Offline with Jon Favreau - QAnon Reacts to Epstein, Laura Loomer Gets Loomered, and Jon Gets Caught Up in the Syndey Sweeney Discourse

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

As the Trump administration manufactures conspiracies to distract from the president’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, some on the right are blaming the deep state while others are finally calling foul. The Bulwark’s Will Sommer has been covering the far right conspiracy beat for years, and he joins the show to break down the Epstein drama, run through the kooks in charge of federal law enforcement, and compare the unhinged agendas of MAGA's two misinformation queens, Laura Loomer and Candace Owens. One thing’s for sure: never before have so many online lunatics occupied positions of such power and influence.

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offline. That's mintmobile.com slash offline. Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra, cement mobile for details. This Russia gate saga we've

been seeing from the administration where every day or two, they're like, okay, we found the real smoking gun. Okay, the last one was a Russian plant. But this is really going to mean Obama goes to prison. I think that has given right-wing media stuff to talk about for a little while. But, I mean, unless they charge

people, it's kind of creating a new expectation that they're not going to deliver on. Candace Owens had an episode with Milo Uinopoulos yesterday, where they dressed all in black as a funeral for MAGA. You know, I mean, they're just, they're rending their garments over, like, how they've lost faith with Trump because of Epstein. I'm John Favreau, and joining me today is the bulwarks, Will Summer. Will, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me.

So you've been on the right-wing conspiracy beat for a long time. You are now writing an excellent twice-weekly newsletter, aptly named False Flag at the Bullwork, where you've been doing a lot of great reporting on the Epstein drama, the cooks in charge of federal law enforcement, Laura Lumer, Candice Owens, all of whom have been making news lately, unfortunately. So I wanted to have you on to talk about how to make sense of the extremely online lunatics who now seem to occupy positions of great power. and influence. But before we wade into the fever swamps, how'd you come to this beat? What got you interested in the world of right-wing conspiracies? Yeah, so they are, basically, I was a teen Republican long ago, and I just loved consuming the right-wing media getting into things like Bill O'Reilly, and this was when Ben Shapiro was just getting started. His big thing was that he was a college student who was still a virgin. That was kind of his kind of a claim to fame. And then, with the war in Iraq, things like that, my politics changed. But I still like just had this huge appetite for right-wing media. And it's so, I mean, so interesting to follow. I mean, there's

constantly feuds and kind of the ideological fluctuations are always interesting. And so then I started writing about it in 2016, basically after my girlfriend was like, you know, how about instead of bugging me about this, you start writing about it. And I did. And, of course, ever since, it's unfortunately become more and more relevant. As good a reason as any to start doing something to stop bugging your significant other. All right, let's start, of course, with Jeffrey Epstein. It is now the one-month anniversary of the Justice Department's announcement that they would not be releasing the Epstein files.

Happy anniversary to you. The Trump administration is celebrating by holding a meeting tonight, Wednesday night, at J.D. Vance's residence to strategize about how to make the Epstein scandal go away. It includes all the officials you typically see in a political strategy session, the attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the FBI Director. According to CNN, they'll be deciding whether to release the interview that Trump's former defense attorney, now Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, conducted with Galane Maxwell, who the administration has transferred with no explanation from federal prison to a cushy

minimum security facility known as Club Fed. She's, of course, also seeking a pardon from Trump, who hasn't ruled it out. There's also reports now that she didn't say that Trump did anything bad. around Epstein. Surprise, surprise. You have been deep in the Epstein beat for the last month. What's the vibe in Maga World right now? Are people cool with the kid glove treatment for the convicted child sex trafficker who was Epstein's main accomplice? Or how are people thinking about this? Yeah, you know, I think the administration has bought itself a little time here. I mean, it's the summer. You know, I think the house closing early to avoid this vote on releasing the files helped.

But ultimately, I think if the idea is that it's headed towards Galane exonerating Trump and then getting some preferential treatment, you mentioned her prison switch, which is so crazy and basically unprecedented, if ultimately that's headed towards a partner or cooperation deal, I don't think the MAGA base, and I think especially these kind of like Rogan-esque independents, I don't think they're going to buy it. I mean, I think people understand that Galane is going to say whatever she can to get out of prison. And just what I'm seeing in terms of internet comments, things like that, people aren't really convinced. Is there a split between a lot of the MAGA influencers on this and right-wing media? Because I've seen Newsmax sort of flirting with becoming pro-Galain Maxwell. Maybe she was just a victim. You got the people like your Benny Johnson's and people like that who seem more willing to carry the administration's water here on whatever they say about Galane Maxwell. And then, of course, I do think, you know, the Joe Rogans, the flagrant podcast, all those folks, they seem to be seeing right through this. But are there different factions here?

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple slices. I mean, on one hand, you have Newsmax, which has really been out on the, like, free Galane, Galane rehabilitation. I mean, it's sick, but it's true. You know, part of that, I think, is that Alex Acosta, the former federal prosecutor and labor secretary who was involved in Epstein's deal, he's on the board of Newsmax. So I think they have a good reason to act like, oh, Epstein wasn't that big a deal. Then you have people like Megan Kelly, Benny Johnson, who I think are going to basically carry the administration's water, whatever it is. But they still need to like, like if they pardon Galane or something else big happens, they can't totally ignore it. I think this kind of this Russia gate saga we've been seeing from the administration where every day or two, they're like, okay, we found the real smoking gun.

Okay, the last one was a Russian plant. We know, you know, but this is really going to mean Obama goes to prison. I think that has given right-wing media stuff to talk about for a little while. But, I mean, unless they charge people, it's kind of creating a new expectation that they're not going to deliver on. And then finally, you have people like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens. I mean, this is on my mind. Candice Owens had an episode with Milo Uinopolis yesterday where they dressed all in black as a funeral for MAGA. You know, I mean, they're just, they're rending their garments over like how they've lost faith with Trump because

of Epstein. Well, that's kind of fun. I do like that. Let's talk with the Republicans in the House. The Oversight Committee has subpoenaed a whole bunch of people surrounding the Epstein scandal, including Bill and Hillary Clinton as part of the probe. Obviously, it's a concerted effort to make this a democratic scandal and not a Trump scandal. Do you think people will buy that? I mean, obviously there is a desire among the MAGA faithful for this to just become a democratic scandal again, which is what they originally thought it was. You think there's going to be some motivated reasoning there. Does this going to work?

You're right on. I mean, they're definitely trying to say, well, Epstein, that's the big Bill Clinton thing. They're kind of trying to go back to the status quo before the DOJ memo. Something else I thought is interesting here is they've subpoenaed all of these former attorneys general who are now because of the party's kind of maga tilt. Even Republican attorneys general are seen as like lib coded now. And so you have like, they're like, we're going to get Bill Barr. We're going to get Alberto Gonzalez.

I saw someone was saying, some big right-wing pundit was saying, you know, the key here is Jeff Sessions, who, of course, they all hate. And so he's on the subpoena list, too. But again, I mean, I'm a little reluctant to say that this is going to work. I mean, I think on one hand, I think let's say Bill Clinton just gets in there and says, oh, yeah, you know, it was this big scheme. And I love going to Epstein Island or whatever. I mean, I think that's just going to raise more questions ultimately. Like the administration here, I think, is in a real bind. And no Alex Acosta on the list, I see.

I guess he's busy on the board of Newsmax. Isn't that curious? Yeah, Alex Acosta, who is basically the whole source, this kind of thirdhand reported remark that Epstein was intelligence. And that's why they had to go lightly on him that he supposedly said to sort of exonerate himself. I mean, that's a question they could ask him about. And yet, that's a guy who apparently is not going to be called. Trump has been waging what you've called a monumental distraction campaign over the last few weeks

to distract attention away from his Epstein issues. Rosie O'Donnell should lose their citizenship. Sidney Sweeney's hot. Taylor Swift's not. Commander should become the Redskins again. You know, he's hitting all the cultural war or Rajinasones. But you mentioned this, like the most absurd, convoluted, and I think now alarming distraction is this attempt to re-litigate the decade-old investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election,

which, you know, as absurd as I thought it was at first, has now resulted in the Department of Justice ordering a grand jury criminal investigation into the repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama concocted the entire Russia investigation to hurt Trump. What do you make of the escalation by the DOJ? because, you know, there's one way to read it as, you know, Tulsi was trying to get back into Trump's good graces, so she declassified the intelligence and did that press conference and, you know, said that there was crime of the century, Obama should go to jail. And then she threw it in Pam Bondi's lap. And now Pam Bondi has to do something to make sure that Trump knows that she's carrying water form. But like, do you think this is going to go anywhere? Or do you think everyone's just sort of trying to, uh, act apart here yeah you're right i mean it really shouldn't go anywhere on one hand it is so farcical i mean the kathy young at the bulwark has done a lot of writing about how this there's this sort of smoking gun email that in fact uh is probably a russian fake that even the the report that they're all

excited about that supposedly proves the conspiracy theory says ah this is probably a russian fake um and so and yet you know there's a lot of pressure on pam bondie now i mean tulsie gabbard kind of got out of the hot seat by saying oh my gosh like look look at all this russia gate stuff we've found. I'm just going to hand it off to Pam and it's on her now. And so ultimately, I mean, I don't think she wants to lose her job. And so she's impaneled this grand jury and now is trying to, you know, to get at least some amount of charges. I mean, the whole thing is just really crazy. I think it's not sinking in so much with the base because, again, it is really convoluted. I mean, this stuff is like these, these classic characters, Bruce and Nellie Orr,

Peter Strach. I mean, this is like a decade old now. And now people are being asked, oh, we got to meet the cast of the George Soros Open Society's Foundation, all of these different things that people are being expected to understand. I mean, the legal thing here, I think, is really crazy. So because this goes back so far, a lot of the statute of limitations, even if there were crimes here, have expired. But John Solomon, who's this kind of quasi-reporter who parrots a lot or puts out a lot of administration trial balloons. Quasai is right, yeah. Yeah, that's just being generous, I think, that he claims that there's this investigation called the grand conspiracy that somehow would link the Jack Smith, you know, files at Mar-a-Lago investigation

all the way back to like 2015 and the Steele dossier and everything, that there was, they can get everyone on a RICO charge. And because of the raid at Mar-a-Lago, the grand jury can be in Florida, which would presumably be more open to charging people. And so, I mean, it seems like really kind of looted and unlikely to work, but that's what they're up to. I've seen a few people do this. I've seen Tulsi say this, too. Like, what the hell does the raid at Mar-a-Lago over Trump stealing classified documents have anything at all to do with even their craziest conspiracies about the Russia investigation? I just, I can't figure that out except for clearly they want to try this in Florida. Yeah, I mean, it was like being mean to Mr. Trump is the crime.

And, you know, they're sweeping whatever they can into that. And you're right. I mean, they are obsessed with getting the jurisdiction out of D.C. because obviously that's a more liberal grand jury pool. Yeah. I mean, look, my theory on this as I saw that go to the grand jury is it is not difficult to get an indictment from a grand jury, partly because there is no judge present. There's no defense attorney. It's just the prosecutor talking to the grand jury, doing, you know, presenting evidence and then also framing what the law is.

So usually grand jury indictments do get returned. And I could see them wanting an indictment headline before some judge. laughed it out of the courtroom, which is probably what would happen in almost every courtroom in the country because for a million different reasons, like statute of limitations being one of them, but also the fact that doesn't seem like

there are any laws being broken, even with what they allege. But I did wonder about that. Yeah, and I mean, what's the chain of custody for this evidence? It's from the Russian government. I mean, like, how could you possibly say, well, we have this tranche that we got somehow from the KGB or the GRU, I mean, how are you going to bring that up in court?

And again, what did, forget about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, what did like John Brennan, Clapper, Comey, anyone else do with that information that is somehow against the law other than surface it somewhere? It's fucking crazy. You sound crazy talking about it when you try to explain it to someone because I have tried to do this a few times. And you get like two sentences in and people are like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Well, yeah, I mean, it makes people tune out. but it is like a very real thing. I mean, that's the challenge.

I mean, this is kind of the pretext that's being constructed here at minimum to get out of Epstein and, you know, also potentially for these prosecutions. Offline is brought to you by hymns. As love it always says, E.D. is more common than you think.

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to see website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. So I want to leave our Epstein discussion without talking about QAnon, which is a particular area of expertise for you. So correct me if I'm wrong, but you can probably summarize the two main tenets of Q&ON as one, the government is controlled by an elite cabal of pedophiles, and two, Donald Trump will expose and then arrest those pedophiles. Given that, how are Q&N believers taking the news that Trump is in the Epstein files that his Justice Department is refusing to release? Yeah, I mean, they've had to construct already, even before this, they had to construct elaborate rationalizations for why is Trump on video paling around with Jeffrey Epstein? Why is he giving quotes about how Jeffrey likes his women on the younger side?

Like, what's up with this? And they said at the time, you know, while he was infiltrating the Epstein organization or, you know, he was going undercover with JFK Jr. or whoever. But, you know, it's been tough for them. I mean, I think they're saying that, you know, the deep state is at it again. You know, obviously, they've really lashed onto this idea that Obama and Comey planted fake documents in the files. And so now we can't trust the files anymore. I mean, Benny Johnson has laid this out pretty well. So it's like you can't trust the files because who knows what Obama was up to.

So now we can only trust Galane Maxwell. Are any Q&N adherence starting to think? think, maybe this isn't so right. Maybe this conspiracy is a bit off now that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files and they're not releasing it. Are there any cracks in the facade here? Not that I've seen. I mean, they really, Trump is their sort of messianic figure. I mean, so they're, I think they're going down with the ship in terms of, I mean, it is truly crazy to think about that they built this whole worldview around Trump taking on the pedophile cabal. And then at minimum, he's writing kind of loving letters with little louis.

illustrations to the head of the cabal. The call is coming from inside the house. You wrote recently that Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, a fan of mental health days, through the Q&N land a bit of a bone. Can you talk to us about what he tweeted and how Q&N followers took his words? So he threw out this, he's clearly, you know, he was going to quit the FBI in a fit. He was so mad about how the Epstein rollout went. But now he's back on the team.

And so he sends this tweet. He's constantly tweeting. And this is kind of a key thing to understand about Dan Bungina. From the beginning, he has been under this pressure. And I think often sort of pressure that he imagines from the right that's like, we got to get, you know, all of these passions of theirs. Who took cocaine to the White House under Biden? Who was the January 6th pipe bomber? Was it an FBI false flag?

Whatever. And they haven't figured it out. And certainly, you know, we haven't arrested any of the people they wanted arrested. And so he's always tweeting like, this is not a vacation to me. I'm working so hard. And in this case, he's hyping up the Tulsi Gabb. stuff and so he tweets you know what i've seen has shocked me to my core i'll never be the same again so he's trying to move on from epstein when people see that i mean there was the reaction was like

surely this is not about some intel report that we don't think was fairly handled or or was rushed this has to be about qanon this has to be about epstein still so so that was sort of more fuel for the fire people were saying bongino you know it's like his hair is going to go white he's been so shocked by by the truth of how the world is run i saw that tweet and And it was around the Russiagate stuff. And so around when, like, remember, like, Cash Patel found a bunch of documents in the trash, basically. Oh, my God, the burn bags. Yeah.

And I was like, is Bongino tweeting that about the fucking papers and the burn bag? Because they didn't really, I mean, even if you buy into the conspiracy, that shouldn't shock you to your core. The burnbags are such a classic Cash Patel operation. Even back when he was a congressional staffer, he always suffered Nunes. He always has, like, there's like a document that has to be uncovered. It was like the release the memo campaign. Oh, yeah. Suddenly, we're told the burn bags were, they were trying to destroy the files.

But really, the index here that supposedly contains the smoking gun email, I mean, it seems like that was pretty widespread in the government. I mean, it was classified. So this idea that, you know, oh, we just stopped the FBI from destroying these files. It seems a little suspicious. Well, it's also, it's like it was John Durham that conducted the investigation who was appointed by Bill Barr, Trump's Attorney General. John Durham spent a long time trying to prove some of these.

Russia hoax conspiracies on the right came up short, but then, like, stashed away the real evidence in a burnbags and hope that after four years of Biden, Trump would return and Cash Patel would find it in a back room somewhere. Like, I just, it's wild. I don't know how you even connect the string. We need a little more narrative on this story. I agree. Like, he was kind of being thrown out like, what's the deal? Was Cash, you know, it was late night? He was looking for the vending machine. What happened? Like, tell a story about how this was uncovered. and the motivation behind it ending up there in the first place. Just at least come up with something. More of my conversation with Will Summer after the break. But first, in case you missed it,

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All right, let's turn to one of the president's most trusted advisors, a real voice of reason in MAGA world, Laura Lumer. So Trump said this week, he was asked again about her. He said he really likes her. And her job as an informal outside advisor, as far as I can tell, seems to be getting administration officials fired. who she decides aren't sufficiently loyal to Trump or the MAGA movement. So far, she's taken credit for at least 16 firings, including the General Counsel of the NSA,

and recently an academic chair at West Point. On Monday, you reported that Loomers' own fans may be starting to turn on her over the resignation of a top FDA official, who was beloved by RFK Jr.'s, Maha folks. What is this story all about? Yeah, so this is interesting. I mean, so for months now, Laura Lumer has had this really outsized control in Washington. I call it Lumocracy. You know, I mean, she can just go in and take out whoever she wants.

And this is quite a turn, right? I mean, this was a few years ago. She was locking herself up to Twitter headquarters. I mean, she was a laughingstock even on the right. But because people, either she's digging it up or some mix of people feeding it to her, she finds, you know, some Trump appointee with a podcast interview eight years ago saying, I don't know about Donald Trump gets him out. And so, but at the same time,

she seems to get onto these policy issues that she's expressed no interest in before in a way that her interests often align with big business in ways that I would describe as curious. For example, she got very passionate about Venezuelan oil sanctions in a way that I believe Chevron, you know, she was advocating for basically the Chevron position to keep working with Venezuela, not typically what you would expect a right-wing influencer to get into. No. She's been very critical of this Puerto Rican financial control board that Trump just purged in a way that, you know, why does she care about this all of a sudden? And then there's the case of Vinay Prasad, who is in charge of, sort of an RFK Jr. acolyte in charge of a lot of the medicine and vaccine approvals at the FDA. And she, I would say, like, you know, I don't think this guy has politics and mine really align. But she seems to have really done him dirty here. She had this, there was this clip where he's saying, like, you know, these crazy liberals, they probably have.

You know, they're acting like, I've got a Trump voodoo doll, and I put pins in it. So she cuts that and she goes, my God, this man has a Trump voodoo doll. We've got to get him out. Wait, so there were allegations that when she did that, some people on the right alleged that she was doing the bidding of drug companies? Yeah. So there's this drug company called Surrepta that has kind of a long-running feud with Prasad over this muscular distributed drug they have.

And basically, even before he was in the FDA, he was like, this drug should not have been prove this drug is dangerous. And then in July, the FDA said, well, two people taking this drug had died. And so we're going to put it on hold. And so this was obviously terrible for this drug company. Their stock went down. Then a few days later, Laura Lumer suddenly goes on a tear against this guy. And so there have been a lot of other prominent right-wing influencers who are saying, you know, what's going on here? Are you taking money from this company? She denies it. But it is, it is curious. It's sort of just the latest example of her, I think, using her influence, in ways that at least people are accusing her of being on the take.

Well, so there's two options here, and you lay them out, one with which she actually does have some kind of relationship, professional relationship with this drug company. The other is, you pointed out that accusing each other of grifting and taking money and being bought and sold by corporate interest is, like, common among the MagaSet when they're mad at someone else. They just, like, accuse them of being a corporate stooge. but we might learn a little bit more about where Laura Lumer's money comes from and how she gets paid because of a, because of Bill Maher, is that, is that right?

Yeah, of course, Bill Maher is riding to the rescue. He's going to figure it out. I mean, this is such a strange situation. And I should say, I mean, this is like a serious issue, right? Because, I mean, we're talking about people dying from a drug. And now that Vinay Prasad has been pushed out, right? Before he resigned, the FDA said, back on, you can use this drug again in trials. So, I mean, this is potentially dangerous stuff here.

And if the idea is that Laura Lumer can just fire off a tweet and change government policy, you know, it's ominous. But last year, Bill Maher, there was a point where Laura Lumer was really powing around with Trump. She was on the plane. And Bill Maher implied or, you know, basically said, you know, I think Laura Lumer is sleeping with Donald Trump. Laura Lumer sues Mar and HBO over that. But now, I mean, in kind of classic Laura Lumer fashion, she has a history of these lawsuits that go off the rails. And so now she is basically, HBO says, well, you know, if you say we destroyed your reputation, we prevented you from getting a role in the Trump administration, we can't help but notice

that you seem to be extremely powerful and influential now. So could you provide us with proof that you lost income and proof of your meetings with Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff? And so we need all the details on these meetings because you're supposedly such an outcast, but you don't seem to be. And the judge said, yeah, that makes sense. And so now, you know, if, unless Laura Lumer is just going to default, in this lawsuit, she's going to have to provide HBO with evidence of all her income sources,

her contacts with the White House. So it's potentially, you know, if that stuff gets into the court record, I think it could be very illuminating. I know that like back at the end of the campaign, there was some concern in Trump's circle about Laura Lumer advising him and Laura Lumer being on the plane. It seems like that's all gone now. Have you heard about anyone in the White House who's like, eh, we should keep this Laura Lumer person away since she is a self-described Islamophobic, and kooky as they come? Or is that just like, yeah, whatever? I don't think that concern has gone away.

I think she's just gotten too powerful. I mean, I think that basically, you know, there have been a lot of profiles of her written this week about how, you know, she's running rough shot over the administration. And people are like, yeah, I, you know, I wish we could get her out or I wish she could stop disrupting our policy plans, like getting the kind of the second or third ranking guy at the FDA fired. But, you know, what can we do?

Wow, and that's comforting. All right. I saved my favorite deranged conspiracy theory for last, which I first learned all the details about from your bulwark colleague, Tim Miller, on one of our shows last week. Candice Owens claims that French first lady Bridget McCron is a criminal, a transgender woman, and that French president, Emmanuel Macron, is not just her husband, but also her son. Two weeks ago, the Macron's quite reasonably filed a 22-count defamation lawsuit against Owens in the United States. But according to your reporting, Owens has been peddling this absolutely ridiculous conspiracy as early as March 24. What the fuck is that? I was like, I had heard something about this, but until Tim really unspooled the details and then I read some of your reporting, I did not know the extent of it.

This is crazy. I mean, and yeah, I had the displeasure. of, you know, I had to watch all these videos and get to bottom of it. I thought for a while that this was just, like, something she was throwing out, like, Brigitte Macron is trans or in the same way that they throw out that Michelle Obama's trans. But there's this whole, like, worldview, and it goes back to the Middle Ages. I mean, her belief about what's going on here. I mean, she basically, you know, the lawsuit is interesting because it focuses a lot on the economic benefits to Candace Owens of saying this.

And so basically, she's leaving the Daily Wire in March 2024 under a cloud. She's fighting with Ben Shapiro. who runs it. So she's fighting with him. And then suddenly she says, oh, my gosh, I dug up this years old thing about Brigitte McCrone being trans from the French far right. And basically her allegation is that Brigitte McCrone is, in fact, her brother, a guy named Jean-Michel, and that Jean-Michel became Brigitte McCrone in his 30s, transitioned. And then also maybe Emmanuel McCrone is Jean-Michel's son. And maybe they're part of this CIA mind control experiment, and maybe murdering their critics, and perhaps a cult dating back hundreds of years that's out to undermine

all of society. So she's throwing out a lot, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Wow. I didn't know that it goes back hundreds of years as well. Yeah, well, that's why it was an eight-part series. I, my question for Tim, and just in general, when I heard about this, was like, the clip of Candace Owens being like bring it on bring on the lawsuit i'll see you in discovery i'm so right on the it's like she is not backing down at all and i don't understand how you don't even back down a little bit or she doesn't seem afraid at all that this lawsuit could succeed against her like what what is going on there do you think she's just genuinely believes uh her own bullshit it's really mysterious i mean on one hand she could potentially have a lot of money to draw on her husband is

really rich, comes from this wealthy British family. On the other hand, it's, you know, and this is a serious case. I mean, I spoke to lawyers who said, you know, this is really legit. Like, this could be, this is not something that's going to get tossed out immediately in court. You know, they, the McCrones have hired Claire Locke, which is a very heavy duty defamation firm that does a lot of, you know, cease and desist type work on behalf of right wing figures in the U.S. So, I mean, it, yeah, it's a tough one to deal with, I think. But as you said, I mean, it seems like her defense, she could say, well, I don't know, I really believed it, or she could say that, you know, this is all opinion stuff, don't take me seriously. But I don't think either of those are great options for her.

What do you think, in general, of lawsuits like these as a method of fighting back against conspiracy theories and misinformation? Are they, do they tend to be effective? Well, you know, we're certainly in an age where I think they've had a lot of success. You know, I mean, obviously we think about the Dominion lawsuit, the smartmatic cases that are related to the 2020 election, you know, imagine theft are still going on. You know, Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame recently got off with a relatively light $2 million judgment recently. So, but yeah, I mean, I think we're in this age where because these lawsuits have been so effective, another one, obviously, Sandy Hook and Alex Jones, these lawsuits are pretty effective for the most part. And so as a result,

we've seen a lot of people on the right transition from saying, like, that guy, that guy stole the election into, you know, I should say, Dinesh D'Souza had to apologize recently for accusing some guy of being involved in election theft. So they've transitioned to that into a more kind of like the deep state did it, you know, kind of a blander thing. And so I think that's what Candace Owens is getting so much attention and traffic from specifically saying like this, this is a trans criminal, you know, because a lot of other people aren't willing to do that stuff anymore because of those lawsuits. Wow. She's so brave. Offline is brought you by Civitech.

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Meanwhile, less than 1% of accounts on TikTok that people are following are traditional media outlets. Instead, people are following news fluencers, put them in quotations, like Aaron Parnas or Jack Mack. The piece quotes a media professor at USC who said that for Gen Z's news consumption, quote, the default position is, algorithm, let the information flow over me. I'll interrupt it when I see something interesting. as a journalist who spends a lot of time both experiencing and reporting on algorithmic feeds,

how do you feel about that? I don't feel great. I mean, you know, on one hand, it seems like the, you know, the horse has left the barn and there's nothing. I mean, certainly I can do about it. But yeah, I mean, it's a, you read that article and it's all these people saying, you know, I kind of consume news in this way where it's not really clear to me what the news is. Like I'm getting it sort of third or fourth hand in the forms of these memes or slings.

skits, but I don't really know what the original news was. You know, we have these incidents where, you know, it's in my mind because I'm in D.C., but there was this idea that was really big on TikTok of all these girls were going missing. Thousands of girls were missing. And it was just because the police department had never said, oh, by the way, we found this runaway, you know. And so you have these things that get enormous on social media and really spin out of control. I mean, I think the people quoted in that article who say, you know, yeah, this is like how I get my news is someone just reading a tweet from an actual news outlet. I think it's pretty grim. It is quite grim. And I think I heard Sarah Longwell,

your bulwark colleague, talk about this with some of her focus groups. I've also experienced this where you always ask people in a focus group where to get your news. And in the last couple years, you get a lot more people who are just like, oh, I just get it from my phone or on the internet or from my feeds. And they don't even have a specific platform they're talking about. They don't mention media outlets. They don't talk about it. anything any specific journalist it's just they can't remember where they got their news they just know that it comes through their phone and i do think that that is just the that is the end of like if you can't if you don't you know and then you have people in this in this piece saying well you know

i don't i know that it's not definitely correct so i usually try to google to check it so now we're just like googling to check news that we got from someone who's not necessarily a journalist and that's how we're finding our information but we're letting it all wash over us and hopefully we'll take the time to look it up but if not you know whatever i also i mean to be frank i don't believe those people who are like well don't worry i'm rigorously but doing doing the back work you know after i see a funny tic-tok skid i pause my tic talk and i go read the articles i do want to uh talk about uh one story controversy i guess that that began on on ticot and now i don't know This might be day 15 or 16.

We do have to talk about Sydney, Sweeney. We are required to talk about that, unfortunately. Because I can't help myself. I got into a Twitter fight about this story with Megan. I just saw that. Unfortunately, yeah. And so, you know, she has now decided that it's Beyonce's jeans ad that deserves criticism and that the right-wing media's roadblocked coverage of the Sweeney ad over the last week

is warranted because the left, quote-unquote, started. it. I will not subject listeners to any more details about my exchange with Megan. You can I'll check it out if you hate yourselves. But I did want to bring it up because there is this dynamic now where right wing media and now the Trump White House keep trying to make the Democratic Party or the left broadly defined own the silliest, craziest, craziest, weirdest takes from random posters and think pieces, even if it's just a few, which then fuels more discourse around a controversy that most normal people in the country wouldn't think is a controversy. What do you make of sort of the algorithmic path that these controversies travel now?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a real issue for Democrats. I mean, look, that's why they call it libs of TikTok, right? I mean, they have this whole apparatus built up to find one person with kind of an off-putting demeanor or dyed hair or whatever with like 200 followers on on Twitter and then they'll say you know like this what do you think of this you know and and I mean certainly in the case of Sydney Sweeney I think a lot of pragmatic liberals were saying well let's not pick a fight on the popular attractive actress and say that's what we're against but you know all it takes is you know a couple influencers social justice type people to say you know we're mad about this and that can create

this whole cycle I mean I was struck in in your you know your discourse with Megan Kelly you know, when she said, she says, like, you started this fight, John Favro, and now we're going to finish it. I was just like, John didn't start this. You know, there's nothing. He didn't do anything. I mean, of course there are some liberals, like you said, I'm sure, who are like, this is not a fight to pick. But there's also, like, if I hadn't seen some of the posters say that it's Nazi or eugenics, like if I didn't know anything about it and I just saw the Sydney-Sweeney ad, I wouldn't even think for a second that there was a problematic in any way.

It's just a good-looking actress in a jeans ad. One of the most famous in the world right now. It's like, obviously, good for American Eagle. They got Sidney Sweeney for their jeans hat. Same thing with Beyonce in a jeans ad for Levi's. It is wild how much they feel the need to keep these culture wars going and to feed the flames of them. And I do think, like, I can't tell if some of it is they genuinely believe that most of the left feels this way

because in their feeds they're seeing outrage or they're just, you know, they're just manufacturing it because it's good content and good for clicks. Maybe it's a bit of both. I don't know. I mean, I do think it's good content. And also, I mean, it's a lot more fun for Megan Kelly to talk about that than to talk about Epstein. Yeah. And to say, you know, I mean, they're loving this. I mean, there's a reason this thing has stretched into two weeks because then you don't have to be doing, you know, your daily YouTube show about how, you know, well, we want the files to come out, but maybe not not that quickly or not if they're about Trump. I mean, that's, It's a much simpler thing to talk about Sidney

It is, it is. One last thing, speaking of people's Twitter exchanges, I noticed you were tweeting about a rather intense civil war that broke out on Twitter last night between MAGA influencers. It was over an engagement ring, but it also involved accusations of

infidelity, dildos, and getting, and this is a direct quote, fingered in the middle of a hotel lobby at a TPUSA event. My only question, Will, is this story typical or atypical of the beat that you cover? This is such a typical story. I mean, I had been seeing this develop for several days, and then I was like, all right, all right, enough.

You know, this, I should say the TPSA lobby fingering incident, this has, like, been much discussed for several years on the right. I've been in Twitter spaces where people will be like, well, we all know what went down in the lobby there that day. And I'm like, God, they really talk openly about this stuff. But, I mean, yeah, this was a case where one of these kind of right-wing women got, engaged and then some of them started saying not much of a rock there looks like crap and then suddenly people were like why don't you shut up whore you know and it

got crazy um over on the bulwark YouTube channel Tim and Sam Stein and I devoted I think 20 minutes today to explaining to go beat by beat if people want every twist and turn we tried to figure it out I'll be watching that after this and I laughed

really hard when you said this was not the first dildo related fall from grace from a right-wing influencer and I that's that seems like it would be an interesting series and it's on you know yeah no there was a guy in the past kind of a big mannosphere guy a big beard who got caught uh making all of this kind of you know uh you know you know what start porn starring starring just himself um and then he kind of fell from grace in the in the bachismo community Tommy made me promise that I'd ask you uh if you could give us the dill do's and don'ts of being

at a TV USA conference so there I did it that's it they they get I mean They seem to get pretty wild to be, I mean, based on the stories I've heard. Well, thank you so much for joining. This was a really fun and also terrifying spin through all of the conspiracies driving Maga World on the internet these days. But I thought it was very informative, and thanks for the work you're doing at the bulwark.

Thanks for having me. As always, if you have comments, questions, or guest ideas, email us at offline atcrucid.com. and if you're as opinionated as we are, please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. For ad-free episodes of offline and Podsave America, exclusive content and more,

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It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau. It's produced by Emma Ilich-Frank. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Evan Sutton is our sound editor, and Charlotte Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seagland. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music.

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