The Spiel Saturday Show

Summary

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Podcast Summary

The Gist — The Spiel Saturday Show

Host: Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions)
Date: August 16, 2025
Duration: ~30 minutes

Episode Overview

In this Saturday edition of The Gist, Mike Pesca breaks format to present two “spiels” from the week that dig into the meaning and impact of misinformation, the responsibilities of journalists, and the dangers of false narratives—on both the left and right. Pesca examines an on-air statistical error by journalist Matt Taibbi and novelist Walter Kirn, using it to highlight confirmation bias and the rare humility of public correction. He then discusses the implications of a tragic shooting at the CDC in Atlanta, using it as a springboard to question claims about the deadly consequences of misinformation and to clarify the distinction between erroneous reporting and true ethical culpability.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Revisiting Format & Themes

• Pesca introduces a break from the usual structure (“one from the Vault, one from the week”) to focus on two recent topical spiels that tackle the definition, misuse, and ethical ramifications of the word “misinformation.”
• He emphasizes the importance of precision in language—especially when words like “misinformation” are used to justify ethical judgments or serious consequences.
  • “This whole debate is about the meaning of words.” (03:08)

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2. The Taibbi & Kern Crime Stats Flub (06:04–16:15)

Background

• Matt Taibbi and Walter Kern (Racket News) criticized the Washington D.C. police department’s murder statistics, misinterpreting a “year to date” metric as a projection or fabrication rather than a simple up-to-date comparison.
• Pesca guides listeners through their error and subsequent, if reluctant, recognition.

Key Moments & Quotes

• Taibbi and Kern’s Setup

  • “Has anyone guessed that… they have a number already for homicides for 2025?” — Taibbi, (08:20)
  • “That includes free crime. Right, right.” — Kern, echoing sci-fi notions of ‘pre-crime’, (08:49)

• Pesca’s Clarity

  • Pesca clarifies the stats: “That’s not what the phrase year to date means...it means up until that press release came out, which was August 11th.” (09:15)
  • He notes the error was clear if one simply read the release.

• Taibbi and Kern’s Realization

  • After more than 30 minutes of joking and critique:
    • “Wait, I think we may have missed something. Oh, no, it was year to date. Oh, damn.” — Taibbi, (12:10)
    • “Well, that’s what it is. That’s what it is. We just made a whole bunch of jokes about nothing.” — Taibbi, (12:23)
    • “I’m still not convinced, by the way… but maybe we were.” — Kern, demonstrating lingering reluctance, (13:39)

• Pesca’s Critique

  • Faults the pair for allowing their critique of officialdom and mainstream media to cloud their judgment, even after the mistake was acknowledged:
    • “His ‘I don’t have an agenda’ agenda is an agenda. But his basic agenda is to prove, even when proof is lacking, that the mainstream media is untrustworthy.” (13:48)
  • Acknowledges Taibbi’s value as a critic, but warns against trading one form of media trust for another:
    • “I do consider his critiques and take them to heart, though. Don’t swallow them whole.” (14:21)

Notable Insights

• The temptation to vilify perceived enemies or to “dunk” on the establishment can override careful scrutiny and fairness.
• Even independent journalists can fall into confirmation bias, especially if it suits their brand or business model.
• There is a crucial distinction between supplementing mainstream media and claiming to wholly replace it.

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3. The Shooting at the CDC and the ‘War on Misinformation’ (17:17–25:16)

Incident Recap

• A gunman (Patrick Joseph White), influenced by anti-CDC sentiments and apparent mental illness, attacked the CDC in Atlanta, killing a police officer.
• Public commentary quickly blamed “misinformation” and “disinformation,” suggesting a direct line from falsehoods to violence.

Quotes from Officials

• “There is a direct line from the vilification of the CDC during COVID, in the deliberate lies and mis/disinformation that continues today.” — Anonymous CDC official, quoted in Washington Post, (17:55)
• “The responsibility for this lies not just with the shooter, but those who have been spreading disinformation and misinformation against public health.” — Ali Khan (University of Nebraska), (18:36)

Pesca’s Analysis

• On Culpability

  • Disputes the blanket link between misinformation and lethal violence:
    • “No one forces a shooter to shoot… Shooters often have mental illness...but that doesn’t go far enough.” (18:38)
  • Most misinformed people do not become violent; equating the two is dangerous and reductive.

• On Misinformation

  • Misinformation is simply “things that aren’t true; supposed facts that are not so.”
    • He provides notable examples of Covid-era misinformation from high officials (Biden, Walensky, Fauci).
    • “You’re not going to get Covid if you get these vaccinations… Vaccinated people do not carry the virus…” (19:56–20:36)

• On Ethical Responsibility

  • Drawing a straight line from false claims (even if deliberate) to murder goes too far:
    • “There is not a direct line between misinformation and shooting people. There needn't be. And those responsible for misinforming do not bear the responsibilities of a murderer. Otherwise, we'd all be murderers.” (22:50)
  • Deliberate disinformation is more culpable, but it is not synonymous with murder.
  • Argues for a dangerous standard:
    • “When we start talking about and treating the presence of misinformation as culpability in crime and murder, it is a dangerous, dangerous standard.” (22:45)

• Final Principle

  • Emphasizes responsibility for words and the difference between making mistakes and acting with malice–but draws the line at culpability for violent acts taken by others.

Notable Moment

• Pesca acknowledges the complexity: while incendiary rhetoric (e.g., Russell Vought’s comments about wanting bureaucrats “traumatically affected” (24:50)) can be irresponsible and should be criticized, individuals remain responsible for their actions.

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4. Key Takeaways

• Precision in Language is Vital:
  Sloppy or agenda-driven use of terms like “misinformation” short-circuits meaningful debate and can be misused to justify extreme measures.
• Confirmation Bias is Ubiquitous:
  Regardless of their branding as mainstream or independent, journalists are vulnerable to agenda-driven errors—and slow or reluctant correction only deepens distrust.
• Ethics and Proportionality:
  While spreading inaccuracies is wrong, it is crucial to distinguish between a reporting error, ideological fervor, and incitement to crime.
• Personal Responsibility:
  Each person is ultimately responsible for their actions, and the urge to collapse all nuance into moral panic over “misinformation” should be resisted.

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Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------------|-----------------------------------------| | 01:06 | Pesca introduces break from usual format | | 06:04–16:15 | Taibbi & Kern “year-to-date” stats debacle | | 12:23–13:48 | Taibbi & Kern admit error, Pesca’s analysis | | 17:17–25:16 | CDC shooting, misinformation culpability debate | | 19:56–20:36 | Examples of government misinformation | | 22:45–22:50 | Danger of equating misinformation with murder | | 24:50 | Russell Vought “traumatically affected” quote |

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Notable Quotes

• On confirmation bias:
  • “His ‘I don’t have an agenda’ agenda is an agenda.” — Mike Pesca (13:48)
• On responsibility:
  • “There is not a direct line between misinformation and shooting people. There needn't be. And those responsible for misinforming do not bear the responsibilities of a murderer. Otherwise, we'd all be murderers.” — Mike Pesca (22:50)
• On precision:
  • “This whole debate is about the meaning of words.” — Mike Pesca (03:08)
• On the CDC’s role:
  • “It is also true that public health officials made mistakes… So, yeah, the information was not always correct, but that of course doesn’t mean you should shoot anyone over it.” — Mike Pesca (18:19–21:00)

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Tone

Pesca is sharp, skeptical, and moderately self-deprecating, combining detailed critique with humor and a commitment to clarity. He’s willing to challenge both mainstream and alternative media but is careful to avoid dogmatic conclusions—preferring instead to push for nuance, self-reflection, and the ethical high ground in public discourse.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

It's Saturday. It's the Saturday show. We usually do one from the Vault and one from the week. I say usually. I don't even know if that's true. 50% of the time we often a plurality of the time we do that. And I'm throwing out the format today. We had a couple good spiels this week. I was very spielzy. So I'm gonna bring you one that I did about a Matt Taibbi misstep where he and Walter Kern talked about these ridiculous statistics that Washington DC's police department put out. But they weren't ridiculous. He just got it wrong. And I guess my critique he did. He did correct himself good. So that takes it from you know, an F to a D plus maybe. But he still posted on all his accounts the commentary that you'll hear without a correction in print so that someone who was joining wouldn't waste or be misguided. For the first 30 to 35 minutes of his segment, there was a lot more that he could have done and that Racket News could have done if they wanted to really not allow misinformation, not to get into the discourse. Misinformation. That brings us to spiel two where I talked about the shooting at the CDC and a lot of maybe subtle points in there, some that are arguable. But if nothing else, please come away with the knowledge, the actual information, that the word misinformation just means things that are not true, supposed facts that are not so and so if there is a war on misinformation or claims that misinformation killed people, just know that that claim is saying getting something wrong has killed people can be deadly. Now, if you want to say, Mike, you're nitpicking. When people say misinformation, they really mean propaganda of a dangerous kind. No, this whole debate is about the meaning of words. So once we say misinformation and disinformation and allow that confluence to occur, we're giving permission for people, maybe even the government, to say misinformation can and is deadly. And if nothing else, if nothing else, just know that people are routinely using misinformation wrong and not in the same sense as when I say nonplussed, I mean confused, but you mean unfazed. They're using misinformation wrong in a forum where the stakes are getting words wrong should have serious consequences. Now, if you want. That's the one thing. If you need to take away one thing, if you need to take away two things I could have said in the piece, I do think this. People shouldn't just say anything. You'll come away. You'll listen to the spiel and know that I believe that people are very wrong to be inaccurate, be either knowingly inaccurate or having a level of inaccuracy that reflects negligence. So as a principle, I would say misinformation should not be used as a casus belli or an indictment or any reason to ethically connect someone to an extremely unethical act. But I would say, if you want to articulate a principle, that one should not vilify the innocent, and one should especially not vilify the knowingly innocent. And in fact, the stakes for knowingly vilifying the innocent should be high. And there in fact could be some culpability for knowingly vilifying the innocent. And yes, I subscribe to that. But you see how it's different from the misinformation point I'm making. Maybe you don't, because you haven't heard the spiel yet. So I'll shut up and let you have access to the information. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

[B]

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[C]

That's not the itinerary we're following.

[B]

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[C]

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[A]

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[C]

And now the Spiel Matt Taibbi is an independent journalist whose racket news site on Substack has over half a million followers. He's made many contributions to knowledge, the base of human knowledge, and he has from time to time, I'd say, kind of often a valuable critique of the flaws of mainstream media. He's definitely good with a description. He is, however, a bit more of a showman than I like from my news purveyors. Once when we were on a campaign trail in 2004, he took either LSD or mushrooms and put on I can't remember a horse mask. I don't need that sort of thing. But it's all fine, it's all good. It's all part of the rich mix of what the media has become. But on Monday, he and his fellow racket news contributor, the novelist Walter Kern, engaged in a live chat which was aired on YouTube x substack. It's called America this Week and these segments are political discussion, media critique, and in this particular session, which is a mainstay of America this Week, a dunk a thon on the official narrative. The issue specifically was crime statistics in Washington, D.C. which prompted President Trump to send in the National Guard. The city a couple days ago put out a press release titled 2025 Year to Date Crime Comparison. To take the top line figures on murder year to date, 2025, you know what year to date means? It means up until that press release came out, which was August 11th, there were 99 murders. Then they compared it to 2024 and up until the year at this date in 2024, there were 112 murders. So they were more last year. This validated the DC officialdom claim that murders had gone down 12% year to date. Here was Taibi setting up the stats.

[D]

So the District Columbia wanted to preempt the hoopla about Trump's press conference by putting out a little press release that's entitled 2025 year to date Crime Comparison.

[C]

Taibbi and Kern were giddy already. They were laughing at what they were about to unveil. They were teasing it.

[D]

Has anyone guessed, do any of our, have any of our readers yet guessed the punchline of this story? Has anyone guessed that? No. No responsible reporters thought to reach out for, to see, to see what's up with those numbers? Because the first thing that jumps out to me is, gosh, they have a, a number already for homicides for 2025.

[E]

Exactly. That includes, that includes free crime. Right, Right.

[D]

Yeah. How are they, how are they scaling out for the whole year?

[E]

Is it isn't the Philip K. Dick novel set or the least movie in Washington D.C. the home of pre crime?

[D]

It is. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That was where. That was where they instituted the first pre crime program. So they obviously, they know how many murders there are going to be in 2025 already.

[C]

But wait, that's not what the phrase year to date means. This is a year to date comparison, as is clear not just by the headline of the press release, but by the fact that if you scroll down in the press release, you see pretty clearly a chart that has the total murders of 2024. And total murders in 2024 was of course higher than the number of murders in the second week of August 2024. That is the year to date. The two hosts, egged on by a response from a DC official which they misinterpreted, were delighted not only that DC got caught in a lie, but that this lie pretty much validated all their theories of feckless corporate media and the laziness and cupidity of both the powers that be and their journalist, quote, unquote, lackeys. The two played a clip from CBS News which caused them to slap foreheads and laughter.

[E]

The mayor of Washington D.C. emphasized over the weekend that the data which was produced in concert with the Justice Department, shows a nearly 30% drop in crime from this time last year. The homicide rate down about 12%. You'll see some of the numbers. It's been a downward trajectory since a spike in crime. Dude, what I love, what I love about this is that it actually shows that crime is going up, at least murder, because we are now at the two thirds point, which is approximately 33% less than the whole. But murder at the 33 with 66% reporting is only down 12%. It should be down 33%.

[C]

No, it shouldn't, because it's a year to date comparison. Taibi could not believe how the press could be so lazy.

[D]

And by the way, it's a question you have to ask when you look at it, because the numbers don't make any sense.

[E]

The.

[D]

You don't. If it had said through eight, yes, then you could. You could leave it be. But you can. There's no way to.

[E]

And they. And, and they could have. If they'd wanted to be at all honest, they could have compared the first eight months of last year to the first eight months of this.

[C]

That was the comparison. I tried to see how they could have gotten it so wrong. I think their confusion depended on not reading the entire news release. A somewhat, if I'm being generous to them, a somewhat ambiguous response from a D.C. official, but not so ambiguous that it confused me who did read the entire news release. But also their response depended on being so willing, so eager to think that their usual punching bags were earning their status once again. After more than half an hour of dunking and lecturing and confirmation bias on rails, Taibi read a post from a viewer, his brow furrowed. Wait, I think we may have missed something. Oh, no, it was year to date. Oh, damn. Kern wasn't buying the idea that he and Taibi had even made a mistake.

[D]

Well, that's what it is. That's what it is. We just made a whole bunch of jokes about nothing. But.

[E]

But what are you talking about? I mean, we're still not finished with this year.

[D]

Well, right.

[C]

Yeah, but they're.

[E]

They're claiming that. They're claiming that 112 only represents up until August of last year.

[D]

Yeah, well, that's what our. That's what our commenter is saying.

[C]

I.

[E]

They must have information that we don't, because nowhere here, nor in the email that we received is that. Is that stated.

[C]

Yeah, except right at the top of the press release. What had become a lesson in the merits of double checking now became a lesson in the merits of triple checking. I could give Taibi a pass, and I do give him a little bit of a pass. Some other kind of broadcasters would try to dig in or fool the audience knowing they could. And in fact, I read the comments on substack and on YouTube and no one in their audience was too critical and of what they had done. In fact, most people were talking about something else entirely. We do all get things wrong. I know I do. Taibi did fess up somewhat reluctantly. Kern till the end, less so.

[E]

I'm still not convinced, by the way. I'm still not convinced we were in error, but maybe we were but here's.

[C]

What argues against too much forgiveness in their admission or because of their admission of error. 1. The tone of the courage immediately went to the motivations of those who they thought had gotten it wrong. The government are liars. The press, the mainstream media, pure dupes. Well, I don't think Matt Taibbi is a dupe, but I do think he has an agenda. His I don't have an agenda agenda is an agenda. But his basic agenda is to prove, even when proof is lacking, that the mainstream media is untrustworthy. A large part of his critique is to explain the media's coverage as motivated by their business incentives. To quote from his book Hate Inc. The media profits from our anger and divisiveness, pitting us against each other for their own gain. But one reason he and Kern got it so wrong was because of their own business incentives to demonstrate themselves as a superior alternative to the mainstream media. They rushed out a story on the air without vetting it, and they were embarrassed. Now, if you want to say something like, come on, it's not really the air, it's just a livestream. And how are two guys, maybe a producer back there, supposed to check everything okay? But their pitch to their followers and readers and audience and customers isn't that they are a worthy supplement to the media. It's that they are a valid alternative to the media, a replacement. Don't trust the New York Times. Don't trust CBS News on these issues. Trust us Racket news, the swashbuckling, vivid no fucks given pirate ship of a news organization that will call out the media's endless hypocrisy. I submit that they have some hypocrisy, but there is an end to it. In fact, Taibi also sometimes has something to add. I do consider his critiques and take them to heart, though. Don't swallow them whole. But as an alternative to the New York Times, if I only had to subscribe to one, as a general rule, I would pick the New York Times. I would even pick CBS News. I might even pick the LA Times. But now I'm stretching it. And this, of course, isn't to say that the New York Times gets everything right. But who does not? These two guys. Let's map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.

[B]

Honestly, Will, I didn't plan any trips, but I did switch to T Mobile with their new family freedom offer.

[C]

That's not the itinerary we're following.

[B]

Well, I'm departing from AT&T and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house.

[C]

Bon voyage.

[A]

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[C]

On Friday, a disturbed 30 year old Patrick Joseph White hauled five firearms to the CDC in Atlanta and opened fire. Five hundred rounds later, windows were shattered, employees ducked under their desks and a local police officer was killed, as was the gunman, by his own hand, it was revealed today. White was driven mad, literally, by his own thoughts on the CDC and Covid the CDC is the world's premier health organization, and without its expertise, leadership and ingenuity, it's plausible to make the case that tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands more Americans would be dead today from coronavirus. It is also true that public health officials made mistakes, and one mistake was contained in this quote in the Washington Post, a veteran official asking for anonymity said there is a direct line from the vilification of the CDC during COVID In the deliberate lies and mis disinformation that continues today, he wrote Ms. Slash. Disinformation that was echoed in a quote from a former CDC official, Ali Khan, now at the University of Nebraska Medical center and therefore not under orders for the CDC to comment. Here's what he told NPR the responsibility for this lies not just for the.

[E]

Shooter, but those who have been spreading.

[C]

Disinformation and misinformation against public health. That is wrong. Or perhaps I should say I disagree, as expressions of certainty are among my critiques. First of all, as a general rule, no one forces a shooter to shoot at which we would stop thinking so. Shooters often have mental illness, maybe not as defined by the law, but as defined by psychiatry. And as I usually say, these shooters have easy access to guns in America. However, in this case, that doesn't go far enough. White lived in Kennesaw, Georgia, which literally requires every homeowner to own a gun. Newscasters from far and wide periodically find this fact a newsworthy curiosity. As the debate over guns in Washington continues, there's one place where Technically, the law says a gun is a requirement. Welcome to Kennesaw. We love everybody. Kennesaw, Georgia were quote every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm. The law isn't enforced, but it is a law. Though White acted illegally and illogically to say the least, he was not well informed about the cdc. His role in stopping the spread of COVID Does that mean he was the subject of disinformation? Very well. Could be. A lot of claims were made by people who knew them to be untrue yet still made the claims. Then there were the types of claims made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Current head of HHS, who ordered the flags flown at half staff that were inaccurate. Yet I can't assess Kennedy's mindset in making the claims. So this does all add up to the shooter being likely, very likely as revealed by his actions. Mentally ill but also misinformed. But you know how the vast, vast, vast majority of misinformed Americans reacted to the information that was attempting to misinform them. They thought about it. They maybe rethought their positions. They maybe evaluated the claims. They quite possibly rejected the claims that constituted misinformation. Basically, they engaged in the role of the citizen and the thinker in evaluating truth claims. Because when it comes to misinformation, it just means things that aren't true. And around Covid, there were a lot of things that were said that weren't true. The following statements all count as Covid misinformation. You're not going to get Covid if you get these vaccinations. That was said by Joe Biden in a July 2021 CNN town hall. Vaccinated people do not carry the virus. That piece of misinformation was said by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in March of 2021 on MSNBC and Anthony Foushee in May of 21 on NBC said, When you get vaccinated you become a dead end to the virus. The cdc, or at least the broader public health community, but also specifically the cdc, got a lot wrong. They got the six foot distancing rule wrong. Or at least there was no real justification at all for 6ft over 4 or 3 FE. They got fomites wrong. Transmission via surfaces. That's why we were all wiping in the early stages of COVID They got the outdoor transmission risk wrong. Up through vaccination they were conflating outdoor and indoor transmission risk. They got their emphasis on droplet transmission wrong. There was ample evidence for airborne transmission by spring and summer of 2020. But the CDC guidance still lagged and the agency only explicitly acknowledged aerosols as a significant route of transm in late 2020 and updated their guidance in 2021. I interviewed Carl Zimmer all about this. So, okay, that was wrong, of course, a lot of wrong information about how dangerous the virus was when it wasn't, and how it wasn't tested when it was, and how it wouldn't work when it did. So, yeah, the information was not always correct, but that of course doesn't mean you should shoot anyone over it. Which is exactly my point. There is not a direct line between misinformation and shooting people. There needn't be. And those responsible for misinforming do not bear the responsibilities of a murderer. Otherwise, we'd all be murderers. I got Covid information wrong. I like I presume many in the CDC were trying to do the best I could. Unlike many in the cdc, I didn't have political calculations as well, and I tried not to dig in quite so far as they did at times. It also didn't create and help disseminate a miracle cure that saved millions of people's lives. So they did a lot better on Covid than I do. But I do have to say, when we start talking about and treating the presence of misinformation as culpability in crime and murder, it is a dangerous, dangerous standard. Engaging in disinformation, that's a little different. That is a misdeed. But it's also not akin to murder. Especially because what you and I might call disinformation. The disinformer in question might legitimately plead that it is their earnest, if incorrect, belief. The responsible party in all of this was the shooter. His milieu of mandatory gun ownership did not cause him to kill a police officer and terrorize scientists, but it certainly didn't reduce the temperature. It didn't create norms that he would have to violate in order to carry out his evil deeds. The statements of top administration officials before they were in office also did not help to lower the temperature. Here now is a quote by Russell Vogt, who is currently head of the Office of Management and Budget. This was before he got that job, when he was working as an activist and a private citizen and one of the authors, main authors of Project 2025.

[E]

We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected when they wake up in the morning. We want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down. So that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so. We want to put them in trauma.

[C]

Russell Vote, to be clear, did not put a gun in anyone's hands, did not necessarily put a thought in anyone's head. That responsibility, I'll say again and again and again, lies with Patrick Joseph White alone. But I do have to say maybe you're feeling this too, that if Vote takes a little heat today, feels, how should I say, feels a little trauma, it wouldn't be an unfathomable injustice. But I also wouldn't suggest that my vilifying him makes me responsible for something that someone else might do. We're all responsible for ourselves, but it is also the case that some of us quite clearly are irresponsible when it comes to putting false statements out into the world and when it comes to taking care of the safety of others. And that's it for today's show. Corey War is the Gist producer. Ashley Khan is our production coordinator. Kathleen Sykes is a composer of the gist list. MikePaska substack.com Philip Swissgood helps with so many of our substack and social media initiatives. And there Stirring the cauldron. The straw that stirs the drink is Michelle Pesca oom Peru G Peru du Peru and thanks for listening.

[F]

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