to play the small part that we have in a positive way. | ||
| It was not a small part. | ||
| It's incredible. | ||
| Don't compliment us bullshit because you guys did a really good fucking thing that you should be really proud of. | ||
| We did a terrible thing, and that is that we don't publicize or, like, promote ourselves at all, and so that's probably why you had no idea we existed at, you know, times when you could have enjoyed... | ||
| I was, like, mad tweeting, someone put me in touch with them, and I was like, wait, why don't I just ask Bankston? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're good buddies. | |
| At least it's not public. | ||
| At least he didn't release it on a docket somewhere. | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's true. | |
| He didn't, like, quote... | ||
| Tweet me and be like, here it is. | ||
| Oh, that was good timing. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| That was jinx. | ||
| I don't know if you have anything else that you want to promote, but we'll add a link. | ||
| I know that a lot of our listeners have already found your GoFundMe, but we'll add a link to that. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| We just got a fresh batch of Lafferty. | ||
| V-lymphoma rinsed wristbands in. | ||
| I love it, but the only problem that I have is that it's yellow. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Isn't that Lance Armstrong? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's the color of my specific cancer. | ||
| But it's the color of my specific cancer. | ||
| That makes sense. | ||
| Okay, that trumps Lance Armstrong. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| All right. | ||
| He's a cheater. | ||
| I mean, fuck him too. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| But yeah, so for the hookup on those, Laffrey V-lymphoma. | ||
| Lymphoma at gmail.com. | ||
| Thankfully, our audience is good at spelling. | ||
| Lymphoma in an email address. | ||
| That's a recipe for things going to the wrong place. | ||
| I hope nobody has Lafferty v. | ||
| Lymphoma because they're going to get a lot of emails recently. | ||
| Well, and it's all over the socials and all that stuff. | ||
| They've found me on there and they have been... | ||
| Coming in droves with the love and positivity, and I will be eternally grateful to all of them. | ||
| We are grateful for them as well. | ||
| Well, hopefully we'll talk again sometime down the road. | ||
| Yeah, maybe like pre-evil transition. | ||
| Yeah, that'd be great. | ||
| If you need someone to workshop some evil plans with... | ||
| Oh, I'm so good at it. | ||
| Yeah, we're good at punch-up. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So I'm just going to start, like, taking random pictures when I'm not drinking, Mom, of the journal, the evil journal, and just sending them off to that private email address that I have. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Perfect. | |
| Okay. | ||
| To just, like, just, like, spitball ideas, you know? | ||
| Awesome. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| For my evil takeover. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Sounds good. | ||
| We have an eye for narrative, especially for comic book characters. | ||
| We can make this work. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right, so we won't draw this down any further. | |
| Thank you so much, Erica. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Take care. | ||
| Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thanks for holding. | |
| Hello, Alex. | ||
| I'm a first-time caller. | ||
| I'm a huge fan. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love your work. |