Trump’s “Madman Theory” Is on Full Display in Iran

Summary

On the Media – Trump’s “Madman Theory” Is on Full Display in Iran

Podcast: On the Media (WNYC Studios)
Date: April 11, 2026
Hosts: Brooke Gladstone (Micah Loewinger absent)
Featured Guests: Bill Scher, Katie Thornton, Alan Weiner

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Episode Overview

This episode of On the Media explores two interwoven threads:

1. President Trump’s recent handling of the conflict with Iran, focusing on his use of the “Madman Theory” in foreign policy and its echoes of Richard Nixon's tactics during the Vietnam War.
2. An in-depth feature on WBCQ, a Maine-based shortwave radio station that has become a global megaphone for hate speech, conspiracy, and extremist content under the guise of free speech—you’ll hear about its founder Alan Weiner, its roster of controversial broadcasters, and the financial backers helping it reach listeners around the world.

The hosts provide historical context, media analysis, and a close examination of the choices and consequences behind both political and broadcasting provocateurs.

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1. Trump’s Madman Theory and the Iran Conflict

Context & Escalation

• Trump declared a tenuous victory after striking a ceasefire deal with Iran, following days of threatening rhetoric and nuclear saber-rattling ([00:00]-[01:47]).

• Notable escalation included threats to “wipe out” Iran’s civilization and statements like:

  “The entire country could be taken out in one night. And that night might be tomorrow night.” – Alan Weiner quoting Trump ([00:11])

• The President’s posts intensified:

  “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.” — Quoting Trump on Truth Social ([01:49])

Ceasefire and Global Reaction

• A last-minute deal sees Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz; the U.S. pauses its attacks for two weeks ([02:26]-[02:41]).
• The ceasefire’s fragility is immediately apparent as Israel’s continued attacks in Lebanon threaten to unravel it; Iranian state media signals willingness to exit the agreement ([02:51]-[03:07]).
• The situation is volatile, with no clear objectives achieved, and Iran largely retaining control of the Strait ([03:07]).

The Madman Theory: What Is It?

• The theory recalls Nixon’s efforts during Vietnam: cultivate an image of unpredictability and volatility to intimidate adversaries ([00:16], [07:17]).

  “I call it the Madman theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe that, for God's sake, Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry and he has his hand on the nuclear button.” – Nixon to H.R. Haldeman (recounted by Bill Scher, [07:27])

• Bill Scher: Nixon’s application of the strategy failed; adversaries saw through the bluff ([08:07]).

  “The whole thing doesn’t work. Still, madman theory gets talked about as if it is a reasonable strategy to employ.” – Bill Scher ([08:32])

Trump’s Application: Strategic or Genuine Madness?

• Scher asserts that Trump has consciously cultivated a persona of being dangerous and unstable, both publicly and privately—as a deliberate negotiation tactic ([04:39]).

• Trump’s first term saw him mixing menacing threats (e.g., “fire and fury” with North Korea) with handshake diplomacy; results were ambiguous or negative ([09:02]).

• In his second term, escalation with Iran (Operation Midnight Hammer) led to heavy casualties without strategic gain ([06:55]).

  “We've already lost the lives of nearly 4,000 people, injured 40,000 people, without achieving any actual strategic objective.” – Bill Scher ([06:55])

• Scher points out the flaw:

  “The problem with madman theory, if your bluff gets called, you're left with two very unpalatable choices: do an incredibly crazy thing, or surrender and throw your word out the window.” ([07:05])

Is Trump's Behavior Political Theater, or Evidence of Instability?

• Brooke Gladstone: “Then there's the alternate theory that he's truly as crazy as a soup sandwich. Nuttier than a squirrel turd.” ([10:48])

• Scher: Regardless of diagnosis, Trump's erratic public proclamations, policy reversals, and high-stakes threats signal he is “not fit to be Commander in Chief” ([11:21]) and represent “manifestly crazy” behavior.

• On the invocation of the 25th Amendment and political consequences:

  “We have every reason to say publicly, whatever's going on with Trump, he ain't right…someone is in charge of the military that should not be in charge of the military.“ – Bill Scher ([15:26])

Media’s Role and Accountability

• Scher criticizes the mainstream media for “sane-washing” Trump: covering his alarming threats as business-as-usual partisan rhetoric, rather than calling out their abnormality ([14:12]).

  “The story is that Trump did something that is manifestly crazy.” – Bill Scher ([14:12])

• Electoral consequences: Trump’s popularity is dropping, and special elections break for Democrats; the public, Scher argues, remains cognizant of the stakes ([15:26]).

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2. Shortwave Extremism – The Story of WBCQ

Reported by Katie Thornton ([19:42] onward)

The Pirate Roots of American Shortwave

Alan Weiner: Pioneer and Pirate

• In 1987, Weiner launched Radio New York International, a pirate operation run from a freighter off Long Island ([19:42]-[22:54]).
• After four days, the FCC and Coast Guard raided the ship; Weiner was arrested, spurring his eventual quest for legal broadcasting ([22:09]-[23:02]).

WBCQ: Free Speech From the Wilderness

• In 1998, Weiner received a license and opened WBCQ in Monticello, Maine ([23:51]).
• WBCQ is positioned as a “free speech” haven, selling one-hour slots for as little as $50, reaching globally via powerful shortwave transmitters ([28:35]).
• Weiner:

  “We're a free speech radio station on shortwave and we lease airtime to anyone. 50 bucks an hour.” ([28:35])

When Free Speech Means Hate Speech

• The affordable, open model attracted hate groups and extremists:

  “The American Nazi Party. Do you know they were one of the first people to sign up with us? … I said, yep, no problem.” – Alan Weiner ([29:55])

• Program hosts included the KKK, American Nazi Party, and Hal Turner, a notorious white supremacist who used the platform for violent rhetoric ([33:55]).

• Weiner claims principled First Amendment absolutism, only pulling a Nazi show after repeated explicit calls for violence ([30:20]-[33:15]).

• Weiner later welcomed the KKK onto WBCQ ([33:23]):

  “The KKK contacted us and they were really pleasant and nice and I said, sure, we'll put you on the air.” ([33:27])

• Violent hate speech, conspiracy, and Christian nationalist “prophets” become WBCQ mainstays.

Economics of Extremism

• The decline of shortwave and the rise of the internet squeezed WBCQ’s finances, prompting Weiner to offer bulk discounts and seek high-volume clients ([34:47]).

• Religious extremists and conspiracy ministries became vital to the business—including Hal Turner and Brother Stair, a doomsday preacher ensnared in sexual abuse and cult allegations ([35:27]-[38:00]).

• Weiner defended airing cultists and hate speech:

  “We felt people need to have a right to know, you know, I mean, it's shedding light.” – Alan Weiner ([48:30])

The World's Last Chance Windfall

• In 2018, WBCQ’s fortunes radically changed via a multi-million dollar investment by World's Last Chance, an end-times Christian sect that preaches flat earth, anti-Catholic conspiracy, and anti-globalism ([39:40]-[42:27]).

• WBCQ gained a 500-kilowatt, fully rotatable antenna (possibly the only one outside government or Vatican hands), able to target broadcasts worldwide ([41:09]).

  “By the time we got done with it, it cost about $8 million. Was it 8 million? Yeah, I think it was 8 million.” – Alan Weiner ([41:35])

• World's Last Chance content includes: flat earth doctrine, doomsday prophecies, anti-vaccine narratives, and anti-globalist conspiracies—presented in a “slickly produced, super-listenable” program ([45:55]).

WBCQ in the Modern Era

• World's Last Chance bankrolls the station, cross-subsidizing the “free speech” frequencies where hate groups and conspiracy hosts still buy time ([46:04]).
• Weiner and wife Angela also aired “Radio Trump International” as Trump 2024 campaign supporters ([46:24]-[47:01]).
• Weiner continued running reruns from Brother Stair even after his death amid multiple abuse charges, dismissing well-documented allegations ([47:11]-[47:24]).
• Hate speech continues, justified as thought-provoking or necessary for public awareness:

  “He [Hal Turner] gets you thinking without being specific.” – Alan Weiner ([49:02])

• Recent targeted critiques of rap music by Alan and Angela drift into racialized tropes ([49:09]-[49:35]).

Global Reach and Impact

• WBCQ broadcasts are heard worldwide, even in Antarctica and China. Listener feedback comes in globally ([50:59]-[51:30]).

  “Just got one from China. Came in this morning. Yeah, on email. They picked up the station. They really like the programming.” – Alan Weiner ([51:06])

• The concluding point: WBCQ, under the banner of “free speech,” has become a main vector for exporting American fanaticism, hate, and doomsday theology to the world—largely unchecked by any regulatory body.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Trump has always deliberately cultivated a Persona that he is crazy. He wanted his foreign adversaries to look at him as someone who could do something insane…” – Bill Scher ([04:39])

• “The problem with madman theory, if your bluff gets called, you're left with two very unpalatable choices. Do an incredibly crazy thing...or surrender and throw your word out the window.” – Bill Scher ([07:05])

• “The story is that Trump did something that is manifestly crazy.” – Bill Scher ([14:12])

• “We're a free speech radio station on shortwave and we lease airtime to anyone. 50 bucks an hour.” – Alan Weiner ([28:35])

• “The KKK contacted us and they were really pleasant and nice and I said, sure, we'll put you on the air.” – Alan Weiner ([33:27])

• “By the time we got done with it, it cost about $8 million. Was it 8 million? Yeah, I think it was 8 million.” – Alan Weiner ([41:35])

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00-04:00: Framing the Iran crisis; Trump’s threats; ceasefire announcement.
• 04:00-10:30: Bill Scher on Trump’s madman persona and its real-world consequences.
• 10:30-15:30: Debates over Trump’s fitness; comparison to Biden; news media “sane-washing.”
• 19:42-38:00: Katie Thornton’s documentary on WBCQ shortwave radio, its pirate origins, and entry into hate speech.
• 39:40-47:00: World's Last Chance bankrolls WBCQ, new power and reach, influx of apocalyptic and conspiratorial programming.
• 47:11-51:30: Continuity of hate speech, global reach, and ethical debate on free speech versus harmful speech on the airwaves.

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Conclusion

On the Media paints a dire portrait of two “madmen theories” at work: one, in the hands of the president, risks global catastrophe; the other, in the hands of a radio pioneer, has amplified American extremism globally in the name of “free speech.” The episode is a sobering look at how media and rhetoric—unchecked, unfiltered, and sometimes unhinged—shape the world well beyond the fleeting news cycles.

Transcript

[Brooke Gladstone]

President Trump declared victory on Tuesday evening after negotiating a tenuous ceasefire with Iran. This after days of increasingly alarming rhetoric.

[Alan Weiner]

The entire country could be taken out in one night. And that night might be tomorrow night.

[Brooke Gladstone]

What happens when the madman theory of foreign policy is no longer so theoretical? From WNYC in New York, I'm Brooke Gladstone. Trump's geopolitical game of chicken has been attempted before by Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War.

[Bill Scher]

North Vietnam storms into Saigon and takes over the whole country. So the whole thing doesn't work. Still, Mad Men theory gets talked about as if it is a reasonable strategy to employ.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Plus, extremists find a home at one of the world's farthest reaching radio stations based in Maine.

[Alan Weiner]

The KKK contacted us and they were really pleasant and nice and I said, sure, we'll put you on the air.

[Brooke Gladstone]

It's all coming up after this. From WNYC in New York, this is on the Media. Micah is out this week. I'm Brooke Gladstone. Over the past week, President Trump's messaging around the war with Iran has been something short of presidential. Let's review.

[Katie Thornton]

Starting last Sunday, open the straight, you crazy bastards. That is President Trump's latest threat to Iran.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The President now issuing a 48 hour

[Katie Thornton]

ultimatum calling on Iran to make a

[Brooke Gladstone]

deal with or reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Trump writing time is running out. 48 hours before all hell will rain down. The President doubled down on his threat during his Monday press conference.

[Alan Weiner]

The entire country could be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night.

[Brooke Gladstone]

On Tuesday morning, he took to truth

[Katie Thornton]

social posting on social media minutes ago, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Apocalypse loomed after sunset, and yet some news outlets seemed intent on parochial concerns more in tune with their branding. I mean, here's CNBC deadline that President

[Katie Thornton]

Trump has set apart, has threatened to destroy a civilization. How does an investor process that?

[Bill Scher]

Is it?

[Nigel Poor]

Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?

[Brooke Gladstone]

Then, as the clock ticked down, both sides claimed victory.

[Alan Weiner]

Breaking news. A last minute deal tonight between the US and Iran to stop the fighting, at least temporarily. Iran will reopen the Strait of Hormuz,

[Bill Scher]

that crucial oil shipping lane that has

[Alan Weiner]

been choked off for weeks. And the US Will stop its attacks for at least two weeks.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But then on Wednesday, we saw Israel destabilizing the ceasefire by continuing the deadly wave of strikes against Lebanon it had pursued since the war began.

[Fred Shaw]

This cease fire agreement is not even 24 hours old, and there's signs that it's falling apart. Iranian state media reporting that Tehran is prepared to exit the ceasefire agreement if Israel continues its bombing, its airstrikes.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This sort of ceasefire between the US And Iran holds at the time of this recording. And we end the week where we began, with Iran effectively in control of the Strait of Hormuz, ongoing strikes in the Middle east, and a military operation whose objectives shift with every passing presidential post or speech. But Trump's rhetoric echoes on, painting an unnerving picture of the brain connected to the arm connected to the finger on the nuclear button. Here's retired U.S. army General Mark Hertling reacting to Trump's first national address about the war.

[Fred Shaw]

If I were a four star general today in his military, I think I'd walk out of the room saying, we're all gonna die. Because he doesn't know what he's doing. He has no frigging clue. Where are the people standing up and saying, enough?

[Alan Weiner]

I mean, I don't care what your ideological background is.

[Fred Shaw]

This guy does not have common sense. He just doesn't have a sense of reality.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Bill Scher is the politics editor of the Washington Monthly and author of the recent column Trump Believes in Madman Theory, but he's actually a madman.

[Bill Scher]

When Trump was campaigning, this is in October of 2024, meeting with the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the question was posed to him, what would he do? Was a threat to Taiwan militarily. And Trump said essentially that President Xi wouldn't do that because he respects me and knows that I'm effing crazy.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And what does this exchange reveal to you about Trump?

[Bill Scher]

Well, Trump has always deliberately cultivated a Persona that he is crazy. He wanted his foreign adversaries to look at him as someone who could do something insane and therefore given whatever concessions he wanted in a negotiation. But he also wanted to convey to a domestic audience, I'm not really crazy,

[Brooke Gladstone]

that he's a statesman worthy of the Nobel Prize.

[Bill Scher]

There's method to the madness. I only act this way to prevent war. You can go back to the first term where Nikki Haley, who was the UN Ambassador, said in her memoir she was about to speak with North Korean officials and he told her, make them think I'm crazy. And he once told his Attorney general, William Barr, do you know what the secret is of a really good tweet? Just the right amount of crazy. So it was always on his mind that he should burnish this Persona, but with a positive end. To some extent, people have largely believed that we didn't get into Military quagmire on his watch in his first term, but in the second term, Operation Midnight Hammer with Iran in 2025. The drug boat attack killed several dozen people without any evidence, but didn't cause any political problem for Donald Trump. He did the military operation that abducted the dictator of Venezuela without any obvious blowback to himself. That seemed to whet his appetite for a bigger strike with Iran, one that is much harder to contain and control, even though he's trying to find the off ramp right now. And so you look back at the past week where Trump threatens on social media he's going to wipe out Iran, civilization tells him to open the effing straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell and you get to a two week ceasefire. It's obviously very tenuous. Some are already arguing, well, this is just madman theory in practice. He says a really crazy thing, but he doesn't actually want to do the crazy thing. But the point I'm trying to make is he already did the crazy thing by going into the war in the first place. We've already lost the lives of nearly 4,000 people, injured 40,000 people, without achieving any actual strategic objective.

[Brooke Gladstone]

In fact, one could argue losing ground.

[Bill Scher]

Iran was in this much control of the strait before this war, and now

[Brooke Gladstone]

it is, and it's making tons more money from the oil that it sells.

[Bill Scher]

The problem with madman theory, if your bluff gets called, you're left with two very unpalatable choices. Do an incredibly crazy thing, which. Or surrender and throw your word out the window.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Right? Mad Men theory is really just redubbing, playing chicken. Richard Nixon is credited with inventing it

[Bill Scher]

in the memoirs of one of Nixon's top aides, HR Haldeman, who goes by Bob. He recounts an anecdote from the 1968 campaign. And the Vietnam War is in full swing. Nixon says to Haldeman, I call it the Madman theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe that, for God's sake. Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry and he has his hand on the nuclear button. And Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace. Nixon denied that he said this, but this is the strategy that was employed. Ho Chi Minh did not beg for peace. In two days, they didn't budge at all.

[Brooke Gladstone]

They didn't believe him.

[Bill Scher]

They didn't believe him. They felt that the American people had already turned on the war. Nixon did escalate the war for the entirety of his first term. Once you get into 1973. They then have a peace agreement that essentially withdraws American support for South Vietnam. And two years after that, North Vietnam storms into Saigon and takes over the whole country. So the whole thing doesn't work.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah.

[Bill Scher]

Still, madman theory gets talked about as if it is a reasonable strategy to employ. Certainly Trump has internalized it, but the theory behind it is very, very flawed.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Nixon's attempt at the madman theory or tactic was an abject failure. Do you want to liken that experience to that of Trump's?

[Bill Scher]

Go back to North Korea. In the first term, he talks about fire and fury. They do a handshake deal. North Korea still has the same amount of nuclear weapons as it had before

[Brooke Gladstone]

and has tested them, begun the process of developing longer range missiles.

[Bill Scher]

Trump likes to talk in a menacing manner and then follow with the handshake. But once you start dealing with an adversary like Iran, I mean, these are true believers. The Supreme Leader purposefully held a meeting in the wide open, saying, I'm not gonna go into hiding. If I die, I die. Trump is calling it a regime change, but it's just different. People's names behind the desk. How do you play a game of chicken with an adversary like that? It's no longer in any reasonable interpretation to get you to peace.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Now Trump and his loyalists claim victory.

[Bill Scher]

Trump just got Iran to cry uncle. They've been calling him crazy for making threats, but guess the threats worked. The strait's on its way to being open and Iran's promising to stop firing missiles and drones. His threats were so crazy that they wanted out. They blinked. I have a question for all the people who were losing their minds today and howling, you know that President Trump should be hauled out of the White House in shackles and frog marched away to be tried for war crimes. Now, now that it worked, is he gonna get an apology from them? Well, it all presumes that we've won something here. We don't have access to the Strait of Hormuz. Energy prices are still heavily escalated, and the global economy is still disrupted. The regime is still in place, and there's no change to the status of the nuclear program. So they have presumably degraded their military to some degree.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But that was always the easy part.

[Bill Scher]

Exactly. The challenge with any of these adversaries is asymmetrical warfare. Clearly have a capacity to use drones to cause damage, and they have significant power over the global economy through the strait that is unchanged by this.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So there's the madman theory, where Trump claims to be acting crazy as a means to an end. Then there's the alternate theory that he's truly as crazy as a soup sandwich. Nuttier than a squirrel turd. Obviously, we don't know what condition he's in. We don't have a diagnosis. We won't for a while, if we ever do. Still, despite the general benumbing of much of America to Trump's increasingly extreme rhetoric and peculiar affect, something is going on right?

[Bill Scher]

In the past month, he has said, we don't need the strait reopened because we have plenty of oil and European countries should be tough enough to go get it themselves that the strait will open naturally at the end of the conflict. Nothing we need to do about it. And then saying to Iran, open the effing straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. The statements don't make sense. Whatever the mental affliction is that causes someone to behave this way, we're never going to find out. But I certainly think we have enough to see with the naked eye. This person's not fit to be Commander in Chief. If you had a majority of his cabinet members under the 25th Amendment write a declaration asserting that and then backed up by a two thirds vote of the Congress, obviously Trump diehards would complain, but I think the average American voter would be like, yeah, I get it. But people who were beside themselves that Joe Biden was experiencing cognitive decline. And look, I was a person who said Biden should withdraw after that terrible debate that he had in the run

[Brooke Gladstone]

up to the election. Pause there for a moment. Because you went through a transformation, because you believed your eyes.

[Bill Scher]

Yes. Well, what's very difficult when you're dealing with aging is how do you distinguish between what's an innocuous senior moment, you mixed up a name, you forgot a number, and genuine cognitive decline. Cause there can be some overlap between the two things. And nothing had happened prior to the debate that made me question his ability to do the job. I don't have any reporting that Biden was incapable of executing a policy because of whatever his condition was, but certainly by the debate, that's when I said, look, you're not in a condition to run for this office again.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Biden often made mistakes even as a very young man. Exactly. Just like Trump. I mean, when he says something completely absurd. Prices decreased 4,000%. And he says it over and over and over. That's just Trump. Right?

[Bill Scher]

Trump has cultivated a reputation that he has no attachment to the truth. And so if he says something that's manifestly wrong, it doesn't matter, because it's just the way the guy is. But whatever's going on there, it's now reaching a point where he's making policy decisions that are leading to people dying. In the case of Biden, I still can't connect anything going on with Biden's mind to a policy decision that was dangerous. Whereas with Trump, if I was in the position to do so, I wouldn't necessarily wait for the formal diagnosis. I would go 25th Amendment right now, so no one else has to die.

[Brooke Gladstone]

There are some people who think that the mainstream press is sane, washing Trump, putting the things he says and does in a sort of political or tactical context as if it were normal.

[Bill Scher]

Well, you saw this with the Easter statement, when Trump says, we're going to obliterate your civilization. Open the effing straight, you crazy bastards. And that gets reported as Trump makes threatening statements. I understand why you might call that sane. Washington. Not just to pick on New York Times or the Associated Press, but I saw Al Jazeera do the same thing. Even they had this kind of traditional approach to trying to write a headline in a neutral way. And you could do that to such an extreme that you really miss what the story is. And the story is that Trump did something that is manifestly crazy. The more that individual people say it at town halls, the more that columnists say it in opinion pieces, the more that elected officials say it on the House or Senate floor or in media interviews, the more it is said that will then lead to media coverage and build narrative.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Shortly after Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday about wanting to end the civilization of Iran, there was a lot of rhetoric online about the 25th Amendment. As you said, in order for Democrats in Congress to invoke the 25th, they'd need actions from the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet. So that ain't gonna happen. So what's left?

[Bill Scher]

It's not like the public is being brainwashed to salute whatever Trump wants or does. His numbers are down. Special elections are breaking very heavily. Democrats way in places of the country that you would not expect. Clearly, people are very upset at the direction of the country. We have every reason to say publicly, whatever's going on with Trump, he ain't right that right now someone is in charge of the military that should not be in charge of the military.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Bill, thank you so much.

[Bill Scher]

It's my pleasure. Thank you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Bill Scherr is the politics editor of the Washington Monthly and host of the history podcast When America Worked. This is on the Media.

[Earlonne Woods]

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[Nigel Poor]

I'm Nigel Poor. We're the hosts and creators of ear hustle from PRX's Radiotopia.

[Earlonne Woods]

When we met, I was doing time at San Quentin State Prison in California

[Nigel Poor]

and I was coming in as a volunteer. The stories we tell are probably not what people expect from a prison podcast,

[Earlonne Woods]

like cooking meals in a prison cell,

[Nigel Poor]

keeping little pets prison nicknames and trying to be a parent from inside.

[Earlonne Woods]

Stories about life on the inside shared by those who live it.

[Nigel Poor]

Find Ear Hustle Wherever you get your podcasts,

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is on the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. US and Israel's war with Iran has destroyed lives and infrastructure, played havoc with the global economy and also spawned, no surprise, a meme war AI slop emphasis on slope is being lobbed by both sides. We've all seen our government's video game come action film entry, but here's one shared by members of the Iranian government. It takes the form of a Lego movie and depicts Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu as little yellow block headed Lego pieces. As high tech propaganda is launched back and forth by the warring parties. Another, much older media joined the conversation not as propaganda but as a war fighting tool. You're hearing a man's voice reading numbers in Persian. A cold war era tool known as a number station used to send encoded messages long distances via shortwave radio transmission. This particular one started broadcasting within hours of the first salvo against Iran. Shortwave the way less listened to but way farther reaching cousin of AM&FM radio was the subject of the second season of our series, the Divided Dial. Episode three was about a short wave station that bills itself as a peace and love outfit, but in reality it broadcasts right wing hate and racism. Katie Thornton is the intrepid reporter and host of both Divided Dial series. She'll take it from here.

[Katie Thornton]

It was July of 1987 on a hot muggy Thursday in New York City. Temperatures had been climbing into the 90s all week and as people all over the city ran, fans in their windows wrapped wet towels around their necks and hit the beach, a 34 year old man named Alan Weiner from Yonkers was out on the water. A 200 foot long freighter then.

[Fred Shaw]

It's not a gleaming clipper ship, but a broken down bucket which has drawn the attention of the federal government.

[Katie Thornton]

It drew the Fed's attention because of what was happening on board.

[Fred Shaw]

There's a new rock station in town. Well, not really in town, really in the water. And it may be illegal.

[Katie Thornton]

Allen was a tech savvy hippie with round glasses and a long bowl cut in the style of Johnny Ramone. And together his comrades, Allen had launched a pirate radio station.

[Fred Shaw]

The only people that have radio stations in New York are gigantic corporations. This is the only other way to do it, especially if you don't have much coin.

[Katie Thornton]

This was not Alan Weiner's first time hijacking the airwaves. He'd been illegally broadcasting for half his life, first getting a knock on the door from the FCC when he was just a teenager. But this was by far his most ambitious effort.

[Fred Shaw]

Radio New York International, they call themselves. With a rock and roll accent and

[Katie Thornton]

a pacifist beat, with the stated goal of spreading peace, love and understanding. Radio New York International broadcast for listeners up and down the east coast and artists sent in records for them to play on the air.

[Fred Shaw]

All right, Sandstormones, here at R Radio New York International, I'm Ida Jeffrey.

[Katie Thornton]

As for the news media, they pulled out all the stops to cover the story.

[Fred Shaw]

Channel 5 News has spared no expense in tracking down these pirates. We've added this vessel to our investigative fleet. It's a duplicate of the one used on Miami Vice. With us is our Captain, Fred Shaw.

[Katie Thornton]

From their first broadcast, Radio New York International taunted the Federal Communications Commission, kicking off their transmission with a topical song from the 1960s.

[Fred Shaw]

Come on down to my boat, baby Come on down where we can play.

[Katie Thornton]

But after only four broadcast days, just as Allen and his first mate were starting to get their sea legs.

[Fred Shaw]

Good evening. Some defiant DJs who wanted to thumb their noses at Washington have instead gotten an FCC fist in the face.

[Katie Thornton]

Federal agents did come on down to their boat.

[Fred Shaw]

Shortly before 5:30 this morning, the Coast Guard and FCC engineers moved in. The FCC dismantled the radio equipment and the Coast Guard arrested the two RNI staffers on board, Ivan Rothstein and Alan Weiner.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan was incensed as they took him off the ship in bracelets.

[Alan Weiner]

We weren't breaking any laws whatsoever. We feel we were completely illegal station and now free, you know, free form rock and roll has been stuffed out.

[Katie Thornton]

They had anchored the boat just over four miles off the coast of Long island, which, per Allen's interpretation of the law, was international waters. But the government said that international waters started much further out.

[Fred Shaw]

Weiner and another man have now been charged with illegally broadcasting rock and roll music and peace chatter.

[Katie Thornton]

Radio New York International was dead.

[Fred Shaw]

The men who wanted your ears were chained, taken away and could spend years in jail. You know how many robberies there were in this town last year? Murders, burglaries. But two pirate DJs won't bother you anymore.

[Katie Thornton]

Allen ended up avoiding jail time for this stunt, in part thanks to the ACLU coming to his defense. But after years of trying to skirt around the fcc, this arrest did change something for Allen. It made him realize that if he wanted to get on the air for good, he'd have to go legit. Allen set out to get his own licensed station. The FCC dragged its feet for years, saying in the official record that it didn't want to give a license to Captain Hook. But in the late 1990s, Alan the pirate won. And in 1998 he launched WBCQ.

[Alan Weiner]

The free speech sound heard the whole world round. WBCQ, you're on the planet.

[Katie Thornton]

It wasn't in the coveted corporatized market of New York City. It was in the 800 person blink and you'll miss it. Town of Monticello in far northern Maine. That was all right, though, because Alan wasn't going for a local audience. He was going to use the short waves to bring the free form, peace and love mission of his pirate ship out to the world.

[Fred Shaw]

Hello.

[Katie Thornton]

Early last year, I reached out to Alan Weiner. Hi Alan, it's Katie calling.

[Earlonne Woods]

Hello, Katie.

[Katie Thornton]

And he mentioned that he and some of his engineering buddies would be gathering for last April's solar eclipse, which happened to pass directly over wbcq.

[Alan Weiner]

Come on up. You can't miss the station. It's got a ginormous antenna.

[Katie Thornton]

Other than A friend of mine who told me about the station. No one I knew had ever even heard of wbcq. And I know a lot of radio freaks. I took Alan up on his offer. One mile ahead, two miles ahead and one mile right. So if I look north, northeast, I should see the tow.

[Bill Scher]

Holy.

[Katie Thornton]

Well, he was not lying when he said, you can't miss it. One of, if not the most powerful commercial broadcast stations in the world. No one's ever heard of it. No one even knows it's here. And I am closing an eye.

[Alan Weiner]

Now, during totality, I'll remove the solar flare filter from the telescope. You can look at it in totality without the filter.

[Katie Thornton]

When I arrived at the station, Alan was there with his wife Angela, some friends, a farmer neighbor and the station's engineer. They offered me sunscreen and eclipse proof glasses.

[Alan Weiner]

Three minutes. Oh, there's barely anything left. It's a pinhole sun.

[Fred Shaw]

Yeah, pinhole.

[Bill Scher]

Chris Cornell. What a beautiful man.

[Alan Weiner]

This is it.

[Fred Shaw]

This is it.

[Katie Thornton]

One of the guys who came up for the big event was named Tim. He has a long running weekly show in WBCQ playing mostly rock and roll, sprinkled in with some funny skits and stories. Like Alan, he had long gray hair, though Tim's was notably more unkempt. And also like Alan, Tim got his start in pirate radio a long time ago.

[Fred Shaw]

I was with my buddy and hey, why not? Each of us popped a tab of acid and we're starting to trip our brains off. So I ran next door and I grabbed a bunch of records and a reel to reel tape machine and patch cables broadcasted on shortwave. I called it Radio Timtron Worldwide. It was just a goof.

[Katie Thornton]

Another friend of Alan's had been an engineer at the US based Christian Science Monitor shortwave station which used to broadcast news and information to Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

[Alan Weiner]

When the Berlin Wall came down, we got quite a few letters in thanking us for broadcasting. Makes me feel like I helped tear down the Berlin Wall.

[Katie Thornton]

At wbcq, I got the full range of shortwaver's aspirations. Some of them wanted to use the power of this megaphone to promote democracy, others just to have a little fun. But for the time being, our focus was elsewhere. On the sky and the sun and the moon that was rapidly stepping into its path. Finally, the moment we'd been waiting for was here. And it was breathtaking.

[Alan Weiner]

You can look at it now. Look at that. The eye of God. How cool that is.

[Bill Scher]

Looks like John Bonham's bass drum insignia.

[Katie Thornton]

During the eclipse, we sat in the shadow of this huge, shiny new antenna. But elsewhere on the property, radio equipment clanked away Inside various trailers and falling down shacks, there were lots of old school buses and World War II era radar devices. Alan told me he uses them to search the skies for extraterrestrial life. A massive anti aircraft gun was parked at one of the station's driveways. That big new antenna was just so out of place with the rest of the station. I wanted to know how it all came to be. So Alan and I chatted as he showed me around.

[Alan Weiner]

We're a free speech radio station on shortwave and we lease airtime to anyone. 50 bucks an hour. And that's what we were charging when we went on the air.

[Katie Thornton]

From the time WBCQ launched in 1998, anyone could buy airtime. Buy an hour every month, every week, every day you pay, Alan will beam it out. It's kind of insanely affordable. For reference, I used to work at a small community radio station that charged $50 for a 30 second underwriting announcement. You know, those programming is supported by messages you hear. When WBCQ started, the exodus from shortwave was well underway. About a fifth of Americans were already on the Internet. But despite that, there was still demand for affordable airtime. So WBCQ started adding more frequencies. This was all happening before they got the big new antenna, but the station could still reach pretty far. South America, even Antarctica. Folks bought airtime to play niche music shows, classic rock, deep cuts, even old wax cylinders and 78s. But as Allen quickly discovered, when you advertise yourself as a haven for free speech on a medium that was already home to militia leaders and extremists, that's who shows up.

[Alan Weiner]

The American Nazi party. Do you know they were one of the first people to sign up with us? They came to us, oh, free speech, right on the air. I said, yep, no problem.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan's father was Jewish, and Alan was mostly raised Jewish, though his mother was Roman Catholic. But Allen thought of himself as a free thinker, a first amendment warrior. And having Nazis as paying customers posed no ethical dilemmas for him, at least not at first.

[Alan Weiner]

We had a programmer that kept getting on the air and telling people to go out and kill the Jews. I kept calling him up and going, look, you can't encourage people to go out and kill people. You know, if that happens, you're gonna go to jail. I'm gonna go to jail, because, you know, we'd be complicit and you can't do this. They wouldn't Listen, even my father heard that.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan's father did not like tuning in and hearing Nazis.

[Alan Weiner]

He called. He says, son, what are you. Yeah, I know, I know. I'm gonna fix it.

[Katie Thornton]

After multiple warnings about the Nazis, explicit calls for violence, Allen polled the broadcast citing the station's self imposed hate speech

[Alan Weiner]

policy, which basically says, if you get on the air and encourage people to go out and harm other people, we're gonna give you a warning. We're gonna say, don't do that. And if they don't.

[Katie Thornton]

The Nazi show was called American Dissident Voices. And when Allen cut it, it caused a stir deep in the archives of one popular short wave show. I found a call in that dealt with the cancellation head on, talking about

[Fred Shaw]

American Dissident Voices being booted off of wbcq.

[Katie Thornton]

The host was Bill Cooper. He was a hugely influential thought leader in the conspiracy and militia movements of the 90s.

[Fred Shaw]

Good evening, you're on the air. Yeah, this is Mike in South Florida. Good evening, Bill. Hi, Mike. I don't agree with a person of WBCQ because he became judge and jury with no due process. If the radio station makes a claim that they will broadcast anybody's opinion, then they should honor that promise. He simply pulled the plug. Yeah, he. Sure. And he did that.

[Katie Thornton]

And then.

[Fred Shaw]

Good evening, you're on the air. Hi, Bill, it's Alan Weiner.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan called in.

[Fred Shaw]

Hi, Alan. Welcome. You know, I think a lot of people out there are glad you called. I hope you understand this is not.

[Katie Thornton]

Allen told listeners that he alone was responsible for the decision, but that axing the show violated every principle he held dear.

[Fred Shaw]

That everyone has a right to speak on the radio and everyone should be given that right. However, I did change the way I felt on that one specific program because I did get some input from a lot of other people. And the day I decided to pull it off, I knew it was a no win situation. And to all the listeners out there that hold me to my principles of allowing all voices on the air, I apologize and I am sorry. But in this one instance, and I plan to make it the last instance, I had to do it,

[Katie Thornton]

Alan did indeed make it the last instance. Hate groups kept coming to WBCQ and Alan kept selling them airtime.

[Alan Weiner]

The KKK contacted us.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan told me about this on my

[Alan Weiner]

visit and they were really pleasant and nice and I said, sure, we'll put you on the air. And they were very, very impressed.

[Katie Thornton]

Maybe it was his own crystallizing free speech absolutism, or maybe it was the fact that it didn't take long for WBCQ to start feeling the economic squeeze of the Internet era. But Allen was quickly entering the business of shortwave extremism. Within a few years of launching, he welcomed a guy named Hal Turner, who used the shortwaves to call for violence.

[Fred Shaw]

I advocate shooting and killing these Mexicans as they cross the border.

[Katie Thornton]

Turner also called for the murder of Jews, black Americans, LGBTQ people and politicians.

[Fred Shaw]

We don't want to have to kill you, but we can kill you. And if need be, we will kill you.

[Katie Thornton]

Hal Turner first made a name for himself as a frequent caller to Sean Hannity's show on the big AM station WABC in New York. But Hal went to short wave because he felt AM&FM conservative talk had grown soft. On shortwave. He said whatever he wanted.

[Fred Shaw]

There are approaching on the horizon situations where killing elected officials may be necessary. Well, what are a few lives in the grand scheme of liberty? Not a big deal.

[Katie Thornton]

But Allen's assortment of extremist talk shows and the occasional esoteric music program was far from a cash cow. Alan needed people to buy more time. He offered big discounts for hosts who bought airtime in bulk. A few, including Hal Turner, came to buy several hours, most every day. At one point, Allen was even in talks with Radio Sputnik and they almost

[Alan Weiner]

leased one of our transmitters to take

[Katie Thornton]

a whole frequency 24 7. Yeah, what happened with those Radio Sputnik conversation?

[Alan Weiner]

They decided not to ago. I don't know why because we really made them a good deal and we can see we can get people on.

[Katie Thornton]

One man did have a round the clock presence on one of WBCQ's frequencies. His name was Ralph Gordon Stair, also known as rg, also known as Brother Stair.

[Fred Shaw]

And I don't believe there's a man on the face of the earth that is higher in spiritual authority in the kingdom of God than I am. I don't believe that.

[Katie Thornton]

Stair was a self proclaimed prophet who preached an ultra conservative, homophobic and misogynistic Christian ideology. He bought airtime on other Shore Wave stations too. And he didn't just use his show to preach. He also used it to recruit listeners from as far away as New Zealand to live with him on his farm in South Carolina. At the farm, the men wore long beards and the women always wore full coverage skirts and had their hair in tightly wound buns. People who visited have said that there were radios and loudspeakers set up in every one of the compound's buildings and on the fields so that followers Would hear stairs preaching even as they worked his land. Stairs flock took a pledge of poverty when they joined, giving their money to his overcomer ministry, the overcomer radio broadcast. At one point, stair was spending $100,000 a month on shortwave and local radio broadcasts. In 2017, video surfaced of Stair molesting a 12 year old girl during a sermon. More women came forward with reports of abuse stories. And court cases from years prior came to light, alleging everything from fraud to the improper burial of babies who died, apparently after stair encouraged mothers to forego modern medical care in favor of faith healing.

[Fred Shaw]

You're dealing with a doctor.

[Bill Scher]

He won't tell you the truth.

[Katie Thornton]

You better get away from him. Multiple people who escaped the overcomer ministry said rg Stair was running a cult. Thanks to survivors who spoke out, the FBI and local law enforcement investigated stair, and later that year, they raided the farm. More victims brought their stories to police. Stair facing more charges of criminal sexual conduct, this time many involving children. Stair's show was dropped from a bunch of local stations. But in Alan and his wife Angela's eyes, he still had a right to the airwaves. And yeah, stair bought lots of time on wbcq, but it wasn't like he was making the station rich. Alan still couldn't always afford to repair or maintain equipment. He'd let go of staff.

[Alan Weiner]

You know, the 50 bucks we get here and there, that doesn't pay the bills. It doesn't.

[Katie Thornton]

For wbcq and a lot of shortwave stations that survived into the Internet era, this was the play offering a megaphone to religious extremists and the far right while still barely scraping by. But in 2018, everything changed at WBCQ. Coming up, Alan gets a huge leg up and that powerful new antenna from an unexpected source. This is season two of the divided dial from on the media.

[Earlonne Woods]

I'm Earlonne Woods.

[Nigel Poor]

I'm Nigel Poor. We're the hosts and creators of ear hustle from PRX's Radiotopia.

[Earlonne Woods]

When we met, I was doing time at San Quentin state prince in California,

[Nigel Poor]

and I was coming in as a volunteer. The stories we tell are probably not what people expect from a prison podcast,

[Earlonne Woods]

like cooking meals in a prison cell,

[Nigel Poor]

keeping little pets prison nicknames, and trying to be a parent. From inside.

[Earlonne Woods]

Stories about life on the inside shared by those who live it.

[Nigel Poor]

Find ear hustle wherever you get your podcasts.

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. We're listening to episode three of our series the divided dials. All about shortwave radio. Right before the Break. We heard about how WBCQ was struggling financially. But in 2018, that all changed. Here's Katie.

[Katie Thornton]

WBCQ got a many million dollar cash injection and that massive new antenna. It can pump out 500 kilowatts of power, 10 times as much as WBCQ's other signals. The town's electric system wasn't even powerful enough to support it. So Alan offered to split the cost of rewiring with the local government.

[Alan Weiner]

They're rewiring the town. You know, I'd walk into the town office. Well, thank you. You know, we're getting all new power, you know, here for business and stuff. Thank you so much. You know. You're welcome. You're welcome.

[Katie Thornton]

The antenna weighs 200 tons and is gigantic at its base, like one of those redwood trees that you can drive through. Except the electromagnetic frequencies this beast emits are known to jam up cars, computer systems and stall them out so you can't drive even near it. To anchor the antenna, they had to get a host of cement trucks to come in and put a footing down. 40 by 40ft wide and 12 solid feet deep. The antenna is fully rotatable, sitting on a gargantuan ring bearing that can be turned to point in any direction, beaming shortwave radio signals to any continent on Earth.

[Alan Weiner]

Oh, I hear the motors.

[Katie Thornton]

There it goes.

[Alan Weiner]

Oh, there it goes. There it comes. Quite something. That is wild.

[Katie Thornton]

Oh my goodness. It's like watching a skyscraper spin.

[Alan Weiner]

If I listen to it, it's like a fine watch. They're going to the UK now. I think this is the only privately owned 500 kilowatt in the world because most of the 500 kilowatt hours that I know are either owned by the Catholic Church, the Vatican or governments. By the time we got done with it, it cost about $8 million. Was it 8 million? Yeah, I think it was 8 million.

[Katie Thornton]

Wow. When the windfall came, WBCQ also got a bespoke new studio and transmitt outfitted with an apartment for a live in engineer. People in the shortwave world had one who paid for this? I mean, how did WBCQ with their transmitters in falling down shacks and broadcast studio in a single wide trailer, become a swanky world class, enormously high powered shortwave station? It turns out Allen's new backer was a group called World's Last Chance. This is WBCQ bringing World's Last Chance

[Brooke Gladstone]

radio to you from Monticello, Maine, usa.

[Katie Thornton]

They're an ultra conservative Christian End Times Ministry and they preach, among other things, that the Earth is flat.

[Bill Scher]

We are talking flat Earth and the Bible. The earth is flat and God tells you so.

[Katie Thornton]

World's Last Chance was started in 2004 by an Egyptian cosmetics and food magnate turned religious leader named Galal Das. At first, even Alan didn't think World's Last Chance was on the level.

[Alan Weiner]

They came to us, but they wanted superpower. We really want to be with your station because you're free speech. I said, well, we can get you on the air. It's 50 kilowatts, blah blah, blah. I said, no, we don't want that. We want more power. I said, well, how much more power? You know, at least 500,000 watts. I said, we'd have to build that and you know, we'd have to charge you for it and all that. You know, I mean, that's millions of dollars, you know, I mean, they said, fine. Well, that afternoon they wired me $30,000. I said, okay. These people are serious.

[Katie Thornton]

Some of what the ministry preaches is just downright strange or really in the weeds about doctrine, cosmologies and cosmogenies.

[I]

Scholars have always known the truth, but

[Katie Thornton]

it's been hidden for a while. World's Last Chance believed that Pope John Paul II was going to come back as the Antichrist.

[I]

Shocking truth emerges.

[Katie Thornton]

They also follow a strange combination. Lunar solar calendar, not the Gregorian calendar. So their sabbath falls on different days from week to week.

[I]

That Yahushua could not have been crucified on a Friday and most certainly was not resurrected on a Sunday. So we've got a conundrum.

[Katie Thornton]

In 2018, they took out full page text only ads in places like People magazine and USA Today saying demons were going to come to Earth disguised as aliens to deceive Christians. But other things they broadcast have more clear overlap with the conspiratorial right. They are staunchly anti establishment, especially since COVID Well, let's be honest.

[I]

I mean, we shouldn't be surprised that the church has failed to stand up to government dictates. I mean, the closer we get to the end, the more the fallen churches will spout the serpent's agenda.

[Katie Thornton]

And they even link their flat earth beliefs not just to extreme biblical literalism, but to their anti globalist agenda.

[Alan Weiner]

The only kind of circumnavigation which could not happen on a flat earth is north southbound. Both the North Pole and Antarctica are military enforced. No fly and no sail zones due to restrictions originating from none other than the United Nations.

[Katie Thornton]

World's Last chance is very dubious, but it's not exactly a culture. Though they do Sometimes encourage their members to quit their jobs to dedicate themselves to the ministry. They don't appear to take money from their followers. They've never had what they refer to as an earthly headquarters, as in no sketchy farm. They say their members are spread literally over the four corners of the world. They bill themselves as a web based ministry and they have this janky website that looks straight out at the early Internet. We're talking retro futuristic graphics and pictorial backdrops with, with text heavy blocks and a left hand column of like 40 hyperlinks. But if World's Last Chance's website is less than convincing, their shortwave radio broadcast is top tier. It's super listenable, well produced and among the slickest broadcasts on American shortwave today.

[I]

Hello and a warm welcome to another truth filled message. Now today's program is going to be a little bit different from what we normally do.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan will be the first to tell you. It's the religious programming that pays the bills. World's Last Chance as doomsday ministering is the key to it all. The ministry's payments more or less bankroll WBCQ's original operation. All the other frequencies with the free speech programs that still roll in at 50 bucks a pop.

[Alan Weiner]

Well, all right, what's on the air now? This is on the air. That's on the air. Radio Trump International is on the air.

[Fred Shaw]

And you know, the polls came out.

[Katie Thornton]

Radio Trump International was one of Allen and Angela's shows which they ran leading up to the 2024 election.

[Alan Weiner]

We're Trump supporters, we are. And we've decided to take one of our channels, 5130 and we broadcast Radio Trump International 24 hours a day because we can.

[Katie Thornton]

Having a backer like World's Last Chance has also made it easier for Allen to keep broadcasting. People like Brother RG Stair, a man he and Angela came to consider a friend.

[Alan Weiner]

What the government did to the beautiful people at the Overcomer, they raided the place like it was a ruby ridge.

[Katie Thornton]

Allen and Angela told me they don't believe the well documented allegations of sexual assault.

[Alan Weiner]

A bunch of farmers, a bunch of cattle raising, goat raising, Christian people, you know, tilling the soil. And they pretty much went in there and terrorized everyone.

[Katie Thornton]

Stair is dead now. He died in 2021 while awaiting trial. But his followers still live at the compound and they still send the preacher's reruns to Allen to broadcast around the world all day, every day.

[Alan Weiner]

Brother Starra, he helped us keep BCQ on the air expand and I always promised that we would keep him on the air no matter what, even if they didn't have money.

[Katie Thornton]

Alan knows that a lot of people would have considered him liberal in his early years. He knows that in some people's eyes, he's made a shocking transformation from his days as a peacenik rock and roll pirate. For Alan's part, he says that his philosophy is the same today as it's always been, that people need to hear even the most hateful speech so that they can understand it and resist it. Were you all concerned about having those voices on the air, that it could lead to harm?

[Alan Weiner]

Well, we were, but we felt people need to have a right to know, you know, I mean, it's shedding light, you know, I mean, you really got to shed the light.

[Katie Thornton]

But several of the hosts Alan has been running on WBCQ since the early days are still. Still spewing racist, violent rhetoric like Hal Turner. Even though Allen says that Hal's toned it down since his days advocating that people kill immigrants, Hal's still on WBCQ five days a week. And anyway, Allen says Hal's show gets you thinking.

[Alan Weiner]

He gets you thinking without being specific.

[Katie Thornton]

Here's Alan with Angela on their radio show just last month, recycling tired critiques of rap music.

[Alan Weiner]

There are some cultures, and maybe even races that are steeped in violence and proud of it. The kind of music, I believe it makes people angry. I mean, free speech, peace, love and understanding, you know, we talk about.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The understanding's gone too damn far.

[Katie Thornton]

Whoops.

[Alan Weiner]

Too, too far. Too far, far. It has. The understand has kind of just gone

[Brooke Gladstone]

too far, because everything in the world except for the love of God.

[Katie Thornton]

In some ways, Allen's transformation is not that remarkable. There are plenty of hippies who aged into libertarians or right wingers, and it's not surprising that a lot of these guys use free speech as a cover for people to say whatever they want without any regard for truth or for consequences. To me, though, the remarkable part of Allen's story is that with shortwave, he's been able to get these hateful voices out to the far reaches of the globe. No board, no meaningful oversight from the fcc, just him at his discretion, thanks in part to Alan Weiner. The demonstrably false, fatalistic, and paranoid programming of World's Last Chance, the hateful rhetoric of Hal Turner, the cultist preachings of RG Stair. That's a huge part of what shortwave listeners around the world hear as the voice of American broadcasting. And people are hearing this stuff almost every day. Alan gets letters or emails from listeners around the country and around the planet.

[Alan Weiner]

Just got one from China. Came in this morning. Yeah, on email. They picked up the station. They really like the programming.

[Katie Thornton]

Wow. So this one came in from Australia. Dear sir, madam, hope you had a nice Christmas holiday this year. I have Christmas alone, but listen to your program makes me happy.

[Alan Weiner]

From Antwerp. Network signal was nice and clear.

[Katie Thornton]

They have New York, Philadelphia, Australia.

[Alan Weiner]

Got a bunch of Russian listeners too. And here's one from Buffalo, New York in Antarctica at the Scientific Dear sir, on Saturday, September 23rd.

[Katie Thornton]

And people are still coming to Allen for a platform too. Within an hour of me first arriving at wbcq, Allen's phone rang nowhere.

[Alan Weiner]

So we, we, we pay attention to light.

[Katie Thornton]

Yeah, okay.

[Bill Scher]

Here.

[Katie Thornton]

Go ahead.

[Alan Weiner]

Hello?

[Katie Thornton]

As he disappeared out the door, I could hear Alan explaining his simple, well worn policy to the shortwave curious caller. Free Speech Radio. Yeah, we'll get you on the air. It's 50 bucks an hour to hear

[Brooke Gladstone]

all the episodes of this series. Just search for the divided dial on your podcast app or go to our website onthemedia.org and that's the show on the Media is produced by Molly Rosen, Rebecca Clark Callender and Candace Wong with help from Macy Hanslick Behrend. Travis Mannon is our video producer. Our technical director is Jennifer Munson with engineering from Jared Paul. Eloise Blondio is our senior producer and our executive producer is Katya Rogers. On the Media is produced by wnyc. Micah Loewinger will be back next week. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Katie Thornton]

WNYC's journalism and storytelling is heard by

[Brooke Gladstone]

millions of passionate listeners.

[Katie Thornton]

Sponsors of our programming gain our listeners attention and their respect.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Learn about how your organization can support

[Katie Thornton]

WNYC and wnyc [e-mail].