Behind the Bastards - Part Three: Jerry Falwell: Founder of the Religious Right

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

Robert is joined again by Sofiya Alexandra for our conclusion on Jerry Falwell. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alphabet Boys is a new podcast series that goes inside undercover investigations. In the first season, we're diving into an FBI investigation of the 2020 protests. It involves a cigar-smoking mystery man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse look like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest? I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's emotionally abusing my audience? I'm Robert Evans, the host of the show where I emotionally abuse my audience. Is that a good intro, Sophie? It's the honest one. It's the honest one. That is what this show is about.

And I love being technically honest. Like last episode, I promised that I was not going to throw any more bagels. But then our wonderful sound guy, Chris, handed me an English muffin, which also fits in my sling. So I am going to throw an English muffin at some point this episode. I'm way less angry about that than I was about that moldy bagel. Yeah, there's no mold. This is a solid English muffin. I'm going to have to eat it afterwards. Don't be wasteful. You have to eat it. You have to eat the entire thing. I will after I throw it.

Great. Maybe slightly before I throw it. Pieces of it. You can give a little piece of it to Anderson. I might just come close enough to him that he's able to get it himself. We clarified this. Anderson's a woman. How dare you? I am sorry for misgendering Anderson. But in my defense, dogs are incapable of caring about gender.

Anderson. It's one of their best traits. She does pee with her leg up. Dogs are post-gender. All dogs are both male and female. Like I said, she does pee with her leg up. Exactly. Her name is Anderson.

We could learn a lot from dogs, namely about peeing everywhere. Anderson doesn't pee everywhere. She's a classy broad. There's nothing not classy about peeing wherever you want. In a lot of ways, that's the classiest thing you can do. We are really off on a tangent here that is not productive for the show. So nothing to do with your topic. Nothing to do with my topic.

I set this one out because I'm perfect. That was a smart play because if I wasn't canceled before, I'm just barreling towards cancellation. Today, we're going to talk about Jerry Falwell Jr. in Liberty University. This is going to run on a different week than our other Falwell episodes because we're talking about a different Falwell. We are recording this just minutes after the last one. You have had a full Falwell dose.

How are you feeling? Might you be Falwell? I said we call it a day. That's probably the... I'm also canceled. It happens really quick. Very quickly. And yet, does not change what we're doing at all,

which really actually does get to the core of what cancel culture actually is. People declare you canceled and then nothing happens. Cool. In our previous two episodes on Jerry Falwell Sr., I think I was pretty clear in my opinion that he was a piece of shit. His life made the world a worse place. We'd be better off if his dad had accidentally shot him when he was pranking one of his friends. However, I should acknowledge that there are some things about him you have to grudgingly respect.

For one thing, he built a legitimately impressive and expansive organization that grew from a small church of 70 into an empire that spoke for millions and organized an entirely new political bloc that now dominates American politics. That's impressive, even if it's shitty. You also have to acknowledge that Jerry Falwell was a true believer. He was deeply consistent throughout his life and everything we know about his personal life suggests that he lived in a consistent manner with his terrible values. And that's not good, but you might argue it's better than pushing all of those same terrible agendas

and, say, getting wasted at nightclubs in Miami, which is the story we're about to tell today. I was going to say, was that foreshadowing? That is foreshadowing. That is foreshadowing. Jerry LeMond Falwell Jr. was born on June 17, 1962. So he got another cool middle name. He got the LeMond. He got the LeMond.

I love me that. Yeah. Well, otherwise he wouldn't be a junior. If you give a different middle name, then you're not a junior, right? I don't know how that works. I think that's junior law. His parents sent him to private schools in and around Lynchburg so he could be raised in a world of God and without black people around.

Rather than the world of Satan, in 1971 he watched from the vantage point of a pew at the Thomas Road Baptist Church while his father explained to the congregants his plan to start a Christian university in Lynchburg. Jerry Sr. explained that the new college would produce champions for Christ. Jerry Falwell Jr. would one day become the master of that institution. But first, he was a student there. After graduating from Lynchburg Christian Academy, he attended Liberty University starting in 1980, the same year the moral majority began its massive push

for the election of Ronald Reagan. From what I can find, Jerry Falwell Jr. did not have his father and grandfather's appetite for mean-spirited pranks. So that's a plus. I mean, I wonder how many times as a child you have to see your dad like wild and out by like shooting some people or threatening to run someone over. Cats or yeah, pretending to run people over where you're like,

you know what, I'm gonna decide not to be much of a prankster. Now, he never got to see his granddad. He never saw the cat feeder. It's crazy. When you're reading a whole book about Jerry Falwell, you don't notice some of these things, but in retrospect, the fact that anyone would call murdering someone's cat and feeding it to them a prank. A prank is so fucked.

That's not a prank. That is a seriously demented psychologically unsound. Yeah, that's crime. Evidence that somebody is probably chopping up like people in their spare time. Yeah, they're one more cat away from just people. Fucking wild. Now, Jerry Falwell Jr. got his bachelor's degree in religious studies and history after acquiring a letter of recommendation from Senator Ted Kennedy of all people,

Jerry Jr. was accepted to the University of Virginia School of Law again. I thought that was for Liberty University. I'm like, isn't that his dad's school? No, I didn't even need a recommendation. He wanted to go to good school. Oh, that makes sense, I guess. And again, as with Ted Kennedy was with all these guys, mostly what they care about is that they're all rich.

So even if they have political disagreements, they'll still do a solid for their rich friends' kids. So that's nice. Cool. Jerry Jr.'s brother, Jonathan, took a different path. From the beginning, he was more drawn to religion than his brother. Jonathan became an ordained reverend. He took over his father's position leading the Thomas Road Baptist Church.

While Jerry Jr. has inherited the bulk of his dad's empire and passion for direct political involvement, Jonathan has kept strictly to religion. He did not endorse Donald Trump alongside his brother in 2016. That's a small mercy. That's a small mercy. Prior to his death in 2007, Jerry Falwell Sr. had laid out his plans for the inheritance of his empire of faith.

I'm going to quote now from a massive article on the Falwells in Politico by Brandon Ambrosino himself, a Liberty University grad. His two sons, Jerry Jr. and Jonathan, had each inherited different aspects of their father's persona. For Jerry Jr., the elder of the two by four years, it was the stomach for partisan politics, ability to throw an elbow and savvy to court influential friends. For Jonathan, it was the calling to ministry,

his easy way with people in Charisma as a public speaker. Jerry Jr. would preside over Liberty University and Jonathan would lead Thomas Road Baptist Church. So that's cool. And from a financial perspective, this seems to have been a great call. When Falwell Jr. took over the college, it had assets of roughly $259 million. Ten years later, it held assets worth more than $2.5 billion,

and is now worth more than $3 billion. So that's cool. Yeah. I mean, you got to give it to him. He's better at business than Donald Trump was. Yeah, but it's like, isn't such a huge part of being a good Christian as like giving to the poor? How are you going to get all the way to $3 billion?

Well, there's really different attitudes on that within the faith. So there's the people who are like... Within the rich community. Yeah, there is. Within the community of rich Christians, where it's like, no, the more money you accumulate, that's God's blessings that you're accumulating. Yeah.

Jerry Falwell is moving. That's how blessings work. You just pile them all up. At least that's consistent with their attitudes towards AIDS. Yay. What a wonderful belief system. So lucky. So cool.

Yay. So, now I bet you're wondering, what did Jerry Falwell Jr. do to increase the value of his university by so much in such a short period of time? I was thinking that. Are you wondering if there was anything gross and shady there? Yeah.

Yeah, I was wondering that. Much of Liberty University's growth has been due to growth in online students under Falwell Jr.'s reign. There are now 95,000 kids across the country taking Liberty University courses from their homes. So that's good. Hmm.

Hmm. No, I mean, if I know one thing, it's that online universities... Are never scammy. Never literally just scams. It's true. Yeah. And we're going to talk about that in a second.

But before we talk about that, I want to talk a little bit about Falwell Jr.'s wife, Becky. Oh my God. With an eye. He really literally married a Becky with an eye. With an eye. Yeah.

There's a little heart over that eye. I can feel it. And I know in my bones that she has had a lot of issues with a lot of waiters and waitresses. I've talked to a lot of managers in her day. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, and part of why I know this is what I'm about to read next. His wife, Becky, is considered by many close to the family to have taken on a major role in managing the university since Jerry Sr.'s death. One former school official told Ambrosino, writing for Politico, until Big Jerry, that's what they called him, died,

you wouldn't have known Becky if she walked up and slapped you. Big Jerry dies and all of a sudden, if you're walking down the hall and you didn't greet her right, you're fired. This official shared a 2012 email from Becky to four school executives. In the email, she complains about a school employee who complained on Facebook that the university

didn't have enough parking spaces. Someone needs to talk to this girl, Becky wrote. I don't think that we allow employees to post negative remarks about liberty. Wow. Real Nazi kind of flair. Yeah, and apparently the employee ended their employment there,

not long after. She spoke to the manager and she got him fired. Yeah, yeah. Becky's complaint sparked an almost immediate call to the employee at the employee's home at 9 p.m. because she complained about not enough parking. Wow, what a bitch. That's going to be fairly minor compared to what else

we're talking about today, but it's just so petty that I felt compelled to point it out. Now, in another article published by a former student in the news advance, talked about sort of how the culture on Liberty University's campus has changed since Jerry Falwell Sr.'s death. It's title, Inside Liberty University's Culture of Fear. That's a good title.

The author, Will Young, was formerly the editor and chief of Liberty University's school newspaper. The champion, he claims he instantly got in trouble during his first week there. His crime was noticing that his school's police department didn't publish a daily crime log online. He called the Virginia Association of Campus Law Enforcement administrators to ask if this was against the law.

The university police department found out and complained to his boss, who yelled at him. He writes, this wasn't exactly a rude awakening. I'd spent the previous three years watching the Liberty University administration, led by President Jerry Falwell Jr., medal in our coverage, revised controversial op-eds, and protect its image by stripping damning facts

from our stories. Still, I stuck around. I thought that if I wrote with discretion and kept my head down, I could one day win enough trust from the university to protect the integrity of our journalism. I even dreamed we could eventually persuade the administration to let the champion go independent from its supervision. I was naive.

Instead, when my team took over that fall in 2017, we encountered an oversight system to send every story to Falwell's assistant for review. Any administrator or professor who appeared in an article had editing authority over any part of that article. They added and deleted whatever they wanted. Falwell called our newsroom on multiple occasions

to direct our coverage personally, as he had a year earlier. When, weeks before the 2016 election, he read a draft of my column defending mainstream news outlets and ordered me to say who my plan to vote for. I refused on ethical grounds, so Falwell told me to insert the author refused to reveal which candidate he is supporting

on the bottom of my column. That's so stupid. That's cool, right? You love the intellectual honesty and the freedom of speech. I mean, it really has fucking Nazi propaganda qualities. Yeah, I mean, it is consistent with the family line

of hating freedom of speech and not being able to stand anybody saying anything bad about you. I guess that is passed down in the genes and pranks apparently aren't, so we've learned a lot about genetics today. We'll eventually quit the school paper and the School of Communication

to not replace them with a new editor-in-chief. Instead, they changed the champion to a faculty-run paper taking control for content direction entirely away from the students. Future journalists at Liberty University were forced to sign an NDA forbidding them from talking about editorial or managerial direction, oversight decisions,

or information designed as privileged or confidential. The NDA also makes student journalists acknowledge that they are privileged to get thoughts, opinions, and other statements from students. We're so lucky that they'll talk to us. Yeah. That's cool.

So, obviously, Will is a student with an axe to grind, but his experiences gel very clearly with the reporting of numerous other journalists as well as complaints of students and alumni. He and others paint a picture of Liberty University as a sort of evangelical dictatorship of higher learning, which is super neat.

A dictatorship of higher learning? Yeah. Sounds dreamy. Yeah. Where the entire university is just an extension of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s personality and pocketbook. Um, that sounds like a good thing for a school to be.

Sounds like a good education. I'm glad they don't have to pay taxes. Yeah. That would be crazy. Yeah. If they had to pay taxes. Well, because they're an apolitical religious institution that demands their writers publish who they...

Yeah. Now, a lot of the changes in the culture of Liberty University are believed to have something to do with what has made the school so enormously profitable since Jerry Jr. took over the massive growth of their online education program.

By 2015, Liberty University was the second largest provider of online education in the United States, second only to the University of Phoenix. I was going to guess Phoenix was leading. Yeah, that's number one. Number two is Liberty U. The school can largely thank the federal government for the money that it's gotten on

as a result of this. By 2017, Liberty students received more than $772 million per year from the Department of Education. It ranked sixth in federal aid nationwide. The vast majority of Liberty University's wealth comes from taxpayer dollars. Yay.

And they don't have to pay taxes. So that's good. You guys feel good about where your taxes are going. I feel great about it. They need a billion dollars a year. It's not upsetting at all. Flint, Michigan doesn't need clean water. But Liberty University needs $772 million

to discriminate against students. That's so fucked up. Yeah, a variety of types. Yeah, it's cool. Super cool and consistent. Some people find it uncomfortable or down at bad that a school which bans its students from supporting homosexuality, swearing, and even

drinking off campus receives federal money. But as we all know, evangelical Christians in America don't have to obey the same rules as the rest of us. And that's fine. It's fine. Everybody's happy with this. That's what Jesus was for. That's what Jesus was for. Massive inequality.

He was a big fan of inequality. I mean, I would say that was his platform. Trickle down economics. He was a big fan of right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember when Jesus... When he was like, oh, I'll turn one fish. Well,

you know what? I'm just going to take this one fish. I'm just going to take this fish. It's going to eventually trickle down to the really hungry people. I'm going to throw some bones at y'all. Someone of you is going to get an eye, a fish eye, and you will be fucking happy with it. And you will be my second in command. Jesus.

So, online courses have become the primary money-generating engine behind Liberty University. They have more than 300 phone recruiters working from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., calling students from lists they get from sites like Best Colleges Online. In an article breaking this down, the New York Times noted, there is such a race to get to customers

before the University of Phoenix and other rivals that the prospective students sometimes marvel at how little time has elapsed. Just a handful of minutes between they're providing their information on a website and the call coming from Liberty. Liberty's tax filings show that, in 2016, the University paid Google $16.8 million for admissions

leads generation. In other words, advertising Liberty to those searching online for degree options. The recruiters work under intense pressure, according to several former L.U.O. employees I spoke with. They get no more than 45 seconds between calls and sometimes managers override even that short break. There are no formal quotas, a federal

regulation that went into effect in 2011 forbids them, but as one former employee put it, the highly motivated goal is for each recruiter to sign up eight new students a day, multiply to class 300 cubicles, that is 2400 per day. 45 seconds between calls. I mean, honestly, that's downright leisurely. Yeah, that's lazy.

Exactly. So it sounds like it's just like a big MLM kind of situation. Yeah, it's a akin to that, certainly. Not an MLM, but what do they call it when it's just like a farm?

Yeah, it's a diploma mill. Yeah. It's a diploma mill masquerading as a religious institution so it doesn't have to pay taxes on the hundreds of millions of dollars it gets from taxpayers. Yeah.

That's like its own thing, right? Yeah, yeah, it's like telemarketing. Yeah. But that's like crazy that it's so high pressure. Yeah, well that's- They're fucking Glenn Gary, Glenn Rossing, these people. Yeah, yeah, to get them into debt so that, like, to get them

into taxpayer subsidized debt to the school for a degree which spoilers is not worth a whole lot. But you know it is worth a whole lot, Sophia. Are goods and services? Yes. You

let her say goods. I did let her say goods. I gave it up. I'm Robert Evans, host of Behind the Bastards and you know as part of my practice for this show I have to go through a lot of books to learn about all these terrible people I teach you about

and you know I spend time on the road, I spend time at the gym, I wouldn't be able to do all of the research I do if it weren't for audio books and Audible. They make it easy to get informed and learn while you're listening so you can do it wherever you happen to be. And right now for a limited time you can get three months of Audible

for just $6.95 a month. That's more than half off the regular price. And you're going to get two Audible originals and one audio book absolutely free when you sign up. If you want a recommendation from me try the Court of the Red Czar which is one of the very best books written about Joseph Stalin.

The audio book is engaging and fun and you know 27 and a half hours so you'll have a lot of time to do bench reps or whatever while you listen. So if you want to try out Audible for $6.95 a month you can go to Audible.com slash behind or just text behind to

$500.500. That's Audible.com slash behind or text behind to $500.500. We're back. Why are you waving that? I am waving... Threateningly waving an English muffin. It's attached to a sling though.

I'm excited. Sophie's excited. Proud too. Excited and proud. On with the episode. Of course you don't sign up new students at that kind of rate without fudging or obscuring a few facts. This is what you were getting at a little bit, Sophia. Two recruiters told

the Times that they were ordered to quote the university's cost on a per credit basis instead of per course. Instructors are also urged to not push students on how their grades were in high school. Any GPA over 0.5 is enough to qualify you for Liberty University. 0.5? Do you even have to

be conscious to get that? No. 0.5 is like if you guess on literally everything including the essay, you'll get a 0.5. Jesus. The good news for those D students is that Liberty's online courses are not exactly famous for their rigor

from the New York Times. People know it's kind of a joke and don't learn that much from it. Dustin Wall, a senior from South Dakota, told me, use Google when you take your quiz and you don't have to work as hard. It's pretty obvious. Liberty says using Google during quizzes or exams is cheating. Wow. Yeah.

The Times reporting suggests that recruiters have even started obscuring the school's Christian orientation in order to suck in more sweet tax dollars. I mean students. Quote, two recruiters also said they were told not to mention Liberty's Christian orientation until people agree to apply when this fact is made clear in the user agreement

online. It also becomes clear at the moment that the recruiters sign up students for their first classes typically an orientation class and three required Bible studies classes. Students often can't transfer credits for these courses to other colleges, which deters many from dropping out. So if you're keeping track, this school

which is funded primarily by taxpayer dollars tricks students into signing up without knowing that they're joining a Christian University. And then if they try to leave a devalue, it doesn't transfer anywhere so they can't really go. And then there's mandatory Bible classes that are paid for again with taxpayer dollars.

This is cool. Fuck. Now this all obviously has not made makes me miss Trump University. Oh, there was a university. Oh, you knew what you were getting with Trump University. Yeah. A picture with the cardboard cut out of Donald

Trump and nothing else. I miss them. I miss them too. Now Liberty University's teachers are not all happy with the state of affairs that has changed because it used to be a somewhat actual school. I was going to say there's teachers because it really doesn't seem like it.

That seems to be the administration's attitude too. There's teachers. We thought this scam just ran itself after we suckered you into getting in. That is yeah, we'll be getting a quote from Jerry Falwell Jr. that's basically that. See, most teachers

like to know that they work for a well-respected university rather than a profit mill with very little to no educational benefit. But Liberty University is ranked in the lowest one quarter of national universities by US News and World Report. It lacks behind Brigham Young University, a religious college that at least delivers an education.

Low quality online courses might be one reason for this. Another is probably the university's outright hatred of its teachers. Only the law school at Liberty University even offers a 10-year track. This allows Jerry Falwell Jr. to enact an extreme degree of control over his faculty because

he can fire absolutely anyone. However, this also makes it difficult to draw incompetent teachers. Chris Gowmer, a former English professor, provides additional explanation for this treatment. When I was there at faculty meetings, the commentary was that online was funding the school while they were trying to just break even on the residential

side. It was understood that on the online side, they were making a killing. Boy, cool. Sounds like a real school to me. In his interview with The New York Times, Falwell Jr. admitted that the faculty had complained initially about the growing importance of online classes. He told them

the big victory was finding a way to tame the faculty. We really started making money when we fucking tamed the faculty. What are they fucking? Tigers? What is going on? Yeah, you got to tame the faculty, otherwise they're going to complain about the fact that you aren't delivering an education

to your students. Oh boy. Those pesky faculty. Jerry Falwell Jr.'s decision to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 election was deeply controversial, both for the students and the teachers. According to Will's write-up, the school's methods became even more aggressive after Falwell endorsed Donald Trump early that year, according to multiple

current and formal faculty members. The closer you get to the president's office, says a former history professor, Brian Melton, discussing a chilling effect at the school, the worse it becomes. Falwell's staff now operates masterfully to squash challenges to his views and his rise in national political influence. So that's good. That's scary as well. Yeah.

This March, Falwell Jr. attended the signing of an executive order by President Trump on college free speech. Oh my god. It was a big advocate of college free speech. Oh, the irony is truly too much. Yeah. The guy who brought the school's paper under direct personal control is invited

by President Trump to watch the signing of a bill that I'm sure will protect free speech. It hurts. Yeah. In a PBS news hour appearance after, he claimed that his college was inclusive of all ideas, unlike all those evil liberal universities. As evidence for this, he pointed out that

Liberty University invited President Carter to deliver its 2018 commencement address and had Bernie Sanders speak in 2015 at a mandatory assembly. These things did happen. But Falwell neglected to mention some other things, like the fact that in 2009, it withdrew funding and recognition for the college

Democrats Club. Mark Hine, the SVP of Student Affairs, said this was because the Democratic Party defends abortion and supports the LGBT agenda. Wow. So that's good. After the bloody 2017. Really reminiscent of his dad. Yeah. The apple did not fall

far from the tree. That is also a poop and not apples. And the apples are also poop. Yes, the apples are also poop. After the deadly 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, you know this is going to go a good place with an intro like that.

The Liberty Student Government Association attempted to issue a statement of solidarity with Heather Heier, the murdered anti-fascist activist. In response to this, the SGA's president refused to release the statement because it would have meant sending it to Jerry Falwell Jr. first, and they really didn't think he was going to be on board

with sympathizing with a woman murdered by a Nazi. Oh, God. Well, they're probably not wrong about that. That's why I said, oh, God. When Falwell Sr. died, the idea was that Jonathan Falwell would act as the moral compass for Liberty University while his brother handled the finances.

And Jonathan is still the school's vice chancellor for spiritual affairs, but the evidence suggests that he has been largely sidelined at the university. One Liberty official told Brandon Ambrosino, writing for Politico, quote, Jerry never removed Jonathan. He just kind of pushed him aside. He bought all of the Thomas Road Baptist Church properties,

Liberty Christian Academy, Jonathan's building at the airport and a couple of others. Jonathan complained but never stood up to Jerry because he knew Jerry controlled the purse strings. That seems like a healthy family. Jonathan seems sad as hell. Jonathan is kind of sad as hell. Yeah.

I'd like to know what he does every day. Cry. Right? Terrible family. Yeah, it seems like a bummer of a family. And Falwell Jr. has done some strange things with his control of those purse strings. Things his father would not have approved of.

One of these things was the $4.7 million purchase of a South Beach hostel in Miami, Florida. It doesn't sound, I don't know, Christian and decent. No, but it actually sounds like a pretty sweet hostel. Very gay friendly, situated directly above a liquor store

with a bar where you could bring your own alcohol in. That's what I'm saying. How could they have possibly allowed this? Well, that's a fun little story. It listed its rules as no soliciting, fundraising, politics, salesmen, or religion. It was written inside the hostel.

That's fun. Owned by Jerry Falwell Jr. It was built as a great place for people around the world to come and get wasted in pre-party before hitting the Miami Strip. This is so confusing. The Falwells bought the hostel, but mysteriously gave a 25% stake in its profits

to one Giancarlo Granda. Mr. Granda is most often described as a pool boy and reporting on this that you'll find. He is a handsome, muscular, young man in his mid-20s. The nature of his relationship to the Falwells is unclear, but he seems to have

accompanied them on numerous trips. Some evidence suggests that he was present with the Falwells during the taking of some racy photos of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s wife, Becky. So that's interesting. Wait. What's the suggestion here?

The suggestion is that Jerry Falwell Jr., his wife, Becky, and this pool boy had an ongoing threesome thing happening, and then they bought this guy a hostel and gave him a 25% stake in the profits to manage it, a gay-friendly hostel. I was hoping that's what you would say.

That's kind of seems like what's happening. That is delicious. But hot pool boy is how he's described. He's usually just described as a pool boy. But you said he was hot. He's definitely hot. Oh, yeah. No, you look him up. He's scrumptious. I definitely pictured the guy from Legally Blonde.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. Like the guy she's into. That's stupid looking. No, look him up. Giancarlo Granda. He's a good looking guy. Doing it. That's so freaky. I love it. Yeah, it's pretty fun.

I don't think Becky had it in her. Yeah. A lot of people know what Becky had in her because these pictures have gone. Pretty racy? Yeah, pretty racy. Now, the Falwells deny that there are any racy photos. Well, that's not quite what he says.

In an interview with the Todd Starnes Radio Show, Jerry Falwell Jr. said he's compromising or embarrassing photos of me. Yeah. But Becky. But Becky, yeah. Three photographs of Becky have been seen by the Miami Herald. They are images of her

in various states of undress. It is not known who took the photos or when they were taken. And the Herald has not given the photographs and therefore has not been able to authenticate them independently. But two of the photos appear to have been taken at the Falwells Farm in Virginia and a third at the Chica Lodge,

where they were taken at the time with Giancarlo Grande. Oh, shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Getting the freak on. Now, when these photos leaked out, I mean, who do you get to help you if you need to recover some racy photos

of your wife? Larry Flint. No! Michael Cohen. Oh, my God! That took a turn on. Yeah, he was a longtime friend of the Falwell family in those sexy photo sessions. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

From Politico. Longtime listener, first-time caller would love to clean this up for you. Yeah. No, he'd known them a while. In a car ride about a decade ago with the senior university official who has since left Liberty,

all he wanted to talk about is how he would nail his wife, how she couldn't handle his penis size and what her official recalled, Falwell did not respond to questions about this incident. More than simply talking about it with employees about his wife in a sexual manner on at least one more occasion, Falwell shared a photo of his wife wearing

what appeared to be a French maid costume according to a longtime Liberty employee with firsthand knowledge of the image and the follow-up that followed. This is amazing. This sounds like a healthy working environment, right? I think it's the kind of working environment that what Joaquin Phoenix provided, right?

Super safe. You got a picture of Giancarlo Grande pulled up? I mean, I looked at it. Where are the pictures of him and Becky? Where do I find that? I mean, Michael Cohen cleaned them up. I'm just going to say I can't find them. I just want to look at that handsome pool boy.

I mean, let me see. There he is. Oh, okay. Not bad. He looks better in that picture of Falwell's wearing the purple shirt. Seems like a fun Miami party. Now!

You're just cleaning a pool. Oh, my God, amazing. Great Photoshop. So that French maid picture that Jerry Falwell Jr. accidentally sent to an employee had been intended to be sent to Ben Crosswhite, Becky's personal trainer as a thank you for helping her get into better shape.

Another possible thank you to Ben Crosswhite was the sale of a sizable fitness center on the Liberty University campus to Ben for wildly less than its market value. Liberty University insists that there was nothing untoward or sketchy about this arrangement, so that's cool. Also, I love that

he bragged about having a big dick, but just exactly how you know he does not have a big dick. Yeah. Because no one can handle it. My wife can't take my huge dick. It's like, that's... Will you sign these payroll forks?

Yeah, they're like, can my son have a scholarship to the university? Can I go now? Once I finish telling you about how my wife cannot take this monster hog of mine. Hold on, hold on. My railing my wife's story is not over. Where are you going?

Don't you want to hear about me fucking my wife, who's also your boss? Becky, get in here and help me tell the story about nailing you. So I'm fucking my wife and I mean fucking my wife when the poor boy comes in. We buy him a hostel on the Miami Strip.

The only person that could take my penis that's not my wife is Jean Carlo. Jean Carlo, the poor boy. Have you met Jean Carlo? Jean Carlo, get over here. That's my impression of Jerry Fawle Jr. at work.

Of Jerry Fawle Jr. during like a work meeting. Yeah, a staff meeting, yeah. So we got to talk about how our students are doing on how our bar exam acceptance rate is going. But first,

let's talk about my dick. Also, I bet you he would bring in slides. Oh, I don't know how this guy in here. You had a slide made of your wife in a French meat outfit. I don't know how this guy in here, this is crazy. Who's that muscular guy in the picture?

The guy who owns that hostel that our school bought? You know what's better than a hostel secretly owned by a Christian extremist cult? Products. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected

that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes

you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story

is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark, and not in the good and bad ass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then

for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was

23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me.

About a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991 and that man, Sergei Kreklev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union

is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world.

Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole.

My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science

in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

We're back! We're back! And I think I'm going to try and throw this English muffin now before we get back into Jerry Falwell Jr. Now this muffin's a little bit smaller than the bagel holder so I don't know how it's going to work.

Yeah! I mean that was honestly just you flinging it with your hands. Yeah, that was basically just me flinging it with my hands. But I appreciated it. I did not. I mostly appreciated that it didn't hit me or Sophie. Or Anderson.

That's how good of a dog she is. She's that bitch. She's either here or not here and I never know which. She never reacts to throwing things. Sometimes I don't know she's here or in here so it's like Schrodinger's Anderson. We don't want to be talking about

Schrodinger's cats or on the Falwell's because they'll skin and feed you that fucking cat. Do you want to be cool if you like threw the English muffin and then it just hit you in the face? That would be hilarious. That was what I was hoping was going to happen. Not that good at using my sling at. Next time, next time fingers crossed.

I'm going to practice. So yeah, this Falwell's family's current sketchiness is as complicated as it is infuriating and the recent rash reporting on the family seems to reveal compelling proof that whatever their public commitment to evangelical politics the family has left their godly roots well behind. On July 19th,

2014 Swedish DJ John Dahlback performed at a Miami Beach nightclub named Wall which I think is interesting because you remember the wall gang from earlier. Photographs taken that night show Falwell Junior's sons Jerry and Trey both in attendance with their wives.

Trey. Fucking Trey. Trey. They're both pictured drinking. Their father runs and they work for a school that bans both co-ed dancing and alcohol. Those pictures were considered deeply embarrassing to the Falwell clan.

Liberty staffers told the author of that Politico article that Falwell Junior went to John Godger, the head of IT to deal with the problem. Quote, longtime Liberty officials describe Godger as a sort of fixer for Falwell, a man promoted because he would do what Falwell asked him without complaint.

But Godger is more than just a university employee since 2009. Since 2009, Godger has also run Redfinch LLC, an online business he founded that specializes in search engine marketing and does lucrative contract work for Liberty. Tax records show Liberty paid Redfinch

$123,950 during 2016 for what source has described as a search engine recruitment for online students to the university. Redfinch's online work for the school goes beyond typical SEO marketing. In an email from August 2013 obtained for this article, Falwell asked Godger to defend him in the

local news article that Falwell felt reflected too negatively on him. Falwell emailed Godger the exact wording to post. I'm having my Redfinch guys blow this right up right away, Godger responded. I'll tell you how it goes. Now, that's all silly, right?

But here's where it gets really fucking infuriating. Because if you've heard of Redfinch at all outside of the context of Liberty University, it's because Redfinch LLC is the company that Michael Cohen hired to rig online polls in Donald Trump's favor in 2015

and 16. That's cool. Godger wrote a computer script to vote constantly for Trump in exchange for $50,000. That $50,000. That's cheap. It wasn't a big job. But this means here's what's infuriating to me.

Not that he could ask for more money for a job like that. No, no, no. As a freelancer, I'm infuriating. I want a collective bargain to get him more money. No, it's that the $50,000 he got came from Falwell money.

Falwell money comes from federal... Taxpayer money. So the taxpayers paid for John Godger to influence polls in Donald Trump's favor in 2015 and 16. That's so fucked up. That's really frustrating.

In multiple reports from multiple outlets, Falwell's management of Liberty University described as dictatorial and fundamentally abusive. One senior university official told a journalist from Politico, we're not a school. We're a real estate hedge fund. We're not educating. We're buying real estate every year and taking students' money to do it.

Another stated, it's a dictatorship. Nobody craps at the university without Jerry's approval. In July of 2012, Falwell told university executives that his son, Trey, would be starting a new company to manage properties at the school, including the shopping center.

Falwell is known as a breach of duty of loyalty to the nonprofit, as it could be seen as Falwell Jr. enriching his son at the expense of giving the school's property a qualified manager. But it's fine. It's just fine for this to happen, which is cool. Falwell Jr. has also put his support

for President Donald Trump above the health of his students in his ethical responsibilities as the manager of a nonprofit religious institution. In 2017, he invited the president to deliver the school's commencement address. Now this is fine and happens regularly with a number of schools. But

Jerry Falwell Jr. also had Liberty University start selling a line of Trump branded shirts and hats commemorating the event. Becky Falwell wrote in an email thread, I want to make sure that we have a lot of options available to purchase. It's great advertising for Liberty to be on products with Trump's name. She added in a later message,

I spoke to Michael Cohen and he said to make sure any shirts we buy are made in America. He loved the designs. The school ended up printing shirts just exactly like official Trump campaign merchandise, including the words making America great again one degree at a time. Yeah, it's possible

these shirts are a violation of the school's 501C3 status since they might be seen as political advertising. But there's no inclination that Falwell Jr. gives a shit about this or that anything will be done about it. Yeah, who's going to prosecute him? Nobody cares when these guys break the rules. Nope.

From Politico, Falwell has become known as a Trump loyalist who's willing to put his and his school's reputation on the line to defend the president from any critic. In Trump, Falwell said in 2017, evangelicals have found their dream president. When asked by the Washington Post late in 2018 if there were anything President Trump

could do that would endanger the support from you or other evangelical leaders, Falwell said no. In a May 2019 tweet about the Mueller investigation, Falwell appropriated the language of reparations for descendants of slaves to argue that Trump's term should be lengthened. I now support reparations. Trump should have two years added to his first term

as painback for the time stolen by this corrupt failed coup. Yay. I just think it's neat that both Jerry Falwell and Jerry Falwell Jr. have appropriated the language of, in Falwell's case, abolitionists and in

Jerry Jr.'s case, the reparations movement to support their own political bullshit. That's neat. Yeah, and also kind of a hilarious defeat of their own ideology. Yeah.

To like be borrowing by borrowing and being very kind. It's like with quotation marks. I mean stealing. By stealing something from somebody that you don't even respect you're just giving credence to the fact that they are valuable and have ideas and

of value and merit and all you do is just steal it and appropriate it to your own end and then you still maintain your superiority. It's just kind of hilarious. On self-aware that is. Moral hermit crabbing. Except for, I like hermit crabs

and I do not like the Falwells. Jerry Falwell Jr. is considerably more positive in his words to the president than he has been in emails writing about his own students. Earlier in September 2019, Reuters published an article based on leaked emails from Falwell to his faculty. The title?

Exclusive Falwell Blasted Liberty Student as retarded, police chief as half-wit and easy to manipulate and shouldn't be allowed to speak publicly. Hinckley couldn't be reached for comment. Reuters interviewed several dozen emails which painted a pattern of intense disrespect for the people who attend Liberty and work there.

Here are some examples. Ronald Sons, the dean of the engineering school was a bag of hot air who couldn't spell the word profit, Falwell wrote in 2011. I guess he thinks that's like a sick burn. I think he does. It's not though. It's definitely not. Richard Hinckley, the campus police chief

Hinckley couldn't be reached for comment. Count probably of how half-witted he was. Yeah, he's too much of a fucking half-wit to talk to the press. Of Kevin Keyes, then Liberty's associate athletics director, Falwell wrote in 2012. Only get Kevin involved in something if you want it to not work. Why would you hire that guy?

Why would you let that guy have a position at your school if that's what you say about it? That's so great. Up until very recently. Only an idiot would hire Kevin. Only a fucking moron would work with this guy. I am his employer. I am his employer and I regularly

show him pictures of my wife naked. Becky, get in here. Show him your ass. You don't deserve to be here. Up until very recently, Falwell Jr. has been allowed to get away with this behavior due to the sheer terror everyone else at Liberty seems to hold for him. One current university employee told Politico,

everybody is scared for their life. Everybody walks around in fear. What a cool place to learn. What a cool place to learn. This employee only agreed to speak to Politico after buying a burner phone because they were afraid that Falwell Jr. is monitoring their communications.

Holy fuck. It's a real dictatorship over there. It sounds pretty great. I love that he's an advocate for free speech at schools. The good news is that all this bad behavior has finally percolated out into the wider world. An activist Christian group, Faithful America

petitioned to force the Virginia Attorney General and the IRS to open criminal investigations into Jerry Falwell Jr. They have received over 15,000 signatures so far. Earlier this month, the Washington Examiner, a very right-wing news website, published an editorial simply titled, Jerry Falwell Jr.

Needs to Go. And on September 13th, after several of these damning articles dropped, 200 Liberty students protested on campus. At least 60 of them demanded an investigation into the school's president and his administration. So that's good. Maybe something will happen.

They've... But so much time has passed. Yeah, he made billions of dollars stealing taxpayer funds and giving people worthless degrees in exchange for money that should have gone to infrastructure.

Yeah. It's doubly terrible because he both wastes all those tax dollars and then all of these kids wind up in horrible debt with no benefit. It's pretty cool. And they don't get educated. And then the money goes to rigging polls online

in favor of Donald Trump. Yeah, this is... And buying that hostel. A lose-lose situation except for Giancarlo. Giancarlo did great. Giancarlo is crushing it. And I assume some European backpackers had a great summer break

in Miami. Yeah, they're also winning. Well, thanks. Sophia, how are you feeling? I mean, a lot better than after you've invited me to talk about dead babies for fucking hours, honestly. Way less dead babies.

I'm not even sure. I feel positive like leaving. It's just a weird feeling. Normally I leave here and I want to curl up into a ball and die. Well, I will find another dead baby story to tell you.

I will find another real good baby murderer. That's part of the trouble. Yeah, that is part of the trouble. It's just hard to find a good baby killer these days. Hey, that's not a challenge, listeners. Don't be like, you know what? I'll give Robert something to talk about.

If you know someone who killed a lot of babies, reach out to us on Twitter. Jesus Christ. He just loves Pennsylvania. He loves it there. You know what it is? He just falls. Well, there's no such thing.

It's all one temperature in Pennsylvania and it's just unbearably hot. Who's your new roommate? Paul Manafort. Oh, yeah, it's you, Manafort. He didn't even get canceled. I mean... He just got imprisoned.

Then how is he in Pennsylvania with you? Well, I guess I would say he didn't get canceled because he actually faced consequences and the people in Pennsylvania really don't. Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe that little observation moved you up to a higher level

of Pennsylvania. No, I'm bunking with... No, we already did a Louis C.K. joke. Yep. I can't think of anyone else who's been canceled. Yeah, I think that's... There's a lesson in there somewhere. Well,

Sophia, you want to plug your plugables? Sure. You guys can find me on Twitter and Instagram at thesophia, S-O-F-I-Y-A. And on my podcast, Private Parts Unknown, Courtney Kosak.

It's a podcast about love and sexuality around the world. And 420 Day Fiancé, my podcast about 90 Day Fiancé with Miles Gray. And you can find me in Pennsylvania performing at the Comedy Cellar. I opened for Michael Richards. I thought of another one.

Proud of you. Good for you. This website, behindthebastards.com Twitter at BastardsPod. Instagram the same as the Twitter. And T-shirts at T-Public. Uh... What? Well, Sophie.

Oh, yeah. If you buy T-shirts at T-Public, I will use them to purchase a hostel in Miami Beach. For your pool boy, Lava? For my pool boy. But I won't keep it a secret. I will... You will be proud of Jean Carlo.

I am very proud. Jean Carlo is the only one in the story I actually am proud of. It's true. He really knows how to ratchet up just being the third guy in a threesome. Third person in a threesome into some actual real estate. Into owning a hostel

in Miami Beach. That's a weird flex, but I'm in it. I feel like your choices are one of two things. Either Liberty University taxpayer dollars go to fund like fraudulent polls that support Donald Trump's candidacy

or they go to Jean Carlo. And I know that I would rather Jean Carlo get it. Of course, Jean Carlo, buy a mile. So buy some T-shirts, support Jean Carlo. Listen to the worst year ever where we'll try to get Jean Carlo on as a guest. Uh... Yeah, if you know someone who's had a threesome

with the Falwells, tell them to hit us up. Episode's done. And then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts

or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences

and a life without price. Two death sentences and a life without price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial

on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.