The Daily Zeitgeist - The WeekTrend Report 8/14: Lil Tay, Maui, Trumpdictment, Vivek Ramaswamy

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

In this edition of The WeekTrend Report, Jack and Miles discuss Lil Tay's death hoax hack, the Maui fires,  a Trumpdictment update, and Vivek Ramaswamy proceeding to Lose Himself on stage at the Iowa State Fair!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, 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. 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

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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. Hello, the Internet, and welcome to this episode of the Weak Trend Report.

Weak Trend, I'm for the weak trend. Weak trend, I prefer the weak trend. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, man. You know, it's so true how people talk about how like memes before you know like like you know sort of jpeg make the gif type reaction memes was just people like reciting movie quotes over and over it really when i really think about that i'm like yeah that's that was truly one of my favorite pastimes in college yeah getting around have a few brews puff a puff an hour or two and then just start saying stuff from fucking dumb and dumber out of context oh big gulps huh grill is hot the pool is luke i have it like from random like random places what's the most random movie that you would do movie oh my god miles i'm so random i'm so random i don't i don't know off the top of my head but i was just thinking like yeah

i i have uh meet the parents quote like not that that's random but it's just like which one cool the the grill is hot the pool is luke uh oh yeah oh right wilson's character and that is like really stuck with me just the one straight i remember where uh he's where he's talked about making an altar or a hopa hopa uh there was that one that i remember from that scene oh man my man jc was a jew yeah you're in good company you're in good company that character really got me but i feel like didn't you know i'll quote it and not many people will get it and i'm glad because it's not cool to quote meet the parents um i know it is a it is an interesting one that that one we used to do uh Oh, is it called a Jerusa Tulip Pooza what?

Oh, that's right. You don't know shit about flowers. That was one we used to say a lot, too, is you don't know shit about flowers. Anyway, but here we are in 2023. Because it comes up all the time when people are trying to pretend like they know shit about flowers. Yeah. You got to put them down. Damn, that shit came out in 2000?

Oh, my God. I thought it was like. Pre-911 world. Oh, Lord. Oh lord, oh boy. Anyway. My name's Jack O'Brien, that is Miles Gray. Yes. And yeah, we're here to tell you about some of the things that are trending from the weekend.

Hey Greg, what's your portfolio like? Oh, strong to quite strong. Strong to quite strong is always there uh yeah man you gotta strike while the iron's hot like just really that that whole scene i think i've only seen it like once or twice but that whole wow really stuck with you embedded well as you can tell i like have some of the quotes wrong right right right to quite strong sort of very strong or whatever anyways miles we got to tell the people what we think is overrated and underrated so they get to know us a little

bit better and where we're at where we're coming from do you want to kick us off with something you think is should we go underrated first do we do yeah yeah let's do whichever underrated for me uh because we've been talking about Stan culture and it really hit me this weekend. My sports religiosity is... I think I'm underrating it. Although the only tattoo I do

have on my body is of Arsenal. So in that sense, I should have known, but the new Premier League season started on... And Harry Kane is off to germany he no longer plays for tottenham he has been sent to munich to play for bayern munich so good luck with you over there sir yeah yeah so i don't know i just like i was realizing that my my brain is officially begun to misfire as like I place in or just an inordinate

amount of like my hopes and dreams into how Arsenal performs. And there's like a meme where like when the season starts and like, there's a guy like going into work, he's like, well, it's I'm off to let 11 random men determine my mental health for the next eight months. Yeah,

that's right. So I'm just like, I was just like, yeah, I had family in town. I'm like waking up early i'm like showing the baby i'm like this is this is who we are this is what we do um you know they play or it's just yeah we had our first game against not how to go yeah we won two one two one also although we just signed a guy he did his meniscus in the game and like like one of our big marquee

signings in the summer it's like you just see him literally out of nowhere just like move like not even an impact injury no one was near me just like fell to the ground you're like oh yeah that's never good so again just watching this random young dutch man fall over grabbing his knee just shook me to my fucking core the rest of the day uh but again it's i think it's because i gave up on christ you know but here i am this is what you have to replace it yeah i've replaced it i've converted to just being a taylor swift fan uh that's neater at least there's like bracelets involved yes yeah like when you get together there are like all kinds of people whereas when i get together with Arsenal people it's just like a bunch of like

Gen X and older like millennial dudes who are just like yeah how long have you been watching man well I wouldn't know anything about that because the 76ers are doing great and it's not affecting me at all messy messy over the weekend yeah our second

best player Daryl Laurie died to me vowed that he will never play for our team again. Um, so yeah, it is what it is, but I'm distracting myself with other stuff. Oh yeah. Like what?

What's, what's some of you things underrated? What have you been just trying to dangerous American roads are? I'm on my car kick. I'm on my anti car kick about, uh, how heavy cars are in the u.s how bad it's just i think it really is just having kids and like going out for walks with kids and realizing you are like boxed in by speeding death vehicles like right like all over the place in an american city

and so you know that's just constantly there. So I was doing, uh, one of our former writers that cracked, uh, Ian 40 was posting about how, um, I believe he's a Canadian,

but he was posting about how the U S you know, car safety metrics, car deaths used to be tracking along with France, um, for like from the sevents to the 90s uh they were declining they were doing things like making people wear seat belts um asking people uh pretty forcefully not to drink and drive like these things that uh kind of started at that time and now are just kind of assumed in a part of our culture.

And so the deaths, both in France and the U S were, we're going down over the, over that period of time. And then they became uncoupled in the early nineties when everything went to shit. And now you're three, like three times as likely to die from a car related death than someone in

france just for for no reason like we have access to the same shit we just don't use it well yeah i mean it's also wild too because like as i as i gear up to go uh for like a trip uh with the baby and her majesty and like looking at like the laws of like driving with a baby in like europe like they're like yeah if you're like in a cab like you don't need a car seat like or like yeah it's fine like just hold them or whatever and my american brain is like but what about when a tanker truck fucking t-bones you and you die in a fucking ball of flames yeah and there it's like truly because just statistically it's just just safer to drive that like those regulations aren't there and i don't know if that is necessarily the safest

course of action but again you you definitely see that sort of reflected in like what the regulations are in other countries where they're like oh yeah like if they're like a trained cab driver like that's that's fine like if it's actually had a licensed vehicle go through 10 years of training there, you know how to drive like Jason Statham in that, uh, Aldi sponsored movie. Um,

whereas like in America, like it's all like the hunt for like the most fucked up DMV office where, you know, like it's like people who are like trying to kick heroin or administering the driving test. So you can get a driver's license as quickly and easily as possible. Right. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's like speeding cameras like it's some annoying shit right that like it's not going to be popular to be like we need to use cameras to track people's speed so they can't you know get away with going 60 down a you know residential street or whatever right um but there's also just

smart we've talked before about like street road like strode problems like just the way u.s cities are designed but there are ways of getting around that by you know making making just things safer they there's like weight taxes there's uh attacks on like inefficient vehicles that makes that can cost you like 40 000 euros i'm hearing is fucking woke dude that's all i'm hearing right could you imagine what that would just like the weight tax would yeah send like the midwest and like parts of the country into just just chaos being like yeah well my i'm being punished because i got a heavy duty vehicle for what also because it's just because of the physics of it like it's harder to stop because it's so massive and dense that right it's actually an additional uh threat vector on the road? Whatever.

The fact that the F-150 Superproducer Brian is pointing out, the F-150 is the number one selling vehicle in America for forever now. And it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. I remember when the Ford F-150, you'd be like, oh, that's kind of like the broke boy Ford

truck. It's like, call me when you got a 250 or 350. You know what I mean? Now it has like jet engines. Yeah. Yeah. Military grade tank wheels. Remember the Ford Ranger? What happened to that good old compact pickup?

You know what I mean? They're still out here in Los Angeles. They're still hanging out. But I think they're like redid it so it's like just some kind of gigantic car again and you're like yeah the 2024 ranger raptor the fuck of course it's a fucking raptor um and like look dude jack look at the fucking again think of the ford ranger of our childhood and where it is now it's like a four-door fucking fuck fest yeah this looks like it was designed to hunt jason bourne to court uh that's a joke from a show called uh college friends or friends from

college or something uh that was the only joke i got from that um wasn't that a movie with uh keegan michael key it was a show it was a streaming show that you know had a handful of really good jokes in it okay um but anyways yeah it's a mess out there i don't know i would love to live in a place that like the other thing they did is like redesigned cities and towns to be pedestrianized uh is what they call it and right you know that yeah that just seems everything is designed in order like over there it's designed for people and here it's designed for commerce and so right it's just it's just a hey man you work for the economy remember that right you work for the economy it doesn't work for you it seems like a thing where we'd be

like hey pete budaj as like transportation secretary like this must be a thing that you were thinking about and constantly working on no i did this for free tickets to like big events right i don't fucking you see what i did out there baby see what happened when the fucking airlines melted down last year i did fuck all about it what are you talking about i'm just here for the fucking business card baby yeah um all right what uh what's something you think is overrated the fucking just the life cycle fanfare explosion of the that motherfucker back there i'm sorry but he is not real okay the lady on the plane That motherfucker is not real lady Just the whole cycle

Of this story I'm so over it and I do not appreciate The outsized attention That it is getting Because if you remember there was a viral video Of a woman on an American Airlines flight How she kept she was like Clearly having she was distressed

She was having some kind of mental health situation as she even says herself like later on and was insistent that like this dude who was on the plane back there is not fucking real and then first people were like wow look it's wild on american airlines and other people were like see dude it's the fucking matrix this lady fucking is seeing it and now she this woman is like she was like doxxed by the new york post last week and they fucking put her like name or fucking like where she lives what she does for a job and so on top of like so she's gone viral on multiple levels but then people are trying to like drive by her house and figure out like if she's like the fucking new morpheus or some shit um and then now she's like coming out and turning this into a

thing like where she posted a video she's like i'm really sorry for my behavior like but i'm i really need to pay this forward by like i want to raise like um awareness around mental wellness etc etc but then she didn't even have like a real specific plan for what that is and it's just it's like having this second life that is just so absurd and then meanwhile i'm looking on like weird sort of conspiracy theory subreddits where they are now adamant that they believe she was put up to making this like self-taped like statement where she was like she's like at gunpoint in this thing yeah exactly like as because she can't say the real thing which is that she

saw through the fucking matrix right and and rather than just saying like hey i was going through a lot like i really it's kind of was an embarrassment for me i'm also just want to like going viral is like really fucked up like it's caused me a lot of stress also for something i really never meant to happen so like there's just like all these layers of like fucked up around this story but yeah we now we're getting like a second wind with like her statement and then people not believing it not that that's the main thrust is that people don't believe her statement but there's still like just this whole video has like set off all kinds of little miniature fires in people's brains and it's really weird yeah it is i mean the thing that so we've talked about how like the thing that's different about this is obviously there are cameras like you know people

having mental health crises for uh since time immemorial but now like there's cameras there to capture it but i also think like something else made the general public kind of obsessed with it. Like the, the stuff that I've heard people getting interested in it is them being like, yeah, I feel like there probably was a person who was not real back there. Like it, it feels like it's, there is a broad,

like subtle mental health crisis or not so subtle mental health crisis like happening just at large like people are struggling and this is just like people were more interested in this than they would have otherwise been because i think everybody's like going through some shit i i heard somebody talking uh at a children's birthday party about about how that motherfucker was not real talking about my kid exactly there's no way that kid's real talking about how they had like gone to Burning Man last year

they were like it was like really bad vibes I don't know like what it was I think the weather was a little bit off like last year bad vibes than usual like they've been there before and they off like last year than usual like yeah yeah they've been there before and they were like last year in particular like after the pandemic like everybody was coming out and like they expected one thing and it just like felt different it felt bad and like i don't

know i just i think we're all still struggling you know oh yeah a lot of mental health shit and you put a bunch of people on drugs in the middle of the desert and expect like the good vibes to return and it's maybe not going to not going to happen right away i yeah this is not or you're releasing some man is a bad idea or that it's not going to be great this year but like i just think there's like an unacknowledged like added ingredient of everybody going through some shit right now well i mean we talked about this too like with the pandemic like we've yet to have a real like reckoning with what that was like first that first like 14 months was like and even though now we're still in the midst of it i mean yeah there's check out the new strain eris coming to a fucking city near you uh but like to not be able

to really talk about that and understand how difficult that was and how much stress that caused for people like yeah like we're all a lot of us are carrying that shit i mean luckily like i i started therapy like in earnest in 2020 uh so like I was able to navigate it a little bit better, but I mean, so many of the things I was feeling at the time were to do with the fact that like, I just couldn't really make sense of everything, but also like my empathy and like sympathy was like just going in a million

directions at once. And like also trying to figure out like what my place was. It was a very, it was fucking with people and yeah, to not talk about it. And we just kind of get back out there, chins up get back out there champ get a little pat on the ass from your manager

and you can't sue anymore butt pats all day my overrated is the Elon Musk Zuckerberg fight story apparently Zuckerberg's now saying like Elon Musk flberg fight story apparently Zuckerberg is now saying like Elon Musk flaked

and he's not a serious fighter and that he is moving on I'll fight you Elon fight me just a regular old brown person I'm sure you'd love to put your hands on me yeah why can't

I feel like that could be a thing like couldn't we be like what if i like what if you just wanted to fight one of us plenty of people will fight you on twitter right if you're looking for something and hey dude elon hit me up like i might even fucking throw the fight man to make you look cool yeah just like just psych i hit him with fucking elbow like straight out the fucking gate and be like there it is see ya is this your king uh but yeah that's yeah the story is just i think i mean it i really wanted it to happen so right i don't want to be dishonest about the fact that i really would have liked to see this just because that's that's where we're at

but i do understand like how this is also another thing though too that is absorbing so much oxygen but like in a way that i think it's probably the best thing to happen to both of them where they're kind of like yeah no one's really talking about like how fucked up we actually are as like business people yeah um so i guess it's yeah it's a mess it just feels like we we now live in a i think our first story is going to be about this that like the what what is happening in the media is completely cut off from any reality so it's just like a a factor of like what what people want essentially yeah yeah it's like a wish of like what, what people want essentially. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like a wish fulfillment machine. So, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, dancing for the devil, the seven M Tik TOK cult. And I'm Cleo gray, former member of seven M films and Shekinah church. Thank you. 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,

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and I wanted to talk about the Lil Tay death hoax because you know it was just this wild thing if you don't know little tay was like a nine-year-old influencer who was like you know hanging out with bad barbie yeah and like all them and was known as like the youngest flex her thing was like i'm the youngest flexer on instagram she

was like money phoning and like yeah with luxury vehicles had a wild ass mouth and people were like what the fuck is this thing and right then faded into obscurity pretty quickly yeah she just like stopped posting 2018 um and then there was this post that was like she and her brother died uh kind of suddenly and we're dealing with the grief and the trauma and it got reported out like it was a instagram post but like the la times were willing to report it based on the statement despite getting like this insider even reported business insider if i fell for that um the bbc didn't and there's there's a good thread from the journalist who was in charge of chasing it down uh that i just want to read real quick um like i'll read from it he was like

yeah that was like my job to report this they were like okay you know this is apparently happening can you find out like do the back uh checking. And so he reached out to her management, her management didn't reply. Um, he reached out to the police, the police didn't reply. Uh, there, there were alarm bells ringing for me because the social media page had been inactive for five years. I also contacted multiple police forces, both in the U S and in Canada, where little Tay had links with no police were aware of the death. I did this via email as well as on the phone. There were a lot of questions and from 10 plus years of experience, press

officers often give more information on background when it's not in writing. But there was no information on background. No police force was aware of any incident. So he just didn't write about it. Therefore, could not say this may have been a thing that happened.

Yes. And it's just basically being like, yeah, this is what journalism is. I called her family. I called local police. I couldn't find any evidence that it was true. So we didn't report it. It's just one of those invisible things that happens behind the scenes that prevents our entire world of information from dissolving into chaos. But it doesn't need to happen.

Nobody's making money off of it in the United States, and therefore it's not going to happen in the United States. Right, right. states right right so what people are making money off of is whatever the story is that's going to be the most sensational which is that this child has died and so and one two that has like a really dark backstory like i i'm personally i became obsessed with lil tay when she first came out because i was like what is this little girl doing out here? Like not in school, clearly being put up to like do this performative shit, talking on Instagram. And then like,

when you dig deep, like there was like reports that her mother, who was a real estate agent was like using these homes that she was showing as a real estate agent to provide like the backdrop of like perceived wealth for these posts and was getting in trouble. Then there was all these like reports about like abuse from her like her parents and not like her father being like her like a villainous character here and so even when this happened too this was like another thing where

people like just with the little bits of information that were out there like a lot of people like oh my god this makes so much sense when you couple that with the thing you've heard about her family and this that and the other and like her brother taking over the account and them not wanting the brother to be able to control the account and like people have been saying like it was like a murder suicide and shit yeah it's wild how quickly it just goes off the rails and what's funny is i remember going on reddit when this was like the story came out because i was like, what the fuck are people talking about? And the lack of media literacy from people on the Internet is I'm I shouldn't be surprised.

But my God, there are people someone said, you know, could have been a murder suicide. And someone's like, you really need to post like you shouldn't just say that you need to post an article that like actually reinforces this. Otherwise, what you're doing is really reckless. That person then posts a link from SNBCc.com okay oh yeah so that's like the s class of cnbc yes exactly it's like the luxury vehicle version oh you're in a c-class mbc no i'm in that s i'm in a my bach mbc actually uh but like then but then people are like oh okay thank you and i like, I was looking at that shit. I'm like, this is not even, that's somebody using your visual habit of making sense of SNBC or MSNBC to think that that's a real link. The website was total garbage. And then people were like, again, like, yeah, wow.

So sad. Yeah. And we're also headed for, like, I think this is the way that AI is going to actually upend things in the near future like is that i mean ai is going to be flooding the zone with shit to quote uh fucking steve bannon yeah and the media is just as small and underfunded as it's been in like decades and so it just feels like our reality perceiving apparatus is about to like is in danger of breaking down in some crazy ways and oh yeah i mean there's all sorts of i i feel like we're gonna see a lot of a lot more people like uh like death announcements because

this got a ton of attention. So like, you know, people who are trying to, I don't know, manipulate or get funding. I'm sure you could prompt chat GPT to, to create a scandal based off of existing, uh, like scandals already surrounding a person of interest and like ask it to then just continue that to the next step

you know what i mean and then from there it is like in the same way it's just going to prey upon what people kind of half know about someone and then you just kind of connect all these dots and like oh yeah yeah of course of course yeah of course yeah clint eastwood used to fucking eat horse heads yeah that's like his thing although allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly allegedly everyone i spoke to was very helpful and professional but there was nothing i couldn't confirm little taylor brother had died and so bbc news couldn't report it that's that's the thing um did the la times say anything like as like yeah they reported and we're like here's i guess they're her manager from before but this is like a social

meet the manager of a social media personality so like it's just you know it's not like an official person was i guess saying like he was like there's no way it was actually hackers like he was blaming them for it or whatever but i mean just the very boring legwork of talking to people is what stands between us and utter chaos and i can't imagine there are enough people out there doing it you know no especially like not a story like this too where people like yeah yeah probably all right cool print it yeah um all right let's let's talk about the maui fire yeah because it you know it's surpassed the 2018 campfire in terms of death and destruction um which i had no fucking idea that that that's what it was but like you know before that was

like you know everyone was like the camp 2018 campfire just rushed through that community destroyed everything but yeah i had no idea that i don't think that's being said enough first of all yeah but the Maui fire that's like, I mean, people are saying it, but like it, it definitely takes a backseat to a lot of the reporting. The reason I bring this up,

because it just, you know, shocker American colony receives fuck all after disaster. And I know Hawaii is a state, but like, let's be real the way it's treated. It's like, it's off the mainland.

It's, it gets some attention only when it benefits the United States like for military installations or tourism um but you know when you look at it there's a lot of stories about like how the people of maui are like resilient to the point that like they you think like they need no help they've come together and like now this story is just about a matter of them getting back on their feet but when you listen to the people who live there who are affected the most they've been screaming about a lack of assistance from the government there are plenty of everyday volunteers obviously that have been like sufficiently motivated uh to help out their fellow neighbors but the biggest complaint and the most consistent complaint of from residents is that the federal response is fucking lacking, especially when you have you got so much fucking military infrastructure right over there in Oahu.

Like, what the fuck is going on? saw over the weekend was fucking oprah's ass inserting herself in the narrative um because she tried to bring a fucking camera crew into an evacuee shelter uh luckily the officials there were like oh yeah we have a policy of like not exploiting people's fucking tragedy like so you can't bring a fucking camera crew in here you're fucking for real so she had to settle for like her dramatic fucking monologue in the parking lot um where she talked about oh my everything she's seen meanwhile a lot of people are pissed because they're like you bought so much land on maui that like fuck you like you should like you're displacing people just with your wealth and the amount of land you're buying which is like a huge thing already with with uh like mainlanders coming to

hawaii the wall street journal had a piece that was just sort of like praising the locals like for quote not going anywhere they're not going anywhere type of shit and it's like like hope laundering of like a tragic story you gotta get the hopeful stories out there first so that people are willing to read and like i don't know this playbook is so fucking consistent like of obscuring the scale of suffering like especially when the affected group is not predominantly white or if the event happens like off the mainland like you know look at like puerto rico uh it's the same thing like so there's a night like this hawaii was had their eyes set upon it by americans are like

hey move some fucking sugar off this shit do a lot of shit with this motherfucker if we annex it um and what's also really interesting is like because like the way hawaii has evolved over time is like been it's been turned into this like tourist trap essentially where all of the resources and opportunity go towards those money-making endeavors right and on maui specifically a lot of people have talked about like like water right those are all being prioritized for like the resorts and the tourist areas and it's causing like drought conditions that only exacerbated that fucking fire right so it's like a very deep you know colonization was rearing its head again even with this story although a lot all the

reporting is like oh the people of maui are coming together or like you hear these anecdotal stories where people like we were there on vacation and like what we saw from the locals brought us to tears rather than like it's bringing me to tears with how we're turning our backs on people we call quote unquote american um because then like there's also another dark element, too, of, like, the areas that were burned down. Like, a lot of wealthy people have been looking to buy that land, but locals didn't want to sell.

And now, because of their situation, like, they may be more motivated to now sell that land because of the fire. It's like tragedy upon tragedy, but, you know, a lot of the reporting would have you think, it's like, man, it's okay, folks. Just go back to everything. It's not a climate disaster. Yeah. There is a thing that happens.

People do take care of each other on a local level in inspiring ways in these climate disasters. And I think there's probably always going to be a tendency of the mainstream media to try and just use that to paper over the enormous failings that also happen. Right. Because this government is not designed for anything other than commerce. Right. Yeah, exactly. Or just be like, OK, you want that land? All right, we'll keep them out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, got you, got you, we got you.

All right, let's take another quick break and we'll come back and talk some GOP political bullshit. And rapping. And rapping. There's some rapping, guys. Don't worry, we've got the hip-hop episode. I'm Jess Casavetto, 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 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. me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one

strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current, available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who, on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And yes, Super Producer Brian gave us a fun game. Name a disaster in which the federal government responded appropriately. I was like, Midwest tornadoes.

I seem to see more boots on the ground there. But I think in terms, I think that does hold. But it's like almost like an act of hostility when we're talking about affected groups that do not fit the stereotypical victim that garners sympathy in this country. So there are rumors that Fonny Willis will finally be laying the indictment hammer down this week. 12 counts, apparently. 12 counts. 12 indictments. So that 12, I wonder who are these lucky contestants who are caught up in this is

lindsey graham one of them because i'm curious what the fuck he starts doing when he's like it's not fair right but yeah that's like the big legal uh drama that we were looking forward to but there's also like some polling that just i just bring this up because it's like the the conflict of republicans is that they're basically saying, like, we kind of need Trump on the ballot in 2024 or down ballot people are fucked, like utterly fucked. They noticed that, like, in 2022, the Trump voters were the main reason they were able to take back the House. And they noticed when Trump is on the ballot he's like it the rural vote and begins to fucking tank right and so it's just interesting where they're like you have one group of people like we i mean i don't know what's going to happen without him on the ballot and

other people are like it's when he's on the ballot we're losing things like the senate yeah they're just i don't know it's a very interesting place they're caught in uh who would have thought he's definitely their only hope at the at this point right they don't there's no support like for anyone else i mean there's not a lot of support for the democratic side either but there's no i mean it's doubly bad over there we're also like their whole thing is like they're they have to rep in all their hopes on a guy who's going to be like indicted more times than you could even be president. Right. You know what I mean?

So that that's the person that they have to be like, fuck man, I guess like the quotes in this like Hill like article or like some people are just throwing their hands up where they're like, I don't know. I mean, like, I guess he's just going to have to be the fucking nominee. Like that's just the only, only option we have at this point. Yeah. they're like i don't know i mean like i guess he's just gonna have to be the fucking nominee like that's just the only only option we have at this point yeah um but i don't know i mean there's some people people people climbing the charts though right jack yeah well we got somebody uh who's going headed for number one with a bullet uh vivek ramaswamy um who's been consistently, there was a lot of stories about him in the past few weeks

because he surged to being a distant third in most polls behind Trump and DeSantis. So still very, very, as we've talked about, DeSantis is like, you know, his campaign is being covered as pretty pretty pretty dead at this point and this person is pulling behind him um but he has like differentiated himself from the you know the the pence detritus uh you know like all the other candidates who so so I guess the numbers are like, he's at 6.1%. Trump's at 54%.

DeSantis 15. But like, he's ahead of Mike Pence, who was the vice president of the United States, I believe fairly recently. Nikki Haley's at 3.4. Tim Scott's at 2.8. Chris Christie,

2.6. And yeah. So, and like some composite polls show him even higher so like he's a talented guy yeah yeah well that's the thing is that like a lot of people were a fan of his even before they saw his secret fastball, which is the man's got bars. Yeah, he was at the Iowa State Fair doing the fair side chats. And he's going to let y'all know my man has the mic in his hand and he is rocking the crowd. Listen to this. He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out. He's joking now. Everybody's joking now. this okay we can't do more because i remember they got mad at us when we did even remember when they got mad at us for doing spaghetti that all spaghetti oh yeah yeah and like the sweepers were like by copyright on yeah actually we might even get burned for that anyway my man is off the beat karaokeing lose yourself by eminem as a serious presidential

candidate and it's terrible he's like hunched over in the like trying to like he's doing the thing that you see rappers do sometimes where they're like you know getting to the front of the stage touching the front row like you, just feeling the energy of the crowd, but like, there's nobody for him to touch. Like everyone's just kind of standing around very confused. Right. It's not an impressive,

it's like a, Oh shit. I have to karaoke this. Okay. Uh, yeah, I think I remember that song level, um,

you know, engagement performance, uh, you know, engagement performance, uh, command of the song. But apparently this is like his song. He's, he's like a thing he's been doing since college. So when in college,

uh, and you're, I do apologize in advance because the sentence is going to take like a month, at least off of my life. Just saying it. Uh, he was a libertarian minded rap artist oh fuck and jesus christ lose yourself was a favorite of his at harvard open mic nights wow under that what was he rapping under? Shine Rand? Da Vek. D-A. Oh, Da Vek?

Oh, like Da? Was he doing... Oh, wait, no. Oh, yeah, it's probably Da Vek. Is he doing like, oh, hip-hop Da? Black people, they turn it to Da. Oh, he's Da Vek. Wow. Okay, Da Vek.

Well, go on. What else? What other songs do you got? Apparently, that's the only song he does. That's the only song. That's it. And there's actually footage of him performing it back in college, and it's like way worse than what you just heard.

He's like even more off the beat. He's like breathless and trying to catch up the whole time. Alright, do we chance it i think we got to play a little bit of it i hear you he said if you only have one shot okay never nope nope nope nope nope no no no, no. I would rather not. Oh my God.

This guy has no sense of rhythm. You better lose yourself to music the moment you own it. You better never let it go. You only have as much time to listen to it as you can in a lifetime. You better lose yourself. It's truly like you couldn't fuck it up harder if you were trying. I bet the bar is fucking low at harvard open mic oh yeah for rap this is what happens this is what happens without affirmative action there's not a sufficient number

of black people to fucking boo this bullshit and shame a devec into just going to fucking study econ or some shit and then you know becoming a consultant who fucks up the world not a presidential candidate like how does he like just in a from just a completely i'm trying to like perceive this as a reality that he did that on a harvard stage in college and rather than being like one of the most embarrassing moments of his life that like made him never want to do anything on stage again it gave him the confidence to keep performing this song in front of other actual human beings and like think that he should run for president like the only thing i can conceive of is that like his group of friends at harvard were like you know there's that movie yesterday where like the the whole Beatles catalog like doesn't exist oh

right right becomes famous artist by like just running Beatles on right like I feel like his group of friends like all the like legacy Harvard people just had hadn't even heard of rap music and like that was the first thing that they had ever seen and right and that's the only way that it makes sense to me he's like yeah look at this thing i just invented it's actually eric eric check this rhyme i just wrote don't you want to grow up to be just like me i tie a rope from my penis and jump from a tree what do you think about that whoa bars, bars, dude. Are you not even in law school? And that's bars. Um,

but that person would not be reacting like that anyway, but I love like how he, his, when he's actually talked about his love for the song, that quote, when he's like, well, what,

what is it about it that it connects with you? This is what he says. Quote, he's growing up in the, in the trailers. This is what he says, quote, he's growing up in the trailers. This is just already like, you're so far removed from it. It's like the trailers is what you call,

okay, he's growing up in the trailers with a single mom, and he wants to make it. He's going to use that moment to do it. He feels like he's going to use the moment to do it. He seizes it, and then he makes it happen, and I thought it was a pretty cool story. That's him now.

That's him now. He's seizing it. You know, I get it. Just the most surface level read of the situation of what the what the song is. I'm surprised he's not calling himself like V Rabbit or something. Yeah. Like really going like really going there with it um uh well there you know there there may be hope gop you might not need trump that was that was pretty dope the the reaction from

the crowd was pretty just that there were a couple plants obviously who were holding up their phone and being like yes but for the most part there were there was a lot of just standing bolt upright um kind of turning away from the stage right and uh some people like actually turning their back to the stage like just out of sheer you know human survival like secondhand embarrassment yeah yeah what would you do jack if you're if you're a presidential candidate like if this this really actually could be a new thing i always should really consider this at the state fair when presidential candidates come they have to do a rap they have to spit a rap song on stage right i mean it's actually really interesting when you think about it,

you know? Because, like, in that song, he's growing up in the trailers. In the trailers. With a single mom. Is he thinking the trailers is, like, the projects?

Yeah. Is that what he's doing? Wow, Vivek, come on now. I know you had a good life in Cincinnati, but just learn how to speak to people a little bit more accurately than that.

What would your song be to announce your presidential... I don't know. Probably something like a subverse... I don't know. Like a most deaf song. Like Mathematics. Or...

God. I don't know. I don't know what I would do. No, Brian just said Immortal Technique. No, I'm not spitting Immortal Techn that's i know that's what he means even when he just by evoking immortal technique but yeah maybe maybe i would spit dance with the devil i would stay fair to be like this guy is demonic and we actually need to call the police because i'm not sure what love it and we love it And we love it, folks, don't we?

Yes. You probably do Wu-Tang. Would you do like Klan in the front? Literally. Klan in the front. There they are. What the hell is... There you are.

Yeah, I was thinking Wu-Tang Klan. Yeah. It's like the idea of saying Klan in the front. And it's really the Klan. And you see some Nazis in the back. All right. All right. All right. in the front and it's really the clan and you see some Nazis in the back alright alright those are some of the things that were trending over the weekend 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 you all tomorrow. Bye. Bye. I'm Jess Casavetto, 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. 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. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by Diet Coke.