← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Can Trump Recover From the Epstein Fallout? | Dan Hollaway | Ep. 35
00:49:16
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- [00:00]
Cindy Crawford
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- [00:35]
Jacob Goldstein
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- [01:20]
Cindy Crawford
A parent, you wear many hats. At dinner, you're the chef. When your kids play, you're the ref. And let's face it, you're basically a full time chauffeur. Fortunately, when it's time to wear your teacher hat, Abeka makes things easy. Our proven, flexible homeschool curriculum is designed to let your kids retain and build on the knowledge they acquire, setting them up for success later in life. Abeka Learning for life begins with the right homeschool education. Learn more@abekahomeschool.com Ah come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [01:53]
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- [02:07]
Cindy Crawford
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- [02:09]
Unknown Tech Advertiser
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- [02:27]
Cindy Crawford
Welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non stop action and world class talent every game. These Athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, the brightest age AT&T WNBA All Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis July 18th 19th. Tune into the game July 19th at 8:30pm Eastern Time on ABC.
- [02:57]
David Rutherford
Are you a citizen of the United States? Who cares about what's going on, especially the division that's taking place in the MAGA movement? Well, don't miss it. Cause I've got the host of the Citizen podcast, Dan Holloway, on the David Rutherford Show. All right, everybody, thank you so much for joining me. You after Monday's show called the MAGA Split, I wanted to bring on somebody that I believe really is tracking this at the most granular level, but also is bringing forth a really well thought out application to all of the things that are driving the split. For whether it's the anti war movement or whether it's the Epstein files or whether it's the land sale, whatever it might be. The one individual that I really truly believe that has just a profound insight on all these things is Mr. Dan Holloway with the Citizen podcast, who's also on one of my favorites, the Drinking Brothers podcast. So, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Dan Holloway. How are you doing, Dan?
- [04:07]
Dan Holloway
I'm doing well. How are you?
- [04:09]
David Rutherford
Well, I'll tell you what, after three months of finally getting a show back up and running, I think I finally am starting to find a little bit of a tempo and a little bit of understanding of what this thing's going to look like. But certainly when you had me on about four months ago, that really got me, got me thinking about what I needed to do because of how well you do it. So thank you.
- [04:35]
Dan Holloway
Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, it's, it takes a little while to get into a rhythm, doesn't it?
- [04:39]
David Rutherford
It does. You know, I took, you know, probably two and a half years off and I was like, oh, I got this. It's easy. And then like my first month I was trying to figure out, all right, that doesn't, it doesn't work. So yeah, finally. Well, listen, let's, let's get into it. I know you're busy, man. As I was saying in the intro I did show released it Monday on the MAGA Split. And I've been watching. You've been all over a lot of the people on both sides. Whether I'm still trying to really define what woke right is right from James, Lindsay and Peterson and all that, but there's a definite division amongst the different people. So as you see this, how are you looking at this? Where, where do you see the splits taking place and what are kind of the, the tributaries of division that are kind of breaking out within the MAGA movement?
- [05:34]
Dan Holloway
Sure, yeah. I mean, I guess it helps to start at the granular level, right. The United States is the simple idea that individual liberty and personal entrepreneurship are the ultimate inoculation to tyranny. That's what we believe here, right. We believe that when the state is large, the individual is small. Now with that, and this is kind of the purpose of my show, citizen, with that comes a litany of responsibilities. Right. Like I, I believe the phrase from one of our founders was a republic, if you can keep it. Right. And the presumption there is that it requires your constant maintenance and vigilance. Now it is true that we are aimed towards liberty above all else and that decentralization is probably the best way, so far as we could tell, to handle that sort of stuff. And that means the diffusion of power amongst a lower and greater number of people and at a lower level, certainly that's what federalism is meant to do. Right. The 10th Amendment of the Constitution. Now the thing that I will also say is that most people aren't leaders. That's just how life is. Right. And there are quite a few people, I think, people that take the time to come and there's degrees of it, right. Like not everybody is a top level leader, but a lot of people are middle management. I mean, if you're a, if you're a parent, then you're, you're the manager of your household, I think, I don't remember who originally said it, but the lowest form of government is your house. Right. Your family. And as such, I really think that people need to be led and that isn't. And when we talk about stuff like this, it kind of betrays the, one of the fundamental flaws of our decentralized system. And every system has one. Ours just happens to be this. And it's in my opinion, manageable, which is that, you know, people are lazy and they don't want to put in the effort required of them to get the outcome they desire. And that, you know, that when you, when you talk about, you know, from our perspective as, as gunfighter types, how can I exploit my enemy's weakness? That's the number one weakness in the United States. And it is that there are all these gaps in our defense where effort could solve them, but it won't because they don't. It's not going to be present.
- [08:05]
David Rutherford
So, and we had talked about that before, that's intellectual Weakness, Yes. That's actionable weakness. That's resilience weakness. It's the whole gambit, right?
- [08:14]
Dan Holloway
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, so to solve that kind of thing, there's this. So Marcus Aurelius once said, stop talking about what a good man is and be one, right? And I think let's stop talking about what a leader is and be one. This is the thing that we need desperately, and we don't have it because we have a lot of people who are benefiting from the system in a lot of ways, right? People that are, let's say, people that are on welfare, the politicians that are selling them that welfare on both sides of the aisle. This is not a democratic situation. It. It happens from both sides. And then, of course, in the ecosphere, the people that are meant to be, I guess the middle management leaders, the communicators, a lot of them, whether they know it or not, have been captured either by their audience or by some foreign adversary or even by, you know, propaganda within our own government. Now, you'll hear people talk about how Qatar does this. I mean, forget about all that crap. That's not even necessary to bring up what actually, like, foreign governments, for the most part, are not paying specific individuals to do anything. To your point from before, about these bot farms, that's not at all how it works. What actually happens is the foreign government, primarily China, Russia to some degree, North Korea to some degree, Iran, but Iran is mostly a cutout of China in that regard. And then, you know, Israel does it as well. The United States does it overseas and probably here as well. I think USAID probably funded some of this stuff, but they'll take an extremist position like some. Can I swear on this show, I don't know which kind of show we're at.
- [09:52]
David Rutherford
Absolutely, yeah, you're good.
- [09:53]
Dan Holloway
Some dipshit like Nick Fuentes will, so some say something crazy and he'll couch it. He'll say some accurate stuff and then he'll say something stupid, right? And thousands of these bot farm accounts will come in and say, oh, yeah, this, that, and. And people, you know, fall into these traps. One of them is called bandwagon fallacy, which is where if enough people believe it, that means I should believe it too. Well, that's not true. It's literally a logical fallacy, right? So you should inspect the information on its merit. That should be the first thing. Now, there are a lot of indicators about how this stuff happens on. It's quite a bit easier on Instagram because you can see who likes what. So here's something I would recommend you do. If you see somebody post something that's a long reel or a meme or something that's, you know, clearly meant to inflame people, if you see something like that, look at the comments section. Don't worry about what the content of it is moving forward, just look at the comment section and find people, you know, just hover over accounts that are responding to it and find people that have. That follow a lot of people and very low follower counts and just find like two of them and then go look at other people making extreme comments to. To boost that post and then look and see if that original two people like those posts. Then you've identified a little bot farm. That's how it works, right? So, you know, this isn't new or clever. Nielsen's been caught doing this with the cable black boxes a bunch of times, including in India as late as like 2012. I think they got sued in India for it. So, you know, this kind of manipulation has happened a lot before. What I would say is, you know, we have some really deep misunderstandings about what these foreign adversaries are trying to do, like the Russia collusion hoax, right? Which is complete nonsense. Made a lot of people on the left think that the whole purpose of Russian influence was to get Donald Trump elected. That is not the case. Their purpose is always chaos, right? They want. They want two things. They want Americans not to trust or talk to each other, Right? And they want to infiltrate our systems with Marxism, our communications, our education, all of our systems with Marxism. That is their goal, right? So if you think about it from that standpoint, you and this now, I'm speaking to the individual creators as well. If you see these bot farms engaging and promoting your posts, you should ask yourself why. Even if the information is true, right. You should still ask yourself, well, why is my enemy coming to my defense right now? What does that say about my position? Or what does it say about what they're trying to do? I'm not telling you to act any sort certain way. I just want people to observe what's happening because I don't think that people like being tricked. I think it really pisses me off when somebody tries to influence me like that. And I think the average person, even though they need to be led, like, not everybody's going to. Not everyone's going to be a political science scholar or an economics scholar, right? That's just not how life works. You've got a job to do, so we need to Be able to depend on people in the public sphere to some degree and the expert class, which we've completely lost in this country, to do their fucking job. Like, that's, that is your job and you need to take it seriously and do it in a good way. And if you're being influenced and infiltrated by these foreign adversaries, it's just not going to happen. Right. So I think it's all part of this ecosystem where there are people that I like out there in the public that are being influenced in this way and I try to tell them about it, like, hey, I like you, but look at what's happening right here. This is not good because it is all of our job, leader or not, to hold each other accountable. That's what this community is supposed to be about.
- [13:26]
David Rutherford
I agree. I think that's a great way to evaluate it. The challenge though is, and this goes back, which I remember when the whole fiasco of Douglas Murray and Dave Smith on Rogan and that whole thing and, well, you weren't there and it's the classification of expertise. And like you said, I think really as a result of COVID we had a collapse in confidence in the experts for sure. And so now moving forward, you have comedians like Dave Smith, who is an impassioned anti war libertarian, I guess then you have other people like James Lindsay, who is obviously smart guy, understands communism at an ultimate level, but then is projecting along with Jordan Peterson that if you post a certain way, you fit the, you know, the psychotic triad. And so it's like I see both people becoming more extreme in order to refine their stance. And what you said, which was, I thought really interesting, was that component about audience capture. And so you get these bot farms that'll come in and reinforce your point. And you are like, oh, well, I'm more reinforced. I'm more than. I'm right. I'm over the target. This is what my audience wants to see. Explain a little bit more about how, how you, how you try and assess these things with people online and then often in private too, because I'm sure you, you reach out to people that you, that you know personally and say, I do.
- [15:16]
Dan Holloway
Yeah, yeah. So I think the most important thing that you can do as a thinker is to reduce things down to their fundamental level. What we would call first principles. Right. I think that's the most important thing. And I've, I've given this example a number of times recently, but for your audience, I'll give it again, one of the longest running and Most vicious debates in America, politically speaking, has been over health care. And as someone who leans towards the conservative side, somebody from the left will say, I think we should have free health care. And my mind, like alarm bells are going off in my head, obviously. Right. Like, well, one, nothing's free. And two, the per the, the group that you think that's free is administering this is not going to do a very good job, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. Okay, well, I can, I can say all that and I can start an argument with this person and then we will converse about our argument, we'll both state our points and then we'll walk away. That's how that goes. Or, you know, and I'm not telling you to capitulate, I'm telling you to understand. Or you could do this, you could say, you could take this person at their best possible first principle. Meaning, which is that in the richest country in the history of the world, it is almost assuredly unethical to tell people they can be as healthy as they can afford to be when they're getting the text taxed out of them. And there are all these predatory systems out there. That is something that I fundamentally agree with, actually. Right. So now we're talking about the solution to that problem rather than ignoring the problem entirely. Because this is what happens if you, man, if just because you don't agree with somebody's solution to a problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And if you pretend that problem doesn't exist, then people you don't like and you don't agree with will come in and solve that problem on your behalf. And it's going to be in a way that you don't like, and it probably disadvantages you to some degree. Your participation in this is required. And the only way to participate fully is to do that, to fully understand that person's position. So, you know, to the first principle thing on what people like James would call the woke. Right. Okay. So he doesn't mean they're woke in the way that they're pro trans or any of this stuff. The way that we kind of casually define it, what he's saying is that they want, these people want power. There's this old saying, it's kind of a, it's not old actually. It's kind of. It's a newer saying. But there's this like refrain about Marxism, call everything oppressive until you own it. Right. That's, that's their baseline strategy. And it's about power. It has nothing to do with principles or Anything like that. And you can see it. These people that are, that are, that are Marxist folks who were perfectly happy locking you down and trying to force vaccinate you. They were still going out to the French Laundry, you know, with no mask on, you know for a fact. They didn't believe it. This, what's his name, Mark Kelly from Arizona. When Elon was getting cozy with the administration, he traded in his Tesla, not for another electric vehicle, by the way, but for a V8 GMC. The same one I drive, as a matter of fact. Right. So you know that these people have no root and principle. They're full of every single one of them. So people that are trying to gain power, right? And as such, they are using the tools to gain power in lieu of the tools to decentralize or empower people. That is woke, right? That's, that's. That those are the tool belt, or I'm sorry, that is the tool belt of the woke actor. So don't confuse it with. And I, I don't use the phrase woke, right? Because I think it's just. It requires too much time like this to explain what it means.
- [18:53]
David Rutherford
Right.
- [18:54]
Dan Holloway
I just call them to be honest. But James is a. James is a nerd, right? So he's gonna do that. But they're using the same power or the same tools to gain power, right? And you can see it all the time. When's the last time a Republican decentralized anything, Right? And when you see these people who are what I consider to be cultists for their political parties on either side, whenever they get into power, it's never about returning things to normal. It's about, I've got power now. What am I going to do with it? Nope. I'm sorry, that's not the right answer, my friend.
- [19:32]
Jacob Goldstein
This is Jacob Goldstein from what's your problem? Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out odoo@odoo.com. that's o d o o dot com.
- [20:17]
Cindy Crawford
As a parent, you wear many hats at dinner. You're the chef. When your kids play, you're the ref and let's face it, you're basically a full time chauffeur. Fortunately, when it's time to wear your teacher hat, Abeka makes things easy. Our proven flexible homeschool curriculum is designed to let your kids retain and build on the knowledge they acquire, setting them up for success later in life. Abeka Learning for life begins with the right homeschool education. Learn more@abekahomeschool.com Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [20:51]
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- [21:05]
Cindy Crawford
Whoa, this thing moves.
- [21:06]
Unknown Tech Advertiser
Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search@lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.
- [21:24]
Cindy Crawford
Welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non stop action and world class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, The Brightest Age AT&T WNBA All Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis July 18th, 18th through 19th. Tune into the game July 19th at 8:30pm Eastern Time on ABC. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well I don't know about you, but like I never liked being told oh wow, you look so good for your age. Like why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age? Every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.
- [22:29]
David Rutherford
I hope you're enjoying the show. I just wanted to step in real quick and just let you know that if you visit davidrutherford.com you can get access to one of our most important pieces of curriculum that I've ever written or ever put out. It's called the Embrace Fear Training Course. This course I spent two years researching. Combine that with my experiences as a Navy SEAL working for Blackwater and working from the working for the Central Intelligence Agency. So I know a little bit about fear. But what I did is I condensed this down into Five training modules that I call missions that you can scope out over the course of five months. That's how they're designed. Or you can do it in five weeks if you want to rush through the course. And this course will teach you to how to identify and understand your fear, how to accept it in your life, how to retrain your brain to deal with it, to test yourself on a regular day in and day out basis to accept and manage that fear, embrace it, and then to live with courage in order to pursue your dreams and your ultimate purpose and meaning in life by taking that fear, flipping around, and using it as a motivational tool. So in the crazy times we live in, if you find yourself anxious or a little bit of fear that compels you each and every day to make decisions that you typically wouldn't make, and you want to overcome that, well, then go visit davidrutherford.com/courses and sign up at the Frog Logic Institute and download your Embrace Fear course today. Thank you very much. Right. Attracting, actually going back or living up to promises in the cycle of, you know, getting people to believe in what you believe. Now, I think, you know, this cycle was one of the most unique cycles I've ever been paying attention. And, you know, Mild man was, you know, always very in tune with what was going on politically. And. And, you know, he grew up in the late 60s, went to university of Michigan when Abby Hoffman was there, and, you know, just so as an attorney and so. Right, that's right, that's right. And always had this. And I remember vividly as a young boy, you know, watching 60 Minutes with them, and him being like, well, this is this, and this is this. And I was like, oh, this is cool. You know, and for me, my big transition was when we invaded Iraq the first time. And, you know, I think I was 18 years old, I was up in Connecticut at boarding school, and it was like, oh, shit, there's something bigger at play. Well, I think now what's taking place in particular over that last cycle, like, everything has become it's the end of the world. And you pointed a little bit of this out. I think with the whole Iran Israel bombing, you're like, all right, everybody that's talking about World War 3, and if we go, there's gonna be 70 million Americans dead in the first five. You're like, everybody just shut up. And I love the example that you gave about the first Trump term where we went in and we took out the guy who was the head of the I. What is it? The icrg, irgc. Thank you. And nothing was done as a result. And so what I'm asking you is, you're obviously saying, all right, figure out what that defining principle is and then move into the argument. But is there a place where is there a legitimate argument right now? Let's take the hottest issue on the thing I just saw today. 50 posts. Dan Bongino's leaving the FBI. He had to take a day off. Right. Cash Patel and he are fuming. Pam. Bonnie's on the chopping board because of the collapse in Trump's whatever, the Epstein thing. Why is this such a divisive concept within the MAGA movement right now? And why do you think, like, this is one of those core principal ideas to really flush out in order to, to get everybody. I don't know what it. I don't know what the outcome is. Like, what is. How do you assemble everybody in a concise manner to get some fanatic, not even finality, but just some exposure. Right. What would be your suggestion in this or in your explanation of it? Sorry, that was long winded. Positive.
- [27:09]
Dan Holloway
No, no, I've got some notes. People think that we all learned our lesson from all the lockdown and Biden stuff because we reelected Trump, but clearly that's not the case. Clearly, anybody that's arguing against publishing whatever we have on Epstein is full of. Right. They, they. That's certainly not what they were saying six months ago when it was like on day one. On day one. On day one. So that that person has either abandoned or never had principles. That's just how it is. They're a, what I would refer to as an intellectual pleb. Right. They don't belong in the conversation. They need to be told what to think, frankly. And I think that's a sad reality, but that it is. And there's another example of it. We were all against omnibus bills 12 months ago, Pete. We were fighting hard to make sure that never happened again. And we were promised it would not, at least in this term. And now it's awesome because Trump renamed it. I'm sorry, that doesn't, that does. That logic doesn't track for me. You are either principled or you are not principled. That is it. Right. There's no, there's no time sensitivity to principles. It's either a true thing or it's not a true thing. And, and the ultimate version of audience capture is politics. Right. These people try to persuade you in certain ways, but they also run opinion polls. Right. And if the broader public takes a stand against something, then they will back off of it. And I'll tell you, there's been a pretty recent example of it happening. A lot of people in a lot of big cities let their businesses get shut down. They let themselves, their kids get kicked out of schools for, you know, months at a time, all this stuff, and they just took it. They complained on social media, but they took it. But then when the Biden administration under DHS tried to stand up this governance disinformation board that was basically like an online censorship program inside of our federal government, everybody from the left to the right said, nope, we're not doing that. And it went away. That woman got fired, by the way. She works for the British government doing the exact same thing now.
- [29:12]
David Rutherford
I know.
- [29:13]
Dan Holloway
So you can see that the power of. In the first season of Game of Thrones, the king is like, what's stronger, five or one? And she's like, five. And he goes, five, one. Right. So a fist is quite a bit stronger than open hand. And that is what the resounding no from Americans sounds like. So the solution to this stuff, this MAGA split, is that you need to understand logic and reason. Probably go read some of the things that Aristotle had to say or Marcus Aurelius had to say. Those are two very important figures in Seneca as well. And in that specific space, those three people are very good to look into and then maybe study some civics so you actually understand how our government works. And. Because right now you're having a conversation about stuff that you just don't understand, frankly, I think that's a big problem. And it's. You can see it in this. You mentioned Dave Smith and some of these other guys, but it's just the. The anti war side, and I don't think it's one. Nobody is truly anti war. I don't believe that. Right, because if I brought war to your house, you would be pro war in an instant. Right. So it's just a matter of defining terms and just war theory and stuff like that, which they also have no concept of. But it does show. I'll say this. It shows the damage that George W. Bush's administration did to this country. They, wow, they so misused the trust of the American public that we can't look at a country like Iran, who has been for years threatening to destroy our civilization and has bombed our Marine Corps barracks and has been the number one state sponsor of terrorism globally, and say, well, we can't let them get nukes. That. That seems like a pretty reasonable thing. The entire World agrees on this, by the way. I don't even think China and Russia want them to get nukes. They're just using it to keep us wrapped up over there. Right? That would be. Be. That would be not great. So it's like you have your personal opinions on stuff and your, you know, your education in life, it's all going to inform these opinions. So. Which is why you need to get more of those things. Right. The more data you get, the better off you're going to be when you're making these decisions. It is completely unreasonable to think that, you know, Iran should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. That's crazy. I don't, like, I honestly don't think anybody actually believes that. I think some people are just being contrarian for its own big. But the other point you made was about Kaseem Soleimani. It wasn't just, it wasn't just the fact that Iran didn't retaliate. It's that they called us and said, here's what we're going to do. They did it in 2020 as well, by the way. Like, it was, it was broadcast that they call Qatar to let them know where they were going to hit before. But they did it in 2020 as well. Reported on it at the time. Same exact scenario happened. And the reason is because is they don't, in fact have escalatory dominance in the region, which is what Smith and all these other people said. Tucker Carlson said it. All these people were like, on and on and on about this, all the tragic stuff that was going to happen. And it was a complete and utter failure of understanding that situation. And now it's like the way that they responded to that was not humility, which is something that really bothered me. The way they responded to it was like, oh, no, us bellyaching on Twitter is what stopped Trump from launching a ground invasion. Like, are you out of your mind? You really like you. You can't possibly believe that. So to, you know, I guess reunify this, this group of people that came together to stop Kamala Harris from really setting us on the wrong course, this same group of people agreed on a lot of different stuff. They agreed on getting all these illegals out of the country. Right. They agreed to not add to the debt yet, which we're doing now, but maybe short term, we'll see. I mean, anybody that's run a business knows that sometimes you got to dig a little deeper to get out. That's just the way it is. The Fabian strategy, if you want to Call it that from, from war, but sometimes you got to go a little deeper to get out. We'll see how that works. I'll reserve judgment on that. I don't like how it's gone so far, but I'll reserve my final judgment on that. And the other thing was exposing the corruption. Not one person who is involved in any of this corruption has been brought to heal. Not one. Not one person except for this woman who trafficked a bunch of people to nobody, apparently. Right?
- [33:50]
David Rutherford
Yeah.
- [33:50]
Dan Holloway
Right. So like, if you want me to trust you as a, as a, as a leader, as somebody who's going to tell me the truth, you sure can't lie to my face. We know for a fact. And Mike Benz, by the way, has done great work articulating all this stuff.
- [34:04]
David Rutherford
Yeah.
- [34:05]
Dan Holloway
But the. We know for a fact that that Epstein's relationship with the CIA began back during the Iran Contra scandal where he was providing financial services to Adnan Khashoggi. We have decades of files on this dude. And the State Department literally leased a, the largest, second largest residence in all New York City for him. Don't lie to my face. Tell me anything, say, because you remember how the story's changed over time. The files are my dad. We can't put it out because we're prosecuting people. We don't want that to get out. Blah, blah, blah, story change, story change, story change. If this were a court of law, this person would be completely disgraced by now. All of them. Right. So, you know, I understand Bongino. I think he's a good dude, actually. And I think Cash is a good dude as well. I think they're being strong armed right now and they're being pushed out into the limelight to take the hit. I hope Bongino resigns. I hope he does, I hope Cash does as well because that's the only thing that's ever going to save their reputation. And Bondi's done like Bond, in my opinion. I bitched about Bondi getting nominated in the first place because she's the architect of red flag laws in Florida. What the are we thinking, right? That was never, that was never a good choice. But these other two guys had some street cred and the administration so far has used their street cred not to, not to actually give credibility, but as cover, right? Yes. Which is a big problem, man. And I, if I were either one of those dudes, I would be pissed.
- [35:32]
David Rutherford
Pissed. I mean, you, I, I, your reputation shot. Like how do you even rebuild it now? I mean, I mean, I remember I first really got immersed in following bongino in like 17, because he was doing the best reporting on Russiagate. He had written the book Follow the Money, right? I mean, he had gone down these rabbit holes on all these different types of illegal corruption. And then it emerged, and then it just got to a place where, like, he was dead on, on all of these things. And then to go in and be like, I'm day one, I'm getting it. It's over. You're. You're spot on. It's like, all right, you. It's interesting the way trust develops online, right? It. And for you see it, for some people, it's, it's, it's much different than for others. For some, like you said, those followers, it's. You put out a couple pieces and then, you know, you've got your, your marching orders and they kind of, you know, that mass formation psychosis that Dr. Robert Malone talks so exquisitely about. And. But then you have people that have been there or done that. They're like, no, no, no, no, no way. And in my mind, kind of some of the leaders of that group of people who are calling out all of these things is really the GWOT guys, right? It's all of us who fell for a lot of this stuff went in on the pretense that we were saving America. And under. Yeah, we thought this. I think it was a lot more the personal desires to do something bigger than yourself, which led us into the spot where you take orders on. I don't care where you send me. I'm going to do my job and be a part of the team, so to speak. But now it's so much different. It's evolved. It's evolved into a much more complex information environment and information campaigns. And so being able to decipher those and get back to a. A stated, maybe centralized accepted opinion for a mass group is. I don't, I don't think it's possible. I think the, the crack is permanent. Just like most political right environments, you know, they come together, they ascend, they reach power, and then, you know, they either get the shaft or they go about their own corrupt business dealings themselves. What in your mind does the next six months of the landscape look for. Look like for. For a lot of these pundits that are out there, you know, and I guess we're loosely affiliated with that. I think we call more. More strikes than balls, for sure. But what do you see this emerging? Like.
- [38:26]
Dan Holloway
That's a good question. I mean, I'm I, I work with an organization who identifies the bot farm stuff specifically. I actually had a. This morning, and we're going to put out some specific examples about individual posts made by creators that were influenced in a way that made them blow up so people can see it. Because I think sunlight's the best disinfectant. You know, I think when people see that stuff, I get DMS every single day. Like, oh my. It's like once you pointed it out, I can't stop seeing it everywhere. Now I'm like, yeah, I think, like, to be honest, I think 60, 65% of the Internet is fake. Fake especially.
- [39:05]
David Rutherford
That's a good number.
- [39:06]
Dan Holloway
And meta. Yeah, I think, I think it's pretty fake. What I don't think is that I don't think the. Any of these people are getting paid by Russia or China or Israel or the US Government to say things. I think that they're benefiting from audience, you know, I think they're benefiting from ad revenue for sure. But audience capture happens absent payment all the time. I mean, look at reality television. Most of the people, the Kardashians, make money, but the vast majority of people in reality TV, they don't make. It's like at all. Five to $15,000 an episode, maybe, right?
- [39:43]
David Rutherford
Look at Love Island. 2.8 billion viewers of that show around the world. And it's literally like watching. I. I just can't even wrap my. But it's, it's overwhelming. And these people are making like $3,000 an episode or something crazy. And it's all just exposure, for sure.
- [40:00]
Dan Holloway
So you can see that it's like, it doesn't require all of these extra steps that we're adding to it to be an actual conspiracy. The conspiracy is far more clever than that. Right. Because there is no paper trail. There is no money to follow. You have to follow the capture, which is quite a bit more difficult. Right, because sometimes things legitimately blow up for one reason or another. So it's a lot more difficult to identify that. And people also have. Man, just the memories span these days is so low. And it's become the. The fact that we operate in such short circuits now. And here's a little. Here's a great example of this. Go find your favorite movie or TV show for when you were growing up. When you're like 10, 11, 12, the first movie you watch with your dad or something like that, and watch the opening credits and the opening scene, it's going to be somewhere between like 12 and 20 minutes. Minutes for that for those two things combined. Watch it now. It's four minutes, right? Any, any movie you see, it's the, the credits are short. The opening scene is somewhere between 90 minutes and. Or 90 seconds and three minutes, every single one of them. That's where we are now. And it's made us way more susceptible to this thing called the Gel man amnesia effect and the Galman amnesia effect. The best example that I was given to explain it is imagine you are somebody who dabbles in day trading, right? So you're on the stock market and you go to the New York Times financial section, you flip to page six for their stock tips and they're wrong every single day. But you keep going back. You keep going back. And this, I'll bring this back to these people who are alarmists all the time about everything. It's only for attention. They, they have their. There's no substance there. And the reason that it continues is because they never have to pay a price. Price. They never pay a price for being abjectly wrong about everything they say. They couch it in a little bit of truth. And, and you know, well, maybe it'll happen down the road. Like, maybe Iran's gonna hit it. Like, okay, so how, how long from now, in the next 10 years, if Ran hits us 10 years from now, does that count? Am I wrong? Am I wrong now that there wasn't some retaliation up, man, you know what I mean? It's like that, but that's how it is. So for these pundits, I think they're going to keep cruising along, to be honest. I'm definitely going to try and look, I'm not out to get anybody, buddy. I think Dave is a really smart guy, actually. And I think on his domestic, like he and I, if you compared our domestic ideas, I. You would be hard pressed to find any difference at all, to be frank. And even for most foreign policy stuff, I think he and I would be pretty close on it. But for this stuff, that's all alarmist right now. Is it, is it is a symptom of something, right? It's not real. None of that stuff is real. And I like Tucker too. I think Tucker's a good guy. I think he's captured by some of this stuff for one reason or another. I don't think any of these guys are getting paid by somebody. I don't think it's necessary. Necessary. And I also think they're good people. I like, I know Tucker. I think he's a good man. He's not doing this to to hurt anybody. And he's not getting paid by some foreign government to sell out his own country. That is not happening. Right. You have a disagreement with him. His methodology is probably flawed based on what I understand about this situation. But that doesn't make him a bad person. And treating him as such, or treating Dave or any of these other guys as such. Who, what favor are you doing to whom by doing that? All you're doing is further entrenching the people that listen to him and their position instead of giving them the opportunity to examine what he's saying right from with it with understanding. Otherwise we're just all getting farther apart. And that's not helping anybody.
- [43:41]
Jacob Goldstein
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- [44:26]
Cindy Crawford
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David Rutherford
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Cindy Crawford
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David Rutherford
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- [48:59]
Dan Holloway
Booyah. At all.
- [49:03]
David Rutherford
At all. But that seems to be the case throughout all history. I think now it's, we're in this, you know, it's exacerbated and accelerated because everything is happening and, you know, instantaneous capacity. Right. So people don't even have the time to formulate enough opinions on what took place yesterday for the argument that's coming tomorrow. And that's why, you know, I think context is so critical. That's why I think you do a really good job when you lean into these subjects and really, really, you know, deconstruct them down to, like you said, those core principles and that, that really benefits people immeasurably. All right, so is there a way in the next, you know, four to six months for the President and his team to do the appropriate damage control and regain some confidence? And in your opinion, what does that look like specifically.
- [50:12]
Dan Holloway
To me when there's something like this? The only way to really restore confidence is to put it out in public. I don't, I don't think that, like, there's a lot of conspiracies about this or that about Trump and the Epstein files. I can tell you firsthand that he's not criminally involved in anything. I've heard from people in the intelligence community that have poured over the stuff. There are, there is some weird stuff. Not weird like in a sexual way or anything like that. Stuff about how he and like allegedly he and Melania were introduced by Epstein. Right. And that's embarrassing for him. I don't care about that. That that has. Trump is another person I think is a good man. Right. He's different than me. He grew up a billionaire in New York. We have some different values, for sure. And he's also on a, a ticking clock because he's only got these, this one term to do his stuff. So I understand why he rushes through certain things. I understand he' moderated quite a bit. When I say moderated, he's not calling everybody now, only now and then. Right. So he's I think he's a good man, too. He's doing a lot of cool stuff. My sincere opinion about that is that he is, he doesn't want to be the president in charge when this all collapses. And that's probably what would happen if he told everybody everything. I think he should still do it. I don't, I don't give a. If a system is built on this evil, then it needs to collapse. But as far as what they could do to rebuild this stuff, I don't, I don't know that anything can be done, because what they're going to try to do is message their way out of it. And I don't think that's going to work, especially when, you know, if you're a, if you're a typical Trump voter from 2016, a rural person who is probably middle to lower middle class, and you just saw the big beautiful bill add a bunch of debt, right, that we're going to have to pay for at some point, and you saw it raised the Salt deduction from 10% to 40%, if anybody's even tracking on this. So now New York City and Los Angeles and San Francisco, anybody that lives there can write off 40% or, I'm sorry, up to $40,000 in their state and local taxes. Right? Which means you're going to now pay a higher effective federal tax rate than this person that lives in this hole that voted the wrong. You did the right thing thing. You did the right thing and now you're going to get penalized for it anyways. I think that kind of stuff is really hard to come back from, to be honest. And I really think that in September, if this rescission bill that they're talking about during the reconciliation process doesn't hammer federal spending in a meaningful way, then they're going to be in 26. That's what I think.
- [52:48]
David Rutherford
There's no doubt. I agree wholeheartedly with you. I think the only messaging that's going to distract the American public right now is continue the tariffs, continue walloping these other countries getting paid back. I think that's a great diversion from it. And then for me, I think you relaunch this whole thing with the Fed. I think you really dig in, you start to confront, I think you start talking about an audit of the Fed. I think you talk about the Fort Knox stuff. Cause the one thing, I think the two biggest things that people will not tolerate is children getting hurt, right? Children being objectified, children being attacked, children being wronged. And the other is money. And you know, at $38 trillion, you know, and just printing money in ways we can't even fathom. You better give the American people some type of hope that, yeah, there is a way to rein this in. Like, all right, we're going to tariff. We're going to do this. But the next one, like you said, in the fall, we're going to start slashing the budget. I agree with you. I think the only two ways.
- [54:01]
Dan Holloway
Yeah. And by the way, another. I don't want to just hammer on people on my own side, although I do feel like it's our responsibility to keep our own part of the field clean. You know what I mean? And not. Not like they're bad actors, but we got to hold each other accountable when things are right. Wrong. But the left is stupid, too, and quite a bit more stupid than the right is. Let's be clear about that. Like, this whole idea from the. The left and neocons that tariffs are going to cause inflation. I think inflation was 1.83% last off, dude. Or just like you, it's. We know this not to be true, and Jerome Powell needs to get fired out of a cannon into a. Into the sun or something like that. This guy's completely useless. But, yeah, to your point about, you know, giving people wins is what it's about. They tried, by the way, with the Brennan Comey stuff, like, they tried to put that out the day after this. And ev. Like, nobody is talking about that. Nobody on the right gives two. And to be clear. Clear. They're both. They both tried to steal an election and get Trump thrown in prison. Right. There's no question about that. It's not treason because it doesn't involve a foreign adversary, but it's definitely something. It's definitely a crime.
- [55:13]
David Rutherford
It's a RICO case for sure.
- [55:15]
Dan Holloway
Yeah. So, but that is. That might be one of the biggest conspiracies in the history of this country, and it just happened. And nobody's talking about it because they're so pissed off about this. Right?
- [55:26]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [55:26]
Dan Holloway
So you're gonna have to do something big. Like, really, I mean, I like the tariffs. I think they're doing it. I think Trump. Trump's foreign policy so far has been great. I agree. Like, certainly he can't control Zelensky or Putin. People give him a little bit of. For the Russia, Ukraine thing, but literally everything else he's done, from dealing with Modi and India to dealing with Netanyahu and keeping that lunatic from going completely full retard, you know, What I mean, because you know that he's, he's managing a lot foreign policy wise, and I think he's mostly made the right decisions there, so I have no complaints about that. But, you know, wins have to be big and they have to be personal. Right. For people to care if it's the country winning a war that means something. People. His, his approval ratings went up after that Iranian bombing. Not down. Right?
- [56:12]
David Rutherford
That's right.
- [56:13]
Dan Holloway
But since June, since the end of June, they've gone down 10 points because of the big beautiful Bill and because of this Epstein. So he's not stupid. He's a smart man. I think he'll probably figure something out here in the meantime. But I think he also, in fact, knows that they got to cut a lot of spending sometime soon. Right. Probably in September, because I don't think you'll have another chance to do it after that. And you have to give people individual wins somehow. I don't know what his plan is on that.
- [56:41]
David Rutherford
Yeah, I. Neither do I. It'll be, it'll be certainly fascinating to see the next couple weeks. Dan, again, just truly appreciate your insight and your thoughts and your wisdom. And I love the idea that we have to hold each other. Other accountable in our, our sphere of influence and, and, and do so in a way that's, that's not damning or calling people out or acting like. Right.
- [57:08]
Dan Holloway
Well, sure, I mean, like we're dudes, so we're gonna call each other. But then you gotta drink. Then you have to do step two. You have to go drink the beer afterwards. Right. You got to do both things. It's not like we're not here to make enemies, obviously. Right. That's not the point. The point is to get the right answer. And if you know you're gonna be. I just warn people you're going to be wrong at some point. I've done the math for myself. I do a lot of shows. If 1% of the stuff I say is wrong or stupid, that's three and a half minutes per week since 2018. Right. So there's plenty of stupid that I've said, misspoken things, didn't know the right answer, said something dumb and you know, I've, I've enjoyed. Oh, well, I don't give a. If somebody comes at me and go, come at me. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I don't give a. Right. I'll just correct it. But you know, I have been given. You know, I've, I think I've to some degree earned a little bit of grace here and there. And the way you earn it is by giving it. That's how grace works, right? So I to people, the the purpose is to get the right answer, not to dance on each other's graves. You that serves no purpose whatsoever.
- [58:15]
David Rutherford
I agree wholeheartedly, Dan. Fellow Penn State or buddy.
- [58:19]
Dan Holloway
That's right.
- [58:20]
David Rutherford
Thank you so much. God bless you. Keep doing what you're doing and maybe in a month or two we'll get you back on that. Be awesome.
- [58:26]
Dan Holloway
Awesome, sir. Yeah, we'll see you soon.
- [58:28]
David Rutherford
God bless you, brother. Ah, come on.
- [58:35]
Cindy Crawford
Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.
- [58:38]
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Cindy Crawford
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Cindy Crawford
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- [59:42]
Jacob Goldstein
This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive. And when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single, affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting. All linked and talking to each other. Check out Odoo at O D O o dot com. That's O D O o dot com.
- [60:26]
Cindy Crawford
As a parent, you wear many hats. At dinner, you're the chef. When your kids play, you're the ref. And let's face it, you're basically a full time chauffeur. Fortunately, when it's time to wear your teacher hat. Abeka makes things easy. Our proven, flexible homeschool curriculum is designed to let your kids retain and build on the knowledge they acquire, setting them up for success later in life. Abeka Learning for life begins with the right homeschool education. Learn more@abekahomeschool.com welcome to the W where elite athletes are redefining the game of basketball. From buzzer beating shots, jaw dropping defense and logo threes, the WNBA delivers non stop action and world class talent every game. These athletes don't just play the game, they elevate it. The biggest stars, The Brightest Age AT&T WNBA All Star 2025 comes to Indianapolis July 18th 19th. Tune into the game July 19th at 8:30pm Eastern Time on ABC. This is an iHeart podcast.