00:00:00.460Today's episode of Diabolical Lies was brought to you by the Kay Jewelers line of First Communion
00:00:05.680Jewelry, the campaign finance regulator who wants to know why Caroline stopped texting her back,
00:00:11.280Bare Minerals warmth, Casey Means as astrologer, Ann Taylor Loft's annual factory blowout sale,
00:00:17.340and the selfie stick manufacturer being kept in business solely by the new media section of the
00:00:21.380White House press briefing room. Oh my god, Bare Minerals catching a stray.
00:00:26.880We have a really deep bench of sponsors today for this episode.
00:00:32.980Yes, today we are talking about White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt and what her appointment, her style, and her online presence tells us.
00:00:44.340Because I think for me, the capitalism episode felt like a real capstone.
00:00:50.280It really stretched my intellectual limits. It left my brain feeling pretty wrung out from trying to capture something so large and all-encompassing. And then spending an hour explaining all the heinous crimes of the CIA felt extremely dark. And then your Who Wants Kids episode that we did next made me confront some, like, very uncomfortable and challenging contradictions in my own belief system.
00:01:13.580So, for today's episode, I was like, you know what I haven't done in a while?0.97
00:01:18.200A bad faith shit-talking hit piece.0.93
00:01:20.400So, that's what I have for you today.0.99
00:01:25.560I asked myself, who am I so consumed with hate for that I could spend 40 hours ingesting every meaningless detail about their life and transforming it into a withering psychoanalysis?
00:01:37.540who is so underqualified and lies with such pathological confidence that it would be fun
00:01:43.260to study how and why they've gotten where they are. And so obviously there was no choice but
00:01:48.380Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary who runs briefings with all the energy and1.00
00:01:52.980thinly veiled disdain of a hungover sorority president. Kara, what do you know about Caroline0.96
00:01:57.960Levitt? Okay, I did not know that her name actually starts with a K. So that's where I
00:02:03.440would start like i thought that it was just kind of like a tiktok shit post and then when i found0.98
00:02:08.180out i was like this is the work of some really devious shit taking place in that family0.96
00:02:13.340so that's what i know about her cool so basically nothing yeah i spent a little too much time i0.85
00:02:20.220think listening to every interview she's ever done it left me with a little bit of stockholm
00:02:24.260syndrome that i'm still working through now when she pops up on my screen i'm like ah hello old
00:02:28.200friend but i also think i realized something accidentally in producing this episode that
00:02:33.380is unfortunately much more foreboding about media and influence. So we'll get into that too.
00:02:39.980Okay. I want to start today with a recent controversy. Caroline, are you familiar with
00:02:44.920Kate Max? No, I'm not. Okay. She's the influencer, the running influencer that... Oh, oh, oh, oh,
00:02:53.440I did hear about this. I did hear about this. She's a running influencer who I think has over
00:02:58.280a million followers and i guess she will run and often interview or like run into like a famous0.99
00:03:04.060person and she ran into caroline levitt and a bunch of people were like what the fuck are you
00:03:08.780doing normalizing insane washing her and she was like we're all too polarized all right we're gonna0.71
00:03:15.100watch the video hey how many miles are you running today no miles because we're at the beautiful
00:03:20.240white house but why don't i give you a tour let's do it my name is caroline levitt i am from new
00:03:24.660Hampshire, and I am the White House press secretary, and this is the beautiful White House. We're
00:03:28.980currently walking on what we call Pebble Beach. This is where all of the press hang out. I can't
00:03:33.220believe you get to wake up and be here every single day. Is this a dream come true for you?
00:03:37.780It is a dream come true. The White House is so beautiful, especially this time of year. And then
00:03:42.140this is the front entrance to the West Wing. What is your roles and responsibilities at the White
00:03:45.980House? My job is to relay the president's message and his agenda and his views and feelings to the
00:03:51.280American people through the press. What is your favorite space at the White House? Why don't we go
00:03:56.080right in here and I will show you. And here you are, James S. Brady Briefing Room. And it is quiet
00:04:02.080right now, but typically on a briefing day, you would walk in here and it will be packed with
00:04:06.160journalists from all across the world. What do you do for preparation before walking into this room?
00:04:10.900I pray to God before every briefing. It's a moment to just ground myself and level set. But before
00:04:15.660the prayer comes a lot of preparation. My team and I are just reading the news. I talk to the
00:04:20.140president multiple times and this is what we call lower press this is where my incredible team sits
00:04:25.280every day this is liz that's davis hat nice to meet you harrison in here anna and we have kush
00:04:31.520and they are the front lines of the white house press shop this used to be my seat here when i was
00:04:37.520an assistant press secretary you're good max if you're not already she's an icon this is my office
00:04:44.880I have, obviously, photos of myself with the president.
00:04:49.040You also have a picture of me, and that's my baby, my nine-month-old son.
00:04:52.520That was from our senior staff swearing-in ceremony.
00:04:55.040And then this picture here is from my first briefing.
00:04:57.700This is a seventh-grade class from Georgia who came to visit.
00:05:00.840Their dad is one of my colleagues here in the White House,
00:05:02.860and they asked if I could go speak to the students, and they wrote me this cute little thing.
00:05:06.360Yeah, another picture of my baby on his first Air Force One flight.
00:12:36.180with the opinions of all of their students.
00:12:38.540Their job here is to teach and to inform.
00:12:42.140By no means should they infuse their political beliefs into their classroom lectures.
00:12:46.780I could give countless—oh, this is going to be like, I could give examples, but I won't.
00:12:49.840I could give countless instances where professors of all subjects, from politics to philosophy, communication, and even biology, have made their political objectives, beliefs, and criticisms more than clear throughout class.
00:13:03.080In one instance last spring, the professor opened class by stating that he or she did not vote for0.98
00:13:09.020President Trump because they think he is a, quote, maniac goofball. How is that relevant at all to0.97
00:13:14.540the class discussion? What could that professor possibly have gained from stating that to the
00:13:18.920class? I sat there, baffled, as I do most classes, wondering how my professor could ever have thought
00:13:24.460saying such a thing in front of 30 young students was appropriate. Furthermore, it is no surprise
00:13:29.740that the majority of professors here are blatantly liberal.
00:13:57.900They must not allow their own bias to warp class material. I could recall more instances than one
00:14:04.200when a professor has allowed their own political opinions to sway real-world examples. Such examples
00:14:09.560should help further one's understanding of the material. They should not further one's
00:14:13.680understanding of what the professor believes. I feel like she's having a misunderstanding of
00:14:17.040how classes work anyways. And lastly, our professors must realize that not all students
00:14:21.160here feel the way they do. In fact, there are students here who voted for President Trump and
00:14:26.000still support him. If you are a professor reading this, I hope you did not have a heart attack at
00:14:30.560that statement. But yes, it is true. Wow. Someone get this woman, a MacArthur grant.
00:14:35.240Your youngest press secretary in history, everybody.
00:14:38.540We talk about this all the time, but I feel like I want to state it very clearly here because it's
00:14:42.500also going to play into our next episode. We're going to be looking at something that I learned
00:14:46.520in my college experience, and that's going to be really fun. But I've been thinking about it a lot,
00:14:50.840the way that like we talk about whether colleges are woke or conservative. And it's like,
00:14:54.440just for the record, there is no class you're ever going to take that is not shaped by
00:14:59.000someone's bias. Bias is not avoidable. It's like you said in our previous episode,
00:15:04.580social engineering will always have a bias. There will always be an outcome,
00:15:07.960even if you're teaching economics, even if you're teaching math, the way that a professor chooses
00:15:11.760to teach always exists. And I feel like one of the sneaky things that happens in these
00:15:15.940stupid little essays is that they'll be like, we just need facts. And I'm like,0.99
00:15:20.580yeah, but you're actually implying a world that doesn't exist.
00:15:22.800Well, it's a little bit like the Chris Rufo tirade where I know they had him on The Daily, you know, a couple weeks ago. And he was complaining that there's no prominent conservative voices in academia. And he's like, oh, it doesn't reflect the country. And I think it was the president of Princeton that went on, you know, the day before and was like, well, our job isn't to reflect the opinions of the country. Our job is to educate people.
00:15:49.840Also, the fuck there aren't conservatives in college campuses?0.99
00:15:56.140Yeah, I mean, I think that that is like a bigger ongoing culture war playing out in academia right now.
00:16:02.320So I just love that she was kind of on the front lines of that one.
00:16:05.820So following a series of unimaginative op-eds, she, quote,
00:16:09.700founded the school's first broadcasting club in 2017.
00:16:15.900Now, I saw this reported in multiple places.
00:16:18.220She also talks about this a lot in interviews, usually kind of briefly, that, like, she was so in love with journalism and so in love with broadcasting that she decided to start a broadcasting club in 2017.
00:16:36.880And her participation in the student newspaper did not last very long.
00:16:41.500One source familiar with her at the time told Adam Wren for Politico that Levitt was frustrated with how slowly the newspaper published that writing a story on Monday, going to print on Friday, and then not getting in front of people until the following Tuesday was unacceptable to her.
00:17:00.640She wanted to speed up the news cycle.
00:17:05.100So, she created her own platform, her own show, where she could control both the narrative and the speed with which that narrative was being delivered.
00:17:42.240And thank you for checking out our first newscast of the semester,0.99
00:17:44.560and obviously our first broadcast here in studio at Goffstown TV.
00:17:49.100We have a lot to cover tonight, as a lot has happened since the last time we saw you.
00:17:53.580But before we get to what is happening on campus at school,
00:17:57.420I think it's only appropriate to address the biggest news not only in America,
00:18:01.600but perhaps the world, our new president.
00:18:03.860Last Friday, Donald J. Trump swore into the highest office in the land, becoming the 45th president of the United States of America.
00:18:12.480Since the inauguration, Trump has made progress on many important but equally different issues and has signed a few executive orders that could dramatically change the direction in which our country was headed under the Obama administration.
00:18:26.000Joining me to discuss Trump's changes so far is Hillary Clinton supporter and our very own political analyst, Tom Mannion.
00:18:33.500So first, Tom, thank you for being here.
00:19:56.000She even interned as a news anchor at one point at a Manchester ABC affiliate called WMUR, and she was offered a full-time position there, but she was accepted into the White House internship program instead, something she describes applying to from the student cafeteria while her friends were out partying.
00:20:14.840So she very much presents herself, maybe fairly, as an extremely ambitious young person.
00:20:21.080So Levitt gets this White House internship her junior year of college in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building mailroom.
00:20:28.220Her job is to basically write thank you notes and cards to the people from the president.
00:20:35.720And somehow it's not quite clear how she basically ends up getting a job in the press office.
00:20:40.180The way it was described in One Piece was that a, quote, friend who worked as a body man for the president passed along her resume to Kayleigh McEnany, who was the press secretary at the time, who then hired her as the assistant press secretary.
00:20:54.400The world of all right grifters is just populated almost exclusively by people who were desperate to get into legacy media and for whatever reason didn't make it.
00:21:03.880Well, it's funny. It's kind of like Barry Weiss tweeting the other day being like, I didn't even know the Pulitzer Prize was being given out.
00:21:38.820This is kind of the major critique against unpaid internships is that they discriminate in favor of wealthy kids whose parents can afford to bankroll them while they work for free.
00:21:51.040She never addresses how she was able to financially swing an extended period of working for free.
00:21:56.200I will also note that in an earlier interview, a 2023 conversation with Alex Clark.
00:22:01.340So this is the woman who delivered that very impassioned Maha speech that we played at the end of the Maha Mamas episode.
00:22:08.060That's the one. She tells Clark that she found out she got the White House internship while she was studying abroad in Italy. So, it's possible that, like, by the time she was in college, her parents were wealthy enough to pay for all of this, but it just doesn't quite square with the way that she so frequently presents her upbringing and her family situation.
00:23:23.880She's unserious, and she makes me smile.0.98
00:23:27.020So Caroline was actually with Stefanik in the Capitol on January 6th.
00:23:32.320She has never publicly commented on her experience that day beyond declaring in an interview when she was asked about it that the right was, quote, the movement of law and order.
00:25:48.040okay so this is where things start to get really interesting for Levitt
00:25:51.540This section of my outline is called Caroline's Congressional with a K run.
00:25:56.160She begins working with a GOP consultant who tells her that in order to be competitive in the New Hampshire primary, she needs to raise $1.5 million.
00:26:05.680Now, she was a pretty distant, long-shot candidate.
00:26:09.180There were nine others running in the Republican primary.
00:28:38.860All of which is to say, I don't spend much time even like looking at Fox News segments anymore. And when you spend a little bit of time away from it, it is so striking how blatantly propagandistic maybe. Yeah, it's just very striking to watch it after years of kind of being away from it and being like, oh, my God, people actually view this as news. It's so shocking. Even the way it's like form a person who was censored by Twitter, like everything is a dog whistle.
00:29:05.360So it's interesting that you're using the phrase dog whistles and you're referring to it as being propagandistic because that is something that we're going to sort of come back to is just the way that Fox News has pavloved its base into recognizing and reacting to certain ideas and phrases.
00:29:23.940and i think she is one of the most impressive wielders of that strategy probably most impressively
00:29:34.460of like anyone else in the like far right media sphere right now her youtube channel has dozens
00:29:41.500and dozens of videos from her race she was on fox news a lot she was on newsmax a lot
00:29:48.160She also became a favored project of Steve Bannon.
00:30:04.160He said that Levitt's focus on the stolen election is how he knew she was, quote, true MAGA.
00:30:09.940So this dogged commitment to the party line and, like, willingness to continue parroting what was effectively a proven lie so confidently was, like, how he knew that she was the real deal.
00:30:22.860You know, it's funny. So The Atlantic recently did a profile with Trump where two Atlantic writers interviewed Trump. And it's a pretty stunning story. And it's all about like the last four years and how he went from being basically totally shamed leaving after the insurrection and rose to power again.
00:30:40.600And what they shared that I'm thinking about right now is that there was a very small group of people who stayed very dedicated to Trump while the world kind of thought that he had disappeared. And they were drafting executive orders for four years. Like that is why these executive orders have been released in such a flurry is that there were this small handful of people who basically were so invested in Trump and so bought into the cult that they basically believed and just knew he was going to be president again.
00:31:07.980And now we are seeing basically the fruits of their psychotic labor because they were just prepping for four years.
00:31:13.880If you are so dogged for one candidate and you have four years to just plan this out, I think that's why we saw such this rush of momentum when he won again is people like Caroline.
00:31:25.040Well, there's a source of mysticism, I think, around Trump that has been building from the beginning, but was really sealed by that failed assassination attempt.
00:31:35.660Where you almost get the sense that in some cases, these people believe that if they say things confidently enough, they will will it into being.
00:33:29.860Now, this is genuinely impressive boots-on-the-ground versatility for someone whose primary and preferred mode of communication is, like, one-to-many mass lying.
00:33:38.500And I think it highlights two things about Levitt.0.98
00:33:41.460One is that she really is a grinder.0.65
00:33:44.260Like, she is going to put in the hours.
00:33:47.340And two, there is a clear split between her interpersonal relationship skills—I think you see this in the Kate Max interview—and the person that she plays on TV.
00:33:56.720One of the consultants that she worked with, these GOP consultants, was stunned by her effort
00:34:02.220and basically said, I'm convinced that she talked to every single person who voted for her.
00:35:41.160Skiing has always been a rich person activity.
00:35:43.360But as climate change, which I know she doesn't believe in, as climate change worsens, skiing is for the ultra elite now. Skiing is so expensive. And so I do want to note that as like a small business owner, my mom worked in an ice cream shop. She was just in like a little like skiing onesie, which is interesting.
00:36:01.160The other thing I was going to say is my many rounds of feedback that I have been trying to
00:36:07.440relate to the Democratic Party over the last eight months. One other piece of feedback I would give
00:36:11.540is that we have so quickly capitulated to being afraid of the word woke, of being like, oh, well,
00:36:17.240we don't want to seem too woke. Like, I think we're seeing with Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg
00:36:21.120and Kamala Harris, you're seeing all these candidates basically try to appeal to this
00:36:25.040concept of centrism and to try to distance themselves from the word woke. And I wish I
00:36:29.020would see a democratic politician be like woke means nothing and you see that in ads like this
00:36:36.060it's just like a derogative term that republicans use to just label someone as don't like them
00:36:42.180like that thing of her being woke was like socialist yeah it just it means absolutely
00:36:46.940nothing and it's so silly that we have fallen for that term to just be like no no i'm not woke it's0.75
00:36:52.080like well why don't we just say hey what the fuck does woke mean if caroline levitt is woke0.87
00:36:55.700Because she was never woke. She was always a Republican. The fact that she said, they showed a tweet that said, wear a mask. But in that tweet, it said, be a patriot, wear a mask, American flag emoji. That's hardly like a woke purple hair catless lady in a coffee shop.1.00
00:37:12.560A little, like, pop-up of Anthony Fauci,
00:37:14.900and there's, like, a heart around his face.
00:37:17.240I will also take this opportunity to note
00:37:19.400that this is around the time that Caroline meets
00:37:21.500and begins dating the man who will become her husband,
00:37:24.480Nicholas Riccio, 59-year-old real estate developer.
00:37:28.300They meet at a campaign event for her race.
00:45:26.620Get Nina Simone's name out of your fucking mouth, Caroline.1.00
00:45:30.400line. May Nina Simone's legacy never see this. Okay. Her caption says, advocating for the1.00
00:45:36.780conservative American values of faith, family, and freedom is my passion. It has also become
00:45:42.080my career. Another one of my passions is fitness. I was an athlete growing up, played NCAA D2
00:45:49.140college softball, D2 sucks, sorry, and tried my best to work out four to five days per week.
00:45:55.060I believe it is a privilege to take care of ourselves, mentally and physically.
00:45:59.640But unfortunately, most of the workout apparel brands that I have always loved have gone woke.
00:46:07.720I could give a plethora of examples, but Nike recently using MEN, all caps, to advertise WOMEN'S, all caps, sports bras, really did it for me.
00:48:33.200Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we have a picture of Caroline at Lake Tahoe with a little influencer stance. She's in a little workout set, like a little blue workout set. And she's given a little like pose. And it says, if heaven were a place on earth, it would be here. Workout set by Booty by Brabants. Wait, Booty by Brabants. What are all these names?
00:51:31.840Well, it's possible that her new boyfriend, this 50 something real estate developer, was buying all of this for her.
00:51:37.660But again, tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods for an early 20 something who has mostly up until this point worked unpaid internships and like run for a congressional campaign.
00:51:46.300So the word that kept coming up, both from people praising Caroline and people critiquing her, was performance.0.71
00:51:56.140And then, of course, she becomes press secretary.
01:01:48.900Even if she's fucking lying, she's giving them content. She's giving them things to report on. She's giving them stories, even if the story is, look at how Caroline Leavitt is misrepresenting what the administration is doing. That in itself is a story.0.98
01:02:04.840I have like almost a pet theory that especially these younger generations, like when we're talking about the manosphere and like young men getting pulled into these worlds and like someone like Caroline Levitt being so young and so adept at this new sort of language and new social media landscape.
01:02:19.940It's not just that they're savvy with technology.
01:02:23.500I think that when you have generations that have grown up in a time period where, A, almost their whole world exists online, and B, they're very aware that public policy is very severed from how they feel.
01:02:35.760And I think that that leads to apathy, sure, but I also think it just leads to this feeling of the whole world's a video game.
01:02:42.560All these people kind of engage and she'll lie, but her heart rate isn't going up.0.65
01:02:46.420I remember Sean Spicer would get all fucking red in the face and would get, like, so stressed out.0.90
01:06:04.640I think what's most incredible about it is the fact that this is a clip that the Megyn Kelly show is showing because they think it makes them look good is very telling.
01:06:15.020The obstinance with which they refuse to acknowledge their own mistakes is the communications strategy.
01:06:21.020The strategy is being loudly wrong and then refusing to back down from it.
01:06:26.060And so she is, in her own way, very much channeling this Trump ethos.
01:06:31.300She told Meghan that she speaks from the heart without notes.
01:06:35.180She is performing for a much larger audience than the people in that room.
01:06:40.540She's doing it for the MAGA base watching at home.
01:06:43.940I try to be empathetic to people who voted for Trump because there's no other option.
01:06:49.120This is the country we live in. And I find it more interesting, generally speaking, to be like, yeah, I mean, a large, the popular vote. A lot of people voted for Trump. But most people who voted for Trump are not people who are watching the news. And I think that that's really important. The vast majority of people who just are voters in America are just people who are like collecting however much information they have, usually voting along party lines. Some people go back and forth.
01:07:12.040But the group of people who are in this MAGA world of following all this content, watching the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius XM radio, like, you've got to seek that out. Most people are not watching Caroline Levitt's press interviews.
01:07:26.600So I feel comfortable saying this, that for the people who are watching these interviews and going, oh, sick burn, we've got a group of the population who just are not interested in being smart.
01:07:40.840You are watching it for pro wrestling. It's dumb. And it's very obviously dumb here.1.00
01:07:45.500And I think you either don't care about that or you actually don't understand how obviously stupid this is.0.99
01:07:52.580And I'm not trying to create, like, a moral superiority to intelligence, but I'm just saying factually speaking, like, for the people who are watching this, they are not concerned with facts.0.99
01:08:01.060That is just, like, not a thing they're concerned with.
01:08:03.280And so I think that we sometimes miss the forest for the trees by being like, well, she's lying.
01:08:07.720And it's, like, right, because it doesn't matter if she's lying or not.
01:08:10.660They're watching for entertainment.0.98
01:08:11.800The people who watch these cannot be caring about facts because that video was so obviously her getting caught in a very obvious mistruth, and it doesn't fucking matter.0.85
01:08:21.820Before this administration, did you ever see clips on TikTok of the press secretary?0.80
01:09:08.560And I think it misunderstands the point.
01:09:10.880They're not watching it to get news, and they're not watching it to understand things.
01:09:15.120They're watching it because it's entertaining.
01:09:16.880So the more I studied Caroline Levitt, the more I began to see her as the Trump-era avatar of how politics and media have just fully collapsed into one another.0.98
01:09:26.960First, there is this deranged emphasis on loyalty.
01:09:30.220More than one story I read cited her embrace of Trump after January 6th as the moment when her fortune was sealed.
01:09:37.260At a time when they were clearly in the wrong, right?
01:09:40.120Her comfort with spin-doctoring that event to the point of unrecognizability
01:09:44.380was what revealed her to Steve Bannon to be, quote, true MAGA.
01:09:49.540Then there's the pathological, shameless confidence with which she lies.
01:09:53.800She gets behind the podium and delivers comments,0.94
01:17:45.300Bear in mind, right, that the U.S. Supreme Court case, Nome v. Abrego Garcia, has a passage on the first page that reads, quote,
01:17:53.460The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.
01:18:04.460The United States represents that the removal to El Salvador was the result of an administrative error.0.99
01:19:35.700you go on offense. That is what we're dealing with. So here's where this Caroline Levitt as
01:19:41.660White House chief influencer becomes quite literal. Beginning in early May, she started0.98
01:19:46.880holding influencer-specific briefings. In her opening remarks, she said,
01:19:52.420Tens of millions of Americans are now turning to social media and independent media outlets
01:19:57.320to consume their news, and we are embracing that change, not ignoring it. All journalists,
01:20:02.940outlets, and voices have a seat at the table now, and you being here today for this briefing
01:20:08.160proves that. Thoughts? Am I worried about the future? Yes. Do I think that the internet is
01:20:15.680basically like a bull with five different fucking, like, stab wounds on it facing us down and we have0.99
01:20:20.900no weapons? Yes. Do I also think that what they are doing is something we should have done a0.99
01:20:26.640fucking decade ago? Yes. Like, I'm surprised that they haven't done this already. It's0.98
01:20:32.120very smart of them, I think. Interesting. So I'm actually going to have you read this
01:20:39.360headline from the Associated Press from January 2024. Oh God, did Biden have influencers and I
01:20:47.340didn't even know about it? God damn it. Social media influencers descend on the White House1.00
01:20:51.640where Biden calls them the new source of news. Great. Just read like the first three paragraphs
01:20:57.720for me. Oh my God. This is, I feel sick. I want to pass out. Okay. Social media influencers got
01:21:04.240the royal treatment at the White House on Wednesday as President Joe Biden gave a nod
01:21:08.040to their ability to hold sway with millions of loyal followers. The White House played host to
01:21:12.860a group of more than a hundred influencers, also known as content creators across a range of media
01:21:17.900platforms from chefs and makeup artists to fitness gurus and medical students to talk about issues
01:21:23.020including mental health, pay equity, and the abuse of artificial intelligence. Biden stopped
01:21:27.680by to tell the influencers gathered in the Indian Treaty Room in the White House complex,
01:21:32.480the fact is, you are the future. Well, so, okay, I have a question.
01:21:37.420Who were those influencers? Do we know who those people were?
01:21:42.020Oh, I don't know. It was actually a surprise for me when I looked this up and found this,
01:21:46.160because the point that I'm trying to make is we have seen this on the left. Influencer briefings,
01:21:51.600It's not new. I don't think we were as brazen about it. But Democratic politicians and representatives also show a preference for influencers that are favorable to their side. And so this whole influencers are the future of news is sort of a bipartisan stance at this point. They're just better at it.
01:22:10.060You know what I find really interesting? And maybe this is like an interesting reflection of the algorithm. I am shocked that my algorithm never served that to me, that I never saw influencers at like a White House press room, like for the Biden administration.
01:22:26.880The spoiler here is that I think this is going to backfire on them, and we're going to talk about why. But first, I think we should learn what kind of brilliant journalism is going on in this space. So, Caro, please read from some Financial Times coverage of the first briefing.
01:23:16.680It was Cambry Nelson, a, quote, grassroots activist turned social media influencer and ambassador for the esteemed, quote, American First Policy Institute, with more than 600,000 followers on X.
01:23:29.280Oh, my God. When you have 600,000 followers on X, then you're like...
01:23:34.040You're pregnant with Musk's 15th baby.
01:26:23.420she antagonizes the devilish mainstream media. I mean, every single time she talks to anybody in1.00
01:26:28.900this space, the mainstream media is not reporting on this. It produces clips that go viral of her
01:26:33.660bitching at reporters in public before going behind the scenes and speaking to them like a1.00
01:26:37.380normal person. The base loves this performance. But the MAGA magic doesn't work when the reporter
01:26:43.720is sucking up to you. That's a really good point. The other thing I was thinking about is we saw0.69
01:26:48.360this with the first Trump administration, and obviously the second administration has been
01:26:53.080markedly different in a number of ways. But I do think that when you're, I mean, we've talked about
01:26:57.120this with the profit model of conspiracy theories, is that it is like inherently a volatile chemical
01:27:04.840combination. Like number one, you are teaching your core audience to believe nothing, which means
01:27:10.700that at any given point, they could be manipulated against you. Yes, I know that we can't imagine a
01:27:16.080lot of these Trump voters turning away from Trump. We also couldn't imagine Trump winning a second
01:27:20.020election. I do think that there is this kind of reality that like when you teach people to be
01:27:26.040untethered, then by definition, they are not tethered to anything. And that makes them very
01:27:31.840difficult to keep in control. And then I would also say the same is true of all these influencers
01:27:36.900where it's like when your whole profit model is like existing in the world of just utter bullshit,0.99
01:27:42.020bananas bullshit like the sky is green and elon musk is like our beloved patriarch then like and0.99
01:27:48.340why is no one talking about the sun changing colors you just like you don't you're not set1.00
01:27:53.240up to exist over a long period of time you're going to make a shit ton of money and then you're0.99
01:27:57.000going to be tucker carlson sitting next to alex joan them dipping their fucking zin pouches0.88
01:28:01.660totally de-platformed and i understand that they still have influence but i really think that we're0.98
01:28:06.060going to be moving through a time period where like they have sucked the internet dry and now
01:28:11.000people are eventually going to also get bored of the conspiracy theories. Because they've
01:28:14.720essentially said the craziest fucking shit you can imagine by now. And I think I would not be1.00
01:28:20.100surprised if over the next few decades, you see people just like getting bored with the internet
01:28:24.160altogether because you've desensitized them. There's nothing else you can say at this point
01:28:27.800for shock value. I think that's spot on. And I think that as my thesis came together here,
01:28:35.080which is basically the Trump era as, like, the influencer administration, and that we should primarily understand them as trolls operating according to that playbook.
01:28:49.880There was another big piece of news that broke just a couple of days ago that reaffirmed that for me and solidified the direction that this episode was going to take.
01:29:00.100And it's that last week, Casey Means, sister of Callie Means, the ignoramus who was on that free press panel that we did in our Maha episode, was appointed Surgeon General.
01:33:08.480the Surgeon General provides Americans with the best scientific information available on how to
01:33:13.540improve their health and reduce their risk of illness and injury. The Surgeon General brings
01:33:17.940the best available scientific information to the public by issuing Surgeon General's advisories,
01:33:23.200calls to action, and reports on critical issues and communicating directly with the public via
01:33:27.700a number of communication channels. Okay, here's a Casey Means post on science.
01:33:32.220most mainstream news is the matrix meant to psychologically imprison us in fear and
01:33:40.020she does and a little plus sign and i aim not to be a part of it and focus on alignment with
01:33:45.920my highest purpose and creative force she sounds like scary glennon doyle speaking my
01:33:50.920speaking my truth has gotten me linked to many a narrative and my path is to relentlessly
01:33:58.900not get bogged down in it. These people love a double negative. Okay. My path is to relentlessly
01:34:06.540not get bogged down in anything, but stay in a vision state. Okay, wait, okay. This has happened
01:34:12.620multiple times in this episode today that I'm like, I must be reading this incorrectly and I'm
01:34:16.960not. Okay. So I'm actually loving this quote in the Wall Street Journal in a profile piece that
01:34:21.740came out today, smiley face emoji. The idea that it's controversial that we should both trust
01:34:27.120unbiased scientific information, and our divine intuition is a sign of darkness in our culture.
01:34:32.740The reality is that we are each a miracle, statistically, plus in all ways. We are a
01:34:38.020swirl of energy and matter in constant exchange with everything in the cosmos. We live in a
01:34:43.200quantum universe, and our biology is controlled by a star. Sun emoji. We are spiritual beings
01:34:49.600having a dualistic experience in the material realm. Can I say also, you would never fucking0.98
01:34:53.700catch these people reading a book on Buddhism. I'm like, yeah, a billion people, a billion people0.98
01:34:58.900follow religion that combines the spiritual with the material world, and you would probably call1.00
01:35:04.260those people terrorists because you're such racist morons. Okay, moving on. Of course,1.00
01:35:09.140we should trust our heart intelligence and divine intuition instead of blindly trusting,
01:35:13.280quote, the science, a weird new mind control term that silences the industry-sponsored narrative
01:35:19.760It is in fundamental opposition to the actual scientific method, which is about questioning, wrestling with ideas like maybe the sun has changed.
01:35:27.760That's just me. And testing hypotheses.
01:35:30.220Science is not a religion, but industries are trying to make it one.
01:48:46.880and they're like, whoa, this has gone out of hand.
01:48:51.600But then the long game is the Pete Buttigieg.
01:48:56.720Yeah, there's nothing for them to grab onto.0.81
01:48:58.880For a movement that has so thoroughly built itself on the foundation of triggering the libs and owning the libs and look at how absurd and crazy and the liberals are so out there.0.98
01:49:12.640It takes all the firepower away from those claims and just kind of makes them look ridiculous on their face.0.91
01:49:19.220the biggest thing that I got out of reading about this was dude every single time that I've ever0.87
01:49:25.380reposted like a Matt Gaetz announcement and like went off about Matt Gaetz every time I've ever0.99
01:49:33.400watched a Caroline Levitt clip and shared it being like this fucking bitch it's like oh my god I took1.00
01:49:39.300the bait every time I took the bait that's exactly the strategy is get people like me mad enough to1.00
01:49:46.100amplify their message. I'm proud of how you handled this episode because it was a very
01:49:52.460healthy form of shitposting. Like, I think that it's really good. We totally, we could have made
01:49:57.880fun of her freaky elderly husband. We could have made fun of her weird little baby. We could have0.83
01:50:02.880made fun of her horrible outfits. And we did that all the way at the end for anyone who wanted to
01:50:07.420listen all the way through. And her ugly little leopard print dress. We could have done all of1.00