The Trio Breaks Down the Trad Right’s Freakiest Scandal Yet

Summary

Bulwark Takes
Episode: The Trio Breaks Down the Trad Right’s Freakiest Scandal Yet
Date: February 6, 2026
Host: Tim Miller
Panelists: Will Sommer, Sam
(Note: Transcript omits detailed identification for “Sam” but he is an integral Bulwark panelist.)

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Overview

This episode centers on the extraordinary and scandalous unraveling of online far-right personality Elijah Schaefer. The Bulwark’s “Potato Boys”—Tim Miller, Will Sommer, and Sam—delve deep into the intersecting personal dramas, conspiratorial paranoia, and performative traditionalism of the “trad right” influencer ecosystem. Spanning alleged affairs, nervous breakdowns, secret recordings, online feuds, bizarre side characters, and the endless hypocrisy at the heart of this subculture, the hosts unpack why this story matters for understanding the current state of right-wing internet culture.

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Key Discussion Topics & Insights

1. The Main Players and Their Backgrounds

[02:31-04:14]

• Elijah Schaefer: Once Glenn Beck’s protégé, gained notoriety for chaotic on-the-ground coverage of the George Floyd riots. After being ousted from more mainstream conservative circles, recast himself as a hard-line Christian “trad” (traditionalist) family man—only to now become the focus of a sex scandal.
• Sarah Stock: A once-prominent “trad Cath” influencer, famous for her hardline anti-diversity views and online spats, including cattiness over her “comically small” engagement ring.
• Milo Yiannopoulos: The infamous provocateur returns as a key player, disseminating leaked audio and stoking the flames under the guise of traditional Catholic concern.
• Other supporting cast members: Appearances include Jean François Gariépy (disgraced Canadian YouTuber embroiled in his own wife’s disappearance), and far-right personalities like Nick Fuentes. Christian Walker (Herschel Walker’s son) also factor in the online call-outs.

Quote: Tim Miller, [02:31]

“He reinvented himself as this Christian family man. He’s always saying, you know, you losers on the right, you got to get married. … And then, you know, let’s see how that goes.”

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2. Background on the “Fingering” Saga

[03:51-04:39]

• The trio recap a prior, notorious right-wing micro-scandal involving a public sex act, online infighting, and Sarah Stock’s peripheral, but notable, role.

Quote: Will Sommer, [03:55]

“Various… started fighting with each other. … One who was defending the ring accused another woman… you don’t know about trad values… because you got, you know, this sex act happened to you in the lobby…”

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3. Elijah Schaefer’s Meltdown

[07:09-10:44]

• Elijah disappears for a month, returns with bizarre, paranoid, and rambling Rumble videos: black eye, claims of family threats, accusations against enemies in media and on staff, and allusions to conspiracies targeting him.
• Posts a surreal video of himself in a flooded hotel (“Shining-like” [09:45]), looking disheveled and describing being “on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

Quote: Will Sommer, [09:23]

“He looks like a guy on the verge of a nervous breakdown. … I mean, it was looking grim, I guess, and then, you know, over the weekend…”

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4. Rumors of Family Annihilation & Paranoia

[11:49-14:25]

• Elijah publicly claims that his wife and children are “missing,” prompting people in the right-wing ecosystem to fear a domestic violence tragedy. Rumors (quickly refuted) fly about “family annihilation” (“wifeicide”).
• Discussion of Jean François Gariépy, who is himself surrounded by sinister rumors involving his missing wife and Jeffrey Epstein payments.

Quote: Will Sommer, [14:25]

“He said, yeah, my wife asked me to take her to like, this highway and drop her off. … I mean, it seems like it’s this. I don’t think that’s true…”

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5. The Secret Recording and the Affair

[16:51-20:42]

• A covertly made audio recording appears: Sarah Stock is heard referencing a sexual encounter with Elijah at CPAC 2025, claiming she was intoxicated on Benadryl and alcohol (“I blacked out… some sexual thing took place” [20:59]).
• Milo Yiannopoulos circulates the tape on social media, weaponizing it against both Sarah and Elijah.
• The hosts discuss how the recording feels “James O’Keefe-like”—the male interlocutor seems to be fishing for dirt, leading and goading the subject.

Quote: Tim Miller/Will Sommer, [18:03, 20:59]

[Tim]: “Elijah and like obviously like I deeply regret that but also like I’m not a slut.”
[Will]: “She says basically that… she was sick, and Elijah gave her Benadryl and some alcohol and she blacked out… and then, we don’t get the details, essentially, but something, some sexual thing took place…”

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6. Milo’s Motivations & Social Fallout

[22:10-23:41]

• Milo claims his Catholic faith compels him to reveal the story, especially since Sarah’s wedding was allegedly blessed by “Pope Leo” (a right-wing influencer, not a real pope, but satirically deployed as “the Bulwark Pope”).
• Sarah quickly deletes her social media after an attempted “apology.”

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7. Persistent Allegations, Cheating, and More

[24:06-26:06]

• Broader record of Elijah’s rumored infidelities: Christian Walker, son of Herschel, called him out years ago for cheating (“…he did my friend four times in one night, unprotected, while he was married.” [24:35–25:15]).
• The hypocrisy of the “trad” right: While projecting family values, the men most loudly denouncing gay and non-traditional lifestyles are caught in personal failings.

Quote: Christian Walker, [24:35]

“Elijah wants to act like he’s some moral high and mighty better than everyone… Go get your family life and your morality together, adulterer.”

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8. The ‘Thirst Trap’ and Rumors About Drugs

[26:06-28:44]

• Schaefer posts a shirtless “thirst trap” during a purported exile in El Salvador, flaunting orthodox Christian symbols and a buff, possibly enhanced physique.
• Speculation flies: Has he been using “peptides” (weight-loss drugs) that may cause orange skin? Meth?
• The hosts lean into the absurd tabloid energy, mixing rumor, satire, and fact-checking.

Quote: Will Sommer, [28:03]

"Just to give you an idea of the rumor mill around this… someone said, 'Yes, he’s on a peptide that makes your skin look orange. Now, apparently this does exist…'"

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9. Community Notes and Right-Wing Reaction

[28:51-30:26]

• Elijah’s increasingly unhinged content is met with brutal Community Notes (Twitter’s fact-check tool).
• He continues posting bigoted smears until at least Feb 1.
• Notably, after the peak of the scandal, Elijah deletes posts about his “missing” family; his current status (employment, marital, mental health) is ambiguous but not, as far as known, criminal.

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10. The “Trad” Gender Wars and Hypocrisy

[32:42-34:11]

• The panel unpacks the generational and gender divide among right-wing women: Young female influencers preach a hyper-patriarchal, “get married at 20” line—but then are often themselves embroiled in drama with the community’s men.
• Older “trad” women question this worldview’s viability, noting that the system fails women even when they play by its rules.

Quote: Will Sommer, [34:11]

“Within the world of right wing women, there’s been this battle… over, you know, we have women like Sarah Stock who look at older women—by older, I mean like 26, 27—and they say, you know, you’re a girl boss thought, you need to get married and kind of settle down… But then, so a lot of those women were saying, well, look… she wasn’t living that life, really, they allege… look at Eliza Schaefer’s wife… she actually was very trad… and he ran off with… a much younger woman. And that’s why older, you know, really older right wing women in their, say, 30s or 40s are saying often, you know, hey, maybe things are a little more complex.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He reinvented himself as this Christian family man. He’s always saying, you know, you losers on the right, you got to get married. … And then, you know, let’s see how that goes.”
  —Will Sommer, [02:31]

• “He looks like a guy on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
  —Will Sommer, [09:23]

• “Every single time, these guys are fucking the pool boy. Every time. And in this case, maybe e-girl. But, you know, the principle’s still the same.”
  —Tim Miller, [31:21]

• “Imagine being that fucked in the head that you tweet these jokes. You have to have real problems.”
  —Sam, [14:25], on JFG’s macabre humor about his missing wife.

• “Allegedly, possibly meth. Allegedly.”
  —Sam, [26:52], satirizing the legal minefield of innuendo.

• “Milo is not a reputable source for anything. … Nothing in this is us trusting Milo.”
  —Sam, [32:27]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introductions / Background on Key Players: [01:19–04:14]
• Recap of Previous “Fingering” Scandal: [03:51–04:39]
• Elijah’s Public Meltdown: [07:09–10:44]
• Rumors, Paranoia, Family Worries: [11:49–14:25]
• Secret Recordings / Affair Allegations Surface: [16:51–20:42]
• Milo’s Role and Social Fallout: [22:10–23:41]
• Broader Cheating Allegations: [24:06–26:06]
• Physical Transformation, Peptide/Meth Rumors: [26:06–28:44]
• Right-Wing Community’s Response: [28:51–30:26]
• Trad Gender Politics, Closing Thoughts: [32:42–34:11]

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Closing Reflections

• The hosts emphasize this saga as a “tale as old as time”: the most performatively “traditional” right-wing men, often violently opposed to non-normative sexuality, are the first to get caught up in sexual hypocrisy.
• There’s a new twist, however: these aren’t Falwell or Robertson types—today’s trad right is jacked, hyperactive, and deeply online. But the underlying dynamics of moral panic, projection, and intra-community schadenfreude haven’t changed.
• The “trad wife” script fails even its most eager participants, and the trio’s analysis is as much culture critique as tabloid deep-dive.

Quote: Tim Miller, [31:21]

“I do think that it’s important… that it’s almost always a doth protest too much situation.”

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Final Legal/Fact-Checking Caveats

• Many allegations remain unconfirmed, based on rumors and unreliable narrators (like Milo Yiannopoulos).
• The hosts clarify that while Sarah Stock denies some claims, she’s made ambiguous public statements and deleted her accounts.
• No evidence supports accusations of domestic violence or murder—the “family annihilation” scare was merely rumor.
• Speculation on drug use, physical changes, and the infamous “electric dildo” is based on unverified chatter.

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The Bulwark’s Signature Take

Irreverent, sharply skeptical, and uninhibited by the decorum of legacy media, this episode brings a brisk, gossipy yet thoroughly sourced dissection of trad right melodrama—exposing the fragility and performativity at its core.

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If you care about the state of conservative media, internet culture, and the eternal gap between performance and reality, this episode is a must.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hey, everybody. The potato boys are back. I'm Tim Miller of the Bulwark. That same site. He's the managing editor. Will Sommer writes the False Flag newsletter. And the recent False Flag newsletter is the best one. In a minute. They're all good, but it is titillating. It is exactly the type of newsletter that this video trio is meant for. The title is A Shocking sex Scandal rocks the trad. Right before the article even dropped, I'd already received a text from a prominent MAGA influencer saying, when is the trio going to comment on the Elijah Schaefer scandal? So the mag influencers are watching and waiting for our commentary. I do believe one of the characters in this story was also a character in the original fingering story. That was the impetus for this very show. So there's a lot here. It should be a fan favorite. That's my intro. That's my tease for everybody. I hope you're ready. I hope you're. Go get your popcorn. Go get a little glass of white wine, whatever it is you like to do when you watch the trio. And let's get going. Will, uh, tell us about the shocking sex scandal. Give us. All right, this is the players. Let's start with the key players.

[Will Sommer]

Okay, here are our key players. We've got Elijah Schaefer, who's sort of a dissolute far right commentator. He used to be Glenn Beck's protege, sort of. He. He got. He got famous for, like, going to the riots around George Floyd. And, you know, people would scuffle with him. And then he had sort of a fall from grace. And so now he reinvented himself as this Christian family man. He's always saying, you know, you losers on the right, you got to get married. You know, whatever. Here's my beautiful family. Oh, I love God so much. And then, you know, let's see how that goes. And then our other character is Sarah Stock, who works for Elijah at his new operation, which is called Rift tv. People may remember her number one because she was in the Sam Cedar Jubilee video. She's in a lot of these Jubilee YouTube debate videos. And she's kind of like, you know, there's like the MAGA people. And then they're like, oh, they got the racist lady. Like, they're really like. She's just like, well, it should be only white people in America.

[Tim Miller]

And you go, oh.

[Will Sommer]

And so that has kind of over the past year propelled her. She became like a traditional sort of Catholic influencer. She was really touting her marriage. And then also, I would say, as. As you said, she's famous in our world, in the trio world, because. Or after she got engaged, she posted a picture of the wedding ring, and a lot of other right wing women found the diamond almost comically small. And then this sort of provoked a lot of. I guess I'll just say cattiness about it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Wait, and then remind me, how did.

[Tim Miller]

That relate to the fingering again, or not? Refresh me on that.

[Will Sommer]

Yes, because. Because various. These women started fighting with each other. And one. One who was defending the ring accused another woman. She said, you know, well, you don't know about trad values and getting married because you got, you know, this sex act happened to you in the lobby. It's a cpu. You can say fingering with a fingering, you know.

[Tim Miller]

Got it. So, Sarah Stock, I just think it's important because we don't. Because there's some licentious material ahead, but we don't want to, you know, we don't want to immune anyone with false accusations. And so, because I got. I got the characters. She was not involved in the fingering.

[Will Sommer]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Her only relationship Was that the person that got fingered was in a tiff with her online.

[Will Sommer]

Yes, exactly.

[Tim Miller]

Got it over the size of her wedding ring. Well, good thing her husband didn't throw out more cash for that bigger wedding ring, it turns out. All right, Sam, I guess before Will goes further, you've read the whole newsletter. What was your. Do you have any editing notes? What was your big takeaway?

[Sam]

There's so many different twists and turns to this story. We're dealing with multiple layers of scandal and intrigue. Accusations of infidelity, rumors of suicide. Milo makes a very strong appearance, a shifty character in his own right. Secret recordings, affairs. And then one gro semi. Gral shot that I almost Will, I will say lied in his draft. Will. Thank God.

[Tim Miller]

I should also say now, before we get into all the twists and turns that.

[Sam]

Wait, don't you want to know how he lied?

[Tim Miller]

We'll find out. We'll get to it. I know, I know. It's related to the thought pick, everybody. There's a thought pick coming at the end and that there's. There was a lie related to that. So it's just a little teaser. But the other element of this in the twists and turns, you didn't mention. I had messaged Will a couple days ago and said that I saw an alarming tweet from someone I follow who said they were worried that Elijah Schaefer, the main character here, had murdered his family. And spoiler, he is not. He is not. But that is also part of the twists and turns. There are some people wondering if he had committed what's wifeicide.

[Will Sommer]

I think they call it, like, family annihilation these days.

[Tim Miller]

Family annihilation.

[Sam]

Technical term.

[Tim Miller]

One more thing before we get through this. To Will, walk us through what happened, Elijah. I just don't want to understate it because I've followed him for a minute like he is on the noxious, disgusting edge of right wing world. He offers the type of material that they might even look askance at times on Bannon's war room. Like, I mean, it is.

[Will Sommer]

It is.

[Tim Miller]

He is like overtly bigoted, racist, like, fucking hateful. And like, in some ways, I find him kind of interesting and why I follow him because, like, he's not afraid to go after the Trump administration, but, like, from the right. Like, they're, you know, they're, you know, not doing enough, in his view, in. In the areas where I would say most of us would think they're doing too much, such as deportations. So anyway, well, yeah, he's like Just.

[Will Sommer]

To build on that. He's sort of like a Nick Fuentes type guy, but, you know, scruffier and sort of more, you know, cruder and, you know, and like, Nick Fuentes is sort of like, okay, like, you know, wipe your shoes when you come in, Elijah. You know, don't, don't. Don't mess up the place. So, you know, this story begins. Elijah disappeared a month ago from his online show. Things seemed to not be looking good. A lot of people were leaving, A lot of staff were dropping off the website. And then he returns last week, and he says, you know, this show is going to be about how much I don't like Indians and I don't like Muslims, but first, people are out to kill me. And he goes on this whole rant, you know, for one thing, Cash Patel's girlfriend is suing Elijah for saying she's a Mossad agent. But he claims it goes beyond that, that people are trying to kill him. And then he goes in kind of this, like, sort of like custody dispute rant. At the time he did.

[Tim Miller]

He.

[Sam]

He.

[Will Sommer]

He started divorcing his wife in late January, but he had not told anyone this. And he kind of starts ranting and he. Mama Bear, Mama Bear. What about dad? Who cares about dad? Mama Bear, Mama Bear, you. What about dad?

[Tim Miller]

What about. What about dad?

[Will Sommer]

And it's this whole thing. And then, I mean, it was looking grim, I guess, and then, you know, over the. The weekend.

[Tim Miller]

What platform is this on? Is this like on a. Is this on Rumble? Is he twitching?

[Will Sommer]

This is on Rumble. Yeah. This is not on YouTube. This is sort of the back alley.

[Tim Miller]

And.

[Sam]

Sorry. Mama Bear is supposed to be his wife.

[Will Sommer]

His wife, yes. That people are saying, you know, I think he feels that in the conservative movement, I guess he's calling back to, like, Sarah Palin or whatever, you know, where it's like, you know, with the mama.

[Tim Miller]

At the time of this return video, after he disappeared, this was when he. He did come back with a permanent black eye, right? Is that right?

[Will Sommer]

Yes, he came back and he said he looked really red. He's talked before about having a drinking problem that he had claimed to have sort of gotten ahead of. And then he said, I have this permanent black eye from all the stress I'm under.

[Sam]

Permanent black eye.

[Will Sommer]

I don't know if Black eyed, permanent. Just every week by, you know, I.

[Tim Miller]

Think it's kind of like the Trump hand situation. You know, it's like you shake too many hands, you know, you have too many women smacking you across the face. And you just. It just never goes away. Like, once you have, you know, if that ring hits you across the face enough times, it becomes permanent.

[Sam]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Sam]

Sorry. Well, gone.

[Will Sommer]

So, I mean, he looks like a guy on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I mean, it looks pretty grim. He's saying, you know, what I've been through in the past month. You know, lesser men, if they had just a fraction of it, they would take their own lives. I'm hanging on by a thread here. So I was, like, watching this. I was like, oh, boy. And then on Sunday or Monday, he posts a truly bizarre video of himself wandering through a flooding hotel.

[Tim Miller]

My feet are wet.

[Will Sommer]

And then we got some flooding, I guess. Okay.

[Sam]

It's falling on me.

[Will Sommer]

Like, it's almost like. Like we're seeing his dreams or something. Like, it's like a flooding hotel. And he's just like, where am I? What's happening?

[Sam]

It felt. I watched the video. It felt very shining, like I. I couldn't tell what the hotel was. But all the floors are just completely soaked. And he's walking just, like, sitting there in the.

[Will Sommer]

In the water, basically. It's like, I'm not.

[Tim Miller]

Attitude. Can we pull it up?

[Will Sommer]

What even is going on?

[Tim Miller]

Right. There's a thing. Okay. Least I can, like, take a seat and actually rest. But then I have some. What?

[Sam]

Some diet Dr. Pepper.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, so where is this? Like, where is that happening?

[Will Sommer]

We don't know. I mean, he's in Florida. He said he's now gone to Virginia. He lives in Florida. He said he's gone to Virginia to work with the FBI in some sort.

[Tim Miller]

Of scheme, but basically that's trying to kill him.

[Will Sommer]

Well, you know, maybe there's different factions here. The other thing I should say is just sort of one more Elijah thing. He got on my radar a few months ago because he had this really expensive sports car. I think a BMW, but it was like a really souped up BMW that he said was stolen. And he said, well, you know, whatever. I have insurance. Oh, wait, my insurance lapsed. And he had gotten missed all these notices about not paying his insurance. And he said someone close to me must have been stealing these notices. And then more recently, he claimed, you know, it was recovered, but the FBI or the police said someone close to me betrayed me to these criminals. And so basically, he's starting to. In a way that's, I think, a little unnerving. Starting to look. Is he looking at his family? Is he looking at his staff as betraying him?

[Tim Miller]

So you start to get a little conspiratorial you start to get a little paranoid. Okay, where in the story with his disappearance and he returns with the permanent black eye. Then you have the shining flood in the hotel. At what point in the story are people worried that he might have murdered his family? What was the. What was happening there?

[Will Sommer]

So on Tuesday, he posts various things like, my kids and my wife have gone missing. I don't know where they are. You know, sinister forces are out to get me. I think there was something about someone planting drugs on him. And so people start to think because he talked just so intensely about these kind of paranoid delusions. And it's like, is he laying the groundwork for some sort of alibi as he's trying to set something up? And you know, as far as we know, they are fine. But people started on the right started posting like, can someone check on Elijah's family? Because he just seems to be going nuts.

[Tim Miller]

We do have proof of life, though.

[Will Sommer]

Well, from Milo Yiannopoulos.

[Tim Miller]

Yes, we're catch up to Milo thing in a second. Just one more thing. Quick aside. Your story takes an interesting aside that I think is very poor editing for Sam, because it piqued my interest and I wanted a little more. And so maybe we could get it here, which is you kind of just deadpan as you do throw in. There's this other influencer, I don't know who I'd never heard of, who also. Whose wife has also gone missing and has never.

[Sam]

This was a great line.

[Tim Miller]

He basically said that Elijah wasn't smart enough to kill his family. Wink, wink.

[Sam]

No. He asked, do you think he's smart enough to get away with it?

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So who is that?

[Tim Miller]

What's happening there?

[Will Sommer]

This is a guy.

[Tim Miller]

This is.

[Will Sommer]

I think he's Quebecois and his name is Jean Francois Gareppi. And this is a guy who was like a pretty big deal in this world in like 2018. And so this is sort of like where Nick Fuentes was like swimming, and Elijah too. I mean, these guys were kind of like these middling YouTube figures.

[Tim Miller]

And.

[Will Sommer]

And JF or Jean Francois also, I should add, is is in the Epstein files, because Epstein sent Jean Francois $25,000, I think, to start his YouTube channel. But anyways, I think two years ago, JF's wife went missing. And he sort of said, yeah, my wife asked me to take her to like, this highway and drop her off. And then I was like, well, she's always going on crazy adventures. I mean, it's. It seems like it's this. I don't think that's true. And. And then he said, and then I guess we never saw her again. So I, you know, a couple, I've just reported it to the police. But who's to say? A lot of Canadian true crime YouTubers are really into this case. And more recently, he has started. Every so often he posts like, his fans called his wife a potato because they didn't think she was that smart. And so he'll post like, making French fries with the potato. Like, I've got a lot of experience chopping up potatoes. Or in this case, he said, sort of like, I wonder if my old buddy Elijah can pull off killing his family and getting away with it.

[Sam]

Imagine being that fucked in the head that you tweet these jokes. You have to have real problems.

[Tim Miller]

Welcome to the Canadian true crime audience who has found us based on that backstory. Okay, so now.

[Sam]

Well, I think that. Hold on. I think that's a fair criticism. In my editing, we could have lingered a little bit more on this character, but maybe we sort of severed off. For a secondary newsletter next week, I.

[Tim Miller]

Would read an entire newsletter on John Francois. There seems to be enough material there, certainly. Okay. So I just wanna. For people who are trying follows when it can take us back to where we are. So he disappears. Elijah goes away for a while, comes back with the black eye. Yeah, there's the flood in the hotel. Family is then missing as well for a while. And now we get to earlier in this week when we're trying to figure out what happened to the family. What is happening here? What is behind this story? And that's where Milo Yiannopoulos, the ex homosexual, emerges.

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[Will Sommer]

It.

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[Will Sommer]

That's right. And I actually don't know where he stands on the gay thing these days. But so basically being homo, I think he's, he's, he's leaving it a little like ambiguous, you know And I, I can relate my own personal experiences here. A few days ago with ex homosexuality or no of John Francisco, some various claims about Elijah and the state of his marriage and, and a recording of the Sarah Stock woman movie mentioned talking about having some kind of sexual encounter with Elijah started circulating on the right. And they were sent to me and all. And this is the kind of thing that I look at seriously and I say what can this tell us about the larger state of right wing media and what this is going to take weeks to nail down. And Milo gets it and he goes whatever and he puts it up on Twitter. And so what happen happens then is people go crazy.

[Sam]

Wait, we need to pause for a second. We need to pause for a second because we're going very fast through a very critical juncture. I think people need to appreciate someone is spreading privately recorded audio, private audio recordings of Sarah talking about Elijah and, or seeming to talk about Elijah referencing potentially an affair.

[Tim Miller]

Elijah and like obviously like I deeply regret that but also like I'm not a slut.

[Will Sommer]

Like, I mean that's like a horrible, a horrible thing. But it's not like I really am like sleeping around or have been. So.

[Rocket Money Advertiser]

Yeah, I mean you don't, you don't have to defend yourself.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I know but I'm just saying.

[Will Sommer]

Like it's kind of just like not even true for like anyone who knows me.

[Tim Miller]

So.

[Will Sommer]

Yeah, I mean you just had a.

[Rocket Money Advertiser]

Fling with Elijah and that's, I don't know, I guess he got upset about it.

[Tim Miller]

He was calling.

[Christian Walker]

He's just exaggerating.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sam]

Someone is spreading this around to multiple people. Do we have a sense of the motivation? I mean you reveal what you can compromise, but do you know the motivation? Can you say something about the motivation?

[Will Sommer]

I, I I can't. I mean, it's really unclear to me. I mean, what I would say broadly is that Elijah is one of the most reviled figures within right wing media and I think has antagonized many, many people. Yes. And has made many enemies in the past five years, six years. And so I think it would be a long list of culprits perhaps.

[Sam]

And so in these, in these recordings only get on the. You only start seeing them push privately after Elijah comes out and has a nervous breakdown and there's questions about his mental stability. That's when.

[Will Sommer]

Yes. And as it all kind of in the past week or so starts really falling.

[Tim Miller]

I also had a follow up then. Those are, those are good clarified questions, Sam. And then is this audio. It's an audio recording. It's a fur to video. Like what, what type of recording are we talking about?

[Will Sommer]

It's audio. There's no video of it. And it's Sarah or this woman who sounds like Sarah, certainly talking to a man who by the way is not Milo Yiannopoulos. Because a lot of people are misunderstanding this. This Milo did not record this himself. This audio is a man who is saying, you know, and then what happened? You know, then what did you do with him at cpac? And so, so that's sort of what the audio is like.

[Sam]

Yeah, I've listened to the recordings that Milo posted, caveat that they're from Milo, but it will got the same recordings. It does sound like this person who is talking to Sarah, we don't know this person's identity is trying to goad her or lead her to a certain place. It looks like they're trying to solicit information critical of Elijah out of her. That's just my read of it and how it feels when you listen to it. But that's important context for people watching this.

[Will Sommer]

Well, it's the, it's very like James o' Keefe in that it's sort of this constant like. And wouldn't you also say and then what happened? And sort of if you had this happening to you, you'd be like, wow, this like random guy is asking me a lot about my, you know, I.

[Tim Miller]

Think two years ago. I think it's important at this point then to mention a little bit more about the sexual encounter that the woman that sounds like Sarah Stock describes with Elijah at CPAC 20. Was it at CPAC or a TPUSA? CPAC 20, 25.

[Will Sommer]

Yeah. So she says basically that, you know, I think she was sick and Eliza gave her Benadryl and some alcohol and she blacked out in her sense of it. And. And then, you know, we don't get the details essentially, but something, some sexual thing took place and she claims that was the end of it. I think Milo has claimed that he has other sourcing, that this kind of went on for a longer period of time up until she got engaged and sort of really got into this. This trad lifestyle.

[Tim Miller]

She has denied this or.

[Will Sommer]

Well, no, she's. She. She posted on Twitter, she said there's a lot of false things out there about me. And I should say there's all these other allegations that we're not even getting into because they're less founded.

[Tim Miller]

Just give me one. Just give me one. Just for one unfounded allegation. Just a. One. Just one. Just for.

[Will Sommer]

Well, I mean, the one that springs to mind about Elijah is that Milo said, oh, Elijah has like this electric vibrator or dildo or something. I truly, I think that's basically baseless. I really think there's very little to that claim.

[Sam]

I was wondering, because Will and I talked about the story yesterday in the office and he would mention the electric dildo multiple times to me in the office. And I was wondering, where is this? Not in the draft. But I didn't want to press matters.

[Will Sommer]

Because I was a little bit worried.

[Sam]

About my slack trail and my Google history if I'm starting to do it all. So.

[Will Sommer]

No. So she said, basically there's a lot of false claims out there about me. However, you know, I have made some mistakes. You know, please pray and, you know, I'm going to take a step back.

[Tim Miller]

For a little while.

[Will Sommer]

And then I guess the apology didn't go very well because within like 45 minutes of that going up, she just deleted her Twitter entirely.

[Tim Miller]

And she is a trad also in the Catholic sense. There's kind of the evangelical strain of trad and the Catholic strain of trad. I do think it's worth noting that, like, she went so far in her performative traditional Catholicism that she had her marriage blessed by Pope Leo.

[Will Sommer]

Blessed by Pope Leo. This is where, you know, you bring the Pope into it. People aren't going to be happy. Basically, she's the bulwark Pope.

[Tim Miller]

The bulwark Pope getting sullied by the electric vibrator fingering girl from tpusa.

[Sam]

She didn't use the electric vibrator. Elijah used the electric vibrator. Come on now.

[Will Sommer]

So, yes, there's a picture that she had posted on Instagram of her and it seems like Various other married couples or soon to be married couples. And, you know, she's wearing a white wedding dress. And Pope Leo saying, you know, good on you. Good luck with the marriage. And basically, Milo claims, I think, that this was some of his motivation to out this story was because he's now a big Catholic guy, supposedly. And he's saying, you know, how could you bring the Pope into this? You know, that you've challenged the Holy See or whatever.

[Sam]

Milo just had to do it because of, you know, his Catholicism. And it's not that he loves stirring up, you know.

[Will Sommer]

Well, we were talking a few weeks ago about him going after Benny, Jenny, and he was gay. And so this is a recurring trope.

[Tim Miller]

Have we. Have we heard anything about the lawsuit that Benny was going to file against Milo? Actually, now you bring that up. Has there been any progress?

[Will Sommer]

You know, I checked it about a week ago and. And nothing had been filed. I know, I know both Benny and his wife had put out those statements saying, you know, we have to defend our honor. And, you know, nothing has come out so far.

[Tim Miller]

Well, to the manager they're working on like, a really texted me saying that they were excited to watch the story. You're probably closer to Benny than me. Check in on that for us. Ask him why he hasn't filed that lawsuit yet about the fact that he's definitely not gay. Couple other. Speaking of gay influencers, a couple other subplots I think it's worth mentioning here. Number one, Christian Walker, who I was trying so hard to get on fy pod never would. Herschel Walker's sassy gay son. He had accused Schaefer of cheating on his wife as early as 2022.

[Christian Walker]

Elijah wants to act like he's some moral high and mighty better than everyone man. He was fired from his job for inappropriate behavior. And not even a year ago at a conservative conference, he did, my friend, four times in one night, unprotected, while he was married. Go get your family life and your morality together, adulterer. You go study up on what morality actually is because it ain't cheating on your wife. I met your wife. She was really kind. And it's gross to what you do to her behind her back when you go to conservative conferences without her. Don't you ever speak on my family and my family business before you get to your family life together, cheater.

[Tim Miller]

So it seems like the gays were on to Elijah.

[Will Sommer]

So certainly in the case of Christian Walker, I mean, he really got explicit with it. I mean, he was like, well, Elijah, you know you're going after me for being gay, but you know, you were hitting it raw with my friend at the conservative convention four times. I mean, it's really getting explicit with it and you watch it and go, oh boy. Okay. Even years later. And so there was that. I mean, look, Elijah is part of the kind of the fingering trio story because the allegation was that, you know, this fingering happened in the lobby and then that Elijah somehow also hooked up with this woman. So I mean, this stuff has been out there for a while that Elijah was not like Mr. Fidelity. And so I think that this was really as he made this pivot not just from like right wing hate monger, but to like right wing daddy hate monger, that it was really undermining that.

[Tim Miller]

Speaking of white wing daddy hate monger, that takes us to the thought picture that we referenced earlier. I know everyone's been waiting for this. Let's go ahead and pull that up on screen. Here's Elijah talking about his new pipe. I gotta tell you, looks good, I think probably mess though. I don't know. And that's not an accusation. I just, I see a lot of speaking of gays and I see a lot of gays posting pictures like this and you know, maybe Tina is at the play here, but he's got the cross. Is that a cross necklace? Can we zoom in?

[Will Sommer]

Orthodox cross, yes.

[Tim Miller]

An orthodox cross. Yeah, let's keep zooming. And that's not bad. And you can understand why he's fucking so many allegedly.

[Sam]

Let's just add a couple of allegedly in the post edits here. Allegedly, possibly meth. Allegedly.

[Will Sommer]

If I could offer some insight on Elijah's physique. So he used to be. How do you have insight into this? Like a little bigger. I mean like he wasn't like. But he was like a little.

[Tim Miller]

He's real chonky.

[Will Sommer]

He enjoyed some snacks, I guess, sort of when he originally like got on the scene. And then in the past, like as part of the kind of like the, the more Christian turn, he also got jacked and I imagine and I mean he's talking about getting sober and all this stuff, but he's also like a big enthusiast of. Of peptides, which of course are the. The sort of the wild world of often Chinese sort of Ozempic. But twice or three.

[Tim Miller]

I've been hearing good things about peptides. I will say I've been hearing that.

[Will Sommer]

I don't want to get into it. It seems like a, like a, like a wild west, you know.

[Sam]

Isn'T the obvious explanation that the electric dildo really burns calories.

[Will Sommer]

Well, the other thing I would say is that. And this is. This is unfounded, but I don't think this is libelous. So maybe we'll include it. But basically I was talking to someone.

[Tim Miller]

Unfounded but not libelous. I love that. That's where we like to stay.

[Will Sommer]

Just to give you an idea of the rumor mill around this, I said to someone, I was like, God, Elijah's looking really red and orange in these photos. And they said, yes, he's on a peptide that makes you. Your skin look orange. Now, apparently this does exist. It's supposed to make you look tanner, but I don't know if that's true or not. But he does.

[Sam]

Oompa Loompa.

[Tim Miller]

I could see how a peptide perhaps. Yeah, I was gonna say could. I could see a very popular kind of Trump branded peptide for the magas where. Because they are into like fitness culture now. It's kind of like an RFK Trump branded thing where it's like you get jacked and orange. I bet that'd be popular. I bet that would do. Well, you hate to give them more business ideas.

[Sam]

Yeah, I was just gonna say, why don't you just pat his pockets a little more?

[Will Sommer]

I think it's a good idea. But yeah, I will say it is a real thing that exists. I have no evidence besides just rumors that Elijah does it.

[Tim Miller]

So Elijah, I just pulled up his account here and he hasn't posted since February 1st. That would have been Monday. I should say that his Monday post, he wrote, Indians just colonized and voted a pro rape and pro gang candidate to run the most powerful county in Texas. The readers have, have edited that, have. What's it called? What is the fucking Elon thing called? Community Notes. He's been community noted on that. Community Notes says census data shows that Indian Americans are barely 1.4% of Tarrant County. So I don't know that he was like, you know, hit the nail on the head with that one. But he was continuing through Monday to spew racist, vile. Since then, has any sightings?

[Will Sommer]

Well, he's deleted all of these posts about his family going missing and things like that. And I will say, you know, the community notes have been brutal for Elijah. At one point he posted, you know, he was saying, look, I'm not out to hurt my family. My wife divorced me and, you know, took the kids and all this. They left me with nothing. And then the community note was like, this user has relentlessly cheated on his wife. You know, that they were citing the Milo thing. But, you know, the one thing I would say also about that thirst trap is that this is when he had fled to El Salvador.

[Tim Miller]

Back up. Let's follow it. Back up.

[Will Sommer]

Well, he, he was claiming that Cash Patel and the FBI were like out to destroy him, that he was being doxed, all this stuff. So he, he could only fly to naive Buccale's El Salvador for, for protection. And then in that caption, you can see he's like, I can't wait to get back with my beautiful family. All this. I, I just like I'm a family man. And then you post that thirst trap. I mean, I don't see it. It's kind of incoherent there.

[Tim Miller]

I hope the families stay. I hope the kids get some distance as the biggest picture. I have two closing thoughts. We can kind of go around the horn. Elijah has 862,000 followers on X.com so this is not like a random figure. He had built a following for this nonsense. I think that this is in some ways a tale as old as time. But there is a new resurgence in the traditional stuff on the right. You know, like anti gay stuff people kind of stop talking about for a while. That's back. You know, family roles, family, women having their place in the home, women serving their husband. All of that is kind of reemerging. It's with a little added element of like machismo, like you know, kind of weightlifting grind culture, you know, as opposed to kind of the last time this was around Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Those are kind of soft bodies. Now we've got some like, you know, muscle boys doing the same nonsense. And you know, sometimes I feel like maybe I'm getting old. I've been around the block a little bit, but it's like every single time these guys are fucking the pool boy every time. And in this case, maybe e girl. But, you know, the principle's still the same. And I do think that it's important to make sure and then next generation of youth understand that it's almost always a doth protest too much situation. Sam, do you. Any other. Any other final takeaways for us?

[Sam]

Just those profoundly moving closing thoughts for me. And I hate to trample on them. But as someone who cares about our legal liability, let me just stress we do not know for certain that Elijah used a dildo. We don't. We only have allegations that that was Sarah Setka's voice, although she has not denied it. Well, it appears to Be. It sounds like her, but we don't know for certain, so we're just making clear that's the case. I just want to clarify that. Saraseca's relationship with Elijah ended, I believe, when she got married. So she's not accused of infidelity. She's accused of.

[Tim Miller]

That's a good flag, though I will say, as a cradle Catholic, you know, you do notice that the trads talk a lot about gay sex being against the rules, but a premarital sex, non marriage sex, also against the rules.

[Sam]

Well, she also was in a relationship with a married man.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah, sure. So probably, you know, maybe between her and her priest. As far as confession is concerned, I don't know what's happened in the confessional, but I do think it's important to say that the premarital sex with a married man is. Is frowned upon in the Catholic. The other.

[Sam]

Let me just keep a couple. A couple more. Elijah, we do not know if he's taking this orange weight loss Chinese supplement. There's some circumstantial evidence that suggests. But we don't know. And we're just going to be honest about that. We do not know. Milo is not a reputable source for anything. And so while we are referencing Milo, we are not trusting him. And I just want to be clear. Nothing in this is us trusting Milo. We are fairly confident in concluding that Elijah did not kill his family. They there is that we believe, proof of proof of life. We're not alleging that that happened as far as we know. He's still employed, I think, but, well, by his own company, if I'm wrong about that. Although he was, he was complaining in a recent show that he had roughly the equivalent of 10 viewers on the show. So that's TBD. I think I covered all of our legal vulnerabilities there and I just wanted to make sure that we got that in. If anyone is still watching.

[Tim Miller]

Huh? What about Milo no longer being an ex gay? Do you want to clarify that?

[Sam]

Well, that's, that's up in the air and I think it's worthy of more reporting from Will, but I think we won't be legally liable for putting it out there.

[Will Sommer]

Can I just build briefly on the point Tim made about the. The kind of the trad life. So the reaction to this on the right has been jubilation, perhaps because a lot of these people were disliked. But also within the world of right wing women, there's been this battle over, you know, we have women like Sarah Stock who look at older Women. And by older, I mean like 26, 27. And they say, you know, you're a girl boss thought you, you need to get married and kind of settle down and have this kind of like 19th century Catholic idea. But then, so a lot of those women were saying, well, look, you know, number one, you know, she wasn't living that. That life, really, they allege. And then to look at Eliza Schaefer's wife, who was sort of a small right wing commenter herself, and, you know, she actually was very trat. I mean, she was home with the kids while Eli was working. She got married, and look, you know, he ran off with this, or, you know, had allegedly had this relationship with a much younger woman. And that's why older, you know, really older right wing women in their, say, 30s or 40s are saying often, you know, hey, maybe things are a little more complex. Maybe it's not about getting married at 22 and settling down and never leaving the home again.

[Tim Miller]

Whoo. What a show. I sometimes say, you're not getting it like this anywhere else. I think with great confidence, this is the only place you're getting material like this. All right, 30 minute deep dives on Right Wing Influencer. Electric dildo drama. There's nowhere else out there where allegedly.

[Sam]

Allegedly on the dildo.

[Tim Miller]

There's nowhere else where people are doing it like this. Thanks, Will and Sam. See you, Phil. Hi, everybody. It's Andy and James here from your next favorite podcast, no such thing as a Fish. That's right. We do fun facts. Yes, we do. James, give me a fact. Did you know that there is an extinct bandicoot whose official scientific name is Crash Bandicoot? Lovely. I didn't know that. Did you know, James, that Upper Egypt is technically below Lower Egypt? Incredible. Absolutely amazing. I would love to hear more about that. Well, all you have to do is go and listen to no such thing as a fish. Where will I find it? All over. Okay, bye. Bye.