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- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Pricing coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.
- [00:21]
B
Democrats nab another deep red district in a deep red state as the over performances add up And I've got two interviews, Pod Save America's Tommy Vitor and the co host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
- [00:31]
C
I'm.
- [00:32]
B
I'm Brian Tyler Cohen and you're listening to no Lie. Some big news out of the deep red state of Louisiana. Democrat Chastity Martinez has won a statehouse seat in a district Donald Trump won by 13 points. And she did it by 24 points, meaning this is a 37 point over performance. 37 points. This result comes just days after another Democrat, Taylor Remt, won a Texas state Senate seat by 14 points in a district Trump won by 17 points, meaning that was a 31 point overperformance. And by the way, I've, I've done some math. If we see the overperformance that we just saw in Louisiana happen across the country this November, we would win every House seat except for like a dozen. Will that happen? No. But it's nice to have goals. And look, when you compare these races to the governor's races, for example, in New Jersey or Virginia, yes, we saw roughly 15 point swings from 2024 and that is unequivocally great news. But those are blue and purple states. And elections of course, are cyclical in those kind of states. Sometimes Republican voters are more enthusiastic and turn out more and they win. And sometimes Democrats are more enthusiastic and turn out more and they win. So the swings are a little less surprising. But these races, races in Texas and Louisiana are not that like we're talking about deep red districts, districts that Donald Trump won districts handily. In districts like this, you cannot win unless you've got Republican support. That means that not only are Democrats turning out and voting for Democrats, but Republicans and independents are defecting and voting for Democrats too. And what's worse for the GOP is that a lot of Republican states have just redrawn their maps based on demographic realignments in 2024 with the assumption that those realignments would be permanent. But Trump has lost 10 points with black voters, he's lost 20 points with Latino voters, he's lost 40 points. Gen Z voters in last week's Texas race, there were some jurisdictions where the Republican lost more than 50 points with Latino voters. So now we look at these maps across this country, these maps that were redrawn to guarantee victory, they're gonna look a whole lot different come 2026, where the Republicans may have just dummy manded themselves out of some seats. So why is this happening? I've thought a lot about how to best sum up the state of affairs in this country. And put, put succinctly, Trump promised America first, right? He promised to take care of the forgotten Americans. Promised to lower costs and protect healthcare and curb inflation and revive American manufacturing. Promised to put the little guy first. All very America first. And yet, since he's been president, since the Republicans have taken full control, he's engaged in a trade war that sent the cost of everything surging. He's gutted health care for Medicaid and ACA recipients, cut food assistance. Inflation's gone from 3% when he took office to basically 3% right now. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Layoffs are at their highest level in almost two decades. Jobs numbers are so bad that virtually no jobs have been added since April. All of which seems bad, right? Seems like something that Republicans and Trump might be falling over themselves to fix. But where has their attention been? It's been on sending a rogue secret police force into our cities where they can murder Americans with impunity and create chaos there. It's been on saber rattling to annex our allies like Greenland. Been on launching foreign wars for oil so that our oil companies can get richer. Been on building ballrooms and arches with Trump's name on it. Encrusting the Oval Office in gold, renovating the Rose Garden. It's been on arresting and prosecuting Trump's political enemies. It's been on trying to prove fraud in an election that happened six years ago. It's been on covering up the most notorious pedophile ring in the history of this country. All of that stuff helps Trump. Not you, not me, but Trump, his family, his donors, his friends. This isn't America first. It is Trump first. And the only thing worse than Trump using the presidency to benefit himself is watching the rest of the gop. All of which has the ability to rein him in, opts instead to do nothing. Mike Johnson and John Thune will never lift a finger to assert their own autonomy and reign him in. They will never block his tariffs or stop the self enrichment or halt his new construction projects. They are there. They exist to serve him. The entire party is there to serve him. Remember these guys have full control of government. They could have delivered all of the relief that they spent the whole campaign promising. Not a single Democrat majority in sight. They've got complete control and instead they allowed conditions for regular Americans to get worse while they enrich themselves. An entire movement based on self dealing, grifting and corruption. And Americans can see the con they've been sold and frankly, they're tired of this Republican Party, the Epstein class screwing over this country while they engage in the most overt corruption in US history thinking that nothing will ever happen to them. They all ran on exposing this Epstein level corruption and instead they are participating in it. A bunch of rich elites who've decided that the rules don't apply to them and they're so brazen that they're doing it all in the open. I would say that Republicans would change their ways as we head toward November, but they won't. Like they would faster rig the rules of the election before they govern with an ounce of integrity. This is a party that has fully abandoned democracy, which means that the results we saw in Louisiana, in Texas, in New Jersey, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, all across the country aren't a fluke. They are a clear sign that if we keep putting in the work, keep censoring regular people, that we have the ability to relegate Trumpism to the dustbin of history. But it means all gas and no breaks from now until November. Next up are my interviews with Tommy Vitor and the co host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, no Lies brought to you by BetterHelp we get it. February is full of flowers, candy, stuffed animals and of course, lots of talk about relationships and dating. And no matter where you are, whether you're married or dating or single or just focusing on you, you're right on time. Therapy can help you find your way and see more clearly where you want to be. 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- [07:54]
A
Did you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Peretti? For what? For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent? Well, again, I just described to you what I said about Alex Preddy, which is that he's a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest. But if it is a guy, if it's determined that his civil rights were violated by this FBI investigation, will you apologize? So if. If this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical leads to another. It's a real case. Do a thing.
- [08:21]
B
So, Tommy, that was J.D. vance being asked about his initial response to the Alex Preddy shooting, where, of course, he called him an assassin. He was part of that, you know, cadre of Trump administration officials who viewed their role in all of this as not getting to the bottom of what happened, but instead painting a narrative before. Before anybody was able to actually see the facts. So your reaction, first and foremost, to what we heard from Vance?
- [08:44]
C
Yeah, I mean, J.D. vance is the smear merchant in chief. He gleefully retweeted Stephen Miller's claim that Alex Preddy was an assassin who, quote, tried to murder federal agents. Before that, JD Vance called Renee Good a deranged leftist. No, actually she was just a mother of three who was out observing ICE activities. And so what, you know, the pattern from J.D. vance is he is willing to say and do anything that gets him more power or that keeps him in power. And I think that is what we're seeing here. And that is why he is detestable. He's also whiny. He acts like he is the victim here for being asked the question, not the individual who is murdered. And I hope that Republican voters find him as repulsive as we all do and that he is not the Democratic nominee in 2028. But, God, that guy sucks.
- [09:31]
B
I wanna talk about that for a moment. And I don't do horse race politics, certainly not about 2028. There's so much stuff that we have to figure out before 2028 to even have the luxury of a free and fair election in 2028. But just on this idea of what we're seeing from J.D. vance, I mean, to your point, like, he is utterly contemptible. He also doesn't have the same charisma that, and I know people are gonna scoff at this, but the same charisma that Trump has, at least with Republican voters. Do you think that that reads when you see stuff like this?
- [09:59]
C
I do. Look, Donald Trump, I realize people hate him, but before he was in politics, he was one of the most famous people in the world. He was. His brand. Was. Brand was the guy on the Apprentice. There's a lot of people who still know him as that. It's aspirational, right? Like, people wanna be rich, they wanna be famous, they wanna be successful. That was the image he sold to the world. Trump also, like when you see him on the stump, yeah, he's nuts sometimes and a racist and a misogynist and he can be awful and he does the weave and pretends. It's like a. It's a strategy. But he can be funny. He makes the crowd laugh, he entertains them. Like, people stick around for hours and hours to listen to this guy. I can't imagine listening to JD Vance read anything longer than a menu. It sounds like hell on earth. So, yeah, he sucks.
- [10:45]
B
Got no risk and he's got no Riz. Well, look, this, this is kind of like one piece of bad news and what has been a decidedly horrendous week for the Trump administration as far as the news is concerned, because aside from, you know, JD digging his own grave on the Alex party shooting and kind of the ice, the ice overreach that we're seeing right now, we also had a brand new tranche of the Epstein Files release. This was, I believe, the biggest one yet. Trump has been named in there God knows how many times. There's, there's like memes going around the Internet that say Trump is named in the Epstein Files more than Harry Potter's name pops up in the Harry Potter series. Like all seven books of Harry Potter.
- [11:23]
C
Who counted that?
- [11:24]
D
That's amazing.
- [11:25]
B
Hope.
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A
What is that?
- [11:26]
B
Hopefully some AI. Like, if AI is needed for anything, that's what AI is needed for.
- [11:31]
C
Thank you, Claude, whoever.
- [11:33]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's where our water is going. But one of the points that I think worth noting in this latest batch of the Epstein files is just how many Trump administration officials were listed in there. We had Kevin Warsh, who is Trump's new pick for the Fed chair. We had Howard Lutnick, Trump himself, and just this massive.
- [11:55]
C
Elon Musk.
- [11:55]
B
Elon Musk was in there quite a bit. Was any of this surprising to you given the fact that the Trump administration has been doing its level best to claim that in fact the Democrats are the one who really got hurt by this latest release?
- [12:07]
C
Yeah, look, I was sort of surprised in a few ways. I was surprised by like the totality of, of Epstein's relationships and how global his network was. Like, the guy, the guy is literally friends with multiple royal families. The guy was getting forwarded readouts of conversations that were happening in 10 Downing street at the height of like the, the Eurozone debt crisis. He was friends with folks in the Gulf. He was helping the former Prime Minister of Israel plan his post government. This guy was really dialed in. But on top of that though, there's all these emails where he is sending like disgusting, crude commentary about women. And then there's other emails where he's sending messages that seem like they're two of his victims that are incredibly threatening and cruel and manipulative. So like this guy, like the, the, the web he we wove is broader than I thought and like the depth of the depravity of the people around him is far worse than I ever could have imagined.
- [13:07]
B
Yeah, there was one email in particular that really kind of shocked me. And that's given what we already know about what these emails are. And we can put that email up here on the screen. It's from redacted to Jeffrey Epstein. He said, thanks for a good time last night. The littlest girl was a little naughty. I mean, obviously the contents of that email aside, because the depravity is on full display with those contents. But what was striking was the fact that the sender was redacted. And we've been told by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that the DOJ is not looking to prosecute anybody for the Epstein files, that there were apparently no co conspirators. This whole thing was just a sex trafficking ring where Jeffrey Epstein trafficked girls. Nowhere to no one. And yet we have stuff like this. Notwithstanding the fact that the DOJ didn't redact plenty of names in these files. Like there were victims names, there were images that were not redacted. But they had plenty of time to redact the senders of an email to Jeffrey Epstein saying hey, thanks for. Thanks for a good time at the hands of your littlest girl last night. And so just, you know, what did you think when you saw that?
- [14:18]
C
Look, I mean, I just think the hard part about all of this is despite getting, you know, millions of new documents sort of released by doj, I just don't trust anything they say. Like, Cash Patel is still claiming that there was nothing actionable in these files that could have led to the prosecution of other individuals that Epstein trafficked. How? How is that possible? Cash Patel is also out there saying that he still thinks Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Like, really? I just feel like I just. I don't believe a word they said. I don't believe that they weren't spending the vast majority of their time doing everything possible to cover up for Donald Trump and the people around him, whether that is redacting documents, destroying documents, making sure some things, like, never saw the light of day. And, you know, like Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, the members of Congress who authored the legislation that led to this release, are going to try to do their best to review the redacted portions that were withheld. But, like, that's a monumental task, and they just don't know what might still be hidden from them by these liars.
- [15:18]
B
Yeah. So I spoke with Jamie Raskin on the Judiciary Committee, and he said that Todd Blanche has agreed to meet. Also spoke with Ro Khanna, also said that Todd Blanche has agreed to meet so that they can have some visibility into these files. Of course, there was also an effort by Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie to go to court and get a special master to be able to oversee all of this stuff. So that would basically take it out of the hands of the DOJ and into the hands of the court, because the court would directly oversee the special master. That effort failed because there wasn't a lawsuit. So there was nothing to compel, to legally compel the DOJ to have to do this. But there are some folks who do have standing. Like, for example, I mean, there are arguments that Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna themselves do have standing if they want to bring an actual lawsuit. The survivors have standing if they want to bring a lawsuit. So this special master question is not over. And I think, frankly, given the way that the administration has comported itself with regard to these files, getting it in the hands of a special master is not just. Is not just something that these members of Congress should seek to do. It's absolutely necessary because this administration's been engaged in this cover up for the better part of a year. I mean, we found out last February by Pam Bondi that the files were, quote, on her desk and she was just waiting to review them. And it's been a year and we still don't have the files. We also know, for example, that there were other co conspirators, thanks to emails that were written by, by prosecutors within the DOJ that say, oh, that say that there were 10 co conspirators, you know, met guys in New York and Ohio and Florida. And so we know this stuff exists and this administration has done its level best to make sure to kind of obfuscate all of this stuff so they have no credibility left. The only way to actually get have some shred of credibility left is to make sure that it gets in the hands of a special master.
- [17:13]
C
Yeah, there needs to be some sort of independent review. I think that's a great idea. But, you know, I'm sort of agnostic to what form it takes ultimately. Like, the good news in the near term is there are so many documents now in the public domain. The Trump administration can vet them for obvious things like removing Donald Trump's name or whatever, but they can't vet the kind of information or leads that those documents generate for great investigative journalists who want to continue pulling this thread. So as much as Trump says, like, the story's over, we need to move on. Like, I think it's just beginning. Also, eventually, hopefully, Democrats will win back the White House. We will be in charge of the Department of Justice. There should be some sort of independent review or congressional hearings or, I don't know, 911 style commission, like whatever the form might be to ensure that, you know, what you just described happens, which is some sort of independent, honest review. And also, hopefully, like a lot of these documents probably existed in a bunch of different places. You know, like Trump can try to burn them a doj, but are they sitting in a New York FBI office somewhere? Are there documents in Florida? Like, we just don't know.
- [18:16]
B
Well, consider to consider too. If we find out that there were efforts by this administration to obfuscate what actually exists and protect these people from prosecution, they can put themselves in a position where they become accessories after the fact. And so if you have DOJ officials, Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, just because they are federal officials now, first of all, they're going to lose that protection, the protection of Trump's DOJ once they leave office. And if in fact a crime was committed to prevent these people from facing the accountability that they deserve, any prosecutors can bring these charges against them. I spoke with both Keith Ellison and Rob Bonta, the AGs in Minnesota and California, about the fact that you had members of the DOJ who were pre clearing these ICE agents. And if in fact we find out that they committed state crimes, because we're never gonna see any accountability at the federal level. But if they committed state crimes by assassinating Renee Good and Alex Preddy and instead they, they sought to. To pre clear these guys and prevent any real accountability, those people, the Todd Blanches of the world, Pam Bondies of the world, can themselves be in a position where they get charged with accessory after the fact. You know, if they're in front of an actual prosecutor.
- [19:31]
A
Yeah.
- [19:31]
C
And your point about state charges is important because sure, Trump can give them pardons for federal crimes. That, that's a tough political sell, right? Like, oh, I preemptively pardon you for anything to do with the Epstein files. Pam Bondi like, nothing shady there, but he cannot pardon them for state crimes, so they should worry about that.
- [19:49]
B
And finally, Tommy, one more point here, and that is that we found out also in their effort to kind of get us to diffuse our attention onto something else, that Republicans are gonna be hauling Bill and Hillary Clinton in to testify in front of Congress. So do you think this is gonna finally satisfy their desperation to get our attention off of Trump administration officials and onto the Democrats in light of Trump basically trying to shoehorn in this idea that this is not a Republican problem, it's not a Trump problem, it's a Democrat problem.
- [20:21]
C
Yeah, I mean, they can try. I just, I sort of think it's just more likely to keep the entire issue in the news. Maybe there's really uncomfortable questions for Bill Clinton. If that's the case, I don't really care. He is being treated differently than others. It is certainly unfair that Bill and Hillary Clinton have to testify and Donald Trump does not, or, you know, others in the administration do not. It's clearly a partisan agenda driven exercise. But if he has information that he can provide about Epstein and his crimes and his co conspirators, then he should do that. And I just, you know, nine Democrats voted to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt. Clearly Dems are far more focused on actual accountability and, you know, getting the victims some truth and reconciliation here and some justice. Republicans just want a political weapon, but.
- [21:10]
B
Whatever, that's a great point because I think the Trump team thinks that if they can just get Bill in there, that it will reflect poorly off of Democrats. But Democrats don't care about Bill Clinton. Democrats don't care about anybody who is involved in the Epstein files. The cultish mentality that Trump has is just him projecting how he views the Republican Party, rightfully so. And so he knows that if he can just like. Or he thinks that if he can get a person with a D next to their name and get them in the spotlight and prove that they've done something wrong, then the whole party will somehow rally to their defense, and it will just kind of filter down into the, you know, into the usual reductive D versus R fight. But no D's care about Bill Clinton or anybody who is involved in the Epstein files, and certainly not in the same way that you have a lot of Republicans rallying to Trump's defense. So if there are any Democrats, fuck them. Like we don't care. No one's rallying around anybody who's done anything wrong or who is implicated in any way in the Epstein files. And so I think that this is him thinking it's gonna, you know, this is gonna be some. Some silver bullet, but. But it's not.
- [22:19]
A
Yeah.
- [22:19]
C
Yeah, there was. Politico interviewed some of the Democrats who voted to hold the Clintons in contempt. Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs said the following. Anyone should be held accountable, regardless of political party. And then they asked her whether Democrats would have been less likely to hold a former president of their own party in contempt two decades earlier. She said, I don't know, man. I was in kindergarten. So I think it's just the perfect response, like, who cares?
- [22:44]
B
Look, I'm fine with this. Not only because I don't care about Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton or any Democrat or any Republican or any human being who is involved with Jeffrey Epstein, but also because if Republicans want to establish a precedent where you can haul former presidents and their wives in front of Congress to answer for the Epstein files, that's fine. Like, I actually. I'm actually in favor of that precedent. So haul as many people in front of Congress as you want. Hold anybody accountable who is engaged in any type of wrongdoing. And look, there will be a world where Trump is no longer in office. And if this is how he wants to spend his post presidency life, then more power to him.
- [23:23]
C
Enjoy. Enjoy, sir.
- [23:25]
B
Well, to that end, I think that a lot of focus among the right right now is trying to get people to, you know, focus on something else that. To distract everybody by pointing at Bill Clinton or whatever it may be. This is a concerted effort on the right. Our job as members of progressive independent media is to push back against that. So a small step that everybody watching can take right now to help amplify these voices and push back against this narrative setting by Republicans and conservatives is to subscribe to Pod Save America's channel. I'm gonna put that link right here on the screen, and I'll put the link to this channel on the screen as well. Completely free to subscribe. But it's a great way to support our work, a great way to help fix this imbalance in the independent media ecosystem, where Republicans have a massive advantage. So again, those links are on the screen. Tommy, appreciate your time, man.
- [24:10]
C
Great to see you, buddy.
- [24:14]
B
No LIE is brought to you by ZBiotics. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. So I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or I can have a great next day. That is, until I found Pre Alcohol Zebiotics. Pre Alcohol Probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. So here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Look, I won't lie, I was a bit on the fence about pre alcohol initially, but then actually, while I was hanging out with my buddy Tommy Vitor over at Crooked Media's holiday party, I gave it a shot. And believe me, it is the real deal. And even Tommy, who is a degenerate drinker, uses it too. And he manages to show up for all of his podcast recordings. Are you ready to try it? Go to ZBiotics.com BTCNow you'll get 15% off your first order when you use code BTC at checkout. Plus, it's backed by a 100% money back guarantee, so there's no risk. Subscriptions are also available for maximum consistency. Remember to head to ZBiotics.com BTC and use the code BTC at checkout for 15% off. I'm joined now by two of the hosts for the QAnon Anonymous podcast, Jake Rockatansky and Travis Vew. Thanks so much for coming on.
- [25:43]
D
Thanks for having me.
- [25:45]
A
Always a pleasure. Kind of.
- [25:46]
B
So, yeah, Kind of. So y' all are the foremost experts on all things conspiracy theories kind of downstream from QAnon. And I think what we're seeing right now as the Epstein files are front and center in the news is, and I feel like I have to give an apology here because a lot of this stuff where it relates to, you know, the basis of QAnon, that there is this, that there's this elite pedophile ring, this cabal of people who act with impunity. A lot of, a lot of us on the left, I think, scoffed at this because it just seems so fantastical. But in fact, I think we're seeing as it relates to Epstein that it's, that it's very much a real thing. I mean, maybe not, you know, a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza place that has no basement, but, but, you know, in effect, this stuff does exist. And so I'm curious, as you have all of these adherents to the whole QAnon conspiracy theory and the whole QAnon universe, whether there's any acknowledgement of the fact that, that the people that they voted for to usher in, to usher in exposure on all of this stuff are the very people that are participating in the crime that they want to condemn.
- [26:56]
D
No, I wouldn't say that there is a lot of like self awareness about that. I mean, is, there's, there's. Because they, they spin these wild stories on the idea that, for example, Trump was somehow like undercover working with Epstein to take him down. They credit Trump with, with like the, with the fact that Epstein was arrested under his last administration, even though, you know, he was not sort of like watched carefully enough that allowed him to die in his, in his prison cell. And like they, they also credit, credit him with the fact that these, that these are being, that these files are being released now. So. Yeah, no, there's, there's not a lot of acknowledging. Even though, even though Trump was a close associate of Epstein and so was as these, as we discovered, these emails. So was Howard Lutnick, the current Secretary of Commerce, and Steve Bannon was also extremely close with Epstein. They exchanged hundreds of messages according to tranche of documents.
- [27:56]
B
Well, it seems like there's just this, this really blatant cognitive dissonance then. Because, you know, I guess the question is, is this more about exposing this cabal of pedophiles or is it about protecting Trump? Because anybody who is acting in good faith, who's legitimately interested in taking down or exposing the people involved in this pedophile ring could easily see, okay, Trump is involved. Lutnick is involved. You know, he named Alex Acosta, who obviously gave Epstein his sweetheart deal in his first term. He was involved. Trump's new Fed chair pick was implicated in the Epstein files. And so you have all these people, anybody acting in good faith would just be able to say, like, okay, these people are clearly not on the level. They are the very people that we're seeking to expose. And so is QAnon more about exposing pedophiles, this cabal of pedophiles, or is it about just protecting Trump?
- [28:46]
A
You know, I think you can see two sort of differing systems of belief here, and it tends to be between the QAnon influencers and your sort of standard on the ground believers. I mean, if you go to the most popular sort of pro QAnon accounts on X, they also are combing through the Epstein files and finding things that label people that, you know, kind of match their general area of target. So they too are combing through and ignoring everything else. And I mean, Travis pointed out to me, we had an episode come out about seven years ago that was called Epstein the Real Pizzagate. This has always been the hardest part of my job is on some level understanding that QAnon directionally is kind of right, given everything that we know about Epstein. And I think you have a lot of influencers, at least that I've seen, who are going to do whatever they can to keep reframing the information as it comes out to align with their pro QAnon beliefs. Now, I do think there is an opportunity for your run of the mill believer to see this. And if they are, here's the question. Are they more passionate about anti pedophilia than they are pro Trump? And I do think that the answer for some is yes. I think this could be a potential exit ramp in the same way that when Trump called Epstein a hoax. Think about that now, given everything that's come out. But when he called it a hoax, there were a lot of people who said, wait a minute, absolutely not. And they, they began to kind of fall away.
- [30:40]
B
Well, what are you guys seeing in online forums and stuff? I mean, you know, you have to. Part of your job is that you have to subject yourself to an even darker part of the Internet than even I have to deal with on a daily basis. And so, but, you know, that's. Your losses are gain. And so what are you seeing, you know, on these online forums from folks?
- [31:01]
D
I mean, there's lots of, like, claims of, like, vindication. If you can believe it from, like, from these people. Just because. Because the general narrative about elite corruption and child abuse and cover ups and elite impunity was generally correct. But like we mentioned on our podcast, we've been talking about that for like seven plus years. I mean, the fact that there's elite abuse and impunity and people who sometimes abuse children and cover up for those who do that part has been. Well, no, we've got a lot more details about what this network looks like thanks to the, thanks to these documents. But like, yeah, they do this thing where they serve, like they sort of like retreat into these abstractions where like, they feel like, well, they were like, generally right. So their wildest nonsense about like, you know, pizza code words are also right, which is just not the case.
- [32:02]
B
But they feel vindicated at the fact that they ushered in a Trump administration who are themselves the ones who are implicated in all of this. And so where does the vindication come from? Like, okay, yes, that there, there is a cabal of people, but the people who they empowered to expose all of this stuff are the ones who did it. And so does that part ever register?
- [32:23]
A
Well, I mean, kind of baked into the theory, there are so many little rules kind of baked into QAnon that allow you to kind of opt out when you run up against, you know, a piece of real information that. That makes sense.
- [32:40]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:40]
A
That makes the entire mind pyramid collapse, you know, otherwise. And you know, one thing, you know, that that has been consistent is that Trump is. You know, I remember what's really interesting about the Epstein stuff is that QAnon and people and conspiracy theorists, they would always use Epstein as like a, as like a stepping stone to then launch into another unproven conspiracy to say that that's real, that they never talk about the facts of Epstein itself, but they would always use Epstein to say, well, because Epstein exists, then all of these other conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and all this stuff are real. And they've consistently believed that Trump has infiltrated this circle. All of the stuff about Trump being a Democrat in a former life, being friends with the Clintons, attending Chelsea's wedding, all of his interactions with Epstein that we've seen up until this point, he.
- [33:35]
B
Was just, he was just a double agent this entire time for the last 50 years.
- [33:39]
A
Exactly. Now, my brother sent me a video this morning of him audibly shitting his pants during a meeting and ending the meeting. So the idea of him being like Liam Neeson from Taken and infiltrating, like the biggest, you know, child trafficking ring, and he is this sort of hero at the center is becoming less and less plausible. But it was unplausible in 2017, you know, when the first Q drops started happening. So the idea, you know, if they believed it then it's, you know, they're gonna believe it now.
- [34:16]
B
Right. Is there. I mean, why do you need. Why do you need, like, Epstein to be a stepping stone into some bigger conspiracy when Epstein's situation in and of itself is already gigantic? I mean, you have. You have world leaders, you have princes, you have, I'm sure, like, you have all of these people. I mean, Elon was planning. Elon Musk, who was plan visits to Epstein's islands that we found out half the Trump administration is named in these files. Why do you need this to be just like some little stepping stone to a more vast conspiracy theory when this is pretty damn vast unto itself?
- [34:56]
D
Yeah, I share your frustration with the way they interpret things, because I always feel like, isn't this enough what we know? Isn't this relevant enough? Isn't this outrageous enough without having to add on all of these extra sort of, like, wilder theories that have no evidentiary basis at all? And I think the problem with conspiracists is that they're. They're really attracted to this idea of secret, esoteric information. And if, like, if it's being reported it, like, everywhere, if it's. If it's. If it's provable in documents to the point that, like, you know, just normal, casual news consumers know about it, it's no longer secret and esoteric.
- [35:38]
A
Right.
- [35:38]
B
It's kind of. It's kind of like embracing conspiracy theory because. Because they want to be in that world of conspiracy theory.
- [35:44]
A
Yeah.
- [35:44]
D
And they. They want. They want to have. Feel like they have sort of like they possess a higher level of knowledge of how the world works than everyone else. I feel like this feeling of, like, specialness, I think, is really more important to them than sort of, like, adhering to what's known and what's. What's well and well in evidence.
- [36:02]
B
Do you think that it was a mistake for the Trump orbit? And I don't necessarily say Trump himself, because I don't think he was ever that involved in, like, the QAnon stuff, but there were plenty of people in Trump's orbit who were. Do you think it was a mistake for them to embrace this, given the fact that, you know, we're now in a situation where all of these people themselves are, you know, either implicated or are part of an administration that's implicated in this. And so it's only reflecting poorly off of them. Like, there's no world in which. In which the last few releases of the Epstein files do anything but reflect poorly on, you know, Trump and Bannon and Lutnick and war and, you know, any Elon Musk, whoever it may be. So do you think that embracing this whole world from the outset, given what. Given where we are now, was a mistake?
- [36:50]
D
Well, I mean, I think, I think, like, politically, maybe their, their idea was like, well, they're going to sort of like, sort of like encourage this, sort of like this very passionate sort of like. But minority base of people who believe that, you know, Trump in a circle can do no wrong and, and anyone who opposes him are. Are pure evil. Right. And then all of a sudden, you don't have to worry about, you know, things like, you know, like, like proving your, proving your case. I mean, I feel like this was sort of their way of trying to solidify their base and keep them in a bubble and keeping them from ever questioning why, for example, Epstein called, like, Trump, like, is his best friend in a recording in these sorts of things. I mean, I think it's like, it's kind of like a desperate strategy, but I think that was probably what they were trying to do.
- [37:43]
A
Yeah. My general opinion is that they kind of had no choice. To a certain degree, I see this happen with Trump just since 2016, is he's constantly kind of left with the bottom of the barrel as he sort of peels away. Anybody still reasonable that's sort of in his orbit. And like Travis said, I think there must have been some kind of internal data that QAnon was enough of a contingency and enough of a voter bloc that they eventually had no choice. And who knows? I mean, in the early days, I remember they were trying to distance themselves from QAnon as much as possible, and it was Trump who was going, well, I don't know, I think they like me quite a bit. You know, he was the one who kind of, he couldn't stop talking about him because they were, you know, they loved him the most.
- [38:34]
B
Right. I mean, the crazy thing, like, even, even with the shooting of Renee Good, who is like the perfect foil for Trump, the fact that her parents were apparently Trump supporters, like, that gets to him. It doesn't matter ideology or beliefs or philosophy. He just likes that you like him. That's it.
- [38:53]
D
I mean, yeah, I think, I think, yeah, I think he's very strategic in terms of like, like coalition building where he's like, like, it's like even if he doesn't necessarily agree with people, it's like, so he's like, he said that like one of the, when there, there's only two times he was really asked about QAnon during his first administration. And one of the times he asked what he knew about it, he said, like, I know they like me very much and that's really all that's important to him. It's like, it's like he knew that these were people who are passionate about them, who supported them, and he was not interested in alienating, eating them as a consequence of that.
- [39:25]
B
What is the state of the Kuhnen movement right now? I presume that it probably peaked sometime around, you know, 2016, 2017, 2018, maybe around the time that Marjorie Taylor Greene was getting into Congress. But, but I'm just curious whether, whether you think that it's, that it's hit its peak or whether we're still seeing this movement grow as more people come online, more people get sucked into rabbit holes and conspiracy theories and, and you know, we have obviously less digital literacy with the, with the introduction of more AI and on and on. I feel like just people's general sense of what's real and what's not is kind of getting worse, not better.
- [40:05]
D
Well, I mean, I think it kind of just sort of got absorbed into the wider kind of like right wing media sphere. I mean, we saw recently, like with just a few weeks ago that the, that the, the Department of Labor Twitter account was tweeting out QAnon related slogans. And so, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like either someone at the Department of Labor social media team is very pilled or they understand that this is still a base that's worth signaling.
- [40:34]
A
To or they know how much it upsets liberals or even your, your never Trump Republicans who hate QAnon more than anything because it, you know, to them it made the whole conservative movement like complete idiots, you know, completely disconnected from reality. You know, so that's like the third option is that they know that. They know that people know where it's coming from. They know that some journalist is going to go, why is the Department of Labor doing where we go one we go, you know, they know it's going to cause a reaction. And that is unfortunately a part of politics now is this like sort of like antagonistic nature that I really think, you know, began, you know, in 2016 with Donald Trump.
- [41:25]
B
I mean, look, it's rage bait and it's the currency of the Internet. I think that if they have the opportunity to get a bunch of libs mad so they can, you know, own the libs online, then, like, that's a perfectly acceptable thing for them to do, as far as they're concerned. How many people do you think we're talking about here? Because you're talking about this contingent. And I think for. For normies like myself, like, I cannot grasp a world where there are more than, like, a handful of them in some, you know, MySpace group or some Facebook group circa, like, 2013. But, like, how roughly. What are we talking about here? Oh, it's about numbers.
- [42:02]
A
It's pretty bad, Travis. The last numbers were really bad.
- [42:06]
D
I'll confess. I haven't checked on the polling. People haven't done polling on QAnon belief in a couple years. But, like, last. Last. Last they checked, it was like, it was in the neighborhood of sometimes, like, 4 or 5%, which is, you know, millions of America. Americans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's. It's.
- [42:27]
A
That's like.
- [42:27]
B
That's like 15 or 15 to 17 million people.
- [42:30]
D
Yes, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And, like, I mean, also happens to be roughly the same level of polling for belief in that. That there's a cabal of lizard people who rule. There's lots of people who believe silly things.
- [42:45]
B
We're getting close to, like, the number of people who think that Tylenol is safe. You know, like, we're gonna have more people who believe in QAnon than believe that, like, you can take Tylenol and.
- [42:54]
A
Be okay, but, like, look how powerful QAnon is to a certain degree. I mean, if you watch that original Marjorie Taylor Greene Facebook post video where she's going over all the Q stuff, she's not looking great.
- [43:08]
B
Great.
- [43:08]
A
But her steadfast belief in QAnon propelled her to some of the highest levels of power one can achieve in America. Only now to have her kind of back away from it. Now, she's an interesting example of somebody whose true beliefs might put them at odds with the president. Now, I don't wanna give Marjorie Taylor Greene that kind of credit. I think it's probably more likely that she kind of just senses where the wind is going and is an opportunist, doesn't actually believe in anything and will go wherever she feels is, like, you know, most advantageous for her. But, you know, there is an example of a very public person who has, you know, gone against Donald Trump in the wake of how he's handled the Epstein files.
- [43:55]
B
I'm curious what the reaction has been to her because she was, I mean, she was even more bought in. I mean, she was a better representative, a clear representative of the whole QAnon movement than Trump ever was. And, and, but, but there is a lot of it, a lot of kind of allegiance to Donald Trump within the whole QAnon movement, too. And so now that those two hate each other, are in conflict with each other, where does the movement more closely align with? Like, is it, is it Trump, even though he was never really like a QAnon, you know, true believer like Marjorie Taylor Greene was?
- [44:31]
D
I mean, yeah, I mean, Green is interesting because, yeah, she was someone who very sincerely believed a lot of she on the QAnon bandwagon just a couple months after the first Q drops. And then, and then she somehow got gotten to Congress. But it was, it. But the problem was that, that she was a true believer. According to reporting, one of the things that caused the rift is that she pushed for release of the Epstein files, which, which, which Trump was a lot more uncomfortable with. And it was really interesting if you watch her video in which he and she announced her release resignation, which was, it was November of last year. She said that there is no plan to save the world and no 4D chess being played. This seems to be a direct reference to QAnon. There's a, the Plan to Save the World is a very successful, very popular QAnon video. So she seems to be saying what got her to stop believing some of the wilder claims of QAnon was working with Trump directly.
- [45:30]
B
Yeah, but I mean, there's irony in that, in that, that the whole basis of this thing is that Trump is going to be the salvation. Right?
- [45:38]
D
Yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's the, that's the big, that's the big fantasy. But like I said, it was like, it's like we have the, the only example of a QAnon true believer who got the Congress, was able to work with Trump himself, wound up, wound up coming to realize that that's not true. He's not, he's not the savior.
- [45:55]
B
I'd be curious to know how many people lost faith in Trump because you have this one true believer, you have Margie Tiller Green. Green, who is now at odds with Trump over this very issue, is because he's the one suppressing these files and clearly implicated in these files. If that's not enough for a bunch of these people to say, look, if Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's like, the only one in Washington, D.C. who's actually, like, you know, on our level, if even she is gonna break with Trump because of his involvement in all of this stuff that we claim to condemn, then, like, how is that. How is that not good enough for these people who've put their faith in Trump?
- [46:29]
D
That's a good question.
- [46:31]
B
I mean, I'm coming here with logic, too. I mean, a lot of this is. You kind of have to suspend that.
- [46:35]
A
Yeah. I mean, we. We are increasingly barreling towards a world where it. It. It's of no use to look at time poorly spent and reflect, if that makes any sense. You know, why. Why go. Cause now, at this point, if you're still on the. The QAnon bandwagon and you've now waited through four years of Trump, four years of Biden, and a year into this new administration for Hillary Clinton to be perp walked, and it's just the opposite. It seems like Hillary Clinton is doing far, far better than Trump is. So at this point, you would have to say, you know what? Wow, these last, like, 10 years almost that I've spent are, like, wasted. That's really hard for people to do. You can do it. I just. Right before we jumped on, I checked one of the very popular, like, pro QAnon accounts on X or Twitter, whatever, and the post today was taking a break, gonna go spend some time with my family.
- [47:49]
B
You know, it's bad when even, like, the terminally online people are like, hey, I'm gonna go touch grass outside right now.
- [47:54]
A
And that's the. That is, I think, in my opinion, probably the best thing that could come from this for people who are still wrapped up in conspiracy theories, QAnon, all that stuff is if it makes them upset enough to want to take a break. You know, one thing that we've seen over time is that the less time you spend on the Internet and the more time you spend with loved ones, family, something that's grounded in reality, these conspiracies can become. You can become less passionate about them as other things sort of, like, take their place. But that's, you know, it's. For a lot of people, it's fun. You know, I was on, you know, I was on Blue sky and Threads, looking at all of the posts about Epstein and all of this stuff. And. And look, people are baking. It's fun to go online and try to figure out a narrative that makes sense no matter what, you know, what political aisle you sort of reside on. And, you know, it's tough as Long as the Internet's there, there's going to be people that are going to have a narrative for you that aligns with something that you like. And it's increasingly useless to try to go, well, this is just from this one source, or who is this from? Like, let me go, Let me go check. I'm gonna see what this other outlet is publishing to get the real ideas. It's way easier to just find something that you go, yeah, that sounds right to me. And that, and that's reality.
- [49:21]
B
You guys said something interesting in our last conversation that, that stuck with me, and that is that there's always something. There's always gonna be a new, like, if you're in the world of conspiracy theory, there's always gonna be another conspiracy theory to explain away conspiracy theory that aren't neatly resolved or that don't make sense. And so I say that as the backdrop for this question, will there come a point where Trump will have been in office four years during his first term, four years during his second term, and even now, with full control of government, full control of the Department of Justice, he's got as compliant an Attorney General as you could possibly ask for. We're still not gonna see Hillary Clinton perp walked because of some pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza place. It's just not gonna happen. And so will there ever be a point where those folks who believed in all of this stuff will say, even under the best conditions possible, all of our people in charge, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, all those people, we're not getting what we want. Maybe it was always bullshit.
- [50:25]
D
Yeah, I mean, the research really shows that less like the, like conspiracism is really, is a mindset and that, that, that does something for people. It aids sort of like, you know, sort of like sometimes like even like social bonds. I mean, like, being a conspiracist gives you instant access to a passionate community who are kind of like, interested in the same things as you. You know, it's, it's a. It's sort of like sometimes it's more of a way to like, you know, ward off off uncertainty and fear and anxiety and loneliness more than is an earnest attempt to find the truth. So, yeah, for that reason, of course, there's always going to be people who, like, who concoct these, these elaborate theories not because they laugh, because they're really interested in uncovering corruption, because it just, it makes them, makes them feel connected, makes them feel special in a way that Nothing else does.
- [51:19]
B
It's more like this is. It's a. It's a journey, not the destination type deal.
- [51:22]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [51:24]
B
Jake, what do you think when.
- [51:26]
A
You know, one reason that I started the QAA pod was because I myself default kind of to conspiratorial thinking. You know, I was working in the entertainment industry and, you know, I always wanted to be a screenwriter. And so I followed conspiracy theories casually because I loved the story. You know, I was always looking for a really interesting story. And I can tell you that when I was at my most vulnerable and susceptible to believing conspiracy theories and even being pulled further right wing, I credit finding more lefty political podcasts like Chapo, Trap House, and just other people in the lefty space that were critical of government. But not going to such a conspiratorial means, I think in a lot of ways that saved me from going further. Right. And I can tell you that at that time in my life I was struggling financially, I was lonely. A lot of my friends were partnered up and were kind of feeling like they had moved on with their adult lives. I was angry, I was bitter at people who were having more success than I was. And that is when I was the most susceptible. So I think a lot of it has to do with where people are in their lives, which can change, you know, like, you know, there are times when you can be really susceptible to these kind of things and there are times when life is so good outside of the Internet that these theories hold a lot less weight. So unfortunately, the answer is as long as there is this community there to accept people who are lost, who are looking for an answer, who are looking for somebody to blame, there's always going to be these communities online, especially there to. To welcome them with open arms. But that's not to say that there aren't points of exit. And my hope is that, you know, I don't know, part of me is like, I hope Trump makes it the four years because then, cuz if he dies in office, there's gonna be a new slew of conspiracy theories about who poisoned him or whatnot. But my hope is that in the decades to come that maybe we can sort of pull back. I don't know. I mean, the people who have, the people who have the power to do so, which is the people who run these big social media companies, it doesn't seem, it seems like they're not on our side. So especially given some of the revelations from these, the Epstein email. So I don't know, it's Kind of a bad answer. I sort of think people are just gonna continue to get more pilled and more segregated unless we can find like some kind of like political figure who, who can make everybody feel loved and listened to. I don't know. It's a bad answer.
- [54:25]
B
Yeah, no, no, I mean that does make sense. Well, I am curious cause you mentioned like moving forward, you know, in time here. Is there something on the horizon that somebody like me, like again in, in kind of the more normie space of the Internet doesn't know is coming, but is coming like in very much the same way that I learned about QAnon last. Like, I'm not, I'm not in those corners of the Internet, but I'm curious like what's, what's coming down the pike.
- [54:53]
A
That we should know about liberal QAnon?
- [54:58]
D
Well, I mean, I mean, I think, I mean people are already kind of like, like aware of this. But like I think, I think in partly in consequence to the fact that, that Trump was reelected, a lot of, a lot of social media networks like, like, like Facebook sort of like just took off the guardrails. You know, there was like there they. Before they had some sort of like, sort of moderation and fact checking efforts before, but boy those, those are all but gone now. That's like, that's sort of likes. That's better for, you know, that's better for their bottom line because they, they have to invest in less moderation. And like is. Is good because they, they, you know, the clicks from. The clicks from conspiracists are just as good as the clicks from everyone else. And so there's lots more nonsense just that that's going to. So it's just. You just have to be more guarded. You have to be a cautious person. I mean we saw this, we saw this with uh, with the recent release of the, the new Epstein do documents. There were some, there were some fake ones floating around like, like with Elon Musk. It is true that there are a few emails that show him actively trying to get invited to the island. But there's one, one in particular, it says something like, oh, can I, can I go? Oh, girls for the win. I think, I think it was said. Yeah, it was like that one is totally fake and. But a lot of people thought it was real. But like it's like, was like one of those things. It's very convincing. I mean that's, that's all. It's like as bad as sort of like misinformation was before the fact the Fact that now there's essentially no regulatory pressure on these social media companies now means that, you know, you have to be a conscious consumer of social media in the moving forward.
- [56:44]
B
Yeah, I was actually just talking to my buddy Dave from college yesterday, and he actually put it really succinctly, and he said that I asked him if something was real or not, because he had sent me one of the files, actually one of the. One of the documents from the Epstein files. And I asked, is this real? And he said, I just assume that everything is real and also that everything is AI. And like, you just, like, the line between what's real and what's not is just obliterated these days, where we are. We are immersed in so much lunacy that if you told me any of this stuff was real, I'd believe you, because look. Look at what's happening. Look at the world we're living in. But at the same time, if you told me it was all fake, I'd believe you if you said that, too.
- [57:21]
A
Yeah, I'm at the point where I'm getting videos coming across my feed, and it's like, can you tell the difference between the AI and the real one? And I can't anymore. Yeah, you know, I think past 40 years old, you. You lose that ability to detect AI. Maybe, maybe. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's where we're going. That's what to look out for. And the sad truth is that it's already here. I mean, we used to never talk about AI on the podcast. Now I feel like every other episode, we have to debunk, like, some kind of AI image or video or something. There were so many that came out revolving around the two ICE murders. I mean, two most recent ICE murders, I should say.
- [58:10]
C
It's just.
- [58:11]
A
Yeah, it's exhausting. And all I can say is, to folks listening is just to try to have a little bit of patience. There's such a rush for information to come out, and there's this whole ecosystem of influencers and independent journalists who really want to be first on the scene with some kind of narrative. And it's really easy to just kind of take that as fact.
- [58:40]
B
But.
- [58:40]
A
But as I've seen, if you wait long enough, usually enough information comes out that you can kind of have some picture of the truth. And that's okay. And that's okay. Maybe a picture is all we're. We're able to get, but it's better than nothing.
- [58:59]
B
Totally. Hey, Jake and Travis, where can folks who are watching right now or listening right now. See and hear more from you.
- [59:05]
D
Yeah, you can check us out on yeah was like any any podcasting app. Go to Q and you can find our free feed. If you like what we do, we also have a Patreon which we offer. We offer premium episodes. We also have a podcast network where we do really fun miniseries about topics like like like online tradwives. It's called Curse Media. You can find that@curse media.net awesome.
- [59:32]
B
I'm going to put the link right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Jake and Travis, thank you guys for the time. Thanks for navigating the corners of the Internet that save us from having to navigate those corners. I appreciate it.
- [59:43]
D
Always a pleasure Brian, always a pleasure man.
- [59:45]
A
Good to talk to you.
- [59:48]
B
Thanks to Tommy, Travis and Jake. That's it for this episode. Talk to you on Wednesday. You've been listening to no Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen, produced by Sam Graeber, music by Wellesley and interviews edited for YouTube by Nicholas Nicotera. If you want to support the show, please subscribe on your preferred podcast app and leave a five star rating and a review. And as always, you can find me at brianteller Cohen on all of my other channels or you can go to briantellercohen.com to learn more.