MTracey podcast - FULL PANEL: Should we abolish all podcasts? Featuring Michael Tracey, Bret Weinstein, Lauren Southern

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

As I briefly mentioned yesterday, this panel was a real hoot. For context, it took place May 14 in Vancouver, Canada, at something called the “Web Summit,” which I was semi-inexplicably invited to attend. For much of the “summit,” I had to resist letting my eyes glaze over as various participants explained their AI startup to me. I’m sure some of the products are probably useful, but I just can’t bring myself to care enough about the intricacies of AI “innovation” to earnestly follow whatever it is I am being educated about in LinkedIn-speak by these lanyard guys. (Which is not to say they aren’t nice guys. And yes — mostly guys. I even took selfies with a few of them, upon request, though whenever somebody asks me for a selfie, I can’t help but affably scold them for debasing themselves.) A number of times I was asked to “connect” on LinkedIn, only to inform the requestor that I (mercifully) do not use LinkedIn.Anyway, after the panel, I saw Bret Weinstein sulking around at something called the “Speakers Lounge,” and we had a few sporadic followup chats. He had already tweeted that my behavior on the panel was “pretty despicable,” and accused me of “ambushing” him. He also suggested that I had a hand in orchestrating the panel on false pretenses. I replied that I had simply been invited to attend the Web Summit, and was asked for suggestions on what might make for an interesting panel. So yeah, among my suggestions was something along the lines of, “Should we abolish all podcasts?” I’d been solicited to suggest topics with media or political relevance; obviously I wasn’t being brought there to discuss “tech,” AI, or blockchain. The guy organizing the conference did in fact take one of my suggestions, and formulated a panel premise on that basis. Or at least that’s my understanding of the unremarkable sequence of events. I had no notion that Bret Weinstein would be on the resulting panel. I honestly had little notion of what I would even be doing, or what the Web Summit even was — I’d just never been to Vancouver before, and kinda wanted to visit regardless, so this was as good an excuse as any. Turns out fellas like Aaron Mate (a Vancouver native) were also present, along with various other media types whom it would also not be 100% intuitive might get invited to such an event: Ryan Grim, Chris Hedges, Cenk Uygur, Curtis “Moldbug” Yarvin, Lauren Southern, Nate Fischer, Julius Krein, Eoin Higgins, among others. So, it was worth making the trek. But beyond that, I had no involvement in orchestrating the panel, despite Bret predictably spinning a theory that I had elaborately conspired with the organizers to “sandbag” him.I want to correct one error I made on the panel. (See, I actually correct stuff where necessary). I incorrectly referred to the March 16, 2026 podcast Bret appeared on as the “Chris Jones Show,” when in actuality it was the “Danny Jones Show.” I regret the error. I’m not sure why I jotted down “Chris” rather than “Danny” in my notes, but I did, and have no problem admitting this error! Here is the exchange I was referring to, at 27:57:DANNY JONES: And you know, that was also around the time of the George Floyd riots, and all that stuff, where people were burning cities down, and destroying everything in the streets, over one person being murdered. And I can’t help but wonder why we don’t see anything like this, now that this Epstein stuff has come out. When there’s evidence of people eating children, and molesting and trafficking children.BRET WEINSTEIN: Yeah, it’s unfathomable. Because the implications -- it’s not just that you had this group of monsters apparently engaged in all of this unthinkably evil behavior. But the relationship to power is so clear in the so-called Epstein Files that the question is, you know, we have monsters near power. That’s extremely dangerous.Bret and Danny then went on to expound a whole master-theory of Pedo Protecting Power on the basis of this totally batshit premise — that the “Epstein Files” had conclusively revealed evidence that scores of children were “eaten” by Epstein and his “monstrous” associates. Bret apparently thought that my citing this extremely recent example of his podcast oeuvre was a despicably unfair “ambush,” even though it seemed perfectly sensible that if I was going to be on a panel about how we should “abolish podcasts,” I would be well-advised to cite a couple of concrete examples of the larger critique I was making. Which, to be clear, is not that we should literally “abolish all podcasts.” That’s impossible, obviously, and podcasts themselves are a neutral medium. What I am arguing is that we should somehow dislodge the current podcast-dominant online media ecosystem, which has become an engine of lucrative hysteria-fomenting, with zero factual standards, and zero repercussions (socially, reputationally, etc.) for peddling a constant slew of garbage. Because of this warped incentive structure, garbage-peddling is actually rewarded with increased revenue, stature, and political influence. Hence, Bret going on a podcast and doing something as insane as affirming that children have been cannibalized, before an audience of millions, and then facing zero consequence for this whatsoever, is a perfect example of what I’m critiquing when I semi-facetiously proclaim that we should “abolish all podcasts.” Bear in mind, Bret has also espoused versions of his Epstein master-thesis on the #2 “News” podcast in the United States, the Tucker Carlson program. It was on the March 11, 2026 edition of that illustrious program that Bret spun out a postulation that Trump went to war with Iran because a “hidden power structure” coerced him into doing so, and of course this “hidden power structure” somehow intermingles with Epstein. Bret is so deeply disturbed by Trump attacking Iran — something he never could’ve fathomed Trump possibly doing, back when Bret was holding pro-Trump campaign rallies in 2024 — that he now feels he’s obliged to search for the real truth of how this eventuality could’ve possibly happened. And he’s landed on a hidden Epstein power structure being the real reason. Excerpt from the Tucker podcast:BRET WEINSTEIN: The reason that the Epstein phenomenon, whatever it was, is so important, is that it suggests a hidden power structure that was there for leverage. It is unfortunate that in the edit that we have been shown, we don’t have conclusive evidence of who, what they were after, or even how the leverage worked. All we can see is strong evidence that there was something. Logically it is implied that it was connected to intelligence services. Ours, likely Israel’s, who knows who else. When you see your government, your president functioning in ways that do not add up, it’s like watching a planet behave oddly because of the gravity of some object you haven’t found yet. There’s the implication that there’s something with power in this system that is undeclared, as far as we know it is unnamed, and the central question is what is it, how does it work, and how much effect is it having on what we do.Bret has similarly argued (on various podcasts) that the “Epstein Phenomenon,” as he oddly calls it, represents “the most fundamental question in the democratic republic that is the United States.”But… he thinks it makes me a contemptibly “bad person” to “ambush” him by bringing up these remarks — on a panel expressly devoted to the insanities of the current podcast media environment? OK, lol.Anyway, I have more to say about the “Web Summit,” and the various hilarities that it spawned on account of my humble presence there, but I gotta go take a ferry. I figured I would spend at least a day viewing some of the “sights” to be seen in Vancouver while I am inexplicably here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mtracey.net/subscribe

The next talk of the day not only asks, but seeks to answer the question, should we stop making podcasts? Once upon a time, podcasts were supposed to democratize the media. Now, they're either enlightening humanity or trying to convince us that the moon landing was filmed in a we work. This panel asks whether independent media is expanding critical thought or simply optimizing for outrage. Please give a warm round of applause to independent journal.

and podcaster Michael Tracy, author and podcaster Brett Weinstein, filmmaker and activist Lauren Southern, and our moderator, the writer for Forbes, author, podcaster, and entrepreneur, John Cootts here. Hello everybody. I, you know, I went looking for stage three in the basement. I don't know about anybody else. I managed to find it. I got here in time.

We got Lauren here. Shut up last minute. As usual. As usual. Should we kill podcasts? We're going to have a discussion. It's going to be crazy. I'll try and keep people from punching.

But we're going to start with you. Yeah, you. Me. Should we kill podcasts? Apparently you want to. Why? Obviously, we cannot literally abolish podcasts, but I do think it should at least aspirationally be the great abolitionist cause of our times.

Seriously, there's nothing more important than killing podcasts. How they could get rid of slavery, at least initially. But, you know, they worked and they worked hard. They, you know, theorize how to accomplish it. And then lo and behold, history has a way of bending toward justice. Okay, it's a little tongue in cheek. What the premise here, at least from my perspective, is that there is a very much-needed critique to be made of the modern podcast ecosystem or the current media environment

because podcasts have pretty much supplanted traditional media in terms of overall influence, in terms of dictating political opinion and social mores. And go and look today, as I did this morning, at the top podcast in the United States, according to Spotify, for News. Number two is the Tucker Carlson podcast, and he's joined by other noted nutbag luminaries such as Candice Owens in the news category, not in the entertainment category, not in like the garbage hallucinatory.

category in the news category. And so I think that calls for a bit of a thoroughgoing structural critique. Brett was a guest on the Tucker Carlson podcast recently got millions and millions of views. This is incredibly lucrative. All the incentives militate toward huge profits from this current ethos that prevails in the podcast sector. And you have, you know, Brett, who I have no animosity toward, but I was listening to it, And he's going on and on about how there's an hidden Epstein power structure that somehow it may or may not have compelled Trump to go to war with Iran, et cetera, et cetera.

You really think it's fair to try to adjudicate this here? Well, I'm giving an example of my, I'm supporting my thesis. Right, but that seems a bit unfair. Okay, well, let me just finish my opening remark and you can respond however you see fit. And so I thought, okay, maybe I'll investigate a little bit more about Brett's perspective on this Epstein issue. since he says it's the most central issue facing our society today. It gets to the very core of our entire democratic system. So he's on another podcast a few weeks earlier with this guy, Chris Jones,

over a million followers on YouTube alone. And Chris Jones introduces the topic by saying, shouldn't we have riots in the streets right now over Jeffrey Epstein? Because all these files show that they were trafficking and eating children. And Brett just sits there and nods in affirmation. So there is your standards on these podcasts. Thank you very much. We'll cut you off right there. Brett, chance to respond and then we'll go to Lauren. Yeah, I don't know exactly why I should need to respond. I was asked to join your own opening statement. I was asked to join a conversation about whether we should end all podcasts and I believe that that is a candidate for being one of the five worst ideas ever and really there's some doozies on that list already. But the reason I say that is because what is a podcast? I podcast. It's the idea that somebody gets to record a conversation and put it up for anybody who wishes to download it and listen it.

It's synonymous with free speech with a new technical twist. Now you might agree with Michael and I think with me that most podcasts are pointless at best. They are not contributing to the culture, they're not a good thing. But that is not an indictment of the form. In fact, many things that are vital have exactly this characteristic. All media in fact pretty... Right. all media. So the question is, what is really being advocated here? Well, cryptically, it's an attack on

our ability to discuss issues and reach our own conclusions by whatever mechanism we deem fit. This is literally the central concept undergirding the West, and I believe the West is the best hope that our species has for continuing to exist. So this is a threat because it enables those who would gate keep our discussions and all you had to do was watch what took place during COVID in order to understand what a bad idea that is. Might I just ask, how many of you are still getting your boosters? I don't see, up, there's a hand. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten in a room of, I don't know, a hundred.

So you're welcome for that. That was podcasters who were not accepting the mainstream narrative, challenging it. And because of those podcasters, you now have reasonable doubt that this virus originated from nature. You know it might have come from a lab. You know that those vaccines have massive risks that were not acknowledged up front. And maybe you even know that there are repurposed drugs that can safely deal with the disease. That's a benefit of podcasting. If we didn't have it, you'd still all be taking your boosters. Lauren, let's come to you. Do we have a a voice of sanity here. Well, I agree with Brett in the sense that podcasts came about as a reaction

to mainstream media orthodoxy, having one way and one way only of doing things. And they got a lot of it wrong. But there was a overreaction to some extent. What was meant to fix the problem of mainstream orthodoxy became its own wild world of, you know, seeking the financial rewards of attention, political power, manipulation. And now we've got Candace Owens astral projecting into street lamps as the top podcast in America. you know, up there anyways. And I think the solution to this, we can't really put a fascistic law in that, you know, mandates we have the state come to your door and take away your podcast mics at gunpoint.

But I think people need to be afraid of making podcasts. They need to be afraid of getting things wrong. Let me ask for this room, how many of you hands up would prefer to be punched in the face over trending number one on Twitter as a pedophile? Sorry, what's the choice here? Would you prefer to be punched in the face? Put your hand up if you'd prefer to be punched in the face. Or would you rather be trending number one on Twitter with a bunch of podcasts

saying you're a pedophile? I'd want to be punched in the face. Most people would rather be punched in the face. And we have laws against that. People go to jail if they punch you in the face, right? But we don't have laws against a thousand podcasters making up things about people. Even the president of France is having trouble. Don't we have libel laws?

Lively laws, it costs like 100 grand just to get that started. I'm not saying we have a good system. We don't have a good system. What I'm saying is we do have laws. I'm not calling for the imposition of any fascistic laws, and I'm not literally calling for the abolition of podcasts as such. Unto themselves, podcasts are a neutral forum or a neutral format. But, yeah, Brett, I'm sorry to say it is an indictment of the current podcast ecosystem

for your podcast, the Dark Horse podcast, to put out a segment entitled, quote, is Epstein still alive? Brett Weinstein thinks so. Brett Weinstein argues that Epstein is probably still alive based on game theory. That was February 13th, 2006. So I'm not saying the government should come in and penalize you for spreading that totally bogus hysteria fomenting information. But I don't know, maybe we have to have a kind of cultural expectation that there will be some kind of repercussions for you to be pedaling

that. Even before you respond to that. Did you read the Epstein files that you love to talk about so much with Epstein autopsie photos before you put out your game theoretical theory? I want to put out a proposed two remedies. Okay. You have raised a segment that I did, the remedy on that one is, go watch it. See whether or not, see whether or... You get the views and the clicks and you benefit financially from it. I don't care about the views of the clicks. You can look for it on somebody else's...

Hence the warped incentive structure. Look, the remedies are clear. You can watch the content and you can decide for yourself. And for Michael, who is offended by the content, he can turn it off. The remedy already exists. We don't need anything beyond that. So there's truth in what you say, but there's also... Also, from Michael's point of view, I mean, any media has a problem, right?

I mean, we've seen stuff on mainstream media. We've seen stuff in books, old-fashioned media, print media, that you could say is 100% wrong, state propaganda, whatever the case might be, right? So it's a broader point than just podcasts, correct? No, go ahead, Lauren. It's not just a broader point. Yeah, the idea that we can just turn it off. Like, if let's say you have the state constantly pushing,

you have to get the vaccine, you have to get the vaccine, they're forcing that to trend on YouTube. Would you just tell people you have to turn that off? Or do you think? I would certainly say turn off the mainstream media. It has proven it is no longer capable of doing this job. And the only remedy we have is to discuss it ourselves. You can listen to all of the people who are claiming some expertise and decide for yourself. That's the whole reason podcast work.

Now, let's talk about books. The funny thing is, is that perspective is said quite frequently, but we know from Nazi propaganda times that the amount that people actually tend to believe in a particular thing is very correlated, not with whether it's true, but how many times they've heard it? And the remedy is what?

And that's a challenge. And the remedy is what? Having CNN blaring nonsense about COVID in every airport and having people digested on mass is a problem. I mean, there's different meetings. You said mass media like it's one thing. I want to go back to your point about books. Do the same analysis Michael has done with podcasts.

and do it with books. And you know what you're going to find? You're going to find most books are not contributing to the culture, but Michael is not going to advocate for getting rid of the form. What's more... Nobody reads anymore.

What's more... What's more, Michael is not going to take responsibility for the fact that among those books, you're going to find the communist manifesto, a book which has resulted in the death of 60 to 100 million people. So it has a debt to pay.

Now, I'm not advocating we get rid of it. I'm advocating you read the good ones, you put down the bad ones, and you decide for yourself. That's how the West works, and Michael is actually more interested in having some authority, not elected, tell you what to think than allowing the messiness of us hashing it out for ourselves. That's completely wrong.

I'm urging everyone to do what they can to develop the critical faculties necessary so that when they consume a podcast like Brett's, and they're told blaringly that Epstein could still be alive because of some game theory nonsense that Brett cooked up and just throws out there. and then rakes in the clicks and the cash from, that they'll have the cognitive abilities

to see that they're being fed total nonsense. And you notice he doesn't even attempt to defend what he puts out on the merits. He accuses me of wanting to arrogate some authority to myself to gatekeep or to restrict anybody from consuming this podcast slop. I'm not saying that is even possible to do. What I'm saying is we need a social norm of some kind

so that you face some kind of penalty for putting out this stuff. And then using that as a basis, I should face a penalty for making an analytical argument. Children were eaten by cannibals. And you don't think there's an issue with that. You bring up a communist manifesto. Of course, I don't want to ban books or even ban podcasts.

I want a more healthy media ecosystem where there's some penalty to be paid if you chronically dilute the masses. There is. You are contributing to. There is a penalty to be paid. And also, I'm like, oh my God, on Tucker's podcast, you and him are so,

you're so concerned. Epstein is the Rosetta Stone, the pedophile trafficking Rosetta Stone, that will explain why Trump went to war with Iran. Trump has no power because of this hidden power structure. Rather than doing a real political critique that is fact-based and empirical, what you do is invoke all of these metaphysical clap-trap concepts that gets everybody, you know, worked up and gets you a lot of ad revenue, and everybody is much less well-informed because- So there's a proceeding problem. Not the ban books. Hold on. Hold on.

My podcast was demonetized for five years by YouTube for discussing vaccine dangers with the MRNA platform. Okay? We paid a huge. Everybody's life doesn't revolve around vaccines. No, a lot of people's due, and a lot of people aren't here because they took them. And there's a very clear reason. I'm going to disagree with you on that one. You want to disagree?

Then let's do it. I don't disagree with your right to say what you're saying, but I think that they saved millions of lives. and I think that the science is on that side. Do you know that the claim that they saved millions of lives? I had no idea what I was walking into this panel. Holy grand mother! Do you think that there needs to be any regulation or consequence when people get things wrong? Regulation of people getting things wrong, no.

If it harms others. There is a consequence. It has to be with losing credibility. I have been in media for a decade and I have tried to pursue defamation cases and it's always $100,000 just to begin the process. Right. If you're an average person that's getting slandered, getting lied about in the media, they're getting things wrong, these processes, especially in America, the defamation process is near impossible.

I am. Okay, we're going to give Lauren the floor a little longer because you guys have talked a lot. And also, she seems to make some sense. Have I made no sense? You have made some sense, but you are also very vitriolic, which sometimes detract from it. Okay, okay. Lauren's going to have the floor, please. Lauren, what is your solution here?

Because, like, it is true that many harmful and wrong things go on many different forms of media. It's also true that many of us will have different ideas about which ones are wrong and which ones are harmful. It's also true that we don't have the education systems, especially in the United States, also in Canada to a degree, that are giving people the intellectual tools that they really need to be smart about media choices and to understand, is this likely to be true? How do I research it? Should I just believe it? What is your potential solution?

Yeah, I mean, people tune into the media because they don't have time in their day-to-day life to keep up with every single event happening. And I understand why people do that. And it's our job in the media to do the research. But the incentive structure is, I need to get five videos out a week. Otherwise, the algorithm isn't going to promote me. I need to be online 24-7. Otherwise, I'm not going to be the first report on this story.

So the incentive structure absolutely has to change. And I do think there needs to be more, a, social shame around starting podcasts. No, your four buddies in their basement probably shouldn't start a podcast because they don't know what they're talking about. They haven't done any research and they don't have any background in this topic. That's the only way we stop things like vaping this and that, was making it embarrassing to do. And there does need to be stronger defamation laws. But how do you enforce something like that without being a fascist? How do you enforce that?

Well, once again, socially, there has to be a level of social shame. It has to become embarrassing. And then, which I think it's already happening. Apparently nothing is embarrassing in the world anymore. We see what the President of the United States tweets or puts out on truth social. She's just advancing a nicer version of my thesis. I know. I know.

I'm sorry, there should be some social. I'm Canadian and it's good to be nice. Not a legal repercussion, not Trump coming in and throwing you in a prison cell, but some kind of social repercussion for putting out a segment on March 28, 2026. Okay, okay. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay.

Make your comments a little more general. Mark warning to Trump. No, I mean, we're on stage with people who are going to be particularize. All right, all right. But I don't want to bring out the pitch for it. Then I get to respond. Yes. So, Brett, since you like alluding to it because it really gets everybody enticed and enthralled and clicks on the video or downloads the podcast or tuned.

Why don't you just say straight up whether you think Donald J. Trump has been blackmailed by Jeffrey Epstein and or Israel. And that is why he went to war with Iran because you like just insiduating that. Okay, let them answer that question. Let him answer that. Okay. Michael. Michael. Michael, let him answer that. The Brett Wine Scene podcast.

Somebody cut his mic, please. So spell it out. Michael. Brett, please answer the question. Thank you. I'm entertained. All right. Are you not entertained?

Brett, briefly and without the vitro would be nice. I did not sign it to be here on trial. So I'm going to respond as if this were a podcast. We're just having a discussion. Now, Michael has advocated that there should be some penalty for being wrong. Okay? Now my point would be in science, and I am a scientist, I am also a game theorist, so this is my specialty. In my world, the only arbiter of truth is not whether it's published in a journal, and it's not whether it's said by somebody with an advanced degree, it's whether it has

predictive power, a model's value, its truth value, is built entirely based on whether it has predictive power. That is also the mechanism that should be functioning in the land of podcasts. You should listen to a podcast and you should hear ideas advanced and then you should see how they map onto the world that develops thereafter. Do you think the average person is doing this though when they're more online than they are in their communities? I think we are doing it very badly in large measure because of the way the algorithms push us towards things that are contentious rather than monitor what is actually... Isn't that an algorithm that you're exploiting? I am not exploiting that algorithm. I'm paying because of that algorithm.

So you're advising everyone to employ some kind of boopy. Michael, we're going to have a paradigm. No, I'm going to give Lauren the floor. So I spent the last 10 years in political online media and one thing I got really wrapped into was the culture wars and you know men are stronger than women. We shouldn't have you know men in women's sports da da da da da and I decided to log off for a year and take a step back to write a book on how corrupt everything was and I started playing community sports. And I remember I was playing community volleyball and they suggested a boys versus

girls game. And some culture war slop, just like a tick came out of my mouth and I was like, oh yeah, as if we should do that, the girls are going to get crushed. Everyone looked at me like I was a crazy person. And we play another round and I realized when I'm actually observing the community teams in real life, the girls absolutely could beat the boys. Just because it's a local community game, not an Olympic game. They're tipping better. The boys keep hitting into the net, everything. but because I had spent the last 10 years online and culture war slop world, I was applying my online reality to day-to-day life instead of just observing day-to-day life as it is. And it made me look insane. And right now the average person is doing this. They're informed more by these kind of

deep-fried versions of reality that podcasters are giving them than they are by the world around them. So they can't go into that world and then compare because they're terminally online, especially young people. They've grown up in this world and they're information. about what men and women are like or from the whatever podcast. All women are gold diggers. All men are rapists. Whatever it is, this is the message that is permeating. And there has to be some sort of social consequence for cooking our reality like this. Lauren, is that the average person. I sure hope is not the average person. I agree with a lot of what you said. Maybe it's the average person who's terminally online. It's the average person who's terminally online and that is increasing. As people cannot

buy property, as there are no real avenues forward for success in the real world, we are logging online. a young person is going to have to a home is a moderately sized meat page. Like, that is, you're actually building something at least online. That's why we all went into video games when we were younger during the 2008 economic crisis. It's an escape. Okay, we have a minute left. Can you take 30 seconds of that, please? Yes.

On my podcast with my wife, Heather Heying, we have spent a lot of time talking about something that I call the Cartesian crisis. It is exactly what Lauren is pointing to. Do not hear me as saying podcasts are better than you think. They're probably worse than you think. But it is necessary that we use this form in order to understand what is going on because the mainstream alternative is not functional. Okay, and I'll give you the floor. You'll be able to end. I'll just say this. It'd be so much easier to listen to you.

I think that I agree with you on many things, likely, if you would just be a little nicer. You know what, I will decline, but thank you for the advice. Okay. You know, my extremely non-vituperative or vitriott. or vitriolic closing statement here is that I agree that I don't know what the hell of Cartesian crisis is, but I know there's a crisis in the modern podcasting ecosystem such that those of us who are journalists, I know people are in the audience here who are journalists, Aaron, I see, we lie awake at night worrying that we could have gotten a fact wrong because that will

obliterate our credibility. And then if we do unfortunately get a fact wrong, we're obliged to correct it. Brett evidently feels no similar obligation. He will just, just throw all this stuff out there into the ether and then advise you to employ some kind of cockamamian It was the non-victriolic Andy-Catement, right? I get to respond to that. Fifteen seconds. Fifteen seconds. We're babies, we're children or not, Brett. Plug into your favorite AI, the question. How many times has Brett Weinstein corrected his own error on his or someone else's podcast? Okay, well, thank you very much, guys. This has been interesting, if nothing else. And, yeah, have a good day. Thank you.