3581 - False Kirk Killer Narratives; Private Equity Killing the American Dream w/ Megan Greenwell

Summary

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The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3581 - False Kirk Killer Narratives; Private Equity Killing the American Dream w/ Megan Greenwell
Date: September 15, 2025
Host: Sam Seder
Guest: Megan Greenwell, author of Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles two major themes. First, Sam Seder and the crew dissect the rapid spread of misinformation and baseless narratives around the killing of Charlie Kirk, highlighting the dangers of politicized speculation and media irresponsibility. The second centerpiece is a long-form interview with journalist and author Megan Greenwell, who exposes how private equity is eroding the foundations of American society—from retail and media to healthcare and housing—extracting value for a few at the expense of workers, communities, and essential services.

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I. False Narratives Around the Charlie Kirk Shooting

(00:00 – 21:12)

The Spread of Misinformation

• Sam Seder frames the segment as a cautionary tale about runaway speculation in the wake of tragedies and the weaponization of partial truths by politicians and media personalities.

• A focal point is Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who, without concrete evidence, publicly suggested the suspect held “leftist ideology.” Seder notes such statements are irresponsibly vague and inflame division.

  • Quote: “If you're going to put out statements that this guy has leftist ideology, you should be able to...say what one single building block about that is.” (Sam Seder, 15:16)

• Clips from Bill Maher's show illustrate how mainstream and right-wing personalities immediately pinned political motives on the shooter without facts.

  • Quote: “It's two days out. We don't know shit.” (Bill Maher guest/caller, 09:02)

• Sam expresses frustration that major media fails to challenge these narratives or demand evidence.

The Dangers of Politicized Speculation

• Seder explains the information vacuum is being filled by right-wing operatives like Cash Patel, who amplify unsourced reporting, thus muddying public understanding and undermining justice.

• When pressed for evidence, officials and pundits either provide platitudes or admit they know nothing substantial.

  • Quote: “Conversations about discussions does not in any way even come remotely close to answering what she's saying.” (Sam Seder, 14:56)

• Both Seder and Matt Binder underscore that being “not a fan” of Charlie Kirk does not equate to holding a particular political ideology, nor justify drawing sweeping conclusions about motive.

  • Quote: “I don't think there was anybody in the country who thought maybe this was just a really intense fan of Charlie Kirk's.” (Sam Seder, 19:03)

• The discussion closes with criticism of normie media’s inability or unwillingness to hold political figures accountable for such speculation.

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II. Interview: Megan Greenwell on Private Equity Killing the American Dream

(30:01 – 65:06)

Greenwell’s Entry Point: The Deadspin Story

• Megan Greenwell recounts her time as editor-in-chief of Deadspin, which was bought by the private equity firm Great Hill Partners:
  • Quote: “Day one, I knew this was going to be a disaster. They came in asking the dumbest possible questions...clearly intending to use the answer to justify their own bad decisions.” (Megan Greenwell, 30:01)
• Deadspin, despite being profitable and beloved, was gutted for its URL value and left a husk, emblematic of private equity’s extractive ethos.

How Private Equity Operates—and Ruins

• Seder summarizes private equity as fundamentally about extraction—sucking value from enterprises for the benefit of investors, often at the direct expense of employees, communities, and consumers.

• Megan distinguishes private equity from venture capital:

  • Venture Capital: Takes stakes in startups, seeking big successes (i.e., unicorns). Wins only if companies thrive.
  • Private Equity: Acquires entire (often mature) companies, loads them with debt, extracts value, and can profit even if the company fails.

• Case Study: Toys R Us

  • Private equity firms bought Toys R Us using debt loaded onto the company itself, sold off assets (like real estate), extracted fees, and let the company go bankrupt.
  • Employees lost jobs and severance while the private equity owners profited.
  • Quote: “KKR and Bain Capital, the two private equity firms in charge, both walked away from the life of that deal making a profit.” (Greenwell, 38:43)
  • Seder, amazed: “They take out a loan to buy the company and then they make the company responsible for the loan. Then they extract all the value out… They walk away with all the money and they basically extract. It's insane.” (41:06)

• Hospitals & Medicine:

  • PE consolidates hospitals to maximize short-term profits, often slashing essential services.
  • Example: After a PE takeover in Wyoming, maternal and emergency care disappeared, forcing patients onto expensive medevac flights—often also PE-owned.
  • Quote: “You can't get service at your private equity owned hospital. Private equity has bought the medevac company and obviously increased the prices dramatically...the only reason you are being charged that bill in the first place is because they took all the services from your local hospital.” (45:02–46:55)

• Media:

  • PE buys up local papers, slashes newsroom staff, sells headquarters, and turns newspapers into “ghost” outlets filled with syndicated/recycled content, eroding public oversight, community discourse, and even raising municipal bond costs.
  • Quote: “There is an entire class of what scholars call ghost newspapers, which are newspapers that still come out and people still pay subscriptions for them, but they do not have a single journalist on staff.” (Greenwell, 50:31)

• Housing:

  • PE targets entire sectors, from mobile homes to apartments; tenants suffer from deteriorating maintenance and rising rents, often subsidized by government-backed low-interest loans intended for ordinary homebuyers.
  • Quote: “Private equity firms can access money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… that money has a very, very low interest rate… Fannie and Freddie money has been absolutely crucial to private equity firms profiting off of housing.” (Greenwell, 56:04)
  • Efforts to fight back are hamstrung by lack of tenant protections in many states.

Regulatory Failure and Political Capture

• There is little to no federal regulation of private equity, which is shielded from most disclosure requirements.
  • Quote: “On the federal level, I don't see that changing anytime soon because… 88% of the House and Senate are on the dole of private equity.” (Greenwell, 59:02)
• State-level reforms offer limited hope (e.g., restrictions on PE ownership of hospitals in Oregon).
• Elizabeth Warren’s Stop Wall Street Looting Act is repeatedly introduced but is consistently blocked in Congress.

Resources and Call to Action

• The Private Equity Stakeholder Project is highlighted as a useful tool for tracking PE ownership, especially in healthcare.
• Seder underscores the importance of public awareness: the degradation of daily life—whether in hospitals, media, or housing—is often due to invisible private equity ownership.
  • Quote: “Our daily lives is just a little crappier because of this, and we don't know why.” (Seder, 62:21)

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III. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the futility and cynicism of politicized speculation:
  • "It's two days out. We don't know shit." (Bill Maher guest/caller, 09:02)
  • "You're out there saying that he has some leftist ideology. In what way wasn't he a fan of Charlie Kirk? ...You don't have to go back more than a couple of weeks to see Nick Fuentes making it clear that he was not a fan of Charlie Kirk." (Sam Seder, 17:59)
• On private equity:
  • “The ultimate goal for a private equity firm is solely to make money for itself. That does not require, in a lot of cases, making money for the portfolio company.” (Greenwell, 34:24)
• On hope and organizing:
  • “One thing that really unites people across the political spectrum is being upset about income inequality and being upset at billionaires. ... Once people see what is going on with private equity, they start to think they should do something about it.” (Greenwell, 60:22)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00 – 08:28: Episode open; rundown of false narratives around the Kirk shooting
• 08:28 – 21:12: Extended dissection of misinformation, Bill Maher segment, media critique
• 30:01 – 36:56: Interview with Megan Greenwell begins: Deadspin story and introduction to private equity logic
• 36:56 – 46:55: Deep dive into PE’s impacts on retail (Toys R Us), hospitals, and the mechanics of extraction
• 47:57 – 54:42: Impact on local media and housing; human stories from Greenwell’s book
• 56:04 – 62:21: Regulatory failures, capture of political system, limited state interventions
• 62:21 – 63:29: Resources for tracking PE, need for public awareness
• 63:29 – 65:09: Wrap-up; Seder recaps key lessons

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Episode Tone

Sam Seder’s tone throughout is frustrated, incisive, and sometimes darkly humorous. Megan Greenwell brings deep reporting, compassion for her subjects, and moral clarity to a complex issue. The episode underscores that the destructive logic of private equity—driven by short-term profit and enabled by lack of political will—makes daily life harder for millions, often invisibly.

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Takeaways

• Political narratives spun without evidence undermine democracy and justice.
• Private equity’s business model is fundamentally extractive, often harming workers, communities, and consumers for the enrichment of a few.
• Regulatory and political capture means federal reform is remote, but local/state activism and resource sharing (like the Private Equity Stakeholder Project) offer potential for resistance.
• Understanding the hidden hand of private equity is crucial for anyone who wonders why basic aspects of American life—news, health, housing, even pet care—keep getting worse.

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References

• Private Equity Stakeholder Project Hospital Tracker
• Megan Greenwell’s Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream
• Majority.fm for episode show notes and links

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Transcript

[Sam Seder]

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And that's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. My cat super, super partial to the the chicken flavor the bird one. But the thing that he really loves is not only is the freeze dried puffball snacks things. My cat now has a thing where he climbs up cabinets and the leg literally. It's his way of saying like, I'm ready for my treat. But the difference between pre Smalls and post Smalls is huge. The you're gonna, your cat's gonna get a shinier coat. I am not sure, but I think the litter box smells a little better. I try not to smell it too much. But nevertheless, like I say, Smalls also has a bunch of amazing treats and snacks that you can order. They also have this broth that you can put on the food to juice it. Essentially, my cat again loves the the the bird one. And if you have a picky cat, Smalls has a sampler. So you can try everything that Smalls has to offer. What are you waiting for? Give your cat food the your cat the food they deserve. For a limited time only because you are a Majority report viewer or Listener, you get 60% off your first smalls order plus free shipping by using our code majority. That's 60% off. When you head to smalls.com use the promo code Majority. Again, that's promo code majority for 60% off your first order plus free [e-mail] now time for the show the Majority report with Sam Cedar, it is Monday, September 15th, 2025. My name is Sam Seder. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, Megan Greenwell, journalist and author of Bad Company, Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. Also on the program today, Kirk Shooter not cooperating. So the Utah governor decides to set a motive narrative. Meanwhile, Trump claims he's made a deal with China over TikTok. You know what that means? It's taco Monday. Fed meets tomorrow. Trump still trying to illicitly fire one of its governors in the wake of shackling 300 Korean workers. TRUMP desperately begs for more foreign investment. It was a goof. Sorry about that. You don't hold it against me. Governor Hochul endorses Mamdani, leaving Schumer and Jeffries in the lurch 15 days before a government shutdown. And Republicans plan to jam Chuck Schumer and watch him cave. EPA formally proposes eliminating reporting of corporate greenhouse gas emissions. Republican Education Department ends discretionary funding for colleges with large minority student populations. State Department reauthorization bill to include a provision to allow the State Department to revoke passports of U.S. citizens who are public about disagreements with U.S. policy. And farmers coast to coast in despair between tariffs and a lack of labor. One of the farmers called American workers spoiled all this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks so much for joining us. It is a Monday. Emma is out today. Just a little bit of house cleaning. I'm going to be out for the next couple of days. Family member passed away. My uncle, he was into his 90s, so he lived a long life. Very sweet man. And so I'll be out for a couple of days for that. Emma will be here. Just wanted to give you a heads up. Meanwhile, of course, the there is just been an incredible amount of misinformation, lack of information coming out about the suspect who killed Charlie Kirk. The reports are that the killer or suspected killer is not cooperating with authorities. And then a whole mess of other stuff that has come out largely based upon half statements by the Utah governor and then reporting that is from sources that are around the investigation. You have Cash Patel retweeting reporters reporting that is not directly attributed only to sources around the FBI. Normally what happens is if the FBI wants to put something out, they'll put a statement on it. So when Cash Patel is retweeting reports that supposedly are going on with the FBI, you have to wonder why is it that he wants to maintain that arm's length and create this narrative, this clip. And I am in no way praising Bill Maher on this, but this clip, I think captures the dynamic that has gone on over the course of the weekend. This is Ben Shapiro on tour. I guess in the wake of Charlie Kirk being assassinated.

[Matt Binder]

He's also got a book out.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, he's got a book out, too. Here he is on Bill Marshall.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

If there's a shooting at a synagogue, it is very likely to be either a white supremacist or a radical Muslim. If it is a shooting of a Republican politician, it is very likely to be a trans antifa Marxist shooting.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

That is just not true. We don't know what this kid is.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

We do know this kid was of the left. We do know that.

[Sam Seder]

We do know what that this kid.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

Was of the political left. That is according to contemporaneous reporting from the Guardian as well as Tablet magazine today.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

It's two days out. We don't know shit.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

But here's.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

We don't know shit. They never do. The Internet is undefeated in getting it wrong to begin with.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

It's not about the Internet. That's about the. That's about the actual reporting by mainstream. Except the Guardian is not a right wing.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

Here's what I. Here's what we heard. Here's what I was told so far. And I'll tell you what was wrong. First I heard he's a registered Republican. Not.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

Not true.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

Okay, then he was a donor to Trump. Not true. His father works in the sheriff's office. Not true. There was a picture of him wearing a pro Trump shirt. Not true. Member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Not true. We don't know what he is. Well, how are you so sure he's of the left now. I agree. When you write on a bullet. When did he write on the bullet.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

To catch his fascists, which is also a gamer thing.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

Okay. But now I'm hearing he. He may have been part of that group for whom Charlie Kirk was not right wing enough.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

I mean, the gripers.

[Sam Seder]

Yes.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

I mean, so that would.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

But you're sure he's not that.

[Bill Maher (clip)]

I'm not sure that he's not sure what he was. Hold on, hold on, Bill. Hold on.

[Sam Seder]

Okay? Because I've been. You were. I mean, yeah, we don't know about this guy. And even the information that we're getting put aside the reporting because the reporting has to be coming from somewhere. And there has been no one who has been. Who has said in any of the reporting that I've seen where there's a quote from anybody who said he's of the left. This is what we get from the guy. First of all, I can't even like how incredibly, you know, the idea of hypocrisy is. Who cares? But this guy, what's his name? Cox. Spencer Cox, who's out there talking like we must come together. And then, you know, dog whistles, you know, there's no rioting, there's no basically just presenting the right wing talking points and how we need to come together and calm things down. Then he goes on this tour this weekend and giving half information. I mean, aside from the fact that God knows what he's going to do to any attempts to convict this guy. But all of this sort of like it's half conjecture. Yeah. I mean, watch this. With the notion that what Spencer Cox is out there going is like, we know two plus maybe two equals. I'm not going to say what it equals. People are going to have to decide for themselves. That's what he's doing here. And it is. And it's that second two in that equation that is like vague enough. And then again, you got Cash Patel out there retweeting reporting that supposedly is attributing things to the FBI, but he has the ability to put out a statement from the FBI.

[Interviewer or Journalist]

Good, understood. I just want to go back to my first question about what you told the Wall Street Journal about that. This is a person indoctrinated with leftist ideology. And the reason why I think it would be great to be more specific is because your goal of trying to lower the temperature. You said that this is based on investigation and interviews with people who knew him. Did they just use the term leftist ideology or did they give specifics?

[Investigator or Expert]

Yeah, there are. I mean, there are conversations that, that were discussed specifically about Charlie Kirk. Other conversations about the positive.

[Sam Seder]

He is not addressing the question here. He is not addressing the question. And the bottom line is if you're going to put out statements that this guy has left this ideology, you should be able to. Which you shouldn't be doing at this point until you have really like it all sewn up. You should be able to answer the her question with, yes, we have had specifics where people we have interviewed who are very close to him have said, quote, he had a leftist ideology. But instead he's dancing around all this stuff like the level of irresponsibility of this guy is off the charts. Go back a little bit and just let people Listen to the way he responds to this question. It is insane.

[Interviewer or Journalist]

Sure. You said that this is based on investigation and interviews with people who knew him. And did they just use the term leftist ideology or did they give specifics?

[Investigator or Expert]

Yeah, there are, I mean, there are conversations that, that were discussed specifically about Charlie Kirk, other conversations about the direction that this was going. And look, I, My job is just to tell people, I don't, I don't, I really don't have a dog in this fight. If this was, if this was MAGA and a radicalized MAGA person, I would be saying that as well. If the friends were saying that, I would be sharing that as well. That's, that's, that's not what they're sharing. And so I do think it is important, again, to understand how someone gets radicalized like this. And in this case, as much as people wish it wasn't or don't want it to be, this, these are the facts that are being presented to us. If there are additional facts that would point otherwise. But family discussions, parents, this is what they're saying. And again, these things happen. And so it's okay to have these discussions.

[Interviewer or Journalist]

Listen. Absolutely. Trying to get more facts, more details of the facts that you're putting out. One last question on that. You just.

[Sam Seder]

No, no, she's not trying to get more facts. She's trying to get a fact. Conversations about discussions does not in any way even come remotely close to answering what she's saying. So if this guy's able to go out and say he had a left wing ideology, why can't he state a single fact?

[Matt Binder]

Someone will testify.

[Sam Seder]

That would be a piece of evidence of that. Not a shred of it. It is. This is just in. And the idea that we don't have major mass media editorials or whatnot saying that this guy is acting about as recklessly as you possibly could at this point in this veneer of trying to be like, I would say it if it was bad. You're not saying anything except for you're making some broad assessment and you can't even say what that, what one single building block about that is. If it is the case, and we don't know if it is the case that this guy was in a romantic relationship with another man or was in a romantic relationship with a transgender woman. If that's the case, that still doesn't mean that this person had left. I can tell you right now that there are gripers who are either out and gay or secretly gay. I know this. That is the case. So the idea that. And we don't even know about whether any of that is true. There's a picture of a roommate wearing.

[Matt Binder]

A onesie and some hearsay relayed by law enforcement or.

[Sam Seder]

And this guy goes on and makes assessments in the press. And then when he's questioned as to like, what is one element that is the basis of that assessment and nothing. Plato.

[Investigator or Expert]

So it's. It's okay to have these discussions.

[Interviewer or Journalist]

Listen, absolutely. And I'm just trying to get more facts, more details of the facts that you're putting out there. One last question on that you just said right now, which is something that you mentioned on Friday, is that he had discussions with family members about Charlie Kirk. Do you have specifics on what he was saying about Charlie Kirk to his family?

[Investigator or Expert]

Just not a fan. That's. That's all I can see.

[Interviewer or Journalist]

Okay. Not a specific reason why.

[Sam Seder]

Oh, that's funny. I mean, it's. I don't know why he's laughing, but he's not a fan of Charlie Kirk. You know what? I would have guessed that based upon the bullet that he put into Charlie Kirk. The question isn't whether he was a fan of Charlie Kirk. You're out there saying that he has some leftist ideology. In what way wasn't he a fan of Charlie Kirk? Because you can go back to 2017, back at the time when Charlie Kirk was okay being on stage with a gay man and in front of TP USA and watch the gripers go up and add a mic and go after Charlie Kirk because of this. And they are not fans of Charlie Kirk. You don't have to go back more than a couple of weeks to see Nick Fuentes making it clear that he was not a fan of Charlie Kirk.

[Matt Binder]

Shouldn't let him call himself a Christian.

[Sam Seder]

I am also was not a fan of Charlie Kirk's, but I'm not going to commit any type of violent acts that doesn't tell us anything about the shooter. I don't think there was anybody in the country who thought maybe this was just a really intense fan of Charlie Kirk's. So the governor is going out there making assessments, and when he's questioned on even providing one iota of substance to support those assessments, all he does is say the most obvious thing in the world, that the killer of Charlie Kirk was not a fan of Charlie Kirk's and just leaves it out there to imply that he was not a fan of Charlie Kirk's because he was a leftist. Just. I mean, I don't have any different expectations of People on the right. But the idea that the normie media doesn't seem to be able to point out, like, hey, this is nuts what he's doing here. Nuts. All right, in a minute we're going to be talking to Meghan Greenwald, journalist and author of Bad Company, Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. We got a couple of sponsors of the program today. Things are off the hook. I don't know what to tell you. Where are we here? Okay.

[Megan Greenwell]

Oh.

[Sam Seder]

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I got to tell you, I've been waiting, I've been waiting to start to see books about private equity because it is such a, I think, a nefarious force in not just like our economy, but like it is degrading so much, it seems to me, in our society. Let's just start like with your experience that that motivated you at Deadspin to write the book.

[Megan Greenwell]

I was the editor in chief of Deadspin, which was a small kind of leftist, kind of snarky sports site. And that was really my dream job. That was where I wanted to work. Once I got that job, I was sort of like, great, this is where I'm staying. And it all went wrong. Within about a year and a half, we were bought by a private equity firm based in Boston called Great Hill Partners. And really, day one, I knew this was going to be a disaster. They came in asking the dumbest possible questions, but not even asking dumb questions with a spirit of curiosity, asking dumb questions, clearly intending to use the answer to justify their own bad decisions. And Deadspin was profitable. Deadspin had a huge, very loyal audience, 20 million unique visitors a month with a staff of 20. We were doing really, really well. And so I sort of naively thought, you know, we'll be fine because we're doing well. That was not the case. I was driven out of my job within about three months. The rest of my colleagues followed me out the door about two months after that. And it really got me interested in why private equity works the way it does and how it plays out in other industries, you know, where the stakes are a little more life or death than in snarky sports blogs.

[Sam Seder]

We should say that. Well, there's a couple of things. I mean, one, this is really a story about extraction, and in many respects it really reflects what we're seeing going on in the government writ large, frankly, where an enterprise is essentially sucked of its life force because it there's so much here. I just got to say, though, you had mentioned at one point that Deadspin still is around, but it is now a husk of itself. And it was bought more or less for the URL value for a sort of, like, gaming site funnel. And you had mentioned that greenfieldpuppies.com gets more views. And now I've been stuck on that Greenfield puppies thing for way too long. Just looking at the puppies, that was.

[Megan Greenwell]

Really my favorite detail.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah, I mean, it was a nice thing to do, too, because it's a rescue and they're. But putting that aside for a moment, the private equity thing really fascinates me because I had a conversation with a vet, like, a year or two ago, and I had heard about this happening. I knew somebody who was a dermatologist, and the stories I heard about the vet let me. And I asked you this about Deadspin, just, you know, so that we can launch into this. But the story I heard from the vet was like, you know, it's a small private practice. This vet set it up 20 or 30 years ago. And the private equity people come in. They have some requirements to keep people in place so that it can remain competitive for a certain period of time. But they pressure the workers on some level, like or to stick around and agree to stick around so that this guy can sell his practice and finally get the payoff. And it is incredibly manipulative. And then they're just going in to cut, cut, cut anyways. And that vets now are like one of the number one professions for suicide because they have the private equity people have them cut, raise the rates of services that would save the lives of pet people can't afford it. And so they end up putting their animals down. And the vets go in there and know that they have to tell people, we've got to put your. That it's just an incredibly depressing experience. Now you follow four people through their own various things in four different areas. Media, retail, housing, and hospitals. Tell us about the four that you chose and why those four areas.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, so I chose the areas because they felt representative of the overall private equity trend in one way or another. So the book opens with retail, which is now sort of an outdated industry for private equity. They're not much interested in retail anymore. There are exceptions. Walgreens just got bought by private equity, but for the most part, they're trying to get out because retail isn't sexy anymore. But what you see is they were involved in retail earlier on, and then they got into hospitals and they applied the exact same playbook from retail into hospitals. So it really didn't matter whether it was selling toys or Delivering babies or saving people after a heart attack. All of that is just like a widget that can be, you know, increase or decrease the production of to make more money. The ultimate goal for a private equity firm is solely to make money for itself. That does not require, in a lot of cases, making money for the portfolio company. It only requires making money for the partners. And so in some cases, you end up in a situation where the most valuable move for the private equity partners is actually to work against the interests of your own portfolio company. And so telling that story over these four industries felt really valuable. In terms of the characters. I worked so hard to pick the right characters. I talked to over 300 people for the book, and at least 150 of them were potential protagonists. I knew I needed characters that readers would sort of fall in love with. And not that they're perfect people, but they're all incredibly compelling people, and people who would just talk and talk and talk and never decline to answer a question, which is not most people. And so I got lucky enough with a lot of hard work, I mean, literally over a year to find four people who are so dedicated to what they did and, you know, so riled up about what happened to them, that they were just, you know, I spent days and weeks with each of these people in their home, asking them incredibly invasive questions. Most people don't want to deal with that. I know I would not. But I happen to find four incredible people, Liz, Roger, Natalia, and Loren, who, you know, really wanted their stories to be out there.

[Sam Seder]

I want to get to those four people. But let's take a step back and talk about what private equity is and particularly distinguish it, because this notion of you can make money by buying a company or buying an enterprise, and your ability to make money is not just untethered from the health of that enterprise, but in fact may be in direct invoice, inverse proportion or relationship to the health of that company. So first, distinguish for us private equity from, like, venture capitalists. Like, those two things I think get confused. And they're. They're different because they have different, essentially, interests or agendas.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes. I get tagged in stories online all the time of a venture capital disaster, and I'm like, okay, so, so different. So, I mean, the most obvious difference is that venture capital is taking a stake in a company. Private equity is generally acquiring companies wholesale. So that means, whereas a venture capitalist might get a board stake seat, the private equity firm has full control over every company decision. And so that's like, a really serious, important difference. And the way venture capital is set up, venture capital is out looking for unicorns. Right. The only way for them to succeed is for enough of their companies to be really successful. They can stomach all sorts of disasters as well, because they're playing a hits game.

[Sam Seder]

But.

[Megan Greenwell]

But what? They're.

[Sam Seder]

It's like a roulette. They're playing roulette and they're hoping that One of those 10 bets comes in and lands correct and it's going to pay for the rest of the bets and it's going to pay in more.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes, but that bet landing requires that company being successful in private equity. I'll take Toys R Us as an example, because it's the first story in my book. The private equity firms in charge of Toys R US took out $5 billion in loans to buy Toys R Us. And they were not legally responsible for paying those loans back, only Toys R Us itself was. So the result was when, after several years of private equity ownership, Toys R Us went under. None of the employees got severance. They were promised severance in their contracts, but they weren't given severance because they were too low down on the creditors list during the bankruptcy. And KKR and Bain Capital, the two private equity firms in charge, both walked away from the life of that deal making a profit.

[Sam Seder]

So, okay, I want to walk people through this because this is a leverage buyout. And this concept, I explain this leverage, but because Joann Fabrics just went under in a very similar situation. And I had to explain to my kids, who, you know, various crafters, I had to explain what went on. And they just looked at me like, what? Yeah, because they're like, literally my 12 year old son said, how is that legal? And they, they take out a loan to buy the company and then they make the company responsible for the loan. Then they extract all the value out of the company, whether that's real estate, assets or, you know, the machinery or whatever. I mean, they don't always do this one, but this is broadly the formula. Yeah, they screw the company, they take their fees, they take their profits from whatever they're working on and whatnot. Meanwhile, the company is struggling to pay back this debt. Then it can't. Then it goes into bankruptcy. Then they owe, you know, the pension for the workers. They owe the. These creditors. The private equity guys are like, well, that's the corporation, it's not us.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes.

[Sam Seder]

And they walk away with all the money and they basically extract. It's insane. It's insane.

[Megan Greenwell]

So in the case of Toys R Us, it wasn't only that Toys R Us was buried under $5 billion of debt. The private equity firms in charge also sold off all of their real estate, as you mentioned. So Toys R Us historically had owned almost all of its own real estate, at least in the US So now all of a sudden they're paying rent on the exact same land they until recently owned outright. The proceeds from that, those real estate transactions are obviously going to line the pocket of the private equity firms. And so it's just not that hard for a private equity firm to make money off of a company it owns while driving the company into the ground.

[Sam Seder]

That's what they saw. Right? They saw, they saw that real estate assets and they said, like this is, this is a one time payout. Can grab that, we can put that in our pockets and the bankruptcy won't happen until we are basically safely have put that cash in our pockets.

[Megan Greenwell]

Well, and it's not even just a one time payout because in a lot of cases, they strike sweetheart deals with the people they've sold the real estate to, such that they're taking a cut of the rent payments. So they're really, so they own, they.

[Sam Seder]

Sell the land to themselves in for under market rate or whatever, a good sweetheart deal, they pocket the proceeds of that with one hand. With the other hand, they take rent from the their company.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah. Or even if they're not selling the real estate to themselves, they may be selling it to someone with, with whom they have a very you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours kind of relationship. So in hospitals, for example, there's a company called Medical Properties Trust that's based in Alabama that I'm just fascinated by. They are not themselves a private equity firm, but they are the favored real estate partner of every private equity firm in hospitals. So of course, all of these big firms have cozy relationships with medical properties trusts where they get bonuses for orchestrating the deal to NPT instead of to some other real estate investment trust. And so they get the proceeds from selling the land, but they also get, you know, little transaction bonuses because medical property trust is their pal.

[Sam Seder]

It's just this dynamic and people have to understand they're doing this with, with like almost every vet you go to now. And now we should say that's one model of the, of, of the extraction, which is the full. We're just going to suck the entire lifeblood out of this. There's other models. And let's go through this. You mentioned Liz from Toys R Us, and the employees lost their pension and she was someone who was so dedicated. The Toys R Us that she had a tattoo.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

Of the logo. I mean, let's go to Roger goes. Who was, who worked at the Wyoming Doctors Hospital. Was that was.

[Megan Greenwell]

Or Wyoming Riverton Memorial Hospital.

[Sam Seder]

Riverton Memorial in Wyoming. What is the. How do they apply? Because obviously, well, in some instances they might shut down a hospital or two, but in this one it's a, it's a similar dynamic but a slightly different sort of like we're not going to fully extract all of the life force out of this. We're just going to make it much leaner.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes, yes, exactly. So in private equity hospitals right now what's going on is essentially a great roll up. A private equity firm will buy dozens and dozens of hospitals and consolidate as much of their operations as possible. So when Apollo Global management bought the hospital where Roger worked in Riverton, Wyoming, very small town Wyoming, they decided to consolidate it with another hospital they owned about 30 miles away. And originally everybody thought, okay, like consolidating means centralizing billing and it, you know, stuff that leaves more money for patient care. But what ended up happening was Riverton's hospital lost its ability to deliver babies. All of a sudden it had no OB GYN ward at all. And so you had to travel 30 miles through windswept canyon to the other private equity hospital in the town of Lander to even be able to deliver a baby. They only even Lander only had one or two people capable of delivering babies on. So if they were busy or if you had any sort of complication, you were getting on a medevac flight to a bigger town. So the result was the number of medevac flights out of Fremont county, where both Riverton and lander are, increased 900% after this private equity acquisition. It wasn't that the hospital didn't exist anymore. It was just that you couldn't get care in a real way there anymore.

[Sam Seder]

Who paid for the medevac?

[Megan Greenwell]

Well, interesting you should ask. Medevac companies are also a very popular target for private equity. And so you say, of course, this.

[Sam Seder]

Is like the, like I'm going to rent from myself. I mean, this is.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sam Seder]

We're creating a new business for ourselves.

[Megan Greenwell]

Right, exactly. So you see, you know, you, you can't get service at your private equity owned hospital. The private equity has bought the medevac company and obviously increased the prices dramatically. And so you get a bill for, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. This is also one of the poorest areas of Wyoming and you can't afford to pay that bill. And the only reason you are being charged that bill in the first place is because they took all the services from your local hospital.

[Sam Seder]

It's. It's astonishing. It's astonishing. And so, okay, let's go to the, to media. I mean, your story at Deadspin was similar to this same type of formula. Let's like degrade or just like, or completely extract and sell off.

[Megan Greenwell]

So I was particularly interested in looking at local media because there are all these academic studies showing the importance of local media to communities. And not just in like the sort of romantic, sure, everybody needs a local newspaper kind of way, but in real tangible ways. There are studies that show the rate of government corruption goes up when a community doesn't have a local newspaper, their bond ratings go down, which means eventually people end up paying higher taxes because they do not have a local newspaper. And so I was really interested in how has this played out in so many communities that have been stripped of their newspaper and what does it mean for the journalists who go in, you know, wanting to tell important stories about a place. One of the things that was really interesting to me is there's been a lot of coverage of Alden Global Capital, which is the, you know, most easily caricatured private equity firm, hedge fund in media. And they are, they're truly evil. But I think that the focus on Alden has actually allowed Gannett to get. Go off the hook. Gannett is much, much bigger than Alden. Gannett is historically, you know, this very renowned newspaper company that was the only source of news in many communities. And though Gannett is not currently actually private equity owned, it was a couple of years ago. Its biggest debt holders are still two private equity firms. So they still have private equity calling the shots. And I think the story of Gannett has really been overlooked. And that was why I wanted to write about it and write about this character Natalia, who spent her whole career at Gannett newspapers because she felt passionately about telling important local stories. She's just a firecracker. She's so fun to talk to. And I've heard from a lot of readers that like, they really connected with Natalia.

[Sam Seder]

How do they go about how does private equity in these situations make money in the context of media enterprises? Because it's how, I guess how that formula that they have, which again can either mean like, we, we sink the company or we just, we just figure out how to sort of extract on an ongoing basis.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

How do they do it in the context of media?

[Megan Greenwell]

So the Staff size just gets decimated to the point that now there is an entire class of what scholars call ghost newspapers, which are newspapers that still come out and people still pay subscriptions for them, but they do not have a single journalist on staff. It is all syndicated content. And people keep subscribing, you know, basically out of loyalty that will end at some point. People will catch on. And younger people are far less likely to subscribe to any newspaper than older folks are. So that's not a long term strategy. But private equity is a short term game, right? So you can cut all the staff even, you know, even in bigger cities. The Austin American Statesman, for example, one of the fastest growing cities in the country, had a couple hundred journalists on staff. And now it's in the 20s, I believe. So, you know, a state the size of Texas with a state capital as important as Austin, with politics as important as what's going on in Texas, and all of a sudden you have, you know, a tenth of the journalists covering it, maybe less. Another one of the strategies, like we talked about in hospitals and retail, is you can sell off their big, grand, historic headquarters downtown and move them out to the suburbs or charge them rent to for, you know, part of the same building they once owned. So, for example, the Chicago Tribune had this iconic tower in downtown Chicago that is now luxury condos because Alden Global Capital sold that headquarters to a developer and that's what they did with it. And the Tribune journalists work, you know, way, way out there. So there are all sorts of, like, little tricks that you can take from one industry and just apply it, copy and paste it to another.

[Sam Seder]

Whenever I talk about this stuff, I have this, like, vision of like, I can't remember which one of the sci fi things where it's just like, we're keeping the host alive, feeding it gruel, so we can just use the energy coming out of it. And it's really, it's incredible. Talk about how it implicates housing.

[Megan Greenwell]

So the housing stuff is really rough. Private equity is involved in pretty much every sector of the housing market right now. So they started in mobile homes, grew out to single family, you know, build houses that they would buy and then rent out to other people. And now they're in massive apartment buildings as well. So I looked at one such absolutely huge apartment complex in Northern Virginia outside D.C. 2,300 units. And the private equity firm came in and essentially started acting like slum lords, right, that people couldn't get basic fixes done. Rents were going up. At one point there was this catastrophic flood that kicked 14 families out of their apartments, they were still being charged rent originally for this. And the landlord told them, you know, like, if some of your stuff was ruined, you know, just call your rental insurance company. This is a apartment complex that serves a pretty low income population. Not everybody has rental insurance. And my character Loren, another real firecracker who doesn't put up with anything from anybody, stood up at this meeting in front of her landlord and all of her neighbors and said, we're not going to pay our renters insurance. That's crazy. This is your fault and you will be paying for all of our expenses. Which they eventually did. But also, Loren got evicted for being such a troublemaker, essentially. And you know, she could have fought it in court, but Virginia does not have very friendly laws to tenants. And she just decided, you know, I can't live here anymore anyway.

[Sam Seder]

So in that scenario, are they coming in, are they larding up the, the apartment building with, with debt in that scenario? Or is it just that we think that there is 20% of our services as a landlord that we can cut, you know, maybe there'll be, you know, 2% will be clawed back by legal cases, whatnot, but we can, we can squeeze 18% out of just making the experience. I mean, they're not, I don't think they care, but we can cut 20%. What? I'm just picking a number of like the operating costs which are borne by the tenants in this instance, right. Like I don't have hot water for a week or two, or I don't have heat for, you know, three weeks out of the year, or the elevator is broken for a couple of days, or whatever it is, the tenants bear it. The, you know, it's not painted, whatever it is, the tenants bear the cost in their experience, maybe out of their pocket, like in terms of the flooding and the, the private equity people. Like that's just the cost of doing business, maybe a little bit of legal fees and that's it. We can, we can extract 20% out of this thing as it exists today.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes. So there is, there is something to, there is a lot of cutting costs and increasing rent. But one of the biggest tricks they have in the housing industry that actually is specific to housing is private equity firms can access money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are government institutions. I mean, they are, they are private companies, but they're overseen by the government. And the reason those companies were founded was to give low interest loans to ordinary Americans hoping to buy their first homes. There Is nothing stopping private equity from getting that money as well? And that money has a very, very low interest rate. So unlike investors in a private equity firm where you actually have to pay them a share of your profits, here you just have to pay whatever the low interest rate is, and then you're off scot free. And so Fannie and Freddie money has been absolutely crucial to private equity firms profiting off of housing. And at various times, progressive lawmakers have said, look, this isn't what Fannie and Freddie were designed to do. We got to shut this down. But there's not a lot of appetite on Capitol Hill to regulate either private equity or its sources of capital because 88% of members of the House and Senate are taking money from private equity. So there's just no appetite for change.

[Sam Seder]

I mean, the stories of these people and the way that they fight back against this is, I think, you know, people will really enjoy these narratives and I think it's great. But I'm also curious as to like, do we have any regulation, like, on a broad scale, is there even a class of legislation that in any way regulates private equity? I mean, they, they sort of like sneak in and get loans, low interest rates that were really not meant to be a profit center. They destroy companies. Because we all, like, we are inculcated to believe that in the context of capitalism, you know, capitalists build companies that help communities. I mean, this is all sort of like a fairy tale, and I think everybody knows that. But it is so hard for people to wrap around. And there are other instances of this where the money that comes in, the people that buy a company or an enterprise, their success is untethered from the success of that thing. It's so hard for people to understand that concept because it really, like, it's, it's shocking, right? Is there, are there any regulations, like, broadly speaking, on this, this practice?

[Megan Greenwell]

So there's, I mean, there's truthfully just very, very little private equity firms even have to disclose, much less about their operations, as other kinds of companies do. And on the federal level, I don't see that changing anytime soon because like I say, 88% of the house and Senate are on the dole of private equity. That said, there is some interesting stuff happening on the state level in multiple places. So both Massachusetts and Oregon recently passed pretty significant laws increasing scrutiny of private equity deals in health care, and in Oregon's case, strengthening its ban against what's called the corporate practice of medicine, meaning that at least potentially private equity firms can't own hospitals. Or doctors clinics at all. And so I think it is really easy to get discouraged by the lack of regulation on the federal level and the lack of movement toward any regulation on the federal level. Elizabeth Warren has proposed what she calls the Stop Wall Street Looting act over and over and over again. And that would fundamentally transform how private equity operates. But it never gets anywhere close to getting out of committee. And so, you know, you can be depressed by that or. Or maybe. And you can also, you know, look at what can be done on the state level, on the local level, at the level of lobbying in front of pension fund boards, because pension funds have a tremendous amount of power with private equity firms because they're among the biggest investors. And these are all places where ordinary people have a little bit more of a voice than they would in federal politics most of the time. So there is some interesting movement happening. And I think, you know, one thing that really unites people across the political spectrum is being upset about incoming inequality and being upset at billionaires. So that is actually sort of heartening to me, the fact that once people see what is going on with private equity, they start to think they should do something about it or somebody should do something about it, regardless of their political affiliation. And I think you're seeing some interesting examples of that happening in a few places.

[Sam Seder]

Lastly, is there like a. Is there a clearinghouse to get a sense? I mean, I know you. I think in your book, it was. Was 8% of the economy is a function of private equity. Are there clearing houses like that show where, what private equity, what industries have been completely sort of swallowed up by private equity? Because I'm just fascinated by this because it is literally undermined. And aside from. And you have great stories of individuals who have been, you know, we're directly impacted by this as people who are working for these enterprises, but, like, our daily lives is just a little crappier because of this, and we don't know why.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, one experience I had over and over when talking to workers is them saying they didn't even know their company was owned by private equity until everything went wrong. Right? Because if you work at Toys R Us, your boss's seven layers above you work at Toys R Us, your paychecks say Toys R Us. Unless you're a very nosy reporter, like I am. Why would you know? Right? So there is no, like, one central clearinghouse. My favorite resource is called the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, and they're a nonprofit who basically monitors what's going on with private Equity, they're not able to capture absolutely everything. But in their areas of focus, which do include both housing and medicine, they're really, really good at figuring things out and making that information available to the rest of us. So they have a hospital tracker, for example, on their website, where you can go to their website and look up any hospital in the country and see if it's private equity owned. And, and I think people should do that. I think people should have the information.

[Sam Seder]

I mean there's a, there's a hospital, I can't remember which, what it's called now. And because it's just a story from that I know from a friend that is known by all the other hospitals, like that's where people go to die. And it is a private equity hospital. Folks get in there and if you're sent there, you know, in an emergency, then it's just so poorly run, I can't remember what the name of it is.

[Megan Greenwell]

Tell your friend to get in touch with me.

[Sam Seder]

I will do that.

[Megan Greenwell]

Great.

[Sam Seder]

I will in fact do that.

[Megan Greenwell]

Always out for scoops, you know.

[Sam Seder]

Megan Greenwell, journalist and author of Bad Company, Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. So important for people to read about these stories because it is, I am convinced, like not only is it do we have direct impact on our daily lives, it is also shows you a dynamic that I think is even taking place in corporations that aren't involved in private equity. But the same dynamic with stock buybacks and whatnot, like the notion that people can make money even when their company that we have two sets of interests that diverge, often the health of the company long term and the people who control it getting wealthier. It's important for people to be able to understand how those concepts exist at the same time. Megan Greenwald, we will link to your book at Majority FM in the podcast and YouTube description and I will connect you with that person.

[Megan Greenwell]

Beautiful. Thank you so much.

[Sam Seder]

Appreciate it. All right folks, what's the website to search Hospitals re Private equity? It is the private equity stakeholder project. We'll put a link to that and I want. We're going to talk to guests from there eventually. Midwest Brewer, we have hospitals in Michigan that are known as the place you go to die. Corewell Health.

[Matt Binder]

I've heard that around here too. Places like in the Bronx for instance, people growing up, they're realizing like very different relationship to hospitals than the one that I. Yeah.

[Sam Seder]

All right, we're going to take a break. Head into the fun half, folks. It's your support that Makes the show possible. You can keep us surviving and thriving by becoming a [e-mail] when you do, you get the free half. Free of commercials, you get the fun half. But most importantly, you keep this show being able to provide interviews that other people would say it's not sexy, but. And maybe a little bit dry. But this is the home of the not so sexy, sometimes dry daily news program.

[Matt Binder]

Things that control your life.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. That are impacting you on a daily basis. This vet stuff, you know, a year ago was a year ago in August, my cat with diabetes we had to put down and I felt so bad. It was an emergency. We went to the cat hospital and I felt so bad for the young vet associate who had to come to us and say, well, it's gonna cost like, literally like the price of a car. And then we can figure out what's wrong with him, but for the next, like five days, whatever. And I, you know, then this guy had to, you know, witness his family and my, you know, my young kid holding the cat, as we put it, to sleep, like. And this guy's knowing that like, whatever care they were going to provide.

[Megan Greenwell]

At.

[Sam Seder]

A place not owned by private equity. Because I had had this conversation with a vet just by chance, and she had left this, this place that had been bought by private equity because she's like, it's. And vets were like, want to get the highest suicide rates because they're sitting there knowing, you know, you become a vet because you love animals. And when it's so explicit that this pet is going to live or die because of the expense and because there's somebody, you know, we need a higher profit margin here. And if it means we put down some animals, then we also get an extra 10% on that. I mean, it's, it's, it's like that dynamic with we close the hospitals and then we buy into the medevac company, we make it on both ends. That also just coffee got co op. It's a co op. It's a co op. It's owned by the employees and they make great coffee. Price is still reasonable, even though we have tariffs. They take care of their farmers, whether it's in Chiapas or in Africa. Various places in Africa, I think they have growers and they take care of their employees because they're part owners. Just coffee, co op, fair trade coffee. You can get the majority report blend or just get 10% off by using the coupon code. Majority. Matt, left reckoning.

[Matt Binder]

Yeah, left reckoning. For the Sunday show, we talked about the topic of the week last week. And also a Texas state professor, Tom Alter, who got canceled for basically being to the left of LBJ at a socialist Zoom conference and that being infiltrated by Carlin Borsenko, who was a Jan Sixer sort of lunatic, and she publicized some videos of him criticizing of the Democratic Party as a member of a socialist party. Not dsa, a different one. But yeah, he's fired now. He had 10 tenure, now he's fired. So we'll check that out. Patreon.com left reckoning.

[Sam Seder]

Lot of people getting canceled for not espousing the regime's line on what Charlie Kirk provided Society. Interesting. We literally go to free speech to canceling people for even repeating his quotes.

[Matt Binder]

I saw some idiot centrist say that you guys are missing the point when you say the right is doing it now too, because the left started it. As if the left started this.

[Sam Seder]

It is insane. The. It is insane. I mean, even if you were completely, completely dead set on knowing no history, you must have heard of the red scare in this country, right? Like, you must have heard that people were getting explicitly canceled for any type of association or at all with anything left. Left of the straightforward, you know, capitalism that we practice in this country.

[Matt Binder]

The Iraq War era. Like, do people not even remember that far back?

[Sam Seder]

Dixie Chicks and understand, and I've said this many times before, to the extent that we didn't have cancel culture before, it was because people would not get scheduled with the type of beliefs to the left. You would not get the interview, you would not get the job, you would not get scheduled, as it were. There was no need to cancel you because you would never get hired in the first place. Just absurd job legume.

[Matt Binder]

Charlie Kirk was a champion of free speech and anyone who says otherwise will be fired.

[Sam Seder]

There you go. All right, quick break. Fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow, what? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma, welcome to the program. Fun hack. Matt. Boo. Fun hack. What is up, everyone? Fun hack. Nomi Keen, you did it. Fun hack.

[Megan Greenwell]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Seder]

Let's go, Brandon. Fun hack. Bradley you to say hello. Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

[Megan Greenwell]

Fundamentally false. No. I'm sorry. Women.

[Sam Seder]

Stop talking for a second. Let me finish.

[Megan Greenwell]

Where is this coming from? Dude.

[Sam Seder]

But. Dude, you want to smoke this? 7A.

[Megan Greenwell]

Yes.

[Bill (caller or guest)]

Hi.

[Sam Seder]

Yes. Is this me? Is it me? It is you. Is this me? Oh, it's me. Think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism.

[Megan Greenwell]

I'm going to go smart.

[Sam Seder]

Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says of course.

[Megan Greenwell]

Gobbledygo.

[Sam Seder]

We nailed him.

[Megan Greenwell]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Seder]

Challenge. Man.

[Megan Greenwell]

I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Seder]

I believe 96. I want to say 8572-1035-5011-0389, 11. For instance.

[Megan Greenwell]

$3,400. $1900. 5 4.

[Sam Seder]

$3 trillion. Sold. It's a zero sum game.

[Megan Greenwell]

Actually. You're making me think less.

[Sam Seder]

But let me say this poop. You can call it satire.

[Megan Greenwell]

Sam goes satire on top of it all. My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day. Like everything you do.

[Sam Seder]

Without a doubt. Hey, buddy. We see you. All right. Folks, folks, folks.

[Megan Greenwell]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[Sam Seder]

Yeah. Sun's out, guns out. I, I, I don't know.

[Megan Greenwell]

But you should know.

[Sam Seder]

People just don't like to entertain ideas. Anyway, I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Gotta jump. Gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it. Brock, we're already late and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Megan Greenwell]

Outrageous.

[Sam Seder]

Like, what is wrong with you? Love you. Bye. Love you. Bye. Bye.