Left-Leaning Political Analyst (4:33)

Of being a conspiracy theorist and completely unqualified, is completely incompetent. The only thing I'm surprised he didn't add here was Benjamin Netanyahu has denied the assassination of Charlie Kirk by Israel six times. That's the only thing he's missing in this.

Progressive Political Commentator (4:48)

Okay. And then it gets even weirder, you guys. So on right wing, they're. Everybody's on the right wing and I've spent some time studying it, so I know what they're talking about. They're concerned that, that there wasn't an exit wound. I know this is graphic, but all of us have watched murder mysteries and blood spatter stuff and there's no blood spatter on the tent behind him. I never thought about this. I mean, the whole thing was so traumatizing to see. But a lot of at home detectives on the right wing manosphere are all over this. So Fox News has come out with the following statement. Man of Steel. Charlie Kirk's body stopped a bullet that would typically just go through everything. And it was an absolute miracle nobody else was killed. His surgeon told Turning Point. So now you have the propaganda arm of this administration saying that the bullet, basically his body stopped it. The fact that this is even being addressed, the fact that Benjamin as pump said Benjamin NETanyahu has made six statements that Israel had nothing to do with this. The fact that the director of the FBI is addressing every single conspiracy theory is wild. To me. And it makes me realize nothing that's coming out about this, nothing can be trusted. Absolutely.

Left-Leaning Political Analyst (6:16)

I completely agree. Particularly when all of their focus thus far has been on the left wing. And it's like your problem is in the right wing echo chambers of the media. But those are the exact chambers you're not looking at because those people support you, because they don't give a. But the Fox News thing, I just thought surely they don't think we're that fucking stupid. But then I thought, yeah, they do, because that's who their viewer is.

Progressive Political Commentator (6:41)

Yes. And, and when you talk about miracles to that audience who is hyper religious and, and thinks about the earth and life in terms of spiritual warfare and miracles and you know, this very weird Iron Age type of logic, they, they use the Christian signal to pass the propaganda. And so the use of the word miracle was intentional to their very religious audience that, oh God, you know, prevented the bullet from moving through. Now, some of the people on the right wing aren't buying any of this. And why Fox Trump jumped into the fray, I think we all know is because they'll do anything to support Trump's plans. But this is, this thing just gets weirder and weirder. And as, as you are focusing on the news as this ramp up to authoritarianism and very alarming news stories hit every day, I want to share with you all one of the most helpful tools that I use in understanding the right, understanding the center and understanding the left is an app called Ground News. They are one of our favorite sponsors and they're basically the Spotify of news. And let me give you an example of how you can understand left media versus right media. Here is a left leaning story headline Trump could deploy 1,000 troops to Louisiana cities until 2026 report. And this on Ground News, it tells me that it has a very high factuality that basically the whole article is full of facts. And then a similar headline on the right Trump administration drafts plan to activate 1,000 National Guard troops Pending Republican Governor support report claims. And this tells me that it's a far right news organization. It has a very low factuality. And so this is a very helpful way as we all need to stay engaged to make sure you're getting the correct news and you're reading facts in your news. So listener, I recommend that you join us by going to groundnews.com IP to get 40% off the ground news vantage plan that pumps and I use every single day. They're subscriber funded. And our favorite part is that they are female. Founded by subscribing, you're not only getting a tool we all need today, you're also supporting our work. That's ground gr u n d news.ship and we've linked it right below in the show notes. So pumps as all of this is going on with the director of the FBI, incompetent conspiracy theorist nut way over his skis, Pam Bondi, getting these text messages from Trump that he accidentally publicly tweets or intentionally publicly embarrassed her. I mean, who knows, right? I want you to go after my enemies. I want you to cook the books. I just want to remind everybody, because the local, the legacy news doesn't put enough emphasis on this. All of these people are doing all this illegal, corrupt shit for this guy. Here he is speaking over the weekend. Play the clip.

Donald Trump (9:54)

Armenia and Azerbaijan going on for years. They came to my office, the two leaders. Two great guys. One was there 22 years, one was there seven. And they both said during the entire term of their office, all they did was kill people on the other side. And now they're sitting in my office and they're at the Oval Office. It's pretty wide. And they had one over here, one over there. And slowly, over the course of about an hour, they came close. And at the end of an hour, we were hugging each other and holding hands. It was an amazing thing. And we settled that war that they just had a little menage, as the expression goes. Cambodia and Armenia, it was just starting, and it was a bad one. Think of that. We have, let's see, Cambodia.

Progressive Political Commentator (10:41)

Okay. Everything he just said is a lie. Every. I don't think that the world leaders and Trump did a little slap and tickle in the Oval and just started inching towards each other until they all fell into each other's arms. That's Cambodia and Armenia are 6,000 miles away from one another, have never had conflict. I don't even know if the two countries speak to each other. So he's just sitting here freeballing, making up all the time. And this is who these used to be, serious Republicans that used to believe in national security. I'm looking at, like, Marco Rubio, who used to try to find ways to work with Democrats. They're right wingers, we're left wingers, but how can we work together to make this country safe? They've all sold themselves down the river for this man right here. It's crazy.

Left-Leaning Political Analyst (11:35)

Well, and you know what's interesting is like every other, of course, as president, you're going to Say things that have to be cleaned up by your press office, you know, oh, it was, you know, he misspoke. You've seen that 100 times. This administration double down, doubles down on all the lies he says and tries to make them like their true. There is zero cleanup on aisle nuts because they just continue to double down.

Progressive Political Commentator (12:02)

Because it would make him look weak and right. And in the effort of propping up a strong man, everybody has to prop him up, even when he. Even when he lies. And so I just want to leave you all with one last thing. This is who everybody on the right wing, from voters all the way up to people surrounding this man. They are losing their integrity, their credibility, their moral compass for this guy. It's crazy. Play the clip.

Donald Trump (12:32)

It states, you're going to see the biggest cuts in drug prices, which is going to be great for every aspect. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, everything. It's going to have numbers. I mean, we're going to literally be cutting prices by 500%, 600%. Drugs that sell for $88 in London are selling for $130. You know, think of it. $1,300 for. I call it the Fat Killer. I don't know if it works or not, but it didn't work for a friend of mine who called me. He said he's a very successful guy, seriously obese, seriously highly neurotic, but a brilliant businessman. You need those qualities sometimes, you know.

Progressive Political Commentator (13:15)

Okay, you guys, this is what psychiatrists call the flight of ideas. I mean, first of all, he clearly didn't make it out of math class.

Left-Leaning Political Analyst (13:22)

No.

Progressive Political Commentator (13:23)

Reducing things by 500, 600% means that when you go buy something, you're getting money for it. But he will continue to do this. The right wing Christian nationalists that claim that they are the party of national security, they are the part, the party that loves America, are allowing this man to implement Project 2025. And they are halfway through and their plan is to completely strip America of all of its power and for us to live in isolation and literally make the Handmaids help it. People thought we were being hyperbolic and it's just literally happening. All right, that's all we have for this episode. We'll see you all later today.