The Chaser Report - The Upbeat Episode | Dave Smith

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

In response to listener feedback, we nobly make the best of everything for once. Also, after the baffling revelation that Senator Matt Canavan went on Steve Bannon's podcast, we thought we'd find out more about what Bannon – the brains behind Donald Trump's election win – is up to, and the state of the Trump resistance in general. Assoc Prof Dave Smith from the US Study Centre at the University of Sydney joins us. Plus, after Sky News' YouTube channel is suspended, Charles helpfully explains some ancient technology from his youth to Gabbi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's Chase Report is brought to you by The Chaser's Happy Pills, making the world a better place for depressed comedians each and every day. Users directed by your physician for oral use only, do not use in conjunction with alcohol or any illicit content. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chase of Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report for Tuesday the 3rd of August 2021. Charles, I have something to rise with you. What? You know how normally we read out the...

the reviews that we ask people to leave on Apple Podcasts. We read them out on a Friday, try and encourage people to do it. I have one that I think we need to act on earlier than that. Oh dear. Is this a sort of Gladys Perrigically an urgent thing where the review was left three weeks ago? Yeah, it's from Thursday, so it's a bit faster than Gladys. But look, it's written by someone called Cyrus Monk. Hang on, Cyrus Monk, the cyclist, the Olympic cyclist.

Is it? I suspect this person was inspired by that rather than... If we're giving something for Olympians to listen to you, then we'll own that. But the title is draining. This was formerly a somewhat listenable podcast, but has descended into a happiness-sapping daily outlet of emotional turmoil, along with numerous stories of substance abuse thanks to the latest lockdowns in Australia. Sure to ruin anyone's day.

Charles, does the shoe fit? Is that us? Well, that sounds like a very apt description of this podcast. Yes. I feel like that's always been going for, really. Yes. Soul-crushing despair, leavened with just a little bit of sort of gallows. Hello's humour is the way I've been thinking of it.

So hang on, did he give us a one star, did he? Well, this is the strange thing. It then goes on to say, five stars keep up the good work. So thank you, Cyrus. But it does make me think, as affirming as that ultimately was, I was not expecting the twist in the tail. We should possibly be upbeat today, Charles. Look, I don't know.

I disagree. I think we're just channeling the vibe. And the vibe is one of despair and horrendous thing. But if you want me to be upbeat, sure. I'll be upbeat. It was 207 cases yesterday, Don. That's really great news. Can we just try?

Can we just try to? I think the way to do this is don't look at the big picture, because the big picture is miserable. There's no way of spinning that. What we can do, Charles, what we can do is look at some positive success stories of individuals triumphing. I mean, like the Olympians, as we had said yesterday's episode, I've got one for you.

This is lovely. This is lovely. You know how none of us are allowed to travel overseas indefinitely, and there's a huge ban, and it's, we're all stuck here. We can't even leave Sydney, let alone Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is great. Yes.

Well, big props to Tony Abbott because the Australian government is spending $19,000 sending him to India. That's great news. Oh, that's excellent, Tom. Well done, Tony. You know, because he's always renowned as being so polite and diplomatic. He's almost as good as Prince Philip. I appreciate him, too, because he's a trade envoy for the UK unpaid, and he's now a trade envoy for a state envoy for a state.

Australia unpaid. And the theory is that Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, gets on well with him. Of course he does. Because they're both total cockheads. They're both religious bigots. Yes, that's right. So I think Tony Abbott, thank you for your service on behalf of Australia. Look, and the great thing about this news is that with any luck, he won't be able to come back anytime soon.

Don't rush back, Tony. There's a lot of India to cycle around. Stay over there. Yeah, you're doing a great job, Tony. Although, hang on, Chuck. Keep going. Keep going. As you know, I've got in-laws in India.

And let me tell you, they are already suffering enough without having to have Tony Abbott. Coming up on the show today, we're talking to David Smith about Steve Bennett. You know that crackpot who was behind the rise of Donald Trump back in 2015, 2016? Oh, yeah, the genius behind the Muslim ban. Yes, that vile piece of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we were talking about him last week. So we figured we'd get an update from Dave.

Also, Sky News has had its YouTube channel band. We're going to talk to Gabby Bolton, see if she knows how you would access Sky News. Now that YouTube's gone down. It involves something called a television. See, this is really good news. Like, I don't know why. These are all really great stories. We find joy in the every day, like a little flower that's blooming on top of a massive mountain of the shit that is our lives, Charles.

And it's nothing to do with all the cocaine I've taken. this morning. Anyway, let's go to Rebecca Danuno in the Chaser Newsroom. Is that why your eyes look so deeply strange, you odd man? A Christmas in July party at an aged care facility in Sydney has turned into a COVID-19 super spreading event with festive and flu-like symptoms being reported by workers and residents alike. It is believed that one St Nicholas is the source of the spread after not completing a proper quarantine after flying in. Relevant authoritative are working to determine which residents were on the nice list and of potential infection risk. The National Cabinet has decided to vaccinate all year 12 students in preparation for school leaves.

The yearly pilgrimage to the Gold Coast was highlighted as an event of utmost national importance. While it was initially thought that students were scared of missing exams, an investigation by the Department of Education revealed that students were most scared by the prospect of not being able to decimate the Gold Coast's Fogger Cruiser Supply. Tasmanian officials have entered negotiations with New Zealand to become the country's New West Island. Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwin

said that the state wished to be aligned with an island nation that had a proper small town response and understood what it's like to essentially be a big small town made popular by its unique animals. That's the realest unreal you can get. I'm Rebecca Deunamuno. and you're probably still unvaccinated. Thank you for your patience.

Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Today's Chase report is bought to you by the Chase's Happy Pills. Just one pill a day is enough to set you,

on your way. Seriously, just take one. Oh, just one, really? Okay, you can have two. We strongly advised to not have any more than one chase a happy pill a day. A side effects may include headaches, acne, having a depressing podcast, and Gladys put me in the gutter syndrome. So last week on the podcast, Charles, we were talking about Steve Bannon, how he has this bizarre war room pandemic podcast that Queensland said it had a Matt Canavan somehow found the time to go on despite everything's going on. We wanted to know more about the Bannon land, the alt-right and the Trump resurgence, because there was a theory who was going to be returned to office in August, and it's August right now. Someone who's been following the extraordinary

rise of Donald Trump from the beginning is Associate Professor Dave Dave Smith of the US Study Centre at Sydney University. Hello, Dave. Good morning. Steve Bannon is still producing rubbish and putting it out into the universe, even though it's 221. Yeah, look, remember that Steve Bannon's famous description of the whole Trump's strategy was, flood the zone with shit right just keep talking just keep saying so much putting so much out there generating so much content that even if something goes wrong even if there's some kind of outrage everyone will move on very quickly because you're just flooding the zone with so much shit and one of the reasons why this works to some extent is you flood the zone with enough shit

there are going to be some gold nuggets in there occasionally right there are going to be some victories. That's a very good model for the podcast, Charles, actually. It's our strategy. I mean, in many ways, Bannon's career kind of mirrors Trump in that he's had some very notable victories which make people forget about the vast majority of his career, which has just been crushing defeat after crushing defeat. So, I mean, Steve Bannon got rich off World of Warcraft gold farming. What? This was actually the, biggest business success after numerous failed ventures he had an office running out of Hong Kong gold farming on World of Warcraft for those you unfamiliar with this this is

having World of Warcraft players performing these kind of constant menial tasks in order to accumulate the ingame currency which they can then sell onto other people for real money so bannon worked out how to do this and and got rich from it he he's for raise into politics. I mean, before he was ever on team Trump, his first project was actually Sarah Palin. He made a movie about Sarah Palin, which I've never seen. I don't know if anyone has ever seen it, called Undefeated. Now, this movie was notably made after the 2008 election. So, you know, not exactly a winner there. But, of course, getting Trump across the line in 2016, and I do think he played a significant role in that,

because he was the one who essentially advised Trump, look, just don't listen to anyone else. You know, follow all of your absolute worst instincts. I think that he does have a fair degree of responsibility for the fact that Trump won. But then after that, there's another series of failed projects. He goes over to Europe seeking to build this sort of international populist movement. Now, European populist parties who were successful long before Trump

and will continue to be around long after Trump had no need of Bannon at all. So Bannon went over there with a lot of fanfare and set up some office in Brussels, which is now operational. And of course, that just failed. Then, of course, in 2020, he got arrested for one of his scams,

which was the Build the Wall crowd fund effort. The Build the Wall thing. What was there? Yeah. So this was when it was some entrepreneur in Texas. I can't remember what his name. was that he was saying, you know, Democrats are making it too hard for Mr. Trump to build the wall. Well, we will build the wall with crowdfunding. Oh, right. So like a GoFund me. Yeah, that was

it. I remember. And Bannon, he wasn't part of this at the start, but he somehow attached himself to it. And anyway, they raised $25 million for this. Now, this effort was doomed for a number of reasons. One was that they were attempting to build the wall into the bank of the Rio Grande River, which is made out of sand, you know, and we know. And we know. what happens to people who build houses on sand proven. Yeah, ironically, the Bible's pretty clear on that, I think. Bill Ball on San. Well, same thing happened to this.

But the other thing was that this wasn't even supported by Trump because, in fact, Trump was a bit pissed off about this effort because it was implying that Trump himself couldn't do it. Also, it was just massively fraudulent. So they collected $25 million. Very little of it went to building the wall, but probably quite a bit of it went to Bannon himself. and so Bannon got arrested for this in 2020. He was famously pulled off a yacht by the postal cops. That's extraordinary.

But by the postal cops. Sorry, you've got to explain that. Yeah, yeah. This is because fraud, the infrastructure for investigating and prosecuting fraud, because it usually happens through some kind of electronic communication, it actually falls under the province of the postmast. well, whatever the Postmaster General is now called. And just an important American political development point here.

The very first genuine administrative and also law enforcement organ of the United States was the post office. The post office was the origin of the American state. Anyway, so it's the post office and the post office cops who had responsibility for this. And this all happened at the time when the post office. office is under attack from Trump. Yeah, that's true, because he wanted to stop the posties from being able to deliver the vote. Yes, yeah, exactly, yes.

Wow. So this was, this is the whole problem with the Trump era was all this amazing stuff happened that we've just completely forgotten about because the zone was so flooded with shit all the time. Okay, so just coming back to Bannon then, yeah, so he's been running this war room podcast. And, you know, Bannon still has a reputation among some people as this political savant, which I think is highly dubious. You know, yes, he's had some high profile wins, but he's also had a lot of losses. And at the moment, his thing is claiming that what Republicans need to do is keep the focus on stopping the steel and also on the lab leak origin, what he believes are the lab leak origins of COVID. And he believes that an obsessive focus on this is what's going to bring Biden down in the next election.

And he claims that it's already damaging Biden. Now, in terms of the stop the steel focus, I think that's just completely wrong. I think that the, you know, if Republicans are somehow going to lose in 2022, it could be because of an obsessive focus on the 2020 election. And we're even beginning to see evidence now that Republicans are getting a little bit. sick of this. Fox News is hardly talking about it at all these days. Didn't Trump last week admit in a rally that people didn't turn out to vote for those Senate elections because of Trump undermining their confidence in the system? Yeah. And I mean, Trump, he's raising a lot of money of this, but he's not putting any money

into audits or recounts or legal challenges. I mean, he clearly doesn't believe it. So even though this is, you know, the reason this is Trump's obsessive issue, it's not because of some cunning political strategy, it's because of, you know, Trump's personal psychological makeup, which is he cannot accept that he lost and, in an auxiliary sense, because of the fact that he can personally raise money off it. This is not a winning strategy. As far as Bannon's other obsession, which is China and the lab leak, goes, I'm not sure that this is something that's particularly going to damage Joe Biden, even though, I mean,

there's been a definite shift in American public opinion about this. Some polls suggesting a majority of Americans now believe in the lab leak there. Of course, no one actually knows at this point. But I don't think that this is, you know, particularly going to hurt Joe Biden, especially as I mean, Biden has maintained a very hawkish line on China himself. And given that Trump's hawkishness towards China was in some sense is always the thing that he did that he had the most bipartisan support. It makes sense that Biden is basically continuing with this, albeit perhaps not in such an incendiary way as what Trump did.

But, I mean, sort of soft on China attacks on Biden don't have much relationship to reality. Now, of course, you know, you don't need to have a lot of relationship with reality necessarily to make an attack work. But at the moment, there's very little evidence that China stuff is hurting Biden either. But also, wouldn't Biden use, like if something came out, which sort of went, oh, okay, it is a Lab League, wouldn't Biden then use it to his own advantage? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that this is a winning, you know, this is one of the few bipartisan foreign policy issues. I don't think it's a winning issue. But, Dave, isn't it the case that basically every single midterm election since the dawn of time has meant that the other side, who doesn't have the presidency, gains the Congress? Like, wouldn't it, I mean, aren't they, aren't the Republicans going to naturally just... That's what you would think.

Okay. So, yes, there's one exception to that in the last 40 years, which is the 2002 election, where the Republicans actually made gains, but that was because, you know, 9-11, George W. Bush had 90% popularity at that point. The Iraq war hadn't begun yet. But, yeah, that's the sort of event that that's what it's taken to reverse this historic trend. So Biden's just got to hope for another 9-11. Well, I mean, you know, in some sense, Democrats see January 6th as 9-11 and believe that if you keep hammering on about that, then, you know, you'll get an outcome. Now, I don't think that hammering on January 6th is going to reduce that outcome, but certainly

if Republicans keep going on about the 2020 election being stolen, that could piss people off enough to, well, I mean, it could have this bizarre asymmetric effect, right? Pissing Democrats off enough to increase Democratic turnout while actually depressing Republican turnout because you're constantly telling them that the elections can't be trusted. So that would be the nightmare scenario for Republicans. that's the sort of thing that possibly could reverse that historical trend. But certainly, I mean, Democrats have the narrowest margins in decades to work with. But, Dave, hasn't the Stop the Steel sort of cause being used as a pretext by a lot of states to, you know,

basically remove voting rights from a whole lot of people of colour and black voters? Yeah, to actually steal the... next election absolutely absolutely they have been and and so won't that show up in the midterm it depends what we have seen historically is that attempts at voter suppression in this way especially really blatant ones they often do have mobilization effects on the other side as well which is why quantitative studies of voting since the Shelby County decision actually haven't shown own a particular impact of declining African-American participation, that's partly because Democrats are also mobilising off the back of this. And I mean, I think that these restrictions

are terrible and immoral, and, you know, because you shouldn't be putting barriers in the way to people voting in democracies. Having said that, I do think that history shows an ability to out-organise and to outflank those voter suppression efforts. So what I think is perhaps the most worrying part of some of these laws that have been put through is the fact that they're stripping power from secretaries of state and handing it over to state legislatures.

You know, this is actually fulfilling that fantasy that only was a fantasy in the 2020 election that state legislators could overturn election results, if they didn't like them. This is actually trying to make that fantasy real. Now, whether that can actually happen, the Department of Justice is warning that this runs a foul of federal election law

would likely lead to massive legal confrontations. But nonetheless, that's the kind of direction that they're pushing in. I think that is in some ways more dangerous than all of the voter ID and closing early polling places and things like that. Well, Dave, no matter what happens in the midterms next year, we will always have the mental image of Steve Bannon

getting fucked off a yacht by posty cops. I think that's a beautiful one. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes.

Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Coming soon to streaming services near you, a battle takes place inside Sydney as ADF soldiers try to figure out how to fight COVID. The enemy can't be seen. It can't be shot,

but if anyone can kill something, it's us. I'm scared, man. Snap out of it. The government wasn't able to get shots into the civilians, but we can. In the fight, For the only city the Prime Minister loves, these soldiers need to weigh up their priorities in love, too.

But I love you. I know, but my country needs me. But does it have to be you? Why not a health professional or a scientist? Science, we're in a pandemic. You expect medical professionals to save you? Yeah, kind of. As all hope in Gladys seems lost.

They waited a month. We don't have another one! The rules of engagement go out the window. You've got to remember who's giving the orders here, son. Minister, last I chained, COVID doesn't care about orders. And neither do I. No one is safe. Mate, what are you doing? I'm just getting Uber Eats.

I'm isolating and everything. Wait, you're not rich enough to take that risk. Open fire! You're welcome. I'm not. literally just spent the loss of my COVID payment on that. The ADF, coming soon to a lower socioeconomic area near you, for totally not corrupt reasons. The Chaser Report. Less news more often.

Extraordinary thing happened. I went to go and look at the Sky News YouTube. It seems to have been suspended. It's banned. It's banned. Huge news in the Australian media. Sky News completely banned. from YouTube for seven days because if there's one thing that YouTube doesn't like is MIF's information about COVID-19 being spread for months on end for the next seven days and then it'll go back to normal they'll be able to spread their misinformation again but for the next seven days Gabby Bolt you're young how do you intend to watch Sky News how are you going to get your Sky News

if you can't see it on YouTube. Ah, yeah. Um, I guess I'll just have to hack their network. No, Gabby, no. Oh, what do you mean? There's a, there's another form of technology, which also launched yesterday.

Yeah. That enables you to get Sky News. What do you mean? You mean besides Fox Shell? You mean besides the old fashioned, very expensive cable television, Charles? There's another way to get Sky News. Besides,

Fox Tell. What? There's a new, there's a new way of getting it. It's called television, free-to-air television. Have you heard about this thing? What, what, I don't, tell a, television, television. You know, it's like a, it's a bit like a computer monitor. Right.

But it gets, uh, radio waves over the air. Okay. So less convenient. Yeah, and you just watch whatever is on there. Right. And, and Sky News. You don't have a choice? No, you don't have a choice.

You just whatever they decided to put on there, you watch. And Sky News has struck a deal so that throughout regional Australia, everywhere now, you can just tune in, you turn on, what you do is you turn on a switch, and you need to change the channel. It's called a channel, and there's a number. Right. And then you put it to that number, and then you'll be able to watch Sky News. This sounds like I have to be a rocket scientist, Charles.

Is it too hard for you young kids? I think it might be too hard for me to get to Sky News. news, which means I'm probably not their intended audience. I'm sure their intended audience are smart, intellectual, achievable people. I think if anything, their intended audience are probably dead if they've watched their coverage over the last six months. Some of the things that they've been banned for, one of the videos, one of their most popular videos on YouTube with 4.6 million views was one that Alan Jones put out last year called Australians must know the truth.

This virus is not a pandemic. That's aged well. Yeah. Well done, Alan. And then he's also just been saying, don't wear a mask. We shouldn't have lockdowns. All that sort of stuff. So, yeah, look, I think the intended audience are, well, if not dead, they're certainly

in hospital. I must say, though, I mean, full credit to the management of Sky, very smart people for anticipating the ban. and coming up with a way that their nearly dead audience can enjoy their product. Yeah. Because those are the only televisions in Australia, in regional Australia, owned by old people, which are still connected to free to wear. I mean, I haven't had a television connected to an antenna for, I think, 10 years now.

Yeah, we used to have a television show. Wait, sorry, you guys were on television. It's a bit like, it's a bit like a, you know our YouTube channel. Yeah. So we did that, but it was on that sort of. Oh, I just thought you were really good at laundering money. Just... No comment.

You can read the whole thing in a print encyclopedia. What? Sorry? This episode is brought to you by Chase's Happy Pills. Here's a message for one of our proud customers. Hi, I'm a previously happy customer of the Chase's Happy Pills. But I had too many pills. Too much happiness.

And now I'm sad. I'll never reach that place again. Will I have to leave this place? Will lockdown ever end? Gladys? Mom? Thank you for your patience. Your call is important.

Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.com. Just before we go, Charles, quick review of today's podcast. Do you feel we were sufficiently upbeat? I think that this was the most upbeat podcast I've ever heard,

and it totally ignored the reality of the world. I love hearing this complete abrogation of any sort of sense of where the vibe is at. Terrible work, one star. Yes, I want to congratulate us on the delusion we've achieved today. pretending that our lives aren't miserable. And if Cyrus Monk wants to leave another five-star review, praising us for a new angle, we will accept that. Thank you, Cyrus.

Look, with the level of delusion we've reached today, we may even become Sky News hosts. Who knows? Curious from Road Microphones, we're part of the ACAST to create a network. Catch you tomorrow. See ya.