Offline with Jon Favreau - Elon Kills the Block Button, AI Comes for Podcasts, and The Good Liar's Guide to Talking to Trump Voters

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

The Good Liars, a MAGA trolling comedy duo, join Offline to share what it’s like on the ground at Trump rallies this close to the election. Davram Stiefler and Jason Selvig have been churning out political satire since they occupied Occupy Wall Street, and they talk to Jon about finding the humor and holes in the Trump camp’s rhetoric. But first! This week the app formerly known as Twitter announced a major change to the block function: it’s gone. Max and Jon discuss whether the ensuing X-odus will finally make Bluesky relevant, and why Jon doesn’t like to give his haters the satisfaction of being blocked. Then, it’s bros vs. brobots as the guys face down their own obsolescence and listen to an AI-generated podcast from NotebookLM. The platform is trained on whatever data–or book about saving democracy–you upload, and can synthesize the material into a jokey conversation between two hosts with a good rapport…sound familiar? For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

In Scranton, Pennsylvania recently, a guy got really mad at us and he started screaming, these guys are trying to ask tough questions. They're trying to stump us. They're trying to ask tough questions. He got to the point of like going and getting a police officer, you know, bringing him over and saying, these guys are trying to ask tough questions. We all just kind of like stood there looking at the dirt, like, and the cop was like, yeah, no, no, they're definitely allowed to do that. And the guy just like, yeah, no, no, they're definitely allowed to do that. And the guy just kind of slowly turned around and was like, fine, and just kind of slowly

walked back to his spot in line. So yes, people kind of catch on that we're trying to, I don't know, hold up a mirror, I guess, get them to say these things and see if they question them. Most of the time, it's not tense. And, you know, when it is, whatever, we move on. We talk to someone else. I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Max Fisher. And you just heard from today's guests, Jason Selvig and Devram Stiefler, who you may better know as The Good Liars. Love those guys. Yeah. So you may have already seen a clip from The Good Liars. Their trademark video involves Jason or Avram on mic at a Trump rally or Republican event interviewing Trump supporters about the inconsistencies in their worldview.

So basically they go to Trump rallies and they troll the attendees. They've even heckled Trump himself at one event. We want to be entertained. No, this is boring. This is so boring. Get out of here. It's boring. Boring. It's a video that went viral. It was my first introduction to them on that video. So with less than 10 days until the election, I thought it'd be fun to have them join to talk about all the different things they've seen at Trump rallies over the years, give us some insight on how Trump supporters are thinking about this election,

and, you know, whether it's possible to change any minds out there. All in all, great conversation, and excited for you guys to hear it. Great anthropologists. Great anthropologists. Of the Trump rally kind of movement. Love anthropologists. Love to dig into the most terrifying brains in America. You know, that's made it my life's work for quite a while.

But before we get to that, the news. This week, the app formerly known as Twitter announced a major change to the block function. And that change is it's gone. Like most platforms, Twitter's block function previously allowed you to restrict other accounts from seeing your posts, how a block typically works. But following the

change blocking a user will only restrict their ability to engage with your posts meaning accounts that you block will still be able to see your tweets just not reply to them or repost them or qt they can stalk stalk away they can stalk away and they can gm you yeah that's a screenshot yeah we got some more things. Following the change, Twitter's owner and biggest dipshit, Elon Musk, he tweeted, High time this happened. So I know we've had too many Twitter death watch conversations here, but I thought this is a big enough change worth talking about.

What was your initial reaction when you heard this news? Boy, it's an exciting step towards me and Glenn Greenwald finally reconcilinging it's gonna be you know look at each other's tweets we blocked each other like over a decade ago but occasionally he still pulls up my page and finds things to yell at um wow so commitment i listen you gotta have a nemesis in this life uh so i was actually surprised by how big of a deal this became, to be honest. I kind of saw this and I think this was my bias as someone who has like a medium large following on the platform is I kind of always thought like, well, if someone wants to yell at me on Twitter, they're going to find a way. So like blocking, not blocking doesn't make any difference. But

the response has been huge. People are really outraged about it. I think it's something about coming on a year two years of headlines about how elon musk wants to turn this into the neo-nazi and harassment and cyber stalking website that is just like every time he you know he's he's making some good headway exactly right and i think that's like every time there's another headline like this it's just a reminder that's like yeah he wants you to have a bad time on the website yeah i i find it very weird the whole thing because um on one hand you just mentioned this like people like oh well you know people can see the tweets but you can't harass people because you can't engage with the person well it's like well you can engage with the what you can do is

screenshot the tweet then post it and then tell everyone, like, oh, go after this person, right? It is going to encourage harassment. On the other side, X has basically told people now, well, you can protect your tweets. You can have your tweets locked. And if you do that, then

only your followers can see it. They don't really want you to take your account private. They want to make it very difficult, very cumbersome. And this is also like I think part of our bias as two men on this podcast is like any woman who has any sort of following online like really needs the block function because you get so many stalkers and harassers. And the block function is it's a speed bump, you know, but it's something. And you kind of need every protection you can get. And the fact that they are deliberately dismantling one of the very few existing protections for user safety they have on Twitter is just a big, another big neon flashing sign that's like this platform

is for a very certain subset of users, men who have restraining orders against them. This is your website. This is your place to go. I was going to say, how much of the change do you think is just Elon Musk wanting to see the posts of the many, many, many accounts that blocked him? I actually was wondering if maybe Elon just got so many blocks on his account after they retooled the algorithm to fucking force his Twitter feed into everybody else's feeds. Because you blocked him. I blocked him, just because we were seeing too many of his posts.

I wonder if he saw the blocked numbers. Oh, you muted. Okay. This is an interesting thing to talk about is block versus mute. I tend to mute people because sometimes when you block someone, you give them the satisfaction of knowing that they've been blocked. And then some of these fucking people they love to screenshot that they got blocked and be like

got em look who couldn't take it Jon Favreau couldn't take my criticism so he blocked me now everyone retweet this I know that proved that I'm right do you know what experience I've been starting to have more in the last couple years

so they've rolled out these tools now they let you auto-block huge numbers of users. And it's actually really handy. Is that what Marc Andreessen has done? Yes. Marc Andreessen is apparently the VC guy. He blocks journalists. He blocks everyone. One day, I don't think I've ever interacted with him, and I was like, oh, I can't read his tweets.

He blocked me. Yes. He and a lot of tech venture capitalist people at one point blocked every reporter in the media. So they like built some tool to do that, which is cool. Great. Great. Knock yourself out. In theory, it's a useful tool.

It's like I want to block all the neo-Nazis. I want to block all the spam bots. But sometimes accounts get pulled into that. So I had this experience where I will meet someone like at a party and we'll be chatting. We'll be like, oh, let's follow each other on social media. And they'll pull it up. We'll be like, wait, do you fucking block me on twitter who were you blocking no they were blocking oh they were blocking you oh because you're a journalist yes that's right

because they don't they don't like the truth they can't handle it i also find the rationale from x and from elon sort of confusing too which is uh they're like, well, if you're blocked by someone, then they can be saying all kinds of nefarious things about you and you can't know. Great. I don't want to fucking know. That's the whole thing.

It's bad if you know everything anyone has ever said about you. Your brain can't handle that. The idea of a website where you go and log on and you read every fucking insult or shitty thing that someone has said you're you're not ready for that emotionally we are better off if you can't hear

that stuff we need to have private conversations and wanting to force everything into the big public square is i know people are calling an ideological decision i really think just what happened here is that a block is a speed bump on engagement and the numbers are terrible at twitter they're really the company's not doing well so i think they thought if we remove every block that's just a little bit more engagement we can choose out of people so i'm wondering if you're someone who is like okay well i've blocked a bunch of people and now they're gonna be unblocked and they can see my tweets what is the the threat of harassment there because they can't DM you. They can't reply to you. Is it that they can screenshot your tweet, post it, and then other people will go after it?

I'm trying to think of how that— I think there's kind of two risks. I think one is encouraging harassment on the platform, which is someone screenshots one of your tweets and says, look at what this idiot said. They voted a way that I don't like, whatever. And then post it, gets that to go viral because that is something we know the platform loves and will send viral, especially if you use outrage words in it. And then a bunch of other people who will see that will then come and harass you. And that happens all the time. Who you haven't blocked, yeah. Yeah. I mean, all the time you will see,

like, you'll see a viral screenshot of someone's tweet if you go to their account like almost always the account is set to private or they've got some post up that's like i'm getting you know deluged and angry dm so i had to shut down my account and anything like that woman who dared to tweet that she likes being in the garden and having coffee that's right we got her ass that'll fucking teach you lady to go into the into the garden. You know, it happens all the time. It's every day. Every day there's some new person who gets singled out because someone is lazy and looking for engagement.

And I think the other danger is just stalkers, is just being able to access someone's feed. It's just it gives you more information about where they're going and what they're doing, and that's something that people should be able to control. So I know we always make fun of tooting and skeeting and threading we're talking blue sky baby all the other twitter competitors but apparently blue sky has been getting a ton of users lately um it started in early september when twitter was briefly blocked in brazil which we talked about um and now after

elon announced that they're getting rid of the block feature, Blue Sky added a million users in two days and jumped to the number two social networking app in the App Store. Do you think it's time for us to move to Blue Sky post-election? Obviously, we can't do anything right now. So, the numbers are right.

Under the Kamala Harris administration, we're all going to Blue Sky and we're all skeeting. I was too lazy to look this up. Is it skeeting in blue sky? I don't know. And tooting in mastodon? I don't know. And I'm so proud that I'm never going to find out. Okay, me too. So they got a million new subscribers, like basically overnight with this block thing.

And they got 3 million new subscribers when Brazil banned Twitter for a few weeks. So it's huge numbers, and they're really touting it. That has brought them up to 11 million active users. Would you like to know, that makes them the number three microblogging service. Would you like to know how many users are at the number two microblogging service threads? Oh.

175 million. That's a lot more. So it's 16 times, yes. So it's like, it 16 times yes so it's like it's exciting and it's like look momentum for blue sky and everyone in my life

who was on blue sky has been texting me constantly being like now's the time time to jump on board the blue sky drink the kool aid but it's like

okay because they're bored and lonely there but they're all just screaming at each other about New York Times headlines oh is that what they're doing

yes I don't want those that's not what I want. I had a friend of mine who was on it called it a group therapy session for Gen Xers. But it's just to say that how relevant does threads feel to you right now culturally? Just. Right. And I was a, we remember, I was like an early booster.

You're still on threads, aren't you? Yeah, I don't do anything there. But I had big hopes for threads because I was like, oh, Instagram, they figured out how to make that work. And so enough people know. Again, the only reason Twitter is useful is because journalists, politicians, like our world is on it. And that has influence in media coverage and how things are shaped. And so it's like useful. If you could get all of those people off of that platform somewhere else, who would want to go on Twitter? I know it's not good

for anything else anymore. I look, I would love for it to happen. I would love for us to all move to let's all move to a big Google doc where we just all paste comments at the top of the Google doc, like literally anything. We're all in a shared notes app. Anything would be better than Twitter, but it just, unless the service completely shuts down, there's just no way to move the critical mass. And the thing is, is that the micro blogging economy is just small. It's just a small market. It's completely stagnant. Twitter is stagnant. Threads is stagnant. This is just not where new users are going. They're going to video-based services. And I think that's what's going to happen is this is just the fucking AOL of millennials. The AOL CD-ROM,

you and I are going to be on it until the day we die. We're going to be the last two users on Twitter. Tweeting my goodbyes. Goodbye world. And then dunking on your goodbye. That bad hombre is going to be like, fuck you, die.

I'm like, yeah, I know I am. That's it. That's going to be the last day on Twitter. Someone is going to be like, fuck you, die. I'm like, yeah, I know I am. That's it. That's going to be the last day on Twitter. Someone's going to post, and then the second to last he is on Twitter is going to fucking dunk on his ass. And I'm going to retweet it. And that's it. And there's never going to be another Twitter because it's not where people want to go. Thanks, Elon, asshole.

I know. I wish you had stuck it around. It was a useful service. I know. You don't know what you get until it's gone, you know, because we were all complaining about it because there's plenty of complaints about Twitter before we learned about it. Oh, I was making them. But now.

Once they killed Lynx, that was it. I really think so. In other news, early last month, Google quietly rolled out a new AI tool that allows users to turn any piece of text into a podcast. It's really something. Now you've got our attention.

That's right. The podcast generator is part of Notebook LM, a new service from Google that aims to, quote, help users make sense of complex information by using AI to summarize notes, transcripts, and other research documents. Admittedly, I haven't yet had a chance to interact with Notebook LM or this new podcast generator. But Max, you sat down earlier this week to learn just how apocalyptic this new tool may actually be. So can you give us an intro into Notebook LM?

So the thing to understand about Notebook LMm it is meant to solve a problem with its ai chatbots which they are just way too open-ended for most people to use because you have to kind of approach it like you're a programmer where you have to know what are the functions how do you pull things up it's like kind of ms dos you know you have to know the right commands and levers to pull um and some of it is does things, some of it produces junk. So Notebook LM is a little interface and you upload a bunch of docs and files to this interface and then you get prompts where you can ask it questions, summarize the documents for me,

give me the top three points, what does it say about this, and it'll kind of go through and it'll be like chatting about what's in the documents. And because it doesn't go outside of those files, you don't get the kind of hallucinating, you don't get the weird misinformation stuff, it doesn't go outside of those files, you don't get the kind of hallucinating, you don't get the weird misinformation stuff. It doesn't fall in love with you

or try to steal your partner, hopefully. And one thing that they plugged into this a few weeks ago and they've been iterating on that's getting all the attention you mentioned is that it will produce not just a podcast about the files that you upload, but a two-person, jokey conversational explainer news

podcast. We are fucked. No, boy, does that sound familiar. Yes. I was literally, when I first heard this. Actually, everyone, this episode you're listening to is not really me and Max. It's just me and Max. Kidding. I was working on a script for the show that I do with Aaron, which is like an explainer news, jokey news podcast when I listened to this. And I was like on a script for the show that I do with Aaron, which is like an explainer news, jokey news podcast when I listen to this. And I was like, oh, this is just what we do. Like it sounds like it. It's a man and a woman who are talking. It's like really, really close.

Well, you have a I think you you. So I did. I did. So I we pulled a little bait and switch on you. So as you know, that's right. As you know, I I. Oh, no. I a little bait and switch on you. So as you know, that's right. As you know, I... Oh, no. I love a bait and switch.

I love pranks. So we talked before the episode, we talked about the fact that I downloaded my book and uploaded that to the feature. On sale now wherever books are sold. It is. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, it's probably not with most physical bookstores are a couple years old.

But anyway, I uploaded the PDF, and then it did, in fact, turn that into a 30-minute podcast where they discussed the lessons of the book. And I honestly was impressed. It was – everything was spot on. The analysis was sound. It sounded like a good podcast. But instead of playing that, we are going to play a clip from a different book. Oh, no. Is it Democracy or Else? A little time I like to call Democracy or Else. Oh, no. Oh, boy.

All right. Let's hear it. Oh, God. They sort of break down some of the, like, biggest systemic challenges. And they even have this, like, highly scientific rating system. Oh, I love it when they get scientific. Right. For, like, how difficult each thing is to fix.

Okay. Like amending the constitution for example okay they give a solid uh good luck with that rating yeah i was gonna say that seems that seems pretty hard like you need a super majority vote in both houses of congress and like three fourths of the states have to ratify it yeah oh man the heavy lift just getting people to agree on pizza toppings is hard enough. Forget about that. Isn't that wild? Wow.

It's a podcast. It's just a podcast. Oh, no. In four minutes. Yes. Oh, no. Yeah. You can't know what it felt like to upload 110,000 words in years of work and have it

turn into a 24-minute podcast. I've been working on this story for... That's right. And Google fucking tweeted it out. And you just tweeted it for... That's right. And Google fucking tweeted it out. And you just tweeted it out. That's right. Yes. Oh.

I know. And it sounds... I've been thinking as we've been talking about, like, what would be useful to listen to? Like, what do I want distilled? This is the challenge with AI, is, like, it requires creativity in your own mind. Yes, that's right.

For the way to use it. Like, how could I use this, possibly? Right. Which is part of the service of notebook ai is they have narrowed your choices down for what you can do and put some guardrails on it to try to encourage you towards useful functions so okay there's what google is marketing this as for and then there's what i think it is actually for which is separate so what they are marketing for is basically a research tool. So if you're an anthropology professor and there's a bunch of big new research papers out and they're going to take forever to read. So instead, you upload them to Notebook LM and you listen to a podcast summarizing the major points while you're commuting. Or you're a surgeon and you want to know the latest research on new surgery techniques and this is a way to get technical information to you there that's what they're marketing as is a research tool

and it does seem like it'd be very useful that i think the actual function is to supplant local news organizations yep and to take their money and that's i think the idea is things like you live in wisconsin and you really wish there was a local news podcast, but it's not quite a big enough market to sustain like, you know, Podsafe Wisconsin. So instead you just plug in local news stories. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel just gets like plugged into the. Exactly. Right. And then it's, you know, instead of going to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website, plug in the articles, list the podcast. Now Google is getting that ad revenue instead of the actual reporters and newspaper that produce the stories, which is the same thing that Google has done with a ton of information

where now you read it through their platform. They collect 100% of the revenue. I think it's going to put a lot of news organizations out of business. That's not good. It's not good. No, which is potentially it's a useful tool. I mean, people, what about the people who write these books? I mean, we're never putting them out in PDF again.

I'll fucking tell you that much. If I do another book, it's going to be print and that's it. You're going to write it longhand. Absolutely. That's right. I'm going to read it to you on the town square. We're going back to the printing press. I'm going to do the Mark Halperin Zoom $5,000 subscription where I read it out.

No, I'm not going to do any Mark Halperin Zoom $5,000 subscription where I read it out. No, I'm not going to do any Mark Halperin. Well, that's a nightmare. It is. And it's the thing that's like a – Like everything else, I'm like, useful? Right. Nightmare. Both.

That's the thing that I hate about it is that it's like the actual tool. Like I was listening to the podcast of my book and I was like, this is really useful because maybe you don't have time to read every book. There's so many books I would want to read in theory, but they're very academic. They're very dense. I could just get 24 minutes of the insights. But the ways that the industry, the tech industry, the AI industry are structured, I know is just going to be extractive and it's just going to wipe out any sort of creatives who would actually be getting paid for this work instead. Well, that's bleak. But I'm interested. I'm excited to load something in there. wipe out any sort of creatives who would actually be getting paid for this work instead. Well, that's bleak. But I'm interested. I'm excited to load something in there. Oh, I haven't. I remember.

I have another clip for you. So we downloaded a transcript of a certain podcast. You might know as Pod Save America and ask Notebook LM to summarize it. Evan, take it away. You'd think his team would want him out there, you know, firing on all but the pots of america hurts actually made a point that i thought was really interesting um and they were saying you know maybe this isn't so much about fatigue as it is just a reflection of how the media landscape has changed well it's a good point yeah yeah they think you made a good point isn't that nice yeah that one worried me a little less actually that's good i don't know what the fuck they were talking about no i think they're actually i think you made a good point. Isn't that nice? Yeah, that one worried me a little less, actually. That's good.

I don't know what the fuck they were talking about. No, I think they're actually, I think you and I are going to be fine. Yeah. Because there's, you know, the human connection that you could podcast and everything. I did ask Notebook LM after it sucked up this transcript if the episode was funny. Would you like to hear what it said? It said, this episode of Pod Save America features a lot of humorous commentary. The hosts use sarcasm and hyperbole throughout the episode. I thought that was true.

The best compliment you can get is, overall, this episode is characterized by humor. That's what I'm looking for. They're great appreciators of the show. Hopefully people who will listen to this episode will characterize it as humor as well. Alright, that's our news for today. In a moment, we'll get to my conversation with the

good liars, but first, some quick housekeeping. We are just days away from the election. Ah! And this race will come down to a few thousand votes and a handful of battleground states. That's my... That's how I feel. Right? The most effective messengers in these final days are not people like us.

They're people like you. So we need everyone listening. We need you to think of three people. All right, all of you. Everyone listening right now? Seriously. You know three people in a battleground state. Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or Georgia.

If you don't know anyone in any of those states, get out more. Sure you do. Go on Facebook. Look at your high school friends. One of them has moved. The people that you're trying to stalk on Twitter now that there's no block function. Someone's got to live in one of these. Where does, is Glenn Greenwald in a swing state?

He's in Brazil, I guess, so I can't call him. And you've got to make sure that they vote. That's the whole important thing. So you scroll through your contacts list, you find the names, you text them, call them, DM them, whatever you've got to make sure that they vote. That's the whole important thing. So you scroll through your contacts list. You find the names. You text them, call them, DM them, whatever you've got to do. Then do that five more times before Election Day. We're not kidding. Reminders work.

And we're calling it Last Call. Calling it Last Call. I didn't really think of the problem there. But anyway, Last Call. Vote Save America will even give you a script for what to do. That's right. You go to votesaveamerica.com slash vote. There's a little script. Copy, paste. And if you want to then put that script in to tell them. That's right. You go to votesaveamerica.com slash vote. There's a little script,

copy, paste. And if you want to then put that script in Notebook LM, then it will talk about the script. Have a podcast and then play that podcast

for your friends so that they will never call you again. Votesaveamerica.com slash vote to get the script and to, also,

if they want to know what's on their ballot, if they want to plan to vote, votesaveamerica.com can help them with all that as well. But the important thing is it's last call. Go get your three friends

or three acquaintances or three one-time hookups, whatever. If it's the only thing you do the next week, you could save democracy. That's it. If everyone does that, we're going to win. Yes. So yeah, go do that.

This message has been paid for by Votesave America. I'm sure they feel like they got their money's worth. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. After the break, I talk to the good liars.

What the fuck? What? Who? Whose machine was that? Mine! Whose machine was that? It was mine. Jason Selvig and DeVrom Stiefler, welcome to Offline. Hey, thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. So you two got your start trolling bankers at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Talk to me about that and how you

got from there to the person on the street style MAGA interviews that you do a lot of today. Sure, sure. Well, we probably all remember Occupy Wall Street. We saw these protests growing and growing and growing, and we thought we should do something kind of funny, kind of poignant there without really thinking too far out ahead. Uh, we, we just went to a thrift store and bought some suits, went down there and we decided to, uh, you know, say that if the protesters continued, we were going to have to sell our third houses in the Hamptons. We couldn't have our, you know, seasoned Yankees tickets. We couldn't do as much cocaine. That was a big part of our cause. And so we started Occupy Wall Street. And we went down there a few times. It kind of took on a life of its own. But to your

point, it has changed over the years into kind of more what we do now. Yeah. When we started it, we thought we did this video. We thought we were just filming a sketch, and then real investment bankers thought it was real and thought we were investment bankers and then came and joined us in the protests as we were basically making fun of them to their faces. They were worried about their cocaine. You know what?

You've got to make ends meet or ends cocaine or whatever it is. We were selling like $400 cufflinks as a joke. And then people were buying them to be like, I'm part of the 1%. They said 1% on them. So it caught on for real, which was the surprising part. And then when did you guys start at the Trump rallies? Is that 2016? Well, in 2016, we went to our first Trump rally and, you know, we're comedians and we met in the comedy scene here in New York City. And we went there and we had like a prank planned. I can't remember what it was, but we were like, oh, this is funny. We don't know how long he's going to be in the race. He's probably going to drop out soon. Nobody's going to vote for this guy.

And then when we were there, the rally was very boring. Like he kept saying the same things over and over again. And the things that we'd heard on the news over and over again, the crowd size, this, this, Jeb Bush, low energy, blah, blah, blah. And we got really bored. And then we realized a funnier prank would be to just yell, this is boring to Donald Trump. And we were like the second row of people right there. And he was like, we were like cheering along with him as a joke beforehand. And he liked us. And then at a certain point, we were like, this is boring. Tell some jokes. Come on, entertain us. Come on. That's not what we came here for. And he got very, very upset. And it was like, if you want, there's a video that

if you watch it, there's a moment where he looks like almost hurt, I would say. I don't know if that's possible. I remember that video. From there, we ended up doing a movie in 2016 where we played characters who, you know, in character, we did pranks on all of the politicians, you know, from across the political spectrum, you know, Hillary Clinton, as well as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, all the politicians. And after 2016, we kind of like, it was a little bit of a gut punch for us because no one watched our movie after the election because it was so sad. And then we started going to more of these Trump events and talking to people there. That's not the only thing we do now. We still have these political interactions and things like that.

But it's now been what we've been doing a lot too much, I guess. An excruciating amount of it. Yeah. Yeah. In the last few weeks, especially. Like Jason was talking about our movie. We had this idea that we were going to kind of like prank people on both sides of the aisle, and we did.

But at some point, it just, the way things have gone over the last few years. And during COVID, this was the group of people that were still getting together. This is the group of people that if you wanted to find 15,000 people that were going to say some interesting things, it was Trump rallies. So that's what we did. Well, I think you guys recently did one in Pennsylvania. I know you've been doing a lot of these rallies lately. You hear some wild stuff from folks i think we have a clip this was a rally in redding pennsylvania uh let me ask you a question do you think uh democrats in this country need to tone down the rhetoric 100 yes they're saying things that are too uh rude and disrespectful and are inflammatory all right so what does that shirt say again?

It says, life's a bitch, don't vote for one. Then there's a picture of... Hillary Clinton. Yeah. Why would a country want to have a hurricane be strong and hit its own country? Because they want to control certain places and if you're looking at where the hurricane's going, it's a lot of red states. If you're looking at the counties in North Carolina that were hit,

there were all of them, 26 out of 28 of those counties were for Trump. They're doing whatever they can because they can't rig the election. Even control the weather? Yes. Do you think that we landed on the moon? That's a big question. I'm not sure. Do you think the Earth is round or flat? I, I've been told my whole life it's round. I, I don't know.

What are some other conspiracies? If you read the Bible, it says, uh, uh, Jesus says, uh, to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. I don't know. I don't really don't get into that. But, uh, who won the 2020 election? Oh, by far it was Trump. Yeah, by far, yeah. That's an easy one. That was an easy one, yeah. All right, Devram, here's my question.

Is your goal only to amuse and or horrify all of us Trump haters? Mission accomplished, by the way. But who is the intended audience and and what do you what do you guys hope they get out of it uh well i i think we want to get out there we want to make things that people want to see we want to amuse and horrify i guess not just people watching but ourselves there's some something we're addicted to i don't know if we're we have something extra in our brains or we're missing something in our brains but we do enjoy getting out and doing this. But I think it has been, you know, across social media,

the fans that we have are across all these different age ranges, but like the biggest following we have is on TikTok. So I think we're getting through to younger people, to people that wouldn't ordinarily care about politics, would not think of themselves as involved. And then sometimes we'll message us like, oh, I never really thought about it until I started watching your videos. But there's certainly a more cynical side to the whole thing where we will go to these Trump rallies and someone will be like, oh, I love you guys. We used to think, this is great. Maybe they have a sense of humor about what we're doing as well, and there's more common ground. But I think

at some point we realized like, oh, we've just been on their phones, and they're just happy to see someone in person that they've seen on their phones. So I guess the answer... Like Donald Trump, who's on TV. Right, right. The way we got into this mess in some ways. So I think the intended audience is, you know, everybody and that if you can watch the same thing and laugh at the same thing, then maybe we will find some common ground in this crazy, crazy world. But I don't think we have an end goal. You know, not a perfectly crystallized thing. Like it's changing, we're changing. We'll see how this all ends up. Jason, having talked to Trump fans since 2016, what's the most common reason people have given you guys for supporting him? And do you believe them? You know, the most common reason you hear is I like Trump. I like Trump. And that I do believe. I do believe that. I think a lot of people, they see Trump and they're like, this is a guy who calls out the bullshit. He says stuff that I wish I could say. I wish I could say to my boss. It's like, I'm a huge professional wrestling fan. And so I've known Trump for a long time since, you know, WrestleMania 4. That was at Trump Plaza. So Trump is doing pro wrestling stuff. He is doing Stone Cold Steve Austin. It's like a weird, bizarre world because Vince McMahon was the billionaire boss, but he's the billionaire in this situation. But he's saying stuff to the powers that be. He's giving people the middle

finger on their behalf. And I think that that's true. And I think it's a thing that Democrats kind of underestimate about Trump is that he is Trump and nobody else can Trump like Trump does because he does not give a hell about what he says. He will say whatever he wants to say all the time. And it is authentic. Then you go in, there's other layers to it where you talk to some people and then there's, oh, he gives me an excuse for any of my problems because it's immigrants and all. And there's like a darker part of it, but it all goes back to the personality, I think. That's what draws people to him. Like, yeah, but he gets stuff done. He gets stuff done, which is not true really, but they

think that because he's giving this middle finger, he's speaking on their behalf. Yeah, I remember I watched one of the videos and you guys, you were interviewing someone and asked him what his favorite Trump policy was of the last four years and stumped him. It's a tough question. I liked it when he said it. They're eating cats and dogs. I don't know I feel like it's been telegraphed to people that they should avoid talking about his personality like what Jason said

that's what they actually like about him but somehow they got the memo that we should say it's his policies that we love so much that's why it was nice to ask someone what his favorite policy was and it was just like 30 seconds of like, I just don't know. Got nothing.

We heard, obviously, a few wild conspiracies in that clip. You guys have probably heard all the conspiracy theories that exist over the last decade. Why do you think these Trump fans seem so drawn to conspiracy theories, particularly conspiracies like, was the moon landing faked? Is the earth actually round? That aren't even necessarily political. I thought, you know, it's interesting.

We went to the Flat Earth Convention last year in Las Vegas, Nevada. And I recommend anybody who's out there listening, you should go to it. It's great. It's called Flat-toberfest, which is actually like an A-plus pun. But we went there, and some people weren't political, but most of the people that we talked to were Trump supporters. And it got to the point where I've become personal, I think to Ron probably too,

like some of these theories, like JFK Jr. is still alive and he's the acting vice president right now, you know, which we still hear. It's like we're bored by them. We've heard them so many times. And we just like try and talk to people and just talk them out of it a little bit. And because it's just so out there. But if you look at Trump, Trump, he is a conspiracy theorist. Like that's his whole thing is blaming, you know, everything, everyone else for your own problems. So of course they're going to be drawn to it. So when the election, when he said the election was stolen, that fit right into it because there are bigger conspiracies here. Of course the election was stolen if there's like the pizza gate is real

and we didn't land on the moon and all of this stuff. But I think it's like if you go back and you take a step back and you look at the people, I think some of the people that are drawn to Trump, they maybe have drawn a kind of a bad hand sometimes. And the opioid epidemic, legalized heroin just ravaged their communities. There are real conspiracies that did affect their lives where they're drawn to somebody who looks like he is going to be speaking on their behalf. So part of it is there's a conspiratorial thinking that's there in them and that they're drawn to. But part of it is like, yeah, there is a conspiracy. There are real conspiracies. Real bad things have happened that we can't explain

or when you explain it, it's that they've been taken advantage of and not given the resources to deal with some of these problems in their communities. One more thing about the Flat Earth Convention. At one point, a poll was taken in the room and the speaker said, how many of you out there drink your own pee? And I think 70% of the people in the room raised their hands.

What's the problem? Your hand was up, too. So, like, you shouldn't be, like, a pot call on the kettle black here. I didn't say it wasn't. Okay, all right, all right, all right. But it's just, like, how deep this goes. Jason, you touched on the perception is that trump's giving the middle finger to the establishment um and just a simple way you can fight the powers by by drinking your own pee for anyone listening out there i didn't i didn't yeah it's interesting i didn't imagine that that would

connect with the flat earth conspiracy though i don't I don't think I want to know how it connects. They all connect, man. They all connect. It's all connected. It's all connected. I want to go back to something you mentioned about people coming up to you and sometimes recognize you because they've seen you guys on your phone. And then I've seen you guys say that they actually will ask to be interviewed sometimes. Yeah.

Like, what's going on there? Why is that because it does seem like there's sort of a dark celebrity for the sake of celebrity thing going on there that explains i think trump and a lot of the movement it explains trump and a lot of the movement like uh like you said is seeing him on you know the apprentice and then being like this guy is awesome i don't have to know much more about him than that i've seen him on tv so sometimes people will recognize us and on occasion they'll be like interview me interview me and we we don't because it's so strange it's like that becomes this

performative thing that like why why would we bother we did it one time we're like i guess and he was really turning it on for it, like saying really out there stuff. And I'm like, I don't think you believe this right now. We're not going to put this out. This is not real right now. Yeah, it was weird. It became too much. It became too strange.

It became like too much of a put on. And it felt like all of us were kind of playing a character in our own ways. And it became totally not valuable to anyone in any way. So we always say no. But yes, there are people who come up to us and are like, interview me. Love you guys. And then they get back in line at the rally. I mean, I'm interested in that because it does sort of underscore

the nihilism that's like part of the movement, which is nothing matters except trolling people or getting some attention except trolling people or getting some attention for trolling people, which of course is like much of what characterizes online discourse and especially online discourse on social media among some more extreme people. And there's people who you're like, are they putting on a show? Do they believe their own bullshit or do they know that it's a game? And the same thing is true with Trump,

right? It's like sometimes you, he, he wants you to know that he's in on the game, that he's in on the joke, which I think can be very effective people. And, um,

and it's just hard to tell between what's farce and what's, uh, something serious that we have to take seriously. Yeah. I think with Trump, I mean, just look at this last week. He's like at McDonald's, giving cheeseburgers and fries and like wearing a goofy apron. And you're like, oh, this guy's a clown. Look at this. Like it's an obvious photo op

opportunity. And then also he's, you know, a week earlier, he's like, yeah, I'll use the military against our own people. Like, well, what is what? You know, because all he does is say things to troll and to move the news cycle because it's like, you have to report on him saying, I want to use the military against our own people. You also have to report on the McDonald's thing because it's so ridiculous. But like, I feel like the perfect example of that is J.D. Vance had that

interview on, I think it was CNN, and where he said, if I have to make up a story or whatever, if I have to create a story, an hour later, you know, everyone's talking about this. Of course, this is all online, but the news media is talking about this too, this interview with J.D. Vance. An hour later, Donald Trump's on Truth Social, all caps, I hate Taylor Swift. Like that's a plan. Like I don't think he like was like, I gotta, I gotta say this. I'm planning on saying this. Or he saw something. He was like, oh, this will get people talking about something else. And it worked. It worked. Everybody started talking about Taylor Swift and Donald Trump. Yeah. It's like half impulse, half strategy. Yeah, exactly. Sort of from his adult brain. His impulse is Donald Trump. Yeah, it's like half impulse, half strategy.

Yeah, exactly. Sort of from his adult brain. His impulse is his strategy, which is like, he's like a child. You know what I mean? Like, I want that. So I'm going to go for that. I'm going to do it. For the people who don't recognize you guys,

do they usually figure out that you are not necessarily an ally to Fram? I think about 30% of the time it gets a little tense. Most of the time we're talking, and then you can talk about some more benign things, and you can walk away, more benign things and then you can walk away and it's all good and sometimes people get upset and um in scranton pennsylvania recently a guy got really mad at us and he started screaming these guys are trying to ask tough questions they're trying to stump us they're trying to ask tough questions and he got to the point of like going and getting a police officer, you know, bringing him over and saying, these guys are trying to ask tough questions.

We all just kind of, like, stood there looking at the dirt, like, and the cop was like, yeah, no, no, they're definitely allowed to do that. And the guy just, like, kind of, like, slowly turned around and was like, fine. And, you know, just kind of slowly walked back to his spot in line. So, yes, like, you know, people kind of catch on that we're trying to, I don't know, hold up a mirror, I guess. Get them to say these things and see if they question them. Most of the time, it's not tense. And, you know, when it is, whatever, we move on. We talk to someone else.

Well, one day it was very tense. You guys, I guess, were at the Capitol on January 6th. Jason, talk about that day. In a lot of ways, that shaped us moving forward as far as going to these events more because of what we experienced. Part of it was the day before, too. We spent the night in a hotel at the Yours Truly DC in DC. And it was like, I don't know if you've ever been there. It's kind of like a hipstery hotel. And it was like, I don't know if you've ever been there. It's like kind of like a hipster hotel and it was just filled with Trump supporters. And that night when we were going to sleep, we heard people screaming like at the top of their lungs in the hotel, like, let's go, baby. We're taking it back tomorrow. Let's go. They were playing like loud pump up music all through the

night. And we had a moment where we're like, oh, this is going to be real tomorrow. These are like people getting themselves ready for war right now. This is not just people ready for a rally. And so we almost left town. We were leaving town during Trump's speech, and then we saw people going to the Capitol, and we decided to pull over and see what was going on. And we got to the backside of the Capitol, and it was like, it was probably the smaller crowd, but it was like the much more violent crowd. And we just saw these guys beating the shit out of the cops there, the Capitol police there. And there was a few lines of them, and then after a few moments, they burst through the line. And it was like a roar, like like braveheart roar when they took it over

and we're sitting there like i think both of us had a moment we're like how the fuck did we end up here right now like how the fuck did like we were like doing these comedy movies doing this now we're like here at an insurrection in the capitol and we had a pretty scary moment where like a group of guys like surrounded us when they saw that we had a microphone and one of the flashbangs at the Capitol went off and they turned around and Devram and I were like, we're getting the hell out of here. This is what else are we going to get at this moment? And honestly, it stuck with us because like for the, a couple of weeks after it, I would wake up in the middle of the night, you know, and just like be like replaying everything,

like a little bit of PTSD or whatever. And it did, I do think it shaped us a little bit going forward being like, this is what can happen. Like, this is what kind of like Trump brought us. And what's scary about the 2024 election is he is not, he's not apologizing for it. He is not, he's making excuses for it. He's making excuses for it. And it almost feels inevitable that it could happen again just because he's painting it as this beautiful day now. So it definitely has shaped us and it was not a fun day. I do not recommend going to the Capitol on January 6th. It was not a fun day. I think we stopped for some pasta afterwards. I sold my one share of Apple stock or whatever. I was like, everything's going to shit.

I gotta save the $400 I have. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I've been thinking about this as we get, you know, we're two weeks out now, less than two weeks out from the election. And, you know, you were talking about sort of the juxtaposition of him at McDonald's and him talking about using the military against American citizens. And one of his advisors did an interview with Semaphore where they were like, well, part of our strategy is to, you know, have him at McDonald's and put him on these podcasts where he's joking around because he can't really seem like a threat if he's laughing and joking around. And on the flip side, there's been this sort of debate within the Democratic Party about, you know, like, how do

we deal with Trump, right? Do we mock him and make fun of him because knowing that, you know, strong men don't like to be mocked? Or do we warn people that he is a wannabe dictator who's a threat to the country and risk people seeing him and be like, is he really, though? He's kind of old and kooky. Where do you guys fall on that? I think somewhere right in the middle.

Like, we're trying, I think we go out there to talk to these people, and there's a certain amount of kind of, like, trying to kind of mock Trump and get under his skin by talking to his supporters. But it's about serious things. So ideally, people are laughing at him and also realizing that he's a genuine threat through the interactions that we're having. So I think that it really is a catch 22 because it's so silly some of the stuff he does is so silly and then it gets so serious like there was the the funniest oldest woman on on january 6th who had made her own

uh flag that said treason on it and it was just like cute almost in its own way she was like there and she was so happy and it said treason and on the other side it said 1776 2.0 and um and then we saw photographs from inside the capitol and the flag is all torn and the and the flagpole is all bent up and it's in the halls of the capitol and i just think about that when i think about all of this. Like, it is so kind of silly and kind of non-threatening, and then it gets so real so fast. So I think both of those things have to be acknowledged. So, Rob, I just thought about that January 5th in the Freedom Plaza, Alex Jones spoke there. And Alex Jones gave, like, this, like, he, he like was moving his fists like hitler like and screaming and it was really scary he's like we will never back down never ever ever it's war

and then right after it roger stone came out with a rap group rapping roger stone did nothing wrong and the whole crowd's going like this and I was like this is the perfect thing of Trump it's so ridiculous everything's so ridiculous and then you have like the darkest thing you've ever seen in your life happen five minutes before it and everyone in the crowd is like this is normal

this is a totally normal thing to happen we went from looking at each other like should we get out of here like this is really scary to being like alright that's a jam right there. All right. And he lied about the emails. It's a good song, actually. I like that song.

Amusing ourselves to death. Yeah, literally. Where are you guys going to be on election night? Are you anywhere near Trump and Trump supporters? Well, 2016. I don't know. Cautionary tale. Don't go to Trump Tower on election night. In 2016, we got in to Trump Tower.

We're in the bar, and we thought maybe we'll see Trump after he loses. Maybe we'll say something funny. And then so we're watching Fox News in the bar at Trump Tower, and it slowly dawns on us that he's going to win. The joke is on us a little bit. We just had to sulk out of there at 11 p.m. So not at Trump Tower.

I know that we will not be there. I was going to say we should go back to Trump Tower this year. Trump Tower. Trump Tower it is. Let's all meet there. It'll be fun. Then you guys go back to D.C. for January 6th. It's perfect fun today. You convinced me. Trump Tower it is. Yeah. Let's all meet there. It'll be fun. And then you guys go back to D.C. for January 6th. It's perfect. Yeah.

The whole calendar planned out for us. It's great. Jason Selvig, DeVron Stiefler, thank you guys so much for joining. And everyone go check out The Good Liars on YouTube. Fantastic videos. And appreciate what you guys do. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illick-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Charlotte Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglin. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, Reed Cherlin, and Adrian Hill for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Dilan Villanueva, who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Terima kasih.