The Adam Mockler Show - Trump LETS IT SLIP in EPSTEIN Disaster w/ Tommy Vietor

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Follow PSA 👉  @podsaveamerica  Click below for premium Adam Mockler content 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@adammockler/join 👉 https://adammockler.com Adam Mockler with MeidasTouch Network is joined by Tommy Vietor, co-founder of Crooked Media, to break down the right-wing media machine. Adam explains his 'pipeline to volume theory,' exposing how figures like Andrew Tate create a pipeline to radicalize young men who are then carpet-bombed with MAGA propaganda. JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/AdamMockler/ Discord: https://discord.gg/y9yzMU3Gff Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adammockler/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adammockler.bsky.social Twitter: https://x.com/adammocklerr/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/Adammockler Contact me at: [e-mail] Adam Mockler - Mockler Media LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm joined today by Tommy Viter, co-founder of Crooked Media, co-host of Pod Save America. how you doing today? I'm good. How are you? I am doing well. So I want to start with some of the news of the week and then we can go broader, talk about democratic politics and young men and that stuff. But let's start here. Ukraine is in the news because Trump is continuing weapons, defensive weapons shipments over there. I want to know what you're reading is. What's your read on Trump's inability to push back on Putin as a whole? A lot of people in my audience think that Trump is bought and paid for. But I subscribe to this theory that he uses Putin as a source of narcissistic supply in the sense that Trump gets sort of a head rush whenever he talks to somebody that's more powerful than him. So I'm always arguing with my audience. Like, this dude's not getting ACH transfers from Putin, but what's your read on his inability to push back? Yeah, I don't know that he's getting Venmos from Vladimir. Look, I think it's a couple things. First of all, Trump is just kind of a dick and a contrarian. So if everyone tells him he has to like Ukraine, I think he's going to like the Russians. He's also clearly very mad about all the post-2016 claims

of Russian interference, which were factual and grounded, but it makes him feel sad and like his victory wasn't as complete as he wanted it to be. I also think that Trump has genuine admiration for dictators in their systems. Like he would love to be Xi Jinping. He would love to be Vladimir Putin. He would love to say jump and people say how high. He says openly that that's how he feels. So that's a piece of it. But his flip-flop on Ukraine policy, has been really, it's tough to understand. But I'm glad like he's moving in the right direction in the last few days, but I'm not confident that it'll stay that way.

Yeah, it's like the bare minimum. It's like he removes weapons shipments and then he, or I guess Pete Heggseth removed weapons shipments. And then when he brings them back, we're all cheering. But, you know, it's interesting because he has a nickname for Gavin Newsom. He has a nickname for all of these Democrats for like, he called Trudeau, Governor Trudeau, but no nickname for Vladimir Putin, which further supports the theory that he just looks up to dictators.

Do you think that he'll be swayed over the next few months? Because we've seen him give Vladimir Putin more leverage. He's lost leverage for Ukraine by like removing intelligence sharing for a bit, yelling at Zelensky in the Oval Office. Do you see him continuing to moderate on Ukraine over the next few months? Yeah. I mean, he keeps telling us he's angry and how he'd consider sanctions, but then he never actually does anything.

So I've kind of lost hope that Trump is going to fully change course and actually get tough on Putin and try to force him to cut a peace deal and maybe use the leverage that we have. I mean, again, like there's an interesting sort of policy challenge in the background of this conversation about weapons shipments, which is that these U.S. interceptor missiles that knock down incoming ballistic missiles from, say, Iran, are actually incredibly important and value. but we have a limited stockpile of them. And so I think what happened was the U.S. used up a ton of these interceptor missiles, like the Patriot missiles by giving them Ukraine, which is obviously a good thing. We used up a ton shooting down missiles from the Houthi rebels in Yemen who were pissed off about the war in Gaza. And then we used a ton of them defending Israel from Iran.

And so what Trump's team did was basically set their priorities where they just had Ukraine way down the list. It was like kind of U.S. stockpile, take care of Israel, other Middle East stuff, TBD, and they put Ukraine at the bottom. And it was sort of interesting to see after the NATO summit and this call was Zelensky that Trump wanted to change that prioritization, which again, as you said, it's a bare minimum, but it was like a good step. Yeah, I think it genuinely frustrates Trump that he can't solve this, that he can't end this war. He genuinely thought he was going to come in and Putin was going to do him a favor because they went through the Russia gate scandal together, whatever Trump thinks. So it's interesting to see all of this evolve. Let's go over a little bit to Epstein.

Throughout the week, we've seen that take over the headlines. How do you read the Pam Bondi backpedal on that? Do you think they got overzealous when they didn't actually have, does she actually have the list on her desk? Like, does that list exist? This has been wild. I have consumed more crazy far right content this week than I have in a very long time. And they are really pissed and it is not going away.

I watched like an hour of Alex Jones the other day. he's furious. I think he's crying in his car. Tucker Carlson is like genuinely sincerely angry about this. They're not letting it go. This is a huge political problem for Trump. I would separate this out into a couple buckets. I think Pam Bondi is a moron. The stunt she pulled giving these kind of mega influencers, this binder that she called the Epstein files like part one and then having them all hold it up and take photos of it and then feel humiliated afterwards when they realized that this was of stuff in the public domain. That was a huge political mistake. And I think there's sort of an open question whether she can survive this once people like Laura Lumer are calling for her to go.

Then there's just the broader like ecosystem of right wing assholes who now are like senior officials, right? Like Cash Mattel, the FBI director, Dan Bongino, the deputy FBI director. Those guys were on podcasts for years talking about the Epstein cover up, the secret cabal of, you know, democrats harming children being satanic blah blah blah like they fan the flames of this fire and then now have been sent to put it out and it's just not working um and trump like tried to angrily shut it down uh and claim that you know like how dare you ask about this basically that that press availability on tuesday and like that is not cutting it with the the maga-faithal they are pissed it seems like they created grounds like ripe for conspiracy theories now they're

getting hoisted by their own batard, which is afraid I recently learned. And I think that's perfect here. They're getting hoisted by their own petard. I debated on Pierce Morgan, Jack Posobic, which is this right-wing dude, he was one of the guys holding up the binders. And I was like, can you admit that you were duped to cover up the sexual abuse of children? And this dude said, he was like, I was there for a different reason. They hand me a binder and push me out the front door. And I had no clue what was going on. I was like, get out of here, dude. That is not true. Come on. They're massively coping. Do you see the coalition fracturing as he has. escalates wars or his inability to solve wars continues to show and as again you create these

grounds that are fertile for conspiracy theories and then you become part of the theory you are the deep state now you think maggots what's up but i think that there's like a bunch of logs getting thrown on this fire um they were very mad about the war with iran a lot of right wing folks really believe that america first means we don't get involved in these wars they didn't want to see Trump intervene in Iran. They are, I think, probably not happy about the Ukraine policy reversal that we just talked about, again, for sort of America first reasons. But then the Epstein thing is like really, really pissing them off.

And I think that the challenge here is like, it's just not going to go away. It's not going to go away. Like I was listening to Tucker Carlson interviewed this guy, Cigar and Jadi, who's breaking points. And they were like kind of folding the DOJ absolving. absolving or they're sort of folding DOJ putting up this memo saying there is no Epstein list into something to do with Israel and then Netanyahu's visit that week. So it's like this thing is just kind of like it's growing. It's metastasizing. They're angry about it. So I think like,

long story short, the kind of professional media class will probably find something that a Democrat did to be angry about and move on to that. But the actual voters who like genuinely believe that Trump was going to like come in and clean house and reveal this Epstein list like they're not going to let this go they are going to be pissed for a while at least Elon Musk has a steady hand and his remain drug free right yeah but uh yeah i mean talking about that for a second Elon Musk leveraged all of these mechanisms to consolidate power for Trump I talk about his wealth of course but also the attention economy where he bought Twitter gets hundreds of millions of views now he's weaponizing those same mechanisms against Trump I don't see the America party going anywhere but it's interesting

watching Elon polling hundreds of millions of views attacking Trump, when a few months ago it was like hundreds of millions of views supporting Trump. Do you see what's up? No, no, yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, do you see this feud escalating any further? Does the MAGA fan base care about this? What are your thoughts? It's a great question.

I mean, I do imagine that this thing is going to just continue on, if not escalating, just sort of like continue as this nasty, chippy relationship. because they're both narcissists and they're both used to having their ways and like kind of running running their enterprises like kingdoms, right? And so, you know, Elon kind of walked back some of the shittiest things he said about Trump. Like he walked back some of the Epstein stuff. But once the Epstein files, quote unquote, were not released, Elon went right back in on that. So you're right.

Like, you know, I don't know that Elon Musk has that big of a constituency on his own. I think he has sort of turned off all the Democrats, and now he's turning off a lot of MAGA. And what's left is this kind of like rump state of annoying kind of tech people. But if those folks on Twitter, yeah, if those folks all like leave the MAGA world, I do think it'll be a problem. So yeah, I mean, it's interesting having him out there as an antagonist, especially when he's attacking, for example, the quote of big beautiful bill that Trump recently ramped through. Yeah. And it seems like he's trying to split apart this coalition that Trump's built of tech pros of billionaires. that are supporting Donald Trump.

And Elon could definitely do that. I guess, can I give you my theory of the media landscape as a young dude who has experienced a lot of young friends? So I grew up in Indiana, right? I currently live and run the studio in Chicago. But I grew up one state away in Indiana. And I was like one of the only dudes in my school who was obviously a Democrat, a lib. I was libed up.

And I was always running an uphill battle as my classmates were supporting Trump or whoever the hell at the time. But I now have seen like firsthand how this works. and I call it the pipeline to volume theory. First, they create this pipeline where if you're a young dude and you need dating advice of any sort, like every young dude needs dating advice at some point. You start looking that up and you get sucked into this red pill, Andrew Tate pipeline. Okay, I have friends that just work out, right?

They work out all the time. But then they get sucked into this Maha pipeline. And then once you're down that pipeline, they carpet bomb you with just volume, volume, volume, over and over. Like Elon Musk's Twitter, think about how many times he tweets a day. That's the volume that we need on our side. Do you think that that's like an accurate analysis of the situation? Yeah, I think it's spot on.

And I think it's like I'm really glad you've succinctly summarized it. And I think it's taken most people decades to figure this out. I mean, it is really worrisome. There are there are schools in the UK and in Australia that have had to develop entire curriculums to push back on Andrew's hate. I don't think people really outside of like younger circles understand just how influential he is. there is the maha stuff that you talked about like that that is absolutely true for people that work

out it's also true um my wife is forward to be stuff all the time like we recently had two little kids there's lots of kind of wellness mom stuff that can take you from like crunchy hippie granola into some weird yep shit real fast like antivacs you know et cetera um and there's just general like distrust of the mainstream media some of it is is warranted and fair and some of it i think is is just weaponized and unfair but like more broadly it's just who like do you know anyone your age that's like turning on the NBC news at night no everyone's just like on TikTok right and like you just pulled into your algorithm yeah it's funny because earlier we were talking about Trump supporters turning on him because of Iran and Ukraine and Epstein I saw this post from Dave Smith you know

the comedian dude Dave Smith he's not having a good month everything that he voted for Trump for has now been reversed 180ed and I know friends in my generation that like him or even even like a Theo Vaughn and when I see people in my audience say like we shouldn't even give Theo Vaughn the time of day, that pisses me off because that's the type of thing where we need to be in those spaces, talking to people, communicating. You've done that a bit. I've seen you on some of those podcasts. Do you think the Democrats have a problem with purity testing or finger wagging when we should just, you know, have these convos? We had a massive problem with it for a long time. And I think people are coming to their senses. And I blame myself for this. Like in 2018, this guy I know at Barcelona Sports asking me to come on a show. And I was like, I'm sorry, man, I can't like my audience. would kill me for going on your platform, even though this guy is like super liberal and progressive. And I just, I was so fucking stupid and I'm mad at myself for it. I remember when Bernie Sanders announced his, uh, that, that, uh, Joe Rogan had endorsed him. People attacked him because Joe Rogan holds some views that I think are, are terrible.

And I disagree with, but like Bernie doesn't hold those views. And I think, yeah, we should do exactly what you're talking about, which is go into those spaces, have those conversations, like Pete Buttigieg, yeah, going. on Andrew Schultes show the other day was great. You know, like, I think Rokano was recently on Theo Vaughan's show. Like, we need more of that. Yeah, because these people are winnable. If I ask Theo Vaughn, should gay people be able to get married,

should trans people be able to just live their lives? I can almost guarantee this dude would say yes. Yes. But Democrats sometimes try to like over intellectualize or have these academic debates in the wrong place. Like, we don't need these academic debates when we can all just agree on the fundamentals of freedom. So having Rokana go on Theo Bonn and explain, hey, I'm a normal dude.

I just want more freedom. I think it's really, really powerful. Yeah. I totally agree. But we also need shows like yours and like what we're trying to do at POTS of America where it's just, you know, it's news and opinion from a progressive perspective. Because, you know, you know this. Like when you, when you search for political news on YouTube, you get like mostly right wing stuff.

You get the Daily Wire, you know, Ben Shapiro, TPP USA. Like they have massive accounts. and like you're you're kicking our ass but like we're trying to catch up and so we just need more we need to more accounts like ours like more channels like ours more people to subscribe to to pot save america on youtube and to your show like we just like it's a volume game too you're exactly right mhm lanky young dudes who have normal political takes i think that's what we need in the political landscape i'd kill to be called lanky i appreciate that um are you tall i don't even know if you're tall. I don't know. You know, like six feet, but you know, you're, you're feeling a little softer in the middle once you're my age, but a conversation for another day. Yeah. Yeah, I think that a, it's an interesting and rapidly changing media landscape, but I think Democrats are still missing the mark a lot. I have interviewed a lot of Democrats. I'm going to be totally candid. A lot of Democrats in Congress are doing this thing where they bring as many influencers as possible into the Capitol. And they try to do rapid fire interviews with influencer after influencers.

and I think I've done some pretty good interviews with them, but at some point, Democrats are still missing the mark. It's not about, I know this kind of goes against the volume thing I just said, but it's not about hitting all the same influencers in the same niche. It's about having a unique level of punch in a new space. So going to Theo Vaughn and being a little bit of punchy and edgy, rather than doing the same interview with me. Like, I don't need to interview the same politician for the fifth time.

I would love to. But at some point, they need to be going in these new spaces. Do you think Democrats are still missing the mark a bit? Yeah, I mean, I think, look, not every elected Democrat could or should go on Joe Rogan or Theobon, right? Like, there's probably a small number that could really hang for that amount of time, right? So part of it is kind of like knowing yourself, knowing your interests. Like, you don't, if you're not into sports, if you're not into comedy, like, you don't need to go on a barstle show and do the like, you know, how do you do fellow teens bit, right? Like, you can go figure out, like, what is the thing you care about?

What is the thing you're objectively passionate about? Go there, do that. I also agree with you, though, like, part of what makes news is controversy and tension. And so we need to find ways to pick fights, like, not in a shitty way, but in a constructive way that is just more interesting. Like, look, and I'm self-critical about this on our show. Like, it's often a lot of people who agree talking. And, like, we're kind of trying to find new ways to break out of that and invite people who you would normally see on our shows to come on. Did you see that one Axios interview where a definitely?

Democratic lawmaker was holding some sort of like town hall off the record. And he said every time there's a fire, I'm trying to put it out with a, with a water or whatever. And one of his constituents said, have you tried gasoline implying that like, we just want you to bring fire to the table right now? So I do think the Democrats need to be a lot more punchy and edgy when they're doing these things. Do you think there's anything we can learn from Trump? I think that a lot of people on our side underestimate him, not underestimate him, but when I do my live streams, like I'm going to do in a few hours. And I talk about Trump. Everyone's immediately going to act like he's a drooling at the mouth idiot who has nothing of substance.

But there's obviously a lot we can learn from him regarding media, his addiction to media, his ability to control the media. What can we learn from this dude? Yeah, look, I mean, you cannot doubt his political talent at this point. I mean, he's won the presidency twice. That is incredibly difficult to do. He has a preternatural understanding for the attention economy. like this guy was like an influencer before it existed as a term basically um and i think what he did in this last election cycle by going on all these like so-called manosphere podcast

but like the theo vans of the world to sort of give more conservative than that was really really smart because it helped uh build a relationship with those audience is helped build a relationship with those audiences but also help those hosts build their audience right so like there were even more people listening the next time he went on and he constantly kind of like nurtured and talked to and helped grow those those shows. I'll be honest, there's been nothing like that on the Democratic side. Like we didn't get an interview with Joe Biden for four years that he was in the White House. His folks were like actively pissed at us, I think, because we're critical of him in the 2020

primary because at times it seems like he was too old and it was not his time. And things didn't go well in Iowa, New Hampshire. he pulled it out in South Carolina and the rest is history. But, like, they held a grudge against us for, for years. And it's like, guys, you know, we're one of the only independent progressive shows out there. And you're just not, you're not, you're like, just giving us the Heisman. Like, you're not helping us grow and help you, you know? And so I think Democrats need to be smarter about that, like Trump is.

Trump is like, Tim Poole said the N word. I need to go on that show. Democrats are like, like, we have to be risk averse as hell no matter what. Literally, Tim Poole gets paid by Russia and is like dropped slurs and stuff. And Trump still goes on these shows. Yep. So I do think that we need to definitely reach out. Honestly, people get mad when I say this, but when we look back, Kamala Harris's campaign, despite, I think she ran a great campaign. I defended her the entire time. I think it was rather scripted. She did interview after interview. And looking back, it was pretty scripted when Trump does these three-hour interviews with Theo Vaughn. Yes, he's rambling and babbling. But people see his level of authenticity. It's like, it's like he's letting you into his house or like his inner thoughts when he's doing these long flowery, these long. rants that have no no substance whatsoever so i don't know who's your favorite for the next election cycle is that a is that a really lazy question but no it's not a lazy question oh yeah trump says

he's doing the weave and it can sound like rambling we make fun of it but like look i watched rogan uh it was like the app it was like the episode after he had trump on and he was just like kind of talking to his buddies about the trump interview and he was like the most amazing part about it was trump walked into the studio didn't ask to use the bathroom talked nonstop for three hours didn't use the bathroom and then left again it was like it was remarkable

like the narcissism the ability to talk about himself the ability like to be weird and interesting and tell stories like it's a real talent like Trump talking asking Theo Vaughn what it was like to do cocaine that was fucking

interesting audio you know like Trump going to McDonald's that was really that was a brilliant the smartest campaign tactic of the entire cycle was that photo up So, to your question about 2028, I honestly just don't know yet. Like, I get this question all the time. I'm sure you do too.

There's a lot of people I like. There's no one that's kind of like making my heart palpitate like Obama did in 2004 when I started work for him. So we'll see. There's a lot of really, like, talented people. I'm just waiting to see how they all decide to step up and like approach this. And you never know. You know better than anybody how in 2012 after Romney lost, Republican salt they needed to moderate, yet Trump comes and takes the party by storm.

In 2004, when Obama gave his DNC speech, I'm not sure anyone expected him to beat Hillary Clinton in four years in the primary. So you never know who's going to pop up. I just always want to ask that question. I guess finally, anything that surprised you about Trump part two, anything that really has, I don't know, like on day one when he parted in all the J-Sixers,

I can't say I was surprised, but I got a deep pit feeling in my stomach that day. Now I feel kind of desensitized to it all, but anything surprised you uniquely? Yeah, I think that's a, really, God, it's amazing. Like, I've almost forgotten that he did that, right? I mean, that was, that should have been a signal that, um, everything was going to be turned up to 11. I think I would, I would kind of divide it into two parts. Um, Stephen Miller's like total

control of the White House and commitment to cruelty as a, as a policy has been, um, just devastating to watch and really like difficult the stomach. Like, I live in Los Angeles, our companies here. We still have national gardener streets, you know, like the ice. I, agents are terrorizing Latino communities, people who have green cards, people who are citizens, people who are undocumented. It is horrible. I mean, what they

did to these Venezuelan men by sending them to El Salvador to this torture chamber, this gulag, Sukkot Prison, is one of the most horrific things. It'll be a stain in our history for a century. So like that, again,

like I shouldn't be surprised by how vicious and awful they are, but like it has still been been shocking. I guess the other thing that has surprised me, though, a little bit, that's what we talked about earlier, is Trump has pissed off his base. And in the past, he has not done that. And it's, it's support for Israel. It's the Iran bombing. It is this Ukraine decision. It's the Epstein stuff. So, you know, in the past, he has been a guy who sort of had like a base only strategy. It'll be interesting to see if he can kind of hold that coalition together in the long term, if he keeps kind of punching right that's kind of what happens when you run on complete delusion

and contradictory positions this dude said he's going to end all war but then he also pulled us out of the jCPOA so like inherently he's going to have to do something there he doesn't have the diplomatic skills so he bombs iran he uh campaigned on releasing the epstein files isn't able to do that the more i've thought about it i honestly think they kind of just like got hyped up on their own shit and they thought that hey we're just going to keep stringing them along about the Epstein files. I don't think there's like a legit client list that Pam Bondi had on her desk. I think she was fibbing. I think she was fucking around and she got too deep for her own good. I agree. Look, maybe Jeffrey Epstein was like connected to some intelligence agency or something like

that's sort of the piece that I think a lot of people on the right really firmly believe is true. I'm open to it. Like Alex Acosta who became Trump's secretary of labor in the first term was actually the prosecutor who gave Jeffrey Epstein that original sweetheart deal. in Florida. And I think he allegedly told someone that Epstein was connected to some intelligence agency, which is why he had to go light on him. I don't know if it's true. It's just something you hear all the time. But I'm more with you. Like I think the conspiracy has been hiding in plain sight the whole time. Like Jeffrey Epstein was a rich, powerful person who did awful things. And he used his money and his wealth and his connections to stay at trouble. And that's not like a really

a new story in America. Like John's Hop is president of the United States, right? Like he's this man as a criminal. He launched insurrection against the Capitol and yet he's still in charge. So I'm not surprised by it. Yeah, I want to send you this clip later. When I was on Pierce, I called out the Acosta thing. I said, Alexander Acosta, the Florida district attorney was, you know, he gave Epstein like this sweetheart plea deal. Then Trump defended him in 2019 when he resigned. And Jack Posobiac just made fun of me. He made fun of my face, basically. It's really funny. But thank you so much for the time. Let's do this again. Yeah, I really appreciate you having me on.

Thank you for fighting the good fight out there. To all your listeners out there who are a lot younger than me, I just want to say, I'm really sorry politics sucks right now. Like when I got into this world, it was dark. Like the Bush years were really dark and awful. But, you know, I found Obama's campaign. I felt inspired. I felt hopeful about the future.

And I just want to say, like, we can get back to that. It does not, politics in this country does not have to be defined. by Donald Trump and the worst person you know saying the shittiest thing every day. Like we can do better, but it requires people paying attention and caring and getting involved. So thank you for watching and just, I don't know, engaging in consuming this stuff because like being informed really matters. Yeah, it's corny, but you have to go through a time of dark to see the light. And right now we're going through that like reconstruction phase.

It's a little too dark right now. But thank you. Pod Save America. Link in the description below. Go check them out. let's do this again and see you anytime thanks