Pizzagate: We Investigate the (Real) Government Plot to Stuff You with Cheese

Summary

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz Episode: Pizzagate: We Investigate the (Real) Government Plot to Stuff You with Cheese Release Date: February 7, 2025

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Introduction

In this intriguing episode titled "Pizzagate: We Investigate the (Real) Government Plot to Stuff You with Cheese," hosts Dan Le Batard and Stugotz delve deep into a bizarre conspiracy theory intertwining the U.S. government's dairy policies with the ubiquitous stuffed crust pizza. Hosted from the Elser Hotel in Downtown Miami, the duo, along with guest David Gardner, unpacks the origins, developments, and eventual debunking of this cheese-laden narrative.

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Origins of Government Cheese and Dairy Industry Intervention

The conversation kicks off with Pablo Torre introducing the central premise: a viral TikTok video by "Cupcake the Destroyer 21" alleging that the U.S. government orchestrated a cheese surplus to stabilize the dairy industry and prevent a stock market crash. This surplus allegedly led to the creation of "government cheese caves" where excess cheese was stored and distributed to major pizza chains like Domino's and Pizza Hut to foster the development of stuffed crust pizza.

Notable Quote:

Cupcake the Destroyer 21 [02:33]: “Encouraged them to buy an excess of cheese to make sure the stock market didn't crash surrounding the dairy industry, resulting in what we now know as the cheese caves.”

David Gardner affirms the historical context, explaining that during the Great Depression, the U.S. government, through federal milk marketing laws established in the 1930s and 1940s, guaranteed the purchase of milk and dairy products to support farmers. This led to surplus cheese storage solutions, which were later misinterpreted and sensationalized in the conspiracy theory.

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Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) and Government Involvement

The discussion transitions to Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), a promotional organization founded in 1995, which operates under the oversight of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. DMI's primary mission is to increase cheese consumption through marketing strategies, funded by a levy on dairy sales. This relationship fueled the spread of cheese-centric products across various fast-food chains.

Notable Quote:

Mike Campbell [25:47]: “...they came up with the ingenious idea of creating a fund to pay for marketing schemes which the US Government would then oversee and control.”

Gardner elaborates on how DMI embedded food scientists within major restaurant chains to innovate and promote cheese-heavy products, effectively increasing cheese consumption nationwide.

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The Creation and Impact of Stuffed Crust Pizza

A pivotal moment in the episode is the exploration of stuffed crust pizza's invention. David Gardner introduces Tom Ryan, the key figure behind Pizza Hut's original stuffed crust pizza developed in the 1990s. Contrary to the conspiracy theory, Ryan reveals that stuffed crust pizza was a product of corporate innovation, devoid of direct governmental involvement.

Notable Quote:

Tom Ryan [35:15]: “...creating stuffed crust pizza was a math equation. If you wanted to make a pizza more valuable, there were two ways to do it. Put more cheese on it or charge less for it.”

This segment underscores that while DMI played a role in promoting cheese products, the inception of stuffed crust pizza was an independent corporate endeavor, predating significant DMI influence.

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Debunking the Pizzagate Conspiracy

As the hosts juxtapose the historical facts with the conspiracy theory, they highlight inconsistencies in the timeline. The creation of stuffed crust pizza by Tom Ryan in 1994 precedes the establishment of DMI and the alleged government schemes. Gardner dissects the layers of misinformation, clarifying that while the government influenced cheese consumption through DMI, it did not directly create stuffed crust pizza.

Notable Quote:

David Gardner [38:55]: “...the government did not create the original stuffed crust pizza, but DMI did have a hand in creating a stuffed crust pizza.”

Furthermore, interviews with Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, and Mike Campbell, an advertising executive, provide authoritative insights, reinforcing the separation between corporate innovation and governmental dairy policies.

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Implications on Public Health and Diet

The episode also addresses the broader implications of increased cheese consumption, citing Michael Moss's concerns about public health. With cheese consumption tripling to an average of 33 pounds per year, Gardner and Moss discuss the resultant rise in obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, labeling it a significant public health issue.

Notable Quote:

Mike Campbell [31:52]: “...cheese was delivering to us not just the luscious sensation of mouthfeel, but also heart disease. And then to kind of realize that the federal government, with US taxpayer money supporting it, is in fact guiding and overseeing this effort to get us to eat more and more cheese.”

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The Intersection with Pop Culture and Media

An unexpected twist in the narrative involves linking stuffed crust pizza's popularity with high-profile figures like Donald Trump. The conversation humorously touches upon a fictional scenario where Trump participated in Pizza Hut's advertising campaigns, further entwining the conspiracy in popular culture lore.

Notable Quote:

David Gardner [46:04]: “...this was Trump's first national ad campaign.”

This segment satirically illustrates how conspiracy theories can intertwine with mainstream personalities, amplifying their reach and believability.

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Conclusion: Separating Fact from Fiction

In closing, Dan Le Batard and Stugotz, alongside their guest, dismantle the Pizzagate conspiracy by meticulously tracing its roots and highlighting factual inaccuracies. They affirm that while governmental policies and DMI have influenced cheese consumption patterns, the creation of stuffed crust pizza remains a testament to corporate creativity rather than a government plot.

Notable Quote:

David Gardner [40:21]: “The real truth behind this conspiracy theory is that the government did not create the original stuffed crust pizza, but DMI did have a hand in creating a stuffed crust pizza.”

The episode serves as a compelling case study on how misinformation can evolve and the importance of critical investigation in debunking unfounded theories.

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Key Takeaways

• Historical Context: Government intervention in the dairy industry during the Great Depression led to surplus cheese storage, later misconstrued in conspiracy theories.

• Role of DMI: Dairy Management Inc., established in 1995, played a significant role in promoting cheese consumption through strategic marketing within the food industry.

• Corporate Innovation: Stuffed crust pizza was an independent innovation by Pizza Hut's Tom Ryan in 1994, preceding DMI's extensive influence.

• Public Health Concerns: Increased cheese consumption has had notable negative impacts on public health, linking marketing strategies to broader societal issues.

• Misinformation Dynamics: The episode highlights how conspiracy theories can blend with cultural elements, necessitating thorough investigative approaches to discern truth from fiction.

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Final Thought: Through meticulous investigation and engaging dialogue, "The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz" successfully navigates the tangled web of the Pizzagate conspiracy, offering listeners a balanced perspective that emphasizes the value of evidence-based conclusions.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

[David Gardner]

Cheese. Glorious cheese. Tastes mighty inviting.

[Pablo Torre]

Right after this ad.

[David Gardner]

You're listening to Giraffe Kings. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You might say all kinds of stuff.

[Michael Moss]

When things go wrong, but these are.

[David Gardner]

The words you really need to remember. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. They've got options to fit your unique insurance needs, meaning you can talk to your agent to choose the coverage you need, have coverage options to protect the things you value most, file a claim right on the State Farm mobile app, and even reach a real person when you need to talk to someone. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Pablo Torre]

Looks like you got a haircut.

[David Gardner]

Yep, I did. Just for the show, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

That's the level of professionalism I don't expect.

[David Gardner]

I think I should wear a tinfoil hat next time I'm on. Considering my subject matter expertise here, I.

[Pablo Torre]

Do want to try and summarize for people not familiar with your work. David Gardner, thank you for being here, by the way.

[David Gardner]

My pleasure.

[Pablo Torre]

I. I want to summarize the beat that you have carved out for us here. Because without being derogatory in any way, I would say that your beat is strangely irresistible and extremely popular. Crackpot Internet theories.

[David Gardner]

I mean, the last time I was here, you had me investigating this viral conspiracy about whether there was a movie called Shazam Starring Sinbad, not to be confused with the movie kazam starring Shaquille O'Neal. Right. And. And we asked him about it because that's how seriously I take these Internet conspiracy theories.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, we brought big J journalism to the big Aristotle.

[David Gardner]

That's right.

[Pablo Torre]

And now the strangely irresistible and extraordinarily insane Internet theory you brought us, that you've spent a disturbingly long time investigating. Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, by the way. Originates where.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. So this months long journey that I've been on for you, it started with a 48 second TikTok video that went viral. And you're going to love the username here. Pablo Cupcake the Destroyer 21. And here's what she had to say.

[Pablo Torre]

At one point in time, in the United States, the dairy industry was struggling so heavily that they reached out to lobbyists who went to the government who.

[David Gardner]

Encouraged them to buy an excess of cheese to make sure the stock market didn't crash surrounding the dairy industry, resulting in what we now know as the cheese case. But also something else. While the government stores the cheese in the cheese caves, they Also, send out plenty of excess cheese to modern pizza chains in the United States, such as Papa John's and Domino's and Jets. And pretty much every pizza chain you know of uses government cheese because they.

[Pablo Torre]

Had such an excess of cheese and because they were looking for a way to get rid of it to justify.

[David Gardner]

The cost of buying so much, the government encouraged a lot of these chain pizza places to use more and more cheese in various products. The government is why we have stuffed crust pizza.

[Pablo Torre]

So this video by the aforementioned cupcake the Destroyer 21, it's been viewed more than 10.5 million times. David Gardner. And she's saying a lot here, right? So just to run through the beats of her case, lobbyists begged the US Government to save the dairy industry and.

[David Gardner]

Prevent a stock market crash by buying with taxpayer money an insane surplus of.

[Pablo Torre]

Cheese which the government has stored in underground cheese caves.

[David Gardner]

And what the government ends up doing to justify their purchase of all this cheese is to tell Domino's and various pizza chains to figure out ways to put put more of this cheese inside their products.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. Which means, as cupcake the Destroyer 21.

[David Gardner]

Says, the government is why we have stuffed crust pizza. Yeah. And cupcake the Destroyer 21, although she's a crusader, she's not alone. There are Reddit threads about this. There are posts across social media about this. There are news articles in reputable newspapers and magazines that keep citing this. And it stems back from this front page story in 2010 in the New York Times. This investigative reporter uncovered a memo in which two Pizza Hut officials, they call themselves the Lord of the Cheese and the lady of the Cheese, because, of course, they do thank their government partners and agree to begin putting more cheese in the pizza, including in the crust. As the Lord and the lady wrote, quote, let's sell more pizza and more cheese. Exclamation mark, right?

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, there was a Netflix documentary series in which this was rather dramatically, I dare say, reenacted.

[David Gardner]

We need to put more cheese here. Here. Damn it, soldier. We need to put more cheese here. But, ma'am, it's already covered in cheese. There's no more room. I don't give a crap. Put it in the goddamn crust if you have to.

[Pablo Torre]

So I just need people to understand if they're wondering why it is that we here, Pablo Torre, finds out, which is obviously a sports show, are taking on this story. Now, the super bowl happens to be the holiday I think, that is most associated with cheese. There is no cheesier day in America than Super Bowl Sunday. David and There is this statistic that I want to cite here as well from the dairy farmers of Wisconsin who recently estimated that we Americans eat more than 20 million pounds of cheese during our super bowl parties.

[David Gardner]

Even more than that, the super bowl is the biggest pizza delivery day of the year. According to the American Pizza community, which is a real organization, they estimate that there are 12.5 million pizzas ordered in America on Super bowl Sunday, including 11 million slices from Domino's alone.

[Pablo Torre]

Now, I am a Pizza Hut guy by birth. Really. I remember vividly being a kid going to Pizza Hut when they started selling stuffed crust pizza. And I just want to disclose this journalistically. I love stuffed crust pizza. I loved this so much that when David Gardner brought me this story, I immediately was like, go. Go to the Gooey center. Go to the cheese caves. Bring us back what feels like a truth that deserves to be told.

[David Gardner]

I just need to warn you, Pablo, that this truth, it goes beyond the crust of the earth, beyond the crust of the pizza. This is an investigation that took us from dairy farmers in the Great Depression, to social media influencers with huge followings, to quasi governmental agencies, to the highest court in the land, and all the way to the top of the United States government, the deep dish state, the real Pizzagate.

[Pablo Torre]

Foreign.

[David Gardner]

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[Pablo Torre]

So I should tell you, the first time that I remember hearing government cheese was when I was a kid and it was obviously derogatory, right? It might have been in a TV show as an insult to like, what is this government cheese?

[David Gardner]

Oh, this ain't no Velveeta. This ain't individually wrapped. You got to put some pressure on a butcher knife to cut some government cheese.

[Pablo Torre]

So before we just get to the cheese caves and the conspiracy, why and what is government cheese? Do we, the people, actually own this cheese? Why is the government this interested in dairy at all? Who makes it? I just, I have a zillion questions.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. And so to get into the theory, we need to do a little investigation. And so to start, we had to go back in time. An important food for the health of the nation, pasteurized milk.

[Michael Moss]

A safe food trusted by millions of.

[David Gardner]

People and important in every diet, of special importance to children and invalids. For more than a century now, dating back to the Great Depression, the US Government has believed that dairy was a safeguard of our national interests, a way to get high quality calories to Americans during hard times for the health of the nation. And so federal milk marketing laws take effect in the 1930s and the 1940s. And then coming out of World War II, the government guarantees that it will always buy milk and dairy products from farmers at a certain price point. Even if no one else wanted this milk.

[Michael Moss]

You have the satisfaction of knowing that.

[David Gardner]

You did your job well.

[Michael Moss]

You can send this milk from your.

[David Gardner]

Plant with the knowledge that it is safe milk.

[Pablo Torre]

So in terms of What Cupcake the Destroyer 21 was saying, though, at the start of her video about dairy lobbyists being involved in this, begging the government to save their industry from. Was that part true?

[David Gardner]

It's absolutely true that the dairy industry, like the rest of America, was struggling during the Great Depression. I mean, they called it that for a reason. Right. And the really important thing here is the way that our government works with two senators in every state. It has a rural bias. So the dairy lobby is and was a real thing. And lowering dairy prices and reducing these subsidies was seen as anti farmer.

[Pablo Torre]

All right, so the electoral college is involved in this. There is still the resonance that I sense today of what real America is. But who is the champion of this program?

[David Gardner]

So Jimmy Carter actually campaigned on this in 1976 in the presidential primaries, and he was a humble peanut farmer himself.

[Pablo Torre]

But the net income of the average.

[David Gardner]

Dairy farm family in Wisconsin is less than $7,000 a year. As a farmer myself, I think that's disgraceful. And as president, I'm going to change it. Vote for Jimmy Carter this coming Tuesday.

[Pablo Torre]

And so obviously, Jimmy Carter rest in peace, by the way. All this converging in a. In a relevance today. He won. He won the election. And so the subsidies he was giving to the farmers of America, the dairy farmers specifically. How big are we talking?

[David Gardner]

Well, we're talking $2 billion in the 1970s, which is a huge amount of money today.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[David Gardner]

And it essentially created this imbalance between supply and demand in the dairy industry.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. We the people did not demand this much milk, this much dairy. The government did. The government artificially propped up the milk market is what we're learning with our money, with public money. But also, I'm familiar from my childhood with. With milk expiring. Right? So the government's buying all this, and how do they store it?

[David Gardner]

So, Pablo, Liquid milk famously expires quite quickly. There's a little date off the top of the bottle. What we're talking about here is converting it from milk to cheese, which can then last for a lot longer. It can be stored for many years sometimes. In fact, you know, aged cheese is a commodity that people enjoy.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, I am one of those people. But we're fast forwarding now into what, the 1980s at this point.

[David Gardner]

So Reagan comes into power, and he discovers that there are billions of pounds of government cheese in storage. Cheese. Glorious cheese. Tastes mighty inviting cheese. By 1984, the government had a problem, which is that for every American citizen, there were five pounds of cheese in storage. Our national cheesy birthright.

[Pablo Torre]

So I was born in 85. This ad that we're playing now is from 87. And I just remember there being lots of ads like this.

[David Gardner]

Come on, everybody. Whole lot of snacking going on. These ads were from the National Dairy.

[Pablo Torre]

Board, all of them bizarrely selling me and my family generically cheese. And that was confusing then. It's still kind of confusing right now. There was no actual specific company. It felt like, make your meal sing.

[David Gardner]

With real cheese going on.

[Pablo Torre]

So going back to Cupcake the Destroyer 21's theory, which is about where all of this government cheese is going, which, again, is absent actual demand from us Americans whose money, public money, is purchasing all of it. It's time to turn to the cheese caves. So what about your quest to find the secret government cheese caves?

[David Gardner]

Yeah, So I started off by turning to the author of that 2010 New York Times article. He's a great investigative reporter named Michael Moss. He later wrote a book called Salt Sugar, How Food Giants Hooked Us.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[David Gardner]

He's a Pulitzer Prize winner, and he's the one who uncovered that memo from the Lord and the lady of the cheese that said, let's sell more pizza and more cheese. And he turned out just to be the perfect tour guide.

[Mike Campbell]

You know, it's an odd business journalism, right, where one moment I'm traipsing around the Middle east, and then the next, you know, moment I'm poking into, you know, Craft and how they get us to eat so much. It's. You gotta love it.

[David Gardner]

So Michael explained the origin of the cheese caves, which date back to the Reagan administration.

[Mike Campbell]

One of the big moments, I think, when it comes to sort of understanding how cheese got woven into our diet so heavily, actually goes back to 1981, when the new incoming Secretary of Agriculture got tipped to the most bizarre situation in the middle of the country. And he flew out there, perhaps thinking, this is like so unbelievable. I have to see this for myself. And, you know, landed and went to Missouri where they have these natural underground caverns, which was really valuable, as it turns out, because there's sort of natural cooling in the caverns. And what he saw was just astounding and kind of mind blowing to him. There were 1.9 billion billion pounds of processed cheese that was sitting in these caverns, unused, unwanted, certainly uneaten.

[Pablo Torre]

The Secretary of Agriculture found out that There is almost 2 billion pounds of processed cheese in these caverns. But I want to clarify what these caverns are, right? So these are non government caverns, these caves. But what the government realized is that they could use this space, this underground secret space to store the cheese that they had bought. Right? So it's not government cheese caves, it's government cheese in these caves.

[David Gardner]

Right. And there are a couple places now where government cheese was once stored. In Missouri alone, there's a place called Springfield Underground. And then there's also Kraft.

[Pablo Torre]

And it is my disappointment, I must report, that the craft in question is not the same as Bob Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots. As you visualize this, this is not an NFL connection.

[David Gardner]

Well, Pablo, there is an NFL connection here. Let's take a look at this place underneath Kansas City. It's called Subtropolis. So Subtropolis exists because limestone in Kansas City was mined for concrete. And now there's a climate controlled space in the places where limestone was once. There's 6 million square feet down there. That's more than 100 football fields. There are almost 2,000 employees. And crucially, it's always 65 degrees down there, which makes it the ideal temperature for storing things like government records, old Hollywood film reels, and crucially, every episode of Seinfeld.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is to say that in this 65 degree cavern that is unbelievably massive, somewhere in there, there is a reel of George Costanza declaring, celebrating, I was free and clear.

[David Gardner]

I was living the dream.

[Pablo Torre]

I was stripped of the waste, eating a block of cheese the size of a car battery.

[David Gardner]

Before we go Any further, I'd just like to point out how disturbing it.

[Michael Moss]

Is that you equate eating a block.

[David Gardner]

Of cheese with some sort of bachelor paradise.

[Pablo Torre]

But again, I should clarify this. There's a lot going on here. The U.S. government, again, does not actually own subtropolis.

[David Gardner]

Right. Subtropolis. The NFL connection is actually owned by the family holdings of Lamar Hunt.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes. This is the original owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Hunt, whose descendant now is the owner of the Chiefs, Clark Hunt. This is a royal family of football.

[David Gardner]

Hunt trophy.

[Mike Campbell]

Yes.

[David Gardner]

We're covered in confetti. Thank you, J.B. kansas City. Congratulations. Heading back to the super bowl again, on behalf of the National Football League.

[Mike Campbell]

It is my honor to present the Lamar Hunt trophy to the American Football Conference champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.

[David Gardner]

There you go, Clark. The same Chiefs who are in the super bowl this week.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. Always holding up the Lombardi Trophy at the end. This is that family.

[David Gardner]

Exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

All of which is why I immediately approved one of the more insane expense reports, among many, many absurd expense reports I've approved on this show to send you to subdropolis visit the Kansas City Chiefs underground City cheese cave thing.

[David Gardner]

I mean, I had my harness set up, and I was ready to go spelunking into these cheese caves on your behalf. But this is where Cupcake the Destroyer 21's conspiracy starts to unravel. We emailed the Chiefs. We went back and forth with an official at Hunt Midwest, which owns subtropolis. They graciously offered to show us around the caves, but there was a catch. There's no government cheese there.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. So this part, I want to take a beat, because this is when it got startling to find all of this out, because the email that you got from the Hunt corporate communications guy, who was very familiar with all of these viral TikTok videos, perhaps unsurprisingly, now said this quote, the cheese thing is not true. End quote.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. And in fact, it goes further than that, because there's no government cheese anywhere anymore, Pablo. And even in those other caves that I mentioned, Springfield and Kraft, they were very clear about that they do have cheese, but it's not government cheese. Springfield Underground even has a very helpful part of their website that says, like, we do not have government cheese in this facility. And then there's Kraft. So I reached out to them. They didn't respond to me. But I do have a document from 1970 from the USDA that says that Kraft was one of the holders of government cheese.

[Pablo Torre]

So, again, there was government cheese in at least some of These caves, but they're not there anymore. And government cheese caves were actually never quite a thing. So what happened to the billions of dollars and billions of pounds of cheese that Ronald Reagan discovered when he took office, that the United States had been stockpiling this entire time?

[David Gardner]

Yeah. So during the Reagan administration in the 1980s, they started giving away the cheese that was in the cheese caves. And at the same time, they stopped buying so much cheese from dairy farmers. So they're reducing the amount that they're taking in. They're starting to give it away. It was such a problem for Ronald Reagan to have this much cheese in these caves that he actually decided to give it to poor people. Like, that's how distasteful he found it. Then even Ronald Reagan was like, let's help poor people out here for a second.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. This welfare program originally for dairy farmers became under Ronald Reagan, an actual welfare program for the poor people, the needy people in America, which is stunning on so many different levels.

[David Gardner]

But he's probably rolling over in his grave just thinking about that one part of his legacy. Before we even announced the giveaway of surplus cheese, the warehouse mice had hired a lobbyist.

[Pablo Torre]

The logical conclusion here, though, seems to be that because there is no government cheese anymore, because there are no government cheese caves anymore, that the theory. We started this with Cupcake the Destroyer 21's theory, which has been viewed again and shared by millions of people by now across media, it has been pulled apart, as it were. The government, our elected officials, did not actually create stuffed crust pizza in order to justify and get rid of all of the surplus cheese because Ronald Reagan had already gotten rid of it by being forced into a weird form of charity?

[David Gardner]

Well, Pablo, I didn't say all that. What if I told you that I discovered that the government is in fact in the stuffed crust pizza business?

[Pablo Torre]

Okay.

[David Gardner]

And in fact, that stuffed crust pizza is only the tip of the udder.

[Pablo Torre]

All right, if we're going to be here for this long and doing this, I. I'm going to make a call of my own. David Gardner.

[David Gardner]

Look out, folks. Pablo Torre is reporting right now.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, that's right.

[Michael Moss]

Thank you for calling Pizza Hut.

[David Gardner]

All calls are recorded for quality assurance to place a new order or make changes to an existing order, press one.

[Pablo Torre]

Hi, this is Pablo Torre and I would like to order a. Yeah, I guess one large, extra large, one large stuffed crust pizza. Look, this ain't the little itty bitty teeny tiny bowl. No, this is Super Bowl L I X. That's right. So get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of Super Bowl 59, which is what LIX stands for. And scoring touchdowns is key to hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy. And you have a shot to score big by betting on Those touchdowns at DraftKings Sportsbook, the number one place to bet touchdowns, new DraftKings customers can bet $5 to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. So what are you waiting for? Go and download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code Pablo. That is code Pablo for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings Sportsbook, the crown is yours.

[David Gardner]

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[Pablo Torre]

Help is available for problem gambling.

[David Gardner]

Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly on behalf of Boothill CAS in Kansas 21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Void. In Ontario, bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see DKNG co audio.

[Pablo Torre]

So as I wait for my my reporting to bake, the whole government cheese theory obviously has melted by now. But the original takeaway here From Cupcake the Destroyer 21 that the government is why we have stuffed crust pizza, you're telling me, is still holding firm. So what is happening here?

[David Gardner]

So to answer that part of the question completely, we're going to return to our friend Michael Moss, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter.

[Mike Campbell]

So coming out of that trip to the caves and that kind of very embarrassing moment for everybody, instead of asking that question, how do we get like dairy farmers to grow less cows and make less milk that gets turned into cheese, they asked the question, how do we get people to eat more cheese? And that's where they came up with the ingenious idea of creating a fund to pay for marketing schemes which the US Government would then oversee and control. That was the birth of this entity called Dairy Management, whose mission it is to increase the consumption of cheese in every which way they can.

[Pablo Torre]

So just to translate our Pulitzer Prize winning friend here, what Michael Moss is telling us is that there is something known as Dairy Management Incorporated. It is a promotional organization for the dairy industry, but it is supervised by the government and this sort of pseudo governmental agency, Dairy Management Incorporated, was skimming, as it were, off the top of dairy sales, taking money from the Dairy Farmers, David, to pay for advertising that the government effectively oversaw to help sell cheese.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. The easiest way to think about this is essentially it's just a tax for every hundred pounds of milk that dairy farmers sell, and the equivalent of that is like $20. DMI Dairy Management Inc. Gets a few cents on those purchases.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. And so in the timeline here, we left Ronald Reagan in the 80s. Where are we now? When was DMI founded?

[David Gardner]

DMI came to be in 1995.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. Okay, so 1995, the government to again, the the credit of cupping the destroyer. 21 and her theory, they actually were influencing the dairy industry because they were using these ads that they were controlling to sell more cheese to us.

[David Gardner]

That's right. Rush home from work your night to cook. Make a quick Mexican pizza. Tortilla, ground beef, Colby jack peppers, salsa. You've got the knack. They also work with influencers.

[Pablo Torre]

It always comes back to viral videos.

[David Gardner]

And in this case, the king of YouTube himself, Mr. Beast. In case you don't know, drinking dairy is linked to some health benefits like reduced inflammation and a stronger immune system. And in a really pro gamer mood, dairy farmers of America are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050.

[Pablo Torre]

Now that's epic.

[David Gardner]

Thank you again to America's dairy farmers for sponsoring this video. And make sure to support your local dairy farmers. And it goes even further than these advertising campaigns because DMI actually embeds food scientists in America's biggest fast food and restaurant chains and pizza chains. And the goal, the explicit goal here is put more cheese and dairy products on the menus.

[Pablo Torre]

And so now we're getting warmer, right? We're getting closer to the center of this thing, the gooey center. We're talking about the government helping invent in a laboratory new cheese products. And so what restaurant chains are we talking about here?

[David Gardner]

We're talking about McDonald's. We're talking about. One of the biggest successes was In Taco Bell 2016, they come out with this new menu item called the Quesalupa.

[Pablo Torre]

Of course, I mean, this is, you know, we all know, taco with cheese actually inside of the shell. It's a brilliant innovation, admittedly.

[David Gardner]

And DMI has a food scientist who actually works in Taco Bell headquarters in California. And he was embedded in Taco Bell inside the very building. And he actually helped come up with the concept for this. He helped create the Quesalupa and DMI helped to market it. This is gonna be bigger than Mars landings. Hey, Jesus in a shell. This is going to be bigger than aliens, bigger than Aliens. Okay, Georgio, somebody already said that bigger than James Harden's beard, this is going to be bigger than those things.

[Mike Campbell]

Why they call those hoverboards, I don't know. They don't hover.

[Pablo Torre]

Again, for anybody who says we're not a sports show, we.

[David Gardner]

That was James Harden.

[Pablo Torre]

I just found out that James Harden was part of a government op to.

[David Gardner]

Sell Quesalupas, and they're all over the place. DMI helped develop Domino's, recent cheesy tots and cheesy breads. They even claim credit for helping McDonald's ice cream machines stop breaking down so frequently.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, really, It's a big problem. I know it's a problem, but they say they fixed it.

[David Gardner]

I mean, if they had, wouldn't you claim credit for that? Like, that would be the government's most successful and popular operation since landing on the moon.

[Pablo Torre]

I think I just want to clarify that dmi, in all of these cheesy experiments and these product inventions, they are classified as part of the US Government formally. Like, I want to be also just careful here. Like, this is actually government work.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. So that is another place where the conspiracy is a little loosely held. Right. It's complicated. It operates as a nonprofit, and it's overseen by the US Department of Agriculture, famously part of the government and a board of farmers. But most of its money comes from those taxes that we were talking about earlier.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. The whole relationship between DMI and the Agriculture Department and what it's technically then classified as, it makes me think that, yes, the answer is, this is the government.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. And, you know, some fine minds actually came together to answer the question of whether this was the government. The U.S. supreme Court took on this question in 2005. It involves a challenge to the federal program of generic advertising for beef, popularly known as the Beef it's what's for Dinner campaign. A group of farmers sued another one of these promotional agencies that worked in the beef industry, and they were essentially saying that they were being forced to participate in these advertising campaigns in violation of their First Amendment Amendment rights. Right.

[Pablo Torre]

We're talking about these taxes that are levied on in this case for U.S. dairy farmers, like, whether they want it or not. Right. The pseudo governmental agency we're describing is basically saying, we know how to help you move all of this cheese you're trying to sell better, in fact, than you do. We're going to take care of it.

[David Gardner]

Shame if you had all this cheese spoil in cheese caves. Right. So the Supreme Court answers this question, and they say it's not a First Amendment violation because DMI's speech was protected as government speech. The First Amendment analysis is not changed by the fact that this government speech is funded through a targeted assessment on cattle sales, which seems to answer the question of whether or not this body is part of the government. In this tension, what dairy management's relationship is with the federal government. Our friend Michael Moss incorporated this into his article in 2010 in the Times. And his concern wasn't so much that the government was hiding this stuffed crust pizza conspiracy, but rather that it was promoting harmful behavior.

[Mike Campbell]

Cheese was delivering to us not just the luscious sensation of mouthfeel, but also heart disease. And then to kind of realize that the federal government, with US taxpayer money supporting it, is in fact guiding and overseeing this effort to get us to eat more and more cheese. We went from 1970 until, you know, recently tripling our cheese consumption to 33 pounds a year, which is basically 60,000 calories just from cheese, which is arguably one of the biggest man made health disasters of our time. Obesity, overweight, type 2 diabetes, related to overeating.

[Pablo Torre]

Which is to say that the government is actively creating the foods it's also telling us not to eat because it's bad for us.

[David Gardner]

Yeah, it sort of reminds me of when I was a child. I went to this dentist. And after you got done with your cleaning and you walked up to pay your bill and book your next appointment, they had freshly baked cookies on the desk.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. This is, this actually relates to another theory that I have, which is that exterminators can never be too good at exterminating. You need, you know, repeat customers.

[David Gardner]

Exactly. And I reached out to DMI about this and they said, and this is a, quote, these partnerships aren't just about, quote, more dairy. They're about creating something people love and showcasing the versatility of the dairy foods the US Dairy farmers provide us every day. It's a win win for innovation and consumer choice. And then they say in 2024 alone, we helped launch new products such as Domino's New York Style Pizza, Taco Bell chillers, Domino's five Cheese Mac and cheese and Taco Bell's cheesy chalupa.

[Pablo Torre]

This is kind of like the Kansas City Chiefs bragging about drafting Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce and Chris Jones and Trent McDuffie. And I mean, look, the front office.

[David Gardner]

Here is strong and they have results. Like the Chiefs, since they started partnering with Domino's in 2008, that company has doubled its use of cheese.

[Pablo Torre]

How can Domino's double the amount of cheese. It's.

[David Gardner]

It's a pizza company already. It's impressive the way that DMI is able to put cheese onto these menus.

[Pablo Torre]

Right, okay. So now that we know that DMI is at least partially this arm of the government, in this way, the Supreme Court in fact, allowed them to do so, to get into the lab, create all of this stuff. But as we order these products on Sunday. Right, on Super Bowl Sunday, we now return to the biggest allegation of them all. David.

[David Gardner]

The government is why we have stuffed crust pizza.

[Pablo Torre]

And how, how are we ruling on this?

[David Gardner]

So to answer that question, I had to make some calls. I reached out to Pizza Hut corporate. They didn't respond to me. But finally, after weeks, months of searching, trying to find someone who was in the room at the time that this pizza was invented. Yes, on an old press release, I found the number of the man behind the mystery himself. He was traveling, so we were only able to talk on the phone. But allow me to introduce you to Tom Ryan.

[Michael Moss]

My name is Tom Ryan. I am a. I guess I would refer to myself now as a serial entrepreneur. Did a lot of really cool project work for some of the biggest food companies, restaurant companies in the world.

[David Gardner]

Tom worked for Pizza hut in the 1990s, and I should say he later developed the McGriddle at McDonald's.

[Pablo Torre]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[David Gardner]

He later co founded Smashburger.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, that's pretty good.

[David Gardner]

Critically, he did not work for dmi, but his true legacy, arguably, is that he and this team that he was working with, they created the original mass market stuffed crust pizza.

[Pablo Torre]

Wait, this was the man in the lab originally. And that lab, again, crucially, was not funded by the federal government.

[David Gardner]

Yeah, the way he describes it, creating stuffed crust pizza was a math equation.

[Michael Moss]

If you wanted to make a pizza more valuable, there were two ways to do it. Put more cheese on it or charge less for it. And charging less for. It's not a good business model. But we never really thought about the architecture. And so stuffed crust pizza was a novel idea. Nobody had ever done it before. That was a real innovation for the marketplace. And so the simple notion was to put cheese, which is the value driver of pizza, the most iconic part of pizza, value, into the least valued part of the pizza, which is the crust.

[Pablo Torre]

Actually.

[David Gardner]

Incredible logic, unassailable, really.

[Pablo Torre]

The crust has always been the afterthought. And of course, and I did not know to say it this way, the most iconic value driver of pizza is, in fact, cheese. He has A great point.

[David Gardner]

I can't say that anytime I sit down and have a pizza that I'm thinking, where's the value in this slice? I'm just sort of like lightly stoned and eating it.

[Pablo Torre]

We're gonna drive the out of the value in this crust.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. And so I asked Tom, I wanted to know, when they created this iconic menu item, did they know right away, like, we've done it, like we've advanced pizza in a way that no one has in hundreds of years?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Michael Moss]

I'll never forget. I was sitting in the room, first focus group. Everybody's enjoying it. Everybody's thinking, it's really cool. Some guy, one of the panelists, looked into the mirror, he knew we were back there and just looked right into the mirror and said, my dog's gonna hate you. And the reason for that, back in the day, you know, people refer to that part of the pizzas, the pizza bones. They'd eat the good stuff, you know, the sauce and the toppings, and then maybe some of the crust. And this is for everybody's pizza. And then they would toss the crust to their dog. And all of a sudden we took that away from people because we had put so much value into the crust. And so it took us a year and a half to get it right, to get it integrated, to get it to work at store level, to get the marketing done, to get the positioning done, to get it tested. We started probably a year and a half to two, almost two years before April 1st of 1994, which was our launch day, and launched it on April 1st. Never looked back. It was huge for us.

[David Gardner]

And Pablo, I'd like to call your attention right there at the end to something that he said. April 1, 1994. And if you'll recall, yeah. TMI wasn't founded until 1995.

[Pablo Torre]

So the timeline here then is clear. Right. You found the inventor of stuffed crust pizza. And by the way, Tom has an amazing silver fox like mullet. Main thing going on. He an underrated character in the history of American innovation. But his innovation happened before the government embedded the food scientists we've been talking about with the pizza companies with these chains. And Therefore Cupcake the Destroyer 21's original theory that the government is why we have stuffed crust pizza cannot be true. Unless there were some other government officials like in the room somewhere. David, is that possible?

[David Gardner]

I asked Tom about this point blank on the record. There was no one from the federal government involved in the creation of this stuffed crust pizza.

[Michael Moss]

Nope, not. Not a soul. Believe Me, I have no idea where that came from. But I can guarantee you this was driven by a really talented. First of all, a company that sponsored innovation. Pizza Hut. And I had a great team.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, I was raised to believe, David Gardner, that no one out pizzas the Hut. And I suppose Tom is the reason that that statement remains true today.

[David Gardner]

Absolutely.

[Pablo Torre]

So to go back to again, Cupcake the Destroyer 21 and her original theory, and also that quote in the New York Times from 2010 about how pizza Hut, the Lord of the Cheese, and the lady of the Cheese were working with the government. Like, how are we squaring this circle? Like, how does this all come together if what Tom is saying, as we now have verified, is actually the real story? What. What is the explanation for all of this?

[David Gardner]

Yeah. So the real truth behind this conspiracy theory is that the government did not create the original stuffed crust pizza, but DMI did have a hand in creating a stuffed crust pizza. So if we're returning back to that Michael Moss article in the New York Times, he references a later stuffed crust pizza that DMI helped to develop called the Cheesy Bites pizza, also from Pizza Hut.

[Pablo Torre]

But this is not the original stuffed crust. This is a Cheesy Bites sequel.

[David Gardner]

Correct. And people have taken that line out of context and mistakenly created this conspiracy theory.

[Mike Campbell]

The dairy management folks kind of worked hand in hand with the pizza chains, especially, sort of, especially Pizza Hut, to think about ways to add more pizza. And they came up with something called Pizza Bites.

[David Gardner]

Yeah, it was in 2007.

[Pablo Torre]

Hey, guys, we'll have the new Cheesy Bites pizza.

[David Gardner]

Are you ready? Bites start popping. These bites were made for popping. And that's just what they'll do. One of these days, these bites are gonna pop right into the new Cheesy Bites pizza from Pizza Hut. A pizza with 28 poppable bites packed with melted cheese. 11.99 for a large.

[Pablo Torre]

I thought I was the pop star.

[David Gardner]

But, Pablo, I do have to tell you, there is something even stranger here that most people have missed because we've ruled out now that the government created stuffed crust pizza. Didn't happen. We have the guy who created stuffed crust pizza.

[Pablo Torre]

Right. We know the original comes from Tom.

[David Gardner]

But stuffed crust pizza kind of created our current government.

[Pablo Torre]

I am lightheaded enough to need to eat something to process this, which hopefully will happen at the top of the next segment.

[David Gardner]

Exclusively on ESPN. UFC 312 Saturday. Reigning middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis defends.

[Michael Moss]

His title in a rematch against Sean Strickland. And Zhang Weili defends her strawweight title against undefeated tyrannosaurus Tiana Suarez. UFC 312, Saturday at 10pm Eastern. Buy it on espnplus.com PPV.

[David Gardner]

You want to take the top of the box just off. You can just, like, rip that off, right? Or unless you want to.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, maybe we open it.

[David Gardner]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, we should say that this is not. I mean, maybe it's obvious Pizza Hut did not sponsor this in any way.

[David Gardner]

They wouldn't even answer my question.

[Pablo Torre]

They would not answer your calls. They barely answered my attempt to order the delivery. But before we earn the right to enjoy this. What are you talking about when you're saying that Stuffed crust pizza actually invented our government, not the other way around?

[David Gardner]

Yeah. So Stuffed crust Pizza was not a success right out of the gate. Pizza Hut sales were down that year when it was invented. So Pizza Hut turns to a new advertising agency to come up with a new ad, and they're gonna run it during the final four in 1995. Because, Pablo, this is a sports show. Let me remind you. That's our connection.

[Pablo Torre]

No, I'm 10 years old. This is activating sensory memories. Like, when did I first discover it? I think it was during this time.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. And so I tracked down an advertising executive named Mike Campbell.

[Mike Campbell]

I spent about 25 years producing ads. So I slogged pizzas for probably about 15 years in my professional life. And now I'm trying to make up for all those calories, those cholesterol, and those sins of selling products that people really don't need.

[David Gardner]

He's done a bunch of super bowl spots, and he helped create the original stuffed crust pizza ad.

[Mike Campbell]

So I had, at the time, two brilliant partners. You know, a lot of time you just. It's like a writer's room. You're just sitting, you know, on sofas and procrastinating for days and days, knowing that the deadline's coming closer and closer and closer and closer.

[David Gardner]

And he told me that his colleague, right at their deadline, out of the.

[Mike Campbell]

Blue, says, looking at the pizza, eat the pizza the wrong way. Crust first. I mean, it was. It was. It was that simple.

[David Gardner]

And Pablo, just wait till you hear the pitch for the original commercial. They wrote around this concept.

[Mike Campbell]

A man and a seven year old. You know, you see them walking down the street and you cut and you realize, oh, it's Pete Rose. And there's this little boy, Johnny. And so the kid says, hey, Mr. Rose, I got a question. Why aren't you in the hall of fame? And Pete looks down to him. And he says, johnny, I guess it's because I eat my pizza the wrong way. Crust first. And a box just comes out. And you cut to a beautiful pizza footage. They're sitting on the front porch, you know, enjoying pizza, and Pete says to the kid, he says, johnny, what do you think of the. You like that stuffed crust pizza? And he says, you bet, Mr. Rose. You bet. He says, poor choice of words, Johnny. Poor choice of words.

[Pablo Torre]

It is remarkable how sports we are this show.

[David Gardner]

I bring you sports stories, Pablo.

[Pablo Torre]

How dare anybody accuse us of otherwise? But I don't know this commercial. Like, I don't remember this. I. This is not in my otherwise very vivid memory.

[David Gardner]

Yeah, it never aired. And to hear Michael Campbell tell this, he says that basically, Pizza Hut got upset because Pete Rose bragged to the Wall Street Journal that he was gonna be in this commercial. And then they cut the commercial.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, it would have been a great commercial.

[David Gardner]

Yeah. And what happens next is what makes the US Government a product of the stuffed crust pizza.

[Mike Campbell]

And then we thought, you know, who else. Who else out there, you know, would. Would. Would do something wrong? Well, bring out center stage Donald Trump.

[David Gardner]

Right. Donald Trump reportedly walked out this week saying the marriage was no longer working and hoping to settle under terms of a prenup contract guaranteeing Ivana the house, the kids, and more than $20 million. Ivana has rejected the deal through a lawyer calling the contract unconscionable and fraudulent.

[Mike Campbell]

So at the time, Donald, you know, was hemorrhaging money. Bankrupt. He had just five years earlier, you know, divorced Ivana in this very public, messy, messy, messy, messy divorce. But I just want to preface this by saying he wasn't political. For all those, you know, I mean, for those who love him, fine. But for those who, you know, I have to apologize to in my circle, you know, it's like he wasn't. He was an. But he was our. He was our.

[David Gardner]

Do you really think this is the right thing for us to be doing, Ivana? What will people think? Let them talk. Ivana. Ivana. It's wrong, isn't it? But it feels so right. Then it's a deal. Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

We eat our pizza the wrong way.

[David Gardner]

Crust first. Introducing stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut with a ring of cheese baked into.

[Mike Campbell]

A totally new, thinner crust.

[David Gardner]

You'll want to eat it the wrong way. Crust first.

[Pablo Torre]

I have the last slice, actually.

[David Gardner]

You're only entitled to half. As our ad man was telling us, Trump was basically bankrupt at the time. He'd been removed from Forbes list of billionaires. He actually defaulted on over 3 billion doll in loans for his New Jersey casinos. And this million dollars the Pizza Hut paid him for this commercial was a lifeline. But more than that, this was Trump's first national ad campaign. And it's. This was, this was the first Trump.

[Pablo Torre]

As actual mainstream pitch man. Was this correct?

[David Gardner]

And what follows is Trump stakes and Trump timeshares, and this.

[Pablo Torre]

I know where it goes, David.

[David Gardner]

As a brilliant businessman through the reality TV shows on the Apprentice, and as the creator of that ad himself said.

[Mike Campbell]

So, yeah, it was the, it was the slice that launched a thousand groans. You know.

[Pablo Torre]

What a deeply American tale that we have spun.

[David Gardner]

To me, Trump represents the best and worst of America all in one package. And so does stuffed crust pizza.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah. I regret to inform you that despite my moral compunctions and otherwise ethical concerns about what we're celebrating here, my stomach is actively groaning right now. And so as we reckon with how all roads lead to the same place all the time, this same guy being at the center, the gooey center of a story that I did not think would end up here, I think it's, I think it's time, David, I think it's time for us to attack this pizza the way that you attacked your reporting.

[David Gardner]

Crust first.

[Pablo Torre]

Crust first.

[David Gardner]

And we can still go to Subtropolis if you want to.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean. Oh, this is, this is not quite the, the, the. Oh, yep. This is not quite the beautiful TV ready version.

[David Gardner]

But here we go. Crust first, though, Pablo. Critically so.

[Pablo Torre]

I'm so hungry. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.