The Charlie Kirk Assassination Conspiracy Theory Ecosystem feat. Brandy Zadrozny (E383)

Summary

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QAA Podcast – Episode 383:

"The Charlie Kirk Assassination Conspiracy Theory Ecosystem"

Feat. Brandy Zadrozny – July 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the surging wave of conspiracy theories following the highly publicized assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. The QAA hosts—Jake Rockatansky, Julian Feeld, and Travis View—welcome NBC/MSNBC journalist Brandy Zadrozny to discuss the online ecosystem of creators, influencers, and “truthers” proliferating alternate explanations of the event. Central to the discussion: how years of stoking distrust have left organizations like Turning Point USA (TPUSA) unable to reign in their own audiences, and how personalities like Candace Owens have become conspiracy tastemakers in the digital era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Charlie Kirk Assassination and Its Conspiracy Theories

(00:48–04:54)

• The official narrative: Charlie Kirk was shot by Tyler Robinson at a public event.
• A massive ecosystem has risen to claim the killing and investigation is a cover-up:
  • Robinson is a “patsy.”
  • Surveillance footage is allegedly doctored.
  • Kirk’s widow, Erica, is accused of being “in on it.”
  • Wild theories abound (e.g., Kirk was killed by an exploding microphone).
• TPUSA, after years of fostering audience distrust of mainstream media, now depends on that same audience to trust the official story.

“This has placed Turning Point USA in an uncomfortable position. After years spent cultivating an audience suspicious of the press ... now [they] need that audience to trust the official investigation.” — Travis View (01:26)

• Candace Owens, ex-TPUSA and prolific conspiracy influencer, is a lightning rod and amplifier for these theories.

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2. Brandy Zadrozny: Reporting from the Ground

(02:34–04:54)

• Brandy describes surreal scenes outside the Robinson trial:

  • Inside: compelling prosecution evidence; outside: die-hard “Charlie truthers” ignore or dismiss this evidence on the spot.
  • Many believers are unmoved, despite firsthand exposure.

• She describes small but fervent networks of conspiracy creators who see traction when their narratives are mainstreamed, particularly when amplified by Owens.

“She is in need of the narrative and she has supplied that narrative by a few dozen conspiracist creators ... It turns into a real full time job for them.” — Brandy Zadrozny (04:20)

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3. The Candace Owens Effect & the ‘Conspiracy Entrepreneur’

(04:54–10:48)

• Owens operates more as a curator than innovator—elevating fringe theories sourced from influencer networks, leading to both attention and profit for those she spotlights.
• Her methods are compared to a “soap opera” and the “WWE theory” of news:
  • The drama and perpetual uncertainty are the products—resolution is beside the point.
  • Audiences “never [have] to deliver anything ... Theories never come true.”
• Hosts debate whether Owens believes what she shares or is a cynical, calculated operator.

“Soap opera news ... in this conspiracy world, you never have to deliver anything. The people who are your fans are already used to none of their theories ever coming true.” — Julian Feeld (07:48)

• Owens is characterized as the “purest example” of a “conspiracy entrepreneur,” functioning independently from traditional right-wing networks.

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4. Media, Distrust, and the Spread of Conspiracy Culture

(10:55–19:41)

• Brandy asks: Should the left or mainstream media care when conspiracy culture cannibalizes its own (e.g., TPUSA)?
  • Hosts provide varied answers: some feel “let them fight,” others stress the importance of factual debunking to maintain public epistemic standards.
• Media criticism is central:
  • Mainstream and progressive outlets often do a poor job of addressing broader root causes (e.g., economic malaise, individual alienation).
  • There’s a feedback loop of distrust—corporate media’s failures help spawn alternative info ecosystems, which then become harder to counter.

“The mainstream media ... is part of the same giant corporate mindfuck machine that is unfortunately continuing to make us more and more alone and more and more [likely to] do your own research.” — Julian Feeld (13:15)

• Discussion of how conspiracy narratives cross over to centrist and even liberal audiences, shifting the Overton Window and making debunking more urgent.

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5. The Paranoid Style: From QAnon to Mainstream Disinformation

(22:15–25:00)

• Everyone’s "a disinformation reporter" now; distrust and paranoia are bipartisan and widespread.
• Stories of high-profile conspiracist thinking (Russiagate, anti-immigrant conspiracies, etc.) on both left and right.
• Brandy: “Every story should have context about—who is this liar lying to me ... who’s profiting off this lie?”
• Uncertainty and paranoia are aggravated by real-world grievances and systemic failures, making conspiracy thinking feel “true” even when not factually supported.

“Conspiratorial culture is thriving because the world ... is so, I don’t know, ripe for it.” — Brandy Zadrozny (24:13)

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6. How Minds Change—and the Limits of Evidence

(28:04–36:26)

• Brandy recounts interactions with “Freedom ladies” at the trial:
  • Despite robust evidence, most remained unmoved, finding new rationalizations.
  • A notable exception: one accuser shifted her view after a personal, emotional interaction with Erica Kirk in court ("I know I was wrong. I feel so awful for believing that. I know that she loved Charlie...").
  • The intensity of conspiracy narratives often depends on the emotional distance from supposed “villains.”
• Human connection, not evidence, is what sometimes breaks through.

“No fact was different ... but she just changed her whole mind.” — Brandy Zadrozny (32:22)

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7. The Allure of Simple Narratives and the Missing "Gray Area"

(33:17–37:21)

• Most consumers prefer black-and-white, hero-vs.-villain narratives.
• The hosts and Brandy emphasize the need to report nuance and the dangers of ambiguity-averse culture—though ironically, ambiguity is often where the truth resides.

“So much of these conspiracy theories ... is explained in this simple way. That’s not how the world works. People are complicated...” — Brandy Zadrozny (34:28)

• Discussion of how being able to live with uncertainty is an important—and vanishing—epistemic skill.

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8. The ‘Exploding Microphone’ Theory: Anatomy of a Viral Conspiracy

(45:08–62:14)

• Focus on John Aaron Bray, a farmer-engineer turned conspiracy micro-celebrity, who claims Kirk died from an “exploding mic”:
  • Bray conducted self-styled “forensic” experiments, built websites, and used AIs to buttress his claims.
  • Brandy tracks how his wild theory went from total obscurity to being courted by (then initially rejected, later amplified by) Candace Owens and other creators, as the content economy demanded ever-fresher narratives.
• Technical details (“thoracic resonance,” bullet sounds, etc.) are consistently misapplied or misunderstood. Brandy: “It’s all nonsense ... AI fever dream ... not good science.”
• This kind of baroque, technical-sounding “evidence” is increasingly used in online conspiracism to baffle laypeople and simulate authority.

“It’s just AI fever dream ... not real ... not good science.” — Brandy Zadrozny (61:00)

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9. Media Exposure, Sensationalism, and Our Numbness to Violence

(51:06–56:53)

• The rapid, mass spread of real-life murder footage (Kirk’s assassination video) is discussed.
• Online: brutal content is now widespread and instantly available, with platforms like X (Twitter) acting as vectors for both legitimate and exploitative gore.
• This normalization blurs lines between bearing witness (e.g., war crimes) and exploitative spectacle.

“We just stopped having that conversation because X just shows us the bodies ... Now we just all watch the bodies.” — Brandy Zadrozny (54:48)

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10. TPUSA’s Conundrum: When the Monster Turns on You

(62:17–67:39)

• Once-marginal conspiracy culture now interrogates and undermines its originators.
• TPUSA, having encouraged distrust, now finds itself unable to marshal trust in the official story of Kirk’s murder.
• Efforts by TPUSA figures to call for “calm” or for respecting facts are met with incredulity; their history of amplifying conspiracism undermines their credibility.

“How can you possibly now argue for calm and ... logic ... consideration of the family of a conspiracy ... They’re just, they’re trying to do all of the same things that they’ve always done, except with this one.” — Brandy Zadrozny (63:24)

• This pattern—distrust of institutions boomerangs, creating monsters too wild to control—seen elsewhere (RFK Jr., Dan Bongino, etc.).

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11. Candace Owens: The New Face of Conspiracist Influence

(67:56–71:29)

• Owens emerges as the heir apparent to Alex Jones—except “slicker,” female, and (as the hosts note) with broader appeal, especially to women and “true crime”-adjacent audiences.
• Her show’s format mirrors daytime TV or even Oprah, and draws parasocial, “learning together” relationships.
• The panel sees her as a potent, dangerous figure for mainstreaming and legitimizing conspiracy thinking for new demographics.
• Her shift from internet edges to living-room “entertainment” signifies a profound change in how conspiracy is packaged and sold.

“She is the Oprah of Alex Jones’s. She’s got a delivery that makes it feel like a friend ... unfortunately, she’s using it for evil.” — Brandy Zadrozny (69:08)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the "soap opera" of conspiracies:
  “It’s just like soap opera news ... she takes whatever she thinks has the best legs ... runs with it till she has to jump the shark, then goes on to the next season.” — Julian Feeld (07:48)

• On Emotional Conversion:
  “No fact was different ... She just changed her whole mind.” — Brandy Zadrozny (32:22)

• On the perpetual grift:
  “The gray area is full of grifters. That is the entire American economy.” — Julian Feeld (25:37)

• On the failure of legacy media:
  “If the media was doing its job ... we wouldn’t be here existing at all.” — Brandy Zadrozny (18:33)

• On Candace Owens's audience:
  “People do watch [her] like they watch Oprah ... It really has replaced their entertainment.” — Brandy Zadrozny (70:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• (00:48–04:54): Introduction of Kirk's murder and the conspiracy ecosystem
• (04:54–10:48): Candace Owens's method and “conspiracy entrepreneurship”
• (28:04–36:26): How beliefs change (or don’t) among believers
• (45:13–62:14): The “exploding mic theory” and John Bray’s rise
• (62:17–67:39): TPUSA struggles to control the narrative they fostered
• (67:56–71:29): Candace Owens as the “new Alex Jones”
• (71:41–72:10): Where to find Brandy’s work

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Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode vividly sketches the self-perpetuating nature of conspiracy theory communities and the “shadow markets” of influence and profit they generate. Candace Owens, leveraging both the attention economy and the disintegration of institutional trust, has established herself as a new kind of (mainstreamed) conspiracist celebrity.

TPUSA's efforts to put the genie back in the bottle are rendered moot by their own legacy of manufacturing distrust, as noted repeatedly by the hosts and Brandy Zadrozny. Ultimately, the moral: living with ambiguity, and continually seeking the best available information, is the only bulwark against both cynical grift and dangerous certainty.

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For more on the topics discussed, check out Brandy Zadrozny’s forthcoming deep dive on this conspiracy network at MSNBC.

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Transcript

[A]

Sam, if you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast. Episode 383, the Charlie Kirk Assassination Conspiracy Theory Ecosystem, featuring Brandy Zadrozny. As always, we are your hosts, Jake

[B]

Rockatansky, Julian Field, and Travis View. Since Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University last September, an enormous online ecosystem has devoted itself to proving that almost nobody involved is who they claim to be. And almost nothing happened. The people think it did. The man charged with Kirk's murder, Tyler Robinson, is supposedly a patsy. The surveillance footage is fake. The witnesses are lying. Turning Point USA is hiding something. Kirk's widow, Erica Kirk, is somehow in on it. And according to one very insistent farmer and engineer from Oklahoma, Kirk was killed due to an exploding microphone, not a bullet. This has placed Turning Point USA in an uncomfortable position. After years spent cultivating an audience suspicious of the press and practically every other incident capable of establishing a shared set of facts, the organization now needs that audience to trust the official investigation and stop accusing Kirk's widow, friends, and employees of participating in his murder. The fact that the chief amplifier of Kirk conspiracy theories is Candace Owens, a former employee of TP usa, is making this especially difficult. Our guest today, Brandi Zadrozhny, has described it as a story of what happens when a conspiracy movement you helped build finally comes for you. Brandi is a senior enterprise reporter at msnow who covers misinformation, extremism, and online communities. She attended Tyler Robinson's recent pretrial hearings in Utah, spoke with conspiracy believers lining up outside the courthouse, has been tracking the sprawling network of influencers turning Kirk's death into an endlessly expanding and highly profitable participatory mystery. Brandi, thank you so much for joining us.

[C]

It is my pleasure. Longtime listener.

[B]

Yeah, we've. We've chatted for. For many years, since you were a reporter for other outlets, and. Yeah, I'm glad to finally be able to get you on the show.

[C]

Yeah, me too. Thanks for having me.

[B]

So how would you describe that by the scene outside the courthouse, your boots on the ground in Provo? What would you see outside the hearings?

[C]

So I went to this hearing with kind of two minds. I was going to. You know, I figured I was going to hear facts all day, and then I wanted very much to know how those were being received outside because we had no phones, we had no. We only had a notepad. We weren't allowed to bring any electronics, not our laptop, nothing. So I couldn't see. Usually I'd be watching on the Internet and see how people in real time were sort of twisting it or, or reacting to it. And I couldn't see any of that. So I would go into the hearing and sit there all day and think, wow, we just got evidence that I hadn't really seen or hadn't seen in this way before and come out pretty dang convinced that Tyler Robinson should definitely be going to trial. And then I would come out and talk to some of the people that were there at the time, the Charlie truthers, who believed that, you know, Erica is in on it or it wasn't Tyler Robinson, that Tyler Robinson's a patsy. And then I talk to. And they would immediately in front of my eyes just discount all that they had just seen. Some of them from within the hearing too. And so it was just like my brain was sort of like a ping pong being, like reality, non reality, reality, non reality. And it just made me think that like, oh, we are in deep trouble. Because if you can't even like you're seeing it with your own eyes and you're not believing it. I just like, I think a lot about, about what will change someone's mind. And it just, it was a, it was a really strange, trippy sort of feeling. I think a lot of the time, like I went there as interested in seeing what was happening there, what was happening outside. I thought there would be a bigger showing of conspiracy theorists. And we really had like a core group of people, many of whom I had been following for months. You talk about that creator network, that ecosystem. I've been obsessed with these people because in a way that I think is gone unnoticed. A lot of people talk about Candace, but she could not do this on her own and she says so on her program. She is in need of the narrative and she has supplied that narrative by a few dozen conspiracist creators, little baby Alex Joneses, who just like throw spaghetti at the wall and see what might make its way upstream to Candace. And when they do, it's sort of pay dirt. Literally, they get paid when this happens. They get paid in followers and in Cloud and in other cases which you know, I'm documenting for this project at Ms. Now, it turns into a real full time job for them.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I always thought Candace Owens, sort of like her methodology for, I guess promoting conspiracy theories was always interesting to me because we saw this with her conspiracy theory about the McCrones is that she essentially found survey pure amplified conspiracy theory that was maybe that was sort of bubbling up in France and brought it to a US audience. So she's not really. She's not really making her own sort of theories generally. It's like her or perhaps her team sort of scans the wide world of the conspiracy ecosystem and she decides what's to elevate on her show and her large audience.

[C]

Yeah. Who will Queen be? Candace Knight is sort of like the idea, right? Like, she, like, pluck. She can pluck you out of obscurity, really, and change your whole life with just dimension and. Yeah, I think, you know, the thing about Candace is I've been trying to think about why she would do this to Charlie Kirk and to Charlie Kirk's children and to Charlie Kirk's widow and to all of Charlie Kirk's friends and to Charlie Kirk's legacy, which is. I really think she's dismantling it. She's. She's destroying it or helping to. And I've been thinking a lot about it, and Candace has always been willing to say, and know that she needs to say the thing that no one else will say. Like, differentiation has always been her bag. And that's hard. It's hard to keep thinking of ideas like that. And, you know, she's also been getting more and more extreme and more and more niche because, like, eventually, what is there left to say? So she needs help and she gets it.

[D]

So to understand that this bad person is dismantling Charlie Kirk's legacy, I. I'm horrified.

[A]

Is it possible that she is just, like, crazy herself and that, like, many of us just, like, stays up, like, late at night, like, doom, Scrolling through, like, the most obscure, like, whatever forums I'm on? Like, shudder to think where Candace, like, drifts off to on the Internet, you know, like, it is really interesting to see her as almost like a fringe, extreme conspiracy taste maker, but, like, when you sort of, like, kind of present her as that, it's very. I mean, it feels very right on. But it's also, like, so cynical, which I do think that she is.

[C]

Yeah. Like, I don't think she's, like, delving into kiwi farms to find, like, you know, I don't. I don't think she's. I think she's very basic. She's a very basic person and a very basic woman. Like, people have come to her with these theories, and I think once one sounds good to her, she just really runs with it. Like, the Egyptian plane stuff. That was Ian Carroll, Right. Ian Carol came to her with that stuff. Like you mentioned the farmer, John Bray came to her with this exploding Mic theory. And she will take a theory that sounds good and run it to the ground and then hop off that train and, you know, jump on to the next one, which, you know, we could talk about, but, like, can you explain to me how she gets away with this? Never reveal. Like, where's the. Where is it?

[D]

Oh, did you. Did you not know that it's getting away season? Did you not know that it's crime season?

[A]

You know what it is? I just came up with something that I think is, like, brilliant. An idea. A phrase just popped in front of me, and it was soap opera news. And it's like, the fact that, like, you never. In this conspiracy world, you never have to deliver anything. Like, the people who are your fans are already used to none of their theories ever coming true. And so essentially, like, I think that's exactly it, is that it's just like soap opera news. And she takes whatever she thinks is like, you know, the most. Like, it has the best legs. Right. Just like a writer's room. And then. Yeah, just fucking. Yeah. Runs. Runs with it till. Till she has to jump the shark and then just goes on to the next season. And it's just like, there's no consequences because it's all fake and it's all storytelling in some way. And, like, maybe even the audience knows that to some degree, but the reality is too sad to face.

[D]

So the WWE theory, basically.

[A]

Yeah, the WWE theory, basically. I don't know.

[C]

I know if I say one wrong thing on television, I have, like, senators tweeting about me like, that I should be fired, and there's just like, no consequence. And it makes me feel really frustrated. But that's fine.

[A]

Yeah. Choosing to do the right thing. Choosing to do, like, the right true thing in this world, especially in this media ecosystem, is often, like, it's the more difficult path for sure.

[D]

I mean, look at this. You know, poor Candace. She has to deal with us making episodes. All right?

[A]

Many.

[D]

So if you think. If you think that senators calling you out, wait until the QAA CRE comes at you. You're done for your toast. She's actually shutting down her business after she hears this one.

[A]

I mean, on some level, it's, you know, they're. They're coming after you because you're a legitimate person and.

[D]

Yes, because you're associated with the mainstream media.

[A]

Exactly. And. And there is, you know, attacking your credibility serves them way more than trying to attack somebody like can. That's going into the mud and. And tickling the pigs. You know what? I'm saying

[D]

no.

[B]

What?

[D]

No, nobody knows.

[A]

You know that old saying, going in the mud. You get down to the mud and you're tickling. And you're down in the mud. You're tickling with the. You're tickling the pigs. Nobody's. Nobody's caught.

[D]

You're tickling with the pigs.

[A]

You're tickling with the pigs. That's what I'm saying.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

You're not standing at the fence with the other farmers.

[C]

One more metaphor and we're almost there.

[B]

Yeah, there's this, there's this concept in like the, I guess the literature on conspiracy theories. Like a conspiracy entrepreneur, which is like basically someone who. Who builds up a brand and a pres. Send an audience on the back of conspiracy theories for self gain. I think Candace is like one of the purest examples of this because usually I feel like generally the conspiracist ecosystem, they serve the same rough, general kind of agenda politically and they move in roughly the same direction even if they diverge. Whereas, like, Candace is a true. We called her before the right wing Ronan because she is by herself, she has no master and she's creating an audience for herself or independent of any other, like, conservative or right wing organization.

[C]

I don't know how to respond to that. I have a question for you and I'm sorry. My brain is not necessarily linear, so I apologize.

[A]

No, no, you're in the right place.

[C]

How do y' all feel about, like, I work for Ms. Now, right. It's obviously a progressive outlet. It's a news outlet with progressive opinion hosts and anchors. How do you. Or do like, you know, Julianne, you made this joke about like, oh, poor TP usa. And like, I hear you. You know, they just made $150 million last year. Brought in $150 million. Not too much empathy for the business of TPUSA or what they stand for or the conspiracy theories that they further, et cetera, et cetera. But like, I have a hard time getting people on the left and just like progressive people that hate TPUSA to care sometimes about these conspiracy theories. A lot of it's like, well, let them fight. And I feel away about it, but I really wanted to ask y' all how you feel about it, that you're

[D]

probably gonna get differing answers from differing hosts here. Cause I am a little more. I'm a little more on the let them fight side of. And that's not to say don't point out that what they're saying is wrong. It's just, I Don't expect that to have any effect on this like narrative and attention driven economy.

[B]

Yeah, well, I have to say I'm like, I'm generally attracted to the idea that some claims are more likely to be true than false and some claims are more likely to be false than true. And there's a way to tell a difference and it's important to make that distinction publicly. So I think generally, yeah, I think that, I'm glad that, that, that TPOSA is the target, not, you know, more innocent targets. But, but you know, I think, I think I really interested in just looking at the wide media sort of information ecosystem and sort of picking through what is true and what is false. I think that's important for us to have this sort of like a shared community. There's something profoundly disconnecting about people who live in their own, you know, epistemological islands that are, that are totally disconnected from each other.

[A]

Yeah, well said.

[D]

I do think that there's a dearth of explanations in mainstream media for what people are seeing. And I don't mean how did Charlie Kirk die? Like what bullet was it and was there an exploding mine? You know, all these kinds of technical conversations. But the actual narrative of why this country is the way it is and why things are going the way they're going is still, in my opinion, missing even from progressive outlets. There's a kind of general rule that if you address the malaise, you have to address yourself. And I, I think a lot of mainstream media outlets are part of the same giant corporate mindfuck machine that is unfortunately continuing to make us more and more alone and more and more like do your own research and figure it out yourself. You know, advanced individualism, the profit motive, A lot of these things are just not well addressed by the kind of corporate mainstay media. So I would just argue that if we gave people a strong and convincing explanation for what is going on right now, let's say a thorough class analysis was available to everyone and was promoted openly without shame on some of these larger outlets, I don't think we would be in quite the same world, but that's not really the world that we live in. Like it's totally fine for legacy media to essentially criticize TP usa, but they're unable and they're kind of muzzled in a very specific other way that I think people pick up on. And so I think there's a certain distrust. And then once you don't believe the main story, then hey, it's a buffet. Then you know, Figure it out for yourself. You're American. Pull yourself up your bootstraps. You're an individual. Get your own ideas, you know, make up your own mind. You know, this is just what we

[A]

live in, I think. Well said, both of you guys. And I've just noticed over the past couple of years, like, basically since. And like, Brandi, you have been here since the beginning. You know, you are one of, you know, a very small group of people that was kind of just, like, fascinated by this culture, like, pretty much before anybody else was. And, you know, I've noticed since then that culture has flowed to me down right stream, not downstream, but culture has flowed right stream. And, like, the more centrist liberals tend to pick up what the right wing is putting down, even if it's. They think they're using it to fight online, I guess. So, like, I think it's important to be investigating and debunking and discussing these specific conspiracy theories, because I've seen them get picked up by, like, liberal friends of mine who I'm on fucking Xbox Live chat with, and they're going like, oh, yeah, dude. No, I mean, it wasn't the. No, the guy's a patsy. The. Whoever they arrested. No, the guy's a patsy. I mean, did you see the vest he was wearing? You know, and you're like, oh, man, I literally just fucking saw Jack Posobiec, you know, tweeting about that. And so, like, that's why I think it's important, because, like, it flows right stream, and we're too. We're too far down. The Overton window, I think, has shifted too much. Like, liberals are no longer protected. Like, there was a time, I think, when we might have been a little.

[D]

Liberals have been liberals. Liberals have been feeding on privileged sources forever. They've been feeding on news articles that are laundering, like, DoD and agency talking points and hiding, obscuring the sources. That's, like, very, very common practice. I would ask a single corporate media outlet to show me that they don't do this. And I think that that's, like. That's a big Achilles heel here.

[C]

Yeah, it's so funny that you mentioned that, though. Like, I think. And I have been doing this for a long time, right? And so the podcast that I am most on, I think is on the media, which is a podcast from wnyc. And I think it's because. Not because conspiracy theories and extremism is about the media, but because it is a product in a large part of distrust in the media and us doing media. The Wrong way and us. You know, I think it is a fault of news media absolutely. That so much of this has grown the way that it has.

[D]

Yeah. I think there's a certain. It's not even. I think it's. The idea is compromise. Right. And I think once people feel something is compromised, they're just gonna throw it out. And it is the era now of, like, your outlet's wrong, like, your outlet is bad, my outlet is good. And so we kind of like cling to whatever we believe in we can. In fact, a lot of arguments these days about the media just come down to, well, your sources insert here. Right. And it's like, I think it's hard to not feel that way. It's like, why would I pay attention to a really good Atlantic article that debunks, I don't know, QAnon or something like that in a very good way, when I know that the week that they're running, like the DSA is the new, like, Judeo Bolshevik threat that needs to be dismantled by the Democratic Party? You know, it's very hard for me not to just go, well, that shit's in the Atlantic. I'm not fucking reading that. Why would I, like, expose myself to a possibly deeply tainted point of view?

[C]

Yeah, I think that's a really popular feeling. And I think at every shop that I've worked at, I've had someone who has said, you know, because I work in corporate media, just blanket will never trust me. At NBC News, it was NBC News. At ms, it's Ms. You know, there's. There is that, I think, tendency. But I do think that they're like a lot of my audience is people who seek out me. Right. Who trust me. And I think that, like, that's what, that's what you sort of have to. That's what people are doing more and more and more.

[D]

Absolutely. You were a very special case in that.

[C]

Thanks, Jim.

[D]

What happened? Both because your work is good, but also because you were one of the few people that managed to find themselves in an area where there was budget allocated to do the kind of work that we were also doing that is extremely rare. That's the reason why we all go, oh, there's so few of us. And like, we all feel like old soldiers or whatever in some like, long forgotten war. Like the Japanese guy who hasn't found out World War II is over or whatever.

[A]

That's so true.

[D]

What I mean by that is that the budget was always extremely limited for this kind of stuff. At first it was like don't give it air. You know, it's like, why would we run another article about what the latest stuff is. Is wrong? Like, we've been running the same article, you know, so there's. There's always going to be like the interaction between the profit motive and who is given budget to even look into this stuff. The that we exist at all as a podcast and that we got big at all is because there was such a gap in that market, I suppose for, you know, I've got no, no better way to kind of define it as a than as a market in that there were just so few people that. That were being paid to do this, that journalists were grateful to have even a totally independent podcast come in, you know, and kind of build its own chops and try to find its own way. So it's really interesting because it's like, how could we. If the media was doing its job, like, in regards, like QAnon and this kind of debunking, I don't think we would be here existing at all. And so I do think that that speaks a lot to like, the path. And I feel like maybe these days, what would you say? Would you say there's a bigger budget to address this kind of stuff or are we still at the same place?

[C]

First of all, you're welcome. No, I think, like, when I first started at NBC, there was a, you know, we were brought over. Ben and I were brought over from the Daily Beast because they knew this was important when, you know, certain stories would do well. They wanted that. But then they quickly realized, realized that, like, what. What it means when you get us is that you get all of us like you, we. We now live in the swamp. And so, so much of what we would pitch would still face those, those roadblocks and barriers. You know, we were paid a salary, but so much wasn't fit for, you know, human consumption basically through the NBC audience. And so there was a lot of times where we would just like, hit these roadblocks. And I remember even at the. In QAnon, there was one moment where we had this story on, like the YouTubers that were making QAnon so taking it from 4chan and making it into a thing. And we had done this article and it was doing really well online. And then they were like, well, let's make TV from it. And the producers of the show that our bosses wanted to get on the air said to us, we're not gonna do QAnon on this show. And like, with kind of a chip on A shoulder for good reason because they, you know, our television show that grandmother, like everybody watches, like the whole world watches. And I, I think, like, part of me is like, like, and at the time thought, okay, well, I'll see you in six months. This is a thing, it's infecting the world and it's going to be big enough at one day that you're going to run to us and say, oh, no, what's QAnon? We have to talk about it. And that's what happened. Right. But like, I do think that there is a world in which not all of this stuff should be on. Let's say, you know, your, your, whatever your nightly news program is, should be on the seven, six and seven o' clock news. I think a little bit of not being aware of this is good and Right, right. And I, I don't know, I, I, I think there is, there is an aspect of gatekeeping that I appreciate about, about corporate news and about, you know, the legacy news outlets that I, I, I think is right. And hopefully I, I always joke that, like my work, I, I don't want normal people to see it. Like, I wish that they wouldn't have to see it because it gets to a point where it's like, okay, now we have to talk about this person because they've killed someone or this movement has, you know, done these dangerous things or it's January 6th and now they cart me out and I explain it.

[A]

I feel the same way about this podcast in a lot of ways. At parties and family events, holidays, it's the same. There's actually really quick, Julian, this leads me to a question that I have for you, Brandi, is that as somebody who has also been sort of studying this since the beginning, do you look around as I do and feel like everything is QAnon?

[D]

Actually, I wanna jump in because that's exactly what I was gonna say.

[C]

Okay. Okay.

[A]

Yeah, go for it.

[D]

Yeah. Cause Brandi, you're saying, okay, well, the n audience doesn't really need to hear this kind of stuff. But that ignores Russiagate. It ignores the general cooking that the kind of liberals have been doing that the average, I think, watcher of these large mainstream shows, they are becoming more conspiratorial, they are becoming more paranoid. And they also have been fed large conspiracies that they have still not had a good, thorough. We're sorry, we should be debunking ourselves. I remember when you could tune into Colbert and you would have some lawyers up saying, hey, tomorrow, like, Trump is going to get arrested for his connections to Russia. What I mean is that the paranoid American mind is not isolated to QAnon, and that when we thought we could isolate that, we ignored the fact that everybody was doing some form of it at the same time. That it was a general kind of cultural impulse.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I say this thing to reporters a lot now that I say everybody's a disinformation reporter. Like, every. Every single story. Like, everyone should be reporting. Every single story should have content, context about, like, well, why, you know, who is this liar lying to me? And why are they lying? And who's profiting off this lie? Like, that should just be baked into. Like, this is just a media criticism, right? Like, that should be baked into every story that we tell. So. Yeah, and I do think. I do think that the world has gotten far more paranoid. I used to say that, like, you know, the right. That people would be like, why do you only do conspiracy theories on the right? And it was like, because they have won the game. They. They, like, they are doing it the best. I don't know. It's. It's going the farthest. Like, that is where the fire and I have a hose. And so I'm going to direct it there right now. But, like, you know, with Epstein files and with. There's just. Everything is Twitter files. I mean, every story, every single. Everywhere I look, from the left and the right, like, people are just for good reason. Like, there was. Sorry, I'm on a tangent, but there was this. Someone in my shop sent me a Instagram reel last night, and it was this woman reading this, you know, tip that she had gotten. She's not a journalist, but a tip that she had gotten that said that there was. He said, I'm in the army or I'm in the military. And, you know, we heard this thing about a secret plan to hurt and kill immigrants and that we were involved. And then, you know, the plan was squashed, but I'm still afraid it's going to happen. And I'm like, maybe. Like, I don't. Like, it's one. Like, the world is so on fire, and our country is on fire, and it's. It's headed by a person that's doing terrible things to, you know, immigrants and minorities, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that, like, conspiratorial culture is thriving because the world, and this country specifically, is so, I don't know, ripe for it.

[E]

Like.

[C]

Like, it feels true, man. Right. Like, I'm not sure if it's True, but a lot of it feels like it could be true. But, like, I. I think it's messier than ever. But again, like my question to you, I. I think it's so important that we, like, do a. A hard line of what we know and what we don't know and how we can figure out the difference, because in the middle, in that unknowing, there's just so many people that are grifting off of it and. And making money and amassing power that eventually hurts other people around these lies. And I don't know how to. Especially when it becomes such a political we conspiracy theory. I don't know. I don't know how to stop that. And this is an existential question.

[D]

Yeah, it's difficult because you could basically be like, well, everything that we just heard today about the negotiation with a country at which we're at war, actually, that's just to boost stock prices so that there can be a pump and dump over the weekend. And that would be, like, true. And the problem is that, like, everyone is left to just read the marketing. Like, the best you're going to get is not lied to, but it's all marketing. So I feel like what you're describing is the entire economy. You're like, well, the gray area is full of grifters. That is the entire American economy. I would argue that the main export is this kind of, like, marketing, that everything is marketing and everything is just, like, spin. And so you cannot trust a word that anybody says. And I would argue that's an overall decent assessment of, like, where we're at. Not to give up and put my hands up, but just say, that's at least, like, if you're. If you're someone who can barely pay attention to the situation, don't trust anybody is a pretty good way to operate these days.

[A]

Even us. You know, we're asking you for five bucks a month, you know, Jake, don't you know, to kind of say. To throw our hands up and go, hey, look, we're just trying to make sense of, like, what's real and what's not. But you know what? Two hours of that, it's going to cost you.

[D]

I think the format of this conversation so far and, like, the fact that we're able to have it shows that we are independent editorially. Because it's like, yes, Brandy, let's get into it. You know, instead of like, oh, I don't want to jump into this.

[A]

I was thinking this is such a, like, really, like, a fascinating conversation. And just like, it always feels special, I think, when you're with the original. When you're with the original crew, whenever, you know, we talk to Ben or Jared or Will and, you know, sorry, anybody? I'm forgetting. I'm just, like, kind of riffing, but, like, you know, like, when you see an old friend after a long time and you kind of jump right into the fucking business, like, there's no small talk, and you're like. And you're like, yeah, like, it's been eight years. Like, let's talk about how things fucking are, dude.

[D]

But also, there's stuff we've always wondered, like, about each other, you know, and.

[A]

Well, I have. I don't wonder.

[B]

I.

[A]

But I don't do a lot of wondering.

[D]

What do you mean you don't want.

[A]

I just don't. I wonder about.

[D]

We're moving on. We don't need to know if you wonder or don't wonder. Travis, please jump in, because either you can get us back on track or you can answer Brandy. Because you got to answer Brandy. Otherwise, I. I'm gonna use this gun. What? Sorry. I'm trying to raise the stakes.

[C]

This is.

[D]

It's called soap opera entertainment.

[C]

I think I hear someone calling my name.

[A]

I'll just.

[D]

I do not, in fact, have a gun. Please, Travis.

[B]

You know, I was wondering, when you wrote about some of the believers in conspiracy theories related to Charlie Kirk's assassination, you did actually watch some people reconsider their beliefs. And I'm curious what led to these kinds of breakthroughs. I mean, was it the actual, like, forensic evidence? Was it be able to, like, see, like, you know, the case made in a context outside of social media that sort of made them perhaps reconsider what they seeing from sources like Kansas, Owens.

[C]

I mean, so, like, y' all know so well, and. And it is really good being here with y'.

[A]

All.

[C]

It does feel like there was a war or there is a war, and, you know, there we've lost some good ones. Yeah, it's nice. It's nice to be with people who get it. It really, really is. So even if we don't always agree, it's just nice to. To be with people who just get the war that we're. That we're waging. But conspiracists live on a spectrum, right? Especially conspiracy consumers live on a spectrum, too. Where I met, I don't know, outside the courthouse and inside the. The courtroom who adhered to some sort of conspiracist belief about Tyler Robinson being a patsy and most of Them that I talked to, because I would come out at lunch and say, what did you think of the evidence? Almost all of them said, I thought it was weak sauce, you know. Oh, well, I think I had seen that before somewhere. That doesn't. That was so fuzzy, you couldn't even see the video. What I thought it was going to show him, you know, actually taking the shot. Like, oh, did you know that Lance's. They would always find some sort of way to poke a hole in it. Except there was one thing that happened a couple of times that really tracks with what I've seen in other conspiracy theories, and that was. I'll give you an example. That was the personal. And one woman I had met, we called them the freedom ladies because they were. They came to court wearing Charlie Kirk's freedom shirt. That he was the, like, the one that he was shot and killed in.

[D]

Ah, seems weird.

[C]

I mean, they're fans of Charlie Kirk, you know, that's how they shoot hard.

[D]

Because the mental image of that shirt just. All I can see is the neck. Like, all I can see is that horrible video.

[C]

It's like the tent, right, that they set up at Amfest, like, to the TPOSA people, they saw it as a memorial, and so did the people going to the tent. But other. You see it from outside, and you're like, that's dark. That's really dark.

[D]

Driving my car with no top on through Dallas.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

To celebrate my hero, jfk.

[C]

Yeah, it's, you know. Well, yeah. Anyway, so I'm talking to these ladies and. And one of them, and I thought they were going to be there as a friend of Kirk and Erica, Kirk and tpusa, and they had questions. You know, they didn't know the official narrative. They thought that the case against Tyler Robinson was weak. And then one of the women who couldn't have gone up to the courtroom because she didn't get a wristband that day, she said that she was just hanging out in the lobby and she had seen Erica Kirk, because Erica came in, too. And she said. When I saw Erica, evil, evil, just exuding from her. And I was like, oh, that is such a surprise to hear. And this lady was, like, in tears. Like, she really was like. And she was a normal lady Utahn, you know, relatively normal seeming. She, you know, was from Utah. She had gone. She was at UVU that day. She said she had gone to therapy since she was really shaken up by this whole thing, but she thought Erica was. And then the fourth day of the hearing, she did Secure a seat. And she sat right in front of Erica Kirk and Kathy Kirk, Charlie Kirk's mother. And so she got to be a witness to Erica and Kathy sobbing to them, hugging each other, whispering to each other. She said that she heard a conversation where, you know, Erica kept playing with the bangles on her bracelet and that she told her mother in law that she had gotten it as an anniversary present from Charlie and that she broke down in tears again. At one point, Erica handed a tissue to a woman, one of the freedom ladies, in front of her, because they were crying. She handed a tissue to her. And so when we got out of the courthouse that day, I said, oh, you know, I saw that you had an interaction with her. And then it was complete 180. The Freedom lady said, I, who had just said she was evil a couple days earlier, said, I know I was wrong. I feel so awful for believing that. I know that she loved Charlie. She could not have done this, like, just a complete turnaround.

[A]

Well, that's true.

[C]

Which is fascinating. Yeah. No. Well, yes and no. Right. It speaks so much to, like, our ability and our need for, like, interaction with people. And that human interaction just totally supersedes all sense and, you know, any sort of logic we can have because it doesn't. Like, she'd be crying just to put on an act. Like, why would. It doesn't. How do you know? You don't know. No fact was different from you when you walked in the first day to the second day, but she just changed her whole mind. And, you know, I mean, I've had that experience where Tucker Carlson said terribly untrue things about me on his show. And then I had interacted with one of the people who was attacking me and my family online. And I, you know, reached out and I was like, this is not true. It's not happening. We had a conversation. And she's like, I'm so sorry. Let me take that down. And it's like, I can't talk to everybody. You know, Erica Kirk can't cry personally in front of everybody. But I do think that that is a. That is the way to change somebody's mind really quickly.

[B]

I mean, I think it speaks to, like, you know, what really makes these stories compelling is just, just the dramatic narrative of heroes and villains. And like, it was like, if you, if you think someone think is a villain and then they must have been in on the plot to do evil things, but if you actually meet them and, you know, somehow you see their humanity and you see that perhaps your impression of them was wrong, then, okay, they can't be part of this plot. So this conspiracy isn't true. So it's like. It's like. It has more to do with, like, your general interpersonal, sort of, like, feelings about individuals rather than any sort of, like, a pile of evidence that that sort of convinces people these conspiracy theories.

[C]

Yeah, I was. It just reminds me of RFK's book American Values, I think it is. And, like, the first line of it, I'm going to misquote it, but it was so shocking to me that I remember it often. It was something like, you know, I learned early on that the world was made up of gods and monsters, good and evil. And it's like, no, it's not.

[D]

What the hell?

[C]

Like, it's not at all, like, that is your whole problem.

[A]

I think maybe he just watched the movie Gods and Monsters or something and was like. And was like, I like the way that sounds.

[C]

I think I'm misquoting it. I think it was, like, good and evil, but it was something that's, like. That's the problem. Like, it's so much of these conspiracy theories, like you said, Travis, I think could be it's explained in this, like, simple way. That's not how the world works. People are complicated, and not just that person's evil and that person's good. But, yes, I agree.

[D]

It's true that. I mean, if you could. If you consume the general, like, media, it's hard not to come away from it thinking black and white from the. From, like, entertainment movies to, like, online opinions and stuff. Like, it is not exactly a time right now where people are looking for lack of clarity, gray area complexity. I think it's. It is sad. Yeah.

[C]

I just find that so boring, too. Like, as a storyteller, which is, like, you know, my job, because I find that to be the most effective way to get people to understand something. I just. It's a really, really boring narrative to say that, you know, this is a bad guy doing a bad thing and leave it at that.

[D]

Yeah, totally. I mean, but ambiguity has always been kind of anathema to the American experience.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, like, that was, like, sort of, like, what got me, like, sort of curious about Qanon in the first place, and then also, like, out of it, you know, out of it to a place where I wanted to study it from an objective sort of, like, critical standpoint, you know, like this woman who went in, like, you know, and was like, you know, I was, like, totally wrong. Like, at the very least, I think it's, it's good, it's good to see somebody still able to, like, change their mind and then admit to you, like, especially if she knew that you were a journalist, that she was like, oh, yeah, you know what? Like, I was totally wrong about that. Like, I find that so many people, especially online, and like you said, out in the world, it is so different. You can see, say anything you want about Erica Kirk online, but when she hands you a, you know, when she hands you a tissue and you see the tears streaming down her face, it's like it's harder to bully somebody, like when they're in front of you and you see them be hurt and affected by your words.

[D]

So what's interesting is that her conclusion then is I was totally wrong about this thing. And instead of. Actually there is a subtle and decent argument that Erica Kirk is quote unquote in on it because of the entire ecosystem of the grift at tpusa and what followed the death. And so you can see something there that isn't an absolute right. It's not like, oh, she was in on killing her husband. It's like, of course not. But she is now in on the ecos, the feeding frenzy, the ecosystem of rewards that comes around the creation of a left or of a right wing martyr like Charlie Kirk. So there is a subtle thing there and the person is going, well, this person is an evil person. And then they're like, nope, I was totally, 100% wrong. And once again, we completely avoid the middle ground, that gray area where you could argue that in an absolute sense, yes, but of course not in the way that you think, which is almost always the answer to like a QAnon believer or something like that.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, I try to stress too that like the part that has to come before you tell the story of these conspiracy theories is that Turning Point usa, including, you know, Benny Johnson, did a really hair harrowing speech at, at America Fest where he said, this was supposed to bring us together. This was supposed to have us against all the trans people and this was supposed to have us break. The FBI should be breaking down doors to antifa and trans people. And I'm like, whoa. So, like, yes, these conspiracy theories are very likely untrue. There's no evidence for them. But also, if these weren't there, if this rift wasn't happening, if Candace Owens wasn't leading a charge to dismantle, you know, or to infect the whole narrative with these conspiracy theories, then what would be happening is that led by Stephen Miller and J.D. vance and the whole arm of the federal government. They would be using Charlie Kirk's death effectively to more than they already are, come down on their political so called enemies of antifa. The people that they just dissent in general, LGBTQ people, especially trans people. Like, that's a really important thing to understand is that like without this thing that I think is bad, not understand not believing this truth about the conspiracy theories, beyond that, if that wasn't there, then they would have a free lane to do real harm. And so that is the whole, that is the whole nuance of it. It's a complicated thing.

[B]

Yeah. I think this ecosystem of like telling simple stories of heroes and villains I think is part of what made Candace Owens such a success in her tabloidy style. You know, it's not merely, you know, in sort of like, rather than kind of being gossipy about like, oh, who cheating on who or whatever and who screwed whoever and whatever relationship, it's about, you know, who's in on what plot. And she sends like, you know, often the heroes in the stories are the lone content creator on social media trying to get, you know, a hidden truth revealed. And that's just, I don't know, that's just really, really, you know, that's just really, really compelling.

[D]

But that's the thing that I would argue is that there is a hidden truth. Like America is a deeply delusional country that does not want to face its own history and its own secret history of essentially psychological operations, nations, propaganda, domestically and internationally, a thousand military bases. There is an octopus controlling the world and it's us. And we don't want to look at that. We don't, you know, and I think that. So there is a hidden truth, unfortunately. And that's why I think telling people that the malaise is wrong is the, is the, is an approach that won't work.

[C]

And no, I don't think it's not like right or wrong. Right. It's that like there's a voice that's saying, and it's people that were yelling at me like, you know, we'll talk about these truths, truthers. But like Elizabeth Lane and you know, all the folks who are yelling at me outside in the line saying like, oh, you believe that the government is good? Well, no, that's not what I'm saying.

[D]

Do you believe that the government is good?

[C]

Right. It's like, do you don't believe in the JFK conspiracy? Like, which one? Like, what are we talking about? And I think that we can be Better we can be smarter. We can sit with a. With a. With a question and say, what do I know to be true? And what do I not know? And how can I figure it out? And who. You know, what are my best sources of. Like, it's. It's pie in the sky. But, like, I'm a librarian. Like, that's how I got into this work, which is a very, very weird way to get into, you know, journalism. But, like, I think it is a public service. Like, I. It is a little pie in the sky. But I feel very strongly about it that, like, I just want to get people good information. And so, like, every story is somebody coming up to me at the reference desk, and, like, you know, the world is not perfect, and I am not perfect, but this is the best information that I can get you right now. And I think seeking out that information and, you know, keep asking questions that will reveal some of those hidden truths. Julian. But, like, though, that is the mission.

[A]

Yeah, totally.

[C]

It's getting harder every single day.

[D]

Absolutely.

[A]

And showing people, too, that, like, you can be satisfied with. Not know. That, like, you as a person, can be okay with, like, maybe not knowing the full sto. Like, the full story. Like, you know, a lot of people are. I remember after the Collins documentary came out, a lot of people were like, oh, so, like, what do you think? Do you think that, like, it's him, or do you think it's not? Or, like, what do you think? And I was like. At the time, I was like, you know, I think this is the best information that we. This is the most information that we have available. And, like, here are some, like, unanswered questions. And, like, that was. That's, like, really satisfying for me. And, you know, I think, like, that sets a good example, too, that. That it's okay to not know everything

[D]

and to rest in the ambiguity.

[A]

To rest in the ambiguity. Exactly. That's a much nicer way to say what I was.

[C]

No, that's a beautiful way to put that.

[A]

Yeah, but that's tough to do, and it's. And I think it sets a good example. I think we try. I try to do this. I'm with you, Brandi. I try to do the same. Just get people, like, decent information, you know, the best information as possible. Don't lie to people. Don't try to, like, I don't know, like, just sell them a false. A false bill of goods. Just. That feels just like, cheap and unfair. Like, in a world where, like, that's basically all that there is on offer.

[D]

I think a lot of people, like, I didn't interview with Doomscroll where I was asked, like, what my intentions were with this other podcast that I do, superstructure. And there was a kind of horror when I wouldn't kind of agree to the premise. And I was like, well, I'm not actually interested in where my listener is coming from and where they're going to go because of what they listen to. I'm not here to manipulate. I'm simply here to, as best I can, lay out those facts and then allow you the freedom, hopefully, to not feel like I'm pushing you in some direction. And I think that that really, it was almost like, incomprehensible. It's like, what do you mean? What's the marketing? Like, what's the marketing. What product are we trying to get people to adopt? You know, there was this misunderstanding of, like, what I was saying as nihilism. And I'm like, I'm not nihilistic. I simply don't believe it's my right to manipulate my audience and to think of their path on some form of, like, journey that I'm trying to manipulate. I can tell you about my journey. I can tell you that this is how I do the research, that these are the people that we pay for the research. This is how we get by our information. Here are our sour. You can go and kind of review them if you'd like. But no, I'm not invested in whether I'm able to convince people of something or essentially manipulate them emotionally to come to some sort of conclusion that would make me feel good because I've done my job being a propagandist.

[C]

I love that you interrogate the question. I feel like I need to do that more. I'm always like, how can I answer this stupid question?

[D]

Well, you should do it recklessly.

[C]

Yeah. I would never come in as hot as you. I don't think my attempt temperature goes to that setting, but, oh, God, I love that you're in the world.

[D]

I wish I could help that, but it's not my nature.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I suppose I always kind of approached, like, what I do in a similar way. It's like I have zero control over what anyone chooses to believe. I do have control. I can explain what I believe and what I think about certain claims and how I came to those conclusions. I can explain my process, and I think it's convincing for reasons that I'll explain. But I have zero power over what anyone chooses to believe. And so I don't, you know, I don't want to make people believe things for the same reason. I don't want to know, move the moon with my mind. It's just not something I can do, really.

[D]

Which makes you, by the way, extremely valuable and unique in an. In an environment in which everyone has accepted that marketing has to be a part of what you do. And so you have to imagine your potential client, and you have to imagine a final result you want from that client selling them on the product. And you have to imagine a funnel to get them from point A to point B. And, you know, I mean, it's like, that is exhausting. So it's. It is what makes somebody, I think, valuable and worth listening to is when they really aren't concerned with that or when they are aware of that, but that is not their goal or it's their overt goal to keep that out of what they do.

[B]

I also want to talk to you, Brandi, about John Aaron Bray. This is a.

[C]

My favorite.

[B]

Yeah, this is a independent researcher from Oklahoma, like we mentioned, who has developed the theory that Charlie Kirk was killed or at least simultaneously attacked by a hidden explosive in Kirk's microphone that he wearing on the day that he died. So this is. I mean, I like this one, too. I've mentioned it before. And one of the reasons I like this conspiracy theory is like, it feels like a real classic conspiracy theory in which sort of assembles a pile of. A large sort of assemblage of evidence and claims that are sometimes very technical and elaborate, but don't really add up to what he's claiming. So could you walk us through this, the exploding microphone theory in its simplest form?

[C]

I sure can. I'm obsessed with this theory and this creator. And so I. We have a video coming out about it, I think, this week, and I think it. Before I do. Just entertain me, if you will. After JFK was assassinated, there's this umbrella man theory that I'm sure y' all are aware of. And it's this. This idea that, you know, this guy that was holding an umbrella on the side when the motorcade went by that day somehow either signaled to a different gunman somewhere that that was the moment to take the shot because it was not raining. It' guy with a black umbrella. But there was another version of this conspiracy theory that suggested that there was a kind of dart gun in the umbrella that shot and killed Kennedy. And so, you know, some 12 years later, when the House held hearings about this, they brought this guy, Lewis Witt, in front of Congress, and they had him bring his umbrella. He had gone mostly unnoticed until, I think it was like the Dallas Morning News or someone outed him. And so he was brought before Congress with his umbrella. And they said, you know, show us her umbrella, will you open it? And he's like, I don't want this umbrella. It'll lead to a bunch of new things. I just, I don't want to do it. So the Senate aide came over, opened the umbrella. They said, has it ever had a gun? He's like, no. But this guy, this creator of this magazine, the Grassy Knoll Gazette, had done all these diagrams of how you would fit a projectile, a dart gun, a bullet, into this, how it could be used as a weapon. And so it was pretty popular. And that's how I fit John Bray in historically, in his exploding microphone. The idea behind it is that John Bray was watching Charlie Kirk be shot. And he thought to himself, that just looks weird. And he thought and thought and he said he came up with this idea that, you know, you remember the pager thing that Israel did, where they put explosive in pagers and assassin, right?

[A]

So remembered something.

[C]

Yeah. So he's like that, what if. What if that's what happened? And so he's like, well, clearly not a. I don't see a pager anywhere, but look at that, there's a microphone there. Could something have been an explosive device be put, put into that? And so John Bray, God love him, went to the shed with his Instagram account and his camera and started doing these like at home experiments where he. It's really not good, but like, he would take a pipe, basically show that he's like, well, if his mic is here and there was a wound here, it could have gone like that. Okay, so that's step one in this grand scheme. And then he started building little explosive devices in those little screens, square road mics. And he made up these pig carcass sort of belly things. And he inserted the device in there and showed that, you know, to his liking, that this is probably what happened. It made a simple look, this is a square. And the bullet or the, the wound in Charlie Kirk kind of looked like a square. Clearly, that's it. Then John Bray, our hero, he decided to get really fancy with it. And what he did was he uploaded a bunch of forensic, forensic papers to Grok and to Claude. And he just found a bunch of forensic papers, I guess on the Internet, uploaded them all, and then gave the AI agents the direction, like, you are a forensic investigator. Look at all these videos of Charlie Kirk, I'm going to upload them, and then I want you to vibe code a website that shows your theory of the case, that it's not a bullet, that it was actually a projectile. So then we have this vibe coded website that goes along, and that is the package of evidence that John Bray presents. And at first he was kind of, like, shrugged off. No one really listened to poor John Bray. But then slowly, people started, because you need content. And so they started having him on. He was on trigger smart. He was on a couple of, like, of the lower level creators. Apparently he got in touch with Candace Owens. He was feeding her this information behind the scenes, but even she was like, I'm not touching that. So we didn't see her really mention him hard until January. January. But since then, because again, running out of content. That. That now his theory has somehow, you know, been elevated to the preeminent theory behind the Charlie Kirk conspiracy theories.

[D]

Bond. Bond. This is Q. You are in a very new world. You must understand that we are creating an explosive lav mic. You will be faced with many sidewalk zoomers and you will have the tools to take them on. Maybe even that subway takes guy.

[A]

Yeah, this one has actually trickled into, like, my liberal. Like, one of my liberal friends who I was. I was playing Xbox with. And they also believed it was some kind of device in a. In a vest. It was like a spin off of that. And I asked him, like, what. What did he. I was like, why do you think that, like, somebody would do that? And I think his. His reasoning was that it was a false flag, is that it was like, oh, you make it look like, you know, they executed, you know, one of theirs so that it would justify them instituting martial law or something. He had some sort of, you know, reasoning behind it. But I was like, oh, wow. I was like, that one. That one stuck. It's like people aren't used to seeing somebody getting executed, right? It's not like Call of Duty where a couple little X's appear over them and they go like a couple numbers. And so they're like, that looked weird.

[E]

Hmm.

[A]

That didn't look how I thought it was gonna look.

[D]

I don't know. Like, I feel like in every A24 movie now, it's. It's like the carnage is always actually shown. I. I've seen so many movies now. They want to show people getting shot right in the head. Like, it's crazy how much more gore there is in movies these days.

[C]

Not even. But, like, when Charlie Kirk was killed, like, Just having. I mean, I must. I. I saw it for work, but everybody saw that video. And, like, so many people just saw it played immediately. Right. And, like, I. I've been thinking. I mean, whatever. I think a lot about a lot of things, but, like, when I. I was young, you had to seek out gore on the Internet, right? You had to, really. And it was hard. You had to look for the Daniel Pearl beheading video.

[A]

Like, you had, like, rotten dot com.

[C]

Yeah. Like, it was, like, a. A thing. And then when you found it. At least me, I remember, like, there was moments in, like, early Internet experience that were like, oh, God, that was really upsetting. And I don't know if it's really upsetting anymore. I think that there is a desensitization that, like, speaks to what you're saying about that we see in movies and stuff, too, where I think that people are watching this stuff on repeat in a way that's dark.

[D]

Yeah. I definitely avoid that video, but I have seen it a few times, and it's hard to not look at and not want to see it at least a second time just to go, what the fuck did I just see? But I still have a visceral disgust at watching that level of gore, especially in real life.

[A]

I was in college, like, with a fresh Dell, you know, dude, you know you're getting it, dude. You got a Dell and Internet access. And, like, on my own for the first time and at a time when the Internet was, like, pretty new. And I remember, like, the days of, like, Live Leak, and I'm sure. I think Live Leak's probably still around, but, like, Rotten and Live Leak, and I remember seeing those same videos, and I've described it to people, like, since as like, a picture piece of me dying with the person that, like, it. Like, it really affected me to the point where, like, I become a lot more sensitive to gore in my. You know, as I've gotten older. And it is very frightening to me, the. The access and ease and almost persistence at which you were shown that. Especially if you were on Elon's Twitter.

[C]

Yeah. And like. Like boomers and, like, Christian people, like, everybody saw it, and I'm just. I don't know. I don't know how to. I'm not explaining myself well. It just. It was really. It really bothers me. It really bothers me a lot.

[D]

There will be no place in heaven for any of us.

[B]

Right?

[D]

We have committed, like, the cardinal sin of I. The I. We have done too much with it.

[B]

I mean. Yeah. I mean, Again, I remember like middle school where like the existence of videos in which people died was like an urban legend. It was something that was hypothesized existed in like movies. Like Faces of Death.

[C]

Yeah, I was just gonna say the, the VHS's. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

But. But now we, we live in a world where they've taken Faces of Death and commercialized it into like a reboot. That's like a narrative. Like they're, they've. Oh, oh, it's Play doh. We're just Play DOH folded. It's. It's. We've dropped it on the ground. There's so much crud in it and a couple of bugs too. And you're just. Oh, you're stuffing it back in the package. Some of it's dry.

[B]

But that was not just like, you know, weird gore that likes known about by your weird friend with a bad home life. It's like, it's just like, just everybody is like, sees this content, like watches it over and over and over again in order to like, for example, prove this in an attempt to prove this exploding microphone theory around other mass shootings.

[C]

There's been a question of like, do, do we show the bodies? Right? And for a long time it was like, no, that's too awful. It's too. And now it's just like we stopped having that conversation because X just shows us the bodies. Like we just. Now we just all watch the bodies.

[D]

It's honestly, it's exhausting.

[E]

I agree.

[C]

I don't like it. No.

[B]

Yeah, like we're all in the. Strapped in the Clockwork Orange chair now. Just, just big.

[D]

But we've also all seen like what happened in Palestine, which I think we had to be shown those bodies or else nobody would believe it, you know, so there are, you know, I'm not going to complain about, about that specifically.

[C]

That's different, right?

[D]

Yeah, it is. But I mean I think that people have seen man made horrors beyond their understanding, like through this genocide that we are actively participating in with our tax money.

[C]

I don't disagree.

[A]

Yeah, me neither. I definitely, I have some friends who are like very pro Israel and are very vocal about it. And I'm like, they clearly just haven't seen like the moment I saw because by the way, it was all over X. There was no choice but like I'm glad that I did because I changed my mind about what was going on. So I agree that it's different, Brandi, obviously, but I think it's important that I wanted to agree with you, Julian.

[D]

Yeah, it's interesting because on X now, like the for you page is an absolute. I mean it's insane and disgusting. It'll be like sexual stuff, violence, like anything you want. And then the only thing that will be like, do you really want to see this? Are pictures of mangled Palestinian people in the latest round of attacks. It's the only thing that it's still sensitive to answering for me on X. It's showing me the horrors that I do not want to see. Obviously tons of like onlyfans stuff and sex stuff. But then it's like, well, are you really sure that you want to see this? Which is the only righteous, I mean like use of like X being so non censored would be to show people where their tax dollars are going.

[C]

Well, because it's, it's not, it's not bearing witness to violence as like a moral duty. It's being entertained by violence.

[D]

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, here is some non entertaining violence. We've detected non entertaining violence. Would you like to see this? Are you sure? Because we can show you some other gore that's a lot less fraught.

[A]

Yeah. It's like this isn't something that you would see on our crazy ass videos or whatever.

[C]

Yeah. And I mean, not to bring it back to Candace, but I mean, part of what she did was she spoke to people who were witnessing this with their own eyes. When we saw after October 7th and Israel's response to it and she said immediately she's like, this isn't right. I, I can't. Like it doesn't feel right. I can't. You know, October 7th was awful also. You can't just have a blockade and, and not feed people and take them away and bomb them. And that's wrong. And so just that, like I said that like she often says the things that no one's willing to say. And at the time it felt like no one on the right was willing to say, that's wrong, that feels bad, and I don't like it. And so that just, it was an immediate sort of line that was like, Candace Owen sounds reasonable right now. And that's a problem. Right.

[A]

And so big time. Yeah.

[C]

And she got a lot of people to side with her on that issue and then, you know, took it far beyond and leaned far into anti Semitic tropes and, and conspiracy theories and blood libels. Like she just, she took it to, to a place that's not right and not true. Absolutely. And unfortunately she put all those people, she took a lot of those people who an Immediate reaction was like, no, Israel has gone too far. That's not. It's. That's not commensurate with, you know, that's not an equal of reaction. Or that's, you know, babies should not be killed. You know, that crazy idea. She would say that. And she took those people and she brought them over to La La Land into this, like, lunatic planet with her.

[D]

Yeah, Frank. Ism and shit.

[A]

Yeah, that's. That is like, the most insidious thing about conspiracy theories is that when they hit that grain of truth or the broken clock is right, twice a day you can snag reasonable people, and once you've shown them one truth, they're more willing to believe. That's why I get so mad at, like, people, like, even within our sphere who will say things like, see, I told you so, or like, you know, be like, look like. Because you're. You're setting it up, that you have the ability to predict something and that you're trying to enlist a following because of that. Because people are hoping to know before everybody else, because the person that they're fought, like, I think that's real insidious. And I see it in a lot of places, places like in the, like, social media, sort of like, you know, journalism and podcast ecosystem. And it fucking sucks because, like, I'll be. We'd be making so much more money

[C]

if we were fucking.

[A]

If we were just lying to people all the time and telling them that we knew exactly what was gonna happen.

[D]

Evil, Evil Jake. I like it. He even has an accent. Hey, hey, Evil Jake. Do you want to start a side podcast with me?

[A]

Evil Jake? Evil Jake. Yeah, I've been pushed. I've been pushed to my. To my wit's end, you know.

[B]

How much have you, I guess, dove into the. The technical evidence that John Barret presents for his theories? Because, like, I remember reading he was talking a lot about, like, thoracic resonances of the human body. And there's so much, I guess, like, stuff that's like, you know, I guess he has. Has a background as an engineer, and there's stuff that's, like, so technical that's, like, beyond most people.

[C]

It's beyond him.

[A]

Yes, it's.

[B]

Yes, it's like. It feels like. Yeah, he goes into these rabbit holes that, you know, that sound very sea. But, like, when I looked into it, I found out, like, he, for example, got wrong. The. The resonance that, like, the human torso makes when it's been struck and, like, all these sorts of things that, like, are really kind of like, you know, complicated and require you to kind of like dig into the scientific literature in order to even know. Yeah, I guess like, yeah, I guess like how much of his theory is really rests upon this kind of like hyper technical pile of nonsense.

[C]

Yeah, it's the same thing as like, you know, when RFK misquotes a study and it's like it sounds for a normal person listening, it's like, well, it's got study that says that. Right. And so, you know, the only thing I know how to do is say, okay, well you are quoting this Farn Beck optical algorithm as like the main idea behind. He's saying like he, look, he uses this optical algorithm. That's all. When you look at his website, you see all like the, the color around the. The videos and he's like, see that red? That somehow proves that it's an explosive or something. And so I called up Gunnar Farnbeck who came up with the optical algorithm that Mr. Bray uses. And, and you know, he basically said this is nonsense. Like he's. You can't come to any of these conclusions by using the algorithm. Like, it just doesn't make sense. He's like, I don't even know how he came to this hypothesis using my algorithm. I called up a lot of forensic experts from the bullet sound that John Bray talks about. I talked to this guy who's an expert in the forensics of wearable devices. He also said it was nonsense. So the all. It's hard to say like what part of it is nonsense. It's all nonsense. He. He. It's just. He put it all in clawed. It's. It's just AI fever dream. And it's not, it's not real. It's not good science. And so you can, you know, in this special, I trot out all these people who say this is nonsense, this is stupid, this is wrong. But like at the end of the day, I don't, I, I was convinced. I don't know. I don't know if it's going to be the. It's certain this will be the thing that everyone will watch my video and then they'll say, oh, now just like the, the freedom lady. Brandy is right. I was so wrong. And I take back, right.

[A]

Yeah. It could be no other way.

[B]

I talked a little bit about this in the intro, but I'm curious what you make of the strange position that TPUSA is in which they're desperate to get people to believe the official narrative. And it's like I've mentioned this before, but one of the things that really got me interested in QAnon, made me realize it was something that it was worth paying closer attention to, was the fact that on Charlie Kirk's Twitter account, he amplified a QAnon narrative about how Trump was arresting human traffickers much greater rate than Obama was. That wound up being nonsense. It wound up being something I, Like, I traced to a QAnon promoter who misunderstood some of the statistics he was seeing. But now. But now they're in a situation where, like, now they're on the defensive position where they are trying to be like, I don't know, the establishment trying to act as if it's like. It's like, no, no, no. The prosecutors have a strong case against Robinson and to not trust these. These fringe figures years online. So, like, how exactly are they navigating them? I mean, it's like I. There's a little bit of, like, you know, feeling of chickens coming home to roost here for me. But. But, like, how. How are they. How are they handling the situation?

[C]

Yeah, poorly. Because what else can they do? I mean, they're. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Like, the only right move here. And I mean that right in a moral sense more than a. What will be beneficial to them. But, like, there has to be. From my standpoint, like, if it's me, there has to be a moment where you come to Jesus. I've had this con with lots of people inside Turning Point usa. I've had this conversation on the record with Jack Posobec, and, you know, I'm like, you're the Pizzagate guy. How. How can you possibly. How can you possibly now argue for. For calm and for, you know, for. For logic and. And for, you know, consideration of the family of a conspiracy and for a person in the middle of a conspiracy. And I think that, like, they're just. They're trying to do all of the same things that they've always done, except with this one. So, like, you have Benny Johnson, who the morning to the courtroom had just done his show, and the A block with Seth Rich conspiracy theories.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[C]

And then the B block was, I'm going to the hearing today. And, like, then he was on Fox News that night urging people to just believe in the facts. It's like, how dare you, bro? Like, how dare you want us to consider Erica Kirk but not Seth Rich's parents? It doesn't work that way. And so unless there is some sort of come to Jesus moment, I just don't think there will ever. They'll never have, they'll never have a place to stand. They're just on quicksand. I mean, the Charlie Kirk spread. Conspiracy theories about Butler, Pennsylvania, about the shooting at Butler, about vaccines, about Haitians eating dogs and cats. Like, we can go. I can go forever. He always took the side of the conspiracy theorists and if he didn't take their side outright, he at least winked at them or used those conspiracy theories to promote his right wing agenda. And so they're in a tough place and I don't see how they win.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's essentially impossible to like, it's like everyone is like illegitimate and corrupt except for us. And you should listen to these, these small. And don't trust the mainstream media or like the courts or anything like that. Any other, any other kind of like source of information. Except in this one instance. In this one particular instance, I'm going to carve out one exception because like, you know, he was our founder and therefore you should like just treat this particular story as the correct single narrative that you should believe and ignore everyone else. Yeah, right. It's unsustainable. It doesn't, it doesn't work. So I feel like you can't just do this kind of like, you know, distrust everything. Except for this one. Except for this one instance.

[C]

Yeah. It's the same problem that like RFK is feeling right now with his Maha, folks. That Cash Patel experience is experiencing that Dan Bongino experience. It's like if you say there's a conspiracy theory everywhere and then you're put in charge and you say, actually no, it's cool, like nobody, nobody believes you. Right? Like you can't, you can't do that. And finally, I feel like we were talking about this before, but like there has been a death of shame and a death of consequences and this is like the one sort of instances maybe, maybe outside the courts where like, you can't do that. You don't get to get away with that. And it really has like been a thorn in the sides of a lot of people who, who spread these conspiracy theories that now have amassed some power.

[D]

Yeah, it's so funny because there was like briefly the belief that they could do the dance where it's like, don't trust the government, but they are in government and it's like, you're not going to be able to thread that needle. That's. Let me tell you, good luck with that. And of course they got a ton of pushback and they all seem pretty bitter about it.

[C]

Yeah, I bet it does not feel good.

[D]

Yeah. Reaping, sowing, etc.

[C]

Consequences of your actions. Yeah. Not that I'm delighting in it.

[D]

We would never say that.

[B]

Yeah. I just think it's just an interesting dynamic when, you know, it's like I feel like they operated from a presumption of they would like always be, always be the underdog, you know, always be in the position where they were, you know, on the outside looking in and therefore fostering distrust of, I guess, mainstream legitimizing fact finding sources like the courts. But then all of a sudden, they needed these sources. They became these sources. They ascended to the power. And it's the dog that caught the car.

[C]

Heavy as the head. What is it? Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Is that the right phrase?

[A]

Yes.

[D]

Heavy is the jaw that caught the car.

[A]

Tickling. Tickling is the pigs who are in the mud.

[C]

Nice. We did it.

[A]

Y' all brought it back full circle.

[B]

Yeah. So, yeah. Any, like, final thoughts before we let you go about the. This ecosystem and guess Candace Owens future as a conspiracist entrepreneur? Because I feel like though she's, she's the future, unfortunately of this particular area.

[C]

Yeah, I think she's the new Alex Jones. Right. Like, she will probably have a long career with this sort of new band of conspiracy consumers that are a lot of women women. A lot of true crime gossip. Right wing. Ish, folks. I think she's, she's, she's in it for the long haul. Tpusa, I'm not so sure, but I'm just so glad to be here. Thanks for having me, guys.

[D]

It's so interesting. If you had told me, hey, the next Alex Jones will be a black woman, I would have been like, what the are you talking about? These are people who complain about like black people in the Odyssey or whatever, you know, like they're inherently not going to.

[C]

She'll do that too.

[D]

Like that.

[B]

But.

[D]

Yes, but what I. She does. Of course she plays to all of those things.

[A]

She'll do that too.

[D]

But also she's bringing in a whole new audience. You know that there are autis and like kind of gray area people who don't relate to political sides. And there's so many people, I think, that have been introduced to it just because she isn't like Alex Jones. They don't have to look at a yelling like drunk tomato. And you know, she does have like a certain charisma. She knows how to key, like she knows how to Key and like a lot of people are connecting with it. I've had friends that I thought would never. Who were like, hey, do you listen to her? She's cool.

[C]

I was like, oh God, she's really good. She's a really, really good showman. She's just, she's got a delivery that makes it feel like a friend. She is the Oprah of Alex Jones's. She's that star quality, unfortunately, and she is using it for evil.

[A]

Do you think she'll like get like a big studio and stuff? Sort of like the cometown guys did like get a bit like sort of of like instead of kind of. Because as far as I know, she sort of has this very nice like presentation where she sits in front of the laptop.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But do you think she would go for like a daytime television style setup like Oprah to further like legitimize this sort of the medium that feels like, that feels like it'd be a win.

[D]

Well, now she will because you spoke to Existence. Thank you.

[A]

Which I often do do, by the way. Yeah, unfortunately.

[C]

Yeah. I mean, well, I do think like knowing what I know about Candace, which is far too much much for any able brained person, but I think she would do anything for money. I think she would do anything for money and to further her career. But like I. I think it's really interesting how people consume Candace. Like there is this idea that she's like of the Internet, but like actually people don't watch her like that. So there was some sort of controversy over people saying that she had bots watching her videos because the chat wasn't like on fire. And Hasan Piker had some of his fans come and they were like blowing up her chat and they're like, see, that means that your audience isn't engaged. And it's like no friend. It's because everybody watches like they watch Oprah. It's like Roku and YouTube. Like they watch it on their television.

[D]

Yeah, they just have it up.

[C]

Yeah. Like that is how people are consuming it. It's not of the Internet for them. It really has like replaced their like entertainment. Like she's like, people do watch it like they used to watch Oprah.

[A]

Oh, they're on YouTube. TV.

[D]

Yeah, they watch it like they watch Oprah in that they're not really watching and that they're kind of doing something in the other room. Then they come back in and maybe they're half paying attention. They're on their phone and oh my

[A]

God, it's like looking into a mirror. Because, like, you're sitting on a couch like, or at your, like, nook table on your laptop and she's sitting at her nook table on her laptop and you're looking at each other and you're both typing and looking at your laptops and you're learning together. I mean, this is so dangerous. We are so cooked. Every single episode. It's another way in which, like, we are. We are just headed, hey, come on down the mountain til she. She comes, folks.

[D]

Keep your. Keep your head up. Keep your head up, kid.

[C]

We can do this. It's okay.

[D]

Yeah, we can do this. Brandy, I'm so glad we had you on and thanks for doing what you do.

[A]

Yeah. A joy. Absolutely wonderful talking to you.

[B]

Yeah. Where can people go to find more of your work?

[C]

They can go to Ms. Now and there will soon, within the next couple days be a whole deep dive into this conspiracy theory network and a lot of the things we just talk about. So I hope you check it out.

[A]

Check it out, folks. Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. You can go to patreon.comqaa and subscribe for $5 a month to get a whole second premium episode for every regular episode, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes. We've also got a website that's qaapodcast.com listener until next week. May the deep dish bless us you and keep you.

[D]

We have auto keyed content based on your preferences.

[E]

We were inundated yesterday with emails from people who work in the space of media, in the space of audio particularly, and they were positively incensed and insistent. They could not express enough how absolutely inappropriate, nonsensical, and utterly moot it would be for Charlie's mic to be placed on the inside of his shirt. And as we examined the question, is this how they just had always done it? Were they always just, you know, incompetent? Well, we had some time, ladies and gentlemen, and I told you the very first tour stop where I saw that as a new feature was the first tour, the first college campus tour where I was not featured alongside Charlie Kirk. And that is when it seems the team began to introduce the redundancy of the wireless road bike again. It began in fall 2024. You're being brainwashed tour. And I should mention that at first, when they started introducing this, they did place the wireless mic on Charlie in a way that made audio sense on the outside of his shirt. Take a look on September 11, University of North Texas. He has the mic. There we go. But you can see it's on the outside of his shirt because that makes sense. On September 18, he was at the University of Pittsburgh. Again, you can see Tyler. I mean, Tyler, Charlie has it on the outside of his shirt. That makes sense. Suddenly on October 8, the University of Nevada in Reno, Charlie has it on the inside of his shirt. On October 30th, it's on the inside of his shirt. This is that expression that I said to you that we use here in the States called boiling the frog slowly, right? Introducing something new so he doesn't really recognize it and then changing one thing, getting him adapted to it so he doesn't really ask questions. And then, you know, lo and behold, something doesn't really make sense. But you're kind of used to the thing that's not making sense. Boiling the frog slowly. Before he can know it's getting really hot in here, it's time to jump outside of the pot.

[B]

Sam.