888: Not Today, Hades!

Summary

This American Life – Episode 888: Not Today, Hades!

Date: June 7, 2026
Host: Ike Sriskondaraja, in for Ira Glass

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the theme of mortals challenging fate and brushing up against the boundaries set by society, fate, and the divine. Personal stories—funny, dramatic, and surprising—unfold in three acts:

1. A reporter tries (and fails) to crash the world of official Washington portraiture.
2. A government worker faces the ethical snares of the “Death Master File.”
3. A writer travels to Barcelona to meet soccer superstar Lionel Messi—only to find gods are not so easily known.

The episode’s guiding motif: the Greek underworld, and its modern-day gates, as mortals try to cheat or confront 'Hades.'
Quote: “Not today, Hades!”

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Act One: Icarus (Pablo Manriquez’s Oil Painting Odyssey)

[00:38]–[18:51]

Summary

• Pablo Manriquez, DC reporter, receives a mysterious package of art supplies and sees an opportunity: become the go-to oil portraitist of Washington.
• With no painting experience, Pablo teaches himself through YouTube, deciding to latch onto the vanity of politicians by painting their portraits.
• He starts with Mitch McConnell and leverages social media to attract attention from political staffers—even receiving a FaceTime call from Joe and Jill Biden about a portrait.
• Pablo’s ambition peaks: he tries to sneak his painting of Frederick Douglass into a Capitol ceremony and lobby to have it officially hung in the press gallery.
• Downfall: The Standing Committee of Correspondents, on conflict-of-interest grounds, creates a new rule barring journalist-artists from hanging works in the Capitol.
• Undeterred, Pablo vows to run for committee himself and keep creating Douglass portraits until one is accepted.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Opportunism and ambition: Pablo’s willingness to leap into unfamiliar roles.
• Intersection of ego and public service: Parallels to Icarus—soaring high, then crashing.
• Barriers within institutions: How rules are shaped by concerns about conflict of interest and precedent.
• Persistence vs. humility: Pablo reflects that his quest is driven “like 91, 92%” by ego.

Notable Quotes

• On his initial inspiration:
  “I thought to myself, somebody painted every painting in the Capitol, in the White House and the Department of Justice ... and yet ... I’ve never met an oil painter.”
  — Pablo Manriquez (01:25)
• Regarding his unique opportunity:
  “If I become an oil painter ... I’d have like a monopoly on oil painting in Washington.”
  — Pablo Manriquez (02:21)
• After success with McConnell portraits:
  “The next day, I was walking through the Senate and one of his aides ... was just like, hey man, these paintings of our boss that you’re posting on Instagram are really cool, but could you maybe paint him smiling?”
  — Pablo Manriquez (06:41)
• On getting a call from Joe Biden:
  “I picked up and I was just like, hey, man, what do you need? I’m kind of busy. I hear ... hey, Pablo, you're a great artist. This is Joe Biden. I’m like, bull ... Like, very funny, right?”
  — Pablo Manriquez (08:58)
• Reflection after denial:
  “I have no legacy. While no one might remember any story I write ever, right—the painting will be there for centuries.”
  — Pablo Manriquez (10:58)
• Learning the real reason for committee rejection:
  “No credentialed reporter will be able to make artwork that hangs on the walls of the Capitol.”
  — Ike Sriskondaraja (15:20)
• On ego:
  “At every point along the way, it was driven by ego.”
  — Pablo Manriquez (17:03)
  “Maybe like 91, 92%. I definitely wake up every morning excited to be Pablo Manriquez.”
  — Pablo Manriquez (17:15)

Memorable Moments

• Pablo sneaking his Frederick Douglass portrait into an official ceremony ([12:26]).
• Getting shut down not due to his work’s quality, but because it would set a precedent for journalists-as-artists ([15:20]).
• Vowing to run for Standing Committee to reverse the prohibition ([18:19]).

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Act Two: Cerberus (Death at the Gates of Bureaucracy)

[20:04]–[43:24]

Summary

• Jeremiah Schofield, a long-time manager at the Social Security Administration (SSA), details how the agency safeguards the "Death Master File"—a database of all reported US deaths.
• In 2025, a secretive request emerges: staff are pressed to mark hundreds, then thousands, then millions, as dead—without evidence—at the request of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a Musk-led innovation team (DOGE).
• The supposed aim: catch “fraud” or block “suspected terrorists.” In reality: most targets are Hispanic, many are US citizens or permanent residents, and there’s no evidence of criminality.
• When Jeremiah pushes back on the legality and the potential for devastation (bank accounts frozen, lives destroyed), he’s overridden; the first mass kill-off goes through, but publicity prevents the 2.7 million from being processed.
• The chilling utilitarian logic emerges: making life so miserable that “they’ll want to self-deport,” or showing up to “resurrect” themselves—and getting flagged for ICE.
• Jeremiah files a whistleblower complaint. Congressional offices begin investigations.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Government databases as instruments of power and harm: The “Death Master File” is not just a record, but a lever that can freeze a person's existence in modern society.
• Mission creep: Best-of-intention tools used for purposes that are legally or morally dubious.
• Ethnicity and targeting: The apparent demographic focus of mass “deaths.”
• Whistleblower bureaucracy: The risks and process of standing up to unjust directives in government.

Notable Quotes

• On the weight of the Death Master File:
  “If you make a mistake in the death master file ... it’s not just their Social Security that gets shut off. Anything tied to their Social Security number is now bricked.”
  — Nadia Raymond (26:20)
• DHS response to pushback:
  “We told you to kill off the 6000. We want the 6000 to remain dead.”
  — Social Security Administration Official (33:37)
• On the underlying intent, confirmed by DHS:
  “Well, there’s two outcomes we’re hoping for here. One, we’ll make people’s lives so miserable ... they’ll just want to self-deport. Or two, they’ll go into a Social Security office and we’ll have ICE pick them up.”
  — John Covel/DHS Official (40:15)
• On the personal impact:
  “We saw 30 resurrections happen pretty quickly. And then that number quickly grew ... to 300 resurrections.”
  — Social Security Administration Official (33:24)
• On whistleblowing:
  “Jeremiah quit the SSA a few months later and now he’s filing a whistleblower complaint.”
  — Nadia Raymond (42:25)

Memorable Moments

• The moment Jeremiah realizes the list overwhelmingly includes Hispanic names ([30:11]).
• Discovering the “resurrection” process and the Kafkaesque trials for falsely dead people ([32:36]).
• The confirmation that the goal is misery or ICE pickup, directly from a DHS associate ([40:15]).

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Act Three: Zeus (Meeting the Modern God—Lionel Messi)

[46:41]–[56:51]

Summary

• Daniel Alarcón, a writer, is offered a dream assignment: profile Lionel Messi for a glossy magazine.
• Following his wedding, he flies to Barcelona, only to have his promised “three days” with Messi reduced to “an hour” after a series of bureaucratic delays and indifference.
• Alarcón spends the day waiting, hungry and dehydrated, for his brief and awkward interview with Messi—who answers perfunctorily, uninterested and barely present.
• The dream encounter with “the god on earth” turns into an ordeal of humiliation and disappointment; the magazine ultimately kills the piece.
• Alarcón reflects that proximity to “gods”—whether celebrities or figures of authority—is rarely as satisfying, or revealing, as imagined.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Idol worship vs. Reality: Even the greatest "gods" of our age are mortal, opaque, uninterested in being known.
• Expectations and disappointment: The build-up (missing a honeymoon) for a lackluster payoff.
• The enduring myth of access: The belief that, with the right knowledge/approach, one can pierce the veil.

Notable Quotes

• On what he expects from Messi:
  “I thought there would be a way that I could express to him that my understanding of what he was accomplishing on the pitch was... a much more sophisticated understanding. And I was like, yeah, no doubt, me and Leo are going to be friends.”
  — Daniel Alarcón (47:59)
• Messi’s response to a predictable question:
  “Che pero member untanda versus”—“Dude, I’ve been asked this so many times.”
  — Lionel Messi (54:21, paraphrased and translated by Alarcón)
• After the failed interview:
  “He batted me aside like I was, you know, a third-tier defender and went on with his life.”
  — Daniel Alarcón (55:59)
• On his humiliation:
  “The publicist can sense my humiliation, which is actually manifesting as physical pain. ... One of the most humiliating experiences of my life at all.”
  — Daniel Alarcón (54:23)

Memorable Moments

• Daniel realizing he’s been waiting eight hours, sneak-drinking water from a bathroom ([49:47]).
• Messi, entirely unmoved, offering monosyllabic, bored answers ([54:21]).
• The confirmed reality: his piece will not even be published ([55:58]).

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Thematic Thread: Facing (and Defying) the Underworld

Throughout the episode, the hosts and guests thread Greek mythological motifs—mortals striving for immortality (Icarus), bureaucrats as Cerberus at the gates, and Messi as a living Zeus.
Each act grapples with the desire to outsmart fate or sieze a piece of immortality—whether in the halls of Congress, the digitized ledger of life and death, or the radiant orbit of global celebrity.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Pablo’s journey as a DC painter: 00:38 – 18:51
• SSA & Death Master File scandal: 20:04 – 43:24
• Daniel Alarcón / Messi encounter: 46:41 – 56:51

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Final Thoughts

If you haven’t listened, this episode delivers:

• The humor and pathos of unearned confidence (Pablo/Icarus).
• The chilling banality and real-life consequences of bureaucratic overreach (SSA/Cerberus).
• The humbling journey to meet an earthly “god” and the sting of reality (Messi/Zeus).

All with signature “This American Life” storytelling—a blend of wit, big feelings, and mythic ambition colliding with reality.

Transcript

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Support for this American life comes from Schwab. At Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs.

[Social Security Administration Official]

That's why when it comes to managing

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more from WBEZ Chicago. It's this American Life. I'm Ike Sris Kundaraja in for Ira Glass. Pablo, does this feel like an Icarus story to you?

[Pablo Manriquez]

Maybe. Potentially.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

What part?

[Pablo Manriquez]

Well, Icarus dies. Not that part.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

This is Pablo Manriquez, and he recently survived his own personal Greek tragedy. He's a reporter in Washington D.C. known him for years. And this all began when a ripped open package showed up on his front stoop.

[Pablo Manriquez]

It's late winter, 2022. I find a box outside of my apartment. Inside is a canvas, a couple like four the four primary colors, a paintbrush and a palette. It just seems like a sign.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

And that's like, what's the sign?

[Pablo Manriquez]

It was just, I thought to myself, somebody painted every painting in the Capitol, in the White House and the Department of Justice, all these agency buildings, they have oil paintings. And yet, in the 15 years that I've been in Washington, I've never met an oil painter.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

He had this light bulb moment that could be him. It wasn't the first time he decided to become a new Pablo. When we first met, he was doing PR work. But he decided he wanted to be a reporter no matter what. So at 37, he moved into a flop house and began freelancing for small publications. And now he spends his days chasing down politicians in the halls of Congress. He made it happen. So with these art supplies, he began to imagine this other life for himself. And he made a Pablo kind of planned.

[Pablo Manriquez]

So I was. If I. If I become an oil painter, I would basically be the only oil painter I know and in some sense have like a monopoly on oil painting in Washington. You know what I mean? Like, if you want an oil painting, especially a portrait, you have to come to me.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

What Pablo lacks in skill and experience, he compensates for with heat seeking opportunism and blinding self confidence. It can rub people the wrong way. But I appreciate the hustle, Pablo. It's so funny to me that you're trying to pick one career in a, I can say it, a dying industry by supplementing your income with another dying industry.

[Pablo Manriquez]

Reporting an artist. It's like the two poorest. It didn't make any sense to a

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

lot of people, but it made sense to Pablo. Pablo looked down at the new tools in his hands and then tilted his head skyward. Even as Icarus did before him, he saw a way to soar where no mortal had dared to soar. Our show today Myths in Real life. What happened next to Pablo and other daring actions by mortals and challenging their small lives. And a cameo by a real life God. Because you know the gods get mad if you don't include them and I'm too busy to get smote. Not today Hades. Stay with us. Support for this American Life and the following Message come from AT&T where you can get the iPhone 17 Pro for all your summer moments. Its center stage front camera auto adjusts the frame to fit everyone into group selfies. Right now at, at and t ask how you can get iPhone 17 Pro on them with eligible trade in requires eligible plan terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit att.com/iPhone for details. It's this American Life. Act One Icarus so Pablo Manriquez in Washington D.C. had received these art supplies, perhaps discarded by an Amazon package thief or perhaps a gift from the gods. And he figured there's all these big egos in town who would love to be memorialized in oil portraits. Well, I could do that for them. Even though Pablo himself had never painted a portrait in his life, or painted anything for that matter.

[Pablo Manriquez]

I had sort of a clear vision in mind of what I needed to do. I needed to learn how to paint a face.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Politicians have them. You can't sell a portrait without one. Pablo finds a YouTube channel called Paint Coach. It has a 10 minute crash course. He follows along, he starts moving paint around on the canvas and he's hooked. In his head, he's already competing with the legends who are hanging on walls around town. He just needs a first subject to paint. It's gotta be someone widely recognizable, someone distinct and iconic. So he picks Mitch McConnell.

[Pablo Manriquez]

He's always had super, super loyal staffers. I mean, I imagine he's according to his book the Long Game, he's run out all his enemies and and installed all of his friends. So I was hoping to find Mitch McConnell fans to buy Mitch McConnell paintings. Another thing I did, I looked up on Etsy, I looked up on the typical places where you would go to buy an oil painting and I couldn't find any oil paintings of Mitch McConnell. If I painted five paintings of Mitch McConnell in a week, I had the only five paintings of Mitch McConnell in existence.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

After a few tries, he gets one that looks enough like Mitch McConnell. So he posts a few pictures of his progress and someone notices.

[Pablo Manriquez]

The next day, I was walking through the Senate and one of his aides kind of came out of the woodwork and was just like, hey, man, these paintings of our boss that you're posting on Instagram are really cool, but could you maybe paint him smiling? You know, I was just like, boom, Hell yeah. I can paint them smiling. I can paint them smiling.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Whoa.

[Pablo Manriquez]

All day long.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Have you ever had a picture in your office of your boss smiling at you? If you have, you might be living in a country where the name leader is preceded by great or supreme. I'd like to take this moment to say I am grateful to work here at this American Life, where the company reimburses half the cost of the smiling portrait of Ira and that we are forced to hang in our offices. Pablo delivers his first smiling senator to Mitch McConnell's staffer. And then he gets a request for another and another. He's 18, Mitch McConnell's deep. Before he stops to catch his breath. Were those Mitch McConnells, in your opinion? Were they good?

[Pablo Manriquez]

I can't think of a single Mitch McConnell I ever did that was good.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

But they were good enough. He sold the first small one for $25, the next one for 50. Eventually, he settled on $500 for 24 by 36 inch paintings. Pablo is becoming a prolific painter. He paints Nancy Pelosi, Ilhan Omar, other politicians. He takes a commission for a lobbyist's dog. Just by his own force of personality, he's making it happen. At the State of the Union, Pablo set up an easel in Statuary hall that's overlooking where all the members of Congress and the Supreme Court justices pass through. And Pablo, in his white painter's coat with headphones on, he captured the scene on Canvas. Live here. This is something that is a side project of yours. C Span interviewed him as he painted. And then late last year, in December, he got a phone call from a friend's number, someone who used to be a policy advisor in the executive branch.

[Pablo Manriquez]

I picked up and I was just like, hey, man, what do you need? I'm kind of busy. I hear on the other end of the line, hey, Pablo, you're a great artist. This is Joe Biden. I'm like, bull bad. Like, very funny, right? He's like, no, no, I'm serious. Hey, Jill, put on FaceTime and bloop, bloop. Bloop. Like the FaceTime noise plays and I'm looking at Dr. Jill Biden, and I'm like, oh, my God. I'm so sorry, ma'.

[Daniel Alarcon]

Am.

[Pablo Manriquez]

I'm so sorry for cursing. I did not mean to say BS in front of you. Yeah, this is real. And she had the phone back over to Joe Biden, and he was just like, you're a really good artist. This is a really great portrait of Jill and me.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

If you've been wondering what Joe Biden's been up to since leaving office, well, mystery solved.

[Pablo Manriquez]

He knew the photo that it came from, it was from the 1970s when they first met. So it was an oil painting of them when they were young and I was on facetime with the president. There were probably 25 reporters in the press gallery filing their stories. And pretty soon, they were all gathered around me, and we were all talking to Joe Biden. You know, like the Washington Post, the AP, like the Bloomberg HuffPost. We're all talking Fox News, Daily Caller. We're all looking into the camera and talking to Joe Biden. And he's just telling everybody how bomb my paint. I was like, that was awesome. That was awesome.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

This is the part of the story when Icarus, with wings cobbled together with wax and feathers, experiences the miracle of flight. Hey, I can see my Minotaur from here. For many mortals, this level of success is thrilling and enough. But not for Pablo. Pablo has a bigger goal. He wants one of his paintings officially hung in the Capitol, approved by a committee, and hung by an entity known as the Architect of the Capital. The only people allowed to drive a nail in the wall. Pablo wants to be immortalized in these halls of power.

[Pablo Manriquez]

I have no legacy. Like, you know what I mean. And while no one might remember any story I write ever, right. The painting will be there for centuries. Centuries if it's on the wall.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Maybe you've been wondering this whole time, what do these paintings look like? So, to be totally honest, Pablo's improved a lot. But he's doing work that looks like it's made by a talented art student, maybe a folk artist. The colors are pleasing. You can always tell who it is he's painting. But it's not, you know, John Trumbull's painting of the Founder signing the Declaration of Independence, or any of the other museum grade paintings hanging in the Capitol rotunda. Of course, that does not stop Pablo. And a couple months ago, he saw a way to make his dream happen. In February, the House voted to rename the press gallery after Frederick Douglass, who, among many other things, was also the first black reporter to cover the Capitol. And there was going to be a little renaming ceremony and press conference. Well, it just so happened that Pablo had made a portrait of Frederick Douglass. It had been leaning against the wall in the press gallery for the last two years. So Pablo quickly hatched a plan. He's going to grab his painting, sneak his painting into the room where the ceremony is going to take place, and slip it onto a table where everyone can see it.

[Pablo Manriquez]

I scoped out the room. I was like, oh, there are artifacts about Frederick Douglass here. Like, there was his ledger of sales and stu like that under glass. I was like, I'm going to go grab my painting and put it on a table. And I did. It's like a pop art portrait of Frederick Douglass with a yellow background. Like a distinct yellow background.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

It's a pretty big canvas, nearly life sized, and it sticks out compared to, say, the items on loan from the Library of Congress. But nobody says anything. Then the VIPs come in. There's the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, Representative Byron Donalds, the bill's sponsor, and there's even a living descendant of Frederick Douglass. Traditionally, at a press conference like this, the press are there to cover the event, not insert themselves into it. But Pablo is Pablo.

[Pablo Manriquez]

And when Mike Johnson came in, I showed it to him. I showed it to Byron Donalds. He's like, oh, yeah, there. And that's when Frederick Douglass is grandson was like, that's great. That's great.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Probably not grandson.

[Pablo Manriquez]

And they kept walking. So I was like, okay, so Frederick Douglass's grandson is cool with this. Byron Donalds is cool with this. Speaker Johnson is cool with this.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

He gets a selfie with the lawmakers and his painting.

[Pablo Manriquez]

Everybody loves the painting, so let's get it hung on the wall.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Officially, to do that, Pablo just needs the permission of something called the Standing Committee of Correspondence. These are a group of Pablo's own peers, other working journalists. So he writes them a letter donating his painting to the committee and asking that they hang it in the newly named Frederick Douglass Press Gallery. A couple weeks later, the Standing Committee of Correspondents meet. The first new business on the agenda that day is to take a vote regarding artwork.

[Pablo Manriquez]

And they voted no. They said no. I was just like, oh, my God. I still don't know exactly why.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Did you ask any of them?

[Pablo Manriquez]

No.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Pablo was not discouraged by this decision. Of course he wasn't. He was like, well, if they don't like this Frederick Douglass, I'm going to make them a much bigger Frederick Douglass. And if they don't like that, I'll paint a smaller one. And I'll keep painting and donating Frederick Douglass's until the dam breaks and they all go up. I thought that sounded like a lot of work. At least more than asking them why they said no. So I reached out and got a hold of the meeting minutes. The problem was not about the size or the quality or anything like that. The problem was that Pablo had crossed a line. The thing that they voted on wasn't at all about your painting, but about broad rule that would apply to all future situations.

[Daniel Alarcon]

What was the rule?

[Pablo Manriquez]

Don't bring a painting.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

No, it's not don't bring a painting. It was that no credentialed reporter will be able to make artwork that hangs on the walls of the Capitol. Is this the first time you're hearing that?

[Pablo Manriquez]

Yeah. That's written down.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Yeah, it was a 4 to 1 vote. How does that make you feel?

[Pablo Manriquez]

Kind of sad.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

According to a statement from the Standing Committee, they were worried about what precedent it would set, what conflicts of interests hanging his painting could cause. And Pablo hadn't gotten permission from the event organizers to put his painting in into their event. Icarus, son of Daedalus, soaring over the isle, was enthralled by his own new ability. He couldn't help wanting to go higher. Pablo, son of Luis, didn't want to only stay in the back of the press conference with the other scribes. Couldn't this event to honor Frederick Douglass also honor Pablo, too? Maybe if he'd asked permission, gone through channels, this all might have worked out differently. I floated that idea by Pablo.

[Pablo Manriquez]

Was there another way to do it? Yeah. But I still think this was the best way.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Even when you're thinking about it now, reflecting on it?

[Pablo Manriquez]

Yeah. Because the humility could not possibly have created that scenario to begin with. At every point along the way, it was driven by ego.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

A lot of it was ego.

[Pablo Manriquez]

Maybe like 91, 92%. I definitely wake up every morning excited to be Pablo Manriquez.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Ego. It's what makes you pick up a box of stolen art supplies and think, without any experience. I will be a transformational force in the US Capitol. But it's also ego that propels you to the front of a press conference with your painting under your arm and sends you crashing back to earth. The Potomac is lousy with wax and feathers. A couple hours after we talk, Pablo sends me a note. He's back in the capital, he says for the first time he feels small in this place that once made him feel big. The next day, he sends me another note. He sounds like himself again. He figured it out. He's launching his campaign to run for Standing Committee.

[Pablo Manriquez]

But luckily, I'm not eligible to run for a Standing Committee for at least another year, if not two. So I decided that while I can't be on the ballot until probably 2028, I am going to start campaigning on Monday. So I registered the domain dailypressgallery.com and I started writing an agenda. Part of my agenda is, of course, to repeal the prohibition that they put on journalist art in the Capitol.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

You never hear about Icarus the next day. Did you know he just made some small adjustments to his wings and headed right back for the sun? If you want to see Pablo's paintings or follow his campaign for Standing Committee, he's at Pablo Manriquez on Instagram. That brings us to act two. Cerberus. You know how in Greek mythology there's Hades, where everyone goes when they die? You gotta cross the River Styx to get there. And then there's this gate with this three headed dog, Cerberus. He's guarding the entrance. And he's supposed to make sure only actually dead people enter. This story is about a real person in America who stood at those very gates, which is not the easiest job, it turns out. At least not right now. Nadia Raymond talked to him about it.

[Nadia Raymond]

When Jeremiah Schofield started working at the Social Security Administration, the ssa, the first thing his boss said to him was, if you're looking up your ex's records, your own records, or looking up someone famous, don't. We will know. Then they made him read Title 5 of the US Code, Section 552A, the Privacy act, the actual legal text of it. That's how much they wanted to drive the point home. The Social Security Administration is the caretaker of these truly massive databases of personal information. They use it to send Social Security checks, disability payments, and in order to do that accurately, given how there's over 300 million of us, they keep master files. Jeremiah says they have all sorts of information from all sorts of moments in your life, where you were born, your Social Security number, your. Your mom's maiden name, your citizenship status, all of it stored in giant files.

[Social Security Administration Official]

Your master earnings files will show every job that you ever worked at, and it would show how much money you made at all of those different jobs.

[Nadia Raymond]

Every job people have had.

[Pablo Manriquez]

Yep.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And then you have the disability control file, which actually gets into disability related information.

[Nadia Raymond]

That's for people who collect disability things.

[Social Security Administration Official]

Like what your disability. You know, there's like listings of codes for if you have, you know, like a cancer or if you have some other type of ailment. And so it would have all of that information in it.

[Nadia Raymond]

Okay.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And so it's very, it's very sensitive information. We've, at Social Security, we've always treated those records as though they're, they're things that they cannot be let out to anybody.

[Nadia Raymond]

Like they contain people's whole lives, basically.

[Social Security Administration Official]

That's right. At very sensitive moments in their lives.

[Nadia Raymond]

The point of the many rules governing these lists and files is not just privacy though. It's about making sure all this information is used only for its intended purpose. By the book. And Jeremiah, from what I can tell, is a by the book kind of guy. There's one database with arguably more power than the others and a name to match. It's called the Death Master File. It's a master list of all the dead. Well, all the deaths recorded since the dawn of Social Security. It has millions and millions of names. People get added to it when they die, their name and their date of death. If you get accidentally added to it when you are not dead, it can mess up your Social Security payments, sure, but also your bank accounts, all kinds of things. So Jeremiah and everyone treated this one with extreme care. And one day Jeremiah says he was summoned to a meeting. And the first thing he sees when he enters the meeting room, handwritten on all these whiteboards are the names of all these databases, including the Death Master file. The whole meeting was kind of strange actually. Jeremiah was a boss at this point. He had been there 25 years, his first proper adult job. So he'd been to a lot of meetings, but none like this. It was not put on the official calendar. And the whole thing was very secretive. It was in a half use office building. There was a guard in the hallway, almost like a bouncer. And in the room, three people with non government laptops. This was February of last year. And these guys, they worked for doge, so called Department of Government Deficiency, headed by Elon Musk. In the meeting, Jeremiah makes some proposals. Some ways Social Security can be more efficient, better it to update these lists quicker. But he's almost instantly interrupted by one of the DOGE guys, Antonio Gracias, a venture capitalist now Team elon.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And within two minutes Mr. Gracias had shut down the conversation and said, we're here to talk about Social Security fraud and we're looking for a big win. And I Said, well, a big win. I mean, I have millions of dollars in potential savings by doing these new IT systems. And he said he was only willing to go to the President with a big win of, he said, $50 billion savings.

[Nadia Raymond]

What did you say?

[Social Security Administration Official]

Well, what I said was that I don't think you're going to find $50 billion in fraud.

[Nadia Raymond]

Around this time, Elon Musk announced on X that they might have found some fraud. The fraud was related to the deathmaster file. Musk was pointing to a problem with it, namely that there were people who were clearly dead who were not in it. People who seem to be 150 years old, according to other Social Security databases. He posted, quote, maybe Twilight is real and there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security. He even brought it up in the Oval Office with President Trump before the cameras.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Now, do you know anyone 150? I don't.

[Pablo Manriquez]

Okay.

[Daniel Alarcon]

They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records.

[Social Security Administration Official]

They're missing out.

[Nadia Raymond]

Jeremiah saw all this.

[Social Security Administration Official]

So in layman's terms, I was pissed off that our leaders in the country were saying this. And, you know, it was infuriating.

[Nadia Raymond]

Jeremiah was pissed off because, in layman's terms, complicated. It's true that there were some people who appeared to be 150not marked as dead, but the Social Security Administration knew that already, and they knew why. Sometimes the death of a person born in 1875 or whatever didn't get reported to the SSA. And without an official death date, that person didn't go on the death master file. Regardless, there was a whole system in place to make sure Social Security payments did not go out to these people. Because when someone is over 100, the Social Security Administration actually contacts them to make sure they're still alive.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And so we have different groupings of technicians within the agency that literally make phone calls to these folks and in some cases go to people's houses just to make sure, hey, Jeremiah's over 100 years old. Let's make sure that he's still living and that he's receiving the benefits that he needs to.

[Nadia Raymond]

He says some of these hundred plus year olds are happy to have a visitor. Others are like, go away. Of course I'm alive. And if there's any fraud, anyone taking in a paycheck for a dead relative, the SSA would catch it. Plus, the SSA had already tried to clean up the death master file, specifically chasing down death dates for these 150-year-olds. But it took a lot of time and resources, and it didn't save the government any money, because it's not like the SSA had been sending checks to these dead people. So the opposite of efficiency. But Doge still pressed on. They wanted Jeremiah's team to mark these apparent 150 year olds as dead and mark them now just populate the sensitive list with random death dates, which was totally unheard of. And it made Jeremiah a little nervous. It seemed like a bad precedent because remember, if you make a mistake in the death master file, say mark someone dead who isn't. It's not just their Social Security that gets shut off. Anything tied to their Social Security number is now bricked. The person finds out, often in pretty dramatic fashion, that they've been killed off by accident. Like they go to the grocery store, they try to pay with their credit card and it doesn't work. Then they try to pay with another credit card, same thing. So they go home and call the bank and they're like, what's going on?

[Social Security Administration Official]

And they would have been directed to go to Social Security to fix the problem, would they?

[Nadia Raymond]

Could they have access to their money in their bank accounts or.

[Social Security Administration Official]

No, the bank accounts would have been frozen.

[Nadia Raymond]

Oh my God. So it's not even that they can't use credit cards. They can't like take money that they have in the bank out of the bank at all?

[Social Security Administration Official]

That's right. Everything just stops because everybody thinks that the person is deceased.

[Nadia Raymond]

It's a mess. And now here was Doge insisting Jeremiah's team marked these 150 plus year olds as dead. Jeremiah was like, okay, I know we don't have physical proof, but if the date of birth is right, logic says these people are for sure dead. So it didn't seem that risky. They did it methodically, carefully, to avoid making mistakes. But ultimately they put in fake death dates for all those people. Jeremiah didn't like it, but he did it anyway. This fixation with the DeathMaster file, little did Jeremiah know, it was just beginning. A few weeks after the 150 year olds, Jeremiah says his higher ups contacted him with a request from dhs, the Department of Homeland Security. And this request was unlike anything Jeremiah had seen in his more than 20 years at the Agency.

[Social Security Administration Official]

I got a request from the Deputy Commissioner for operations, my boss, and said, we have a listing of a little over 6,000 people. You need to come up with a strategy on how we're going to kill off these 6,000 folks. Listing we'd receive from DHS. Kill off like, yeah, she. DHS had sent us a list and the expectation was Is that we add a date of death for these individuals

[Nadia Raymond]

to add these 6,000 or so names to the death master file. It was strange because normally deaths are reported by funeral homes or family members or some state authority. And also, there was no indication from DHS that these people were dead. They just said, add these people to this list. So Jeremiah and his colleagues were trying to figure out what's going on and why these 6,000 in particular. Like, is there a pattern here? Like, is it all. Like, is it all people from one area of the country? Is it like. There was no. Nothing like that that you were able to see?

[Social Security Administration Official]

I did not see it, but there were conversations that happened. And the conversations that happened around the agency indicated that it was mostly Hispanic last names.

[Nadia Raymond]

DHS also sent a memo from then secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem about, quote, suspected terrorists who she said had Social Security numbers and access to our financial system. She asked the SSA to stop it in a way that was, quote, consistent with law. Jeremiah was pretty sure none of this request to mark 6,000 people as dead was lawful. No proof of death, for one thing. So he says he goes and asks someone at the Social Security office of general counsel, the lawyers who tell him, yes, it is illegal.

[Social Security Administration Official]

The illegal part of it is making them all dead. You can't just make anybody dead that's not dead. That's against the law.

[Nadia Raymond]

So Jeremiah and his team refuse. But then within a couple of days, they start getting some strange reports from the field offices, Workers calling in, saying, what's going on. People are showing up here saying, we marked them as dead. They're definitely not dead.

[Social Security Administration Official]

I'm like, did somebody process these 6,000 deaths? And we started to ask around the agency at headquarters, and we found out that there was staff in the office of chief information officer that had posted the dates of death.

[Nadia Raymond]

He knew the chief information officer staff did it because that was the only office that could process these deaths the way they were processed all at once. Jeremiah says all 6,000 some people had been marked as having died on a single day, March 8, 2025. He couldn't believe they had done this.

[Social Security Administration Official]

I mean, by the agency choosing to do this, we just took a list without any documentation and we posted the 6,000 deaths that could have happened to anybody, and within 48 hours that anybody would have had their lives halted until they could fix it. And it's possible they could fix it in a few days or there's been cases where we've seen where it takes months or even a year to Fix all of the little things that get screwed up because you got your name on the Death master file.

[Nadia Raymond]

The process of getting resurrected, that's what they call it when you're accidentally killed in the Death master file and need to be brought back to life. It's not simple. You have to go into your Social Security office in person and prove you're alive. And sometimes it takes multiple visits as you keep encountering new corners of your life where some institution or other is still convinced you're dead. Jeremiah doesn't tell the field offices that the 6,000 or so were secretly killed by the Chief Information Officer's office or that DHS requested it. He's like, let's not dwell on the mess. Let's just fix it. And let's fix it the way we normally would. As any other mistake in the Death Master file, which meant it was up to each one of these 6,000 or so people to come into their local field office and prove they're alive.

[Social Security Administration Official]

We saw 30 resurrections happen pretty quickly. And then that number quickly grew with within a few weeks to 300 resurrections.

[Nadia Raymond]

So that's what was happening on the ground.

[Social Security Administration Official]

Meanwhile, from above, we were getting pressure to say, we told you to kill off the 6000. We want the 6000 to remain dead.

[Nadia Raymond]

DHS was telling you that they wanted the 6000 to remain dead.

[Social Security Administration Official]

That's right. And it was coming down from, you know, pretty high up leadership when these

[Nadia Raymond]

6,000 fake deaths happened. The Washington Post found out and published a big story. So did the New York Times. So as the news breaks, Jeremiah is also dealing with the chaotic media fallout of this. And then something bigger happens. And this part of the story has not been out there before. Jeremiah is the first person to talk about it.

[Social Security Administration Official]

So then fast forward a few weeks, and a new request comes in to kill off a new grouping of people. The new request from DHS is for 2.7 million names.

[Nadia Raymond]

DHS wants the SSA to kill off 2.7 million people. Like an entire city. Mark them all as dead in the Death Master File. Again, like last time, no signer pretends that they're for real dead. DHS tells Jeremiah's team that these 2.7 million are here illegally.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And also these folks were violent criminals and suspected terrorists.

[Nadia Raymond]

But wait, they told you there were 2.7 million violent criminals and terrorists? That's a lot of violent criminals and suspected terrorists.

[Social Security Administration Official]

It is. We were pretty suspect about this 2.7 million list. And so when it came in, we also thought it was a pretty big number and we wondered whether or not the list was accurate.

[Nadia Raymond]

Last time this happened, when Jeremiah said, wait a minute, these people are alive, that didn't stop the SSA from marking them as dead. So this time he tries something different. He decides to fact check the claims DHS made about the 2.7 million. They can't look at all 2.7 million people. Privacy concerns. And also the number is so large. But they do get permission to look at a random sample from the list. 25 people, they check what they can.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And so we went through to check one, are they dead? Two, are they here legally or not legally and what is their current status?

[Nadia Raymond]

When Jeremiah's team ran the numbers, they found that all 25 from the sample were alive.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And what's more, when we went through the 25 records, we found 23 of them were records where people were either US citizens or lawful permanent resident or were here legally. And then there were two that more investigation needed to occur because it appeared as though that their alien status had expired.

[Nadia Raymond]

So alive. And also most of them clearly in the country legally. Here's what else he remembers from the sample.

[Social Security Administration Official]

But I do remember that it did span a pretty big age community. So it was children all the way up to people in their 70s. There's a couple cases that I remember that we just thought were super curious. You know, there were some teenagers on the list and were like, okay, so teenagers are suspected terrorists and violent criminals. I mean, I guess that could happen, but the likelihood of it happening didn't make sense. Then there was another person on the list that was a person that had been in the United states for over 50 years and was receiving widow benefits. And we're like, okay, so this person's a violent criminal and a suspected terrorist.

[Nadia Raymond]

So Jeremiah is like, one, I can't mark people who are alive as dead. Two, they told us these were all people without status and that seems to not be true. And three, the data I did see from the list makes me side eyed that they're even criminals. Too many red flags in a row. He decides to sound the alarm.

[Social Security Administration Official]

I went to my boss and my boss at the time was now Steven Evangelista. He had taken over after my other boss left the agency. And I said, we need to have a meeting with DHS and we need to talk through a couple of things because we think their list is inaccurate. And that's probably a light way of saying that.

[Nadia Raymond]

So he calls this meeting, they get DHS on a video call, and on the call Jeremiah says they present their findings that the people on the list are alive and seem to be here legally. DHS is like, okay, we'll get you a new list. But Jeremiah has another question logistically. He asks, if there are mistakes on this or any other list you give us, how would a person on the list by mistake fix it? And John Covel, a Doge guy at dhs, says they would go in person to an SSA office, same as any other mistake. Oh, but when they get there, just flag them over for ice. Jeremiah says he looked at his co worker and they were visibly really uncomfortable. ICE is not a place where immigrants who have a mistake on any kind of government papers go to get them straightened out. It's where they go get deported. Jeremiah looks at his boss, Stephen evangelista. To Jeremiah, DHS's intention is now crystal clear.

[Social Security Administration Official]

And so we were like, okay, thank you for the information. We wrapped up the call. Then I had a. Then we're still in the room and I look across the table. I remember sitting across the table from Stephen and I said, the reason that they're doing this with this 2.7 million is because they're trying to deport all of these people. It's plain and obvious. And Steven said, you don't know that. You can't be sure of it. That's too much conjecture. Like you don't have. You don't know this definitively. And I'm like, come on. Like, we know this. This is why this is happening. He's like, you just don't know it. I'm like, so we got into a little back and forth in reference to that. And he's like, okay, how about I just call John and I'll ask him.

[Nadia Raymond]

John Coval, the Doge guy working with dhs.

[Social Security Administration Official]

I'm like, okay. He's like, I'm going to call John. You guys be quiet. So you guys were me and his technical assistant and I'll just have a quick conversation with John in reference to this 2.7 million and why. So he pulls out his cell phone and he calls John. He puts John on speakerphone and he says, john, can you tell me why we're going through all this effort with these 2.7 million people? And John said, matter of fact terms back. He's like, well, there's two outcomes that we're hoping for here. One will make the people's lives so miserable with the, you know, their lives will just be sort of, you know, hard to go through because we'll turn off their credit. We'll turn off their credit. Card, we'll turn off their bank, they'll just want to self deport. Or two, they'll go into a Social Security office and we'll have ICE pick them up there. Or we'll go, you'll refer them over to us and ICE will pick them up either at USCIS or at ice, wherever you determine that they should go. Just matter of factly. And you know, when he said that, I was shocked that he said it so matter of factly. I was pretty shocked that that happened. It's one thing to think, you know, and be like 98% sure, but you don't really know something. It's different when you know it 100% and you just heard it from, you know, a chief official over at DHS who also happens to be a DOGE associate. And he made it very plainly clear that this is what he was trying to do and what the outcomes they were seeking. Stephen was like, thank you for the information. Quickly got off the call my office. I had to go through a different door than Steven did. Out the conference room. He quickly got up. We didn't talk about it. We didn't have an after the meeting conversation about it. That was also a little bit shocking because I'm sure my face said I told you so in unequivocal terms. But I was, you know. You know. And so he got up, he went to his office, I got up, went to mine, and we never talked about it again.

[Nadia Raymond]

Jeremiah quit the SSA a few months later and now he's filing a whistleblower complaint. The 2.7 million person list was a crisis averted. The SSA didn't add those names to the death master file. As far as Jeremiah can tell, they are still alive. But of course they always were. The government is filled with things like the death master file. Built for one purpose, but if you're of a certain disposition, usable for something else. A list of the dead, a public service to track who is alive and who is dead, or a tool to kill off anyone you don't like. It's not legal. It flies in the face of rules and laws that have governed the list for decades. It violates the whole name of the list, but that doesn't mean you can't do it anyway.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Nadia Raymond is a producer on our show, by the way. We did reach out to all the people and agencies Jeremiah names in this story. Only the Department of Homeland Security got back to us. They gave us a statement saying, quote, the government is finally doing what it should have all along, sharing information across the federal government to solve problems. Two congressional offices are currently looking into the allegations Jeremiah made in his whistleblower claim. Coming up, one man will suffer through many ordeals to have a private encounter with the God living here on earth, specifically in Barcelona. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues. This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com bankguy for details. Capital One NA Member FDIC this message comes from Midi Health CEO Joanna Strober shares why they started a virtual care platform for women in perimenopause and menopause.

[Nadia Raymond]

Our goal at MITI is to make sure that all women have access to really expert care starting around 35 and 40, making sure that they get access to all the things that can help them thrive as they're growing older.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Midi Health committed to helping women in midlife with perimenopause and menopause care, accessible via telehealth [e-mail] this message comes from Grainger. This is the story of the 1. As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs. And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. It's this American Life. I'm Ike Sris Kundaraja. Today's show, not today. Hades. Our last act, act three, Zeus. He has taken many forms here on Earth. For the last 20 years, millions have been worshiping a man they say performs miracles. They call him many names. Magician, messiah, the chosen one. And he looks in some ways kind of anonymous, like nobody special. He's short, five, seven, he's soft spoken, shy even. The legends about this man are many, but very few of his devotees have ever actually met him, let alone talked with him. Writer Daniel Alarcon is one of them, one of the very few mere mortals to have met Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest soccer player of all time. Daniel talked about it on the podcast he hosts with his longtime friend who's also a writer, John Green. Danielle adapted it for our show.

[Daniel Alarcon]

So John, yeah, once upon a time there were many, many magazines that were published in the United States and around the world as you know, I've written for many of them. And magazines for our younger listeners are like very thin little books. It's Instagram, but text based and printed. Yes. And there was a specific niche among these that were called glossies. And Glossies were kind of the high end fashion magazines. And the glossies got their name from the glossy paper that they were printed on. So Vanity Fair, gq, Vogue, those are the glossies. And they were kind of lucrative. Yeah, they paid great. They paid so much money. I had never written for a glossy magazine, I should say, until one of these editors who worked at one of these magazines called me up and asked me if I was interested in writing a profile of Lionel Messi. And of course I was interested. Huge soccer fan, blah, blah, blah. The problem is that I was about to be married and the reporting trip would be the week after my wedding. So terrible timing. I was told I would get to spend three days with the world's greatest player. I get to see a training session, I get to go to a game. I'd have full access. And I spoke with Carolina and she said, you gotta go, you gotta do this. And we would do the honeymoon later.

[Pablo Manriquez]

And.

[Daniel Alarcon]

Yeah, and I think, you know, you know this, but I think it's worth repeating just what a genius Lionel Messi is. Spoken of in the same breath as Pele, as Maradona. And I felt like there are people who watch Lionel Messi play a game and they're like, man, he's good. And there are people like me who understand it or feel like we understand it on a completely different level. And I thought that there would be a way that I could express to him that my understanding of what he was accomplishing on the pitch was not like, woohoo, goal. You know, it was a much more sophisticated understanding. And I was like, yeah, no doubt, me and Leo are going to be friends. That's, that's totally realistic. I was imagining us like, you know, hanging out at his house, like playing Xbox or, you know, FIFA or something. And then like going to eat some like, Argentine barbecue somewhere, the grill in Barcelona somewhere. And then, you know. Yeah, riding, riding in his car. And then at the end of the night he'd be like, you know what, man, you're so cool. Cancel your flight back.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Like we're hanging out.

[Daniel Alarcon]

Yeah, normal stuff. So this is what I was imagining.

[Social Security Administration Official]

Right?

[Daniel Alarcon]

And yeah. So basically, 36 hours after my wedding, I'm on a plane to Barcelona. I arrived in New York. So I flew from San Francisco to New York. I checked My email. And that's when I've got the first blow, which was that I would no longer have three days with Lionel Messi. I would have a single day. Now I still thought a single day is good, you know? You know, I was like, a day. That's still pretty good. I checked my email again when I got to Barcelona and now it was no longer a day, it was an hour. Okay, so at this point, just to be clear, I had given up my honeymoon to spend an hour with a soccer player.

[Social Security Administration Official]

Yeah.

[Daniel Alarcon]

It was just beginning to dawn on me that this was the wrong way to start my marriage. Right? So here's what happened. I got to Barcelona, you know, I had planned four days in town. Now I've got two extra days to report. So I'm just going to report the out of this story, which is what I do. So I talked to everybody. I found the guy who took Messi's first photo id. Back when Messi was a teenager with like long hair and he needed his, his ID card so he could enter the grounds of the stadium. I found the owners of the Argentine restaurant in the suburb where Messi had his, has his gigantic home. And, and I got to sit in the booth where Messi sometimes go, goes to eat. So anyway, I finally do have my day where I get to, I'm going to go meet Leonel Messi and I get, I'm told to get to the ciudad deportiva around 10am and of course I did punctually there. And I get there and I'm like, hey, so I'm a journalist for this fancy glossy magazine. This has all been scheduled. Publicists, editors have been negotiating my arrival. Can I walk around? No, no, no, you can't. I'm like, okay. And they take me to this kind of press room and they tell me Messi will be there in a few minutes. It's super hot. This is like September. I was not given so much as a glass of water. And I waited and I waited and I waited. And then someone came in and told me that I'd be meeting Messi. Actually not then, but before afternoon training. And I was like, okay, so can I watch the training? And they're like, no, absolutely not, you cannot watch the training. And I'm just like, what the hell? I'm like, what is this? So kind of like, I kind of like am peeking out the window and I see Messi and the other players arrive. They have super fancy cars and naturally Messi did not come up to speak to me before training. And A little factotum was sent up to tell me that he would come after training. So at this point, training started at like 3. I've been there, remember, since 10, I've resorted to going to the bathroom and just like lapping water into my mouth out of the sink because I have not been given anything. That's nothing, you know, I'm like eating like wadded up paper towels, just chewing on paper just to trick myself, like I'm starving. And then I didn't know what had happened at training that day. I found out later, but I could tell because I am an astute judge of character, John, as you know, that something bad had happened at training. I kind of saw the players trudging off with this look of there but for the grace of God go I. You know, this kind of like, you know, they had seen something. I found out later that the something they had seen was a young player named Ibrahim Afilay had torn his acl. And so I had, of course was not allowed to watch training. So I didn't see any of this, but I could sense something was wrong. And that is one of those things that I think really affects players moods because they know that all of them are one bad turn, one injury like that away from sitting out for a year, you know. Yeah. And maybe in like in the case of Ibrahim, and maybe never quite being the same. Never quite being the same, exactly. Which is precisely what happened to Fla. Yeah. Anyway, at this point, it's past 6:00pm, so I've been there for a full working day, nothing to eat, super hot. And I'm not one to be dramatic, John, but I was basically being held prisoner at the Barcelona training ground by that point. That's how it felt. So finally, it's just before 7pm when the world's greatest player finally walks in. We sit down at this table, it's this little silver table, there's three chairs, it's me across from Messi, and his publicist is kind of in the middle. And so begins the world's worst interview. It's like he batted me away, like I can't remember what I asked him, but you know, he's like, he gave me his look like he'd rather be at the dentist. I mean, just looking at me and I'm like disheveled and sweaty. My shirt was a normal size at the beginning of the day, but after like, you know, eight hours of being held hostage at the Barnes, which lone training ground in like a hot September day, the shirt was just stuck to me. And I asked him my first question. He said this thing and I'm going to imitate an Argentine accent. He said, che pero member untanda versus which is basically like, dude, I've been asked this so many times. He's rolling his eyes and I'm so.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Oh God.

[Daniel Alarcon]

And it got worse from there. It just got worse. I realized that something bad has happened at training. I realize that he's not interested in speaking with me. He doesn't know what a GQ is or what a Vogue is. He doesn't give a. He doesn't care. He's just like this weird guy who's all sweaty is sitting here, you know, he's like been waiting for me for eight hours like a freaking stalker. And now he's asking me dumb questions that I've been asked before. And you know, so he's just being monosyllabic. And at the end of it, it's just like, it's just devastating. You know, he basically, the publicist just kind of calls time on it and it' before he walks out, we take this photograph. I asked the publicist, is it okay if we take a photograph? And he said this thing to me. He's like, of course I know. We all have feelings. We all have feelings. The publicist can sense my humiliation, which is actually manifesting as physical pain. Like at this point, it's just like, this is the worst reporting experience of my life. Possibly one of the most humiliating experiences of my life at all. You know, the whole of it. So I took my photo, Messi walks out immediately, of course, forgets the entire interaction that I have never forgotten. Yep. Needless to say, I wrote my draft and then got a very efficient, carefully worded email from my editor saying that the article was not going to be published and that I could kindly take my kilfie and go away.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Brutal.

[Daniel Alarcon]

Yeah. I don't know how to ask this delicately, but like, even on his best day, Lionel Messi is pretty at arm's length when it comes to interviews. And in retrospect, there is something charming about the fact that you thought you were gonna get the real Lionel Messi. Yeah, I mean, you know, he batted me aside like I was, you know, a third tier defender and went on with his life. And so here I am thinking, man, we're gonna vibe on this because we are both, you know, have this like deep emotional and deep intellectual understanding of the game. And what Basically what he was telling me was like, no, you're down here and I'm up here.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Danielle, And John's show is called the Away End, which is a soccer podcast about the run up to the World cup made by two people who really like books. Emmanuel Joci produced this version for our show.

[Nadia Raymond]

If God had a name, what would it be? And would you call it to his face? If you were faced with him in all his glory, what would you ask if you had just one question?

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Yeah, yeah. God is great. Yeah, yeah.

[Daniel Alarcon]

God is.

[Nadia Raymond]

Is good.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Nadia Raymond]

What if God was one of us?

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

Our program was produced today by me and edited by David Kestenbaum. The people who put together today's show are FIA Bennen, Dana Chivas, Cassie Howley, Adrian Lilly, Seth Lind, Molly Marcelo, Catherine Raimondo Stone, Elsa, Robin Reed, Ryan Rummery, Alyssa Shipp, Christopher Swadala, Nancy Updike, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sara Abdurahman, and our executive editor is Emmanuel Berry. Special thanks today to Sam McInnes. Thanks also to all our this American Life partners. When you join, you'll get regular exclusive bonus episodes. Listen ad free. Most importantly, help us continue making this show. [e-mail] LifePartners. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by prx, the Public radio Exchange. Thanks as always, to our boss, Ira Glass. You know, at his own wedding recently, he decided it would be funny to start his vows by saying, it's this American wife. Nobody laughed.

[Daniel Alarcon]

It was just beginning to dawn on me that this was the wrong way to start my marriage.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

I'm Ike Sriskondaraja. Ira Glass will be back next week. More stories of this American Life.

[Nadia Raymond]

Just trying to make his way home. Nobody calling on the phone except for the Pope made.

[Ike Sriskondaraja]

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