The Daily Zeitgeist - From Russia With Trend 9/5: Russia, Tim Pool, Allan Lichtman, Trump/TikTok, Havana Syndrome

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

In this edition of From Russia With Trend, Jack and Miles discuss Russia funding right-wing pundits (surprise, surprise), Allan Lichtman's 2024 election prediction, Trump vowing to "save TikTok", "Havana Syndrome" research getting cancelled and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties

you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jess Costavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball. And on this new season, we'll cover all things sports and culture.

Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, women's sports. it's right here in black and white and prints bigger than a flag or mascot listen to rebel spirit on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hello the internet and welcome to this episode of from russia with trend oh trend doesn't sound like love jack doesn't doesn't at all but that's that's what i got my name is jack that's miles yeah um that one uh that trending title courtesy of me just realizing five seconds before

we started recording that i needed a trending title um all right miles yes russia is trending rusher rusher rusher is what they do this time oh brother what they do this time right around the time we stopped recording the trending episode yesterday there's like this unsealed indictment uh from the department of justice uh that shows that a tennessee-based media network that produces shows for high-profile profile right wing influencers such as Benny Johnson and Tim Poole, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin and the like. Turned out to be largely funded by Russian state backed news network RT Russia Today. The DOJ, quote, claims the U.S. company, along with other news outlets, they were able to identify as Tenet Media. But it goes unnamed in the indictment. Posted hundreds of videos on social media that pushed kremlin approved talking points um they were able

to figure out because in the indictment it said like uh like there was just something that just was fully ripped off of like their youtube channel and people were like oh that's this place and then when they lined up like how many subscribers people had they're like oh that's tim pool oh that's benny johnson what is going on so it turns out this is from wired quote posing as outside video editors the pair of russia today employees allegedly were intimately involved in tenant media's operations uh kalishnikov for example quote monitored tenant media's internal communications and edited content published by the company the indictment claims afanasieva who allegedly used the fake personas helena shudra and victoria pesti while working with

tenant media said to have quote edited posted and directed the posting by tenant media and provided day-to-day direction to the company's staff uh alleging that she worked with tenant media including instructing the company to post pro-russian viewpoints such as pushing a micro pushing a conspiracy theory that ukraine and u.s were responsible for a march terrorist attack at a music venue in moscow the indictment is full of many damning little tidbits like including some of the talking points that they wanted disseminated um and when you read them you're like oh yeah yeah yeah this is like um fox yeah that's what they say all the time which is kind of odd because like also in the indictment they're

saying that these people were like unwittingly part of this scheme but it seems like so they didn't know they were working for the kremlin they were no like we're getting like yo somebody's yeah they're like they're offering me like you know tim pools like i want 100k an episode you know or else it's just not worth it for me and like at all like they got what they wanted um there are some did this investigation no no no not wired this is just like this is just from one of the this is reporting on a doj investigation yeah and many people are now reporting on this because it's pretty big and these are huge voices in like right-wing talkosphere and when you like look at the kinds of things that they've been saying you're like oh right yeah yeah yeah then this all makes sense i mean people

have been saying that most republicans are regurgitating this stuff yeah for a while now it's been very strange that the republican party has like suddenly become very pro-russia and or at least like a lot of the adherence to the republican party and the mouthpieces of the republican party and fox news's method for generating stories for a long time now has been just like see what the types of people like tim pool are saying and then just like let that stuff bubble up right essentially exactly it goes from right-wing shit talkers to then pretending it's like real mainstream news and you're saying stuff like ukraine is the biggest enemy of the united states and it's just like kind of hard too to like understand because habitually these people just push whatever like the antithetical viewpoint is

of whatever democrats are saying so it's like through that prism like i can see how they could have plausible deniability of like we're like i'm just diametrically opposed to everything they say so if they say we need to help ukraine i say they're our greatest enemy but then you put this along the lines of what these specific talking points that these people were supposed to disseminate were and you're like oh well what came first the property like the dissemination of you know propaganda talking points or the republicans habits of just being like doing opposite day of democrats what is tim pool saying at this point it looks like he's saying we still do not know what is true on this one guys yeah um so exactly he's like yeah with these then he

but then he signs off he's like putin is a scumbag russia sucks donkey balls and to the journalists who wish to jump on jump the gun create their own narrative or lie about what is currently going on you can eat my irish ass oh hell yeah dog so um just i don't know it's all it's all there's a great even more news episode or uh some more news episode from cody and katie about tim pool and just his his instincts and like he'll there'll be like a mass shooting and he'll be he will just like guess exactly wrong as to like what's going on and like be proven wrong within 12 hours but like go real real strong on like you know i think we can tell what's going on here yeah exactly just like get the like get the person who's involved wrong so yeah i mean it

always felt like this is what was going on um yeah and now we seem to have receipts that this is what's going on yeah this is causing a bit of a stir on the right as they're like trying to like jesse waters was like well by this metric everything i say on this show will have the earmarks of russian propaganda and you're like yeah yeah trying to make it be like it's actually china that's bad and they're doing their best to like spin this all kinds of ways but i don't know i mean like there are many other countries who i would say are we have politicians disseminating their talking points as well through uh you know intermediaries such as apac but yes uh russia today yeah sure you see some uh some ripples like blaze just fired um one of the video creators who was actually like tied in with this Blaze TV.

The Glenn Beck's like weird little media company just fired Lauren Chen. Who's involved. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No, she's an independent contractor. We actually don't know her. Never, never even talked to her.

We just. Right. Churn intent. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. contractor we actually don't know her uh never never even talked to her we just right uh churn intent yeah exactly exactly but yeah this is this is like all everyone is like trying to explain away like what is happening on the right it's just all very again yeah i'm sure this is going to continue to evolve uh as the weekend goes on um because people are bracing themselves for more revelations, more revelations. So there's this guy Lichtman. He has predicted successfully every presidential winner for the last 40

years at about this time. So about a month out, two months out, years at about this time so about a month out two months out he runs the upcoming election through his 13 keys and outcomes result and his 13 keys will take you through what they are they seem somewhat subjective uh they're very confusing to me they don't like make clear sense to me right but he was one of the only people who picked donald trump to win in 2016 who wasn't like actively working for the donald trump campaign and uh the one place that he was off is al gore he predicted al gore would win in 2000 uh george w bush won in 2000, but he's like, actually, not really, though.

If Florida had not fucked up the vote counting, which, I mean, is an argument, I think it would just be fair for him to be like it was extremely close. That was the only one that was marginal. But anyways, he has run the numbers on the upcoming election, and I think it's of the 13 keys, he has like 10 of them going for Kamala Harris.

Wow. And keys open doors. Yeah. Because the way the article and the article that's writing about it is the dailymail.co um which reputable news site yeah not the most reputable so like this this should put just put what we're saying in the proper context this person is like somewhere between the octopus who could predict uh the world cup outcome um and nate silver uh you know who uh also not very reputable and he's got weird hair is that a wig you think have you seen this guy is the braids uh i don't what is it the wig

who lichman yeah he's got oh wow yeah yeah now i'm not saying that's a wig but that yeah that's a wild head of hair on top of his head yeah yeah yeah yeah that's but i mean a lot of people are a lot of people are picking that's not just the daily mail but like a lot because you know because of his sort of nickname as like uh election nostradamus yeah you're like oh whoa another little another let's put another check mark on that side for the horse race the other key uh which direction my ken burns ass hair is pointing when i wake up the morning before the election um he uh so i'll just the keys the 13 keys include midterm gains incumbency primary contest third party short-term economy

long-term economy policy change social unrest white house scandal incumbent charisma challenger charisma foreign policy failures and foreign policy success um and like the the article by the daily mail is weird because it's it says like well two of these things could switch for trump in the coming weeks which would swing the election but then it goes on to say that even if those two factors switch trump would only have five keys in his so i don't know why they say in the first place that yeah i mean i would expect nothing less from a conservative rag to like try and put a nice blanket of cope around the bad news yeah um but yeah great who knows it seems what will happen who knows other people are talking about

how uh trump's attack ads on kamala harris might be working according to the economist, which is the one where he's like, she's, she does sex acts on people for her career. Like what the, like that shit that he's been saying. Okay. She murdered people and used immigration as the murder weapon. Yeah. And they're all voting for. All right.

Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. I'm Jess. take a quick break and we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine.

Through powerful, in-depth interviews with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring

these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Santer. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote.

What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career. Without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture.

Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them. Why is that? I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on.

From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black. I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better.

This new season will cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport

from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron

and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible

listen to spiraled on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back we're back and i guess that here's one thing that lichtman's model isn't taken into account. Trump is going to save TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a new ad out. I guess you call it an ad. It just looks like a direct to camera rant that he's doing.

But telling all the young ones out there that I love TikTok and you should vote for me. This is him with his latest plea to help him from legal jeopardy for all of those that want to save tiktok in america vote for trump the other side's closing it up but i'm now a big star on tiktok tiktok jack i wish what's that what do you say jack i don't know what that last part was. TikTok Jack. Are you TikTok Jack? I mean, I do have a TikTok.

Yeah, well, anyway, he's a big star. We'll take it again. Maybe they have a checkmark, but you would have that because you're a political... Anyway, go on, Donald. We even have TikTok Jack, and we're setting records. We're not doing anything with TikTok, but the other side's going to close it up. So if you like TikTok, go out and vote for Trump. If you don't care about TikTok and other things like safety, security, and prosperity,

then you can vote for a Marxist who's going to destroy our country thank you very much okay um and that was their best take which is wild yeah because you know you even got tic-tac-tac what and you know the kids they love their ticket and the talking like what are you doing what what are you who are you talking to who's your whoever made that video obviously was just like and yeah there's a part where we don't know what the fuck he's saying or intending to say but that's actually a pretty good percentage 10 pretty good for a normal donald trump state do we even have tiktok jack we even is tick is the person who owns tiktok named jack no tick tock jack we even have tiktok jack i feel like that's just one of those weird

because here's the thing right the thing that sticks out to me is that like all the time like he's this this is he like any down the camera sort of like ads he does. There's a fuck ton of edits and cuts in there because the guy's brain is transitioning from solid state to liquid fart. And this one is remarkable because if only just for the fact that it's just one take like he's fucking hove in the booth or something. Yeah. So because of that, it has to get me in front of the camera. Shut the fuck up. Get me in front of the camera. Jack. Well, I have front of the camera jack well i have this fresh in my brain yeah

he's like yeah okay no pen no pad what's this what's this i'm about to black out in the booth um but that's why i like the tiktok jack part again i'm maybe getting hung up on a weird thing like the 6.8 weeks but uh i don't know what that means but but there he is. And that's his plea to please vote for him because the other guys find I'm not getting anything. I went to Internet and searched TikTok Jack in quotes. And it's just people writing the text from this ad out and then saying, what is that? Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah.

Or it's a Joe Biden meme. What's TikTok Jack? Yeah. Maybe that's how how i open tiktok jack jack um uh anyways but you know this so we'll see but why don't you stick that in your keys uh lichtman yeah exactly i think he just fucking opened the door on this whole fucking thing. I think he just TikTok jacked open the door on this election. All right. And then we just wanted to check in as we do. We could care less about the country struggling. No, I want to hear about Havana syndrome.

Don't we? Don't we, folks? We love Havana syndrome, don't we, folks? We love it, don't we, folks? So one of the first stories we ever talked about on the show uh and it might be time to bid farewell uh i mean it already seemed pretty dead but yeah i feel like you fully killed it oh yeah i bodied that shit miles yeah yeah but uh it was dredged up by 60 minutes earlier this year um and then there were the conspiracy

theorists who suggested that biden's poor debate performance was due to some kind of sonic weapon um and not literally every other problem that's been plaguing joe biden's brain that we all knew about right and also like to the symptoms of hyana syndrome is like i don't know stress and aging it sounds like yeah yeah um well it's in the news again this week first of all the new york times obtained part of the fbi's redacted 2019 report on havana syndrome which definitively concludes that it was a quote social contagion and nothing else the fbi is saying this um the report notes that the agency could not quote identify any single cause for these symptoms uh the fbi was so dismissive of the havana syndrome theory that they put the word victim in quotation marks

when describing it was affected by havana system the fbi and the cia don't get along so like there's that but like this is i just love to like for people who i'm sure are experiencing these kinds of symptoms you read this thing like yeah victim number three yeah aka whiny ass brad and you're like oh i'm gonna use my whole team in there. Um, but the big news is, uh, a institution that is not known for beefing with the CIA. The national institutes of health has announced that it's stopping. It's Havana syndrome research after a quote,

internal investigation found that people had been coerced into being part of the research, which is a big problem because voluntary consent is necessary for any ethically conducted research you need the person to want to be part of it like it can't it can't be like i don't know i'm being made to submit to this because then obviously there are questions about do you have an ulterior motive who does the person who's making you do this have an ulterior motive yeah i like that in that report like they couldn't specify they're like yeah the NIH doesn't specify but these are CIA agents who are being

forced by someone who's good at forcing things without being named, uh, to, um, participate, even making them quote, join the research as a prerequisite to getting healthcare. The CIA denies this. Wow.

Wow. Wow. In any case, the NIH is done with this shit. Um, it's not like they don't have a lot of information at this point already. There've already been several studies conducted that found absolutely nothing. And the NIH has stated, uh, even though they're halting the current study, that decision does

not change the conclusions they've reached already, which were that it is a social contagion, which was our conclusion, uh, you know, seven years ago when we first started is that when the story first came out i mean it was it was happening at the very start of the trump administration so yeah i believe i think it was actually i think the havana syndrome story is reported in late 2016 yeah i think it was it predates this show yeah i'm tired jack things don't predate this show i'm my second kid doesn't i know it's been a long time um holy shit uh also just worth noting uh you know cuban president miguel diaz canal bermudez took to social media and was like so we're gonna like take another look at this one because your quote disregard for the damage caused to this country

uh by the havana syndrome theory uh is quote a vile pretext to include cuba in the list of sponsors of terrorism and to reinforce the genocidal blockade with more than 240 measures. Like, again, the blockade we've talked about also on the show is starving people to death. It's, you know, America loves to have things be bad for Cuban people so they can be like, you see, folks? Oh, wow. Look at Venezuela. Look at that. Don't look left if you oh wow look at oh venezuela look at that don't look at the sanctions just look at what's going on we got nothing to do with that if they maybe if they weren't bad not enough to put them on financial time out

yeah but yeah that is uh i mean that that's precisely like all this did was like to kind of keep stoking the flames of a scary cuba but blake wexler went recently and he said it was wonderful so cia you got a lot of work to do if blake came blake wexler came back from there and was like i don't know man he was like it was lovely yeah he came back from there flush with cash though and uh speaking with a russian accent so and yeah you to get a classic car from the 50s that was in cherry condition. Yeah. All right. Those are some of the things

that are trending on this Thursday afternoon. We are back tomorrow with a whole ass episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves.

Get the vaccine. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to y'all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. don't do nothing about white supremacy and we will talk to y'all tomorrow bye bye i'm jess casaveto executive producer of the hit netflix documentary series dancing for the devil the 7m tiktok cult and i'm cleo gray former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church.

Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do,

like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to The Making of a Rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's basketball and on this new season we'll cover all things sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio apps, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.

How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts.