Is MAGA finally cracking from the Epstein fallout?

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the Find Out podcast.

Sorry,

our beginning is a little rough because we were literally nonstop talking until we hit record.

But we have a special announcement for today, and I'm going to kick it to Zach, or we'll just show him if you're watching on video.

Zach and Rich are in the same room together for this table.

And

I didn't bring anything, so I didn't bring a computer.

I didn't bring a microphone.

So we're going to be like doing Beach Boys into the same mic.

Little harmony.

Little, like two-part harmony.

And we also have to stay the same distance, otherwise, one of us is blurry.

So we're just going to look like two hairy ass faces

sharing a mic.

So it's going to be like a nice moment.

Well, actually, if you're watching on the screen, you kind of get three different versions of beards.

You get you guys with the really heavy beards.

I shaved mine down because it was driving me crazy.

So I've kind of got the mid.

And then we've got Luke.

Nothing, the baby face.

Absolutely nothing.

Is that a version?

That's a duffel though.

A little here, a little there.

Is that a version of a beard?

Like you said, three different versions of a beard.

Oh, zero, 50, 200.

Three different versions of man face.

And unfortunately, the other member of the full beard face, Chris, he's got the.

we're recording this at 8.45 on Sunday night.

So he has a six-week old.

So you can guess where he is right now.

And they have moved past the period where the kid sleeps all the time.

And now the kid thinks sleeping sucks.

So that's why he's not here, unfortunately.

But may join us a little bit.

Last episode, I think, was probably our funniest one.

I think we're going to have some fun with this one, too, because we're going to talk about a topic that I don't think any of us thought would come up in this, but it has.

And we're going to talk about the Jeffrey Epstein shit show that has enveloped, I guess, MAGA world.

And we're starting to see some of the first cracks in MAGA and some people actually being mad at Donald Trump.

He had a truth, a truth.

Is that what it's called?

A truth patient.

He got ratio.

He got ratioed on the platform.

He got ratio on his own.

He got a fucking platform.

Like 20,000 comments to 18,000 likes.

Yeah.

So before we dive into it, just a little background for those of you if you just on the left, we don't pay as much attention to Jeffrey Epstein.

But so Trump has talked about Epstein and Trump World have talked about the Epstein list as a way to sort of suggest that there's all these Democrats on it and they're evil people.

Pam Bondi, the attorney general, even said she had the list on her desk.

And then a few weeks later.

They handed out those lists to the influencers.

Yeah.

That's what I don't.

I don't know.

Everybody's forgetting about that.

Right.

They said they're giving up to people and all this stuff.

And all of a sudden, the list doesn't exist.

And President Trump is

that people.

They call him President Trump.

So it's all discussed.

Donald.

Like soap in the mouth.

Stop the recording.

Start over.

No, I know.

Well, I should do what Hillary did.

She just called him Donald, which he hated.

I call him Donald Donald.

I don't ever call him President Trump.

He did not like it.

He even said, he was even asked, and I think in the White House, in the Roosevelt room one day last week, he was like, why is everyone talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

Kind of just like a giant fuck you to his followers.

So we're going to spend a lot of time talking about that today and whether this is a real break, what it actually means, and what does it mean that some MAGAs are upset about this, but not the mountain of horrible shit that he's done in other places.

So

who wants to kick it off in this, in this case?

I feel like Rich has got a solid liquidity up.

You know, I got a lot of thoughts on this, but no, I mean, I think the biggest thing for me is like, why this and why now?

You know, I think that's what that's the, that's the billion-dollar question where this dude's been

like, it's funny that he's like, stop talking about Epstein when he literally built his entire career on a birth certificate, right?

Right.

And then, and then he like, he's, I mean, he's, he's a can we call him a pedophile?

Like a person could call him a pedophile.

No, Trump.

Oh.

A person would.

And I wouldn't press the comments on that video.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't criticize someone who said that is how I would frame it.

And like, these are all just things that are plain.

Like we know that he like walked into changing rooms at the beauty contestants.

Like that's a thing that was like very well covered.

Talked a lot about his daughter.

He was he used his hands to forcibly penetrate a woman and was convicted of that in a, in a, in court.

And, and, so, like, these are all things that are objectively part of reality.

Um,

and, and yet now we get to this thing where it's like, I think we're all kind of like, is this, is this real?

Like, I feel like I'm being gaslit again.

It's like Charlie Brown with the football where I'm like, are you guys actually mad about Epstein or is this just like the latest thing where you're being little bitches and then like, you're sorry, like little idiots, and then you're gonna, um, and then like you'll all find your way back to him, you know, just like you guys always do.

So,

that's kind of how I'm looking at it.

And I'm like, I don't know, it kind of feels real, but I've also been burned several times.

And so, it's kind of

the bill thing.

There was like the tariff thing.

That's, I mean, that's two big like breakups they've had in the last fucking six months.

But it wasn't like foundational, like those things, like policy stuff is not foundational to me.

It doesn't affect you.

That's not how it is.

They can always make the case that it's someone else.

But this, I feel like they're directly attributing to Trump.

100%.

Which is funny because

in an ideal world, the DOJ and the president are completely separate.

They should be pissed at Bondi for not releasing it, but they're not.

No.

Well, Laura Loomer is, right?

I don't know.

I think Loomer isn't.

Well, she's never going to say anything.

She's never going to say anything.

She is nuts.

No, yeah, a ton of them want Bondi.

I mean, she's nuts too.

I don't know.

It's the whole thing, like the weirdest part about it to me.

Like, I started doing research back into this like a week ago.

And like Trump has avoided this topic relatively expertly while at the same time, his cult is obsessed with it.

And that's the thing I find so interesting.

It's like, how is that possible?

How is Trump, like the guy who talks the most shit about everything all the time?

How is he just completely not like he's avoided this completely?

And yet somehow his entire culture is not a good thing.

I don't understand how they're surprised by this.

He teed up this lie a year ago when that interviewer asked him, well, would you release those ones?

And he goes, yes, but actually no.

Like he was, he was teeing this shit up a year ago and they've completely just fucking missed it.

Yeah, I think one of the genius, I hate to use the word genius, but like this guy did get elected twice when he absolutely shouldn't have.

But again, I think this is a lot of this is because they have their own messaging ecosystem.

Yes.

And he can pick and choose when to dive in and when not.

But they have to fill 24-7 of bullshit.

And so what are they going to talk about?

They're going to talk about this, the seedy list that this seedy billionaire has

and is

right, but right.

That's why he's not talking about it, right?

Right.

But like they were suggesting, you know, they're talking about Bill Clinton and Bill Gates and all these people.

And like they're basically alluding to that.

Yeah, which he actually apparently Barack Obama and both Bidens and Kimmel.

Kimmel actually threatened to sue Trump, I think, because he was like, I have never been on one of those planes.

So you can't, you know, but I don't fucking try.

Don't fucking try.

Defamation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you have to, yeah.

And though I guess the president, if it's an official act, I guess he can get away with it.

But, you know,

but is pedophilia an official act?

If it's in defense of the state, I don't know.

This is a Jimmy Kimmel's an enemy of the state.

If he says it from the oval, is that official?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, that's why that ruling was so ridiculous.

But

I have people that I was friends with at home who are the most die-hard Trumpers, and I have seen them posting, release the list over and over.

Oh, they're pissed.

They're obsessed with it.

Like, they are

furious.

Yeah.

Because they're like lied to.

But they've been lied to before, right?

So, like, why this lie?

Well, it's a conspiracy thing.

Like, I feel like they...

They went down the rabbit hole with a lot of this shit, but this is the one where I felt like they had the most, like, I know this is true.

Like, deep down, I know that this is true.

and it's just whoa like be like it's confirming their belief that it's true and now they're like oh is he actually on this list i think that's the thing like i think they're not going off this because they believe that it's the list doesn't exist they're going oh trump is involved in this and that's their like

moment yeah but i think that's like zach said like cryot were like well what policy do you hate so much that you would leave trump right like that is not even that isn't nothing

this is really he could literally walk in their house take their money out of their pocket and he would they would good guy i like that yeah that guy, he's going to do something good with that money.

He could pass the murder grandma bill, and people would be supportive of it.

I mean, come on.

I mean, Trump said it himself.

You could shoot somebody on the street, and it would be fine.

It's true.

Well, I just read an article about like a guy whose wife is an undocumented immigrant, and they both voted for Trump.

Or he voted for Trump and his wife, who can't vote, as an undocumented.

Would have voted for Trump.

And I'm like, I'm like, okay.

And then they're like, you know, well, we didn't understand.

I'm like,

bro.

It makes no sense.

It's like, it's like me as a Jew voting for Hitler.

It's like, it makes no sense.

I don't understand.

It's It's like a tree voting for the acts.

Yeah.

It's like, what are you doing?

I don't get it.

It's terrible.

I'll throw out my theory.

I know we all have theories, so I'll go first.

But so

I have thought more about Jeffrey Icepsine in the last week, and I wish these fuckers didn't make me do this, but this is where we are.

I think the reason that this is penetrating is because

there's a very poor choice of words.

Come on.

Very poor choice of words.

I saw Luke's face just dim right there.

Is this purposeful?

Where was that purposeful?

Okay, you and I are sounding like a magic.

At least they did.

We'll never learn.

We'll never know.

Anyways, so

these a lot of Trump voters see him as the drain, the swamp guy, as the guy that's against the establishment, as the guy that's against both parties, because they know that most establishment Republicans hate his guts.

So like he's a Republican in name only, right?

Yes.

And so they thought he was fighting for them and like he had convinced them that they were, he was doing all these things for them.

And then he goes and protects, theoretically, protects Jeffrey Epstein and everybody on that list.

And then the veil is starting to come down that maybe this guy isn't out for me.

Maybe he's just out for him.

And he is actually part of this establishment crew that we've hated forever.

And I think that's why people are starting to go,

I don't know.

Yeah.

Well, and like in defending the,

I mean, this is how it looks is, you know, in defending the opposite of the conspiracy, right?

He is now like jumped ship.

Like he's not on their team anymore.

He's not one of us, one of them, not part of the ship, part of the crew.

And it's like,

I don't know, there's a metaphor, like a movie that I'm, there's a reference I'm trying to find, but I can't find it.

But, like, when you build your house with that and then you just abandon it, you can't like the house of cards topples, right?

It's a mixed metaphor.

It's bad, but like, he slowly built this up on conspiracy.

Luke's, just hang with me.

Um, I think we've lost Luke entirely.

Hey, Luke, Chris is here.

Oh,

what's up, dudes?

Oh, hey, God.

Damn it.

All right, are you guys?

Are you guys talking about a secret list?

Yes, we are.

We did.

We've pushed one theory out there.

Ask why MAGA is so pissed.

By the way, guys, I got to take a break here because Chris, that shirt is phenomenal.

You know,

I just

find out podcast teams.

And there looks like a sweet mug behind you, too.

It's very comfortable.

Shit is fire.

Guys, I'm working these in on at the beginning to see if we get more sales from the beginning I like the end of the show.

Buy mugs.

So for anybody on audio, it's find out.

George.

All right.

This is what happens when we record at nine o'clock at night.

Anyways, sorry, go ahead.

I know I'm a little sharper with coffee than beer, but I'm sharp as fuck right now.

I know, Luke, you're the 22-year-old.

I'm always texting Luke at like, you know, 10 a.m., like a normal adult, a time.

Yeah, getting a response.

And he's like, what?

What are you doing?

And I'm like, hey, come on.

It's brainstorming.

I'm dead from the neck up till.

So, when you build your, your campaign, you build your entire brand, your entire movement on not just on the conspiracies themselves, but on

people who are obsessed with conspiracies,

you can't pull the rug out.

Like, you have to maintain that.

You know, you got to, you got to keep it going forever.

And I, I mean, that's terrifying to me as a person.

Like, if I wanted people to follow me and, and, but I had to perpetuate like 30 layers of lies in every category of lie that I'm telling.

That would, that would be very exhausting.

And I think they finally got to a point where, whether this like list exists on paper or not, obviously, like we're talking about the 80s and 90s, right?

Like, this was a time in America where the internet was anonymous.

Like, there was, there was no track record of anyone doing anything unless a person fucking saw it with their eyeballs.

Right.

And then that person had to not be so afraid of being, what do they call it on TikTok?

Unalive.

Nice, Luke.

Don't do that.

I haven't been on camera.

murdered by a by an assassin from the deep state i mean that's how they would say it right yeah um that you would go then say that on like television or tell the police and then at that point it's like you didn't have a smartphone to record video so like it was all just hearsay everything was very dangerous so point being like yes all of these everybody in power did absolutely horrific things before the era of information like ubiquitous digital information and video and photo evidence um came upon us and so we shouldn't be surprised that if anyone, if every president was on this list prior to 2000, I would not actually be surprised.

And that, but that's, so that's where we're.

And so, or where we are.

And so, yes, they thought that Trump was an outsider coming in to drain the swamp.

But, like anybody who knows anything about Trump, you knew in the 80s and 90s, he was also a billionaire in the middle of New York City.

clearly good friends with Jeffrey Epstein, called him a great guy, talked about how they both liked younger women.

Like, come on, dude.

Like,

let it let it happen.

Let your brain finish the rest of the process.

And I think maybe I hope that that's where they've gotten.

Chris, what do you think?

Chris has got a smirk on his face.

We have hope.

We have that we're gonna fix them all, right?

So, um, it's like, how do I even so MAGA is I don't like that start, yeah, MAGA is a cult, yeah.

Um, and and we have to remember that the conspiracy theories feed the cult, like every cult

depends on myths, um, like fascism.

Like it believes something

and it and all of these lies

pile on top of one another.

It is what forces the belief in these myths, in these lies, is what forces people to give up on their friends and families, to abandon their values, because they start to believe the myth is more important than anything else.

And these people, you know, tied themselves to someone who is objectively a moron.

You know, he's, he's a good salesman.

He's, he's a good con man.

Intelligent people are not fooled by him, but idiots are.

You know, and I'm sorry for people who might be listening to this and feel offended.

All of our MAGA listeners are

sorry.

Well, you know, there are some recent converts.

You know, we just had one on a recent episode.

I wasn't there for, sadly.

But if you've you've ever been conned by Donald Trump, you're a fucking idiot.

Like,

objectively, everything about the man is fucking

motherfucker.

The dude has talked about fucking his own daughter.

Like, live on air on Howard Stern has been talking about how his daughter is a end-I quote piece of ass.

Yep.

Uh-huh.

How the fuck do you think if this guy is attracted to his own daughter, that given the chance by fucking Jeffrey Epstein to go fly to a private island full of fucking children, that this man is not going to live out the fantasies that he's been having about his daughter with some poor fucking other victim who doesn't have a voice, who doesn't have an opportunity to sue the guy, who doesn't have an opportunity to call the cops because she's on a fucking island.

Right.

Or even if it happens in new york you know if it happens at a penthouse in new york city which is far more likely in in the case of trump yep donald trump is a predator he's a he's been found liable for what new york state defines as rape and he is described being attracted to his own child so yeah for people who are if you're surprised by this i'm not seeing that the what's the issue here though

yeah i mean if you could if you could boil it down to one thing,

it's how all they are.

It's how it's how I'm angry at is MAGA is like, you know, whose fault it is?

It's the woman.

It's Joe Biden.

Oh, it's the woman.

It's Pam Bondi.

It's Pam Bondi's fault.

Yeah, that's a good point.

They're going to throw her straight under the bus and she was just doing what Trump wanted her to do.

But it goes back to the same thing.

If you hit your horse through Donald Trump, you will never end up in a good spot.

Right.

Nope.

They all

need you under a bus.

There's no falling upwards with them.

No, no.

No.

But, but for real, like, where, why isn't Cash Patel at fault?

Like, yeah,

I had not thought of that.

I mean, like, that's right in front of us, and yet it's so often the case with him.

Why, why is it the woman

in charge of this fail?

I have an answer on that one.

Cash doesn't go to work.

Like, he's never there.

He objectively.

Like, I'm not, I'm not joking about it.

He actually, he tweeted the other day.

He actually

got permission to run the FBI from his house in Las Vegas.

He is never there.

Yes.

Yes.

And then that other bozo, what's the damn

has realized that he can make a lot more money podcasting, which I wish that was true for us.

It's not, but if investors are interested, let me know.

Tell them about the coffee mug.

We already did the coffee.

Yeah.

But buy a coffee mug.

But instead of being the deputy director of the FBI, so they don't have leadership in the FBI.

They don't do fucking anything.

They don't do anything.

They're making $180,000 a year each, and they don't even go to the FBI.

They're not even in the building.

And Trump's the one that's going to be a good thing.

It's crazy that the director of the FBI only makes $180,000 a year.

It is.

It's true.

It is really low.

Well,

yeah, but because when you retire,

you then go into a private security thing and you speak and you make like a half a million dollars a year minimum.

That's true.

So like, it's not a big sacrifice, especially if you're working from home.

Here's the question for everybody.

I have my own opinion, but I'll save it till I get the answers from you guys.

Is this, do you think this is like truly the beginning of the fracturing of MAGA forever?

Or is this a blip in the history of MAGA and they'll persist?

I think it's like an iceberg.

We started at critical mass and they're going to start to chip off.

I don't think it, it's not a central break.

Yeah, it's just the tip.

I had to get that in.

Sorry.

I liked it.

That was good.

I liked the tip.

You liked the tip?

Is enough?

I only got the tip in.

So I was going to keep going.

Doing this too late.

We said we were doing a dudes podcast and talk like dudes.

So here we go.

There you go.

i

i think it's i'm my pessimism is keeping me from saying that it is a big fracture but it's a problem and like we haven't seen this before and i think that's the thing that i keep looking at is

trump kind of like i said the other day like kind of just like mocked the people that were talking about it which was really the first time he had turned his ire on his own people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They did not like that.

They clearly did not

like that.

They were not fans.

And he hasn't done anything to clean this up.

And there is nothing he can do.

He can't can't rectify this situation right if he if he releases a list without his name on it the conspiracy theories are still gonna be there yeah and also he's gotta have this whole house of that and he's gotta have somebody that will know the truth to fucking scribble his name out because him doing it with a sharpie doesn't help yeah it'll be collateral damage that list if somebody else he'll they'll take him down too well and the other thing that is crazy and i am I am not one to follow any conspiracies because I just think that most of them are completely absurd, but that the footage that they released of the prison cell where Jeffrey Epstein hung himself, or at least that's the thought, had a minute of footage.

They could tell that it had been manipulated.

It wasn't raw for the money.

There's a fucking watermark from Adobe fucking Premiere Pro in it.

And

they fire all the time.

They didn't take the metadata.

This shit's ridiculous.

They didn't even fly for the full version.

Her argument was like, oh, there's a minute missing.

It happens every day.

There's not a convenience store in America that would buy a security system that was missing a minute a day.

Not

And you're going to tell me that it's a top, you know, a fucking great prison has that?

Get the fuck out of here.

No, they, those, those tapes in those, they usually like re-record after 24 hours or three days or something like that.

Right.

And now they're all digital, so they don't even really do that anymore.

Right, right.

I don't think.

But no, I mean, but they have a real problem on their hands because they've released footage that has clearly been manipulated.

Yes.

They are lying.

about a list i don't actually know if the list exists i have no idea but she pam bondi literally said it was on her desk so yeah you can't claim claim like that and not back it up well it's one of those like are they stupid or are they you know are they incompetent or are they malicious like it doesn't make a difference but in this case like

either pam bondi

way overspoke to try to give herself some cred or she is lying and really what is better and doesn't matter right no i don't give a which it is doesn't matter no it doesn't really matter i mean the way i look at it is

i think

this is actually like regular republicans this is their best day ever because they don't give a shit about all this stuff.

Like these people that give a shit about the Epstein stuff are the people who weren't voting prior to Trump running for president.

They're the ones who got activated by Donald Trump.

Ooh, look at this lunatic saying lunatic shit that I like.

That's awesome.

Let me dive into this.

And now those people are going, wait a minute.

And I don't think all of those people are going to fragment off and leave, but I do think enough are going to go away where the like all of that momentum the Republican Party, in quotations really just MAGA now, but the Republican Party has been enjoying is going to get frittered away when they need it the most.

Coming into 2026 and 2028, Trump and MAGA need those margins.

And for me, I don't see this as some giant wave of MAGA comes crashing down and it's amazing.

But what I do see is that little chunk of people that made Trump president are going to get chopped away.

And that is the Democrats' true opportunity.

Well, it's interesting, too, because like Rokana put in that.

roll call vote that's coming this week.

Yes.

That's going to demand everybody vote on it.

Like you are going to be on the record as either hiding it or you're going against Trump.

Either way, you're fucked.

I don't know what they're going to do, to be perfectly honest.

It's a bad, bad deal.

Do you risk your seat?

You risk your seat either way, though.

Well, right.

Do you risk your seat defending Trump or do you vote to release it and have the ire of Trump?

I don't know which is worse for these guys,

you know, because they don't have a lot of room.

You're going to fall out a window if you go against Trump.

Pull a Putin.

I'm going to tell him what to do right now.

You go against Trump.

Oh, it's the smart play.

100%.

You go against Trump because he's not going to be on the ballot.

And like, this shit's ending.

And so, like, Zach, it's a really good question because nothing happens in a vacuum, right?

Like, if this were in a vacuum, they would 100% come back to him.

But when you look at the contextual clues, all of the other things that are happening, you look at how well Trump did with like his magic in 2024, if you want to call it that,

was that, yes, he did win more minority voters and more like young men, especially,

than anyone thought was possible.

And then he did in 2016.

And so, you know, I think the people in the media are like, like, what is it?

What is this magic that he has?

He just has this grasp on people.

Those people are now getting either distracted, like Trump isn't cool anymore.

Like, I think it's almost that simple.

You know, I was a young man.

We were all young men once, Luke.

Congratulations.

I am a young man.

You like things for absolutely irrational reasons sometimes because you're just like, Yeah, they said fuck the system.

And I thought that was cool.

And then, like, five minutes later, you're like, Well, it turns out that was kind of a dumb decision.

Or, or you know, that's how I feel when you shit on me for liking Creed.

If you want to talk about Creed's nickelback, we can, we can pivot there immediately.

Just don't worry.

It's fine.

I just broke Zach's computer.

I touched a thing that looks like a hard drive.

Like, I think he's just not the thing anymore.

And, and the fact that like he's not the center of all the conspiracy theories, the fact that sort of everything is going a little bit weird and sideways, it's a real convenient time for like the cool people to just Homer Simpson into the shrubs on MAGA.

And like Andrew Schultz and Joe Rogan, like they're all just kind of like dripping out shit.

Like it's, it's that, like, well, I, I never, like, loved how he said things.

You know,

I thought he was going to do good things.

I mean, it's going to be, it's going to be in five years.

Well, nobody really supported it.

We all knew that he wasn't the best.

I'm like, you voted for him.

Right.

And now everybody's like, so then, so that asks, that makes me ask the question, what do you do with those fucking people?

That's a great question.

I don't know.

If this is their breaking point, Chris.

And Homer Simpson threw the shrubs right to the citars.

I think this is the breaking point.

I think

there's some people that are upset about it, right?

I think this is where everyone's like, ooh, ooh, this is not good.

They back away for a little bit.

This is just like an access Hollywood.

Where all of his allies were silent for a couple of weeks, and then they're like, oh, I forgot about this.

But that was before he won.

And there's no big win out ahead of him, though.

Like, he that happened, and then he won.

And so, a lot of people were like, Oh, well, he's in like he's impenetrable, right?

He's a fucking, he's a tank.

He, we have to get on board.

Like, there's nothing

at least that maybe that's what I'm telling myself.

There's nothing next that he can then go win and defy immigration.

It's just gonna,

he needs a win, and he's really facing down a bunch of

headwinds.

I mean, that's yeah, I mean, fine, that's his win.

He's gonna take away an American citizen-born citizen.

He's going to make

it.

He lives in Ireland anyway.

I'll tell you what he's going to do.

I mean, this isn't different from the original plan, but he's just going to keep deploying American troops throughout American cities and he's going to keep encouraging ICE.

He's already said it.

He's like, you know, use all

necessary force to arrest people.

If you assume that

Tom Holman got on national television and said that they don't need fucking probable cause other than physical appearance now.

I mean, that's the same shit they're calling for.

Well, how much did they just get from this shitty bill?

How much is it?

40 billion, I think, right?

No, 150.

150.

I thought a chunk of that was for the wall, though.

I think a chunk of it is for the wall, but no, I think ICE alone is 150 billion.

Well, let's remember: FEMA money is for FEMA, and they built a concentration camp with it.

So, like, I think they could find a way to make wall money, mass deportation money.

Wall money is ICE money.

I think as soon as there are videos, and if you watch Fox News, this is all that's on there, is people getting in fights with cops or ICE?

Oh, yeah.

We're going to see more masked men running around with guns.

No one can tell whether or not they're actual law enforcement officers.

Right.

People are, I think, you know, going to

eventually respond

using

the Second Amendment.

One of those motherfuckers is going to get and then Donald Trump's going to push it further.

And no one's going to give a shit about Jeffrey Epstein.

I'm not going to give a shit about Jeffrey Epstein.

Neither when I'm sorry.

When Americans are getting shot by ICE, because that's where we're going.

Well, it's the challenge with that, though, is that it's a losing road, right?

Like he's on a losing road right now with his own people, but that's a losing road with everybody.

I mean, not everybody, but it's a losing road with like a larger group of people.

So that's the challenge I have.

I think 20, I don't know, probably 30% of the Republican Party has some level of roots in libertarianism.

And I am from a deep red state with a lot of libertarians.

And those are the people who like Joe Walsh.

I mean,

he was more of a Tea Party libertarian.

And so we had like a lot of disagreements.

But when it comes to like the Constitution is still the Constitution, a lot of those people still believed in that.

And libertarians are all about individual rights.

And so when you start talking about taking away guns, when you start talking about masked officers and having like these, I mean, this is essentially a new entire military

within.

the law enforcement community where they're getting more money than every other law enforcement agency combined, like significantly more than everyone else.

And most world, most of the world's militaries.

Yes.

And now they just have masks on and they get to run around and do whatever they want.

Like, half of Republicans are not okay with that, and 100% of Democrats are not okay with that.

Yeah, but Rich, you're assuming that

there is logic and that there's commitment to these people's ideology.

There is no commitment to libertarianism.

If more spinning is a problem, there's a commitment to

Trumpists who, like libertarians who adopted Trump.

If there was a commitment to libertarian ideals, they wouldn't have

gone committed to Trump.

You look at any, and again, like my specialty is following extremists.

There is no militia who is preparing to mo like right-wing militia

libertarian, you know, inspired militia who's who's getting ready to mobilize against ICE.

The Boogaloo, which was pretty libertarian, like liberal like policies, have started this like fringe movement where now they're they're going after progressives.

They're going after protesters instead.

So, like, even the most libertarian of

the extremist movement, the armed extremist movements, have adopted Trump as their king.

Yeah, don't tread on me, folks.

Love being stepped on by Daddy Donald.

Yeah.

So, even after Epstein?

Even when we start seeing, yeah, oh, yeah, even after Epstein.

I mean, none of this stuff matters.

Like, they are all still in his camp.

Well, Chris, you said something.

I was listening to the podcast you were doing, I I think, with Reed Galen from the Lincoln Project last week.

This is not a happy topic, but

what you guys were talking about, they got so much funding and they need to hire so many positions.

What does that mean about the candidate quality that they are going to be hiring that are going to be the people on the ground grabbing people, hiding behind jobs?

Yeah.

I mean, we saw it in Vietnam.

We saw it in Iraq.

We saw it in Afghanistan.

When there's an unpopular war, people stop joining the military willingly.

And people who are able, like Donald Trump, start getting deferments saying, I have fucking bone spurs.

So all of the qualified candidates find other things to do.

Right, right, right.

And they lower the standards.

I mean, I saw it when I was serving leading up to the troop surge going into Iraq in 2007.

They had to lower the standards and offer massive bonuses.

Oh, yeah.

When When this happened in Vietnam, it happened to such a wild degree that they allowed people in

where their life expectancy was like a quarter of what the average recruit or

draftee was.

Well, I was going to say they were drafting everybody, right?

Yeah.

But they lowered the bar, the standard for the draft.

They lowered the standard so much that it was not just leading to lower life expectancy for the individual draftee, but everyone around them.

And we are going to have ICE agents who are, they are scraping from the bottom of the barrel, who are

not emotionally intelligent, who are joining because they were part of an extremist organization that no longer needs to exist because Donald Trump is

running all of their wet dream extremist ideologies.

If they do it for Trump,

you might as well go get a fucking W-2.

So three years from now, three years from now, like three years from right now, the summer, you know, leading up to elections, we're going to have ICE agents who've, who've been in for two years, who are going to be hotheads, who are going to be trigger happy, who are going to be racists, and they will not be screened out.

It's constitution scary me.

Well, no, but Zach, like you mentioned something a couple of weeks ago in an episode, maybe it was yesterday, I don't remember, but you know, you were talking about like the, this is the, the era of instant digital accountability and like i think that's the one obviously that is the one thing you look back at like vietnam and the korean war and world war ii like uh i think it was the i'm gonna i don't want to say anything that's rude because i just don't know history that well uh but there was the there was a person i believe in vietnam who lit themselves on fire in the middle of a street and a journalist took a picture of a of a person who was protesting i believe it was like a it was a somebody who's like in a meditative state and they just lit themselves on fire and like that that took over the world because at the time there weren't 7 000 tick tock or like 7 million tick tocks being made every day it was

that was the first dose of reality that anyone got and that like i think that image alone changed i know for a fact that image alone that image alone changed the course of the war because people saw it and they go holy if it's that bad um i think we have to change ourselves a little bit and so like I think we're numb to that to some degree because like you can see that 700 times a day in an action movie.

But at the same time, when you like,

I remember, you know, in the Mediterranean Sea, when there were some really bad things happening in the Middle East, you saw like kids that were drowning in the life rafts, and you see things that are horrible at the border.

Like those things still are real, and they still, they still kind of destroy you when you see them.

And so

if we start seeing that at the border in cities, I mean, we've seen what's happened in Los Angeles and like they're shifted shit, right?

They're shutting it.

Like LA is still LA.

And so you get those little snippets out in the world.

And at least we have a chance, like we give humans a chance to be human and react to what they're seeing.

Yeah.

I mean,

react appropriately.

But I think the question to that, though, is like,

well, what happens with that?

Right.

Like, I don't think Donald Trump's going to care.

No, I think that's what I'm saying.

And that's the scary.

You do?

I do.

He's an opportunist.

Yeah, he's still an opportunity.

He's an opportunist.

That's the thing.

It's like,

I'll go back to an analogy I've used, I think, before on this podcast, but I'll use it because it's completely relevant to what we're talking about.

The Republican, it's like it's like two football teams, and the Republicans and MAGA are like the team that talks a bunch of shit before the game.

And you think before going into the game, this is going to be a blowout.

The MAGA is going to beat the fuck out of the Democrats.

It's going to be great.

Then you get on the field and you go, oh, shit, they have nothing.

We're about to enter the first quarter of the game.

We haven't even gotten on the field yet.

We've been in the shit talk phase since he got elected.

Like we've been, you know, we're kind of like in pregame.

There's not a ton of shit that we've actually seen.

They have to implement their game plan now.

That's what's about to happen.

It's a losing game plan.

It's dog shit.

It's like they brought brought in a high school coach to coach the NFL.

You're going to get the shit kicked out of you.

This isn't going to work.

People in this country are not going to like it.

The voters are like the fans in this scenario, right?

They're just like, Trump is the leader of this team.

Trump is going to pull that coach in two seconds because Trump is an opportunist.

Trump will look at this game plan and go, I thought this was going to work.

I thought I could bully my way through this shit.

It's not going to work.

And I'm, have you ever seen Trump die on a hill?

No.

Never.

Well,

he won't die on the Epstein Hill.

He won't die on any hill because that's true.

Trump's nature is self-preservation.

Trump can give a fuck about his group.

He cares about him.

That's it.

Right, but he doesn't have any more elections.

It doesn't matter.

It's his legacy.

Trump cares more about legacy than he has.

I think his legacy does matter a lot to him.

Well, let me ask you, though, this, though.

So you think that let's just say that there is a video similar to the one that we saw of the LAPD beating Rodney King in 1992, whenever it was,

beating the living shit out of this guy who was not a threat.

Yes.

Caused riots.

It was horrendous.

So you're telling me if we see that with ICE, he's going to pull back?

Yes.

That's what I believe.

I don't know if I'm right.

I would say I would break my confidence at 70%, but I'm 70% confident.

What does he say?

Who am I?

Because isn't pulling back meaning that he's admitting defeat?

No, no, no, no, no.

No, Trump is the kind of person where he will stop the full tilt push into what he's doing, and he will throttle back a bit and reassess.

He changes the subject immediately.

But did he want to shoot protesters?

Yeah, but he never did.

He never, exactly.

Trump says, he wanted to nuke a hurricane.

He never did that either.

Trump has a lot of bad ideas.

He says the thing.

He had the Technical Chiefs were like, hell no, we're not doing Millie.

Will still there.

He was still there.

But there's still, I think there's, even though

his current inner circle is way worse than it was in his first term, there are still like functional adults in the room that know, like, oh, this is going to be a complete fucking meltdown.

Like, there's not a lot, but there's still a couple.

That's a dangling thing.

Whoa.

Well, who is that?

I think it depends.

I honestly think that Susan Wiles is probably the best bet you've got in the world.

She's pragmatic.

I think she's pragmatic.

She's pragmatic, and she's the one who's in his ear the most.

Like the one who turned off True Social.

Like, I guarantee it, like, everybody in my comments is like, oh, it's Stephen Miller.

No, Stephen Miller didn't turn shit off.

Stephen Miller wants to push it.

Susan Wiles is the one who would be like, what if we turned off your public posts as you're like tweeting out?

There's still people in there that are like right in his ear, like, hey, I know all these lunatics are right here, but this is wrong.

And it's going to fuck you over again.

Well, but you've got Susan, but I don't know who the second person is.

I don't think you need a second person.

Like, Trump is the kind of person where, like, wherever the wind blows in that moment, he's kind of going to go with it.

And I think he's trusted her for an extremely long time.

Look, I don't want to put this whole thing on her.

That's just the first name that pops in my head.

I'm sure that there's other people who are.

She's one of them, though.

Yeah, she is definitely.

There are survivors.

There are people who die for him, and then there are survivors.

And he doesn't have a lot in there, but like he also is looking, like, I 100% agree, he's looking for self-preservation.

He never admits defeat, but you do see him change the subject.

Like,

I got so much shit when I was like, Elon Elon Musk is out.

Like, guys, just give it like four weeks.

We're real close, like in March.

It was like, shit's getting weird.

And it was clear that shit's getting weird, but they're not saying, remember when Trump and Elon were like on TV together and they're like, they want us to hate each other, but we love each other.

Like fucking four weeks later, he was like, Trump's on the Epstein list, you know, and it's like, okay, okay, okay.

I want to say one thing, though, because Trump really does operate more than anything like a mob boss.

That's kind of his thing.

And what he's been, like, a lot of people, and I agree to a certain degree, that a lot of what you can look at Trump and say is luck, that he's locked out in a lot of situations, but most of it isn't luck.

Most of it is predicated on this specific thing that when Trump understands it, he's literally on the edge of complete self-destruction or stopping doing his way up.

He's bankrupt himself like 12 times and he somehow finds his way back to billions of dollars.

He has this crazy balance of like the second he's about to fall off the cliff, he goes, oh, hold on a second, and he's right back in the mix.

And I guarantee the same things will happening, it will happen here because I've never seen it not go that way with Trump ever.

I can't think of a single example.

So the reason why we're talking about ICE using violence against people is because we're talking about Donald Trump changing the subject from Epstein.

Yes.

Right.

Like that, that is our, I mean, again, going back, putting my threat analyst hat on, this is what's happening anyway.

Like the ICE shit, the violence, the, the, like, two years from now, three three years from now, ICE is going to be tremendous.

It's going to be full with actual fucking morons who are extremely dangerous to be carrying firearms, to be given a badge, to be given a mask, to be given armor, and fucking armored trucks.

There is no world in which one video of like a Rodney King type situation saturates the media and gets gets all Americans to believe the same thing.

There is no fucking world.

Like If you watch Fox News today, if you watch ON, Breitbart, like any of these streaming platforms that are producing thousands of hours of video and audio every single week that

half of America at least is more tuned into than not,

their version of reality is always going to have the ICE guys are the victims.

There could be 16,

though.

Well, guys,

I think there's a better analog.

There's a better analogue to Rocky King, it's George Floyd, right?

You don't need the whole country to look around and go, hey, we all agree, but you need enough people to go, ooh, that's super fucked up.

And it creates a movement.

And I think, like, even if you're right, like, Fox News tried to create any kind of narrative they could to get people off of George Floyd.

They were desperate to be like, oh, wait a minute, what about this?

All right.

Yeah.

But most of the country went, you know, shut the fuck up, dude.

It's, I'm watching it.

All right.

You can't make me think something different from what I'm fucking watching.

If you have a video like that, yeah, you'll have 30% of the country is just never going to leave that fucking hill, but you'll have 20% of the country that's in the middle right now that likes Trump and go, ooh, that was rough.

And he really

wants those people to.

He really needs to.

He needs them.

And the whole MAGA movement depends on those people going with them.

Let me ask you this, though, because, I mean, I think you're right.

I don't disagree with that.

But if George Floyd had happened in Mississippi or Arkansas,

does that go the same way?

Because at least

in Minneapolis and Minnesota in general, you had Tim Walls, who's a great governor.

You had a good mayor.

And they actually fucking did what they were supposed to do, which was they arrested him immediately and charged him with murder.

And then we had a Biden administration.

No, excuse me.

Biden won and beat him.

No, that was the Trump administration.

That's what happened.

Did Trump charge him with terrorism charges?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

Because he has federal charges.

He had federal charges.

No, Trump didn't do shit on that from what I got.

They were civil rights charges.

They weren't terrorism charges.

So I'm sorry, civil rights charges.

Well, that still might have been Biden in 2021, though.

Biden not afterwards.

I mean, a huge element of Biden's victory was using the BLM movement to like stir up the case.

I guess my point is like, I think you're, I think you're right in certain places where there is, are structures and systems in place that will actually take care of this.

But it worries me about, I mean, I guess most of the border state, well, Texas, I mean, it could, I mean, if, if a, if an ICE agent kneels on an undocumented worker in Texas and kills him, I don't think he's going to get charged.

I don't think the charge matters.

Like, I don't, to me, the, the thing that matters is a social movement and, and the video that you're seeing with your own eyes.

Like, I understand that maybe it plays a role what happened in the system but the truth of the matter is what you see with your own eyes it doesn't matter if i saw it in mississippi or you know in arkansas or in california it's

and people are going to go i don't i don't i don't like this this is not good i want you i want you to be right and me wrong but like there's also the case in south carolina where the cop literally shot a guy a black guy in the back that didn't change anybody's perception of the police in south carolina i think it's different though like the the thing that made george floyd so different was because of the inhumane nature in which he died.

Shooting something back is inhumane, regardless, but this guy was essentially tortured in front of people and killed.

That's a different thing.

So I think if something like that, where you go, look at there's just no humanity in this, like, gunshots, a split-second decision.

This guy kneeling on this dude until he dies is totally different.

Totally different.

Totally different.

I agree.

I just think the difference between now and then is that was a catalyzing moment.

And the two sides have

been through

the experience.

their side.

You are either cops can kill anyone or cops shouldn't kill anyone.

No minds are changing.

So my point is, is that Donald Trump is going to lean on provoking violence because that is what his base is most passionate about.

That is where his base, they're going to not give a shit about kids anymore or any of the Jeff.

Jeffrey Epstein stuff.

It's all going to be about they like when the state uses violence against their enemies.

It's going to be people of color.

It's going to be, you know, blue-haired hippies or whatever, right?

It's going, the person who is the recipient of the violence is going to be perceived as the enemy to Trump's base.

So when this happens, it's going to just rile them up.

Yes, it may rile us up as well, but the more conflict, the better in Trump's world.

I just want to clarify.

Like, I'm not, like, I don't think MAGA minds will change on this ship at all.

Like, I i think that you're right i think that those people are like invested in this being the outcome but i don't think the majority like i think that's i honestly if i were to like fragment out the people who voted in this last election i think it's 30 of people voted maga and the rest that trump got were somewhere in the middle just like they're voting for the economy whatever even if half of Trump voters are are full-blown like MAGA, that's still

about 12% of the American public and about 25% of voters.

Exactly.

So like, I don't think those people ever changed their mind.

I think it's the people who held their nose and voted for Trump, voted for Trump strictly based on economics, or didn't fully think through what the humanity of the immigration actions would be.

Those people's minds, I think, can be altered by something that is clearly inhumane.

I believe, I mean, I could be wrong.

I'm not lying.

Let me give you an example.

I totally agree.

And I know

quite a number of people who voted for Trump, whether it's family or whether it's through family or friends.

If something like that that were to happen, those are the times when I would not go from like,

I'm going to not talk to you about politics at Thanksgiving, but we're still going to eat turkey in the same house, to

we can't exist in the same like universe together if you are going to continue to back this.

And that's when like a person like me who's very moderate, I want to keep the peace, I want to like everybody, I want everybody to like me, I will finally force myself to say, okay, well, saying you voted for Trump for egg prices is one thing, but now you have to own this thing that just happened.

And if there's something that happens like that,

his base will shrink.

And there will be a very loyal portion of his base that won't change

their mind.

But I think that's where we need Trump to, out of sheer self-interest, to not even like maybe decelerate, but maybe just change direction at the same speed.

And like, he's got all this money earmarks for ICE, but you also also know that like Trump is the guy who would love nothing more than to say, just like he did with Doge, just like he did with Musk.

Well, I thought this was the great investment because I was trying to make American great, but these guys are all fucking idiots.

Like, look what he did with Iran and Israel.

Right.

No, they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

He loves to turn on people and throw them under the bus and say that they're dumber than they were supposed to be or then they're dumber than he is.

And so, like, there's always that option on the table.

And we just, we just need him to do that out of self-interest, not because he's doing the right thing, but because it's the best for him to survive.

So, yeah, I think that's right.

I think we're all in agreement.

I think my big question comes down to this.

In the second term, where his popularity numbers are going to probably continue to drop because this bill is going to get implemented, it's bad.

It's already happening.

And Epstein or whatever.

My question is that we put $150 billion

in two or three years into this.

essentially lawless force and they start doing shit that people don't like.

Does Donald Trump go with his base and the people who love it and they're foaming at the mouth?

Or does he go with the moderates and the Democrats?

And that's where I get, that's where I have a hard time imagining he's going to do the latter because he is, when he leaves office, he is going to be using that base to sell shit, Trump trinkets and all this bullshit, right?

That he wants them to buy coins and all this crap.

And if he's a casino, right.

And if he moves theoretically to the center and disavows them, he will end up with no support.

So that's why I have a like, I get it.

Like, I, I, I agree that he tries to get out of everything and he's quite good at it.

But I just, in this particular case, he's like, we're finally getting to the thing that he has always promised.

And that is violence and elimination of minority populations in this country at the behest of white people.

And so this is, it's, it's becoming like game time, right?

You're right about the game time, but I just don't know where he's going to go when it goes sideways because it's going to go sideways.

I don't think that for me, I don't think it's any of those things you i think you're you're the question is right but i don't think all the options are on the table i don't think it's he has to go with maga or he has to go to the middle to with democrats i just think he looks at this situation and goes i'll just throttle back a little he doesn't have like he essentially has to shut up right like i don't have to stop pursuing mass deportations i just have to change the way in which i pursue it a little bit so it's not inhumane like he doesn't have to go against say you're deporting the worst people and then just don't deport you could just not deport anyone and he fully just say right i'm deporting all the worst people.

And all of his people would believe it.

It's true, but it's all just functionally.

Like, he needs in that situation, if there is this video that comes out that's inhumane and horrible, and ICE is acting poorly, all he has to do internally is go, hey, the next person who does shit like this, I'm going to fucking destroy you.

You can't do that shit, but the mission is still going.

Right, exactly.

Like, and I think like that top, like, I agree with Chris, like, the risk of this for Trump is that there's going to be a tremendous amount of unqualified people in these positions and throttling the back is not going to be easy because Trump's not on the ground with them.

But at the same time, these people listen to Trump's edicts and he goes, Hey, this is what we're doing.

And people go, All right, shit.

And that's it.

So I think that the most likely option is he won't stop pursuing what he's pursuing.

He'll just change the course in which he's pursuing it to suit him enough.

That's just my.

I want to ask Luke.

I'm going to put you on the spot.

All right.

You're in a red state and you know lots of MAGA people.

What do you think about all this?

Do you think that when ICE starts, I mean, because I hate to say this, that it's a fact, but like we put $150 billion, which means tens of thousands of unqualified ICE,

they're going to hurt people.

3,000 a day.

That's their goal.

Yeah, it's going to be like, what do you, what are you, like, first of all, I'd love to hear your opinion, but also like from a younger person's perspective, are people paying attention to this or is it just like whatever?

I'm kind of going to maybe locate myself a little bit here, but there was a kid that there's like a, I think he was a 16-year-old kid that just got deported from around here not too long ago.

He plays soccer.

Like, he was a big, like, everybody in the community liked him.

And half the people are like, what the fuck?

Bring this kid back.

He's been here since he was three.

Yeah.

And everybody else went, fuck him.

And like, there's some sign, like, there are signs around town that are like, bring this kid back.

And then there are people writing on top of him, fuck this kid.

And it's like, holy shit.

It's fit.

Like, it is schism straight down the middle.

But, but your area is is more Trump, though, right?

So 50-50 would be less than what he got in the election, right?

So

it is hitting some people, just not.

It's sad that we're in that place.

I hate that we're doing this, but like, I hate it.

Because, I mean, a 16-year-old kid, and regardless, like, I don't even know the situation.

And I know that kid should be here.

It's just like crazy.

He doesn't know.

He doesn't know Armory from another place.

But the point is, right?

Like that 50-50 is not good enough for Trump.

No.

Right.

Like, because he's losing at 50-50

in that area, right?

Like, if he was 50-50 in New York city he'd be dancing in the street right because it would be like good for him this was supposed to be all about jeffrey epstein and we went all over the place but uh who is that

yeah oh the guy the with the who with the right with the bed sheet i want you yeah yeah

well it's not in the video well is that in the video i don't know anyways

i made assumptions i'm sorry so both with ice and with jeffrey epstein we think i think the group kind of generally agrees there's at least some people from those two issues that may be disaffected trump voters.

Definitely.

And the question, and this was the question we asked Joe Walsh last week, who was a member of Congress on the Republican side, was a Tea Party member and has just registered as a Democrat.

How do we, like, if they want to come,

do we want to welcome them into our space?

And if we do, how do we do that?

Because I know there's a lot of shit that these people have done over the years or supported that is abhorrent,

but

I think we're going to have math doesn't work right now.

Can you define we?

Because the answer for me is no, fuck them.

The answer for me is 100% yes.

Are we emotionally welcoming them or are we politically welcoming them?

We don't need to have a beer with them.

We're supposed to be, if there's, if we're supposed to be a big tent, they should have a big giant fucking tarp under them that they have to stand on.

And the second they start fucking off, whoosh, out the exit.

We get a big tent, but their part of the tent is like where they can be quarantined by themselves.

Where they keep the circus freaks in the corner like we push them off the diving board with the donkey that's funny all right guys so here's this is this is the political guy coming out we don't have the numbers to dock no we so this is the problem that i have that is the only

correct answer i agree like i don't want to talk to any people who think that especially after january 6th like you know that that this is fine access hollywood but we just they're not enough of the guys that are on this call right uh or the ones ones that we want to bring in from listening to this or, you know, even the Biden voters who stayed home, because even if we get them back, we're squeaking elections for the next two decades is horrifying.

Yeah.

So what do we do with this?

Is there an opportunity for us to like present a different approach?

Because Andrew Schultz, who is a joke, because like his whole thing, like, I didn't know Trump was going to do all the things that he said he was going to do.

Right.

But he also, did you know what the second part of that conversation was?

The only party in America that is thinking about its citizens is the far left of the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Socialists.

But you skipped the middle part where he said he was excited about the deportations.

Oh, yeah.

I don't like this guy.

Yeah.

I just

have to remember that he was like, but the good thing is he's

ripping.

Unfortunately, ramism is going strong.

But this, but this is the inherent challenge, right?

Because like, theoretically, this guy is maybe like interested in a Bernie or a Zoran or something like that, right?

But like,

what do we do with this?

I'll get to this.

But

we need to, I want you to define we, Tim.

Are you saying we, the Democrats?

Are you saying we,

the members of the Find Out podcast?

That is a very good point.

I'm referring to Democrats and I'm talking about winning elections.

That's all I'm talking about.

You got to take it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, 100%.

We don't have a choice.

I mean,

they don't need to join.

We're not going to invite Andrew to be a co-host on this show.

No, no, fake that.

But I do think there's value in

when you get to, when you say, okay, I'm going to be a Democrat.

Now I'm going to vote for it.

You shouldn't get to just go, okay, welcome.

You should have to get fucking grilled on.

Yeah, you got to atone for your sins.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So I'm going to be.

A big bearded guy should sit there and go, so what the fuck were you thinking?

Like the gates of heaven.

I totally agree with that.

I think that's what I'm saying.

What the fuck are you thinking?

For me, it's really great back there, but you got to answer these first.

You got to let me know why you did this.

I mean, I look at this through the same lens you look look through Tim, where like, I just want to fucking win.

I could give a shit.

And like, I look at these guys as pawns.

They're pawns in our scheme, right?

Like, we don't have to invite them in and be like, hey, have a seat next to me.

You can play.

You could be the rook or the bishop.

Fuck you.

You're going to be a pawn.

You're going to be right in the forever.

That's why you're in the fire.

I don't give a shit.

It's not a question.

Like, I don't want to invite them in and give a fucking beer.

Like you said, I want to invite them in and use them as a fucking number.

That's it.

But I think the challenge we face is if we come at them and we present that face to them, they're not going to come in.

They're going to look at us and go, oh, they don't want me.

So we have to give them at least room.

Because I think, like, look, as much as we hate MAGA and Trump and all these things,

a lot of these people that, even though we have objectionably different belief systems from them, a lot of them are just like regular people who are like misled or not smart enough to see that they've been lied to.

And like,

they're kind of victims.

Like, I know it's hard to consider MAGA.

People I have a little bit of sympathy for.

I do too.

And it's a lot of them.

Like, it's a lot of them.

Companies are cheered for them.

The ones who are not.

They're not going to leave.

Those aren't the ones who are going to leave.

The ones who leave are the ones who are like, oh, my god, I was wrong this whole time.

And they have this moment where, but they were wrong the whole time because they're just not smart enough to see it.

So I don't necessarily want to put them in the fire and be like, you fucking idiot.

Look what you did because you're not meant to be capable to figure it out.

I don't think they could handle the weight of accountability.

No.

So it's like, no,

hey, buddy, cheaper eggs are over here.

And they're like, oh, right.

A good little carrot, just pull them in.

Also, for the lady.

So what

my

personal bias coming out of like the counter-extremism world,

we We have a term, they call themselves this, formers, like former members of hate groups, which are effectively cults.

Like

if you join a hate group, you've joined a cult, like you have given away your life to the leader, right?

I have seen so many formers come in and they're like,

you know,

they suddenly get their pats on the back,

they're invited into all the rooms and all the discussions, and they spend you know a year or two like literally getting put on a pedestal or given everyone wants to learn from them yeah and then the next thing you know they're taking the money that they've raised from the left and they've started a new fucking hate group so i i can't i mean me i'm talking about me personally yeah like I can't fucking engage with these people.

I will always, and I'm not, you know, one of those

people who fucking loves everybody.

I'm filled with fucking hate.

Like these people have actively tried to destroy my fucking country for 10 fucking years.

These people have

either through inaction or on purpose worked to take away my daughter's rights.

He's going to fucking end up.

I'm going to hate them.

And I'm not going to stop hating them.

So

I'm going to play a bit of a devil's advocate here or a question for you, for you, Chris, and you, Zach.

Okay.

And it's not quite the same, but you were both Republicans.

Were.

Yes.

No, I just want to put an asterisk on were.

Were the emphasis, yeah.

And did you guys get put through the ringer?

Because I would argue that me in 2007 would have seen two guys that voted for George W.

Bush

who supported the greatest foreign policy disaster in probably U.S.

history that completely destabilized the reason we have now, who demonized gay people in order to win re-election in 2004.

He even demonized

John McCain having an adopted black son in South Carolina.

His campaign pushed that.

I would have been a little suspect of you guys in that period of time.

I can tell you.

Yeah, as you should be.

So, so, but then what is the

what is the appropriate because you went through it, right?

I'm not doing it to criticize you.

I'm asking how did that feel coming moving left?

Mine, mine's a little like you're a little later, but yeah, but I mean, it's different to like, you know, for for me i don't

this is gonna probably make people angry i don't feel like like i'm a democrat in title only i'm an independent i i have a lot of beliefs that go to the right i just hate trump and maga like i don't agree all that shit pushed me out of that

world but a lot of what i initially believed was just sort of like policy oriented right so like I never really felt like I needed to fit in with Democrats.

I just wanted to vote for people who weren't going to ruin the country.

And for me, that ended up being Joe Biden.

You know, I didn't vote in 16 and I voted in 2020 for Biden.

And obviously I voted for Harris in 24.

I still don't look at myself as a quote unquote Democrat.

I'm a, you know, somewhat left-leaning independent at this point, just because of the circumstances on the ground.

So I never went through that, like that course where you go, hey, are you going to welcome me in?

Do I need, because I don't give, like, for me as a voter personally, I don't need a party.

I don't give a fuck.

If I agree with what you're bringing to the table and I think you're a person who can lead, I'm going to vote for you.

If I don't, I'm not going to.

And that's, to me, what the heart of an independent is.

So I think a lot of people who would come over are a lot like that.

And that's why I think it's important that we remember like, it's not so much about like, let me welcome you into the open arms and here's a, here's a, you know, a glass of milk for you.

Sit by the fire and be fine.

We don't need that shit necessarily.

It's more just like, can I talk like half an hour ago?

Can I trust you?

to not make the same mistakes that pushed me out of my previous set of align alignment, really?

Because like, that was Trump for me.

Trump came in and I was like, okay, I don't like this guy, you know, but I'll give him a chance.

This is back in 16.

I was like, you know, look,

it's an interesting idea having like an insane businessman try to run America.

Who the hell knows what's going to happen?

He might treat America like a business.

I might work out.

That's why I voted for Omney in 12, because I thought a businessman running America might not be a bad idea.

So as the course of his term went on, I went, oh, this is probably a bad idea.

But then COVID happened, which is really the first time like his ship was really taking on water.

And I was like, oh, this guy is complete dog shit and he doesn't care about human beings.

And that is when I went, no, I'm done.

And you have a whole movement of people that went on board with that type of thinking.

They're like, no, I like that he doesn't care about people.

And I like that he's put.

That's where I went, nope, I'm done.

Goodbye.

And

right.

So, like, when you, when you get into that kind of perspective, it's less about party and more just about feel.

And my feel was like, fuck this group, dude.

I'm out.

You know, that was just me.

Yeah, I think for me, so I, I don't think of myself as a Democrat first.

Like, the Democrats are the party that want to preserve the United States.

Yes.

Like, and preserve the Constitution.

So that's, that's why it's

the party that I'm people in the right.

Yeah.

So that's, that's why it's the party that I'm a part of.

Right.

You know, I, I tend not to really even think of myself on a spectrum of left to right,

certainly not anymore because I am focused solely on anti-fascism.

Right.

Like I am focused on the worst of the worst threats of which

welcome to my fucking world.

This is the shit that I've been warning about for four fucking years, right?

Like that, I've been trying to tell the left, like, it's going to get this bad.

And, and nobody on the fucking left believe me, which is why I also fucking hate Democrats.

Like I have, I have worked my ass off for now.

I've been doing the counter extremism thing since,

I mean, infiltrating extremist organizations since 2020.

disinformation and radicalization for a few years before that.

So like, you know, almost 10 years when you combine all of that.

And the thing that drives me nuts about the fucking Democrats is they can't get out of their own goddamn way.

And that's, and that's why, like, you know, I can't think of myself as a Democrat.

And like, if I walk into a lot of rooms, me, like as an individual, I walk into a lot of rooms where people say out loud, I don't feel safe with you in the room looking at me as

a white guy, as someone who served in the military.

And I'm sitting there like,

I spent $40,000 fucking dollars after a neo-Nazi showed up at my mother's house to hand deliver a death threat.

I went back and forth to Asheville, North Carolina, and spent fucking tons of time going to fucking court, doing all the right things, getting a fucking neo-Nazi locked up.

I spent fucking years infiltrating extremist organizations, gathering all of the evidence necessary to secure a $3 million judgment all at once in in one fucking lawsuit.

And you still don't feel fucking safe in the room with me because of the way that I look.

Like, that's why I'm saying that all that on a shirt so they can just read it.

Like, I fucking hate all of these people.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, and again, I use the word hate deliberately.

I fucking hate these people because we could be doing so much better.

Yes.

Like, our country.

and and the left and democrats and progressives and people fighting against actual dangerous hate.

If these people would just shut the fuck up and use their goddamn brains and be objective and be like, the guy hunting Nazis is probably not a threat to me.

Yeah, I'd probably let him in.

I, as somebody who was literally in the College Democrats, actually, I only went to one meeting because I looked around the room and I went, and we were in a very red area.

I was like, oh, this is fucking, I'm just going to go back to my room and drink with my buddies.

But

I have always taken a much more of approach of like welcoming people.

Like if people are willing to like switch, I'm just like, fucking right, man.

Come on over.

Like, you know, not in a like, and then let them raise money and run off.

Forget what they did kind of stuff.

And I guess maybe that's because more like I've been in that world and it's kind of, it's not that it's a game, but it's like very transactional.

But it's fascinating, though, that me as a democrat, I've been a Democrat my entire life.

I think when I was like four or five, Lou, you're going to like throw up when you hear this, but I think I remember being excited that Ronald Reagan won.

And I made this up in my brain.

And

it's your fucking fault.

Yes.

When I voted at five.

That was the beginning of the end.

My parents were like, why on earth did you say that?

Fuck you, Timmy.

Fuck you, Timmy.

Fuck you.

That's your shirt.

For those of you who didn't watch last week, which you definitely should, Joe Walsh, the former congressman, said fuck you, Timmy, I think three times to me.

It was more delicious every time he used it.

It was.

I just thought it was funny because like, if I had actually met him in 2010 when I I was in the Obama administration and he was in Congress, he might have actually said, fuck you, Timmy, in like a derogatory way.

But it's just very fascinating.

But it's fascinating in this group, though, because

I'm the one that's been in Democratic politics the longest.

And I'm kind of like, bring them all over.

And like, some of you guys who, like, I mean, obviously, you've done the work and all these things are more like, keep them at bay.

It's just fascinating how we all come to this in a slightly different.

a different way.

Like, I think for Joe, for example, Joe Walsh, who, again, if you didn't watch, was a one-term Congress member, Tea Party, and then I think endorsed Trump in 2016, and then pretty much right after renounced it, was running against him in 2020, and then became a Democrat.

And a lot of people have been angry at him, but I'm like, he's done the work.

And I've talked to him for years.

But I think that's the thing, right?

It's like, there has to be some sort of

mechanism.

And I don't know what it is that's basically like, you're not just doing this to fuck us.

You're like, this is like from your heart.

And I don't know quite how to do that.

Joe's done the work.

I truly believe that.

But like, I don't know how to really.

So

what I think I

could have said in a much shorter way is like, I still don't feel welcome in the Democratic Party.

So like, why the fuck should I go out of my way to make

a former MAGA feel welcome?

But what if that's what it is?

So what if my focus, all of our focus?

What my focus, and I'm not saying all of our focus needs to be, what my focus is, is getting people off the fucking sidelines.

Yeah.

Like it, right?

Like if you a lot of people who didn't vote.

Yeah.

A lot of fucking people who didn't vote.

Most yeah, tons of fucking people don't fucking vote.

They feel disenfranchised.

And I want them to say, like, it doesn't matter if you feel disenfranchised.

Fascism's coming for you and your fucking children.

Yeah.

You can either vote or they're just coming faster.

So like it's not a battle you get to pick to fight.

Right.

It's either going to defeat you or you're going to fight against it.

I think the thing that was really,

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about Joe's comments about

all of the that like because we're so in it right but like for somebody who's at a you know arm's distance from trump he has talked so much

i mean frankly his entire life and 95 of it has been

he's just talking constantly he's saying things he's pitching brands that go under and he's like that's the best and then he does something else I do believe that like a good chunk, even after his first term,

he he talked a lot of shit and he still if he hadn't gotten the three supreme court justices we would be talking and if covet hadn't just happened to him we would be talking about one tax cut bill that he passed that is his entire and like maybe the muslim ban for like six months that is his whole first term legacy yeah he talked all this shit and he and he did because he's incompetent but also because he's like a fucking crow with a shiny object like he's so distractible um that he just either abandons things because he sucks at doing it or because he gets distracted by another thing.

And so I do think a lot of people who are like 10% paying attention were like, ah, it's just going to be more of that.

Like he's just going to say a lot of shit, but like ultimately, it's really not going to be like the end of the world.

But he actually.

He's actually trying to kind of do the end of the world shit now.

And so I do think that there are like, we might want to fucking strangle him, but I do think there are a number of people who are looking at him and going, oh my God, he's like maybe doing more maybe of the stuff that I was, that I, that I thought was just shit talking.

And now maybe I kind of don't love it.

And like, and that's probably the most they'll think about it.

And then they'll vote for somebody else.

And so like, if that's going to be the, if it's, if it's the guy at the bar next to me having a beer and I like, I don't, like, I'll talk to him about fucking football for like five minutes.

And I'm like, okay, I'm out of this conversation.

If that's the guy and I need him to be on my side, I'll be like, yeah, dude, fucking Trump, man.

What happened to that fucking guy?

Anyway, I'm going to get my job.

Yeah.

Fuck that guy.

And then like leave the room, you know, like that might be the extent of the conversation.

If, if that's how, if that's my version of welcoming them back in or like welcoming them back to a path that isn't actively fucking killing people, I'll like I'll take that tiny version of a win and I'll just like go back to my regular life.

Rich, what are you doing over the next 18 months?

Because I think we got to send you on tours of rural dive bars, dude.

I can just dive bar it.

I'll do it one-on-one.

I'll drink the worst beer, the worst whiskey.

I'll fucking lose it, pool.

Like, I'll just do it.

I'll lose to all of them as long as they vote for the right person.

Speaking of fucking losers,

this isn't you, Luke, but Luke, I wanted to talk to you about something.

So I'm in Atlanta.

You guys may have noticed Zach and I are on the same

camera.

And we went to Stone Mountain today.

And so I wanted to talk to Luke about this specifically because I just feel like he'll have the right reaction, like the appropriate reaction.

So Luke, a long time ago, a bunch of shitty fucking racist people they saw this massive stone mountain.

What do you think they did to the side of the stone mountain?

Do you want to take a guess as to what they might have thought?

Like, they say a big blank canvas.

What do you think they did to the side of the mountain?

I got no fucking clue.

So, they carved the fucking shit out of it.

They just, they like big, beautiful monument.

It's like four miles deep of granite.

They carved the shit out of it, put a fucking like two-football field-size carving into the side.

Do you want to guess whose faces they carved into the side of this giant monument?

Oh, God.

We're in Georgia, and this is like 100 years ago.

100 years ago, yeah, I got no idea.

I don't, I

yeah, it's okay.

Uh, would you be surprised if they carved the president of the Confederacy into the side of a mountain?

No, that would not surprise me.

And his two top generals.

Ah, sounds about right.

And more accurately, sounds about white.

Sounds about white.

Yeah.

Would you be surprised to find out that

the people who paid for the carving was the KKK?

Also, no, no shock there.

And also, would you be surprised to find out that the person who did the carving,

well, he was born in Idaho, it turns out.

I looked that up and I was like, oh, fucking course.

Moved to Georgia was also...

a loyal friend of the kkk's grand wizard at the time would that surprise you know no surprise no

so we're at this thing and i look at it and i was like that's a fucking carving on the side.

It's like Mount Rushmore for

riots.

And the best thing about it, I mean, in this sick world we live in is like the guy that did the carving and like started it in like 1923.

I learned all this today on Wikipedia.

Starts the carving.

This is apparently a thing.

Like Nazis having crash outs with each other is like my favorite thing to research now on the internet because the guy started

the carving and they all got in a fight like Elon and donald and so they sandblasted all of his work to nothing and then they paid other nazis to recarve all of the same

the side of the mountain jesus and that's and that's what's on the side of the mountain right now today and that's our like number one tourist

does wait does the did the kkk in the 1800s have a have a like a a list of artists that they could go to like they looked at the backups like so so i read that the guy who it's all really like i think it was this uh a lot of the same people did the um mount rushmore rushmore that did stone mount oh really i didn't know that and they found a letter with one of the people i'll probably some of the history up but they found a letter with one of the uh the carvers um or with the grand wizard of the kkk when he died he had a letter that was um to

the one of the the artists that said like to my dear beloved oldest friend so-and-so and like like he just straight up named the the artist who did all this carving.

And so like, there was some like, will they, won't they?

Like, are they secretly KKK?

You know, it's like very Ross and Rachel.

Um, so glad this is like my number one tourist destination in my city.

It's great.

I feel really, I didn't know any of this shit, by the way.

Until today.

So, you go there and it's like, oh, this is this is beautiful.

And then you open the internet and you're like, oh, fucking course.

Fucking ruins everything.

It is Georgia.

It is Georgia.

There's no question.

I tell you what, guys, we have been going, this is maybe our longest episode ever.

Pretty long.

I'm so glad I pushed our merch at the beginning instead of the end.

I'm going to do it again anyways.

Obviously, if you want to support our work, which we desperately need because this is not something that is just free to do, you can buy some merch at findout podcast.

Or if you want to become a member, you can go to findoutpodcast.substack.com.

Thank you guys.

This was a fun one.

We actually were worried we were not going to have enough to say, but there are five guys

who absolutely love love the sound of the video.

We haven't gone to Epstein all day.

Everyone's like, oh, I don't know.

Epstein, I don't know if we could talk about that for a whole episode.

Fucking right.

We're literally just past a minute, an hour 17.

Our editor is going to be like, what the fuck is this?

What are they talking about?

Anyways, guys, thank you for listening.

Obviously, please, please, please, please go become a member or go sign up for our merch.

And I hope you enjoy this episode.

And we'll see you back here on Thursday.

Thanks, everybody.