The Problem With Jon Stewart - The Fumes of an Empire: UK Chaos and the U.S. Midterms

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

The midterms are two weeks out and chaos just keeps building. The UK is cycling through prime ministers faster than James Bonds as their economic crisis continues. Meanwhile, election deniers in the U.S. are whipping themselves into a frenzy. Jon is joined by British journalist Gabriel Gatehouse to break down what’s happening in the UK, plus what his QAnon and election-conspiracy reporting might tell us about our democracy’s post-election fate—if this election ever ends. Writers Tocarra Mallard and Robby Slowik are also here talking Ye and Adidas, antisemitism, and the conspiracy earworms that have infected us all.Stream our newest episode, “Midterms: This Is What Democracy Looks Like?,” starting October 28 on Apple TV+.CREDITSHosted by: Jon StewartFeaturing, in order of appearance: Robby Slowik, Tocarra Mallard, Gabriel GatehouseExecutive Produced by Jon Stewart, Brinda Adhikari, James Dixon, Chris McShane, and Richard Plepler. Lead Producer: Sophie EricksonProducers: Zach Goldbaum, Caity GrayAssoc. Producer: Andrea BetanzosSound Engineer & Editor: Miguel Carrascal Senior Digital Producer: Freddie Morgan Digital Coordinator: Norma Hernandez Supervising Producer: Lorrie Baranek Head Writer: Kris AcimovicElements: Kenneth Hull, Daniella PhilipsonTalent: Brittany Mehmedovic, Marjorie McCurry, Lukas ThimmResearch: Susan Helvenston, Andy Crystal, Cassie Murdoch Theme Music by: Gary Clark Jr.The Problem with Jon Stewart podcast is an Apple TV+ podcast, produced by Busboy Productions. https://apple.co/-JonStewart

I had always been convinced that this country would absolutely lose its shit. Can I say that? Well, let's say that you can say whatever you want. Absolutely, I was convinced that this country was going to lose its fucking shit. Whoa, OK, Gabriel, take it easy, please. Sounded really intense. This isn't the BBC. We have standards here.

Hello, everybody, my name is John Stewart, and welcome to the podcast of The Problem. The show is back on Apple TV Plus. I think we're I don't know if we're three episodes in or four episodes in. I don't watch it. I don't care for it. I find it very pedantic, but it's on right now. And then we got a little something up on YouTube there. We got the attorney general of Arizona, Mark Bernovich, little conversation we had for our election show.

And that is I believe it's up online now. You can watch it and you can comment about it and how pleased you are that the investigations into the 2020 election are ongoing and that they are going to run it to ground. How far into ground they're going to run it. I'm not sure. On the podcast today, we're very delighted. We've got our writers, Robbie Slowick and Takara Mallard.

Hello. Hey, John. Hello. Very nice to see you. And I announce this right now. Our special guest star is an old friend, Gabriel Gatehouse, who is joining us from a foreign land, a land of great tumult, a land that we once violently separated from England. Gabriel, as you know, was on the program discussing his journalism on the QAnon phenomenon.

He was the one who did The Coming Storm. It was that great QAnon podcast and sort of how it started in America and where it's going to be going. But England is going through the throes of just chaotic six weeks of losing your monarchy, your democracy, your prime ministers, your finance ministers, your ex-checkers. I mean, it's amazing what is happening overseas. And two weeks before our midterm elections,

it's hard not to believe that we're going to be holding on by just a fingernail when all this is said and done, when you watch other countries in similar positions and what they're going through. I feel like normally we are in the lead of the of the following apart. And then other countries are following our model. So this is nice to be back in the England's in the driver's seat a little bit here. Silver lining, though, season eight of The Crown is going to be so good. Who will play Liz Truss? I'm invested.

I actually, I believe Liz Truss will play Liz Truss. Yeah, this is good chance. OK, so Liz Truss, who was the UK Prime Minister, head of the Conservative Party, who just had to resign after, I think, forty four days in office. She's got the time. Yeah, she certainly she certainly got the time. I kind of like the idea of just everybody gets six weeks. Just let's see what you can do in six weeks.

Throw your best because you know what it would do. It means you got to throw your best fucking shot. You got to really bring it. You got to really bring it. And Liz, God bless her. She really didn't know more taxes for rich people. Come on, that's a shot. That's taking a shot. It is taking a shot. And it's one of the few times that you really see someone live their values.

They talk this way all the time. And you're like, when she gets in there, she's obviously going to be like, I can't do that because there will be a there will be a proletarian revolt. And then she just gets in there and like, she's rich people, you see the money, it will trigger. So it's going to be exciting. Is there anything else going on that you wish to bring to the fore? Well, of course, there's something else with the news, the newsing, John.

I don't know if you saw, but I think after two weeks of intense prayer circles and getting their money in order, Adidas has terminated their relationship with with Kanye West. And it seems like such a solid relationship. Yeah, they're very much in love. The press release was, I think, very transparent. They said it's expected to have a short Adidas is expected to have a short term negative impact above to 250 million euros

on the company's net income. But I think if you look further down in the release, it says, but we're hoping that the Jews kick in to make up that shortfall. I guess we got some shoes to buy, John. The shoe cabal. Do Jews, do we also control the shoe cabal? I don't even know any more what we control. It's hard to say.

They say it's very funny because they were like, you know, because of Q4. This is happening in Q4, which is Christmas. So a bunch of Adidas executives just say, come on, Kanye, hold it till January. I can't wait till Adidas goes overboard in sort of reclaiming the Jewish sneaker buying audience. I'm like, like Nike has just do it. Adidas is going to come out with it, couldn't hurt. Jews is trending on Twitter today, which is really.

Oh, I will not listen to those top. Unless it's Hanukkah, that's not that's that's never a positive sign. Robbie Sloak, I'll ask you. Yes. You are also as I am of the Hebraic faith. That's right. On a scale of I'm just going to fucking eat matzah in front of all my colleagues, too.

I've got the go bag packed. How nervous are you about all this that is that is going down? Because it has clearly exposed a very deep vein of boy, that you shouldn't be able to say Jews control all that, although everybody who even says I what Kanye said was out of bounds, although, although, yeah, they do, you know, they are overrepresented. Right. There was that like New York Post writer who even said that same thing.

He was like, but we do need to discuss why Jews are overrepresented. Why the fuck is that? Why, you know, when when a group tends to have an over representation in in any kind of area and which happens, why isn't there any? Like those Irish motherfuckers and all their policing. Why the fuck is it always anybody that fucked you over in entertainment? Well, that's if he's Jewish, clearly he goes back to the group and they all talk about it. Right.

Yeah, I try to think about how I ended up here because I guess I'm part of this now. Right. But I'm like, I don't know. I kid who I grew up watching Mel Brooks movies and Seinfeld. I mean, I was a Jew who was influenced by Jewish stuff and I got into comedy and I submitted a blind packet and here I am. But I could you don't need to defend or justify your participation in an industry that was created by people who were excluded from other industries.

And that's where, you know, this is such an insidious road to go down because it's it's a self-defeating loop. Right. Jews control everything. That's outrageous to say that. We don't want to do business with you anymore. See, that is evidence that I am correct because if I if I wasn't correct, I could say whatever the fuck I want and nothing would happen to my business, which is obviously like they make a cost-benefit analysis at Adidas.

Adidas, by the way, a German company. That's right. So it's a we're in a really insidious timeline. And boy, does that dude have influence. That was actually shocking to me. I was I wasn't quite like prepared for the level of influence he had to see Nazis holding a sign in Los Angeles that said Kanye was right. I found that genuinely shocking.

I thought the weird part was the other sign that said college dropout rules. Yeah, big fans, you know, what are you going to do? Yeah, it's such an interesting conundrum because any pushback is seen as evidence of the efficacy of what he says. But what I think has been that one of the tougher things is to read the comments. Yeah. And especially online, people are not shy about sharing their belief. No, it's it's everywhere.

You know, it's it here's here's what I would say. It always fucking sucks when your demographic becomes part of a hashtag campaign. 100 percent. When you're the ones where the black square is being put up for you, you know, the shit is hit the fan somewhere. And God bless. But, you know, I don't need. Any time you see celebrities suddenly posting like I stand with Jews.

You really just want to say like it's not about necessarily standing with and having that moment on Twitter. It's about understanding just how deep division goes and and how it's used cynically for power. As it's being done now. Yeah, you know, I'm curious to this is completely and pardon me if this is insensitive. But during the George Floyd protests in the Black Lives Matter, when those when those, you know, people put up the black squares and all that stuff,

what was your feeling about that? Did you feel supported or did you feel like I feel? Not condescended to, but a little bit. It leaves me cold in a way that I didn't expect. Oh, now I'm I'm the prop. Now I'm the. It's my turn in the cement mixer. Yeah.

Well, to anyone who then mowed me during the summer of 2020. I appreciated it immensely and it meant a lot. However, yes, I agree that I think seeing it didn't do much for me. And it left me feeling a little numb and not really taken care of. It just made me feel, I think, even more exposed, especially if you remember during this time, John, this is the summer where everyone was finally willing to say Black Lives Matter and I sort of went on a diet tribal online because I was like, I needed you to say that when my brown was laying

in the middle of street Ferguson, I needed you to say that with Tamir Rice. I needed you to say that all these other instances of times personally and in the world where I really needed you. And I just think even now, you know, not Jewish and I'm seeing all my friends and posts in their stories and on Twitter, I support my Jewish friends and I'm like, does that make them feel any less exposed in this terrible, terrible time that we're living? And I'm sure it does for some people, but you know what it does to car for me?

It makes me feel more like the other, to be honest. Yeah, it is othering. It makes me feel more separated. It makes me feel as though I belong to just a different a different category of human that that needs to be tended to and more than anything, it's isolating for me. A few comedy clubs posted that that meme as well. And so I sent them all my avails.

I said, we'll see. You're using this to get spots. I got to do what I got to do because there's no cabal getting me. Let me tell you something. And this is what I always respect about comics. They are more comic than man. That's true. We can't. In this situation.

Well, let's just listen. This is it's an ongoing conversation, hashtag to be continued. But more importantly, we have a guest to get to. We're going to welcome back to the podcast, Gabriel Gatehouse. Are you in England right now, Gabriel? I am in London, England, John. Hello. And and how is the the new prime minister? He's literally just he's hot off the press.

How is he? Well, it's it's early to tell. He's only our third prime minister in as many months, almost. So this is this is Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak. Yes, I very much hope that he'll still be the prime minister by the time you air this podcast. I have heard that he has resigned. Stop it. Don't say that. He has been replaced by Neville Chamberlain.

It's peace in our time, if only sanity in our time, maybe. Sanity in our time. So many firsts in these in these past few weeks. You had Boris Johnson, who was was deposed because he drank, he threw a party. Well, no, I think I think that's he threw a party. But I think he was deposed because of his. Creative elastic relationship with factuality.

Oh, see, that's why we elect people. So that's apparently something that doesn't fly in in in England, because here it's considered, I think, the prime prerequisite for running for office. I have been sort of thinking about, like, what are the differences and what are the commonalities in our politics right now? Because they both seem pretty crazy. And I think one of the things that gives me hope about our politics

is that, yeah, we I mean, I have to be careful what I say. Even though I left the BBC. Have I did I tell you that, John? I've left the BBC. So no, I did not know you left the BBC. What were you fired by? Are the BBC controlled by a Jewish cabal? Or is that just the American media? Of course it is. Is that? Oh, it is. OK, good.

OK, of course it is. I wasn't sure if we had international reach or if it was merely the United States phenomenon. You're totally international. Thank God. Fair enough. I was fired for trying to expose the cabal, obviously. Oh, well done. No, no, I decided to go freelance.

I thought, you know, the BBC is a great place and I love public service broadcasting, and I think it's very important. And you guys would really do well to have a BBC because it is quite good for the health of your sort of public media. But anyway, now we do have a public media. We have a PBS. I know. But it's no match for the the histrionics of our of our 24 hour yeah, news channels and the cable universe.

The sober analysis and direct to camera factual presentation does not meet its. It's not as much fun. No one's watching. We're talking about a culture that loves to supersize. We'd like to throw a little cheese on it, see how it goes. So I left because I wanted to try to supersize it. But so officially, I can now say whatever I like. But having been institutionalized for 21 years,

I worked for the corporation 21 years. Oh, boy. Gabriel, this is a big moment. Let it rip. Say something fucking crazy. Let's do it. So I did almost say something crazy, right? I said one of the like one of the positive things that I think I have identified out of all the craziness in our politics over the past few months is that we had a Prime Minister Boris Johnson

who had a let's say a sort of tenuous relationship with the truth and our governing party, the Conservatives, instead of kind of doubling down and going, don't believe the evidence of your eyes. This man is telling the truth. They were all just like, actually, you know what? This this this can't stand. You're fired. Now, I thought that was very positive.

I probably like wouldn't be able to say that if I was working for the BBC, because you have to be very, very, very careful about. If you were if you were working for the BBC and there was a Prime Minister who was lying about all manner of things in terms of the hypocrisy of his pandemic behavior and the cover ups for various, let's say, harassment scandals and those and those types of things. And and and the BBC, you would not be allowed to say,

yeah, it's a net positive that the lying guy has has been called to account. Yeah, right. We you know, you could talk about it in terms of saying while the evidence shows that something else happened from. Gabriel, we're going to have to rewire your brain. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. There's only so many ways you can say elapsedasical relationship to facts.

OK. He lied. Oh, my God. Release, release. Welcome to America. Right. But so they got rid of him, which was kind of which surprised me and was positive. And but then, unfortunately, in the process of getting rid of him, they had the ruling party, the governing party, the conservatives

had a kind of collective convulsive nervous breakdown during which they elected somebody else through just the members. So like a couple of tens of thousands of people in England elected the new prime minister, Boris Johnson was elected by millions of people. The Conservative Party. And then he was appointed by the Conservative Party when Liz Truss was selected. That was just who was voting then, just the MPs or who was no, no, it was. It was the it was the MPs who came down to the last few candidates

that was Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. But then it went out to the Shires. So it was the Conservatives, the Shires. The Shires. When do the when do the Hobbits vote? I know the Shires vote. But when do the Hobbits weigh in? When they depose Rishi Sunak, that's when the Hobbits get to go. And that's when Gollum is installed.

Oh, the precious. So so the best is yet to come. So but Liz Truss was was elected by Conservative Party members in the Shires. So that's kind of, you know, deep middle England, very middle aged people, quite very white, very middle aged constituency. Gabriel, what gives them the right? Because there's like 160,000 people, right? How are they chosen as the ones who get to vote?

Who who are their members of the party? They are members of the Conservative Party and members of the Conservative Party have a right to choose their leader. And if the previous leader also happened to be the Prime Minister, then they effectively get to choose the next Prime Minister. And remember that, you know, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party aren't really kind of mass membership organisations in the way that you have mass membership of the Democratic Party

and the Republican Party in the United States. These are very small numbers of people. So effectively, a very small number of people in the tens of thousands shows our previous Prime Minister, Liz Truss. Liz Truss. Now, she had a very tenuous relationship with economic cohesion. Wait, wait, but you skipped you skipped the main thing that happened. So she was elected Prime Minister and then she went off to see the Queen and the Queen said,

hey, would you like to form a government and then drop dead? Yeah. Yeah, she knew. She knew. Let me tell you something. There are very few people who know when to exit at the right time. But I think that was one of those where she was like, so this ship is called the Titanic, then. And then Liz Truss is like, yeah, she goes, I'm just going to get off here. Yes, I'll hand that over to you, Charlie boy. Good luck.

Good luck, sir. How many Liz's do we need in power at once? Well, there was all this kind of talk going around about the grim reaper being sent down to fetch Liz and, you know, coming back with the wrong one. Oh, my gosh. Brutal. Brutal. Anyway, so that happened. And I had always thought that when the Queen dies,

I had always been convinced that this country would absolutely lose its shit. I tell you why, because basically this country has kind of been cooking on fumes since the 1950s. We've been we've been cooking on the fumes of empire since 1952, because we've had this really magnificent person on the throne who was like, you can't imagine a more dedicated public servant, right? This woman was dedicated to public service.

Come rain or come shine. Well, let's let's she was well paid. It wasn't volunteer work. It was volunteer work. This is not a Mother Teresa situation. Fine, fine, point, point taken, point. Wait, I thought Americans love the Queen. What are you talking about?

Americans love the Queen. We're the ones. She seemed she seemed lovely, but I don't know if you know this, but we had a whole to do. This was years ago about escaping this type of monarchy system. Yeah, no, you know what? I'm going to send you some articles. OK. You know that doesn't work. I'm going to send you some articles.

Covid is fake. Use the vaccines. I'll send you some articles. That'll work. I'll send you some articles. Gabriel, do your own research. Do your own research. OK, I'll come back to you at the end of my rabbit hole. Actually, finally enough, I've met some people in your country who believed that there was some kind of shenanigans

that happened in the mid-19th century, which means that America is actually still a colony of England and that it's an outpost of the city of London. There are quite a few people who believe that in your country. Do we get health care? Such a good point. I'll ask about that. At the moment, our finances are a little stretched,

but I'll see what we can do. That is true. I had not been aware of that. But so now... Wait, I was supposed to be explaining to you. Oh, I'm sorry. Why were we going to lose our shit? Yeah, so we were kind of cooking on the fumes of empire since 1952

because we'd had the Queen on the throne and quietly, without our noticing it, the empire had disappeared. But we hadn't noticed because the Queen was still there and it just kind of looked like the same kind of very powerful country where people announced the news like this. Yes, the Queen today opened parliament. And it was all very good. And so we hadn't noticed that the empire had quietly faded

and Britain had quietly turned into a basket case. And then so I was convinced that when the Queen died, everyone would suddenly go, ooh, wait, we're this kind of insignificant little island. Who are we now? Who are we, right? But actually, it seems like we didn't have time to do that because the politics of trust, the trustonomics,

went so berserk so quickly straight after the Queen died that we've kind of deferred that reckoning. Hasn't she done a grand service then to the kingdom? You know, rather than facing an existential crisis, you can now just stand to what seems to be something more ephemeral, which is, oh, right, if we're trying to tame inflation, we shouldn't also at the same time just give rich people another tax break. And you can, you're back into a much more modern kind of reckoning

as opposed to the existential reckoning, which, by the way, and I can tell you this from experience in America, will never come. There will always be something that comes along to distract the populist from an existential reckoning. That's depressing, but I think I agree with you. That's what they say about climate change, right? Every time you want to do something about climate change,

it's like, oh, but no, but there's this politics thing that's more urgent and like we never actually get to grips with it. That's exactly right. The urgency of, you know, when you can say, well, that the planet may ultimately flood and people are like, I know, but 325 a gallon. I mean, what the fuck? And by the way, I understand it.

You know, people deal with their day to day and the economics of the day to day almost always supersede, you know, the existential. Yeah, exactly. So Gabriel, I'm curious, speaking of the day to day, how did like the Tresonomics affect the day to day for everyday folks? OK, so my mortgage was coming up for renewal

just as Liz Truss launched into her euphemistically called mini budget. It was like a mini hand grenade budget. So the mini budget landed. Mortgage rates went up through the roof. I quickly, quickly, quickly managed to renegotiate my mortgage. So I'm now only paying two and a half times as much as I was before. Get the fuck out of here.

Goodness. There you go. Personal true story. She did that in six weeks. Yeah, you know what they say about storytelling? Get in late, get out early. Boom. And she tried to wash her hands of that, right? She tried to say, well, we don't politicians.

The Bank of England sets mortgage rates, trying to divorce her policy choices from what they had to make up the budgetary impact of losing the taxes. Is that right? Right, yeah. So there was a big, a big sort of to and fro between the trust government and the Bank of England. The Bank of England has been independent of the government since 1997.

So there was this kind of back and forth between, you know, Liz Truss and her chancellor, Kwazi Kwateng, who were like lobbing these kind of grenades into the market and the markets were going mad. And the pound is crashing. The pound is tanking. By the way, I looked at it and I was like, I should travel. You should come over.

I should really travel now. I'll take you for a drink. Actually, you'll be fine. And so then the Bank of England was buying up guilt and trying to shore up the market and trying to stop pension funds from imploding. It was like, it felt. It felt.

It generally felt like we were kind of holding on by our fingernails for a while. And the interesting thing was, it wasn't just that the trust government was blaming the Bank of England. The Bank of England was kind of blaming the government. And this wasn't coming from Liz Truss, but people in her circle, the people who were kind of were saying, this is a coup, a coup by the market.

So suddenly we started to hear that American language about kind of coups and cabals and elites, a coup by the elite, a coup by the market. January 6th of the doubloon. Well, not so much the January 6th kind of coup, but the kind of coup that they believe on the right that's been happening. You know, the kind of state plot against Donald Trump.

Yeah, the quiet takeover, the shadow government. Exactly. Now, by the way, we should point out, Liz Truss never actually enacted any of this. No, she just, all she had to do was say it. She said, this is what I'm going to do. There was no change. It's just this is what's coming.

But do you know what, the reason why it went so berserk is because quasi-quarting went out and outstayed. That's her finance minister. And they were tied at the hip. They were tied at the hip. Yeah, yeah, you've got to be a bit careful about that. They were they were good friends. BBC one, BBC two.

Yeah. So they they they came up with this kind of this policy together. It was a whole bunch of tax cuts that were unfunded. Like they they they announced the tax cuts, but they didn't tell anyone how they were going to pay for it. So obviously the markets went mad. That's what we do. That's that now you're now you're just stealing

the Republicans ideas on economics from our country. I know. I like to think we do just follow slightly in your slipstream. But what happened that after after announcing this, quasi-quarting then went for some drinks with some finance people and let it be known that actually that was just the beginning. It was going to go further still.

And of course, that came out. And then the markets went even more berserk. Oh, wow. And then, you know, then Liz Truss went on the BBC and my colleague asked her, are you committed to cutting tax for the richest people? She looked into the camera. She went, yes.

Like, okay. So the markets went war. And then like 24 hours later, she was like, okay, no. And then she then she fired quasi-quarting. Then she fired quasi-quarting for, maybe this is the first time that a prime minister has fired her finance minister for agreeing with her.

Yes. But she so she fired him. You knew I was stupid when you took the job. She she fired him without saying and actually the policies that he announced were a mistake. She fired him saying, I think the presentation was was left a little bit to be desired. But you know, she basically implied that she was going to keep going.

So like she just they just kept doubling down until it became completely unsustainable. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but I think it was in the last week. One of my colleagues said, are you going to be prime minister at the time of the next election? She goes, yes. Twenty four hours later, it's like, I resign.

Wow. So so exciting. I know, I know. It's like it's like the 12 days of Christmas song. You know, we've had in the past three months, we've had four chances of exchequer, three prime ministers, two monarchs and a partridge and a pear tree. Wow.

So what an exciting time. To be a journalist. To be a journalist, but to be living there. Now, the new gentleman that came in who was a finance minister and is I think could maybe take care of this from his own savings account, what I understand. Yeah, my goodness. My introduction to Rishi Sunak,

because I shouldn't know who he is as an American, but I remember like four months ago, that whole scandal with his wife, right, where she has 700 million pounds and claimed non-domicile status so she could not pay taxes in England, despite being married to the chancellor of the exchequer, is that right?

Right, and one of the richest families in India. And in fact, Rishi Sunak had a green card with you guys until that came out and then you had to renounce it. Oh, that I didn't know. So yeah, maybe we'll send him over to you once he's done here, once Goldman's in. So you're saying he's coming in six weeks, is that what you're saying?

Because now he's in it every six weeks. Six days. He'd fit right in. We love our Goldman Sachs in politics here. That's a conspiracy right there. Oh boy, I'm gonna have to tap out on this one. I don't know if you know, it's been kind of a rough week for my guys down here too.

So we're checking out on that, but have things stabilized? I mean, it's been like a matter of hours, literally, since he came in, I think. Have you had to renegotiate your mortgage again? My mortgage is now fixed at this eye-wateringly high rate for the next five years. So wait, you have to renegotiate mortgages every five years?

Yeah, or even like every two, like it just depends on how you... Like a car lease. It's basically a car lease for a house. Basically, basically. They prefer you pays your money, you takes your chances. Right, yes, it's the market, the tyranny of the market. Gabriel, I have to tell you something,

because we spoke six months ago, seven months ago. Something like that? You were back then, if I may, handsome, confident, a young man full of vigor, full of light, looking forward to the horizon of a future that you knew you were the captain of. And now I feel like this is a group therapy session. Your world has spun out in a very interesting way,

because you were so ensconced in the world of conspiracy theories, and those who believe that there were secret forces at play that were controlling. And now you're living through a moment of true instability within your own country that's not necessarily conspiratorial, but very real. But you know what, John?

I've just come back from Florida, where I attended something called... Was that to feel better about your situation? Totally. I am just batting this away. I am sidestepping the question. I'm doing a politician on you. I've just been to Florida,

where I attended a conference called NatCon 3. NatCon stands for National Conservatism. Do they just have conferences in the conservative party? There's CPAC and NatCon and what? NatCon makes CPAC look like a teddy bears picnic. Wow. Really? That's scary. So NatCon, I went there because my,

if you remember what we were talking about last time was the Coming Storm, this podcast series that I've done. Correct. And I'm doing it... A terrific podcast, by the way, for those who have not gotten a chance to check it out, it's Gabriel's coverage of the QAnon phenomenon here in the United States and around the world, really.

Yeah, the long roots of January the 6th, and we can go all the way back to the nice... Anyway, we're making a few extra episodes, which are going to land in the first half of November, around your midterm elections. So I thought I would go to this NatCon conference to find out what had happened to this QAnon energy, like this energy that had kind of fueled January the 6th

and this whole kind of election-denying movement. What's happened to it and where's it going? And you're about to say, if I may, and I hate to jump the gun on this because I don't want to give spoilers, completely gone. It's gone, you're fine. Everything's back to normal. Everybody's come back to Earth.

Everyone accepts the election results. Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president of your country. Boy, Gabriel, I'm so glad you had a chance to look at it. Aren't you relieved? Aren't you relieved? Yes, I am. Sadly, John, it's the opposite. I mean, I think we all know that half the country doesn't believe that your president

is legitimately your president. But there were two things I took away from this conference of proud conservative nationalists. What has happened to QAnon kind of split into two things? Well, it had two main components. One was the election was stolen. And two, it was stolen by a cabal of satanic pedophiles. Now, the election was stolen.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You don't want to just let that pass? No. So there is a kind of a more grounded part of the QAnon movement that's like, no, no, no. The election was stolen, but not by a cabal of satanic pedophiles. So the argument amongst QAnon is we both agree it's stolen, but where we part ways, my friend, is who stole it.

I say cabal of satanic pedophiles, and the other people say, just a cabal. That's kind of one of the arguments amongst QAnoners. I mean, there are other arguments amongst QAnoners, like which random weird guy is actually the reincarnation of John F. Kennedy Jr., who is still alive. I mean, those are other arguments that are going on in those spaces. This is discussed openly.

Yeah, sure. What, you haven't never wondered which random guy that you know might be John F. Kennedy's dead son? I have not. John, you haven't lived. But I'm not tech savvy, so I can't do my own research. OK, boomer. OK, boomer.

Gabriel, isn't it more than a QAnon split, isn't it? I mean, QAnon, they continued down the satanic blood drinking cult and then rank and file Republicans seem to just think the election was stolen by a cabal. Right, exactly, exactly. So the idea of the deep state stealing the election has just been absorbed into mainstream American politics. It's a mainstream, yes.

It's a mainstream opinion now. In fact, it's quite hard to get on in the Republican Party if you don't at least publicly subscribe to that opinion. I believe the word is impossible to get on in the Republican Party. And not only is it hard to get on, they will actively destroy you. Indeed, indeed. But so the satanic pedophiles bit seem to have disappeared, but they were all talking about something else,

which I think has replaced the idea of the satanic pedophiles. And that is one word, groomers. It's not metrosexuals you're talking about. It's not. It's not metrosexuals. It's not taking a poodle to the doggy hairdresser. All right. It is people doing gender education in schools. It is drag queen story hour.

It is chest surgery for minors in hospitals. This is what is consuming and firing up and energizing all of that part of the political forest. So we did an episode on gender where we tried to figure out what exactly was driving that. And it seems like they're latching on to very small communities and taking this as a writ large existential threat to their primacy.

I think that's right. But the thing that struck me was that actually this has become an incredibly potent force and much more potent than this idea of a cabal of satanic pedophiles. What happened to that? How did that go away? You know, that just sort of felt a little far-fetched and like no one could find any evidence that it was actually happening.

Well, they could find a little bit of evidence of it, but it was mostly Republican operatives who keep getting arrested for Pabilia. Well, there was also Jeffrey Epstein, but anyway. Yes, as well. As well. So this idea of groomers, you know, at least has the advantage of referencing something

that is actually happening, right? It is true that there are drag queen story hours in which the stated aim is to introduce children to queer role models. And if you think that that is evil or grooming in effect, then you're like, huh, this is actually, actually happening. So that is, it's somehow conflating drag with sexual activity? Like, I'm not exactly sure what the connection is, but that's... I mean, look, what's happening in those spaces

is that people will see videos of drag queen story hour where somebody is dressed maybe in quite a suggestive manner that they don't think is appropriate for children. And these things do happen, you know, let's not pretend that they aren't. And then they go, hey, what the hell is this, right? Have you ever seen child pageants? Yeah, it's a very, very dodgy thing. It's weird. But that's a phenomenon in largely conservative areas

where children are dressed up in very provocative ways and paraded around. And so I'm just trying to wrap my head around why one creates a panic and the other is like good, clean American fun. You're completely right. It's a moral panic. It's absolutely a moral panic. I think that a lot of people, not just on the right, there are absolutely people who are using this issue cynically for electoral gain. And they're using the word groomers because they know that groomers says paedophiles

and it's like it's just a dog whistle. And it's the kind of next incarnation of Q, right? Yeah, absolutely. I feel like, you know, if you're in the United States of America and you really are worried about pedophilia and, you know, the safety of children, you go to stewards of children, the website, and you figure out how to take those classes and all that stuff. But in my mind, like gender binary and all that stuff,

it really is, I think, in combination with the great replacement theory and thinking about, you know, like if I'm a white man and they're trying to say that, oh, you can be anything, they're getting rid of masculinity and they're getting rid of whiteness. And it's sort of this thing that sort of threatens your position with the United States of America. And I imagine there's some similar feeling across. That their suggestion is there's no ceiling on that. Absolutely.

It's a contagion rather than a subset of actual people who are merely now expressing themselves and society is trying to figure out how to adapt to that complexity. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and I think a lot of people feel like you are taking away the boundaries of my life. I now feel unmoored. Like if you're suddenly saying to me, all these years,

I thought that there were men and there were women. And now suddenly you're saying, hold on a second, there are like all these other genders and men can become women and women can go back again. And people are like, ah, I feel lost. Where the hell am I? Where are the boundaries of my world? But the boundaries still exist. It's merely suggesting there is this other, you know, there is a subset. There's a Venn diagram and it's men and women and they're gigantic.

But there is a little area that for some people exists. And that's, I don't know why that's so complicated. And the crazy part is like if you really want to protect children, you know, the poverty rate for children in this country is astonishing. The food insecurity for children in this country is astonishing. And the numbers are astonishing. And so it's this incredibly virulent, volatile focus on this one kind of ancillary issue that doesn't throw.

Like I would think that your world would become unmoored. If someone said to you, we let children starve in a fucking country of wealth and prosperity. I would think there'd be nothing more to unmoor you than that. That's the thing that is upsetting. Yeah, I think that's a very, very valid point. But I think that sadly in America and also in Britain, like we also have, you know, people who are, you know, living if they don't get their lunch at their free school meals,

they're not going to get a meal, right, kids. So we also have this problem. Sadly, we're kind of, what are we, inured to this? We hear this on our news bulletins and it washes over us like a sort of lukewarm, dirty bathwater thing. And we're like, that's just the way the world is. But this issue, which is now being channeled into this kind of Q and Onish groomer thing, it's electrifying.

It's electrifying everybody. It's firing people up. And that, I think, is where that segment of the Q and On energy has gone. Gabriel, how extensive is it? Because I would think that energy is not just Q and On. That that energy is more widespread. Listen, there's no easier target than trans people or, you know, it's just easy. I think that's right.

And that's why it's so powerful and so dangerous. Because you not only manage to pull in a lot more people who are worried about this issue than would normally kind of go down a Q and On rabbit hole. But you're also saying that the institutions of the state, specifically the ones that are there to look after your children's education and your children's health care, are in fact, what? Pedophiles. That's what that is what groomer says, right?

And and that word, that pedophile word is so strong, so awful, so hideous that it kind of just drives people nuts. And that's the danger of it. And also, there is a certain, listen, there is a reality to when you send a kid to school, their shit's going to go down that you don't agree with. Right. I mean, that's, you know, you don't experience that. Either in, you know, an overreach on liberal policy and overreach on conservative policy.

Like there's all kinds of shit and overreach on grading policy. Like there's all kinds of shit. And there's nothing more powerful than these people are in charge of your children. Yeah, absolutely. Where do you see this going, Gabriel? So look, so I was at this conference and the one thing they were talking was groomers. And then the other thing they were all talking about was they don't do you know this?

They don't call the Biden administration. They don't call it the illegitimate Biden administration. They don't call it the government that we hate. You know what they call it? The regime. They call it the regime, right? And it's not just the government that by the regime, they mean the government, the journalists, me, Facebook, Twitter, Silicon Valley, the Justice Department, the FBI.

Basically, they are running hard on this idea that the regime has got everything sewn up. And again, they've got something. They've got a Trump card, if you'll excuse the pun. I won't. OK, I take it back. I take it back. They've got a card which which they believe shows everyone that they are right, that there is a regime and that there is a deep state effort to stop Donald Trump

or whoever his his heir and successor might end up being from ever achieving the White House again. And it is Hunter Biden's laptop. Now, wait, what? You know, Hunter Biden had a laptop. I'm not aware. No, of course. OK, but why is that so that is evidence of a cover up? Is that what the suggestion is?

Let me tell you the story in brief. So in October, 2020, the New York Post published the story saying that Hunter Biden had left his laptop in a macro pair shop in Delaware, never picked it up. And they got hold of it and they published some stories. And their stories basically suggested that Hunter Biden was making money for the whole Biden family through a bunch of corrupt companies in Ukraine and China. The big guy gets gets a cut. The big 10 percent for the big guy, right?

So that was one of the emails on there when they were figuring out how to divvy up this Chinese joint venture that was working with a company that was sort of connected to the Chinese Communist Party. And it was like there was this line that wasn't written by Hunter Biden. It was written by one of his business partners, but they were suggesting how to divvy it up and it was 10 percent to be held by H. That's Hunter for the big girl. And the assumption was that that was Joe Biden.

So the picture that emerged, this is remember three weeks out before the 2020 election, was that there was some kind of distinctly stinky money stuff going on. And the evidence was on this laptop. Now, I don't actually remember what happened to that story at the time. But yeah, it got it got squished. People said this is Russian misinformation. Yeah, that there was no Russian information, something along those lines. Correct. That's right.

That's right. And I remember I remember when I was going around America trying to kind of gather my stuff for the coming storm and I was trying to figure out what the hell QAnon was. There was this other conspiracy theory that was going out and everyone was going, what about Hunter Biden's laptop, man? And I I remember exactly what I thought. I was like, I don't I just don't have the bandwidth for another conspiracy theory. I'm not even going to touch this.

This is this is such bullshit, right? I am literally not even going to go there. And that's what I did. I ignored it. Well, big mistake. It turned out the laptop was real. Facebook essentially censored the story. Twitter locked the New York Post out of its account. Fifty former national security experts and officials came out

and said it was Russian disinformation. Turned out that not only was it real, but the FBI had the bloody laptop all this time, hadn't really looked on it, hadn't figured out. And then it took the establishment media in the US that the New York Times and the Washington Post, let's say, the kind of the big boys, the serious boys and girls, it took them nearly two years to go through the laptop. As you expect, they would do some serious journalism,

show it to some cybersecurity experts and go, huh, do you know what? Actually, it turns out this thing is real. It's real. Yeah. But like that wasn't big news. There was no kind of, oh, my God, we really, we've really, really fucked up there because we suppressed this story three weeks out from an election. It was just like, yeah, but we looked at it and it's just kind of business as usual.

Well, to some degree, isn't this, you know, and I don't want to excuse the media because in general they are terrible at what they do, but aren't the consequences of boy who cried wolf from Q and I mean, if you're firing off conspiracies constantly, eventually you're going to say, this is probably another bullshit lead. I don't have time for it 10 days before an election. 100 percent, as Steve Bannon said, flood the zone with shit, right? Right. Right.

So and you know how the laptop made its way into the media via Steve Bannon. So so kind of I assumed this was Steve Bannon flooding the zone with shit. And that's why I ignored it. Let's say it was real and people just thought, well, the one thing in it maybe is 10 percent to the big guy, which is circumstantial at best. But as far as like, look, Hunter Biden being on the board of barisma.

To me, that's corruption straight up off the bat. Like, you know, they always call it. Yes. Right. They always call it a they always call it a corrupt Ukrainian gas company. That's like, you don't need to say that all Ukrainian gas companies are corrupt. It's like a fact of life. And by the way, all American gas companies are pretty corrupt.

Like, how dare you, sir? So it's all fucking corrupt. But so what we're saying, we're saying we're not surprised. It's not even that I'm not surprised. It's that it's corrupt on its face. I don't need a laptop with like a hint of circumstantial evidence. Now, tying Joe Biden to it. Yeah, that's going to take some digging.

And if it's real, you know, that's a thing. But the idea that nepotism would allow much larger amounts of money to flow into the hands of people unqualified to be in the positions that they've been accepted because you think those countries are trying to buy influence. Yeah, welcome to the fucking world. And I think I think it's a huge problem on its face. Forget about any secret laptop.

But, you know, the problem is for the American media and the British media as well, is that it is true that we collectively spent the entire Trump administration trying to figure out if Donald Trump had ever been to Moscow, let alone peed on a bed with some prostitutes in the Ritz-Carlton. Right. And about, you know, whether or not Donald Trump's children were using the White House to kind of pump up their own brands and profit from like we literally

that consumed the whole of America. They were. I mean, they were absolutely. Which consumed the whole of America for four years. And it turned out there wasn't a p-tape. But anyway, never mind, which was a shame because I would have loved to have seen that. But not in a not in a weird way. Just in a political way.

Sure, sure, sure. In a political way. I don't need to know that you wanted to see that. In an evidence way. I really don't need to know that. I have similar tapes I could send you. Can I just tell you something? I have seen. No, no. I have seen the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop. OK. And I think that it is.

So, so the, you know, the email about 10 percent for the big guy. It's there. Yeah. The email that kind of seems to suggest that Joe Biden went to a restaurant in Washington, DC and met the representative of the Ukrainian gas company which he then said he didn't. It's there. Right. So. Right. So there is some there there. There's no question.

There is. There is absolutely some there there. Let me also tell you what else is there. Like this is also a picture of a guy who is going off the rails, right? He's got addiction problems. His brother has died. His marriage is falling apart. He's having an affair with his sister-in-law, and he is addicted to drugs. Right.

And so in a way, you're looking at this thing for the kind of for the politics of it and and trying to figure out, you know, are they right in saying that there is a deep state and conspiracy to hide high level corruption? I mention this because if you type in Hunter Biden's laptop into Google, you will find lots of suggestions that there was child porn on there. I have looked through this laptop.

There's a lot of dodgy stuff on there. There's a lot of porn on there. There's a lot of emails suggesting fishy deals with with corrupt companies. Right. There is no child porn on Hunter Biden's laptop. Just for the record. Well, thank you, Gabriel, for setting the record straight with the lowest bar imaginable. Yes, that is a banner falls behind confetti. Yeah. But the point of saying that is that, you know,

this one crime would blow all the other potential crimes out of water. Let me let me let me say this. And this is all conspiracies have hints of truth. Some end up being true. Some end up not. But they're very convenient in that any hint can be used to justify any accusation that you want to level against it. And there has to be a certain bar of reality that goes along with the aroma of corruption and cover up and deep state.

I don't think I would ever push back on the idea that powerful people do incredibly corrupt things for their own benefit and cover the fuck up out of it. Like no question in my mind, but that doesn't mean there's always that logical jump that that that becomes fallacious. And because of that, everything is real. That's right. And you could go back and if you want to criticize the media, you could go back and say, boy, did they make a meal out of Hillary Clinton's emails.

And I mean obsessively day in and day out. And maybe the thought was Hunter Biden isn't running for president. He's a troubled guy. Maybe there is some stuff on there and corruption. And it's certainly worth looking out for. But the idea that anything that's thrown like a hand grenade into an election three weeks out must be covered wall to wall in the way that they did those emails. Like I don't agree with either.

So we're at kind of a weird point. But the problem is that it's it's happened now. It's a bit like the stone election thing. Like, you know, like once once you've let that once you've done it once, it's like for fairness, you've got to do it again. Right. Like, but now you've got this thing like Hunter Biden's laptop wasn't covered right. So the election was stolen from Donald Trump. That's my point is you can have things that are absolutely justifiable and real.

Yeah. But can I just put a counterfactual for a second? Because Hillary Clinton believes that she lost the election to Donald Trump in 2016 because of the reopening of the investigation into her email server. Right. And that kind of that basically it was really tight, tight election. That happened. James Comey announced that he was reopening the investigation and that lost it for her. That's what she believes. Right. Now, it is not inconceivable

that if the press had made wall-to-wall meal out of Hunter Biden's laptop and 10 percent of the big guy and the barisma meeting in the weeks running up to the 2020 election, given how close the result was in the key states that decided it, it isn't inconceivable. Not as a conspiracy theory, but just as psychology, it is not inconceivable that we would have a different result. I think. I guess so. I mean, it's one of those things where you say, right.

And if they had made, you know, a wall-to-wall coverage of, you know, the children of Donald Trump's business dealings and had been much more, you know, then couldn't that have been, I mean, isn't that if ifs and buts were candy and nuts? It is. But it's but it's also like that's where we are now. We're in the we're in the world of, you know, you did it. So we've got to do it back to you. And and, you know, we're in the world where, you know, the Republicans,

you can't see a way in which they are ever going to accept another election that they lose. Like how, how, how do you put that genie back in the bottle? But do you really think that all? Honestly, Gabriel, do you think that their inability to accept an election that they lose is all tied back to media malpractice on Hunter Biden's laptop? No, no, no, no, no, absolutely not.

No, you misunderstand me. To clarify, they don't accept the election because they didn't want to lose. That's what I'm saying. But that's my point. Yeah, absolutely. But what I'm saying is that is like regardless of Hunter Biden's laptop, all the state of the media and the else, the stolen election

is the genie that cannot be put back in the bottle. Like you cannot, whatever happens, however good we have midterms coming up in two weeks. This is exciting. Good luck trying to stuff it back in. Like they're not going to accept elections that they lost, right? You can't walk back from that. And how do you coexist in a democratic ecosystem

where one half of the game players do not believe in the rules? Like how do you play that game anymore? Well, the only way you can play that game is by meeting them by reinventing the rules and meeting them on that playing field. And I've seen a clip from Hillary Clinton where she says, folks, they're preparing that the Republicans, they are preparing to steal the 2024 election.

Mark my words, they're preparing to steal it. Now, what did we hear from Donald Trump in the run up to the 2020 election? Folks, they're preparing to steal the election, right? I think, and this is where I think, just to go back to the beginning of our conversation, where I think that politics in our country, chaotic and messy, though it is, hasn't quite caught up with the nightmare that is politics in your country. Is that I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Must be nice. It's not nice because I partly because I love America and partly because I know that everything that happens where you are comes to us sooner or later. Yeah, we are patient zero in a lot of in a lot of ways. But I just I just don't see how the game can be played anymore. I think it's over.

Democracy is at some level is a gentleman's agreement. It is a consent of the governed. And if the governed do not consent, then you no longer have the fabric of a democracy to fall back on. And the hope is, is that we have enough civic infrastructure to withstand what maybe is a temporal disruption and not a permanent fissure. You speak about maybe crossing a Rubicon.

I still believe in a pendulum and maybe that pendulum is swinging wildly in a way that seems broken and chaotic. But I do hope that if we get to a certain point, and I don't want to say cooler heads will prevail, but the abyss will be so devastating to peer into that people will step back. You know, that's as optimistic a version of it as I possibly can can muster. I hope you're right.

And it's not as though we haven't been in this place in previous eras. Look, everyone thinks it's a fate of complete that we joined up with the Allied powers and we battled fascism. And we but that was not predestined. But that's not to say that if that battle was repeated, we would join that same side. Could have ended up in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. But when I look at it now, when you see that half the country is lining up

behind, you know, Putin and Orban and other people that are more ultra nationalistic and have different views. I'm not so sure that we do join up to defend democracy. Or we just redefine what we think defending democracy is and join up with whatever that is. So those fulcrums are always tenuous. And I think I have more faith ultimately. In people's ability to.

Walk that tightrope. I wish I had something to back that up for you. I wish I had I wish I had a reason other than a deep abiding belief that most people want to be left a fuck alone and have peaceful, prosperous lives. That's it. Sometimes, sometimes a bit of faith is enough. Gabriel, you're killing me.

I'm sorry. Well, I was trying to be supportive. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Boy, Gabriel, it's such a pleasure to talk to you. As always, fascinating stuff in your insights into that are are are really fantastic. And so I truly appreciate it.

Thank you so much. It's it's been a real joy as ever. And Takara and Robbie, too. Thank you. Thank you, Gabriel. Thank you. Holy shit, guys. What we we're we've got to do one with like we got to find like a happy light. Uh-huh. By the end of it, I really

I thought Gabriel was going to go all this loss. Yeah, you really brought the optimism at the end. And I bit my tongue on my thoughts. I was like, let's let this end with some light. Well, as soon as he brought up, Florida, I felt so much shame. I was like, just be quiet. Don't do it for your hometown. Shut up.

It struck me that he was saying like, well, geez, if there weren't these kernels of truth in what they were saying, then this wouldn't have power. And that's probably an oversimplification. But I I do disagree with that in the sense of do you remember Dana Loesch, who is the sort of right wing commentator after the Herschel Walker situation came out where it was he had paid for an abortion and he's pro-life

and the hypocrisy and all those other things. And I thought she really laid the game out, though, pretty clearly, she said, I don't give a shit. Yeah, if he paid for, I believe the quote was some skanks abortion. I want control of the Senate and ultimately trying to discern the roots isn't as important as understanding the goal and the goal is power and any lever will be pulled

in pursuit of said power. I mean, the idea that the status quo and the establishment is corrupt. Yeah, no fucking kidding. But to then utilize that as as your pretense. Yes. For these much larger conspiracies. That's when it gets cynical. The movement toward just stating of the goal is that's shocking. Even that is shocking.

Because even Dana Loesch is media savvy enough to know she wouldn't have said that some years ago. But now they're really just laying it out. They're very comfortable saying what we want is power and control. I don't think this is unique to Dana Loesch. I think we'll be hearing more and more of this from more and more mainstream voices. I was just really surprised by that. I mean, you guys are from Florida.

I mean, from your friends that are down there, are they the ones who are calling you and going like they were calling me from the floor of NatCon. You got to come down here. I think it's very easy for people to sort of get that earworm. Like even my brother, I'll bring up something political. And no matter what it is, he'll say, well, what about Hunter Biden's laptop? Oh, that's interesting. He'll bring it up. Everybody needs an earworm.

Is there a what would be the liberal equivalent of that of that earworm? Is there one? Well, it was Russian misinformation for a long time. It was this is Russia. This is Russia. Yeah. Right. Right. It's fascinating. And Trump's going to get indicted. That one, that song.

Right. I'm just truly hoping that this is kind of the temporary madness in the crucible of an upcoming election and that in the post-election now, that's suggesting that the election will come off like elections we've seen in the past. People will concede. The Congress will go like, I have a feeling that may not be the case. So this may be another one of those never ending stories. But but I am hoping that perhaps this is a little bit of like the stress before finals. And then after finals, everybody's going to be like, I hope so,

because the rhetoric is it's out of control. Last night, Tucker Carlson as a throwaway line talking about the Democratic Party, he said, and you know, they're they're a religion. They're a child sacrifice cult. Child sacrifice cult and pro union. Yes. Speaking of mainstream voices saying ridiculous stuff out loud with no consequence. That's wild.

Yeah. OK, here we are. And the game, I always feel is like, oh, you called us Nazis. OK, well, look, now we're going to do Nazi shit on the Democratic side. It's never like, oh, you call it a child sacrifice cult, bring me a baby. You know, it's like. That's if that becomes a bumper sticker, I think we're going to have real problems. We're going to have issues.

Well, guys, what what a conversation today. A lot of emotions up, down, I laughed. I cried. I mostly cried. I'm still crying. There's going to be a lot of crying. But thank you guys very much for being here. Robbie Slowick to Karen Mallard. I want to thank Gabriel Gatehouse.

That is the problem podcast for this week. Please join us for the Apple TV Plus show that will be coming out on elections and how we can best securitize them in a way that that makes our democracy function. I believe it's out on Friday, so we will see you next time. Bye. Bye, everybody. Bye, bye. The problem with John Stuart podcast is an Apple TV Plus podcast and a joint busboy production.