Knowledge Fight - #865: Chatting with Anna Merlan

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

Today, Jordan sits down for a chat with Anna Merlan, author of Republic of Lies, covering a whole host of issues, including the Conspiracy Cruise, bigot nuances, and the guy from the Sound of Freedom.

I Ready Not knowledge fight Damn and Jordan I am sweating Knowledge fight that comes it's time to pray I have great respect for knowledge fight knowledge fight I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys. Shang. I have great respect for knowledge, mate. Knowledge, mate. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys. Shang-ni are the bad guys.

Knowledge, fight. Dan and Jordan, knowledge, fight. I need money. I need money. Andy and family. Andy and family. Stop it. Andy and family.

Andy and family. Andy. Andy. It's time to pray. Andy and family. Let's hear it on the ear. Let's hear it on the ear. And the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end and welcome back to Knowledge Fight. I am once again alone without my co-host, Dan. Today, however, I am joined by renowned journalist, Anna Merlin. Thank you so much for coming out of the show. Thank you for having me. Did you kill Dan? I did not kill Dan.

Sometimes we've decided that doing interviews separate allows us to actually listen to people, as opposed to the two of us just talking to each other. Sounds like you killed Dan. It's okay though. I can ask you about it later. Maybe next time. I can't. See, he's, he's the, I'm, uh, my, let me, let me put it this way. I've hitched my wagon to him. I can't kill him. He can kill me. That's true. I'm replaceable. I don't know about that, but I mean he could get well you know whatever. Anyway, I'm just saying I'm rooting for you guys to fight in the death. I think so long as we avoid volcanoes and the tops of which we should be good on that.

His name is last word. Yeah, so Anna, I mean first first off, you're currently a vice journalist. You formerly worked for Jezebel. I specifically reached out to talk about your book, Republic of Lies, which came out in about 2019. 2019, yeah, like April, believe 2019 so you know it became Almost immediately irrelevant and then it became really irrelevant Yeah, that's I think that's one of the things that I found so interesting going back on yeah, it's just Well, I mean I suppose the best place to start start there is with the very opening you went on the conspiracy.

It did, I did. I was one of several journalists actually went on that cruise. The presence of journalists on that cruise went so poorly that they did not have another cruise for years. And I heard that the next one there was maybe going to be some kind of rule about not having journalists. So we were very disruptive in a way that we did not intend to be. And like really tried not to be. I want to stress that we really tried not to be, but specifically my now friend, Bronwyn Dickie, was there from popular mechanics. A bunch of people on the cruise were very upset about the idea of popular mechanics being there,

because popular mechanics had written like a full book, the Bunking 9-11 conspiracy theories. And so... Oh yeah, that seems silly, but now that I think about it, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, so they were very concerned about Bronwyn being there. Leskin's heard about me, really, which was fine, but so it ended with all of the journalists. It was me, Bronwyn, a photographer named Dina Latowski, who is also a good friend of it, friend now, and a friend Colin, who was there blogging for his wife's blog. Anyway, we all ended up getting kind of followed around the boat at various times, and buy people on the cruise, who were intent on proving various things about us. I still have like video and audio footage of this husband, wife, team cornering me in the boat computer lab and accusing me of being in the CIA.

Uh, and then telling me I wouldn't necessarily know what if I was in the CIA was it was a really, really long week. I like, week. I like that. I like that. I see the thing about it that I don't understand is, well, first off, I don't understand cruises. No, I can't. I don't understand the idea of not having it. I can't recommend it.

That bugles my mind. It was not good. Then for them to go seems mad because their conspiracy theorists are all climbing together on a boat and easily isolatable circumstance. Yeah, I was surprised. And I'll be found. I was really surprised. Also two of them, a husband and wife, Paraname, Sean, David, Morton, and Melissa Morton were actually

arrested coming off the boat. Oh, yeah. You know, for financial fraud that they both eventually went to prison for. So like, on a number of levels, it just, it didn't seem like the best idea. It was also very expensive, and a lot of the both presenters and guests on the cruise were not in like great financial condition. So I don't know that it was really a good plan for any of them, but they seem to have a

nice time. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think what I find fascinating about it is that it speaks to the level of loan limits in the community for some. I mean, if you're willing to go on a cruise, to the Philippines, that's lonely. I mean, a lot of the guests were actually there because they specifically wanted to hear either from Andrew Wakefield, who's sort of the father

of modern vaccine conspiracy theories, or because they wanted to get an audience with Sean David Morton, or Winston Schraut, who is another self-styled financial expert. Both of these people were practicing what I would argue was redemption theory, which is sort of a branch of sovereign citizen financial conspiracy theory stuff, but a lot of folks on the boat were specifically wanting to be in their seminars, wanting to take notes, wanting to figure out

how to get out of whatever financial situation they thought they were in, or were undoubtedly in. And so for a lot of people, I guess, spending like $2,000 to go on this cruise and hear from these people seem like a wise financial choice. And arguably, of course, it was not. Right. Yeah. Well, that's an interesting, that's an interesting different angle on it because that turns it from a, like grouping of people who believe in conspiracies, trying to connect with each other into more of a, like a self-help guru, building people out of, out of money in the same way.

Yeah, it definitely felt, you know, like, the rich dad, poor dad guy could be Sean Dad Mortonon or yeah, Sean dead Morton. There we go. I've figured it out. So I had never I have never read rich dad poor dad despite my partners. Relative has given him like five copies of the book. And so we have had many copies of this book in our house that we immediately put somewhere else. had many copies of this book in our house that we immediately put somewhere else. Um, so I had not read it and I did not know what it was about until I listened to an episode of this book, could kill it. It sounds like the the entire narrative, like the the rich dad was not actually really closely involved with the author's life. Also the author did file for bankruptcy at one point, I think, like it's really, it's an incredible text. Anyway, nothing to do with what we're doing here, but yeah. Well, I mean, arguably it's it is it's a it's a Jason. Sure, sure, sure. That's the that's the interesting thing that I'm

Connected with all of this you know The way that the the crews itself in 2015 2016, but yeah. There's a typo in the book that I tried to have fixed in the paperback version. It did not get fixed, but it was 2016. I know, I'm sorry. So yeah, but in this way,

I see the people on this boat, on this cruise view, and they're there for this social gathering slash self-help financial guru. And I have to think that there is one or two of those people who wound up at the capital on January. Oh, I have no idea. There's this winding road. I actually don't know. It's entirely

possible not to my knowledge. Most of the folks on the boat at that time were not particularly political at the same time as I wrote. Several of them were really excited about Donald Trump. So I don't know what ended up happening. I haven't kept in touch with any of the attendees. I have continued to follow obviously a number of the presenters and have had run-ins with them at various times over the years. Yeah, it's a really good question. I didn't think of that. I'm curious if any of them ended up going. I don't know. I have no idea. On the one hand, maybe, on the other hand, a lot of those folks were pretty much convinced that politics were sort of like a, you know, a

ruse and illusion, a veil through which we have to pierce to see the true workings of things. So it's entirely possible that they just tell me when they start sounding crazy. Yeah, I mean, honestly. So, you know, I mean, I see them, I see these folks periodically when I go to conscious life, which is a big new age festival in LA, it's an expo, and I usually go every couple of years to kind of like see what's up and you know, see what the latest trends are in- See what's up?

See what the trends are. You know, like one thing that I do a lot of actually is I will go to conferences or listen in on them online and stuff that like I often don't even end up writing about just to like see what the see what the haps are and so I do occasionally see some of the conspiracy attendees that conscious life. They do not remember me. I have not played as large a role in their lives as they have in mind. Interesting. Yeah, no. Okay. Yeah. you're more of just like an amateur lurker. Yeah. That the fascinated.

Totally. I mean, I also think you take from it. From the fact that they don't remember me? Not just like the the trends. 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, What do you take from being in that environment? Like there's that sort of tactile emotional feel you have when you're walking through these booths of lunatics. Well, so unfortunately, I really enjoy being there. I actually have like a pretty good rapport with the guy who owns and runs conscious life. His name is Robert Quicksilver and for whatever reason,

he seems to like me just like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. Sure. And I like him. I quite like talking to all of these folks, you know, despite the fact that I'm not here to sort of report in a way that they would enjoy. And I also don't know that they like me a lot personally. I ran into some sort of Q&A on characters the last time I was or the time before last that I was at conscious life and later they were

talking about me on like a podcast and agreeing that I had a very dark energy and they didn't understand what my deal was and I was like yeah okay fair. Anyway sorry what do I take from being there? So this last time, the last time I went was in February of this year, and I was really curious to see what effect COVID had had on the sort of broader new age and conspiracy communities who all tend to come together at conscious life.

And ultimately, it has not had much effect in the same way that the broader world has kind of elected to forget the pandemic and move on as quickly as they can. There was also not a lot of discussion about it at conscious life except for Dell Big Tree, who's a big anti-vaccine figure who did like a keynote. Well, I was there who talked obviously a lot about, you know, vaccine mandates and lockdowns and the sort of need for, you know, political and legal revenge on the people who he believes inflicted the pandemic on us. Yeah, no, it's interesting. Also, you know, sure, sure, playing the hits, playing this.

He's very popular. I can totally see him running for office some day, you know, so yeah But I mean again, it's super interesting because I'm in that lecture. There's several hundred people in the room I'm obviously like the only person wearing a mask of course as you might imagine And no it's like nobody I Runically revealing yourself by wearing it, it's like no, it's like no, ironically revealing yourself by wearing it. It's true and ironically like nobody had anything to say to me about it. You know, like there have been times past where I have covered whatever conspiracy

events while wearing masks and have gotten super duper harassed and so of my colleagues, but in this particular space it was just like, I don't know, they just weren't there to fuck with me. They were there and here from Talbictri. So like, um, everyone's just fucking tired, they just weren't there to fuck with me. They were there and here from Talbictri. So like, um. Everyone's just fucking tired, man. We're just fucking tired of COVID. Yeah. Whatever.

Where you got to be a mask, I don't care. Yeah, it was great. I really, it's really nice. I definitely prefer, you know, being able to do my job without getting her ass. So no, it was great though. I really appreciate it. Everybody's willing to, you know, not

inflict their choices on me or vice versa. You know, Yeah. All right. How like I can you kind of I now I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of walking around this post COVID Yeah. World and how everybody I mean, what you're describing, I find interesting is that everybody's collective fictions are all kind of agreeing on, let's just put COVID behind us. Everybody's collective fictions are intact and have been reinforced in whatever way was sort of politically and socially and financially useful by the pandemic. So people who were there to pedal this idea of sort of perpetual sickness and promise, you know, miraculous health cures were able to draw that from COVID, people whose ideas about,

you know, lockdowns and government overreach, you know, people who just wanted to ignore the whole thing, whatever, whatever they needed to take from it they did. So that yeah, I was, I don't know, it was interesting. It's always interesting. It's always interesting to see what people are talking about, what people are selling. There's always a lot of products to protect you from EMF frequencies and stuff like that. So I was looking at that. You know, it's just, I don't know, it's just a good time.

There's very good semoses. There's an Indian restaurant that does catering every year and the Samoza's are incredible. I brought my partner this year. He actually ended up taking photos and publishing a photo essay on Vice because he was just wandering around the, he's a photographer and was just wandering around the exhibition hall and was like, holy shit,

and ended up shooting like a really beautiful series of photos. So, you know, it's a great time for the whole family. What, but now, now I suppose then, let's bring it home. What does conscious life do? So arguably conscious life has always been a good way for certainly people like me to take the temperature of what sort of quote unquote French things are entering the quote unquote mainstream, right? And as you know, as well as anybody, like those terms don't mean anything anymore. Post Trump, post pandemic, like there's all kinds of things that have contributed to sort of collapsing this idea of

insight and outside French versus mainstream. And, you know, so going to events like Consciouslyve always sort of helps me, helps remind me how little distinction those two things have, you know, where there will be relatively mainstream celebrities, celebrities at Consciouslyve, and they'll be very fringe ideas, and they'll all be in the same room. Like the last time I was there in 2020, Russell Brand was actually there because before he became a YouTube contrarian.

And you're so cool. Yeah. So before he became a YouTube contrarian, he was interested in this idea of becoming maybe like a new age kind of motivational speaker. And so he was kind of trying that out. He was selling his workshop, I think, cost like $100 to get into or something, like extra over the ticket price. So I went and said, and on that, that was super interesting to watch him trying to kind of like revamp his image, you know. So it's also a good way.

So you caught the proto-Russell brand. He was doing open mics before he started. It was interesting too, because so Russell Brand has written a book about sobriety, like talked about getting sober from his various addictions and sort of entering a more spiritually evolved place in his life. Then he became kind of a YouTube shatter, right? And in between, he was trying this other thing uh... and then of course now he has been accused of this incredibly horrible series of sexual abuse allegations from you know kind of the height of his hand a few years ago which has been super interesting

to watch how he handles that on youtube so yeah i really you know i wish i could have seen into the future uh... you know i mean that is that is one of the things that we've unfortunately run against is like, you know, we've gone back into the past with Alex. Yeah. We've seen Russell Brand come up and there's so many times now where you see figures from the present. And you kind of, you know, it's almost an inverse truism that Alex was right thing is like if it was on Alex's show

We should have fucking done something Yeah, yeah, it's a good point kind of thing like Alex is so wrong that he's created a flex point in the timeline Where if we just did the opposite of everything he says we'd be great. There's a lot of foreshadowing Certainly there's a lot of stuff where you're like, wow. But also, so I don't know how you feel about this, but I would sort of say that generally, I feel like he really has lost his market share. There's so many would be proto Alex Jones's out there

competing for his space. A lot of them are willing to, for instance, like, say more extreme things about, you know, the Jews or white nationalism or whatever than he is willing to do, or are smarter, or are, you know, not banned from every social media platform. So it's interesting to watch him sort of struggle to kind of regain his footing among these new people who are essentially trying to do, you know, exactly what he's done and build the financial success that he's built because everything else aside. God, he's so rich, he's so, so, so, so, so, so, so wealthy. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say there, but it's always just interesting to think about the way that he both created this incredibly effective business model that everyone else is trying to emulate and also sowed the seeds of his own destruction. Well, I don't know about his destruction, that might

be exaggerated. Yeah, I mean, there's a bit of, there's a bit of, to, in my mind, a bit of, you know, he took a job opportunity just as much as he created an industry there. He's a bullshit law. Sure. And he's a racism launderer and he's a kind of way for people to get from Fox News says Texas should be a little bit lower to like white people should be allowed to run everything for like he's the pipe. Yeah. And I think we watch now is that you know there's not as much distance you have to go between regular to white people should run. There's not Alex's

market shares. Right. There's not as much need for the pipeline. Yeah. There's not as much need for the pipeline. Increasingly as much need for the pipeline. Increasingly mainstream figures are much more willing to say thing that would have previously needed to be laundered through a series of waypoints in middlemen like Alex Jones. And so now you can just have, you know, the politicians doing the racist dog whistles themselves or the anti-Semitic dog whistles. Oh, what have you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is what happened. That sucks. or the anti-Semitic dog whistle, so what have you? Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is what happened. That sucks. It's not great. It's not great. Yeah. I'm interested then. See, that's kind of the thing now where I ask myself,

what does it take for us to go from like, we all agree, you can't say the and we know if you say the n word what to do we've got it right what is it going to take for just racist regular old dog whistles that mean the same thing to the people saying them what is it going to take for those to have the same weight or is it just gonna be as we're always allowed to say like a diet version of whatever slur we want? And society will be like, he's probably fun.

I mean, it's kinda a lot easier arguably to do that stuff in recent years to, you know, as has been discussed at Najim, like there has been a return of a radically regressive viewpoint around things like gender, race, sexuality that is not just happening in the US, it's happening across the world, this sort of return of far-right populist leaders who are willing to pander to that base and say those things much more openly and overtly is coming back. Right? There's just sort of no doubt that the rhetoric that is acceptable in sort of quote unquote mainstream politics is getting more extreme all over the world. And so this is the point where people don't like having me on panels because I always say

that I'm not actually very optimistic about any of this. Like I do think that we are just getting more politically extreme in the world. Like we are just getting more polarized. Things seem to be getting worse. Things that I thought were sort of settled in the US, like the rights of gay people for instance, like the idea that LGBT Americans sort of just generally deserve to be left the puck alone. Even the idea of something as simple as same sex marriage being legal, you know, I am seeing all of this stuff starting

to come up for discussion again, you know, as you are well aware, people like Alex Jones and others are laundering all of this really, really intense concentrated panic around trans people specifically. These are all things that would have been relatively unusual even a few years ago and they're coming back. So this idea that we that we always move in a direction towards sort of progress is just sort of not true. I don't know. I'm not super optimistic about it. I don't I don't have any like solutions. I have sort of things we can do on an individual level, but I never end up feeling very optimistic about any of this. Yeah, I mean, there's not that much to feel optimistic about, but that's fine. Sure. I mean, I wonder

about that. I wonder about our engagement with that, like, the language is getting more extreme or the like, when it speaks to my previous point, I don't think it's more extreme so much as it's more...over, you know, like people who people have been saying the exact same things about the Jews in mainstream society for my entire life just using varying degrees of youth. That is true. Is that, would you disagree with that? No, I don't disagree. Have you read my Rothschild's new book?

It's called Jewish Space Sows. Yeah, it was very good. Oh, yeah. And again, I thought it was really effective as a way of talking about, you know, yeah, how those dog whistles kind of wax and wane and how at times there are more overt ways of talking about this stuff. And at times, it becomes more veil, talking about this stuff and at times it becomes more veiled but it sort of always there right yeah yeah that's true I mean yeah I don't know I'm thinking about this like as a as a Jewish person who works in media like when when people are willing to say

the sort of overt thing to me versus the sort of slightly more veiled thing and yeah, it varies. But you know, there's always been people willing to say the overt version of the thing the entire time I've been working. Sure. No, I mean, I find it fascinating because I've read many books, you know, Rothschild's book, I've read and and and most of these are people who are entering spaces that are But are like almost two things they're curated forms of the racism for the perform for the for the audience you the the list and

at the same time like these I I don't know what these fictions that that are meant to kind of Intense at the same time that they're I want to try and explain in a way that makes sense because this is a difficult I want to try and explain in a way that makes sense because this is a difficult concept, right? So when someone like Jeff Charlotte goes into an openly Nazi anti-submitted space, you know, or Mike Rothschild or goes into these spaces, these are spaces where people are allowing them. So they're obviously going to be like, hey, we're not actually like kill all the Jews. That's not us. We're going to, we're the kind

that can talk to you. That kind of, right? But when you're not there, the racism isn't the same. Yeah. I mean, I wrote about that in my book because I went to a gathering held by the traditional worker party and a number of other racist groups that were, you because I went to a gathering held by the traditional worker party and a number of other racist groups that were trying to have this whatever partnership. They were trying to form an alliance and it didn't work out obviously because it never does. These guys are incredibly, they're incapable of working together just as a species, this particular group of guy, this particular type of guy, they just, they can't do it. But yeah, obviously, you know, when I was there or when journalists were there in general, they present one version of themselves, and then in another setting, they are sort of

overtly anti-Semitic, and I think we can't see them, but of course we can. So some of it is being kind of aware of the ruse that they are trying to pull, right? And incorporating that into your reporting and being like, yes, this is how they act in front of us and this is how they act when they think we're not listening. You know, like it's, but again, like journalists do fall for this all the time. There's plenty of coverage of people like Richard Spencer and Miley and Nopolis. It was like, well, he's so polite. You know, he has a suit on. He brushed his hair. And it's like, yeah, that none of that suggests that they're rhetoric is any less extreme. But yeah, I mean, you know, they always they always

talk about it in much more overt terms than they think we can here. Well, and I I find that to go even further beyond that, you know, I've spoken to people who've gone undercover in these areas. And there's a different version of racism for online dating websites that they put in. You know, this kind of puffed up over hypermasculine version of what racism that they'll present. And so all of these different things to me showcase not so much a you know, oh this rhetoric is more or less extreme than it ever has. So much as just this is what we're doing in this time. Right. What is the flavor that they're marketing in different places? Yeah, watching, watching racists try to date, like watching white nationalist men try to figure out how to find a woman who will be all the things that they want a woman to be is it sure is challenging or watching again like you know there have been so

many white women who have tried to become sort of racist influencers you can talk about people like Lauren, who just find ironically that the sexism in these spaces is so overwhelming, they don't get to do what they want to do. You know, it's sort of funny. Yeah, sorry, not really relevant, it's just sort of funny. I mean, it speaks to the fact that if your fundamental position is I hate women, you're probably not going to get along with any of them. You probably know whatever context. Your entire concept is I hate them for being the thing they are. It's so interesting. That I'm not even defining clearly.

Well, it's fascinating. Again, this particular group of guys, they're so homophobic and they're so sexist. I'm just like, God, how do you end up having any friends? How do you end up having a family, like, you know, seems tricky. I mean, but that's why it again gets back to how do you get on that fucking row? How do you get on that cruise? Well, if you're, you have to be so lonely in a certain way. So it has to be, you have to be so lonely in a certain way. So it has to be, yeah, so lonely. Well, my sort of observation generally,

the people that were literally on the cruise and the people who are metaphorically on the cruise, right? The people who are in the deep end of the pool. All of them end up there because some system of power, some part of society, they feel has failed them them, you know like all the financial conspiracy theorists I talked to had tax issues or financial financial issues all the health conspiracy theorists have an issue where they believe that they have been harmed By mainstream medicine and the mainstream medical establishment, you know This is just really

Common is that these people have an origin story of some kind. You know, Alex Jones is a bit of a mystery, even as much as we know about him and about his sort of like englorious high school years and all of that, but I mean all of these folks have something that they feel, you know, push them into the position or the space that they're in now, and it's always a matter of just kind of figuring out what it is. That's why I like asking people about, like, ask a lot of longitudinal questions of these folks, like, okay, well, what were you doing 10 years ago? Like, how did you grow up?

And some of these people don't have insights about themselves like that. They're like, you know, I grew up really normal and now I'm incredibly racist, but like that's often not true. Which is why you can also benefit a lot when you're writing profiles about people like this from asking folks around them and people who knew them to kind of pinpoint what happened, you know, rather than talking to them directly because they're often not very reliable or self-aware narrators. Oh, yeah. No, I, what was it? The debut time. John Ronson's thing about what's a man or listen to it. The stories of the boyfriend or the like ex-husband when she was younger, he's just being like, you know, I don't remember her being that racist. You know, I got these two fucking swastik

tattoos covered up, but I don't remember her being racist for any reason. You're like, okay, I'm telling a very fun story. God. That's, that's what I'm talking about. A guy who's had so much foreshadowing in his book. When you read the version of Alex Jones that then exists in John Ronson's book them, you know, back when he was still dating Kelly back when he was first Infiltrating Bohemian Grove. God. It's so so interesting to see sort of how he's depicted and who he appeared to be at the time Versus what he became and of course Ronsson has talked about this a lot, right? You know? Yeah, I think that's again one of the things that I'm struggling with.

And we're kind of struggling with is when we go back to those, even those early episodes, you know, when we go back to the Y2K episodes of Alex, where you think, oh think, oh, this is what he used to be and before he became what he become. And the reality is he's really just as racist, just as full of it. It's just that the trappings around the conversation at the time were such that he could get away with people ignoring them. Right. He also seems a bit bit more he's a bit more self-aware

At that time in that he so like there's a there's a thing I've written about in the past where he has like a Halloween episode from when he was still on public access TV Like way back in the day where he is carving pumpkins and talking about black helicopters and it's funny It is legitimately very funny because it's so weird. It's so sort of incongruous that he's doing this kind of wholesome activity while spouting this sort of insane rhetoric and it's tempting to be like, okay, he was aware of how he came across and he's playing with this image,

which is also how people treated his behavior for so long as like a joke or a metaphor or like an act that he put on that he then shed behind the scenes. But yeah, as you point out, as time goes on with the consistency of what he says and how he says it, you can be like, oh no, he really does seem to mean it. He just had a slightly less gentile presentation as time went on or he didn't have us, you know, whatever means cream platform or whatever. Yeah, yeah Yeah, I mean we weren't we all too often we just weren't looking and we know with Russell And if you know there were so many things I've read recently where people just have been like well You know what in light of these recent allegations I went back and I watched at Russell brand specials and I think he admitted to all of these recent allegations, I went back and I watched at Russell Brands specials and I think he admitted to all of these.

But back then you could just do a special about it. You know, it's it's yeah, well, especially when it comes to sexual misconduct, there's so many things that in the early 2000s, just kind of flu. There were so many ways that you could talk about women or talk about your preferences for very young women You know and people it did not seemingly raise the eyebrows that it did now I mean yes, it's interesting to see what we are aware of that we didn't seemingly use to

As a society. Oh the The shocking nature of like I remember growing up and my parents being Like uncomfortable with the Simpsons, you know, those first seasons where it was very, very good. And then I go back and I'll watch like a movie from the night like American pie or something and be like, are you shitting me? This whole thing is sexual assault. What is going on? It's wild. How is this also a very overt sort of homophobia and how often a joke about somebody being gay or being like a feminine is a major sort of plot point. Yeah, man, it is so interesting. Like the how do you? Uh 3037. So yeah, the same period of time. The stuff that was sort of popular when we were in middle school in high school, it is incredible how poorly a lot of it has aged. Yeah. Yeah

You know, it's at crazy holds up airbud airbud. I've never seen airbud that dog Can play basketball and there's nothing in the rules He jumps in the air and he hits the ball with his nose and the ball goes in the basket. He doesn't bite it. He doesn't ever bite the ball. No, he's too good. He's air bud. Listen, man, I don't know. I haven't seen, I haven't seen air bud or space jam. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of reference points that I'm going to miss, but you know, good for that dog.

Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully, I mean, I think they're on a maybe they've made 15 air blank Really? He's done many sports. I believe he's done judo. I think that's possible Airbud is like the earnest of our dog's supposed to be at this point not to be insensitive I want to say okay. I don't know how long dogs love. So that actually comes back to. Everybody, everybody on the cruise has an origin story. And I keep finding all of

these origin stories. And even in your, even in the book, you know of these origin stories. And even in the book, these origin stories come from a very real place, a kernel of reality that is, I guess, kind of thrown them out of whack or broken their brain in some direction. Right? Like, people talk about how the government and the financial people ruined all of my taxes. But at the same time, there are people who have just lost

their money because it's been seized or whatever. It is a thing that can happen and does happen to people. And I'm interested as to how we would react if somebody who's the difference between somebody who'd really experience this behaving this way and somebody who is not experienced it behaving. Right. So this is something that comes up a lot when you write about conspiracy theories is that systems of power in the US and in other countries are genuinely unjust. The government has committed

outrageous and cover-ups and human rights abuses that we didn't find out about until years later, right? And I write about this in the book, conspiracies held by, for instance, Black Americans tend to be rooted in actual stuff that has happened to Black people over, you know, the last, say, 200 years, right? So a lot of conspiracy theories that are specifically held in black communities, even if they are not literally true, and make a sort of logical sense, like the idea that the levies were purposely blown out

during Hurricane Katrina, echoes an earlier disaster where levies were purposely blown up during the, I wanna say it was 1911, great flood, triggering one of the greatest mass migrations in American history of black people who had to move to the north because they were literally in danger of drowning and some did. And so whenever you're talking to somebody who is again in the deep end of the pool, you know, it is very common for people to say to me, like, how can you possibly trust the

government? How can you possibly believe the FDA, this or that? And, you know, the answer is, I don't necessarily. It's not inherently unreasonable to trust the government, to believe that you are being lied to about something consequential. But at the same time, for some folks, conspiracy's and becomes a sort of reflexive default viewpoint rather than something where they are actually acting based on evidence. You know, it can become, I never believe the official story no matter what it is, no matter how much evidence there is to support it. And so it can become almost debilitating for people in a way because their level of

distrust makes them completely unable to see anything other than fear and suspicion. So, but yeah, I mean, there are plenty of people who have become conspiracy theorists because things have happened to them or their communities that are genuinely outrageous and are the subject or you know the cause are caused by misconduct or state violence. So yeah, I don't know. Sorry, that's not a good answer. No, I understand. I mean, I suppose I suppose by my deeper question is isn't it not isn't it incumbent upon let's say the government to not do conspiracies first? That would be good. That would be nice. You know what I mean? Yeah. Are we are we ever capable, you know, like the the conversation about conspiracy theories

often revolves around debunking conspiracy theories or how to keep people from going down these pathways. But are we ever even capable of avoiding them if we do, if we just have a government that does do conspiracy theories? Right, it can be really frustrating to listen to the sort of conspiracy theory discourse and have it be centered around people talking about needing to like to quote unquote deprogram folks, right? And often that point of view is being pushed by, you know, people in very like mainstream institutions, people in who could use a deprogramming. Right. People in positions of power who don't understand why anyone would ever believe in a conspiracy theory because they don't personally have to, you know, like they are not people who have

ever been disadvantaged. They are not people who have ever been disadvantaged They are not people who have ever been screwed by the government or some kind of system of power and so they don't understand Why people have these viewpoints? So One thing that I always say is that I think the level of conspiracism in America and in many other countries is almost like a form of collective trauma where there have been so many lies for so long that it has driven some people kind of out of their minds, like they are completely unable to sort of adjust to a world where not everything is a lie. And so there have been moments in American history where there has been a attempt at reconciliation and truth telling. So the church committee in the 1970s

was a really good example of that, where this was when Americans found out about MK Ultra about the sort of outrageous committed by the FBI against civil rights groups, and individual civil rights actors like Dr. King. It was a moment when this was the US government saying, we have done these terrible things, but now we are going to do better.

But instead, it actually created more conspiracy theories because the logic went, if they can admit to doing this, what else are they lying about? The JFK assassination was the same thing with the Warren Commission, which was fairly rushed, did come to what is seemingly a foregone conclusion. I don't know, there have been plenty of points in American history where even an attempt to tell the truth has just resulted in people feeling more suspicious. The way

that the government talks about UFOs and aliens and through what we know as a country institutionally about UFOs, I mean, there are so many examples of this. I think that's what the conspiracy theorists can teach us, though, is that I don't give a fuck about the truth. People are interested in consequences, also, if not perhaps many people far more say. Yeah. You know, like with so many of those things, yes, you they have admitted to doing stuff, but then the FBI just keeps getting to do the stuff again tomorrow. Yeah. And they just do it again.

And then like you can't apologize to me and then do it again. This is sort of, then you've only confirmed the conspiracy that you do conspiracy. Yes, this has been an interesting thing, specifically with the FBI being like, okay, well, at one point, you know, we harassed civil rights leaders and created, you know,

Quintel Pro and tried to make absolutely certain. What's murdering friends in between? Exactly. Oh, man, we've all been there. Yeah, I mean, you know, right up to the surveillance of Black Lives Matter demonstrators and people at Standing Rock. I mean, yeah, it's pretty clear that some of the core things have kind of stayed the same. Yeah, so, you know, when people say, how can you possibly trust the government? Like,

I don't, I don't expect anyone else to, but that can be really challenging at moments like the pandemic in COVID, or you want people to trust sort of basic public health advice to be able to protect themselves. And that was what was sort of so heartbreaking about the pandemic is that people died of this information. People got sick and died who didn't need to because they had so much trouble trusting the quote unquote mainstream or the official narrative. I mean, that's a tragedy. Or, you know, when we talk about Aus Jones, people who had so much trouble trusting the quote unquote mainstream or official narrative that they felt empowered to harass grieving families, you know, who lost their loved ones at

Tani Hook or at other times from other mass casualty events, you know, these are folks who's beliefs have led them to incredibly dark places where often they make other people's lives worse. And the end, I mean, it's, it's, I mean, it's almost a mirror in so far as those people who are responsible, you know, you have the government responsible for so much inaction. I mean, depending on whether or not certain reports about Kushner, downright murder of Democrat cities, because that might help with voting. Like, these are things that are, are people are not held accountable for. Then we also have people like Alex, who is not held accountable for the facts.

You know, like we, one of the things that keeps coming up is that idea of, you know, there aren't enough guys. We keep seeing the same fucking people over and over and over. That's true. And it's because they apologize and then they get to come back. I mean, even in the case of Alex Jones, I can't count the number of people who email me or tweet at me and are like, I thought that he lost this huge amount of money. I thought he was held liable.

Right. I mean, you and I have talked about this a little bit. Um, over email is just the idea that like, what people see going on with him right now is kind of a level of impunity, where you can be held liable for this massive judgment, but it will take a very long time for that to catch up with him in any way that really sort of like

matters or makes a difference. Yeah. Like at that, if you have a legal system that is so bald-faced, I mean, in the favor of the wealthy, I mean, if you can read a story that says, at the very least 10% of the Supreme Court is purchased by you. Yeah. You know? It's not wild.

How can you possibly, and we're just so, we're just like, hey, let's get going. It's so crazy. Let's go to the next one. No backsees, no backsees. It's so wild to read just this incredible series of reports from places like ProPublica about the Supreme Court and just be like, oh, I guess we're not

going to do anything about that. And so the problem is that it makes people even more cynical about participating on any level, right? Like for so many people, they just say, like, okay, I'm done participating, I'm not going to vote, I'm not going to read the news, I'm going to decide that everything is fake and everything is corrupt and I'm just going to,

I don't know, do whippets under the covers? I don't know, I don't know how you respond, but that can be bad too, right? It's to tell people like, well, everything is rigged, so you might as well not participate, you might as well not even try. And that kind of like defeatism and sort of nihilism is something that I worry about because I think that's what they want, right? You know, they, yeah. Sooner or later, you get to a day. You get to a day. Because there is human intention behind the things

that occur, and that's the fucked up one. Well, some of them. It's just it's so diffuse. It's so many mid-level decisions that generate, you know, like, oh, well, it's so many it's so many mid-level decisions that generate you know like oh well it's not just that a surgeon general's can say something it's that down along the line there are a million different decisions the million different conversations that happen with people passively accepting the existence of these people uh... in places of power yeah it's really interesting to me.

I guess, too, it's a way to avoid having to talk about whether we can impeach a Supreme Court justice. Maybe nobody wants to touch that. Maybe nobody just wants to wait into that and so that's what's going on here. I genuinely believe that a hard, maybe one of the hardest parts of discourse right now is it feels like saying the truth about a thing that's occurring is acceleration is. 10% of the Supreme Court is owned

by one. That is a true statement. I don't know what to do with that beyond. Like if a conspiracy theory said that you'd go, okay, calm down. We need to, there's not an accurate reporting on this. There's not enough. And now it's just, that's true. It's just a true thing. Which, which man, sorry, I'm trying to, oh, oh, right. Clarence Thomas.

Yeah. It's Leonard Leo, right, well, no. Yeah, okay. Well, that guy is also the architect. Oh, well, again, that guy, oh man, the Leonard Leo, right? Well, no. Yeah. Okay. Well, that guy is also the architect. Well, again, that guy, oh man, the Leonard Leo thing, they just did a story where he's got 40, let's call it a small number of mostly white male justices in power gathering together to make larger decisions about judicial policy for the future of the entire country. Amazing.

Without the input of anybody. Amazing. I mean, this is... It's against me. Well, this is what people worried about with Bohemian Grove and what is actually happening at places that are probably not Bohemian Grove. Is this idea that...

Yeah. ...fly in large, things are happening out of our view and out of our control. I understand why people feel that way. I do think... So this can be... This is to sound like a subject change, but this can be frustrating for me because when I was first working as a reporter in my first few years, I lived in Dallas.

One of the first things I got assigned to do was cover redistricting, which is super boring. A redistricting meeting is like, it was often just me and the City Council members on the redistricting committee in the room because it's so boring and it happens on a weeknight and you just sit there praying for it to end. It is so important. It was so important in determining who could vote and whether their votes mattered and stuff like that that is incredibly sort of consequential, unsexy and also is the place where people's disenfranchisement starts. There's no one there because that's how it happens. They just, they bore you to death. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I mean, there's a part of me that says that, yes, that's what government should, government should be so incredibly boring that there should be nothing sexy about like apportioning things.

There should never be an interesting apportionment of green subsidies conversation. That should never happen. Sure. But now we view government as a contact sport, you know? Yeah. It's a fury. Well, and so people like say,

Marjorie Taylor Greene, who do such insane and extreme things that they get stripped of their committee assignments in a way, she's like, great. Now I don't have to do any of the boring stuff. And I can spend 100% of my time yelling about whatever it is that she's yelling at, or people like George Santos.

You know, George Santos is probably not doing a lot of actual work, but he has a lot of time to, you know, get in front of the camera as an act nutty. You know, Yeah, yeah, I don't I mean that's that's one I can't quite get a read on on the plan. George Santos. Yeah. Santos seems he seems to be there seems to be very much a kind of in the moment. One step ahead of a he's a bit of a laden to me. I've seen a street rat kind of escaping from guards at all times. Yeah.

He's about to jump off a ledge and land into. Yeah. And curious what's going to happen when he does eventually get convicted of some of these things because he's certainly going to, if he's just going to like, hole up in his office and refuse to leave or what. Anyway, I don't know. I guess we'll see. I, yeah. I don't know.

With the law, the legal system, as it is, I don't even know. I don't trust it to do anything, which is the problem. The legal system moves very slowly, right? I mean, again, that's something we're seeing so much with the Alice Jones stuff, is that these families are bogged down in appeals and motions and through gentle, lawyerly ways of pointing out like, hey, this guy is spending all of his money very overtly in public,

while our clients have not been paid the judgment that they are owed. That stuff happens so slowly and these folks can do so much in the public view or can do so much damage if you see it that way while those processes are playing out. Yeah. Right. And then, but that's where the, that's again, where the real kernel of the conspiracy comes in is because I hear that justice moves so soon. And I see that it moves so slow for people with money, and it moves so startlingly fast for people with help. It certainly does, you know, the amount of time that you can spend in jail waiting trial on a petty theft charge and how quickly you can get there is, yeah, it's pretty striking.

It's not great. So it's coming to a place now where I see this disconnect wherein I see people, of course, and it comes back to one of the opening, you know, lines of Republic of lies here is that, you know, you felt a little bit bad and the course and a little bit and a little bit, sure. You know, that idea and I, and I understand that. And I think everybody feels that way to some varying extent or another. I'm asking myself now, why is it that I don't want the people who are willing to do something about this perceived unreality on my side. Why am I looking at the January 6th

protesters and saying anything other than why would people do this for food when the truth is so fucked? Why is it that fiction works and the truth won't get people to storm the Capitol? Whether or not that is a legitimate or reasonable idea is out of, who gives a fuck about that? My point is these are people who saw a perceived pedophile billionaire government, and when fuck yeah, let's go.

I want those people on my side whenever I see a billionaire pedophile government. I think that you should never underestimate people's willingness and desire to engage in mob violence. Ultimately. So that's, you're not going to get it on like, you're not going to mobilize people. You do not in fact have to hand it, you do not in fact have to hand it to the January 6th guys.

No, they did not have a plan. They were not coming out in the streets to, you know, demonstrate in favor of an idea. They wanted to and they did commit my violence and then were very surprised when they got in trouble for it, which continues to be super interesting to me. But no, um, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's a good thing that we're not constantly out in the streets throwing fire extinguishers Through windows and you know stealing Nancy Pelosi's desk files over Other things, you know, maybe that's a good thing sure sure. I respect

I mean again. I respect that that's it's not that I think it is a good right It's that I find it straight to live in a world where you know, it is accepted and honest truth that a third growing up, a third of our government is the judicial bridge and it is accepted and honest

truth that that is completely correct. I mean. And that's just, and there's nothing that can be and it accepted an honestress that that is completely current. I'm new. And that's just, and there's nothing that can be done about that. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. Can anything be done about it? I mean, theoretically,

Theoretically, but we have a president who worked on that. And no president coming from in in our reasonable future uh... if they supreme court's not going to hold itself accountable congress can't hold it accountable so we have all three branches of government unwilling to hold themselves right or each other account

which kind of disdives dismantles that whole like checks and health yeah i mean i guess what we're talking about fundamentally is the difficulty in making sort of a systemic change that feels like it actually matters and I can say like, oh, you know, that stuff happens, but it happens very slowly, but I don't know that it does necessarily. Yeah, I don't know. Again, this is why I don't get invited to like think tank Panels and whatever because I I'm not somebody who thinks that we can just

Vote our way out of this or fund sure Whatever, I don't know there are some things that I am Optimistic about on a personal level like so there's this University of Cambridge study that I talk about all the time where these researchers created a game to teach people how misinformation spreads and you act as a misinformation peddler, the game is called bad news, and you use all these different tactics to kind of promote lies. And after people played the game, they were better at identifying fake headlines, right? They were just better at sort of assessing news. And so that tells me that at least on individual levels, people can get better at

figuring out when they're being lied to or manipulated, which ultimately like that's a small thing, but that's a good thing. That's it's good that people can learn those skills, especially younger generations. Like it can only help if folks are not as easily manipulated in the future as maybe some of the people out on January 6th were. Right. I mean, I suppose the problem I have with that kind of as a I mean, it's not bad. Obviously, it's a good thing. It's just that part of why people are susceptible is because it's not my job to notice. Right. You know, it's not my job. It's not my job to be able to parse news. That shouldn't even be a thing I have to do.

I, I just, I'm a comedian. I should absolutely not have to parse new. That shouldn't, that shouldn't be a job that exists. Those are famous last word? That's a fundamental aspect of the system that is fucked up is that before I even get to figure out who I am, I am under attack by people who are capable of weaponizing information. It's gonna get worse. I mean, as things like deep fakes get worse, as you know, I get more sophisticated,

like it's only gonna get harder to sort of trust within front of you. things like deep fakes get worse as you know, yeah, I get more sophisticated, like it's only gonna get harder to sort of trust within front of you. I've been doing all this reporting lately in the sort of Latter-day Saint world, and I was listening to a conservative podcaster. So, it's a fantastic report. Thank you.

I was listening to this conservative podcaster who was talking about one of the sort of scandals that we've been reporting on, and he doesn't know whether or not to believe it, because it doesn't line up with his kind of political priors. And he said something that I was really struck by, where he said something like, you know, I believe that AI is going to become so sophisticated

that someday we will have to, he was basically saying that he would have to trust in the Lord in the future to decide what was true and what was not in the news and what was manipulated and what wasn't, that he was just going to have to go by the guidance of like the spirit and what was sort of in his like spiritual judgment. And that's terrifying to me that. Why? Because that's completely different from what he's doing. I mean, fair enough that is sort of what he's doing now. Just fair enough. I guess I'm

worried about a future where people are even more comfortable saying this doesn't feel true to me so I'm going to deride it as fake and I'm worried about an informational ecosystem that becomes so chaotic that it is reasonable for people to feel that way, that they can't separate truth from fiction. There's a couple of really good books by a journalist named Keter Palmerinsev, who briefly worked for like a hipster kind of alternative news channel in Russia, and came to kind of understand that what he was actually doing, what he and his colleagues were doing was sort of like doing the acceptable form of opposition to the establishment. That essentially like the Kremlin was still ultimately sort of determining what they were allowed to do

and report on and were sort of still in control of the information ecosystem including the sort of so-called opponents, right? So he's written two books about kind of like state-backed disinformation and how it works and how it looks. There's also a really interesting book about completely separate, but about the kind of counter culture in Germany right when the Berlin wall fell. And so a bunch of people in the sort of post-punk scene in Germany who had been out like demonstrating against sort of the wall and wall and the repressive government in turnout were secretly in the Stasi, and were actually being paid by the secret police.

A bunch of people who were in the scene who were protesting against the wall came to wonder if what they were doing and how they were doing it was being secretly directed by the government that they were fighting against. It's like this really interesting. Yeah, I don't know. Like people have so much trouble figuring out who to trust and whether or not they're being manipulated. And that's not a new problem, but it's only getting worse. It seems bad.

It seems bad. I do want to talk about your reporting on tip baller because I've been following this and it's one of the like most emblematic Stories of our time I think is like the most famous anti-child trafficker in the United States is of course trafficking children on from time to time He is not trafficking children per se What what is going on you time to time. He is not trafficking children, per se. Right. What is going on? You have to qualify that. So what I will say is the reporting that I have done with my colleague Tim Merchman

indicates that he is being accused of sexual misconduct and the women suing him for sexual misconduct well on these missions have said that the attorney said that he was functionally trafficking these women who are accusing him of sexual misconduct. And so, you know, that is the accusation that they are making. But yeah, certainly you can say that somebody who was a crusader against certain types of, you know, sexual violence is being accused of his sexual misconduct, which is certainly very interesting. Not least of which to go along with the, I mean, warm in revelations of fame, how would

you describe it? So he's the second coming of the prophet Ephesus. No, what? He's he has said to have Spoken to the prophet Nephi who is a figure in the book of Mormon So what we know again is that Tim Ballard the former head and founder of Operation Underground Railroad, who's report, whose work we have written about at Najran for the past three years, seemingly

believed that his anti-child trafficking work was to be used, to leave people to the covenant as he called it, to leave people to Mormonism, and seemingly according to people who talked to him about this, who heard him talking about this, he believed himself to be kind of a messianic figure who was meant to, you know, do all of these extremely like large and revolutionary things in society. He was also supposed to recently announce a run for Senate, which we had every indication that he was going to do that, and then all of these sexual misconduct allegations started coming out and he has not done that.

So I'm super curious if he's going to run for Senate or if that's not gonna happen anymore. Right, if he thinks he can just, you know, post through it, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, because this was supposed to be the Senate run was something we've been hearing about for years, that he was doing this anti-child trafficking work, that he saw himself as having a future as a senator, and maybe the president of the United States,

and that he was going to do all these huge and consequential things and become an enormous kind of very famous public figure. And I am super curious if he tries to enact any of those things now that he is facing so much pushback. I am interested to see how much the Mormon church wants it out there that this dude thinks he can talk to, and whether or not that's like a totally okay thing for people to do and Mormonism.

So. And whether or not that's a totally okay thing for people in elected office to believe. I have no idea what the Mormon church thinks about that. I'm not Mormon, you know, I've been kind of learning about the faith as I go. I mean, but the church did issue a statement to us, to me and Tim Marchman, I have ice news kind of denouncing him, saying that he had leveraged his relationship

with a senior apostle in the church, President Emmerusel Ballard, who's in a very high position in the church, saying that Tim Ballard, they're not related. They have the same last name, but they're not related, had kind of, happens a Zalad in more. Actually, yeah, there are a bunch of overlapping last names where occasionally I'll get an email

from someone and be like, oh, I know that you're LDS because you have the, yeah, it's a, you know, anyway, saying that he had inappropriately sort of leveraged his friendship with Emmerussel Baller to promote his own financial interests and to, you know, conduct sort of morally unacceptable behavior is as I think what they called it, but they didn't specify what that meant. It could have been referring to the sexual misconduct we don't know. Yeah, trying to get statements from the church about this has been super interesting. Yeah, that's such another aspect of this that I find both like so completely obvious, so horrifically

disgusting and almost kind of pointless in a way is that reflexive knee jerk like we're not willing to say what did anybody did we're not willing to take responsibility for anything we're just giving you a statement that we're no longer associated with. It was interesting. Yeah well so okay a, a couple of things. One is obviously. Who'd just say fuck that guy? That's a, that's available.

I mean, arguably they did to the extent that it is, you know, permissible to say that. Here's the thing, a religious institution is an enormous bureaucracy, right? And so we're super aware that when we get a statement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it's gone through like layers and layers of whatever legal vetting, you know, discussion like that every word has to be agreed on by a bunch of people. So, you know, it's hard to get a statement from an institution. There's been all of this discussion

lately about whether or not Tim Ballard has been excommunicated from Mormonism, which is a rumor that has been going around for years. It is actually not something that we can conclusively prove or disprove because the church will not issue a statement about it. That's not what they do, like most of the time, and he would have to issue a statement about it, which he's, you know, not going to. So that's been super interesting to report on something where certain things are simply not knowable unless the main character tells you which in this case he hasn't chosen to do. Well, thank you so much Anna for joining me. This has been an absolute delight. Thanks for having me. Obviously your book is Republic of Lies and your currently advice is there anything else? Anywhere else that people can find me I mean I suppose you can find me on blue sky if they ever

Let people join and I'm still on Twitter for now Yeah, I'm occasionally on German TV talking about aliens. I was I was interviewed by a German television statement station talking about aliens. I was I was interviewed by a German television statement station about aliens and so occasionally I get like a rush of like follow requests from random Germans so do not follow me on Instagram but you know if you're ever you can't sleep in Germany you might see me on TV. That'd be fun. Alright. Cool. Look out for that. We have German walks. They'll probably be sure I'm sure you do. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. And, uh, yeah. And, Ian Chanzo, she's on the earth. Thanks for holding.

So, I like some of the first time I've called her in my huge fan. I love your work. I love you.