Offline with Jon Favreau - Real Men Love Tariffs, Elon Gets Cyberbullied, Meta Whistleblower Testifies

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Ryan Broderick, host of Offline’s most-cited newsletter “Garbage Day” joins Jon to talk tariff turmoil—how it will affect the TikTok deal, whether Trump has lost the faith of bro voters, and why the online right thinks a collapse of the global economy could solve America’s masculinity crisis. Then, is Elon Musk getting Ramaswamied? Was his nerd king persona ever more than a PR stunt? And what did we learn from Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams’ congressional testimony—and will Mark Zuckerberg try to clear his name?    

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plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash offline to plus free shipping on your order. That's q u i n c e dot com slash offline to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash offline Am I a propagandist a truth teller an influencer? There's probably no more contested profession in the world today than mine journalism I'm Brian Reid and on my show Everything, we dive headfirst into the conflicts we're all facing over truth and who gets to tell it. Listen now to Question Everything, part of the NPR Podcast Network. I think a lot of the skeleton key of the modern conservative movement in America boils down

to like, incel theory or gamer gate or whatever you want to call it. But it's this idea that like, there are a bunch of useless men on the internet and conservatives who realize they can weaponize them by like Enraging them and sending them after their enemies and now like that dynamic has flipped in a weird way where they've clearly Internalized that they have a bunch of like useless lonely men on their side So now they're like we should put them in factories actually like we should get these freaks out of here And so you see these guys all day long. And now, because Fox News picks it up, that's the pipeline.

They're saying to men, don't worry about your 401k. You can make socks in a factory in 15 years. I'm Jon Favreau. And I'm Ryan Broderick. Ryan, welcome to the pod. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. So Max is out for a few more days this week.

We are lucky to have Ryan who writes one of Offline's favorite newsletters, Garbage Day. Austin, our producer, got us all hooked on Garbage Day and now we all read it all the time and it's fantastic. Your listeners can't hear me blushing right now. I don't know if my microphone's powerful enough. You've been writing this newsletter about life on the internet for I think six years now. Out of curiosity, are you okay?

Yeah, yeah, no, this is cheaper than therapy. People pay me instead of me paying a therapist. So this works great for me. That's good. What do you think has changed the most about the internet, life on the internet, all that you cover since you started writing? There was a, I think the biggest one, I mean a lot, right? But like I think the biggest one is the internet used to have a center, at least in terms of our understanding of

it. Like Twitter for most countries was sort of the meeting ground, the watering hole for the internet, and we lost that. And so now there's like a right-wing Twitter and there's a left-wing Twitter and there's all kinds of other derivative Twitters and so it's hard to track stuff. It's a lot harder than it used to be. But I think that's probably a good thing. I think Twitter is probably getting a little too crowded by the end, but it's harder to find stuff, I think.

It's harder to find stuff, I think. It's harder to find stuff. I also find it just from my job, my other job, politics, it makes any kind of functioning politics, democracy much tougher because no one is getting the same information and in many cases people aren't even talking to each other. So that part, you know, it has obviously aligned with the Trump era, but it's made everything just a bit trickier, I think. I will say I do find X convenient in a certain way because I used to have to go to 4chan to see the stuff that these guys are talking about. And 4chan doesn't really have a great interface.

It's not good on mobile, but like X, you can pull it up and you can see like what all the worst people on earth are talking about. So like, in terms of like snooping around, I think that is useful, but it is a nightmare to open it. You can't open it in public. Like it's really dangerous actually. Yeah, if you're anywhere to the left of center

and you're still on X, like I am and you are, no one can accuse us of not getting outside our liberal bubble, that's for sure. No, yeah, I'm fully exposed to like straight up blood and soil nationalism all day long. All day long. All right, let's start with the biggest story in the world, the global economic turmoil caused by Donald Trump's trade war, which believe it or not,

is also an internet story. Just one example, on Monday, someone named Walter Bloomberg, turmoil caused by Donald Trump's trade war, which believe it or not is also an internet story. Just one example, on Monday, someone named Walter Bloomberg, who's a popular news influencer on X tweeted that President Trump was considering a 90 day pause on his tariff plan. The market surged 8% until everyone realized that the tweet was a complete misinterpretation of an answer that Trump's economic advisor gave on Fox and Friends in a viral clip that was taken out of context. And then once the White House confirmed it wasn't true, the markets plunged again. And who knew that Walter Bloomberg was

just ahead of his time? Because just before we started recording this Trump wrote what Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called quote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his presidency in which he announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs except for China Except for the 10% universal tariff which seems to now include Canada and Mexico, but also no one's really sure Anyway, the market surged. All the Trump sicko fans hailed the art of the deal and claimed this was the plan all along. And then Trump came out and said he did it because the bond market was making people quote queasy.

What do you think? Is this the sign of a healthy media system and financial system? Yeah. I mean, I love Walter Bloomberg. I can't even like hear his name. media system and financial system. Yeah. I mean, I love Walter Bloomberg. I can't even like hear his name. So I first discovered that guy when I was covering crypto like four years ago now and you know, I can't afford the Bloomberg

terminal. So like if there's one like insane man that just wants to live tweet it all day like that is useful, but this is you know, what happens when you're relying on Walter Bloomberg. I did too. I thought for like from a couple years're relying on Walter Bloomberg. Um, I did, I did too. I thought for like, for, for a couple of years, I thought Walter Bloomberg was like, he was just the Bloomberg terminal. Or I thought he was just replicating it, but I guess that's not clearly

that's not true after this week. I, I up until like a year or two ago, I thought the spectator index, which is like a similar kind of account was run by the spectator out of London, but it is just also another weird man. It's tough. It's tough. It's tough. But no, to answer your question, it is not a healthy sign of a global media ecosystem at all.

Some of Trump's most prominent and extremely online supporters have been rather vocal in their opposition to this trade war. You got your Bill Ackman's, your Dave Portnoy's, even Elon Musk, who's in something of a middle school boy fight with Trump trade advisor, Peter Navarro. Since a lot of people spent about 80% of their post-election analysis talking about the bro vote, podcast bros, finance bros, Barstool bros, do you think the trade war has made some of these folks think twice about their support for Trump? How is it landing in those communities?

I definitely have seen, so I'm a close watcher of Dave Portnoy because we grew up near the same part of Massachusetts. So I have like regional beef with him already. Where are you from? Well, not to dox myself, but I'm from north of Boston, just like him. Me too. Okay. Okay. Yeah. North ready.

Okay. Marvel head. Yeah. Look at you. Look at us. Yeah. So he. Okay, okay, yeah. North Reading. Okay, Marvel head, yeah. Oh, look at you, look at us. So he's from Swampscut, so obviously he's on the radar. Look at all those K-Band League, yeah. Exactly, yeah. So as another Massachusetts trash bag, I've been watching him closely, and he has been breaking with Trump a lot faster

than his contemporaries, and I think it's, he's always been sort of politically chaotic, but now we're seeing Joe Rogan. Yeah, we're seeing Ben Shapiro And I mean ultimately these guys like they they make their money from drop from drop shipping Yeah, so like if there's tariffs on Chinese goods like their supplements They're they're like jaw in cell like things that they're selling on YouTube. You can't do that anymore. Yeah, it's it's not great and I do think think, and look, these guys were, I mean, they were the folks that like sort of put him over the top.

Right? I mean, they weren't like the hardcore MAGA from the beginning. And so I think their support was always somewhat tenuous and seemed to be based more on a general, like, you know, I'm pissed about inflation and the woke shit. And now I'm just going to talk myself into why Donald Trump actually isn't that bad.

And maybe it's kind of cool, especially because he pumped his fist after someone almost assassinated him. Well, I mean, you've probably noticed this too, but like even going all the way back to the first administration, like the girlies are always fighting on the right. Like they have massive infighting problems.

I mean, this is actually baked into fascism from 200 years ago. They're always fighting with each other. So Milo's beefing with whoever at TPUSA. This is a thing, but it is interesting to watch why they start fighting. I do think the signals there are useful. Yeah, and the signals are also useful

in terms of who is starting to peel off or at least question their support for Trump and who is just completely embarrassing themselves and sticking with them no matter what. And just basically changing their rationale for supporting the trade policy or not supporting it based on you know hour to hour developments

Well, you mentioned akman. I mean he he he really peed his pants today because he was just like thanking trump afterwards Be like, thank you so much. Mr President for turning the economy back on and it's like a lot of these guys like they can't save face and like I guess they just do the math and being like we'll stick with trump because Maybe You know, it's an authoritarian regime like i'll stick with them. But like, I guess they just do the math and being like, we'll stick with Trump because maybe, you know, it's an authoritarian regime, like I'll stick with them. But yeah, it's very embarrassing. I mean, watching Fox was wild.

We were watching Fox while it all happened. And it was immediately art of the deal, which is what the White House press secretary said. And you know, this is, everything's wonderful now and this is great. And and finally like of all people like Charles Gasparino from Fox Business comes on Fox and he's like I'd love to say that Donald Trump's a genius that just saved the world economy but that's not actually what happened and you can see everyone else on Fox like their eyes go wide like oh my god what

are you saying here you know like this guy's this guy's gonna get sent to El Salvador now I mean very possible but like this guy's, this guy's going to get sent to El Salvador now. I mean, very possible, but like this is actually, I think a really important shift that's happening where Trump for, you know, let's say the last 15 years has sort of said to everyone that he is a capitalist and he is doing good things for the economy. And this is like the conservative capitalist agenda. And now we're kind of seeing the evolution of a very different

brand of Trumpism that has been, you know been gurgling since the beginning of the year. And it's now having a break with the actual hardcore capitalist of America. It's fascinating and a little scary. Yeah. Of course, and a little scary. I mean, just since we're not out of the woods by any means, since the trade war is still very much on and China and us combined are like 50% of the global economy. I noticed you wrote that you lived in the UK during Brexit,

and you were in India during Prime Minister Modi's demonetization scheme. What was that like, and do you see similarities to the situation we're in now? What can people expect in America? Yeah, I wrote that down and people kept saying like, stop going to countries, please. You're destroying the economy. Yeah, so I lived in the UK during Brexit. As a reporter, I was in India for demonetization and I lived in Brazil during

the Bolsonaro regime with like massive hyperinflation and all that. So for Brexit, it was a slow motion car crash. It felt very similar to now, but they voted and then they took basically five years to exit the European Union. So you're walking down the street in London and just stuff starts being worse. Systems don't function. The buses are dirtier, the trains are dirtier, things don't work as well. People are poor, but it was over five years. In India, when you have like literally just bank notes that just stop working and stop being money,

it's a similar shock to I think what we could have been looking at like this week, depending on how things went. Where I don't think the average American really understands like how interconnected the global economy is, especially even compared to 2008. In 2008, we all were a little poorer and I don't want to diminish it, but like it is not the same economy.

And the example that I used in the piece was like, think of the Suez Canal Boat. Like think of how interconnected the global economy is where like one boat screwed it up because it got stuck. Like it's a very different world now. I know. And when I was reading what you said about Brexit, it does feel like we're on in the Brexit scenario with a shorter timeline, because we'll start seeing the cost of goods

rise just based on the tariffs that still exist right now. And then you combine that with just government services breaking down because of what Musk and Trump are doing to the federal government. And you think, okay, if we have a country where everything's more expensive, people are a little poorer, shit doesn't work, government doesn't function properly, even worse than it does now. And that's like the best case scenario. Right.

That's like the scenario as of right now. Yes. That's like if we get out of this without a much worse disaster and we don't have like Trump as president forever or Trump and Don Jr. and JD Vance or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Just a rotating cast of fantastic men. Normal looking men. Yeah. So exactly. Like I think, you know, everyone in our heads, we kind of imagine the pictures from the Great Depression or our own experiences during the Great Recession. But the idea of locking ourselves off from the global economy by choice is incomprehensible. And we are going to see services break down.

We are going to have moments where stuff just doesn't cost the normal amount or we forget what normal is. And then we have a social services problem that's already been happening in this country for 20 years. And I can't even imagine what it would look like if it was worse. Offline is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. You ever been on a road trip where one person insists on controlling the music? You're just trying to enjoy the ride, but now you're stuck listening to nothing but their favorite band, no discussion, no compromises,

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The other new dynamic this time around that wasn't around in 2008 is just like the way that we all get information again this information environment because yeah at the very least like having been through you know I was on the Obama campaign at the time when the financial crisis really hit and the markets tumbled and they had to do the bailout and There was at least a sense among everyone Republicans Democrats the whole across the spectrum that like oh, this is really bad awful And you had a lot of people in Congress who didn't want to take the vote for the bailout for political, you know, understandably but There was at least everyone was on the same page. What's wild about now is even,

we're recording this Wednesday, even last night, Tuesday night, when the bond markets were going crazy. Like some people are on X and other platforms being like, this is really, really bad. This is, you know, and other people are like, oh, it's totally fine. It's great.

This is what we want. And I just feel like not, when it comes to economic uncertainty or potential economic crisis, not having everyone on the same page, not having everyone have the same information or even being able to acknowledge that there is a problem, let alone agreeing on a solution,

is like a much scarier dynamic. Yeah, I'm so torn with this because I do wonder, like, is it just people, like, feeding into the incentives of social media? Like, you know, fighting for their tribe and saying, like, no, this is my reality. And if they are, is it propaganda or is it literally like we have reached a point where people think you can just force reality to be what you want it to be online? Like, I do wonder what the end goal is for someone like, I don't know, like one of the Musk bots on X who's saying like,

no, the economy's fine, like, okay. But like, what do you think you're doing when you say that? Like, what are you actually trying to accomplish? Yeah, I think that it's just, you know, short-termism, but like taken to the extreme, because they're thinking like, well, I can say that now, and this is my reality right now, and I'm sitting here in my house and nothing has changed.

And even spikes in the prices of goods are not gonna be noticed by most consumers in the country for a little while, at least, and maybe a little longer now that he's backed off a bit. Even in 2007, the huge job losses didn't come until after Obama won and we were in the transition in November and December and January. So there is a lag and I almost think that that lag

lets people online just sort of bask in their own reality and try to convince other people that that reality is a fact in the short term. I think that's definitely right. And I definitely watched over the weekend, like leading up to what Dave Portnoy calls Orange Monday, which is unfortunately really good. Yeah, I know. Like, got to give them that one.

But I was watching sort of all the conservatives on X, you know, do the monkeys with typewriters saying they do whenever Trump is doing something crazy. And like, it is interesting that there's also like an economy inside of that world where they're, they're monetized by X often because they're verified. They're trying to get likes and retweets and they're trying to spin like essentially fan like fan fiction of what's happening. And I do think that that's partly explaining the momentum there is like the, the, they, they can go

viral, they can get, make and make money. They can like make YouTube videos, whatever it is within the chaos of the, whatever Trump's newest project is. I want to focus on, um, one of the rationales, uh, they gave for their support of the trade war, which I know you wrote about, You know, you had a MAGA influencer, plagiarist, Benny Johnson, tweeting, losing money means nothing, digital ones and zeros, in the end you won't miss any of it.

And you wrote this piece about explaining how a lot of the online right is embracing sort of potential collapse of the global economy because they believe it could solve quote America's crisis and masculinity. And this actually made it to a Fox segment with, of course, Jesse Waters. We have a clip of it right now. When you sit behind a screen all day, it makes you a woman.

Studies have shown this. Like building robots like Harold, you are around other guys. You're not around HR ladies and lawyers that gives you estrogen. What do you do? Let me finish, judge. You sit behind the screen.

So, he's always like half joking, but not really half, you know, it's sort of a, can you explain why the right thinks that global recession will make us all alpha males? Yeah, sure and I have to I have to like hat tip Claire Haber Harris She writes under cartoons hate her and she's been covering this for like actually much She was really early sort of putting putting this together But yeah, I had seen a lot of people sort of circulating this same idea over the weekend

Both like like, you know leftist or liberals watching the conservatives, but also the conservatives themselves literally just saying like, tariffs are worth it if women can't work anymore. Tariffs are worth it if men go back to factories or whatever. And I think a lot of the skeleton key of the modern conservative movement in America boils down to like, in-cell theory or gamergate or whatever you want to call it. But it's this idea that like there are a bunch of useless men on the internet and conservatives who realize they can weaponize them by like enraging them and

sending them after their enemies and now like that dynamic has flipped in a weird way where They've clearly internalized that they have a bunch of like useless lonely men on their sides So now they're like we should put them in factories. Like we should get these freaks out of here. And so you see these guys all day long, you know, and now like because Fox News picks it up, like that's the pipeline. They're saying to men like, don't worry about your 401k. You can make socks in a factory in 15 years.

Which these guys that are sitting home on their computers all day, don't actually want it. Like they're gonna argue for that vision. Of course computers all day don't actually want it. Like, they're going to argue for that vision. Of course. But they don't actually want that. They don't want to go to the factories and screw in the iPhones like Howard Lutnick is talking about. Exactly.

That's not what they really want to do. They don't want women to have the jobs that they have. They want their government-assigned girlfriends, and they want to sit on the computer and talk about how great it is to work in a factory, like a real man, but post on X all day. jobs that they have. They want like their government assigned girlfriends and they want to like sit on the computer and talk about how great it is to like work in a factory like a real man, but like, you know, post on X all day. Like it's, it's, it's, it's a farce.

The whole thing's a farce. Can you talk about the, the Gen Z boss in a mini video and what this has to do with it? Because Austin brought it up and was like, do you want to talk about that as part of the, this, this masculinity thing? And I'm like, I have no fucking idea what you're talking about.

And then, and then I went down the rabbit hole and wow, wow. But I'll let you explain. Happy to help. So yeah, it's a video from last summer. It's a skincare company in Australia doing a trend on TikTok that was like boots and a slick back buns. You do like a dance and you say what you're wearing and the skin company, skincare company, TBH skincare made a video and they did what you're wearing. And the skin company, skin care company, TBH Skincare,

made a video and they did it in their office. And so a bunch of like red pill guys found it and they started just like going berserk. And they've been going berserk about this video for like, I mean, yeah, like almost a year. Because there's an entire genre on the internet. You can find this horrible rabbit hole if you really want to. You can just search product mommy on X. And it's essentially rage clips of women who manage men in STEM fields. And it ties into this stereotype that if you're a coder, a normal woman will be assigned to manage

how weird and awful you are. And so they rage about this all day long. It's very incel-friendly content. And this one video has just been stuck in the algorithm for a year And you saw them cycling it through again this weekend I'm getting I the one I included was a guy who just like Tariffs are worth it if we don't have to deal with this anymore or whatever And so like it really does boil down to you can cope with whatever Trump is doing to the economy No matter how bad it is for you if it means that like your boss is in a woman ever again.

Right. As long as we can like eliminating these white collar office jobs, email management, product manager, PR, all that, you know, that, you know, that women are doing that that's, that's a good thing. And then we can all go back to the factories and the women can go home. Exactly. That's the, that's the dream of crashing the global economy. You work in a factory and you have a stay-at-home wife.

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informed the White House that the Chinese government would not let the deal proceed. In response, President Trump paused enforcement of the ban for an additional 75 days. He was just asked about it in the Oval right before he recorded and he said, yeah, Chinese not too happy right now, so I don't know, but I'm still hopeful it'll get done. What do you make of this? Any chance that the Chinese government lets this deal proceed? Or does it even matter? I mean, I'm of the view that Trump, who doesn't really care much for the law anyway, is just going gonna continue kicking this can down the road every 75 days, but I don't know, what do you think?

I mean, I'm supposed to be kind of objective about this stuff, but I think it's really funny. I think it's just really funny. Cause he clearly, like yes, he is clearly consolidating power into some sort of autocracy or dictatorship. And the guy has the Graham plan here. But I do love that. Like even he's like, I'm not touching the tick tock thing.

Like it's just too much. And so I sort of do think he's like, it's in no one's best interest to deal with it. Um, and that is sort of like, it'll, it'll, that's kind of the American way. Like just like, don't deal with it. Like just ignore it. Yeah. Unless I wonder if like the Chinese get so pissed

that they shut up because of the trade war, that's a lever they can pull. They could always shut down TikTok in the United States. I mean, they have said that like, they don't need TikTok to operate in the United States. And I believe them. I mean, it's not like they have a total, they have the rest of the planet

and they also have back home. Like they don't really, like, and they've all, and this was like their, their narrative during the trade war when it was, I guess, happening more intensely earlier, earlier in the week when they were like, we will fight, like we will, we will stay in this. Like, and I do take them at their, at face value there. So they could use it as a lever.

Um, but I think Trump is smart. Well, I shouldn't say smart enough, but like Trump is aware enough to not to not mess with TikTok, I think. I think so too. And I also think he just sees so much financial opportunity, sadly, right? Like there's, he can get part of a deal, the government gets part of a deal. He makes a deal with China. It's part of the trade negotiations. So it's just another chip in like shutting it down is just a pain in the ass. He clearly doesn't care about the Chinese government spying on Americans or any privacy issues.

That's not... And in terms of what the algorithm might do to spread propaganda or whatever, he knows it's going to be mostly pro-Trump or at least it has been. I guess they could turn it back. He loves a tryout. He loves making a bunch of sick freaks compete for something. And like having all of his rich friends like get up and be like, I want to invest in Tik TOK.

Like I've heard Anderson Horowitz is interested. I've heard Amazon's interested. I've heard like a whole bunch of other billionaires are interested. And Trump loves that stuff. Like that's just a carrot that he can hang on a stick for his entire presidency if he really wants to. Yeah. And he probably would.

And Bezos is interested and he probably would. And Bezos is interested and he might make a bid and Zuckerberg hates it. And so maybe he keeps him on the line. Exactly. It's perfect. It's a win-win. All right. Let's talk about the man whose volume of posting may actually exceed his wealth, Elon Musk.

Last week, Politico reported that President Trump told his inner circle, including members of his cabinet, that Elon would soon be stepping back from his role in the administration. White House, of course, immediately called the news garbage with Caroline Levitt tweeting, quote, "'Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at Doge is complete.'

But notable rift between the president and the world's richest man has begun to open, not just over the tariffs, but the political blowback over Doge and the state Supreme Court election in Wisconsin that Elon helped Republicans lose. You wrote that Elon might be getting Vivek'd. Want to elaborate?

Yeah, he's getting the Vivek Ramaswamy treatment. They're kicking him out. I mean, the thing that I've been very interested in is sort of like, how does Trump see Musk? Like, what is Musk's utility to Trump? And over the last few months, like the feeling that I have is that Musk had convinced Trump that Musk's technology

in some way was helping Trump and Trump's allies win around the world. And it feels to me like Wisconsin was like, no. And so he's out. Like, that's the only, because I don't understand why Trump would let Musk like run rampant for the last three months. Like, it's so unlike him. It is unlike him. It is unlike him and it's unlike him

to give someone else the spotlight, though there's a weird part of Trump in the second term where he seems like a little bit more chill about everything because he has nothing else to lose. He's won again, he's not running again. He might be president again, but he's not running again. And he survived all this shit. And so it's like, ah, Elon can run around.

But when it really starts getting in bad press, that turns it a little. Although I hadn't thought about the angle that you wrote about, which is because he thinks that Elon Musk is so smart with computers, that maybe he could actually have something to do with voting machines, or if not voting machines, like, I don't know,

tweaking algorithms to help him in elections and all that. I mean, maybe I'm just sort of like dreaming this scenario up in my head, but I don't think it would be very hard to convince former Twitter addict Donald Trump that you now could help him win by owning Twitter. And I think a lot of conservatives, and this actually goes back to the point you mentioned at the top of the episode, which is like, I think there is a massive chunk of prominent conservatives

right now that believe that what happens on X matters to anyone other than them. Yeah, I think that's probably right. And I think he just liked having people in his orbit, right? That are rich and powerful. Oh, loves it. And if he doesn't have to sacrifice much to keep them in his orbit, right? That are rich and powerful. And if he doesn't have to sacrifice much to keep them in his orbit, that'll be fine.

But again, if it starts hurting him politically, then he's gonna do away with them. So actually, wait, that was the question I wanted to ask you. Do you think he feels that way still? Do you feel like he's still subject to public opinion the way he was in the first administration? I think much less, for sure. I think that, you mean, he admitted today that it was the bond markets that made him walk

back from the tariff regime. And I think if the world economy collapsed, he is smart enough to know that it is all on him. And I think that, you know, that's, so that says something about how he's pressured by public opinion. And I don't think he just, I think he wakes up every day and doesn't love bad press.

It's not like he cares much about what the legacy media says about him. But you know, I do think if he's seeing your port noise out there, your Bill Ackman's, or he turns on Fox and Fox lets on a couple people who are actually telling the truth and starts complaining. It's gonna be a nuisance to him. I don't think it'll send him into a rage

like he used to be in his first term. But I think there's something there. And then I think like, if he loses, if the Republicans lose the midterms, publicly he'll say, well, they're all idiots anyway, and they didn't run on the Trump agenda, right? But privately, I think he'll take it as a rebuke, and so that'll be a pressure point.

So I think there are fewer pressure points to influence Trump or to have public opinion pressure Trump than there ever have been, but I think some of them are still there. That feels so good to think about it. Actually, that's like gonna help me hold on for the next couple of months. Thanks for saying that. Yeah, and and maybe I'm just I may just be

trying to convince myself but you know I think it's something. So the impending end of his special government role isn't the only bad news for Elon this week. Apparently this is a great story in the Daily Beast. On Saturday night Musk rage quit a video game livestream after he was repeatedly and ruthlessly cyberbullied in the chat. Elon reportedly sat stone-faced as commenters such as, Elon Musk is pathetic. That was one user's name. Commented things like, and these are all quotes, you will always feel insecure and it will never go away. Elon, how is it possible to look this dumb and ugly? Why is your Tesla company falling apart?

And my personal favorite, Elon Musk, will you please jerk off Mr. Trump so he dies of a heart attack? What? What? What? What? What?

What? What? What? What? Like I have to hand it to people for just the creativity, you know? So funny. It's so funny. Why would he subject himself to this and just stay there and not do anything?

I mean, he's so obsessed with proving that he's a real gamer. That's it, right? It's such a thing for him. And like, he isn't. Like, he's... Like, there's a... I mean, you can find it on YouTube, but like he's like there's a I mean, I you can find out YouTube but like these these youtubers did like a whole video proving

that he does not understand the basic mechanics of like the Diablo game that he plays all the time quote unquote. Like he makes decisions when he's streaming that aren't possible don't make any sense. Like we know this now that he's faking in some way. And it's it's clearly eating him inside, which also feels really good to think about. I was gonna ask you about this, because I've sort of followed the video game, Elon Scandal, how much is he faking? Like, he clearly plays a lot of video games, right?

But is he just faking that he's as good as he wants people to think he is? So, allegedly, he streams video games. Diablo is one of them. This one was, I think, Path of Exile 2 was the one he was playing. And people started to notice that the times that he was streaming weren't possible with his schedule or his tweeting. They started to notice that when he would then get defensive,

he would then do another stream in which like, there's one video where his head's not moving the way the game should. He's like, it doesn't look like he's playing it. And then in the YouTube breakdown that I watched, which seems to have been the final kind of thing that broke this open, he describes one of his builds for Diablo, I believe it is.

And the person who's playing is like, look, like I've played Diablo like for years and years and years, like this doesn't make any sense. This isn't how anyone would play it. Like the words he's using don't even make sense in the context of how he's using them. Like there's just no way that anyone who plays this game seriously would would would do this or act this way. And it's just sort of snowballed from there.

Wow. He's just... I take too much joy in stories like this about Elon Musk because he is, to me, the most, maybe the most loathsome figure of Trump 2.0, which is tough because Trump is way up there, but just it's... He's just so embarrassing. I think it's also like, you know, these are very funny things to be up there, but just it's, it's, he's just so embarrassing. I think it's also like, like, you know, it's, it, these are very funny things to be talking about, but I do think it's really important

because like Musk in the two thousands and the early 2010s, like, you know, he like has a cameo in, in Iron Man two. Like he, he spent, he was on big bank theory. He spent a considerable amount of energy to become this like nerd king as a, as a, it was, and it was always a PR thing. It was always this idea of energy to become this like nerd king. And it was always a PR thing. It was always this idea of like, oh, I can sell science fiction ideas to investors that I don't actually have to make or figure out how to do if I'm like the nerd king of Silicon Valley or whatever. And like now we know that that's never really

been true. Yeah. He really, really wanted to be Tony Stark. That's like that when he had that comparison, that was the pinnacle for him and he wanted to keep it. And he was not able to. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Let's talk numbers. Traditional in-person therapy can cost anywhere from 100 to $250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy, you can save on average up to 50250 per session, which adds up fast. But with BetterHelp online therapy,

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All right, one more big piece of news we have to cover today. This afternoon, Sarah Wynn Williams, former director of global public policy at Facebook, testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism. The testimony was Sarah's first public comment since an arbitrator prohibited her from promoting her book, Careless People, which details allegations of sexual harassment and reckless malicious behavior by the most senior executives at the company, now known as Meta. In her opening statement, Sarah told the Senate subcommittee that she, quote, saw Meta executives

repeatedly undermine US national security and betray American values, and that they, quote, lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public. We have a few clips of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley questioning Sarah. Americans who exchange messages or other information with Chinese Facebook users, that would mean the Chinese government could get access to the American data as well. Is that correct? Through the pop servers, potentially, yes. And Facebook was willing to take that risk?

Yes. There was a lot of discussion about this and ultimately, yes. I mean, this is extraordinary. This is exactly contrary to what Facebook has represented for years. Here they're willing to build data centers, store data in China. They are willing explicitly to give the Chinese government access to it. And if that means that American user data is also compromised, they're willing to do that too.

Now he's on Joe Rogan and says that he is Mr. Free Speech, he is Mr. MAGA, he's a whole new man and his company, they're a whole new company. Do you buy this latest reinvention of Mark Zuckerberg? Senator, there are two things. If he is such a fan of freedom of speech, why is he trying to silence me? And the other thing is that this is a man who wears many different costumes. When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child. He was learning Mandarin.

He was censoring to his heart's content. Now his new costume is MMA fighting or free speech. We don't know what the next costume is going to be, but it'll be something different. It's whatever gets him closest to power. Ouch. Uh, what'd you make of, uh, Sarah, when Williams testimony and I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the book yet or read some of the reviews. I haven't had a chance to look at the book, but I will say I love Josh Holley's.

I just heard this for the first time voice. Very believable. Wow. That's extraordinary. I can't believe what I'm hearing for the first time right now And I do love that. He has got all of the worst like Like all of the reasons he's doing this are so petty and awful, but it's like still useful I guess I know I hate that but it's but I'll take it

But I will say I was I was genuinely very shocked that this was involving China I mean so much of like my own reporting on Meta products over the years has been focused on South Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, places where they're really doing some serious social harm. I had no idea the extent to which Meta was involved with the CCP. That actually really surprised me.

The book is fucking wild. And look, she has all the mem you know, memos, emails, Facebook messages to back it up. But they were, they offered the CCP like custom tools that they would build them to surveil their own citizens, dissidents in other countries, including our country, in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, activists, like all of it. They built a physical pipe to connect the United States and China, even though they were warned that the Chinese government could use it to spy in the United States. That's unreal. I mean, I've definitely heard of activists in Taiwan and Hong Kong,

like, you know, pre-COVID talking about not wanting to use matter products because of fears about that. But I just to see the extent of it actually is surprising because I mean, it definitely makes it clear that like Mark Zuckerberg's like new, like jujitsu turn is like not anything, you know, other than trying to get the Republicans off his back. I also, the book made me realize that the turn isn't anything because he's always been someone who, and this is a lot of those guys, the tech founders, but they're authoritarians at heart, right? In the sense that they run their companies like, you know, everyone's going to bow down

to me and do whatever I say and I don't get, like, they treat their employees like shit and all that. But also, the way they view politics and government and media is, it's all just getting in the way. And democracy is messy and everyone making decisions together is messy and thinking about what harms you may cause is just like a waste of time and it's inefficient. And they are geniuses. And if you just let them cook, they will fix all the world's problems and everyone else should just be happy about that. Yeah.

I mean, Zuckerberg is, I think, the best example of this of someone who, you know, let's take him at his word, which is in the beginning this, he believed that global connection was a net positive. And as they discovered it wasn't, as the world screamed back at them, it's not. They kept going. So at this point, he has no excuse. They are clearly in some sort of long-term data or AI play. And actually, that was a really fascinating part of the testimony today, which was the role that Meta had with the launch of DeepSeek.

Yes. Which totally surprised me also. All of this has actually not been on my radar, I have to confess. And it's one of the reasons I believe that Sarah decided to like write the book and speak out because she's now works in some of the AI ethical issues and is worried that like we're going to head into the AI era with Metta doing the same shit that they did in the social media era. So that is my, that's actually been my long-term read on AI to begin with, which is that like,

if you think all the way back to like 2005, 2006, when like social platforms are turning online, they were offering people a less chaotic, less anarchic version of the internet that you could like put your credit card number into and like talk to your real life friends on. And now we're in the same spot where like the social platforms of the 2000s, 2010s are total junk and they're being filled up with AI content. And so now the AI companies are going, well, actually you can do everything you want to do inside of our AI walled garden.

I think it's the exact same move. Oh yeah. And doesn't seem like we're going to be taking any of the lessons we've learned or haven't learned from the social media experiment and apply them to the AI. So I've been dating several Instagram AI bots. So like, I'm fine with this. I'm totally fine with it. It's fine for me. But yeah, other people I'm worried about. You still believe you'll find love. And even though you're just playing the field now. Hey, you know, you learn the right prompts, you're good to go.

That's the AI age. Okay. One more thing I want to talk about, the hands-off protests that exploded across the country over the weekend. I saw that you wrote, you didn't really know they were happening and you're extremely online. I will admit, I did not know they were happening. No way.

I know and I felt bad about it because I'm like politics is a big part of my job, most of my job. Now I was on a family vacation last week, so I was gone Wednesday through Sunday, but I still was like keeping up with everything and I'm on Twitter all the time and I didn't find them anywhere

until suddenly they were happening and then I saw it everywhere. What did you find out about why they didn't sort of spread in the channels that we would have expected? Yeah, so I admitted to my readers, like, look, like I didn't know these were happening and I live in New York City, I didn't hear about this until like the night before.

And so I asked everybody like, how did you guys know about it? And some people were a little rude to me. One person said that, is one person called me a brunch liberal, which I thought was pretty funny. Oh no, that was pretty funny. That was pretty good, right?

Yeah, devastating. But the answers that I, the polite answers I received were really fascinating. Like a lot of my readers told me that their boomer parents told them about them. Which is super interesting. A lot of local Facebook groups, some blue skies, some Reddit, but you have, it was people who are like primarily really plugged into like activist spaces on those

sites. But it was like the local news, Facebook pages, local Facebook groups, some like some newsletters, like just some like kind of like liberal nonprofit newsletters that people are subscribed to. So it was a very different kind of like liberal nonprofit newsletters that people are subscribed to so it was a very different kind of thing that I think we've been trained to expect and Honestly, I think kind of cool like I think it's a cool way forward for this stuff, but it definitely took me by surprise well, it's interesting you mentioned Facebook and in boomer parents because reading about reading through the coverage of some of the rallies,

I noticed that they skewed older, and there was some commentary where people were like, I don't see a lot of Gen Z folks at these rallies, and then other people said, yeah, they were, they were there, but when I think back to even 2017 resistance, it is like these, it's the wine moms and sort of older MSNBC watching parents

that I do think like that's what started it. Those are the people that kind of started it. And then it grew from there. I do wonder what it means like going forward for organizing because you do want to get the word out to younger people, um, when you're trying to organize rallies like this and an opposition movement. So I've been, I've been thinking about the hands off protests in, in the

context of Brats summer, which I think is like a really fascinating dynamic where, and I actually wouldn't sort of think of it in terms of like young people versus old people, but actually like a problem that, actually you kind of alluded to it at the top today of like, how do we understand popularity? How do we understand what the internet is now? And like, is a TikTok view equivalent to a Facebook view? Like is a TikTok meme the same size as like a boomer Facebook page, like chain letter. And I think the social media companies

want us to think yes. But I think if you look at like actual political manifestations based on this stuff, like they're not. I think boomers like will come out and they're gonna make like the rudest signs you've ever seen in your life. and they're gonna spend all day out there And like the brad summer kids like aren't probably gonna have that level of intensity at least they didn't It's also distinguished probably by the way

Each of the platforms work like if you were Organizing a rally It seems like it would be easier to organize on facebook it seems like it would be easier to organize on Facebook than it would be on TikTok, just because the way the algorithm is and how you're getting individual videos one after another on TikTok, but you're not. It seems like it would be harder to say,

here's where this rally is, spread the word, we're gonna, I don't know, am I wrong about that? You're not wrong. And so Indivisible, I think, was one of the main orgs behind hands off, but there was a whole bunch. And one of the smarter things they did was the only documentation that they really have is a Google doc, which says like three things that they care about. Um, and then they were using, um, uh, mobile dot

mobilize. Yeah. So they were using like an event tracking platform and a Google Doc. And you could basically do a hands off protest wherever you wanted. And I think when you give people those kinds of tools and then they just throw them into the localized networks

that are already on Facebook or already on Instagram or newsletters or whatever, you're going to see a pop off because like people can just do what they want now. So the decentralization I think is like pretty key going forward I think it is key especially at the early stages because I think getting a bunch of different, you know local chapters all over the country in different parts with people organizing around whatever issue they want to organize around like just to sort of Start getting the muscles working again, I think is important.

And then when you want to organize it into something more cohesive, you know, you can do that down the road. But I thought that I do think the decentralization is really helpful to start because I think people don't want necessarily to be like part of a top-down thing that they have to join. That's you know, the center of it, which is like far away from them and that they can't really see and don't know. I was thinking about doing one where you had to like buy an NFT to join the protest. I thought that'd be kind of cool. Look, I mean, if Soros can just get all these, pay all these protesters at once and organize I was going to ask, are you guys getting the Soros?

Mine aren't coming in anymore. I don't know if I did something. We are Soros funded and therefore, you therefore, we do control the global economy. Okay, cool. Ryan Roderick, thank you so much for joining Offline. This was really fun. Everyone go subscribe to Garbage Day if you don't already. It's a fantastic newsletter and you also have a podcast.

Yeah, Panic World. If you liked the frazzled sound of my voice talking about the end of the world, you'll like Panic World, same idea. So you can find that anywhere. You listen to this stuff. But yeah, thank you. This was super, you know, for a conversation about the erosion of American democracy, this was pretty fun. We try to keep it light, you know? Yeah.

All right. Take care. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Before we go, some quick housekeeping. If you haven't checked out Cricut's newest series, Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker, now is the time to do so. It all starts with a tip to journalist Niccolò Minoni from an old friend, one that pulls him deep into the story of Vatican banker Roberto Calvi, who was found hanging under a London bridge in 1982.

Officials called it a suicide, but Niccolò isn't so sure. Was Calvi laundering mafia money through the Vatican bank? From there, things escalate quickly. An Italian warehouse raid uncovers a far-right society plotting a coup, toppling Italy's government and forcing Calvi into a corner. Just as he turns to the Vatican for protection, an assassination attempt on the Pope shakes the church to its core. What happens next?

Listen to Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker, now wherever you get your podcasts, or binge all episodes now at Cricut.com slash friends or on the shadow kingdom apple podcast feed. Nicola also emailed us to let us know that shadow kingdom is number one in the charts in Italy on the charts. So pretty good. Check it out. It's a great, great series. Um, also one more thing.

This month we're offering a 30 day free trial of crooked's friends of the pod subscription. No commitment, just a full month of ad-free listening and exclusive content, totally free. Subscribing to Friends of the Pod is the best way to support our mission of building a progressive media counterweight to the right. With your subscription, you'll get ad-free episodes of Offline, this show, Love It or Leave It, Pod Save America and Pod Save the World, plus exclusive shows like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. You'll also be able to join our Discord community where you can process and discuss the news with fellow listeners all around the world.

Sign up at crooked.com slash friends or directly through Apple podcasts on the Podsave America feed to start your free 30 day trial. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher, and the rest of the crew at the end of the show. And we'll see you next time.

Bye. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Jon Favreau, along with Max Fisher. The show is produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Segland. Dilan Villanueva produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeleine Herringer, and Adrian Hill for production support.

Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. ["The Writers Guild of America East"] you