Chapo Trap House - 512 - Through The Dark Gaet feat. Ken Klippenstein (4/5/21)

Episode Date: April 6, 2021

We spend the first half of the episode peeling back the many, many weird & gross layers of the whole Matt Gaetz saga. Then, we’re joined by journalist Ken Klippenstein to discuss his reporting on leaked Amazon internal documents detailing their heinous work conditions and baffling anti-union PR campaign. Check out Ken’s Amazon article in The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2021/03/25/amazon-drivers-pee-bottles-union/

I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet. I'm a banned man in the state of New Jersey. The governor literally said I was unwelcome. Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state, but every day I'm a Florida man and it is good to be home. Florida's like an amazing woman. Adventurous, beautiful, mostly sunny,

sometimes a little crazy, and always here to encourage and support success. All I'm gonna do is give trouble. All I'm gonna do is give trouble. All I'm gonna do is give trouble. All I'm gonna do is give trouble. All right, happy, happy Monday, everybody. Happy belated Easter.

We are at Chapel Trap Palace. It's me, Matt and Felix, and we are back at it. In just a little bit, we'll be talking to journalist Ken Klippenstein about leaked internal documents from the Amazon company and their corporate culture as regards their abhorrent labor practices. But before then, it's the story

that all of you little pigs were oinking for, the Maddy Gates saga. Oh man, we've been sitting on this one, because Thomas Frank was just bitten, so much good stuff that we decided to hold the Maddy Gates saga for one day's episode, because man, oh man, there is a lot of stuff to talk about here.

Yeah, so everyone was, I think everyone loved the Thomas Frank episode. You guys did a great job. It was, everyone loved it. But this is special, like we really have to prepare for this, and this is where you come to for the fully unauthorized, exhaustive, unabridged defense of Matt Gates' behavior from the left.

I mean, I don't even know where to begin with this one. I mean, obviously this all started when the New York Times wrote an article about allegations that he has been engaging in a sexual relationship with a 17 year old girl that he has been paying to travel across state lines, which is technically human trafficking. But I don't know, just the thing I can't get out of my head

about this is I feel like something you said to me yesterday about Matt Gates as a politician and a personality that 70% deserves to be executed, but 30% deserves to be president of the United States. Yeah, yeah, because like he, vast majority like should go to prison and be beheaded. But he's also like, so many people in America are just like him.

Like this, I'm pretty sure people know like the broad strokes of the case. Like I was, so you know the thing about blackmailing, right? Like the Iran, the Iran hot, okay, we'll get into the many, many strains of it. But he's like, yeah, he's exactly as like stupid and disgusting and weird and gross as like only a type of American can be.

Not to say that we're the grossest people, but a French person would be disgusting in a different way. There's something about like, I mean, we can talk about the Harry Potter based sex game that he played with fellow Florida state representatives. We can talk about the Bitcoin mining rig that burned down a public building because of the Seminole County tax collector,

who's also a child pornographer and human trafficker, who's the investigation into him is one uncovered, Matt Gates's relationship with his teenager in the first place. We could talk about the fact that he grew up in the house of the Truman show was filmed in. There's, it just, it goes on and on with this guy. But I mean, like is never before in political scandals

has there been one that's been like less surprising? Yeah, that guy said, I mean, he literally looks like fucking Quagmire from Family Guy. Like he is a human version of that, the cartoon known for being a pervert. Yeah, and also he has like 70,000 tweets from like a year or two ago where it's like, I think it's cool to fuck high schoolers.

It's like almost like directly that, like almost like. It was, there are just so many. It was a quote, it was somewhere. When I was like just briefly reading on him the other day and everyone knows he voted against the human trafficking bill, but he also in 2015, when he was in the Florida house was the only vote against like making revenge porn on the eagle, Jesus Christ. No, what everyone saw was like,

it was that the tweet was like, you can be sexy at any age, which first of all, no. Not true, no, it's not the untrue. And then he quote me to be saying, this should be the official motto of the state of Florida. I mean, that's the other thing to this is that Florida as a state and as a state of mind figures very largely in this story as well.

Cause I mean, it's hard to imagine, like Matt Gaetz could not have come out of any place other than Florida. I think there's like equivalence to Matt Gaetz, like in every state who would do something as stupid and awful and just be as emblematic of their state, but it's in different ways. But he is like, he should at least be a senator now. Like he's for Florida.

Like if like you're gonna have senators from that place, it should be like he's earned it. Yeah, I mean, one of the senators now is a guy who was the largest ever Medicare fraudster. That makes us as would Gaetz. Yeah, no, that's, that's who it is. Like a completely hairless like demon creature and then the dumbest man alive.

And then also, oh, it's another thing. He just got engaged to a woman named Ginger Lucky. And where has Nestor been in all of this? Where is it? I would like to hear from Nestor. Because I mean, I think, I mean, like obviously like, we all thought when the Nestor story broke, like it was, you know, that was going in a different direction

in terms of, you know, human trafficking and his predilection, shall we say. But now I think it's sort of like the Nestor thing is, I think he adopted like a cool 19 year old so that he could, he could hook up with high school girls. I think it was like his way for him to meet young women or yeah, underage women. That's, that's the thing.

It's sort of like the opposite of the paddock thing. I was thinking about the paddock thing with, you know, because we just did that truenade on where we researched paddock endlessly and all the connections and the thing, the analogy Braves made was that it's like a cup with one inch of every type of soda where it's just, there's all these hints at something

but not enough for you to fully dive in. Like there's the defense contracting thing. There's the multiple shooters thing, but it's not enough for you to fully go in one direction. So it drives you insane no matter how much you know. But this is the opposite. This is like eight cups of full cups of soda. This go, you can go so far in every direction with it,

with this and it's all there. He's doing all of it. Well, I think the place to begin is what really, would really kick this off as just a, it's an unbelievable news spectacle is Matt Gaetz's appearance on Tucker Carlson show the other week. And I just wanna go through a couple clips of what might be the greatest TV news interview

of all time. So let's cue up that first Tucker Carlson, Matt Gaetz clip. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. So this is obviously a serious allegation. Tell us what the truth is from your perspective. It is a horrible allegation and it is a lie. The New York Times is running a story

that I have traveled with a 17 year old woman and that is verifiably false. People can look at my travel records and see that that is not the case. What is happening is an extortion of me and my family involving a former Department of Justice official. On March 16th, my father got a text message demanding a meeting wherein a person

demanded $25 million in exchange for making horrible sex trafficking allegations against me go away. Our family was so troubled by that we went to the local FBI. And the FBI and the Department of Justice were so concerned about this attempted extortion of a member of Congress that they asked my dad to wear a wire, which he did

with the former Department of Justice official. Okay, can I say what I think happened? Go for it. So the guy was like, you have to give me $25 million. So like we can pardon this, we can get this guy out of Iran and then if you do it, we'll get it.

So Biden pardons you for having sex with a 17 year old. But what I think happened is, the guy was like told him all this and Gates was like, oh my God, I'm so behind. I need to sleep with the 17 year old. To get this rolling and then he did it and then he was like, all right, now I'm being extorted. So yeah, so like, okay, so some background

on the extortion plot that he's talking about here. It says, Matt Gates is from the Washington Post here. Matt Gates, a Florida Republican known for his fierce allegiance to former President Donald Trump, had been under justice department investigation for months for a possible sex crime when two men approached his father with a proposal. The men had learned to the investigation,

they wrote to Don Gates and wanted to offer an opportunity to help his son. He could give a huge sum of money to fund their effort to locate Robert A. Levinson, the longest held American hostage in Iran, whose family had said that they were told he is dead. If the operation were a success, he would win public favor

and help alleviate Matt Gates' legal woes. The men who approached Don Gates, people familiar with him at our said, had no apparent connection to the sex crime investigations of his son other than having somehow learned about it before it was publicly reported. But when news of law enforcement's interest

in Gates surfaced, the congressman asserted that the allegation was rooted in an extortion effort against my family for 25 million. So yeah, I think Felix, so these guys, these guys come to him and they're like, listen, you help us, you help us rescue a dead man from Iran. And we won't blow the whistle on you having sex

with a 17 year old girl. And then Matt Gates was just like, you fool, do you honestly think I would let you in on my master plan without having already done it? I had sex with a 17 year old girl 30 minutes ago. Yeah. How can you be extorting me for a crime I've already committed?

And I also liked that the detail about like, somehow they had knowledge of this investigation before it was made public. I mean, I think they had acknowledged, they had knowledge of it just because they're from Florida and no Matt Gates. No, yeah. I don't think like it took any special insight

to divine what was going on. I also really like in, right off the get go from that Tucker interview, where like, you know, you could not pick a softer interview for Matt Gates than Tucker Carlson, who was like, you know, like setting him up to be like, oh, like, you know, how was the liberal media persecuting this time, Matt?

And his answer to the question was like, let's just say very legally worded in that he's just like, I have never traveled anywhere with a 17 year old. You can check my travel schedule, but you know, he didn't say I have never had sex with a 17 year old or had been in a sexual relationship with someone underage in an illegal, I've never been in an illegal sex.

And also, isn't the case that he was paying her to travel and that he wasn't traveling with her, he was just paying for her to come to where he was to have sex with her? Yeah, it was like a t-ball and he went to swing and his pants fell down and the ball like went up his urethra somehow. Oh man.

And then like, just the Iran hostage thing is such a funny and then his dad wearing a wire. It's like, I feel like this is just like the best kind of conspiracy criminal or otherwise is one in which every single person involved has like 70 IQ. I mean, this is what a lot of history is. Just the dumbest person from five different families working together to do,

I don't even think they know what they're doing. It's just like, why does an aunt build a little hill out of dirt? Why is that the flying around, pollinating the flowers? They don't really know. They don't have consciousness. And that's everyone in this story. They have no idea why they're doing any of this.

I also love the idea that like, according to this extortion plot, if he had helped free this guy who's apparently dead, then Joe Biden would pardon him for sex crimes. Like that doesn't seem like a thing that would happen. I think it like, I could, if you brought Joe Biden to corpse, and he's like, ah, I've been looking for this.

And you're no longer a pedophile. I wonder, what, keep that second Tucker clip because he gets better. And I believe we are in an era of our politics now, Tucker, where people are smeared to try to take them out of the conversation. I'm not the only person on screen right now who's been falsely accused of a terrible sex act.

You were accused of something that you did not do and so you know what this feels like. You know the pain it can bring to your family. And you know how it just puts people on defense when you're accused of something so salacious and awful, but it did not happen. It is not true. All right, so just absolutely stitching up Tucker Carlson,

referring to something that happened. I had never heard of this. This was like years ago, and it was like, like one of his mentally ill viewers believed that they had a sexual relationship and then accused him of impropriety in it. But like, let's just say like those allegations that were slightly less founded than the ones

being made against Matt Gaetz. But like, I just love the look. First of all, Tucker Carlson always has like an interview face where he looks like a golden retriever. Like a golden retriever where you're like holding a treat above its nose and he's waiting for it to drop or something. That's how he shows you that he's paying attention. Yeah, but like, he just like, he got extra sort of like,

his little lips and eyes got even more pursed. As soon as Matt Gaetz was just like, listen, I'm not the only one on screen here. And the other guy on screen being you, Tucker Carlson, has been accused of sexual sex crimes against children. Maybe he was talking about like the news ticker. You know, someone falsely accused the news ticker of sexual harassment at his job.

He was harassing the Fox logo. I totally condemn the accusations against Cletus, the dancing robot. It could be like, maybe like, yeah, he didn't mean Tucker because like Matt Gaetz just like super imposes cartoon characters in the background of everyone he's talking to. Great, like Grimace was there.

He's like, yeah, I'm going on Grimace and Tucker. That show everyone knows. All right, let's see, let's see the next Tucker clip. You know, again, I really saw this as a deeply troubling challenge for my family on March 16th when people were, you know, talking about a minor and that there were pictures of me with child prostitutes.

What's up? That's obviously false. There will be no pictures. No one mentioned that, dude. No one mentioned that. But really on March 16th was when this got going from the extortion standpoint. From the extortion standpoint.

Like, yeah. See, that's, you think that's bad, but that is an alpha move. You throw more accusations out there to confuse people. It's like squid ink. It's actually, it's advanced. Yeah, no one had, there's nothing about the pictures or anything and he's like,

that the guy in the video doesn't even really look like me. We have the same tattoo and weird jaw, but it's actually not even me, which is what's so crazy about this thing. Yeah, I mean, he is on some real yellow king shit. And like, to the extent that like, okay, what are we to make of these allegations against someone like Matt Gaetz?

Well, I mean, why don't we view them in light of the like, the lengthy reporting that's been done on the fact that he has as a legislature, as a legislator in Florida and now in Congress, apparently shares photos of naked women that he has on his phone with fellow congressmen and representatives.

He's the kind of guy that likes doing that. And the best detail of this story is apparently in the Florida state government, him and a bunch of his friends played what was reportedly a Harry Potter themed sex game with each other. And by that, I mean that they like, they, it was like one of the,

it's like stupid guy thing where like you score, like based on like the number of women you have sex with or like the circumstances in which you have sex with them. And it was like, you got points. One of the, one of the point, one of the like the rating systems for like how many points you would accrue is was waking up in a sorority.

Like what, like fucking Ted Bundy or something. Yeah. I have to say the funniest outcome, like it would not be like if this is all true. The funniest outcome would be if like, he's actually right and he is being framed. And it's like, he just did the shittiest job ever. Like this is how he responded to it.

He's just got a guy who's guilty of so much stuff that like he could look guilty like all the fucking time. Yeah. Okay, so like it was a Harry Potter based sex game that was just based on Quidditch. And like this is the worst part about it because this is like guys who think they're awesome. These guys are like thinking like,

oh, like, you know, this is the pussy getting posse. You know, we're the coolest guys ever. And these are all guys in their 30s and they're fucking 30s. And if you're like, if your friends are still impressed by you having sex in your 30s, it's like it's because none of you have ever had sex before.

If you're like, if you're high fiving your friends, you're like, yes, you got laid last night. It's on my 38th birthday, dude. Woo! And then that's why they went into politics. Yeah. That kind of is like the federal house of representatives is for people who couldn't have a job anywhere else.

The state house is for people who couldn't have sex anyway else. Yes. Like even less functional. Yeah. But a feature of the Harry Potter, it was based on Quidditch. Like that's how fucking lame these guys are.

Like just in addition to being criminals, this is how fucking lame they are. It was based on Quidditch, because apparently there was one woman who was a married, a fellow politician in Florida. And she wasn't named in any of the reporting, thank God. But apparently if you had sex with her, she was the quote snitch,

which means that it would like automatically win the game. No matter how many points anyone else had accrued for themself. If you bedded this one woman, then you won the game. So I mean like, this is the mentality here. And I, okay, like let's, another element of the Matt Gaetz story is that this allegation about him

and this 17 year old girl only came to light because of another ongoing investigation into this guy, Joel Greenberg, who like I said was a, he was like some sort of tax collector there, tax official tax collector from Seminole County, Florida with close ties to Matt Gaetz. Just a bit from this story here,

just from Gizmodo. During a 2020 audit of his spending during his time as Seminole County's tax collector, investigators found that Greenberg had prepaid $65,860 to an entity called Government Blockchain Systems, LLC, which his office was the sole member of. When question about... I have to say, you were talking about conspiracy

of 70 IQ people. This guy was like, oh, the government can't prosecute me for child porn if I call my company the government. It's part of it. They have to hire me and then I make double the money. When questioned about why such an LLC existed in the first place, Greenberg told auditors that he had been creating a new method for his office

to quote, accept cryptocurrency as payments. Yeah, that's a cryptocurrency as payments. So like, yeah, you heard that rightly. He was trying to figure out a way that you could pay your taxes in Florida in Bitcoin. So that you could go from having paid X amount of taxes and then like two weeks later, you paid twice as much in taxes.

That sounds great. Wonderful idea. Florida prosecutors are apparently not buying those claims about a new payment system. And on Wednesday, filed the second supersetting indictment against Greenberg for embezzling $400,000 to purchase cryptocurrency for himself, wire fraud, and bribery.

In addition to his first indictment, which included charges of harassment and stalking a political opponent and his first supersetting incident, which included one charge of human trafficking, several charges of aggravated identity theft and misuse of driver's license info. Greenberg is now facing a total of 33 charges. Another interesting thing to the blockchain LLC

is that he built with this money, a Bitcoin mining rig that overheated and burned down a government building or caused fire damage to a government building. And I mean, by all accounts, he was using this Bitcoin shit for child pornography and human trafficking. What, wait a minute. Bitcoin used for child pornography?

That doesn't sound right. Yeah, that's, the other like funny thing about paying your taxes in Bitcoin is like taxes, that's the, if you hide your identity in anything, that's it. You want to be totally anonymous when paying your taxes. You don't want the government to know that you're the one paying those taxes.

So they keep asking you for them. Yeah. Oh man. All right, let's, one more, one more Tucker clip I think. Again, I only know what I've read in the New York Times. I can say that actually you and I went to dinner about two years ago, your wife was there and I brought a friend of mine, you'll remember her.

And she was actually threatened by the FBI, told that if she wouldn't cop to the fact that somehow I was involved in some pay for play scheme that she could face trouble. And so I do believe that there are people at the Department of Justice who are trying to smear me, you know, providing for flights and hotel rooms for people that you're dating who are of legal age

is not a crime. And I'm just troubled that the lack of any sort of legitimate investigation into me would then permute, would then convert into this extortion attempt. I don't remember the woman you're speaking of or the context at all on the fly, I eat that. Oh my God, he's just trying to fucking, he's just trying to get some co-defendants

in this trial here. Tucker, we fucked the same girl, remember? Remember we were both wearing those goat masks. It was in that chapel underneath the Capitol building. Tucker, there's a young man that we both know, his name is Amidala and he's a great one. And remember, we brought that sixth grader to him and he consumed it and birthed another great one.

Do you remember that, Tucker? Tucker, you're at the blood ceremony. Molok actually called me about this, but what the FBI is doing to me. Chris, what's the thing about Matt Gates' father being involved in some horrible tragedy or like a causing one? Okay, yeah.

Gates' grandfather, Stanley Jerome Jerry Gates was the mayor of Rugby, North Dakota and a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota at the 1964 North Dakota Republican State Party Convention. And he apparently like died of a heart attack during a speech. It's from a, my family's been here a long time. Well, yeah, no, it just, that's why Gates should be

president, like grandfather dies of speech during a convention, dad is like, we're leaving this place, there's a bad energy, we're going to move into the Truman Show House. And then the son is who he is. And that's like, you know, should serve life in prison while also being like a representative figure, like not royal family, but like mascot.

Like if you come from another country to, to not just Florida's fourth house district, but like pretty much any of it, it's like you get to meet him and like take pictures of with him. And then he has to go back to his cell and we have to end the bloodline. Some more, some more highlights here from Joel Greenberg.

I mean, he was a much beloved subject of central Florida journalism. This is just like a collection of headlines about Joel Greenberg that someone collected. Seminole County tax collector accused of impersonating police officer. Tax collector, indicted, charged with stalking. Feds, Greenberg regularly stole IDs.

Seminole tax collector, Joel Greenberg accused of soliciting hacker to attack County computers. Seminole tax collector, Joel Greenberg asked for professional courtesy after ticketed for speeding. Joel Greenberg resigns as Seminole County tax collector. I, he was just getting started. That's bullshit. He was forced out.

Greenberg, please not guilty to trafficking accused of using state-based database to look up minors. Oh my God. Oh, Jesus Christ. I mean, it's just like, it's just fucking like, it's just like this guy, Cuomo, it's just like everyone who's involved in politics, who's a man is like a fucking absolute,

just like sex freak. These guys should be all be chemically castrated if they want to seek office. Well, why would you run for office now? Like at this point, you know, if you have a brain of any kind, not even a significantly good one, that you're not going to do anything.

Like all of the traditional reasons to run for office don't exist. The only reason is to do not even power fantasies because there's no power there. Just like sick performance of power. You're just a little pervert. You have to be. Yeah, I think like for someone like Joe Biden,

you get elected because, you know, you get to do more handshakes, like his favorite part of the whole deal. Yeah, he just loves going to pancake breakfasts. Yeah, pancake breakfasts. Yeah, you know, you get to take the Sarah poem sometimes. Yeah, he loves people like having to listen to him. But yeah, for someone like Matt Gaetz, that's what this is.

I mean, I feel like we've only like scratched the surface of like this guy's life and his life in crimes. But what do you think? Is there anything more here? I'm looking forward to him being exonerated. Yeah, I guess that's the thing to say is that it must be remembered that he will not go anywhere unless he is actually charged and indicted in some way.

He's not going anywhere. He will probably, he'll be there in that office till he wants to leave until he gets filled with some sort of like hot air ballooning with a crocodile accident. He'll be the first person over the age of like three to die by jamming a fork into an electrical outlet. Or one of those like jet ski accidents

where you fall off the back and the jet blows your fucking asshole out of your mouth or something. Oh yeah, no, however Matt Gaetz dies, he's going to be vaporized. Oh, 100%. Like there's like no, no casket at that funeral. Like he's just going to be a fucking pile of red mist.

That's not a guy who has like, you know, dies alone in his bed or surrounded by his family or like, you know, gets shot or something. It's like, that's a guy who's like driving and experimental the boat. Yeah, no, he's going to, he's going to like be doing a TikTok dance into the back of a fan boat and just get dissolved.

Yeah, yeah, that grandfather who had the heart attack at the convention. That's like the last member of the Gaetz family who had like an open casket funeral. It was nothing but ignominious deaths after that. I just like, I guess the last thing I want to say is like the other interesting angle to this is the sort of the, like his fellow Trumpists

and sort of like, like the neo-Nazi fucking like the online people have sort of like taken up his case as just like, basically defending him by saying even if the allegations are true, he did nothing wrong because there's nothing wrong with like a 38 year old man having a sexual relationship with a 17 year old because like that's what they did in Europe in the grand old times of Western civilization.

And then like, one of the things that was at that fucking like that little neo-Nazi rat was just like, I'm concerned with the real child abuse that's being done by elites. And it was just like, how old do you think Epstein's victims were? Like what the fuck, like, what are you talking about here? Are they just keep talking about how like, you know,

like it's technically not a crime. And it's just like, yeah, like if he was 23 at the time, like there are sliding scales for like the age difference here sort of matters in terms of the law, then the age of consent in Florida is 18, but he was in his 30s apparently when this was happening. It's just like a good percentage of like the online right is obsessed with the idea of like,

like sort of ferreting out degeneracy in other peoples and other people. And I think to them degeneracy means having a normal sexual relationship with an adult that's not like paid for in any way, like that to them is like the most sickening thing that they can imagine. Like that is what true perversion is. Like the guys who have, you know, like child anime avatars

who are fucking obsessed with the idea that like gay people are some sort of like irredeemable perverts or something like that. Well, yeah, a relationship that's, that has like an equivalent power dynamic is no good. It's all, yeah, it's the yellow king. They need to be like sexual conquerors cause just like their ancestors.

I mean, that is the weird thing with all of this is like, this is exactly like, you know, this is exactly like a Democrat would do this. Like they all do the same thing just with like different details. Like with Gates, it involves like some fucking Bitcoin moron. But with like a Democrat, it involves like a guy who makes fucking bullshit apps that don't work.

It just they, that they all do the same thing and want the same thing. It just involves like different, different social components. Because yeah, no, there's no, these are all essentially the same people. All right, let's see if it there and get Ken Klutz. All right.

All right. I'll see who's gonna get there. Okay, joining us now and what is somehow his very first appearance on Joppo, it is of course investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept. Ken, what's up? Hey, good to be with you guys. All right. So, Ken, you've obviously done, you're killing it on the reporting tip, but like recently

this past week, you've had a lot of stuff about Amazon, the wonderful company that's responsible for all of the good things in our lives being brought to our doors directly. And you know, everyone loves working there apparently. So my first question for you, Ken, you don't really believe that Amazon employs pee and bottles, do you? Well, I didn't believe that it was happening to the extent that it was. I mean, there had been reports previously. I wasn't the first person by any means to report on that they were having to urinate

in bottles. But when I put out a call for tips, my phone quickly became unusable because so many people were texting and calling with these accounts. And what I found was that this is actually something so many of them do, that there were people that said, I don't take a single drive out to deliver something where I'm not urinating in a bottle in order to meet my quota, and Amazon has these really bruising quotas. Yeah. You're right here.

It goes quite beyond peeing and bottles, and I'll apologize to the listener. You're right here. The practice these documents show was known to management, which identified it as a recurring infraction, but did nothing to ease the pressure that caused it. In some cases, employees even defecated in bags. So I mean, Amazon, they're distracting you with the peeing and bottles thing because they don't want you to know about the shitting in bags thing. Yeah.

In one case, I got an email from an area manager that was leaked to me that said, quote, this evening an associate discovered human feces in an Amazon bag that was returned to station by a driver. It was the third occasion in the last two months when bags have been returned to station with poop inside. We understand that DAs, that drivers associates may have emergencies, but it kind of goes on to say, don't get caught doing this kind of thing. So this was way more commonplace than I had realized coming into it.

You also write here, while Amazon technically prohibits the practice, documents characterize it as a tier one infraction, which employees can say can lead to termination. Manager said that this was disingenuous since they can't meet their quotas otherwise. They give us 30 minutes of paid breaks, but you will not finish your work if you take it, no matter how fast you are. One Amazon delivery employee based in Massachusetts told me. That's what people mean when they say tier one operator. But it's this totally perverse system where the management would have you believe, oh,

we have plenty. We give you ample time to defecate and urinate if need be. But if you use that time, there's no way that you can fulfill your quota for deliveries or tasks to be performed of a debt. Yeah. Amazon, they put it on apology this weekend, a kind of half apology. And sort of the tenor of it was sometimes when people are out in rural areas, what can you do?

There's nothing out there. And occasionally this will happen. That's absolutely not the case. I had so many people in urban areas describing to me just the amount of deliveries they had to make in a quota that there were plenty of bathrooms around. And technically, yeah, in theory, they could go and take a bathroom break, but then they're not going to meet their quota and they might get fired for that. So it's really misleading what they're saying.

This comes, of course, like in the midst of this huge PR push by Amazon as it relates to this union drive that's going on in a Bessemer, Alabama-based fulfillment center. I mean, what do you know about the state of that union drive at that facility right now? Yeah. So I think what all this shows us is these crazy statements that Genesis of all this was Representative Mark Pocan calling on them to treat their workers with more dignity and mentioning the urinating bottles thing, which as I said before, that had been reported. And Amazon replies, you don't really believe that, do you?

And that was kind of the start of all this. And then I started having these kind of clap backs to Senator Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, other elected officials. And what I'm told from people on both the corporate side, or particularly people on the corporate side, is that this is born of a lot of anxiety about that vote and that these kind of false steps, these uncharacteristic face plants on the part of the comms department that is very well funded. And people in the comms department were telling me this too, there were some dissonant figures

there saying that a lot of this is because they're terrified of that vote and the fact that they think it is something that could succeed and that that's why they're having all these sort of crazy overreactions. I mean, from their perspective, though, what would that vote succeeding look like for them? I mean, the thing is, it's almost like foreign policy where it is just one fulfillment center, but the idea is the example that it sends to all the other ones. Because you know, Bessemer, this is a place in the deep South that, you know, in recent history has been pretty hostile to organized labor.

The thought is not, I think they can deal with having one place be unionized, but the thought is, oh God, there are other union votes in other states too. So for example, people are trying to unionize in Chicago of Amazon fulfillment center. And so the idea is that these other states in environments a lot more friendly or less unfriendly organized labor, they might start organizing too. So it's the fear of a bad example from their perspective. And you brought it up, but what about for the employees themselves, like on the floor of this Bessemer facility?

Like what would a being able to form a union mean to them? Like probably a lot more than what it would be for some Jay Carney or whatever. Yeah, that was one of the most interesting parts of researching the story. I interviewed dozens of people. In any story, you usually have a range of views. You know, some people are more angry, others are maybe more conciliatory, but this one was almost uniform. And what was interesting is the language wasn't very overtly political in the sense of, you

know, people weren't really talking about Democrats or Republicans is kind of like, if we don't get this through, we literally are not going to be able to last at this job because the quotas keep getting worse. And one thing that was described to me is under the coronavirus pandemic deliveries became even harder because, you know, we don't have much of a government logistic system to, you know, deliver things that people need. So they're reliant on these private corporations. And so apparently they had to pick up a lot of the slack things got way worse and just

they physically can't do it anymore. And so that to me, it's like, well, finally, we would have some kind of exhaust valve where we can express the fact that like we cannot keep like this is it's just too bruising on your, you know, body and it just desperation. Yeah. With union protection, it would mean that they could physically do the job that they're hired to do. Right.

Right. You mentioned the way that they've been sort of clapping back and elected representatives and it's just like, like I said, this is very bizarre PR push and like this is being done by Amazon executives. We mentioned the other week, this guy, David Clark, who's like, you know, these are not bots or like hired PR people. I mean, these are like high up people at the company that are taking it upon themselves to personally defend Amazon from critics and by critics, I mean, you know, their employees,

but also Bernie Sanders and like elected politicians. Like what are some of the ways that they've been responding to Bernie in particular? Yeah. What's interesting about one of the internal documents that got leaked to me, it had a code name. It's code name Veritas. That's the name of their program for how they are using the, and these are not bots. These are actually paid individuals that they, you know, have go online and they all have

the same, it's mandated from on top that they, you know, have their Twitter profiles all look the same. And there's, there's a really funny quote in here where they're like, if maybe if we add a picture of an emoji of a box, it could give them a little bit of personality, a little bit of flair. It's like the box factory on this. Do any of these boxes have candy in them? No.

Will they ever? No, we only make boxes to ship nails. Everyone loves boxes, don't they? If we got some personality and flair to these accounts by putting a cardboard box in the name, I am, I would not, I would have tried to suppress that a lot that these are real people. Like, I, yeah, that would, I was really hoping they were bots. This, it's almost like, this is like, this is like the parlor thing where they're asking

for like a liberal cook to come over and get yelled at. And I wanted to do like a face shit there and put like no less than $300,000. As a man of principle, I would write better posts for half a million dollars. Like they did a terrible job. This has to be just like that, uh, the orb center where all the Saudi guys work, right? It's like, this is like a Saudi Israeli team trying to be like, I'm a regular American. Uh, I love seeing my two to five kids and like, I just like unions, you get paid too much.

It's bad. It kind of, it reminds me, it's like a Philip Dick novel. It's almost worse that there, I mean, the distinction breaks down. If you can't tell the difference between Android and real human being, if the human beings have become so, um, much like a Tomata and robotic that you can't differentiate between the two, there's the, there's no meaningful distinction anymore. Yeah. Sort of horrifying in itself.

Yeah. I mean, I want to talk about the, the ambassadors though, but like, in particular though, like, like, like Bernie Sanders, um, and like the way they've been sniping at him to be like, oh, well, you know, uh, you've been, you've been calling for a $15 minimum wage, but we actually pay a $15 minimum wage. Like that. Like we're, we're delivering on like, on, on creating a progressive workspace in the way that politicians only talk about doing.

Yeah. One thing that that actually, um, rubbed a lot of people the wrong way that reached out to me, particularly in the fulfillment centers, because they said that Amazon relies on such a large contractor workforce that a lot of them don't actually enjoy the formal, you know, benefits of Amazon since they're technically contractors. So the $15 thing in itself is pretty misleading because it's tons of people that they're contracting out to. Um, but speaking to that, um, program in particular, what's interesting about this, uh, codenamed

veritas thing, um, was that it, what we're seeing happening now in this, uh, this, this veritas program was conceived of in 2018 reflects very closely with that document. I would encourage people to, to look at the document. Um, it reflects very closely what's happening now because it instructed the, uh, this kind of posting paramilitary that Amazon had to go on there and do these kind of sassy clap backs at like, um, Bernie Sanders in particular, like they used Bernie's name and his tweets as examples, like, I don't know, maybe a dozen times in the, in the documents. And, um, one example that they had that I thought was pretty insane was, um, it had

an individual Bernie, I posted a video interviewing someone who had worked at, um, one of the fulfillment centers and it says, quote, um, Bernie Sanders interviewing Seth King on prime day, Seth describes feeling so depressed working at Amazon that he wanted to take his own life. And so, um, it then shows an ambassador kind of role playing saying, here's what I might say to respond. He says, quote, Senator Sanders, this job has never made me feel bad personally. If you have a job that makes you feel bad, you could leave.

And I was just thinking, wait, this is what they're instructing from the same. Oh my God. Oh geez. Yeah. If your job makes you want to kill yourself, get a new job. It's pretty simple. Um, there's some other good ones that you found, like, um, in terms of, uh, they also take very personally the idea of like bringing up Jeff Bezos and his personal wealth.

Cause, you know, like, that's the thing Sanders will talk about, like, you know, you're worth more money than like has basically ever existed in human history is like in your checking account, basically. Um, so like what, you know, what, what, like, what, how would it hurt you to like have like decent working conditions for your employees? And you know, like the sort of program responses that they're counseling these brand ambassadors to, uh, use is like, uh, I think, you know, everyone is entitled to like all the money that they've earned and saved.

They can spend it however they want and it's no one else's business. Like this idea that Jeff Bezos has personally earned all that fucking money. Yeah, exactly. And that's what the responses, I mean, there were like half a dozen response, uh, examples given to people on how to, um, how to clap back at people saying that Bezos didn't earn his money. And it just speaks to like how tone deaf, because again, when I was talking to people at the fulfillment center level, the, you know, frustration and discontent was uniform

at the corporate level. Even the whistleblowers within there was a lot more, I don't know, it was a lot more complicated. And maybe it was like, yeah, we don't really like, this is sort of embarrassing. You know, this is embarrassing the brand. It was, it was, it wasn't as clear of the frustration, but it, it speaks to a culture that I think is really out of touch with reality on a fundamental level. Where do these, where do these like box emoji brand ambassadors come from?

Because like, you know, as we talked about, like the disturbing idea is that these are not bots. These are not algorithmically generated responses. There are actual people who I mean, like, are these Amazon employees? Like, is there any indication that any of these people work actually in these fulfillment centers when they say things like, it's great, we have four bathrooms, I can use them whenever I want. Yeah.

So according to the documents, um, they were handpicked for their quote, a great sense of humor. And, um, if you kind of read the subtext of how they're describing, how they pick these folks, it seems like they're picking these, they want this kind of like sassy sort of like a wine mom tone kind of thing. I don't know how else to describe it. Um, and they, uh, it's kind of interesting because they describe a number of ways they conducted a pilot study, which they kind of, uh, tellingly say, you know, it might be

best if we pick people that haven't been here for very long because they tend to be more enthusiastic. They still have a life within them somehow that we haven't, we haven't literally sucked it out of their fucking heads yet. Exactly. And so they describe a number of different, uh, ways that they can kind of source these guys. And one of them was, it was almost like the military draft, this idea that they would

have a rotation, everyone would have their rotation where they would go and do their tour of duty and then, uh, be there for a few months, campaign. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Um, but yeah, these are all real people. I couldn't find anything of documents that suggested that anything was automated. I think these are real, all real employees.

Oh God, that's just so grim, just the idea that you don't just have to work for a faceless corporate monster ruled over by a lizard man who's the richest person in history, but you have to, you have to not only like it, you have to tell other people how much you like it. I mean, I guess like when I'm thinking about this, like, you know, what is it, is Amazon is what like a trillion dollar company can? Yeah. I think the estimates vary, but I mean, it seems like it's almost one and a half trillion

at this point. These are some self past the trillion point, so, you know, it's certainly a colossus, but okay. So like, you know, you're talking about a corporation that dwarfs the GDP of like most nation states on the planet. And like, if, you know, in thinking about this like new model of like mega corporate, like almost like, yeah, nation states, like like nations unto themselves, like what is the character of these states?

And the funny thing about it is that like, you know, these, these hyper capitalist organizations in, in becoming states or a sense like for all intents and purposes states, the characteristics that of, of like states that they resemble are like caricatures of what these same people would describe like the Toletarian's communist countries as, where like, yeah, like everybody has to praise leader and you know, like, like work makes a work makes a strong like bathroom breaks are for, are for traders and betrayers. And like that has to take on this like this, this happy attitude of like, we, you know, we love being reeducated.

It's good for us. Yeah. Let me, I want to read a couple example clap backs that I think speak to this, I don't know, DPRK equality to all this, because that's what I was thinking too. One of them says, show someone saying, when is Amazon going to distance itself from Alex Jones is a hell of a thing to ask of a company happily and publicly grinding its low level employees to dust, and so then it shows a example response brushes dust off my shoulder. Looks like I'm still standing strong here at Amazon robotic FC.

That's fulfilling. And then another one, I like this one, peeing in trash cans, constant surveillance and asthma attacks on the job. Amazon workers tell us their warehouse horror stories and then responses, I work for Amazon and not sure about other facilities, but I've never felt pressure to pee in a trash can. And it goes on as for the smell, Amazon does sell deer urine that hunters use and then it has a little smile emoji. That's where it's coming from.

These are the example. This is the sense of humor that they want. Yeah. It's, yeah, this is like, I mean, I guess it is a sense of humor. It's like guy making the one girl in the ventrilo server uncomfortable in 2003. Like you said, you've talked to like, you know, like, um, like warehouse workers, um, and these fulfillment centers, but you've also talked to, uh, people in corporate management like these sort of like, you know, anonymous sources as well.

I mean, what, what do you, just in terms of like, like, uh, their grievances about the company or the way they talk to you or their attitude about like labor issues, do you see any interesting contrasts in these two groups of people who are reaching out to you for these stories? Yeah. As one would expect, um, the, the corporate side is more, you know, PMC, they, uh, I think they're sympathetic to the unions in a way that I don't think I would have seen a few years ago talking to the same types of people, I think.

So the, uh, this, this sympathy is more, um, you know, variegated and it's a little bit more complicated, but they, what's funny is literally every one of those at the corporate level I talked to, while the critiques varied, they all thought that the ambassador program was insane and none of them, every one of them thought that these replies to Sanders and Warren and the other elected officials, they thought that was crazy, um, actually to put out those statements, my understanding based on a bunch of talks with people on the corporate side and even in the comms department was that they actually bypassed it. Um, they didn't get sign off like they normally do.

They have a protocol where they have to have, you know, comms people sign off on these sort of statements. And, um, as I said before, uh, very toss says that they should do these clap backs at elected officials. So, um, my understanding is this is coming from someone very high up in the senior executives, uh, that just sort of rammed this through. It's Jeff Bezos himself, um, well, I, I couldn't, I couldn't get insight into who it was specifically that certainly, you know, consistent with the level of seniority of the person that,

that, you know, I was being told that it was that pushed this stuff through. Well, I mean, you mentioned at the beginning of this interview, um, well, as soon as you put out a call for like, uh, uh, tips or like, you know, anyone who wants to talk to you about, about what's going on in these facilities, I mean, your phone became unusable. So, I mean, what do you think that tells you about like the, uh, the gap between what's being sold about how, how happy everyone is to be an employee of Amazon and the reality? Oh, it's enormous. And it's funny because, I mean, they call it very toss because it's kind of like, we're

telling the truth from people inside that actually do the job. It's, it's tribute to, um, James O'Keefe and projects. Yeah. It's funny cause, so you were comparing it to a nation state before, the thing that reminded me of most, I do a lot of national security reporting, it reminded me of the intelligence community. Cause not only did they have these code names for these different programs, they even compartmented them.

And when they talked to other people that were fairly high up in the company, they'd be like, um, you know, curious about what I was telling them and they're like, what can you find out about very toss? And I was just thinking, this guy is like pretty high up. How does he not know about this program? And it quickly became clear that they had compartmented it so that only certain people know only certain things. It reminded me very much of covering the FBI or the Defense Department or something like

that. And of course they do a lot of contracting for those same sorts of groups. So I wouldn't be surprised if they learned some things in terms of tradecraft. So for the, uh, for the, for the, for the fulfillment center, like workers, like the people packing boxes, the people who, you know, we've reached stories about, um, having to step over a dead body of a, of a coworker, because, you know, if they had, if they noticed like a dying or dead human being, that would, um, perhaps be a tier one in fraction. Do you get a sense like what, what, what do these, what are their demands of like the

public at large, you know, because obviously like Amazon has grown even more into even more of a Leviathan under COVID as people do more of their shopping online and using Amazon as like, you know, what is this kind of like this gigantic national and global infrastructure for the delivery of goods and services that, you know, people do need for the people working in these fulfillment centers who are like, you know, it's, it's their lives, it's their souls, it's their, you know, bodies that are being like thrown into this effort to get you the shit that you want in a day. What do they want?

Do you get a sense of like what they want from the public at large in terms of their attitude towards Amazon and their, or their use of Amazon as like a convenience? Yeah. One of the most horrifying things about researching this was hearing again and again from them, wait, the public is surprised by this? This is so much a part of my everyday life having to do these dehumanizing things. I mean, there are multiple stories. You can go and look them up.

It's been reported multiple times drivers running out of their cars and shitting in someone's lawn because they just couldn't hold it in anymore and it getting caught on like a, you know, house surveillance system or something. So they were like, I didn't, they were kind of surprised that people didn't realize how bad it was. And then angry that the company was lying about it because they thought that this was taken for granted because it's so much a part of their everyday life to, you know, speak to what they'd like.

I mean, a lot of them seem to open to union stuff, but they also seemed so just worn down by the day to day work. They didn't really have much time to think about how to, you know, what they would like in terms of response. They would just like it to stop and be able to continue doing the job in a dignified way. And, you know, when I asked about union stuff, they seemed open to it and supportive, but it just didn't, they seemed so busy and overwhelmed that it may not have even been at the front

of their minds. But I mean, like specifically, like I've seen over the past couple of months or whatever, these sort of wildcat demands for like a boycott of Amazon by consumers that are not necessarily, you know, endorsed by or, you know, sought after by like these union organizers. Like, I mean, what do you say to like any, like that sort of any contradiction between those two things? I think that the attitude they have is like anything, all of the above, let's do it. Like, they don't, there's not the kind of hesitancy that you see at the corporate or

even mid-level management level of being like, oh, I don't know about this. They're more just like anything, let's try something right now because we need something desperately. I mean, I guess like just like zooming out a bit, like, I mean, like obviously the stuff about urinating in bottles and shitting in bags is like, you know, it's, it's terrifying but it's also kind of funny because, you know, like, you know, what's funnier than like internal corporate documents, you know, dictating their policy on like shitting in bags or not. But like on a more frightening kind of like existential level, I mean, isn't this kind

of a story about like capitalism, you know, pushing past the limits of like what the human body can endure because I mean, like we, you know, the, you need human beings to perform these tasks but like our bodies are very nature is sort of bounded by these like, you know, the physical processes and limit like sleep and, you know, defecation and you need to eat food and water that like that limit our ability to like keep feeding this giant machine. And like it's just like, like, like Amazon is a thing just sort of is becoming to represent this kind of technological Leviathan that is pushing past human life and the like limits of what a human being can endure.

Yeah, going back to the Philip Dick theme, you know, these jobs have been automated. But what does that mean if the jobs essentially force you to become a robot and deny your, you know, basic human needs? I mean, that's this is clearly the blueprint for, you know, what international corporate power wants going forward. And you know, I mean, some of the footage that exists in these Amazon facilities, I mean, these workers are working basically side by side with robots already. Exactly.

And they use that as a cudgel where it's like, Oh, you don't want to do this. You have, you know, you think you should have some dignity. Well, we might replace you with these machines. I mean, this debate about our machines more efficient, it's always aside the point. It doesn't matter if they're more efficient, they just use it to crush labor. Like they I'm sure they don't care if it costs more money as long as in the long run, they're able to, you know, terrify labor into doing what they want. Are tips still coming in for you about this Amazon story?

Like you think that this is not going away anytime soon? Yeah. I think that it is becoming, it was, it's become a useful way to like get people to look at labor stuff. Because while Amazon is obviously, as you said, this Leviathan, they're countless of the companies in their apology. They said, all these other companies do this to just try to say it's okay that we're dehumanizing people like this.

It's like, it's like, well, that's not good. So hopefully this gets people to think about, and you know, I was one of them. I didn't realize how bad it was. I didn't realize there were tons of people doing this on a daily basis. So hopefully this becomes a sort of blueprint for people to talk about the labor struggle going forward, because it's not just Amazon. I mean, they set the frame for, you know, all these other smaller firms. I mean, and they're seeking to replace all of those all, I mean, like all those other

small firms. I mean, like, I mean, they, like, isn't Amazon sort of model is that they want to be everything? Yeah. I think any reasonable person that looks at it sees that this is a, I mean, it's not just a monopoly. It's sort of like a super monopoly. I mean, has anything else in history been able to coordinate? Not just the production side, but even the logistics of delivery as well.

I don't think that's with precedent. So like, you know, as this, this, yeah, this corporate Leviathan, this trillion dollar nation state continues to grow, I mean, like, it just, it's funny though, I mean, like, as powerful as they are, I mean, like, what your story shows is that, like, in spite of all of that, like, this is the best attempt that they've been able to muster to cover their own asses. I mean, like, I mentioned this last time we talked about it, I mean, like, on the one hand, that's encouraging, but on the other hand, it's also kind of terrifying because

it shows that they don't really care or have to care about, like, how they are perceived by the public. I thought it was encouraging. I don't think it's that they don't care. My impression, especially when talking to the corporate guys, is that they're extremely worried about it. And the extent to which this has been an incompetent response is not because they didn't put in a lot of thought, it's because they are profoundly out of touch with reality.

They're sitting around with other people that are just, you know, kind of like the, we're going to go to brunch type people. And they're so removed from what any ordinary person thinks that it's, you see this, again, in foreign policy a lot, where, you know, heads of state will do these deeply irrational things. You're like, how does that work? But then once you start interviewing people, you realize, oh, these guys are surrounded by a cadre of yes men that just nods at any idea they have.

And that explains how you get to the point that they have these crazy replies that, you know, drive an entire news cycle. So, you know, they have virtually infinite resources, but it's kind of like an aircraft carrier. It's huge, but it turns very slowly. And so I think they do have some structural weaknesses that come with just being ultra wealthy and out of touch. It does make you wonder how, you know, what, what, what the implications of that are?

Because yes, they, they feel the need to respond to this stuff, but they also have no frame of reference for a human interaction, a human relatability to be able to, to communicate. But at the same time, there's hard to, it's hard to imagine there being consequence for that lack of understanding, like the very fact that they are so removed is, is sort of generated by their unaccount, the lack of accountability that they have in their, in their life, because it is, it's the, it's the, what are you going to do? It's Amazon. What are you going to?

Oh, you know, oh, they're peeing in bottles. Do you want a fucking box? Do you want nose hair trimmers in 24 hours or not? This is the deal you, we have made. And I think they, they probably back to the wall would fall back on just the knowledge that, that we're essentially unable to imagine life without them at this point. Okay. Finally, I mean, the one, the one last like thread to this Amazon story that I find fascinating

is like, how does it reflect on the Obama years as the like, you know, height of progressivism in America that his press secretary went on to be Amazon's press secretary, like Jay Carney, the guy who loves guided by voices and slandering the employees of his own company who would prefer not to die on the job. I think it heightens a lot of contradictions about the environment administration that people had. If you don't examine it too closely, you think, oh yeah, it's kind of, you know, progressivism is probably pro labor and you look at it really closely, like really, no, he's not.

He was a very pro business, pro markets type guy, to such an extent that I think you could distinguish him from a lot of other sort of centered Democrats. That being said, Jay Carney has not changed. She's the same person he always was. People are starting to notice it now because of these sorts of conflicts and, you know, I know a lot of people in Democrat world and they're kind of saying like, this is embarrassing. Jay's kind of blowing our thing up because we got to, you know, eat out for free on this idea that, oh, they're sort of progressive, whatever that means.

Yeah. I guess that probably means they're pro labor. And now you've got him out there talking about these things and making it very clear that it's like, no, they're not, you know, maybe they pay lip service to some kind of, you know, liberal ideas, but in any meaningful sense, they're anti labor. And so again, same guy, but people are starting to notice it. It seems like, And you know who they could use?

Jim Messina. What's he doing these days? They could get him. If they hired Jim Messina, like the entire country is unionizing. Yeah. We're going to go to like finished levels of labor penetration if he's put in charge. Yeah. You will, the moment you're conceived, you're in a union if he starts working for Amazon.

The thing, the funny thing about him, his replies are just as ridiculous as all the other Amazon replies, but he begins it with, with all due respect, Senator. It isn't that the most, I'm just thinking of the Sopranos with all due respect, like no difference other than that, other than that one little thing. Yeah. He's more polite. That's what you get. That's the Obama difference.

Yeah. Democrat advantage is that they say please and thank you before they make you empty your bladder into a Coke can at gunpoint. All right. Ken Clippenstein of the Intercept. I would like to thank you very much for joining us and for all your reporting on this. Yes. Good talking to you guys.

Cheers, Ken. Thank you, Ken. All right. Nice seeing you guys. Take care. Thank you. Thank you.