An Infowars insider on the warped world of Alex Jones

Summary

Today in Focus – "An Infowars insider on the warped world of Alex Jones"

Podcast: Today in Focus
Host: Helen Pidd (The Guardian)
Guest: Josh Owens (former Infowars staffer, author of The Madness of Believing)
Date: May 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview with Josh Owens, a former Infowars employee, exploring what it's like inside the Alex Jones conspiracy machine. Owens shares personal stories of his journey from fervent believer to whistleblower, examining how Jones' infamously destructive lies took hold, spread, and left massive real-world consequences. The episode arrives just days after Infowars aired its final broadcast, following its bankruptcy and the unprecedented legal action by Sandy Hook parents. Owens reflects on the personal cost of participating in Jones’ universe, the broader lessons for society, and the surreal twist as the satirical newspaper The Onion bids to take over Infowars.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Josh Owens' Journey into Infowars

• Initial Attraction and Recruitment

  • Owens describes being a "well-intentioned young guy" who genuinely believed in Infowars and was excited by the cinematic, adventurous view of the world it offered.

    "When I first started working there, I would say I was a believer... Jones made the world seem cinematic. And that's what hooked me." (Josh Owens, 01:03–01:56)

• First Encounter with Alex Jones and the Work Environment

  • Owens recalls a surreal first meeting with Jones, highlighting Jones’s unexpected charm, charisma, and cultural references (notably to Dr. Strangelove, which had first put Jones on Owens’s radar).

    "He's so much nicer than I thought he would be...he has this magnetic presence." (Josh Owens, 08:04)

2. Mechanics of the Conspiracy Machine

• The Shift from Fringe to Mainstream

  • Owens traces how Infowars' conspiracies, once marginal, were mainstreamed around 2016 with Trump’s rise; Trump even appeared on Jones’s show, lending legitimacy to his rhetoric.

    "I was in that world when that transition happened...so many people in the mainstream started sort of turning in that direction." (Josh Owens, 11:30)

• Jones’ Relationship with the Truth

  • Owens references philosopher Harry Frankfurt on “bullshit” to frame Jones’s approach:

    "I just don't think Jones holds any value for truth. So he can sort of say what he wants when he wants. Now, is he a liar? Yes...but it's far more complicated than that." (09:08)

• Jumping on Viral Conspiracies for Audience and Profit

  • For example, Jones started promoting Pizzagate only after listener pressure, regardless of his own beliefs:

    "He started getting pushback...so then he started unabashedly covering it, claiming that he believed what was going on." (10:10)

3. Monetization and Manufactured Crises

• Early Days to Supplements Empire

  • Initially, Infowars sold simple merchandise; this shifted to a supplements business, which then dictated content.

    "I edited the very first ad for the very first privately labeled supplement...and after that it was just nonstop new products." (13:07)

  • Every video was eventually mandated to end with an ad.

• Fukushima & Iodine: Blurring Journalism and Grift

  • Owens describes being sent to the west coast after Fukushima to “find” radiation as justification for selling iodine tincture—a trip that found nothing, but Jones rejected their findings and pressured them for content:

    "We found nothing…[Jones] was making us question our own ability, our own version of reality..." (14:20) "Maybe our job isn't to tell the truth." (16:46)

4. Active Deception: The Border "ISIS" Video

• Staged Reports for Narrative
  • Owens details an infamous staged video, where he and colleagues dressed up as ISIS terrorists to “prove” the US-Mexico border was insecure—a total fabrication that went viral.

    "We claimed there were terror cells...Jones went on his show and said, 'We're showing you the truth.' And none of it was true, none of it was real." (19:18)

  • Owens acknowledges personal shame at his complicity:

    "Ashamed. Horrified. I get the same sick feeling in my stomach I got on that day..." (20:30)

5. Consequences: Sandy Hook, Harassment, and Legal Reckoning

• Sandy Hook Denial’s Pervasiveness

  • Owens discusses how Jones’s “false flag” claims went from the Boston Marathon bombing to Sandy Hook, each time doubling down on denial for narrative impact.

    "Every time there was a mass casualty or a tragedy, Jones claimed that it was a false flag." (23:53) "Jones just twisted the knife. ...I don’t think he cares how his rhetoric affects anyone outside of himself." (25:43)

• Impact on Victims' Families

  • The families suffered years of harassment from Jones’s followers, compounding their grief.

    "It wasn’t just his words…these parents, then faced years of severe harassment from Alex Jones’s fans." (26:03)

• Reflecting on Responsibility

  • Owens wrestles with guilt over his participation, especially as the denials and lies continued for years.

    "I struggle to understand how someone could work in his world while that lie was being propagated. And I did it." (27:02)

6. Aftermath: End of Infowars, The Onion’s Takeover, and Jones’s Future

• Infowars’ End and Uncertainty

  • After the $1.4 billion verdict, Infowars has been shuttered, but Jones is already launching a new show.

    “I think people…said, okay, he's gone…the bad man is gone. Well, that wasn’t true. …Now he’s lost Infowars and I think people are saying he’s gone. Well…there will always be another thing.” (30:21)

• The Onion's Bid: Surreal and Symbolic

  • The Onion’s planned takeover (including comedian Tim Heidecker performing as “Alex Jones”) is seen as “sort of perfect” and “poetic justice.”

    “I just think it’s sort of perfect…when people hear Infowars, they will think of something completely different than what they might now associate it with.” (32:10)

• Personal Reflection and Message

  • Owens hopes his book helps others understand how easily people can be drawn into such worlds and the importance of critical relationships in getting out.

    "I hope that people can get some insight into what it’s like to be pulled into that world...relationships are, or at least a big part of the reason that I’m no longer in that world." (34:22, 36:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Jones made the world seem cinematic...that’s what hooked me.” – Josh Owens (01:56)
• “Is he a liar? Yes, but I think it’s more complicated than that.” – Josh Owens (09:08)
• “We claimed this land for sharia law...” [on the staged ISIS video] – Josh Owens (19:18)
• “Ashamed. Horrified.” – Josh Owens, on his role in misinformation (20:30)
• “Jones just twisted the knife...I don’t think he cares." – Josh Owens (25:43)
• “It’s great that it happened...But...there will always be another thing.” – Josh Owens (30:56)
• “So much of the book is just me taking ownership of my own actions." – Josh Owens (34:22)
• “It’s important to be challenged, it’s important to be questioned, and relationships are...a big part of the reason that I’m no longer in that world.” – Josh Owens (36:34)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:01–01:56 — Owens recounts his initial enchantment with Infowars
• 09:08–10:10 — Jones's attitude to truth and the “Pizzagate” pivot
• 13:07–14:20 — Transition to selling supplements and the iodine/Fukushima scheme
• 17:27–20:30 — The faked “ISIS at the border” report and Owens' feelings about deception
• 23:53–27:10 — Sandy Hook denial, real-world harm, and Owens’s self-reckoning
• 29:51–32:10 — Infowars’ closure, ongoing Jones projects, and The Onion’s potential takeover
• 34:22–36:34 — Lessons learned, redemption, role of critical relationships

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Concluding Reflection

Josh Owens’ account is a sobering, honest reckoning of complicity, disinformation, and the seduction of conspiracy. He offers rare insight into how “truth” is manufactured and monetized in today’s media landscape, how it warps reality for staff and followers, and what it takes to break free. The episode’s final tone is one of cautious hope: despite victories over disinformation purveyors, the tendency for recycled lies and new grifters remains—a warning as relevant today as ever.

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Recommended: Josh Owens’ book, The Madness of Believing: A Memoir from Inside Alex Jones’s Conspiracy Machine
Next Episode Teaser: Announcement of Stateside with Kai and Carter (skip).

Transcript

[Helen Pitt]

This is the Guardian. Today, an infowars insider on the warped universe of Alex Jones.

[Josh Owens]

Par le tu francais, par le italiano.

[Babbel Advertiser]

If you've used Babel, you would. Babbel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com acast spelled B-A B B E O.com acast rules and restrictions may apply.

[Josh Owens]

When I first started working there, I would say I was a believer. It's why I took the job. I was a well meaning young guy who thought that going to work there was going to make a difference. I mean that is genuinely what I felt.

[Helen Pitt]

Josh Owens was a film school dropout when he was offered a job on infowars, the online platform run by the far right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

What's dangerous is the pharmaceuticals. What's dangerous is the vaccines. What's dangerous is the high fructose corn syrup. What's dangerous is the fluoride that's killing millions of people a year. It's worse than tobacco.

[Helen Pitt]

Josh was a fan. He thought Alex Jones was spreading not conspiracies, but truths. Truths the establishment wanted to keep secret. And he seemed to have fun while he was doing it.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I want this covered tomorrow night. I want GMOs covered. I want what's going on covered. I want to fight these son of a bitches.

[Josh Owens]

Jones made the world seem exciting. Jones made the world seem cinematic. And it wasn't ideology initially that did come, but initially it was just that he made the world feel like a movie. And that's what hooked me.

[Helen Pitt]

Josh joined Infowars in 2013, a year after a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, killing 20 children and six adults.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Pecan 911.

[Josh Owens]

What's the location of the emergency? Sandy Hook School. I think there's somebody shooting in here

[Helen Pitt]

at Sandy Hook School. It was a horrific act, which prompted probably the most serious conversation the US has ever had about gun control.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

We've endured too many of these tragedies

[Helen Pitt]

in the past few years.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

And each time I learn the news, I react not as a president, but as anybody else would as a parent. And that was especially true today.

[Helen Pitt]

Alex Jones offered another take.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Sandy Hook. It's got inside job written all over it. Completely fake.

[Helen Pitt]

The grieving parents were actors. Their children were alive. The whole thing was a government plot to take away people's guns. In 2018, Jones was sued for defamation by the families. He was eventually ordered to pay a record $1.4 billion in damages and filed for bankruptcy. Last Friday, after nearly 30 years of spreading lies, Infowars recorded its final broadcast.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

They're turning the power off at midnight. Private detectives are coming in to close the doors and they're going to act like they've got their big ass victory.

[Helen Pitt]

In an unexpected twist, the site is now on the verge of being taken over by the Onion. Well, they're known for joking around. But now the Onion is getting downright stuck. The legendary satirical newspaper has a new plan to take over infowars.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Hi, everybody, it's Tim Heidecker here. I'm broadcasting now live on the Internet.

[Helen Pitt]

While they wait for the deal to clear the courts, the Onion has already got stuck into Jones with the help of comedian Tim Heidecker.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

And make no mistake, we will be the new infowars.

[Helen Pitt]

But so many questions remain. How Jones was able to peddle such awful lies, why so many people believed him, and how the people who worked for him could live with themselves. From the Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in focus, Is this really the end of Alex Jones? Josh Owens, welcome to the show.

[Josh Owens]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Helen Pitt]

You've just published a really great book. I'd recommend it. About your time working on InfoWars. It's called the Madness of Believing, A Memoir from Inside Alex Jones's Conspiracy Machine. Take me back to the beginning. When did you first hear of Jones? When did he come onto your radar?

[Josh Owens]

The first time I heard Jones name was while watching a movie with a friend. We were watching Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove, and there's a scene where Sterling Hayden's character goes on this tirade about water fluoridation.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?

[Josh Owens]

My friend paused the movie and he asked me at that time had I ever heard of Alex Jones. And I had no idea who, who Alex Jones was. And he started quizzing me basically about water fluoridation. And he ran to the bathroom and he got a tube of toothpaste. And on the label of the toothpaste there's a warning that said if you swallow more than a pea sized amount, call poison control. And so that led to him asking me if there's a pea sized amount and you know, you swallow a pea sized amount, then why can we drink unlimited amounts? You know how, you know, depending on how much water you consume from the tap. And I had no idea. I didn't know what fluoride was. I didn't know Alex Jones was. That night I looked at his website, InfoWars. I watched documentary that he had put out and I just got hooked.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I'm Alex Jones. Get ready for another edition of infowars Nightly news straight ahead.

[Josh Owens]

So essentially what Jones would do is he would take what was in the news and sort of use it to, to push his own ideas.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I am so excited about this because if you realize we have them sneaking around in secret meetings with the plan,

[Josh Owens]

he has this vast vocabulary. He is incredibly certain about everything that

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

says so you got George Washington in the west battling the head of the Illuminati, a Satanist in the, in the east, classic battle. And they killed him. They poisoned him.

[Josh Owens]

He's very fiery and bombastic.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

They literally want you domesticated. They want to dehorn you, declaw you.

[Josh Owens]

But he can also be incredibly funny, unintentionally so when he tries to be, when he tries to be funny, it doesn't really work out.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I don't like him putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin frogs gay.

[Josh Owens]

Do you understand that he sort of jumps back and forth from comedic depictions of the world to these like violent fantasies, to taking the news and breaking it down and giving a perspective that isn't something that at least back then that you would necessarily hear anywhere else.

[Helen Pitt]

And come 2013, you applied for and was successful in getting a job at Infowars. Tell me, what was it like at the beginning?

[Josh Owens]

Yeah, well, it was a big step. I dropped out of film school. I moved halfway across the country from Georgia to Texas. I'd never been to Texas before. I'd never been to Austin. And initially I was hired as a camera operator and video editor.

[Helen Pitt]

Okay, and tell me about your first impressions of Alex Jones when you finally came face to face with him.

[Josh Owens]

When I first met him in person, I remember texting my girlfriend, Lacey, and I said, he's so much nicer than I thought he would be. Because when I first met him, he was just very kind and jovial and he has this magnetic presence. And what's crazy is that that very first moment there were these two other employees that were in the room and they were sort of joking around And Jones quoted Dr. Strangelove, which was the movie years earlier that had Pulled me in. It was just one of those surreal moments. And little did I know that the next four years of my life would be one big surreal moment. But that was. That was sort of my first time meeting the guy.

[Helen Pitt]

So Alex Jones became notorious for spreading many dangerous and occasionally completely bizarre conspiracy theories. When you were working alongside him, did you ever get the sense that he actually believed the stuff that he was saying?

[Josh Owens]

I used to be asked this question, does Jones believe the things that he says? And my answer was always, what does it matter? Because he talks to presumably millions of people who do believe the things that he says. But I read this book by Harry Frankfurt called on bs and the idea of that book is that liars skew the truth and that BSers just don't care what the truth is. And so I just don't think Jones holds any value for truth. So he can sort of say what he wants when he wants. It's always changing. Now, is he a liar? Yes, he is a liar, but I just think it's far more complicated than that.

[Helen Pitt]

But the sort of cynicism behind so much of his behavior. And he was a great amplifier, wasn't he, of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory? This idea that there was a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza joint in Washington that had something to do with Hillary Clinton. And he didn't even believe that at the start. Right. But then he realized that his viewers were into it, so he jumped on board.

[Josh Owens]

Yes, that's exactly what happened. He started getting pushback in comments and phone calls into his radio show of people saying that he was covering Pizzagate up. And so then he started unabashedly covering it, claiming that he believed what was going on.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

They go, I love you, Satan. I love you, Satan, as the baby begs. And they all run over and start drinking the blood and slurping, and they all have sex with each other, and they just pledged to get your kids.

[Josh Owens]

So, you know, it was all calculated

[Helen Pitt]

and with terrifying consequences because a gunman who was a loyal listener to Jones. Right. He went into the restaurant, didn't he, and fired shots. There were families having to dive under tables. Real life consequences to his bs, as you put it.

[Josh Owens]

Yes. Yeah, it's. It's hard to know how far and wide those consequences go. Jones did this on a daily basis for decades. And so what is the impact? What has it done to so many people that we might never hear from?

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah. And I guess before 2016, before Trump won the first presidential election, a lot of the things that Alex Jones was always banging on about seemed wacky fringe concerns. And then all of a sudden, Trump's in the White House and he's repeating so many of Alex Jones's talking points.

[Josh Owens]

So I was in that world when that transition happened where Jones was on the fringe, and then all of a sudden it seem like so many people in the mainstream, you know, it started with Trump, but so many people in the mainstream started sort of turning in that direction. But I mean, then Covid happened, January 6, happened a second Trump presidency. It just got so much worse. But, but yeah, I mean, things drastically moved from the fringe to the mainstream. And I think Jones played a big, a big role in that. I mean, there's a reason that Trump campaigning in 2016 came on Jones's show.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I just want to finish by saying, your reputation's amazing.

[Josh Owens]

I will not let you down.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

You will be very, very impressed, I hope.

[Helen Pitt]

And in terms of why Jones was spreading these conspiracies, whether he believed in any of them or not, I guess from your book, it seems clear that the more outlandish he was, the more his viewers responded, the more money he would make. But he wasn't just making money from eyeballs on his videos. Right. He was also hawking them dodgy products, supplements to counter the various conspiracies that he claimed were alive in the U.S. yeah, yeah.

[Josh Owens]

So when I first started listening to him, he was really only selling like, T shirts and stickers and DVDs. He would encourage people to copy his DVDs and give them out for free. And when I first started listening to him, my radar was up, like, is this guy just a grifter? Is he just doing it for money? And when I saw him say that, I was like, wow, he's saying to give his stuff out for free. I mean, ultimately that was just free advertising for him.

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah.

[Josh Owens]

But I was a little too naive to. To see it in those terms. But I edited the very first ad for the very first privately labeled supplement that he sold, which was an iodine tincture. And after that, it was just non stop new products that he was coming out with.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I am very proud to announce the introduction of the highest quality Infowars Biome Defense Probiotics.

[Josh Owens]

And it went from no one really ever talking about his products to a mandate that every video had to end with an ad.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I began to get into iodine a few years ago because it was helping me and my family so much get healthy.

[Helen Pitt]

And this iodine tincture that you mentioned, what was that supposedly combating? Why would you take such a tincture, a potion, whatever it was.

[Josh Owens]

Yeah, well, so his concept was that it was combating radiation. Not long after he started selling it is when he sent us to the west coast to report on an idea that he believed that radiation was floating over onto the west coast after the Fukushima disaster.

[Helen Pitt]

Okay, an idea like a hypothesis that he personally had. And you were sent there to stand it up?

[Babbel Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Josh Owens]

There was a beach called Surfers beach where a man had taken a video and he had shown that there were. He had a Geiger counter, and he showed that there were high radiation readings on the beach. And so local officials, federal officials, they all looked into this and they had an explanation for was contained. It was in a very small area. But Jones started forming this idea that the entire west coast was riddled with it. So we drove up the west coast to check for radiation readings, and other than Surfers beach, we found nothing. But then we started getting these phone calls saying that Jones was the angriest that employees had ever seen him, and then calls from him directly undermining us. It wasn't that there was no radiation. It was that we were just too stupid to know where to look. So we started looking everywhere. We started going to these fishing vessels, testing crab that they had caught off the coast. We were going to sushi markets. We were going to every beach we could find. We even went to an old. An old. It was a military base, I believe, that was closed down because of radiation levels. And we thought maybe we could find something there. And we found nothing there. And it was. It was like this moment where I. I started to. I think all of us, we were like, well, so what are we supposed to do? Never clicking in our mind, like, oh, you could just lie, because that's essentially what he wants. But that's the thing, is that he wasn't calling us saying, I want you to lie. He was making us question our own ability, our own version of reality, the things that we were seeing right in front of our faces with our own eyes. It wasn't until we got back that we really started to click. Like, oh, we were sent there to sell this product because Jones had just begun selling an iodine tincture that was, you know, sold to help people protect themselves against radiation. And then, conveniently, we were sent on this trip where we were told, you know, half the country was in danger of being exposed to. Was that first moment where I realized, maybe. Maybe our job isn't to tell the truth.

[Helen Pitt]

And in your book, you write that you became, quote, A seasoned bullshit artist devoid of conscience. And we shouldn't gloss over the serious misinformation that you broadcast, that you helped to broadcast. Because while you were behind the camera, infowars was spreading lies about Ebola. You filed a report which claimed that a mosque was actually a secret ISIS base. You went to an anti abortion protest with Alex Jones in which he and supporters waved placards reading planned Parenthood is the kkk. But there is one particular story I would like you to tell us, which is all about when you were dispatched to the US Mexico border to stand up some nonsense about ISIS terrorists waltzing across to Texas without being stopped.

[Josh Owens]

Yeah, well, a Judicial Watch report was released that said that there were ISIS terror cells across the border. Jones sent us there to cover this. When we got there, there was nothing to show, there was nothing to talk about. So we get a call from a news producer that says, we where are the videos? Where are the reports? And I think it was just this moment where I was so frustrated that I said, what do you want us to do? There's nothing to talk about. What, do you want us to dress up as an ISIS terrorist and walk across the border to show that it's open? And he said, let me call you back. And a few minutes later, he called us back and he said, yeah, that's a great idea to do that. And I was like, what's a great idea? He was like, your idea. That's a great idea. I'm going to send you an ISIS flag. I'm going to send you, send you a costume, and you're going to do that. The news producer stenciled an ISIS flag. He got a severed head from a prop shop in Austin, a scimitar sword and the whole get up. And he mailed it to us. And so we started going to the border, trying to find a spot where we could just do this really quickly. But there was nowhere to do it.

[Helen Pitt]

So you couldn't just nip over the border. There was no big hole in the fence or anything?

[Josh Owens]

No, no, no, no, there wasn't. Not where we were in El Paso. And so, like a mirage, we were just driving and all of a sudden we saw this little stream that looks similar to the Rio Grande. And just in our desperation, we found our way down to that stream. The reporter I was with dressed up as an ISIS terrorist. I crossed over the little stream and I filmed him coming over with the severed head. With the severed head.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Thank you, Obama, for leaving your southern borders open so ISIS can terrorize America.

[Josh Owens]

We Claim this land for sharia law. And almost immediately, it got millions of views. Jones went on his show and said, this is one of the most important things we've ever done. Get your family, get your friends to tune in. We're showing you the truth, the reality of what's going on in the world. And none of it was true, none of it was real. Are now one step closer to their

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

end game, stripping us of all our liberties.

[Josh Owens]

So we dress up like an ISIS

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

jihadi to be as obvious as possible

[Josh Owens]

to show and to illustrate just how wide open the border really is. The viewers knew that it wasn't a real terrorist. But what the lie was is that our border is so open and porous that it could happen in broad daylight. But here's the important part of that. Jones didn't know that that wasn't true. We lied. We are the ones that told a lie about where we were and what we were crossing over. And to me, that's sort of the point of that whole story, is that Jones creates this manipulative world and this manipulative environment, but he also creates this space around him where people are willing to do that.

[Helen Pitt]

And how do you feel when you reflect on that?

[Josh Owens]

Ashamed. Horrified. I get the same sick feeling in my stomach I got on that day. It's just now it's for a different reason. There were times 100% where I knew what I was doing was wrong, and yet I continued to do it. We started spreading lies on trips. We would leave details out that went against Jones's narrative framework. We would make claims that weren't true. And so when I say that I became a seasoned bullshit artist devoid of conscience, I mean, it's just true. It's just what it looked like being in Jones's world.

[Helen Pitt]

Coming up, how Alex Jones lost the war and what the onion has planned for his fallen empire.

[Josh Owens]

Par le tu francai hablas espanol parl italiano.

[Babbel Advertiser]

If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native of speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55% off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com acast spelled B A B B E L.com acast rules and restrictions may apply.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

I'm kai Wright, I'm Kari Sherman and we are here to tell you about our new show, which is rooted this feeling that at least I have. I know you have. Where, you know, it's kind of like when you wake up in the morning and you pick up your phone and you're just hit in the face with a fire hose of news, right?

[Helen Pitt]

Like there's war, there's authoritarianism, Our planet is burning. I could go on and on and

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

on and on and on and on. But, like, we're trying to figure out how to manage it. Right? Like, how do you manage it?

[Helen Pitt]

I manage it by leaning in and trying to learn more and to. Trying. Trying to figure out, okay, how can I be smarter about this particular topic and who can I talk to that's

[Josh Owens]

going to make me feel better about it?

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

And who can tell me who's responsible for the mess that I'm reading about? So that's our mission. That's the show.

[Helen Pitt]

Welcome to Stateside with Kai and Carter. We're a new show from the Guardian.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

We're talking to big thinkers and the best journalists just trying to understand the world through smart conversation and honest reporting.

[Helen Pitt]

We don't have billionaires telling us what to say.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Stateside with Kyan Carter will come out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, starting May 13.

[Helen Pitt]

Follow on Apple podcasts or catch us wherever you watch or listen. Let's talk about Sandy Hook. Of the many despicable conspiracy theories that Alex Jones has propagated, Sandy Hook is, I think, easily the worst. And this was a year before you started working at Infowars, but it's something that he was repeating over and over again, including when you were there. Why did you stand for that? And what did you make of his lies?

[Josh Owens]

I don't even. It wasn't even on my radar when Jones started saying that, which to me is the craziest part of it from my perspective as a listener of his show, I didn't hear. I mean, I had to have heard him say that. I don't remember hearing him say that. What I remember specifically is the Boston Marathon bombing. He said that that was a false flag. He said that that was you. Some of those people were actors and some of those people didn't die. And every time there was a mass casualty or a tragedy, Jones claimed that it was a false flag. That was the perennial response, blue screen, green screen.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

But it took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean, even I couldn't believe It. I knew they jumped on it, used the crisis, hyped it up. But then I did deep research, and my gosh, it just pretty much didn't happen.

[Helen Pitt]

And when he says false flag, what does he mean by that?

[Josh Owens]

Essentially, he means that our government had a hand in making sure that happened so that they could push an agenda for Sandy Hook. Jones claimed that it was to take away firearms, was to create an incident that was so horrific that people would finally agree to give up their second Amendment. That's the idea in a nutshell. You know, his story with that shifted constantly. It was. Maybe there were kids that died. No, there weren't kids that died. Maybe there are real families. No, there aren't. You know, but at the end of the day, those families had to deal with the worst thing that a human being could. Could go through. I mean, it's up there. And Jones just twisted the knife. Jones just made it worse. And I said earlier that he.

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He.

[Josh Owens]

He was a. He had no value for truth and that, you know, that a lot of it was bs. I think Sandy Hook is something deeper and something different. I don't think he cares. I just don't think he has any concern about how his rhetoric affects anyone outside of himself.

[Helen Pitt]

Of all of the people saying that we faked this and that it never happened and that she's still alive somewhere, God, if she were, wouldn't that be amazing? But she wasn't. It wasn't just his words, right? It was after suffering an unimaginable loss, these families, these parents, then faced years of severe harassment from Alex Jones's fans. I got sent pictures of dead kids because I was told that as a crisis actor, I didn't really know what a dead kid looked like. So this is what it should look like. He was sued by the families for defamation and was ultimately found liable for over $1.4 billion in damages. But I really still struggle to comprehend how anybody could propagate such a lie about that group of people.

[Josh Owens]

Look, I do, too. I struggle to understand how someone could work in his world while that lie was being propagated. And I did it.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Do you understand now that it was absolutely irresponsible of you to do that? It was. Especially since I've met the parents and it's 100% real. As I said on the radio yesterday, and as I said here yesterday, it's 100% real. And the media still ran with lies that I was saying it wasn't real on air yesterday. It's incredible. They won't let Me, take it back. They just want to keep me in the position of being the Sandy Hook Man.

[Josh Owens]

When the Sandy Hook trial happened, Jones said that he believed that the tragedy had occurred. But then shortly. Shortly after that, he started questioning it again. And now he is once again claiming that, oh, you know, maybe it's. It didn't happen. Maybe this whole thing was an attempt to remove me from the airwaves.

[Helen Pitt]

Have you ever spoken to any of those parents?

[Josh Owens]

I don't like to talk about the specifics, but I was contacted by one family member. I don't want to say their name, but it meant a lot to me. They were incredibly kind. They didn't have to be. Honestly, I'm not sure if they should have been.

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah, you could forgive them if they were. If they just contacted you to say, shame on you. You propped up this guy. You helped spread his lies.

[Josh Owens]

Yeah, that's honestly what I felt like I deserved and still felt like I deserve. But that's not what happened. And they were incredibly kind to me, and it meant a lot to me.

[Helen Pitt]

And you left Infowars in 2017. What was the final straw for you, or what was the turning point?

[Josh Owens]

There wasn't a final straw. It was years of small things, big things. I would say Trump coming on the scene was a big part of it. We talked about how it went from fringe to mainstream. We were, you know, in a lot, a lot of ways, in the beginning, I felt like we were sort of screaming into an echo chamber. Jones had a little audience here of people that believe these things. But then it started to go out and affect the world. Jones became much more overtly racist and sexist in his rhetoric. And I think a lot of that was hinged on Trump's, you know, ability to do that and win an election in this country. And so it was everything.

[Helen Pitt]

And we're talking just days after Alex Jones announced that Infowars, after nearly 30 years, has officially stopped broadcasting and it shuttered its Austin headquarters. The final show took place last week. How did you feel when you heard that news?

[Josh Owens]

I think it's a mix of emotions. I'm glad that that happened. I'm glad that the families have this victory. I'm glad that hopefully a precedent has been set.

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah. Cause it's being liquidated, isn't it? To compensate the Sandy Hook families, who he still hasn't paid damages to.

[Josh Owens]

From everything that I've read, the families haven't received anything from him yet. A few years ago, when Jones was deplatformed off of all social Media, I think people wiped their hands of him and they said, okay, he's gone.

[Helen Pitt]

Yeah, the problem.

[Josh Owens]

Yeah, the problem is no longer there. Good riddance. But also, there's really nothing to worry about anymore. The bad man is gone. Well, that wasn't true. Now he's back on Twitter X and he is now lost Infowars. And I think people right now are saying he's gone. Well, Jones has a new show that he's already started the day after his Infowars brand ended.

[Helen Pitt]

Do you think he's even capable of stopping?

[Josh Owens]

Oh, no, no, I do not think so at all. I mean, what would he do with himself? This is his entire identity. I mean, wouldn't it be great if he came out, admitted the things that he had done, acknowledged it, took responsibility, and then went away? That's not going to happen. It's never going to happen. He has everything in place to continue doing what he's doing. He claims that it's all owned by a third party, so the courts can't touch it. So I just don't think there's any comfort in this. I think it's great that it happened. It's important that it happened that he lost Infowars and that he has been siloed off into this other thing. But there is another thing, and there will always be another thing. You're listening to Alex Jones.

[Helen Pitt]

One of the most surprising elements of this whole saga is that the satirical news site the Onion has won a bid to take over the original Infowars site. They've pledged to pay the Sandy Hook families, and they've appointed the comedian Tim Heidecker to play the role of Alex Jones. And I guess we should say at this point that it could still be blocked by the Texas State Appeals Court. But I'm curious, what do you make of this outcome?

[Josh Owens]

I just think it's sort of perfect. I heard that Tim Heidecker will sort of parody his show for a couple months and then it will turn into a platform for comedians. I think essentially what they hope to happen is that in years down the road, when people hear Infowars, they will think of something completely different than what they might now associated with.

[Alex Jones / Tim Heidecker / Other Voices]

Jones just won a major battle, folks, okay? Alex and his gang of liars and scoundrels have been cast out into the street. They have lost Infowars. I am confirming now I am wearing his skin. I've been wearing his skin now for about two weeks. And it is. It is tough skin. It is Texas skin. It's leathery.

[Josh Owens]

When I first started working there, I was told that, you know, Infowars is sort of a play on Star Wars. Jones is obsessed with Star Wars. He's obsessed with movies. He's obsessed with painting the world as if it is a movie. I was told that Infowars was his Millennium Falcon and that it was his baby and don't do anything to mess it up. I mean, so much of it was like, this is what Jones has spent the majority of his life building. And now he's lost it. And he's lost it in a way that it has to hurt. He can pretend all day that it doesn't. But I know Jones. I knew Jones for four years. I know that it bothers him.

[Helen Pitt]

As we discussed, you've written a really fascinating memoir, and I thought there's a very interesting vignette in it towards the end where you talk about how you signed your book deal despite having an NDA, a non disclosure agreement, hanging over your head. And you go to see a lawyer who says, as a lawyer, my advice is, yeah, you can't get around the NDA. It's too much of a risk. You might get sued. And then the lawyer pauses and says, as a human being who has to live in this country, you have to do this. What are you hoping that people get from this book?

[Josh Owens]

I hope that people can get some insight into what it's like to be pulled into that world. Because regardless of whether Jones is sidelined and he's doing his stuff on the fringes again or whatever it ends up up being, so much of our country in our world is siloed off into these ideas and these systems and these grifters who are pushing these lies. And I think there's some confusion about, like, everyone who's involved in that stuff is just a horrible person and can be written off. And I'm not dismissing anyone and I'm not even dismissing myself. I mean, so much of the book is just me taking ownership of my own actions. But I also hope that it gives a sense of what it's like to be pulled into that world and how difficult it is to get out. And so much of what helped me was the people that I was surrounded by, specifically my partner, Lacy. She was constantly.

[Helen Pitt]

She's a patient woman. Wow.

[Josh Owens]

My God, Yes. I am so incredibly grateful for her. So many young men, I feel like, are buying into these, like, look smacking communities and these, like, far right, you know, Nazi communities and this white identity. And they're seeing connections with people as, like, what's the return on investment or what is the benefit to them individually? And so much of the book, I hope, gives an example of how important it is to surround yourself with people who are compassionate and considerate and smarter than you and willing to challenge you. Because so many times in that world I saw people when they were challenged, they removed those people from their life. They cut them out of their life. And so what I'm showing is that it's important to be challenged, it's important to be questioned, and relationships are, or at least a big part of the reason that I'm no longer in that world.

[Helen Pitt]

That feels like a good place to end. On an optimistic note. Josh, thank you so much.

[Josh Owens]

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

[Helen Pitt]

That was Josh Owens. I really recommend his book. It's called the Madness of Believing A Memoir from Inside Alex Jones Conspiracy Machine. Before we go, I just wanted to tell you about a video podcast that our New York office is launching. It's called Stateside with Kai and Carter and it's hosted by our colleagues Kai Wright and Carter Sherman. Each week they're going to be trying to make sense of some of the biggest stories happening right now. The show will feature conversations with some of the smartest thinkers and reporters, not just from the Guardian, but from across the world. It's launching on the 13th of May, with episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. You can find it in full video on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. And that is all for today. This episode was produced by Eli Block and presented by me, Helen Pittsburgh. Sound design was by Brian McNamara and the executive producer was Khuma Khalili. We'll be back in your feeds this afternoon with the latest. This is the Guardian.

[Josh Owens]

Par le tu francais, hablas espanol par Liano.

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