The Butterfly Effect in Poker. Plus: How To Think About Conspiracies.

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Pushkin.

Welcome back to Risky Business, the show about making better decisions.

I'm Maria Konakova.

And back in New York City, New York, not Las Vegas, I'm Nate Silver.

What are we talking about, Maria?

So first, we're going to do a little bit of a poker update.

As you guys know, Nate wasn't here last week.

So you had him in absentia, a pre-taped interview because he had a deep run in the main.

I've had a few runs as well.

And there's lots of news from the World Series.

So we're going to start with a poker update.

Then we're going to get a little bit more serious and talk about some conspiracy theories in the air.

Maria, is the World Series poker still going on?

Is like today the last official day where you can enter a new event?

Is that right?

No, there are two more days, Nate.

So we're recording this on tuesday july 15th there are multiple bracelet events and then tomorrow there's also a turbo you you know that we love turbos um they're they're nice little uh nice little ways to try to get a fast bracelet at the end of the series so a few more days left i have been not at the world series but at the wpt event at the venetian had a nice deep run there and actually busted in 53rd place last hand of the night yesterday So we were, you know, anyone who plays poker, you know, at the end of the night, they pause the clock and they say, four more hands, five more hands.

Well, I wish they had said four more hands because on hand number five, I was dealt pocket jacks with 18 big blinds on the button.

And the small blind, who was an incredibly aggressive European player who'd been three-betting me all day, three-bet me.

And we went with the jacks.

And that time he happened to have pocket kings.

And that was the end.

What kind of Euro?

romanian i try to get the euros to talk more like the romanians the eastern europeans are like but like somewhat like the germans or the dutch are like a little more serious than they need to be i try to break them out of their shells you know what maria yeah absolutely absolutely that's a great strategy this romanian was very sweet very nice very talkative and took all my chips

i uh i busted the last time of the night in my last World Series event.

What was it?

3K mid-stake something?

Although it was somewhat like, like, I don't think that poker players should

intentionally make a goal of like oh i made it to x day like if anything it reduces your flexibility in my case it was to kind of settle my business and get out of town but it might not be for playing another tournament or taking an off day or things like that and so like it's an arbitrary cutoff busting out on the last day but like but i i um you know last hand before dinner break last hand last orbit at the end of the day can sometimes be good opportunities to pick up up chips people are a little bit tired right um conflict averse and yeah no no shame there maria no no no shame at all um you know i actually i have a story about this because psychologically it's actually a really interesting thing because i think that this is like this is something that carries over you know from the poker world to to the real world where people just want to like they want to last, right?

Like they don't want to, they don't want to bust in quotes.

And I, back when I was just learning poker and I was still really working closely with Eric Seidel and he was giving me a lot of coaching.

I remember it was a big event.

It was late in the night.

You know, we had a few hands left and I remember folding pre-flop, I think pocket sevens, something like that, because I just didn't want to deal with it.

I didn't want to, and there were like a few hands left in the night.

And I told him this, I was like, you know, I was just tired.

And he just, he didn't say anything.

And then later, he came up to me and he's like, we need to talk about that.

He's like, do you see, you know, Jason Kuhn or Ike Haxton, you know, some of the best players in the world folding Pocket Sevens in that spot?

And I was like, no, I guess not.

He's like, you can't do that, right?

Like you're leaving EV.

And yes, I understand that you're tired and you don't want to bust, but these are bad reasons and you need to play.

Like you are there to play and you're there to play your best game.

And you have to take those spots.

And you have to take advantage of people who aren't willing to take those spots.

Those are the people who win.

And, you know, I think that really, that conversation really stayed with me because it's such important life advice, right?

Like don't, don't fold when when you're just like feeling a little risk averse if it's not for the right reasons.

The why has to be correct.

And the why can't be, I don't want a bust, right?

That's not a good reason.

Yeah, and also knowing when the marginal spots are and what's less marginal, right?

Like it's fine to fold the very marginal stuff, but like you have this exponential thing where hands quickly escalate in value.

And in most positions, folding sevens from some reasonable position is a substantially positive expected value play.

Even if you like lost 20 IQ points, the minute you put chips in the hand, right?

You know, you're probably still going to make enough money by flopping sets and continuing carefully when the board's dry and things like that, right?

And like, you do have to pace yourself a little bit.

The World Series is a long event.

How would you rate your overall World Series?

Well, mate, we're not done yet.

We're not done yet.

I still have a few events to go.

I'd give myself

a

B minus maybe

in

this World Series, but we'll see.

We'll see.

Maybe, you know, I bink a bracelet in the last two days and I'm like, just kidding.

No, actually, I wouldn't change my rating because, you know, the B minus isn't for results only.

It's for kind of overall play, et cetera.

And I definitely, you know, I think I played well in some events.

I think I made some mistakes in some events.

Like, there's, you know, there's a lot going on.

There's a lot to learn.

And there's always room to improve.

So I think that that's a

reasonable reasonable grade for myself.

How about you, Nate?

I give myself a B plus as far as how I played.

So I think I've become like pretty adept at

exploitive things, picking up on vibes, tells, just general exploitative play to beat those players.

I focus less on hanging around with elite players.

And I think those spots were more tricky.

I'm kind of in this like weird spot.

Mixed games, I think it's not Texas, no limit, hold them, basically, right?

And like for the first time in some period, I put more study into those mixed games.

It also bricked all my events where you often face like much tougher fields.

So it's probably the World Series that like

was very much at the median of like what you could reasonably expect.

Right.

And the thing is, like, so I wound up, I think when I tallied up, I'm going to have lost a little bit of money despite cashing the main event and one of the event after that for like a combined 62,000 or whatever, right?

But 50,000 offsets a lot of 10K buy-ins.

I bought in twice to this win 10K and to to various uh mix games 10ks right and then so yeah even then you're like i think a little bit down for the tournament like i said i'll do the math but like but that's kind of like i think you are allowed to look at signs of successful play that like aren't necessarily um

just how much you increase your hendon mob hendon is the encyclopedia of everybody's poker results right like you know if you're in the mix as i call it right you're building up big stacks early you're lasting a long time, you're part of the story of the tournament, you're attracting some maybe immediate attention from your friends, you have some fun hands that you can play and talk about later.

Like if you're in the mix constantly, then that feels to me like airing toward the side of a more successful World Series, even if you do run Jackson King sometimes or lose flips or bad beats, et cetera, sometimes.

Yep, I think that that is all correct.

I'm also down for the series.

Not nearly as down as I was last year.

As you know, last year I was down six figures.

That is not true now.

And like I said, a few events left.

And as everyone knows and every winning player knows, like it is all the big scores, right?

Like that's what matters.

That's what actually will make the difference.

So we'll see and we can check back in next week.

But I just want to give a big shout out.

By the time you guys hear this, there will be a winner.

But we have the first woman in over 30 years at the final table of the World Series main event, Leo Margetz from Spain.

She's lovely.

I've known her for a number of years, and she's very easy to root for and a great player.

And I just want to give a shout out to a pretty historic moment for the World Series.

I think that that's really great.

And it's just, it's a crazy final table, right?

The number of players who are incredibly well-known players and good players

is just astounding.

Kenny Hallert, who's one of my fellow ambassadors from PokerStars.

This is his second World Series of Poker final table.

Got Mike Mazrahi, the grinder, who is a legend, won the 50K Players Championship four times, including this year.

Adam Hendrix, you know, really nice guy, really solid player.

So, you know, we...

A lot of people to root for.

And everyone I was anti-sweating.

And anti-sweating is very fun.

It's people you really don't want to win.

But I'm very glad that all of my anti-sweats are out of the main event.

Yeah, Adam Hendricks is the one I play against the most.

Nice guy, very good player.

Talk about someone who's always in the mix, right?

He's just always somebody who seems to have a lot of chips.

You know, it seems to me like, I mean, there are a few pure amateurs or predominantly amateurs left, right?

It does seem to me as though you are seeing fewer true blue amateurs

win bracelets or reach very long into the World Series main event, right?

Like there were a lot of big names at various stages, the top 100, 200, 300, et et cetera, as compared to in years past.

I think, you know, I think that means that like, I think the games are getting tougher.

At the same time, if you are, I don't know what you'd call Marie, and I kind of quasi-professional, right?

Like you do have more resources to study from than ever before, but like everything else, right?

It's becoming like, it's becoming more about who's putting in, putting in the hours,

putting in the work.

Yeah.

And back to me, because this is all about me, speaking of fish and, you know putting in hours etc I have a cautionary tale from this week's World Series from from my play yeah

and this is something that we can that we can all learn from whether you play poker or not you know Nate I've written about this a lot how you know I really into focus and multitasking bad right and I went against that and I was multi-tabling two online bracelet events on Sunday when there were two online bracelet events going on, the 3K high roller and the Mystery Bounty.

And I was one of the chip leaders in the 3K high roller with over 80 big lines.

I was in seventh place and I had 11 big lines in the Mystery Bounty.

And I went all in in the Mystery Bounty with A6 offsuit and then realized that I had misclicked and went all in in the 3K high roller with the A6 offsuit and not the Mystery Bounty.

And I was...

And I was called by Pocket Aces, and that was the only stack at my table

that actually covered me.

I had 80 big blinds.

I had 80 big blinds.

The Pocket Aces had 86 big blinds.

We were two of the biggest stacks in the tournament.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you absolutely torch $3,000 on fire.

I just, I've never done that before.

It has never happened to me.

And I was just, I was mortified.

I was like, oh my God, how did I do that?

And then I also imagined the person tagging my profile right online and being like, donkey fish, like shoves 80 big blinds over and open with a six off suit.

And the funny thing is that would have actually gotten through like 99% of the time.

This person just happened to have pocketas.

But yeah, so that was a major misclick.

Don't multitask people.

It's not a good idea.

No, look,

one thing you notice is that as you get deeper in these events, then you, and maybe deeper in the series, people are more fatigued, right?

You notice more punts, like avoiding

i mean the worst punt was that a punt nate do you think that was a punt

it's a certain type of punt it's a punt caused by fatigue or inattentiveness i suppose right

well the windows had changed places that that in my defense so so they don't use like the wrong place colors or something or like i barely i should i should but no the i i i don't i don't you can change i i don't even know how to do that i think you can change the felt of all your tables but i don't know if you can change the felt of just one yeah i like if I when I have barely been playing online anymore.

When I do, I will use different colors to give me visual cues.

But yeah, look, I think,

and I've misclicked in real life too, you know, put out the wrong chip and things like that.

I think I only had like

one or two of those in four or five weeks this year, which is, for me, pretty good, right?

But no, I mean,

I don't know.

I went on the main event in a Blaze of Glory.

I triple Blurrow Bluffed with the combo draw.

I think it was a good play.

But, you know, and even if you make a misclick,

I think you have to be kind of like

butterfly effect as a term poker player most people use for like everything in the event is different from the time that you play a hand.

The cards are shuffled differently.

You give them back to the dealer differently, right?

The random number seat is different online.

And so

for sure.

I think people make mistakes.

There are lots of.

Yeah, there are lots of butterfly effects.

You know, yesterday during the World Poker Tour event that I was playing, there was one hand where

I ended up folding a big combo draw on the flop after there was, you know, a bed and a re-raise.

And I, you know, I just determined that, you know, there's no way I'm good.

And I'm, I'm.

So basically I ended up folding and had I just called, which I was very close to calling, you know, the pot odds were there, but I just, I ended up folding.

It was a big multi-way pot.

And I actually hit it on the turn, but I had folded my hand and I would have knocked out this incredibly aggressive player who then went on to build a huge stack.

And it's so funny because I was just thinking back to that hand.

I didn't make a mistake.

And you can't think that way, right?

Like if you made the correct fold, it's okay if you hit it.

Like you can't, you can't think that way.

But I was like, huh, I was actually thinking about the butterfly effect and kind of downstream effects.

I was like, had I called, right?

This guy would not have knocked out all these other players.

And so many other people's tournaments would have been very, very different from that one hand.

And I mean, that's true of so many decisions in life, obviously, but in poker, you can actually track them.

So it's kind of funny, right?

In poker, you can track like, had this hand played out differently, you know, all of these other things happen.

And I think that that's just good to remember and also good not to dwell on, right?

Like, yeah, you know, that's life and that's the nature of randomness.

So, um, yeah, Nate, we can uh wrap up the World Series and we'll wrap up next week.

Um, after I actually finish and we know who the uh main event winner is, let's take a break and then switch gears and talk about something a little bit more serious.

So, Nate, the last few weeks, there's a name that's never really gone away, but has been a little bit less in the air and suddenly is back in the spotlight,

Jeffrey Epstein.

Jeffrey Epstein.

We thought we were done.

We thought we were done and we were not done.

There was a member of the the New York State Assembly named Harvey Epstein who was running in my legislative district.

That's

a little bit of a fortunate name.

The most unfortunate name.

Okay, so,

you know, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide.

I'm going to put it in quotes because we're going to be talking about conspiracy theories.

So I'm going to put it in quotation marks.

But this is a conspiracy theory that actually a lot of people believe in.

He committed suicide in prison while awaiting trial on various charges of sex trafficking, et cetera, et cetera.

His co-conspirator, Ghisland Maxwell, is serving a prison sentence currently, I think 20 years.

But the Epstein files, right, the files that all of this was built on, clients, video footage, et cetera, et cetera, there's been talk that this exists, right?

That there's like this treasure trove of data that's been kept secret.

And one of the things that Donald Trump said is, we're going to bring all these people to justice.

We are going to kind of bring the Epstein files to the the light.

We're going to share all of this.

And then

all of a sudden, no,

there are no client lists.

There's nothing there.

We should forget Jeffrey Epstein.

No one cares about him.

Nothing's going to be released.

And so the statements completely changed.

And so conspiracy theories are in the air.

And people think that there's some massive cover-up.

And this is one of those moments, and these moments are incredibly rare, Nate.

You and I have talked about this before, where there seem to be Trump supporters who are saying, wait, wait, wait a second, what the hell?

We were promised names and justice for these people

who have committed sex crimes against children, right?

What's going on now?

Why are you telling us that there are no names?

And so this is one of those rare moments where people seem to not be happy on the Republican side as well as on the Democratic side.

Yeah, what's a conspiracy theory, Maria, in your opinion?

Well, there are plenty of conspiracy theories in here.

I mean, one of the biggest ones is that obviously, as Elon Musk alleged after his falling out with Trump, before his reconciliation with Trump, although now I think they've fallen out again,

I can't keep it straight.

Nate, they're in, they're out.

They're in, they're out, but I think they're out right now.

But Elon Musk alleged Trump's name is in the files and not in a good way.

Because let's just caveat this for a second.

So if your name is in quote-unquote the Epstein files, that doesn't actually mean that you're implicated, right?

The Epstein files is just a catch-all name for all of the evidence, trial transcripts, et cetera, et cetera.

So you might have been deposed, right?

You might have been giving a statement.

You might have been, there are a lot of ways your name can end up in the Epstein files.

But what Elon Musk suggested, alleged, was that Trump was tied up in it in

not in a deposition way, but in a much more direct way.

And so the biggest conspiracy theory might be that, you know, Donald Trump does not want these files released because they implicate him, right?

So that's, I think, the biggest conspiracy theory.

Trump and other people who are high up in the government.

I mean, you know,

I'm not sure I love the term conspiracy theory.

It's like a kind of cousin of misinformation, which is a term I don't like necessarily.

In part because like some conspiracy theories like

later proved to be

true or plausible, right?

I mean the lab-leak thesis of COVID origins is not generally accepted accepted as the truth.

It's generally accepted, though, now by the scientific community and most governments as a plausible, you know, 50-50 or something theory, right?

Things like the Tuskegee experiment or lower stakes, but more recent, like, you know, Hunter Biden's laptop.

There's lots of stuff that gets labeled this way.

And, like, why wouldn't?

Why shouldn't you be a little suspicious of whether Epstein really killed himself, right?

Oh, no, I mean, that one, for sure.

That one I actually am suspicious of as well.

I think that a lot of things get labeled conspiracy theory.

I think conspiracy theory is an incredibly useful term, but it can't get thrown around on things that it doesn't actually fit.

This is the same argument I make with con artists when people are like, oh, this is a con artist, that's a con artist.

I'm like, no, you need to be specific in what a con artist is, right?

A con artist is an incredibly specific term, and you can't start labeling all people con artists that you disagree with or that you think are salesmen or, you know, doing doing something that you think is a little bit icky because at that point, con artists stops meaning anything.

And I think that's the same is true of conspiracy theory nate have i have i told you my favorite conspiracy theory uh joke about the jfk assassination someone about god or yeah go tell tell it to the audience yeah okay

so so um you know the

this

guy dies and he's kind of been in his entire life he's been obsessed with the jfk assassination and um that's kind of his he he just wants to know he's been digging and digging and digging and he gets to heaven and he's at the pearly gates.

And God says, you know, you have one question and I promise to answer it truthfully.

Anything in the world that you want to know.

And he says, okay, yes, I know exactly what I want to ask.

Who killed Kennedy?

And God says, you know, it was Lee Harvey Oswald.

He was acting by himself.

There were no co-conspirators.

And the guy says, oh, man, this thing goes further up than I thought.

I've always loved that.

Yeah, look, I mean, it's that joke just absolutely encapsulates the way that conspiracy theorists' minds work, that no matter what evidence you present, no matter kind of what you show them, once they believe something, they will go to the end of the world to prove that that's true.

And you can't bring them out of that conspiratorial frame of mind.

So that's the distinction, right?

Where with something like the COVID lab leak, by the way, you know, people were trying to discredit that theory and make it seem like a conspiracy theory.

But, you know, as evidence mounted up, it became less and less plausible to do that.

So, you know, you have people on both sides of that, including people who said it was definitely not a lab leak who did change their minds.

So that's kind of a little bit, you know, I think a little bit of a nuanced difference between

them initially thought it was a lab leak and then changed their mind and then changed their minds back, right?

I mean, you know, this is a case where it's like, okay, what evidence do you have of like people conspiring to manipulate the evidentiary record?

In that case, there was actually lots of like FOIA documents and things like that that seemed to involve discourse.

It was like not very scientific.

Yeah, like I think one thing you have to like think about is like, who are the alleged co-conspirators and how plausible is it that like that they're all working in cahoots with one another, right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I think that when you're looking at conspiracy theories, one of the questions you have to ask, and this is something that I think we talk about a lot on the show, is incentives, right?

What are the incentives here?

Who has the incentive to kind of cover this up?

Is it plausible, right?

And why, right?

So in the case of something like the COVID lab leak, yeah, the incentive structure was bad.

And it was, so that makes it much more likely.

In the case of a JFK assassination, no, I mean, I'm sorry, like the incentive structure was very different, right?

It was the assassination of a president.

Like everyone's incentives are aligned to try to figure out what the hell happened.

So, you know, those are two incredibly different situations.

Now, in the case of something like Jeffrey Epstein, the Epstein files, it can get muddy.

right?

Because it's become clear that a lot of incredibly powerful people were involved for years in what, in Epstein's antics.

You know, I've never really thought much about the Jeffrey Epstein story until this Trump angle, I guess.

I mean, look, I do think it on a basic level when, like,

when people promise to reveal information and then are very circumspect about it later, then that's a very reasonable.

That's a red flag.

You know, if a guy my age is wearing a hat, probably not that much hair underneath, right?

You're it's not a conspiracy theory.

It's like inference, human inference that normal people would make.

Yeah, and I mean, it's like by the way, we do have evidence with Jeffrey Epstein that he, there was tons of evidence against him, and very powerful forces blocked it from coming to trial many, many times until it finally did in 2019.

Right.

There were a lot of attempts to prosecute him, a lot of attempts to bring him to justice, and they never went anywhere.

So we know that there were a lot of very powerful forces on his side for a very, very long time.

So that's more evidence, just like your hat, Nate.

And I guess as I've gotten like older and a bit wealthier, I do think that like,

you know, powerful people, the circles are kind of small.

I mean, extremely powerful people, right?

The circles are kind of small.

They kind of all know one another, right?

They can be kind of high on their own supply or unscrupulous in different ways, I think, right?

Like, yeah, I don't know.

And you also see when they fail, right?

Like in New York, we have a lot of rich people who are very unhappy with Zoran Mamdani won the

primary and are very unhappy that like all the alternatives to him suck and have been rejected by voters and they are powerless.

It's kind of fun to watch.

It like, no, there's not really any too late to get a write in on the ballot.

You can't really get people off the ballot.

But yeah, it's funny when like powerful people can't control everything.

Yeah.

No, I mean, with this specific administration, given how much information manipulation has taken place, I always, you know, I hate

like.

Because I'm so against conspiracy theory-like thinking, and I think it's such a pernicious kind of way that our minds work because people are very susceptible and some people more than others but our minds do get susceptible to kind of conspiracy theory like thinking because there's a lot of things going on cognitively right like the human brain loves to see patterns right and loves to find patterns where patterns don't exist you know it's something that like we always do we're pattern the pattern seeking animals and that manifests itself in all sorts of ways we like cause and effect right we don't like uncertainty we like to tell stories so So, there are all of these things that predispose us to kind of falling for conspiracies, cognitive dissonance.

You know, that's kind of one of the

original theories that explains a lot of conspiracy thinking with Leon Festinger.

Back in 1950,

I'm sure you know this very famous story, right, about the alien cult, the Seekers.

There was a woman, Dorothy Martin, who communicated with alien civilizations, and she had a date that, you know, aliens were going to come and take all of these faithful people with her.

Everyone believed her, you know, this big cult.

The day came and went and there were no aliens.

And then she's like, oh, you know, we got the dates wrong and this wrong.

And the cult didn't fall apart, right?

They still believed her, right?

They were like, oh, okay, you know, she's not lying.

She really does communicate.

It was just other stuff.

And you explain everything away.

And that was kind of one of the original manifestations that was studied in a serious way about how the human brain is just capable of just dismissing everything, right?

And just telling its own story.

So, this is all kind of a big aside to say, like, I am very much against,

as soon as something is like a conspiracy theory,

I want to try to debunk it, right?

But then sometimes you find yourself being like, okay, well, this is what we were talking about, like with the COVID lab leak.

Immediately, I was like, no, this seems actually like it might be plausible, right?

Like, even back then, I was like, why are we dismissing this right away?

we have no evidence there's so much uncertainty there's so much unknown there's so much ambiguity how can you know for sure it was one or the other right you need to as a scientist you need to entertain all the possibilities before you get more evidence and with the epstein files like i actually have the same feeling i'm like wait like why are we dismissing it one way or the other like we need we need more evidence we need to know what's going on and if you look at the incentive structures like i don't know the incentive structures are all out of whack here right?

Maybe there's nothing there, but maybe there is.

And we can't just dismiss it.

We can't just say it's a conspiracy theory.

Like

it's one of these things where there is this cloud of uncertainty and ambiguity that hampers accurate decision-making, accurate decision assessment.

And those are the moments where we need to be careful and entertain all sides and not dismiss anyone as conspiracy theorists.

As much as I hate to say it.

Yeah.

I'll take an even more obvious example.

You know, there was a conspiracy, I'll use that term, among senior White House officials to cover up Joe Biden's cognitive decline, right?

And you would be called lots of names if you kind of pointed that out.

And there's an example of where it was a very small circle, right?

I mean, like, sometimes the signs of this are like pretty obvious, right?

Like, it seems like there's got to be some politically inconvenient angle for Trump somewhere in the Epstein files, right?

Don't know if it's him or one of his associates or if it's minor or super major or whatever else, right?

But like, that's the, not just the reasonable inference, but the correct probabilistic inference from something like that happening.

Yeah.

So I think given how all of a sudden, you know, the total about face that we have from the administration, that's just like 180.

And this administration pulls 180s all the time, right?

On very stupid things.

So in and of itself, it's kind of meaningless.

But there is a signal in there as well, because every time they pull a 180, it's for politically expedient purposes, right?

So when they pull 180s on tariffs, when they pull 180s on immigration, on whatever it is, it's always because of some politically expedient reason.

And so what the easiest explanation here is that there's another politically expedient reason why they all of a sudden say that there's no information, there's nothing to be had, there's nothing to be gained, and let's move on.

And nobody cares about Epstein.

So political expedience is always, and what's good for Trump, right?

What's good for number one is always the top reason.

And we've seen that his entire administration is very happy to go along with whatever that is.

There's a 3%

chance that Jeffrey Epstein is found alive this year by December 31st.

Oh, coordinate is polymarket.

This is polymarket.

Are you taking the under or the over?

I'm taking the under on that.

How about a little 1%?

I'm taking the under on that.

Although I did just, you know, I'm still in Vegas.

I did just see Elvis on the streets.

So

you know, so

you never know.

People come back from the dead all the time.

By the way, I'm a paid advisor to Polymarket.

You know, like the, where they mention like the health symptoms like really fast?

Like I'm a paid advisor to Polymarket.

It's just like compress that in.

We should compress that in for all future episodes, but I do, I do

work with them and receive income for that.

Who's the comedian who people say isn't dead?

I don't remember.

Andy Kaufman.

Andy Kaufman.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Andy Kaufman.

Yep.

Yes, that is correct.

There are lots of people.

You know, Jimmy Hoffa might pop up at any moment, although I think Jimmy Hoffa is probably on the bottom of Lake Mead or in the desert somewhere.

But yeah, there are lots of people who might come back to life.

But conspiracy theories, you know, they're here to stay.

We're incredibly susceptible to them.

In general, we here on Risky Business do not endorse conspiracy theory-like thinking, but you need to learn how to separate things that you know, are actual conspiracy theories from people voicing opinions that could be labeled conspiracy theories because someone thinks it's inconvenient.

And it's a nuanced distinction and it's very difficult to make it accurately because some people would say, well, you know, JFK assassination, people are incentivized against me.

Well, no, like you really do need to look at the actual incentives and try to be a little bit more rational about that

to try to make those determinations.

Or people will use the phrase like, no evidence, right?

And that can be a loaded phrase, right?

No evidence often means no proof.

But in many of these mysteries, nothing is firmly proven.

Like, you know, on the COVID origins, nothing's been firmly proven for example, right?

And so, like,

so take on different valences when it's a liberal or conservative cause, right?

What can be frustrating with certain types of stories?

It's like, you know, who do I really

trust to report on, like, the Epstein case?

Like,

I'm not quite sure.

I'm not, I'm not sure if I decide to vote a week.

If I decide to like become semi-obsessed with the Epstein case, I don't know what I'd conclude, right?

It's one of those things that's like you almost have to turn out the news coverage because it's like, okay, do I want to go down a rabbit hole here?

And like, whose claims are trustworthy and who's a grifter and who's not?

And that can be difficult.

Let's take a quick break.

And when we return, how will the Epstein rift affect Trump's coalition?

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Look, I think the political implications are interesting.

It's maybe the closest we've gotten to like

for the MAGA base

where this is an issue where, I mean, Trump campaigned at various times on opening up the Epstein files, right?

And like, so you actually see in the MAGA world, or at least according to these people who interact with it more than I do, you actually do see some dissent.

Trump got ratioed.

That means a negative response on his own social media platform like Truth Social.

And so it's interesting, right?

It's interesting.

It's a popcorn kind of sitting on the sideline story for me.

Yeah, so I'm actually, I'm actually, this is something that we haven't talked about yet, but I'm curious about your thoughts on potential, since this is like a popcorn story.

Do you think it's a popcorn story for Trump's base, or do you think it might have some more lasting impact?

So, at the beginning, I kind of implied that a lot of Trump supporters are not happy, right, with this about with this particular about face, right?

That they were promised that, you know, there'd be justice in the Epstein files, and now they're told no Epstein files, and they're like, what's going on?

You know, we want these child sex criminals brought to justice.

We've seen a lot of quote-unquote rifts in Trump's base that then disappear because then they're like, no, no, okay, fine.

We love Donald Trump and everything's going to be fine.

Do you think that this one has potential to be more lasting?

Or do you think it's also going to be a blip and then all of the Trump supporters are going to re-coalesce and forget all about it and move on?

Because as we've already talked about many, many times on the show, memory is short and people love Trump.

One thing I noticed like the incentives are a little bit different now that Trump no longer has anything to run for.

This is unless he's trying to violate the Constitution.

I guess he could run for any non-president office.

He could become mayor of New York, mayor of primary Zoran or whatever, right?

I guess he wouldn't be the primary, most likely.

Mayor of New York, no, no, no, no.

It could be a win-win, right?

Maybe you get him out of the presidency.

Maybe Bill Ackman's like, I know a guy.

He's a smart businessman, right?

Politically moderate, you know, well-known celebrity entrepreneur, right real estate magnate donald trump writing campaign for mayor of new york um sorry what was the question ria no look how's this gonna how's this gonna work out for do we think that um this is actually going to have any sort of lasting impact on the trump base on his coalition oh yeah look at it or is it going to fizzle out again

I think it could be a little self-realist.

As Trump gets more unpopular and gets further removed from the election and doesn't have another election, I think you could see like

people on the right more willing to challenge him potentially, right?

They got their big, beautiful bill passed.

A lot of it's being done through executive order.

Otherwise, it's like not like there's that much good to go on through Congress if political standing is damaged.

I don't know.

I'm not like one of these like

right-wing group check whisperer types exactly.

It seems just in the news coverage that like that you are seeing rifts that you haven't seen before.

It does seem that way.

And I'm actually, I'm going to be very curious to watch this because one of the phenomena that we've talked about and that we've observed many times here is that so far there has been nothing lasting.

So far, there have been no rifts that have actually become rifts in the kind of MAGA core coalition.

We've seen moments where we're like, oh, like, are people going to turn against Trump for this?

Oh, are they going to turn against Trump for this?

And it hasn't happened.

They've kind of forgotten and they've

told the story in different ways, cognitive dissonance, dissonance reduction at its best.

You know, the aliens are still coming.

It's just the date has changed.

But it does, like right now, at least in this stage of the news cycle, and it's, you know, it's so tough to know how this will play out long term, but it does seem like this might be, like it might be building up, right?

And maybe that's just wishful thinking.

I have no idea.

But I'm very, very curious to see how it will turn out and whether this is a breaking point or not.

You know, I would, I would probably take the or not side of that bet just because that's the way that, you know, historically

it's played out.

I think that, you know, in a few weeks, we'll look back at this segment and laugh and say, yeah, of course, everyone's forgotten all about it.

But as of now, it seems like there is at least a non-zero chance that this might have some lasting coalition changes, especially as other people

might start

rising up to try to not challenge Trump, but establish themselves as people who might kind of be party leaders going forward as we get deeper into the presidency, closer to the midterm elections, closer to other incentives that might matter to the electorate.

I think I've thought enough about Jeffrey Epstein for today.

You want to call the show?

Let's do it.

Thanks, everyone, for following along.

Good luck, everyone.

Like the World Series of Poker, this podcast is ending.

Not permanently, this episode is.

No, just for the week.

Just for the week.

Yeah.

let us know what you think of the show reach out to us at riskybusiness at pushkin.fm

and by the way if you're a pushkin plus subscriber we have some bonus content for you that's coming up right after the credits And if you're not subscribing yet, consider signing up.

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Risky Business is hosted by me, Maria Konikova.

And by me, Nate Silver.

The show is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.

This episode was produced by Isabel Carter.

Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit.

Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.

Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

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