Offline with Jon Favreau - Was Luigi Mangione Too Online?

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

The more we learn about the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the more his digital footprint falls into the Offline wheelhouse. Luigi Mangione has posted about Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price; on Twitter he follows everyone from AOC to Ezra Klein to Joe Rogan. And don’t get us started on his Goodreads profile! Jon and Max talk through the internet's embrace of a suspected murderer, and whether the edgelords really believe what they’re posting. But first! The DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected TikTok’s attempt to overturn an impending ban, which is scheduled to take effect next month—unless Trump or SCOTUS intervene. Plus, Max rants about the American Society of Anesthesiologists and Jon talks about what drove him to write an article for The Atlantic. 

The most online brained part of the manifesto that I've heard in a million different ways from others who did not kill CEOs. Again, this is non-ideological. This is across the political spectrum. Obviously, the problem is more complex, but I do not have space. And frankly, I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty. In all sincerity, I can't tell you of any people I've talked to who work in Silicon

Valley who were like, I came into work today and I was looking around at the desk and being like, that guy, that guy, that guy are all Luigi Mangione. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. Max, welcome back. Thank you. We have lots to cover. Oh my God, there's so much going on in the offline world. So much.

Last... Maybe another friend of the pot out there. And taking it a little far. I mean, think hard about that offline challenge. and taken it a little far. Think hard about that offline challenge. Unrequited, yeah, that's right. It should be clear, it's an unrequited friendship with the pot. So, before we get to that,

last week the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected TikTok's attempt to overturn a law banning the Chinese-owned platform from the app stores unless the company finds a new owner. This ruling means that unless TikTok is granted an emergency motion to pause the law and hope that either the Supreme Court takes up its case, the incoming Trump administration decides not to enforce the ban, or the incoming Republican Congress repeals the ban. The popular video app is currently scheduled to face a nationwide ban

beginning on January 19th of 2025. So TikTok challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that a potential ban would deny Americans access to TikTok as a venue for public expression. They also attempted to dispute the law's claim that TikTok was a national security risk. The DC Circuit did not buy either argument, with a three-judge panel ruling unanimously against TikTok's petition. What'd you think about this ruling? Did it surprise you? I was not surprised.

I mean, we can kind of argue about the merits of the ban and whether it comports with kind of the ideals of free speech. But the fact of the matter is the federal government has broad powers to regulate foreign-owned companies, including media companies, and the bar for exercising that right is very low. Yes. And especially the court was reluctant to second guess a piece of legislation that was passed

with overwhelming bipartisan support. They usually are with Congress and we've talked about this before, but a lot of the focus is on the free speech aspect of all this, which again, they do not buy that argument either. But clearly the house members and senators who looked into this who are on the Intel committees are, were very worried about the national security implications that go and I think that goes beyond the like, is this a propaganda tool for China, which it very

well could be. But I think there's national security implications about data privacy and just potential for spying on Americans that go beyond the propaganda concerns. Right, and crucially they built the case on two planks, both on national security and also on data privacy. Maybe you believe the national security case or not because a lot of that is being expressed behind closed doors and with classified information, even if you don't and the three judge panels said that they still agreed with the ban on data privacy grounds anyway. Yeah so what do you think is next for TikTok? You think there's a chance the Supreme Court takes up the case? Do you think Trump

Do you think Trump could reverse the ban or just, you know, construct Pam Bondi? Like our new, our incoming attorney general. Get used to these names. And because now presidents can instruct attorney generals of this, the attorneys general of this kind of thing to just not enforce the ban. Is there a world, do you think, where they still TikTok sells to a US buyer?

So there are a few different potential escape routes from a total ban. One is to find a buyer, as you mentioned. It's very hard to imagine that because antitrust concerns disqualified like two out of three of the potential companies that could even buy an 11 figure media company or an 11 figure social media platform.

Microsoft is the only one who I think is not immediately, like right off the bat disqualified in antitrust grounds, and they've shown no interest in this. And even if they were interested, it's not clear that you can get an 11-figure deal, like I mentioned, together in a couple of weeks. So we're safe from Elon buying it then? Thankfully, yes. Antitrust, thank God, as long as Lena Conn is in there,

that's going to be her parting gift to us, is Elon is not buying TikTok. No, I don't think he has the cash for it anyway. You can't get that kind of cash together that quickly. Congress, I think it's very unlikely they would roll it back because they're very China-hockey, especially in the incoming Congress, which again, we can agree or disagree with that,

but that's where they are on it. Trump has been, this is going to surprise you, a little inconsistent on this question. In the past, he promised to save TikToks on the ground that banning it would help Facebook, which he considers an enemy of the people, but it seems like that was just campaign bullshit. More recently, he was asked whether he would save TikTok. Here's his answer, quote, I use TikTok very successfully in my campaign. I have a man named TikTok Jack. I saw that. He was very effective, obviously because I won Youth Boat by 30%.

So that obviously clears it up for everyone. And then he did go later on to say, they have the right to ban it if you can prove the Chinese companies own it. So to the extent that he is able to engage with this question mentally at all, he doesn't seem like he is inclined to save it. So to the extent that he is able to engage with this question mentally at all, he doesn't seem like he is inclined to save it. He's gonna buy it, isn't he? Truth Social, Antitrust again. Oh, good. Once more saves the day. That's right.

No, no, no. Truth Social is going to the moon right now in the stock market. There's no way he wins stuff that one. So the only option which TikTok is going for is to try to get the Supreme Court to issue an emergency stay so that they can hear it. But that seems unlikely. The Supreme Court has not done anything to signal that they want to do that. The fact that it was a unanimous ruling by this court, I think makes it very unlikely. So I think it's possible it's really going away. Wow.

I know. Do you think TikTok influencers and creators and users for that matter start moving off TikTok onto other platforms like Reels or do they just wait in limbo? It's tricky for a lot of people. I know. And it's millions and millions of people. Yeah.

I mean, maybe they take the offline challenge and maybe they don't like being addicted to this app for hours a day. No, I mean, the number of eyeballs out there is static. The amount of time that people spend on their phone is static. I think users will move pretty quickly. The creator economy is actually kind of an interesting question because the size of this economy we're always learning is so much bigger than you think it is.

It's $250 billion globally, maybe about half of that. In the US, the numbers are fuzzy, but it seems like there are at least tens of thousands and maybe more Americans who make money from creating content for big social platforms like TikTok. For most of them, it's just a side gig. It's a couple thousand dollars a year that they get, you know, kind of like an Uber side hustle.

And those people who are using TikTok like that, I think, are probably just going to be wiped out because you can't really just jump from one platform to another because the algorithms are different, what they promote is different, they're very opaque, they're very arbitrary. So probably those people are going to have to find another side gig, which is tough because it's a moment in cost of living is going up. Yeah. And from, like, I feel like it's either Reels becomes... I mean, they want it to be the TikTok club. Right. And we talked about why that has not worked as well, but either they become the default platform or another competitor

pops up, which I imagine is quite difficult also to pull off. But it is wild that this algorithm is so special and unique that only TikTok could figure it out. I mean, it's a very effective algorithm. I mean, it's clearly the fact that it went from zero users not that long ago to dominating the media ecosystem for young people in America is pretty impressive. But Instagram has been doing a lot to catch up lately. Instagram has really been rising, especially with young users. So I think, unfortunately, Donald Trump is right that this is going to

be a huge, huge win for Facebook, which will only further cement its hold on all of our minds, which is, which is why he had dinner with Mark Zuckerberg so they could just hang out, patch things out. Right. That's probably honestly that dinner is probably the biggest sign that the TikTok ban will go through. If he's patching it up with Mark, I think that's if Mark says we're going to give you

the algorithm juice again, like we did last time. I think that's it. Jesus. Just life in our life in our oligarchy. Yeah, tech oligarchy. All right. Let's get to the news. We're all here for on Wednesday, December 4th, United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside a Midtown Manhattan motel by a masked gunman.

Five days later, police in Altoona, Pennsylvania arrested 26 year old Luigi Mangione, who was identified by a McDonald's customer. He was found carrying a ghost gun suppressor, a fake New Jersey ID, allegedly used to check into a Manhattan hostel, and a 262 word handwritten manifesto. It's hard to call that a manifesto. More like a memo, more like a short memo. You're not subscribing to Smart Brevity? You don't like the axios of terrorist manifestos?

Be smarter. Learn from Jim Vande Hei. That's right. And another inspiration. You know, like the Axios of terrorist manifestos? Ha ha ha. Be smarter. Learn from Jim Vande Hei. That's right. Another inspiration. Are we sure that Jim Vande Hei was not on the grassy knoll on this one? So, you know, we are neither a true crime podcast, nor a show about healthcare,

but the social media reaction and the suspect's extensive digital footprint are right in our wheelhouse. So here we go. The shooter has been widely embraced on multiple platforms by users on the far left as well as some on the right. With people posting memes, calls for solidarity, and even a handful of fan cams featuring photos found on the shooter's Tinder profile. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Interspersed with security cam footage from the shooting. Someone even got a tattoo. Really?

Yeah. What was the tattoo? Of Luigi. I mean, he's a good looking guy. I wouldn't get the tattoo. Yeah, it could have been a deny, depose, the words on the bullet casings were deny, depose, and... Delay.

Delay, thank you. Deny, delay, and depose. Sorry, I'm not part of the movement. Your application is still in the mail. It's still in the mail. United Health Group had to turn off reactions to their announcement of Thompson's death on Facebook and LinkedIn because there were too many laughing and thumbs up emojis. Ex-Washington Post and New York Times journalist,

also a former offline ghost, Taylor Lorenz, said on Piers Morgan's show that she felt, quote, joy and wrote a Substack piece titled, quote, why we want insurance executives dead. Listen, we're talking about her. She got us to mention her name. Taylor Lorenz mentioned. As you would expect, politicians have been more measured, though Elizabeth Warren. I know.

This really, this shocked me, honestly. One of our faves, Elizabeth Warren, out there responded by saying, quote, violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far. And that the shooting was a, quote, warning to the health insurance industry and the political system Oh, it's a nice rule of law. You got there be a shame if anything happened to it. I got to say max This is one where it was like it started In the first day or two after and I'm like, there's some crazy stuff going on on social media about this It's only gotten worse. Yeah, this is I've noticed noticed that- It hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse.

This is like, this is bothering you. We can get into it. I mean, that's what I mean. It's like, what is it about it that you think is alarming you? There's a lot, there's a lot. I think number one is you either believe that vigilante justice and political violence are bad in

every case or not. And if we are trying to uphold a democratic system, then no extrajudicial killings, no extrajudicial violence and no political violence, right? So you're either- Seems like a good bar to set. If you think that United Healthcare Group has broken laws, then we need to depend on the justice system to right that wrong.

And if there is injustice, if they do not hold them accountable, then that is the justice system that we have. It fails all the time. If you believe that they, UnitedHealthcare is following the law, but are just creating sort of monstrous results for people, then you change the policy and the politics around it because that's the system we have. Right. But in either case, like, violence is not the answer, period.

Sure. Not but. Right. Yeah. Violence is not the answer, period. There's a second thing bothering me just from a political strategy perspective, which is I think a lot of the people who are either, look, you're either celebrating it, like David Lorenz, you're excusing it, you're glorifying it, whatever you're doing. It's a lot of that.

Yeah. Whatever you're doing, you can react however you want. We are, do not listen to this episode and think that we are scolding you or policing you. You can laugh. You can do whatever. Do not think you are participating in discourse or a movement that is going to lead to political and social change and suddenly make insurance companies treat people better. I saw some viral tweets to the effect of all of a sudden, you know, I heard from my sister who went to the pharmacist that every insurance claim is going through

now because they really hurt us and they really listen and I just don't think that's true. Yeah, that's not correct. That's just not correct. This to me, I think feels like a bit of a Twitter is not exactly real life moment. I mean, offline, every single person I've talked to since this has happened has either made a joke about it or said some half serious version of like, boy, that health insurance executive like got what he deserved, right? Or boy, those guys sure are bloodsuckers and now they know what it feels like. But I think that is not the same as the what you would see superficially as the prevailing

attitude online, which is this kind of what you're referencing this like cosplaying, anarchist, radical, revolutionary that I think in truth just begins and ends with posting. And I think that what we are seeing is like a little bit of online edge lording of people saying, look how like radical and brave I am for saying, actually, it's good to kill the CEO. And then a lot of like lighthearted online memeing that we can say whether or not it's in good taste. Right. But I think it's just treating this as like a yarn to follow rather than, and I think people are telling themselves or tricking themselves into saying that the like online edge lording radical anarchist, we're going to kill all the CEO sentiment is real.

And that like this goes to show that everybody wants single payer healthcare and everybody wants to like purge all the CEOs in a like, you know, Maoist cultural revolution. And I don't, I don't think that that's what's happening. It also bothers me that there's a lot of like, oh, just all these elites just don't understand the anger that's out there. It's like, no, that's not. Yeah, sure. Very aware that insurance companies deny claims all the time, that the healthcare system can

be a fucking mess and it can be brutal. And I'm not surprised that there is intense anger and rage out there for people who've faced financial ruin or lost their lives or lost loved ones or have just suffered because of the healthcare system we have where if you can't afford healthcare, which many people can't, like you could either die or at least lose everything you have. Of course there's rage about that.

But acting like doing the edgelord cosplaying is somehow helping others is what bothers me because really it's just about you. Oh, for sure. You feel like it's cathartic for you or you feel like you are performing for other people who think like you. And so the whole thing is a performance.

If you actually want to bring about social and political change, then there's the political system, there's nonviolent protest and nonviolent movements, which, you know, we had one in this country a while back that was pretty successful, the civil rights movement. And there's a lot of research that honestly, that nonviolent movements are more effective than violent political movements, right? So just the idea that like you're in the know and you're in touch with people. For sure. No, it's all so flattery. No, I agree. But if I can speak to, I think the word that you

used, catharsis, I think is exactly the right one for describing why people who are not the kind of like super online meme lords might just be like, oh, good. Yeah. I think it's like, I think people are not expressing and there is, you know, like the stuff you cited about like, you know, everyone is kind of going crazy for this guy. I think that is a real thing that's out there. I don't think it's literally the people think we should murder all the CEOs.

I mean, for one, the fact that we know a lot about Luigi Mangione specifically, and he is a real person, and we just know the healthcare CEO guy as like faceless healthcare CEO, I think goes a long way to explain why people feel okay supporting this. I don't think that would be true if like he was a guy with a face who we felt like we knew. But I think that the degree to which people are supporting this symbolically, I think it is out of a sense that not just that the we all know that the healthcare industry is bad and exploitative, but that it is an issue

on which the political system is also unresponsive, corrupt, broken. And that is not to say that people have not tried, but as you yourself experienced, you can get really, really far in trying to reform the healthcare system, but you're still going to encounter the Joe Liebermans who are going to put up that final block and to be at that moment where it feels like the entire nation is behind reforming the health care system. And we still have, even though it is of course much improved in our wrong here, we still have this bulls**t private system with insurers. I think that it feels to people, especially people who are maybe not following every like twist and turn in health healthcare reform and legislation, like this system is corrupt, it's broken,

it's being forced on us in a way that just like having your health insurance claim denied feels disempowering and humiliating. And I'm not saying that that means that it's good to endorse murder, but I think that that is why people like this like, yeah, fuck them kind of attitude. Well, and that's a really good point. It is not those people that bother me. Sure, yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because if your only impression of the healthcare system

is your personal interaction with the healthcare system when it fucks you over, right? Then like, you're going to have that rage. That is understandable. It is people, like journalists journalists like a Taylor Lorenz or people, you know, who people do this like pundits or observers. There's so many people like this. Who should know better. Who should know better about like what a what's true about the trade-offs of a healthcare system and why we don't have healthcare reform, right? Which is a big part of it is the profit motive of private insurance companies. A big part of it is the fact that they spend a lot of money

in our political system to get their way. They have money to go lobby health politicians and average person does not. That is a real problem. It's also true that as you dive into healthcare reform, which I have, that there are a lot of trade-offs. People, even in other countries that have some form of socialized medicine, that don't have private health insurance or have mostly public insurance and not private insurance, you know what? People pay more out of pocket than they do here. I've lived under- Your insurance companies here actually pay more of the out of pocket fees than in some other countries

because the trade off is you're guaranteed coverage here. Here you're not guaranteed coverage, right? The cause of the problem is not the existence of health insurance executives. Yeah, or exactly, certainly not the existence. But it's not, and it's not just the system of private health insurance alone. It is part of the problem here

But if we got rid of that system there could still be there's government bureaucrats Nameless faceless bureaucrats denying your insurance claim as they do at the NHS in the NHS in the UK all the time Yeah, I I have lived under a single-payer health care system. There's much to Say in support of it. There's much I loved about it. And there's a lot about it that sucks. And that's gonna be true of any national healthcare system. I would choose- And that's not to say that like, we shouldn't have that or we can't do better.

No, fuck that. Like again, we said this on Pod Save America, but like I'm still a fan of Pete Buttigieg's, you know, Medicare for all who want it plan. And like, let's get either a robust public option or let people buy into Medicare and see if they like it and see how the system goes from there because we are dealing with the idea that if we were starting from scratch, that perhaps single payer would

be a better system for us, but we're not because we live in fucking reality. And if we want to move to somewhere better than then you have to wrestle with the trade-offs. You have to like build a movement. You have to convince people that it's better because it's not just the elites that are in your way, but like a lot of Americans who are wrestling with the fact that they don't know if they want private insurance or government insurance because they don't trust big businesses or the government.

And that's all stuff that you have to wrestle with. And that's a lot harder to deal with than just being like, oh, the executive's bad. Cool. It did occur to me that there's, look, I agree with all of that. And it is, every time I see someone say that like, oh, this proves that there's a,

the fact that there's a lot of memes around this guy proves that there's a mass movement in America for massive healthcare reform. It's like, were you not fucking here in 2010? There was the whole movement where people got mad just for improving the system. Just for improving the system. And like, I, again, I said this on positive America, so forgive me if you've heard that episode too, but we passed the ACA and the first thing that happened in 2013,

aside from the unfortunate website rollout, which again, doesn't say great things about government running healthcare. I can still see those pajamas in my mind. Right. And then number two, we tried to cancel all of the shitty health insurance plans that weren't good for people, that didn't cover a lot, that didn't pay for a lot. And everyone got fucking mad! Because they're like, this was my healthcare plan,, and you told me we're going to cancel my health care plan. It's like, well, we wanted to cancel your health care plan because it's a

shitty plan. We want to give you better insurance so that you don't face financial ruin. Even that, that small step pissed people off. Right? So I'm just, it's just, it's more complicated. Yeah. And this is why it's good to talk about this here, it is much more complicated than the online debate. The viral tweet that you get with the bumper sticker. Can I say one more thing about the movement in support of the assassination? It occurred to me that the Venn diagram of people who think that killing a health insurance

executive on the street is a form of righteous political change. And the people who think that killing Osama Bin Laden was Imperial murder overreach is probably a circle or pretty close to a circle. Well, we were saying this earlier today, you and I, which is like, it reminds me like back after 9-11, there was like, why do they hate us? Right? Yeah. And there was a debate then about like,

are we excusing Al-Qaeda? Or is it important to look at the source? The legitimate grievances. The legitimate grievances, right, yeah. And I think it is entirely fair after you say, like, violence is not only morally wrong, but it is like antithetical to goals, to political goals in a democratic system.

Once you leave that aside, you can say like, how do we create a healthcare system where people aren't so pissed and upset that they are either, you know, despairing or losing all their life savings or dying or someone like Luigi, you know, you can ask that question without being like, well, you know, people get pushed to their limits sometimes. I know, I know. You know, some midline was pushed to his limits. Right.

I mean, I mean, we were just like, well, you know, American imperialism, we, I guess we deserved it. And you know what else they have in common? A couple of rich boys from privileged families. Right. Grew up and got radicalized. Yeah. Wasn't some, yeah, exactly.

Wasn't some like poor kid from Afghanistan. It was a fucking rich Saudi. Not a lot of people know that Luigi Mangione's parents air conditioned Mecca. Not a lot of people know that. Yeah. It's a huge project. Look at that. Look at that.

And in the same sense, like people are pointing to, so Ben Shapiro said something about this and a bunch of his commenters were like, no, they were celebrating or at least excusing the murder as well. And so everyone's like, oh, well, it's bipartisan. I don't know this is the kind of healthy bipartisanship that the political establishment often pines for. It feels to me more horseshoe theory like, or more crank realignment as Matt Iglesias calls it, we talked about before.

I think there's some of that. And I think, I mean, again, it all depends on kind of how seriously you take, like are people just saying that I'm mad and he's someone who expressed my anger, or like saying I support this news article that I saw expressed of anger. But I mean, look, what is the defining feature of our time? expressed my anger, like saying I support this news article that I saw expressed my anger, but

I mean, look, what is the defining feature of our time, but a desire to strike back at an establishment that feels corrupt and unresponsive? And that doesn't mean that everybody wants, you know, to shoot a healthcare CEO, but I think that that is something that resonates across the spectrum for sure. And there is, there is a, to your point about political violence, there is a straight line. It shows up across eras, across countries, between distrust of the establishment and feeling the political system is unresponsive

and support for political violence. I'm not saying that's where we are, but even the fact that people are willing to. It's something to worry about though. And it's not just, you know, it's not something just for elites to worry about. That's not why we're talking about it here. It is something for literally everyone in the country

to worry about, right? Like Luigi Mangione's life isn't gonna be much better now, nor are people who have been denied claims, nor is the family of the guy who was murdered. I have reported from a lot of countries that experienced a rise in political violence on quote unquote the right side, and it never made the country better off.

People were never happier for it. No, it is self-defeating. It is self-defeating. So we are against political violence on this show. I guess that's what we have. It's wild, that's the take now. Let's talk a little bit about Luigi Mangione himself, who friends say was suffering from back pain

after back surgery. But it seems like he got surgery, he had back pain, he had blue cross blue shield. Is that true, really? Well, he talked about blue cross blue shield covering his irritable bowel syndrome, which he had another, he had complaints about too. But I think what's notable is he basically disappeared for the last six months.

And I think there was a missing persons report filed on him. So he basically his digital footprint disappeared in the last six months of before the killing. But the more we learn about him from his digital footprint, the more he seems like a fairly typical, highly educated, privileged, Gen Z man who was so online that, as you mentioned, there's a non-zero chance he's listened to at least one episode of the show. When I, on his, I can't believe I'm saying this, his Goodreads review of Catherine Price's How to Break Up with Your Smartphone, he attached a Google Doc with a 12-page write-up of the book that was, I thought, pretty good.

And a number of the points in it are things that we said in our interview with Catherine Price. Jonathan Haidt, too. I know. He was posting about him. Yes. On Twitter, he followed everyone from AOC and Ezra Klein to Joe Rogan and RFK Jr. Vivek's got some competition for that third chair.

That's all I'm saying. Jesus. Yeah, A.O. Scott at the New York Times describes his Goodreads reviews as, quote, books that fit comfortably into the universe of Ted Talks, podcasts, and smart guy substacks, which I thought was a good description. Absolutely, yeah.

But you spent a lot of time combing through all the shooter's accounts. What else did you find? What are your thoughts on Luigi? I know this guy. I fucking know. I have met this guy. I know this guy. Everyone is saying, Oh, is user incoherent or all over the place? Does it make sense of him? No.

Everything about this guy's online footprint, the way he writes in his Smart Brevity Manifesto, he is an extremely specific type of guy who I've met with an extremely specific media diet, specific politics. Okay. Educated, white male engineer who thinks of himself as curious, intellectual, a little bit woke, but a little bit contrarian and hyper rational. He works in tech.

He's into fitness, but not sports, posts on Reddit, but in forums where people footnote their posts with links to academic articles, which he did in his manifesto, and actually an academic article that I've seen referenced before, it's a good one. He has a Goodreads where he writes long, thinky reviews. He is someone who is not part of the male loneliness epidemic, but has shared extensive thoughts on how it should be addressed, and those thoughts 100% align, I would say, with the podcast Offline with Jon Favreau. I mean, a beat for a beat. And most importantly, I think like the key to understanding this guy, he listens to this network of podcasters who all have PhDs or tech accelerators

and mostly do three-hour interviews with like neuroscientists who talk about how to optimize your sleep or use AI to absorb more books. Like Andrew Huberman, Lexi Friedman, Tim Ferriss, Tim Urban. Like this is not the Roganverse at all, but it is a large and self-contained pod-based media ecosystem. Yeah, it's like adjacent to the Roganverse.

It's not really adjacent. It's maybe on the, like, there is no spectrum anymore, I guess, political spectrum. No. It's not really Jason. It's maybe on the, like, there is no spectrum anymore, I guess, political spectrum. No, it's not. I was gonna say it's like, it's a click. It's a click away. Honestly, in all sincerity, not doing a bit, I would say that it is a little bit closer to Crooked Media

but it is substantially closer to Ezra Klein, who he follows. Ezra. I know, I know. Oh God. Call your office, Ezra. You even see this in his manifesto. Like he refers to the process of tracking down his target as quote fairly trivial and a matter of some elementary social engineering. You ever

talk to a Silicon Valley white male programmer that is exactly how they talk. It is his mindset that everything is an engineering problem, society is an engineering problem, and if a smart people apply some cold hard logic that we can fix the bugs in the system, which aside from whatever like break he may or may not have had, I am sure informed his thinking here, and he thought that he would just like taking some step that was rationally going to improve our healthcare system. The most online brained part of the manifesto that I've heard in a million different ways from others who did not kill CEOs.

Again, this is non-ideological. This is across the political spectrum. Obviously, the problem is more complex, but I do not have space. And frankly, I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently, I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty."

There's so much in those sentences that it's like, it's the like, this is a complex problem, but it's not on me to educate you. But I it's not on me to educate you And also like oh, I'm the first yeah, you're the first person you're the first person to face down The brutality of the health care system in America. No one has ever confronted that before telling you I I have texted with this guy. I have I can't I actually in all sincerity I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who work in Silicon Valley who were like I came into work today and I Was looking around at the desk and being like that guy that guy that guy are all Luigi Mangione. I Don't have frankly. I just do not have space or the time

I do have the space and the time to get a gun Yeah an assassination do that that I can do that's a little easier But the complexities of the health system, I can just read these. Couldn't possibly walk through it. I can direct you to some links, and to some resources that I think would be good, because frankly, I'm not gonna do it, but I am courageous,

because I can stand up to the power games at play. None of you understand that. You're saying that you are not going to subscribe to the sub stack that he is 100% going to start from prison. Oh my gosh. There was a great tweet that I noticed, Austin did too, he put it in the Slack from someone named Cancella Landsberry.

Also just fucking fantastic Twitter name. I love it. Luigi is just another toxic Bernie bro turned Hubermeditarian eco-fascist Luddite accelerationist, roided out gym rat supplement pill chaser, Trotskyite with washboard abs who refuses to elevate marginalized voices and probably hasn't even seen Wicked.

That's right. I, a hundred percent, but they missed Yimby. He's definitely a Yimby. Definitely a Yimby. Has a lot of thoughts on urban planning. Yeah. But nailed it. Here's another thing for us here on offline to reckon with.

It seems like this is a case of someone who was not radicalized online, like many, and I've seen a couple people make this point. It seems like he was radicalized offline, either in the six months between when he sort of fell off the face of the earth and then the killing happened, or like, and he kind of says this in the manifesto, he's like, you're not going to find much for my digital footprint. I'm an engineer. Like he knew enough not to be, you know, crazy online.

I mean, what I will say is it is completely of Silicon Valley guy thinking to look at a problem in society outside of engineering and be like, well, no one who's smart enough to be a tech engineer has looked at this problem seriously yet and has tried to solve it. So I clearly something happened in the last six months that took him, I would say a pretty big step further from posting on Reddit to what he did. But I do think that you can kind of draw a line between, you know, I mean, fucking Mark Zuckerberg used to talk all the time about how like, well, with a few lines of code on the Facebook algorithm,

we can like promote democracy worldwide. Like this is kind of a like way of thinking. I know it is. It's and it's just very what is online about the thinking is the everything is black and white. There are simple explanations. There are easy answers. And the reason that things have not been fixed is we are ruled by crooks and idiots. And I, with my rational knowledge, will come in and I can fix it. I mean, it's a little like, there's obviously no violence involved, but it is, it reminded me of Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk doing Doge and like, every day is something new to them. It's like, do you know that government wastes money

and there's this program that doesn't work and blah, blah, blah. We're gonna bring tech know-how to this and figure it all out. So how do you think Luigi voted in 2020? Cause I have my guess. I think he voted for Trump. No way. You think Kamala? I think, 2020. I think he voted for Trump. No way.

You think Kamala? I think. 2020? Oh, 2020. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I think, I think at least Liz Warren voter, maybe Bernie. I think he's a registered Republican, they said. Oh, is he really?

Yeah. He voted and he voted in the- That's what I get for not doing my research. I think he voted in the Maryland primary. Also his family, very wealthy family in Maryland. Some of them are in Maryland, Republican politics in Maryland. So it's a very, it's not, you know, it's not something that you just predict. Although, like you said, maybe his political beliefs and identities are cohesive.

They are, absolutely. Yeah, I definitely, I could buy that. So finally, strangely enough, the assassination of a major health insurance CEO was not the only offline worthy healthcare news this week. Max, you brought up the Anthem Blue Cross versus American Society of Anesthesiologists fight in our pitch meeting this week. You want us to give us a rundown of what happened? I am fucking fired up about this.

Okay. As an online moment, I actually think that this is like a seminal moment in the intersection between online and real world politics. Okay. So to give you the very, very quick. So there was a press release that said that Anthem Blue Cross quote, will no longer cover anesthesia for the full length of certain surgeries in Connecticut, New York and Missouri.

The implications of that and of other versions of that being that, you know, three quarters of the way through your surgery, they're gonna have to pull off the painkillers because insurance is no longer going to cover it. Or you're going to wake up and learn that you're being footed with the bill for the last hour of your surgery. So there was this huge online outrage cascade, just absolutely everywhere.

I was hearing about it from people who don't even have social media. Kathy Hochul tweeted, Outrageous, I'm going to make sure New Yorkers are protected. Chris Murphy, the Senator, tweeted, This is appalling and for what? Just to boost corporate profits. Anthem reversed the ruling. And then it turned out a few days later that the

entire thing had been a hoodwink by the Association of Anesthesiologists. So anesthesiologists make, on average, on average, $470,000 a year. They are some of the most highly paid doctors in America. Yeah, maybe the most highly paid after like cardiac, maybe like cardiac surgeons and anesthesiologists. Yeah, and like ophthalmologists, which is because they have a cartel. That's another episode.

I got another hour on this right now on the ophthalmologist cartel. By the way, RIP to one ophthalmologist. So anesthesiologist. Wow. Wow. Wow. Cool. Bringing it full circle.

That's Bashar Al-Assad. I know, I know. I know you know, but I'm helping my listeners. No, thank you, that's good. Okay, so anesthesiologist, notorious, notorious for overbilling. It's a huge problem. It's been documented in studies.

They'll have a four hour surgery. They'll bow for eight hours. Remember that they're paid so much. So this adds up to a lot. I will say though, God bless them, especially if you're one that I encounter in some point. I know, I know. If I have an anesthesiologist for my future,

I'm not talking about you. It's a tough work. You're the good one. I get why they're the highest paid. We're standing up and we're saluting right now. Medical overbilling, it's a huge problem. It's responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars just in Medicare every year, according to some estimates.

It's a huge driver of the cost of healthcare in America. And what happened is that because anesthesiologists are so notorious for over billing, Anthem in these three states said that it would follow these Medicare metrics that were set for what procedure lengths are supposed to be. And they said, look, we'll still reimburse you, anesthesiologist, if your procedure goes longer than that, but you have to provide some documentation. Your procedure that usually goes two hours, you say it goes eight, we're not just going to pay you eight hours automatically, you have to give us a piece of paper that says

this is real. This is not something that was being passed on to customers. It was just anesthesiologists, whether they would get reimbursed or not. Their association, their fucking cartel, put out a highly misleading press release that wildly distorted the issue. And everybody online appointed themselves as the vigilante healthcare justice enforcers

without bothering to do a single Google to find out whether they were being had by moneyed interests and managed to get conned into doing an online outrage mob on behalf of medical overbilling because the change got rolled back. I mean, now I think you now you know why I was so frustrated with the discourse around the killer too.

This is the same. It's like no one like do your fucking. Do a single Google. Even though it feels good to mash that RT button, maybe you're not actually helping. Maybe you're actually literally doing harm. But this is also the, I mean, the fact that again, it's probably useless to just complain

about random users doing this, but when it rises to the level of the governor of New York, a senator. I know, don't you have a staffer? Well, that's right, that's, but this is, and look, we are, I've fallen victim to this. We all have. I'm sure to this. We all have. I'm sure you have.

We all have, absolutely. This is why it is not personal failings that is the problem with social media, but social media and the incentives that when you see something like that, you're just like, ah, QT, fuck that. This is why I think that we are gonna look back on this as a big moment because online outrage mobs

have always been like, frankly, pretty easy to manipulate and whip up, especially by lying about your target. And people who are super online who do this a lot have been doing it for years for free. So now that muddied interests with billions of dollars of stake have figured out that they can overturn a regulation with a misleading press release. You don't think they're gonna match that.

Just by rage baiting. Right. Yeah. So rage baiting is a tactic by the powerful. What a... I know. I do think that if you get your news on social media that you are a little bit responsible.

I do. Well, that's what, you know, and again, it's fine to get your news on social media, but like you got to double, you got to do double and triple checking. I know. Especially if you're a elected representative. Yeah, I would say they have a little bit. Yeah.

Journalists. Yep. Elected representatives. Yep. Those are all people with responsibility. Just read a single news article or get your news not from Twitter. Here's a thought. That's yeah, that's yeah. It's great. New York Times, Washington Post. Sure. Crooked media podcast. Crooked media podcast, whatever it may be. That's where I get my healthcare now. So on a somewhat related note, I finally wrote down some fully formed thoughts about the election and why Democrats need to get back into the persuasion business that you can read in Where Else But The Atlantic.

I, the other friend of the pod. No, it's a great piece. People should read it. I thought it was very thoughtful and a lively read. I just bring it up here because it's about the divide we've talked about here many times between those of us who follow and post and talk about politics and the vast majority of people largely working class who do not, i.e. the majority that turned against Democrats,

not just in the recent election, but now in many elections since 2020, I mean, 2016 and before. I think that persuading these voters is both our top priority and something that will require a much different approach to politics than how it's discussed online. Do you have any questions about why I decided

to bang my head against this particular wall yet again? Well, so I wanted to talk about this because you've now kind of run this A-B test basically, where you have made your case for what went wrong in the election on podcasts, on Twitter, which went great. That's great. It's still going great. On cable news, in a magazine article, what do you feel like you have learned about the relative merits of those platforms and media ecosystems for kind of serving this moment? It's a great question.

I think that to be completely honest, the real challenge, as I write about in the piece, is sort of breaking through to the casual news consumer, who I think is forming their impressions about politics and the parties through not just what politicians are saying anymore, or even what parties are saying, but through like an amalgam of takes from influencers, social media users, journalists, whoever it may be, pundits. And so when you're, if you're just dipping in and you're scrolling through TikTok or Twitter, or you catch a chyron on cable news, all of these things are contributing to your belief about politics.

And so in one hand, that's why everything that is said in that bubble of people who pay close attention to politics matters. On the other, we have not figured out how to reach beyond that bubble, which is why, you know, whether I did it on Twitter, on this podcast, or in the Atlantic, not breaking out of the bubble. But I have come to think that like, we, meaning those of us who talk about politics or post about politics or whoever,

and again, this is everyone from politicians who sort of matter most here and media figures to just someone who has a big following, an influencer or someone else, just because they post a lot. I think we have to figure out collectively a conversation about politics that is persuasive to everyone else. To the extent that you are part of the group of politically engaged people who

want Democrats to win or want to stop Trump's movement, right? Cause maybe you're not a Democrat. But, so, but in terms of the different mediums, like, look, I feel most comfortable here talking about politics, but I'm aware that there's still, there are things, there are points that I will make on podcasts that we've all made on podcasts on Crooked Media that don't get as much attention until they are written down.

Yeah, or clipped in a clip that you see on Twitter, as we've come to learn sometimes, unfortunately. And so it was like, it felt good to sort of, from a personal standpoint, it feels good to sometimes like get fully formed thoughts down, that aren't a tweet, or that you're just, that aren't just going to like be heard and then forgotten, to like actually get it down. So that's what I enjoyed about like actually writing the piece.

But in terms of like how effective, I don't know. I don't know which is most effective at all. I guess I would say Twitter is probably least effective. That's part of why I ask about it is that as you said, part of what you were trying to do is, I mean you're kind of on the one hand, thinking about like trying to reach people who are persuadable, but on the other hand, it is part of an internal conversation within the coalition about what is gonna be persuadable

or what is the persuasive message. And it feels like that is the big conversation right now that is happening across these different mediums. And I wonder what you think it kind of means for Democrats that so much of that internal coalitional like what did we learn what went wrong conversation is happening on Twitter? Well it's interesting too because I started thinking about this when Adam Jentleson you know wrote his piece in the New York Times about the

groups and how you know a lot of special interest groups or activists who are part of organizations and nonprofits, sort of like the influence that they have on democratic politicians. And I thought it was a compelling piece, but I think it leaves out the or it doesn't it doesn't include another group of people who are influential, which is just, you know, your your terminally online posters and influencers who may not be part of the ACLU or immigrants rights groups or whoever or whatever else. Right. But they are posting a lot.

And I don't think that democratic politicians or like the official democratic party is ever going to have any kind of control over that amorphous blob of left-leaning posters and talkers. But I'm hoping that people who do that know that you have more influence than you might think. And what we say, each individual, what we say is not super influential, but together it is. And so I do think that like anyone with an opinion and a phone and a following, like does play a role in shaping perceptions about politics.

And so therefore I think that conversation is important to have just with each other as we go out there and post and talk to voters and etc. So like that's sort of why I'd want to do it. Well, I mean it's the part of the process for any party that loses a big election is that you bring together everyone in the coalition, not just in the party, not just in the groups, but the media leads, whoever is part of that, to kind of arrive at a consensus for what happened, why did it happen, what did we learn, what

are we supposed to change going forward. And it really feels like that's happening primarily on Twitter. Do you think I'm wrong? Is there some other room somewhere where this is kind of all taking place? I think it's happened. I think the conversation is happening on Twitter still. I think I guess some of it's happening on Blue Sky now. I don't want to get in trouble.

I'm already made. Blue Sky mentioned. Blue Sky mentioned. Yeah, no, I made a light joke about Blue Sky. I'm there. get in trouble. I'm already made. Blue sky mentioned. Blue sky mentioned. Yeah, no, I made a light joke about blue sky. I'm there, it's fine. Everyone on blue sky, it's okay. We're all just making jokes. We're all friends here, come on.

Don't worry about it. I think the conversation is happening there. I think it's hard. You can't really say that TikTok is where a conversation is taking place as much. It's one direction. Right, it's one direction. I know you can comment on the, like I get that, but there's not, it's one direction. Right, it's one direction. I know you can comment on the tech, like I get that,

but it's not as two-way as some of the other social media platforms. So I still think for better or worse, and oftentimes worse, Twitter is where that conversation is happening. What do you think? I think as best I can tell that's where it's taking place. And I think it's, if you're going to be shocked to hear this, not great that it's happening

on Twitter. I mean, I feel like after any election loss, there's like, there's the consensus building and coming together and lesson learning. And then there's always going to be some like recriminations and there's going to be some opportunistic score settling of like, I don't like this guy, so I'm going to try to push him out of the coalition or I think this faction gets listened to too much. So I'm going to try to blame them for it. It always happens.

It's not great. But I think what is dangerous is that Twitter funnels everything away from the consensus building just by design, by the way it's structured and towards the score settling and the interpersonal bullshit. And I feel like I've seen so many conversations where you see people coming into it and they're trying to do the consensus building. They're trying to do the like, what did we learn from this exit poll? What did we learn from the way people talk about the economy?

And it just turns into just this like series of dunks. So it's like, fuck the left or fuck the center left or they're the ones who ruined it or like, I can't believe when you said the groups, you mean this thing that I'm really angry about. And I worry about that dynamic where it's just driving everyone further into their corners in this belief that the Micro, micro, micro faction of the Democratic Party that I represent is the only good one and everybody else is evil. Yeah, well, it's funny because

You know a lot of people who know me and read the piece are like, how's it being received? How's it being received? And I'm like, well, it's it's Twitter. So like Obviously not well Well, no, no, well. Is that true? Well, no, no, I would say that like, so here's the challenge of it. Like you want to write the piece, not so people can say like, great piece, but so people can say like, oh, I like this point, I disagree with this point, let's talk about it, right? And so I would say that, but like the majority of comments are idiots.

And I call them idiots not because they disagree with me, because they say mean things in response and insults and just dumb dumb shit, you know, left, right, whatever. Then there's people who are just like, you know, thoughtful responses, right? That either agree with some parts of it or disagree. And there are people who'd like do this for a living. Like before we were doing it, like, you know, Derek Thompson Wrote something about it and Ryan Boitler who used to work your crooked like wrote a nice piece about it That did not agree with me at all and like had or didn't agree with me completely

But agreed with parts and we talked about it and I was going back and forth with part of the process, right? And I was like, okay. Well those responses I'm gonna engage with sure because I do think that the conversation and I'll and I'll Amplify those even if they disagree with me because I'd rather people sort of just like get the full part of the debate. But I don't know, but people's question like, I don't know how it's fucking playing. I don't know if I'm persuading you because there's some people who are just like, oh, step one is to get rid of your fucking dumb podcast, bro. I'm sure there's some of that. That's fun too. Yeah. I did appreciate that it didn't have the like,

here's the easy obvious solution and Democrats had only done this then we would have won for sure. Which I, whenever I see that I'm like, I don't think this is probably gonna be serious analysis. Well, it's funny cause someone keeps replying to me that they're like, you think that the answer is to persuade everyone,

but like, why aren't you open to the fact that you should be persuaded? And I'm like, where did I say? Yeah. I am very open to being persuaded. I've seen you be persuaded. Yeah, I persuaded? And I'm like, wait, where did I say? Yeah, I am very open to being persuaded. I've seen you be persuaded. Yeah, I'm very open and persuasive. And like, I don't think any of us have the answers here.

Like part of my whole point is that there, that to be suspicious of easy answers or answers that are, we're ruled by crooks and liars and we've just got to fix that. Right. Right. Like I just, a lot of truth to and we've just got to fix that. Right. Right? Like, I just, a lot of truth to that. A lot of truth to that.

But like if we want to, like problems are problems for a reason. A lot of times they're complex and they like take in their trade-offs and we've got to work through them and I just want to have that conversation. It makes me wish we had a better forum. Yes, me too. You know, I think it would be really important to have that. Right now the Blue Sky people are going to write and say, this is the forum. You know what?

Maybe it's the least bad option. You know, being persuadable, maybe I'm persuadable that Blue Sky is the least bad place to have this conversation. Look, I'm checking in there too. I took both Twitter and Blue Sky off the phone after the did you after the great? Dan interview with the Harris campaign Because and then and then me jumping in after that which we didn't really talk with But I'm like I took both of them off the phone. I didn't I didn't like deactivate them I just and now they're now they're both back. I there's moments when I've done that because it's like I'm gonna see

Some dunk that I just know is so stupid, and I'm gonna have the perfect answer to it is gonna pop into my head and I'm gonna fire it off before I can think better of it. Right, right. And that was why I did that. Yeah, that's why I was like, I did enough of that, I don't need more for now. And now I'm back, so.

Well, it was a brief offline challenge. Yes, exactly. All right, some quick housekeeping. Critics are calling Empire City the untold origin story of the NYPD, riveting, thought-provoking, and essential listening. Haven't started it yet? Now is the perfect time. Hailed by Vulture is not just an expose, but a call to action. In just eight episodes, Empire City takes you back to the origins of

the NYPD and completely reframes the way we think about policing today. Listen to the series now wherever you get your podcasts or binge all episodes ad-free on Wondry Plus and the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau, along with Max Fisher. It's produced by Austin Fisher and Emma Illich-Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Charlotte Landis is our engineer. Audio support from Kyle Seglen. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, Reid Cherlin, and Adrian Hill for production support.

And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn and Dilan Villanueva, who film and share our episodes as videos every week.