316: The War on Science

Summary

Conspirituality, Episode 316: The War on Science

Release Date: July 9, 2026
Hosts: Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker

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Episode Overview

In this urgent and hard-hitting episode, the hosts dissect the mounting assault on scientific institutions and public health by political and conspiritualist interests, both in the US and globally. The central focus is a sweeping policy proposal in the US that threatens to politicize federal grant-making for scientific research, with chilling ramifications for research, collaboration, and public welfare. The trio puts this in context with related developments in Canada, pesticide policy reversals, and the ongoing spectacle of conspiracy-driven congressional hearings, especially around UFOs/UAPs. Throughout, they emphasize how New Age and wellness influencers, enabled by anti-science and populist politics, are corroding the foundations of credible science and fostering a climate of paranoia, confusion, and corporate capture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Bureaucratic Dismantling of Expertise in Science (US Focus)

[02:25–18:18]

• New OMB Rule Proposal:

  • On June 29, The Verge reported on a 412-page Office of Management and Budget proposal that, if enacted, would allow political appointees extensive veto power over $1 trillion in federal science grants across 42 agencies — effectively gutting peer review and scientific independence.
  • Quote (The Verge, as read by Julian Walker, 05:54):
    “The rule change would require political oversight of more than $1 trillion of federal grants... Political appointees could look over and veto any grant for any reason at any time... All federal grants must align with the president's policy priorities and all mentions of DEI or gender ideology are immediately off the table.”

• Mechanics of the Policy:

  • Centralizes grant authority in OMB, removing historic independence from agencies like NIH or NASA.
  • Peer review relegated to advisory only; political criteria override scientific merit.
  • Explicit bans on research/criteria involving DEI, gender “ideology,” and advocacy.
  • Restrictions on foreign collaboration (especially with China, Russia, Iran, Cuba), conference attendance, and even publication.
  • Grants can be terminated “at any time without cause,” even for ongoing, multi-year projects.
  • Health disparities research, climate science, and controversial topics can be cut off for ideological reasons.

• Chilling the Scientific Climate:

  • (Matthew, 06:55): “That is an incredibly chilling paragraph. Like, that's some of the worst stuff I've ever heard on this podcast.”
  • The program incentivizes self-censorship; researchers risk their funding (and jobs) for crossing political lines, with even “questionable affiliations” treated as a risk criterion.
  • Quote (Derek, 13:01): “That happened under Kennedy last year with the firings. A bunch of research that was already going on was just terminated… including people being treated for rare diseases.”

• Global Impact:

  • US withdrawal from WHO and new restrictions fracture international scientific collaboration, higher education, and global health efforts.
  • Cites PEPFAR (US global AIDS program) as “hijacked by activists,” signaling likely aid and research cuts.

• Consequences

  • Incalculable: lost research, disrupted patient care, “generationally crippling negative effects on public health and research.”
  • Scientists and institutions (e.g., McGill University) already seeking refuge abroad.

2. Parallel Dynamics in Canada: “A More Measured Neoliberal Drawdown”

[22:01–29:59]; [44:22–53:05]

• Budget Cuts & Deregulation:

  • Canada is slashing science/public health budgets (fewer people, programs sunsetted) without the overt culture war drama, but outcomes eerily similar.
  • Quote (Matthew, 22:01): “It's 19th-century beliefs and practices, but it's also 19th-century economic values — the age of the great robber barons.”
  • Federal worker and research budget cuts weaken environmental/climate monitoring, women’s and rare disease research, and more.
  • Bill C30, an omnibus bill, empowers Cabinet to override Health Canada’s own bans on unsafe pesticides for vaguely defined “national food security interests.”
  • CropLife (pesticide lobby) and other industry actors shaping regulatory reversals.

• Key Insight:

  • (Matthew, 46:00): “There are many ways to skin a democracy… Trumpian regime has handed power to black and brown people [for optics], but in Canada, multiculturalism is being co-opted to sell corporate nationalism.”
  • Across democracies (Canada, EU, Australia), deregulatory waves use US-style pressure, competitive framing, and omnibus bills to accelerate environmental and public health rollbacks.

• International Echoes:

  • EU, Australia, others revising or gutting public good protections under pressure, justified with “national interest” or “competitiveness.”

3. Pesticides: Betrayal of 'Health Freedom' Promises and Regulatory Capture

[31:25–44:22]

• US EPA Approves New “Forever Chemical” Pesticides:

  • EPA quickly and quietly approved novel fluorinated herbicides (PFAS “forever chemicals”) for major crops — directly contradicting environmentalist/health influencer expectations.
  • The Supreme Court simultaneously shielded companies like Monsanto/Bayer from state-level lawsuits over cancer warnings.
  • Kennedy’s administration (despite rhetoric) consistently sides with corporate interests over wellness/health freedom base.
  • Quote (Zen Honeycutt, Kennedy ally, read by Matthew, 35:02):
    “We love you Bobby, but this administration needs to keep their word. We were promised specifically clean air, clean water, and addressing of the pesticides in our foods…"

• Grassroots Disillusionment:

  • Anti-pesticide and health freedom activists express anger and betrayal at Kennedy and the administration’s pro-corporate moves.
  • (Julian, 36:20): “He’s always and forever the definition of the bad actor…an emotions vampire who sucks people dry for his own gratification…”

• Complexity & Need for Independent Science:

  • Hosts remain skeptical of anti-pesticide dogma but denounce corporations policing their own safety reviews and regulatory rollbacks.
  • Quote (Derek, 41:51): “We need publicly funded science that is nonpartisan and non-industry friendly. This is the type of topic we need government laser-focused on…”

• Canadian Parallels:

  • Canada’s Bill C30 enables the Cabinet to allow pesticides previously ruled unsafe; industry lobby CropLife involved in backdoor negotiations.
  • “Measured neoliberalism” achieves many of the same outcomes as “Studio 69 cocaine fascism,” just with subtler style.

4. Congressional Hearings as Conspiracy Theater (UAPs, COVID, etc.)

[53:33–72:54]

• UFO/UAP Hearings as Political Sideshow:

  • Congress now offers a platform for pseudo-whistleblowers, fringe figures, and conspiracy entrepreneurs to parade their claims under an official veneer.
  • (Julian, 53:33): “It all looks to me like a sensationalist circus sideshow. While backstage, the Project 2025 theocrats and crony capitalists keep enacting the agenda we’ve been discussing.”
  • Example: Rep. Tim Burchett, Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna conduct headline-grabbing UAP hearings.

• Notable Quotes & Moments:

  • Tim Burchett, June 9th, 2026, on UAP coverups (~59:32):
    “All I’m gonna get there is a good dead gum T-shirt… These things have been moved into private entities so that they don’t have a FOIA. That’s why they moved it out of the federal governments.”
  • Nancy Mace’s questioning of David Grusch (~61:41):
    “Do we have the bodies of the pilots who piloted this craft?... Non-human.”
  • Julian, 62:07 (re Grusch’s “whistleblower” claims):
    “He’s presented precisely zero evidence… but says he’s talked to someone who claims to have seen evidence… Including statements about people threatened or killed to maintain secrecy…”

• Conspirituality and Spiritual Yearning:

  • Congressional questioners echo the meme landscape of cryptids, anti-government paranoia, and spiritual hunger for cosmic significance.
  • (Matthew, 67:04): “They don’t ask as though they're scared… It’s almost as if, as with the government withholding information on something that would cure your cancer, the government is now withholding information on aliens who could fulfill your destiny…”
  • (Julian, 68:15): “It’s that kind of prized, stigmatized knowledge of, I belong to a group who just intuitively has felt that this stuff is right…”

• Absurdity, Grifters, and the Meltdown of Scientific Norms:

  • Media figures and self-promoting “experts” (e.g., Lou Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger), debunked claims recycled for clout, reflected in congressional agendas.
  • Conspiracism flourishes as real science capacity is defunded or sabotaged, making these hearings a surrogate for legitimate inquiry.

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Notable Quotes

• On the New OMB Rule (Julian, reading The Verge, 05:54):
  “Political appointees could look over and veto any grant for any reason at any time... Scientists could not collaborate with colleagues in many other countries... All federal grants must align with the president's policy priorities and all mentions of DEI or gender ideology are immediately off the table.”

• On the Chilling Effect for Science (Matthew, 06:55):
  “That is an incredibly chilling paragraph. Like, that's some of the worst stuff I've ever heard on this podcast.”

• On Rescinding Research in Progress (Derek, 13:01):
  “That happened under Kennedy last year with the firings. A bunch of research that was already going on was just terminated.”

• On the Mood in Canada (Matthew, 22:01):
  “It's 19th-century beliefs and practices, but it's also 19th-century economic values — the age of the great robber barons.”

• On Kennedy’s Betrayal of His Base (Derek, 41:51):
  “We need publicly funded science that is nonpartisan and non-industry friendly. This is the type of topic we need government laser-focused on with the help of non-corporate scientific experts.”

• On Congressional UAP Hearings as Distraction (Julian, 53:33):
  “It all looks to me like a sensationalist circus sideshow. While backstage, the Project 2025 theocrats and crony capitalists keep enacting the agenda we’ve been discussing.”

• On the Spiritual Yearning at the Heart of Conspirituality (Julian, 68:15):
  “It’s that kind of prized, stigmatized knowledge — I belong to a group who just intuitively has felt that this stuff is right, and it has profound spiritual implications for the future of humanity. But the government is covering it up because they want to stop us from waking up and taking the red pill.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:25] – Introduce the “war on science” via the OMB policy proposal
• [05:54] – The Verge’s rundown of the new rules
• [11:03] – Impact on peer review, publication, international collaboration
• [13:01] – Research cutoffs and sunken costs
• [17:37] – US withdrawal from WHO, impacts on global science
• [22:01] – Matthew’s analysis of the Canadian context
• [31:25] – EPA’s “forever chemicals” approvals and Supreme Court pesticide ruling
• [35:02] – Zen Honeycutt quote voicing base’s disillusionment
• [41:03] – Complexities of chemical regulation and science funding
• [44:22] – Canadian Bill C30, regulatory capture, and multinational policy drift
• [53:33] – Congressional UFO/UAP hearings as symbolic theater
• [59:32] – Rep. Tim Burchett on “dead gum T-shirts” and Area 51
• [61:41] – Nancy Mace questions David Grusch on “non-human biologics”
• [68:15] – Spiritual dimensions and memetic hunger at the heart of conspiracy politics
• [72:54] – Conclusion: the vacuum left when science is dismantled

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Tone and Atmosphere

The hosts balance deep frustration, dark humor, and moments of melancholy. Their language is direct, at times profane (“fucking term,” “emotions vampire”), with a skeptical, fact-based approach sharpened by years of cult-watching and media analysis. They never lose sight of the human and policy stakes, even as they document the circus-like turns of public life.

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Takeaways

• The war on science is being waged both brazenly and quietly, reshaping the landscape of research, public health, and democratic oversight.
• Pseudoscience and conspiratorial worldviews are not fringe but are driving legislative and regulatory policy at the highest levels — and, paradoxically, even “health freedom” movements are left betrayed by the cynical corporate and political interests they helped empower.
• The international trend toward deregulation and policy-by-executive-fiat is spreading under both right-wing populist and neoliberal centrist governments.
• Meanwhile, Congress’s agenda increasingly serves as a stage for conspiracy spectacle, further weakening already embattled epistemic norms.
• The episode is a sobering call to defend public, independent, and accountable science and to resist the normalization of conspiratorial, anti-expert, and deregulatory trends.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Matthew Rimsky]

Evening.

[Julian Walker]

Buyer's remorse.

[Derek Barris]

Buy a new car.

[Julian Walker]

I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Matthew Rimsky]

You what?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. Great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So there's no.

[Derek Barris]

No, no Buyer's remorse. More like Buyers rejoice.

[Julian Walker]

I guess I'll let myself out.

[Derek Barris]

Congratulations.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I mean it. Buyers rejoice.

[Julian Walker]

Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven day return policy at Carvana.com.

[Derek Barris]

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast with Benjamin Boster. If you're tired of sleepless nights, you'll love the I Can't Sleep podcast. I help quiet your mind by reading

[Julian Walker]

random articles from across the web to

[Derek Barris]

bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. Each episode provides enough interesting content to hold your attention and then your mind lets you drift off. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. That's I Can't Sleep with Benjamin Boster. Hey everyone. Welcome to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence to uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I'm Matthew Rimsky.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Julian Walker.

[Derek Barris]

You can find us on Instagram and threads at Conspirituality Pod, as well as individually on Blue Sky. And you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on [e-mail] Conspiracy Spirituality. You can also grab our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. I know Julian just dropped his 16th edition of the Roots of Conspirituality this past Monday and that's going well, so check it out over on Patreon. As independent media creators, we really appreciate your support.

[Julian Walker]

Conspirituality316 the war on Science with so much emphasis on global politics and the World cup in recent weeks, we're going to focus on the somewhat quieter but intensely important bureaucratic dismantling of expertise occurring in health and science. First, Derek looks into a recent 412 page OMB proposal that would hand political appointees veto power over federal science grants, effectively killing peer review, blocking research on health disparities, and walling off American scientists from the rest of the world. Matthew then counters with Canada's own corrosive behavior. Then we'll dig into the contradiction of Maha, the pro health movement running cover for the epa quietly approving New forever chemical pesticides mere days after the Supreme Court gutted Americans ability to sue Monsanto by way of their parent company Bayer. Again, there's a Canadian parallel bill C30 hands cabinet the power to override Health Canada's own scientists and approve pesticides they've already ruled unsafe. Finally, I'll remove the gravity from the situation by covering congressional UAP hearings where unverified whistleblower claims about alien bodies and secret programs get treated with peer reviewed science seriousness only. As with everything else in Trump's America, the science is thin and the theater th.

[Derek Barris]

On June 29, the Verge published an article entitled the War Against Woke Could End US Science as We Know It. Quite a title, and I'm sad to say it is not clickbait We've covered RFK Jr. Since nearly the inception of this podcast and the Maha movement since Kennedy stole the term and co opted it for himself two years ago. We've looked at all the various ways that the Trump administration, broadly and Kennedy specifically specifically has damaged public health and science so much. So I'm sad to say that the public has grown a bit accustomed to it to the point of letting it fade as background noise much how many people reacted to Trump grifting over $2 billion since assuming the presidency? And in both cases we just simply cannot do that.

[Matthew Rimsky]

There's a whole bunch of these issues that are like that with it's almost like too big to take in or too much to pay attention to, and so they kind of get some sort of memory hold or back burnered. It's so strange.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah, and that's why today we got to dig through some of the sort of bureaucratic legalese, because the implications for what's going on is just too important for us as a world that's huge. In segment two, I'm going to get into Maha's reaction to recent news about pesticides, which outside of vaccines, is that movement's biggest target. Let's now look at the subject of the Verge article, which is a 412 page policy proposal document issued by the Office of Management and Budget. I've read through a bunch of it and I'm going to bullet point the main challenges that it makes for scientists trying to do research in this country. But let's start with this 30,000 foot synopsis by the Verge.

[Julian Walker]

The rule change would require political oversight of more than $1 trillion of federal grants across 42 different agencies. Federal GR are what pay for most of the scientific research and the researchers at universities across the country, from research into new vaccines to studies on natural hazards. If the rule passes, political appointees could look over and veto any grant for any reason at any time, Scientists could not collaborate with colleagues in many other countries. They could not go to conferences without pre approval and would be prevented from using their research money to publish their work so the public could access it. All federal grants must align with the, quote, president's policy priorities and all mentions of dei, diversity, equity and inclusion or gender ideology are immediately off the table. People applying for research funding who can't fulfill these demands, the rule change says, are welcome to get funding elsewhere. If you don't like it, the document implies leave.

[Matthew Rimsky]

That is an incredibly chilling paragraph. Like, that's some of the worst stuff I've ever heard on this podcast. And you were saying, Derek, in editorial, that the Verge coverage is excellent, as we've heard, but it also just stands alone as journalists are really struggling to come up to speed with the enormity of what's happening here.

[Derek Barris]

It was published about a month after the document came out, and that's part of it. The White House is constantly releasing things and not releasing press releases. They're just putting it out there without people paying attention. And thankfully the Verge did. I've seen virtually no other reporting on this, and the Verge does a really good big picture view. What I did was went through it and try to really highlight some of the points of what's happening here. And it was, it was written by OMB together with roughly 40 federal grant making agencies, all I'm sure appointed by Trump or under Trump's purview. And many of them are under Kennedy's watch as well.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Okay. So part of that means that all of those agency officials might also be in the bag as one outcome of the Kennedy firing spree. Is that, is that what's going on too?

[Derek Barris]

I would imagine. I've read reports about how the leaders of the agencies under Kennedy are very disconnected from the people working within them.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

So I would imagine, yeah, the, the, the leaders are the people who are directly reporting to Trump and the, the bureaucratic workers are just, you know, the, the ones that are still remaining are like, what the. I'm gonna guess that's what's happening.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right?

[Derek Barris]

Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

An excellent example of how this faux populism is all just pure hypocrisy. Right. We're gonna install these people to be the elite experts, even though they're not qualified at all, and then just ignore the, the More sort of like the people doing the nuts and bolts work underneath them, who, who they should be listening to, right?

[Derek Barris]

Yes, absolutely. So this policy proposal document rewrites the guidance for federal financial Assistance which governs the management of grants, cooperative agreement agreements and other forms of federal assistance across the entire government. Currently, there are more than three individual changes in the document. This is the largest in the program's history. Public Comments close on July 13 and OMB wants a final rule by October 1, so it's still a living document of source. But I'm not sure how seriously this administration is going to take public criticism of their work. Here are the main structural changes to how grants would be awarded if this bill were to pass as is. First, OMB would be given centralized power in grant making while stripping individual agencies like the nih, Nassau and the Department of Education of the their discretion. They've historically used to tailor rules to their own scientific communities. Yeah, so NASA wouldn't be the experts. Fucking Congress would be the experts. Yeah, yeah. Second, the proposal explicitly blames the prior administration, the Biden administration, for using grants to fund a WOKE policy agenda, which the OMB would not be allowed to do moving forward. If finalized, the rule would restructure federal science funding around three axes. And I'll get into it a bit more detail in a moment, but let's look at the big picture. So first, you have political oversight of who gets funded. Second, restricted allowable activities such as no DEI link criteria and nanny state oversight on publication and conference costs. So that means the OMB would be given the power to reject check requests for scientists who want to attend a conference or even publish their work. So we've already seen this with Kennedy. People are like, oh, we did this research with grant money saying that Covid vaccines are not just efficacious for Covid, but they also help to protect things down the line like chronic disease and dementia. And then Kennedy goes, nope, you can't publish it. And that's what actually happened already.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Wow.

[Derek Barris]

Third, restricted foreign engagement. There's a blanket presumption against collaborating with China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and covered foreign entities across almost all federal science agencies. Now, political differences aside, with any country, the fact that we're not letting scientists collaborate on any anything, that's just harrowing. All right, let's get into the nitty gritty a bit. Here are the direct consequences for US Science and grant funding. I'm going to run through these. Stop me at any point we can discuss. Discretionary awards would require political review before issu. That means senior political appointees decide which grants get funded with peer review used only in an advisory capacity. I mean, this flips science on its head. What science actually means. Agencies will gain expanded authority to Terminate awards if a grant no longer aligns with agency priorities, program goals or national interest.

[Julian Walker]

So they're essentially replacing the peer review that they think is woke with their own kind of peer review, which is. It has to be ideologically in conformity. Right?

[Derek Barris]

Yes, yes. Yeah. Federal awards may not fund, promote, encourage, subsidize or facilitate DEI policies that violate anti discrimination law. Gender ideology. They keep using that fucking term. Or pediatric gender transition procedures for people under 19. They're very specific about that.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Let me go back to that last point because it implies that some of these awards would involve multi year studies, like longitudinal studies that might be well underway. Is that part of what's going on too? Is that maybe somebody has gotten funding for something that lasts seven or 10 years and they're just going to be stopped at year five because somebody doesn't like it and then all of that research goes to waste.

[Derek Barris]

Oh, that's already happened. I mean that happened under Kennedy last year with the firings. A bunch of research that was already going on was just terminated. And that includes people who are being treated for rare diseases.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Oh, right. Just getting cut off.

[Derek Barris]

Got cut off of therapeutics. So we, we don't even have a possible death count of what that resulted in. But yeah, that's happening in the. And specifically, they can terminate at any time without cause.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Are they accounting for the sunken costs of, of those cancellations? I mean, like if you had a. Because, I mean. Well, I mean if you $10 million study and it gets cut off at year seven, you've lost $7 million or whatever, something like that. Right?

[Derek Barris]

No, they would, they would actually just wrap it up and say we've saved $3 million.

[Julian Walker]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

Okay, excellent.

[Matthew Rimsky]

That's awesome.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Derek Barris]

Federal awards would be prohibited from supporting theories of disparate impact liability, which basically means they can stop funding any research on health disparities among race, gender or communities. So do you want to know what living near a data center will do to your health? We're not going to fund that. You know, if we're not funding it, there's no problems.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

There's a prohibition on funding issue advocacy or public messaging on policy positions. So a climate scientist showing how fossil fuels affect climate. Fuck no. Can't talk about that. Most costs associated with publishing federally funded research results would become unallowable and as I said, subject to political oversight. Subscriptions to journals that are necessary for research would become categorically unallowable. So yeah, conference travel would require express agency pre approval. Professional membership fees would only be Covered if strictly necessary to meet award requirements. Which is crazy because scientists need to go to conferences all the time. Risk review criteria for applicants would expand to include history of questionable practices, meaning the government can search your affiliation with organizations deemed to undermine public safety or national security.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Is that not further defined? Like that sounds like NSPM7 stuff.

[Derek Barris]

It's not further defined in the document, but yes, you let your imagination run wild at this point. If you're a member of the DSA or what is at any time, I imagine that could be a national security threat under this administration. Last one, and this is fun. Tell me if you know where this one comes from. Gain of function research is singled out as an example of wasteful spending, as are highly misleading studies. I mentioned the COVID vaccine one as an example of that already.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Okay, so I mean, you read the document or read through it. Derek. Can we assume that because there's so much laziness and incompetence going on in HHS and elsewhere, they're just going to like use GROK to chew through all of the million pages of paperwork involved so that they can auto delete all of the stuff that they don't like based on keywords?

[Derek Barris]

Well, again, that's already happened. I mean, we know that. I don't know, I don't know if they use Grok or OpenAI or what they use, but that we have reporting of people saying inside the agency that that's how they deleted all. They just looked for gender or dei. Literally, that's it. They just looked for those words and then canceled them or didn't allow funding to go through. So moving forward, I would imagine, I would imagine that this administration is specific about certain things, but then when it comes to the, the actual bureaucracy of governing, they're just too lazy or incompetent to do that. So yes, I would imagine GROCK is going to be the deciding everything. All right, now let's look at the global consequences of this proposal with a reminder that the US pulled out of the World Health Organization and no longer shares data with the rest of the world, which makes navigating things like a pandemic pretty difficult. The this, there's one big sweeping restriction and that's on foreign scientific collaboration. There's going to be a government wide prohibition on using federal funds for bilateral or multilateral collaborations. I already mentioned that covers China, Russia, Iran and Cuba and then other covered foreign countries, which just means, I guess if Trump gets pissed off at them one day that they're out. That's how I'm guessing it's going to happen. Yeah, yeah. Belgium at this point. Yeah, yeah. They're on the terrible watch list.

[Matthew Rimsky]

That's right. Whoever the red card ref was for that guy.

[Derek Barris]

The document specifically criticizes pepfar, which is the U. S Global AIDS relief program, as having been hijacked by activists and turned into left wing foreign aid entitlement promoting abortion and gender ideology at the bonkers. It even cites a Heritage foundation report alleging billions of dollars in PEPFAR related funds to contractor overhead rather than direct aid. And this framing points towards tighter conditions and likely funding cuts for global health and development research with knock on effects for research institutions and health systems in partner countries.

[Julian Walker]

So two things really strike me here. One is that on the international stage, this is effectively a gutting of so much good that the United States was actually able to do in the world, you know, on multiple levels in terms of collaborating on things like pandemics and research, etc. But also in terms of providing aid and providing services and identifying like really, really horrific problems in developing countries and you know, participating in trying to, you know, be, be the change that you wish to see in the world. And the other is that this, this reminds me a lot of Lysenko ism where there is an ideologically driven corruption of science that's going to result in millions of deaths.

[Derek Barris]

You know, Ro Khanna just repeated reporting that hundreds of thousands or millions of people have already died due to DOGE cuts. He didn't just blindly say that. He pointed to data and Elon Musk threatened to sue him.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

And he's. Musk isn't even involved in the government anymore. I mean he has tons, shit, tons of government contracts. But he, you know, it's just out of a ego of these people. No, no, that we know of. I don't, I don't know at this point.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I mean, I've commented before that I don't understand why they don't understand. To speak to your point, Ju and why they don't get that the soft power legacy of all of those aid programs is actually politically beneficial. It always has been.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

In addition to helping millions of people

[Matthew Rimsky]

and, and that, and that all of their geopolitical opponents are, are doing their own stuff.

[Julian Walker]

Like, like absolutely, you know, like China.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So I don't understand.

[Derek Barris]

Yep, there was a big soft power movement globally in the 60s where governments were sending bans around to share their country's music. And that was just such a fantastic way of going about. And it really saddens me. We've gotten to this, this position where we're literally just saying you, you're going to die of AIDS and we don't care. But that, that is what this document represents and what's already been going on. Yeah, all right. Abortion is in there because of course it is. Elective abortion costs would be unallowable, which would affect global health and reproductive health research programs specifically. So, you know, not so soft powering Christianity across the globe is what's happening. Or Christian nationalism to be specific. And finally, the combination of restricted foreign collaboration, political review of awards, termination risk and questionable affiliation risk screening would likely make US institutions less reliable or attractive partners for international research and consortia. Basically McGill University, very smart, great institution. When they saw what was happening, they said, hey American researchers, why don't you come work here? And a bunch did. And that was a good move on their part. We're going to see a lot more of that happening because people practicing research in the US can't get the money or can't publish their work at this point. I've discussed at length how the Maha movement and American science has been reverting to 19th century beliefs and practices. And this proposal, if it is passed, would bring us closer to that era than ever before. While we're already feeling the effects of this administration's anti science agenda, as I said, Ro Khanna pointed that out, these changes would make generationally crippling negative effects on public health and research because the rules apparently are quite hard to overturn. Plus, who's going to rush back to this country when we boot them out? Or we say we don't want you here to begin with. It's not like the next Democratic administration is going to magically heal those wounds. And there's no guarantee that Democrats are even going to win in two years at this point.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Well, there's a diminishing pool of resources too. So not only are the rules quite hard to overturn, but like the money that it would take to rebuild the one by one, it's just like it's going to be competing for attention amongst so many other concerns. And I think, yeah, it's 19th century beliefs and practices, but it's also 19th century economic values because it feels like the age of the great robber barons. Because for these guys, science isn't an epistemology, it's not about ethics. It's an instrument for product development. Right. Like if that's what it does for them, that's great. But to the extent that it constrains capital with facts or with any kind of ethical concerns for human life. It's intolerable to them. So I wanted to just append to this, how this sort of thing is happening in a kind of different way in Canada. And I'll just start by saying that, like, Settler folks here, where I live, have a very complex relationship to US Culture and politics. Because the border is, you know, culturally and politically porous, we often pretend we can set ourselves apart as more civilized, less bellicose, more welcoming, more predetermined, disposed for caring for each other through the safety net of ours. And I'm naming the settler culture because first nations folks, by and large and loudly don't buy into the nationalism of these ideas. And there's additional sort of complication in the fact that a lot of our attention is driven southward. Like, a lot of Canadians spend a lot of time influenced by American media. There's entertainment value, there's shock value, but often Canadian news is sort of secondary or overshadowed or just lumped in with everything else. And I think that's a natural consequence of living beside a collapsing empire that's extremely loud. Like, everything gets sucked in. And this has impacted me working on this podcast from Toronto with you guys, because, you know, the US has definitely pulled a lot of my attention away from my own political condition. I'm rectifying that now. I have mixed feelings about it because on one hand, hand, I feel terrible about having to play catch up on local figures and issues, but on the other hand, I also feel like I'm coming back from some sort of long trip. I'm radicalized with some new tools, I'm able to see symmetries between an empire in collapse and our neoliberal state here going through a more tightly managed decline. And the similarity is that in both cases, the driving force is what seems to be wealth accumulation in the hands of a few. And you guys, especially on the health and science tip, have both analyzed this crash and burn sabotage of institutions in the Trump era for years, and we've talked at length about why it's happening. You know, science is woke, scientists are nerds. They tell us what to do. We don't like it. Vaccines are evil. Hormones are transing the frogs. Like, why aren't they protecting us from chemtrails? And then climate denial on top of that means that, you know, we should be able to keep making money like there's no tomorrow. And, you know, you've really laid out, I think, really successfully over the past years that with Trump steering this ship, there's this kind of reckless, you know, Studio 69 Cokehead Energy to it all. And when we started to view this through the framework of anti intellectualism, I think that added another brick in the wall of, you know, this is, you know, fascism or approaching fascism in my mind. So the strange thing is though is that science and public health matters here are heading in the same direction, but there's less drama. There's a different mechanism and a somewhat different scale. So we have by now hours and hours of shows on direct budgetary cuts to the nih, some via Doge, some straight from the pen of RFK junior. And now this OMB document is describing a control freeze where every dollar is subject to a political sign off. Like no dei, as you're saying, no gender ideology stuff. But the cuts here in Canada are direct. Fewer people, smaller budgets, disbanded teams, programs that get sunsetted. There's no equivalent ideological content filter in the dossier. Like Ottawa is not telling our health researchers what conclusions are politically acceptable, acceptable yet. So it tells me that science can be attacked as a culture war target. Like you slash grants or you box out agencies is about restoring the gold standard that Bobby says has been abandoned by woke scientists. So in that sense there's an attack upon an internal threat. Or the cuts can be sold through Mark Carney's discourse of security. Like job cuts will fund NATO commitments. Commitments, he'll say. Or environmental monitoring cuts get justified via Arctic sovereignty, which is a big sort of buzzword around here. And Carney's rationale is an external enemy. Okay, so as for direct cuts, as part of the 40,000 person federal worker cuts for security and sovereignty, environment and climate change, Canada is losing 840 positions immediately and then that's going to go up to 1400 eliminated by 2029. The operating budget there is being cut by 1.3 billion by 2030. That's the year that our emissions reduction target comes due. And the Environmental and Climate Change Canada Agency also eliminated its weather radar research team which is responsible for Canada's 33 station national radar network. They're cutting 942 positions from health Canada, but it hasn't been announced how many of those roles are research specific versus regulatory or administrative? And then the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is implementing a 2% savings targets under the 2025 budget, but also sunsetting several targeted programs. So clinical trials, dementia and brain health and aging, drugs for rare diseases, long term health impacts of COVID 19 and the National Women's Health Research Initiative. Now, one major difference I think listeners to this show might point out is that the Carney path doesn't directly delegitimize science and attack scientists. It's not anti elitist that way because I don't think culturally we would stand for that because we're better than you. We're just going to let these public goods wither. And now though, I'm wondering if that difference is meaningful or if it's just a matter of national style. Because in both cases, restoring any of these public goods, you know, as we've said, is going to be extremely hard. And of course, all, all deregulatory regimes open up space for the expansion of private enterprise. And so, you know, in segment two, we're going to get into pesticides and I'll get into how Carney lifting pesticide bans hands a windfall to the corporations that have been lobbying closely with him. Hey, it's Matthew here from Conspirituality recommending you tune in to the Trust Me podcast where cult survivors Lola Blanc and Megan Elizabeth talk to former experts and sometimes even the people still inside to analyze how these systems work. They had me on to discuss my culty life and journalism and I found them super well informed and empathetic and funny. They bring you real stories about how easy it is to fall for something that seems just right. So if you're into cults, coercion or just wild human behavior, listen to Trust me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nomi Fry.

[Julian Walker]

I'm Vincent Cunningham. I'm Alex Schwartz. And we are Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. Guys, what do we do on show Every week?

[Matthew Rimsky]

We look into the startling maw of

[Julian Walker]

our culture and try to figure something out. That's right. We take something that's going on in the culture now. Maybe it's a movie, maybe it's a book, maybe it's just kind of a trend and we expand it across culture

[Matthew Rimsky]

as kind of a pattern or a template.

[Julian Walker]

Join us on Critics at Large from the New Yorker.

[Matthew Rimsky]

New episodes drop every Thursday.

[Julian Walker]

Follow wherever you get your podcasts. We've got a very different kind of sponsor for this episode, the Jordan Harbinger Show. A podcast you should definitely check out out since you're a fan of high quality, fascinating podcasts hosted by interesting people. The show covers a wide range of topics through weekly interviews with heavy hitting guests and there are a ton of episodes you'll find interesting. Since you're a fan of this show, I'd recommend our listeners check it out. We have a fair Amount of overlap. You know, Jordan recently did an episode on remote viewing and how the US government spent millions of dollars on this ESP pseudoscience. You might also look up an episode called Saving Bro's Soul from Alt Right Rabbit Hole. Anyway, you can't go wrong with adding the Jordan Harbinger show to your rotation. It's incredibly interesting. There's never a dull show. Search for the Jordan Harbinger Show. That's Harb as in boy I n as in Nancy G E R on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Derek Barris]

On June 30, the EPA finalized registrations for two novel fluorinated herbicides, which I am definitely going to mispronounce, so I don't need the comments. Thank you. Divers flew Fennekin and E.P. fenicil.

[Matthew Rimsky]

That sounds good.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, that was awesome.

[Derek Barris]

Maybe. I. I do watch YouTube videos on pronunciations and everyone I could find for those were people saying I'm probably saying them wrong. So just winging it there.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Do you ever get the French guy who comes up and says, today we will, we will.

[Derek Barris]

Who is that?

[Matthew Rimsky]

And his. Does he get anything right?

[Derek Barris]

Yes, he does, but he doesn't do herbicides. I couldn't find him. He's my go to.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Okay?

[Derek Barris]

So I had to rely on just actual news reporting on these. So they are now cleared for use on corn and soybeans, which are the two most widely planted crops in America. Para fenicil, also approved for use on wheat and canola. Now, neither chemical has ever been sprayed on US soil before, which along with other reasons, has gotten environmental activists and Maha stands up in arms. Unsurprisingly, the EPA did not issue a press release. So as I said in the last segment, they just are putting things through very quietly without really making a big deal. And it that this is up to like environmental organizations to suss out. And in this case it was the center for Biological Diversity who flagged this. I'm sure the administration broadly, and Kennedy specifically would have liked to have kept this announcement quiet, especially since the EPA also expanded uses of an older fluorinated insecticide and approved the first US food use of a separate compound, while also approving a third fluorinated herbicide. So that's five new pesticides that were let through or reapproved in the last couple weeks. Now, both of the herbicides I started with are fluorinated. That means they contain carbon fluorine bonds, which are the same type of bond that defines the broader PFAS family, which most people know as forever chemicals because those bonds resist environmental breakdown. And that's exactly the opposite message of what Kennedy ran on. I'll circle back to the herbicides but most people know that Kennedy the environmental champion has spent decades as one of the pesticides loudest critics. He's frequency frequently called glyphosate and related chemicals poison. And we shouldn't overlook the fact that the Supreme Court recently decided that a federal law known as the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide act expressly preempts state law failure to warm claims when the EPA has not mandated a cancer warning on the product's label. Because the EPA consistently reviewed glyphosate and determined it was not likely to cause cancer, the court's majority ruled 7:2 that state level lawsuits cannot penalize the company for failing to add cancer warnings to their products. And this has infuriated many in maha's coalition. This of course follows the MAHA Commission Strategy report which lacked any recommendations to regulate pesticides which also pissed off MAHA Stans. The group did initially include language in the report until industry groups like Crop Life America, Walmart and Coca Cola pushed back in response. Zen Honeycutt, who I am not a fan of but who is a big Kennedy ally or was at least she posted this.

[Matthew Rimsky]

It's been a year. Not a single thing has been done by the EPA to reduce our children's and families exposure to pesticides. In fact, regulations have only gotten worse loosened and more harmful pesticides have been approved. There is no excuse for this. We love you Bobby, but this administration needs to keep their word. We were promised specifically clean air, clean water and addressing of the pesticides in our foods. Whether glyphos, whether glyphosate comes from China or the USA is still sterilizing and killing us and our soil.

[Derek Barris]

Now to be clear, I'm not siding with Honeycutt or her assertions on this particular issue.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, I have to say though, I have some empathy with the person whose earnestness was exploited by Kennedy. Yeah, but at the same time it's tough because you know Kennedy and the anti vax crunchy movement on the whole was super activated by Kennedy. Kennedy's like absurd and sometimes violent rhetoric toward public health officials. So you know, he's always and forever the definition of the bad actor. He's like this emotions vampire who sucks people dry for his own gratification and as they're being bled like they lashed out at everyone else and now it's like oh Zen. Really? I'm sorry to hear that.

[Julian Walker]

But huh I mean, some of it is a smart, coherent, but misinformed kind of group of actors, activists, who, who do have a logically coherent kind of worldview instead of things that they believed Bobby was going to get in and champion for them and come to find out that he's just kind of a whirling. Yeah, A whirling spout of, of self aggrandizing, you know, nonsense. And, and, and he's willing to change his position on things based on political expediency and, and whatever hap. Whatever brain worm happens to have taken charge of him that week.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I think that his legal career probably gave them a very clear sense of his long term coherence and commitment. Right. Like, because he argued the same. Like, you know, regardless of the merits, he argued the same case over and over and over again. Yeah. And he seemed singularly driven and perhaps he was for, you know, a certain amount of time.

[Julian Walker]

Well, and you can even hear in those statements from her the fact that for her there's an equivalency across the board between clean air, clean water, no pesticides in our food choice over vaccines. Like, it's, like it all is part of a worldview that makes sense if you flatten everything out in that kind of way. Even though the evidence is only on her side for some of those things.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Well, and that's what made him their champion because he went from mercury and fish to mercury and vaccines. Absolutely. It's all tied together.

[Julian Walker]

Perfect. Yeah.

[Derek Barris]

When I was fact checking the script, Google really wanted to change emotions vampire to emotional vampire. I'm glad it did. An emotions vampire is perfect.

[Julian Walker]

Right.

[Derek Barris]

Good job on that. All right. The repeated industry friendly decisions, whether via Kennedy or the administration, has greatly weakened Maha's coalition. Kennedy has thus far remained silent on the recent EPA decision. He's been posting videos of him doing pull ups in a fucking school, though apparently there was some serious infighting in the White House. However, Trump reportedly signed an executive order to review pre harvest desiccation, which is the strategic application of pesticides or herbicides to kill foliage or force crops to dry down uniform uniformly. And that was all to try to placate the Maha base, but there's no indication of when or how. And there's been no federal funds earmarked for such a review. So it's likely exactly what it seems like. It's a hurried, thoughtless executive order that Kennedy and his senior advisor, Cali Means and his friends over at Maha Action are holding up as some sort of win. While they completely ignore the EPA and Supreme Court decisions as I've covered on this podcast often. I'm not on board with the glyphosate is poison to everyone train. But the Supreme Court case involved a farmer who had applied it for 20 years and when you work with it regularly and that intensely indications that glyphosate causes cancer are much more grounded in research that is much different than trace residues on food. And I don't like any corporation that can't be sued for not warning consumers about their products. It's not like there hasn't been any research on the two new herbicides as well the epa. The EPA rates pyrifenacil as not likely to be carcinogenic at low doses. Yet the pesticide causes liver tumors and animal studies which environmental groups say relied heavily on the manufacturer's own interpretation of its data. Diflufenicin breaks down into a chemical with a similar structure and toxicity profile to analyze, which is a component of tobacco smoke that the EPA classifies as a probable human carcinogen. The agency did not require studies assessing that breakdown of the product and its real world cancer risk. Whether these herbicides count as pfas forever chemicals is also contested with a similar environmental group versus industry breakdown. So it's all a bit of a fucking mess. And honestly, the Trump administration is moving quickly in industry industry's favor, which is not great. At the moment there is no published clinical human trial evidence on either. Chemical safety data comes from EPA reviewed animal toxicology studies, environmental fate modeling and epidemiological inference from structurally related chemical chemicals, which is standard for new pesticide registration.

[Julian Walker]

I just want to say here that I haven't. This hasn't quite struck me before. This is the, the perhaps unanticipated or like in this specific detail or unintended side effect of undermining science in all these different ways along the lines of say vaccines or what have you, is that I don't think the level of scientific ignorance means amongst these people means that they don't realize, oh, if you dismantle the real process of how science gets done and how we figure out what's true and what's what's false, you end up with the exact kinds of things. So we end up sounding like the, the conspiracy theorists because now we're in the exact kinds of predicaments that you've been raging against. Often, you know, with, without any real basis.

[Derek Barris]

It's, it's.

[Julian Walker]

The whole thing is just so contorted.

[Derek Barris]

Yeah. And as is often the case, I'm hovering in the middle on this one. Chemistry is complex. Activists often weaponize the public's gaps in knowledge. They treat all reviews of chemicals as evidence of nefarious corporate action actors. And I don't think that's right. I'm not down with the never use pesticides jargon, and while one farmer tried to sue Monsanto, many others rely on them to produce the food that we need. Kennedy and crew have been going hard on the regenerative agriculture is the way forward messaging, especially in the last week. And that's great for local farms in their communities. Like Truly I, I go to local farms here in the Portland, the greater Portland region for that reason. Yet there's been no indication that such practices can work at scale to feed hundreds of millions of people. All that said, I don't love chemicals that don't have any human trial evidence. And to your point Julian, letting corporations police their products instead of independent agency agencies doing that work echoes the existential risks we discussed in segment one today. We need publicly funded science that is nonpartisan and non industry friendly. This is the type of topic we need government laser focused on with the help of non corporate scientific experts. While writing this episode, I received an email from Maha Action railing against the Supreme Court decision on Monsanto. It assumes the usual you can't trust those people in power language, which is exhausting from this crew because they are the dog who caught the car car. While I know the Supreme Court is not hhs, Kennedy was installed to fulfill the Heritage Foundation's business friendly deregulatory mission. His senior advisor, who I mentioned a moment ago, Cali Means, started his career as a Heritage intern. Their stated mission of making Americans healthy is as disingenuous as Trump's slogan. Their real mission is appeasing corporations and loosening laws that stop businesses from doing whatever the they want for profit. And that is a goal they are actually fulfilling. The problem for Kennedy is that he doesn't have the parasocial stranglehold over his base that Trump does. And so Maha Stans have quickly and rightfully grown tired of his deflections while his fundraising arm is pitching Maha's bases necessary for the midterms. It's pretty obvious that Kennedy has become a liability at this point.

[Matthew Rimsky]

So I'm going to talk about the Canadian pesticide situation and its parallels. But you know, just another distinction I need to make between this kind of like Studio 69 cocaine fascism that smashes through the public good and this more measured neoliberal drawdown that I'm talking about is that with the former, each contradiction can prompt a culture war flare, while under the latter, there's entire regulatory histories that can just be blipped out of existence with the press of a button. So here in Canada, there's no drama between zen, Honeycutt and RFK Jr. There's no cadre of Honeycutt lined up to focus attention on pesticide use and what the government will or won't do for them. Carney didn't come to power with the help of, you know, anything like, you know, the Maha movement or Maple Maha. Like there is that influence in Alberta politics for sure, but that hasn't been a real factor. And so he can functionally take the same actions here, but with little notice. On June 18, Kearney's majority government passed Bill C30, which is an omnibus bill, which means everything in the kitchen sink with some, like, tiny little bits that are really consequential that nobody can see. It has affordability provisions, but also, as the National Farmers Union put it, it hides sweeping regulatory power grabs. And Health Canada pesticide overrides. These are unprecedented in scope, undemocratic in process, and. And so it's somewhat similar to the OMB power grab, Derek. Basically, the cabinet now has the unilateral power to authorize pesticides that Health Canada has already categorized as unsafe in the context of economic or national food security interests, which they leave undefined. So no specific chemical has yet been identified for this new regime. But scientists from 13 different universities and a coalition of environmental and health organizations called the provision the largest overhaul of Canadian pesticide law in a generation. We have a senator, Senator Rosa Galvez, who's a pollution and health expert, who warned that politicians should be very careful before substituting political judgment for scientific expertise. And as she talked about the links between pesticide exposure and cancer, reproductive and neurological harm. Harm, that was her instruction. Right. Like, you know, you've got to pay attention to the science. So how and why did this come about? Well, Health Minister Marjorie Michel and her staff have been meeting with Crop Life that you pinged earlier in the segment, Derek. This is the international pesticide lobby group that represents about 175 billion-plus dollars in publicly traded value alone. This is not counting the huge private corporations like Syngenta and Cargill that are under its umbrella. And just a little detour about this lobby setup. One sort of feature of the elite capture aspect of this is that Michel is a Haitian immigrant. She's the daughter of the former Haitian Prime Minister, Smarc Michel, who is a bakery and grain businessman who was first appointed as Commerce Minister by the liberation theologian President Aristide in 1991. And Aristide was ousted in that same year by a kind of shadowy coup disclaimed by the US but also clearly involving US assets. And then Michel was appointed as PM in 94 as a condition of the US helping to reinstall Aristide because he was seen as a more business friendly, investment friendly guy for the new regime before they wound up taking him out again in 2004. So that's where Marjorie comes from. And so there's also something like nouveau neolib Canadian about how she attains power here. She's a career Trudeau era political operative who served as his chief of staff, inherited his seat while he resigned and was fast tracked into Cabinet on the strength of nearly a decade of loyalty, no health policy credentials. But throughout her tenure the biggest news has been about the historic diversity she brings to Ottawa. And there's a similar buzz around Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, who's the daughter of Indian immigrants who' responsible for executing enormous increases in military spending. And I'm bringing all of this up to go along with the theme of there are many ways to skin a democracy. So the Trump regime has handed power to black and brown people. Kash Patel, Scott Turner, Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy. In my view, overt white nationalists find these folks harder to tolerate and we've seen them get sort of picked on off. But in Canada, the multicultural theme has been thoroughly co opted into selling not white but corporate nationalism, which is an illusion because most enterprises are transnational. So the last thing I'll add is that among the more rational seeming social or liberal democracies, these patterns of power centralization and austerity and military buildup and deregulation and science degradation are all traveling in the same direction. In 2025, 26, the EU passed omnibus packages that gutted sustainability rules. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive had its scope narrowed to roughly 1600 of Europe's largest companies, its Climate Transition Plan requirements deleted and its maximum penalties cut from 5% to 3% of global turnover. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which requires companies to publicly disclose environmental, social and govern data, lost about 90% of its covered companies. And all of this went through under competitiveness framing and under direct US pressure. So Ambassador Puzder to the EU called the maintenance of those regulatory tools economic suicide for the eu, so they should get rid of them. In November, Anthony Albanese, PM of Australia, passed a reform of the environment Protection and Biodiversity conservation act of 1990. This is Australia's keystone national environmental law. It gives the environment Minister expanded power, or this new provision does, to override regulations to approve national interest proposals. So always the language is vague, right? Like the justification is always incredibly opaque. Then there's more vague language around defense, security or strategic interests. And crucial critics attach the bill to the critical minerals agreement Albanese signed with Trump, which pledged to speed up mining processing approvals. So all in all, I came across this assessment from a guy named Bram Vrankin who's a researcher at Corporate Europe Observatory, and I think this is really spot on. He says that the homegrown deregulation wave and the pressure coming from the U.S. u.S. Reinforce each other. And so Derek, while the OMB rule changes are these direct attacks on global science as well as American researchers, this is where I think we see their influence. Aside from sort of like the direct withdrawal of funding and collaboration, the influence is also being weaponized by neoliberals in the target governments who need cover for their own deregulation programs that they've been trying to accelerate. So what I'm seeing is that one sort of knock on effect of the Trumpian era is that liberal governments respond to fascist policies as though they have been given permission to provoke, to pursue power grabbing and wealth hoarding under the guise of resistance. Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply all, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them. Some massive and life altering and some so miniscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you. That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts [e-mail].

[Julian Walker]

Hey, do you have trouble sleeping? Then maybe you should check out the Sleepy podcast. It's a show where I read old books in the public domain to help you get to sleep. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. Classic stories like A Tale of 22 Cities, Pride and Prejudice, Winnie the Pooh, stories that are great for kids and adults alike. So whether you have a tough time snoozing or just like a good bedtime

[Matthew Rimsky]

story, fluff up the cool side of

[Julian Walker]

your pillow and tune into Sleepy. Unless you're driving, then please don't listen to Sleepy. Find sleepy wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Sunday. Sweet dreams. So alongside everything we've been talking about so far, there's another trend that to me runs parallel with how our medical science and drug oversight agencies have been hijacked by quack doctors, anti vaxxers and supplement peddlers. Since 2022, there's been a spate of congressional hearings, you may have noticed on UFOs, or as they are now referred to UAPs, unexplained aerial phenomena. The government's interactions with science, evidence and reality has gone off the rails here too, as increasingly fringe figures have brought their sideshow antics into the halls of power. It all looks to me like a sensationalist circus sideshow. While Backstage, the Project 2025 theocrats and crony capitalists keep enacting the agenda we've been discussing. So far, these hearings on UAP have occurred in a few different subcommittees. Counterterrorism, Counterintellig Intelligence and Counter Proliferation on National Security or the Border and Foreign affairs, the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, IT and Innovation. And then most recently, the Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets. This June, as part of that task force, we've had a press conference on the steps of Congress and a UAP disclosure forum. Disclosure is the key word here in the Kennedy Caucus Room of the Senate Office Building, which I'm sure sounds familiar, Derek, in terms of some of the early maha stuff that we saw, right. Where they were bringing in all of those supplement peddlers to, to take turns speaking as if this was some official government proceeding and then to like basically pitch their goods and services.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Actually, within the Congressional complex, there are ley lines and so there are only specific rooms that are like, like really, really conducive to, you know, revealing the truth of things.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, they're auspicious. The. The. And, and, and that's actually what the QAnon Shaman was working with, if you remember.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I shouldn't. I shouldn talks about how he was

[Julian Walker]

charging those leylines by, by chanting the, the mantras he chanted on the Senate floor. But it's not just uap. The Task Force on Declassification of Federal Secrets was created under the auspices of the Committee for Oversight and Government Reform in February of 2025. And it's headed up by Anna Paulina Luna, who for me is the, the main offender in all of this. And oddly enough, it's co chaired by Jasmine Crockett. The Republican members involved include Tim, Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert. So that's A that's a pretty low bar. And together with Luna, these are amongst the loudest voices. The topics they've been tackling include most recently. And Derek, thanks for sharing the article you did with me on this. The CIA's MK Ultra program and some of the members here. This is a real thing, of course, that happened a long time ago. Some of the members I just listed tried to connect the MK Ultra, you know, weird experiments in the, in the 50s, 60s and, and 70s with mind control and LSD. They tried to connect it to Covid and Anthony Fauci, like maybe this is still going on. And that's what Covid really was, a big mind control plot. They've also been looking at, of course, the Jack and Bobby Kennedy and MLK assassinations, Covid origins and uap. So it's basically the wet dream of any heartland conspiracist who finally made their way into the government to expose all of the covers. Cover ups. They've also had hearings on the Epstein client list and were actively involved in making that big file dump possible that happened last year. So they are working, you know, they're, they're getting stuff done. For my bonus episode this past Monday, I did a deep dive on how another release by that task force of three waves of declassified UAP files happened in May and June. And it really turned out to be a nothing Burgers is the general consensus. And this intersects actually with both Steven Spielberg's new movie called Disclosure Day and then the tragic suicide of Disclosure Movement author David Wilcock back in April. So I covered all of that if people want to go check out that bonus episode. But in terms of what we're discussing today, the hearings I just referenced, there's two things that I see going on. One is that there is this sober focus on examining the range of unusual aerial phenomena that are housed in classified archives. And this is being looked at with an eye towards security and terrorism concerns. And I think all of that is really valid. But the second thing going on is that the MAGA effect means that conspiracy theorists who've made it into the halls of power are determined to force the government to disclose the supposed secret programs that are hiding the evidence of extraterrestrial or interdimensional beings that they believe have been visiting the Earth so that they can find a way to turn the conversation in that direction whenever they can. Whichever subcommittee he is involved in, whatever the topic is, that's at the top of the bill. So as I mentioned, Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett is on the task Force. He's the kind of guy who will go on Fox News after one of the more sober hearings and say, well, the Pentagon is wasting time and trying to muddy the waters as part of their ongoing cover up. So as an example, here he is on the steps of Congress. He's talking to the press, and this is from June 9th, this past June, about the roadblocks that he perceives against investigating UFOs.

[Matthew Rimsky]

If Congress says we're going to go to Area 51. If Congress says we're going to go to Area 51, everybody says go to Area 51.

[Derek Barris]

Burchett.

[Matthew Rimsky]

All I'm gonna get there is a good dead gum T shirt. All right? The moving bands already gonna be there. The problem you have is, is that these things have been moved into private entities so that they don't have a foia. That's why they moved it out of the federal governments.

[Derek Barris]

And that's part of the roadblocks.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Other roadblocks we've seen. We try to get a committee. We've had staff members try to block us.

[Derek Barris]

When this, when we first started this

[Matthew Rimsky]

thing with that first hearing that Grush said that there's biological entities.

[Derek Barris]

They.

[Matthew Rimsky]

They tried to move it into the. Remember that Russian balloon that flew over? They tried to move it into that. And what was it, Chinese?

[Julian Walker]

Excuse me.

[Derek Barris]

They're all together. I don't care. No, I know they're not.

[Matthew Rimsky]

But. But they tried to move it into that. We had staff members try to block

[Derek Barris]

us just the top, the top level.

[Matthew Rimsky]

We've been in a skiff before, and we had a member of Congress come in and just try to disrupt the meeting, try to disrupt Grush, throw him all these trick questions. And he answered every dadgum one of them. Just right off the bat. He knocked it out of the park.

[Julian Walker]

So the drinking game is you have to take a shot every time he says, dad gum.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Do you know where that. Do you guys know where that comes from?

[Julian Walker]

It's, it's, it's a, it's God damn.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right?

[Julian Walker]

It's a way of not saying God damn if you're, if you're a nice Southern Christian boy.

[Matthew Rimsky]

All right, you switch the, switch the syllables around, okay?

[Derek Barris]

Ye.

[Julian Walker]

But you hear, right, the classic Area 51 reference. Like, that's, that's real old timey conspiracy stuff. And then of course, as you noted, Matthew, with your, your raised eyebrows, the excellent foreign policy nuance about Russia and China basically being the same. And then there's also the reference to David Grush. And that's what I Want to especially flag here. He's the current most touted so called whistleblower. He's a former military and intelligence officer who has presented precisely zero evidence. But he says he has talked to someone who claims to have seen evidence of recovered spacecraft and what he calls non human biologics, which you heard Burchette mentioned there. So here's that. That moment. He's, he's on the Subcommittee on National Security. This is back in July of 2023. He's talking to South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace.

[Matthew Rimsky]

If you believe we have crashed craft

[Derek Barris]

stated earlier, do we have the bodies of the pilots who pilot piloted this craft? As I've stated publicly already in my News Nation interview, biologics came with some of these recoveries.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Were they I guess human or non human biologics?

[Derek Barris]

Non human.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And that was the assessment of people

[Derek Barris]

with direct knowledge on the program I talked to that are currently still on the program. Yeah.

[Julian Walker]

Bombshell. No evidence though. So that moment is from three years ago until, from that moment until now. He's still never presented any publicly verifiable evidence for any of his claims, including some statements he's made about people being threatened or killed in order to maintain the secrecy. When he was asked if he personally knows people who've been killed, his answer was yes, but I can only provide further details in a skiff. Right. In a closed hearing where you have absolute security. Somehow though, dude is still walking around unscathed. He's giving interviews and press conferences like this one on the steps of Congress. Now he's a former intelligence officer and a veteran who served in Afghanistan. So via the argument from authority, many people will say, well, we got to take this guy seriously. But what about that? The Intercept reported that David Grush suffered a spate of incidents between 2014 and 2018 involving alcohol and substance abuse, as well as twice being put under psychiatric holds due to suicidal statements and PTSD related episodes. And he then left his job in 2023 to become, become a whistleblower. He's a bit of a character. Some people have speculated that he may have been pranked by, by his colleagues just to see what would happen. And then he's like, I'm, I'm out of here. I'm going to go blow the whistle and blow the roof off this whole thing. So with this information on board and, and you know, of course not to, not to demean the guy at all, he starts to seem a bit to me like Judy Mikovitz or Robert Malone or Peter McCullough, you know, like an embattled expert with legit credentials and background whose mainstream career has floundered, whatever reason. And then this eventuates a pivot into making unsubstantiated and conspiratorial claims and joining the rotating cast of podcast guests, fringe conspiracy speakers and sensationalist authors. As you know, the. The new way to make a buck and to have a profile and to get a lot of attention. But today this also means, given what's happened in our government, that they'll add appearing in congressional hearings to their PR schedule as they promote their book.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Yeah, that's amazing to see their calendar.

[Julian Walker]

Right.

[Matthew Rimsky]

You know, it's like, it's like into the q I at 9:00am Via Riverside and then I'll be on Capitol Hill 1030.

[Julian Walker]

That's right.

[Derek Barris]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Julian Walker]

The whiplash. Alongside Burchette on the steps from that previous clip was Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna. She has said as a guest on Joe Rogan Experience that she's seen photographic evidence of aircraft she is confident could not have been been man made. I'm going to take her word for that. She believes the US has reverse engineered alien technology and that Congress has supposedly been briefed on what she referred to as energy, things that can, quote, move outside of time and space. So this is her talking to Lou Elizondo in the hearing on November 13th of 2024. And I've edited down his answers for time just so we get a clear sense of where she's coming from.

[Derek Barris]

Mr. Elizondo, in regards to these aircraft piloted by whatever they might be, non human biologics, are you.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Would you agree that it's likely that

[Derek Barris]

they are being piloted by some mind body connection? Ma', am, I think it is safe to presume here that they are being intelligently controlled because they some cases seem to anticipate our maneuvers.

[Matthew Rimsky]

In our previous panel, we had Grush

[Derek Barris]

and he had testified to say that some of these were interdimensional dimensional beings.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Can you speak on that at all?

[Derek Barris]

Ma', am, I'm not qualified certainly as a scientist or otherwise to speculate points of origin, I guess, would it be safe to infer that they're living craft? You know, I'm not prepared at this point to state for the record is

[Julian Walker]

something alive or not?

[Derek Barris]

Because even that definition. So we're constantly having to reevaluate our understanding of what, what the definition, definition of life is.

[Julian Walker]

So she's talking to Lou Elizondo. He's the other big expert witness who's gotten trotted out a lot in the last few years. He's a former Department of Defense guy. He says he worked in a classified program that investigated uap. He claims that the government is suppressing information showing that UFOs are actually interdimensional cryptids. So it's not, it's not enough anymore to say that they're, they're craft from another galaxy, but, but actually that the craft themselves are some kind of unusual life form that's coming from different dimension. He's also provided zero evidence of this, but he was actually the person behind the release of those low res, grainy Navy cockpit videos that got a lot of attention back in 2017. They show what appear to be objects making highly unusual maneuvers while pilots observing them sound really surprised and amazed.

[Matthew Rimsky]

That whole sort of pattern of they seem to be anticipating our moments. I've often seen analysts say, well, yes, they seem to be anticipating your movements because they're an artifact of the actual photographic reflection or something. But, you know, I wonder what your opinion is on this. Like, I'm listening to this and Luna is not asking this guy questions as though she's scared. And I don't really get this fear from any of the, any of the interlocutors, any of the questioners. It's almost as if, as with the government withholding information on something that would cure your cancer, the government is now withholding information on aliens who could fulfill your destiny or your divine birthright, or they could give you some special, I don't know, insight or something like that. It's, it's, there's a, there's a very spiritual aspect to all of this, a kind of yearning, and you're not telling us the truth about what's actually going on in this miraculous universe. And maybe God is trying to talk to us in this way. That what you're getting from this.

[Julian Walker]

Absolutely, absolutely. It's that kind of prized, stigmatized knowledge of, I belong to a group who just intuitively has felt that this stuff is right. And so I've followed it and the evidence seems compelling to me, and it has profound spiritual implications for the future of humanity. But the government is covering it up because they want to stop us from waking up and taking the red pill. Right.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Well, and also it's part of the global secularization program that is removing us from our divine source. Right. Like we are destined either through becoming traditional Catholics again or through connecting with Cryptids. We're destined to be more than what we are. And if we're more than what we are, then somehow isn't It. It's also a yearning to be more than just a worker. Right. Like, to sort of imagine yourself as maybe not having to have a 9 to 5 or having, you know, being able to sort of have a more miraculous life in some way.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah, I think that's right. And he kind of. He didn't really want to go there with her. But later on in the questioning, she. She did, she did try to get into the relationship between Christianity and these phenomena. And, you know, some. Sometimes the angle will be, well, they're demonic. And so she. She asks him, do you. Have you heard accounts of people being. Being Christian believers, therefore, meaning that these phenomena left them alone.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Right. Or it can go the other way, too, where the Christian can be kidnapped and experimented on and reprogrammed or disillusioned from their faith, having something taken away from them that's essential, that sort of thing.

[Julian Walker]

Yep, yep, all of that. And so, as you said, like, the. There's plenty of good analysis and debunking of those Navy cockpit images. I'm not going to go into a technical description of it right now, but, yeah, as you say, the plane is moving fast, the water is moving fast. There's an object on the camera is changing position rapidly to try and keep tracking this object that you've seen that you don't really know what it is. And so it looks like the object is doing all kinds of amazing things. It's like, yeah, you're acting as if the camera is stationary. It's not. So, you know, Elizondo has been roundly discredited. He has at conferences, like, for example, the best one is at a conference. He presented a picture of what he claimed was a mothership hovering over, like an embassy somewhere in. I think it was in South America or in the Caribbean. And it turned out very quickly that people were able to show that it was the reflection of a large chandelier in the window through which the photograph was taken.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Oh, God.

[Julian Walker]

So it's that level of like, oh, you're the expert, you're the skeptic. You're the guy who's going to bring the real evidentiary sauce.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And with the Trumpian decoration style. I mean, those artifacts are going to be everywhere.

[Julian Walker]

Right.

[Matthew Rimsky]

Because there's chandeliers behind every bush.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. More than ever before. More than ever before. He's published a book about his claims. He has another one coming out in August. Elizondo is a fixture on the UFO circuit now. He's been. Is, of course, a featured interview subject on the History Channel. And just to show how the conspirituality beat overlaps here, sitting beside Lou Elizondo in these hearings is none other than our old friend Derek, the independent journalist Michael Shellenberger, who coined the term censorship industrial complex the last time he was sitting next to someone in front of Congress. Last one, I'll just share here. And this is not a clip, but Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, everyone's favorite, has also played a role in these hearings. She asked the assembled Experts in the November 2024 session about underwater alien bases as well as a secret government program that she said rumors of this have have floated up to Capitol Hill is the way she kind of put it, that manipulated human and non human genetics are being used to create hybrids with enhanced capabilities. And she asked him, you know, have you heard about this? What can you tell us about this? So clearly she's watching too much Gaia tv. I'll finish by saying here for the sincere commenters who've been giving me pushback on Instagram and even sometimes on Patreon, yes, the universe is vast. There may well be intelligent life out there somewhere. There doesn't seem too much evidence to be too much evidence of intelligent life in the MAGA Congress. And the type of evidence they're exposing about what the government is covering up in their sort of adolescent X Files fantasies is so far unconvincing to say the least.

[Matthew Rimsky]

I. But don't they have to? I mean, we've just been through this harrowing account of the science that they're picking apart and I think this is why you're finishing where you're finishing, Julian, is that. Yeah, once there's nothing there, like, and once they've dispensed with all the things that they had no expertise in, they didn't understand that, you know, told them to wear masks when they didn't want to, like, what are they going to do with their time? And I think what they're doing with their time is they're sort of creating these elaborate D and D campaigns that they're playing with each other in these conference rooms. And I guess it makes sense to me, like they have to look like they're doing something more important than the thing that they dismantled. Right?

[Julian Walker]

Yeah. They're tilting at windmills and living out this sort of heroic fantasy that if they could just get into the halls of power, they would finally, you know, blow the lid off all of this stuff.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And then they did.

[Julian Walker]

Yeah.

[Matthew Rimsky]

And then they. And then it's windmills. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24. 7 support. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.