Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - 4/29/17 - Charlie Warzel Talks Alex Jones Custody Battle

Episode Date: April 29, 2017

A jury in Austin has given Alex Jones' ex-wife, Kelly, joint custody of their three children. They also decided that the children, aged 9, 12, and 14 years old, should make their primary residence at their mother's home. Buzzfeed writer Charlie Warzel joins Jeffy to discuss the trial and share insight. You can follow Charlie on Twitter @cwarzelFollow Jeffy on Twitter: @JeffyMRALike Jeffy on Facebook: www.facebook.com/JeffFisherRadioFollow Jeffy on Instagram: @jeffymra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Blaze Radio Network On Demand. 2017 is going to be a volatile economic year. We may see politicians throughout the world attempting to control central bank policies. Several renowned financial analysts have warned that political interference in central bank policies may mean our economic misses of inflation and growth targets. Gold is an international currency that can't be issued or controlled by governments. If you don't have the only hard currency that has outlasted every politician

and every failed idea of governments for centuries, you need to speak to Goldline right now and learn how easy it is to add gold to your portfolio or IRA. Now is the time to diversify your financial portfolio by adding gold. Call 1-800-913 gold. Buying real gold is easy and fast at Goldline. And you're going to be happy that you finally made the call. 1-800-913-4653.

Goldline also offers price protection against short-term market fluctuations on qualifying purchases, so buy with confidence. Read Goldline's important risk information and find out a buying gold is right for you. Call Goldline, 1-800-913-4653. Welcome to it. You can always follow me on Twitter at Jeffie MRA and my guest, Charlie Warzel. You can follow him at C. Warzel on Twitter. Charlie, you had a fascinating last 10, 11 days of your life following the Alex Jones trial down in Austin, Texas.

I did. Welcome to the broadcast. Thanks for having me How in the world are you? Are you making out okay with Alex Being that close to Alex for 10 days? Yeah You know

It was honestly Everything about the last 10 days Has been incredibly surreal But also Really illuminating In a way that you know I I almost

I don't know if I expected To be honest Really? Yeah I think I think you know The The reason why myself and a gaggle of other reporters kind of showed up was really around this premise of Alex's lawyers hinted at a defense of his custody of his three children under the sort of guys that everything he's done in his professional career has been political satire and performance.

I just a quick reminder that this was a custody battle that the jury came back Thursday night late. with the verdict. And it was a custody to be battled to do with their three kids. And Alex had custody, but he was, he had, he had, they had joint, I'm sorry, they had both had joint custody, but Alex had control and was able to divvy out the time that the wife got to see the kids. And so, right, right? So then this trial was for her to, A, get full custody or joint custody with her having control of the kids. Correct. And the judge ruled on the second of that, granting her joint custody with the ability to dictate

residents. And this is going to be, you know, before we get to the trial, I mean, I saw one of her posts, one of the feeds after the trial where she talked about parental alienation syndrome. I mean, if that's the case, I mean, if you actually believe that and we've seen it, you know, I mean, I do kind of believe it. You know, it's going to be tough because the other, the parent who's had the kids has just driven the other parent right into the ground. They didn't even want anything to do with her.

Right. You know, the whole sort of one of the main premises of this was that, I mean, A, as most of these custody things are, you know, they are both very nasty and, and. And also, in a way, you know, very sort of ordinary in the sense that, you know, you're dealing with sort of like the general issues of, you know, of parents and their kids and the conflicts and the, you know, the alliances and grievances. So it, but, but yeah, the parental alienation sort of charge against Alex was, was really kind of born out, sort of without saying so, of, you know, his, his personality that, that, that, that, we know in his public life. Right, and that leads us right. And that leads us right back into what they were going to do, how they were going to defend Alex for this trial. Right. Yeah. And so his legal team's defense was this performance art, political satire

defense, or that's sort of what they foreshadowed right at the start of the trial. And so that's really what led, I think, a lot of the media, the national media attention. You know, I came down and didn't really expect it to sort of blow up as big as it did in terms of interest from the national media. But I think what the alluring question here was was, can we sort of under oath get to see a separation of Alex Jones the person and Alex Jones the professional and how much of this stuff does he really believe? Yeah, because, I mean, for a long time, having been a, having been a fan of Alex, and I say fan, not really a fan, but more of looking at him as a sideshow, that he would, I mean, his belief was, this is me.

That's me. And so for him to have to say in court that it wasn't him, I mean, that puts a big cringe on his business. Yeah, there was this real, it was sort of a situation that, unless you were trying to, you know, settle a dispute over the custody of your children, you'd probably never find yourself in a situation where you would have to, where you'd have to, you know, argue that your career was based on something different. But I think that he, you know, that line sort of really disappeared after the first couple

days of the trial. It's, Alex sort of issued a very full-throated defense of Info Wars and what he does. he claimed 95% of it was hard news and that about, you know, 5% is this satire, which the media cherry picks and uses to, you know, dismiss him as a lunatic as a far fringe figure. And I can say someone who, for my job, has to watch a lot of info wars. I don't know if I agree with that character. I certainly don't. I'll guarantee you that. But he got lucky with the judge taking away the merging of InfoWars and himself, right?

I mean, she made that split that they couldn't use in court. Info Wars had to be separate and Alex was separate. So he kind of, in my estimation, I mean, he got lucky because he didn't have to make that statement then. He was able to say all the time, hey, Info Wars is completely separate. So, you know, it's real. Let me alone. It was honestly, I think, a really big shock to some of the legal professionals involved. And a lot of people who reached out to me in, you know, who were lawyers who dealt with family custody cases, not related to this sort of saying,

it's almost unheard of for someone's professional life to be taken out of context in a custody trial. I mean, that's the whole point, right? I mean, the point is, is that you're unable to care for the children because you do this. Right. And I think that, you know, it's not even, I understand with the initial impulse of, you know, you want to leave politics out of it. You don't want to say that, you know, so-and-so has these, you know, views about who should be an elected official. And, you know, if you're a Trump supporter or if you're a Bernie supporter, that means, you know, you deserve X amount of hours with your kids. That's a, that's a, you know, a very sort of hairy and sticky proposition, which the judge rightly wanted to keep out of.

But I think the general exclusion of almost anything having to relate to Info Wars under the justification that it's a political show. really sort of, you know, uh, sort of strips away a lot of, of what you, of what you can, you know, learn about and, and level at Alex. Who's, who's, you know, he's somebody who, if you spend a lot of time watching him, you see he broadcasts, uh, you know, videos from home or while he's driving in the car. He sort of, you know, he doesn't have that nine to five work life balance that, you know, some people might have.

His work in his life are very much intertwined. And look, in today's world, and, you know, somebody will say, no, that's not right. But I believe in today's world, if you're in the media, you know, the evil media, it is that way. Now, it isn't go to the office and sit down at the desk and say, good evening. It's six o'clock, time for the news. It just, you know, that just isn't a person's life anymore. Absolutely. And, you know, he has made a real name for himself over the past two decades being somebody who has sort of this monomaniacal obsession. Yep, and 24-7 with it.

That's right. Yeah. And InfoWars, you know, has that sort of, this is going to sound wrong for them. but it has that sort of CNN sort of cable news feel, you know, the high production value, the constant, you know, updates, the always going live. I mean, that's what they were, that's what they were going for. You know, just never mind the stories or whether you believe it or not. I mean, that's what they wanted, that 24-7 feel, and we're here for you 24-7 around the globe.

I mean, that's the deal. That's his life. It's really, it was really, it was hard for me to understand that as well. And I am in no way, you know, I only pretend to be an attorney. I'm not even close to me. So what's your biggest? So they, besides that, we talked to the, I saw some quotes from, you had an opportunity to talk to a couple of jurors. Yeah, yeah.

We caught up with them last night outside the courthouse, just a few. And their sense that I got was that Info Wars really wasn't a factor in this trial. in the sense of, you know, the judge got her wish, the court got its wish. And it was unclear how many of the jurors going in knew of him. The juror, the one juror I spoke with said it was a, you know, a roughly equal split of people who are somewhat familiar and not. Wow. But that deliberations really actually took so long. It was a nine and a half hour deliberation, which is abnormal for this kind of case.

it took so long, actually, because they both, the jury thought that both parents were actually pretty adequate guardians, and they wanted to make sure that they got that right. So it's really, there's a real disconnect that I noticed between sort of the narrative that had to play out inside the courtroom and what would happen when you would grab your phone and check on Twitter or see, you know, what people were commenting on outside. It was a real split. Alex is sort of this villain out in the world, and in the courtroom, he was presented as this dad who was, you know, devoted and perhaps, you know, a little colorful. But he's providing for his family and he was a good dad. And, you know, look, do I want to give him the benefit of the doubt? No. But, you know, it is possible, I guess.

you know i think that these things are are are very um i think that they're very complicated and i think that you know it's it's actually a very uh it's it's a dicey thing to to delve into somebody's uh family matters in this way but i i think i think at the end of the day there really was actually a bit of um the trial proved instructive to people who wanted to know more about him and especially to know more about whether he's the man that he is on camera when he's off camera. I think that we actually saw the people who stuck it out with me for the full nine days really saw that he maintains a lot of the same characteristics when the cameras aren't rolling that he has on air. Oh my gosh, which leads you to believe that it isn't a show. Charlie Worsle from

my BuzzFeed who covered the Alex Jones trial. Charlie down in Austin the last nine or 10 days covering the Jones trial. What was your I mean that's a fascinating takeaway when the judge

said that you know we're going to distinguish between no Info Wars and Alex away from Info Wars. Well I mean during the trial he was posting stuff on Info Wars. which was going against the gag order, right?

Yeah, so, you know, the press was kept, the press was kept kind of in the dark on that to some degree. We did get some snippets if you were leading close enough to the lawyers when they had to approach the bench talking about it. Okay. It appeared that sort of in the first, you know, the real media storm around this hit on the night before the trial when the Austin statesman, the one of the local papers here,

um, sort of broke the story that his lawyers were going to, you know, use this. Right. Use this defense. Performance art defense. So, you know, then the sort of, you know, Stephen Colbert ran with it and, uh, and sort of, you know, he became sort of like the butt of the internet and TV, late night TV jokes. Um, so, you know, Alex is someone who, when he's in the news, he has to respond. Uh, he has almost, you know, a, it's like breathing for him. And I think, that, you know, initially he put out a couple of, or I know he put out two initial videos calling, you know, the claims outrageous and saying it was a media attempt to discredit him and that he is who he is and, you know, I'm 100% real baby.

And I think that he was admonished for that. And those videos kind of took a different turn. They stopped being about the trial necessarily. and, you know, mentioning custody of his kids and sort of focused more on, I'm Alex Jones. You know, I'm a target. It's all on me. One of the things that came from this trial that I found very fascinating was the profitability of Alex Jones's company. More people involved with this damn info wars and making millions of dollars, I'm doing it wrong.

I don't know about you, Charlie. I mean, maybe you're doing it right, but when Alex Jones and the wife and the mom and dad are all making millions for selling tree bark supplements, I'm doing it wrong. Conspiracy is good business, I think, is one thing that we learned here. You know, there was, I believe at one point there was a report of, you know, roughly $40,000 a month or something to that degree, something very, very high being paid to his ex-wife. Plus he gave her, I think in the initial divorce there was reported that he gave her a $3 million on top,

three or four million on top of that, right? Yeah. And a few numbers, a few numbers trickled out, including at one point Alex's parents both testified on his behalf. and mentioned that the quote-unquote family business, which is a great way, I think, to refer to InfoWars. Yeah, no kidding. The family business netted them a couple of million of dollars, millions of dollars. And that's just, you know, his parents. I think his father has some stake in the business.

But it does sort of speak to the sort of, you know, InfoWars' finances aren't public. and he is uh he's placed those things pretty close to the vest but it needs you sort of these glimmers of insight into um yeah i mean i know i get the plan i mean i get the plan all the you know all the product that advertises on his radio tv internet and website is all his product and so that product you know just rolls back into the company i got i got the plan i'm just doing it wrong and i feel like an idiot there's still time there's still time to uh Start hawking the supplements, I think. Dad, is that you?

Charlie Worsle from Buzzfeed. All right, Charlie. You know, Alex is back to be in Alex Jones, and he can pretend once in a while that he's really bummed that he didn't, he doesn't have the joint, he doesn't have his kids. The wife tells him when and when he can't have the kids. But he'll be able to eat, you know, as much chilly as he wants and forget how old the kids are whenever he wants.

which was a great piece from that. It was a very surreal moment to hear somebody claim that their short-term memory had been erased by some five-alarm chili. Right. It was certainly, we were kind of agape in the mouth agape in the courtroom when we heard that. Not sure if it was something that we'd misheard, and it turns out to be true. Yeah. Was it now when in the courtroom, I mean, he had talked about that. in a deposition, right?

You didn't remember how old his kids were, whatever. And then who asked him about it in the courtroom? One of his... Was one of the attorneys. Right. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah. He started the...

One of the attorneys was a sort of a fierce cross-examiner. And the real sort of drama came from. I believe his charge was to sort of throw Alex off of his game. and sort of to rile him up. And he started the Alex's cross-examination asking him, he didn't have any chili this morning, did you, sir? And Alex shot back, was that a joke? And then the attorney sort of went into the deposition anecdote. And it really sort of, it started him off on a note, a very surreal sort of ridiculous note. And it only kind of increased from there. What before, and I will move on a little.

bit. I know you've got a lot going on at BuzzFeed, and we'll talk about what's new for you and what's going to happen in the future for you for you and the website BuzzFeed. But before we do that, I want you to tell me your favorite moment of the Alex Jones trial. I mean, did Alex come up and give you a hug? Do you take his shirt off for you? Were you fortunate enough to get a shirt ripped off in front of you? Would you have a chair chilly with him? What was your favorite moment? I think, and I don't mean for this to be a cop-out, but I really think that the best thing was kind of getting that opportunity to spend so much time in such close proximity to spend, I mean, like, over, over 25 hours. And I can tell you why. And I actually think that maybe it won't be a cop-out if I say why. Okay.

Is that we saw, we were able to see him, you know, truly be himself. And at a time when it would have been advantageous for him not to be himself, to be, you know, very restrained. And yet, you know, he reacted to every negative statement about him from a witness or a lawyer with, you know, he would furrow his brow and shake his head and point his finger. And, you know, the judge admonished him dozens of times throughout the nine days. And in what was, you know, it's almost unprecedented for someone who's got so much at stake. And what it really showed. And there were times when he was incredibly charming, you know, someone was about to knock a glass of water off of the lawyer table. And he jumped up and sort of like, you know, shuffled across the room and got it.

And, you know, and sort of pushed it back into place and smiled. and there were all these very small moments where you just sort of realize, oh, this guy is intensely charismatic. Right. And so I think you got to see. And he is. And he is. And he absolutely is. So I think, you know, the real, my favorite moments or my favorite. That's fascinating. Yeah, that's fascinating. Is that he really is this, he is all the good and the bad that you see on the air.

and he's really not somebody who he's not boring when you when the cameras turn off in any way he's almost if not more uh animated and alive which goes back i mean that's so it's so strange you know you say that and that's why it's so strange that we had to uh you know separate uh him from info wars because he is info wars oh absolutely i think that that is i think that is a um you know I think that there's a professional wrestling element to InfoWords that is... Well, there has to be. There has to be. Look, I mean, I work for a guy that I've worked that I've known for years by the name of Glenn Beck, who's kind of the same, you know, in the same realm of, you know, there's times when, you know,

he's saying, well, that's a company, but I don't have anything to do with the day-to-day decisions. And people around the country go, yeah, right. But it's true. You know what I mean? It's the same kind of thing. Glenn Beck is Glenn Beck is Glenn Beck and it's it's tough to separate yeah I think I think that's very true and I think that that you know it speaks to sort of and you alluded to this earlier it sort of speaks to what the what you know media is now it's very personality driven and and and and

that's what people come to tune in to to people and not to uh and they tune in and they want it 24 seven I mean they don't care you know they want to be able to if you're doing something uh and And you're doing something that we want to know about it. I don't know what it is. So, I mean, it's a strange world that we live in today. That is for sure. All right, Charlie Worsal from BuzzFeed. So what's next on your agenda?

Whose trial you're going to sit through now? Well, you know, I'm not a court reporter. Get out of here. What? And it was incredibly fascinating. I don't know if I'll be sitting through any more trials in the very near future. But, you know, I've, at Bud'sweed, we've always kind of been, you know, one of our sort of hallmarks is being on the, on the sort of the cutting edge of new sort of internet movements. And I've spent the last probably six or so months, you know, really kind of digging into the rise of sort of new pro-Trump media and the figures and the personalities.

there and and in the you know the the financials and the the relationship with the White House and I think that you know that's one of the sort of biggest stories of 2017 right now there's no doubt about that but listen I mean I mean our president said just the other day that he didn't realize that the you know job was going to be so hard so you know it's good he's at the helm anyway it is a pretty wild interview there you for coming on that. I appreciate it. I know it's Saturday. I'm eating up some of your time. You had a busy last nine or ten days and you want to get some rest. So Charlie Worsle from BuzzFeed at C. Warzel on Twitter. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

2017 is going to be a volatile economic year. We may see politicians throughout the world attempting to control central bank policies. Several renowned financial analysts have warned that political interference in central bank policies may mean our economic misses of inflation and growth targets. Gold is an international currency that can't be issued or controlled by governments. If you don't have the only hard currency that has outlasted every politician and every failed idea of governments for centuries, you need to speak to Gold Line right now and learn how easy it is to add gold to your portfolio or IRA. Now is the time to diversify your financial portfolio by adding gold. Call 1-800-913-3-Gold. Buying real gold is easy and fast at Goldline. And you're going to be happy that you finally made the call.

4,653. Goldline also offers price protection against short-term market fluctuations on qualifying purchases, so buy with confidence. Read Goldline's important risk information and find out of buying gold is right for you. Call Goldline, 1-800-913-4653.