Marketing Secrets with Russell Brunson - The Propaganda Playbook: AI Politics (Spencer Pratt Spent $0 on AI Ads. Will He Beat the Mayor of LA?) - #Marketing - Ep. 132

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Spencer Pratt — yes, the guy from The Hills — made a campaign ad with AI for zero dollars. No donors, no consultants, no political machine. And it pulled more views than the entire campaign of the sitting mayor of Los Angeles, who’s backed by hundreds of millions of dollars. The political establishment spent a decade building a system to control who gets attention… and a reality TV star with a laptop just broke it. In this episode I break down exactly how — because the same technique works in your business, not just a mayor’s race. These ads don’t land because they look like political ads; they land because they look like movies. I’ll show you the engine underneath: a 130-year-old idea from French psychologist Gustave Le Bon, the false-belief framework I teach in Expert Secrets, and the uncomfortable line I think all of us have to draw now that anyone can deepfake anyone for free. I’ve lived one side of this — I bootstrapped ClickFunnels against an entire industry that said I couldn’t compete — so I’m not watching this one from the outside. Key Highlights: ◼️The “$0 campaign ad” that beat the machine — how Spencer Pratt and a four-person studio pulled more views than a sitting mayor backed by hundreds of millions, using a free (and Chinese) AI video tool ◼️The Expert Secrets move these ads run on — “breaking false belief patterns”: they don’t argue that politicians care, that the system works, or that you need money to win… they shatter each belief with a story instead of a fact ◼️The entertainment-format trick — why mapping your audience’s favorite movies (Star Wars, The Dark Knight) onto their false beliefs turns an ad into something they’ll actually share ◼️Gustave Le Bon’s 1895 warning — crowds aren’t moved by facts, they’re moved by images… and why AI just handed that weapon to everyone for free ◼️The line I won’t cross — use AI aggressively to compete with people who outspend you, but putting words in politicians’ mouths they never said is where it tips from equalizer to dangerous Here’s what I keep coming back to: for 130 years, the people who could afford to create images controlled the crowd. That era just ended. AI gave the images to everyone — and once the tools are free, the only thing left that matters is the story. The political machine is learning that the hard way in LA right now, and your market is no different. So the real question isn’t whether these AI ads are fair or dangerous. It’s this: in your own business, are you still paying for the old machine… or are you the one building with the new tools? Are you Spencer Pratt in this story — or are you Karen Bass? ◼️AI SECRETS CHALLENGE: Most people are either afraid of AI or using it as a toy. Russell built a challenge that teaches you how to actually MAKE MONEY with AI — not just be productive, but build real income. The best defense against being manipulated by AI companies is understanding the technology well enough to profit from it yourself. → https://www.AISecretsChallenge.com ◼️If you’ve got a product, offer, service… or idea… I’ll show you how to sell it (the RIGHT way) Register for my next event → https://sellingonline.com/podcast ◼️Still don’t have a funnel? ClickFunnels gives you the exact tools (and templates) to launch TODAY → https://clickfunnels.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have a funnel, but it's not converting? The problem 99.9% of the time is that your funnel is good, but you suck at selling. If you want to learn how to sell so your funnels will actually convert, then get a ticket to my next selling online event by going to sellingonline.com slash podcast. That's selling online.com slash podcast. This is the Russell Brunson show. Spencer Pratt, the guy from the TV show The Hills, just made an AI campaign ad for $0. dollars and it got more views than the entire campaign for the sitting LA mayor. He had no donors, no consultants, and no political machine.

And he's running for the mayor of the second largest city in America against a woman who's backed by hundreds of millions of dollars. AI just unlocked the political game for non-elites. The political establishment spent a decade building a system to control who gets attention. And one reality TV star with AI tools that we all have access to just broke it. And I'm going to show you exactly how because the same technique works for your business. This is the propaganda playbook where I take the biggest stories in the news and decode the propaganda techniques that are hidden inside of them. And then I show you how to use the ethical

versions of those same techniques to grow your business. So that said, let's get into it. All right, here's the backstory. January 2025. The Palisades fire burns through Los Angeles. Spencer Pratt, yes, the Spencer Pratt from the MTV's the Hills loses his home. His wife, Heidi Montag loses her home. Their kids lose their home and Pratt does something nobody he expects. He starts calling out the politicians. Mayor Karen Bass, Governor Gavin Newsom, he says they failed. He says they let it happen. And on the one-year anniversary of the fire, he's announced that he's running for mayor. Now here's where it gets interesting for everyone who's watching this. A filmmaker named Charles Curran, a guy who ran a four-person

studio called Meta Studios, started making AI-generate campaign ads for Pratt. And Pratt says he didn't hire him. He calls them all fan-made, but he reposts every single one of them from his official account. And the ads are insane. The city's out. You need to stop him. Nobody's ever done this before. Star Wars, Batman, the Dark Knight, AI versions of Newsom, Bass, and Kamala Harris as super villains.

Pratt is the hero, saving L.A. Millions of views, NBC picked it up, Hollywood Reporter, Fox News, Blaze Media, and the cost to make these ads? Essentially zero. The AI tool he used is called Seed Dance 2.0 and it's Chinese. So an American political campaign is being powered. by Chinese AI. Let that sink in for just a second.

Meanwhile, Karen Bass is a full political machine, donors, consultants, traditional media buyers, and she's losing the attention to a reality TV star with a laptop. Her campaign response? Spencer's doing his best Trump impersonation, but it's not gonna work here at LA. And that's what the establishment always does

when a disruptor shows up. It won't work until it does. Have you seen these ads? And be honest, they make you feel something about the LA race, even if you don't live there. I'm not gonna lie, I haven't seen any ads for any political race happening except for that one. Okay, if that's like you, let me know down below

if you saw the exact same thing. Now, here's what nobody in the media is talking about. Why do these ads work? Because they don't look like political ads, they look like movies. And that's not an accident. There's a technique I teach called breaking false belief patterns.

In my book, Expert Secrets, I teach that every customer, or in this case, every voter carries false beliefs that stop them from taking action. And your job isn't to argue with those beliefs. Your job is to break them using stories and experiences They make the person realize that their belief was wrong on their own. And the filmmaker behind these ads,

whether he knows my book or not, is doing exactly that. Watch what he does. Here's false belief number one. Politicians care about regular people. The ad shows Bass and Newsom as literal supervillains, partying in a mansion while L.A. burns. Newsom eating cake, Harris drinking vodka, Bass in a Joker makeup.

The ad doesn't argue that they don't care. It shows you in a format that your brain already understands, a movie where the villains are partying while the city suffers. Here's false belief number two. The system works. Change happens to normal channels. The ad showed dramatic, cinematic action. Pratt flying through a destroyed L.A. on a speeder.

Light saber dual, citizens rising up. This is fantasy, but it breaks the belief that nothing will ever change by showing you what change looks like, even if it's fake. Your brain files it away as possible. Here's false belief number three. You need money and connections to win. And this is the big one. Pratt has no money, no donors, and no machine.

The ad itself, the fact that it exists. And it's this good and it costs nothing breaks the false belief that only rich connected people can compete in politics. Now here's the genius part. The filmmaker matched each false belief to an entertainment format that the audience already loves. Star Wars, Batman, the Dark Night. He didn't make a political ad. He made a movie trailer and he chose movies that his dream audience People who feel like the system is broken and want a hero already love. That's not random. That's targeting. He mapped his audience's entertainment preferences to their false beliefs and then created content that feels like fun, but but works like propaganda. So let me ask you a question.

What is the biggest false belief that your customer has about your product or your service? Think about it and then drop it down below. I wanna see what it is for you. Because the way you break that belief is the key to your marketing. Now, a French psychologist figured this out about 130 years ago.

His name is Gustav Le Bonn. He wrote a book in 1895 called The Crowd. I talked about LeBon in an earlier episode about the Holy War and how they used propaganda. And his insight was simple, but it changed everything. LeBon said that crowds are not moved by facts. They're moved by facts. They're moved by images.

When you argue with someone, they resist. But when you show them an image, they absorb it before their defenses go up. That's why these AI ads work better than any speech, any policy, paper, or any debate. Nobody watches a three-minute Star Wars deep fake and changes their minds about zoning policies. But they feel something. They feel like Pratt is the hero and Bass is the villain. And their feeling is the more powerful than any argument. And here's what's changed since LeBon.

In 1895, creating powerful images required money. Artists, publishers, distribution networks. the people who could afford to create images controlled the crowd. Now in 2026, AI makes images free. Anyone can create LeBahn's most powerful persuasion tool for $0. That is the most significant shift in the history of propaganda. And we're watching it play out in a mayor's race in Los Angeles right now. And this is where I need to be straight with you,

because this story is two sides. And I think both are true at the same time. Side one, this is exciting. I bootstrap click funnels against an entire industry that said I couldn't compete. Spencer Pratt is bootstrapping a political campaign against an entire, hire a machine that says he can't compete. AI is the equalizer. It gives the little guy the same tools as the giant.

That's what ClickFunnels did for business. That's what AI is doing for everything. Side two, these ads put words in real politicians mouth that they never said. Newsom never said finished burning the city. Bass never said, the city's ours. These are fabricated quotes delivered through deep fakes that millions of people watched. If this becomes normal, if every campaign can deep fake their opponents saying anything, how does anyone trust any political content?

The tools are neutral. AI doesn't care if you use it to help people or to hurt them, but the people using the tools have a responsibility. And right now, we're in the Wild West. There's no rules, no disclosure requirements, no way for regular viewers to know if what they're watching is real or generated. And my stand is this. Use it aggressively.

Use it to compete with people who have more money than you. But don't put words in real people's mouths that they never said. I think that's the line. So where do you draw the line with AI and politics? Is okay to defate politicians into movie scenes or is this dangerous? I generally want to hear both sides. So here's what that means for you, because you're not running for mayor, but you are running a business. And the same dynamics they're playing out in L.A. is playing out right now in your market.

The old way is spend money, hire agencies, buy ads, pay for production, and compete on budget. The new way is use AI, create content that matches your audience entertainment preferences, break their false beliefs using stories and images, not arguments, and compete on creativity instead of dollars. Here's the framework. Step one, map your dream customers false beliefs. What do they believe about your industry that's wrong? What's stopping them from buying? Step number two, identify their entertainment preferences.

What movies do they love? What shows do they watch? What content format makes them lean in. Step number three, create content that uses their entertainment language to break their false beliefs. Don't make a sales pitch. Make something they would share with a friend because it's entertaining. And oh, by the way, it also changes how they think about your product. That's what Spencer Pratt ads did.

That's what the Iran Lego videos did. And that's what you can do starting today with AID. tools that didn't exist 12 months ago. Okay, so if you could make a movie style AI ad for your business, what movie would it be? And what entertainment format does your audience love the most? Let me know in the comments down below and maybe I'll make one of those for my business. All right, so here's what I keep thinking about this. The political machine spent decades building systems, donors, consultants, focus groups and ad agencies, hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through a pipeline designed to control who gets attention and who doesn't. And one guy,

a reality TV star who lost his house in a fire with a four-person film studio and a Chinese tool just broke the pipeline not because he's smarter not because he's more qualified but because AI made these tools free and once the tools are free the only thing that matters is the story LeBahn said in 1895 images move crowds and for 130 years the people who could afford to create images controlled the crowd and that error just ended AI gave the images to everyone the question for every entrepreneur watching this is simple are you still paying for the old machine or are you building with new tools again Spencer pratt is a reality TV star who lost his house in a fire, zero political experience, zero donors, zero budget, and he's competitive in the

mayor's race in the second largest city in America, because he understood one thing, AI is the great equalizer. While the political machine spent hundreds of millions of dollars controlling who gets attention, Pratt spent zero dollars and got more views than all of them combined. If you're still running your business the old way, spending money on things that AI can do for free or hiring agencies for work that AI does in minutes, then you're not the Spencer Pratt in the story. You're the Karen Bass.

The AI Secrets Challenge teaches you how to flip that, not just how to use AI, but how to use AI to actually make money, how to compete with people of 10 times your budget, how to build something real with tools that didn't exist a year ago. All you got to do is go to AISECRest Challenge.com and register right now for free, because the people who figure this out first are going to win. And the people who wait become the next industry that AI disrupts.

Again, we're doing a free five-day challenge at AISCtrechtel.com to show you how to use AI inside of your business. So go sign up right now, and I'll see you on the inside.