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May 15, 2020 - The Muckrake Political Podcast

01:00:30

The Effects Of Listening To ONLY Conservative Media

To better understand the Right Wing propaganda machine, intrepid co-host Nick Hauselman subjected himself to nothing but conservative and extreme conservative media this week. This episode is a glimpse inside that disturbing messaging, the unhinged conspiracy theories, and an idea of where things are heading. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	But given all that we know now regarding the fake foundation to the inquiry, it's time we asked, what did Obama and Biden know?
	And when did they know it?
	The San Francisco Bay Area announced it'll be extending its lockdown until the end of May.
	That's five weeks from now.
	What is the scientific justification for doing that?
	They didn't tell us because there is none.
	None.
	They never had any evidence of collusion.
	They didn't have any then, and they don't have any now.
	Because there was no collusion.
	It was a frame-up.
	Hey, everybody.
	Welcome to the Muckrake Podcast.
	I'm your co-host, Jared Yates Sexton, and this is a special episode.
	I'm here with my co-host, Nick Halseman, who, for the last few days, has intentionally subjected himself to nothing but right-wing media and news, including Fox News, Breitbart, and OANN.
	Okay, and Daily Caller, all that good stuff.
	So we're gonna get to all that in a second and see how the other half is living.
	Before we do, just a quick reset of the news.
	Of course, the news of the day is that Dr. Richard Bright, the whistleblower with the pandemic response, testified today saying, and I quote, that we're in deep shit and that we are looking at possibly one of, if not the darkest winters in modern history, saying that the Trump administration has not handled the pandemic correctly.
	Meanwhile, I'm sure we're going to talk about that Donald Trump has Now started calling Joe Biden Beijing Biden, which is we had talked about the strategy of the Trump campaign going in 2020 was going to be a projection of the Russian collusion thing.
	We'll talk about that.
	And Obamagate, which could possibly turn into show trials, which would basically be the death knell of American society.
	But I'm sure we're going to get into all of this because, again, my co-host Nick Hauserman, the astronaut of right-wing insanity, spent this week enduring right-wing media.
	Before we get into the perspective that a person digesting all this would feel, I would like to know, as your co-host and as somebody who's got to know you a little bit, how do you feel?
	What was this like?
	What was this experiment like for you?
	Well, I think that the first word that came to mind initially was exhausted.
	It was really just very tiring to have to go through that.
	First of all, it was not easy to find.
	Like, you know, I have a list of like 210 people I follow on my normal news, you know, Twitter list, private list.
	So I, you know, in earnest, I needed to try and fill this up with as much as I could from the right wing.
	And it was not, The easiest thing, and then, you know, when you get on a couple of people, they just tweet so incessantly that it's hard to get anybody else's, you know, feedback.
	So, exhausting was one part.
	At some point, you kind of get dulled to it, and you're just sort of like, oh, this is what they're saying without any irony, and it's, you know, fact.
	And if you don't hear anything else, then it sounds like that's what it is.
	It's reasonable.
	I mean, you know.
	So, it just feels, I feel off, you know.
	It just feels like I'm in you know, kind of a wandering around in the forest completely lost and It's it's it's kind of it's a frustrating uneasy feeling did you I'm glad that you put it that way.
	Um, so I used to do I Wrote about this in my book.
	So like in like 2010 through 2011.
	I watched every day of the Glenn Beck show and Every single day because it was just for me back then it was like a case study and like the insanity of the Republican Party and right-wing media.
	I was just like this is the direct line.
	You know what I mean?
	And I'd watch it for an hour every day and then turn it off.
	I didn't watch anything else.
	I also, man, I don't know, for the past couple of years before Alex Jones got booted off of his podcast and iTunes and all that, I would basically listen to Alex Jones probably twice a week just to see what was happening and wrap my head around it.
	There is a weird thing that happens in it and I'd be interested, you sort of talked about it a little bit, there's a moment where if you inundate yourself with it, even if you're doing it critically, that you'll find yourself at times hearing absolutely ludicrous insane things and your brain doesn't pick it up as quickly, right?
	Your brain like at some point becomes a little quote-unquote soft and it's almost like, yeah that makes sense, why would anybody question that?
	Is that how you felt?
	Yeah, I mean, I definitely kind of lost, I mean, I had, my alarms would go off still, even today.
	I'd be like, that doesn't sound exactly right, but then it was a little bit less clear to me why, and it was a little bit more foggy, because it's like, you know, I think in, if I hadn't been doing this for three straight days, I would have been like, oh, of course I remember that this, that didn't happen that way, you know, or that's just wrong, but instead I'm like, Gosh, something sounds off with that, but I don't remember why.
	It's really vague to me, so it's like, I don't know.
	That's so frightening, Nick.
	That's so frightening.
	I have a couple of overviews I kind of distilled from this, which, by the way, we talk about the Republicans who are on message, and they create their messages, and they're all stick.
	It is impressive, and there's not a lot of variation to the themes over the last three days.
	It really is just the two or three things over and over and over again.
	Can we set the table for that real fast?
	Sure.
	To give people some background.
	So one of the things that people don't understand is that Fox News was an intentional right-wing experiment, right?
	And so Breitbart and OANN, all those groups are intentionally right-wing propaganda modes, right?
	They're in response to things like CNN and MSNBC, which everyone likes to say that they're, you know, center left or liberal or whatever.
	But actually, CNN and MSNBC try really hard to be as unbiased as possible, right?
	Well, CNN at least.
	Right.
	Well, MSNBC is a different type of biased, right?
	They have what you would call like a metropolitan viewpoint, which is, you know, it's very corporate friendly.
	It's very much like America's good, but it's got some problems whatever So when you watch what you would call left-wing media or mainstream media like it's one experience, but you're still getting a perspective Right, you're still getting like a decent idea about what's all going.
	You feel like this experience was just completely message-based and like no, nothing around the edges.
	You feel like it was very like tunnel-visioned?
	Yeah, it definitely felt that way and like everybody has to stay on the message.
	Every once in a while though, you know, the Bret Baier would come out and seem really reasonable.
	So he's like the one guy amongst anybody.
	And then this guy Cernovich, Mike Cernovich, who I kind of heard of and been aware of.
	I kind of thought he was radical crazy, but Every once in a while, he'll have a take against a Republican.
	He'll sort of criticize everybody, it seems like.
	Time out!
	Time out!
	I gotta make a rule here.
	We're not going to talk about Mike Cernovich as the voice of reason on this podcast.
	I'm only vaguely aware of even when he pops up on my timeline, I had to put him on the list.
	I want to point this out for perspective though and this is fascinating because so for people who don't know they probably heard the name Mike Cernovich.
	He sort of ended up being part of the alt-right group that I became aware of in 2016 and like sort of harassed me as I was reporting on the Trump campaign.
	And the thing is I researched him and this is like the most misogynistic disgusting human being.
	He'd write articles about how to choke a woman without leaving bruises and secretly every woman wants to be assaulted or whatever.
	Now here's the thing that I find fascinating about what you just said.
	Cernovich has weirdly become a voice of dissent and if you were in a world where Mike Cernovich is somehow or another a conscience, Here's what I've discovered.
	You know what I mean, though?
	Like, if you walked away from this thinking, like, that is one dude who, like, occasionally bucks the trend.
	Like, if they are so far right, they've gone beyond Cernovich.
	I mean, that is saying something. - Yeah.
	Well, here's what I think.
	Here's what I've discovered was, everything we accuse the Republicans of doing, they accuse the Democrats of the exact same thing.
	Exactly.
	Word for word, the bizarro version of this is exactly what everything we say, they say the exact same thing.
	Opposite.
	Just flip it.
	Just change the words.
	Change the words to Democrats.
	It's crazy.
	By the way, interestingly enough, Hannity is the only guy that says Democratic Party.
	Everybody else says Democrat Party, and I know it kind of rubs me wrong, even though I don't understand why should I care, but Hannity says it right, and I don't know why, that just really struck me listening to him for a few of these nights, and he decided he's called the Democratic Party, I don't know.
	But that's the big thing to take away, everything we're saying is their saying, exactly the same.
	Can you give us some examples?
	Okay, let's see here.
	Well, we could even jump into the Flynn and the Russia stuff because that's where it kind of comes out with Obamagate.
	So, you know, we're obviously accusing, you know, Trump of being, you know, colluding with the Russians and doing all these things.
	Well, you know, it turns out that they think that it was Hillary that bought and paid for all the Russian propaganda.
	And the interesting thing about the notion of, like, what did Obama know and when did he know it?
	That's a really big, you know, catchphrase right now.
	And, you know, for the historical context, we all know that's from the Watergate investigation, and it usually indicates heinous crimes against humanity, right, or against the government, right?
	So when you start invoking that, it kind of, you know, they're trying to connect Obama with Nixon, all these things.
	So the idea that Obama and Biden I'm sorry that Biden knew about the unmasking and he was part of that and that Obama knew about Flynn before Sally Yates could even talk to him about it in that one meeting in January of 2017.
	That is the smoking gun!
	That is the clear and present danger and the evidence that we have that proves that they... I don't even know exactly what it proves, because they just like to use the word smoking gun, but they don't really say what it's a smoking gun for.
	But to them, for instance, so just like we thought, oh, we had all the different things with, you know, the Trump Tower meeting and all the other, you know, various, you know, collusion of stuff that sounded like collusion.
	They're the same way, but now they're saying it the opposite way.
	But they've also twisted it to say basically that they've been spying on everybody this whole... they were spying on everybody this whole time.
	So we talked about this and we're actually seeing it come into fruition.
	I want to say it was a couple of weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, that we talked about the fact that the 2020 campaign is probably going to turn into the Trump campaign claiming that Joe Biden is colluding with China and that China is interfering in the election.
	Basically what I call like a dark mirror of what happened in 2016, right?
	We'll have the Russians helping the Republicans and the Republicans claiming that Democrats are helping or that China is helping the Democrats.
	So one of the things that we're seeing, weirdly enough, with this Obamagate thing is it's a complete flip and projection of everything that ended up happening, which basically, and because I, you know, I studied this stuff and even I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.
	They legitimately believe that because he investigated their crimes, That he committed a crime, correct?
	Is that the essence?
	Not only that, yeah.
	They want to call him in front of the Senate to appear.
	Did you hear about this?
	And here's the thing, I will say.
	I don't think that the China thing is going to stick.
	I think that this will stick to Biden.
	I think this is what's going to grab hold.
	In fact, I texted my wife yesterday saying, Trump is probably going to win the election.
	I just want you to know this right now.
	Based on the last three days of what I'm reading and the way they're framing this, and you know, I just know how the other side kind of will process this.
	It sounds like they're going to be able to successfully walk back the entire Russia investigation and either prosecute people who were involved or so destroy whatever they had done that was anything factual that it will be completely and utterly disregarded or What's the word I'm looking for?
	Rendered untrue, I suppose, is the word.
	Sure.
	Well, would you find it interesting to find out that a poll was released today by Rasmussen, which is a traditionally pretty conservative polling group, that says that 25% of registered Republicans would like to replace Donald Trump as the candidate?
	Wow.
	Really?
	I mean, 25%?
	Okay, and they're registered Republicans.
	They're not, like, never Trumpers anymore.
	They're still Republicans, according to them.
	Wow.
	Registered Republicans.
	25%.
	Okay.
	How's that feel?
	This is fantastic!
	It feels better, but it still doesn't feel like enough.
	No, I'm not saying that it is, and I don't think that that's a death blow, but I think it's really interesting that after three days of consuming this, you have walked out of this and you're like, it's undefeatable.
	Right?
	It's just done.
	The cake is baked and it's just done.
	Right.
	I mean, because it really feels like, because remember, we all were so, you know, intently waiting for Mueller to rescue us and lay it all out there and all these different things.
	And, you know, the way they've been able to describe it, it's like when you hear them say it reasonably and they just now, they can flat out say things like, You know, first of all, they can now say that the Steele dossier was completely and utterly debunked.
	It's a fiction, it was a clown car of a show.
	Everything in there, right?
	And that kind of gets shoved together all one thing, so that's clearly wrong.
	They also are now saying that that was what started the investigation.
	By the way, they've also been able to say numerous times that Comey was the one who put Mueller in place.
	He was the guy who started the special investigation.
	We all know that's not true, right?
	Yeah.
	Wasn't it Rod Rosenstein?
	It was Rosenstein and Sessions.
	What happened that Rod Rosenstein had to appoint the Mueller investigation?
	Comey was fired.
	So how could Comey have been the one who started the investigation?
	But you're asking too many questions.
	I'm sorry.
	Let me ask you a question from that.
	How was this?
	Because, again, you were saying basically it's the exact same story in every media, right?
	Every branch of this.
	How did they handle it differently between Fox News, OANN, Breitbart, and Daily Caller?
	What did you see?
	Is it the exact same or is it different levels?
	That's a good question.
	By the way, OANN was hard.
	They don't really air on TV.
	There's some random channel maybe on DirecTV.
	I don't have it in my house.
	So I was trying to go and I was able to find a YouTube channel that would do their stuff.
	So it's not necessarily the easiest thing to do.
	They don't have it on spectrum in my house here in LA.
	Don Trump Jr.
	will take care of that.
	Don't you worry about it.
	So it wasn't as easy to find that stuff, but let's see here.
	I think that the only difference I can kind of tell was in the visual presentation, right?
	Like OANN looks like YouTube-y, you know, they got a little desk and they got whatever, but it's not, you know, versus like Fox News, which looks like a real newsroom and they have higher production value.
	I honestly feel like that's like one of the bigger differences you can come up with across the board there.
	You know, I don't know.
	I almost feel like I just want to read a couple of the notes here I've been writing out to kind of give you an idea of where they're coming from.
	Like Breitbart, for instance, was like, Obama was obsessed with Flynn since he had fired him and then told Trump he wasn't a fan of Flynn's.
	So they feel Obama has trampled over the rule of law for eight years.
	That's not what Obama did!
	He told Trump that Flynn was a criminal and not to associate him with him.
	He gave him a warning.
	He didn't say, I don't like him.
	So he told him, hey, this guy is trouble.
	Oh, believe me.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Jeanine Pirro, who has been looking a lot more sober since that one time a few weeks ago when she came on.
	Allegedly.
	Allegedly, Dick.
	We don't have lawyers on the muckering podcast.
	She said that Obama fired Flynn because he contradicted Obama's administration regarding Al Qaeda being on the run.
	So, I guess... She said that?
	Yeah, that's what she said.
	She's like, well, he said, well, Al Qaeda's not on the run.
	So they fired him, you know, for that.
	So that's another one of those things which you can never, like, almost verify.
	You're never going to know.
	It's crazy.
	You know, so that was a big one.
	You know, so it's just like, it's a constant rewriting of the investigation.
	And then by the time we're done, by next week, It will simply be the whole thing was illegal.
	This is all Barr stuff, too.
	It was all illegal.
	They never should have started this.
	I mean, we haven't even talked about Flynn specifically yet and how they framed that.
	But, like, they're saying it's now proven that Flynn never lied at all.
	Oh, even though he admitted it twice in open court.
	Right.
	Well, let me let me ask you a quick question because this is something I keep trying to tell people and I wish that they would listen to.
	I really truly think that if they can possibly make it happen that they will hold a show trial with Barack Obama.
	I truly believe that that's and and and the people who want to deny that I don't think they watch this stuff.
	And I don't think they hear what people are saying.
	They're dying for it.
	Trump was on Bartiromo today and he said that.
	He wants both Biden and Trump to come in front of the Senate.
	And I think Lindsey Graham actually is like, I don't know if we want to do that.
	And I feel like maybe Lindsey knows something more than, you know, or knows, has some sense of what would happen.
	Let's just point out that if Barack Obama, who is one of the most beloved Americans, maybe the most beloved American, really, you know what I mean?
	Like with the possible exception of a few celebrities.
	If there's a show trial of him, I mean, there is just a chance.
	Can you imagine?
	I mean, really, the backlash of something like that, that feels like it could be a step too far, but it also feels like it could be the step just into the abyss.
	You know what I mean?
	I could see a reality where this happens, and that could be a gate towards 2020 victory in November.
	I could see it happening, unfortunately.
	Well, do you remember I said last week, or last podcast, where I feel like a lot of the things they did in and around this time, around January 2017, they were sort of like, we're going to put the sanctions on Russia for interfering with our elections.
	Mainly, because they knew they were going to get rid of them once Trump took over, but they wanted to see what the Trump administration would do.
	This is sort of like, we're going to put the thing out there, the cheese out there, and we're going to find out whether or not anyone's going to come out and steal it or whatever.
	So I honestly feel like that's what they were doing.
	Like, we're going to now put sanctions to see what was going to happen.
	Well, of course what happened, the National Security Advisor goes behind their back and says, oh, don't worry, we're not going to enforce those, we'll get rid of them.
	And it was just like what Mueller did when he did the indictment to the Russians, knowing full well he'd never prosecute that.
	But we all know at the exact time he did that was when Trump was in Helsinki, and his response was very indicative of like, here's more proof.
	So I have a feeling that if Obama went in front of Congress or in the Senate, he might ultimately lay down, like his testimony might be more damning than anything else, versus the people in the outrage he was called in the first place.
	You know what I mean?
	Well, I mean, he's an incredible communicator.
	We can talk about his policies all day long and problems with them, but I mean, he's an incredible communicator.
	So, I have a question before I ask the transition question.
	How much of what you consumed would you say was conspiracy theory?
	Oh, well, um, you know, a lot of the stuff about Biden and China sort of feels that way, because there's really no detail.
	It's just sort of... So, I mean, that's a pretty standard thing.
	Yeah, I mean, there's... I mean, one thing there... Here's the thing.
	It kind of pulses for, like, a half an hour of a day, and then it disappears again.
	You have these weird things.
	And so, like, Biden's son, like, got a billion dollars from a Chinese bank.
	That was one that got everyone up in a tiff for a little bit, but there's no real reporting on that.
	I would have to say the whole rewriting of Flynn sounds a bit like a conspiracy to some degree, but their whole thing is it's been a conspiracy against Flynn the whole time.
	Yeah, I mean the Obamagate thing is the conspiracy that Obama was trying basically to perform a soft coup is what it was.
	Do you know who Tom Fitton is?
	No.
	He's some, you know, right-wing whatever, and he's on a guy's podcast, a guy's show, whatever.
	Here's what he was saying, and this guy gets so many retweets, it just fills everyone's timelines.
	He says, it was never about Russian collusion, only a way to run a diversion from all the crimes Obama et al.
	committed.
	Now, this is what we say, and here's a good example.
	What?
	Wait, wait, wait, no, hold on, time out, time out.
	This is important.
	Can you say that again?
	It was never about Russian collusion.
	It was only a way to run a diversion from all the crimes Obama et al.
	committed.
	Because they were so worried about all the crimes that they had committed during that time that needed to have some other diversion, you know, which is, you know, what we accuse Trump of doing all the time.
	But, you know, can you believe that?
	I have to do a thing.
	Just a reminder to our listeners that we do now provide a YouTube video version of our show.
	For those watching, this is Tom Fitton.
	And for those listening, he looks exactly like what I imagined he would look like.
	Yeah.
	I'll just say that.
	I mean, just imagine who this Tom Fitton Fox News commentator looks like.
	So his theory, or it's not even a theory, his bullshit, is that they framed Flynn and Trump in order to hide their own crimes.
	Biden and Obama were hiding their own crimes.
	Which, by the way, it's all projection.
	It's just a continual ouroboros of projection.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Oh, guess what?
	You know, now Devin Nunes is now like a completely reformed figure in all of this.
	He was right the whole time, Jared.
	Oh, that's what I've been saying all along.
	Devin Nunes is just a national hero.
	Yeah, and you know what he's gonna do now?
	He's gonna file criminal referrals for the entire Mueller's team.
	For every one of them who wants to file criminal referrals for them.
	Which is when, that's when it started to hit me like, this is what they're doing.
	They're going to eradicate Mueller's from the existence.
	He said that.
	He said that.
	What show was that on?
	But remember, Nunes has said that he's going to sue tons of people, just like Trump and never does.
	No, that's what I was saying.
	What show did you say that on?
	He was being interviewed.
	Probably Hannity.
	Oh, boy.
	Who was next to him?
	I just wrote down Nunes.
	Okay.
	But I don't have the show, but it was probably on Fox News.
	It was some split screen interview.
	Did you get the feeling, and I've had this in the past when watching Fox News, did you get the feeling that a lot of these people go on these shows and compete to see who can be the most outrageous?
	And who's like the toughest sort of alpha male and who is the most against the opponent?
	Did you get that feeling?
	I don't know.
	I don't know because, okay, I watch Fox and Friends because I'm thinking about the multiple person show, right?
	You poor thing.
	Bless your heart, Nick.
	I'm so sorry that this happened.
	I mean, I had so many notes from them, but I guess they might be more the COVID-19 stuff, but... I can't wait to talk about that.
	Yeah, but like Ainsley, you know, oh, I know.
	Oh, yeah, Ainsley Earhart, whatever her name is.
	I don't remember whatever her name is.
	Ainsley something.
	She's the one in the middle, the blonde.
	And she says, four or five batches of intel will show they had evidence that Russia wanted Hillary to win.
	Like, with a straight face.
	And she also said that Flynn pleaded guilty to protect his son only.
	four to five batches of intelligence will show that Russia wanted Hillary Clinton.
	- Hillary to win. - I'm sorry.
	I dive into this stuff all day, but that's a special level of bullshit I wasn't prepared for.
	Okay, so to answer your question, the original question was, I don't know if it's like a competition.
	I think that they're all rooting for each other.
	I really feel like it's like, yeah, you got your thing.
	You're going to say this is going to be great.
	You know what I mean?
	I think that they all are sort of rooting.
	They're on the same team.
	That's what it feels like.
	There's a show called The Five, I believe.
	Oh, The Five is disgusting.
	Yes.
	Jesse Watters.
	Jesse Watters.
	Oh, he thinks he's so funny.
	Jesse Watters thinks he's so funny.
	Yes.
	Oh, yeah.
	And he, so he says, well, first of all, he'll say like everything Fox News reported in Russia was right.
	And everything the mainstream media reported was wrong.
	And then meanwhile, another guest.
	So again, they're not competing.
	They're just, it's like they're building.
	They have these blocks and they're all, you know, helping each other to shovel on top.
	The next guy said, I didn't even get his name, was that Schiff needs to go to prison.
	Adam Schiff is the next target.
	So you see these things target and how it builds.
	And they're like, yeah, Schiff has to go too.
	This is probably what happens in the Oval Office, right?
	Where these four or five dudes are just sitting around.
	Mostly white guys, mostly, you know, 45, 50 years or older.
	You know, I guess Jesse Watters is younger, but whatever.
	It's like there's a type here.
	You know, Watters is even like, you know, in the Oval Office meeting.
	So there's this big Oval Office meeting, right?
	Biden is there, and Yates is there, and Obama.
	This is when Obama had already acknowledged he knew about the call between Kislyak and Flynn.
	And that, you know, is making their blood boil.
	Like, the idea that he already knew about this is a big smoking gun.
	So he's, you know, they hatched a sting operation to catch Trump, is what he thinks that meeting was.
	You know, the same day that Obama's Chief of Staff had requested unmasking.
	Oh, and they also make it seem like that Flynn authorized the unmasking.
	I'm sorry, not Flynn, that Biden authorized the unmasking of Flynn.
	So somehow or another, because Biden is the nominee for the Democrats, this was just a complete executive thing.
	Not to mention how much they make fun of Biden.
	And that was hard because they'll show these clips of Biden and he doesn't look like he knows what he's talking about.
	It's embarrassing.
	You said something there about the idea that these people are just sort of like Throwing this around and like you brought up the Oval Office.
	I've actually been working with something in my head for a while.
	I finally came to a realization about something that I think I sort of expected and thought about but I wasn't able to put in my own words.
	You know how like...
	Okay, have you studied the QAnon stuff at all or whatever?
	Every now and then there's like something Trump will do that like he either retweets QAnon people constantly, which I mean that's most of his followers, right?
	Or he'll do something that looks like a clue from QAnon.
	Or do you remember when he did the thing where he like retweeted the picture of Hillary Clinton with like the Jewish star?
	Yeah, sure.
	And all that stuff.
	I've come to the conclusion, and I sort of suspected it for a while, I think his team is well aware of what they're doing.
	You know what I mean?
	I think they're intentionally exciting these bases.
	They understand there's a lot of balls that they have to juggle, and so they'll throw these people some pieces every now and then in the social media.
	And I think it's a very, not expertly crafted, but at least intentionally and organized, crafted messaging system.
	And what you're talking about, I think, has a lot to do with that.
	Because I think Fox News has a meeting every day and they're like, how do we appeal to these people?
	How do we appeal to these people?
	What message is going to get?
	And how can we do it without, of course, being like legally liable?
	Which I want to ask you about, what is the word on the coronavirus pandemic?
	Is it under control?
	Are we past it?
	Is it a conspiracy?
	What's happening?
	Alright, so here's the big takeaway from COVID-19.
	That the lockdown is causing the economic downturn, not the virus.
	That's the big one.
	We've been having a downturn in both deaths and cases for over a month.
	In general?
	That's what Tucker said.
	Where's that one?
	Yeah, I mean, I was like, I was like, what?
	Tucker had a lot of this stuff.
	He'd say, like, there's no scientific basis for lockdown policies.
	Deaths and cases have been trending downward for over a month.
	There's what it was.
	That was the other day.
	You know, Rand Paul would say experts aren't the, quote, end all to make all decisions.
	Which is probably true, but it's sort of dismissing experts in general.
	Now, Fauci has gotten persecuted and strung up by his thumbs the last couple of days.
	What have you heard there?
	Yeah, what have you heard there?
	You know, let's see here.
	Graham Ledger from the Daily Ledger, who I don't know who this guy is, but he's got a following.
	Fauci has a highly questionable lockdown response, plus there is, quote, simple math that proves there is no scientific reason for the shutdown.
	Fauci hearing today showed him protecting his personal reputation over lives and refuses to admit his catastrophic lapse in judgment.
	On 5-12-20, there was a big market crash.
	I have to check that even, you know, because it's not that long ago.
	It's all Fauci's fault.
	Fauci was responsible for the stock market, you know, dipping on 512.
	Every time Fauci talks, the stock market tanks.
	That's what they're saying.
	So is it intentional or is it just...
	There's a sense of like, oh, it's the doctors and the medicine people.
	They don't understand the economy.
	So the doctors don't understand the economy, but obviously based on what is being reported by Fox News and the right-wing media, they're wrong.
	So are they just, are doctors just stupid?
	Are they overly cautious?
	Are they part of the deep state?
	What are we looking at here?
	I mean, I think the bottom line is they just don't understand the importance of the economy.
	Like parents, they just don't understand.
	Yeah, it's like everyone says, well, listen, we care about lives.
	We don't, of course, we don't want anyone to die and whatever.
	But, but, you know, people, you know, all of a sudden the Republicans are really concerned with people's mental health because staying indoors like this is really dangerous.
	You know, it could cause a lot of suicides and it could cause a lot of troubling things mentally that we're not meant for to do.
	We're not meant to stay inside.
	Did you catch the press briefing the other day where that was just every answer?
	No.
	Did you catch that?
	So the other day, the press secretary, who, by the way, it's really incredible to find somebody who can lie more times in a minute than Sean Spicer or Huckabee Sanders.
	She's good at it.
	I mean, she's laser focused on lying.
	She was asked why open up, you know, the economy when it's obviously dangerous not to, or it's dangerous to open up the economy.
	And her answer was, oh, you know, people aren't getting cancer screenings, so they're going to die of that.
	And people are depressed and they're, you know, suicide's a thing and they're going to drink too much.
	That's not an answer.
	Like that's not even approaching an answer.
	Is that the party line?
	Is that what you were hearing on the network?
	Oh yeah.
	Another one was, an estimated 1.4 million people worldwide will die from tuberculosis due to the economic fallout of shutdowns.
	An estimated 260,000 people died from cancer due to the 08-10 recession.
	Increased suicides could be 30,000 per 10% increase in unemployment.
	So, it could go on and on.
	So, like, yeah, I mean, that's a real big amplification of an idea that, like, everything else is much more dangerous than this.
	So, it makes no sense to shut down our entire economy for this long.
	Oh, but they will say, but we did it.
	We listened to you for a month or a month and a half.
	We did.
	We played your game and now we're done playing that.
	And people should not be, you know, taking the task for defying, oh, not only defying the government, you know, the governor's orders.
	Tucker had a couple of these guys on who are just flaunting it right in their face.
	We are not going to listen to the shutdown.
	We are opening up a gym.
	We're opening up our restaurant in different states.
	And we don't care.
	I'll just go to jail, I guess.
	And he was, like, giving them this big spotlight.
	As heroes.
	They were heroes.
	Which, by the way, I mean, if you want to be technical, they are going against the orders of the president's administration, as well.
	I mean, that's the damnedest thing on all of this, and we've talked about malleable ideology and malleable laws.
	Like, the administration is telling people, like, be safe and do this to reopen, and meanwhile celebrating people who are doing the exact opposite.
	I mean, they're having their cake and their ice cream, too, right?
	And this is what we've seen with Kushner talking about what you know, the federal branch is supposed to do it, what it's not supposed to do.
	And, you know, this is where it's all powerful.
	Which, by the way, oh, that reminds me.
	Did they weigh in on the Supreme Court case about whether or not Donald Trump is above any kind of legal ramifications?
	Was that talked about at all?
	Wait, did that happen?
	Oh, that's going on, my man.
	Not a peep.
	The president's attorney right now is arguing in front of the Supreme Court that the president should be above investigation and should not be treated like a regular citizen.
	That wasn't brought up at all?
	A peep about that.
	And I was scanning, you know, Breitbart.com, FoxNews.com, the whole Twitter thing.
	I didn't see anything about that.
	And I had forgotten.
	I know on Tuesday somebody asked me about it and I was like, yeah, I don't know.
	And then here we are on Thursday and I have no clue what's happened.
	What happened?
	Anything exciting besides that?
	Not yet.
	I mean, that, I mean, Sekulow got in front of them and basically said that the president should be king.
	I mean, I mean, that's what happened.
	And Sekulow arguing in front of the Supreme Court?
	He's not doing great.
	He's not doing great, but it really is.
	It's like the impeachment argument on steroids is what it is.
	It's just like the president should be above the law in all cases and should never be treated like a regular citizen.
	Wow.
	Not at all.
	Because that connects to Flynn because what they're trying to do is say there was never anything going on that was wrong at all about any of that so it was illegal to do any of the investigations that they were doing.
	Okay.
	And so in that same kind of context where it's like, well, he's not doing anything wrong, so you can't investigate him anyway.
	I don't even know if that makes sense, but yeah.
	So to bring that full circle, that obviously the Democrats are treasonous and have tried to pull off a couple of coups.
	We have a pandemic.
	And by the way, I have a quick question off of this, and we talk about it often in here, that the GOP strategy is blame China first and foremost, second, third, and fourth, and don't even worry about defending Trump.
	Yes.
	Is that what you saw or is it continual bootlicking and just Donald Trump has been great and all this and he's been perfect?
	Oh no, they had a senator Josh Haldi come on one of these shows.
	It's a little blur at this point.
	And he was like, Let's make China pay for their terrible behavior and making this pandemic possible.
	He wants citizens to be able to sue China.
	And that was his big thing.
	And that was sort of taking hold too.
	People want to be able to hold China accountable because they knew about this.
	And then there were some reports about, there was some catastrophe that happened at this lab in October.
	that they seem to have some information from that was translated from Chinese.
	I don't know exactly what was going on, but it seemed to be serious.
	People wanted to point to that somehow.
	That's where it started.
	I don't know.
	But yeah, they're definitely more than happy to just keep blaming China.
	So the group of people, the Republican Party, that tried to make it impossible to sue firearms manufacturers or tobacco companies or corporations that have given people cancer and respiratory problems and birth defects and all of that stuff is now arguing that people should be able to sue China for the coronavirus.
	And by the way China would never like capitulate to that.
	Oh good god no!
	But they could retaliate and I think it'd be really bad if we made China angry enough at us.
	It could be really really bad.
	There's a lot of different things there that are that are happening that could be really really awful.
	I'm stunned right now.
	And again like the things I'm hearing are insane.
	What was the craziest thing you heard?
	What is the thing that you're walking away from this and you heard and you were like, my god, I can't believe this is actually being talked about.
	I mean, Scalise and Collins both are saying this is a coup and indictments are coming and that Schiff needs to be arrested.
	Those are the things that... This is QAnon.
	That's QAnon, man.
	Is it really?
	Yeah.
	That is part and parcel QAnon.
	I didn't add QAnon to my list.
	I didn't go through there, but it's probably good.
	We'll have you do that during the summer.
	We'll just have you do like two weeks of QAnon.
	No, literally, it's QAnon's narrative.
	I mean, verbatim.
	Like, their indictment's coming.
	It's a coup.
	The Schiff thing is like their favorite thing right now.
	It's going after him.
	You know what it feels like to me, by the way?
	It almost feels like preemptive knocking him down before he runs for president.
	Maybe he'll never run.
	You have it bad for him.
	I know.
	That's your boy.
	But yeah, I'm kind of wondering if like, you know, they're testing the waters to see what sticks, what doesn't they need to have in their back pocket.
	Because it is weird, you know, Schiff had said there was never any malicious unmasking.
	And because there was unmasking, he lied.
	So like this word malicious doesn't seem to mean what they think it means.
	And so he's lying and he's been lying all about the the evidence.
	He said he saw or he was sure of the evidence of collusion and now they simply know because of what was released last week, you know that it was not nothing was true.
	There was never any evidence of collusion, you know, they even you know, what's his face?
	Hannity was saying that, you know, Comey ambushed Flynn, and then they significantly altered the original 302, which is like the report, the handwritten report, on that, which they didn't alter it.
	Oh, and the other big one is that they withheld all of that information that just came out about, you know, about how they want to approach Flynn.
	And that seems to be a big smoking gun.
	Oh, yeah, you got to combine it with Strzok's text about an insurance plan and that our sisters are really, you know, leaking all over the place.
	And he clearly means the CIA.
	I'm pretty sure when the FBI uses the term sisters, it's the CIA.
	And, you know, by the way, bottom line is there was a lot of leaking, right?
	There was leaking all throughout January of 2017.
	And the funny thing was is that David Ignatius in the Washington Post said that Biden was one of the ones who requested the unmasking.
	This was reported already years ago.
	Well, yeah, I'm glad we got to this because the truth of it is, like, there was a lot of leaking because people thought our foreign asset was becoming president of the United States of America.
	And they were right!
	I mean, and actually, I've been pushing back.
	I don't think he's a foreign asset, but I mean, he definitely has goals and aspirations that align with Russia and other countries.
	I mean, You know, whether you want to believe in conspiracy theories or whatever, that's a different thing.
	But there's a reason why the intelligence community leaked, is because they saw this thing happen.
	There's a reason why Flynn was investigated.
	I mean, Flynn was an unregistered foreign agent who was trying to do some really nefarious shit, and on top of that was going behind the scenes, violating one law after another, He lied to his own vice president.
	I mean, Trump fired him!
	But it wasn't like Flynn was going to go work in the kitchen in the White House.
	No.
	He was the national fucking security advisor.
	That's the real thing here that no one seems to want to fathom, is that of all the positions you're going to have, this is the one that you can't have any of that crap hovering over your head.
	Have they ollie-northed him yet?
	Is it just pictures of him looking heroic and just a hero?
	Trump was saying that today, and he also said it about Roger Stone.
	He's going to pardon these guys if... Oh, by the way... Paul Manafort's home!
	What's that?
	Paul Manafort is home.
	Do you know that?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I did see one thing about that where he got out because of the COVID scare.
	Okay, hang on.
	I found the most shocking thing that knocked me off my chair.
	Are you ready?
	And it's this guy Tom Fitton again.
	Judicial Watch, which maybe everyone's heard about that.
	I think he's the head of that or whatever.
	Here's his tweet.
	Are you ready?
	In big caps.
	Big arms scandal.
	Smoking gun docs uncovered by Judicial Watch show.
	Are you ready for this?
	Obama, Clinton were aware arms going to Syria through Benghazi and were warned about rise of ISIS and they were supporting terrorists in Syria.
	Obama Clinton created Syria Iran mess.
	Now, if you were writing a headline and then, you know, an article online and you needed good what we call SEO, do you know what SEO is?
	Search engine optimization.
	This is a winner, this tweet, because it's got everything.
	It's got Syria.
	It's got Benghazi.
	It's got ISIS.
	He probably the hottest new nightclub.
	Yeah, he should have put Isis earlier in there.
	That would have been better SEO, but he's pretty damn good.
	That was the kind of thing that was like, what the hell are you talking about?
	And the video attached to that that talks about it has got over 1.6 million views.
	So that is an old, old rumor and conspiracy theory.
	So back when I was covering the campaign in 2016, the big The big quote-unquote surprise that everyone thought they were waiting on was, and especially with Hillary Clinton's emails.
	So when everybody was like, where are Clinton's emails?
	They thought the smoking gun was going to be an email that showed that Clinton and Obama created ISIS.
	That was the big thing.
	And that they had a bunch of money in ISIS and Syria and all that stuff.
	And again, I mean, that's New World Order shit.
	That's all that is, right?
	It's the idea to conspiracy traitors.
	That tweet did come out a while ago, and then he retweeted it, which is why it came back out and started going through the rounds again.
	So forgive me, I didn't notice that date on there.
	But yeah, it's still, it pops up in there.
	But no, that's what they're doing.
	And I'm telling you, that's, and again, we're pretty good at predicting what's going to happen, right?
	I mean, that's the unfortunate truth.
	Like if there is a show trial, or there's some sort of a committee meeting that brings in Obama or Biden, and do not get it wrong, they will try.
	They will try and at least question them in public.
	This will be one of the questions that comes up and everyone's like, what the hell are we talking about here?
	Right?
	It'll be like, oh, did you know person X and ISIS?
	Or did you know about this whatever?
	And it'll be this.
	It'll be a signal to everybody who knows this and has thought about this bullshit.
	And that'll be like, you know, their headlines.
	It'll be the same thing for years and years and years.
	Well, okay.
	By the way, they did bring up Richard Burr a little bit.
	They did bubble up.
	I guess they confiscated his phone as part of the investigation for him doing some major trades.
	But they needed to tinge Dianne Feinstein in there because her husband did some trading around the same time.
	Sure.
	And we don't really know.
	I don't know exactly what's going to come of that one.
	But they did, in earnest, to some degree, didn't bury the Richard Burr stuff.
	He's going to be a sacrificial lamb.
	They got to throw somebody out.
	You know, the Loffler.
	They're not going to do her, right?
	They're not going to throw her out.
	She's just going to get beat, right?
	So Burr was the one that they had to do.
	They had to throw somebody under the bus.
	And that's the thing.
	While Trump is doing this shit with Flynn and Manafort and all of them, they have to show that some people are not above the law.
	And so Burr is going to be the sacrificial lamb.
	Do you know, is he running in November?
	I have no clue.
	I mean, because that might also be an interesting indication.
	I hope he's running from the law.
	Right.
	Because Loeffler, too.
	If Loeffler has a couple more years left, then, yeah, they won't bother with her.
	I had always thought, by the way, that Flynn was going to be the guy that they were going to say, oh, thank God.
	We caught him and we did and we got rid of him.
	You know, that was the he was the head of the snake.
	They didn't do it.
	Yeah, but Manafort and Flynn were the keystones into the Russian collusion.
	I mean, they both were like front men for it.
	And if one of them went down, then that means that there was something to go down for, right?
	So there was just no way whatsoever for any of them to do that.
	Yeah, I hear you.
	I mean, yeah.
	Gosh, I'm not even sure where to go from there.
	Let me ask this just in closing, a couple things, like sort of your impressions.
	So, what What's the big picture you're walking away from this?
	How do you feel about American politics?
	How do you feel about the right wing?
	How do you feel about this media apparatus?
	What did it make you feel?
	It's completely broken.
	It is completely and utterly broken.
	And there's no hope.
	To the point where I don't know what we're going to do if he wins again in November.
	My wife even said to me, you know, if our kids can get to the age where they don't have to rely on us, we'll just move to another country.
	And that could very well be something we take more and more seriously as we go along.
	So this terrified you?
	Yeah, it's broken.
	It's, you know, the norms, the way we've done things, which generally have been shaped by really smart people who, you know, generally cared about the country over several hundreds of years, you know, those are all destroyed.
	And I don't think you'd ever get those back.
	Right?
	I don't know if you're ever going to get, you know, how you're supposed to behave in the Oval Office anymore now that he has been there and shat all over the curtains.
	God, that's a terrible visual.
	So I'll say this, and usually I'm the doomsayer on this podcast.
	I will say this, that America has phases.
	Right?
	And if I take any hope from things, it's that bringing a new president in changes a lot.
	I mean, you know, we don't like to admit that outside forces influence us.
	I mean, that's one of the problems here with the right-wing media, right?
	But a new president could possibly change the tone, and it could be possible that things that seem impossible could suddenly become possible.
	Or tones can change, or concepts can change.
	So I have hope that there's something after this, but I have to tell you, I'm with you.
	If he gets re-elected and if this thing just continues, because it's not just that people were doing things with good intention, but it's like one of the problems is, and if you've ever studied like postmodern theory, it's just things just keep happening and people keep doing things for advantage and profit and eventually it just grows and grows and grows and grows until it's just a knot.
	And it feels like a not.
	Like, the fact is that we do not live in the same Americas.
	I mean, what you had to have seen, I mean, it's like a dispatch from a completely alternate dimension, right?
	Yeah, two things.
	So, first off, the tone of most of this, like, reporting, and again, it's not the easiest thing to find, like, reporters, because there's not that many, like, you're talking about The Federalist, you're talking about Daily Caller, you're talking about FoxNews.com, Breitbart.com, like, there's, you know, those are the main Not reputable, but whatever.
	So the tone is so, what's the word, belligerent, right?
	It's really belligerent.
	So that's what sets the tone already.
	But when you read things like Breitbart, I don't know if you've ever read Breitbart before, but they're all really short.
	They're all riddled with all sorts of syntax error and spelling mistakes.
	Terribly written.
	There's no editor on these things.
	They don't need it.
	- They don't need it. - Fox News is totally written.
	- They don't need it. - Hannity.com, I had to go to Hannity.com to read articles there.
	And it's the writing is lower than like a high school level.
	It really is that bad.
	And that says something, because I know that they're getting a lot of hits and people are hoovering up all this information from these sites.
	And it's just, you know, while meanwhile, these, you know, the liberal elites, whatever, have like good writing from the New York Times and Washington Post, I guess, New Yorker.
	But like, there's something to be said about really just well written pieces and the reputation of what that, you know, brings when it's written properly, I think.
	Yeah, it does.
	What do you know about writing?
	I mean, you know, it's just my life.
	I think it's one of those things where, unfortunately, this is a side effect of what has happened with years and years of the war on education and experts and all of that, you know?
	Like, they write these short... I mean, Breitbart's writing is god-awful.
	I mean, it's embarrassingly bad.
	And actually, if you watch Hannity, He does not have a very good command of facts or actually language.
	It's a really, you know, there's an apocryphal tale that I think is actually true that when Roger Ailes found Sean Hannity, who is a DJ, Right?
	He was like an Atlanta-based talk radio DJ.
	He had no idea what was going on in American politics.
	Ailes didn't care.
	What Ailes cared about was what sort of an emotion that you could get out of people by what you were saying and how you were acting.
	His old axiom was that you turn off the sound and watch.
	You don't actually listen.
	It's actually just about watching it and the emotion of it.
	But that's what Breitbart is.
	Breitbart is all about you are in danger.
	And there are people coming for you, right?
	Oh yeah.
	Fox News is all about, oh, this country is on the precipice of a racial war.
	We're keeping you up to date.
	Things should be okay as long as we don't raise taxes, but it'll be fine.
	OANN is just like, we will say whatever bullshit you want us to say right now.
	Racial war, absolutely.
	But you're right.
	It's not about writing.
	It's not about effective communications.
	It's about emotion.
	It's always been about emotion.
	And it's always been about stirring people up, which is why, and I have to assume, It probably didn't make you feel good.
	Fair?
	fair?
	No, I definitely felt, you know, I got numb.
	It was numb.
	It wasn't even like feeling bad in the middle of all this.
	It was just sort of like, oh, okay, what's next?
	Great.
	In Nancy Pelosi's bill, they're going to want to give all this money to, oh, illegal aliens is a really big term and everybody uses across the board.
	And that they're going to get a lot of money up to like, you know, billions of dollars from this new thing, because you don't need to have a social security number to get a bailout or whatever, whatever they're calling it, aid.
	And You know, that's a big one.
	And I could hear it resonating, you know, like, oh, we can't let that happen, even though it won't happen.
	Oh, we didn't even talk about ballot harvesting.
	That was another big one that really got them stirred up.
	By the way, to their credit, in one of the articles I read, they mentioned North Carolina, which is a Republican ballot harvesting thing.
	But then, of course, they fly over to California, and they show all of these, the night of the vote, the lead that the Republican had, and then, within a few days, after all the mail-in votes came in, the Democrat won.
	And that's clearly ballot harvesting and illegal, I guess.
	I don't know.
	So they've already determined that they're going to oppose any and all measures whatsoever of mail-in elections.
	Yes.
	No, I mean – That's just done.
	The thought of not having some sort of identification with a picture on it to vote is – it doesn't make sense to them.
	Like, of course you need to have that.
	Even though I bet you most people don't use it who are Republicans anyway, but... Did you see... This will be interesting to see if they cover this whatsoever.
	Did you see that Jared Kushner was asked whether or not the 2020 election would be held?
	And he said, we plan on it, but we're always looking at new information.
	Oh, wow, okay.
	Okay, so you did not see it.
	Well, no, what bubbled up was Hillary's response to that.
	So that's what I saw, which was, I can't believe I have to write that the son-in-law of the president does not decide the election.
	But all I... Oh, wait, that's the thing that, like, you saw that you didn't want to see because you were... Yeah, well, no, yeah, and I wouldn't want to go too deep into that because then that would have gotten into the New York Times.
	I couldn't read that.
	But no one mentioned that.
	They did have the one bit of a quote from Jared who said, it's not up to me.
	So somewhere in that article, in an interview, he says, it's not up to me, I guess.
	But wait, say it again.
	What did he just say?
	He said, somebody asked him if the 2020 election was going to be held.
	And he said, plans are to hold it, but we'll see.
	We're looking at new information and we'll see what happens.
	Yeah, that was not, I didn't see that at all.
	That didn't come up.
	All that came up somehow was that they grabbed a half of a quote that just said, it's not up to me, so clearly that means it's not part of the decision process.
	So they even claimed that thing.
	Amazing.
	They love that Chuck Todd had to apologize for getting a B-roll or whatever from CBS that cut off something.
	I mean, whether you want to believe them or not, it sounds somewhat reasonable.
	They would have sent over a package and they didn't have the whole thing in there or whatever.
	Yeah, Trump was basically trying to angle to, you know, prosecute NBC or take away their license.
	Who knows?
	And I believe, I think it bubbled up that Trump said he has to be fired, I think, right?
	Yeah, Trump was basically trying to angle to, you know, prosecute NBC or take away their license.
	Who knows?
	But I will say that what you're talking about, like the apology stuff, is what has given Fox its power.
	You know, it's the station that gets to basically move the Overton window to the right.
	And then MSNBC and CNN and the New York Times and Washington Post and pundits, in order to sound like they're not biased, have to go with the window and start accepting like outrageous, dangerous things as if it's a reasonable thing.
	I mean, you know, CNN panels with Trumpists are insane.
	Yeah.
	And so then the other side is these other networks and newspapers and publications actually have standards, and if they mess something up, they apologize for it.
	And Fox News is killing people, and they're still not apologizing.
	And that's what's led to Trump.
	I mean, Trump basically is just that entire playbook come to life.
	Yeah, and it's what's so scary about this whole thing, and I'm telling you, after these three days, or in the middle, it was not even, you know, at the end, by the middle of this, by yesterday sometime, that's when it hit me.
	It's like, you know, the power they have to frame, certainly the Russia stuff, and the value they have, or the advantage they have, is that the Russia stuff happened a year and a half ago.
	Or it happened a year ago.
	And it's complicated.
	Yeah, it's complicated.
	So it's much more fresh to hear what they're saying now about it.
	And the hint and the whiff of, oh, we're going to call Obama, we're going to grill him, whatever, that's just, yeah, do that.
	And if it doesn't happen, it's OK, because they're just happy they were talking about it.
	And it's going to lead them to a lot of those votes in those states they're going to need.
	I hesitate to bring this up because I fear that we're going to have to talk about this next week on the podcast, but would it shock you to hear that CNN and other media outlets have started reporting on Obamagate and conspiracy theories about Joe Biden?
	Does that surprise you that that is leaked into the mainstream media?
	Because it doesn't for me.
	I'll just say that.
	I don't know.
	You know what?
	I'm going to have to dive in.
	I'm really anxious to get back to my other timeline and read that.
	But, I mean, obviously they're going to have to report that, you know, Biden was part of the unmasking or whatever that Grinnell released.
	By the way, Hannity predicted all this like on Monday night, I think.
	But maybe, did Grinnell already signal that, right?
	That wasn't like he had privy, I don't think, so that wasn't anything.
	No, it was signaled.
	I just want to say, if we can go through the rest of our podcasting career together and you never utter the qualifier, Hannity predicted this on Monday night, I will be so happy if that isn't a glimpse.
	So, for the rest of the audience, I will make sure from now on to make sure that Nick isn't, you know, relapsing into watching this and like subjecting himself to it.
	Dude, I had a thought in my head at one point during this thing, maybe this morning, I'm like, you know, I wonder if I would, if I like Brian Kilmeade, if I'd like hang out with him.
	I swear to God, that's what I got to.
	I was like, he might be a cool guy to hang out with.
	I don't even know at this point, but I don't know.
	Can I tell you, I gotta say this simply because we've been doing this whole thing.
	One of my favorite things about Brian Kilmeade is that he is dumber than a rock.
	And he wants so badly to be smart.
	Like he authors books with like co-authors and you'll see him go out and do like C-SPAN presentations and book festivals and his understanding of even the things that he's written quote-unquote books about it's just so lacking and sad.
	It's just such a weird thing watching a guy who really wants to be a public intellectual but you know probably struggles to tie his shoes.
	It is a really weird Shakespearean type thing.
	Well, God bless him because he's gotten to the top of his profession, I'll tell you that.
	No, he's one of the most influential human beings in the world because the President of the United States pays attention to him every day.
	Yeah.
	So what do you, let me ask one quick question then we'll wrap this thing up mercifully.
	How do you feel about the fact that the President of the United States watches this and takes his opinions from it and communicates with it directly?
	God, that's a great question.
	It's frightening, only because I think when we pictured presidents in the past, they were sheltered from a lot of this.
	They were in their bubble, and people got even criticized for that, but at least you knew that they had this sort of pristine experts' information the entire time.
	It's frightening to know that he spends more time than I did reading and watching this stuff.
	It truly is frightening, and it explains everything, but it's a real problem.
	It's a real problem.
	I completely agree and I try and explain this to people.
	It is a post-modern dystopian nightmare.
	The idea that a president of the United States is talking to his TV and it's talking back to him and it's just going in circles and growing.
	Oh yeah.
	And then we know he likes to send a tweet out and then watch for it to see all the reaction it gets.
	Like that gets him.
	Well, I have to say, on behalf of our listeners, Nick, we salute you for having done this experiment.
	I think we have learned a lot.
	I think that we understand a little bit more where we are in terms of the message.
	I have to say, and I always praise you on your instincts, your instinct on this, I feel like, was incredible in terms of timing.
	It feels like this is the week where the mainstream media is finally starting to be like, maybe we should look into these conspiracy theories and see what they're saying, and maybe this will have an effect on the election.
	Which, by the way, is all we talk about, right?
	They tell you what they're doing.
	It's not rocket science, right?
	But I just want to give you that praise.
	I think you nailed the timing on this.
	I think it was really well done.
	Thank you so much.
	And yeah, hopefully I won't have to do it again, but we'll see.
	All right.
	Well, next week, hopefully when we get back here on Tuesday, it will not be a conversation with Nick talking about Fox News over the weekend and how he's becoming part of the cult.
	We want to thank you for coming here.
	As always, we are growing by leaps and bounds.
	We are so happy about that.
	We're so pumped about it, I have to tell you.
	In the meantime, people keep reaching out.
	They keep saying, can we donate money?
	Can we do something or whatever?
	You don't need to.
	We're not worried about that right now.
	What we're worried about is likes and subscriptions and shares and telling people.
	We love seeing people out there telling others that this is something that's different and important and we think so too.
	So please, like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff.
	Don't let your friends watch Fox News.
	Be safe.
	Oh, yeah!
	I'm at JY Sexton News.
	Can you hear me, SMH?
	Hopefully he'll be tweeting some non-propaganda soon.
	So, yeah.
	Be safe out there.

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