The Legacy of Knowledge Fight feat. Dan Friesen (E374)

Summary

QAA Podcast E374: The Legacy of Knowledge Fight feat. Dan Friesen

Release Date: May 27, 2026
Guests: Dan Friesen (former co-host of Knowledge Fight)
Hosts: Jake Rockatansky, Julian Feeld, Travis View

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Episode Overview

This episode of the QAA Podcast delves into the end of the long-running "Knowledge Fight" podcast, which for nearly a decade meticulously deconstructed Alex Jones and the Infowars media ecosystem. With Dan Friesen as a guest, the QAA hosts reflect on the challenges and value of covering conspiracy-driven toxic media, examine the legacy of Jones and his imitators, and discuss the current landscape of conspiracist media in 2026. The conversation moves between serious critique, personal anecdotes, and humor, paying special attention to the methods, impact, and emotional toll of chronicling disinformation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The End of Knowledge Fight and Alex Jones Fatigue

[03:16]

• Dan Friesen explains why "Knowledge Fight" concluded its 9-year run:
  • Near-complete exhaustion of new material on Alex Jones—his repetitiveness and predictability led to a sense that there were "no new vistas" to explore.
  • The show's title was a parody of Infowars, and with the Infowars brand changing hands (Jones broadcasting under his own name), the parody ceased making sense.

“What new vistas are there to explore? What else is there? He has no new depth. He's just gonna discover in his lies. [...] I don’t know what there is much more to learn.” — Dan Friesen [03:16]

The Alex Jones Persona and Performance

[04:35–10:58]

• Jones’s charisma derives from old-school showmanship, reminiscent of wrestling and rock’n’roll; he’s physically imposing and masterful at whipping up a crowd.
• Despite his extremism and predictability, he remains “magnetic” at live events in a way online figures like Cernovich—“a dork”—never match.
• Jones’s longevity and broad appeal are credited to his 1990s roots, when conspiracism was less uniformly partisan, and moments like 9/11 created cross-aisle affinity.

“He’s one of the last people… who grew up when wrestling was wrestling and rock'n'roll was rock'n'roll… He loves those things… and takes a lot of showmanship cues.” — Dan Friesen [07:45]

Infowars' Place in Conspiracist History

[10:06–13:58]

• The show discusses the evolution of conspiracy culture, noting its shift from apolitical or ambiguously rebellious to overt right-wing ideology.
• Early on, figures like Jones could capture disaffected left-leaning listeners by attacking banks, elites, and government overreach.
• Dan highlights that Jones always harbored John Birch Society extremism, even if it was temporarily cloaked for broad-based appeal.

“His public brand was able to be sold as a little bit different… but he was still just as much of a right-wing shithead and extreme pile of garbage back then.” — Dan Friesen [13:08]

Cynicism, Grifting, and the Mechanics of Persuasion

[15:39–22:23]

• Covering Jones in detail eroded romantic notions of the "rebel truth-teller" conspiracy theorist; Dan now sees calculated manipulation for profit.
• Jones’s ‘superpowers:’
  • [20:35] Exploiting social media by being on air for hours, knowing only viral clips will spread.
  • Making every possible prediction, then highlighting only those that prove true, creating the illusion of prophetic accuracy.
  • When predictions fail, claiming his warning “changed the timeline.”
• Debunking conspiracists isn’t as simple as countering facts—Dan and the hosts agree it’s more impactful to reveal and explain manipulative techniques.

“He does a show that no one watches… but people see clips. And… he knows when he turns on the gas, there’s a good chance someone might clip that and put it on social media… And then the other huge trick is predicting everything.” — Dan Friesen [20:35]

Audience Psychology: Why Conspiracies ‘Work’

[22:47–28:25]

• The emotional core of conspiracist media is recognized: fundamental distrust of elites, a desire for secret knowledge, and the lure of “feeling better about having nothing else.”
• Dan stresses empathy for consumers of these narratives, but hostility toward cynically exploitative content creators.
• Both the mechanics of vagueness (à la QAnon) and the comfort of eschatological hope (even in monstrous forms) are discussed.

“It does help you retain empathy for the consumer… and hostility towards the disseminators because they’re taking advantage of something…” — Dan Friesen [25:00]

Inside Infowars: Legal Fallout and Moral Blindness

[30:54–37:33]

• Dan recounts consulting for the Sandy Hook plaintiffs, viewing depositions and seeing inside Infowars’ operations:
  • Employees are morally culpable but often genuinely oblivious to the business/legal implications of their actions.
  • Most chilling: Daria Karpova, shown evidence of parents’ pain, replies that conspiracy claims might give grieving parents “hope” their children are alive—an inhuman conclusion she seems to sincerely believe.

“I would think it would give them hope their children are still alive somewhere.” — Daria Karpova (as recounted by Dan Friesen) [33:25]

• The “line between stupid and evil” blurs: Dan and the QAA hosts conclude that intent is less important than real-world harm.

Legacy, Aftermath & The Future of Infowars

[45:53–48:44]

• With Jones ousted from the Infowars brand, but having shielded assets, Dan believes little changes financially—Jones will maintain a comfortable life, his empire rebranded under shell companies.
• The group likens Jones’s fate to O.J. Simpson: technically ruined, but still rich and present.

“He’ll be under the… umbrella of that bankruptcy personally for the rest of his life. But you know, it’s like what OJ had… he was under a judgment… but he was still rich. And that’s basically what Alex will have.” — Dan Friesen [47:11]

The Onion’s Bid for Infowars: Comedy, Parody, and Risks

[50:20–54:25]

• The Onion, with Tim Heidecker, is attempting to acquire Infowars to turn it into a satire vehicle benefiting Sandy Hook families.
• Dan is skeptical: parodying Alex Jones is rarely effective and can backfire, but defers to the victims’ wishes regarding the brand’s fate.
• The hosts debate whether this reappropriation could serve as a cautionary tale, a “digital head on a pike,” or simply become an exercise in schadenfreude with limited comedic or political payoff.

“A parody of Alex would run out of juice pretty quick and… there’s only a certain amount of time they could do that before wanting to turn the site into something else creative.” — Dan Friesen [51:32]

Satirical and Skeptical Media: Can Laughter Save Anyone?

[54:25–56:25]

• QAA and Knowledge Fight get credit from listeners for helping them “laugh themselves out” of conspiratorial thinking, but Dan cautions that this only works for those already open to self-reflection.
• Most deeply “pilled” individuals will not respond to mockery or satire.

Life After Knowledge Fight: Detox & Future Projects

[56:33–58:17]

• Dan reflects on quitting cold turkey: the cognitive shift after unplugging from years of toxic content is profound and positive.
• He still uses his accumulated expertise, but interacts with toxic content far less; the archives will remain available.
• Dan teases an upcoming travel and storytelling project at showmestateofmind.com.

“If you did hook up electrodes to my brain, I would say… it’s a positive. [...] I don’t miss hearing his… If I were only listening to mid-2000s Alex,... it could be tolerable. But… just being mad about nothing… I don’t ever want to listen to that show. That show sucks.” — Dan Friesen [58:19]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On burnout and repetition:
  “He’s just gonna more explicitly, anti-Semite racist type of guy in the media… but what new vistas are there to explore?” — Dan Friesen [03:16]

• On Jones’s charisma:
  “People were losing their shit… he was just doing like, ‘1776 will commence once again’ and like that starts a wave around the audience. It's crazy.” — Dan Friesen [08:44]

• On the futility of “debunking” alone:
  “I thought, like, oh, if you just provide the right information, people will be able to see, ‘oh, this guy's just wrong.’ And I don't know if… people's brains work that way.” — Dan Friesen [22:47]

• On empathy and conspiracy audience psychology:
  “Maintaining some empathy for the reality that there's outsized power in the world while saying… these globalist stories are not true. That I think is the best way to help and retain some humanity.” — Dan Friesen [25:00]

• On the monstrous side of conspiracy comfort:
  “Her response was… ‘I would think it would give them hope their children are still alive somewhere.’ [...] It was so monstrous… I’d never been in the same room as that kind of energy.” — Dan Friesen (on Daria Karpova’s deposition) [33:25]

• On InfoWars’ legal fate:
  “They've been able to redirect all of the money streams into businesses that he doesn't technically own. So, they're outside of the scope of what the bankruptcy courts can touch. So he'll be able to draw a salary...” — Dan Friesen [46:11]

• On satire as a weapon:
  “A parody of Alex would run out of juice pretty quick and there’s only a certain amount of time they could do that…” — Dan Friesen [51:32]

• On the cognitive benefits of leaving it all behind:
  “I did stop for a bit… it feels different… I definitely have been listening, like, almost none. I don’t really care what he has to say.” — Dan Friesen [56:33]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:45] Introduction of Dan Friesen and legacy of "Knowledge Fight"
• [03:16] Why Knowledge Fight ended, the limits of Jones-focused coverage
• [06:49] Anecdotes about Alex Jones’ “magnetism” at rallies
• [13:08] Jones’s background: From John Birch Society to today’s media villain
• [20:35] Jones’s rhetorical techniques: omnidirectional prediction and clips
• [25:00] Empathy for conspiracy believers vs. blame for propagandists
• [33:25] Most chilling deposition moment: Daria Karpova on Sandy Hook
• [46:11] How Jones shielded wealth from legal consequences via shell companies
• [50:20] Onion’s proposed satire/repurposing of Infowars, pros and cons
• [54:25] Limits of satire and the ambiguous value of “laughing people out”
• [56:33] Dan’s withdrawal from Jones content and feelings since ending the show
• [62:42] Dan’s new projects and minimal social media presence (showmestateofmind.com)

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Conclusion

This episode captures a reflective, bittersweet closing of an era in critical commentary on conspiracist media. The hosts and Dan Friesen lay bare the exhaustion and cynicism inherent to years of fighting disinformation, the limits of satire, and the complicated emotional landscape—empathy for believers, contempt for manipulators—that governs this work. While the literal Infowar may never end, "Knowledge Fight" leaves a lasting archive for future generations, and Friesen moves on—relieved, wiser, and committed to new kinds of storytelling.

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For more, explore the Knowledge Fight archive and follow Dan’s new travels at showmestateofmind.com.

Transcript

[Dan Friedson]

Sa.

[Jake]

If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the qaa podcast, episode 374, the Legacy of Knowledge Fight, featuring Dan Friedson. As always, we are your hosts, Jake

[Julian Field]

Rockatansky, Julian Field and Travis View. Covering toxic media in podcast form is a kind of alchemical transmutation. While the source content is typically deceitful, cruel and boring to everyone not locked into a specific online echo chamber, responsible coverage of it has to be written, rigorously skeptical, humane and entertaining. Even to people who only spend a healthy amount of time reading news and social media feeds. It's not easy, which is why so few of people do it. Today on the show, we have the privilege of speaking to a man that I believe is one of the rare masters of that magic. For nine years and over 1100 episodes, Dan Friesen and his co host Jordan Holmes helmed the podcast Knowledge Fight, where they unpacked and analyzed the never ending flood of horseshit that flowed from the mouth of Alex Jones through his media empire, infowars. After it was announced that Alex Jones ownership of infowars had ended even if his career as a broadcaster had not, KnowledgeFi decided to call it quits earlier this month, ending a podcasting run that began in 2017. Very excited to talk to Dan about the perils of covering Jones and the state of conspiracist media in 2026. Dan, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been too long.

[Dan Friedson]

It has. Thanks for having me. Very interested to find out what's new in the world of QAnon. See how I kid.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jake]

It's.

[Julian Field]

There's, there's still so many QAnon accounts. I like that. If that I follow. And like they're still referencing the Q drops. They do still do the thing where they check the delta, which is like they say what Q drops landed on this date in 2018 or something. And we. I don't talk a lot about them on the show. Just because. Is so repetitive. Sometimes it's like, it's like, yeah, I mean you can relate. Be like, I can't, I can't come on the mic every, every single week and say, yep, they're still doing it.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, at a certain point it's, it's. You're doing a new. Like you. This is certainly how it is with Alex Jones as well. Is like you're just like he is on his. He's on that shit again. He's doing this again. You know, becomes a little bit. Yeah. Like you said, repetitive.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, but I haven't considered quitting really, because I gotta say, I've had a few jobs in my day. I like this one. I get to research, you know, things that interest me. I get to work with some very talented people. I get to interview, you know, people like yourself. It's a lot. So I'm going to keep doing it till the wheels fall off or slump over the mic. But you, you made the decision to hang up your headphones after nine years. So what, what exactly spurred this?

[Dan Friedson]

You know, it's. I think it's a complicated number of factors that all play into it, but some of the big ones were that, as you know, you mentioned, you all cover a bunch of different topics, whereas our show was largely focused on Alex Jones and Infowars specifically. And over the at least there's just been a growing feeling of like, what is he gonna say that's gonna be interesting ever? Like, we've heard him talk for almost a decade, just minutely breaking down his lies, the storylines, all of this stuff, and it just. He was going to continue to exist. Yes, that's like, obviously true, but what new vistas are there to explore? What else is there? He has no new depth. He's gonna discover in his lies. He's just gonn a more explicit, anti Semite racist type of guy in the media. I guess that's probably, you know, it's worth being aware that that trend is gonna be there. But I don't know what. There is more much to learn.

[Julian Field]

Right?

[Dan Friedson]

And then at the same time, our name was Knowledge Fight. That was a joke on Infowars. And now he's gonna be doing the Alex Jones show. Our name doesn't make sense. We must quit at that point.

[Travis View]

It's funny because I still think there's mystery in the folds of his body. Like, I still would love to explore some of those vistas.

[Dan Friedson]

Do you mean physically, his body?

[Travis View]

Physically, physically, yeah, absolutely. And I don't mind if that reads as sexual, but I'd be just as happy with like an autopsy type situation.

[Dan Friedson]

I will say without getting too specific, I've seen a lot more of his body than I wish I had. Let's say some things that I ended up seeing in discovery, helping with the Texas Sandy Hook case. I can't unsee.

[Travis View]

Yeah, I think I once described him as a human tomato on this podcast. And yeah, I've always been kind of fascinated by like, just him as like a kind of throbbing blood vessel essentially.

[Jake]

Yeah, he's really more of a Tomako,

[Dan Friedson]

actually, you know, the thing that you're touching on there I think is like legit, though. Like he exists. He's a physical thing that exists. And it's so crazy to like acknowledge that. In the same way that we all have blood inside us and we all feel hot when we go out in the sun. Like he does too. He's not like some thing. And that's pretty awful.

[Travis View]

Yeah, I mean, when I first saw him in public at the Stop the Steal rally in Arizona, like he really got the crowd worked up. And I remember just kind of following with the crowd and seeing this man's magnetism in person. But yeah, it really was exactly like seeing him on television, because he really never isn't on television in some way. I don't know. He's got something where I can't imagine him at rest. I'm sure there are times, I think it's probably when he's drunk enough to just kind of space out.

[Dan Friedson]

Might be a survival mechanism for him. Yeah, that, that bottle.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. I remember at that rally in that protest, they had a lot of celebrity guests from the like, right wing media sphere, but none of them got the reaction that Alex Jones did. I mean, the way he came storming out, surprise he had, surprised he wasn't, wasn else started screaming out of the megaphone and then, then people just swarmed him. Said that started just spontaneously telling him how much they loved him. I don't know, it was really delirious to see that kind of like real charisma in person.

[Travis View]

Yeah, I remember just being like, there's nothing I could ask this person. So I just asked him, why are you so beautiful? And he, he did like a double take and he looked at me and he's like, I can't actually, I can't even remember what he answered because what does it matter?

[Julian Field]

I can tell you. I could tell you because we got, we got it on video. He said, you're beautiful.

[Jake]

And then Julian bopped him on the head with his camera.

[Travis View]

Yeah, well, almost. I almost gave him a little kiss

[Jake]

and then he upped a little forehead kiss, butterfly kisses.

[Dan Friedson]

I'm shocked. He didn't like take that opportunity to go into a lecture about, like, it's my genetics, my ancestors were beautiful, and therefore I am beautiful. Because we are all our ancestors. And we like some sort of weird, just off to the side of eugenics kind of rant.

[Jake]

Well, he saw, he saw what probably looked like a liberal approaching, you know, and was like, oh, he's got a camera. He's going to say something awful. Here we go again. And then, you know, Julian just goes, you're beautiful. He's like, what?

[Travis View]

What?

[Dan Friedson]

He has an uncanny ability to smell out cucks just from like energy. So you can see a lib coming just. He knew, I think, Travis, to what you were saying though. Like, he's one with that charisma stuff. Like, he's one of the last people in like that right wing media space who grew up in a time when wrestling was wrest and rock and roll was rock and roll. And he loved those things, clearly, whether he admits to it or not. And he takes a lot of showmanship cues from those kinds of performing arts. And I think we could see the dividends that it pays off, like riling up a crowd. And I saw him in Pennsylvania when he was on Tucker's live tour and it was fascinating how inane it was. He was saying almost nothing and people were losing their shit. He was just doing like, 1776 will commence once again. And like that starts a wave around the audience. It's crazy.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, yeah, I remember I also saw like Cernovich there, who is like, you know, who has like, you know, big online presence. But like, no one was reacting to him like you. They were very excited to see him. He was just kind of standing.

[Dan Friedson]

He's a dork.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, he said. Yes, exactly. He's a very online dork, like many of us are. But yeah, that doesn't. You can see. You could. Yeah, you can see the way Alex Jones, you know, really knows how to like, really be that kind of like personality in the meat space. It's not just an online presence.

[Dan Friedson]

I think it's because he had to, like, when he was coming up, he would have to go out and like bullhorn people and like be on the street and. And like command attention in a world where like Austin at the time, it wasn't like there weren't a bunch of crazy people trying to get attention. He had to stand out among even that like, wild city. And I think, I don't know, I think, I think that's like metaphorical time in the gym.

[Jake]

Right. He's also been around so long, you know, as somebody who was casually interested in conspiracy theories since I was, you know, I don't know, 11 or 12, like, it was Alex Jones coast to coast. You know, some of the other like, famous people in the sort of like conspiracy antisemitism space, like David Icke, like, weren't even. Didn't even register on my radar, but I knew about Infowars and I knew about like coast to coast, which are obviously two very different sides of a

[Dan Friedson]

similar looking coin and became more similar over the time that George Norrie was in charge of it. He certainly took coast to Coast a lot closer to that. Like pretending to be libertarian but actually more sovereign citizen. Weird right wing shit.

[Jake]

Like Infowars was a household name in a weird way. Like, you know, people knew about that there were T shirts.

[Travis View]

I mean, famously one of the guys who came to our live show completely fucking wasted off his ass, ruining the show, he was in an Infowars T shirt. And I was like, are you fucking wearing that seriously right now? Like, what's going.

[Dan Friedson]

What.

[Travis View]

What is happening? I never got to the bottom of. Those two were so fucking wasted.

[Jake]

I think they were real fans, but they were just super wasted. At first we thought that they fell asleep. Yeah, we thought that they had seen QAnon on the marquee and kind of like wandered in off the streets being like, oh man, maybe Q's here.

[Travis View]

They were some deep fried fans, man.

[Jake]

But. But yeah, I mean, back to what we were saying. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that he did build that space out for himself at a time where you had to have so many more skills and sort of tools in your tool chest because the Internet wasn't how it is now.

[Travis View]

Yeah.

[Dan Friedson]

And I think a lot of it was luck and timing too. He came up in the 90s when there were. And like, there were some decent points to be made for the militia movement. Like they weren't right. A lot of their beliefs were very wrong. But I think right thinking, sensible people can look at what happened at Waco and look at what happened at Ruby Ridge and we can say like, these are tragedies. Even if law enforcement needed to do something, even if you don't believe that they were egregious, like, you know, the government trying to oppress everyone. You can agree that there's a mishandling in it. And so he came about in a time when there was far more ability to have like a reaching across the aisle consensus between extreme over here and extreme over here. And then as he grew bigger, there were these deeply traumatic events like 911 that transcended politics in a lot of ways for the public. There are left wing people who are mad about 9 11, right wing people mad about 9 11. And he was able to capitalize on a lot of that stuff through a lot of his career and made fans who thought he was on their side. Like you'd have people Like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or any of these, like, conventional right wing talkers. And if you're on the left, you could never think that maybe they would agree with you. But if you're watching Occupy Wall street go down and Alex is like, hey, fuck these banks. Bra ba bra. Like, you could be like, oh, my God, this dude. He gets it. It gave him more broad appeal, you know?

[Travis View]

Yeah, yeah, no. In the era of loose change, he was a very different voice. And I remember having some affinity at least. You know, I'm like. I'm like, okay, at least there's like a rebellious voice out there, you know, like sticking to certain things that clearly have issues with them.

[Dan Friedson]

And then here's the twist, though. I don't think his voice was really all that different. It's just that he was able to appear different. His public brand was able to be sold as a little bit different. I think he was still just as much of a right wing shithead and extreme pile of garbage back then. Like, his dad used to give speeches for the John Birch Society when he was in college. And Alex grew up in that his whole life and never really erred from that. But he was able to present himself in a way that appealed to people like what you're describing. People could see him that way, whereas now it's a lot harder.

[Travis View]

I'm also a teenager at the time, and you have like, waking life.

[Dan Friedson]

Waking life was huge. That fucked everything up.

[Jake]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

[Dan Friedson]

God damn, Linklater. What was he thinking?

[Travis View]

I don't know, but Alex was in there yelling his ass off.

[Jake]

I was pilled as shit as a fresh. I remember watching the towers get hit as a freshman in college in my dorm room and like, of course, just like, spun out, you know, I never really discovered Alex Jones. Like, I think I probably just like, didn't have the attention span to go that kind of deep on the end. I was too interested in like weed and drugs and women and stuff. But. But like, I was so pilled at that time and there, there really, other than people talking amongst themselves, there wasn't really somebody you could turn on the TV and find like this very, like, at least in my lexicon of knowledge, like somebody who was as anti authoritarian, as loudly and as boisterously as.

[Dan Friedson]

As Alex Jones, you know, was definitely.

[Julian Field]

I kind of think that Linklater was just thinking that, yeah, he's a Texas filmmaker and here's a Texas personality that's talking about, like, it maybe felt it was essentially Harmless to include them or harmless to include as like, oh, one of many kind of ideas being floated around, this sort of movie about ideas. But I think it really illustrates the way he was perceived with the way Alex Jones was perceived in 2001.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. And I think Linklater's talked about that, too. I think he regrets putting Alex in that. And then also in Scanner Darkly. And I'm glad that that's the case because I like a lot of his work, and otherwise I'd have to. I'd have to really do some of that artist art separation stuff.

[Jake]

Yeah, it's weird. I remember, like, I remember when conspiracy theories, like, didn't have a political side, at least to me. It didn't seem like that as a. As a younger person, when it was just like. It was kind of like, oh, the government's fucking us over in some way. Here's a bunch of, like, ideas of, you know, specifics.

[Julian Field]

Covering something for this long, I mean, your perception of it has to change. I mean. I mean, it's like. What do you think is perhaps the most dramatic sort of, like, evolution of your understanding of, like, Alex Jones and his. Like, his. His media ecosystem and how it works, you know, from. From the beginning, when he started from. To today?

[Dan Friedson]

Well, I think, you know, it kind of touches on what Jake just said. Like, the. Like, it felt innocent before. Like, there was. There was a feeling of. Around conspiracy and particularly Alex's brand of it, that felt like, all right, I don't think I agree with a lot of this, but there's a sincerity to this that I can. I could attach myself to. I can connect to being really at the powerful people that have an undue influence on how we all live our lives. That sucks. And this guy is giving voice to that. And I can. I can dig it through. Doing the show, though. Like, it's really undeniable how much he doesn't mean any of the stuff he says. There are a number of things that I think are very sincere. I think he does have a lot of hate and a lot of anger towards people who he perceives as different from himself. He hates, you know, various functions of the government that are meant to be safety nets and stuff like that. Like, I think all of that is sincere, but everything is so fungible. You could just change so much that, like, my perception at this point of a lot of media, particularly what I would describe as, like, he's kind of a persuasion form of media. It's not even that he's making a point, but he's sweat. He's trying to sway people in one direction or the other. And I view that with way more cynicism than I did when I started this. I think a lot of people who are in that field are doing it in order to divert people into revenue streams that have nothing to do with whatever the political stuff they're selling is. So I think I trust demagogues a lot less, and I didn't trust them much to begin with.

[Jake]

Yeah, yeah.

[Julian Field]

I mean, I think one of the biggest change is that Alex Jones always sort of portrayed himself as sort of like, I guess, a really super independent, anti authoritarian. He sort of evolved into essentially the official regime conspiracy theorist. I mean, why do you think it's even safe for his brand to go all in on Trump and like, even when sometimes Trump sort of like badmouths him on true social.

[Dan Friedson]

Well, let's take that a step further. Let's look at that question and ask ourselves, if he did do that, why should we assume he wasn't doing that before? Why would it make sense to assume that, like, he had a, a totally integrity based career and he was a straight up and a truth teller and anti authoritarian. And then Trump came along and everything changed. I see no reason to assume that, like, Ron Paul wasn't doing the exact same shit in terms of, like, connection with him that Trump was. It's just that Ron Paul was never gonna win and Trump accidentally won. If Trump had lost in 2016, it would just be another Ron Paul piece of his career. The problem is that it worked. And now the demagogue in the form of Trump, the authoritarian leaning asshole that you're trying to present as a champion of freedom, now has the opportunity to do the stuff that you're supposed to want him to do, but you really don't.

[Jake]

It's like a dog who gets a bone or something and it's too big, it's going to choke on the bone. Yeah.

[Travis View]

The dog chooses the car.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Travis View]

Jake's version is a dog bone.

[Jake]

No dogs. Look, I have a dog and I'll tell you what, they chase after bones. All right? I've never seen Teddy once go after the car. I've seen him go after a vacuum cleaner, a hedgy, and bones.

[Dan Friedson]

Wait till I drive by in the bonemobile, then everything's gonna change.

[Jake]

Yeah, carefully. He's gonna. Dan's gonna come by in the Fred Flintstone.

[Dan Friedson]

I'm working on my calves so I can.

[Jake]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta build up the calluses on the bottom of your feet.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. I think that speaks to another part of the cynicism that I feel somewhat about this media that, like, I don't necessarily think him becoming the propagandist of the state organ is a betrayal totally of who he was all along. I think there are things that are betraying principles he pretended to have. But I think I'm far more comfortable with looking at his whole career as a much more like, crass enterprise than some people.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, I mean, it seems like, like, Alex Jones just like, has like a handful of a grab bag of like, rhetorical techniques that like, work from and he's deployed like, over and over and over again in many situations. I mean, what do you, I mean, what do you think is like, perhaps like most effective one? For example, like, there are instances where he has a, an idea of how things should go and like, reality contradicts him in some kind of way. Like, how does he, how does he maneuver around this?

[Dan Friedson]

Well, there's, there's two things that I think are like superpowers almost. One is that he does a show that no one watches. Like, he just is on air forever and no one's watching. But people see clips. And so he has the ability to, like, I don't know if he can control what clips go where, but he kind of knows when he turns on the gas. There's a good chance someone might clip that and put it on social media and then ignore the other two hours of his boring show. And so I think that that's something that whether he is able to control that or not, he uses it to his advant. And then the other huge, huge trick is predicting everything. Like you predict X, you predict not X, you predict Y, you predict not Y, you just say everything. And then when whatever happens, happens, you just focus on the fact that you predicted X. It's great. Just ignore that you said the opposite.

[Jake]

Also seeing a lot of this nowadays

[Dan Friedson]

and a tributary sort of off that, off that stream is that like he will make a prediction. Prediction. Like, let's say Trump is going to be assassinated next week or something like that. They're going to blow up his plane. He'll make that kind of prediction and let's say it happens. He'll be like, oh my God, I had a prophecy. God told me what was going to happen. And then let's say it doesn't happen. He'll say, because I talked about it, the globalists changed their plans and decided not to blow up his plane. So no matter what, he's a prophet. And one version of it he can see the future. And the other version, he dictates the future by scaring the globalists into not doing things that are, like, really scary. So it's kind of a. It's a trap. It's a rhetorical trap that he puts people in.

[Julian Field]

What exactly you think is, like, your role of, like, I guess, debunking for your show, I mean, is like, obviously it does get repetitive when you just simply explain, like, why he misinterpreted a study or he's misquoting an article or is, like, he's just wrong. Do you think it's, like, more important to go into, like, the mechanics of the wrongness, like, the exact sort of, like, methods he uses to bolster his point, you know?

[Dan Friedson]

Definitely, Definitely. And I think that debunking as a, like, hey, you forgot to cross the T or dot the I here or whatever, I don't know if that helps people as much as I hoped it would. Like, when in 2017, I thought, like, oh, if you just provide the right information, people will be able to see, oh, this guy's just wrong. And I don't know if. I don't know if people's brains work that way, but that, what you're describing, that, like, how the lie works. Why are you telling this story this way? What does it achieve? I do think that that is really important, and I think in terms of my role, deconstructing that stuff about Alex Jones, we've done 1,1100 episodes. We have talked about pretty much every way that he's able to lie over the course of that. And I think that anything he could do, you should be prepared to look at. At through a better lens. Now. I. I don't. I don't know what role I have. I don't know. I don't know. It's a tough question.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, I mean, it's. I mean, I know it's the same thing. It's like. I think the. The problem is, is that with. Especially sometimes I get into, like, actual debates with, like, QAnon followers online, and it's like, sometimes it's like they didn't really, like, care if, like, a specific thing that Q said or implied was. Was false because they believed in this. This concept of, like, directional truth or even if they are wrong about a particular fact. I was like, what really matter are right about the broader narrative about, like, how the elites are cannibal pedophiles. That broad, broad narrative is. Is. Is essentially true. So. So this little thing is like, is. Is irrelevant. But like, I think it is just more interesting just to see the, the mechanics and techniques of the seat. Like in QAnon, it was like they really, they really relied on vagueness, this kind of, kind of like Nostradamus, like code language that drew people in and then allowed people to kind of like work their way into any kind of meaning they liked. And it kind of allowed Q to be very. What they claimed was a prediction or not. Yeah, but like, I don't know, I think that people really don't care about like, you know, the little quibbles. I think is, I think it's interesting. I think it's important to really clarify what is true or what is not. But I think that's just not really how people actually engage with the world and their own worldviews.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it has value. And I think that, that when you're talking about the mechanics of the, you know, the vagueness or the prophecy or, you know, those kinds of things, when it's like, okay, the larger narrative is true, but this part isn't true, when you approach these topics that way, I think it does help you retain empathy for the consumer of these things and hostility towards the disseminators because they're taking advantage of something that these people are responding to. So you can have empathy for why they, as viewers or someone who is into this kind of media, what is it satisfying for them and still maintain a, like, this sucks, fuck this person. But like normal everyday people, you could be like, I empathize. Like I was saying with Alex, a large part of what his content is built on is a belief that there are people who are wielding outsized power on the lives of everyday citizens and people in the United States. That's true. We could agree on that. And when someone responds to that and they need to feel and acknowledge the correctness of that larger narrative, it doesn't do any good to be like, you're fucking wrong, there are no globalists. What are you talking about? It doesn't help maintaining some empathy for the reality that there's outsized power in the world while saying, okay, these globalist stories are not true. That I think is the best way to help and retain some humanity.

[Jake]

Yeah, definitely.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. I think Even when the QAnon people said like stuff like, like, oh, you know, they're, they're all pedophile cannibals, I feel like this was just sort of like a colorful way to express. I think the, the ruling class is corrupt and self serving and that kind of thing. So I, you know, I try to at least acknowledge at least the emotional core of like why these kinds of like the claims are like sometimes outrageous, at least resonate.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, I think some people, when they're like they're cannibals are just what they are like energetically or emotionally, saying is they look at us as meat, the rich look at us as meat. They don't really, it's not that they eat us, it's just that we're not as meaningful as individuals as they see themselves. And maybe that's over generous of me, but that's kind of how I.

[Jake]

No, you're absolutely right. All of this doesn't work. This doesn't work. Otherwise you have to have this insane gap and really two different sets, you know, two Americas basically for the wealthy and everybody else. This doesn't work without having that because everybody's just pissed off. And you have somebody who comes along and they have your particular brand of anger. And look, I'd like to this point you were making earlier about these choices that these content creators make to trap. I thought that was a really interesting point to trap people sort of like in their, their information loop. You know, every content creator makes a choice to be like, see, I predicted that. I told you so. You know, when they're do every time they're doing that, they're basically kind of hinting, hey, stay here, because you're going to know it before everybody else. And at the very least, you know, having the knowledge, you know, that makes you feel a little bit better about having nothing else in a lot of situations.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, that's true. It makes me think of one kind of funny thing. We predicted Covid accidentally. We were doing an episode, a Project Camelot episode about a time traveler who said that like, I think Martin Luther King's granddaughter became president in such and such a year. And me and Jordan were spitballing and we're like, okay, she would be too young to be president. So the only way that this could happen is if there's a global pandemic that disproportionately affects older people, brings down the average age to the point where we need to lower the age of requirement for president. And the second part didn't come true, but there was a global pandemic that affected older people. And I think that's funny. We didn't predict Covid, but someone, if they wanted to, could be like, we called it. Listen to this out of context clip of us saying that there's going to be a pandemic and that's. That's totally. That's that trick.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. I feel like the weird thing about that trick is that. That it really rewards just making as many like, wild claims as you can as quickly as you can, and then that just gives you more and more material to draw from. So actually it's like the more, the more you lie, the more you bullshit, the more prophetic you seem.

[Dan Friedson]

If you have the advantage of no one watching your show. Because I sincerely don't know who is watching. Like, hours and hours of Alex's show if he were. If people were consistently watching it and holding him accountable for all of the mass amounts of bullshit predictions. I don't know how he could retain any people thinking he is legit.

[Julian Field]

I mean, I have to imagine even the people who do watch the show just watch him for the energy. They like his outrage and his clownishness. Maybe they like the feeling of like, you're just communing with someone who has that kind of like bottomless energy more so than they really, like, pay attention to the things he's saying.

[Jake]

Yeah, he can get a lot louder and a lot redder than you can at work when you're, you know, being shit on. You know, that's.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

He, He.

[Jake]

He can personify, you know, Julian called him a tomato. It's like. Yeah, he can personify that beat red inside rage that you have at every system that you feel like is fucking, you know, is fucking you over because you're just kind of looking for a reason why shit's so damn fucking hard and they're not giving you any dope.

[Dan Friedson]

Shit. Yeah, it's. It's harder for him to do now that he doesn't like, get on air as drunk anymore. Like, it definitely was easier back in those days.

[Julian Field]

Like a lot of listeners of the show. Like, some of my favorite episodes were the formulaic Objections series, which covered depositions of Alex Jones and his associates in the Sandy Hook case. What do you think was like the most interesting, like, takeaway of like, seeing Jones and his associates in a. Not their preferred venue? Like a really kind of like not in the driver's seat like they are in Infowars. What do you think was really kind of like, the crucial things are kind of like exposed about him and how he operates.

[Dan Friedson]

So I, I was lucky enough to be asked to be an expert consultant with the Texas plaintiffs. And through that I got access to depositions and then was connected with the Connecticut lawyers who also trusted me with giving me these depositions. And I got a Wide spectrum view of a lot of his employees. And one of the things I think that is just broadly speaking, a glimpse that I got was that all of these people don't really. They don't really know what they're doing. I mean, they know what they're doing in a morally culpable sense, but, like, they don't know what a business is. And to some extent, I don't either. Like, if I were asked to be a corporate representative in a deposition, I wouldn't know how to prepare, but I would ask somebody. And they. They don't. They just have no respect for anything outside of themselves and infowars. And I think some of that is intentional because I think that there's a lot of. I don't know this to be true exactly, but I think a lot of people who work there probably have a sense that something's not right, that there's something shady going on that might be illegal. And I think that many of them probably have a. Like, well, well, it's best if we don't ask too many questions. Alex knows what's going on. I guess we'll just, you know, we don't know anything. And I think some of that is pretty sincere, the not knowing anything. But through that process, I was able to sit in the depositions with one of them with Alex, and one with his assistant, Darya Karpova. And I think that the thing that will stick out to me forever is in the deposition with Daria, the lawyers asked her about a picture that Wolfgang Halbig had presented of the Sandy Hook Children's Choir that he claimed was, like, the Sandy Hook children still alive. And the lawyer asked Daria, how should my clients feel about you claiming that their children are still alive and in this picture? And her response was something along the lines of, I would think it would give them hope their children are still alive somewhere. And I think she didn't miss a beat with coming up with that answer. Like, it wasn't something that she had to be like, ah, this'll work. It was something that seemed kind of like an organic thought. And I felt it was so monstrous that, like, I just had never. I'd never been in the same room as that kind of energy. It's. It's chilling.

[Jake]

Well, it gives you, like, kind of an interesting insight to, like, the totally pilled brain, you know, how one gets there in the first place is like, well, they could kind of, like, grapple with this, like, horrible reality, actually, that their child has been, like, ripped away from them. And they're never gonna be the same. They have no idea what their relationship is gonna look like, you know, or. Or maybe it is a hoax. You know, maybe the kids are in some underground bunker somewhere, safe and sound. Isn't that better to have hope than to accept the grim reality? And I think that. That, you know, it's monstrous in so many ways. It's monstrous in the thing that it's so simple. I think it's so simple. Why people, you know, get like, pulled into this is because it's. It's. I don't know, once you see everybody else playing by different rules and people. People making up identities and lives and realities for themselves on the Internet and social media, like, what's stopping you from taking that extra step and, like, living a. A happier life, even if it. It's not real?

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, I can identify with that a little bit, and I understand that the place where it just becomes so bizarre is like, if you are. Daria, I get thinking that the idea that these children were murdered at their school is awful, and it's horrifying. I don't wanna live with that. Let's imagine that they're still alive. Let's create this elaborate conspiracy in order to do it. The part that's the jump off, that's. I don't know how you get to. Is. I mean, the parents would recognize their children. They know that these people in the choir aren't their children. And you have to add so much malice to the new idea that you're taking on, that it's not better, it's not really more comforting than just acknowledging that tragedies happen in the world.

[Travis View]

So do you think she actually believed that? Or that she cynically coming up with ideas to kind of define?

[Dan Friedson]

I think that as long as Infowars is profitable, we'll never know. Like, I think that as long as there is money to be made in this bullshit, like, it would be almost impossible to determine what is a sincere belief that one of these people holds. And what is cynical bullshit? I really don't know. I want to say it's cynical, but is that me just coping, you know?

[Jake]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Julian Field]

You know, it's like whenever I get the. Like, you know, do the such and such actually believe it or whatever these kinds of questions? Like, I always. I always think that the people who promote these claims, it's like they're fine with not having any kind of base between the things that they say. Nothing substantive behind it. The idea is that, well, just saying something because you believe it and Saying it because you don't. They don't make that kind of distinction. You know, is, is something that you, that you say in order to achieve a goal, and then whether or not it has correspondence to some sort of truth in reality is not something that's ever considered.

[Dan Friedson]

Now. It's true now.

[Julian Field]

Yeah.

[Dan Friedson]

That's what matters at this moment. It's true because I need it to be true in order to get to this commercial that I'm about to do.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

Right?

[Jake]

Yeah.

[Dan Friedson]

And I've always, you know that question that you're saying, like, do they believe it or not? I think that I got that a lot at the beginning. And me and Jordan would always talk about, like, trying to figure out that line of stupid and evil. And I think as time went on, I cared about that less because, like, if you have Alex being like, gay people are the devil, then, like, okay, let's imagine he believes that sucks. Let's imagine he doesn't believe it, but he's getting on air to say that that sucks.

[Jake]

That also sucks.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, it changes, I guess, how you approach the information, but it doesn't really matter. Both are bad.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. It's like, there's like, if they're telling the truth, okay. If they're saying something they sincerely believe, then, yeah, you're dealing with a madman who just, you just can't be negotiated or reasoned with.

[Jake]

Who's popular, by the way.

[Julian Field]

Popular. But if you're dealing with, with the, dealing with a liar that you're dealing with someone who's very slippery and cynical and knows when to attack and when to withdraw. And like, they, they're much more strategic about the false claims that they're making. That's also bad for a different reason. But, yeah, it's like there's no, there's really no good answer.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. And if they're that, if they're that liar, they're never going to let you know that they're that liar. They're going. They're going to. It's like what Tucker said in that, that one interview did a while back. Like, I lie when I'm corny. When my back's to the wall, I lie.

[Jake]

Yeah. It's like, what comes first, the true believer or the grifter? I was gonna jump in earlier and say, what's the difference? What is the difference? And I almost lost a friendship over Alex Jones, and I was the bad one. I wasn't like an Infowars guy, but I had friends who were pretty pilled. And after Sandy Hook, one of our they were. A couple friends were sending conspiracy theories in a group chat, and those come before any real information comes. So it's, oh, well, the ambulances are fa. Why is this going on? You're looking at that. And like, one of my good friends, his had a cousin or second cousin who was one of the children who was murdered. And so you can imagine somebody that's kind of like, is this like, real or not? And having a friend who's actually like, you know, lost a family member in a tragedy. Like, you know, I could have lost. You know, there was like some. There was moments. And then, you know, as more information came out, I was like, I don't know. This is like, really, you know, I was never so lost a soul to. To get pulled deeply into any conspiracy. Really bad. But, yeah, I could have easily lost a friendship over it. And you see how people lose friends and family and it's dangerous. It's dangerous. It's a friendship I treasure. I would so regret losing that over believing in some, I don't know, Alex Jones conspiracy.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, but I think friendships are sort of. They're something that takes two parties, right? So if you are believing in. In this kind of a conspiracy to the point where your friend can't talk to you, that's antisocial behavior. Like, that's not the conspiracy's fault. You have the good sense to value this friendship enough to, like, if they're pushing back on you, reassess whatever it is the belief that they're pushing back on. And that's what people need to get back to. Like a healthy distrust for, like, systems and power that leads to questioning some things that maybe don't need to be questioned. And then people who are around people who have these more conspiracy beliefs, having a little bit of grace, but also having boundaries. The feeling that I have is that we can't just be like, oh, you believe something stupid. I'm never talking to you again. But you also can't have so much patience for people being like, well, what about. What if there are aliens that walk amongst us and shape shit at a point? People do have to cut people out, I think, you know.

[Jake]

Yeah, I have some pilled group chats still that I just like, I don't really push back anymore. I just don't say anything. I don't validate and I don't sort of like, push back, especially around all the alien stuff that came out. But it's like, yeah, I think that's a really good point because my buddy was like, what are you Talking about, like, my cousin died, like, what are you on about? And I was like, why are you giving him

[Dan Friedson]

this?

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

Feel bad?

[Jake]

This feels, like, really bad. Like, then I got, like, my other buddies in the chat being like, dude,

[Dan Friedson]

did you see the pictures of this?

[Jake]

I mean, look, the. The look of the choir, you know, it's like, I feel like we all have two wolves. It's like the pill. The pill chat and the friends that it might hurt.

[Dan Friedson]

You know, you got to nurture those wolves, and the pilled wolf will calm down if. If nurtured. That's the thing. Angrier.

[Jake]

Yeah. Correct. Correct. Yeah.

[Julian Field]

Well, I'll say probably my favorite edition of the formulaic objection series was the deposition of Owen Schroyer, because I think. I think that that showed that, like, whether or not he genuinely believed that the kinds of things he promoted on air, his Persona was bullshit. The idea of, like, someone who was especially knowledgeable or, like, knows more than the mainstream media or especially tough was absolutely dismantled. Like, at one point, the lawyer Mark Bankson got him to, like, admit that he's a puppet because he's read that are put in front of them without fully understanding and that. I don't know that. I think that. I think that was just. Just extraordinary to show that, like, yeah, it's like these. These people are like. Like they're. They're like, doing a job. They're not. Like, they're not willing to actually risk anything for the things that they say. They will collapse in stonewall and claim ignorance the moment things actually get a little. Little hot.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. Just because. Just because. It's a moment of pride for him, I should point out. That was Bill Ogden was the lawyer in that one with his gummy worms. He was. He was very proud of the puppet mattress. But yeah, it's like they all demand, give me my day in court, and I'll prove all these claims that I'm making, and I'll make the globalists fall to their knees in humiliation at how right I am. And then the second you're under oath and being asked a question, you're like, I don't know anything. Someone put a piece of paper in front of me. It's crazy.

[Julian Field]

I know. They always say the same thing when they get sued. Oh, I can't wait for discoveries. Discovery's gonna be great, but discoveries, it never happens. There's never a situation where discovery reveals how ev. The globalist is or whatever.

[Jake]

No.

[Julian Field]

But yeah, it's like they always projected. Projected project. But once they actually get in the Fucking deposition room. Yeah. They collapse in stonewall.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. And they fight back against a discovery going the other direction to make sure that, you know, the less information, you know, about their sort of media empire, the better. And I think some of the most revealing stuff that ended up being offered in discovery was the. The, you know, the text messages that accidentally got turned over to Mark Bankston in the course. Alex did not intend for those messages and his phone to get turned over to the plaintiff's attorneys. His lawyer Renal, accidentally sent those to him and just forgot to clear it up.

[Travis View]

Moment of grace.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah.

[Travis View]

Beautiful.

[Dan Friedson]

There's a ton of stuff that was not meant to be provided to the lawyers that edited ended up being provided and illustrated and showed that Alex withheld, intentionally and strategically, a bunch of stuff that would relate to Sandy Hook would relate to his contacts with, like, Wolfgang Halbig and other, you know, actual harassers.

[Travis View]

So I have a question about that. Do you think that without that accidental sending of the email where they, like, leaked all this, you know, pretty sensitive to the case information, do you think the case had a chance of going the other way?

[Dan Friedson]

Well, no. It had already been defaulted at that point point when that revelation happened. They were in the damages stage of the case already because of the withholding of information. But I think that legally speaking, it gave Alex way less of a case that he didn't withhold stuff because they were required to turn over everything that was responsive in his texts and emails to certain words like Sandy Hook or the plaintiff's names. And one of the texts that was in this tranche of stuff that accidentally got turned over way too late was a text between Alex and Paul Joseph Watson where they were talking about COVID and Alex's theories that all the people in the hospitals were fake and shit. And Paul Joseph Watson said to him, this is Sandy Hook all over again. And Alex said, I know. And that would have been responsive to what the lawyers demanded that he turn over, and it was withheld. So it was a literal, concrete example of something that, like, you say you cooperated with discovery, but this would have been like, with a bullet, the first thing you turned over. And instead, you didn't turn it over. So I think it hobbled his ability to, like, say that he was screwed.

[Julian Field]

I would like to get your take. Well, first of all, on Alex Jones exiting Infowars and, like, you know, going out on his own. I mean, does he actually, like, lose anything because he doesn't have control over the Infow wars brand and now he has to, like, publish under the Alex Jones name now.

[Dan Friedson]

Nothing but dignity and like legacy. I think, you know, like Infowars is a brand that he built from basically nothing to what it is, a great pill empire. Yeah, but like, no, because in the course of these lawsuits he's known that like the end was coming eventually. And so what they did was very strategically start shifting all the money and all of the businesses around from like infowars store to Dr. Jones Naturals to Bigly, the company that he works with now. So they've been able to redirect all of the money streams into businesses that he doesn't technically own. So they're outside of the scope of what the bankruptcy courts can touch. So he'll be able to draw a salary from these things and he'll be under the like umbrella of that bankruptcy personally for the rest of his life. But you know, it's like what O had with civil liability for the murders. He was under a judgment to the families for the rest of his life, but he was still rich. And that's basically what Alex will have probably for the rest of his life.

[Travis View]

I see the similarities between him and

[Dan Friedson]

OJ that they're both innocent and great athletes.

[Travis View]

Yeah, they're both all time athletes.

[Dan Friedson]

Heisman trophy winner Alex Jones. Jones.

[Travis View]

They call Alex Jones the Juice, but it's a reference to Jack Daniels.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, he, like, I think, I think that my perspective on him after watching way too much of his show is that he's somebody who really, really loves lore. He loves the idea of like campfire stories that your grandpa would tell you while sitting out waiting for the beans to cook or something. And I think he always thought of himself as being a mythical larger than life character. And I think the lawsuits and the having to retreat to this shell company, this kind of stuff, I think it hurts his ability to ever be that he's never going to be a ghost rider on the storm. You know, like he's kind of a loser. And I think that sucks for him. And on some level, as much as it sucks to say I, I think he would have been so much better off if he died in like 2018. And it's kind of unfortunate that he has many, many more years to live out and just become like gradually less important douche online.

[Travis View]

Now you're wandering into Julian territory.

[Dan Friedson]

Oh yeah. You got a time machine?

[Travis View]

Nope. Just wishing death upon your enemies. But you're doing it more subtly than I am, so we're not gonna have to beep you or anything.

[Dan Friedson]

Let me be clear. I'm not wishing death upon him. I'm saying he should w upon himself.

[Jake]

Dan Obama, things would have been better.

[Travis View]

Let me be clear. I don't want him to die. I just was saying that for his own sake.

[Dan Friedson]

My most centric take. Alex should want himself dead in the past, not me.

[Jake]

And nobody's going into the past. Despite some of the predictions, you know, that Dan and Jordan made.

[Travis View]

Yeah, I got a nice media empire there. Be a shame if you kept living one.

[Julian Field]

You know, ongoing is. I guess it still hasn't resolved. Consequence of Infowars no longer being the property of Alex Jones is that the onions parenting company is working towards acquiring it. And the plan still technically legally unsettled. The proposed deal would give the Onion a temporary exclusive license to enforce trademarks, copyrights, website and social media accounts while a receiver works towards liquidation. But a Texas appeals court paused the transfer, and a new hearing was set for May 28, 2026. That's two days from now when we're recording. The Onion's plan, if approved, is to turn the platform into sort of like a comedy parody operation under Tim Heidegger's creative direction, with revenue streams benefiting Sandy Hook families. It's an audacious idea. It's very controversial, but I'm curious how you feel about this idea of like, turning the infowart into a vehicle for. For. For satire.

[Dan Friedson]

Well, I think I'm agnostic to whether or not that idea works, and I think that I've been pretty clear in my positions in the past about, like, I think when you make a parody of Al is really, really difficult to do, and it often ends up backfiring. So I generally think people are better off not doing that. But bigger picture in terms of this, like, I decided to join up and help as an, as a consultant during the Sandy Hook trial because I felt like I had information that could be helpful and to not do it would be to withhold that information. One once that involvement ended. And now it's kind of like collections type stuff. I really don't have a position. I feel like the people who are working with the plaintiffs, they know what they want. They know what the people who Alex owes all this money to want. And I think that whatever those decisions are is what should happen. So I try to be like, as outside of that and not invested in what. Whatever they decide to do as possible. That said, I think, I mean, Tim Heidecker's even said this, that a parody of Alex would run out of juice pretty quick and that there's only a certain amount of time they could do that before wanting to turn the site into something else creative and comedic. And I think there's some interesting possibilities you could do there. It doesn't solve whatever problem Alex represents and I don't know what would. But yeah, I'd say good luck. I hope. I wish them the best.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, I'm not sure how it turned out. Like, I think like in my imagination, I think like the best case scenario to turn like Infowars and kind of like a digital head on a pike be like all these are like serious consequences that you, that can happen to you if you just spread bullshit wantonly and you hurt people in the process. You could have something that you worked for decades to build up taken away from you and given to your enemies. And it would be nice if like this with sort of a living online, sort of museum of that story, you know.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, I think that's true. I think that there's a double edged sword to it that you also then provide because Alex's head is not on a pike really. And you allow him to use the image of that as a victimhood story. And like they cared so much about shutting me up that they put my head on a pike over here. And I don't think that's a reason not to do it, but it's a reality of this bullshit media ecosystem. Like you have to be prepared for that.

[Travis View]

Yeah. I think my opinion here is like, I wish them luck. I am not sure they can get out of this like schadenfreude, like trap that essentially does not provide justice, nor is it particularly funny. So I'll be the devil's advocate and say that I don't think it has legs, but I also think the people involved are cool. And so it's, it's like, hey, I mean, shit, you know, prove me wrong. Like, show me where this can work. It just, it seems really tenuous and a lot of it is based in like revanchist fantasy, which I think we have plenty of.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. And that may be. And I think that that's, you know, I think it's totally fair to think like, well, this might not be a good idea comedically or even like strategically from an information war perspective, I guess. But yeah, my feeling on it is largely to err on of like the plaintiff's attorneys are talking to the plaintiffs and they're involved in this. So me saying like, hey, I don't think that that's going to be as funny as you think it is, so you shouldn't do it. I think that presupposes that I know more about what they want than they do, and that's. I try to avoid that.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. I mean, I think I agree that, like, most people couldn't make it work, but, you know, I guess I am giving the benefit of the doubt because I do think the people behind it are pretty, you know, upstanding and talented. So, you know, I'm willing to, you know, at least have hope that it has a chance of succeeding.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah.

[Jake]

I always think it's good that there's, like, more conspiracy. Conspiracy content paraded as satire or, you know, having a little fun with it. You know, there have been people who have come up to me at live shows and stuff and said that they were pilled and that listening to QAA sort of helped them kind of, like, laugh at themselves and sort of, you know, woke them up a little bit. And, you know, QA did that for me. You know, you're right.

[Travis View]

We should take over QAnon. We should start posting as QAnon.

[Jake]

I've been saying we. I've been saying this for years behind the scenes, never out loud on the podcast, but, you know, it's a new year.

[Julian Field]

No. Maybe we could sue and get the. The trip code on 8 Coon and. Yeah, yeah, really, really say. And try take it over that way.

[Travis View]

Oh, you think it's. You think it's sinister? Have you met LGBTQ, QAnon?

[Dan Friedson]

LGBTQ? You went on. You know, to whatever extent that's possible, Jake, I think that's. That's a great thing for people to aspire towards, creating more of. But I also do think that, like, we have to be cognizant of how much that is a, like, consumer side process. Like, the person who's taking in the media has to be able to laugh at themselves. They have to. And it's good to create that stuff, but we kid ourselves to think that, like, some. Someone who's deep in it is gonna respond to being mocked and, like, ha, ha. Oh, I see. Why. What I believe is silly.

[Jake]

Yeah, well. And we didn't set out to do that. I should make that very clear, just anecdotally, but I agree. And I was gonna say, you know, at this point, I think there's very little that would change somebody's mind, you know, that that would pull somebody very, very, very deep in it out. I think mostly at this point, people have kind of chosen, you know, their bundle in Travis's marketplace of reality, so to speak.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. And I think that, having said, what I said, I still. I think it's always better to still do it than not, you know, still create the opportunities for people to see the silliness of their beliefs than not.

[Julian Field]

Let me ask you this. I mean, did you stop watching Alex Jones content after you completed the last episode?

[Dan Friedson]

I did stop for a bit. And then we had a live show commitment after we decided that we were gonna end the show. And it was a venue that was set up and run by a friend of ours in the Chicagoland area. And so we were like, we're still doing it. We gotta still do it. And so after we had decided to quit, I stopped taking in nearly as much of his content, maybe almost zero. And then I had to prepare this live episode, and I went back to listening to it, and it was kind of like, I don't know, I've never done, like, heroin, but I imagined you're off for a while and then you take it and it feels. Feels so different, you know, it feels like, oh, my God, this is like. There's something familiar about this, but it's not the same. And I don't. I'm not going to say I'm never going to listen to him again, but I definitely have been listening, like, almost none. I don't really care what he has to say.

[Julian Field]

I know. I just say I feel like some, like, cognitive scientists should, like, be attaching electrodes to your head or something to understand, like, what it's like to go from nine years of, like, absorbing this every single week to, you know, weeding off, going cold turkey and then, you know, not having, you know, these kinds of narratives pumped into your head constantly, even from a critical perspective.

[Dan Friedson]

Well, I just. I also should say, like, you know, we've. We stopped doing the show. But it's impossible for me to, like, say that I'm not going to do anything with the information and the knowledge that I've accumulated. So, like, I'm still doing some stuff that uses this, and I'm still, sadly, being exposed to these kinds of narratives. So I wouldn't say I'm cold turkey, but, man, way less. Way less.

[Jake]

It's good. You deserve it. You deserve a rest.

[Dan Friedson]

And if you did hook up electrodes to my brain, I would say that it's a positive. It's definitely. I don't miss hearing his. Let me qualify this. Back to my Obama impression. Let me qualify this. If I were only listening to, like, mid-2000s, Alex, I think that a lot of it could be fairly tolerable. But in the age of him just, like, doing a Twitter recap show and just being mad about nothing and living in the Trumpian America. Like, I don't ever want to listen to that show. That show sucks.

[Jake]

That show sucks. Nobody wants to see, like, the winner in winner land complaining about losing.

[Dan Friedson]

And I think that his relevance is probably way less than it was, too. Like, I think that there's, as you all probably encounter pretty regularly, there's a lot more, like, relevant and dangerous people in other corners of the Internet than he is now.

[Julian Field]

Yeah.

[Jake]

Yes. He's been somewhat defanged, and that's his own fault.

[Dan Friedson]

If he just died in 2018, Fang's still intact.

[Jake]

He should have never made the choice to come back, because he did die, actually, and he was up there walking around, and they gave him a choice. They said you could stay here for eternity and find out. We actually, when you die, we give you a big book, and it tells you the truth of the world. You can finally learn everything that's real. They're like. Or you can go back down and kind of see where it goes. And he did make that horrible choice to come back down. So it's tough, you know, sort kind of like an all dogs go to heaven sort of deal. And. But, yeah, he chose poorly.

[Dan Friedson]

There's a certain brilliance to that, though, because you would then know that there is a book that contains the truth about everything. And we don't know that we haven't died. We haven't been given this option. So you could pretend that you read that book. You could trick everyone. That's right.

[Jake]

That's right. He could become an NDE guy is

[Travis View]

just basically back to, like, the first.

[Jake]

That's basically the first iteration.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, he had to. God told him when he was a kid all the truths and everything that was going to happen. And, you know, so, you know, he's a psychic and he's good.

[Jake]

Didn't see this one coming, though.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. So do you have, like, any immediate plans for the future to return to, you know, maybe creating content? You know, guys, I always liked your style of clothes reading, which is like, you know, something that you don't see a lot in sort of, like, even good skeptical content?

[Dan Friedson]

Well, first of all, thank you. That's very nice to hear. I don't have a specific plan in this lane just yet. I think that something may come to me down the road, but I have a project that I'm working on that incorporates some travel and some storytelling and Americana, let's say things. So I'm working on that. And hopefully that'll be able to start releasing that soon. But, yeah, I think, I think eventually I will. Like, whatever. I don't know. Malcolm Gladwell, he sucks, right? We don't like Malcolm Gladwell.

[Travis View]

We don't like him.

[Dan Friedson]

But that 10,000 hours thing is still in our brains. And I did, I've done 10,000 hours of deconstructing and looking at these conspiracies and this kind of information, and I don't think that that call will ever dissipate. Like, I think that I'll still want to use that somehow. Maybe I'll do a show about Malcolm Gladwell.

[Jake]

I don't think there is one yet.

[Dan Friedson]

I did flirt with the idea of, like, okay, I hate Adam Carolla. I'm gonna do a show about Adam Carolla, but I don't think I can do that.

[Travis View]

Call it like the swinging moment.

[Jake]

Boy, you're going from one grating voice to another.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah, Yeah. I have a lot of deep seated loveline based trauma to work through.

[Jake]

Me too. Oh, man, we must be almost exactly the same age. Both those guys. Guys turned out to be such schmucks.

[Dan Friedson]

So disappointing. And the writing was there on the wall the whole time. We were just kids.

[Jake]

Kids. We were kids.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah.

[Jake]

Yeah. Drew, he says he's got something leaking out of the cap. All right, all right. I saw Adam Carolla recently. I was like driving around and I went, wait a minute, that's Adam Carolla. He was like crossing the street in front of me and it was.

[Dan Friedson]

Did you yell, get it on, Gotta get it on. Must get it.

[Jake]

No, I just was like, I was like, man, I just like quietly thought it was my head, like, about how much Loveline I listened to and how Both him and Dr. Drew became schmucks.

[Dan Friedson]

Total assholes.

[Julian Field]

Dan, where can people find you on social media nowadays?

[Dan Friedson]

Oh, sure. I, I, I don't do a whole lot of social media stuff because, I don't know, it makes me angry and I think everyone else is pretty angry. But I have my website for this new travely project that I'm working on is showmestateofmind.com and so people can find me there. And there's also, I'm running a campaign to try and replace Jeff Probst as the host of Survivor and so that there's a link to, to that on, on that website as well.

[Jake]

Oh, man, you would crush. You would crush.

[Julian Field]

I mean. Yeah, I mean, he's gotta quit eventually. He's been doing it for. Yeah.

[Travis View]

So long.

[Dan Friedson]

Yeah. And this season he rapped and it was just. Oh, my God, it was so embarrassing.

[Jake]

Like, he rapped, wrapped the show. He, like, hip hop rapped.

[Dan Friedson]

My name's Jeff Probst, and I'm here to say that kind of thing, it was.

[Travis View]

Was Pull the Jake, huh?

[Jake]

No, I don't do. I don't do that ABC Mother Goose rap. My bars are better than that.

[Dan Friedson]

This was Mother Goose as hell.

[Jake]

I don't even do the standard in my rapping days. I didn't even do the standard, like, white guy rap, which is, like, try to as many as, like, the hypotheses, the hyperboles, the prophecies. You know how, like, white guys do. Like, I have better bars than. Than that even.

[Dan Friedson]

Thesaurus ass rapping.

[Jake]

Yeah, thesaurus ass rap.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

I.

[Dan Friedson]

Look, I. I've got nothing against rap, and I love hip hop. It's one of my favorite genres. I just don't want to see Jeff Probst doing it on Survivor.

[Jake]

No, he can't be doing. My name is Jeff, and I'm here to say I'm surviving hosts in a mazer way. Jeff Probst. What's it rhyme with? Yeah, that's host.

[Dan Friedson]

I'm the probst with the most.

[Jake]

My name is Jeff, and I am the best. Like, not even really doing rhymes. Just like the first half of the word, not the last. All right, now we're getting into goof territory. This is when you know. This is when you know it's time.

[Julian Field]

All right, Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show. I mean, knowledge fight. I think the archives are still going to be valuable.

[Jake]

You guys are legendary, man.

[Julian Field]

And, yeah, this is. I think it's a. I mean, that's a long time. I think it's a. It's one of the great feats of podcasting. So. Yeah. So just amazing work, and I really hope we can stay in touch in the future.

[Dan Friedson]

Absolutely. I'm always available, and thank you for saying that. So that really means a lot. And I want to also, if anybody is worried, those archives will remain there. They aren't going anywhere. So if people want to listen to all thousand episodes, dig in.

[Travis View]

Join the team, buddy.

[Jake]

Will you, Dan, ever listen to the episodes again?

[Dan Friedson]

No, no, no, no. I think I. No, I can't handle it.

[Jake]

No. This is a painting that has been signed. It's been shipped off. It's going to end, hang on digital walls for eternity, but you're not touching this thing anymore. Nah, you put in your work, dude. You put in the hours. It's time. It's time to get a break. This guy's toxic, man. You gotta, you know, you gotta d.

[Travis View]

Don't call Dan toxic.

[Jake]

No, no, no, I meant, you know, I meant, you know, Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones and me drank. Were up forever and we said great

[Dan Friedson]

regret of my career is never doing a song parody of that.

[Jake]

Well, maybe that can be some kind of. Of swan song, some final act.

[Dan Friedson]

I'm recording this with you guys from undisclosed location in West Virginia. So I'm going to.

[Jake]

Oh, hell yeah.

[Dan Friedson]

I'll go hike in the woods and consider a counting crow's parody.

[Jake]

Okay, I'll back you. I'll play the beautiful documents. Everybody hates me.

[Dan Friedson]

We all want to be Bill Cooper.

[Jake]

Owen Schroyer says no. She's a little more.

[Travis View]

Okay. I think now is a great time for me to promote Superstructure.

[Jake]

Yes, Julian. Julian, tell us. Tell us.

[Travis View]

With John Gabris. Go check it [e-mail] We've been covering Ruby Ridge and the late great Planet Earth, which is a book that heavily inspired Vicki Weaver to spin off into her religious mania that led to Ruby Ridge, the event, which obviously I'm not just blaming on that, but you know, it's a complex and interesting matter. We covered that. We're about to cover Honduras Gate and the origins of NATO. So we're out there covering structures of power and you know, soon we're going to do some Weather Underground stuff. It's going to be really fun. So please come and join us. Superstructure podcast.com I'll say this.

[Jake]

I have a tiny little. I have a tiny little plug. I'm working on a video. Video game.

[Dan Friedson]

Oh yes.

[Travis View]

Ultimate full circle event.

[Jake]

Full circle event.

[Dan Friedson]

Finishing up GTA 6.

[Jake]

Yes, yes, absolutely.

[Travis View]

That's so cool. They gave you the main role and like did your body scan and everything.

[Jake]

I'm playing both. I'm playing the guy and the girl and it's tough cuz like the whole game kind of is like about their relationship and like going on dates and stuff. It's very strange. But I do both voices and it's going to be great. But no, I've been getting back into drawing and like doing art and talk about not doom scrolling, like trying to sit down and draw stuff instead of like doom scrolling all the time. Which has been.

[Dan Friedson]

Which has been lovely.

[Jake]

Yeah, lovely. Good for the brain. Good for brain. We got. We got three sick four sickos here. We, we need to. We need to detox.

[Julian Field]

Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. You can go to patreon.comqaa and subscribe for five bucks a month to get an additional episode for every free one. Plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes. For everything else we have a website that's qaapodcast.com listener until next week.

[Jake]

May the deep dish bless you and keep you.

[Dan Friedson]

We have auto keyed content based on your preference.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

I never bluff folks. If you knew what we had the whistleblowers, the documents. We have royal flushes. They are screwed to the moon. And all glory goes to Jesus Christ and our heavenly father. That leads guys and erectus. We are commit ourselves to God in this holy fight. And we are committed. And if God stands with us, who can stand against us? And that's how I close out. So I salute you all. What a crew. The hell all we've been through has only made us stronger. Let me ask you, would you have any other way? Are you not stronger now in this fight? I salute this crew and all the viewers and listeners to this fight. And I commit myself to Jesus Christ's hands.

[Julian Field]

Amen.

[Jake]

God bless the infowar.

[Guest or Additional Speaker]

You are the infowar. It lives forever. We're gonna play Frank Sinatra Blue Eyes and come back with the great Tom Rank friends. And then Jay and I are to close this out. God bless you all. That's it. The next phase starts. The real war begins now.