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The Find Out Podcast
Find Out: How to disarm MAGA’s disinformation machine
01:11:05
This week, we dig into the world of right-wing disinformation. After an eye-opening experience for Rich and Luke at a MAGA event in Texas, we break down how fear and confusion are being weaponized by the right. It’s a wide-ranging discussion about democracy, the spread of propaganda, and the long-term risks to America's future.
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- [00:00]
Tim
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the findout podcast, episode seven. We have a lot of things to cover today, and we literally just got some breaking news. We're recording on Friday that George Santos, the disgraced former congressman, was just sentenced to 87 months in prison, which is seven over seven years.
- [00:21]
Rich
Witch hunt.
- [00:23]
Luke
Yeah, the dog's weaponized.
- [00:26]
Tim
I'm not even sure which of the charges, but know it'll be old news by the time you guys listen to it. But we had to get a reaction because it is kind of funny, because that guy is just pathetic. But anyways, on to better things. So Rich and Luke participated in something called the Unfuck America tour last week down in Houston, Texas, going up against Charlie Kirk and his minions. Could you guys just tell us what. What happened down there?
- [00:53]
Rich
College Station, Texas. And we were at Texas A and M. Come on, Tim.
- [00:57]
Luke
Come on.
- [00:58]
Tim
All I know is Austin, because I'm from New York, of course. So anyways, go ahead.
- [01:03]
Luke
Well, we. We went down there. We were supposed to debate him. Supposed to. That's. That's his whole shtick, right, is he sets up in the middle of. Of a campus, and he's got a big banner that says, prove me wrong. Then he lines people up and you get to debate him on a. On a topic of your choosing. And we got there, and it was immediately a clusterfuck. And through no fault of our own, I mean, we. We. We got there and we were asking, okay, where's the line to wait? And they told us all about 50 different places to wait. And so we all spread out, hoping to be the one that got picked. And like, I think one of our people actually got to debate him. None of the rest of us did. They came up with different excuses. You know, you don't have any permits. But we did. And then also it was held in the Free Speech Amphitheater. And, you know, Charlie Kirk is such a big free speech guy, but that's neither here nor there. And then it was like, you're not students at A and M, but also the people who drove four hours aren't students at A and M either. So he was. He was fully coming up with as many reasons to run as fucking possible. But I think the organization on a whole did a pretty good job pivoting. We ended up holding our own debates and pulling some of his crowd and stuff. It was a good time.
- [02:10]
Rich
I had a lot of good conversations, one or two that were maybe productive, but I think I. I was a little caught off guard, and it took me a minute to get my head on straight. And after talking to some of these, the other creators who are with us on the, and you guys are going to hear a lot of swearing in this episode because I'm not going to, I'm not going to not say un Fuck America tour because it's just, it's fun and it's a good logo. But we, you know, we walked in to this free speech arena or whatever you want to call it, this, this, this MAGA rally and the first 30 minutes is just them pumping music, certainly from liberal artists and pumping music and frisbeeing MAGA hats to kids, screaming kids in the crowd. And we're talking 17, 18, 19 year.
- [02:56]
Luke
Old like literal kids. Don't also don't forget the parents who brought their like 9 to 10 year old kids. That was the most disheartening part for me.
- [03:04]
Rich
And so we were, we were talking to one of the volunteers at the event and, and he was eavesdropping and then he can't, he came over and our conversation pivoted over to him and he described himself, he voted for Trump three times. He firmly believes the 2020 election was stolen. He described himself as a fundamentalist evangelical Christian. I mean this is a person who, if you wrote him down on paper and you wrote me down on paper, you couldn't even get us in the same room or it'd be like when in matter and antimatter collide and it just ends up being a terrible, terrible explosion. Long story short, we wrap up this conversation and it's very difficult. We whole lot of agree to disagree. He's like, I know we don't agree on it, but I'm sure we don't agree on abortion. I'm sure we don't agree on 2020. We don't have to go down that path. And I was like, I agree, we don't have to go down that path. We rap. And I said to him, okay, now let's like 50,000 foot view. I want to ask you a question because if you wrote my, you know, I'm not a religious person. I describe myself as the. A word which is hard to even say out loud because it's America. But I said, I'm a, you know, I'm an atheist, liberal academia, sort of like scientist minded guy. Like I am the, the radical left lunatic that is described by the Internet and by President Trump. After this conversation, would you describe me as that? And he paused and actually thought about it and he said, you've been very respectful. You make eye contact, you haven't interrupted me. We had a reasonable exchange of ideas. No, I would not describe you as a radical left lunatic. And I was like, okay, get out, like take, take the win. So we leave and then we're doing all this other stuff. This is like maybe two in the afternoon and maybe seven, 7:30, 8:00 as we're start, as we're packing up speakers and everything. I look over, which was the same.
- [05:05]
Luke
Time as the paid event got out for a reference because that guy went to the paid event, right?
- [05:10]
Rich
And so he's, he's coming out, he's walking down the sidewalk and I, and I looked over and I was like, that's the same guy. Because I heard him talking as he was walking and he didn' he didn't see me or, or pay attention. He's walking with what looked like maybe seven, eight, nine teenage boys who I presumably were students there who attended the rally. And all I picked up from him was the back half of a story about our conversation. And he said, and we had, you know, I talked to these guys for a long time and, and it was, he was actually really nice and all I, and afterward I felt better and all I, all I hope is that he took away that maybe I'm like a reasonable guy. And so we had like, and I heard him and then they, he's walking by and so it's, I'm never going to win that guy's vote. But what happened was I was a decent human to him, as difficult as that was. And he went and passed on to a whole bunch of kids who are going to now develop their own perspectives of the world and they're at least now aware that there is a graying white straight man who's a liberal, who was a decent person to somebody who they, you know, respect and admire. So you know, these seeds, these seeds take a long time to grow. But when you walk in and you greeted by, you know, screaming MAGA hat wearing kids and you think all hope is lost. We were really looking for, for anything.
- [06:33]
Tim
Okay. I mean, I think what, what you guys are sort of circling around here is that all hope is not lost for all of these people. And, but, and they're not all like.
- [06:43]
Luke
Just like we're not all radical left lunatics, they're not all radical right lunatics.
- [06:47]
Tim
And that more situations where we actually get to have conversations with people is a good thing. And absolutely. You at least, I mean, look, like you said, this guy's never going to vote for us. But like, you know, at least if we're starting to knock down some of this, like, every, every man on the left is like this, like feeble, pink haired, whatever. Okay. I mean, I think that's good. And, you know, I think for everyone here, there were like 30 of you, I believe, 30 creators that went down there to sort of go toe to toe with Charlie and thousands of kids from Texas A that are definitely more pro Trump than anything else.
- [07:28]
Zach
I, I think to me, because I went to like a MAGA type, like my other podcast I do, you know, United debates with this guy who's like an ultra mega dude, and he has like, I don't even know what you call it. It's essentially a nonprofit to teach MAGA kids how to debate. So I went and debated those kids and I had a very similar experience where it was like, walking out of it. I'm like, these are regular people that just like got led astray by a whole bunch of bullshit. But, like, it proves to me a simple point which is it's how you approach it that matters. I think, like, you know, as much as I like the whole concept of the way that this Unfuck America was put together, I think the better approach to trying to reach people is to talk to them like human beings and not yell at them, not try to debate them, not try to go and scream, hey, you're an idiot. Like, you know, that just doesn't, it doesn't work. But just having a conversation with somebody in two seconds, when they see that you're there in good faith, it disarms them and they listen. If you just give them a piece of humanity, they will return it. Because the overwhelming majority of people on that side are very misguided. But they're also just regular people who just want to have a real conversation. And they feel attacked when you come at them too aggressively. So I think, like, I don't know how to do this on scale, but that's the way in. That's how you get the people who are malleable to be molded. You go in and go, hey, I'm going to respect you. I'll treat you like a person. Here's what I think. Let me hear what you think. And then you listen. That's it. It's not that complicated. It's just how do you scale it to something where you can actually affect millions of people?
- [08:54]
Rich
Yeah. And that was something that was difficult to come to terms with. Is like, there's a certain part of our society, our culture, that is not going to change. The fact that Parker And Dean and Charlie Kirk, who are all people who dunk reels that are very entertaining to.
- [09:11]
Luke
Watch, that they dig both sides in harder.
- [09:15]
Rich
That's, well, but it's incredibly entertaining and it's a lot of eyeballs. And so, you know, you need the hook because if we sit down and we say, hey, we're going to have a healthy exchange of ideas, like, I'm already walking out the door. I'm like, show me something that's. That's like, even if I would take part in this conversation. And so that's something where, like National Ground Game, the, the pack that put this on. I mean, this was, this was gritty, like, is as efficient as we could possibly be in putting this. In running this event. Charlie Kirk's got $90 million a year. He raised $90 million for this tour alone last year. Half a million dollars per event is what he has budgeted for this. For this tour. We're going there on maybe 1% of that budget and we're trying to do this. And so this is a huge problem. And they're not stop doing it. They're not going to stop exploiting reality TV culture to get it, to get clicks, to get views, to. To do these, these dunking on Libs, you know, owning the Libs videos. And so we got to be there. But how do we. How do we, you know, how are we there? It was a good. It was a very effective cocktail of having Parker and Dean there. Pulling. I mean, pulling. They pull the kids. I'll say that they get, they get a mic and they stand up and everybody knows and they're taking selfies with them and then those kids are hanging out, having conversations and they're. And they're. You. Then it's going from there. So National Ground Game did a great job. Z did a great job. The people organizing it and it allowed people like Luke and I, who are nobodies, or at least eight months ago we were nobodies, to go and have real conversations as you described, Zach. And I think those are going to be the things that, that stick with people more than the two minute, like owning the Libs videos.
- [10:58]
Luke
And trust me, I started with that because, like, it was like two. When we realized there was no fucking shot we were going to get to debate. Kirk. Yeah, so at that point I just started walking around because Dean started. Dean and Parker started doing their own debates in the crowd. And I was like, oh, fuck it, that's what I'll do too. And so I went around and did some of the, you know, just, yeah, you're a fucking idiot. And it's not hard to prove it. Like, when somebody says, I don't believe in due process, there's not a whole lot of room. Like, you can just go, oh, no, you're a fucking idiot. That doesn't stand for the Constitution. Like, it's not hard to do that. But it didn't get me anywhere. So I was like, all right, we got to do something different now.
- [11:34]
Zach
You gotta disarm. I mean, the one thing I saw there was that video that went super vile. I think, Rich, you sent. It was like 9 million views and you sent it the one of where it was. I think it was Dean was like really trying to debate Kirk and they just weren't. Yeah, he, like, literally. And the. And the girl kept calling him a pussy and he got so squirmy with that word. And I was looking at going, there's something in this like that. If you want to attack these guys, you got to go after their weird veil of like, hyper masculinity. Just be like, you're a fucking pussy, dude. What are you doing? You just debate this guy.
- [12:02]
Luke
And they've already established they got to him so bad that they've already got an in person debate in Chuck's studio set up for Dean and Charlie.
- [12:10]
Zach
Oh, there you go. See, that works. It's great.
- [12:12]
Luke
Which is not as good as, you know, a knockdown in the public sector.
- [12:15]
Zach
But it's still going to get a lot of views. I mean, a lot of years.
- [12:18]
Tim
Yeah, but, but I think that's why, like, some of what we're trying to do in, in showing, like, positive masculinity is so important, because when there's no, there's no model to follow, they're going to follow a bad one. And that is what we have seen happen on the right over and over again. Donald Trump's the same way. He is terrified of being projected as small or a loser. Small hands, weak. He does have small hands. That is true. He also doesn't weigh 235 pounds, but whatever. But like. And the same with all of these guys. Like, all of this, like, bravado is masking insecurity. And so when it gets called out, they're terrified because their hold on these people is not as strong, I don't think, as a lot of people believe it to be. And with more, you know, examples of positive masculinity to follow, they know they're in a lot of trouble because people have started to figure out why they've been so successful.
- [13:17]
Zach
Yeah.
- [13:17]
Chris
I mean, we've seen the. The power of a handshake. Like, I know it feels like forever ago, but remember the. The debate when Kamala Harris walked right up to. To Trump?
- [13:28]
Zach
That was sick.
- [13:29]
Luke
That was sick power.
- [13:30]
Chris
And he was like. You saw his. Like, he is a very, very visually obsessed person.
- [13:36]
Zach
Yes.
- [13:37]
Chris
And for him to. In, like, he knows this is the definition of prime time. For him to, like, slump his shoulders and slump forward and, like, do the, like, old man hands in front of his. Like, he looked completely emasculated. The fragility of these alpha males is so, so, so incredible. Which is why, like, Hegseth right now in. In the news. Who knows if he'll still be Secretary of Defense by the time people listen to this? I think he will. I don't think Donald Trump would ever fire a man that pretty. I think he loves him the way that he presents on television. But Pete Hegseth's masculinity is so fucking fragile. You know why I know this? Because the dude is obsessed with trans people. He has been talking about trans troops for years. The first things that he did when he got into the Pentagon was he started, like, kicking out trans troops. And the first thing that he. And, like, one of the first things that he has done as Secretary of Defense is install a makeup room because the man is so insecure about his own looks that he cannot function in his role as the Secretary of Defense of the United fucking States military until he puts makeup on. And that is not. That is not like, a judgment statement on people who wear makeup. It is a simple acknowledgment of the massive, massive hypocrisy of the alpha male.
- [15:07]
Rich
Hey, at least he didn't have his makeup kit stolen from under his seat as Secretary of Defense.
- [15:13]
Tim
What Rich is talking about is that another cabinet Secretary, Homeland Security Secretary Dome, was apparently had her purse stolen at a restaurant. By the way, she has a Secret Service detail, and in the. In the purse was $3,000 cash, which I would love to know why on earth $3,000 cash if you're in a detail like you. That doesn't. It doesn't make any sense. It's just strange. Also, I don't know what that says about the secret. Secret security or to, like, steal that. Stole that.
- [15:49]
Zach
But.
- [15:50]
Tim
And to be clear with Hegseth, the taxpayers paid for the makeup room. Oh, yeah, we paid for that. He did not spend his own money. We paid for that.
- [16:00]
Rich
But think all the money he's gonna save firing those Three trans troops from the military on their salaries, you know, so really breaks even.
- [16:08]
Zach
I also saw a story about Hegseth right before we shot this that like they're, they're removing like 400 books from the naval library that are all like, you know, woke books or whatever. But you know, what book gets to stay? Fucking Mein Kampf. Still available.
- [16:21]
Luke
What a joke.
- [16:23]
Tim
Don't read Maya Angelou. But like, you can read.
- [16:26]
Zach
It's nuts, dude. Crazy.
- [16:30]
Chris
So. So for people who don't know me again, this is Chris. I'm. I'm the guy who investigates neo Nazis. And for the last, I don't know, five plus years, most people have known me for my work on extremism as it relates to the military and veterans community. The fact that we have a Christian nationalist running the Pentagon right now is just so profoundly dangerous, and it is going to damage our national security and our standing in the world for a generation or more. Like the damage that has been done to our credibility on the world stage. Not just militarily in terms of our strength, but the real strength of the military is its role in enforcing our diplomatic demands and our diplomatic morals and ethics. All of that is crumbling so, so, so fast under Trump, Musk and Hegseth. It's, it's. What's happening at these academies today will affect today's trainees, today's cadets for 20 to 40 years.
- [17:41]
Zach
It's a really fucked up situation. And I'm curious, like, because Hegseth. To me, the thing about Hegseth and Trump and all these folks in this area is like, they're very unpredictable. And you know, for me, I don't love that as a, as just a common citizen look from the outside looking in. But a lot of the right always defends Trump and says like, no, I like that he's unpredictable in the world stage. I like that Hag says it's unpredictable because it makes us unpredictable. And that's a, that's a good tactic for America. But I'm curious, do you think that's true? Because, like, I've heard that argument a thousand times and I just don't know if it's actually a good argument.
- [18:12]
Chris
I mean, unpredictable is just a synonym for unreliable. And if we are an unreliable ally, then we are irrelevant. This whole make America great again thing on the world stage, everyone that I have ever met in real life having these discussions, like, I'll, I'll go on vacation, nobody knows who I am, we'll have these discussions and we'll talk about how we are respected on the world stage. And these are people who've never left the country. Like, they, they don't know anyone outside the country. If, if they do, it's because they've gone to Cancun and they're at a resort. Like, they're not seeing people. They're not meeting people from other cultures or anything like that. Their, their belief that we are respected on the world stage is just what they're told from Fox News or Breitbart or whatever. The reality is as, as someone who does like to travel, whose friends do live overseas, is that the world knows that they can't trust us anymore. And that's not just militarily, that's economically. So we are being phased out of, of, of Europe's plans for the future. We are not a reliable ally in, in the military, and we're not reliable economically.
- [19:33]
Tim
Well, let's, let's, let's pivot. This is a good segue into the next part, which is there have been several polls that have come out in the last week, and Donald Trump's handling of the economy has never been lower. And that includes when he lost 3 million jobs in his first term, which I keep saying this until I'm blue in the face. He's the only president in US History to ever do that.
- [19:56]
Zach
Can I push on that, though? I want to push on that because I guess I am like the resident moderate. You know, I used to be a Republican and all that. I hate that argument. I want to push on that argument because Trump didn't lose those jobs. Trump was on pace to gain jobs, and in the end, Covid lost those jobs. And I think, I mean, I watched the Democrats use that line over and over and over again. The average person doesn't buy it because they look at it and go, I know what happened. I lived it. It was Covid. So I'm curious. I think we need to lose that argument. And like, his job growth numbers weren't very good. Like, before COVID like, he was average job. We could attack. But, like, so like to attack him on this. It's like, it just seems disingenuous and it comes off wrong to me. It might just be me, but it's like he didn't lose those jobs with his own tactics. He lost those jobs because it happened.
- [20:42]
Tim
Let's talk about it. There was a plan early in Covid to supply masks to every single American through the US Postal Service, right? Jared Kushner said no, because it would help blue states more than red states. It is an Undeniable fact that if we had sent masks to everyone early on and we had stopped the mask bullshit, less people would have died and less people would have lost jobs. That is an undeniable fact. Because if you had given people the tools early on, when we were just telling people to wash their hands, we would have slowed this down. We would not have ended it, and there still would have been losses. The other part was, I'm skeptical of that point. You don't think masks work?
- [21:22]
Zach
I think they work, but I don't think, like we. Early in the pandemic, it was. It was extremely difficult to control anything because we had no vaccine. That was the real. The turn of the tide happened when we had the vaccine widely available. Prior to that, it just spread like wildfire, regardless of what you did. I mean, I was around. I got Covid the first time in December of 20 because we had a worker in our house trying to do some. You know, I forget what it was, plumbing or something. His mask slipped down for a millisecond and then it was. Got Covid just like that. Outside of that, I was extremely cautious about everything. The ability to get actually, you know, to get Covid was so simple at that point because there was literally zero protection. So, like, masks are helpful, but there's nothing overwhelming evidence that they would have just fundamentally changed the progression of the pandemic.
- [22:04]
Luke
It's just a mass though, right? Like, you get a guy in the Oval Office who treats it like it's a fucking joke.
- [22:09]
Zach
Yeah, yeah. That's like.
- [22:11]
Luke
I think it's in his entire handling of it that it's not just the mass. Right? Like, you get a guy up there that's talking about injecting bleach. Not a great look for the president.
- [22:19]
Rich
Right?
- [22:19]
Tim
Like, well, and he turned against the vaccines. We also had one of the highest death rates in the world. So the masks do work. And if we had continued down that road and if he had told the people on the right to stop demonizing that stuff and to get with the program, first of all, he would have won re election easily if he had just gotten us together and led us through that.
- [22:41]
Zach
Yeah.
- [22:42]
Tim
Second of all, he then did turn against the vaccine, and we still see the highest rates of COVID deaths because we still have hundreds to thousands of people who die every month from COVID It's all in red areas. So I. I think we will just have to respectfully disagree. I don't think that we would have been.
- [22:58]
Zach
But that's not the point. But the point was centered around the jobs element. I'm not trying to argue like that masks don't work because I think they do. But my argument is that the jobs numbers would have been dismal regardless of mask distribution. That's my point.
- [23:12]
Chris
So I think this is actually exactly the kind of conversation that we've been hoping to have. And I'm really glad that we had it because Zach, I, I agree with you. I, I do think the way that we use this as shorthand, like there's a lot of assumed knowledge when Tim says about the worst job performance ever, right? And not everyone in our audience, not everyone in our, in our lives has all of that. So I, I think it is important to, to have this discussion and add the nuance because I've been feeling a little uncertain about, about that argument. I didn't think it was as powerful as the DNC and Democrats and all of their consultants felt.
- [24:01]
Zach
They thought it was great.
- [24:02]
Chris
And I, I think it's because they were not giving the details that Tim just did just now over the course of two minutes. Right? Two minutes is a long time when it's airtime.
- [24:12]
Luke
That's been my argument for like, what was so weak about the, the 24 election or 24 campaign for me is that they Democrats came out and talked like they were talking to people who knew things and they should have been talking to Americans because they don't know things, like, at all.
- [24:28]
Tim
No, you need to tell them. I mean, and Zach is also right. The grow his growth numbers before COVID they weren't actually growth numbers. They were just a continuation of the economy that we had under Barack Obama and the policies that he had. And that tax cut, that was what, $2 trillion or something like that? If back and look at it, there was no stimulating effect to the gov. To the economy whatsoever because the tax cuts primarily went to rich people who didn't need them and they just stuck them in their pockets. And this is why, like, when Republicans scream and yell about food stamps, I lose my mind. Because the number one most stimulating thing you can do is give people money to purchase food. It is not like it is. That is the best way crazy that.
- [25:10]
Luke
People want to, you know, work and make their lives better when they could fucking eat.
- [25:14]
Zach
I mean, it's also a bigger argument too. Like, it's with student loans people. The Republicans went, no, no, no, don't repay their student loans. It's not fair. It's like, do you understand the economic stimulus of telling people, hey, this debt that you were budgeting around you don't have to budget around that anymore. Like, they don't, Democrats don't sell this shit the way they should. It's the same thing with things where you can sell, you know, whole packages as giant tax cuts and they instead sell them as, like, well, you know, it's here, here's an, like, they try to sell the math. Don't sell the math. No, sell the, sell the 100%.
- [25:46]
Luke
Right.
- [25:47]
Tim
I completely agree. And I, you know, I worked in that world for a long time and, you know, there is a lot of stuff where people are, you got to get the sound bites and you got to do the polling. And I think honestly, we have just moved beyond that because there's too much information out there. Like you, we can't do that stuff anymore. And I completely agree. I mean, Joe Biden cut child poverty in half. In half. Nobody knows that. No, nobody knows. And then the Republicans let those, let that stuff expire and the poverty rates went back up. You didn't hear anything about that in the, in the election. Like, these are, are. We have a serious messaging problem. And I, you know, and I, I, I could take some of that about the criticism about the 3 billion, because you're right. Like, it would have been a negative of some sort anyways, though apparently we didn't lose jobs during the Spanish flu, which I'd love to know why that didn't happen, but.
- [26:32]
Zach
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know that.
- [26:33]
Tim
No, I mean, well, but you also, it's also that, that, that figure is first term.
- [26:39]
Luke
Right.
- [26:39]
Tim
Because I'm pretty sure that George Bush in his second term lost jobs because the, the Q3 and 4 of 2008 was so devastating, like Lehman Brothers just, like, ceased to exist and we were losing 800 to a million jobs. And you should also count the jobs that were lost in the first quarter or the second quarter of Barack Obama's term for George Bush because his stupid tax cuts did not like, that's another. The last two times we have done massive, stimulating or quote, unquote, stimulating tax cuts. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work.
- [27:08]
Zach
Yeah, it's shocker. It's ridiculous. You look at, like, the jobs numbers. What was the stat? It was like, of the last 52 million jobs created, 51 million were from Democrats and 1 billion were from a problem. It's terrible. So, like, you know, we could attack on things like that really easily. But I think you're right. Like, we need to reassess how we message on things, even things like, that I don't necessarily agree with, like universal health care. Like there is a, you can sell that as a massive corporate tax cut because in the end all these corporations that are paying for health insurance for their people out of pocket don't have to do that anymore. And they can redistribute that money in a very big way. That is a smart messaging strategy for moderates that Democrats just miss. I don't know how they completely agree.
- [27:46]
Tim
And the other part is it's actually a great small business development tool because a lot of people can't start small businesses because they don't have health care. The only reason that I was able to start my small business is because my wife had good health care. And we just, and, and like there's all the morally right reasons to do it too. But there are economic reasons that we are just swinging and missing on. And I think sometimes that's why Republicans have, tend to have better ratings on the economy. Even though they don't run it better, but they're better at messaging it.
- [28:15]
Zach
That brings it all back to Charlie Kirk, because that's what he's good at. He, he's good at making idiots sit back and go, that sounds right. And then that's it. That all of a sudden he's right. Even if he provides no context, it doesn't matter. He provides an argument that makes sense and it's common. Like common sense is the thing they're all rallying around now. This whole concept, like as long as what you say makes sense in one sentence, you win. And they're just capitalizing on that nonstop.
- [28:39]
Tim
Do you think that going to Texas A and M, do you think that that is a strategy that we should continue to do and do you think that we will be able to flip some, some voters and Luke, you're going to have to answer this one.
- [28:54]
Luke
Yeah, well, listen, like going there for me was like going to the ninth circle of hell. I mean it's about two shades away from a clan rally. It was trash like the surrounding people. I have never been more disheartened than to see that crowd.
- [29:10]
Tim
But here's our clip of the week.
- [29:11]
Luke
I do think that that's the effective way to do it. Like maybe not A M, I name a M is full blown. There's nothing to do there. I, I mean I've been super happy to get the DMS I have from people that are like, yeah, I'm so happy you were there. Like I've had Aggie alum that reach out. They're like, oh, my kids were. My kids came and saw you so happy you were there. But those people aren't getting flipped. They already felt that way.
- [29:33]
Chris
I've done undercover work where I've gone to QAnon rallies. And what Luke is describing is what I felt when I was there. What, what Rich has been describing is I, I do not have a brain that would allow me to interpret things. So, Rosalie, I, I just cannot, cannot get past being surrounded by a bunch of mania.
- [29:55]
Tim
But, but, and I want to go to Rich on this one. But, but do we think this is an effective strategy to start to pull some of those people away, or is it just frustrating for everybody involved?
- [30:06]
Rich
You have to look at timescale right now when you're in that moment. Nobody is changing anything. Right. We saw, and this is even a hard conversation for me to get into because I have a son. But we saw a young man get up on stage to try to debate Dean and Parker on the assault weapons ban. This kid is 18 years old. He didn't know what AWB stood for. And he found himself on a debate in front of 2, 300 people in the audience with people who know how to debate this. And he gets up and won't go into the extensive details, but somebody on our, on our, in our group was the parent of one of the Uvalde victims. He lost his son at 10, which is why it's hard for me to think about. Yeah, he, he. It was a, it was a painful experience. It was a sad experience. Half of us were trying to not just cry on stage. And that kid, he stood there and he, and he looked at this, this dad and, and he listened to all of it. He wasn't ready to change his perspective on the assault weapons ban at the end of that debate. But when he walked off the stage, I shook his hand and I talked to him and I could see in his face he was going to be thinking about this for maybe the rest of his life, but certainly for the next couple of days he was going to sleep on it. He's going to think through what he just experienced. The first reaction is fight or flight. He did neither. He stood there. And the second reaction then is to process that and say, okay, now that the humiliation is behind me, now that I'm not angry or sad or embarrassed anymore, do I need to do something different with how I'm thinking about this? And I guarantee this kid is going to be at least a moderate, if not a Democratic voter in the next five years. But on that stage, if Everybody had tripled down, quadrupled down. And he had had the worst, most embarrassing, humiliating experience of his life. We might have made a Republican voter for life. And so when you're in that moment, it's extreme difficult. But I just. This is turning a cruise ship. I mean, this is turning a cruise ship where every motor is broken, where every engine is. Has exploded. Like, this is going to take forever to unfuck America. Coming back to that. But I absolutely think it's worth it, because you have to start. They've been doing this for years. They've been working on this for years, since Charlie Kirk was a teenager, and now he's what, 30? Whatever. And this is where they got. So it might take us 10 years to unravel this.
- [32:35]
Luke
See, and that's the difference between the debates that we held and the debates that Charlie holds. Charlie's whole thing is he wants to make you look as big of a idiot as he can in front of his crowd, and his crowd feeds on it. I mean, the one guy that got. Of ours that got up to debate there, his name is Simple Black Theory. That's his tag. I mean, he would. He handled the crowd excellently because Charlie was even talking. He's. Charlie goes, oh, the crowd hates you. And Simple Black Theory goes, yeah, I know, but I'm talking to you. And, like, that's a powerful bar to drop. But. But most of the people who get up there and talk to talk to Charlie. As soon as that crowd starts going apeshit, Charlie's feeding off it. And the people are just, like, feeling completely embarrassed and they feel completely put out, and they walk off the stage and they might not even be as strong. Like, they might even not hold their beliefs as strongly as they did when they walked up there because they feel like they just got thoroughly ruined 100%. This guy came up with something he thought was a strong opinion, was firmly but not rudely established. Yeah, you're wrong, buddy. And he walked away thinking differently. Like, that's an entirely different vibe.
- [33:41]
Zach
Yeah, it really. And that's really the vibe difference between the two parties right now. The right or trolls and the left are decent. Like, that's it. And. And. But trolls are more fun to watch, and that's why they're winning right now. Decency is not exciting. And, you know, look, that's, I think, a temporary thing. There's a pendulum swing to all this shit. I mean, that's the reason that Joe Biden won in 2020. It's because we needed the calm, sweet grandpa to get us through the scary time. And then all of a sudden, when your money seems to be not going as far, you need the crazy businessman to come back and, you know, do some crazy shit to make you money again. The pendulum swings. The only thing that sucks from my perspective is I thought that America was better than letting the pendulum swing back to the trolls. That, to me, is the most disheartening thing about all of this, is that. But I really thought the average person was better than letting the horrible people be in power again and not apologize, just going, doing whatever they want. Everybody's like, it's fine, it's cool. As long as I get money, it's fine. That part sucks.
- [34:42]
Chris
I think this is a. This is a trauma processing problem. I think that, that most of us Americans, most of whom don't have access to great, because I'm a veteran, I. I can get. And I'm disabled because of my service. All of my health care is free. I never have to worry about paying a bill for my medications for. For anything. Right. I have learned, because I have had free access to healthcare, how to process trauma, how to not distance myself from it, but how to grow from it. When I first heard the term post traumatic growth and I was in the throes of ptsd, I was like, this is bullshit. Like, that is a fucking made up term. It's unscientific. I fucking hate it. Now that I'm kind of on the other side of a really, really tough time with years of therapy, I kind of understand, like, how you can take that and grow. But most Americans have not had that benefit. No, most Americans have had nothing close to this from, from processing traumas as a kid, you know, in how that shapes people's interactions with authority for the rest of their lives, whether it be, you know, parents or cops or bosses, to the trauma that we all collectively experienced during COVID Even the people who denied that Covid was real and, and truly in their heart of hearts believe that Covid was, was overblown. They still were traumatized because they were under the perception that a tyrannical government was trying to destroy their lives in and very, you know, very effectively doing it. They blame the government for the economy, etc. Right. So that is the reason why, why Americans are not better than this, because Americans have not had the support that they need to learn from these horrible, horrible experiences.
- [36:43]
Rich
Yeah, I think, you know, coming back to what we were just talking about with fight or flight, the idea of fight forward just kind of popped into my head. Like, what do you, what do you do? Are you fighting forward or are you running away? You're fighting backward. And you look at. Because I agree, Zach, I, the pendulum went farther. Usually, usually you're going to mitigate a little bit. But yeah, we, we were so complacent. I think in a lot of ways we let, like, well, egg prices are the most important thing in the world. Where literally when this guy left office last, we were losing 10, 15,000 people a day, Americans a day. And you can't, we have, we have let them rewrite history on all things Covid. And earlier when we were talking about the job transition, I was screaming into my mic, which it turns out wasn't working because I pulled the data, because this is an argument that is so important for us to win and we, I, we can't win it by just saying he lost all the jobs because of COVID We also can't concede it because we're fucking right. And so I'm stuck in this place. And so I pulled the numbers. He had a full year of recovery under his first term, 11 months of recovery under his first term from 2020 to 2021. We entered February of 2100 52.4 million total non farm employment. By, by the time he left office, we had recovered more than half of those jobs, more than half of the ones that were lost. And by the time we got to full 152.4 million again, it was beginning of 2022. So he got one year of recovery, Biden got one year of recovery. And so that's, I mean, that's the argument and correct, the trend line was identical through his entire first term as what we saw for eight years with Obama. But, but what I think we need to land with listeners and with voters is that it's not just the what, it's the how. And if Trump had started his response two, three months earlier, he could have avoided a lot of damage, a lot of loss of life if he had managed the shutdown better. I mean, this is the same thing that's happening with tariffs. Fundamentally, these aren't always the wrong things to do. But when you do it like a fucking idiot toddler and somebody just gives you a hatchet or a Sharpie or like pick the things that he, that he uses, the ways that he solves problems, he does it not just in the worst possible way, but he does it in a way that is that, that leaves you ten times worse off than you were if you just didn't do anything, which is why I always joke like, I'd rather have a, you know, a severed head as president or like a chicken as president. Magic 8 ruin anything maliciously. Whereas it feels like his, his, his negligence, his, his, his ineptitude is, is malicious.
- [39:37]
Zach
It really does. And like, to me, so just so people have a background on where I come from, I, you know, I was a Republican for like 10 years, up until pretty much the middle of Trump's term. And Trump is the sole reason why I left the Republican Party because he. Of exactly what Rich is talking about. The fact that his ideas, a lot of them in theory, are not bad. The execution is horrendous. And I just kept looking at this guy and being like, he's just, it's just him. Like, I mean, there's a million things I disagree with in the Republican Party. You know, socially, I'm, I've always been liberal, but when it came to economic policy, like, there are things about tariffs that I think are very smart, and there are certain elements even now that he could be like, Pete Buttigieg won on. I forget which podcast, but Pete Buttigieg was explaining exactly this point of. It's strictly execution that's screwing up Trump's approach to trade. If you went to countries that were having unfair trade practices with us and said, look, if you stop doing this or this, we can be cool, but if you don't, we're going to impose X amount of tariffs on you to make it appropriate, that's a really good idea. But just to arbitrarily throw tariffs on top of countries that are not engaging in those practices for the sake of PR is a stupid approach. And that's the difference between, you know, functional executional ability. And, you know, like, for example, Trump is in a situation here where he doesn't care if the ideas work. He cares if they sound good to voters as he pitches them. And that's why they're winning. Because in the end, they don't focus on the feasibility, they focus on how does it sound. And Trump going, I'm going to be Mr. Strongman, I'm going to threaten everybody, and everybody's going to do what I say. That plays well. People dig it.
- [41:15]
Tim
No tax on tips, right?
- [41:17]
Zach
That's never going to happen.
- [41:18]
Tim
But they never loved it. It, of course, and people believe Harris.
- [41:24]
Zach
Stole it during the election, too, for good reason.
- [41:27]
Rich
You offset it. You offset it correctly. I mean, his entire policy is like, hey, no tax on tips, so that working class service people can, can take, take home more money. Let's Shift the entire tax burden now to tariffs which are catastrophically regressive. Right? And 10x the, the, the, the benefit that those people got from, from keeping the. So again it's the, it's the how that, that is so fucking awful with him and not always the what? Because we can, we can make money elsewhere. We can, we can raise taxes on billionaires all day long. I'll sign up for that if that means that a, a server at a, at a steakhouse who's trying to, you know, put her kid through school is, is able to do it a lot more easily.
- [42:12]
Zach
I saw he was actually considering putting higher taxes on, on higher income groups, which I was like holy shit, that's not going to go over well for your people. That gave you a ton of money. But I mean look, if he's open to it, that's fine. But I mean, I think we also have to recognize that that is not enough. You know, from just a pure metrics perspective. We need to start taxing Wall Street. Like that's how we actually make money. Taxing billionaires income is like a drop in the bucket compared to what we can make on transactions.
- [42:39]
Tim
I mean, do most people know what capital gains is and what the percentage is? Right, let's talk about, let's talk about it. So capital gain. So basically if you have money invested somewhere and you hold that money for at least a year, when you, when you cash out, your profits are charged at 15. I think the average tax rate for the mayor American is somewhere in the 24, 25%. Democrats have, have always talked about raising capital gains, but I don't think they've done it in a very smart way because it's basically that is a tax that mostly hits rich people. Like, I mean there are, are, there are upper middle class families that also have that. But the fact that it's taxed almost 10% less than like the, the, you know, the, the mom that works at the steakhouse and is making 15 an hour continues like this should be an issue that Democrats should be able to just pound the, out of the Republicans because again, it's just that's like those people who like live their, like they, they never work a day in their life. All of their money comes from this and they pay a lower tax rate than somebody on minimum wage is just outrageous to me.
- [43:49]
Chris
I think that one of the things that Democrats have a one hand tied behind their back for better or worse, is that they're not willing to demonize certain people. And you know, if, if we Were Trumpian, we could sloganeer this and in the context of like the Luigi CEO going on, like, we recognize we need to be careful with our words sometimes, but like you could say if, if you're a plumber, like that, that is, if you're earning a salary because you're working for it, we don't want to tax you. If you're a banker and you don't work for your money, we're looking to tax, we're looking to tax it. Right, but. But a Democrat cannot say that because I mean, we already saw how, how Fox News tried to, tried to put what would happen with Luigi on, on Democrats.
- [44:41]
Zach
Like of course. Right, that's. Yeah. I mean it makes, it's. You draw that comparison. It's easy. But there's also like, there's been really good proposals just been buried for. So like Elizabeth Warren had one. I don't remember all the details, but essentially she wanted to put like the most fractional amount of tax on every single Wall street transaction that occurs. Every trade. It would have made so much money, who gives a shit? Take the teeny penny from it, nobody's going to notice. And you're going to have a pile of cash sitting next to you.
- [45:05]
Luke
And these are people, these are people that do not hesitate to use these, the instant transfer button when they get Venmo money and they want to put it in their bank account. But God forbid that a little bit of money gets taken off their transactions.
- [45:17]
Zach
Perfect analogy. I love that.
- [45:19]
Luke
Every fucking time. That's what comes back to me.
- [45:21]
Zach
It's true. It's exactly right, though. Like, people don't think about how simple this could be. And it's just a bunch of asshole lobbyists that are making it not happen. That's it. That's the only thing that's in between it.
- [45:31]
Chris
Well, and it's the tech sector, the AI sec. That fraction of a penny on every trade thing would be. Be so disastrous for AI companies that are doing like micro trades.
- [45:44]
Zach
Like. That's true.
- [45:45]
Chris
Like they are.
- [45:46]
Luke
They're.
- [45:47]
Zach
Yeah, exactly.
- [45:48]
Chris
Buying and selling in seconds the same thing. Right. The same stock. They'll sell like many, many, many, many times an hour. Because with, with the AI, with a server on Wall street, like literally as fast as light, they can make these trades and they would, they would lose a lot of fucking pennies. Pennies that they do not need. They would still be making a fuck ton of money. But they recognize the number of trades. Would, would. I mean, fuck, we'd, we'd. None of us would be paying taxes if, if that went through.
- [46:21]
Luke
I still can't believe he's claiming that Trump is claiming this fucking oh, we're going to get rid of income tax with the, with the money from these tariffs and then just repeatedly backs down. Who still believes that?
- [46:32]
Tim
But this is the like thing we were talking about earlier is that his numbers are lower on the economy that they've ever been. Do we? And do we it. To me it seems like more and more people are finally like this guy is a fraud.
- [46:44]
Luke
Did you see that he claimed he had a 90% approval rating because he added the 44% and the 45% from his first term to get 89. And he claimed that that was his current approval rating.
- [46:55]
Rich
None of the same people vote in the ads is completely different. So getting on his ratings and the tariffs because like, well, so Chris, you, you, you mentioned like that we have a hand tied behind your back. I've been thinking about this as like, this is why the left can't go, we can't do the blue MAGA thing, which I despise that term. But you can't debate chaos with chaos. And we can't be the party, the left party of chaos and then the right party of chaos because this whole country will be destroyed. We, we are, we're not talking about left versus right. We're talking about stability, insanity and reason versus absolute fucking chaos and madness. And it just like it's harder to build something than it is to destroy something. We have far more capability and far more responsibility in building the future of this country going forward. And so we, we have to win these arguments. We, we can't just say Trump is a idiot and get the dunk reel on YouTube and then, and then win the next because then that pendulum is just going to keep going. And so bringing it back to the tariffs and approval ratings. A bunch of new polls have come out and he is losing across the board. He's losing on tariffs. He's losing independence on tariffs. Independents are 7028 against him on tariffs in the brand new poll from the Washington Post, ABC News Ipsos. And you look over even at, he just went upside down on, on immigration. Abrego Garcia. 42% of people believe he should be returned to the United States. 26% this is all voters say remain in El Salvador. 31% are juries out still. So these are the people that we're winning over when we say, listen guys, we don't love criminals, we don't love violent criminals. We don't even Love our, our immigration system. But we do know that you can't take a person who's living here legally. And this is a complicated argument. A guy who's living here legally who may have had issues in the past. There's a, of things going on here. But what, what we know is he's never been convicted of anything. He's never even been charged with anything. Never been convicted of anything. And a judge said you can stay here. And the DHS gave him a work permit to work here and he was working in the trades, paying taxes, raising an American citizen child. This is a, this a multi layered, complicated argument. They get to say what Charlie Kirk said on stage.
- [49:21]
Luke
He's an MS.13 gang member, wife beater. That's their whole argument.
- [49:25]
Rich
Exactly.
- [49:26]
Luke
And that exact terminology.
- [49:27]
Rich
And somebody took the stage and dunked on him and he raised his voice. This is like one of two times in this thing he, where he stopped debating and he just started yelling and he said, I will never apologize for letting, for saying that illegal alien gang members have to go back to their country. And everybody's freaking out. The red hats are flying and we're like, this kid was a child when he came here. He can't, you can't even be an illegal immigrant when you're 15. You're a, you're a child seeking asylum. And so this, this is, this is a very difficult story to tell and to also win when you're against somebody who just says Ms. 13, illegal alien, criminal deportation. But, but we're winning it and it's showing.
- [50:10]
Chris
I think it's, it's the responsibility of my community of veterans to, to make this a little more of a simple argument. And that is that when the photos of, of Abu Ghraib and the stories of Guantanamo Bay got out, those were the singular most successful recruiting campaigns. It was, it was Americans who did this. But what Americans did was the most powerful, most successful recruiting campaigns for what turned into isis, for what, what led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. So what we are doing when we are sending people overseas without any due process is we are recruiting a generation of terrorists. And those, those chickens are going to come home the roost. Not tomorrow, not during the Trump term. They're going to come in 20 years, they're going to come in 30 years. Some of these, they may all die in prison, but some of these guys have kids who are American citizens who are always going to remember America as the place who stripped their father of due process and sent him to a gulag to die. And If Donald Trump doesn't think that he like he used to like to say that, that Barack Obama created isis. He's the founder of the isis, of isis. What is, what is the memory of Donald Trump going to be? I'll tell you, it's, it's going to be that he has recruited an army of fucking terrorists that are going to be killing Americans for the next few decades.
- [51:44]
Tim
Well we, we've seen this in the past. I mean there's a lot of reasons like you said, these are complicated issues and I'm going to bring up two that are pretty but like, like you know we in the 80s, Ronald Reagan gave Osama bin Laden and the Mujah Hadeen weapons to fight the Soviets. And then we decided it wasn't worth it. We pulled out and his people got slaughtered. Now he is a monster. This is not a defense. But you have to look at these things the same situation and this is where it's going to get dicey for some people is the, is the Israel Palestinian issue, right? What Israel is doing. And I'm not saying Jewish people, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, because there is a difference here. What he has done in Gaza has just. I know they said that they've wiped out all the terrorists there. He has, they have like militarized turned people, militant kids that wouldn't ever be because they said go to these safe spaces and then they bombed them. Then they put like, like I know this only and there's problems on both sides but like put dead Palestinians on the trunks of their cars. The military were driving through towns. What do you think is going to happen to that 14 year old that watched that go by or heard that thing and it's just mad because wants.
- [52:59]
Luke
That to happen because as soon as it's done, he's right.
- [53:02]
Tim
But like it happens like we always talk about history is we're, we're going to repeat it if we don't like learn it.
- [53:08]
Luke
It ha.
- [53:08]
Tim
It's just like we keep doing this as a, as a country over and over again and it's like it is never. It doesn't work.
- [53:15]
Chris
So you know, we've talked in past episodes about like how I used to be a Republican, I was a Ron Paul Republican and one of the books that was on his reading list that I would encourage people to read is called Blowback. And it talks about exactly this. The history of American foreign policy and domestic policy. Mistakes that have resulted in violence and death against Americans. And for people who can't imagine what it's like to be A Palestinian who have no sympathy for it. Just think about who I was when I was 16 years old when the towers fell and I could see the smoke from my house that was 20 miles between me and ground zero. And I was still. I could not wait to go overseas and kill fucking bad guys. I joined the army right after graduating high school. Within a year I was in Iraq in a fucking combat zone filled with hate and, and ready to spread, you know, as, as J.D. vance with his social media team likes to say, ready to spread freedom seeds. Right. But, but let's, let's, let's take away the euphemism. I was ready to murder people. That's, that's what you do at war, is you murder people. And that is, is what Donald Trump is doing right now. He is creating that level of anger and resentment that will last for decades, generations, and it will kill Americans.
- [54:51]
Zach
Yeah. And he pretends to be the President of peace too, and he's just causing a bunch of future problems.
- [54:56]
Tim
No more wars, right?
- [54:57]
Luke
Yeah.
- [54:58]
Rich
Something that I, that I was thinking about with the Abreu Garcia case was, you know, looking through like Republicans, they do, I think a much better job than liberals of talking about people like policies when needed and talking about policies like people when needed. We kind of feel like talk about everything as policies and so, but it's not, it's not effective. You have to talk about real people. And so looking at how will this process that's playing out with Abreu Garcia, how will this affect his son? Son, he's got a five year old non verbal autistic son who is an American citizen. He will be here forever. His trajectory under progressive policies is going to a public school, getting an IEP which is funded by the Department of Education, getting special education assistance, just like I know a lot of people's sons and daughters have received across this country. And those, those programs work and they help the kids, they get special attention from people who know how to work with kids who are neurodivergent. And usually they show such remarkable improvements, especially early in life when, when it's, when it's, identified and behavioral therapy begins. It's almost not even noticeable as they're adults, like they're 100% functioning now. And so he, he's a, he's a neurodivergent kid who's getting the care that he needs. He grows up and he becomes pro, really great American citizen, just like so many people do you look at the Republican path, His dad's in a terrorist prison in El Salvador, this kid's going to be. What if they get rid of birthright citizenship, which they won't, but if they did, this is their dream utopian, dystopian scenario. He is what, deported to where his dad lives? Is he even an El Salvadorian citizen? I mean, this is. The kid was born here. So what are they going to do? They're going to have a homeless special needs kid, kid living in El Salvador with a dad who's in a terrorist prison for life and his mom is a US citizen. So what is she going to do? So tell me, tell any reasonable person, look at me and tell me which path do you prefer for this child? As a member of the party of pro life, tell me that you love children, right? You want to save onboard babies? How about this child who's right now, who's, you know, to use Elon Musk's favorite metaphor, he's ahead of the fork in the road and you got to pick the path for him. Which one are you going to pick? Are you going to pick the wrong one just because he's brown? Wrong or are you going to pick the right one?
- [57:26]
Luke
George Carlin said it best. If you're pre birth, you're good and if you're pre K, you're well and.
- [57:31]
Tim
Even look at it. If they let him stay in the country, but they get rid of the Department of Education and depending on where he lives, that special, special education funding doesn't exist. And you know, some states will step up, but some states won't. But the other part of this is that you are also ensuring that that person, that kid probably needs assistance for the rest of his life. It is more efficient to do this and also morally the right thing to do. And instead we have fucking RFK Jr going out last week talking about the fact that autistic people will never be contributors to society. The first thing he said was they're not going to pay taxes. First of all, what a fucking awful thing to say. And the first thing that you say about somebody that's a negative is that they're not paying taxes. And then now he has said that they are going. The federal government is going to create a registry, meaning a list of all autistic people in this country, whether they volunteer that information or not. And I think most Americans like they'll say they care about people with disabilities, but those issues generally get pushed aside. But I think in the last week when we saw that this administration doesn't give a about due process and is now starting or hipaa and HIPAA on the next one and we're going creating lists. I think a lot of Americans are like you like no cricket throated piece of. Right, I'm gonna get, I'll get a little, get a, get a little like Luke here for a second. But like I think the combination of those two things because the thing is a lot of people like everybody has somebody in their family that is probably neurodivergent whether they know it or not. So it's gonna make people like they're gonna think about their family members and the due process they were. Trump said on a hot mic well we want to do this for, for American citizens next. Like, like this is, this is fascist and it is no longer in theory this is what they are going to do. And I think that the combination of a bunch of these things plus the economy just not doing particularly well at the moment. I think it's going to, I think it's going to tank him. But that's also a very scary place to be too.
- [59:38]
Chris
I don't think that I've talked about it on this podcast yet, but I am a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the federal government to try and get DOGE out of several departments. And the basis of the lawsuit is that everything that Elon Musk and the Doggy Boys are doing is a violation of Privacy Act. The reason the Privacy act was passed in the 1970s was after Watergate when Richard Nixon Nixon started using the powers of the federal government, the FBI etc to spy on American citizens and to build enemies lists. So the prospect of RFK Jr. Working with Elon Musk and the Doggy Boys to assem massive lists that are cross referencing everything from health care to your education and your, your debts, from your student loan debts to your, your service, if you ever worked for the military or as a federal contractor to things like FEC records, your, your voting and your donating history, that is, that should scare the out of everyone. And I am, am not quite certain why it's not a bigger deal than it is. I, I, I can't believe that, that even within Trump's administration there aren't people going well if we can build an enemies list, a master list, the other guys can too. Like assuming Democrats someday come back into the White House, they would have all of the powers that Republicans have right now. I don't think Republicans want us to have that power.
- [61:15]
Tim
Power.
- [61:16]
Chris
So can't we like tell MAGA guys you don't want us to have that power? You shouldn't either.
- [61:22]
Rich
That's that's where I wanted to go with that, which is, let's just make a trade. I mean you can, you can see that I'm a citizen. You can see that I pay my taxes. That's fine. You can see I maybe had an antibiotic like five years ago for like a sinus infection. This is great information. I'll tell you what, I'll trade you that information for a full on registry that cross applies. Name identity, home address, let's say gun ownership, domestic violence charges, mental health history, stock ownership, mental health history, any civil charges or criminal charges for illicit or lewd behavior, maybe things like that. DUI arrests, tax records, your social media posts and maybe like your phone calls and your text history. And let's just put all that together and let's see who wins in the end. I want to see this like on a reality TV show.
- [62:14]
Luke
Let's light this popsicle stand.
- [62:15]
Rich
Let's, let's take the top 20 Republicans on that list with the most, the juiciest stuff and let's compare them to the top 20 Democrats and let's just, let's just have it out. Let's see which is the party of, you know, law and order and family.
- [62:28]
Luke
Values and Christian life.
- [62:30]
Rich
And Christian life and let's see which party is just quietly going about their business thinking, wait, I'm not trying to game every single system. I didn't know that that was a thing that people could do. I know, I know how this would end, but I would love to watch it.
- [62:43]
Tim
Yeah, it's, it's funny to see these people either indifferent or pro lists of people when there's things like a gun registry is not something that's legal in this country. And you know that if you'd want like one one list, then you got to be okay with the other. It seems like, and honestly like the gun registry list probably would save thousands of lives also because we keep selling guns to people who are prohibited because our background check system is so screwed up and it requires police officers to go back into hostile situations, get those guns back. It's about 6,000 per year.
- [63:18]
Luke
So every time I saw one of those idiots in Texas that had that dumbass gun save live sticker on, my blood pressure shot about 50 every time.
- [63:28]
Tim
So, so I worked for every town for gun safety for two, almost two years. So I, I, I know a fair amount about this and that. That whole argument is just so completely insane because there is literally a talking about lists of all most of the mass shootings in this country. There Was somebody with a gun somewhere, A good guy with a gun somewhere. But, and Chris would know this better than me with his military service. But like, good guys don't just fire into the crowd to try to shoot the bad guy. They don't fire back because they're going to cause collateral damage. It doesn't work. There are no, almost no examples of good guys stopping bad guys with guns without people dying. Like Gabby Giffords. There was a shooter. There was a gunman there at Stone Us. The, the one in Parkland. There was a security guard with a gun who literally cowered and hid like. And I stood outside. It's, it's, it was over an hour and they had, and they were armed to the teeth. It's Texas and they didn't do anything. I'm glad that that sheriff got fired, a police chief got fired, because that is one of the worst things I've ever heard because you choose that profession and your job is to save those people that didn't do it. So that, the gun thing, I'll have that debate all day long because it is so obvious that you can have responsible gun owners and stronger gun laws and save lives. It is so obvious. Even just a background check. 30 states you can buy a gun without a background check because you just go online and you meet somebody in a, in a parking lot, you give them cash. Gone.
- [64:59]
Chris
Yep.
- [64:59]
Luke
Nothing.
- [65:00]
Chris
You know, and I want people to know as, as they're listening to this, that this is not a bunch of people who are anti gun lefty liberals.
- [65:09]
Zach
I don't agree.
- [65:10]
Chris
I'm wearing a firearm right now.
- [65:12]
Luke
You go far enough left, you get your guns back.
- [65:14]
Chris
I, I have a concealed carry permit.
- [65:17]
Luke
He's not the only one.
- [65:18]
Chris
So there is such a thing as, as responsible and, and safe gun ownership and, and you know what? I wouldn't have problem with, with my, with the records of what firearms I own or, or might sell or might be buying. I wouldn't have a problem with that list being federalized. New York State. State has, is on the back of my, my, my permit. Every, the registration for every single gun has to be on the back of my concealed carry permit. I don't understand what kind of American is afraid of that.
- [66:00]
Luke
The same people that walk around afraid that they're going to have some kind of a, you know, same people who are constantly ready that they're going to break into their house and they have to murder somebody. Somebody like they live in a constant state of paranoia.
- [66:12]
Rich
Since we, since we started. I know we need to wrap since we started with the Unfoc America tour, this is a perfect tie back in because a person in the audience pushed Charlie Kirk on this and he pointed out some. He had statistics he was ready to go about how about how a gun. Illegal gun ownership and gun crimes are. They create the single most dangerous encounters for police officers who have to then go and try to get those, those guns from those, from those people when those crimes happen. And so his argument was we can protect police officers lives if we know more about gun ownership. And Charlie Kirk actually conceded. He said that that's a really good argument. Which is the closest to taking an L He'll, he'll do publicly. He said that's a really good argument and I could see you're arguing in good faith, blah, blah, blah. And ultimately he came back to. To creating a registry. Textbook slippery slope. The only reason you'd create a gun registration is so that you could plan in the future to take them away. And. And he just left it on that. And now you look at what are you guys trying to do with. With people with autism again? What are you gonna. What are you gonna do with this list of. So do you want to talk about slippery slope arguments and lists? Because you guys are doing it everywhere and you're saying that it's not the case. We actually have the Constitution protecting our gun rights, having our name on a list that says oh that's Rich owns. You know, what do I own?
- [67:42]
Luke
We're all on a list, a separate list. By the way.
- [67:45]
Rich
I have no illegal weapons actually. But we have guns in the family and they're fun to shoot. I'll be the first one to say that. As long as you're out of range and you're shooting them legally, nothing wrong with that. And the second Amendment protects that right. So it's a bullshit argument it. And they still cherry pick it whenever they need it for their own ridiculous reasons.
- [68:05]
Tim
And we're going to. I want to end this with, with even Justice Antonin Scalia ruled back in the day that you could have limits on gun ownership based on certain criteria. They, they're even their like their holy grail of Supreme Court justices has said that there are quotes. You can go look them up. Anyways. We'll probably dive into the gun thing at another one because there probably will be a horrific event while we're doing the show at some point because we don't do anything about guns.
- [68:34]
Luke
And I quote, these things just happen. Donald Trump.
- [68:38]
Zach
Yep, yep.
- [68:39]
Tim
Just get over it. Was basically. He said that too Guys, I. I.
- [68:42]
Chris
Have a quick confession. I. For a second there, Tim, you just made me miss Antonin Scalina.
- [68:48]
Tim
Oh, my God.
- [68:49]
Chris
I. I just. I had to get it out because it was eating me up inside, dude. And it was. It was there for a second.
- [68:55]
Luke
My opinion of you just went down a little bit.
- [68:57]
Tim
I'm gonn.
- [68:58]
Luke
So, to end on a good note, Rich and I got to meet for the first time in person in Texas, and it was like, it was the coolest thing ever. Like, I like him way more than I did before. He's the fucking best. We had a lot of fun.
- [69:14]
Rich
We. We had a lot of fun. And Luke is absolutely awesome. He is exactly as. As. As packaged. Like, he's just. Is this guy. He's a little taller than you might expect. I think it's a camera angle thing.
- [69:25]
Luke
I had a lot of people tell me I was shorter than they expected, actually.
- [69:28]
Rich
And, and actually, if anybody. If anybody's listening still, we have about 7A listeners.
- [69:33]
Luke
I know where you're going with this.
- [69:34]
Rich
I'm. I want to challenge our listeners to post in the comments wherever you're watching this. How tall do you think each of us are?
- [69:42]
Luke
Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. I know that.
- [69:44]
Tim
I want to hear that. I want to hear that.
- [69:46]
Zach
So. So you do.
- [69:47]
Rich
Let's go all. Let's go all five. Just post, like, what. What height do you think we are guessing based on how we carry ourselves?
- [69:54]
Tim
Well, this will be a wonderful segue into. And where you can do that is going to our substack, which is findoutpodcast substack.com we will have a chat dedicated to this episode 7. I also want to make a separate, exciting announcement that we now have merchandise that you can purchase. And because we live our values, or are trying to. All of our stuff is made in America. And I think at least the embroidery and things is also all union. So. So we, you know, you'll see in there that maybe the prices are a little bit higher, but that's because we're supporting Americans doing. Doing great work here in the US So you can see that also on our substack, which is findout podcast.substack.com as always, thank you everybody for listening. I think we have more than seven or eight because we keep getting comments about going longer, and I'm like, my God, you guys want to hear us go longer than this? But I think an hour and 15 is pretty good for this episode. So. And I think in the coming weeks, we'll probably. We've got some stuff in the works that I think people will be really excited to hear about, which we will We' talk about then. But, you know, if you want to buy a T shirt and support some American businesses, go do that on Substack. And and until next time, guys, thank you again for everything, and have a great day.