Some More News - Even More News: Trump Tries To End And Escalate The War At The Same Time

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

Hi. Some More News director ( @TalkingPoliticsWithMom ) Will Gordh joins Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to talk about Trump signaling that he will both escalate and de-escalate the war, the insiders profiting off of Trump's announcements, and the probably-soon-to-be-much-higher price of oil. Plus, they dig into the judgment against Meta & YouTube and whether or not it will result in greater restrictions and online censorship.As always, we recorded right before that big thing that happened.Check out the latest  @manboynice  video by WIll and his brother, Daniel Vincent Gordh, for Part 2 of their series on The Wokest Horror Movies of the 1980s: https://youtu.be/ORT3pyfXSjQPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinPluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hi, on today's episode, we talk about how Trump is both trying to escalate and deescalate his war at the same time, insider trading, the ruling against meta and YouTube, and more. Oh, welcome back to even more news, the first, the only news podcast. I'm Katie Stoll. Ah, hello. Hi, Katie. Thank you so much for being here and saying that, like you always do, I'm Katie. I am Cody. Joining us today, some more news director, co-host of the podcast, talking politics with mom, and co-creator of the man-boy nice YouTube channel.

It's Will Gord. Hey, thank you, round of applause. I appreciate it. Yes, yes, thank you. Yes, yes, yes. Jonathan is also here. Hi. Oh, there he is.

Oh, he's been here this whole time. Hello. Friday, March, 2016. 7th is National Joe Day. Jonathan, why did you choose National Joe Day to bring the holidays out of the environment? Tell us about this holiday. Well, this holiday is a celebration of people named Joe, and they give a list of famous Joe's, clearly generated from ChachyPT, that made a few flubs that are in here. Well, some are flubs and some are just, that's not how I would describe it.

So comedian, musician, and actor, Joe Pesci. Okay. Politician and lawyer, Joe Biden. Okay. That's one way to describe it. Politician, comma, soldier, Joseph Stalin. Great. Wow.

Okay. Got to acknowledge. And then actress, J.D. Foster. That is so funny. And you know how ChatchipT will do that thing? Or maybe you don't, and I've never even seen this. but chat cheap T will you ask it for examples of something and it'll say while Jody Foster is not a Joe she is still an actress and this fits into the category of

etc etc Jody Foster's not a Joe her name's Alicia it's like debate bro stuff wait her name's Alicia well actually I have you know yeah her real name's Alicia Joseph Stalin's real name is also not Joseph Stalin it's Alicia he wouldn't have gotten the respect he did from everyone Biden either. One of my favorite facts about this holiday that you shared with us, Jonathan, is that you can celebrate it by changing your name to include Joe in it. So I think today we've got Jody, Jote, and Jonathan. Johnathan. It's true. Perfect. I really want to celebrate National Joe Day. Jody Jones. I'd like to acknowledge that the page says, here are there

recommendations for how to observe National Joe Day, and one of them is everyone changes their name to a version of Joe or Joe of your choice, as you have said. And the one above that says, for the day, change your name to a name of your choice. Awesome. Awesome. I love the internet. Can I be Jonathan today? Un- Can we all be Jonathan? In celebration of National Joe Day, I will change my name to Jonathan. Well, I'll shout out one, Joe. I'll shout out one, Joe. I'll Shout out my dad's friend Joe from Search and Rescue who listens to this show. And I still haven't met you, Joe. Thanks for listening, Joe.

Hello, Joe. Happy National Joe Day. Hello, Joe. Shall we get to some news? So the big news in terms of war right now is that Trump is seemingly planning to both quickly wrap up the war and to dangerously escalate the war. impossible to know exactly which one of those is happening. He has told AIDS he wants to wrap this thing up in the coming weeks, or at least that's what leakers are telling the Wall Street Journal.

He's obviously claiming in public that we have accomplished regime change and won already. However, we didn't want to do. Which was not... We weren't doing regime change, but we did it. This week he has been deploying troops to the area potentially for a ground invasion of Karg Island. which is an island. I know a lot about it now, yeah.

In the Persian Gulf off the coast of southern Iran. Well, he's consistent. He said he wanted to do this years ago, so. Yeah, but we've got like 3,000 Marines from here and 2,500 paratroopers from there, that kind of thing is going on, which would lead people to believe that, I don't know, Friday afternoon, maybe shortly after the market's closed, something might happen. Wait a second. And then just today on Thursday, Ken Klippenstein reported that sources inside the military tell him that a ground invasion is not imminent and that this is all to manipulate Tehran and to please Donald Trump.

It's not imminent, but they're there. I was told that just being there and existing means that your attacks are imminent, though, actually. I thought all these attacks were imminent from Iran that they did in retaliation for being attacked. So what do words mean anymore at all? Sorry, I didn't understand anything you just said because words don't mean anything anymore. Oh, well, that's the problem. Words don't mean anything anymore. The other thing is that Trump has greatly diminished their ability to actually end the war because they're trying to negotiate now.

But why the hell would Iran trust the U.S. to be a negotiating partner? with considering the last several times we entered into negotiations, we used it as a way to just secretly bomb them instead. Why would you want to negotiate with the United States ever? Yeah, we're constantly pulling out of deals or lying about deals or, as you pointed out, bombing them. There's no reason. Also, Iran seems to have the upper hand. I mean, I don't know why, you know, no one predicted the fact that Iran could just close the straight of Hermus and completely bring the global economy or threaten to bring the global economy to its knees. But you don't need a nuclear weapon or an air force or a large military to just

create enough of the perception of threat that, you know, these oil tankers, which are not military tankers don't want to go through. And suddenly you're putting the whole economy of the world at risk. And there's nothing you can do about it as the United States other than occupy Iran, I suppose. Just brutalize the country. Brutalize the regime, yes, but the citizens. But that doesn't even stop it, right? No, it doesn't stop it.

I'm just saying, like, you can't just go in with a show of force. Yes. Everybody's known that the straight of four moves, except for apparently the president, is crucial and is something that Iran can use to their advantage and they can control it. We've known that they didn't have nuclear weapons, but they have a very deep regime and have planned for situations such as this. they've also planned for the United States hubris of thinking that they would be able to just come in here if we ever got to that point and bomb their way out when they can't.

We can't. That's not the way it works. It hasn't been the way it worked for a very long time. You know, we've done this. We've learned this over and over and over again. But yes, to your point, nobody told people told him he didn't give a shit. He thinks that he can work his way through anything.

He thinks that he can call people's bluff and, you know, or he thinks that nobody will call his bluff. And so now he's backed into a corner. You leave and everyone in the world knows that you lost. Or you create eight unspeakable levels of damage. Or you stay indefinitely and then you do this sort of back and forth and like you make it, you talk like, well, we're not at war even though we are. It's combat operations.

we're, you know, we're going to pull out in a couple weeks, but also we're sitting, like, it's just this perpetual warfare thing that they have accidentally stumbled into, but also done kind of on purpose. And the way to get out of it is to prolong it for as long as they can and pretend like it's not happening in the way that it is and hope that those effects don't. We have to hope that Trump can be convinced that he can declare victory and leave. He can't. It's clear that he's a failure, but I really, really hope he can be convinced that he can just say the war's won, we did the thing, you know, everything's going back to normal, minus whatever, the regime is dead, its regime changed, so that he doesn't do the other option, which is commit tens of thousands of U.S. troops and throw the economy into the globally economy into recession, kill

untold thousands of people, cause untold carnage. Who is it that said the other day? It was like, well, was it, I don't know, which of the goons doing the talking uttered the sentence of like, well, it'll be bad, but it's worse for everybody else.

There's something about this. Van. Oh, that's J.D. Vance. If they take down the whole world with us, well, maybe we're still the strongest. I'm We're going to bring down everybody with us. If we're at the top of the hierarchy, even if the hierarchy's like buried in shit,

we're still at the top. It's okay. Look at all the shit eaters down there. Whether or not he can be convinced that he can just leave and we can all pretend that there's a way that he can save his ego and say like, oh, we want to actually kind of depends on his briefings maybe. This was fun. Not a surprising little detail to emerge.

But the president is apparently getting his information. about the war from daily video montages that the military is providing to him essentially just highlight reels of stuff getting blown up and that is obviously very depressing and comical

that this man is exactly who you think he is and terrifying at the same time is it's just what did they put into his video highlight reel that he's you know enjoying over his morning diet coke Yeah, I mean, it's all the videos that they share on the White House or like Homeland Security accounts or whatever. I mean, you pointed out earlier today that he, I believe, fell asleep again in some sort of meeting.

I close. I close. Right. Sometimes I close. Sometimes I close. Sometimes I close. God. But, I mean, related to this, he probably fell asleep because he wasn't watching a fun little movie about his war stuff blowing up.

He literally, he said, I mean, we remember a year. year or two or a year or two ago a week or two ago when he was in the middle of some other fucking meeting about something else and then he's like all right i got to go watch the war that's what he's talking that's what he means he's got to go watch his little videos of the war and they're only showing him obviously the the quote quote successes and if he has to read anything he's not going to care and so he is seeing the most positive version of the war which is why he's going out and being like yeah we're winning because all the videos that I see when I'm scrolling as the president mean that we blew it up. So that's all

it takes for him. It's like his handlers need to like make him feel good about the war. Like look at all the bombs we're dropping. We're winning. We're winning to convince him that we're winning, which scares me because I don't know. There's there's like you said, Jonathan, there's two ways this go. One is that he says, we won. We changed the regime. We bombed them. We've accomplished our mission and we're out. But if he's being fed this propaganda to him that, oh, no, we're winning, then it makes me worried that he'll keep going until he starts seeing those oil prices drop.

Exactly. He's the only thing he'll see. And that's clearly what so much of his behavior has been geared towards is to try and tweet his way into keeping. oil prices low, but that can only go on so long. I mean, because they've already taken steps, very, like, severe steps like removing sanctions on Iranian oil, which is just so ironic, in order to keep the global price down, which shows that they're desperate and running out of options to keep this going for much longer. At some point, the reality of the physical supply of oil is going to impact the markets in a way that the oil prices will rise. And at that point,

the question is, like you said, he's either got a double down on this war or, you know, put up the mission accomplished banner and say, we won. And I hope it's the latter. Yeah. It's kind of like with, you know, even with like Minnesota and a lot of that stuff, it's like, okay, you have this public perception of what's going on that he's trying to ignore and he's getting all these videos fed to him to make him go out and say, oh my God, uh, uh, you know, uh, oh, in Portland, they're burning down the city because they're showing him the, the bullshit videos. And he's only seeing those things that they know he wants to see. And then the narrative spirals and then maybe, you know, they publicly execute two people in the streets. And, uh, then they, it kind of fizzles out and he has the

fall guy and they ramp things down a little bit even though there's still presence there and then he's like we did it we accomplished the thing but the damage was done and he was only getting the good quote unquote good news to him. Sunday

we'll have maybe a I feel like I've got a good picture of his psyche and his psychology but someday we'll probably get even more information because you're right that is and there's absolutely no in his mind concerned about the effect on human lives

until it blows up and then the media gets wind of it and then he sees the repercussions in people's reactions and the public's reactions and then he's like, whoa, whoops, but he doesn't really give a shit. I don't know. There's more and more you know, MSN is

talking about it. I haven't known what credence to give online to the claim that all of our bases have been destroyed throughout the Middle East. But it does seem that there's much heavier damage than anybody would admit that's not a surprise

but is he not getting that information that's the kind of stuff that I'm like are you connected exactly not right according to the NBC News report said he was not told about the five US Air Force refueling planes that were hit in that strike he learned about it on the news asked people about it and they were like oh the planes

weren't badly damaged and then he goes and yells at the media for telling lies Well, right, because that's what they're avoiding, too. Like, they're not going to tell him that happen because he'll yell at them. They're all avoiding his wrath. And this narrative, by the way, also lets Trump off the hook. Like, he's just an idiot. And he's like, oh, if the furor only knew, it has a whiff of that.

So, like, he is both an idiot who doesn't know everything that's going on. And also it lets him off the hook. And, like, oh, the heggsets really just like manipulating him from the stuff. Exactly. And then, yeah, it lets him off the hook when he's the president. But obviously they are treating him with those kind of kid gloves and showing him the presentations and hiding information from him because they don't want to get yelled at. Yeah, and he's already, you see in his public appearances that he's already laying the groundwork to throw certain people under the bus. He's like, oh, yeah, I think Pete was the one who really wanted to do this.

And JD's out there negotiating is very smart. But, you know, I think regardless of whether we pull out soon and this ends soon or it continues on and on, so much damage has been done to just international cooperation. If you're an ally of the United States, how annoyed, I mean, must you be to be like, wait, you guys just bomb this country for no reason. And now we're all having to pay these oil prices. like why would we want to cooperate with you? And it also shows you how fragile the like the, you know, the energy in this world is if, you know, you can close that off. One, Iran knows, okay, don't mess with us in the future. We'll just do this again and again.

And it really strengthens China, which in some ways is maybe good. Maybe it's good that other countries are like, we're going to get. solar and we'll fill that batteries from China so that we're not dependent on oil. That's good, but it's also bad that the cooperation of all the world is people are just going to. And everyone kind of gets left behind because there's not. It would be bad enough if this was the only thing our president has done in recent memory to all of our allies and trading partners, but we have put them through the ringer the last couple years. The United States government, has. We have no responsibility. Liberation day. But, you know, we, the United States has alienated

all of its allies and friends across the world. We have so severely damaged our credibility, electing this guy for a second time. And now all of this. And what I've been thinking about so much is just how hard it's been to fight for alternative energy sources, how this would be such a perfect opportunity for us to be doubling down on infrastructure for getting people solar at their home. We're doing the exact fucking opposite. I got some brief. Breaking news. Yeah, breaking news that connects with everything we've been talking about and the ongoing

nature of this. Trump has pushed back the deadline that still existed, I guess, where he won't blow up the Iranian energy. plans until Monday, April 6th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. That's the new deadline because talks are ongoing and despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the fake news media and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Cool. I believe him. Sure, dude. Whatever you say. Yeah. Remember when they just hammered Obama about the red line walking back on the red line? Like we heard about that for years and years and years. I mean, in this case, I'm like, good, I guess.

don't commit a war crime and blow up, you know, a nation's power infrastructure. Also, real sorry, I'm bouncing around, but the idea that this, like, does anything other than support and entrench the power of the reactionary forces in Iran and galvanize the population to be like, well, yeah, they just bombed our nation and killed a bunch of our schoolchildren. And, you know, it does not, you know, create a lot of revolutionary fervor. It just creates a national, you know, bonding against the evil empire. That's bombing you. Absolutely.

Yeah. Obviously. Like, like, it's, like, I'm not trying to say, like, you didn't need to say that. But, like, what are we talking about? Yeah. Being relentlessly bombed by a country will make you not like that country very much. Especially, I mean, given every. thing. Point to our involvement in this country's politics over the last 50 years longer. And there's plenty of reason to hate America. But we're leaving, I think I've said this on this show before. I'm going to say it again, permanent scars destroying architecture that is so old and rich with history and cultural significance. And instead they're demolished by the United States of America.

and well after this excursion has ended, that will be true. That will be the memory that a little kid grows up with and walks past every day. What? And the answer to- How is this improving anything for anybody at any- For what? For what? Exactly.

The answer to the question is like, well, why'd they even do that to us? They didn't know. They couldn't articulate why they did. it from day to day, from hour to hour person to person, sentence to sentence with individuals they couldn't articulate it and contradict each other constantly. I mean, we know what Israel wants to do. They're trying to reshape the Middle East. We know why they are doing it, but why are we doing it?

We should use this as an opportunity to transition into one related story, which is that Israel is saying that it plans to indefinitely occupy southern Lebanon, calling it the buffer zone. But let's be clear. This is just speaking to your point about reshaping the Middle East. And this has always been a goal. Even outside of what's happening in Iran, the Lebanon situation continues to expand and be horrific, clearly taking a page out of their playbook in Gaza,

mass displacement casualties, fighting against Hezbollah is, I mean, it's a mess. Anyway, I just, we needed to update about that that this continues because we are focused on the lens of the United States involvement in Iran, but this is a very serious part of it. Well, it's just their opportunity. Right. Well, Iran is also saying that they're not a peace deal. I mean, according to the rumors, whatever information we have needs to include Lebanon.

So any conversation about peace talks ongoing and being productive when, yeah, sure, show me any evidence of that. This is too complicated. Israel's not backing down. This is, I mean, and they have to be aware that there is a chance that Trump will wind this down quickly. And so they want to do everything that they've always wanted to do right now, bomb Iran as much as possible. if we're going to take southern Lebanon and like they don't mean it maybe like Trump does take it or free it

like take it they're saying that the people who have been evacuated cannot return to their home south of the Latani River until the security of northern residence is assured that's indefinite whatever that means they blew up a bunch of bridges crossing the river and then they're like well Hezbollah uses those bridges but they're the bridges

the bridges okay and then the far right is finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, says the Latani must become our new border with the state of Lebanon. They're just straight up saying we need to annex a third of this country. It's just straight up. An invasion. And they're using it because that's a minor story for most of the world compared to what's going on in Iran and the straight and the, again, global economic recession that we are staring

down the barrel of. It's very, in a way, obviously there's a lot more. He had death and destruction from things like this, but it's very, it's that, this era of, like, you know, the Republican Party and anyone in the administration is using this same opportunity. Like, okay, well, Trump's the guy, and he's the guy that protects us all to be able to do all these financial crimes and looting the country and all the stuff that they're trying to do, they know, like, we got to do it right now. We're going to do as much as we can before he's out of there.

And it is kind of similar to this, where it's like, well, this is our chance. We just got to do all the awful shit right now because maybe we won't have this opportunity again. And it's important to remember that when we're talking about peace and the end of the war, Israel is a part of this process. And they may say, no, we're still going to bomb. We're still going to do this. Our objectives are not met. So it's not just Trump can try and say, like, yes, I get to decide when this war is over, but he doesn't.

He's not the only player here. And it's a little detail, but I just found it fascinating. You know, we hear U.S. saying, oh, we're in talks. We're negotiating. Things are going well or whatever. Iran is saying, no, we're not. We're not talking to them. We're not negotiating.

We don't trust them. And I'm like, I don't believe the United States. They're lying. Like, you know what I mean? like, I can't, they lie all the time. I don't trust them. I don't know who to trust or who to believe. But it's interesting that my instinct is like, whatever the U.S.

is saying, it's a lie. Oh, absolutely. The idea that you can't trust Iran, like, distrust Iran more than the United States is totally backwards. I'm not saying that I trust the messaging coming from Iran, but I certainly don't trust the messaging. coming from our administration. So it's somewhere in between.

It's so chaotic and cloutish. It's so silly. I mean, J.D. Vance is out there today in this little cabinet meeting talking about, like, fear-mongering about people using suicide nuclear vests. What the fuck? When I say options, I think it's important the American people

know, options for what? And it's options to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon. You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest, it's not something that can kill a couple of people, but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people. That is the most important American national security

objective that exists for any administration at any time is you don't want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon. That's why the president is doing this. That's why the president cares so much about this particular issue. Trump should raise the alert level to orange and pretend that that never went away and just say like, we're in our. Orange is time. I'm not making an orange man joke. I'm literally, you know, it was green. Yellow and orange.

No, that's the system that they agreed on. We were, I think, in yellow but mostly orange for a decade. Is that what we were? Or were we only in yellow? I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't know if it mattered. Do the youngs know what we're talking about that we live?

Maybe not. There was like a terror alert level that like was, we were like on watch. Like, what's, oh my God. Is it elevated? Is there another threat? Are they going to apparently strap nuclear bombs to their chests? Or dirty bombs or... Oh, yes, the dirty. The anthrax, all kinds of things. Yeah, all the stuff. And the other thing that's so scary about this situation is that when you're talking about this, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, is there a bet on Polly Market about this? Thank you, well, this is exactly what I was about to say. While you can't trust the government, you might look at Polly Market.

and get a sense of what is actually happening behind the scenes in the government maybe, which is a disgusting horror of a reality. Because at this point, it's just so blatantly obvious that there is something fishy going on. There is insider trading for sure. Jonathan set up this story for us. Well, there have been, like,

there was just a more recent incident earlier this week, but there have been several since the start of the new Trump administration of someone making a big bet or moving a lot of money into Kalshi or Pali market right before a Trump announcement that moves the market in some way. So Liberation Day was one. Maduro was one right before the war began was one. And then on Monday, $580 million in oil futures flooded into the market. This is from Axios in a sudden spike with no public news to explain it. And then 16 minutes later at 7.05 a.m., Trump said we were pausing the strikes.

We weren't going to do the strikes on the power plans. That could mean anything. That could mean insider trading. It could mean insider trading. Inside trading. Oh, one thing. Sorry. Continue, John.

That is the story. There's like a graphic. We'll put it on screen for people watching. It is staggering to see like the amount of money go in. Then the announcement happens. and then those people made who knows how much money. And like it could be different people doing this. These accounts are all anonymous.

It could be a collective. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a signal chat across the Pentagon, across the West Wing. Oh, he's going to send out the thing to try to calm the markets down because Trump himself is trying to manipulate the markets to not crash because of the thing he did. So it's almost predictable, but you wouldn't put this kind of money in. in 16 minutes beforehand unless you knew. It's so blatant.

It's the most obvious thing in the world. The signal chat is probably just called dollar sign, dollar sign, dollar sign. Like, they just, they know what they're doing. Again, it's the plunder, the plunder era. They're just plundering. They're just doing as much as they can. Right. It's unclear if they are so confident that they'll never get caught and it won't matter,

or they're just confident that they'll get a pardon, that it's like, it basically doesn't matter either way. It's basically not illegal, even though it is. Like, they're trying to put forth new legislation to ban this, but it's illegal. Like, you could charge someone with various laws that exist over this. I have to imagine that it's take advantage of it now while you can before this gets regulated. And there's too many people involved higher up than me that will take a fall, there's some idea, which is maybe a wrong way of thinking because we love a fall guy.

a low level fall guy but I just imagine it's just open season like everyone else is doing it and it seems to be fine and we can get away with whatever we want these days. You're still doing that? It's still working? Yeah, I just I don't know what to say

and this is our reality and it's terrifying. The thought that people, information gets so unsafe for national security alone if you want to unpack it from that capacity. Somebody used clawed to make some sort of program that detects polymarket spikes like that. So that eight minutes after that happens, then we all bet.

And then we profit off of the death and destruction of actually that I don't like this idea anymore. What you said, Cody, about this is the plunder era is so true. and the ramifications of that are so disturbing to me because you hope, you would hope that even the very richest get super rich by, you know, selling a car, selling something that, you know, supports the economy, even if they are, even if the wealth is so unequal. But we're in a phase of society where it doesn't matter whether things are going, well, they're profiting off of the destruction. You know, they're, and if they can continue, they meaning these uber wealthy oligarchs, can

just, you know, plunder and trade and it doesn't matter whether, you know, society is collapsing, a war is taking over, they're betting on, you know, oil to go up, and then they make a bunch of money, then there's no connection between the wealth that being generated by these uber rich people who control our politics and the health of society. They're completely disconnected. Yeah, and so they're going to, yeah, they profit and it's empty. It's all, it's just this void of nothing valuable, but it creates the value. Yeah, we're not doing great.

Not doing so hot, folks. Trump feels good about it because all he needs to do to boost his mood is, A, return to Mar-a-Lago where he gets a standing ovation anytime he walks in the fucking door. So he thinks that's just reality that he's successfully created for himself. Or he gets an award, like the invented award, the America First Award, presented to him by his own political party because. Made it up for him. Also at a time where he's like blatantly doing the least America first thing of his entire run as presidency. That's a tough rank.

That's a tough top 10 list right there. Like he's done some stuff. This one is likely to end up as among the worst in terms of death and finances. But he's tried to hurt Americans. Oh, yeah. Called those people assassinations. when they were protesting. Yeah, there's some bad stuff.

But I think it would be really, really funny because Mike Johnson said, we've invented this, he says, like, we created this award. We're going to give it out every year, but tonight it goes to Trump, and they got to give it to him next year. They got to give it to him.

Of course you're going to give it to him next year. They're going to give it to him posthumously. He will be the only recipient of that award for as long as it exists. They're just going to trot out his fucking corpse every year. You have to imagine. Here's your giant eagle buddy, and they'll lift up his arm, and he'll point at it, and like, oh, I love it. Weekend at Bernie's forever.

You weekend and Bernie's in. It's like Bill Russell with the Celtics, Donald Trump with the America First Award, just win it every year. Every year. Perfect. Our hero. Almost quitting time. And when I'm done for the day shooting Hot Khan, tent, that is, I like to unwind with some bona, five, that is, free movies and TV. of movies and TV shows you ask? Why a mix of real and fake ones? I reply.

Films like Dream Girls, Gladiator, detachable breakfast, mononuclea, whoa, Sister Act 3. Daylight 2, the ongoing adventures of Chief Kit Latura, Dante's Peak 2, the ongoing adventures of volcanologist Harry Dalton, Under Siege 3, the interminable continuing adventures of Chief Petty Officer Casey Ryback, interstellar, Cruella de-intensions, Dangerous Liaisons King! The ATM from Hell. A Flint Stones movie just following all those dinosaurs who do some odd job and say, it's a living!

And notcho Libre. And don't forget binge-worthy TV shows like Survivor! SpongeBob Square Pants! Seasons 48, 49, and 53 of The Young and the Restless. All seven seasons of Rosolian Isles. All 15 seasons of Canolies for Miles. A season and a half of Yoga Wars, Kung Fu Platypus, the fairly odd parents, my best friend squirrel.

Oh, dear Vicar, look at the plumage! And the X-Files. All that stuff is there, except for the fake ones, which should be real, actually. I'd like to see those if David Ellison is watching, and he is, make those. Pluto TV stream now, pain ever? So a jury this week found meta and YouTube liable in a case, their platforms to a young user's social media addiction. Lawyers for the plaintiffs successfully argued to the jury

that the Infinite Scroll algorithmic recommendations and autoplay videos are designed to hook users, especially young ones, and that meta and YouTube executives knew about the potential harms and let things go that way. The verdicts are only for a few million dollars, but the greater implications are that now that meta and YouTube have been found liable, basically in a personal injury case, that this opens them up to a wide range of litigation and class action lawsuits. There's a lot of lawsuits pending.

This is one of thousands, I believe, circling this specific issue. Again, something that they've all known and willingly participated in. And the choice to protect, well, all of us, but especially children or not, was theirs. There's been research about it done on how their websites and algorithms affect people. They chose money over and over and over again. Internal research, even, you know. Yeah, their own research shows that it's liable. And you can look at other websites that it's tricky.

It is a tricky situation navigating the internet and children. And other websites have done a better job. But also there's some downsides to what this can lead to for sure. Right. Let me set up the problem here and then I'll let you guys dig into it. So the argument is, like, yes, these platforms suck and yes, they are trying to keep people hooked on them as much as possible. but we really don't want them to be liable for bad things that happen to people because they will start putting in different kinds of verification that we might not want.

Age verification. Do you want to upload your driver's license to Instagram? Mental health verification. Do you want to give your health information to YouTube? And Congress has its sights on changing section. 230, which is the, I think, from the Communications Decency Act of 1996, something like that, that established that they're like the cork board of the world and you can't sue them for something that somebody puts on the cork board.

That wouldn't make sense. You go to that person. And if that is stripped away, it opens us up to questions about the future of freedom of information and speech and connectivity on the internet. Okay, now I will. Tijuana worms. I mean, yeah, it's very, very, very messy. And, like, you know, corkboard ideas, like, okay, it's just a place where people post stuff.

But also, you've arranged the cork board in a certain way to keep people staring at the cork board. But also, that happens with most publications. Like, you open up a newspaper and they have arranged the layout to keep your attention or grab your attention or make sure that you turn the page and all these sort of things. And they're just these sort of lines and delineations. that I think it's just a lot more nuanced and delicate than I think people like, well, it's they're bad, therefore it's bad when there are these sort of implications and whether it leads to, you know, like all the censorship or surveillance that it seems like these companies are trying to get us to and these kind of cases would actually help them get there.

Or if it's just as simple as like, you know, people also like in social media, like cigarettes and things like that. And I don't think it's super accurate, but in some ways, but, you know, putting a label on it. It's not safe. It's not a good, healthy environment for children to be on this app or this app or this app. Just being forthcoming could be helpful because as we know, they have internal data that says it is harmful and that they know it and that they want to keep doing it because it keeps the attention and money related. And that's what gets so frustrating about this conversation because there is a lot of a nuance and there are, yeah, a little bit of whackamol. You're addressing one problem, but then these

other issues pop up. And I think we're no stranger to that dynamic in this modern age. Things are nuanced and complicated. That said to me, the crux of it is these companies know it's harmful. And like I said, we knew it's harmful to children. They know it's harmful to people, but we make more progress when we're litigating on behalf of children, which is valid because they're children, but also the conversation becomes about privacy and, yes, uploading your ID and identification instead of changing the environment so that it isn't as toxic inherently or that you're not getting funneled into these things. Yes, having serious conversations and labels, labeling things differently, handling all of how we treat.

social media differently as opposed to stripping away your rights to solve it because ultimately what they want is to be able to do exactly the thing that they're doing yeah this is another beast i've seen people like oh it's like it's just like tv it's just like this it's not just like tv it's just like that it's very very unique it's in your pocket it's right here it's constantly accessing all the stuff that we know and social media is a is an aspect of that that is also different from just putting on the tv um sorry will you oh oh yeah the the trade off, there is a trade-off here that you're trying to balance. Like what we know is, and I think we could all agree, is that social media algorithms and the, they are addictive, are harmful, and yet the fear is,

if you open these companies up to litigation, their response and liability, their response is going to be to play it the safest they can and censor a larger and larger amount of content to avoid these lawsuits. Because, you know, the analogy in terms of like cigarettes or car companies is that these type of tort lawsuits in the past have resulted in safety measures. Like it's lawsuits like this that went up against meta that, you know, prompted the adoption of seatbelts and airbags. It's litigation like this that created restrictions on tobacco companies to advertise to children. Now, these social media companies have protection that those other companies don't. It's almost akin to the protections that the gun lobby has in terms of certain immunities.

But Section 230 was created ironically to encourage these social media companies to engage in more moderation because the fear was it was either like let everything up and you do no moderation and then you can't hold us liable or if you do some moderation but it's not good enough then that opens you up to being liable. And so it was created to say, okay, you're not liable. it's you know but but you do have protections to engage in some moderation but you know it's also dangerous to or it can be very tricky to try and regulate this kind of thing because we've seen unintended consequences in the past like we did a whole episode on foster sesta which was created to try and clamp down on sex trafficking instead it just limited sex workers' ability to make a living in very harmful and negative ways. So the fear is that by stripping away or reforming certain aspects of 230, you open,

what you do is just incentivize the social media companies to do as much censorship as possible. But I refuse to believe that there's not something we can do. There are ideas like, you know, making 230's protection contingent. on meeting a certain set of standards and reasonable actions by the social media companies. There's even an idea that you change the word information to speech that could help protect speech and differentiate it.

There are some solutions, but there's also a risk that some people say is that this type of litigation could actually help the largest players because they're the only people to have the resource. to fight lawsuits. Yeah. But that you can address that and say this 230 apply, you know, these laws apply to organizations with X revenue per year or whatever.

But I do think, I do think something needs to be done. I do think it's akin to cigarette companies knowing that, you know, cigarettes cause cancer and not doing anything about it. I mean, 10% of all fraud is committed like on meta platforms. they hardly screen any of the complaints that come through. Minnesota platforms is what you meant to say. Meta soda, not Meta soda, no, met meta. Yeah, why are's Nick Shirley when you need him?

I know. Get on Facebook, Nick. We're thrilled to announce. He's a investigative journalist. He's a, please welcome. Also, these algorithms, by the way, like send, recommend minors. profiles to like suspected abusers like you know like and they know that they're they've got disgusting stuff going on within like their algorithms and how they how they operate and I think the

real thing we're like circling and and this problem is that things like this won't result in them adjusting that no like this in like to them they're not going to be like oh well we'll stop doing our addictive algorithm. That's just not what they're going to do. And that's not what like the proposed legislation is going to result in happening, which is the actual problem is how is an on like the existence of it incentives. It's like, well, we want you staring at your phone for eight fucking hours a day.

That's their goal. And I don't know how to fix that. And if you send it and if you say like, okay, we're going to have the government step in and regulate this more. That's tricky because it's one thing. to say, okay, government is going to mandate, you know, after prompted by these tort lawsuits, you've got to have airbags. Like, there's a safety thing that you know would make it better. Put it in. But the thing that's different here is that the trade-off is free speech. And, you know,

we're talking about speech. Like, I don't think anyone has the right to have an algorithm boost their Nazi propaganda, but you also don't want the government, because then it really is a First Amendment, like capital First Amendment issue when the government is doing it. And we've seen the kinds of things the FCC is doing. But at the same time, and you don't want like a Trump FCC saying, okay, you know, censor this, you know, pro-Palestine stuff or whatever. But also, these companies are doing that now anyway. Like, you know, it's not like they're not doing that. They are doing that.

So it's like, oh, we got to be careful of this risk. But it's like, what risk? We're already there. What's happening? But codifying that risk in making it worse, exacerbating it, giving license to take it to the extremes. Although I would argue that it's already pretty extreme, but, you know, but for real in a way that's very threatening.

And once they start making legislation that says, well, here's what you have to do if a person starts exhibiting signs of this. They are probably, the Republicans would make legislation that says, okay, if someone's going to, if someone's 15 and they start going to a lot of trans advocacy content on their vertical video scrolls. Environmentalism, whatever. I know I'm like coming up with like a catastrophic situation, but once you've opened the door to that, it's very frightening to where it would lead. But also, we have studies now that show that the short form video scrolling specifically is associated with much stronger cognitive decline than even, you know, infinite scroll of text or Twitter or Reddit. I'm watching the long form. The long form. Watching long stop is good.

Long slop's good. Long slop. If you're on desktop, you can click shorts and watch those. I mean, really, you could do it and just stay on our page and just slop. Yeah, that's not. That's how we're talking about. Leave a comment and like a subscribe. I don't know.

I would prefer if you go to our long form slot for sure. I mean, but we do have this discussion all the time where we make long form content. We do our long scripted shows. We do hour-ish long podcasts. And then we see what YouTube does where they. they're, oh, they're only putting three long-form videos at the top instead of 10, and it's all short-form stuff. We should maybe do some more shorts because we have to play the game,

but also it's evil. Right. And then we're like, okay, we have evil for us. I don't know, but like it's bad. I mean, like this video right now, if you haven't, it helps us stay in the algorithm, helps us fight against that short-form situation. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for the world, the thing we do, we find it very hard to find three-minute clips.

to take and put on. I know. Well, it's written to be an hour. So like, we're not writing these little mini slop sessions. It's a whole fucking thing.

We can chop this up and put it into a short and so it'll be very meta or minna and we'll put it up and it'll be the... It'll explain why it exists and our struggle. And then someone will be like,

that's interesting. And then go and they'll be like, I'm making a three cheese baked ravioli. And be like, oh shit, I got it. Finally find out what happens to that sentient strawberry.

I'll say one more thing about this lawsuit. This lawsuit and the one in Nevada that was also, you know, had a ruling recently. New Mexico, New Mexico, yes. Those got through with Section 230 in place. So, you know, there and some of the things they're arguing are about these harmful, addictive algorithms. So there is still still discussion about whether Section 230 could be amended to allow, you know, a little bit more of this kind of tort lawsuits, personal injury lawsuits. I ultimately side on the idea. I've seen, you know, we've seen this be successful in creating

safer conditions and products in the past. I do think there's a trade-off, but I, tend to feel like we must find some sort of solution. We can't like just throw our arms up and say these social media companies can do whatever they want. Yeah. And I think to be clear, I agree. I think this is an interesting and tough conversation to have because there are all these other aspects of it.

It is nuanced. It is complicated. But ultimately, yeah, these companies are evil and doing a lot of evil things. and there are concerns for the results of some of this and where it's leading and being aware of those concerns and being aware of like, oh, well, the companies want to actually do this. So this could actually help them achieve what they want, which would be worse and so on and so forth, being aware of that without also taking the position that like any criticism of social media or phone usage is like a moral panic. I like it's bad for us and just because like there's not I don't know I find this sort of like one of the other to be a little frustrating with this where you have to be like oh so you're defending the tech companies or you think phones are good or you do this this like well that's not but you know

who is capable of taking care of this 70 year olds in Congress they've got a solid grasp of this issue and I think that they will be able to really, like, they'll crack, to handle the nuance and to remove identity politics. Excuse me, Mr. Zuckerberg. How do you can't log into Facebook right now? I've been having a problem with this all week. When I use TikTok's Wi-Fi, does TikTok know I'm using their Wi-Fi? Well, sir, that's not how Wi-Fi works.

God. So that's good. We all Senator John Kennedy from this great state of Louisiana. I don't know who I am. The living The band of hair. It's great having you. It's so good to be here.

It's just like talking to Will. Yeah, and I have a few, I have a few requirements of the even more news audience that things they must do. One is you must check out me and my brother's channel, Man Boy Nice on YouTube. I think, fingers crossed, hoping that Dan is getting it all sorted out.

I think there's going to be a video up today, which is tomorrow from now. But yes, Friday. Our next one, Woke Horror Part two. Part two? Part two. It's almost two hours long. It's a monster of a video. So please check that out.

Then also check out my mom and I's show talking politics with mom, where you can watch her recount her transition from being an anti-communist conservative to a liberal. And then watch in real time. she slowly becomes a socialist because that's literally what's happening. I know. On the show. Because if you keep following the trajectory, you end up there. All roads lead to...

Yeah. So it's fascinating to watch. So please watch that. We just came out with an episode about her horrible experience in the emergency room, and she's now screaming about taking profit out of health care. So I love it. And then the final thing that you must do, go to No King's protest. on Saturday. You got to go. You got to let them know. Even if you don't bring a sign,

it's important. And it really is important. Like we saw the institutional memory of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis go out in force against ice. It's important to, it also feeds your soul. Like honestly, when you go out and you are surrounded by other people who feel the same, way as you, it matters. So don't let anyone tell you it doesn't matter. It does go out on no king's protests on Saturday. 100%. I would add to that a special plea to any listeners, particularly any listeners who are specifically friends with Katie, but any listeners who feel, no, I'm saying like who have like had these sort of awakenings or moments of realization or like, oh, he's actually turning into like an authoritarian or this or this or this.

I would urge you to go out as well and not even hold a sign, be like, I used to, I have a lot of for Trump and now I don't. But just experience it and be there and show, you know, with your, with your body that those feelings. Yeah, we got a lot of those people listening. I mean, maybe we have one or two. And if you're and if you are, then we would welcome you and appreciate you in joining the large group of people who want to. physically show Donald Trump that he can eat his own shit. More likely, if you're like me,

maybe one or two of the people in your life might want to come with you. Maybe extend the invitation. Anyway, thank you, everybody. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Cody. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you, Katie.

Thank you, Benny, who's on the couch behind camera. He looked over. And thank you all the listeners, because I know that you liked and subscribed. Mm-hmm. Always. No. You always do that. No, thank you for being here.

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