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- [00:00]
A
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- [01:01]
B
Sam Stein, managing ed at the Bull Work. I'm here with Will Summer, author of False Flag, one of the great newsletters out there. Should I tease the fact that we're going to be doing a Monday live show?
- [01:11]
C
Yeah, let's do it. Let's roll it out.
- [01:12]
B
So. So some of you might have seen Bill and Andrew, er, did a Tuesday live show at 10am calling it Morning Chasers, kind of workshopping that title. Will and I are going to be doing something on Monday, at least as of now. Where? 10am Live on this YouTube channel on substack. We're going to be calling it Maga Monday, kind of recapping what the hell is going on on the Internet over the weekend. I think it's a public service. This is not live. This is taped. We're going to be talking about Will's latest False Flag newsletter, which looks at Steve Bannon, who is in perpetual hot water, criminally and politically. But this one was surprising because I've been focused on one story and Will writes about quite another. So, Will, why don't you unwrap it for us?
- [01:53]
C
Sure. So, as you mentioned, you know, Steve Bannon's in hot water these days for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. He was really like one of Jeffrey Epstein's last buddies before he died. I mean, he was even as everyone else was ditching him. These emails show that he was just like Jeffrey. We got to do our media training. We got to figure this one out. So, however, what I look at is a lawsuit filed last week over Bannon's stewardship of the FJB coin. Now, cryptocurrency. And so this is. Folks, remember Fuck Joe Biden, that meme. Let's go, Brandon. And so that's what it's based on. And so at one point a few years back, Bannon and Borsch Epstein, who is a sort of similar Trump world figure, they purchased this cryptocurrency, and we're hoping to ride the meme wave, but the investors say it all went south and now they're demanding their money back with damages, and they have all these sort of sordid tales to tell.
- [02:44]
B
Can you pronounce Boris's name again?
- [02:47]
C
It's Epstein.
- [02:48]
B
No, no, the first name you said, Borscht. Is that. Is that.
- [02:51]
C
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry, I wanted to distinguish from Epstein, and so I was kind of. I was maybe leaning a little too much into the sound there.
- [03:00]
B
Oh, no, I think that's probably the native pronunciation. I appreciate your. Your. Your dedication to the details. This coin was stupid. It was stupid for a variety of reasons. One is, who buys a coin that's Fuck Joe Biden, unless you're like, super online. But secondly is the way they structured it, where they, like, were promising what 8% of the revenue would go to. To what, operating expenses and publicity, and 5% of that would go to charitable contributions. Is that the setup?
- [03:30]
C
Yes. This is a funny story. So, you know, all these cryptocurrencies, I mean, this one, like all these kind of other kind of meme coins, like Doge or Fart Coin, which had a huge blow up in the early second Trump administration.
- [03:43]
B
So to say Fart coin.
- [03:44]
C
Yeah, yeah, it's an eruption. And so really had no reason to exist. It was started. And then Epstein and. And Bannon bought it, and they kind of made it look like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be like a whole new economy. There's going to be no deflation, all this stuff. And part of that was that there was going to be a 3% transaction fee. So every time you bought something or, you know, with all your stores of FJB coin, that would go towards kind of managing the coin and promoting it, and the other 5% would go towards charities. And they specifically would say things like the Wounded Warrior Project. So the. So these are like kind of very conservative coded charities about veterans, things like this. But when the investors or the coin holders said, all right, well, can we see where all these. This kind of extortionate 5% is going. Who are you donating to? They really kind of couldn't. They said, okay, well, I don't know, here's like a $500 check. And I mean, we're talking. This likely would have been in tens of thousands, if not more, or they would, you know, post a screenshot and the date would be kind of cut off. It was very vague stuff. And so that was one of sort of the initial signs that perhaps something wasn't going right here.
- [04:50]
B
Well, there's, there were sign before that that you shouldn't invest in with anything Bannon has done. I, I'm going to shelve because I do want to get back to the Jeffrey Epstein relationship in Bannon in particular. But like Bannon himself has this incredibly sorted history around these types of ventures. There was the whole Build the Wall fiasco, I want to say, where he was raising what money to build portions of the wall, but really just spending it on personal interest, like boats and stuff.
- [05:19]
C
Yeah, I mean, this is one of the great, the great cons of the first Trump administration. I mean, this was the, There was this idea among Trump supporters, you know, the wall isn't being built fast enough. So a guy named Brian Colface, who was a veteran, he was a triple amputee, he says, I'm going to build the wall. You know, give me money and I'll build it. Bannon teamed up with him. They got it. You know, you got to be bad if the Trump Justice Department indicts you, you know, and so they got indicted in the first term. Bannon was pardoned and ultimately pled guilty to a state felony, kind of a minor charge. But yeah, I mean, the money, you know, it was at least on Col Beija's part, was sort of spent on his personal expenses, you know, and this is one of these ones, you know, these things pop up all the time in right wing media and I love writing about them. And people say that's obviously a scam. And I think, well, I can't really, I can't just call it a scam immediately. I can't say this is a Griff. Maybe it'll be true. And then you know what? It was a scam.
- [06:07]
B
Yeah, this one was clearly, clearly a scam. I will say that the being indicted in the first Trump administration is different than in the second Trump administration. I don't think he would be indicted, this Trump administration, for what he did with Build the Wall. I feel like that would just go. They'd look the other way. But The Meme coin stuff too, that gets me to this, which is that part of the story is just that the meme coin industry is absolutely the Wild West. There's just it to me. And I'm not, I, I admit I have very limited familiarity with it. I don't invest in any Meme Coins. But to me, there's almost no regulation other than people looking at and saying, this is full of shit. And that's not regulation that would prevent people like Bannon from doing these types of things.
- [06:51]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think at best you could have a civil lawsuit, you know, as, as people are pursuing here. But I think, you know, what are they going to say? Like, hey, you were supposed to promote the scheme until I cashed out and left some other sucker holding the bag. You know, I mean, like, fundamentally it's a, it's obviously a terrible investment. You know, it's funny, in this lawsuit, on one hand you have people like Jack Posobic, Benny Johnson, these other right wing people teaming up with Steve Bannon to promote it. Meanwhile, in the Discord server, which, the chat room which comes out in this lawsuit, you had the administrators of the coin saying, oh my gosh, the money's being pillaged. You know, we're missing $2.7 million and no one can account for it. Bannon and Boris are flushing our money down the toilet. And so this is kind of going on at the same time. I was always curious. They kind of had, were very vague about their ownership of this coin for a while. And I would say, like, why are they so pumped up about this, the FJB coin, which of course didn't, you know, by then stand for Fuck Joe Biden. They had change it to Freedom, Jobs and Business, I think. But it was a pretty dismal investment, I would say.
- [07:50]
B
Why did they change it? The whole purpose of the coin was to capitalize on Biden hatred. Why change it?
- [07:56]
C
You know, I don't know. I don't know if they thought that, you know, as they're trying to make this into the new global financial system around the FJB coin, maybe, you know, the Deutsche bank perhaps might be less likely to accept the Joe Biden going as legal tender. But then ultimately, you know, I mean, as things start going south, then they say, oh, oh, actually fjb, forget that, it's now Patriot Pay and this is going to be the whole new financial platform. But it came to a tragic end in February of last year when they froze everyone's wallets and reportedly the money is still Stuck inside.
- [08:29]
B
Has Bannon said anything about this?
- [08:31]
C
No, not that I've seen. And Boris has not either. You know, as far as I can tell, I think they have kind of just let it drift away. You know, they sunset the project, but, you know, for the people. You know, the guy suing but almost 60 grand in, and he says, hey, I need my money back. But I doubt he will ever see it.
- [08:50]
B
Yeah, seriously. All right, let's shift to Bannon himself, because it's kind of weird moment, I suppose, for him. I mean, obviously instrumental to Trump's rise in the first term, cast out pretty early on from the White House. He's maintained this relevance, but it's hard for me to understand, and maybe you can put a finer point on it. Just exactly how influential is he in the Trump orbit these days? He's obviously quite public. He's got his podcasts constantly floating a third Trump term. But does he have that political power that he once possessed?
- [09:26]
C
I think it's a good question. It's a hard thing to gauge. I mean, on one hand, I think he has a pretty engaged audience, the War Room Posse, and I think he can kind of highlight legislative issues or put pressure on members of Congress. Unfortunately for him, there's not really a lot getting done in Congress these days. And so I think is that actual level of influence is unclear. I think the Epstein aspect of it is going to make him. I mean, the Trump White House doesn't need any more like, a new Epstein story, a new Epstein guy hanging around Mar A Lago. And, And. And so I think that his influence is kind of hard to gauge. I mean, is he as influential as someone like Laura Loomer? Just kind of just pick a random name out of a hat, you know, maybe not. I mean, it's a little unclear.
- [10:07]
B
The Epstein thing in that context is interesting to me. I know we were talking about it over Slack over the weekend, and I wish I had more examples of it, but there are some cases where conservatives, like MAGA types, are just pointing to the fact that he was consulting Epstein constantly. They're emailing. He's apparently did this video documentary with Epstein that we haven't seen. I think at one point they were talking about how to, like, overthrow or prevent the Pope's election or something like that. Him and Epstein, like really weird, wild stuff. Basically, if you believe that there was like a. A global cabal, you know, the Bannon's emails would kind of fit into that framework, and. And conservatives, at least here and there, have pointed to it and said, well, just get rid of this guy. Like, send him to the outskirts of conservative thought and don't talk to him again. So he clearly has enemies within the conservative movement.
- [10:57]
C
Yeah, you know, I think it's a challenging thing for Republicans because on one hand, why not cut him off? He's dead weight at this point, whatever. On the other, then you have to start saying, you know, by the way, all of Donald Trump's stuff about Epstein, that's cool, don't worry about that. But Bannon is a guy who has made a lot of enemies, one of them being Roger Stone, who has sort of emerged. I mean, all these, like, these decades long feuds, essentially. And in this case, Roger Stone is like, well, well, well, look who got caught in the Epstein files. You know, my old arch enemy. You know, by comparison, you know, he's Mr. Clean. So it's, you are seeing these kind of ban and foes, you know, who have various grievances against him come out.
- [11:36]
B
And then finally, on the, on the meme coin issue, you know, there's tons of other meme coins that conservatives have launched, including members of the Trump family. They don't seem to be doing particularly well. Why is that?
- [11:48]
C
Well, you know, crypto in general is getting hammered. And I think that if, you know, bitcoin is going to be down, I think then something like the F. Joe Biden coin is really even like, these meme coins really take. These really. These meme coins really take off when there's this heady atmosphere of like, I got to get in, you know, I'm going to miss out on, on the big spike. And when people feel that that's not happening, I think it's kind of the doldrums. But, you know, if this all surges back, maybe Bannon will be back with.
- [12:14]
B
A new coin and there'll be suckers who invest in it. It's so stupid. Look, people, if you're watching this and you're thinking about where to invest your money, you can do meme coins. That's fine. Have at it. It's just not worth it, you know, it is worth it. A subscription to the Bulwark for False Flag. It's going to give you much more satisfaction than some stupid coin that's probably going to end up valueless. So subscribe to the Bulwark. Subscribe to False Flag. Subscribe to our YouTube page. We appreciate, appreciate all the support. We won't screw you over. We won't leave you hanging. The bag will. Thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.