The Daily Beast Podcast - Elon Musk Has Become the Very Thing He Hates Most

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

Media Matters President Angelo Carusone joins The New Abnormal to talk through his organization’s recent sparring with Elon Musk and his social media platform, X. Plus! A conversation with award-win...ning author Nnedi Okorafor about her transformational africanfuturism and the importance of inclusive visions of science fiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:28 bar records. Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Kedden, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond.
Starting point is 00:00:59 Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What an excellent show we have today. Media Matters CEO Angelo Corrasoni joins us to talk about Elon Musk's threats of a lawsuit towards his company. After many companies stopped advertising on his ex-platform after he agreed with an anti-Semitic tweet, then we'll talk to Nettie O'Korfor, who's an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author best known for the Binty Trilogy. We'll join us to talk about her work, why she chose to write science fiction, and what exactly Afrofuturism is. But first, let's have some fun. So, Andy, we start off today by recognizing and acknowledging the death of Rosalind Carter, the second longest living first lady who passed away at 96 years old.
Starting point is 00:01:51 And, you know, what I will say about Rosalind Carter and Jimmy Carter and their life together is it's kind of extraordinary. at a time when we don't have a lot to point to in terms of hopefulness and joyousness, I realized in reading about her passing and their relationship and their marriage, they were married. They were together for 77 years. That is almost eight decades to share your life with somebody. And I just think that in and of itself is pretty extraordinary. And I think that in an interview when asked what was more, you know, a major moment in his life
Starting point is 00:02:27 winning the Nobel Peace Prize or becoming president, Jimmy Carter responded, meeting his wife. And that is a testament given the fact that they were together for nearly eight decades. So a rest and peace to her. Yeah, absolutely. She did a lot of work with mental health. She did a lot of work with getting laws passed involving vaccinating kids for diseases that used to be killers that no longer are. And they were kind of from everything you hear about.
Starting point is 00:02:57 them. They were pretty inseparable. And after she passed, I saw there were old quotes from her husband, basically saying that anything he accomplished in his life was basically a 50-50 partnership with her. I'm not sure what better eulogy you could give to a spouse or a partner than that. And as you said, RIP. And of course, one of the ways you know that Rosalind Carter lived a great life was that just before she died, this was the day after she went into hospital. She went into hospice on Friday and passed away on Sunday. And on Saturday, Donald Trump decided to mock Jimmy Carter's presidency. Because as always, he has the best timing and is just always aware of the world around him and what's going on. He went out there and said, compared to Biden, Jimmy Carter was a brilliant, brilliant president.
Starting point is 00:03:50 The worst quote was, again, this is the day after Rosalind Carter enters hospice. Trump says, the happiest person anywhere in this country right now is Jimmy Carter because his administration looked brilliant compared to these clowns. So not only is he talking to a person Jimmy Carter who is himself in a hospice, the day after his wife enters hospice, he says, oh, he's got to be the happiest person in the country right now. He's just an asshole. And I think maybe that's just the best word. Yeah. I mean, I can think of motherfucker, you know, dick. I mean, we can go and list them on. We could. The fact is that Donald Trump is such a small, human being that everything that he does is about projection.
Starting point is 00:04:29 We know how Donald Trump feels about himself by virtue of the way that he treats other people. That's what I will say is like how to disconnect. It's not as if Jimmy Carter could possibly give a fuck about what Donald Trump thinks about him, his life, his presidency, given all of the accomplishments that that man has had throughout his career with the presidency being like just one of many. And we say this at a time when Donald Trump has received what could potentially be a considerable blow by a Colorado judge with regard to his involvement in the January 6th insurrection. And so according to Neil Katyal, who was a former acting solicitor general and is a MSNBC legal analyst, district judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled that Donald Trump, was in fact an insurrectionist, but given the outdated Civil War era law that they're using
Starting point is 00:05:31 to decide whether or not to keep Donald Trump on the ballot in Colorado, she's saying the judge is ruling that, well, he is an insurrectionist according to all factual elements, but we're not sure whether or not public office and not being able to hold public office while being labeled as an insurrectionist also applies to the presidency. First of all, our laws are so fucking outdated and our founding fathers, let's just say this, did not have the imagination to be able to think that there could ever be a person with fashistic tendencies who would be anointed as like a demagogue to rule over America by one of the two major political parties. So when they were talking about,
Starting point is 00:06:23 insurrection and the laws that are around there, they were thinking about everybody else. But surely not the president that is elected by the people could be that type of authoritarian. So Neil Cachial said this, quote, if I were to put the headline on Friday as an appeals lawyer, it would be this is the very worst decision Donald Trump could get from the trial court because it's going to go on appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court, and there, Trump is going to face extreme headwinds. Here, this judge factually made devastating findings against Trump. Yeah, I guess I'm not as excited about what the judge said as Neil Cotill is.
Starting point is 00:07:09 Because I don't understand that this finding that the president is not an officer of the United States. I'm not even arguing with the judge because I'm not a lawyer and maybe there's a good reason for it. But it seems really weird to me that the guy who, as president, also has the title of Commander-in-Chief is somehow not an officer of the United States. I don't understand that. I think the fact that the judge ruled that he did engage in insurrection based on his role on January 6th. I think that's good and correct.
Starting point is 00:07:42 But this whole 14th Amendment challenge to Trump being on the ballot, I don't think it was ever going to be a winner in the court, regardless of. of what you think of it. And I do think that. So maybe you're right. Maybe this was the best that we could hope for. But I just feel like the best that we could hope for doesn't do anything besides the judge saying, oh yeah, by the way, this guy, while president did engage in insurrection against the United States.
Starting point is 00:08:06 Anyway, I can't take him off the ballot. Next case, I'm just not as thrilled about this as Neil is. But, you know, I appreciate the spin. And maybe there's something there. I hope so. I guess my feeling is, I don't know whether or not thrilled is the right. right word, but I do definitely think that this is going to play into the larger federal case against him that Jack Smith has with regard to the insurrection because you have one judge now stating
Starting point is 00:08:31 very clearly in their findings that he is an insurrectionist. And we need to hold that finding up against all of the things that Jack Smith has found, all of the people who have testified before the January 6th committee and more what our own fucking eyes showed us that day. and ears showed us that day and since and see how it plays out. I think that the frustration for me is that we're just continuing to see how the fuck this all plays out on the backdrop of so many other crises. And with the fact that his rhetoric, Trump's rhetoric, continues to get more and more dangerous, more and more violent, more Hitler-esque every single day.
Starting point is 00:09:19 And so I'm just wondering if the timeline that, you know, it always, they say justice moves slow. And in this case, it is a fucking sloth riding a wave of molasses backwards. I just don't know if we have enough time for this to play out, given that Donald Trump would love for America to be the Fourth Reich. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right about that. The hourglass is running low. And, you know, as that happens, Trump's rhetoric is becoming more and more unhinged. And we talk about how we think it's important to talk about it, which is not patting ourselves on the back or anything. It's just that it's very tempting to sort of roll your eyes at the things he says and be like, oh, that's just Trump.
Starting point is 00:10:00 That's just Donnie. And we can't do that. And so in the spirit of that position, let's look at what Trump had to say on his truth social over the weekend. He said, 2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will route the fake news media.
Starting point is 00:10:28 We will evict Joe Biden from the White House. And we will finish the job once and for all. And as a lot of people pointed out, it kind of sounds like he's saying that he has a solution that will be final. Yeah. I don't know how much more fucking clear this needs to be. But I also. I also want to read a piece from the Atlantic from John Hendrickson, who is calling attention to Trump's rhetoric and making it incredibly clear as to what he's saying. And he wrote this. The leader of the Republican Party and quite likely the 2024 GOP nominee, mind you, we've talked about on this show, how everyone is dropping out one by one by one, was on an extended rant about mental institutions, prisons, and to use his phrase, quote, empty insane asylums. Speaking to thousands of diehard supporters at a rally in South Florida, Trump lamented that under Joe Biden, the United States has become, quote, the dumping ground of the world,
Starting point is 00:11:31 that he had casually praised one of the most infamous psychopathic serial killers, which he did, Hannibal Lecter, and just goes on, he goes on to write that this was a dystopian at times gothic speech. It droned on for nearly 90 minutes. Trump attacked the liars and leeches who have been sucking the lifeblood out of this country. Those unnamed people were similar to yet different from the, quote, rotten, corrupt, and tyrannical establishments, end quote, of Washington, D.C.
Starting point is 00:12:04 The way this man is talking, the, quote, exterminator language that he is using, the tainted blood language that he is using. I mean, when do we go from saying Hitler-esque and Hitler-Light to just Hitler? Have we reached that line yet? Are we still, like, walking a fucking balance beam here? I think we have reached the line.
Starting point is 00:12:28 You know, the only reason I'm hesitant to say we've definitely reached it is because my guess is that in the next week, probably in a Thanksgiving tweet, he will say something even worse. And even more Hitler-esque. It's like every time he says something, it is closer and closer and closer to the actual language of the Nazi party. And whether it's referring to people as vermin, whether it's talking about immigrants poisoning our country,
Starting point is 00:12:55 or whether it's, you know, in that one I just read you, talking about routing the fake news media, finishing the job once and for all, driving out the globalists, etc. All of this is, like, we are beyond the point where even like Godwin, the guy who came up with Godwin's law that says anytime you bring up Hitler in an argument you've lost, I sort of feel like at this point he'd have to be like, okay, I have to make an exception here.
Starting point is 00:13:18 There's no other way to describe this stuff other than, you know, sounding incredibly close, if not exactly like Hitler and the Nazi Party. I think, yes, we have crossed that line and we have to keep hammering this home. And we have to keep pointing out that this is happening. And we have to start getting people to not shrug their shoulders and say, you know, oh, that's just Donnie. You know, oh, he doesn't mean it. Oh, that's just the way. he talks. You know, he's a businessman from New York. That's just the way he talks. No, none of that is
Starting point is 00:13:50 true and none of that is an excuse and none of that should cause us to shrug our shoulders or look the other way or act like this isn't a big deal. Because, you know, to quote the guy whose poll numbers ain't looking too great right now, President Joe Biden, it's a big fucking deal. The thing that I will continue to say is that Hitler did not start with concentration. camps. He ended there. And so when folks say that we're being hyperbolic or, you know, you can't make these comparisons or it's a losing argument, it's like, I just can't stress enough to wake the fuck up that like this kind of language, this kind of rhetoric, all of these things have been seeded by Trumpism and Magaism over the last almost nine friggin years. Again, we didn't just get here.
Starting point is 00:14:43 This has been a slow-moving, catastrophic, you know, train collision with our democracy since Donald Trump came down that escalator in 2015. From 2015 to now, it was ha, ha, ha, funny, Mexicans are rapists and murderers, to now I'm throwing all of my opponents in an insane asylum and we're going to oust out any differing type of thought and we're going to usher in Christo-fascism. Like, in the nine years, this is where we are. And so what do folks then come next? And the fact that we're at a place where Donald Trump is 30 points ahead of any other
Starting point is 00:15:28 Republican opponent in the field and that Joe Biden's numbers right now, which we don't usually like to get into this far out from an election, but they are so fucking alarming. that Joe Biden right now is like 50 percentage points polling less with young people who helped usher him into the presidency in 2020 and help us save democracy for at least the last four years. His polling numbers are in the fucking gutter right now. Yes, we understand we are 12 months out from the election, but the fact is nothing looks good. It actually looks like shit. Yeah, you know, I guess we should point out that those numbers you refer to are
Starting point is 00:16:10 are for people how they think he is, Biden is handling the situation in Gaza and the Israel Hamas war or whatever you want to call it, where 70% of people aged 18 to 34 disapprove of how he's handling it and only 20% approved. I only bring that up to just to point out this is not an overall approval, disapproval of Joe Biden. It's on this one particular thing. But this is a big thing. So I'm not trying to minimize it here. I just want to be factual. I think we talked about this last time that it is, it is not a long shot that Donald Trump gets elected next November. And yes, it's a year out. And as we know, I mean, a year in politics used to be like a decade. And now I think it's like a hundred years in terms of how much shit can happen. So, okay, yes, there's that. But you would like to think that this is not Joe Biden polling against a generic or public. look at this is Joe Biden polling against Donald Trump, a guy who is simultaneously dealing with court battles, uh, who has been indicted in multiple jurisdictions, state and federal, a guy who,
Starting point is 00:17:21 whose speech patterns echo Hitler. And yet, look at the polls and look at how close they are and look at how in a lot of the battleground states Trump has a lead over Joe Biden. So you can talk about it being a year out all you want. It's still scary and it's still something that needs to be brought up and something that needs to be talked about. This is not Joe Biden versus Mitt Romney. And this is not Joe Biden even versus Bush. Yeah, even versus Bush. None of that is a defense of George W. Bush or Mitt Romney for that matter. But Trump is qualitatively different. And and yet, and yet. And yet. And yet. And yet. And yet. And yet, here the fuck we are. And so it is just, I can't express enough.
Starting point is 00:18:11 I often try and put these things out of my mind until it gets to be, you know, very close in terms of our time, right? Like this summer of 2024. But I got to tell you that it is terrifying. It is terrifying to think, because I can't understate it. If Donald Trump were to become president again, if he were to make. make it to inauguration of January 2025. That is it. You know, like that is it.
Starting point is 00:18:41 There is no next election. Every agency, every guardrail that is already in tatters is just blown up, demolished, done. Every person that had been in his previous administrations that tried to hold on to some semblance of rule of law are gone. They have the Heritage Foundation. We talk about it at nauseam. Their 2025 vision is up on their website. The first 100 days, they are finishing the job of ending American democracy.
Starting point is 00:19:14 And that's the thing that people have to hold. We have a lot of issues with Biden and you should because a democracy allows us to have our opinions and to exercise them and to challenge our elected officials to be better. But in order to challenge elected officials, we have to still maintain a democracy. And you don't do that by putting up a protest. vote come 2024. Last Wednesday on Twitter, some verified tool tweeted, Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop
Starting point is 00:19:50 using against them. I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about Western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much. And Elon Musk responded to this by saying, you have said the actual truth. Musk's anti-Semitic reply was condemned by the White House, and in its wake, Watchstar group Media Matters pointed out that it found many examples of ads on Twitter, quote, next to posts that tout Hitler and his Nazi party.
Starting point is 00:20:20 Since Musk's tweet, there's been an exodus of big-name advertisers from his broken-ass platform, including, among others, IBM, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, Sony, NBC Universal, and Paramount. And on Saturday, Musk tweeted that, quote, the split-second court opens on Monday, X-Corp will be filing. a thermonuclear lawsuit against Media Matters and all those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company. Joining me now to talk about all of this is the president of Media Matters, Angelo Carrizzone. Angelo, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Okay, so this interview is taking place Monday afternoon, and unless the courts open really late where Elon Musk is,
Starting point is 00:21:01 he did not file a lawsuit? The split second court opens on Monday, did he? No, he did not. We have not received anything yet, and at least according to the online filings, nothing has been filed. Okay. Do you think that he will, in fact, file a lawsuit? Because I am always skeptical because he, you know, lies on. Over the weekend, I had it at a 50-50 coin toss, especially because he just went so all in on it. And, you know, a lot of times you can tell how serious is about something or how long something will get his attention based off of the feedback loop between him and sort of the creatures of the right-wing fever swamp. The more they engage with him and sort of meme him and sort of praise him for this, the more he seems to be inclined to continue to move the ball forward.
Starting point is 00:21:40 He got a lot of positive reaction from this, as you can imagine. I guess now on Monday afternoon, I put it closer to like 60, 40 that he still files it. I think we're slightly in the camp of him doing it. But I imagine that many of the lawyers that he is engaging with are basically telling him the same thing that the public sort of knows, which is that there's not really much of a legal argument here. It would have to be very, very novel. Hi, this is Shammis, your other producer from the future. just jumping in here to let you know that Elon Musk did actually file this lawsuit after he went to publish this episode.
Starting point is 00:22:09 So back to your regularly scheduled program. Okay, yeah. So let's get into what I suppose his legal argument might look like. In his tweet, Musk claimed that, quote, Media Matters completely misrepresented the real user experience on Twitter in another attempt to undermine freedom of speech and mislead advertisers. Why did you do this, Angela? Yeah, I know. Why did we make X serve ads from their biggest ads?
Starting point is 00:22:33 advertisers and place them alongside Nazi content, pro-Hitler content, and things that are so clearly outside of what advertisers would want. I mean, we did it. We forced it. And that's the part that I find, you know, incredible that has initial response is that he actually said that everything we published was accurate. What he basically, though, was arguing was that it was like a, you know, it was a one in a couple hundred million chance that everything was arranged that way.
Starting point is 00:22:59 And like, let's even say that everything else he said is, let's even concede that all this is true, it's still hard to believe because if you think about it, we like hit the bullseye a bunch of times. Right. It's not what, right? I mean, how did, how is it the case that we were misrepresenting how often this phenomenon is occurring when we were able to document it so regularly in such a short period of time with only one research?
Starting point is 00:23:23 As a, it's not like we had an army of a million bots hitting refresh until we were able to collect this. Like, that I think would be a different discussion. I think that would still be a different kind of research. But he's trying to have it both ways here. He's trying to say we manipulated it by also just using the generic system. And when you actually unpack the research, it's even worse for X because this report was actually the meat on a series of reports. It was sort of in the middle.
Starting point is 00:23:44 But it started with us pointing out that a pro-Hitler account, sort of like an account that basically just memes like really positive things about Hitler, was bragging about the fact that they're part of X's advertiser revenue sharing program and had received thousands of dollars, thousands of dollars in revenue share and revenue sharing from X. recently. So their content, which is all pro-Hitler content, was basically being subsidized by advertisers with that ad revenue sharing program. And that's what started this very specific round of research. We're like, wow, that's interesting. I wonder what happens if we pierced the pro-Nazi bubble on X. Is there actually a bunch of blue chip advertisers there, which X says is not the case? And it turns out that there is. Yeah, I'm not an ad man. So I need to admit that right off the top. But it seems to me that if your message to advertisers is, hey, your ads will only occasionally
Starting point is 00:24:33 appear next to pro-Hitler tweets, that's not a great pitch. Well, that's the thing too, right? Like, we didn't set the metric, right? Like, we didn't make up this metric. They did. We use language that Linda Yaccarino uses. So their standard, the thing that they told advertisers starting in the summer, because part of this is part of this arc, which is that in the summertime, what X started
Starting point is 00:24:54 doing was going to advertisers and saying, hey, I know you were mad or skittish for a little while, but we rolled out all of these brand new tools and all of these extra layers and all of these protections so that, yes, fine, we've allowed some more types of content on X. In this case, that was a euphemism for, you know, Nazi content, pro-Nazi content extremists. But they were saying, but don't worry about it because our new system allows for you to make sure that your ads never appear next to alongside or adjacent to that content. And so they said your ad, this will never happen with their new tools. And then we spent the next three, last three months documenting one after another incident of this happening. There was about a month and a half ago,
Starting point is 00:25:37 this happened with the NFL where we saw a bunch of NFL ads appearing alongside Nazi content. And it was, again, another one of these moments. And so, yeah, their pitch is not going to be, they wouldn't get advertisers to be like, well, occasionally we will accept our ads being advertised alongside pro-Nazi content. And that's been our basic point, is that they're making a case to advertisers and talking about tools that don't actually work the way they're saying. And even Elon must confirm that in his response. He didn't say we fabricated it, although they originally responded by saying that to reporters. They were telling reporters that we Photoshop the images. And I think, thankfully, Media Matters has been around long enough and we're credible enough that reporters were like,
Starting point is 00:26:15 that doesn't seem like Media Matters. I'm sure they didn't Photoshop this. But then it came up to, fine, this is true, but it's not a real illustration of the user experience. Right. Boy, that's where it sort of gets to, if he's going to file a lawsuit, I don't know what the lawsuit is going to claim. I think the best, I mean, obviously they can do liable or defamation. That's going to be really hard here because for a lot of reasons and probably won't be the case. I guess, you know, if we look at the landscape, the best possible scenario, or for them, at least in terms of a legal theory, is sort of a similar one to the one that they are using for the current lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate. There's obviously big differences between the two, but the core is that X has terms of service and you broke the terms of service and therefore we're suing you. And I guess the argument is that somehow we violated the terms of service by having a second Twitter account.
Starting point is 00:27:09 It's a little unclear if that's a huge violation. And then the other part is that somehow the existence of this account distorted Twitter's algorithm enough that it sort of sullied the overall user experience for all of Twitter's users. That's a very, like I said, there's a reason why I'd, I, I think we haven't gotten sued yet by him. And that's because they're trying to figure out what the legal theory would be. Yeah. And now on top of this, I want to ask you about there was a truly unhinged Twitter thread
Starting point is 00:27:34 on Sunday that started with white nationalist and disinformation peddler Jack Pesobiac tweeting that your analysis was, quote, unquote, a hoax. This was then replied to by former Trump aide Stephen Miller, last scene trying to steal the presidential election, saying, quote, fraud is both a civil and criminal violation. there are two dozen plus conservative state attorneys general. Musk replied to that, saying, interesting, both civil and criminal. And then Michigan Attorney General Andrew Bailey jumped in and said, my team is looking into this matter. That's a lot.
Starting point is 00:28:07 Yeah, it is. I think the two things that I immediately jumped out of me when I saw that was one, is that, especially because I saw the public reaction to it. And the part that was striking was that this happens. Actually, this is not the first time that right-wing media have leveraged state AGs. when we were running that campaign focused on One American News, for instance, where they got booted off of the cable carriers or because they were, they shouldn't have been there in the first place. And our campaign was, hey, don't force us everyone to pay for One American News. They had enlisted Ken Paxton to send a series of threatening letters saying, we're going to investigate, we're going to dig in on this.
Starting point is 00:28:39 And it was all sort of designed to leverage the power of state to punish or to squelch. In this case, it was reporting and some activism. And so it wasn't the first time. And then when I saw this response, it's like, I guess the big takeaway here, and this is the kicker, is that Elon Musk touts himself as a free speech champion. Right. And then is out there not only threatening the civil litigation. I mean, that's, I guess, part of our society is that people can be very litigious if they want, but then to use the actual organs of state to punish, to penalize for something that is clearly in the realm of speech is really extreme. And it's way above and beyond.
Starting point is 00:29:12 It certainly contradicts all of his arguments about being a free speech champion. The part that was a kicker for me is this morning, Missouri's AG, Vendezer. was on Newsmax and was explaining the potential legal theory, which is some statute about consumer protections. So after he explains how he's going to investigate meters to that, he says, but Zori has always been a very pro-free speech state. That's how he ended his comment. It's like we are in an environment where obviously the threat of proto-fascists and authoritarianism
Starting point is 00:29:38 is real. And we're really starting to see it increasingly exposed. And, you know, it obviously ties in with the larger landscape. The stakes are really high, not just for us, but but I think for the cost. country right now. This is what we're dealing with. Absolutely. It's almost like you can point out the hypocrisy of people like Musk and the Missouri Attorney General Bailey, but they would have to have shame for that to mean anything. And that in so many of these cases, to paraphrase Adam Serwer, the hypocrisy is the point. They love to get out there and say, I'm a free speech champion while
Starting point is 00:30:08 trying to use the engines of government to suppress speech. Yeah, I mean, that's it. And I think, you know, the part to me that sticks out, too, is that underneath it all is this mentality of the ends justify the means. And so it is actually knowing. It doesn't matter, as you noted, that they're being hypocritical because they think they're justified. And in a lot of ways, this is not a brand new thing. I mean, in a way, this is sort of what inspired a lot of like the current iteration of the right-week media. Like when Fox News was born in the late 90s and sort of they started with that slogan, you know, fair and balanced, it was really a little bit tongue-in-cheek. It wasn't that they were saying all their programming was balanced. It's that they were making the
Starting point is 00:30:45 argument that everybody else in the news media was, you know, sort of far left, and they were balancing it out. Right. That's the kicker here, which is that, you know, in this case, Elon Musk really does believe, as he said, you know, we watched this sort of dissent into sort of incorporating this red-pilled worldview into his interactions, is that he really does believe the rest of the media landscape has gotten too far left and reflexively liberal. And in his mind, you know, it doesn't really matter what you do because the ends justify the means.
Starting point is 00:31:10 And that's how I think a lot of right-wing people feel right now. And it does lead to some really, really scary outcomes if we don't find a way to sort of stop this dissent. Absolutely. For a little bit, I want to get into the gist of what Musk actually said when he agreed with the tweet that sort of set off this whole firestorm. The tweet that he endorsed was preaching the so-called great replacement theory, which, as many, including media matters, have pointed out, is what Trump's very fine white supremacists were talking about when they chanted Jews will not replace us in Charlottesville. and was also part of the ideology of the terrorists responsible for the massacre at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue. This was the theory that Musk was saying you have spoken the truth about. That's right. And I think that the thing to keep in mind, too, is that this response that he issued is to a user. And this doesn't take place in a vacuum. There's some history here. One of the things that Musk did when he took over Twitter and has been doing very steadily for the past few months has been restoring all these accounts of.
Starting point is 00:32:11 users that had previously been booted off of Twitter for promoting white genocide, white nationalist, white supremacist, sort of conspiracies, worldview, misinformation, violence. You know, he welcomed a lot of these individuals back. And so when I see his engagement with things like this, it sort of ties into this larger point that he intentionally sort of allowed for more of this to exist on the platform. And now it does sort of expose, given the fact that he's now increasingly actively engaging with it, that it wasn't just, you know, sort of an amnesty or sort of a rollback of maybe a lack of confidence in how Twitter used to apply its policies.
Starting point is 00:32:48 It actually was, as we're seeing, this is the stuff he actually likes and believes. And so it comes increasingly disturbing. And that's partly why advertisers got even very skittish is that it's one thing not to trust the system. It's another thing when the key decision maker is sort of exposing his worldview like this. Yeah. You know, I want to take this a step further too because this is something I haven't seen, which a lot of, which doesn't mean it's not out there, it could just mean that I missed it.
Starting point is 00:33:12 The tweet that Musk replied to, the one that was preaching this replacement theory, was itself a response to a tweet that read, to the cowards hiding behind the anonymity of the internet and posting Hitler was right. You got something you want to say? Why don't you say it to our faces? So then that guy replied with his great replacement theory and Musk then agreed with the reply. So Musk here is agreeing with the guy who was explaining why Hitler was right. That's the thing. It's like you can't even say it's a misread. You know, it's one thing, it's not like, you know, he could, he liked the tweet, you know, or like the post. And then he could say, oh, come on. It's not an endorsement. I just retweeted it or I just liked it. He actually put words there. The actual truth. It wasn't even like a lot of his responses, which are just sort of like a thumbs up or an emoji or a wow where there's some ambiguity and it's open to interpretation. I think that's the thing that really ties in here is that, and I hate to like get this layered and parse, but it is significant. because of what we're dealing with, it's that he went above and beyond sort of a generic or ambiguous or potentially open to interpretation response. And instead, he very much validated
Starting point is 00:34:19 and affirmed it in an explicit way. It was not his usual way of responding. And that, to me, is significant as well. That if it was just sort of a crying, laughing emoji or a thumbs up, yes, it would still be bad and objectionable and concerning. But it's so much different qualitatively when he is explicitly validating it with words. And that, that to me, is a real difference maker. Couldn't agree more. And, you know, we've seen since then, since all this started, Musk has tweeted that he's not an anti-Semite. Antisemites do love what he said, though, don't they? They do. And I think a lot of times that happens, like people sort of try to sidestep that. They say, well, you don't know what's in my heart and I'm not this. We never called him an
Starting point is 00:34:59 anti-Semite. Many people have, and I understand why, and that's fine. In a way, it doesn't matter, right? Because what does matter is that his policies, his decisions and his actions as the owner of the platform have facilitated, enabled, and supercharged anti-Semitic worldviews, attacks, and a whole bunch of other extremist ideas. And beyond that, he himself has embraced it, adopted it, helped promote it. When he promotes something, it gets a lot of attention, a lot of attention. And that in turn then rewires the algorithm such that it further promotes that content. So, you know, when he helps elevate things. He knows this too. It does move it through the system a lot faster. And that is, I think, a secondary consideration here. So in a way, it doesn't matter what he is. It's a red herring.
Starting point is 00:35:45 What matters is the effects of what he's doing, which is to increase anti-Semitism and extremism on his platform, regardless of what happens. And beyond that, the people celebrating it and the benefit the most from it are the very people he claims to say he's not. You know, they say, we don't support hate, but yet somehow it's increasing on the platform. It's the same thing. Yeah. And look, we see this over and over. We see Media Matters itself had a piece up about a whole bunch of people, anti-Semites, alt-right, white nationalists, call them, I guess, whatever the hell you want to call them, them saying things like, I like what I'm seeing from Elon Musk. And Musk's post is evidence of, quote, how much progress is being made normalizing our ideas lately. And we see this over and over again.
Starting point is 00:36:28 Yes. And I would emphasize that that's where X becomes. sort of this haven for these ideas. You know, it's one thing for the, we've always had extremists in this country, right? Like, that's a part of what we operate. That's it. There's always fringes. Sure. What's different now is that X is, isn't, you know, and other platforms have other problems, too. So it's not to diminish what the effect of other platforms. The difference, though, is that X is providing a safe haven for this, for these ideas, and in a way for them, not just to sort of exist, but to germinate, to grow and to spread. And so, you know, there are plenty of instances with some of the people that celebrate this, they would typically have been banned from the
Starting point is 00:37:05 platform because their entire accounts are either an appeal to violence or a promotion of a very specific time of type of hate and extremism. That's not the case anymore. I think back to people like, you know, there's one guy, Stu Peters, who has, it's come up a bunch. You know, he can't get accounts on other platforms because he's constantly promoting violence and yet somehow exists carefree on X. And that is, that's the real challenge here is that he is making it very clear that X is a for this stuff. And I think, by the way, when he talks about free speech, at this point, it is kind of a buzzword and a little bit for parts of the far right to understand what he really means by that. What he really means by that is the stuff that you would otherwise be penalized for
Starting point is 00:37:46 anywhere else because it is either an explicit or an implicit appeal to violence or some type of hate. Yeah. And I want to ask you about something that happened a little bit before we started this interview, Musk, who I think has tweeted like 64,000 times already today. This was a quote tweet of Glenn Greenwald, which is a story for another day. But what he said was, media matters is pure evil. Is this true? Not that I'm aware of. I wouldn't think we're pure evil. You know, this is now the third time he said this in a couple hours. And when I see things like this and then I look at what else he's doing on the platform, like specifically related to media matter staff, you know, there's been a series of attacks on one of our staff that's transgender, dead-naming her and posting.
Starting point is 00:38:30 Like, I mean, it's horrible stuff. And it's one thing to just ignore it, but he's like engaging with it. It's pretty awful. Like, so when I think about pure evil, one metric that I use to assess whether or not something is that is how much somebody is intentionally cruel when they don't need to be. And to me, that's a sign of being on the wrong side there. And what I can say is based on his conduct. You know, he can use bad words.
Starting point is 00:38:51 He can call us whatever he wants. But when you start engaging in that kind of cruelty for no reason, that is nothing. to do with media matters or the lawsuits or anything like that. It's just cruel. It's just to hurt. That's how I've always defined evil. That's how I've always seen the line for right and wrong. So, you know, as we've seen in a bunch of times, he needs to look in the mirror a little bit. And that's truly why I think he's mad at media matters. You know, like, I think he's mad because it's like you look in the mirror and you get mad at the mirror for showing you your reflection. That's how a lot of right-ranking is true media matters. It's like a lot of what we do is
Starting point is 00:39:18 we just, we just reflect back the thing they're saying. We're not making them say these things. We didn't make Glenn Beck do the protocols of George Soros. You know, we didn't make him go crazy. You know, we don't make people do or say the things they say, but they do. And then we hold it up. And that's what happened here. We held up a mirror to what was happening on the platform. And he acknowledged that it was accurate.
Starting point is 00:39:40 He just doesn't like the reflection. And he's mad at it. And that, to me, is the challenge here. And I think maybe he should look at their mirror when he's thinking about throwing around words like, like, you're evil as he's literally in the moment harassing and attacking individuals for no other reason to just be cruel. And it's really strange because back in the day when growing up, from what I understood in reading his bio, he was bullied.
Starting point is 00:40:01 But he's supposed to hate bullies. He's supposed to define much of his life. He's defined himself as opposing this type of behavior. And it's kind of like a supervillain story and that he's become the very thing he hates. And that to me is when I look at that tweet, that's what I see, a transformation into the very thing you've always said you're not.
Starting point is 00:40:18 Yeah, that's a fantastic way of putting it. Angela, before I let you go, did I miss anything here? Is there anything you want to add that I find it hard to believe because I am a superb interviewer? We're hearing this more and more. Many people are saying, tell me what I missed. What do you want to say that I missed, if anything? I think the last thing I would say is that the threats or even the lawsuit is not going to change anything about the way that we do our work. And that, you know, if you get a look under the hood at media matters, which you'll basically see is a lot of intentionality about how a piece of content gets published. I bet if we looked under the hood of X or of Milan must other
Starting point is 00:40:50 businesses, things would not be as squeaky clean. And so I feel really good and confident about how it is that we do our work. And I expect, honestly, that the right wing is going to try to pile on here. It's just, it's not our first rodeo. And I think we know, we're just going to continue to do what we do. Excellent. Angelou Carrizzan, thank you so much for being here and keep up the good work. Thanks so much. Have a good one. Folks, I am beyond, beyond, beyond, beyond, excited to welcome to the new abnormal for, I believe, the very first time, which is the Nija American PhD holding, because I love your Twitter bio, is probably one of the best that I have seen, because every single thing is absolutely true.
Starting point is 00:41:32 World Fantasy, Multi-Hugo, Nebula, Eisener, award-winning New York Times, best-selling, author of the most incredible African futurist writing that I think I have ever experienced in my life. Dr. Nadia Okorafor. First of all, your writing is so incredibly captivating. At the center of your stories, young black girls, young African girls, young Nigerian girls, take center stage and take on the most magical, transformative journeys in a way that we never get to see, never get to read, never get to experience. And so my first question for you is sci-fi has been a field that was largely white where black people never saw themselves. And over time, thanks to Octavia Butler and others, we've seen this field open wide. And I want to ask you, what drew you to sci-fi, to this space, to futurism, to African futurism to begin with?
Starting point is 00:42:46 Yeah, my journey there isn't what many would assume. I didn't start writing science fiction because of reading others. And it was not a response to being missing. I grew up reading just about everything and loving, loving stories. But science fiction, it felt very white and cold. It always did. And so I wasn't really drawn to it. I was drawn more to the aliens than the human beings, that kind of thing. And that colonialist narrative did not appeal to me. So it wasn't something that I grew up reading a lot of. I came to science fiction through Nigeria. And the way that it was, it was those trips to Nigeria, because I've been going, my parents have been taking siblings of me back to Nigeria since we were little. And then as I, and it was like a dreamland, you know,
Starting point is 00:43:33 it was just, those trips were pivotal in many different, in many ways that were very dear to my identity. But the main thing is that when it comes to science fiction is that as I got older, when cell phones showed up. So I'm writing these stories and they were very, you know, I was drawing off of my ebo culture and all of that. I was writing these stories that were initially about that. But then when cell phones showed up and we take those trips, I started noticing these cell phones,
Starting point is 00:44:03 especially in more rural areas where I was like, this is really cool. You know, you've got like this traditional kind of scenario and then you have basically cell phones are supercomputers. right? Yeah. That had you access to the world in these really specific ways. And so you had these showing up in these rural parts of Nigeria.
Starting point is 00:44:24 And I remember thinking, I'm not seeing that in literature. And I'm thinking, what is this place going to be like in the future? That's when I started thinking about, like, imagining futures. It was being in those more rural parts. And we're talking emo state, Nigeria. We're not talking Lagos, which is super modern and fast and all of that. And being in those parts. parts of the world where this supercomputer is showing up. It's portable. It's chargeable. And it's just
Starting point is 00:44:50 everywhere. It's everywhere in the most unpredictable places and thinking about what is this place going to be like in the future. And then realizing, I couldn't find stories that were thinking about that. And so that was what led me to start writing it because I wanted to see what that was. I wanted to kind of imagine and play around with that. And that's what led me to writing science fiction. So it was Nigeria that led me to writing science fiction. There are so many elements of your writing that is truly extraordinary because it isn't just imagining a post-apocalyptic world. It is imagining also what is possible. One of the elements of your writing that I find that travels throughout is this intermingling between technology and plants, between how we are utilizing the to
Starting point is 00:45:40 topography, our plants, the air, water, all of these things, and infusing that with technology, your buildings are living. Your homes are living. The ships that Binti travels on is a fish. And so where does that imagination come from? Because it feels like, oh, this is where our innovation and what it means to be building quote unquote green should be, could be. If we continue to be attached to extraction and violence and mining and things that harm us. So where does that come from? Yeah, that's really good because that's like the core of my imagining when it comes to the future. Like one of my basic philosophies is that nature is the greatest technology. That's the foundation of everything for me. Nature is the greatest technology. Therefore, and I've always felt that like
Starting point is 00:46:33 human technology, if it went more along with nature, we'd be great. greater. It's like going with the wind as opposed to against the wind. We could move faster. We could do more if we went with what nature already was constructing, because nature is the greatest technology. So that's always been the standpoint that I come from. When I think about technology, when I think about what do I want to see? And then also looking at things in a not so dystopic way. You know, I feel like a lot of the way that, a lot of the ways that that humanity looks at technology to begin with is already dystopic because we're like, we view nature as something to control,
Starting point is 00:47:17 something to jail. And I think that's where we go wrong. And that's like at the foundation of a lot of the technology that we create, that controlling aspect that need to be the ones, the God of nature, which is, it just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense to me. So I just feel like if we kind of addressed that within us, and a lot of it is due to ego, a lot of it is due to the need to control comes out of its fear. The need to control something is fear.
Starting point is 00:47:46 So it's like I think that if we address that aspect in us and then kind of took it from there, I think a lot of the technologies that we create would be very different. And so like when we talk about Binty taking off leaving the planet in something living, I know exactly where that idea came from. Because when I think about space and space travel, what would I want to be in? I would not want to be in this gold, dead metal thing. I want to be in something that's alive.
Starting point is 00:48:13 I feel more, it just, I'd feel more secure and safe in something, something that's alive. And so like this idea of space travel and body and moving around in that way, in that fashion, I think that's where all of that comes from. I just feel like nature is the greatest technology. If we come at it from that point, then you get living ships. You get living buildings. You get homes that are made of plants that are growing.
Starting point is 00:48:42 And those plants are not necessarily things that we can control. There are things that we will move with. So if it wants to grow a room over there, then we figure out, oh, this is how, yeah, that's really, that's my philosophy. I love it because your idea, your vision of space and the future to me is a space that I actually want to be in, right? It is one that there is a coexistence and a co-mingling between humanity and nature and technology.
Starting point is 00:49:09 And I feel as if it's like we're at this extraordinary tipping point in our reality where every headline is about artificial intelligence. Every headline is about the end of humanity. And there is something that I gravitated to during the height of the pandemic in your stories where I was just like, I need to get the fuck out of this place that. seems impossible and move to a place that seems possible. And, you know, part of what is so beautiful about your stories, too, is that there is both something that is ancient and futuristic elements about them. The tools that your protagonists are using are things that you yourself
Starting point is 00:49:51 have researched and found throughout going and traveling in Nigeria and other parts of the continent. And I want you to talk about this one piece. because I am so obsessed with it when you posted it on your Instagram, which was the AstroLab. Oh, yes. So, yes, can you talk about this magnificent astrolab, which I thought, I'm going to tell you, I thought that you created out of your imagination. And then when you posted it, I like went down a Google rabbit hole. Yeah, there's so much, oh, my God.
Starting point is 00:50:27 It's basically the first GPS. It's the first GPS. It is a tool that helps us to navigate the world. It's an ancient tool. This is not new. And I was obsessed with it because what I learned about it when I was in Sharjah, which is in the United Arab Emirates, they were talking about this device that was perfected by this woman.
Starting point is 00:50:49 And first of all, like the idea of, you know, an Arab woman in ancient times, perfecting a technological device that reads the stars. I mean, come on. The minute I heard that, I was like, oh, there are times where, like, as a writer, when I hear certain things, certain, I learned certain pieces of information, pieces of history, pieces of things that exist where it's like something starts vibrating in my head. And when I learned about the astrolabe, I'm like, oh, my God, this is a big one. And so, like, I immediately became obsessed with it.
Starting point is 00:51:22 I went down the rabbit hole that you just talked about going down. And I was like, why do I not know about this? why? How did I not hear about, you know, how is this just coming into my orbit? And so, so yeah, I mean, that's, and so then that went directly into the writing and the philosophy behind Binty, this ancient, basically it was like talked about in a lot of the research that I was reading, that it was the first GPS. And I love the idea of the old and the new. I'm obsessed with that I did the old and the new and tools from the old and knowledge from the old and the new, that one is not better than the other and that they can play off of each other and they can co-mingle to create
Starting point is 00:52:02 something greater. Like, I'm not all about leaving the old things behind, but I'm also not all about acting like new things cannot exist and that some of the old things need to be left behind. Like, it keeps coming back to Nigeria. It comes back to the way I started writing science fiction was like seeing the juxtaposition and the co-mingling and the interaction between the ancient and the modern and how they are not always directly in conflict. Sometimes they are at play with each other. Sometimes they are married with each other. The Astrolay was just a great example of that once again.
Starting point is 00:52:37 And it's like my favorite subject. So when I discovered it, my head like just blew up. I bless you for that discovery because then my mind blew up. And I was like, I need to understand. And now I want one. So I also want to talk to you about this idea in your Akata series of the Inbiturial between the wilderness, this in between of the spirit world and our conscious human world. And what it means to bring also in these African traditional ritual practices intermingling
Starting point is 00:53:16 with sci-fi, intermingling with this idea of magic and where this in-between, this wilderness came from for you. The wilderness, it's like you're bringing. up all my themes because they're all, all of these are connected, all of them. The wilderness is the spirit world, right? But also one of the Ebo tenets, and it's not just Ebo, but I'm Ebo, so that's where it comes from for me. The mystical and the mundane coexist. So like in a lot of Western ideas, they're separate. So you have to go to these places. They're, they're complete, but the, the mystical and the mundane coexist at the same time.
Starting point is 00:53:57 It's almost like the ancient and the modern idea. They're commingling. And that's when I talk about African futurism, that's something I need to be understood because it is a worldview. That is the reality. It is not magic. It is the way a certain part of the world thinks and sees the world that the mystical and the mundane coexist.
Starting point is 00:54:22 There are mystical things happening all around us. That's normal. So you take that idea, you take that point of view, and apply it to science fiction. So therefore, the mystical can appear in a science fiction there. That's what African futurism is. It is science fiction from an African point of view. And that means that mystical things can happen because the mystical and the mundane co-mingle in an African.
Starting point is 00:54:52 And I'm speaking about, you know, Africa is not a country. Right. We all know that. Okay. So from that philosophy, from an African philosophy, if you have an African philosophy and you're looking at the future, you're going to have mystical things in that. The spiritual is part of that. It's naturally part of that.
Starting point is 00:55:09 It's not something to add. It is part of that future. You know, and that's really important, it's really important for people to understand. That's why I'm talking about this idea of African futurism and what does it mean and what, how is it, how is it different? There are many different types of science. fiction, there are many different types of imaginings of the future. There are many different types of imaginings of technology. You know, all of these things, there are different types.
Starting point is 00:55:35 There is not one. It is not a Western way of thinking. And then everyone else is kind of on the side. Right. Right. There are other else is the afterthought. There are just different types. And what I'm talking about is one specific type as well. What does it mean to embody a futurist ideology, particularly now? Your writing obviously has changed. and how we all see and interpret the world around us. It's as if right now veils are being lifted for people. Rose-colored glasses are becoming clearer with each headline that we see. So what does it mean to be a futurist, to be an African futurist in this moment?
Starting point is 00:56:15 I think that there are many different ways of viewing that. I think it really depends on each individual. I think it, because it's all, there's so many specific aspects to it. For me, as an African futurist, when I think about the future, I'm viewing it from that perspective. So when it comes to technologies, I'm viewing it from that perspective. I'm viewing how is it going to affect me? Like how it's going to affect me from a cultural point of view, from a technological, like all these things. And then also, I'm just really interested in the creations, like how technologies are created, how they're created.
Starting point is 00:56:54 Who's creating them? Because people create their technologies from their own points of view. Technologies are created to make our lives easier. That's the original idea of it, right? To make our lives. When you're talking about our lives, who is we? Yep. Like an African futurist perspective, like, you know who the we is?
Starting point is 00:57:12 And we are Africans. And African futurism is global, by the way. It's not just about the continent. It is global. And when I'm talking about African futurism, I'm talking about global blacks. So how are these technologies going to affect us? When it comes to creating those technologies, I'm interested in technologies created by specific groups of people because those technologies are addressing what those specific groups of people
Starting point is 00:57:38 need. Their wants and needs. So African futurism is hopefully, for me, one of the things that's really central about it is imagining technologies from our point of view. you know, like what, what do Africans need? From their point of view, not what is out there that's created that we can use to make our lives, but like how can we adapt this technology that was created over here for us? You know, because a lot of times, if we're talking about artificial intelligence or,
Starting point is 00:58:09 quote, artificial intelligence, it's not really artificial intelligence. But when we're talking about that, we have to also always consider who created it and what biases are embedded in it. And then how do you navigate those, like if you're in that group that is a victim of that bias, how do you navigate it when you, when you adapt it to your own personal use? So those are things that African futurism should address. But also I'm really interested in creating from within, too, the indigenous creating what they want to see, what they want to use, what they want, like their hopes and dreams, technologies that are created out of their hopes and dreams and see what comes from that.
Starting point is 00:58:50 I'm so thankful that you made time for the new abnormal. This interview for me was like the most. So I genuinely appreciate you. And I'll tell everybody that is listening, if you have not read one of these books, one of these series, pick up every single copy. Get them now because you won't be able to put them down. Nediakorfor, thank you so much for your time.
Starting point is 00:59:16 Thanks for having me. This is great. Andy Levy. Daniel Moody. How are we kicking off this good, good week with your Fuck That Guy? Well, I think we're kicking it off and maybe ending it. I'm going to go with, I don't know that he's been on Fuck That Guy before. And so, as always, I like to rectify oversights.
Starting point is 00:59:36 If there's one thing people need to know about me, it's that I love rectifying oversights. It is the senior senator from Utah, Mike Lee, or as he now fashions himself on Twitter, based Mike Lee, which is just beyond pathetic, and I can't get into it. But feel free to look up based any listeners who don't know what that means. So over the weekend, a bunch of January 6th videos were released that I guess we hadn't seen before. And there was one video of a guy, and he was sort of in the background, and somebody posted it saying, this was sent to me. Is this person flashing a badge? If so, this would prove there were undercover federal agents,
Starting point is 01:00:18 disguised as MAGA. And based Mike Lee retweeted this saying, I can't wait to ask FBI director Christopher Ray about this at our next oversight hearing. I predict that, as always, his answers will be 97% information-free. As approximately 2.4 million people then replied to Mike Lee, the guy in that picture was not holding a badge. He was holding a vape. His name is Kevin Lyons. And he was just not long of those sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the January 6th insurrection, where he said things like, I guess we're all going to jail and let's take it as he was running up to the doors to the Senate wing in the Capitol. And he's also a guy who you may know, you may have seen before, he was kind of infamous for stealing a photo from Nancy Pelosi's
Starting point is 01:01:06 office. And here you have Mike Lee, who at this point, Mike Lee is not a stupid person. Are we sure? Well, we are pretty sure only because, he wasn't always like this. And Charlie Sykes wrote a great piece on this whole thing called The Strange, twisted Journey of Mike Lee. He wrote it in the bulwark. I recommend reading it. He wasn't always like this. And he has consciously taken this turn. He has consciously done this because he knows it's the way to get elected. He knows that it's what the Republican base wants. That, of course, makes him worse than someone who is simply an idiot, at least in my book, because he knows the shit that he's spreading is not true, and he's choosing to do it. After he tweeted the thing I just read, Liz Cheney said to him,
Starting point is 01:01:56 hey, heads up, a nutball conspiracy theorist appears to be posting from your account, which is fairly funny for Liz Cheney anyway, which granted is a low bar. But still, I've had it with the stupid people, but I've really had it with the people who are either not stupid or less stupid and who are basically have rebranded them. as stupid. They are consciously choosing to say stupid things that they know just ain't so because it gets them in good with the base of the party. And this is, needless to say, the opposite of leadership, which is what you're supposed to get from politicians. And it is just, it is so craven and so pathetic. And I'm just, I've, I've had it. So Mike Lee, fuck that guy. And my guess is,
Starting point is 01:02:44 it won't be too long before you're back here in this segment. If you are rebranding yourself as stupid, I believe that then you are just stupid. That's a fair point. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that Mike Lee, who you're like, he's not quite dumb. I'm like, nope, he is. Like he absolutely is.
Starting point is 01:03:10 So I'm certain, Mike Lee, this will not be your, last time on fuck that guy. All right, Danielle, we got Thanksgiving in a couple days. I'm assuming you're fuck that guy will be a nice, gentle one, something that we can all be thankful for and talk about around the dinner table. Yeah, wrong show. Oh. Gotta, you know, hold on to your hat, Andy and our dear, dear listeners.
Starting point is 01:03:36 We have talked about moms for liberty, the cookie baking, lipstick wearing version of the proud boys and the oath keepers and white supremacy, the handmaids of white supremacy, if you will, on this show. And, you know, the Moms for Liberty, what is their whole crusade, is protecting the children, making sure that the children don't read books that would force them to think, that don't worry their pretty little heads about people who may be different. And so their whole crusade is to take over school boards and close down libraries and to usher in Christo-fascism through our schools.
Starting point is 01:04:14 Lo and behold, as one would find with all of these, you know, self-proclaimed religious zealots who are just out there, you know, riding and caping for Jesus. Here you would find that according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a faith-based outreach leader for Philadelphia's Moms for Liberty chapter, get this, pause for shock, is a registered sex offender who has a felony conviction. for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy. The Philadelphia Inquirer, and this is according again to this reporting, states that Philip Fisher Jr. pleaded guilty to this crime in 2012 when he was 25 and living in Chicago. Fisher, a Republican ward leader, is also a pastor of the Center for Universal Divinity in Olney. and in 2020 worked with his congregation to paint a Donald Trump campaign mural at the church. When asked about this fact, Fisher told the inquirer that the charges against her were concocted
Starting point is 01:05:26 by the late conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRush's pack for which he once worked. My man, let me just state this. If the charges were concocted, your fucking guilty plea was not. And so you pleaded guilty. You didn't even plead not guilty to these charges. You are indeed a registered sex offender. And these are the kinds of good, good people that are leading the crusade for moms for liberty. And all, I mean, the Republican Party is, I mean, the stories of child abuse, of sex abuse, of misconduct is just so fucking deep.
Starting point is 01:06:10 And I continue to say that anybody that uses the Bible and religious zealotism as a way to kind of beat our democracy and critical thought and books and freedom into submission, you know that there is something wrong with them. Case and fucking point. The man is a sex offender, a registered one. This is not that old of news. It is not even just Philip Fisher Jr. that goes into the hall of fuck that guy. It is the whole of Moms for Liberty and all of these fucking religious-backed,
Starting point is 01:06:46 anti-democratic, anti-LGBQ, anti-Black, anti-women organizations because they are all led by criminals to some extent. And it's disgusting. So fuck that guy. Yeah, I saw this story this morning and I saw him say that these charges were actually concocted
Starting point is 01:07:06 by the Lyndon-Lauruche pack. And my first thought was, okay, that actually does sound like something a Linden-Lurish organization would do. And then I got to the last part, which was that where he once worked. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, honey, you are not getting the benefit of the doubt anymore. Lyndon Ler Rouge is just like a true American original crackpot. And I believe one of his big things was insisting that Queen Elizabeth was trying to to have him assassinated.
Starting point is 01:07:38 Mm-hmm. That was always fun. But yeah, fuck this guy. Fuck moms for liberty. Fuck all those organizations that you spoke of. And happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal.
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