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- [00:01]
A
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B
Okay, listener, we need to take a little break from all of the stuff that Donald Trump is doing to terrorize citizens and take a little deep dive into this juicy, salacious trad wife scandal in the heart of maga. And I have with me today Will Summer. He is a senior reporter at the Bulwark and he writes the newsletter called the False Flag on Right Wing Media and Conspiracy Theories, which is right up my alley for entertainment. Will, how are you today?
- [01:02]
C
Hey, I'm good. Thanks for having me on.
- [01:05]
B
All right, so let's dive into this. We have a trad wife and then we have a right wing influencer, Elijah Schaefer, that apparently weren't supposed to be together and engaged in slap and tickle style affair. Is that correct?
- [01:22]
C
That's right. I mean, I think you summed it up colorfully there. Yeah. I mean, so this is, you know, we can look at Elijah Schaefer first maybe. I mean, this is a guy who was once Glenn Beck's protege, this kind of rising star in right wing media. And then he got fired from Glenn Beck's company for allegedly assaulting, sexually assaulting one of his co workers. And there were all these other harassment allegations. And then he said, wait, I'm a real Christian guy now. I have a wife and kids. You know, I'm going to live this traditional lifestyle. And needless to say, the revelations of last week suggest that that was not really the case.
- [01:57]
B
Okay, I want to play a video for you and the listener of this Elijah Schaefer, so everybody can kind of know exact the type of man that we're talking about. Kylie, play the clip.
- [02:08]
D
Saw a tweet that said this. It's like, it's crazy on 2025 to pull. You literally have to be like a millionaire, six foot seven, have a drive a Lamborghini and like that's who, like, you know, I mean like, and be white and it's like. Yeah. So women are still going after men that emulate the most masculine tendencies, right? They're going after tall, rich, famous men and men and what do we get the, the, the, the. The women, they're just. They can't even cook a Hot Pocket, you know? So it's, it's, it's like. And that's why once you have sex with them, once you come, you come to your senses, right? So it's like you have that, that post, ejaculate, clarity, post, not clarity, they call it online these days, but, like, because you realize, like, after you nut, you're like, you're just a bunch of holes. And that's really sad because then it devalues women, so your view of women becomes so low because women really are just a bunch of holes today. But that doesn't mean that's who they have to be or who God made them to be or what they should be. And I think that a lot of the hatred that I have towards women and a lot of the hatred a lot of men have towards is simply the product of generations of sin and rebellion that have created women to be something that they're not. They're not feminine, they're masculine. And, and like, like, look at this. This type of woman that.
- [03:16]
B
Okay, I mean, that's alarming to say the least, and how it's all wrapped up into Christianity. And I'm from Oklahoma, where I lived for 51 years. This doesn't surprise me. This type of toxic masculinity wrapped up into religion and the institutionalized misogyny and sexism that's bu of Christianity.
- [03:38]
C
Yeah, well, I mean, what a gentleman, right? I mean, you can see that there's the guy with the beard, Joel Webin, who is a, I believe, a pastor, very evangelical Christian guy. And he's kind of. He's almost like. Elijah, you're making the, the subtext of this all a little obvious, you know, that it's about sort of imprisoning women or, or sort of ensuring you have this access to a woman. I mean, it's, it's gross stuff. And so, and this is, this is what he was saying when he was supposed to be the, the traditional family man. And so, I mean, as we found out, however, there's. He had this employee, this woman, Sarah Stock, who is herself sort of a Catholic trad wife. And, you know, apparently they were carrying on an affair, I guess, before she got engaged, but he was married with kids. And that, you know, even as they were both proclaiming, you know, oh, we're so against fornication. And, you know, all, as you see Elijah say there, you know, all modern women are so awful and promiscuous that they were carrying on this, this sort of scandal.
- [04:35]
B
Okay, that's, it's nuts. Okay, so this right wing, I think he's a right wing kind of controversial figure. Milo and I mispronounce his last name. What is it you and Opoulos Yiannopoulos. Okay. Milo Yiannopoulos. He goes on a Twitter rant about this. I'm going to read these and I want to get your feedback on these because it's juicy AF. Okay, pop this up Kylie. Milo says in February 2025 Sarah stock and Elijah Elijah Schaefer began sleeping together. The affair ended on the day she got engaged six months later. In that time they experience multiple pregnancy scares. Is it is alleged by one former acquaintance that Sarah got at least one abortion. Do you have any reporting on that?
- [05:21]
C
You know, I don't. I mean basically the backstory here is that this kind of, this content had been circulating for about a week before Milo published it. I got some of it and I had looked at it and said okay well you know this is how can we report this out, demonstrate certainly that this affair happened or this business is imploding. This, this rift TV that we saw in the clip there. And then Milo kind of threw it up online. And, and so I, I do think some of this stuff, I'm not sure about the sourcing on it but we do know there was this relationship and as you said, I mean I think it also offers some insights into the, the, the infighting and the personalities in this right wing media world where someone like Milo who I think shares a lot of Elijah Schaefer's politics is stabbing him in the back here.
- [06:02]
B
Yeah. And then Milo also makes an extraordinary claim that Elijah is gay and a former twink. I believe he goes here. A little known fact about Schaeffer is that he attended the church and he grew up around Benny Johnson and listener. You remember Benny Johnson is the guy that outed himself with the Google targeted gay cruise ad. I did an episode on that. Who's how Schaefer attended sleepovers while they're both attended the Calvary Chapel. Schaefer let the left the church in a hurry when he was discovered having sex with another man. And obviously, I mean I don't know if this is true or not but I think the through line here, this group of MAGA Christians are very sanctimonious and they're very interested in the sex lives of American citizens. They want to legislate marriage and you know what gender or sexuality or you know they're completely want to regulate and control bathrooms and all of these things. Meanwhile, they're involved in this complete depravity and they justify it somehow, as you heard in the tape with Elijah, with religion. And this is not unfamiliar to me because when I grew up in Oklahoma around all of these evangelical Christians, I always found the more overtly religious they are, the more screwed up they were. And so Milo, he seems to be outing this. Does he have sources for this?
- [07:34]
C
You know, it's a little unclear what exactly he's up to. I mean, Elijah Schaefer has often kind of been dogged by these, these gay rumors. I mean, number one, I think we should say basically anyone on the right, any man is going to be acute. They're accusing each other of being gay. And it's kind of funny because Elijah Schaefer now has had multiple scandals involving sex with women. And it's funny that each time they're like, well, you know, more proof of gay Elijah. So that seems, number one, you know, they're really fixated on that every time, you know, I mean, this is a scandal involving a woman and they're saying yet further proof that Elijah's gay. But, but I think, to your point, I mean, it is, I think often as we saw, you know, dating back to the fight over gay marriage, often people, the people who are most exercised about this stuff are, are holding these demons back or these, these, these secrets. And that's why they're so just, you know, agitated about it. Whereas, you know, I think we see this all across the right wing media where these men are just so mad about women and they seem almost like tormented by this idea, I want women or women are, you know, they're treating me so unfairly. It's something that doesn't really seem related to reality. And it often, I think is covering up this, like something much more twisted.
- [08:38]
B
I think it's this growing up non religious around all of these really hardcore core Bible thumpers, deeply indoctrinated by their parents, the number one thing they learn as they're being raised is you cannot have sex. Can have sex, you cannot have sex. Sex is the devil, demons, Satan, all this crazy shit before they even have hormones. And so I think there's this desire for them to hate the object of their desire because the one thing we're genetically hardwired to do is screw. Like it's in our DNA, you know, survival of the fittest, you know, perpetuating the species. And so you see this woman hating policy, which I think abortion is a lot about, that the abortion Policy is like, okay, if this woman, you know, these girls are doing all this, you know, slut cover up protection with all these abortions, which is a complete lie. But in their mind they want to make women, pardon my language less because they have so much inherent guilt from sex with their, with their parents. I dated this guy in high school. Dad was a crazy bible thumper, Southern Baptist, and his mom caught him masturbating. And I mean he was like grounded for a year, like a teenage kid. It's really, this kind of stuff in middle America is very real. And I think it's, it's kind of child abuse. And what we're seeing now is the 1980s megachurch boom that I grew up in. Now these people are adults and they're out in the world and we're seeing how dysfunctional and the debris of their abuse is playing out. How has this played out in the trad wife world?
- [10:16]
C
Well, I mean, this landed like a bombshell. It was a big scandal. I mean, number one, Sarah stock herself. I mean, I think she's like 23, 24. So she's pretty young. She's married already. She had had her marriage blessed by the Pope, by Pope Leo. So she and her husband had gone to Vatican. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. They had gone to Vatican City and they, they, you know, she's in this kind of very traditional like 50s Catholic wedding gown and the Pope is blessing her. And then people are saying, you know, are you kidding me? You roped the porn pope into this sham? And so, so that has obviously been very controversial. She previously. And this, this just shows you what loving people are in this community, this right wing media world. When she got engaged last year, she posted a picture of the wedding ring. And I, you know, I'm not a big judger of diamonds, but it looked a little small and I think a lot of other people felt that the diamond was small. So all these other right wing women who hate her for all these reasons are saying, oh, you know, it's too bad you married a broke boy. All this. So this created a whole other civil war on the right. And so there were a lot of people who are really eager to jump on this. But I think, you know, if you look at, and I'm sure this is something, you know, you, you saw, you know, in Oklahoma, I think there's this kind of new generation of these right wing women who say, you know, we need to go back and we just need to, you know, you need to find a husband at 20 or whatever. And you have these kind of older right wing women who are middle aged or in their 30s who are saying, you know, there's a reason that, you know, after the Mad Men era, women were like, we need to have jobs because your man's going to run off with a younger woman. You know, all of these other things. And so in this case, you have Elijah Schaefer's wife, who's very much a sort of trad figure, staying at home with the two kids, and then suddenly, guess what? He's run off, he's divorcing her. He's having this affair, allegedly. So I think, you know, there is kind of this, like, larger impact that people are pointing to, is like, wait, maybe this trad thing, it was both hypocritical and also, if you're a regular person, it's kind of a dangerous way to live your life.
- [12:01]
B
It's really, really dangerous. And I think when you see these women, and I lump Erica Kirk into this, even though she's a millennial, but when you see these women that have full time jobs that are weaponizing their faith and gender washing with their gender, to say, you need to do this. This is what God wants you to do. And meanwhile, they're working full time, they have full time jobs. They are riding the coattails of hardworking suffragettes and feminists. And for them to have the ability to even have the platform to tell women to go back into the kitchen is a luxury. It reminds me of Scott Bennett. It shows you. I mean, Scott Besant, it shows you how far gay rights have come that he feels safe enough to seek refuge in a room full of homophobes. And so in many ways, these trad wives and Scott Besant and Peter Thiel are a diabolical example of success of civil. Civil rights in women and in LGBTQ plus people.
- [13:08]
C
Yeah, I think so. The idea that, you know, they'll be welcomed into this community, these, whether it's gay people, whether it's women, as long as you agree to kind of help oppress, you know, the other members of your class and other minority groups, I think is very real.
- [13:21]
B
Yeah, I do too. Okay, so is this girl that got the Sarah, she, she had the Pope. What's her wedding? Is her marriage in trouble now after the reveal, this affair?
- [13:35]
C
You know, we don't know. I mean, she, she said, you know, she said, basically, you know, a lot of this stuff about me is made up, but I have sinned in various ways. You know, please pray for me. And then she Deleted her Twitter account. So, you know, I think, and this is another way it's going to break down is like it really falls mostly on the woman. And so I think she's kind of disappearing. On the other hand, Elijah, he's decided to do a heel turn and he came out and I'm, I'm basically quoting him here. He said, yeah, I have a dick and it works. Deal with it. So he's kind of, he's back to the bad boy Persona. I guess the family man stuff is over. It's a very, it's a very twisted community. All these kind of right wing e.
- [14:14]
B
Celebs that is, that is crazy. I think it's so difficult for those of us that aren't in it to realize. Like, you know, sometimes I think, how did somebody vote for Trump three times? Like, how do you see him on tv and then you vote for him three times and then you hear Elijah and then you hear all of this stuff, you're like, oh, this is how. This is the cult. This is the cult of his support. Do you think that this is going to have a backlash on the trad wife movement?
- [14:44]
C
You know, I, I do think it will. I mean, I think in particular Sarah Stock was, I mean, again, this is a woman who was blessed by the Pope. I mean, real kind of like trad ostensibly. Although she also had this kind of like influencer YouTube career. So, you know, not exactly that tr. But, you know, I do think it's suggested, certainly I've seen other young right wing women on the Internet saying, you know, well, wait a minute, maybe things are a little more complex. Maybe I shouldn't be rushing out to get married by 21 and, you know, become a homemaker. Maybe I need to sort of live my own life first. Because, you know, I think this has been kind of a disaster for trads in general.
- [15:19]
B
Yeah. And I honestly, I feel badly for Sarah. I mean, probably completely, deeply indoctrinated as a child, which I think that type of religious indoctrination is child abuse. And here she is, you know, acting out what she thinks is the right thing to do, submitting to men. She's probably never ever had a conversation where somebody spoke to her about consent, intimacy, casual sex, marital sex. It's always just one type of sex and then everything else is of the devil. So I do have some empathy for these young girls. And I think journalism like yours in exposing this is so important because it's really dangerous for women to find themselves in these spaces and this administration and particularly heritage foundation and the Project 2025 with what they want to do, erode a woman's ability to support themselves or file for divorce is really terrifying.
- [16:17]
C
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I. I think this is what interests me about this. I think I'll just talk about, like, gender roles or what the ideal masculinity is or what a marriage should be, because then when you look often, what are these people's marriages? Like, what are they? What are they up to? And it's. It's not just, like, imperfect. It's like a horror show, you know, I mean, this audio came out of Elijah Schaefer berating his wife. I mean, we saw this happen before with Steven Crowder, the very prominent podcaster, you know, yelling at his own very pregnant wife. And. And it's just these. These, like, just twisted things. I mean, you know, supposedly Elijah Schaefer and Sarah Stock first hooked up at cpac, which is one of the big conservative conventions. I mean, you hear these stories about CPAC or the Turning Point USA convention. These, like, people will say, well, you know, you were, like, doing sex acts in the hotel lobby, and everyone. I mean, it's like a bacchanal.
- [17:05]
B
Okay, do you have any scoop on Benny Johnson? And I've heard about him, like, just going. His wife crying and upset in a hotel lobby, and he's just up doing gay stuff with a lot of different men very brazenly. Have you heard this or have any confirmation of this?
- [17:26]
C
Yeah, you know, that's an interesting case. I mean, again, you have a situation where a guy is, like, kind of posing as this very, like, traditional moralist, heterosexual family. But, you know, at least one person from when Benny worked at BuzzFeed has said, oh, yeah, you know, a man, you know, that we hooked up at a party. You mentioned the gay cruise ad thing that popped up. The sort of the algorithmic thing that obviously only comes up if you've been. I have not faced those ads myself. I think you have to kind of be looking for that material. But I think the ultimate tell here was. Was last year, Milo, you know, again, kind of popped up and said, you know, we all know Benny's gay. And then Benny, you know, for whatever reason, he felt that this accusation, this time, it was too. Both he and his wife suggested that they would sue Milo. They said, you know, we're going to stand. We have to protect our family's integrity. And I think it's been, like, two months now. I just looked into this last week. No lawsuit has been filed. You know, it sort of Seems like was this real? Maybe. Maybe they don't want to get this into a courtroom and get it into discovery.
- [18:25]
B
And Milo, he. Correct me if I'm wrong. Is he like a born again incel or something like this? There's something. He was gay, now he's an incel or some.
- [18:36]
C
Yeah, he was gay and then it was supposedly, you know, he was gay and then he supposedly became ex gay and he became like a real trad cath Catholic guy. He would go on like Catholic QVC and sell Bibles or sell, sell like relics. And then, you know, more recently I think he's sort of just lapsed into this kind of general like provocateur troublemaker role where he's like constantly digging up dirt on other people on the right, which I think is as you know, you and I following these characters. I, I think it's certainly interesting there's a storyline that he's found.
- [19:08]
B
Okay, final question. I always associate a lot of this stuff with evangelical Christians, but it seems like there's a far right Catholic component to these trad wives with the Pope and Milo, you know, hard right Catholic. J.D. vance, you know, his third religion now that he's on after his third name change is Catholicism. So are you seeing a lot of like hard right Catholics in this genre?
- [19:34]
C
I am. I, I think we're seeing both the rise of, of what, what they call themselves trad casts. So people who, they really love the Latin mass, typically these are converts, you know, like J.D. vance who see the, the Catholic Church as sort of a. I, I don't know if they see the kind of like the, the non denominational evangelical thing as a little like D class A for them and they want sort of a more elevated version of, of that, those kind of hard right religious values. And there's also been a rise of, of even Greek or Russian orthodo states who are very political and right wing. Elijah Schaefer, for example, I believe he wears an Orthodox cross. I believe he's an Orthodox convert. So it's all these kind of different identities people are trying on, I should say, you know, Sarah Stock only converted to Catholicism I think like less than a year ago and had become this kind of big oh, you know, I, I'm back. You know, I'm going to live like it's the Middle Ages kind of person. And so often I think particularly with these media personalities, I think it's like they're kind of trying on different guards verbs to, for. For content. Essentially.
- [20:34]
B
That's, that's really Interesting, because you know, to be a Catholic, you really have to do a lot of things to do, you know, like evangelical Christians. You can just go down and raise your hand. But I 100 agree with you that some people think that evangelical Christianity is kind of trashy because certainly in Oklahoma City when I grew up, where I grew up, I would have friends that were pretty religious, but not Bible thumpers like the evangelical megachurch people. And they very much looked down on the mega church. Even in the Bible Belt there is like a pecking order of, you know, classified classy religions. And then the, the evangelical megachurch grifters are always kind of at the bottom of the totem pole. And it's interesting to, to know in the Trump regime, like Alito the handmaid, that's what I call Amy Coney Barrett. There's some hard right Catholics in the court. J.D. vance, a hard right Catholic, I believe didn't Peter Till, wasn't he like raised evangelical but now he's hard right Catholic. Do you know that?
- [21:35]
C
You know, I'm not totally sure, but I mean there are a lot. I mean, Candace Owens, for example, is a Catholic convert. I mean she's in the course. They've had this kind of fight because where she says Charlie Kirk wanted to convert to Catholicism. He was on the verge of it. And then the turning point USA people and these evangelical pastors who think they're going to lead this sort of a resurgence or revival because of Charlie Kirk, they're saying, you know, no, he wasn't Catholic. So I mean there is all this religious stuff mixed into it.
- [21:58]
B
It, it's fascinating stuff. Well, thank you for joining me. Whenever you break any other maga sex scandal, I'm in. I'm your gal. I eat this up. I love it. Thank you so much.
- [22:11]
C
Thanks for having me.