Knowledge Fight - #821: Jon Ronson Returns

Episode Date: June 23, 2023

Today, Jordan sits down with Jon Ronson to have a lively chat about his new series The Debutante, covering all sorts of territory involving the Oklahoma City Bombing and the tale of Carol Howe.

I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys. It's time to pray. I have great respect for knowledge, Faith. Knowledge, Faith. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys. Shang-ni are the bad guys. Knowledge, Faith. Dan and Jordan, Knowledge, Faith. N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N I love you. Hello everyone, welcome back to Knowledge Fight. I am Jordan, once again alone without my co-host Dan. I am Luckily joined however by the the one and only John Ronson author of many books and

staple of NPRs everywhere How you doing? What's your bright spot? Oh see now, now we're, now it's fun whenever people actually know who we are. The last few people I've interviewed have had no idea exactly what was going on. So this is a delay. I will tell you that my bright spot is a new video game called Final Fantasy 16. That's my bright spot. And how about you, John? I've never planned a bright spot. So in this few, I'm just surprised that they called it Final Fantasy, and then they had 16 sequels.

Oh, you are, well, one, if we're at 16, I'm going to tell you, you're a little bit late to the joke. That was there after Final Fantasy II, I think. I must have a bright spot. What could it be? I was watching Silo, but it's not so great that I should put it in bright spot. That is a devastating review of silo. Hey, it's not bad, but it's not my bright spot.

It's not great spotable. Exactly. You know, I was on the treadmill and I was watching the Bruce Springsteen No Neux concert for 1979. It just got released. It was like lost footage that just got released and it's and it's and slight sensational. It's Springsteen, you know, turning 30, it's his 30th birthday. He said it's like very pinnacle. And it's like watching

a limp here, like the amount of energy he has. So that's about right. But it's the... Well, that's a great bright spot. Thank you. It's the Springsteen Madison Square Garden, 1979, no Newt's concert. Well, then that is a delightful bright spot. So then I will say that you're here, or you agreed to join me, because you have just released a new podcast slash audio book called The debutante. And before we get into it, very, very deep, because I've got notes and notes, could you just give a rundown of like the general conspiracy

that theory that led you to make this? Right, okay, so there's a conspiracy theory that doesn't really come from the right. It comes very much from the mainstream world at all, like NBC and so on. And also like academics on the left. So it's an unusual conspiracy theory in that regard. And the theory is that Timothy McVey, who obviously blew up the off-repey mode of Federal Building at Oklahoma City in 1995. History says that he was essentially a lone wolf. He coerced two old army friends into helping him,

but essentially he was a lone wolf. The theory is that he wasn't a lone wolf, and in fact, he had help from a mysterious, and very odd white supremacy compound in the Ozark mountains called Elohim City, particularly two men there, Mancord Andy the German and a man called Dennis Mayharn, and the reason why the world knows this is because At Elohim City was a very unlikely unexpected undercover informant who was a former deputy-tent and high society a young woman named Carol Howe who became a white supremacy spokeswoman before turning

and becoming a undercover informant and if the world's only listened to her information then the Oklahoma City bombing would never have happened. Right. Excellent. That was the perfect summation. It is, right? It's taken me a while. You should hear me. You know, whatever I do a story, because you know, you're so in the weeds when you do a story. Of course. And all of my stories take, you know, months or years. And

then somebody says, you know, what's it about? At the first time you try to explain it to someone, it just, whatever it is, you sound terrible. But yeah, because you make the show, but then you have to figure out how to explain the show, which is a whole different thing. It's almost like, so yeah, so now. You're talking to a guy who does a podcast about Alex Jones, and we've done 830 odd episodes.

The idea of explaining what I do to people gives me nightmares. That's right. So anyway, I'm sure some glad that I've managed to tell the story, to summarize it to a pretty clear way. Excellent. So yeah, so then let's tear that whole thing apart. I'm ready.

I've been an obsessed me for, well, it obsessed me back in the 90s when I first stumbled on the story and I did a pretty black cluster documentary about it at the time in an otherwise very good series called Secret Ulysses of the World. It was the one episode that didn't really work. Oh, that was the same series where I was not going to be able to go for that experience. Right. you got it yeah so all the other episodes were great that one wasn't it's always sort of bugged for me is you know such an interesting story and I got nowhere so just before the pandemic I decided to give you another

shot and for the last three or four years on and off I've been doing just that amazing so then you start I think obviously at the beginning with her childhood, but what I noticed whenever I was listening to it is that your interviews about her childhood were sparse at best. Yeah, the stories were not very specific and so on. So did you interview more people than made it onto the show or? No, I think we pretty much included everyone we interviewed. I agree. Her story kind of comes to life when she's a high school senior. That's where you really start to get to know who she is.

And then you massively get to know who she is a couple of years later when she Mary Sephiroth has been Greg who she is a couple of years later when she, Mary Sephiroth, has been Greg, who I did a great interview with. But yes, I agree. We didn't, we get a people from her school wouldn't talk to us. So if you have learned anything, we can know that we love this research.

We are talking, all right, all right, full disclosure. We were talking before the before we started recording uh... i've done uh... significant amount of research for for this interview and uh... on the spl's own web so spl c's own website uh... is her uh... or at least what was her assumed name in i think twenty fifteen or whenever it was published uh... is Amanda Brin Collins. And Brin Collins is specifically the writer of the Toxic Parents Survivor Guide.

So as far as her childhood is concerned, I will tell you that I assume you weren't able to talk to her parents. I know her mom's dead. Yeah, I haven't recently died. The reason why I didn't approach her father was because we were holding out for an interview with her. And so we thought, well, it seemed right, etiquette-wise, to not approach her father

before we got a yes or no from her. And right up until the end, it was a possibility that we would interview her. I want to coffee out by saying that it was a possibility that we would interview her. I want to coffee by saying that you know it's a pain in the ass and it's unusual I think for me that I don't get to interview absolutely everyone involved in the story. So this is unusual that I didn't get to talk to her but I got to talk to so many like extraordinary people involved in the story, including our first husband, that it's still like a very rich listener. Yeah, well, that's the central thing about the story

that I find so fascinating is that everybody was lying to you pretty much all the time, almost constantly. Like your interviews with Greg with Rachel Patterson, are non-stop lies. It's so fascinating to me. Okay, so I'd want you to tell me everything that you know. Oh, okay. Sorry. Well, let's just start with her childhood. So you interviewed one of her childhood friends who was also adopted and she recalled her from high school, right?

Yes. She passionately wanted to talk to us because she felt that, you know, she remembered the nice Carol before it all, everything turned horrific. And because of her good memories, she felt kind of, you know, morally compelled to talk to us. Yeah, so that's why she spoke to us. Right. And then the next interview is chronologically is with Greg, her first husband whom she married on a whim, on a dare practically. So the story there, could you give that kind of clearer for me, the picture of how that happened? Because as far as I understand it, it was,

they were drunk one night, et cetera. Yes, OK. So here's the story, the Greg told., so here's the story that Greg told. And I should say, everything that Greg told me, we much later got hold of the FBI report that, God, I've forgotten his name. But anyway, the guy who was investigating how when she re-joined the blah, blah, blah,

we'll get to that in a bit. And in this report was a contemporaneous interview that he did with Greg back then. Greg's only ever given two interviews, one to me and one to the FBI. What I will tell you, and the reason why I have trusted Greg, so I'm interested to hear what you've got to say, is that the story he told me and the story told the FBI at the time really telling with each other For instance We'll get to the how she broke her feet. Oh, of course, of course. I don't want to jump back and forth To be clear. I don't want to I don't want to say that Greg was lying about like the stories with Carol

I want to say that Greg is lying because you do not get a swastika tattoo just because your wife is going, oh, let's get a swastika tattoo tonight. Yeah, I've no doubt that that's true. He's self-safegged. He's very downplaying the whole. Oh, I'm sure I got a swastika tattoo. A huge one. What?

It was a childhood mistake. And a giveaway of that was they just got outlives the first night and he said that he really regresses it the next day, but he still got it all filled in. I didn't know that part. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the story is that Carol, yeah. So yeah, so let me go back a little bit. She leaves high school, moves to Colorado for a mysterious year where we think she joins the Colorado chapter of the Temple of Psychic Youth, which people have associated age

and people interested in this kind of stuff will know was a kind of offshoot of the band Psychic TV, which was an offshoot of the band psychic TV which was an offshoot of the band flopping whistle. This was like British. Think of like a British. Oh 20 jazz greats or whatever the name of the album. Yeah, I know who throbbing whistle is. Right. Okay, so kind of think you know, thinking the sort of 9-inch nails kind of genre. But with some suspect beliefs, I'd say. But anyway, so we think that Carol joined their fan club, which had all these sort of weird sort of pseudo-sex rituals and so on. Then she comes back to To Tosa and she's at a party, Halloween 1993. She's at a party,

catches the eye of this young stoner drifter Greg, who you can tell just for beating him now 30 years later was a dashing young handsome charismatic. You can see why she went for it. Oh sure, he seems very charming in the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Great racon to like, like I could have, yeah, loved it. So anyway, so yeah, yeah. With N, it just so happens a giant swastika tattoo on his shoulder. Which he's had disguise now. He's had it covered over with little swarms. I believe your clothes, it looks like an effeminate swastika.

A effeminate swastika? Yeah. Because it's hard to completely disguise this huge plastic. So, yeah, so they're dating, they hook up at this Halloween party, they have a whirlwind romance. After three weeks, she says, let's get married, so they alope to Vegas, stealing one of her mother's, you know, $1,000 dresses, go to agres, they are going to get a drug-caffy lighter watching war movies and of course cows on the south of the Germans against like Pistach at the end of every war movie.

Of course. And then there's an origin moment. And the origin moment is this park and Tulsa in Eastern 1994. There's an Eastern monument and their drunken playing on it and these little kids, white by the way, which is relevant in a minute. Of course. A jump jumping off the Eastern monument and Cowell says, I want to do that and she jumps off and smashes both her feet. So Greg scoops her up, takes it a hospital because Cowell comes to a fancy family, the hospital is just like throwing whatever drugs

at them that they want. Of course, you say cautics, you know what I mean. Whatever you want, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're an open book for you. Right, they didn't get the talk that I got when I had kidney stones for percuss at, where they said, when they said, people like you get addicted.

That's what they said. Do you mean writers or? I don't know, I think he meant like, don't think that it's only people in Ohio who get into it. Sure, sure, sure. Some people with fancy mascot glasses in New York City can do it. Yeah, people who can afford it get addicted to. Yeah.

So, uh, so then when Carol is convalescing, Greg's out running errands for her, and she is phoning a local telephone answering except it's called dialeracist. Here's one dispute by the way, between Kyle and Greg story. Later in court, Kyle said that it was Greg who got him into dialeracist. And Greg says that she got into it off her own tradition.

Yeah. So, but she's phoning dialeracist. And dialeracist is like a pre-internet way of getting your daily dose of racism. Yeah, yeah, no, it is, it is very much a podcast. That is what is so fascinating about it is that it is, you know, you just transpose things 30 years ago. It's the same, it's the same garbage.

It's the same shit, you know, that guy is releasing a daily podcast or whatever in the form of a voicemail. Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? Yeah. So, you know, the international corporations and the Jews control America, not to destroy the white race and that kind of stuff. Sure. Now, this guy, yada yada yada, that whole outshare, the whole they're going to kill us all

thing. You know how it is. Right. So, he turns out to be a man named Dennis Mayhan, who really is lie, even within the genre of American white supremacists is like, that shit. In a very sort of unique,

I tend to, because I'm interested in psychology, I tend to quietly try and figure out, like, what disorder does this person have? Sure. I would tell his name, he just, it's all over the place. It's a panoply of disorders. Oh, you play a voicemail that he left for Carol, that is one of the most insane, rambling, nonsense things, just that, no, I wasn't spying on you.

I decided to sit down to the tree and then I sat down and I decided to take a little nap. And yes, I had my eyes open. Sure, my eyes were open, but that was because the FBI was planning a raid on you. I was trying to save your life. And yes, it wasn't nap. It was so disjointed.

And like, yeah, it was so crazy. The one thing that you forgot for that message was he also said that, you know, it was so disjuointed. And like, yeah, it was so crazy. The one thing that you forgot from that message was he also said that, you know, that I was doing you a favor because I just wanted to show like, you know, I was hiding behind the tree. And that shows that the ATF could put an invisible laser behind the tree and be with it at your house and pick up everything that you're saying. From that tree. Yeah, but that one's true.

So, yeah, but that's that's jump the guy to little so sure so basically she's listening to Dennis Mayhan Dennis Mayhan had been a member of the clan and I'm trying to remember whether it was David Jigs clan or not But anyway, he left a joint White area in resistance which is obviously much more hard you know you know of course yeah of course I became like the Tulsa you know head of white area in resistance and so he's like broadcasting his messages and cowls like falls in love with the voice and calls about the and they start dating. You do feel for cows parents like they really hated Greg. You know, they want to call to marry a squire for the debut of ball.

Of course. But so when when she left Greg, they must have breathed a sigh of relief, but then she ends up marrying someone like so much worth or not marrying dating. So when so much or not by dating someone so much. But I will say this and here's another important detail that I think goes somewhat unremarked upon. She does get married to Greg on a whim. And it is her being a rich person,

getting married on a whim to some popper, if you will, the classic tale, all to piss off her parents, very, very clearly to piss off her parents. Right, toe to toe. And what do they do? They go, well, I suppose that's what you do. And she receives no consequences for trying to piss off her parents. They just go, fine, we'll throw you a wedding just like

everything is totally fine. Okay. That pattern already is in place of she will not receive consequences for anything she does. And if she gets into trouble, she can run home to daddy. That's already there. So let's keep that there from the beginning. And in fact, it does, you know,

it's sometimes sort of run home in a way that They're from the beginning. And in fact, it does, you know, at some times, sort of run around in a way that others couldn't. Yes, absolutely. But not only did they show her like a wedding party, they sent her the muffler shopping spray and Kyle was like, you know, buying like a $3,000 crystal horse's head. I'm telling Greg to buy whatever he wants in the store. So if you're somebody

who wanted to piss off your parents and instead they wanted you to buy a $3,000 glass or crystal horse head, we can start to see who this person is. Yeah. They were okay. So what I know about her parents is that they were definitely for lance rapists. Her mother, who had MS, was rich charity person, but seemed to spend her life on nonprofits and charitable foundations and so on. And her father was the head of a Fortune 500 energy company called Mapo, they adopted two kids heard and a boy you are no very little about. So clearly they would try to be good philanthropic people. See now what I find fascinating about that and it's part of what I find so frustrating about the audiobook in general, right?

Is, and I have a unique perspective on this because I absolutely hate rich people with every fiber of my being, regardless of whether or not they come off as some sort of philanthropist. So in the, in the audiobook, by virtue of calling them philanthropists, you know, you're doing a lot of that. Actually, I know, you're doing a lot. I actually I did do that. Yeah, exactly. You're carrying a lot of water for whether or not they are good people. Now to give you a little context from being an American, all right. Tulsa is and was one of the most racist and awful places on this fucking planet. Oh, no doubt. Yeah.

And it wasn't in spite of people like Carol's dad. It is because of people like Carol's dad. So whenever there's that question of where she became racist and all of those things, I can tell you that she grew up rich, white, in Tulsa, in Reagan's America. So she was born racist. I will tell you this right now.

Let me give you the, well, not born in the audience. I understood. Adopted racist. I know. I was, I was, yes, yeah. Yeah. Okay, sure. Like, sure, but let me give you a bit of sort of counter suggestions here. So her friend Laurie swore that she wasn't racist in high school

and she became, she came back racist from Colorado. So what we said, the story that we tell in the show is that if she joined, and we were told by a source that she had joined the Temple of Sarkik youth, and the thing about the Temple of Sarkik youth is that just like, you know, a lot of bands back then, but I think Sarkik youth said to us, you know, when you play act being a Nazi long enough, maybe you actually become one. So from speaking to her high school friend, from speaking to the guy from the Temple of Sarkik youth, and then obviously speaking to Greg,

when she gets back from Colorado for the Temple of Sarkik youth, the narrative that I put together, just based on what I could pick up. Oh, no, of course. Yeah, was that in high school she didn't display any racism in Colorado, she joined this group we think, which had all of these connotations, and then she came back from Colorado being racist. And the other thing I'd say is when I met the head of her deputant committee, who now lives in a retirement home on the edge of Tulsa, I thought very much what, you know, I think people would generally think that if you're at the head of a Tulsa deputant committee, you're going to be, you know,

right-wing, you know, etc., etc. And she wasn't having her name's Dixie Rapi. She wasn't, she was a Democrat. And she got into being the head of the Debuteon Committee because she was like into theater. And she liked the dresses and the... Sure. So what I'm saying is, like if there's things in this part of the story that do frustrate you, it's because I'm just going by what bits of information

that I pick up and I'm trying to piece together. Yeah. Well, that's the thing that I'm just going by what bits of information that I pick up, but I'm trying to piece together. Well, that's what I, that's again, that's the thing that I am, I'm really, really interested in is because that is a context that is absolutely there. Whether or not the interview subjects who have a vested interest in not being on a national John Ronson story revealing that they were gigantic racists 30 years ago. I will just say this, regardless of whether or not she expressed or showed that racist behavior, if you were a debutante growing up in Tulsa high society, only what four, five years after segregation in schools,

quote unquote ended. Wow, was it not late to know, Claire? Yes, Tulsa is one of the worst places for racism. It's still segregated in most ways. And so regardless of what they might say, she was told probably by her teachers in school in Reagan's America at that time that black men were crack-addled rapists.

And that's what she would have been raised thinking. And so that's why whenever we're talking about the story, you know, your origin moment for her, and we're about to get right into it because this is where we kind of transition right into that. Her origin moment, you know, is given with this idea that this story comes from her being in Colorado and then learning the lingo of the far right Nazi world

and then bringing it back. And I will say that in Tulsa society, oh, that idea of black men, our predators, was any, regardless of political party, you can be a Democrat in the late 80s. Sure, yeah, I guess. Yeah, no, no, I don't dispute that at all. And in fact, I just remembered something.

You said was there anybody that I interviewed that I didn't put in the show and actually was, and it was from that period. And the only reason I didn't include it was because she didn't actually say anything that was very helpful to the story, except for the thing I'm about to tell you. Yeah, well great.

And it's a very small side thing, but we left it out just because it would have been too short an interview. That she remembered the school chance. And that, you know, they were that met show Christian Academy, which is a fancy school in Tulsa. And when they would like play whatever sports you people play. Because I know it's not soccer.

You know what, boys, I want that, I want that twice. I want you to get a clean take because I've got John Ronson saying you people. I'm not letting that one go. That's a soundboard. When they play whatever sports you people play. Now, the chance, where one of the schools would chat at the other one, we've got money. Yes, we do. We've got money. How about you at the other school would chat? We've got more.

So there you go. That's the size of the cow grew up in. Yeah, I'm going to throw this out there for you. I'm gonna guess that there were not a ton of black people in those schools. Oh, no. No? No? Okay.

Now, in that case, if you're going to give me an eyewitness account of her friend from high school, why would she hear her say racist things? It was just white people around. Well, that's true. No, I'm not just beating any of this, but you know, I suppose what I'm, you know, if there's a difference between the way we would do that part of the story, it's just because my natural thing is to like interview people get, and I know that, you know, people, of course, and I totally understand that. And I respect it. Believe me, I'm not like trying to attack your your angle. Yeah, but I'm just sort of thinking about it. It's just

like, you know, like obviously Greg was more of an art say back then. Of course, but that's so implicit in the way he tells the story that I, you know, I don't know if I felt the need to sort of point it out because it's kind of obvious. I mean, I understand. Yeah, absolutely. It's totally reasonable. It should be, it should be very obvious. If you get it so I stick it out to that you're probably lying about how racist you were back then. Yeah, what I do, certainly believe these not anymore, like he's had it all covered over. And as I say, by the time he's interviewed by the FBI a few years later,

you know, the stuff he was saying to me now was, well, let's get to the moment of the, of the Easter monument. Exactly, there we go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're at a passion play. Yeah. There's the Christ, the setting is there.

It's like in Brege. You've got everybody Irish all over the place. And these kids are jumping off of a statue. Yeah, and she jumps off Brexit feet, convalescing, phone-style racist, meets Dennis Mayharn, and the story that she tells him, which is the same story she tells repeatedly to journalists in court, in court, on the witness stand. In one of the books that I read, they print that story without comment. Right, it's the story that I believed when I went to research in the story. Sure.

There's no alternative story out there. And the story, well, and Dixie, here's something. So Dixie Repi, the head of the Tulsa Debiton Committee, she bought that story up and she said to me with some concern, because her story that she told Dennis Mayhade and told the world was that she had been chased by a gang of black men and they broke her feet. And that's what happened. Now, Dixie Redp. Very conveniently fitting into the single most prominent narrative about black men at the

time. Absolutely. And in fact, Dixie Redp, who was the very first person I interviewed, she was the head of Carlos Debiton Committee, said to me, like, with concern, I think when the tape was out, you know, when we weren't recording. Yeah. Like, that part of a story, like, about her being, you know, when we weren't recording. Yeah. Like that part of a story like about being beaten up by black men, like, what are you gonna, you know,

how are you gonna put that in the show? And she was concerned, like, how am I gonna put that in the show without perpetuating racism? So she, sure, if the story was true. At that moment, I believe the story was true. Right. There's no alternative version out there, but Greg told me and the FBI at the time

that she jumped off and broke her feet and but the fact is Kyle repeatedly told the lie and as anti-stressme who I interviewed later on in the story points out if you're going to be pushed off a roof you're not going to land on your feet. No. Yeah. So there you go. No, I mean, that's that's one of the things about this story that I think can't go unnoticed. And that's part of why I bring up the Tulsa stuff. Everybody bought that shit. And that is garbage. That's absolute garbage. What the fuck are people doing believing that noise? Okay. It's funny. Everybody bought it. And it doesn't matter if you were quote unquote left or right at the time everybody printed that story and they didn't even barely go

at they didn't question it. They were like oh of course yeah naturally we've all been there of course. Let's just reprint this story of an implausible group of black men roving black men just chasing people you. You know how it happens, yeah. Yeah. And nobody thought, you know, what Andy Strassma, who is a white supremacist, like the one person who pointed out the absurdity of this story,

how many heads of that's an interest, to, you know, the smurge, you know, cow, because of what happened later on in the story. But, you know, he was the one who pointed out, you know, you don't, you don't land on your feet. Right. You throw it off the roof. Right. Now, here's what I also find interesting there is that once you do that to me, right, you are now forever an unreliable narrator. There's no going back. And I mean forever. I don't care if she changes it, you

know, later on, after she becomes a confidential informant, as you said in the area, I don't care. She is still an unreliable narrator. Well, this is so interesting because of who has come to believe cow's story, which I'm sure we'll get to later on. Exactly. Right, because I've been... About four hours. Oh, God. I sent you the email that I'm the only person who's ever asked you,

Rogen, if I could go now, because I'm safe. If I bore you as much as him, then I'm the one at fault here. But yeah. So yeah, because that becomes a really important part of the story later on as to who believes Carol and why. But yeah, so but I agree with you like after studying her story for four years, I don't know. Yeah. I came to believe that she's an unreliable narrator. I think this parts of her story, where she did behave well. I don't doubt the information that she gave

when she was an undercover informant, but we should get to that too, right? So, because I think for the business, it's good to keep to the chronology. Right, so story. Where we're at now is, she's been with Greg for a few years. She's on the dialer racist thing. How she just a few months?

Just a few months. She gets bored with Greg. She just up and leaves Greg on a whim. Which again, there's so many small things about her character that I feel are add up over time to a picture that I'm going to tell you that I think is 100% accurate. But that is another one of those things. The moment she got bored, she up and left and then went back home to daddy. Yeah. And then. Yeah. Okay. So, so she's starting to Dennis Mayherne.

She's with him for some months. He told me back then, back 30 years ago, and in letters, he sent me from prison now, that she had wanted to commit acts of violence. And he thought that she'd be wasted in the shadows, he wanted her to become like an Aryan spokeswoman, because not many women in the movement get a smart and charismatic and extremely good-looking.

He thought he could get him on Oprah. Which by the way, as we know, I don't know much about Oprah, but you could certainly get white supremacists on mainstream television and very different outlets back there. Better believe it. Yeah. Hey, you went on a Joe Rogan show. So.

Right. Twice. That's a big issue. Why two, why two premises can get you on their shows too? So there's definitely that. Well. Um, but yeah, so he wanted to get it on Oprah. He had a recording downacist messages herself,

but that didn't work out because her voice was so flat. She's terrible on Mike. You play a little clip. She's absolutely terrible on Mike. It's amazing to listen to actually. We better start picking up our weapons. Oh, so uninterested in destroying the Jews. She was so bored with destroying the Jews.

You know she didn't have that passion. Yeah, that one of the board girls at a hospital. Oh, yes, we have to kill the Jews or whatever. Gees, why do I have to record these? That, he did get it on TV once, and that was a German documentary that was filming at Ella Hymn City Now Ella Hymn City is the next big part of the story, right? so

In the in the Ozark Mountains on the Oklahoma Arkansas border is this is this place called Ella Hymn City That looks it's such a It's such a Contrary to Dictory place because of the one I've been there. Yes, yeah, could you give me a more kind of visual portrait of what's going on in Elohim City? Because I don't see it. Do you know what I mean? I kind of threw the debut on it.

I kind of see something similar to a compound or I see like an almost trailer park vibe. I don't know which it is that I'm trying to see, you know what I mean? Right, not trailer park, it's sort of fancier than that, because I went there 30 years ago but I remember it very clearly. So it's a long way away from civilization. It's like it's off a road that takes you for Buckelhober to fight Villacanso, but you go like six miles up a dirt road and then you stop outside the place you don't walk in because I'll shoot you. Sure, sure. You start and hog your horn into someone comes to get out.

We were given very stern explicit instructions. So you look at our hog your horn. So that's what we did. And they came to get me. And it's, it looks quite eccentric, the architecture of the place of all these little kind of hobbit houses. I haven't seen Lord of the Rings, but it looks like I assume the little place where they were living or the Ewoks, sort of, like, called Ewoks. Ewoks! Under the moon of Andorra, all right? Yeah, that's what it's like, the root of Andorra. They live in these little kind of hop-it homes. They may be trailers, I can't remember, but my main memory is seeing these kind of quite eccentric hop-it homes. And then there's a big main hall, which is the meeting place and where they have that church. And it's Yahweh Christian, just to show a lot of people know, is like the Jews descended from Satan.

Sure. People of color are mud people and the white race, sis blah, blah, blah. So yeah, yeah. Completely different from Mormonism in the 90s. Completely different. Not anything similar to that whatsoever. This is so weird. This is not a mainstream religion in the United States at the time. This is crazy people in L.O.M. City who believe this stuff.

Gotcha. That's right. To 1979, God damn it. It's just hard to find out black people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha. That's right. To 1979, God said, just hide it up like people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So weird how that happened. So I was taken into the main hall at all these people of the community came in to see what was going on with me. There was a chiropractor there called Dr. Buzz and there was a detergent salesman too, which had to sell them. Sorry. There was a chiropractor there called Dr. Buzz and there was a detergent salesman too, which had to sell them. Sorry. There's a chiropractor named Dr. Buzz. Yeah. Okay. So I just needed to just needed to get through that. Okay. I've dealt with it.

I've dealt with it now. We can move on. Okay. And then they asked the, and all of these young men came in all putting their guns on the gun rack. So there's clearly a kind of gun fetish that they walk about with guns all the time. But you take them off when you do the gun, put them in the gun rack. Yeah, well, I mean, there's a women present. Yeah, right. The demographic actually is interesting. So again, this will, I'm sure come up later.

But there was a lot of talk about whether to do an armed raid on Elohim City and I think one of the main reasons why that where it didn't happen was because if there's a very sketchy figure that I could be wrong but let's say there's 200 people living at Elohim City only 15 or 20 of them are like young men of, you know, kill a gauge of shooting. Sure, sure, sure. I mean, I still like children of very old people or women. So, you know, there's lots and lots of children running around. They put on a performance of river dance to welcome me. Sure, sure. Yeah, and then they got me to like. Dr. Buzz was dancing with his feet.

Okay, gotcha. All right. So that's one version of Elohim City. The other equally true version of Elohim City is that the combination code was 0 420, hit birthday. It's founded by Dr. Reverend Malar, whatever his name is. Yeah, Robert Malar, whatever his name is.

Yeah, Robert Malar, who's a Canadian man and a night. Yeah, and he's one of the more evil people that will appear in this story. Well, he made it, it was a safe haven for white supremacists who had murdered people. There was a lot of those people there. The guys. Of course, were you disputing me or agreeing with me. No, I'm agreeing with you. What are you talking about? I almost heard

a butt there, but then I was like, okay, okay, we're good, okay. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm very much agree with you. It's a very hardcore, very hardcore place. Or let me cover the people who they allowed to lift them and hide out there. Some of them were very, very hardcore people. So there's a connection between Elohim City and the murder of Alan Berg, the radio DJ in Denver, I think it was. The people who don't know Alan Berg was like a sort of left wing Jewish, you know, Jack who would like mock white supremacists on the air and then a bunch of the murder him in his driveway. And they hung out, they hid out at Ellheim City. Then there's the cover at the sword in the arm of the Lord, which was another really hardcore group.

They hid out there. A guy called Richard Wayne Snell, who murdered, who tried to blow up, come out of the building in Oklahoma City years earlier, murdered a black state trooper, and a pawn shop owner who he'd longly believed was Jewish. He hid out there, and in fact, when he was finally executed, he's now buried there. So, you know, it's a serious hard-core place, Elohim City. Yeah, I find, I find Snell to be, so, so you give Snell one sentence? Maybe a passage. Maybe a run-on sentence.

No, no, no, I give a two-day no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I tell the smell story, but the reason why I keep it, the reason why I keep it contained was really for storytelling reasons. When you're juggling a whole load of balls, you know, the job of this kind of story teller. Totally. No, no, that's another part that I'm interested in. I'm 100% interested. I'm not trying to be a dick. No, no, honestly, I mean, I'm going to say whatever you like,

of course. And I'm just sort of, I'll just sort of try to explain why I made the decisions that I made. So with SNL, I think I tell the whole story, but the thing is, there is no resolution to the story. So here's the bit you'd want to know story. So, and it is extraordinary. And this is for me, if you're going to believe the cow or how, Timothy McVey, Ellibz city, conspiracy theory, this is probably the most, you know, this is probably the most sort of potent clue. See, what I find fascinating is that I think this is the clue that is so much better at

disproving the whole thing. Oh! So, I would love to hear it, because... Well, go ahead and tell the story, because I do think that there's something very important here with snow. Right, okay, yeah. Because I don't believe the... I should tell, I'll jump forward. No, no, no, I... Yeah, sorry, you don't believe the conspiracy theory should tell. No, no, no. Sorry, you don't believe the conspiracy theory.

And you do a very good job of picking apart the, the, uh, quota, quote, evidence that's given in the, in the final episode. Yes, but I don't pick apart the story I'm about to tell because I didn't know what to make of it. And I say this in the show, I don't know what to make of it. So if you've got something, I would love to hear it. So the story is that, snow, you know, it was a black state trooper,

a pawn shop owner, he's on death row. The date of his execution is set for April the 19th, 1995, which is the same date, the two-year anniversary of Ruby Ridge. And no, sorry, the two-year anniversary of Waco, and the day the Timothy Fairs going to blow up the motor building in a wneud yw'r rhwb i wedi. No, sy'n yw'r rhwb i wedi'r wywch o'r i'r wywch o'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i'r i who's a spiritual advisor and snow a sitting on death row watching this footage of things blowing up and of the building blowing up and snow is like the prison guard notes at his log book that snow is like nodding and smiling and of course you could you know if you believe the conspiracy theory then what you're what you believe is that Timothy McVey is one of the reasons why he blew up the building on that day was in protest of snows execution. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't know necessarily, I mean, I think it's a complete coincidence. Or it's a weird fucked up thing that the justice system did to execute snow on the same day as Waco. That's wild. Those two things happened at the same time. But what I find fascinating about that

is that that suggests that they did know that it was going to happen. And Carol didn't. Do you understand what I mean? It doesn't matter if Carol's, because Carol never says shit in her diary and any of the things that Carol doesn't say shit about him. But they did know. Do you understand?

That is very clear to me. Yeah, that's a very good point. So 100 seconds, no, what are you saying? But you're saying they did know? Or you're saying you think Belaub and Snell did know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. That would be a thing. Because here's the thing, what I find so interesting about this

is the idea that I feel like people in this have been really close to the idea that Carol has anything to do with anything. And that leads them to think that there was an individual person that had anything to do with anything to help with McVeigh. But what the reality is, based on the fact that we've spent, you know, our lives now in listening to people like this talk, in listening to people of this order, is that it's just talking shit.

Everywhere Timothy McVeigh went, he was a gun show guy, right? So he traveled all around the country, especially the American southeast and Southwest, right? He goes around to all of these gun shows. Everybody's talking about the Turner Diaries. Everybody knows who Snell is. Everybody knows all of these people. They're all in the network.

And so Timothy McVeigh didn't need individual help from people. They gave him the target through a million different conversations. And it's not, it's a social movement. And McVeigh was the person who executed it. So you might, yeah. Okay. So let me just say, you're saying that you think that that snow and Robert Malar did know that McVeigh was going to blow up that building that day. But as you say, like there didn't need to be a wider conspiracy than that, because they all had the Tudor diaries.

That's Tudor diaries is enough to, you know, to teach it. That's the idea. That's the idea of leaderless resistance. Okay, that was the whole thing that they were aiming for and then they succeeded. Okay, so here's Michael, here's a question. Yeah, sure. That's true. Then the implication is that McVeigh went to Ella Hemsettey.

And we don't know if that's true. Yeah, no, I mean, we don't necessarily need to have that connection. He doesn't need to speak to any of these people directly. Like he's speaking to people who also speak to them. They're in a network all of these people So whoever's in Elohim City is listening to Robert Malar talk and then they go to a gun show and Andy stress-mire is there and they're just talking shit and all of them are talking shit They're all talking shit because they're like dude and all of them are talking shit. They're all talking shit because they're like dude,

dude energy-ing like trying to outdo each other with how revolutionary and cool they are, trying to outdo each other with their racism, all of this stuff, just like they did at, what was it, the forest reserve standoff with the bundys? I wanna say? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that idea of them all sitting

around a campfire relating war stories to each other of things. I'm very sick I'm going to blow this building on the anniversary. Totally. Yeah absolutely. I mean it's plausible that that kind of informal thing was going on without there being any more of a conspiracy than that. And I'll tell you the main reason is the only person in your story that I believe is not outright exaggerating, falsifying or lying is Timothy McFae. He's the one that makes sense. He said it all. Here's what happened all right he went to the Gulf War uh

notorious for being one of the most one-sided asymmetric wars as far as like technology and shit go right comes back he's disappointed depressed and pissed off wakeo happens and he watches the same asymmetric warfare happen where a tank is brought to somebody's house. You know, and then he says, there's no consequences for this. No one's doing anything about it. So I'm going to give you consequences. And the reason that the conspiracy theory to me, the reason that it's so attractive, is because in the conspiracy theory, a heroic act can stop a bombing. And in the reality, it is the sins of our country coming home to fuck us.

So that's my take on this story. Yeah, well, I think that's fascinating. I think that's a very interesting perspective. See, I was focused on this very particular theory that streams up around cowl how. So, we should explain. Yes, absolutely. Sorry for jumping in and giving a whole whole blog there. I think it's fascinating, because the snail thing is definitely a very strange fact, but people are there. An unexplainable fact. Right.

Yeah, you can't. It's art. I mean, Malar later said, no, he wasn't smiling and nodding, he was devastated, but Climbing that's what you said. I can't believe that Malar would lie to us. Especially given remembering that the snail actually tried to blow up that building himself he's not gonna spend the last day of his life thinking oh that's terrible totally given that he tried to do this exactly so I think some years earlier

snail has a death that who is almost fucking desirable you know like his last day is the culmination of everything he's ever dreamt of. That's fascinating to me. Yeah, I think that is fascinating. So where Cowell fits into all of this is the one part of Cowell's life where I think she behaved, first as far as I can tell, she behaved pretty impeccably was a few months as an undercover informant because we managed to get hold of her diary, which I didn't know, tell me if you've no differently. It's apparently really hard to get hold of.

I couldn't find it. I couldn't get it. Yeah. I wanted it. I wanted it so bad. Kudas to my producer, Miles, we were at somebody's house and he had the diary, and Miles was like, oh, you know, we should,

but, you know, can we come in? Stealing. You should steal it. It should be yours. Absolutely. Well, we've got to wait with it and never look back. While we were there, we scanned every page. The guy's dead now.

While we were there, we scanned every part of that short course in such a telly. Sorry. Neither did we murder him nor we see the fixable. I mean, that's such a specific thing to throw out in my world. We scanned this thing that's very difficult to find, and the guy that gave us his dead now.

So you're on the wrong show to have that be go uncommented apart. Right. Well, so we scanned every page. And it was only like a couple of years later when we put the show out, when we put the Debbie Tunt out, the people were like, how did you go to that Davi? And I assumed it was easily available because we got it so easily, but no, this is apparently a real coup that we got the Davi. It is definitely legit, you know, and the handwriting is exactly

the same with letters that we know that Carol wrote and etc. So it's definitely a legit document. And it's like, because obviously she couldn't wear a wire while she was at Ella Hymn City. We've got tape of her wear a wire that other Nazi events, including a dinner party that she held for some a moutsy to the house. But we can, obviously she couldn't wear a wireteller. Him sitting so she was keeping a secret diary and handing pages to our ATF handler, I'll be right back to the diary. And it's an extraordinary record.

I mean, we quote pretty substantially from it. It's all amazing. Just to see what life's like at this place. And the fact that she has a good turn of phrase and you know it's just an extraordinary document. So the first thing she writes is that that the elders had a meeting on her and she had and they decided that she was excellent breeding stock and she'd be the proof for. And then she says he's a little character profiles of all the people who live there. She

think good one of them is John Doe 2 at one point. And she wrote about him before the fact. A jerk, people don't like him slow. And then he's the one that she said might have been John Doe too. Yeah, I mean the funny part about that is that all the things that you can describe McVeigh as, those aren't three, unfortunately. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so she writes this volumness diary about life at Ellyham City and all the violent talk and you know, blowing things up and how Dennis Mayhard wanted to blow up and becks could video store.

And Dennis Mayhard, my god, she tells these stories about how she started smoking a cigarette and Dennis Mayhard walks up to her with a can of gas that's leaking. And she's like, I'm smoking a cigarette, like Jesus. So she paints this like, I'm smoking a cigarette like Jesus. So she paints this like, he's an interesting guy. Interesting guy. So then she gets deactivated as an informant

in February 95 because she's clearly spiraling. She's self-harming and she checks herself into hospital a couple of times. One of the occasions she says she was attacked by a gag of black people in the middle of the day. Oh, that's so crazy. Second time. Second time she's attacked by a gag of black men in open spaces. It's talking Mad Max out there. I mean, it's crazy. So rightly, the ATF deactivated her in February, but what's wrong, and this is a whole side story that's probably we don't want to get into, but just the cavalier way that the federal government treats this young undercover. Oh no, I do want to get into that. Yeah, she's thoroughly fucked over quite hard.

And I think I saw another interview you did recently where you referenced the throwaways, the new worker article. Yeah, yeah, so that is, it is stunning to me that they are allowed to get away with that shit. Unbelievable. So to the main story in the throwways, which is an excellent New Yorker article by Sarah Stillman, is about this young woman called Rachel Hoffman, who was like a college student. She was caught with a bit of weed and a bit of ecstasy. They just terrified her. You're

going to go to jail for a long time and let's an informant. They sent her her very first mission is to buy like handguns and a massive amount of drugs for these two, like really sketchy guys. So they send her in there with no training. Obviously there's a tale on her, but the tale managed to lose her and she's murdered. She's murdered on her first mission. That sort of, you know, outrageous, cowardly behaviour towards young informants forcing them to do things that trained officers would find terrifying. You see echoes of that in Cowell's story. The fact is she was sending back these messages to the ATF saying that she was like sleeping with white supremacists, you know, to get information out of them. And it happens in like any evidence

that the ATF was trying to rein her in. Right, right. So that's the other thing about your story. Is I find so, so interesting, is that there are absolutely no good people in your story. No. There are none. There are no good people in your story. There's no heroes. There's no one who is even acting rationally. I mean, it is a wild story. And I'm talking about everybody from the FBI agents you interviewed,

to... I mean, and... A prosecutor's... Oh, they're disgusting human beings. Yeah. They disgust me, like truly. Always talked about like a little, a little maybe Jane dress. Like, yeah, yeah, I mean, this is, this is only a few years removed

from the FBI murdering Fred Hampton. They do not have anything good going on. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. Is that the only good person? I don't know, is there any, I've been up some of the minor characters like a high school Fred Laurie. Yeah, Laurie's true. That the only good person, I don't know, is there any, some of the minor counts is like a high school friend, Laurie.

Yeah, Laurie seems fine. Yeah, but you're right. When you really get into the meat of the story, there's very few people to root for in this time. No, which also gets us to the next person who is lying through their teeth to you, is you interview, I think her name is Rachel Patterson.

Okay, so, right, so let me tell you the backstory and then tell you what you know about Rachel Patterson. Yes. We spent ages over three or four years trying to get people from Elohim City to talk to us. Now at the time, they let me in and I interviewed Malab and, I mean, this is, you know, 30 years ago, but trying to get anybody to talk to us now was just impossible but Rachel Patterson clearly like enjoys talking

she's kind of gossipy and you know like to kind of remember those days so she talked to us so the story she told us was that she didn't trust Carol. Carol, who was about 23 at the time, was dating Rachel Sarn, who seems to be quite a sort of vulnerable 18-year-old. And so she was pissed off of the Carol for that. And then, Carol starts dating Andy Strassma, I ran to the German. And Rachel was very suspicious of that because Carol's very good looking. And Andy Strassma was sort of gangly with buck teeth. And so, you know, she was suspicious about cowl. And that's, you know, by and large, that's the sort of

main crux of her memories of cowl. Right, right. But I just find it impossible to believe anything she says to you. Not least of which, think about this, all right. We know, in your story early on, that Elohim City is thoroughly aware of propaganda opportunities. To the point where they wanted to turn somebody into a propaganda state your story. Now, you struggle to find anybody who will talk to you at Elohim City for years.

And then the person that you talk to has so many nice things to say about Elohim City. It's so nice, it was really nice. I know you think that there's so much far-right activity going on there, but it was a holy place. It was about raising children. That's what the place was about. And her suspicions after the fact are so great. She knew from the beginning. She was like, ah, he was dating my son. This incredibly rich, uh, pretty woman is dating my son and I'm against it at Elohim City. Okay.

I'm a kid to have as many kids as possible as possible. Well, it's as possible. That's very good. That's very good. I have mixed feelings about that last thing that you said. Everything else that you said, but there's no way that she couldn't have been aware of, you know, members of the order, members of the Covenant Sword of the Arm of the Lord. Totally. Like, you know, white supremacist murderers were frequently at L.A.M. City back then.

That may have changed since the Oklahoma City bombing, but at the time no question. So I totally give you the last part, I'm sort of thinking if you've got a kind of look, on the one hand, the ideology of the place was have as many white children as possible, and that's the woman's role in the movement as to flood the world with white baby. So ideologically, yes, Rachel would have really wanted,

would have wanted, cow to be dating her son. But if she was as a mother, if her son, and her son does come over as, you know, isolated and vulnerable. Sure. And as a mother,

which I don't know, I sort of think, you know, is this will be taken advantage of my son. You know, I think I'd have been suspicious of Carol if I was, that's not true. Right, I think 2023 her would have been very suspicious of Carol.

I disagree about 1990s. I'm in Elohim City listening to Robert Malar's sermons every night her doing that. So I mean, this is, it's like the reasonable behavior uh... sermons every night uh... her uh... doing that so i mean this is it's like the reasonable behavior for the time is so completely different from what we would expect right now you know like that idea of oh well

carols mom is a philanthropist with ms she's she's obviously going around doing good things for people is is also forgetting that the norm doing good things for people is also forgetting that the norm, the baseline is throwing the N word around and not letting people listen to NWA. You know, like it's the combination of those two things that exist in Tulsa as the context. I mean, sure, but the one thing, but when I met the head of the Deputalk Committee, and as I said, like in Tulsa's society, you would think that the head of the Deputoc Committee is going

to be like the most extreme example of that. And she wasn't like that. And she wasn't like that then, and she's not like that now. She was really worried about whether we would be inadvertently spreading racism by telling the story about the Black Mench, pushing Carol off the bird. So, you know, so I entirely hear what you're saying, but at the same time, the sort of absoluteness of what you're saying, I'm not sure about.

I believe me. I am a person who says absolute things, only believing 97% of them. So don't be concerned about that. I'm not saying this is a way of like, brooking no argument about it. I'm not saying this is a way of like brooking no argument about it. I'm just saying that if I am going to acknowledge the history of the United States

in these stories, that is the context I bring first. Because that's the context that has been ignored for the past all of the time. That's why, you know, we have books that'll just reprint her story about being chased by black men off of a statue all the time. That idea is far more damaging to me than assuming that rich white people in late 80s Tulsa Oklahoma are racists. No. Yeah, no, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. But Rachel, so going back to Rachel pass, yes. I don't know. I just got this instinctual sense that she was worried about her son dating Carol and that gave Carol suspicions. I mean, that gave her suspicions about Carol.

Sure. You know, maybe I'm wrong and maybe she's been revisionist, but that's certainly, you know, I sort of just... Oh, no, no, no, I didn't speak to her. So I'm more likely to be wrong than you are. Well, I mean, I could be wrong. I could be wrong, but I'm just remembering that moment and I didn't doubt it. And I think the reason and I didn't doubt it

And I think the reason why I didn't doubt it is because I think she says like, you know, he was a naive boy and You know, so I think yeah, just just digging into that moment. Oh totally Absolutely, that's again, that's that's one of the things that I find fascinating is because you and I both know that at the very least She was lying to you some time. Oh, no question. We know the stuff. So then our conversation is like, how much? Yeah. And that's a conversation that we're never going to get an answer to. Yeah. That's never going to be correct.

So that's why I'm very fascinated by the idea of like you actually talking to her and having this point of view and me not and coming away with a different one. Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I sometimes maybe I veered because I always want to enter into stories with curiosity because I just think curiosity is just better than judgment. It just takes you to more interesting places. Sure, I can be a fault there. But it's kind of one or the other. I either enter to the Rachel Patterson interview thinking, there's a famous Jeremy Paxman line who is a British, he used to be a very scabrous interview of politicians. And he said every time

he interviews politicians, what's constantly going through his mind, whatever they're saying is why is this bastard lying to me. So the fact is, you could either go in just on a practical level, you could either go into an intellectual pattern and thinking why is this bastard lying to me or go in and just think, okay, I'll go where this takes me. And both versions have their positives and both have their negatives. Oh, for sure. Oh, no, I understand. I understand.

It's, I think what I point to, though, is the by leaving details out about the overarching context of the world at the time. There's a different presentation of who these people are and who they could be and how it is that they behave and why they behave that way But I have the idea of the debut font is is again like it's so easy for everyone in the story And this is why I'm kind of trying to embody the story here Everyone in the story is blown away by this rich white lady. Yes. Everyone is blown away by the debut talk because of what the image and the superficiality of it carry with them, the promises that they carry. Which is very much what the second half of the series

unpacks. Right. So the one thing I said, so just before we move on to that, because I think that's really interesting stuff. I don't, but I would say like, I don't think I left anything out about Ella Hemp City. What I was trying to, you know, sure, sure. No, no, no, I'm speaking more of just a more in general situation as opposed to this in specific. I apologize for not making that clear. No, no, no problem at all. But, um, specific. I apologize for not making that clearer. No, no, no problem at all. But, um, yeah, so, but the story, so what I love about the, the, the, the deputant is a, as a story telling, is the first few episodes are digging into the biography of her and just the, there's a dark comedy about the terrible life choices that she makes and if you think she could get any worse than she does and so on and you know we managed to get this amazing you know archive of the numbers ever heard of these messages that asked for messages that Dennis would leave her and

when she's wired up and reporting for the ATF so we get all of this stuff but then you know when the Oklahoma City bombing happens everything changes and everything changes in our story too. a'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i'n gweithio'r ysgwyr i' 19th the bombing happens. So she's called into the FBI on April 21st and they say, you know, tell us everything about Ella Hymn City. So at the time she says that maybe the, you know, maybe, because there's the sketch of John Doe 2, go about this man who may have been spotted with at a truck rental place. So she says, oh, maybe he was at LMS City, a guy called Tony. And she says that she doesn't recognize McVeigh. She may have once seen him in a photo, in a photo album that she saw at a Google X clan

rally. Yes. Two days after the bombing, that's the story that she tells the FBI. On our show, we call that weak shit. Well, yeah, but her story then changed us like repeatedly. Yeah. And people believe her changed story. So her story becomes, oh no, I think I spotted Timothy McVey at Ella Hymn City walking with Andy the German, Andy Strassmaier.

Yeah. So she starts telling that story. She tells it on Diane Sawyer. I think she tells it in court at Terry Nichols trial. Then she tells other people that she was introduced to Timothy McVeigh and so on. So her story repeatedly changes about her McVeigh sightings, which happened to coincide with moments in her life where it would benefit her to be a hero who could have stopped the party. So crazy how that worked out. It was almost like every time she needed it, her story got better. Yeah, it's like a, it's a story of like overcoming limitations. You know, she's like the Hoosiers of Liars.

You know, every time she needs to step up her game. Yeah, because again, I should put out for listening to some of the show and it's probably better. You know, I still like to say this now. It's probably out for listening to the show. And it's probably better, I was too like to say this now, it's probably better that people hear the show before they listen to this. Probably, yeah. It's a little late in the day for that. So, yeah, because what happens is,

so after the bombing, obviously, Oklahoma is flooded with journalists and amateur sloths and people like me, you know, just all digging around the white supremacy world. Yes. And at the heart of it was this guy called JD Cash. Yes. Yeah. So JD Cash was a real estate guy who were the associates. Yeah. who are the associates. On the day of the party we decided to become an investigative journalist, so he's for the tiny Macurtan Gazette in I

Debello, Oklahoma. And sure enough, JD Cash, you know, this completely untrained guy comes up with all of this stuff, some of which, by the way, was very good, some of it was true and good. Like, he got into Elohim City and like forged a relationship with Robert Malau and so on. So he definitely managed to do some good stuff as a fledgling journalist, but he also came up with all of this information, which is subsequently haunted the imaginations of vast numbers of people. Oh, that, that, that, that,

so the one that I think is the most, or perhaps least convincing thing I think I've ever heard in my entire life is the strip club tape. Right. That's absurd to think that that is meaningful. It is absurd, yeah. Yeah, what a start. But the reason why it's endured so much is because, well, I kind of postulate in the show that, you know, the Oklahoma City bombing

was, you know, just a infinitely terrible thing. Yeah. And suddenly in the middle of it, you've got a narrative about mysterious comments made at a strip club. And of course, people are going to gravitate towards that. That's so intriguing. Oh, I know, but it is like, Jesus, if it sounds like a movie for God's sakes, everybody slow down.

Stop! Yeah, it's going to be a movie. You do this every time. Right. So I'll tell the story. So the story is that JD Cash and, who's basically an amateur smooth and two very reputable journalism NBC,

like Bet show and Bob Sands, countless Emmys for reporting in Afghanistan, like a proper, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they were caught up in the building of all of this too. And they were just, you know, they thought it was that duty to follow every lead. Sure. Yeah and one of the leads takes them to this strip club so this it called Lady Goodiver. So the story so they took up at the strip club and what they discover is that there's a tape, a CCTV tape, the walk of what? Well, it's an hour log, I've watched it.

Basically, there's a strip club in Tulsa called Lady Gdiver and a group of out of town dancers from Arkansas were like performing at Lady Gadaiva one this particular night, and a big fight breaks out in the dressing room between like, you know, like West Side Story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of these live. It's a different type of dance fighting. It's a different type of dance fighting. He did this. of these lives. It's a different type of dance fighting. It's a different type of dance fighting.

He's different. Had a lot more shouting. So this big fight breaks out in the dressing room with the strip club where the Arkansas dancers are screaming at the Oklahoma dancers and it seems like I do it in the past judgment but it seems that the Arkansas dancers were the ones that felt. They were kind of a little out of control. I mean, I can see that you're clearly slandering the great state of Arkansas. It's notorious in America for being our greatest state.

So I think... Right. So, and it's all captured on CCTV. So, the manager of this strip club is passing this tape around. Now, the reason why he's doing it, like other strip clubs in the area. Right, right, right, to warn them about the dancers. He's not like underground, like, world star hip hop thing. He's trying to warn people about the Arkansas dancers of death on the rampage

Don't let him into your ship And that now in 80s movie right there. That's the stuff Now as you say like to wanting to create another if you wanted the stories lying What I think was the real reason I don't want to be slandressed but it feels like Another reason why this tape was being handed around is because of the sort of visceral sight of these naked women screaming at each other in the back room of her. Somebody screamed in the world, so I had a hip-hop. Yes, we're there.

So this other, you know, this other bouncer from another strip club is watching this tape. And so we watch the fight between the women, but then he decides to watch the rest of the tape. I mean, what, you know, you're right, like, my friend. He got high one nine, he's like, I don't know, he just left it on. He's not telling you that he's not telling you the truth. He didn't decide to watch the rest of the tape. He wants to watch an hour's lot of make a living, getting changed in the dressing room.

Yes. Yeah. So sure enough, the tape is full of just women changing clothes and so on. But at one point, a woman comes in, and this really does happen. She comes in and she says something a little unintelligible but basically what she's saying is something weird just happened outside. I'm sitting with a group of men and one of them says to me and this is the part that's completely intelligible. Yes, yes, yes. One of them says, you're going to

remember, I'm a very smart man. I said you are and he said I says, you're going to remember, I'm a very smart man, I said you are, and he said, I am. And you're going to remember me on April 19, 1995, you're going to remember me for the rest of your life. And this was 10 days before the Oklahoma City bombing. Yeah. So when NBC and JD Cash get hold of this tape, they go and interview like all the dancers. And this is where things get a little murky.

It's some of the dancers. Well, so this story of the strip club for conspiracy theorists is like a huge clue. Because it's fairly close to Elohim City. Right. So the strip club, as I understand, the argument for why it's an excellent clue, it's fairly close to Elohim City. The men of fighting age at Elohim City are not allowed to drink there.

So what they do is they go blow off some steam at the local strip club. Yes, exactly. And so they go back and interview the women at the strip club and the story that Mac and Bob told me and the story that's kind of you know out there in the ether is that they showed them pictures of Timothy McVey, Terry Nichols, and then men from Elohim City like Andy the German, and a couple of others, and they identified them as being the men who are in the bar that night. So, there's a smoking gun at a strip club So James and so James out of critical and so everything. Oh, it's juicy. It's so right in the story

Oh, yeah, that's what you want right well, it's it's it's straight out of you know like It's straight out of you know, I like, I, it's straight out of, you know, a happy bokeh art movie, right? It's straight out of subspeed. So that's, you know, why it caught fire so much, but one of the things, and then there's two other piece of evidence that seemed to link MacVeigh to LHM City too. So you've got SNOW, which we've already discussed.

You've got Lady Goodiver, and then you've got SNOW, which we've already discussed. You've got Lady Goodiver, and then you've got a couple of other things. So one is that McVeigh very shortly after hiring the writer truck that he uses for the bombing, Phones, Elohim City, and asks to speak to Andy the German. Now Andy the German is this guy that Carol is, you know, spying on, she's having an affair with him to spy on him for the government. And he's like the most, you know, according to Rachel Patterson, he's one of the most outspoken people at L.A. Hibb City. He's the one plotting, you know, saying, you know, we need to be more

white supremacists, you know, we need to blah, blah, blah. Um, and then it turns out that to make matters even murkkier that anti-stress might come from a political family in Germany where his father worked for Helmut Kohl. I was heavily involved in the reunification of Eastern West Berlin, you know, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So fuck what's this guy doing at Elohim? Oh, I'm going to tell you this in my researchers, Zings. I couldn't verify this, and that's why I don't believe it's true.

But what I believe is that the conspiracy theory has metastasized even further. In your debut, he is a, in the conspiracy theory, he's from a wealthy political family with high connections. Maybe he's an informant, maybe he's a spy, maybe he's all of these things. And then later on, you go into it and the surprises you wind up speaking to Andy. And he tells you that he's, it was like a mid-level, no big deal political family. And then of course, we... The literacy theory metastasized.

Now his grandfather helped set up the Nazi party. Right. Yeah, no, the thing is, right, I mean, I sort of discounted that because, you know, everyone was a fucking Nazi and Frank, and you know, that's a discountable thing. Well, that's a fact. My grandfather was a millener.

He like he made hats. That doesn't impact the choices alive. You know, two generations. Sure, sure. That's fair. That's fair. But your grandfather's values were passed down to your father were passed down to you. You know, there's definitely a lineage with the grandfather thing.

It's not to be completely discounted. That's true. Your grandfather is a Nazi. That's worse than if your grandfather was not a Nazi. Let's grow that down there. No, that's true. What I said that, what I was going for, is that that's not a further clue that Strasma was actually

a deep level political operative who was, you know, right? Statistically, everybody was a goddamn Nazi. Yeah, it doesn't give any more credence to the idea was actually a deep level political operative who was, you know, statistically everybody was a goddamn Nazi. Yeah, it doesn't give any more credence to the idea that he was an undercover agent himself rough at the desk. Right. And it was a Nazi.

Of course. Yeah, but what did happen was that McVeigh did, phone Ella, him sitting and asked to speak to Andy, Andy the German. Yes. And the other thing, this is like the other cornerstone of the conspiracy theory, is that McVeigh was stopped for traffic violation very close to the very remote Elohim city. So then what I do in later episodes of the show is digging to all of those things to try and figure out, can you use your rational mind to try and figure out what to think of those things?

Sure. Yeah. And I, and the idea is like he's he's caught speeding on I 85. Yeah. Actually, it was overtaking and a no overtaking stretch of the road. Okay. All right. Just be pedantic.

Apologies. It be pedantic. Apologies. It's on me. So he's only, he's on the main highway though, as opposed to being near the Elohim city. It's not like he's on the six mile stretch of dirt road. Exactly. And I know that he's the guy who literally crisscrossed the entire area over and over and over and over again. Absolutely. It's not really compelling evidence to say that he was not. Talk about metastasizing. That's a real example of that. Because it was a wasn't just other. Even people, you know, even people from the SPLC were saying, you know,

who don't believe the conspiracy theory were saying, this is art. Like, you know, like how being pushed off the roof by black people, this is something that's pretty much just generally accepted that McVay was stopped really close to Ella Hymn City. It was actually like a 40-minute drive. It was on a main road. It wasn't on the dirt road. And it was much earlier. It was like 18 months before the bombing. So, you know, when you dig into that, well, it kind of crumbles. The most, if not all of the evidence crumbles, crumbles, you know. Exactly. Which then takes us to another, what I think extraordinary thing about the story, which is that despite, when you dig into the evidence, it all crumbles, people are refusing to give it up.

And people are refusing to give it up for lots of different and really interesting reasons. Yes, absolutely. Which I'm sure we'll get on to. No, of course. So yeah, so here's i i feel like where we are uh... we are at uh... just after the okc bombing

win carol story i i i'm i'm hesitant to just say like let's skip over the okc bombing uh... i assume uh... vast majority of our listeners will be extremely familiar with the okc bombing but uh... just to give like a rundown uh... what's going on is a vast majority of our listeners will be extremely familiar with the OKC bombing. But just to give like a rundown, what's going on is all the sudden one day Timothy Big Bay blows up the mirror building with a ammonium nitrate fertilizer bomb in a truck, right? And winds up killing just 80 people, something?

No, no, 168 people. 168 people, that's right. No, I got that switched up with the number who died at Wake Up. Yeah. Because those two things are very, very related to each other. Yeah, very related. Including 19 children who just arrived at Dekka. It seems pretty likely that McVeigh didn't know that there was a daycare center there,

because it sort of... Well, it didn't matter to him either. Well, he certainly justified it in his mind. There's a chilling quote that he gave, which was when his biographer said to him, what about the secretaries, what about you know, and he said well he was a big fan of Star Wars. When they blew up the death star, lots of innocent people died, the death star,

but nobody in the cinema audience minds. Do you know what's so funny about that? Is that in the movie clerks, they have that argument only a few years before. So they had a huge long conversation about how we are contextualizing the death star in such a way as to erase the fact that Luke and his team were terrorists who were going around blowing up all of these innocent people on the death star. Wow. So do you think McVeigh was plagiarizing clerks?

What do you mean? No, I don't. I just think it's ironic that it's a chilling quote in the context of Timothy McVeigh. Yeah. Whenever Kevin Smith, or no, whenever Kevin Smith writes a dialogue about it, it's very, very funny and light. Right. And clerks was before, what year was clerks?

Oh boy, I want to say 80, 88, 87 something like that. You know, I would not put it in. Actually, you know, I got to, I got to look it up because people are going to be very mad at me if I get it right. Right. If it was before the Oklahoma City bombing. Oh, 1994, 94. Okay, so a year earlier. Yeah, I think I put money on the fair, play terrific play. Watch clerks and then gave that quote as, oh my God, I think I think I think I think you know, I am getting to the bottom of these conspiracy theories left and right. Well, you know, you know, his pseudonym was tin tattled. He always

denied it, but obviously, tattled is Daenerys character in Brazil. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if McFay watch Brazil as well. And I'll tell you this, here's one of the biggest, easiest ways to kind of corroborate that is everything in this world is about movies.

That's the one thing that we've learned over and over and over again through Alex's show. It's just movies we've learned over and over and over again through Alex's show. It's just movies. It's over and over and over again. This is what they're doing. It's exactly like in this movie. It's exactly like in this movie. You know what I'm, right.

When I was writing the Menisteric Goats, that was a real revelation to me that the reason why, one of the reasons why all of these special forces people which I'd like walked through walls and become invisible in stuff is because they were inspired by movies. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

It's people who cannot distinguish the difference between fiction and reality, that extremely overpopulate the group, which is again why Timothy McVeigh is so fascinating as a parallel to Carol Howe. I mean, Carol is lying nonstop, Carol lies to everyone, Carol tells everyone what they want to hear, and Carol gets whatever she wants based from these relationships. On Ed. And Vey is the complete opposite. All he does is tell the truth.

He doesn't get close to anybody. He keeps going from place to place like a drifter And then he's a believer and he follows through it is such a fascinating parallel story and the people who are Obsessed with conspiracy theory are trying to smush them together because if you squint real tight these parallel stories Intersect right just don't they don't parallel stories intersect. But they just don't. They don't. It's so fascinating.

Can I say, for the way, that the amount of thought you've put into this is so kind of admirable. I do, you know, I'm really. Stop, no, I refuse to accept compliments from anybody. Let alone you. Don't just don't casually name drop, I wrote the menu's stare at goats and then be like, oh, I'm surprised you thought about this, you clown.

I get it. No, no, no, I, I'm surprised you thought about this, you're clown, I get it. No, no, no, I, I, that clerks thing, I had no idea about it. And I really believe, I think there's a very strong chance that they got that from clerks. Well, I mean, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be the first time that a joke turned into a right-wing meme that let's do it, yeah.

Well, yeah, absolutely. You know? Yeah. So because then what happens is Carol sort of vanishes from history for a while, and then remarkably, we leave Carol right after the bombing. She's gone to the FBI. She's told them what she knows.

She's clearly remorseful. She was a good informant, like I'm sure of that. I don't think it's anything that she did as an informant that you can criticize her over. She gave good information. So she leaves the story as a kind of hero. And then she vanishes some history. And then reappears in the most unexpected way,

like 18 months later, in 97. It's so funny to me, because this was one of the biggest moments where I was like, oh, I know this person. I know exactly who this person is. And what's so funny is, so she reappears 18 months later with Thor. Thoric. Thoric. Thoric.

A new, not-seboyfriend. And he's not the real Thor. Come on., a new Nazi boyfriend. He's not the real Thor, come on. And she is Freya. Yeah, she's Freya. So she's rejoined an Nazi group as leader. And now they're recording dialerases messages themselves and plotting violent revolution. Warning that if the white revolution doesn't start in the next two weeks, this is for the men who might be slightly wrong, they're going to start it and so on.

So they're arrested. He is found guilty and sent to jail for three years, but she gets told she's best lawyer and gets off. And as you say, she goes through life without... but she gets told she's best lawyer and gets off. And as you say, she goes through life without... I wonder why I hate rich people. It's so weird. It's so weird, you know, it's so odd that I would despise rich people.

It's so crazy. Anyways. Yeah. So while she's standing trial for plotting, oh, you know what, there is one person in the story who I trusted and believed, and maybe naively I don't know. But the FBI guy who arrested her, I'd like discovered this new Nazi group she was in 18 months later, and I've just drawn a blank on his name

annoyingly. But he gave us a bunch of stuff, He gave us like a letter that Carol wrote to a parents and gave us that. And he, um, the letter is another one of those things that is such a great, I know exactly who this person is. Well, right. I mean, and I'm going to, I'm going to tell you my, uh, my, uh, understanding of Carol. Um, it comes from the letter. That's what made it all very clear to me who exactly Carol was, is because the letter is one of the most self-aggrandizing, self-methologizing, heroic woe is me ass.

Fucking I can't believe that I am both a hero and the world is against me letters that I've ever read. Or ever heard. I also went the letter with written is very relevant. Right, totally. That's a huge part of it. But the one part that I couldn't get out of my head, I couldn't get out of my fucking head, is when she writes down the exact cost of her guns.

That was the thing, that was the thing where I was like, I know who this person is. This is fucking Alex Jones if he was terrible on Mike. This is an amazing thing because she has a very similar upbringing. She's never received consequences. She doesn't tell the truth to anybody. She has a parasitic social lifestyle. John Ronson, I'm gonna tell you this right now

I got a copy of the psychopath test Just to run Carol through it and boy howdy Well, I mean she definitely has a sort of shallow affect That's the thing about the 18 months is everybody everybody was like, how did she come up there? And to me, it made so much sense. What was she gonna get a fucking job? Right. Because the story that she tells in court,

which is believed is, and for me this was the moment. Like I spent the longest time as, you know, trying to figure out what do I believe about Carol, you know, and what should I make of Carol, and for me the moment when it all starts to crumble was her defense. So yeah, so she's found 18 months later, and her defense was that the FBI had had slobbily revealed her name to the world, which is true. The FBI did do that. Right. Again, no good people in the story whatsoever. And as a result of that, she had to, like, get in deeper.

And then she comes up with this very sort of convoluted defense, which is that the reason why she set up the new dialeracist was in part because she had to get in deeper because the FBI had revealed her name and she was in danger. And B, she was using dialerassist as like a honey trap to attract to a racist who then she could report on to the ATF, even though she'd been deactivated years earlier and had no connection to ATF whatsoever. But because she had like a great lawyer, everybody would agree that if you could wear a trepid and Tulsa and you have them going, get Bruce to his company, he's currently stored with Daniels this lawyer, he's a teacher. So it was believed she won, she got off.

And on what seems to me like a really implausible, just a lot of people. Oh, it's an absurd story. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Russianality. It's ridiculous. But there's so many people, and we're not talking about, you know,

InfoWars audience, we're talking about people from completely different strutters of society who really believe Carol's story despite everything that we've just talked about. And some of them... Well, and I think there's a very simple and obvious reason for that, and it's, I'll tell you this, I never looked at a picture of Carol. Not once. So for this entire thing, when you said that, when it's named the debut-tot, whenever it opens with her being an appearance-based human being, you know, I thought, well,

that is easily the thing that tricks everybody. So just don't do that. Yeah. And I think it's a lot easier to understand once you don't know what she looks like. Yes. Well, that is a very big part of it. Her wealth, she's charismatic, but she may be sort of shallow, have a sort of shallow affect, but shallow, charismatic, bored, easily, parasitic lifestyle. How many? Well, yeah.

I mean, yeah. Yeah. It's funny, like, I was, you know, even though I said that I was trying to think of what disorders people have, I tend not to say them out loud, because I always think it's not fair. But, you know, but the people who have said to me, Kyle comes over with like classic borderline, I don't know, that's not right, because, you know, and a few people have said that to me, but you know, the big book about borderline personality disorder is called, I hate you don't leave me. And Carol isn't, I hate you don't leave me personally.

No, no, no, no, she picks people up and throws them away like nothing. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm not diagnosing her because I don't, I mean, even your book about the psychopath test is, hey, don't do the psychopath test. So, believe me, I'm not doing that. But I will say that her pattern of behavior, what I would strongly suspect of her childhood and everything that she's done in your

story leads you to that point. And I think part of the reason that people look over it is appearance. She's a woman. There's so much misogyny baked into this tale that it's wild to see how much of it is just like oh oh yeah, no, no, that's how it was back then. That's just the way everybody did things, you know. Right. Well, yes, because the big thing, so a bunch of mainstream people, just mainstream journalists believe Kyle's story,

victims of the bombing believe Kyle's story, she's like a sort of femme fatale for like everyone, for the white supremacy guys that she was dating, but also for conspiracy investigators and for victims of the bombing, you know, who want answers and closure. As you said, she tells people what they want to hear all the time. All the time. And one of the legacies of that is she's also now become a very kind of totemic figure, that's the right phrase, for people, and this is where it gets into slightly more complicated areas. Yeah, I'm down. Right, okay, so for people,

as you know, there's a big move in some sort of academic quarters on the left, Mae'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r also believing is that McVeigh had much more specific help from other Nazis, which

proves that they're much more unified than they would like us to believe. Right. Yeah. But as you say, and I say, I just, I think, cow story crumbles when you dig into it. So to believe that kind of means that you're believing in a conspiracy theory as far as I know. No, no, it doesn't kind of it does. It does. And here's the thing. Here's what's fascinating about that is you don't get to talk to Carol despite the fact that she does agree to speak to you, right?

Yeah. It's so much when I've got to the end of the story and she agreed to speak to you and then she doesn't show up and goes completely dark. I'm like, there's no point. There's no point. That's she agreed to speak to you and then she doesn't show up and goes completely dark. I'm like, there's no point. There's no point. That's she talks to you. She is going to tell you a completely different story. Then she tells the person that she talks to 20 minutes after you, 20 minutes after

the new that person gets it. You know what I'm saying? And even if they're the same story, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's for her. It's for her benefit. I gotta say, I came to the same conclusion. Like I was disappointed that she wouldn't talk to me, and if she ever changes her mind and wants to talk to me, I'm down. Oh, of course you are.

Of course you are. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, no, listen to whatever she wants to say, but I did come to that conclusion. Like if you start to not believe, Carol, then interviewing her is no longer essential. Yeah. Yeah. No, the person that I want to interview the most is her dad.

I think there's a good chance that her dad is probably the key to understanding her far better than anybody on this fucking planet. I'll say that. I'll say that. I think you absolutely should. That to me, everything probably starts there. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, she was... Yeah. I mean, her relationship with men is great though. Well, she hope so. She definitely doesn't gravitate to older men. Yeah, Dennis Mayhands, 20 years has seen here. Greg, I think, was roughly the same age.

Sure. But then that was to piss off her dad. Yeah. That was dad centric. Yeah. And Dennis Mayhands, I mean, Jesus. I mean, he definitely had some charisma. But my God, with that man insane. I mean, he definitely had some charisma, but my God

is that man insane. I mean, he's not doing 40 years for the male bombing, so he turned out to be just as dangerous as people thought he was. But the one thing I want to add, like, the academics and so on who believe Carl's story, they're definitely right about some things. They're right that the Tuna diaries is a unifying thing. Oh, totally, absolutely. So the far right are more aligned in some ways

than history would have us believe. I think that's definitely true. But it's a real reach to then decide that they believe Carol's story too. Yeah, I think what is so striking to me about the points of you presented is that no one I feel has the the well, I'll say this, if you wanted to stop the OKC bombing, I don't think you would have been able to stop somebody from bombing the mirror building.

But if you wanted to stop Timothy McVeigh from bombing the mirror building, then after Waco, you disband the ATF and hold the leadership accountable for it. No amount of rating anyone of any kind of force applied by the law is going to stop. It's only going to increase the likelihood of another OKC bombing. So that's what I find so interesting about your story is that I don't think anybody has any idea what they're talking about in regards to why shit is taking place, because what they want to believe is something

completely different from reality. Yeah, yeah, it's true. And of course, that's the thing that makes the story very current, because there's still people out there who are saying that, I understand why the argument is being hard, that, you know, just was saying that I mean, you know, it's it's a I understand why the argument is being had that, you know, just look at Charlottesville, look at Johnny, where the sixth, you know, just genuinely scary dangerous things are happening. So I understand

why then it's like a lot of, you know, fear and anxiety and paranoia and the left that, you know, that, you know, these things aren't disparate things, these are all connected and we have to do something about it before they get us and start a civil war. But it's also, you know, it's, you have to be really fucking careful, you know, because what it leads to is Waco's and the rich. Well, I mean, it's, it is no coincidence to me, one that Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden come from the same war in terms of why they blew up America.

And two, that people don't want to believe the people who said why. You know, Timothy said why. Osama said why. And instead, we hear that they hate our freedoms. Do you know what I mean? So to me, a lot of this comes again, straight from this place of, do you know why January 6th happened?

Because of the Iraq war, because of the Gulf War, because of the Vietnam War, because we are, I mean, if you want to say that we are a country that is like governing itself, the people are involved in the government. Then we also have to accept responsibility

for what the government does. Right. Or we say that the government is out of fucking control and they are crazy. And the problem is both are true. Yeah, that's the problem. Yeah, I'm not about to have a Vietnam connection is really interesting too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But think about that. Think about the Vietnam, I'm sorry. I had to, I'm sorry for screaming at you. No, no, no. But when you think about this, right? You think about somebody in Vietnam watching the United States government burn a village alive, you know, burn those children alive.

And they say, no, this is fine because we're the good guys. And then you come home and you watch the United States government burn children alive. It's, I mean, I, it's a, what are you going to say? You know, like there's no good guy here. The problem is that we're not dealing with the reason that these things are happening. And in fact, you could argue quite the opposite. Like I don't oversell this

because this is slightly going beyond my favorite knowledge. Oh, I'm in. Speculate, that's my, I'm a clown. Everything I say is beyond my student knowledge. I was a professional comedian and now I talk louder than people. That's it. Well, okay. So, you know, the message of Waco, and, you know, I was talking, I don't know if you know, Mark O'Moy, in a hand who presents the Fifth Column podcast. He's, I know. Okay, and he's, he's really interesting and he said this to me and we kind of agreed that basically

After Waco, there was this big documentary Waco Rules of Engagement And it was like nominated for an Oscar and you know beloved documentary and the message of Waco Rules of Engagement is we don't want we want to try everything we can to avoid more Waco's it was a tell-in-ness It was a fuck-up. It was useless. Like an experimental, you know, I mean, Jesus, the shit they got up to at wake-o. I mean, I ran out about this and the men started goats a little bit. Totally. You know, they're triagordidities like, you know, exotic, torture techniques, blasting, you know. Totally. Sounds of dying. No, no, no. They wanted to play with their new toys. Yeah, absolutely.

And they were grown-ups who wanted to play with their new toys. And, absolutely. They were grown up to want to play with their new toys. And that is, that's one of the reasons that I say, like, when Waco happened and no one was held accountable for it, you guaranteed, okay, C was going to happen. Right. And I think, and this is where I'm slightly out of my spirit of knowledge, but it feels to me and tell me if I'm wrong, that the message of Waco has kind of changed over the decades, and it's no longer, this is a cautionary tale, let's not do this shit anymore, let's not have this kind of government overreach, too. Yeah, maybe we should be doing more Waco's, you know, maybe things are such, you know, things are such fever pitch, maybe we need to stop them before they stop us. Yeah, I mean, I, I, here's what I'll say about that.

So when I read, I think the book was, oh, no, I haven't here. Oklahoma City, what the investigation missed and why it still matters. By, I got to cite them, Andrew Gumball and Roger G. Charles. Right. Yes. So, so Timothy Mccvay's last words uh... before execution worthy uh... unfortunately very apt uh... louis brand-aise quotes uh... the our government is the potent the omnipresent teacher uh... that quote

and it is very much like, if you want to get to the heart of where these things are coming from, you have to point at the people with agency. And that is the people in the FBI and the ATF and the government, the law enforcement. Like, A-CAB is not a specific to cops. It's it's ATF. It's FBI It's the border patrol all of these people are creating the violence that they Pretend to stop and I think if we didn't have movies if it if it weren't so Attractive to have an FBI agent in a movie and we knew what the FBI and ATF and all those people actually do We would be like no no no no no we got to get rid of these assholes as soon as fucking possible are you shitting me? These are evil people Right. Yeah, I'm so I'm so glad that you're saying this because I think this this viewpoint

Um on the left is starting to diminish a little I think you know if you weren't so nervous about left is starting to diminish a little, I think. You know, everyone's so nervous about, you know, the idea of like impending civil war and so on. And you know, people are escalating things all over the place. So I'm so pleased that you said all of that. Because I agree entirely with that. And more people should be thinking that, frankly. Oh, that's fantastic.

I mean, unfortunately, I think people assume that if I am talking about the OKC bombing, I'm going to wind up on a watch list. So it's delightful to disappoint. Right. But now this, you know, it worries me to see conspiracy theories burgeoning in places where they shouldn't, you know. Yeah.

And that's happening. And, you know, you and't, you know, and that's happening. And you know, we, you and I, you know, especially you because of knowledge fact, you know, you spend a lot of time unpicking conspiracy theories that that burgeon on the right. And I just think it's so important to you, obviously, agree that these, you know, these, these dysfunctional, you know, difficult thought processes are happening all over the place. Yeah, I mean, it is, it is our stated like, we don't have a team. I mean, that's just the reality for the two of us. And so it doesn't, like, if people want to believe something,

that's my first, like, oh, you're, stop it. If something is true that you want to be true, you really need to dig as deep as you can into whether or not it is, because it's probably not. The world we live in is garbage sauce. Yeah. Well, yeah, and obviously, you know, I think it's a great exciting climax of the Debbie Topp for me to come to conclusion that there's no conspiracy. But obviously some people I do, I do too. No, I totally agree with you. Yeah, I was that's that's what was so interesting to

me. The experience of listening to it is because as you're bringing up the evidence throughout it, you know, in that kind of true crime way of like, oh, the people say that the cop's glued and then there was this clue and all of that stuff. And it was so much me being like, well, that's bullshit. Well, that's dumb. Well, there's, that's nothing. So you must have been pleased with like,

yeah, no, no, no, at the end, whatever, you went through it. I was like, oh, thank God. I was worried that I was going to scream at John Ronson for two hours. Right. No, it's so, Thankfully, I only screamed at you for two hours. Yeah, and it's so important. And so for me, that's a great, you know, sort of disproven, as much as I possibly come

with the evidence that I had, just became such a kind of important thing. It's just, so in the end, I think what the debitant is, it starts as I think a really fun way of telling the story of this really unusual woman. Totally. And then it ends as a sort of tribute to the old values of like evidence gathering journalism journalism in the supposed term. Yeah, absolutely.

That's a good idea. A lot to call journalism, and which is something. Yeah. Oh, no, you're talking to, you know, Dan is, Dan has been, like the very first from the moment we started. It was, assume nothing. Don't assume that he's a bad guy. Don't assume he's a good guy.

Don't assume he's wrong. Don't assume he's right. Take every claim individually and go from there. You know, and now we've come to the conclusion that he's lied about everything. And I feel like, again, that's why Carol's so familiar to me is because it is just like that. Sell my tech nine for $650.

That's a person who fucking loves their guns and is proud of the fact that they own that gun. You know, why would you tell your insanely rich parents to sell your guns for only $650? That guy was an oil baron. The only reason you do that is because you love them. It's so interesting to me. It's so interesting. Oh, good. I'm by the way, this has been a great.

This has been a great interview. Oh, I'm better than Rogan. Well, I did Rogan twice. The first time I did him was the four. You've done us twice. All right. This is the second time for us too. Well, let's see who gets the third run. The first, the first time I did Joe Ogan was like way before, you know, he, he was the phenomenon that he became. I think it was like in the, in just maybe the 600s, like I was about, I don't know what he's up to now, maybe like 2000 or something. Or no.

Yeah, but and it was, it was interesting because, you know, it was before any of this stuff happened, before he became such a sort of superstar. And I just really noticed, it's a two-podcast at the same time, Rogan and this show called Guys We Fucked, which is his two-odd sex positive women. Sure, you know, Christian. And I just noticed for the next year, everywhere I went, I was in like Canberra, and I was in Dubai. People were coming up to me in the side in queue,

saying, I left you on Joe Rogan, and I left you on guys we've worked. So, I remember thinking, oh my God, I had no idea, the reach of this guy. And yeah, and then he subsequently kind of exploded a couple of years ago. Yeah, that's such a funny, I mean, in the context of this entire conversation,

like that realization of Joe Rogan's quote journey, like that idea of he was ostensibly just a stoner guy who didn't care too much to now being an alt-right figurehead, you know, hanging out with Elon Musk and convincing people that vaccines are evil. You know, like that is the same trajectory of somebody with, I mean, it's a trajectory of somebody with too much money. Yeah, I also, I'm. It's the trajectory of people with money. Right.

I did an interview quite recently with this British guy, a rapper called Scrubius Pip, and he's, who does a podcast called Distraction Pieces, and he's been on Rogan II. And during the interview, he kind of asked me, like, what do I think of Rogan, you know, post, you know, because he says he feels conflicted now that Rogan's, you know, say all of this sort of vac stuff and so on.

So we had a conversation about it. And one thing that, you know, I sort of ruffially pointed out is that, you know, Joe Rogan brought, you know, it was about three hours of audio a day. I do about three hours of audio a day. I do about three hours of audio a year. So, A, that means I have a lot less wealthy than he is. And B, it means that, you know, I have a massive amount of time to go home and think about every single thing that I say in the show. And so, every split second of my shows or books whenever they have been like thought over

mold over like a million times. I'm you know, I guess the problem with doing three hours of broadcast today I said you don't do that. You just splurge it all out and that becomes the thing and and then you surround yourself with Yes, man who will just agree with whatever you say so all of a sudden you think the things that you splurge out are correct. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's your trajectory of being rich. Yeah, no, it's true. It's true, it's dispiriting. Yeah. But look, but I really enjoyed this note

and I particularly enjoyed what you said about snail and mala, and that there's a world in which snow and mela could have known that this was gonna happen that day, but that doesn't mean that the other stuff is true. Yeah, I mean, let me put it to, I think I put it better this way, right? They didn't know it was going to happen.

They didn't know it was going to happen. They didn't know it was going to happen because everybody in that world talk shit nonstop They knew that this guy Timothy McVeigh was talking shit about doing it on this day So when they turned the TV on they had no idea if anything was actually going to happen and in fact I would bet 99 million dollars on them thinking I bet this guy's full of shit and nothing is going to happen and in fact I would bet 99 million dollars on them thinking I bet this guy's foolish and nothing is going to happen. And then it did. Right. That is to me the only reasonable explanation that handles things that make sense of all

of the disparate facts that actually exist. Yeah. Because even if McVeigh never went to Alabama, and there's no evidence that he did, there's no good evidence that he ever did go to Alabama, city. Sure. No, for sure, was that he was setting up at gun shows in Tulsa. And the gun shows in Tulsa were full of people who went to Alabama, city. Totally.

Yeah. Everybody talked shit all the time. Like Alex, Alex doesn't actually want to overthrow the government. He was at J6 telling people, hey, we need to calm the fuck down. What are we all doing here? Everybody, stop, run away. You know that kind of thing because he's a shit talker. Right.

You know, Carol's a shit talker. These are shit talkers. And for their faults, Timothy McVeigh is a believer. And so it is the shit talk universe that catches hold of a believer and then the believer does shit. So to me whenever people talk about how do you wanna stop an OKC,

I don't care about the shit talkers, the shit talkers are everywhere. I mean, the thing about that strip club tape, right? If you got a tape from every strip club in that, in this country, from that night, there was at least 20 stories of people going, you're gonna remember me in April 1995, I'm the number one salesman for blah, blah, blah, you know?

Right. That is a guaranteed truth. Yeah. And I should say, you know if people listen to the debutant, which they still should, even though we've really unpicked so much of the story, I know. I think it's great. I really, really enjoyed it.

But you'll see that we don't get to make Pam the woman who said that, but we did find an interview that she gave the FBI at the time where she tells a different story and a more plausible story. yw'n gweithio'r ffb i'r cyfodd, ac mae'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw'r cyfodd yn ymw' truth, but also the FBI agent who arrested Carol, I think he was telling me the truth. And in fact, when I read his report, finally, that, you know, he won this sort of six or seven page report where he interviews, Carlos first has been Greg. And it's funny. I read his report right at the end of the process, like he gave it to me, but I didn't read it until I was, you know, almost finished with the show. And what really surprised me and made me

sort of smile rooffully, because I'd spent like so much time trying to figure out what to make of the story. And his report is pretty much identical to how I ended up telling my story. And so I think the journey that he went on at the time in the 90s to try to figure out how a Greg may have in Elifim City, he seems to have come to pretty much exactly the same

conclusions that I came to 30 years ago. So I think he's somebody. So there is one person to believe in this sort of. And in fact, I would say that I probably agreed almost certainly with you, despite my protestations, one of the biggest problems with the ATNF and the FBI at this time has nothing to do with the individual agents who are almost all like all all so frequently I mean besides the people who handle the the confidential

informants being giant pieces of shit. Uh, I should be talking to the sun. Uh, most of the people on the ground are giving accurate information, giving good advice and it is the leadership of like Louis free and those fuck wads who are saying nah nah we want to try out our new toys and when they didn't receive any they didn't even receive a reprimand everybody was like yeah of course we murdered those people at wake oh they were evil you know that was the point that was the point where it is like if we do not hold ourselves accountable,

then somebody who we sent to a fucking war and taught how to kill people is going to. You know, like that is the fucking crux of the Waco-OKC connection. Yeah, and that's so many people are like, hey, what we should have done is do more raids. We should be more aggressive with law enforcement. Buggles my mind.

Yeah. Well, it reminds me of something I'm making season two of Things Fella Part at the moment. And apologies for the joke. Good. And it's proven to be just as good, I think, as you see. I, we found some more great stories, but anyway, in the research for that, I came across a quote from a conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Daltats, I don't know if you've ever come across him. Oh, I know, Ross fucking.

Yeah, well, I don't know. Okay, but he said this one line, though, which I think I agree with, and I think you will agree with, because it's basically echoing what we're saying to each other, which is like, you know, people who see conspiracies everywhere have to make sure that in the sort of zeal to stamp them out, they're not inadvertently, you know, creating insurrection or those PC insurrection, everyone need to make sure that they're not creating the insurrection. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. No, sure, sure. Yeah.

No, that makes sense. You know, we create the enemies we fear. Yeah. And it is, and it's so frustrating because to see somebody like Timothy McVeigh execute a horrific terrorist act, murdering so many people in children and all of this stuff, for the express reason that the government is doing evil shit, right? To then, in response to that, see the government do nothing but evil shit, right? Kind of makes it difficult to be like, oh, no, no, we need more law enforcement to solve

this problem. Yeah, you know, and it happens over and over again and we never learn from the stakes and if I was to get what we learned. After 9-11, we need to go to war and I wreck for 20 more years. It makes perfect sense. We're not evil. We're the good guys. We slaughter millions of civilians and then we're shocked when people hate us. It's because of our freedoms. Yeah. Well, there you go. I suppose that's where you want to end it. That sound like I'm trying to end the interview.

But what I was going to say was, as always, when I got a dig into your stuff, I'm just really impressed by the thought that you put into it. I don't know, I know you don't like to be praised. Also, I'm looking at two birds, having sex on my bird table. That's what I like to hear. That's my shit right there. Now you're speaking my language.

None of this compliment garbage. Yeah, there's some pretty hot food on bird action happening out of my window right now. Well, you know what, life finds a way. I think that's the real lesson from this conversation that we're taking away. Yeah. Ah, well good.

John, thank you so much for joining me. I think we're at like seven and a half hours now. I apologize for monopolizing your time. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no for it to get out people here uh... wonderful thank you so much for uh... for joining me again andy and chan's a sure on the earth thanks for holding so i like some of the same color of a huge fan i love your work i love you