January 10, 2025 • 69 mins
As we record, Luigi Mangione is currently in police custody on suspicion of murdering former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In the second chapter of this ongoing investigation, Ben, Matt and Noel explore recent updates on the case, as well as the larger implications: What does the public reaction tell us about the growing divides in the United States? Why does establishment media and public discourse seem so starkly opposed? Is it possible that this event might inspire others to commit similar crimes? Tune in to learn more, and as always feel free to reach out to us directly: conspiracy@iheartmedia.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noelah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We are joined as always with our super producer Dylan
the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
You are here.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
In twenty twenty five, welcome back, welcome back. Oh my gosh,
can you guys believe it? Twenty twenty five?
Speaker 5 (00:50):
It seems like one of those futuristic numbers you see
in like sci fi movies from the eighties. I mean,
I guess it is almost have a flying car, didn't
I see?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
We uf flying cars? Okay, we're almost there, guys, we
have flying cars.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
We don't have them, but civilization does have some flying cars.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And somebody's got drones that are the size of SUVs,
so that's cool.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Somebody, I haven't drone the size of my fist. That's
equally impressive, right, And we also have further conspiracies. Afoot
fellow conspiracy Realist toward the end of the year. One
of the last recordings we did in twenty twenty four,
we looked at the case of Luigi Mangioni and we
(01:35):
took a moment, and we paused, and we said, let's
hold off on chapter two in hopes of acquiring more
information about this ongoing, deeply divisive situation. I think we
left off talking about that epic purp Walk, which has
been memed six ways to Sunday. It looks like the
cover of the most badass gangster ap album ever made.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Ted Kaczynski could never did you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Guys see the pictures that were comparing Luigi Mangioni's the shirt,
the collared white shirt that he was wearing, and the
overshirt and then the one the JFK's assassin was wearing
in that moment when he is that the moment when
he yelled out he was a patsy. No, that was
a different moment.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You're saying that they were fit twins? Is that what
you're saying?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It looked they looked like twins.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was so frit right, and then it goes.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
It reminds me too of the extensive armchair speculation on
the CCTV shots of the guy getting a drink at
Starbucks versus the shots of Mangioni, some of which are
entirely AI slop.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
By the way, who.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Is Luigi, you may be asking, Please listen to chapter
one before continuing. We'll tell you the brief, quick and
dirty for recap here right now. The headline is Luigi
Mangone is a guy from a prominent Maryland family who
is currently in custody on suspicion of murdering a United
Healthcare CEO named Brian Thompson.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
I regular William zan Zinger. Sorry, I was a Bob
Dylan reference. He was part of a good family that
was involved in the politics of Maryland.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, but isn't it weird hit the trust fund that
that family has, it's only around four million. It's only
around four million, And then you compare that, like just
to say that we're like a well off, influential family.
They only had a trust a four million, which is amazing.
I can't imagine having that.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
I was about to say, Matt, you're really making me
feel that poor. No, No, I love it, I love but.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Think about the actual power players like in any city
like that, their trusts are.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
In measurable perhaps, But so are you saying that you
think because he was from a less prominent family that
he was maybe made of patsy or I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It's to put the put the pieces of Sorry, yeah,
sometimes just trying to the concept I'm putting together here
is that the way it's spoken about, like he was
a high achiever in academics. He you know, he was
a part of this family that is wealthy and somewhat influential, right,
but it's nothing compared to the person that he killed,
and like that person's family and the people that run
in those circles.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
And it's nothing compared to the fast food cabal of
families that clearly run Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Interesting, and it.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Does certainly seem like he is being made quite the
example of.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Let's just say yes, yes, Mangione. Going back to the
Purp Walk idea had received a ton of political theater.
The Mayor of New York was there during the Purp Walk,
as were other notable movers and shakers. Timothy McVeigh, who
was responsible for the nineteen ninety five domestic terrorist attack
(04:49):
in Oklahoma City, didn't get half the people that Luigi
Mangioni had on his purp walk, and that again is
another tea leaf that people are reading into to our
earlier question about setting an example.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
I mean the photo op of it all where Eric
Adams is concerned with his police background and the whole
show of force, the pageantry, like you say, Ben, of
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's pretty stark.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, you could almost feel Batman perched up somewhere in
the background of Gotham City just watching we got him.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, all the memes we're comparing him to the Joker.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I mean, that's like a big thing that's all over
the internet, comparing my guess to the Joaquin Phoenix kind
of joker more than like freedom fighting bring down the
Man Joker than the Watch the World Burn Joker.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And it's kind of a I mean, it's not kind
of there's no kind of about it. In that we
see a larger context. We see a condemnation of the
observer society, the passive observer society that has sprouted and
blossomed in the in the wake of the information age.
Because there was an excellent question we were asking in
(05:55):
chapter one, what if Mangione was not so as we
say photogen or camera ready, what if he was schluppy,
what if he had bad hair or was snaggle toothed,
you know, just a.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Four pack rather than the eighth that he's clearly sporting.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Right without the gutters. And you know what I'm talking about,
fans of Rick and Mortar. Ah, yes, yes, those gutters.
So please do listen to chapter one before continuing. We're
gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and then
we'll return. If you're not from the United States or
you took a holiday break from the news, we'll give
you a brief recap of the events in the most
(06:31):
factual way possible.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Hey, it is December fourth, twenty twenty four. Oh, it
feels like such a long time ago. Now almost exactly
a month from the day that we're recording.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Are you serious, right? Only that long? It does? It's
really wild. It was, as Adam Durrett said, a long December.
Oh jeez. The reason to believe is what do you believe?
Speaker 4 (07:01):
And that's also one of the songs I was playing
on repeat, you guys, uh with feels so good by
Chuck The.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Smell of hospitals in winter.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
A line Okay, it's it's just it's fantastic lyricism.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
It's not good. Nine, it's not bad. Oh the way
the light reflects off a girl.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Crowded room with the girl. Yeah, I'm sorry, now, it's
that dure. It's a real romantic.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Much like Arboy, Luigi Menji romantic.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
All right, so several years ago rings were so shiny.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Sorry, so several years ago. It was December fourth, twenty
twenty four. It's early in the morning.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare, was leaving.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
The Marriott he was staying at.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Was this a fancy Marriot or just kind of a
regular Okay, all right? When I hear Marriott, I guess
I don't really think fancy. But in New York there
it's a brand. There's certainly are high end Marriotts.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
It's a great term.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
It's an term like that's how there are different kinds
of cancer one hundred.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Percent, thank you, bed.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
So he was leaving the Marriott the fancy area, mind you,
that he was staying at, which is across the street
from the Hilton, the New York Hilton Midtown, where he
was attending an investor conference for United healthcare in one
of those you know, hotel ballroom type situations.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
And what would have happened at that investor conference. What
would Thompson have said? We don't know. He did not
make it to the conference. He's walking along West fifty
fourth Street. Pull up a map if you wish. It's
about six forty five am local time. He's an early riser.
He is shot from behind by a person wearing a
(08:34):
mask and a hoodie wielding a mysterious handgun. Thompson is
shot three times. Essentially six shots are tempted, but only
three land. He's transported to local hospital, where he's pronounced
dead at seven twelve am.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Would he have been pronounced dead in transits or is
that something they don't even officially do until they get
him into a room in a doctor season?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Right? Was he doa It seems like he likely was
pretty doo.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, we know the official pronunciation of death occurred there
at the hospital, and it did not take very long. No,
a lot of murders happened in New York. It did
not take very long for the authorities to put their
top men on the case.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, guys, I'm sorry, I don't mean to repeat myself.
I just want to hit it home one more time.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
I heard about this on one of those television monitors,
those LCD monitors that you have in elevators and like
office buildings and hotels, and.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I had no idea that it happened in New York.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
But I was in New York and our offices, which
is just a couple of blocks from this exact site.
And I was so crazy slammed that day that I
just didn't really even give another thought. I had no
idea that it had happened right down the street from
where I was.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Wow, again, it feels like ages ago.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Before we get even further into exactly what happened that day,
can we just quickly talk about how strange it is
that whoever the killer was was outside of the exact
hotel entrance exit that Brian left from. Because it know
the well they're released that agree there were at least
three exits. Yeah, in this moment, we don't know that,
(10:06):
but it is very strange. And maybe it was just
a calculation about the closest way to get from Hotel
X to Hotel Y, right.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
For sure, but it's so specific.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
I'm really looking forward to maybe that's a weird way
of putting it to finding out how this guy stalked
and managed to get all of these details just right.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And it's not super easy.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Whomever that person may be, right, because Mangioni has not
been legally convicted. Mangioni has in fact pled not guilty
to all the charges, which we'll get to. We talked
about it a little bit in chapter one. One interesting
thing that the investigators know that I don't think the
public knows yet to the point about mapping out the
(10:48):
route or planning the hit. Which hotel room specifically was
Thompson in, right, And what was the relation of that
hotel room to the exit, and which exit was most
convenient for reaching the Hilton there? These these are questions
that the public doesn't have the answers.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
To you, Was there a little bit of luck involved?
You know? I do wonder that as well.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Yeah, And was it good luck or bad luck? I
guess it depends on your perspective, right, And.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
I know we're going to get into it, but I
just think the not guilty plea in and of itself
is mega interesting for reasons.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Sure, right, right, Because often when people are ideologically motivated,
they want to plead guilty, they want visibility, they want
to further proselytize for their cause.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Well, it sure as craps seemed like he wanted to
get caught. It seems like something out of a comic
book in terms of like what he had on him, how.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Available he wants more or less.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
I mean, it almost feels like the scene in seven
where John Doe puts his hands up and walks out
and says, detective.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You know it was God. Seven was great.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
It's a rollicking buddy comedy that's perfect for feel good. Yeah,
it feels so good.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Well, it also seems almost too perfect.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Right a little bit, a little bit, yes, it does.
And this is an excellent setup levels to that one.
Because Mangione was apprehended he is currently in custody. On
December ninth, you know, several years ago. Five days after
that shooting, authorities arrested a twenty six year old man
(12:27):
named Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He
was quickly charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, along
with a rogues gallery of other related charges, including, you know,
illegal possession of certain firearms and paraphernalia, terrorism charges. They
(12:48):
hit him with everything they could.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Initially it was weapons charges, just to get him out
of that McDonald's and into you know, a holding cell
for a little while until they brought the other ones.
But yeah, oh yeah, they threw a book.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, they got a legal foot in the door, right,
And then once they had possession of him, habeas corpus
and so on, they were able to add on the
other charges, indeed, the ones that they were truly looking for.
So this guy takes the Internet by storm. He becomes
a full keyro to some and anti hero to others,
(13:23):
clear and present danger to a lot of billionaires. If
we're being honest, we all remember when gosh, it was
either Elon Musk or Adrian Dittman who went on X
and said, hey, guys, it's not based to kill CEOs,
it's not Jesus.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Indeed, it's actually what's the opposite of base acidic? Now,
I don't know, whack is sort of old school.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
There's definitely something that's the opposite of based cringe lame,
Oh cringe, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think cringe works. Yeah, goofy. Anyway, so just weird,
it's a little weird.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
It's it's oddly specific if we're being diplomatic. So we
talked about this in chapter one. There's a vast narrative
war continuing now between the public and established media outlets,
as well as institutions of power, law enforcement, the judiciary,
and you know, the financial people.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Well, it does kind of make you think of the
whole idea of like one person's terrorist as another person's
freedom fighter, or like thinking about Robinhood, who was a menace,
you know, to the Sheriff of Nottingham and all of
the nobles and all of that, but in fact he
was kind of murdering people and at the very least
stealing from people committing crimes. And so depending on which
side of that divide you are on, you know, he
(14:42):
was either you know, enemy of the state or you know,
doing you a solid. And then it becomes the question
of like how do we view these corporations, Like are
they villainous enough that in this fight for equity and
the ability to live a I guess what's the dignified life?
Like are these companies and the CEOs that level of
villain that they should be executed?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
What are the consequences? And we have to understand the
larger context here. If you are tuning in to this
show and you are not from the United States, or
you have never visited this crazy, crazy place, then you
may not be aware that there is a bit of
a There was a bit of preface to this. There
(15:25):
has been an increased division of haves and have nots
in this country, which is approaching the Gilded Age of
the nineteen twenties. There are things like or cases like
the Sackler family in the world of medicine, which clearly
got away with aiding and abetting and escalating an opioid
(15:46):
crisis which continues today. The public by and large is
primed to consider this socioeconomic demographic of the haves as
enemies one hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
I just I saw a video yesterday actually on Instagram
where it was a British reporter going around to people
on the street and ask them how much they thought
certain medical supplies cost in America, and they were shocked
that people were like, how much do you think an
EpiPen cost? They're like eighty dollars, Like, no, six hundred dollars.
You know, how much do you think an ambulance ride costs?
(16:21):
And the guys well, I guess it depends on where
you live, but what one hundred dollars, one hundred pounds,
twenty five hundred dollars, it's wild.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
And then add to that, of course, add to that
the follow up question where they say, well, what if
someone dies because they can't get insulin?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And then the Americans go, oh.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Yeah, that that happens, and it's just fine, that's it too.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah. I actually have a quick story about this, guys,
and just to bring it personal for a moment, right
after all this stuff went down, not right after two
weeks after all this went down with Brian Thompson's stuff,
my dad kind of had a little heart situation while
he was out with my mom and had to get
picked up in an ambulance. And that hasn't it's only
(17:02):
happened one other time. And it was really scary because
I just got a phone call, you know, and h
headed that way where they are, and it was a
medical emergency where like he needed that ambulance. It wasn't
a you know, it was It's nice that an ambulance
could take us there. My dog is playing in the background,
but he he got one of what do you call him?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Ben uh non consensual.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, yeah, okay, you got one of those.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
That's it. I do call them that, yes, yes, so.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
We got one of those. And uh, he is in
his seventies, so he you know, when he worked for
a long time, he had really good healthcare with his job,
good healthcare again, like one of the higher levels of
healthcare that you can get. Now he's on Medicare and
he's he's old enough to get those benefits. It didn't
actually hurt him that much financially to take this ambulance
(17:53):
right in to then get seen by a specialist to
then you know, have a bunch of tests done on
him and get drugs so that he can leave. And
he was okay. But for anybody else who's not in
their seventies, who didn't work all their life in that way,
paying into that system, that situation of needing to be
picked up because there's something wrong with your heart and
(18:14):
then you have to go hang out in the hospital
and they want to keep you and run tests and
all of that, that is a life changing event, not
for your health, but for your ability to pay for
everything else in your life. Because that just sits there now.
It will break you.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Yeah, it may be astonishing for people from other developed
countries to hear this hard truth. The majority of US
citizens are one medical catastrophe away from poverty, and it
is incredibly expensive to be poor in this country. The
(18:50):
safety net is continually eroding, and it's a long pattern.
You can look up phrases like starve the beast, We
welcome you to that related conspiracy. And I think it's
also fascinating that while we're giving a quick recap of
the Mangione situation conspiracy series of events, we're immediately also
(19:11):
talking about the larger context of healthcare. This is front
of mind for everybody as soon as they learned the
identity of the shooting victim. And it's weird too, guys,
because it seems, despite this huge divide now between the
haves and have nots, the public and the establishment media,
one thing everybody or the majority of people seem to
(19:33):
agree upon is that Mangioni, while not yet convicted, is
the murderer. The majority of people think the guy did
it based on some of the evidence we explore in
chapter one.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Yeah, and they're stoked about it, like they think it
was a great thing to have done.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah. We mentioned what was found in his backpack, right,
I think that was episode one.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
It was Yeah, Canopoly money and what has been determined
to have been a ghost guy, which I believe was
made up of three D per into components. The kind
of schematics can be downloaded and then you know, you
can actually print them yourself if you have the right equipment.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
As well as a suppressor, yeah, which was key, as
well as a purported manifesto.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
We hit the internet pretty quick, and although a lot
of people were skeptical about the veracity of the stippets
that were being seen or passed around, it did turn out.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
That most of them were right.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Really Okay, See, I wanted to ask you guys about
that because I've seen a couple of different versions. Maybe
and then you know, I'm hearing that a lot of
it is false, But then a couple of them were real,
And then I think it was The New York Post
made a whole documentary that they put on there, yea,
and they read directly from it, which made me feel
(20:42):
a little better. Even though it's a New York.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Post, right, but the documentary is given the time constraints
the documentary is working under. I think they did a
pretty good job the title. The title in aurse to
Humility was New York Post presents Luigi Mangioti monster or.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Mart see Brownie points for making up that title?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Is good, Okay, I to check it out.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
We're the first people to uh pay respects and give
credit where it's due on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Do we love the New York Post overall as a source? Pass?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
But do we like the documentary well done with the
information available at the time?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Is that fair? I think so fair? But Ben, did
you notice though? So?
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Do we feel like we do know in some part
the contents of that manifesto? Has the full thing been printed?
Is that what's in the documentary?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
There's a war on truth? I would argue that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
You still feel that it's it's it's iffy.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
The courts will decide, which I know is such a
non answer. But parts of it, parts of it have
been repeatedly reported.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I guess that's what I would.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Multiple sources confirm different parts of it. But yeah, in
the in the documentary, to Matt's earlier point, they do
read directly from it, so we know that the press
does have what is agreed to be the manifesto actual.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
All I was getting at, was that the snippet that
I saw right away ended up being repeated later as
this is this is accurate, This is like.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Oh the parasite statement, or that's the statement on supporting
the Feds.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's just so tough when this kind of thing happens,
because we're because we are in the same boat as
everybody else, trying to go trying to figure out, okay,
is that the actual thing? And who says that to
the actual thing?
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Again, I'm going to lean into the phrase a war
on truth, and perhaps the man Gione case is already
a casualty of that continuing war. So previously on stuff
they don't want you to know, we chose to hold
off on chapter two and hopes that more details would emerge.
Just like you, folks, we have been tuned in, We
(22:56):
have been following things, reaching out to folks in some cases,
and now we have returned. There will doubtlessly be more updates,
maybe even a chapter three or something on Strange News.
We'll have to see how it works out, but perhaps
for now we'll take a break for a word from
our sponsors, and then we'll dive into the current affairs.
And the larger context. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
All right.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Can't remember exactly where we put a bow on this
in chapter one, but I do believe we mentioned MANGIONI
had after his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, he waived his
right to an extradition hearing, which is where you could say,
don't take me out of Pennsylvania. He said, yeah, no, fine,
(23:49):
do it take me to New York, right, which is
again where the murder occurred. We know the judge that
will preside over the current legal proceedings, that is Catherine
Parker of Magistrate Judge. The trial date I think is
yet to be determined still, if convicted on these charges.
(24:11):
We gave the list of the charges in chapter one.
If convicted, he will probably face life in prison without
the possibility of parole. So it's not a death penalty situation.
I think is the big differentiator here.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
And yeah, since that time, he's pled not guilty in
a court and said no, that is not me. I'm
not guilty to both this murder charge and the terrorism charges,
the heavier stuff. I think it would be pretty tough
to plead not guilty to the weapons charges that he
faced in Pennsylvania. I don't know how all that's going
to play out.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Yeah, at the end of the day, I mean, despite
how damning the stuff he had in his backpack might seem,
isn't this all relatively circumstantial evidence?
Speaker 3 (24:54):
That's the thing? Right, So the.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Idea that he had was fake, It was fake, but
was used at that hostel in New York.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
Okay, Okay. All I'm saying is it's not illegal to
be sketchy, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I mean, yeah, that's all we know.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
So it is true.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
But it's an excellent question about what defines circumstantial right.
The concept of circumstantial evidence has been unfairly weaponized against
people in the US in the past. There are countless
examples of that, and you can see you can see
some terrifying and disturbing examples of that in shows like
(25:36):
Wrongful Conviction with our pals Jason and Maggie. Do you
check it out? We also know to this narrative war.
We also know that different social media platforms we're shutting
down support of Luigi Mangioni. We're not condoning any actions. Again,
we try to be very fair in saying this individual
(25:57):
has not yet been convicted of a crime. But to
your earlier point, Noal, there were people lauding this man,
romanticizing them right like Ted Bundy back in the day.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oh dude. In that New York Post documentary, there's a
comedian named Jordaane something, a very funny comedian who works
out of New York, who had a show at the
Comedy Seller in New York that night, and he describes
how as soon as he got on stage, he started
talking about the situation, how the CEO of United Healthcare
(26:29):
got killed, and how much support, how there was laughter
and clapping at just the fact that this healthcare CEO
got murdered, and they wanted like he made a joke
about other CEOs and everybody was laughing and clapping and
applauding right after it happened.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
And I guess it was on SNL, but Chris Rock
made a pretty good joke talking about like, oh, it's
anytime a person with family and you know, kids or
whatever is killed, it's a tragedy and nobody should be
excited about this.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But sometimes drug dealers shot yes, oh.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
You did say that, and and this, uh, that's clearly
comparing Thompson to you know, a drug dealer and pointing
to one of the great divides of the discourse here,
which is how directly do you have to be involved
in a murder or someone's death to be considered the murderer?
(27:21):
You know what I mean, physically pulling the trigger or
green lighting an AI slot program that denies claims. The
news is still coming out. A lot of medical professionals
have come out and without condoning the murder of Thompson,
Let's be careful with that. They have said that in
their experience, United Healthcare killed people. That that's effectively what
(27:48):
they've said. They have submitted this claim. This person's in
a coma, for instance, desperately in need of some sort
of circulatory or cardiac medication and UHC or their bought
their chat GPT said no, this, this is so crazy
because we also see the stressand effect I think we
(28:09):
referenced in chapter one. Reddit was removing threads about UHC
and Thompson. There was a fundraiser to pay Mangioni's legal
fees and go fund me removed it. Certain establishment print
and online institutions in the media have been scrubbing their
(28:32):
comment sections when they release, especially tone deaf op eds
like the one who said Brian Thompson is the real
working class hero.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Don't know if that's entirely accurate.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
So all right, we knew.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
It's a tough thing for all of us, I think,
to grapple with, right, So you gotta sympathize with every
human being that is taking in what has occurred and
then trying to form their own thoughts on it, because
it is it does feel weighted in one direction, at
least to me, which is resource.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Yeah, with every source you read, you know, the discourse
on x or Twitter is very different from what the
New York Times wants you to take away from the
reportings very easy with just a few tweaks, you know,
a few philosophical editions of a seraph to change what
people take away from factual information. And if something doesn't
(29:32):
fit the narrative, as we'll see in our later Stockholm episode,
it's devilishly easy to downplay, diminish or remove that entirely.
Mangioni is adding to his legal team. He has one
of the best lawyers in New York right now working
with him. He also recently took on the services or
(29:54):
the advice of a guy named Craig Rothfeld. Craig Rothfeld,
former inmate him self, known as a defense strategy consultant.
He was most recently and most prominently in the news
for consulting with Harvey Weinstein from earlier.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing, a prison consultant, like, I
don't know how to make your time in there better,
how to communicate better outside. I don't really understand it.
I've read that in page six. Yeah, right underneath there
it says like a gossip or something. So again, with
a lot of this information, it's just trying to figure
out is that just something someone is saying and then
(30:36):
page six is saying it, or is it actually happening.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
He did appear.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
We know that Rothel did appear in some legal proceedings.
Okay with Mangioni. In terms of what this defense strategy
and prison consultation may be, how we define it. You
can find quotes in page six is a tabloid, let's
be honest, but you can find quotations with Rothfeld saying
(31:05):
stuff about how to help someone survive the first ninety
days of lock up, which are incredibly frightened. You know,
prison is, especially in the United States, somewhat of a
hostile environment just.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
To pend Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, and guys,
by just off of that note, we need to look
into what's going on with Fulton County's prison system. There's
some craziness going on. We need to do some deep
dives into that.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
I don't think I've heard the scuttle butt there, but
I don't doubt it. I know there's been some pretty
gnarly stuff in the past.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
But human rights violations, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Stuff, Yeah, letting people die essentially, like denying them needful care.
And we're not talking about oh gosh, I'm glad we're
we have to do an episode on it. We're not
talking about cosmetic stuff, you know. We're not talking about
having Mana Zuma's rev or just a bad weekend of pooping.
(32:02):
We're talking about people who died and could have been
saved quite easily.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, like bedbugs and stuff that end up taking your life,
which is it's a whole thing.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Dirty water, that's a huge thing. Sanitation or lack of
sanitation is still killing millions of people every year.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
But the hey, but the prison Luigi Mangioni's in is
a little different. Yes, it's a little nicer. It doesn't
mean it's happy or safe.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
It's still hostile.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, but it's like frenemy hostile instead of you know,
enemy soldier hostile.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
It's a rough one.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Nobody wants to be there so far, because inequality has
not quite gotten to the point yet where a bunch
of people are purposely tried to get into prison. I
would argue, it's all the way. I would argue, Unfortunately, it's.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
All the way.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
We already see isolated cases over the course of this
show wherein people will purposely botch a bank robbery just
so they can get locked up. It's again a damning
condemnation of the current state of affairs. Have you guys
been looking at these polls various groups, not really media
groups all the time, but nonpartisan boffins and eggheads have
(33:19):
been conducting polls in the United States, and they have
found an astonishing divide between pupil One pole was about
a thousand college students, and they asked these college students,
what should happen if Mangione has found guilty.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Yeah, that is a good question, because it seems like
so many of his supporters already think that he is guilty.
So like, immediately my mind was jumping to, like, will
there be like riots in the streets, like justice for Luigi?
But all the people that would support him already think
he did.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
It right, right, And we do have to just in
the spirit of knowing about the world old around you,
we do have to say it is always important to
talk about jury nullification as a concept. Maybe not in
this case, but I don't know about you, guys. I
was surprised to see how many people we're picking up
(34:13):
that old and very important concept and propagating it. Do
we want to say what jury nullification is real quick
for anybody who hasn't heard it.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Yeah, I'm always a little bit fuzzy on it, and
I know it's the kind of thing that people if
you say it, you're supposedly if you say you believe
in jury nullification when you're getting picked for jury duty,
that they will exclude you. It's one of those like
hacks people talk about. But yeah, please do remind.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Us, well, the whole point of trial by jury is
to have a unified decision by that jury. That jury
comes through and says this is what we the jury
feel happened. Right, Is this person guilty or not guilty,
and what are they guilty of? And if you've got
one person on that twelve person team that stands up
(34:56):
in those the little meetings you know that happen in
the back after the trial is concluded and says, no,
I don't think this person is guilty.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Is not just a hung jury though? Is that the
same as jury nullification?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
What I think we're getting toward is the idea that
jury nullification says, look, we're jurors in a criminal trial,
and be the one person, to your example, Matt in
this scenario, who stands up and says, I'm not gonna
say he's guilty. I'm not going to say they're guilty
because I know they broke the law. Sure, but I
(35:32):
think the law is wrong. Yeah, So you're putting the statute,
the law, the policy on trial instead of the human individual.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Hence, coming forth in the selection process and speaking out
like in favor of nullification could be a red flag
for the attorneys that are going to pick you or
cut you.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
How would you respond if this case was for felony
possession of cannabis And if you're there with you know,
like a fish shirt on, and you've got your hemp
necklace and you say, well, I think everybody should have
more weed, then they're probably not going to pick you
for that jury.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, I don't know if you guys saw some of
these op eds in some of the main news publications
that are saying things like, all you people out there
that are trying to get on the jury for you know,
to nullify this case, you should really just abstain and
like that'd be way more noble than trying to trying
to sneak onto the jury so you can make him not.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Guilty bass haabotage the case, yes, to trigger a mistrial
or ye?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well, because that's the scary thing with jury nullification. It
doesn't have to be a caricature of a person, right
that goes up there for a case. It could be
just any old person that pretends to not have been
wronged by healthcare in the past, who pretends that they're
just going to go on and be a completely objective
observer of this trial. But really they're going in as
(36:58):
almost an undercover agent.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
But would that not be considered contempt of court?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
No, not contempt of court.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Contempt of court would require them to do interruptive behaviors
to to make a scene.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Basically, sure, but if you're being dishonest for the purposes
of screwing the whole system up, isn't that in and
of itself an act of contempt towards the court? How
do you prove it?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
How do you prove that if somebody did that unless
you unless that person then goes on a bunch of
you know, goes on Mari cre But whatever goes on,
it talks, you know, to to Heraldo for a long.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Time, publishes a book while the trial is ongoing. Now
that's a good point called why I sabotage the Manchioti trial?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Uh then then also, you know a good example of this,
of course, the seminal work Twelve Angry Men.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Do.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Also check out an amazing film, Devil's Advocate. There's a
jury selection scene in there.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
The new Clinice would movie Juror number two is actually
quite good and has some shades of this kind of
thing in it as well.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, and in the Devil's Advocate jury selection seen specifically,
you can see a defense crew working assiduously to kind
of plumb the depths of the human personalities in their
favorite Yeah, or like whatever is advantageous to them.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah, Yeah, and that's that's happening now, And.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
That happens on both the prosecution and the defense side,
and they're both allowed to do that, and it's like
kind of the name of the game.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yeah, that's why they make the big bucks. If we
go to this poll we mentioned earlier, College Pulse conducted
a pretty small sample size. They asked a thousand college
students what would happen if mangio And was found guilty,
and most people did respond. Thirty two percent of the
participants in the survey said he should be sentenced to
(38:59):
life in jail. Well, but he should have the possibility
to be paroled, and fourteen percent said no, put him
in jail for life, never parole him. Twenty six percent
essentially said just give him a couple of years, give
him a fixed term, and then let him out. And
then two percent said, I don't care about the laws,
he should get the death penalty.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Who strong wonder what class those people belong to.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, But I think even more telling is when the
poll goes further and asks if the respondent sympathize with
the suspect.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah, more than fifty percent of those respondents say they
strongly sympathize with MANGIONI because a hard fact about living
life in the United States is that you know someone
who died because of the privatized healthcare system. It touched you,
you know, and what was it. A further percentage said
(39:57):
they somewhat sympathize with Mangoni and twenty six percent said
I'm neutral about it, and only about a fifth of them,
well around twenty percent said they either don't sympathize or
strongly do not sympathize.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
What was the sample size of this one thousand college students?
Oh jeez, that's a pretty small sample size. It's a
small sample size and pretty specific background. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, but isn't that interesting college students? I would I
would pause it. And maybe I'm wrong here. Someone that
age probably hasn't gone through a lot of health crises
in their life yet, at least for personally right, well,
maybe for their family like.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
You and your dad and stuff. They could have certainly yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Again within the family or something, so they know, and
as you said, Ben, they've been touched by it, but
they themselves have not probably gone through a lot of
things like twenty six year old MANGIONI went through with
his like the pins that he had in his back,
and that's the problems that he was having.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, I'm just interested to know like the thinking of
somebody who is that young.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Yeah, it's interesting because again, you're you could say you're
directly affected by a tragedy if it happens to someone
you love. But there is a differentiation there, Matt, in
terms of being physically yourself affected by an injury or
a medical condition. And the reason I started out this
poll pointing out that small sample size is because there's
(41:25):
another pole from Noork, not NARCNORK. NOORK is the National
Opinion Research Center out of University of Chicago.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
It's the wonkiest name of all time.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
They changed it, just like the Learning Channel morphed into
TLC when they stopped caring whether people learn stuff, and
now National Opinion Research Center is just Noork in o RC.
Their pole is fascinating because they found seventy percent of
the people they asked about Mangione they said he does
(41:58):
not hold all the respect onsibility for Thompson's.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Murder, even if he did it.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Wow, which is a weird bit of cognitive Parkour.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah, who did it?
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Well, he sort of did it.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, you know, he printed a gun and traveled and
did all the research and stocked. The guy pulled the trigger.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
But you know, yeah, that's such a weird. That's such
a weird, like Jersey shrug.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
That is if Luigi Mangione actually is not convicted.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Not convicted yet. Uh.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
And we also know groupies have started gathering outside the
facility where he's held. We talked about that lookalike contest
that occurred, or the series of lookalike contests that occurred.
There's already a documentary out we mentioned earlier. New York
Post presents Luigi manjouan monster or martyr And going back
(42:54):
to our earlier thing about war on truth, Ai Slop
has also entered the chat. Did you guys see the
fake mug shot?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
No, I'm gonna look at it right now. I haven't
seen it.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Over on threads, which is kind of meta Instagram's attempt
at Twitter. There was this picture that went viral which
appeared to be the official New York mug shot of
Luigi Manjione. It was later pretty soon after it was
confirmed to be AI generated, but the damage was done.
(43:27):
You know, you print the wild claims on the front
page and do retractions on wait for it, page six.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Hey they call backs, we're doing. It's a callback episode.
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
I think this is a tangential point, but perhaps important
for upcoming explorations on this show. It's misinformation, right, it's
not disinformation. People aren't necessarily attempting to sway the narrative
through deceitful means. But it's spreading because people are mistaking
(44:01):
alive for the truth. And we're going to see I positive,
you guys, We're going to see way more misinformation in
the man Gioni case as it goes on. The narrative
is deeply divided. I don't want to sound like a
broken record, but we also see some claims that go
against the official narrative. Already there is a looming war
(44:21):
on truth, weaponized AI disinfo and miss info is only
going to grow, right, It's it's unstoppable at this point.
A favorite conspiracy theories, you guys, one of the ones
we've mentioned just a little bit in chapter one, the
idea that Luigi Manjona was framed, The idea that despite
(44:44):
having a manifesto, having the ghost gun components, having the cash,
and you know, looking a hell of a lot like
the guy on camera that he was somehow framed. He
said he did not have that tenth in US cash
and I think two thousand and foreign currency. He said
(45:04):
it was planted on him, that someone just slipped ten
k into his backpack.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Luigi himself stated that.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
He did very interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Interesting. I mean, well, now we do know Ken. I
feel like it's confirmed. We do know that he was
somewhat disconnected from his family. His family was searching for
him because he had been living in Hawaii for a
while and then lost contact with his family. I mean,
(45:35):
that feels like a situation where if you do have
some money, maybe you're carrying around large sums of cash
with you if you're just traveling from one place to another,
which is not illegal, no, but I mean it seems
like something you might do.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
Yeah, yeah, it seems like a reasonable and plausible action,
right you're on the move. This goes deeper. The Internet
is getting nuts and bananas for this. There are so
many unverified claims and wild speculation blossoming across every social
media platform. You can imagine somebody is probably on Farmers
(46:12):
Only talking about this right now. I feel like we
should set off twenty twenty five by mentioning Farmers Only
in every episode, in every episode, every episode, boarding every
episode Farmer's Only. So I rewatched all of Rick and
Morty and it is getting too bitch shows. But it's
crazy because this kind of stuff, misinformation or speculation, it
(46:37):
is asymmetric. It's so easy to create it, and it's
so difficult to tamp it down. It's whack a mole,
you know. I mean, look, there are platforms trying to
shut down things. The rationale can be any genre of
we know best, but they're playing real life whack a mole.
(46:57):
For every one statement that they don't like that they
take down, ten others spring up in its wake.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
It's it's a digital version of a hydra. It's the
Barbara streisand effect times a million.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Well, yeah, because anyone can say anything, and with something
happening as high profile as this, with as many eyes on,
and the way the New York Post documentary puts it
is that this thing caught fire almost immediately because of
those small circumstances, right, I mean that just have huge implications.
So everybody went, WHOA, what is going on here? I
need to know more. And as soon as anything comes
(47:34):
out anywhere, especially with the way we consume the dang
TikTok and YouTube and Instagram videos that just have captions
and no context or no citations, you're just like, oh, oh, okay,
that's happening, and then that'll get put into some small
opinion piece that then other places report on or just
copy and paste, and oh my gosh, it spreads.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Okay, So here's if we can get cinematic for a second,
you guys, here's what we know happened. At some point,
people are trying to find answers. People want explanations, and
somewhere in the hinderlens of internet thought, a guy looked
up in the darkness. A guy was trying to figure
out this whole Mangione thing. He looked up in the darkness.
(48:24):
He shook his fist at the sky and he said, Pelosi,
Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Isn't that a weird thing? Because Nancy Pelosi went through
something very strange a little bit after this, right, a
little bit after the shooting.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
Yeah, the AOC Democratic kerfuffle wherein Pelosi was accused of
stabotaging Ocasio Cortez's attempt to help make committee in Congress
based on seniority of people who were already in line.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Pelosi.
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Wait, but she also got hospitalized hospitalized, that's true.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I know that was I just remember seeing that was
being connected up, like, oh man, something's happening with Pelosi now,
and then all of this other stuff just avalanched.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
Q Charlie Day, right, because also, you know, there are
very valid accusations and allegations regarding insider trading on Pelosi's part,
and to be completely fair, across all the aisles of Congress,
they've had a problem with insider trading and ethics for
(49:31):
quite some time, and there is no accountability.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Let's be honest.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
There are no consequences when those folks break the system.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
That's all true.
Speaker 4 (49:40):
Pelosi is a recurrent character in so many political conspiracy theories.
But here's the here's the juice of this one. This
is the umami, this is the Charlie Day moment. Who
wants to introduce it? We can always we can be
safe and just freeze it in the interrogative, you know,
just make it questions, Okay, I can do it.
Speaker 5 (50:01):
What if what if United Healthcare Ceobrian Thompson was preparing
for a testimony against Nancy Pelosi for potential insider trading.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
What I remember I remember specifically seeing this on an
Instagram reel, someone just stating it as though it was fact,
although they know they did it. In the what if
they did it exactly like this, Yeah, and then they
lay out all of this stuff about Nancy Pelosi buying
shares of this one specific healthcare company and all this
(50:35):
other stuff, which may have actually been true stuff, but
the way it was stated it was just so.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
It's it's this leady you know.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
It is also that kind of whatevery is definitely tagging
base in a conversation, you know, it's it's it's up
there with a move where someone says, you know what
I was going to say, and then they just say
the thing as the they have like little sheep's clothing
over what they were what I was gonna say?
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Tag base? What if?
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I'm just asking questions? Fine, but don't weaponize it. There's
red string logic here. We remember the earlier cyber attack
that UHC experienced in twenty twenty four, many years ago.
Now it seems I can't believe December felt so long.
December felt so beat me here at Tennessee. December felt
so long? Is it because we took a break from recording?
Speaker 5 (51:29):
Well, you know that whole liminal space between Christmas and
New Years does sort of extend into a black infinity
of nothingness sometimes.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
Yeah, I can't believe it, Like it's Friday as we're recording,
I didn't know what day it was until yesterday because
we had to record something. Anyway, that's unrelated, very low stakes.
The cyber security thing is interesting because Nancy Pelusi or
her financial arms invested after the cyber attack. They invested
(51:59):
in a security firm called Palo Alto Networks, and not
too long after that investment, the company won a contract
to investigate the cyber attack against UHC. Hmmm, I mean,
is it a nothing burger?
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Oh? Who knows? I mean, that kind of stuff is
a it's that's a whole episode in itself, right, I
mean you could we could drill down into that as
as deep as we wanted to, and there's probably some
weird stuff going on there because it's money. It's so
much money and influence, and think about putting that on
a resume like just for that company, Oh we investigated this,
(52:40):
you know, massive attack on the largest healthcare corporation in
the United States.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
Or you know, also we would have to drill down
because imagine the.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
What is the amount of investment?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Right?
Speaker 4 (52:53):
We know Congress gets away with insider trading. That conspiracy
is true, it is unethical. They just have access to
more information than the public. But also investing a little
bit of money can happen very easily if you have,
as these books doubtlessly do. If you have a fiduciary
(53:14):
or you have your a firm that you contract out
to and they invest in a bunch of stuff, you
may not know right. An investment doesn't automatically put you
in shark tank territory. You don't automatically own seventy percent
of something because you invested in it. That may be
the case, we would just to your point, Matt, have
(53:35):
to look further into it.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
That's that's the thread.
Speaker 4 (53:40):
And as these threads continue, each connection gets more and
more tenuous. We want to talk about Maryland. Mangeoti and
Pelosi are both from Maryland. H boom case solved. Well,
this whole courts out.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Of order makes you want to growl a little bit.
What else we got, right?
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (54:01):
So Pelosi is you know, the US portrays itself or
used to portray itself as meritocracy. Unfortunately, that's kind of
not true. Pelosi's father and her late brother were both
mayors of Baltimore. Pelosi's father was a US House rep.
And because the Mangione family is prominent in real estate,
(54:26):
especially Luigi Mangioni's grandfather, folks are saying these two powerful
families exist in the same city.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
They had to interact.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
But the family owned a golf club or something like
a country club, Yes, which is what we know. That's
where some of the stuff goes down down on the green.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
Yeah, but is it granted?
Speaker 4 (54:47):
Is this not a lot like saying Deliverance was set
in Georgia, so therefore everybody in Atlanta is awesome at banjo.
Speaker 3 (54:59):
Or like a pig.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah, kind of, but I don't know that's so uh okay.
If everyone had a banjo, yeah, like a flying car.
Yeah right, If everybody in Georgia had a banjo, then
you could assume, well, maybe everybody's going a banjo because
of Deliverance.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
Because of Deliverance, that's really like a Pig.
Speaker 4 (55:20):
Oh my god, I've forgot about that one.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
That's one of those films that.
Speaker 4 (55:24):
I appreciate but don't want to rewatch, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
Yeah, it's a bummer. Yeah, the book was good, but
still we digress.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
Maybe, right, Matt, maybe there is more sand to it,
because we know the Mangioni family and the Pelosi family
did have a relationship. Powerful families do often congregate. You
want to hang with people who are similar to you.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
The one weird thing that I maybe didn't understand with
this whole line of thinking was, Okay, let's imagine Brian Thompson,
if let's just imagine it's real for a moment. Brian
Thompson is going to testify against Nancy Pelosi for insider trading.
So a contract killer in the form of someone known
to Nancy Pelosi is hired to kill Brian Thompson because
(56:11):
he's going to testify, and Nancy, somehow, because she has
some connection to them, hires this person who is fully
known to her, who would have a direct connection to her.
Speaker 4 (56:22):
M Right, that's the question when we play the game
qui bono, who benefits?
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Right? And why would you not? Why would you not
choose a more direct method.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
We have a quote from Nancy Pelosi's brother, Thomas J.
De Lessandro the third, and this is in nineteen ninety
five where he talks about his relationship with Luigi's grandfather.
So in nineteen ninety five, Thomas J.
Speaker 5 (56:50):
Alessandro the third, who is another Baltimore mayor, former Baltimore
mayor rather and brother of Pelosi, chatted about his relationship
with Luigi's grandfather at Nicholas Manzio in the Sun, which is,
you know, pretty charitably can be referred to as a tabloid.
He had this to say, Nick Mangioni is foremost identified
as a family man. That's his calling card, even before
(57:12):
he became a successful businessman. He is maybe a little
rough around the edges and maybe with an aggressive personality,
but a man with a big heart. He earned his
success the hard way.
Speaker 4 (57:23):
Okay, so the patriarchs are friendly, but we don't know
whether Pelosi and Mangioni ever met. It's it's difficult to
draw hard evidence from this, especially if we're constructing a
mousetrap level conspiracy, not not referring to an actual mouse trap,
referring to that awesomely inconvenient game. Yeah, the board game
(57:46):
mouse Trap.
Speaker 5 (57:47):
I don't know that I ever played a full round
of that thing. I always just put it together and
triggered the trap.
Speaker 4 (57:51):
It was so it was so fragile, and also the
trap is so appealing, like why would you why would
you play the game?
Speaker 3 (57:57):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Look, there's a larger context here. We'll keep it brief
because this is an ongoing case and we want to
be careful about making any unfounded statements. It is clear,
it is a politically objectively clear. The American healthcare system
is broken, and the state of that system, the terrible
state of healthcare in this country, has been inextricably tied
(58:23):
to Mangioni or to the assassination of Brian Thompson. We've
got stats here that we don't have to get into,
but just for the highlights, we said it in chapter one,
the US has, by all accounts, the worst performing healthcare
system among all developed or high income countries. Guys, it's
just terrible. Think about it this way. In twenty twenty one,
(58:46):
the US life expectancy in the five best states for
surviving as long as you can it ranged from like
seventy nine point nine years to eighty years. In comparison,
the shortest life expectancy among all the other high income
nations is eighty point four, meaning the best states for
(59:09):
healthcare in the United States are still worse than the
worst other developed countries. That sikes, Yeah, that's sobery. That
is a national defense gap. I would argue.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Absolutely, So eighty point four shortest life expectancy in the
UK and then eighty or less than eighty in the
best states, got it? Okay? Oh wow?
Speaker 4 (59:32):
Yeah, So maybe when you get in your sixties, time
to consider moving, you.
Speaker 2 (59:36):
Know, shoot, when you get to the point where you
might need to, I don't know, have parts of your
body exammed that you've never had examined before because you're
getting older. They can prostate other you know, things like that. Yeah,
maybe that's when you leave a little scappy. Yeah me.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (59:50):
Some friends of mine who live in Berlin actually I
guess immigrated there from the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (59:56):
I guess it was before Brexit so it was easier
to do.
Speaker 5 (59:59):
But talking to them about healthcare, you know, they just
the concept of having to worry about your elderly parents
and dealing with their care and making sure they live
a humane life. You know in their in their twilight
years is just alien to them. It's just they don't
worry about it. It's all taken care of by the state.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Well, and that's one of the things that Maggioni's grandfather,
Nicholas Maggioni started. He started like a country club and
then a series of elder care facilities, and that's like,
that's his business.
Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
That's a durge business to be it. Well, but if
you're not too fettered by ethics.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Yeah, but I wonder how the healthcare, like the healthcare
connection is furthered there, because it does feel like, at
least in this country, Medicare would often be the program
that folks are using more often than not when they're
in there.
Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
Sure, yeah, because you'll run out of your personal savings
very quickly.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Oh yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
In the US, everyone massively overpays for healthcare and all forms,
including dental vision, and despite paid so much more the
care they receive by any metric.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Well, it sucksah, because it's not about anything besides generating
profit for shareholders. Right, It's all about windfall for shareholders,
especially when you have corporations that large. It's not about
helping people. It's about saving money.
Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
Yes, exactly. And this is this is in the front
of mind of every American who is thinking about the
mangionic case. Everybody knows, regardless you're demographic. Everybody knows the
problems with healthcare that we have just mentioned. And that's
why so many people are saying, Look, I'm not going
to condone murder, but not condoning murder means I both
(01:01:51):
refuse to champion the homicide Brian Thompson, and I also
refuse to condone the fatal decisions of private healthcare companies
because their business model depends on making money year over year,
and they make more money when they deny claims.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Dude, I've got an idea. Yeah, from now in perpetuity,
we do this as a collective group of Americans. The
I don't know if you've seen some of the lottery
numbers for like these huge you know, the crazy lotteries
where it isn't one but for once in every three
months or something four months, like somebody will win the
(01:02:31):
crazy lottery where it's like a billion dollars or five
hundred million dollars. Everybody who wins the lottery from now
on takes one hundred million as their winnings for their lottery.
Then the rest of it gets put into a fund,
and once that thing hits like five billion, we use
that fund to pay for everybody's medical costs and everybody
gets rid of healthcare, and then we just we just
(01:02:54):
fund it with the lottery.
Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
Every time a collective walkout, Yes, but it's also that's
I love it. We're in the brainstorming phase. There are
no wrong answers. It reminds me of the just the
quick math on the billionaire class. Right, you could give
one hundred million to every person in the United States,
(01:03:18):
and several of those people who did that, you could
give ten million at least, and several people who did
that would still be billionaires several times over. Like this
is just ludicrous. This is not uh normal, and that's
what we.
Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Have to remember.
Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Well, then we freak out when we say, wow, it's
insane that everybody identifies with the guy who killed this
healthcare CEO. That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Mm.
Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Yeah, well, and I think none of the three of
us are certainly advocating for an armed uprising necessarily or
for like you know, killing people of power like that.
But it just the sentiment is not that hard to
wrap your head around.
Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
That's all one hundred percent, yeah, especially when we're considering
the perspectives and the very real experiences of other people.
We know public officials are intensely concerned with the possibility
of mangio and becoming a clarion call right, inspiring copycat action,
inspiring you know, to the point armed revolutions or armed
(01:04:22):
uprising similar to the Arab Spring, which is a whole
other episode, and that's a rabbit hole too.
Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Well.
Speaker 5 (01:04:28):
I was just going to ask you guys too, like,
what is the next step of this conversation becoming so
front and center, Like, I mean, how do you fight
back against quote unquote just like the way it is,
that's just the way our economics in this country work,
Like short of burning everything down and starting some sort
of armed uprising, like, is really no mechanism for changing STU.
(01:04:49):
I mean certain people would argue that, oh right, your congressmen,
you know, vote, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
But I just don't see it.
Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
We start a fund with the lottery winnings.
Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Yeah, but they okay.
Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
But to Devil's Advocate again, which is a great film,
please watch it.
Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
To do the Devil's advocate thing there.
Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
One of the billionaire responses or one of the Kissinger
level responses would immediately be simple, We'll just break the
lottery so a guy wins, dang it, dang it, So
we need we need to start our own lottery, Okay,
run by the people for the people, and you can't
participate if you make too much money.
Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
I mean, it's very intriguing, no question.
Speaker 5 (01:05:31):
But it's also like, you know, we've got this new
administration coming in that is all hot to like change
the status quo and all of that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
But they're certainly not talking about these issues.
Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
Because it's not a popular issue for the millionaire billionaire
business class, who they seem to be the most beholden to.
Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
One would argue, yeah, we also know the US is
most likely entering a new era of privatization, so things
that were formerly considered public and part of the you know,
the quote unquote common good may may be commodified. We're
not making a judgment call on that yet because it
(01:06:10):
hasn't occurred yet, but the trend is there, there's something
in the wind. Maybe we end on this. I love
the questions you brought up here at the end. Noal,
we like the rest of this country, have to wonder
at this deep and accelerating divide, not just in the
narrative of one case, one murder, but in the larger context,
(01:06:31):
and we have to ask ourselves what comes next? Is
there something they don't want us to know? And if so,
what is it? We love your help answering this question.
We are going to call it a day. We're off
on the broad horizon of twenty twenty five and we
want to hear from you. Thanks so much for joining us.
Please contact us via email, telephonic device, or on the
(01:06:53):
social media platforms we just dunked on hard for like
an hour.
Speaker 5 (01:06:57):
That's right. You can find our show at the handle
space heirac Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our
Facebook group Here's where it gets Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter,
and on YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are
Conspiracy Stuff show. You can also find us as individual
human people. I'm how now Noel Brown on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
In a burst of unprecedented creativity.
Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
You can find an account associated with me as at
ben Bullen on Instagram at ben bullan hsw on x.
You can also visit the website Benbollin dot com. Again
super creative with the names here, Matt. There's an excellent
trailer on your social media that I saw recently. Where
(01:07:39):
could people find you?
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Ah, that's easy. Just head over to Instagram and look
up Unlikely Gems. That's me. You'll see fun videos of
me and a hat standing around with a microphone. It's awesome. No,
I have one. And there's a trailer for Monster BTK
which you can check out right now. The official trailer
is out. But what you handle, buddy, I don't have
(01:08:01):
one Unlikely Gems?
Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
Is that true? Are you being funny? I don't understand
you do how you see it's being funny? It is
not true.
Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Okay, it's just my favorite Instagram.
Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
They're great.
Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
Also, shout out wizards with guns. Hey there we those guys.
So there's another way to contact us, not just as individuals,
but as a show.
Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
There are a couple of ways.
Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
What happens, Matt if someone's holding a telephonic device in
there in their hot little hands right.
Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Now, Well, first, put that phone down, you go outside,
look at the trees for a while. Do that for
long enough. Then you come back in, pick up the
phone and call one eight to three three std WYTK.
That is our voicemail system. When you call in, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know in the
message if we can use your message and your voice
on the air. If you've got more to say then
(01:08:51):
could fit in a three minute voicemail. Why not instead
send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive, aware yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Would like to give a special shout out to fellow
conspiracy realist Darcy, who wrote an epic series a saga
of limericks quite enjoyed. Expect us, Darcy, But we'll be
out the way soon. If you want to be part
(01:09:17):
of this strange, strange adventure, this continuing mission, join us
out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noelah.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We are joined as always with our super producer Dylan
the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
You are here.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
In twenty twenty five, welcome back, welcome back. Oh my gosh,
can you guys believe it? Twenty twenty five?
Speaker 5 (00:50):
It seems like one of those futuristic numbers you see
in like sci fi movies from the eighties. I mean,
I guess it is almost have a flying car, didn't
I see?
Speaker 3 (00:58):
We uf flying cars? Okay, we're almost there, guys, we
have flying cars.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
We don't have them, but civilization does have some flying cars.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
And somebody's got drones that are the size of SUVs,
so that's cool.
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Somebody, I haven't drone the size of my fist. That's
equally impressive, right, And we also have further conspiracies. Afoot
fellow conspiracy Realist toward the end of the year. One
of the last recordings we did in twenty twenty four,
we looked at the case of Luigi Mangioni and we
(01:35):
took a moment, and we paused, and we said, let's
hold off on chapter two in hopes of acquiring more
information about this ongoing, deeply divisive situation. I think we
left off talking about that epic purp Walk, which has
been memed six ways to Sunday. It looks like the
cover of the most badass gangster ap album ever made.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Ted Kaczynski could never did you.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Guys see the pictures that were comparing Luigi Mangioni's the shirt,
the collared white shirt that he was wearing, and the
overshirt and then the one the JFK's assassin was wearing
in that moment when he is that the moment when
he yelled out he was a patsy. No, that was
a different moment.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You're saying that they were fit twins? Is that what
you're saying?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
It looked they looked like twins.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It was so frit right, and then it goes.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
It reminds me too of the extensive armchair speculation on
the CCTV shots of the guy getting a drink at
Starbucks versus the shots of Mangioni, some of which are
entirely AI slop.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
By the way, who.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
Is Luigi, you may be asking, Please listen to chapter
one before continuing. We'll tell you the brief, quick and
dirty for recap here right now. The headline is Luigi
Mangone is a guy from a prominent Maryland family who
is currently in custody on suspicion of murdering a United
Healthcare CEO named Brian Thompson.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
I regular William zan Zinger. Sorry, I was a Bob
Dylan reference. He was part of a good family that
was involved in the politics of Maryland.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah, but isn't it weird hit the trust fund that
that family has, it's only around four million. It's only
around four million, And then you compare that, like just
to say that we're like a well off, influential family.
They only had a trust a four million, which is amazing.
I can't imagine having that.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
I was about to say, Matt, you're really making me
feel that poor. No, No, I love it, I love but.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Think about the actual power players like in any city
like that, their trusts are.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
In measurable perhaps, But so are you saying that you
think because he was from a less prominent family that
he was maybe made of patsy or I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
It's to put the put the pieces of Sorry, yeah,
sometimes just trying to the concept I'm putting together here
is that the way it's spoken about, like he was
a high achiever in academics. He you know, he was
a part of this family that is wealthy and somewhat influential, right,
but it's nothing compared to the person that he killed,
and like that person's family and the people that run
in those circles.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
And it's nothing compared to the fast food cabal of
families that clearly run Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Interesting, and it.
Speaker 5 (04:19):
Does certainly seem like he is being made quite the
example of.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Let's just say yes, yes, Mangione. Going back to the
Purp Walk idea had received a ton of political theater.
The Mayor of New York was there during the Purp Walk,
as were other notable movers and shakers. Timothy McVeigh, who
was responsible for the nineteen ninety five domestic terrorist attack
(04:49):
in Oklahoma City, didn't get half the people that Luigi
Mangioni had on his purp walk, and that again is
another tea leaf that people are reading into to our
earlier question about setting an example.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
I mean the photo op of it all where Eric
Adams is concerned with his police background and the whole
show of force, the pageantry, like you say, Ben, of
the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's pretty stark.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, you could almost feel Batman perched up somewhere in
the background of Gotham City just watching we got him.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, all the memes we're comparing him to the Joker.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I mean, that's like a big thing that's all over
the internet, comparing my guess to the Joaquin Phoenix kind
of joker more than like freedom fighting bring down the
Man Joker than the Watch the World Burn Joker.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And it's kind of a I mean, it's not kind
of there's no kind of about it. In that we
see a larger context. We see a condemnation of the
observer society, the passive observer society that has sprouted and
blossomed in the in the wake of the information age.
Because there was an excellent question we were asking in
(05:55):
chapter one, what if Mangione was not so as we
say photogen or camera ready, what if he was schluppy,
what if he had bad hair or was snaggle toothed,
you know, just a.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Four pack rather than the eighth that he's clearly sporting.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Right without the gutters. And you know what I'm talking about,
fans of Rick and Mortar. Ah, yes, yes, those gutters.
So please do listen to chapter one before continuing. We're
gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and then
we'll return. If you're not from the United States or
you took a holiday break from the news, we'll give
you a brief recap of the events in the most
(06:31):
factual way possible.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Here are the facts.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Hey, it is December fourth, twenty twenty four. Oh, it
feels like such a long time ago. Now almost exactly
a month from the day that we're recording.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Are you serious, right? Only that long? It does? It's
really wild. It was, as Adam Durrett said, a long December.
Oh jeez. The reason to believe is what do you believe?
Speaker 4 (07:01):
And that's also one of the songs I was playing
on repeat, you guys, uh with feels so good by
Chuck The.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Smell of hospitals in winter.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
A line Okay, it's it's just it's fantastic lyricism.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
It's not good. Nine, it's not bad. Oh the way
the light reflects off a girl.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Crowded room with the girl. Yeah, I'm sorry, now, it's
that dure. It's a real romantic.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Much like Arboy, Luigi Menji romantic.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
All right, so several years ago rings were so shiny.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Sorry, so several years ago. It was December fourth, twenty
twenty four. It's early in the morning.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
Brian Thompson, CEO of United Healthcare, was leaving.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
The Marriott he was staying at.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Was this a fancy Marriot or just kind of a
regular Okay, all right? When I hear Marriott, I guess
I don't really think fancy. But in New York there
it's a brand. There's certainly are high end Marriotts.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
It's a great term.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
It's an term like that's how there are different kinds
of cancer one hundred.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Percent, thank you, bed.
Speaker 5 (07:58):
So he was leaving the Marriott the fancy area, mind you,
that he was staying at, which is across the street
from the Hilton, the New York Hilton Midtown, where he
was attending an investor conference for United healthcare in one
of those you know, hotel ballroom type situations.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
And what would have happened at that investor conference. What
would Thompson have said? We don't know. He did not
make it to the conference. He's walking along West fifty
fourth Street. Pull up a map if you wish. It's
about six forty five am local time. He's an early riser.
He is shot from behind by a person wearing a
(08:34):
mask and a hoodie wielding a mysterious handgun. Thompson is
shot three times. Essentially six shots are tempted, but only
three land. He's transported to local hospital, where he's pronounced
dead at seven twelve am.
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Would he have been pronounced dead in transits or is
that something they don't even officially do until they get
him into a room in a doctor season?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Right? Was he doa It seems like he likely was
pretty doo.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Yeah, we know the official pronunciation of death occurred there
at the hospital, and it did not take very long. No,
a lot of murders happened in New York. It did
not take very long for the authorities to put their
top men on the case.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Well, guys, I'm sorry, I don't mean to repeat myself.
I just want to hit it home one more time.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
I heard about this on one of those television monitors,
those LCD monitors that you have in elevators and like
office buildings and hotels, and.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I had no idea that it happened in New York.
Speaker 5 (09:31):
But I was in New York and our offices, which
is just a couple of blocks from this exact site.
And I was so crazy slammed that day that I
just didn't really even give another thought. I had no
idea that it had happened right down the street from
where I was.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
It.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Wow, again, it feels like ages ago.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Before we get even further into exactly what happened that day,
can we just quickly talk about how strange it is
that whoever the killer was was outside of the exact
hotel entrance exit that Brian left from. Because it know
the well they're released that agree there were at least
three exits. Yeah, in this moment, we don't know that,
(10:06):
but it is very strange. And maybe it was just
a calculation about the closest way to get from Hotel
X to Hotel Y, right.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
For sure, but it's so specific.
Speaker 5 (10:16):
I'm really looking forward to maybe that's a weird way
of putting it to finding out how this guy stalked
and managed to get all of these details just right.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And it's not super easy.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Whomever that person may be, right, because Mangioni has not
been legally convicted. Mangioni has in fact pled not guilty
to all the charges, which we'll get to. We talked
about it a little bit in chapter one. One interesting
thing that the investigators know that I don't think the
public knows yet to the point about mapping out the
(10:48):
route or planning the hit. Which hotel room specifically was
Thompson in, right, And what was the relation of that
hotel room to the exit, and which exit was most
convenient for reaching the Hilton there? These these are questions
that the public doesn't have the answers.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
To you, Was there a little bit of luck involved?
You know? I do wonder that as well.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Yeah, And was it good luck or bad luck? I
guess it depends on your perspective, right, And.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
I know we're going to get into it, but I
just think the not guilty plea in and of itself
is mega interesting for reasons.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Sure, right, right, Because often when people are ideologically motivated,
they want to plead guilty, they want visibility, they want
to further proselytize for their cause.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Well, it sure as craps seemed like he wanted to
get caught. It seems like something out of a comic
book in terms of like what he had on him, how.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Available he wants more or less.
Speaker 5 (11:46):
I mean, it almost feels like the scene in seven
where John Doe puts his hands up and walks out
and says, detective.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You know it was God. Seven was great.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
It's a rollicking buddy comedy that's perfect for feel good. Yeah,
it feels so good.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Well, it also seems almost too perfect.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Right a little bit, a little bit, yes, it does.
And this is an excellent setup levels to that one.
Because Mangione was apprehended he is currently in custody. On
December ninth, you know, several years ago. Five days after
that shooting, authorities arrested a twenty six year old man
(12:27):
named Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He
was quickly charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, along
with a rogues gallery of other related charges, including, you know,
illegal possession of certain firearms and paraphernalia, terrorism charges. They
(12:48):
hit him with everything they could.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Initially it was weapons charges, just to get him out
of that McDonald's and into you know, a holding cell
for a little while until they brought the other ones.
But yeah, oh yeah, they threw a book.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, they got a legal foot in the door, right,
And then once they had possession of him, habeas corpus
and so on, they were able to add on the
other charges, indeed, the ones that they were truly looking for.
So this guy takes the Internet by storm. He becomes
a full keyro to some and anti hero to others,
(13:23):
clear and present danger to a lot of billionaires. If
we're being honest, we all remember when gosh, it was
either Elon Musk or Adrian Dittman who went on X
and said, hey, guys, it's not based to kill CEOs,
it's not Jesus.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Indeed, it's actually what's the opposite of base acidic? Now,
I don't know, whack is sort of old school.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
There's definitely something that's the opposite of based cringe lame,
Oh cringe, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think cringe works. Yeah, goofy. Anyway, so just weird,
it's a little weird.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
It's it's oddly specific if we're being diplomatic. So we
talked about this in chapter one. There's a vast narrative
war continuing now between the public and established media outlets,
as well as institutions of power, law enforcement, the judiciary,
and you know, the financial people.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Well, it does kind of make you think of the
whole idea of like one person's terrorist as another person's
freedom fighter, or like thinking about Robinhood, who was a menace,
you know, to the Sheriff of Nottingham and all of
the nobles and all of that, but in fact he
was kind of murdering people and at the very least
stealing from people committing crimes. And so depending on which
side of that divide you are on, you know, he
(14:42):
was either you know, enemy of the state or you know,
doing you a solid. And then it becomes the question
of like how do we view these corporations, Like are
they villainous enough that in this fight for equity and
the ability to live a I guess what's the dignified life?
Like are these companies and the CEOs that level of
villain that they should be executed?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
What are the consequences? And we have to understand the
larger context here. If you are tuning in to this
show and you are not from the United States, or
you have never visited this crazy, crazy place, then you
may not be aware that there is a bit of
a There was a bit of preface to this. There
(15:25):
has been an increased division of haves and have nots
in this country, which is approaching the Gilded Age of
the nineteen twenties. There are things like or cases like
the Sackler family in the world of medicine, which clearly
got away with aiding and abetting and escalating an opioid
(15:46):
crisis which continues today. The public by and large is
primed to consider this socioeconomic demographic of the haves as
enemies one hundred percent.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
I just I saw a video yesterday actually on Instagram
where it was a British reporter going around to people
on the street and ask them how much they thought
certain medical supplies cost in America, and they were shocked
that people were like, how much do you think an
EpiPen cost? They're like eighty dollars, Like, no, six hundred dollars.
You know, how much do you think an ambulance ride costs?
(16:21):
And the guys well, I guess it depends on where
you live, but what one hundred dollars, one hundred pounds,
twenty five hundred dollars, it's wild.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
And then add to that, of course, add to that
the follow up question where they say, well, what if
someone dies because they can't get insulin?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And then the Americans go, oh.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Yeah, that that happens, and it's just fine, that's it too.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah. I actually have a quick story about this, guys,
and just to bring it personal for a moment, right
after all this stuff went down, not right after two
weeks after all this went down with Brian Thompson's stuff,
my dad kind of had a little heart situation while
he was out with my mom and had to get
picked up in an ambulance. And that hasn't it's only
(17:02):
happened one other time. And it was really scary because
I just got a phone call, you know, and h
headed that way where they are, and it was a
medical emergency where like he needed that ambulance. It wasn't
a you know, it was It's nice that an ambulance
could take us there. My dog is playing in the background,
but he he got one of what do you call him?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Ben uh non consensual.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Yeah, yeah, okay, you got one of those.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
That's it. I do call them that, yes, yes, so.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
We got one of those. And uh, he is in
his seventies, so he you know, when he worked for
a long time, he had really good healthcare with his job,
good healthcare again, like one of the higher levels of
healthcare that you can get. Now he's on Medicare and
he's he's old enough to get those benefits. It didn't
actually hurt him that much financially to take this ambulance
(17:53):
right in to then get seen by a specialist to
then you know, have a bunch of tests done on
him and get drugs so that he can leave. And
he was okay. But for anybody else who's not in
their seventies, who didn't work all their life in that way,
paying into that system, that situation of needing to be
picked up because there's something wrong with your heart and
(18:14):
then you have to go hang out in the hospital
and they want to keep you and run tests and
all of that, that is a life changing event, not
for your health, but for your ability to pay for
everything else in your life. Because that just sits there now.
It will break you.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Yeah, it may be astonishing for people from other developed
countries to hear this hard truth. The majority of US
citizens are one medical catastrophe away from poverty, and it
is incredibly expensive to be poor in this country. The
(18:50):
safety net is continually eroding, and it's a long pattern.
You can look up phrases like starve the beast, We
welcome you to that related conspiracy. And I think it's
also fascinating that while we're giving a quick recap of
the Mangione situation conspiracy series of events, we're immediately also
(19:11):
talking about the larger context of healthcare. This is front
of mind for everybody as soon as they learned the
identity of the shooting victim. And it's weird too, guys,
because it seems, despite this huge divide now between the
haves and have nots, the public and the establishment media,
one thing everybody or the majority of people seem to
(19:33):
agree upon is that Mangioni, while not yet convicted, is
the murderer. The majority of people think the guy did
it based on some of the evidence we explore in
chapter one.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
Yeah, and they're stoked about it, like they think it
was a great thing to have done.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah. We mentioned what was found in his backpack, right,
I think that was episode one.
Speaker 5 (19:52):
It was Yeah, Canopoly money and what has been determined
to have been a ghost guy, which I believe was
made up of three D per into components. The kind
of schematics can be downloaded and then you know, you
can actually print them yourself if you have the right equipment.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
As well as a suppressor, yeah, which was key, as
well as a purported manifesto.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
We hit the internet pretty quick, and although a lot
of people were skeptical about the veracity of the stippets
that were being seen or passed around, it did turn out.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
That most of them were right.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Really Okay, See, I wanted to ask you guys about
that because I've seen a couple of different versions. Maybe
and then you know, I'm hearing that a lot of
it is false, But then a couple of them were real,
And then I think it was The New York Post
made a whole documentary that they put on there, yea,
and they read directly from it, which made me feel
(20:42):
a little better. Even though it's a New York.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
Post, right, but the documentary is given the time constraints
the documentary is working under. I think they did a
pretty good job the title. The title in aurse to
Humility was New York Post presents Luigi Mangioti monster or.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Mart see Brownie points for making up that title?
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Is good, Okay, I to check it out.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
We're the first people to uh pay respects and give
credit where it's due on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Do we love the New York Post overall as a source? Pass?
Speaker 4 (21:19):
But do we like the documentary well done with the
information available at the time?
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Is that fair? I think so fair? But Ben, did
you notice though? So?
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Do we feel like we do know in some part
the contents of that manifesto? Has the full thing been printed?
Is that what's in the documentary?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
There's a war on truth? I would argue that's interesting.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
You still feel that it's it's it's iffy.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
The courts will decide, which I know is such a
non answer. But parts of it, parts of it have
been repeatedly reported.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I guess that's what I would.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Multiple sources confirm different parts of it. But yeah, in
the in the documentary, to Matt's earlier point, they do
read directly from it, so we know that the press
does have what is agreed to be the manifesto actual.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
All I was getting at, was that the snippet that
I saw right away ended up being repeated later as
this is this is accurate, This is like.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Oh the parasite statement, or that's the statement on supporting
the Feds.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It's just so tough when this kind of thing happens,
because we're because we are in the same boat as
everybody else, trying to go trying to figure out, okay,
is that the actual thing? And who says that to
the actual thing?
Speaker 4 (22:35):
Again, I'm going to lean into the phrase a war
on truth, and perhaps the man Gione case is already
a casualty of that continuing war. So previously on stuff
they don't want you to know, we chose to hold
off on chapter two and hopes that more details would emerge.
Just like you, folks, we have been tuned in, We
(22:56):
have been following things, reaching out to folks in some cases,
and now we have returned. There will doubtlessly be more updates,
maybe even a chapter three or something on Strange News.
We'll have to see how it works out, but perhaps
for now we'll take a break for a word from
our sponsors, and then we'll dive into the current affairs.
And the larger context. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
All right.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Can't remember exactly where we put a bow on this
in chapter one, but I do believe we mentioned MANGIONI
had after his arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania, he waived his
right to an extradition hearing, which is where you could say,
don't take me out of Pennsylvania. He said, yeah, no, fine,
(23:49):
do it take me to New York, right, which is
again where the murder occurred. We know the judge that
will preside over the current legal proceedings, that is Catherine
Parker of Magistrate Judge. The trial date I think is
yet to be determined still, if convicted on these charges.
(24:11):
We gave the list of the charges in chapter one.
If convicted, he will probably face life in prison without
the possibility of parole. So it's not a death penalty situation.
I think is the big differentiator here.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
And yeah, since that time, he's pled not guilty in
a court and said no, that is not me. I'm
not guilty to both this murder charge and the terrorism charges,
the heavier stuff. I think it would be pretty tough
to plead not guilty to the weapons charges that he
faced in Pennsylvania. I don't know how all that's going
to play out.
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Yeah, at the end of the day, I mean, despite
how damning the stuff he had in his backpack might seem,
isn't this all relatively circumstantial evidence?
Speaker 3 (24:54):
That's the thing? Right, So the.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Idea that he had was fake, It was fake, but
was used at that hostel in New York.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
Okay, Okay. All I'm saying is it's not illegal to
be sketchy, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I mean, yeah, that's all we know.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
So it is true.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
But it's an excellent question about what defines circumstantial right.
The concept of circumstantial evidence has been unfairly weaponized against
people in the US in the past. There are countless
examples of that, and you can see you can see
some terrifying and disturbing examples of that in shows like
(25:36):
Wrongful Conviction with our pals Jason and Maggie. Do you
check it out? We also know to this narrative war.
We also know that different social media platforms we're shutting
down support of Luigi Mangioni. We're not condoning any actions. Again,
we try to be very fair in saying this individual
(25:57):
has not yet been convicted of a crime. But to
your earlier point, Noal, there were people lauding this man,
romanticizing them right like Ted Bundy back in the day.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oh dude. In that New York Post documentary, there's a
comedian named Jordaane something, a very funny comedian who works
out of New York, who had a show at the
Comedy Seller in New York that night, and he describes
how as soon as he got on stage, he started
talking about the situation, how the CEO of United Healthcare
(26:29):
got killed, and how much support, how there was laughter
and clapping at just the fact that this healthcare CEO
got murdered, and they wanted like he made a joke
about other CEOs and everybody was laughing and clapping and
applauding right after it happened.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
And I guess it was on SNL, but Chris Rock
made a pretty good joke talking about like, oh, it's
anytime a person with family and you know, kids or
whatever is killed, it's a tragedy and nobody should be
excited about this.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
But sometimes drug dealers shot yes, oh.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
You did say that, and and this, uh, that's clearly
comparing Thompson to you know, a drug dealer and pointing
to one of the great divides of the discourse here,
which is how directly do you have to be involved
in a murder or someone's death to be considered the murderer?
(27:21):
You know what I mean, physically pulling the trigger or
green lighting an AI slot program that denies claims. The
news is still coming out. A lot of medical professionals
have come out and without condoning the murder of Thompson,
Let's be careful with that. They have said that in
their experience, United Healthcare killed people. That that's effectively what
(27:48):
they've said. They have submitted this claim. This person's in
a coma, for instance, desperately in need of some sort
of circulatory or cardiac medication and UHC or their bought
their chat GPT said no, this, this is so crazy
because we also see the stressand effect I think we
(28:09):
referenced in chapter one. Reddit was removing threads about UHC
and Thompson. There was a fundraiser to pay Mangioni's legal
fees and go fund me removed it. Certain establishment print
and online institutions in the media have been scrubbing their
(28:32):
comment sections when they release, especially tone deaf op eds
like the one who said Brian Thompson is the real
working class hero.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
Don't know if that's entirely accurate.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
So all right, we knew.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
It's a tough thing for all of us, I think,
to grapple with, right, So you gotta sympathize with every
human being that is taking in what has occurred and
then trying to form their own thoughts on it, because
it is it does feel weighted in one direction, at
least to me, which is resource.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
Yeah, with every source you read, you know, the discourse
on x or Twitter is very different from what the
New York Times wants you to take away from the
reportings very easy with just a few tweaks, you know,
a few philosophical editions of a seraph to change what
people take away from factual information. And if something doesn't
(29:32):
fit the narrative, as we'll see in our later Stockholm episode,
it's devilishly easy to downplay, diminish or remove that entirely.
Mangioni is adding to his legal team. He has one
of the best lawyers in New York right now working
with him. He also recently took on the services or
(29:54):
the advice of a guy named Craig Rothfeld. Craig Rothfeld,
former inmate him self, known as a defense strategy consultant.
He was most recently and most prominently in the news
for consulting with Harvey Weinstein from earlier.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing, a prison consultant, like, I
don't know how to make your time in there better,
how to communicate better outside. I don't really understand it.
I've read that in page six. Yeah, right underneath there
it says like a gossip or something. So again, with
a lot of this information, it's just trying to figure
out is that just something someone is saying and then
(30:36):
page six is saying it, or is it actually happening.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
He did appear.
Speaker 4 (30:41):
We know that Rothel did appear in some legal proceedings.
Okay with Mangioni. In terms of what this defense strategy
and prison consultation may be, how we define it. You
can find quotes in page six is a tabloid, let's
be honest, but you can find quotations with Rothfeld saying
(31:05):
stuff about how to help someone survive the first ninety
days of lock up, which are incredibly frightened. You know,
prison is, especially in the United States, somewhat of a
hostile environment just.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
To pend Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, and guys,
by just off of that note, we need to look
into what's going on with Fulton County's prison system. There's
some craziness going on. We need to do some deep
dives into that.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
I don't think I've heard the scuttle butt there, but
I don't doubt it. I know there's been some pretty
gnarly stuff in the past.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
But human rights violations, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Stuff, Yeah, letting people die essentially, like denying them needful care.
And we're not talking about oh gosh, I'm glad we're
we have to do an episode on it. We're not
talking about cosmetic stuff, you know. We're not talking about
having Mana Zuma's rev or just a bad weekend of pooping.
(32:02):
We're talking about people who died and could have been
saved quite easily.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, like bedbugs and stuff that end up taking your life,
which is it's a whole thing.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Dirty water, that's a huge thing. Sanitation or lack of
sanitation is still killing millions of people every year.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
But the hey, but the prison Luigi Mangioni's in is
a little different. Yes, it's a little nicer. It doesn't
mean it's happy or safe.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
It's still hostile.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Yeah, but it's like frenemy hostile instead of you know,
enemy soldier hostile.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
It's a rough one.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Nobody wants to be there so far, because inequality has
not quite gotten to the point yet where a bunch
of people are purposely tried to get into prison. I
would argue, it's all the way. I would argue, Unfortunately, it's.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
All the way.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
We already see isolated cases over the course of this
show wherein people will purposely botch a bank robbery just
so they can get locked up. It's again a damning
condemnation of the current state of affairs. Have you guys
been looking at these polls various groups, not really media
groups all the time, but nonpartisan boffins and eggheads have
(33:19):
been conducting polls in the United States, and they have
found an astonishing divide between pupil One pole was about
a thousand college students, and they asked these college students,
what should happen if Mangione has found guilty.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Yeah, that is a good question, because it seems like
so many of his supporters already think that he is guilty.
So like, immediately my mind was jumping to, like, will
there be like riots in the streets, like justice for Luigi?
But all the people that would support him already think
he did.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
It right, right, And we do have to just in
the spirit of knowing about the world old around you,
we do have to say it is always important to
talk about jury nullification as a concept. Maybe not in
this case, but I don't know about you, guys. I
was surprised to see how many people we're picking up
(34:13):
that old and very important concept and propagating it. Do
we want to say what jury nullification is real quick
for anybody who hasn't heard it.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
Yeah, I'm always a little bit fuzzy on it, and
I know it's the kind of thing that people if
you say it, you're supposedly if you say you believe
in jury nullification when you're getting picked for jury duty,
that they will exclude you. It's one of those like
hacks people talk about. But yeah, please do remind.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Us, well, the whole point of trial by jury is
to have a unified decision by that jury. That jury
comes through and says this is what we the jury
feel happened. Right, Is this person guilty or not guilty,
and what are they guilty of? And if you've got
one person on that twelve person team that stands up
(34:56):
in those the little meetings you know that happen in
the back after the trial is concluded and says, no,
I don't think this person is guilty.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Is not just a hung jury though? Is that the
same as jury nullification?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
What I think we're getting toward is the idea that
jury nullification says, look, we're jurors in a criminal trial,
and be the one person, to your example, Matt in
this scenario, who stands up and says, I'm not gonna
say he's guilty. I'm not going to say they're guilty
because I know they broke the law. Sure, but I
(35:32):
think the law is wrong. Yeah, So you're putting the statute,
the law, the policy on trial instead of the human individual.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
Hence, coming forth in the selection process and speaking out
like in favor of nullification could be a red flag
for the attorneys that are going to pick you or
cut you.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
How would you respond if this case was for felony
possession of cannabis And if you're there with you know,
like a fish shirt on, and you've got your hemp
necklace and you say, well, I think everybody should have
more weed, then they're probably not going to pick you
for that jury.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well, I don't know if you guys saw some of
these op eds in some of the main news publications
that are saying things like, all you people out there
that are trying to get on the jury for you know,
to nullify this case, you should really just abstain and
like that'd be way more noble than trying to trying
to sneak onto the jury so you can make him not.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Guilty bass haabotage the case, yes, to trigger a mistrial
or ye?
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Well, because that's the scary thing with jury nullification. It
doesn't have to be a caricature of a person, right
that goes up there for a case. It could be
just any old person that pretends to not have been
wronged by healthcare in the past, who pretends that they're
just going to go on and be a completely objective
observer of this trial. But really they're going in as
(36:58):
almost an undercover agent.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
But would that not be considered contempt of court?
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
No, not contempt of court.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
Contempt of court would require them to do interruptive behaviors
to to make a scene.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Basically, sure, but if you're being dishonest for the purposes
of screwing the whole system up, isn't that in and
of itself an act of contempt towards the court? How
do you prove it?
Speaker 2 (37:25):
How do you prove that if somebody did that unless
you unless that person then goes on a bunch of
you know, goes on Mari cre But whatever goes on,
it talks, you know, to to Heraldo for a long.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Time, publishes a book while the trial is ongoing. Now
that's a good point called why I sabotage the Manchioti trial?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Uh then then also, you know a good example of this,
of course, the seminal work Twelve Angry Men.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Do.
Speaker 4 (37:52):
Also check out an amazing film, Devil's Advocate. There's a
jury selection scene in there.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
The new Clinice would movie Juror number two is actually
quite good and has some shades of this kind of
thing in it as well.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Yeah, and in the Devil's Advocate jury selection seen specifically,
you can see a defense crew working assiduously to kind
of plumb the depths of the human personalities in their
favorite Yeah, or like whatever is advantageous to them.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
That's what I mean.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah, Yeah, and that's that's happening now, And.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
That happens on both the prosecution and the defense side,
and they're both allowed to do that, and it's like
kind of the name of the game.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yeah, that's why they make the big bucks. If we
go to this poll we mentioned earlier, College Pulse conducted
a pretty small sample size. They asked a thousand college
students what would happen if mangio And was found guilty,
and most people did respond. Thirty two percent of the
participants in the survey said he should be sentenced to
(38:59):
life in jail. Well, but he should have the possibility
to be paroled, and fourteen percent said no, put him
in jail for life, never parole him. Twenty six percent
essentially said just give him a couple of years, give
him a fixed term, and then let him out. And
then two percent said, I don't care about the laws,
he should get the death penalty.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Who strong wonder what class those people belong to.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, But I think even more telling is when the
poll goes further and asks if the respondent sympathize with
the suspect.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Yeah, more than fifty percent of those respondents say they
strongly sympathize with MANGIONI because a hard fact about living
life in the United States is that you know someone
who died because of the privatized healthcare system. It touched you,
you know, and what was it. A further percentage said
(39:57):
they somewhat sympathize with Mangoni and twenty six percent said
I'm neutral about it, and only about a fifth of them,
well around twenty percent said they either don't sympathize or
strongly do not sympathize.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
What was the sample size of this one thousand college students?
Oh jeez, that's a pretty small sample size. It's a
small sample size and pretty specific background. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, but isn't that interesting college students? I would I
would pause it. And maybe I'm wrong here. Someone that
age probably hasn't gone through a lot of health crises
in their life yet, at least for personally right, well,
maybe for their family like.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
You and your dad and stuff. They could have certainly yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Again within the family or something, so they know, and
as you said, Ben, they've been touched by it, but
they themselves have not probably gone through a lot of
things like twenty six year old MANGIONI went through with
his like the pins that he had in his back,
and that's the problems that he was having.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, I'm just interested to know like the thinking of
somebody who is that young.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Yeah, it's interesting because again, you're you could say you're
directly affected by a tragedy if it happens to someone
you love. But there is a differentiation there, Matt, in
terms of being physically yourself affected by an injury or
a medical condition. And the reason I started out this
poll pointing out that small sample size is because there's
(41:25):
another pole from Noork, not NARCNORK. NOORK is the National
Opinion Research Center out of University of Chicago.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
It's the wonkiest name of all time.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
They changed it, just like the Learning Channel morphed into
TLC when they stopped caring whether people learn stuff, and
now National Opinion Research Center is just Noork in o RC.
Their pole is fascinating because they found seventy percent of
the people they asked about Mangione they said he does
(41:58):
not hold all the respect onsibility for Thompson's.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Murder, even if he did it.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Wow, which is a weird bit of cognitive Parkour.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Yeah, who did it?
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Well, he sort of did it.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, you know, he printed a gun and traveled and
did all the research and stocked. The guy pulled the trigger.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
But you know, yeah, that's such a weird. That's such
a weird, like Jersey shrug.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, I'm just saying that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
That is if Luigi Mangione actually is not convicted.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
Not convicted yet. Uh.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
And we also know groupies have started gathering outside the
facility where he's held. We talked about that lookalike contest
that occurred, or the series of lookalike contests that occurred.
There's already a documentary out we mentioned earlier. New York
Post presents Luigi manjouan monster or martyr And going back
(42:54):
to our earlier thing about war on truth, Ai Slop
has also entered the chat. Did you guys see the
fake mug shot?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
No, I'm gonna look at it right now. I haven't
seen it.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Over on threads, which is kind of meta Instagram's attempt
at Twitter. There was this picture that went viral which
appeared to be the official New York mug shot of
Luigi Manjione. It was later pretty soon after it was
confirmed to be AI generated, but the damage was done.
(43:27):
You know, you print the wild claims on the front
page and do retractions on wait for it, page six.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Hey they call backs, we're doing. It's a callback episode.
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
I think this is a tangential point, but perhaps important
for upcoming explorations on this show. It's misinformation, right, it's
not disinformation. People aren't necessarily attempting to sway the narrative
through deceitful means. But it's spreading because people are mistaking
(44:01):
alive for the truth. And we're going to see I positive,
you guys, We're going to see way more misinformation in
the man Gioni case as it goes on. The narrative
is deeply divided. I don't want to sound like a
broken record, but we also see some claims that go
against the official narrative. Already there is a looming war
(44:21):
on truth, weaponized AI disinfo and miss info is only
going to grow, right, It's it's unstoppable at this point.
A favorite conspiracy theories, you guys, one of the ones
we've mentioned just a little bit in chapter one, the
idea that Luigi Manjona was framed, The idea that despite
(44:44):
having a manifesto, having the ghost gun components, having the cash,
and you know, looking a hell of a lot like
the guy on camera that he was somehow framed. He
said he did not have that tenth in US cash
and I think two thousand and foreign currency. He said
(45:04):
it was planted on him, that someone just slipped ten
k into his backpack.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Luigi himself stated that.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
He did very interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Interesting. I mean, well, now we do know Ken. I
feel like it's confirmed. We do know that he was
somewhat disconnected from his family. His family was searching for
him because he had been living in Hawaii for a
while and then lost contact with his family. I mean,
(45:35):
that feels like a situation where if you do have
some money, maybe you're carrying around large sums of cash
with you if you're just traveling from one place to another,
which is not illegal, no, but I mean it seems
like something you might do.
Speaker 4 (45:50):
Yeah, yeah, it seems like a reasonable and plausible action,
right you're on the move. This goes deeper. The Internet
is getting nuts and bananas for this. There are so
many unverified claims and wild speculation blossoming across every social
media platform. You can imagine somebody is probably on Farmers
(46:12):
Only talking about this right now. I feel like we
should set off twenty twenty five by mentioning Farmers Only
in every episode, in every episode, every episode, boarding every
episode Farmer's Only. So I rewatched all of Rick and
Morty and it is getting too bitch shows. But it's
crazy because this kind of stuff, misinformation or speculation, it
(46:37):
is asymmetric. It's so easy to create it, and it's
so difficult to tamp it down. It's whack a mole,
you know. I mean, look, there are platforms trying to
shut down things. The rationale can be any genre of
we know best, but they're playing real life whack a mole.
(46:57):
For every one statement that they don't like that they
take down, ten others spring up in its wake.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
It's it's a digital version of a hydra. It's the
Barbara streisand effect times a million.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Well, yeah, because anyone can say anything, and with something
happening as high profile as this, with as many eyes on,
and the way the New York Post documentary puts it
is that this thing caught fire almost immediately because of
those small circumstances, right, I mean that just have huge implications.
So everybody went, WHOA, what is going on here? I
need to know more. And as soon as anything comes
(47:34):
out anywhere, especially with the way we consume the dang
TikTok and YouTube and Instagram videos that just have captions
and no context or no citations, you're just like, oh, oh, okay,
that's happening, and then that'll get put into some small
opinion piece that then other places report on or just
copy and paste, and oh my gosh, it spreads.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Okay, So here's if we can get cinematic for a second,
you guys, here's what we know happened. At some point,
people are trying to find answers. People want explanations, and
somewhere in the hinderlens of internet thought, a guy looked
up in the darkness. A guy was trying to figure
out this whole Mangione thing. He looked up in the darkness.
(48:24):
He shook his fist at the sky and he said, Pelosi,
Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Isn't that a weird thing? Because Nancy Pelosi went through
something very strange a little bit after this, right, a
little bit after the shooting.
Speaker 4 (48:39):
Yeah, the AOC Democratic kerfuffle wherein Pelosi was accused of
stabotaging Ocasio Cortez's attempt to help make committee in Congress
based on seniority of people who were already in line.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
Pelosi.
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Wait, but she also got hospitalized hospitalized, that's true.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
I know that was I just remember seeing that was
being connected up, like, oh man, something's happening with Pelosi now,
and then all of this other stuff just avalanched.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
Q Charlie Day, right, because also, you know, there are
very valid accusations and allegations regarding insider trading on Pelosi's part,
and to be completely fair, across all the aisles of Congress,
they've had a problem with insider trading and ethics for
(49:31):
quite some time, and there is no accountability.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Let's be honest.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
There are no consequences when those folks break the system.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
That's all true.
Speaker 4 (49:40):
Pelosi is a recurrent character in so many political conspiracy theories.
But here's the here's the juice of this one. This
is the umami, this is the Charlie Day moment. Who
wants to introduce it? We can always we can be
safe and just freeze it in the interrogative, you know,
just make it questions, Okay, I can do it.
Speaker 5 (50:01):
What if what if United Healthcare Ceobrian Thompson was preparing
for a testimony against Nancy Pelosi for potential insider trading.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
What I remember I remember specifically seeing this on an
Instagram reel, someone just stating it as though it was fact,
although they know they did it. In the what if
they did it exactly like this, Yeah, and then they
lay out all of this stuff about Nancy Pelosi buying
shares of this one specific healthcare company and all this
(50:35):
other stuff, which may have actually been true stuff, but
the way it was stated it was just so.
Speaker 3 (50:42):
It's it's this leady you know.
Speaker 4 (50:45):
It is also that kind of whatevery is definitely tagging
base in a conversation, you know, it's it's it's up
there with a move where someone says, you know what
I was going to say, and then they just say
the thing as the they have like little sheep's clothing
over what they were what I was gonna say?
Speaker 3 (51:04):
Tag base? What if?
Speaker 4 (51:06):
I'm just asking questions? Fine, but don't weaponize it. There's
red string logic here. We remember the earlier cyber attack
that UHC experienced in twenty twenty four, many years ago.
Now it seems I can't believe December felt so long.
December felt so beat me here at Tennessee. December felt
so long? Is it because we took a break from recording?
Speaker 5 (51:29):
Well, you know that whole liminal space between Christmas and
New Years does sort of extend into a black infinity
of nothingness sometimes.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
Yeah, I can't believe it, Like it's Friday as we're recording,
I didn't know what day it was until yesterday because
we had to record something. Anyway, that's unrelated, very low stakes.
The cyber security thing is interesting because Nancy Pelusi or
her financial arms invested after the cyber attack. They invested
(51:59):
in a security firm called Palo Alto Networks, and not
too long after that investment, the company won a contract
to investigate the cyber attack against UHC. Hmmm, I mean,
is it a nothing burger?
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Oh? Who knows? I mean, that kind of stuff is
a it's that's a whole episode in itself, right, I
mean you could we could drill down into that as
as deep as we wanted to, and there's probably some
weird stuff going on there because it's money. It's so
much money and influence, and think about putting that on
a resume like just for that company, Oh we investigated this,
(52:40):
you know, massive attack on the largest healthcare corporation in
the United States.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
Or you know, also we would have to drill down
because imagine the.
Speaker 3 (52:51):
What is the amount of investment?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Right?
Speaker 4 (52:53):
We know Congress gets away with insider trading. That conspiracy
is true, it is unethical. They just have access to
more information than the public. But also investing a little
bit of money can happen very easily if you have,
as these books doubtlessly do. If you have a fiduciary
(53:14):
or you have your a firm that you contract out
to and they invest in a bunch of stuff, you
may not know right. An investment doesn't automatically put you
in shark tank territory. You don't automatically own seventy percent
of something because you invested in it. That may be
the case, we would just to your point, Matt, have
(53:35):
to look further into it.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
That's that's the thread.
Speaker 4 (53:40):
And as these threads continue, each connection gets more and
more tenuous. We want to talk about Maryland. Mangeoti and
Pelosi are both from Maryland. H boom case solved. Well,
this whole courts out.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
Of order makes you want to growl a little bit.
What else we got, right?
Speaker 3 (54:01):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (54:01):
So Pelosi is you know, the US portrays itself or
used to portray itself as meritocracy. Unfortunately, that's kind of
not true. Pelosi's father and her late brother were both
mayors of Baltimore. Pelosi's father was a US House rep.
And because the Mangione family is prominent in real estate,
(54:26):
especially Luigi Mangioni's grandfather, folks are saying these two powerful
families exist in the same city.
Speaker 3 (54:34):
They had to interact.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
But the family owned a golf club or something like
a country club, Yes, which is what we know. That's
where some of the stuff goes down down on the green.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
Yeah, but is it granted?
Speaker 4 (54:47):
Is this not a lot like saying Deliverance was set
in Georgia, so therefore everybody in Atlanta is awesome at banjo.
Speaker 3 (54:59):
Or like a pig.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Yeah, kind of, but I don't know that's so uh okay.
If everyone had a banjo, yeah, like a flying car.
Yeah right, If everybody in Georgia had a banjo, then
you could assume, well, maybe everybody's going a banjo because
of Deliverance.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
Because of Deliverance, that's really like a Pig.
Speaker 4 (55:20):
Oh my god, I've forgot about that one.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
That's one of those films that.
Speaker 4 (55:24):
I appreciate but don't want to rewatch, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (55:28):
Yeah, it's a bummer. Yeah, the book was good, but
still we digress.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
Maybe, right, Matt, maybe there is more sand to it,
because we know the Mangioni family and the Pelosi family
did have a relationship. Powerful families do often congregate. You
want to hang with people who are similar to you.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
The one weird thing that I maybe didn't understand with
this whole line of thinking was, Okay, let's imagine Brian Thompson,
if let's just imagine it's real for a moment. Brian
Thompson is going to testify against Nancy Pelosi for insider trading.
So a contract killer in the form of someone known
to Nancy Pelosi is hired to kill Brian Thompson because
(56:11):
he's going to testify, and Nancy, somehow, because she has
some connection to them, hires this person who is fully
known to her, who would have a direct connection to her.
Speaker 4 (56:22):
M Right, that's the question when we play the game
qui bono, who benefits?
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Right? And why would you not? Why would you not
choose a more direct method.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
We have a quote from Nancy Pelosi's brother, Thomas J.
De Lessandro the third, and this is in nineteen ninety
five where he talks about his relationship with Luigi's grandfather.
So in nineteen ninety five, Thomas J.
Speaker 5 (56:50):
Alessandro the third, who is another Baltimore mayor, former Baltimore
mayor rather and brother of Pelosi, chatted about his relationship
with Luigi's grandfather at Nicholas Manzio in the Sun, which is,
you know, pretty charitably can be referred to as a tabloid.
He had this to say, Nick Mangioni is foremost identified
as a family man. That's his calling card, even before
(57:12):
he became a successful businessman. He is maybe a little
rough around the edges and maybe with an aggressive personality,
but a man with a big heart. He earned his
success the hard way.
Speaker 4 (57:23):
Okay, so the patriarchs are friendly, but we don't know
whether Pelosi and Mangioni ever met. It's it's difficult to
draw hard evidence from this, especially if we're constructing a
mousetrap level conspiracy, not not referring to an actual mouse trap,
referring to that awesomely inconvenient game. Yeah, the board game
(57:46):
mouse Trap.
Speaker 5 (57:47):
I don't know that I ever played a full round
of that thing. I always just put it together and
triggered the trap.
Speaker 4 (57:51):
It was so it was so fragile, and also the
trap is so appealing, like why would you why would
you play the game?
Speaker 3 (57:57):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (57:59):
Look, there's a larger context here. We'll keep it brief
because this is an ongoing case and we want to
be careful about making any unfounded statements. It is clear,
it is a politically objectively clear. The American healthcare system
is broken, and the state of that system, the terrible
state of healthcare in this country, has been inextricably tied
(58:23):
to Mangioni or to the assassination of Brian Thompson. We've
got stats here that we don't have to get into,
but just for the highlights, we said it in chapter one,
the US has, by all accounts, the worst performing healthcare
system among all developed or high income countries. Guys, it's
just terrible. Think about it this way. In twenty twenty one,
(58:46):
the US life expectancy in the five best states for
surviving as long as you can it ranged from like
seventy nine point nine years to eighty years. In comparison,
the shortest life expectancy among all the other high income
nations is eighty point four, meaning the best states for
(59:09):
healthcare in the United States are still worse than the
worst other developed countries. That sikes, Yeah, that's sobery. That
is a national defense gap. I would argue.
Speaker 2 (59:21):
Absolutely, So eighty point four shortest life expectancy in the
UK and then eighty or less than eighty in the
best states, got it? Okay? Oh wow?
Speaker 4 (59:32):
Yeah, So maybe when you get in your sixties, time
to consider moving, you.
Speaker 2 (59:36):
Know, shoot, when you get to the point where you
might need to, I don't know, have parts of your
body exammed that you've never had examined before because you're
getting older. They can prostate other you know, things like that. Yeah,
maybe that's when you leave a little scappy. Yeah me.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (59:50):
Some friends of mine who live in Berlin actually I
guess immigrated there from the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (59:56):
I guess it was before Brexit so it was easier
to do.
Speaker 5 (59:59):
But talking to them about healthcare, you know, they just
the concept of having to worry about your elderly parents
and dealing with their care and making sure they live
a humane life. You know in their in their twilight
years is just alien to them. It's just they don't
worry about it. It's all taken care of by the state.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Well, and that's one of the things that Maggioni's grandfather,
Nicholas Maggioni started. He started like a country club and
then a series of elder care facilities, and that's like,
that's his business.
Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
That's a durge business to be it. Well, but if
you're not too fettered by ethics.
Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
Yeah, but I wonder how the healthcare, like the healthcare
connection is furthered there, because it does feel like, at
least in this country, Medicare would often be the program
that folks are using more often than not when they're
in there.
Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
Sure, yeah, because you'll run out of your personal savings
very quickly.
Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Oh yeah, unfortunately. Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
In the US, everyone massively overpays for healthcare and all forms,
including dental vision, and despite paid so much more the
care they receive by any metric.
Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Well, it sucksah, because it's not about anything besides generating
profit for shareholders. Right, It's all about windfall for shareholders,
especially when you have corporations that large. It's not about
helping people. It's about saving money.
Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
Yes, exactly. And this is this is in the front
of mind of every American who is thinking about the
mangionic case. Everybody knows, regardless you're demographic. Everybody knows the
problems with healthcare that we have just mentioned. And that's
why so many people are saying, Look, I'm not going
to condone murder, but not condoning murder means I both
(01:01:51):
refuse to champion the homicide Brian Thompson, and I also
refuse to condone the fatal decisions of private healthcare companies
because their business model depends on making money year over year,
and they make more money when they deny claims.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Dude, I've got an idea. Yeah, from now in perpetuity,
we do this as a collective group of Americans. The
I don't know if you've seen some of the lottery
numbers for like these huge you know, the crazy lotteries
where it isn't one but for once in every three
months or something four months, like somebody will win the
(01:02:31):
crazy lottery where it's like a billion dollars or five
hundred million dollars. Everybody who wins the lottery from now
on takes one hundred million as their winnings for their lottery.
Then the rest of it gets put into a fund,
and once that thing hits like five billion, we use
that fund to pay for everybody's medical costs and everybody
gets rid of healthcare, and then we just we just
(01:02:54):
fund it with the lottery.
Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
Every time a collective walkout, Yes, but it's also that's
I love it. We're in the brainstorming phase. There are
no wrong answers. It reminds me of the just the
quick math on the billionaire class. Right, you could give
one hundred million to every person in the United States,
(01:03:18):
and several of those people who did that, you could
give ten million at least, and several people who did
that would still be billionaires several times over. Like this
is just ludicrous. This is not uh normal, and that's
what we.
Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Have to remember.
Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Well, then we freak out when we say, wow, it's
insane that everybody identifies with the guy who killed this
healthcare CEO. That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Mm.
Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
Yeah, well, and I think none of the three of
us are certainly advocating for an armed uprising necessarily or
for like you know, killing people of power like that.
But it just the sentiment is not that hard to
wrap your head around.
Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
That's all one hundred percent, yeah, especially when we're considering
the perspectives and the very real experiences of other people.
We know public officials are intensely concerned with the possibility
of mangio and becoming a clarion call right, inspiring copycat action,
inspiring you know, to the point armed revolutions or armed
(01:04:22):
uprising similar to the Arab Spring, which is a whole
other episode, and that's a rabbit hole too.
Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Well.
Speaker 5 (01:04:28):
I was just going to ask you guys too, like,
what is the next step of this conversation becoming so
front and center, Like, I mean, how do you fight
back against quote unquote just like the way it is,
that's just the way our economics in this country work,
Like short of burning everything down and starting some sort
of armed uprising, like, is really no mechanism for changing STU.
(01:04:49):
I mean certain people would argue that, oh right, your congressmen,
you know, vote, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
But I just don't see it.
Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
We start a fund with the lottery winnings.
Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
Yeah, but they okay.
Speaker 4 (01:05:00):
But to Devil's Advocate again, which is a great film,
please watch it.
Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
To do the Devil's advocate thing there.
Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
One of the billionaire responses or one of the Kissinger
level responses would immediately be simple, We'll just break the
lottery so a guy wins, dang it, dang it, So
we need we need to start our own lottery, Okay,
run by the people for the people, and you can't
participate if you make too much money.
Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
I mean, it's very intriguing, no question.
Speaker 5 (01:05:31):
But it's also like, you know, we've got this new
administration coming in that is all hot to like change
the status quo and all of that good stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
But they're certainly not talking about these issues.
Speaker 5 (01:05:42):
Because it's not a popular issue for the millionaire billionaire
business class, who they seem to be the most beholden to.
Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
One would argue, yeah, we also know the US is
most likely entering a new era of privatization, so things
that were formerly considered public and part of the you know,
the quote unquote common good may may be commodified. We're
not making a judgment call on that yet because it
(01:06:10):
hasn't occurred yet, but the trend is there, there's something
in the wind. Maybe we end on this. I love
the questions you brought up here at the end. Noal,
we like the rest of this country, have to wonder
at this deep and accelerating divide, not just in the
narrative of one case, one murder, but in the larger context,
(01:06:31):
and we have to ask ourselves what comes next? Is
there something they don't want us to know? And if so,
what is it? We love your help answering this question.
We are going to call it a day. We're off
on the broad horizon of twenty twenty five and we
want to hear from you. Thanks so much for joining us.
Please contact us via email, telephonic device, or on the
(01:06:53):
social media platforms we just dunked on hard for like
an hour.
Speaker 5 (01:06:57):
That's right. You can find our show at the handle
space heirac Stuff, where we exist on Facebook with our
Facebook group Here's where it gets Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter,
and on YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are
Conspiracy Stuff show. You can also find us as individual
human people. I'm how now Noel Brown on Instagram.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
In a burst of unprecedented creativity.
Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
You can find an account associated with me as at
ben Bullen on Instagram at ben bullan hsw on x.
You can also visit the website Benbollin dot com. Again
super creative with the names here, Matt. There's an excellent
trailer on your social media that I saw recently. Where
(01:07:39):
could people find you?
Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Ah, that's easy. Just head over to Instagram and look
up Unlikely Gems. That's me. You'll see fun videos of
me and a hat standing around with a microphone. It's awesome. No,
I have one. And there's a trailer for Monster BTK
which you can check out right now. The official trailer
is out. But what you handle, buddy, I don't have
(01:08:01):
one Unlikely Gems?
Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
Is that true? Are you being funny? I don't understand
you do how you see it's being funny? It is
not true.
Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Okay, it's just my favorite Instagram.
Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
They're great.
Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
Also, shout out wizards with guns. Hey there we those guys.
So there's another way to contact us, not just as individuals,
but as a show.
Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
There are a couple of ways.
Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
What happens, Matt if someone's holding a telephonic device in
there in their hot little hands right.
Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Now, Well, first, put that phone down, you go outside,
look at the trees for a while. Do that for
long enough. Then you come back in, pick up the
phone and call one eight to three three std WYTK.
That is our voicemail system. When you call in, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know in the
message if we can use your message and your voice
on the air. If you've got more to say then
(01:08:51):
could fit in a three minute voicemail. Why not instead
send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive, aware yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Would like to give a special shout out to fellow
conspiracy realist Darcy, who wrote an epic series a saga
of limericks quite enjoyed. Expect us, Darcy, But we'll be
out the way soon. If you want to be part
(01:09:17):
of this strange, strange adventure, this continuing mission, join us
out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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