August 24, 2025 • 42 mins
Comedian Trae Crowder is from a tiny town in Tennessee, so he has a unique point of view on conservative, liberals, MAGA and especially J.D. Vance… what’s the deal with that guy?? Well, Trae knows a thing or two.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
John and I are on break now who are on
a secret mission and this before all new Mission Implausible
episodes come out this fall. But for now, we'll bring
you one of our favorite past episodes and we'll soon
be launching our YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
See you there.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
our adversaries.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
This is Mission Implausible. Today's guest is Trey Crowder. He's
the liberal redneck. He's a comedian with a big following
on YouTube and social media and the author of several books.
He's from rural Tennessee and you can see the dates
through his nationwide comedy tour on his website. So welcome
to Hey.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
The website and question is trade Crowder dot com. By
the way, thanks for the intro and thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
The first question I've met for you is can you
explain gd bance?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
No, not really only a show. I have a weird
miniature history with j D actually because his I first
went viral and started gaining my online following that you
mentioned in the spring of twenty sixteen. I had been
doing stand up in anonymity for like six years already
(01:43):
at that point, but then I made these videos and
they one of them took off really big, and then
I could just snowball from there, which is great. But
it started in twenty sixteen and I started going all
these meetings, Hollywood meetings and stuff like this, and people
started asking me, oh, you must love Have you read
that new book? Have you read He'll Billy Eligi? If
you read that, you know about that. And that's how
I found out about it. And I looked it up
(02:05):
and they were all any type of remotely fancy person
intelligentsia or any type of artist to have whether they
were like salivating over this book, right, they loved it.
So I found out about that way. And then I
was like going on TV at the time, like CNN
and MSNBC and Bill marsh Show and stuff like that,
and usually I was being brought on there relevant to
the first question you asked to like explain Hillbillies to people,
(02:28):
because there was a big narrative them about them and Trump.
Then that's what happened with Trump is he reached these
specific people. It's like, you're one of these people, what's
up with that? Explain to us what that's all about.
And Jad was doing the same thing at the same time,
and we like met and started talking and stuff. He
brought his wife, who was pregnant at the time, to
my comedy show that I did in Columbus. We hung
(02:50):
out afterwards, went to a bar, hung out for a
few hours, talking about stuff. Now at that time, and
he was still calling Trump Hitler and everything. So I
was like, this guy's all right. Stayed in touch sort
of over the years, a little bit, texting here and there,
and then as his rise became more evident and took
the trajectory it did. You know, I haven't talked to
him forever at this point. But like I even when
(03:11):
I read the book, though, there were parts in it
where because we had we do have, if everything in
the book is to be believed, we have a very
similar upbringing and background in a lot of ways. My
mom was also a drug addict. I'm from very very rural, uh,
poverty stricken Tennessee. Now he would like go there. He
like grew up in Ohio, really, but he would go
(03:33):
there in the summers and be immersed in He'll billy
shit for a while. I was in it all the time,
not bragging, but uh and so I definitely related to
a lot of it. But there were a lot of
angles he took in that book and things that he
said that even at the very beginning of even knowing
who he was, I was like, it just struck me
odd or weird. I was like, that's I don't I'm
(03:54):
not down with that. Like one of the big ones
I remember, is he he He makes this whole case
in the book for payday loan places, right about how
people like demonize those as being predatory, but what they
don't understand is those places really are lifelines to poor
rural people and all this stuff. Okay, Because I got
to that part and I was like, what fuck those
place says, what are you serious?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
And then I hear later after the fact that I
purportedly he had whatever investment stakes or something like that,
and some company that had some paty loan places or
that type of thing, and I was like, well, that's
pretty greasy. And then his whole central thesis the way
I read it in that book, which was basically just like, yeah, listen,
you know, uh, these poor white people, they're just like
(04:39):
they're just fundamentally lazy. There's something broken in them, like culturally,
like they it's their own. They could blame everybody else
all they want, but it's it's their own fault at
the end of the day. But I just never looked
at like that because I've seen too many people very
close to me that I feel like there are no
fault of their own been you know, turned to shit
(05:00):
by completely external factors. Ironically, to a lot of those
people love JD's boss, Donald Trump and that type of thing,
you know, because of all that that happened. But I
don't know how he you know, how we had basically
the same experiences and landed on such different outcomes the
way that we did. But I think that, you know,
(05:23):
you know, I don't know, I'm a conspiratorial it is,
but I think that he's I very much believe that
he's been that he's backed by Peter Thiel and has
been shepherded into this position that he's in now for
a very strategic reason on their part. He was identified
early on by them, I think, as someone who's like
to be used for this purpose and has been more
than happy to allow that to happen. That's what I
(05:45):
think has happened with j D.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I think in two or three different times.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, I know, he's definitely weird and all everything
that's going on there, and then he still like sucks
up to people, the types of people who will be
openly racist towards some other his children to his face
or to his digital face on Twitter anyway, and that
type of thing, which I also just find very wild.
The whole thing is wild. But you know, I mean
(06:09):
it's worked very well for him. He's the freaking vice president.
He's in the White House right now, Like he can
argue with the results. If that's you know, those are
the things you value, money and power and all that.
It's he's definitely getting what he wanted out of it
so far, and it could only just be beginning, so
we'll see.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I'm not a hillbilly here my accent, but I did
grow up in a small town, one of ten kids,
everybody's working for Kodak up in that area, and then
Kodak went bust, everybody lost their jobs, and right, yeah, yeah,
I get that kind of thing. That was like taking
your date to the town up to watch the Bears shooting. Yeah,
but I'll tell you where I come from too. Trump
(06:47):
is killer with a lot of my family and a
lot of former friends from high school and everything like that,
and I have not had really the chance to sit
down and talk with them about what's in their best interest.
And not that you represent all Hillbillies everywhere, but one
thing I've struggled with is sort of this cult like
adherence to something that maybe appeals to their pride but
(07:11):
isn't always in their best.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Interest early on from the beginning. And that's alluded to
this little bit And so did you so like my hometown? Also,
So my hometown, I think is an interesting case study.
It was called Salina, Tennessee. It's in Clay County. It's
very rural. We don't have any traffic lights or McDonald's
or anything there. So yeah, stop bragging. That's enough, I
get it. You fancy, but uh, in every general election
up to like two thousand and four, Clay County was
(07:34):
a Democratic county and was blue like win for al
Gore in two thousand and then Clinton before that, and
had been Democrat previously and then now it's like one
of the strongest for Trump counties in Tennessee, like by
percentage again it's very small, but percentage wise, and in
the nineties, for years and years, the whole, the beating
(07:55):
heart of the town's economy was a fact of textile
factory from your way Midwive because I assume they're from
actual oshkosh Oshkosh Bagosh, that's what they're called, you know,
the most whimsically named company to ever destroy an entire community.
But they they made and make a little cute little
baby overalls and stuff. And that was like there was
a big factory in Solina for years and years in
(08:17):
the nineties that left it went to Mexico. Nothing ever
replaced it. My family and a bunch of other people.
You either worked at the factory or you did something
that kind of serviced people that worked at the factory.
That my dad ran the only video store in town,
Like he had a converted single white trailer called Crowder's Video,
and my grandpa had a car lot. My other grandma
had a country cafe like a diner, and then my
(08:40):
openly gay uncle and his partner had a deli on
the town square, and all of which were doing great.
And then that factory left and within ten years all
of those businesses were closed. Half those people were dead.
My mom was hooked on pills, and that was the norm.
That happened to everybody there pretty much, or almost everybody,
or at least that were adjacent to It just devastated
(09:03):
the town and they've never to this day recovered. And
I felt like at twenty sixteen, like Trump showed up
and like was the first person to even really pretend
to give a shit about them or any of that.
He had been famous for years before that as a
rich douchebag that I never liked him. For the record,
I didn't know any redneck, especially red neck dude who
liked him. You know. He was like a you know,
(09:26):
a blue blood Yankee son of a bitch who thinks
he's better than everybody else, you know, and needs his
ass whipped type of thing. Is how nobody liked him,
and I did either. So when he showed up and
he was doing that, I was like okay, but he's
full of shit. That he's clearly full of shit. Shouldn't
that part matter? But I just think they were just
so desperate for anyone to care that they latched onto it.
(09:48):
And he blamed a lot of the same people, like
the swamp and that sort of thing, and then yes,
the racist aspect of it too that he fed into.
But I always used to tell people, I just thought
the racism part was just the icing on the fuck
you cake that he baked for them, for the establishment
that they had seen as having ruined their lives and
left them behind. So I was sympathetic to it the
first time around. Again, I felt like I saw through
(10:10):
it and I was like, you guys are getting sold
bad bill of goods here. This is bullshit. But I
did get where they were coming from or why they
felt that way. All these years later, after everything that
has happened, all the stuff that he's done, and how
nothing has really changed in my hometown for the better,
for sure, and they're even more die hard now than ever,
it's harder for me to try to reconcile with that.
(10:32):
But I guess it's a you know, I mean, you
called it a cult. I think you know, it's some
kind of you get dug in and it becomes part
of your identity, your personality, whatever, and then you just
like it's hard to break people out of that. And
then now lately, all the stuff that's happening lately in
this country like scaring me. But if your hardcore maga
or whatever, I mean, they've got to be loving all
(10:53):
this shit, I imagine, like so far because there's no been
there's no long term effects of any of it. Yet,
it's just all they see is Trump just doing all
the things he told them he would do, because that's why,
I mean, that's what he's doing. Like in a way,
I'm like morbidly impressed by it because I've never seen
an American politician do that. Almost all the time, they
just say a bunch of shit and don't do much
(11:14):
of nothing on both sides for most of my life.
But he's doing stuff, and it's stuff that I really
am not in favor of. But they love it and
think it's a great idea, And so you know, they're
not jumping off the Trump train anytime soon, I don't think.
And the real question to me is when the receipts
come in for a lot of these things that I
think are going to have disastrous long terms, you know,
sex when that when those consequences arrived, what happens then?
(11:39):
And I'd like to think they'll find some of them
will finally shake it off, But I don't know if
I'm actually not that optimistic though at the end of
the day.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So well, that's the thing is, I think you based
on your humor stuff, I think you can see a
lot of this is just built on lies, right, And
I think a lot of what populist politicians do is
they create enemies, they create false narratives, someone to blame
the elites or for us that the deep state is
where we worked, right. I think the real people hurting
the rural population and eventually will see this. Are there
(12:06):
representatives that lie to them?
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
The people are telling them these lies, but they actually
aren't going to fix things. They feed them information to
keep I'm angry they hoped why they hobbed now with
the super rich people and get yes breaks, But so
I don't know when it will come and how much
damage would be done before before everybody figures it out.
But it's a real problem that being lied to all
the time.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, and I really felt like when I was a
kid in that town, because I tell people too, it's like, again,
not only did it like vote blue in most elections,
but most people when I was growing up there, I
would have described as outwardly a political like people didn't
talk about the general the general consensus and must almost
everybody there back then was basically like, I'll fuck them.
(12:50):
They're all full of shit, and none of them really
give a damn about you know, the Yeah, right, I know,
I know, And that's like the sort of context I
was raised in there. And then now there's Trump signs
all over the place or anything, and it's just it's changed.
I mean, yeah, you're right. I mean, yes, they feed
them things to make them angry and turn people against
each other and make, you know, turn people into enemies
(13:11):
that aren't really while hiding the fact that the real
enemies or the masters that they're representative serving all that
stuff that they don't say they get mad at, like
Mexicans and shit instead in welfare queens and stuff and
these serial boogeymen that they're terrified of instead of like
the people that are actually screwing them over, sometimes right
in front of their face. Like Elon Musk, and then
(13:32):
he turns around and talks house Elon that is like
through out there the idea of we've been saving all
this money and uh, we might give everybody a dividend
for it, you know, and he said, like five thousand
dollars and I don't think that'll ever happen, but it's funny.
It's funny to me that it's like, these people have
been decrying anything that seems we can't have health care whatever.
(13:53):
That's socialism. It's not fair. People's tax taxpayer tax money
can't pay for other people's stuff, and that's not how
it should be. Socialism's bad, you know, all this stuff.
And then Elon's like, I think we should take this
big sum of taxpayer money and just distribute it evenly
to the people unconditionally. And they're like, oh, that's a
great idea. That sounds awesome. That's totally what we should do. Again,
(14:15):
I don't I think it'll be called dan Hill where
that actually even happens. But it's the whole thing is
just kind of upside down.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, feal boogeyman. I like that.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
So you guys should know all about those I would
imagine probably.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
We are ongoing.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So I want to take you. So weansport yourself back
to your hometown and Selena, and you're sitting in so
my hometown, the local diner is called the Greeks. You
sit there and you have a cup of coffee. Everybody
talks after the church and things, and so you're back
at the Greeks, and you tick me in and we
sit down at the table of your local cafe, and
you introduced me to your friends and go, this guy's
(14:50):
the deep State and John's there too, right, so the
true deep state guys, well, questions would they ask us?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
It's funny you say that, because I actually have a
question that I was wanting to ask you guys. But
it's not this question is coming from me. It's not.
It's actually coming from a friend of mine. So this
is not exactly what you're asking. I'm not channeling a
hometown person. This is my own question I already wanted
to ask you. But my friend that I co host
of podcast with is and saying recent he's been positing
(15:16):
that if these things that the current administration is doing
really does lead to truly disastrous results, like things start
to crumble apart and it's heading in that direction. At
what point does anybody or can anybody step in and
do something about it to whether it's like a coup
or an Operation Valkyrie type sign or whatever it is,
is there a point where to keep this country from collapse?
(15:38):
Would the deep state ever do some deep state stuff
in this scenario? And because he's starting to root for that.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
End, I wish there was a deep state. The deep
state is just a it's just a shitty name. They
throw a people like us who Congress and the president.
They make the laws and the rule they don't always
know what they are right, we carry them out. So
like for even at CIA, the first thing we do
when we're gonna have an operation is we go to
a lawyer. We're like, is this legal? Is this conspiracial?
(16:09):
Can we do it? And you know, if the answer
is no, we don't do it. Regardless, even if the
president says I want you to do something, and I
think this is one of Trump's problems, He's like, I
give an order, nobody carries it out like because they're like,
maybe it's against the law, or maybe it's against the rules,
are maybe it's unethical. People won't do it. So no,
these were CIA and as least as bad as it
(16:32):
is now. Nope, the only thing I think you'll find
is people of goodwill will basically say I'm just gonna
like keep my head down and try to wait out
four years and I'll do what I need to do.
But no, the answer is no.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Even on that last note you said, I remember thinking
the first time around the first Trump administraction, pey were like,
this guy's in charge of the nukes. That's terrifying, And
I was like, surely there's people around high high levels
in the military and stuff. I've got to have been
there for a long time. They're legit, they're not insane,
and hopefully they would be able to keep something truly
wild like that from happening. And I feel like after
(17:08):
the first administration, you got we've got reports during like
January sixth, committees and all that of the white things
were inside at the time, and seemed like that was
sort of the case. They had. It broke down and
like there was team Saying and team crazy, and it's
like the same like longtime bureaucrats who were like actually
reasonable people were trying hard every day to keep Team
Crazy from doing a bunch of crazy shit, And that's
(17:28):
really what was happening behind the scenes the first time around,
and it's like part of the whole plan this time
around is to not have any of the same people there.
And so you know, you said, you were saying people
have been there a long time and are not down
with all this, just like keep their head down. But
do you think there's because I used to work for
I used to work for the Department of Energy, and
I was just like a pencil pusher at the desk.
But I that's another thing I used to think because
(17:49):
I worked my whole time in twenty ten to two thousand,
middle of twenty sixteen, six and a half years I was.
That was all Obama administration, So the Secretary of the
DOE was like the head of Physics and Energy at MIT.
And then after I left and Trump came in, it
was fucking Rick Perry right, who couldn't even remember the
name of the agency. And that was that was all
freaking me out. But because I'd worked there, I was
(18:10):
like I knew. I was like that people doing the
things there every day are long there like life first.
There are people that have been working for the DA
for a long, long time through all kinds of different
administrations with different politics, and they keep the mission going
and the try and running on time and all that.
So it's even with all this craziness, those people all
(18:30):
still be there and that's the thing that gives me comfort.
But again, what they're part of what they're doing right
now is they're excising a lot of that. They're seeming to.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
All right, let's take a break.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
We'll be right back. So John and I John speak
for herself, but he's worked against Russia, the Soviet Union,
and you know, I've done a lot of time counterterrorism
and spent time in rock Afghanistan pushing back against like
really some evil ideologies and some nasty people. But if
(19:04):
Trump comes along and says this isn't like, this isn't
crazy anymore. He says, I want us to, I want
you say, work against our real enemies, Canada. And then
I guess it's not illegal to learn operations against the
Native li. I mean, it would be stupid and unethical
and foolish and short sighted, but I think they'd find
(19:27):
a couple of people who do it, and a couple
of people who Yeah, if you make me do it,
I'll do a shitty job. I don't know, Jock, what
do you think.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I would get that question a lot of time when
you guys gonna come in and take care of this
kind of thing. You see, hey, guys, and essentially you
have experienced in Dee. It's the same thing.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
People are.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Our public servants are focused on their mission, which is
collecting foreign intelligence, where we're not focused on domestic politics
and try it. In fact, we're very much inculcated to
stay away from the you know, you don't want a
powerful agency that steals thing and does things like that
working domestically, right, and so we'll pretty much stay out
of domestic politics. So what Jerry said first is most
(20:03):
likely is there isn't really a means for people to
step in or do something or stop something. You know,
half the country it most would blame them for getting
involved in something they shouldn't get involved in. But like
Jerry said too, most people going to focus on trying
to do their job or keep their head down, or
if they do give these kind of orders that are crazy,
a certain percentage of people will quit. Another group will
(20:25):
try to explain is best and try the best they
can to push back and explain and some of them
will get fired, and then there'll be a small group
of people who will do it and probably do it poorly.
And then maybe if Trump's in long enough, he'll bring
in enough todies to try to come in and do it.
But it's a very difficult job to just do on
the fly. It takes a long time to go through
(20:45):
training and get experience and get languages and learn how
to do these things. I mean, he'll be dead long
before anybody he brings in from the outside is trained
and ready to do this effectively. So possibly Justice Department,
possibly in the courts, possibly an FBI. At some point
there'll be a group of people who can more effectively
push back, but it's pushed back, probably trying their best
(21:06):
to explain what's happening.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Is illegal, right from the Republican Party, from his own ail.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yes, Congress is where it's supposed to happen.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, the rest the great answer. Yeah. Other thing I
was thinking just because this week he had a new
executive order. Basically it was like, you know, expanding executive
authority even further and basically telling the courts like, actually,
we're we're the ones who are gonna interpret the law
and it's like, you know, even though the constitution like
says that's what judicial branch is for. And he's like,
now we're not really doing that whole constitution thing anymore.
(21:33):
But but I was thinking because of that, I was like,
it's wild that that's the idea, that one thing, like
an example, something is completely bipotterson and just unquestioned my
whole life until recently. Was that, like, you know, checks
and balances, which is the thing you get told over
and over again as a kid growing up in this country.
It's like one of the principles were founded on is
(21:54):
the idea of checks and balances, and that that is
good right whoever it has the power at any given time.
The fact that we have that is a good thing, right.
And that's one of those types of things, like fundamental
precepts that I just never thought I would see questioned
by anybody like regular people. I mean, And now they're
(22:17):
actively trying to dismantle checks amounts and they're being cheered
on for it, and that's it's all just it's all
pretty wild. But since you asked me that question, the
two that I thought of, what's the deal with the
weather machine? Right? Who actually controls that, and uh, why
didn't they send to her kind of put the fires
out in LA when we had that problem out here,
because it's this is liberal haven out here, so you'd
(22:38):
think they want to take care of us. And then uh,
and then what's the real story with COVID. What were
you guys really doing there trying to put five G
and everybody? Or were sterilized smart people? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I had retired, so we can't be blamed for either
of those.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So yeah, the conspiracy crazies, they've got their team in
there now, all the people Lodgerie, Taylor Green her parties
are in it. It's time to expose the Jewish space laser, right,
I mean they yes, Well, now let's wheel out, get
the gurneyes out, and wheel out the aliens that the
CIA has hit all this time. Right, Let's do the
(23:13):
Kennedy assassination.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Still his people in charge, they can do all that.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So yeah, let's bring it all out there.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Let's show everybody to find out there's nothing there.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
But they still That's another thing that I don't get
is like I was just in Kentucky doing shows and
it was flooding there at the time I saw people,
some of these people, like on Twitter, they were talking
about so Elin had been saying, you know, we need
to audit Fort Knox, right, because we don't even know
if all that gold is there anymore. It could be
just standing empty, who knows, you know. And it's like
(23:44):
my buddy pointed out, He's like, well, if it's been
empty for a while, that feels like that's been fine.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Like it's like, I don't like it hasn't really affected.
We don't know this, We don't know that. What they're
saying is that they don't know. They went for the government.
They actually do know if they ask people.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
So they had been saying that we need to audit
Fort Knox and these people, and it caught up at
a little traction on like Twitter and stuff between the
conspiracy theories are like very funny that they're talking about
auditing Fort Knox and all of a sudden it's flooding there.
And it's because they're saying, you know, they we employed
their machine again and mild things like okay, but that
I thought that was like a Biden administration deep like
(24:21):
they you guys have taken care of that, haven't you,
Like you won you've pushed those people out right, So
where are they? What are they doing that? There's some
like secret.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
There's always got to be an enemy. So I have
a question for you, Tray, do you get threats? There
was recently a Vanity Fair article called They're Scared Shitless,
and it talked about how North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis,
who was claiming that he was going to vote against
Pete Haygesith for Secretary of Defense, that the FBI went
to and warned him about a series of credible death
threats against him because he was going to vote against
(24:52):
the presidents. Now me, do you get threats from people
who really don't like what you're doing?
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Early on, when I first popped, first became a thing,
and I was kind of all over the place briefly,
like on the Internet, I got a lot of messages
from people and dms and stuff that a lot of
them are just like Colin at gay in various ways
or whatever, or having conspiracy theories about me. It's like
I'm a secret Jewish actor from New York who's been
installed by the Obama administration to like propagate liberal propaganda
(25:21):
in rural America. Right. That was a conspiracy theory, so
stuff like that. But I would get some that were
like threatening violence, you know, and however, ways, and I
got a few death threats and that type of thing,
but they were like here and there, and I mostly
just like laughed them off or ignored it. Over the years,
they've gotten much less and less because those people are
not generally what you know, their algorithms, not showing them
(25:44):
my stuff. For the most part, it's mostly just it'll
be hateful comments or whatever. And I have known people
who are like, don't have as large of a following
as me, but have gotten on the radar of some
of these guys. Right, I don't know how or why
I have not gotten that kind of attention so far.
(26:05):
I'm maybe I'm just again, I'm just either not on
their radar or they don't. They think I'm just a
silly thing that's not serious, which is fine with me
because I am a comedian. So I ask myself sometimes
like if that does happen, if I start getting that
type of attention the way you hear all these stories
about all the time, what am I gonna do? Because
like I said, I am married, I do have kids,
(26:27):
and it would you know, that shit would be freaky.
I'm not you know, you were about these people, even
that one guy, like even people on their side like that,
that guy who was like a big he was like
a big sort of leader in the process of January sixth,
on the day of and then later they decided that
he actually was one of your people who worked for
the deep state. Right then he was installed there and
this guy here maga and loves Trump. They just decided
(26:50):
he was that secret deep state. And then he had
to like go into hiding and shit with his wife
and like leave there out because of you know, the
threats they were getting, how harassed they got. So it's like, yeah,
I don't know, it's like a list you get you
find yourself on at some point and they'll like do
everything they can to make your life hell. And thankfully
that hasn't happened to me yet and I'm hoping obviously
that it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Is Trump good for you? So I've got friends who
are journalists. Now I never hit when it was on
the inside, and after their third drink, they'll say, at
least people are like animated now Trump hate and releiveled,
but it's he's an animating character, and he's like in
the headlines all the time, and he's journalists are building
their careers off of either opposing him or digging shit
(27:32):
up or lick spittling him and praising him. So, well,
how do you see you yourself in this in this biasphere?
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah, people were bringing it up to me too or
asking me about that the first time around, also in
twenty sixteen. That's like what I said then and not
think it's still true this time around too. Is like
I would as somebody who lives in this country and
has kids and all this stuff, like it's this is
not worth it to me, But it would be disingenuous
of me to not acknowledge that this probably is like
(28:02):
a quote unquote good thing for me professionally considering what
I do, Like I probably do benefit from this ultimately,
and did the first time round as well. But on
the other hand, in the run up went Biden twenty
and everything, everybody naively thought, you know, now that all
that's over forever, what are you know? What are you
what are you gonna do now? What are you gonna talk?
(28:23):
When I was always like, it'll be fine. I've been
this country long enough to know, especially now at this point,
there's always gonna be dumb shit happening that it needs
to be made fun of, regardless of who's in charge.
So I think I'll be fine. And I was. I mean,
I had, you know, I was in I didn't like
go back to my old job during the Biden administration,
just crawl back out of my internet hole when Trump
(28:43):
got reelected, like I was still doing it all the
that whole time. But now, but yeah, it's been you know,
my numbers will have gone up recently and probably will
continue to do so, and that means ticket sales and
all that stuff, probably, and it's because of you know,
the current state of things politically. But again, if I
could snap my fingers and be doing somewhat less well
(29:06):
but feel better about the future of the country, I
would take that trade in a heartbeat. But yeah, it
probably does help me a little bit for now up
until a point like when the like Water Wars starts
or whatever, or I don't know, people are gonna going
to comedy shows in the after times or during the
Second Civil War or whatever, so we'll see. I had
(29:29):
thought and planned that if Harris Wallas had won, my
plan was to gradually drift away from heavy politics stuff
into more just regular stand up clips, and I even
started making like cooking videos and stuff like that, just
it's like regular funny stuff and not have to talk
about politics all the time. Because I've been thinking, if
(29:49):
they had won, then maybe we can all try to
put some of this behind us as a people. Obviously
didn't work out that way, and when when that, when
what happened happened, I was like, well, Okay, I guess
I'm still doing my thing for a while.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's cause perception. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Talking about theories. Do you think there's a greater tendency
towards conspiracy theories on the right wing or in rural communities.
And one of the things that leads me to ask
that is I recall a few years ago there was
a journalist that had been coming back from covering civil
wars and poverty in the Third World for a long time,
and he was getting interviewed one of these podcasts, New
(30:35):
York Times podcasts, and they asked him, do you see
a similar breakdown here that's going to lead to a
civil war or whatever? And I was expecting to say, oh, yes,
and he said no, because in the places where he
was they had real problems, like they were really poor,
they couldn't eat, they were actually killing each other, and
here it seems like it's middle class, board white guys.
So do you think there's a regional piece to this
(30:58):
or a rural piece to this, or what is it?
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Well, first of all, the thing that that journalist said
is like a version of a thing that I like
try to tell myself to sleep at night or whatever.
So I've heard other people say it to Americans don't
really realize how we look around and like, oh god,
the sky's fall, this is horrible and everything, and it's like,
as compared to a lot so many places in the
world and the shit that goes on there, it's like
it's still it's still pretty nice here, you know, and
(31:25):
we don't know how good we got it. And I
try to remind myself of that. But I didn't. I
would not used to. I would not have thought that
it necessarily was the right leaning thing. Conspiracy theories. It's like,
that's one thing I've lamented is like I used to,
I was ever really into them. I've always liked aliens
and stuff and UFO stuff and that type of thing.
I like Oliver Stone's JFK movie and listening to podcasts
(31:49):
about that stuff and whatever else, And it was always
kind of a silly, fun thing to me, conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
You know.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I smoked a little bit too much weed one time
in college and watched the wrong YouTube video and for
a couple hours after that, I was like, Damn Bush
did nine to eleven, you know, like that type of thing.
Then I shook it off later, but and like that's
another good example. I feel like that was a the whole,
like nine to eleven being an inside job and something
that Bush did, like that conspiracy theory that was there
was any of people on the left tour all about
(32:17):
that because it was an anti Bush thing. So no
used to know. But now I feel like it's undeniable
that it's like right wing coded, And I think it's
a combination of things where it's like the rise of
QAnon and it begetting as big and mainstream as it did,
and it kind of becoming like intrinsically linked with MAGA
(32:39):
and Trump and the right, and also how all encompassing
it is. It's like it will wrap up anything into itself,
you know what I mean. It's like any kind of
conspiracy theory can get connected back to this larger one
type thing and it and there it's people on the
right largely. And then uh, and then I think a
lot of like pied type stuff, you know, Like I'm
not not blaming things on Joe Rogan, but I'm saying
(33:00):
like that what realm of influence is tied to get
you know, again, like early Joe Rogan and that there's
like a crossover. He loved talking about conspiracy theories and
aliens and all that shit that's used to be mostly
all of what he did. And then you can see
how they've got it's gotten mixed together with the politics
of the right over the years, just by looking at
his show as like a case study or an example.
(33:21):
And that sucks because like some again, sometimes I could
think they're fun, right, but I don't want to be
even jokingly part of the current version of the world
of conspiracy theories. It's just another thing that's been co
opted and ruined by the far right. As far as
I'm concerned, we used to have fun with conspiracy theories
in this country and now they're dangerous.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
But yeah, yeah, in high school, there was like who
really built the pyramids or space aliens? And you know,
you can enjoy that on any any part of the
political spectrum. But one of my things that I'm sort
of gobsfick and still dealing with. But it was like
where I come from, I think where you do too,
you know, sort of like a small town, the military
was always sacred, sinct. It was also a place where
(34:02):
kids coming out of high school, we can get a
job and you can see the world. You can make
something of yourself with a we had a pickle plan
in town, right and it closed down, and kodaks like,
you can always join the Marines, right, yes, yes, and
a lot of people did. And if you didn't go
to college. So with with the right now with Trump,
what they've broken is really the military isn't sac or
saint anymore. When Trump got up and said that John
(34:25):
McKay is a fucking loser, freaking being held and tortured
by the North Vietnamese, and people bought that, and people
bought that in my tone too. You know, Trump's saying
that generals are stupid and the military of a bunch
of pussies. Right, what's your sense of like where you
come from, is the military not being held in high
(34:46):
regard anymore. I thought that was the bedrock thing me too.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, it's nothing like I was saying earlier about checks
and balances or whatever. The military is the type of
thing that I thought would not everybody called into quest.
That was one of the craziest things that I ever
saw Trump do, is when he did the things like
you're talking about. He got caught calling you know, dead
soldiers losers and all this type of shit he's done
over the years. It's like, I can't believe that this
is okay with everybody, because that was like the one
thing you could never ever do. And it's all this
(35:11):
dose stuff. And they've just recently started talking about, oh,
they're actually going to cut some of the defense budget.
And this part is hard for me because I've spent
years being like, we should cut some of the defense,
Like for most of my life it's like, God, I
really wish we could cut some of the defense budget
and focus more on space travel and going to Mars.
And it's like without the monkey's Paul curls, right, this
is the version of the world that's happening. But I
(35:33):
think it's like, I don't know for sure, but I
think it's like they still have an idea, an idealized
version of the military that is sacro sanct in their head.
And it's like they think that the present day military,
like so many things, has been like co opted and
ruined by like wokeism and dei stuff and that type
of thing, or you know, the military is like gone
woke with military leadership. So the military has lost its way,
(35:55):
I think and gotten all woke and shit is how
they justify being anti military right now. And it's like
they just they want to they the real American military
that they like, remember, it's like it's still attainable and
that's still like the gold standard and it is sacro
sanc but it's just been bastardized in the current version
(36:15):
of it. That's why you can shit all over it
is because of that. So you got to get it
back to the old way or something.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
The next one then is similar, is like how do
we become pro Russian, like for Christ's sake, Like.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yes, that's that one is nuh because again growing up
here and my whole life, you know, I mean, they're
the bad guys in every movie and everything. It's like
the cold war was such it ended when I was
like a kid, but it was still just like such
a huge part of everything, and it's I just never
I don't know, Uh, it's a big part of Like
how so many people demonize the left overall apperiod or
(36:46):
socialism being a dirty word is because they got associated
with the evils of communism and Soviet Russia and that
being the enemy and all that, and it was just
never questioned. It's communism is still evil and socialism by
proxy and all that. But now Russia's awesome because of
I don't know, Putin's.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, we got to get people to watch Red Dawn again.
It's the ru Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I lived in Russia and I've been working on Russia
things for a long time and it's not awesome. Yeah,
but I you know what I think it is. And
you what's so good about your comedy trade is you
focus on what has happened I think in this country
is we've defined our enemies as internal enemies rather than
external enemies. Like when we grew up, it was like
there was external enemies and we disagreed with each other,
but we're on the same side against external I think
(37:28):
one of the geniuses that Trump picked up on that
was already out there. Was if I can make Hillary
Clinton the enemy, then anything I say or do is
okay because it's attacking that, because they're the real enemy,
not anybody else.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
So true, what's your favorite conspiracy theory? And I hope
it has to do with CIA, so we can maybe
address it for you.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
My definitely the favorite genre of them, at least I guess,
is all aliens and UFO stuffything from like Rosswelt through
the drones or whatever, and all the stuff that people say,
and then we can't talk about any of that, right, See,
I have aliens in an underground bunker somewhere or alien
tech or whatever. It's like one of those things where
it's like, basically, do I think that aliens probably exist
(38:10):
somewhere in the universe? Yes, mathematically I think that they
probably do. Do I think that like the drownes in
New Jersey and shit, or like aliens sur violence or
any of that stuff. No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
There was a senator from Nevada, Reid, who was really
was obsessed with this for years, obviously at Area fifty
one is in Nevada and stuff, and so he pushed
the defense Department and the Intelligence he used to create
some version of looking at things that we couldn't figure out.
And there's been a congress variety of hearings and this
and that, and of course none of it really answers
(38:40):
any of this. And of course the thing is, every
time you try to answer these things, it just makes
people go deeper and say, ah, like they said, hey,
let out all the JFK stuff, and essentially the intelligence
just let out all the JFK stuff. But the fact
there's like two pieces of paper left, they're like, ah,
that's where the real thing is. You almost can't win
when you start down this thing. So I think there
is an office or in the Defense Department and probably
(39:04):
in the intelligences or that try to do what they
can to look at things that are unexplainable and see
if they can't figure things out or if recover things
that look that way. But in terms of actual alien stuff,
I spent thirty years in a CIA, and I never
heard anything but anything.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
We hit an office on this. I think this is big.
In the seventies and eighties for a while that was
looking at far seeing and we hired psychics and they
would sit down and they would sit over a piece
of paper and drink a coffee and they would like
sketch something out and they go look for this in
Atlanta vous stock like a submarine pen. And the only
reason we had that was because and I can't remember
(39:40):
was here to read. But there was some influential senator
who was convinced that this could and he like made
us do it. He gave us the money. It said,
fucking do this and it produced nothing. But we're still
like CIA had an office that did this, Yeah, because
we were forced to, like.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
It's like mk Ultra, which is in the nineteen fifties, yep.
There was a concern that we were fighting the Soviet Union,
and there was all these public TV shows and movies suggests,
and a number of people had come back from fighting
in Korea and other places, and it seemed to become brainwashed.
If you believe communism must because there must have been
a drug or a brainwashing that the Soviets had figured out.
And so there was a small place of the CIA
(40:21):
that was supposed to look into it and test drugs
and things to see if this thing existed. I think
they they ruined a lot of people's minds but they
found out that there was no You could destroy someone's brain,
but you can't really reprogram it very right. And yeah,
it was a pretty sad experiment.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
And I have to say, if we just the way
things work in the real world. So John and I
are both we've been out for a long time and
are measley pensions were not poor, but we're certainly not rich.
We could hit the jackpot if we, like said, I
know where the aliens are, right, And if there really was,
why wouldn't people come out afterwards and say it, like,
you know, just or sneak off to the Washington Post
(40:58):
or the New York Times or Carlson and go here's yeah,
the thousands of us, Why wouldn't wanted to know?
Speaker 4 (41:04):
That? Is the mind that because over your I thought
about I think really like the real conspiracy theory is
that it's all way more boring than you think it
is and also less effectual than you think of this
not as all powerful as a lot of people think
it is. And they couldn't don't have the capacity to
do a lot of this stuff that people think that
has been done. And also, as you just said, it's
like the whole moonlanding mean faked or whatever like that one.
(41:25):
It's like the sheer number of people that would have
to be involved with something like that and never ever
even up to it, including their deathbed, say a single
thing about it or leak any information out or whatever.
And it's like people just people can't do that, you know,
it's human nature to It's just impossible. You can't keep
a secret like that with that many people. There's like
(41:48):
two people maybe can keep a secret, and even when
the third person gets involved, it's you're in danger of
it getting out. Let alone thousands of people.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
So yeah, especially in this day and age, he could
make some good money off of it.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Yeah. Yeah, they don't stay secret very long.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
It's been so fun to listen to you. I enjoy
falling on social media and I would suggest that people
in our audience to look it up Tree Crowder.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Thank you, Trek Crowder dot com, track Crowder on all
the socials and yeah, thanks for having me. It's a fun.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Appreciate Troy is tr Ae, So Troy, thank you very much,
really really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Seipher,
and Jonathan Stern. The Associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Implausible is a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures
for iHeart Podcasts.
John and I are on break now who are on
a secret mission and this before all new Mission Implausible
episodes come out this fall. But for now, we'll bring
you one of our favorite past episodes and we'll soon
be launching our YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
See you there.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
our adversaries.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
theories large and small.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
This is Mission Implausible. Today's guest is Trey Crowder. He's
the liberal redneck. He's a comedian with a big following
on YouTube and social media and the author of several books.
He's from rural Tennessee and you can see the dates
through his nationwide comedy tour on his website. So welcome
to Hey.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
The website and question is trade Crowder dot com. By
the way, thanks for the intro and thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
The first question I've met for you is can you
explain gd bance?
Speaker 4 (01:23):
No, not really only a show. I have a weird
miniature history with j D actually because his I first
went viral and started gaining my online following that you
mentioned in the spring of twenty sixteen. I had been
doing stand up in anonymity for like six years already
(01:43):
at that point, but then I made these videos and
they one of them took off really big, and then
I could just snowball from there, which is great. But
it started in twenty sixteen and I started going all
these meetings, Hollywood meetings and stuff like this, and people
started asking me, oh, you must love Have you read
that new book? Have you read He'll Billy Eligi? If
you read that, you know about that. And that's how
I found out about it. And I looked it up
(02:05):
and they were all any type of remotely fancy person
intelligentsia or any type of artist to have whether they
were like salivating over this book, right, they loved it.
So I found out about that way. And then I
was like going on TV at the time, like CNN
and MSNBC and Bill marsh Show and stuff like that,
and usually I was being brought on there relevant to
the first question you asked to like explain Hillbillies to people,
(02:28):
because there was a big narrative them about them and Trump.
Then that's what happened with Trump is he reached these
specific people. It's like, you're one of these people, what's
up with that? Explain to us what that's all about.
And Jad was doing the same thing at the same time,
and we like met and started talking and stuff. He
brought his wife, who was pregnant at the time, to
my comedy show that I did in Columbus. We hung
(02:50):
out afterwards, went to a bar, hung out for a
few hours, talking about stuff. Now at that time, and
he was still calling Trump Hitler and everything. So I
was like, this guy's all right. Stayed in touch sort
of over the years, a little bit, texting here and there,
and then as his rise became more evident and took
the trajectory it did. You know, I haven't talked to
him forever at this point. But like I even when
(03:11):
I read the book, though, there were parts in it
where because we had we do have, if everything in
the book is to be believed, we have a very
similar upbringing and background in a lot of ways. My
mom was also a drug addict. I'm from very very rural, uh,
poverty stricken Tennessee. Now he would like go there. He
like grew up in Ohio, really, but he would go
(03:33):
there in the summers and be immersed in He'll billy
shit for a while. I was in it all the time,
not bragging, but uh and so I definitely related to
a lot of it. But there were a lot of
angles he took in that book and things that he
said that even at the very beginning of even knowing
who he was, I was like, it just struck me
odd or weird. I was like, that's I don't I'm
(03:54):
not down with that. Like one of the big ones
I remember, is he he He makes this whole case
in the book for payday loan places, right about how
people like demonize those as being predatory, but what they
don't understand is those places really are lifelines to poor
rural people and all this stuff. Okay, Because I got
to that part and I was like, what fuck those
place says, what are you serious?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
You know?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
And then I hear later after the fact that I
purportedly he had whatever investment stakes or something like that,
and some company that had some paty loan places or
that type of thing, and I was like, well, that's
pretty greasy. And then his whole central thesis the way
I read it in that book, which was basically just like, yeah, listen,
you know, uh, these poor white people, they're just like
(04:39):
they're just fundamentally lazy. There's something broken in them, like culturally,
like they it's their own. They could blame everybody else
all they want, but it's it's their own fault at
the end of the day. But I just never looked
at like that because I've seen too many people very
close to me that I feel like there are no
fault of their own been you know, turned to shit
(05:00):
by completely external factors. Ironically, to a lot of those
people love JD's boss, Donald Trump and that type of thing,
you know, because of all that that happened. But I
don't know how he you know, how we had basically
the same experiences and landed on such different outcomes the
way that we did. But I think that, you know,
(05:23):
you know, I don't know, I'm a conspiratorial it is,
but I think that he's I very much believe that
he's been that he's backed by Peter Thiel and has
been shepherded into this position that he's in now for
a very strategic reason on their part. He was identified
early on by them, I think, as someone who's like
to be used for this purpose and has been more
than happy to allow that to happen. That's what I
(05:45):
think has happened with j D.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I think in two or three different times.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah, yeah, I know, he's definitely weird and all everything
that's going on there, and then he still like sucks
up to people, the types of people who will be
openly racist towards some other his children to his face
or to his digital face on Twitter anyway, and that
type of thing, which I also just find very wild.
The whole thing is wild. But you know, I mean
(06:09):
it's worked very well for him. He's the freaking vice president.
He's in the White House right now, Like he can
argue with the results. If that's you know, those are
the things you value, money and power and all that.
It's he's definitely getting what he wanted out of it
so far, and it could only just be beginning, so
we'll see.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I'm not a hillbilly here my accent, but I did
grow up in a small town, one of ten kids,
everybody's working for Kodak up in that area, and then
Kodak went bust, everybody lost their jobs, and right, yeah, yeah,
I get that kind of thing. That was like taking
your date to the town up to watch the Bears shooting. Yeah,
but I'll tell you where I come from too. Trump
(06:47):
is killer with a lot of my family and a
lot of former friends from high school and everything like that,
and I have not had really the chance to sit
down and talk with them about what's in their best interest.
And not that you represent all Hillbillies everywhere, but one
thing I've struggled with is sort of this cult like
adherence to something that maybe appeals to their pride but
(07:11):
isn't always in their best.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Interest early on from the beginning. And that's alluded to
this little bit And so did you so like my hometown? Also,
So my hometown, I think is an interesting case study.
It was called Salina, Tennessee. It's in Clay County. It's
very rural. We don't have any traffic lights or McDonald's
or anything there. So yeah, stop bragging. That's enough, I
get it. You fancy, but uh, in every general election
up to like two thousand and four, Clay County was
(07:34):
a Democratic county and was blue like win for al
Gore in two thousand and then Clinton before that, and
had been Democrat previously and then now it's like one
of the strongest for Trump counties in Tennessee, like by
percentage again it's very small, but percentage wise, and in
the nineties, for years and years, the whole, the beating
(07:55):
heart of the town's economy was a fact of textile
factory from your way Midwive because I assume they're from
actual oshkosh Oshkosh Bagosh, that's what they're called, you know,
the most whimsically named company to ever destroy an entire community.
But they they made and make a little cute little
baby overalls and stuff. And that was like there was
a big factory in Solina for years and years in
(08:17):
the nineties that left it went to Mexico. Nothing ever
replaced it. My family and a bunch of other people.
You either worked at the factory or you did something
that kind of serviced people that worked at the factory.
That my dad ran the only video store in town,
Like he had a converted single white trailer called Crowder's Video,
and my grandpa had a car lot. My other grandma
had a country cafe like a diner, and then my
(08:40):
openly gay uncle and his partner had a deli on
the town square, and all of which were doing great.
And then that factory left and within ten years all
of those businesses were closed. Half those people were dead.
My mom was hooked on pills, and that was the norm.
That happened to everybody there pretty much, or almost everybody,
or at least that were adjacent to It just devastated
(09:03):
the town and they've never to this day recovered. And
I felt like at twenty sixteen, like Trump showed up
and like was the first person to even really pretend
to give a shit about them or any of that.
He had been famous for years before that as a
rich douchebag that I never liked him. For the record,
I didn't know any redneck, especially red neck dude who
liked him. You know. He was like a you know,
(09:26):
a blue blood Yankee son of a bitch who thinks
he's better than everybody else, you know, and needs his
ass whipped type of thing. Is how nobody liked him,
and I did either. So when he showed up and
he was doing that, I was like okay, but he's
full of shit. That he's clearly full of shit. Shouldn't
that part matter? But I just think they were just
so desperate for anyone to care that they latched onto it.
(09:48):
And he blamed a lot of the same people, like
the swamp and that sort of thing, and then yes,
the racist aspect of it too that he fed into.
But I always used to tell people, I just thought
the racism part was just the icing on the fuck
you cake that he baked for them, for the establishment
that they had seen as having ruined their lives and
left them behind. So I was sympathetic to it the
first time around. Again, I felt like I saw through
(10:10):
it and I was like, you guys are getting sold
bad bill of goods here. This is bullshit. But I
did get where they were coming from or why they
felt that way. All these years later, after everything that
has happened, all the stuff that he's done, and how
nothing has really changed in my hometown for the better,
for sure, and they're even more die hard now than ever,
it's harder for me to try to reconcile with that.
(10:32):
But I guess it's a you know, I mean, you
called it a cult. I think you know, it's some
kind of you get dug in and it becomes part
of your identity, your personality, whatever, and then you just
like it's hard to break people out of that. And
then now lately, all the stuff that's happening lately in
this country like scaring me. But if your hardcore maga
or whatever, I mean, they've got to be loving all
(10:53):
this shit, I imagine, like so far because there's no been
there's no long term effects of any of it. Yet,
it's just all they see is Trump just doing all
the things he told them he would do, because that's why,
I mean, that's what he's doing. Like in a way,
I'm like morbidly impressed by it because I've never seen
an American politician do that. Almost all the time, they
just say a bunch of shit and don't do much
(11:14):
of nothing on both sides for most of my life.
But he's doing stuff, and it's stuff that I really
am not in favor of. But they love it and
think it's a great idea, And so you know, they're
not jumping off the Trump train anytime soon, I don't think.
And the real question to me is when the receipts
come in for a lot of these things that I
think are going to have disastrous long terms, you know,
sex when that when those consequences arrived, what happens then?
(11:39):
And I'd like to think they'll find some of them
will finally shake it off, But I don't know if
I'm actually not that optimistic though at the end of
the day.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So well, that's the thing is, I think you based
on your humor stuff, I think you can see a
lot of this is just built on lies, right, And
I think a lot of what populist politicians do is
they create enemies, they create false narratives, someone to blame
the elites or for us that the deep state is
where we worked, right. I think the real people hurting
the rural population and eventually will see this. Are there
(12:06):
representatives that lie to them?
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Right?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
The people are telling them these lies, but they actually
aren't going to fix things. They feed them information to
keep I'm angry they hoped why they hobbed now with
the super rich people and get yes breaks, But so
I don't know when it will come and how much
damage would be done before before everybody figures it out.
But it's a real problem that being lied to all
the time.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, and I really felt like when I was a
kid in that town, because I tell people too, it's like, again,
not only did it like vote blue in most elections,
but most people when I was growing up there, I
would have described as outwardly a political like people didn't
talk about the general the general consensus and must almost
everybody there back then was basically like, I'll fuck them.
(12:50):
They're all full of shit, and none of them really
give a damn about you know, the Yeah, right, I know,
I know, And that's like the sort of context I
was raised in there. And then now there's Trump signs
all over the place or anything, and it's just it's changed.
I mean, yeah, you're right. I mean, yes, they feed
them things to make them angry and turn people against
each other and make, you know, turn people into enemies
(13:11):
that aren't really while hiding the fact that the real
enemies or the masters that they're representative serving all that
stuff that they don't say they get mad at, like
Mexicans and shit instead in welfare queens and stuff and
these serial boogeymen that they're terrified of instead of like
the people that are actually screwing them over, sometimes right
in front of their face. Like Elon Musk, and then
(13:32):
he turns around and talks house Elon that is like
through out there the idea of we've been saving all
this money and uh, we might give everybody a dividend
for it, you know, and he said, like five thousand
dollars and I don't think that'll ever happen, but it's funny.
It's funny to me that it's like, these people have
been decrying anything that seems we can't have health care whatever.
(13:53):
That's socialism. It's not fair. People's tax taxpayer tax money
can't pay for other people's stuff, and that's not how
it should be. Socialism's bad, you know, all this stuff.
And then Elon's like, I think we should take this
big sum of taxpayer money and just distribute it evenly
to the people unconditionally. And they're like, oh, that's a
great idea. That sounds awesome. That's totally what we should do. Again,
(14:15):
I don't I think it'll be called dan Hill where
that actually even happens. But it's the whole thing is
just kind of upside down.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, feal boogeyman. I like that.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
So you guys should know all about those I would
imagine probably.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
We are ongoing.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
So I want to take you. So weansport yourself back
to your hometown and Selena, and you're sitting in so
my hometown, the local diner is called the Greeks. You
sit there and you have a cup of coffee. Everybody
talks after the church and things, and so you're back
at the Greeks, and you tick me in and we
sit down at the table of your local cafe, and
you introduced me to your friends and go, this guy's
(14:50):
the deep State and John's there too, right, so the
true deep state guys, well, questions would they ask us?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
It's funny you say that, because I actually have a
question that I was wanting to ask you guys. But
it's not this question is coming from me. It's not.
It's actually coming from a friend of mine. So this
is not exactly what you're asking. I'm not channeling a
hometown person. This is my own question I already wanted
to ask you. But my friend that I co host
of podcast with is and saying recent he's been positing
(15:16):
that if these things that the current administration is doing
really does lead to truly disastrous results, like things start
to crumble apart and it's heading in that direction. At
what point does anybody or can anybody step in and
do something about it to whether it's like a coup
or an Operation Valkyrie type sign or whatever it is,
is there a point where to keep this country from collapse?
(15:38):
Would the deep state ever do some deep state stuff
in this scenario? And because he's starting to root for that.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
End, I wish there was a deep state. The deep
state is just a it's just a shitty name. They
throw a people like us who Congress and the president.
They make the laws and the rule they don't always
know what they are right, we carry them out. So
like for even at CIA, the first thing we do
when we're gonna have an operation is we go to
a lawyer. We're like, is this legal? Is this conspiracial?
(16:09):
Can we do it? And you know, if the answer
is no, we don't do it. Regardless, even if the
president says I want you to do something, and I
think this is one of Trump's problems, He's like, I
give an order, nobody carries it out like because they're like,
maybe it's against the law, or maybe it's against the rules,
are maybe it's unethical. People won't do it. So no,
these were CIA and as least as bad as it
(16:32):
is now. Nope, the only thing I think you'll find
is people of goodwill will basically say I'm just gonna
like keep my head down and try to wait out
four years and I'll do what I need to do.
But no, the answer is no.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Even on that last note you said, I remember thinking
the first time around the first Trump administraction, pey were like,
this guy's in charge of the nukes. That's terrifying, And
I was like, surely there's people around high high levels
in the military and stuff. I've got to have been
there for a long time. They're legit, they're not insane,
and hopefully they would be able to keep something truly
wild like that from happening. And I feel like after
(17:08):
the first administration, you got we've got reports during like
January sixth, committees and all that of the white things
were inside at the time, and seemed like that was
sort of the case. They had. It broke down and
like there was team Saying and team crazy, and it's
like the same like longtime bureaucrats who were like actually
reasonable people were trying hard every day to keep Team
Crazy from doing a bunch of crazy shit, And that's
(17:28):
really what was happening behind the scenes the first time around,
and it's like part of the whole plan this time
around is to not have any of the same people there.
And so you know, you said, you were saying people
have been there a long time and are not down
with all this, just like keep their head down. But
do you think there's because I used to work for
I used to work for the Department of Energy, and
I was just like a pencil pusher at the desk.
But I that's another thing I used to think because
(17:49):
I worked my whole time in twenty ten to two thousand,
middle of twenty sixteen, six and a half years I was.
That was all Obama administration, So the Secretary of the
DOE was like the head of Physics and Energy at MIT.
And then after I left and Trump came in, it
was fucking Rick Perry right, who couldn't even remember the
name of the agency. And that was that was all
freaking me out. But because I'd worked there, I was
(18:10):
like I knew. I was like that people doing the
things there every day are long there like life first.
There are people that have been working for the DA
for a long, long time through all kinds of different
administrations with different politics, and they keep the mission going
and the try and running on time and all that.
So it's even with all this craziness, those people all
(18:30):
still be there and that's the thing that gives me comfort.
But again, what they're part of what they're doing right
now is they're excising a lot of that. They're seeming to.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
All right, let's take a break.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
We'll be right back. So John and I John speak
for herself, but he's worked against Russia, the Soviet Union,
and you know, I've done a lot of time counterterrorism
and spent time in rock Afghanistan pushing back against like
really some evil ideologies and some nasty people. But if
(19:04):
Trump comes along and says this isn't like, this isn't
crazy anymore. He says, I want us to, I want
you say, work against our real enemies, Canada. And then
I guess it's not illegal to learn operations against the
Native li. I mean, it would be stupid and unethical
and foolish and short sighted, but I think they'd find
(19:27):
a couple of people who do it, and a couple
of people who Yeah, if you make me do it,
I'll do a shitty job. I don't know, Jock, what
do you think.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
I would get that question a lot of time when
you guys gonna come in and take care of this
kind of thing. You see, hey, guys, and essentially you
have experienced in Dee. It's the same thing.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
People are.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Our public servants are focused on their mission, which is
collecting foreign intelligence, where we're not focused on domestic politics
and try it. In fact, we're very much inculcated to
stay away from the you know, you don't want a
powerful agency that steals thing and does things like that
working domestically, right, and so we'll pretty much stay out
of domestic politics. So what Jerry said first is most
(20:03):
likely is there isn't really a means for people to
step in or do something or stop something. You know,
half the country it most would blame them for getting
involved in something they shouldn't get involved in. But like
Jerry said too, most people going to focus on trying
to do their job or keep their head down, or
if they do give these kind of orders that are crazy,
a certain percentage of people will quit. Another group will
(20:25):
try to explain is best and try the best they
can to push back and explain and some of them
will get fired, and then there'll be a small group
of people who will do it and probably do it poorly.
And then maybe if Trump's in long enough, he'll bring
in enough todies to try to come in and do it.
But it's a very difficult job to just do on
the fly. It takes a long time to go through
(20:45):
training and get experience and get languages and learn how
to do these things. I mean, he'll be dead long
before anybody he brings in from the outside is trained
and ready to do this effectively. So possibly Justice Department,
possibly in the courts, possibly an FBI. At some point
there'll be a group of people who can more effectively
push back, but it's pushed back, probably trying their best
(21:06):
to explain what's happening.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Is illegal, right from the Republican Party, from his own ail.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yes, Congress is where it's supposed to happen.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah, the rest the great answer. Yeah. Other thing I
was thinking just because this week he had a new
executive order. Basically it was like, you know, expanding executive
authority even further and basically telling the courts like, actually,
we're we're the ones who are gonna interpret the law
and it's like, you know, even though the constitution like
says that's what judicial branch is for. And he's like,
now we're not really doing that whole constitution thing anymore.
(21:33):
But but I was thinking because of that, I was like,
it's wild that that's the idea, that one thing, like
an example, something is completely bipotterson and just unquestioned my
whole life until recently. Was that, like, you know, checks
and balances, which is the thing you get told over
and over again as a kid growing up in this country.
It's like one of the principles were founded on is
(21:54):
the idea of checks and balances, and that that is
good right whoever it has the power at any given time.
The fact that we have that is a good thing, right.
And that's one of those types of things, like fundamental
precepts that I just never thought I would see questioned
by anybody like regular people. I mean, And now they're
(22:17):
actively trying to dismantle checks amounts and they're being cheered
on for it, and that's it's all just it's all
pretty wild. But since you asked me that question, the
two that I thought of, what's the deal with the
weather machine? Right? Who actually controls that, and uh, why
didn't they send to her kind of put the fires
out in LA when we had that problem out here,
because it's this is liberal haven out here, so you'd
(22:38):
think they want to take care of us. And then uh,
and then what's the real story with COVID. What were
you guys really doing there trying to put five G
and everybody? Or were sterilized smart people? I don't know.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
I had retired, so we can't be blamed for either
of those.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
So yeah, the conspiracy crazies, they've got their team in
there now, all the people Lodgerie, Taylor Green her parties
are in it. It's time to expose the Jewish space laser, right,
I mean they yes, Well, now let's wheel out, get
the gurneyes out, and wheel out the aliens that the
CIA has hit all this time. Right, Let's do the
(23:13):
Kennedy assassination.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Still his people in charge, they can do all that.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
So yeah, let's bring it all out there.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Let's show everybody to find out there's nothing there.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
But they still That's another thing that I don't get
is like I was just in Kentucky doing shows and
it was flooding there at the time I saw people,
some of these people, like on Twitter, they were talking
about so Elin had been saying, you know, we need
to audit Fort Knox, right, because we don't even know
if all that gold is there anymore. It could be
just standing empty, who knows, you know. And it's like
(23:44):
my buddy pointed out, He's like, well, if it's been
empty for a while, that feels like that's been fine.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Like it's like, I don't like it hasn't really affected.
We don't know this, We don't know that. What they're
saying is that they don't know. They went for the government.
They actually do know if they ask people.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
So they had been saying that we need to audit
Fort Knox and these people, and it caught up at
a little traction on like Twitter and stuff between the
conspiracy theories are like very funny that they're talking about
auditing Fort Knox and all of a sudden it's flooding there.
And it's because they're saying, you know, they we employed
their machine again and mild things like okay, but that
I thought that was like a Biden administration deep like
(24:21):
they you guys have taken care of that, haven't you,
Like you won you've pushed those people out right, So
where are they? What are they doing that? There's some
like secret.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
There's always got to be an enemy. So I have
a question for you, Tray, do you get threats? There
was recently a Vanity Fair article called They're Scared Shitless,
and it talked about how North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis,
who was claiming that he was going to vote against
Pete Haygesith for Secretary of Defense, that the FBI went
to and warned him about a series of credible death
threats against him because he was going to vote against
(24:52):
the presidents. Now me, do you get threats from people
who really don't like what you're doing?
Speaker 4 (24:57):
Early on, when I first popped, first became a thing,
and I was kind of all over the place briefly,
like on the Internet, I got a lot of messages
from people and dms and stuff that a lot of
them are just like Colin at gay in various ways
or whatever, or having conspiracy theories about me. It's like
I'm a secret Jewish actor from New York who's been
installed by the Obama administration to like propagate liberal propaganda
(25:21):
in rural America. Right. That was a conspiracy theory, so
stuff like that. But I would get some that were
like threatening violence, you know, and however, ways, and I
got a few death threats and that type of thing,
but they were like here and there, and I mostly
just like laughed them off or ignored it. Over the years,
they've gotten much less and less because those people are
not generally what you know, their algorithms, not showing them
(25:44):
my stuff. For the most part, it's mostly just it'll
be hateful comments or whatever. And I have known people
who are like, don't have as large of a following
as me, but have gotten on the radar of some
of these guys. Right, I don't know how or why
I have not gotten that kind of attention so far.
(26:05):
I'm maybe I'm just again, I'm just either not on
their radar or they don't. They think I'm just a
silly thing that's not serious, which is fine with me
because I am a comedian. So I ask myself sometimes
like if that does happen, if I start getting that
type of attention the way you hear all these stories
about all the time, what am I gonna do? Because
like I said, I am married, I do have kids,
(26:27):
and it would you know, that shit would be freaky.
I'm not you know, you were about these people, even
that one guy, like even people on their side like that,
that guy who was like a big he was like
a big sort of leader in the process of January sixth,
on the day of and then later they decided that
he actually was one of your people who worked for
the deep state. Right then he was installed there and
this guy here maga and loves Trump. They just decided
(26:50):
he was that secret deep state. And then he had
to like go into hiding and shit with his wife
and like leave there out because of you know, the
threats they were getting, how harassed they got. So it's like, yeah,
I don't know, it's like a list you get you
find yourself on at some point and they'll like do
everything they can to make your life hell. And thankfully
that hasn't happened to me yet and I'm hoping obviously
that it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Is Trump good for you? So I've got friends who
are journalists. Now I never hit when it was on
the inside, and after their third drink, they'll say, at
least people are like animated now Trump hate and releiveled,
but it's he's an animating character, and he's like in
the headlines all the time, and he's journalists are building
their careers off of either opposing him or digging shit
(27:32):
up or lick spittling him and praising him. So, well,
how do you see you yourself in this in this biasphere?
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Yeah, people were bringing it up to me too or
asking me about that the first time around, also in
twenty sixteen. That's like what I said then and not
think it's still true this time around too. Is like
I would as somebody who lives in this country and
has kids and all this stuff, like it's this is
not worth it to me, But it would be disingenuous
of me to not acknowledge that this probably is like
(28:02):
a quote unquote good thing for me professionally considering what
I do, Like I probably do benefit from this ultimately,
and did the first time round as well. But on
the other hand, in the run up went Biden twenty
and everything, everybody naively thought, you know, now that all
that's over forever, what are you know? What are you
what are you gonna do now? What are you gonna talk?
(28:23):
When I was always like, it'll be fine. I've been
this country long enough to know, especially now at this point,
there's always gonna be dumb shit happening that it needs
to be made fun of, regardless of who's in charge.
So I think I'll be fine. And I was. I mean,
I had, you know, I was in I didn't like
go back to my old job during the Biden administration,
just crawl back out of my internet hole when Trump
(28:43):
got reelected, like I was still doing it all the
that whole time. But now, but yeah, it's been you know,
my numbers will have gone up recently and probably will
continue to do so, and that means ticket sales and
all that stuff, probably, and it's because of you know,
the current state of things politically. But again, if I
could snap my fingers and be doing somewhat less well
(29:06):
but feel better about the future of the country, I
would take that trade in a heartbeat. But yeah, it
probably does help me a little bit for now up
until a point like when the like Water Wars starts
or whatever, or I don't know, people are gonna going
to comedy shows in the after times or during the
Second Civil War or whatever, so we'll see. I had
(29:29):
thought and planned that if Harris Wallas had won, my
plan was to gradually drift away from heavy politics stuff
into more just regular stand up clips, and I even
started making like cooking videos and stuff like that, just
it's like regular funny stuff and not have to talk
about politics all the time. Because I've been thinking, if
(29:49):
they had won, then maybe we can all try to
put some of this behind us as a people. Obviously
didn't work out that way, and when when that, when
what happened happened, I was like, well, Okay, I guess
I'm still doing my thing for a while.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
It's cause perception. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Talking about theories. Do you think there's a greater tendency
towards conspiracy theories on the right wing or in rural communities.
And one of the things that leads me to ask
that is I recall a few years ago there was
a journalist that had been coming back from covering civil
wars and poverty in the Third World for a long time,
and he was getting interviewed one of these podcasts, New
(30:35):
York Times podcasts, and they asked him, do you see
a similar breakdown here that's going to lead to a
civil war or whatever? And I was expecting to say, oh, yes,
and he said no, because in the places where he
was they had real problems, like they were really poor,
they couldn't eat, they were actually killing each other, and
here it seems like it's middle class, board white guys.
So do you think there's a regional piece to this
(30:58):
or a rural piece to this, or what is it?
Speaker 4 (31:01):
Well, first of all, the thing that that journalist said
is like a version of a thing that I like
try to tell myself to sleep at night or whatever.
So I've heard other people say it to Americans don't
really realize how we look around and like, oh god,
the sky's fall, this is horrible and everything, and it's like,
as compared to a lot so many places in the
world and the shit that goes on there, it's like
it's still it's still pretty nice here, you know, and
(31:25):
we don't know how good we got it. And I
try to remind myself of that. But I didn't. I
would not used to. I would not have thought that
it necessarily was the right leaning thing. Conspiracy theories. It's like,
that's one thing I've lamented is like I used to,
I was ever really into them. I've always liked aliens
and stuff and UFO stuff and that type of thing.
I like Oliver Stone's JFK movie and listening to podcasts
(31:49):
about that stuff and whatever else, And it was always
kind of a silly, fun thing to me, conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
You know.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
I smoked a little bit too much weed one time
in college and watched the wrong YouTube video and for
a couple hours after that, I was like, Damn Bush
did nine to eleven, you know, like that type of thing.
Then I shook it off later, but and like that's
another good example. I feel like that was a the whole,
like nine to eleven being an inside job and something
that Bush did, like that conspiracy theory that was there
was any of people on the left tour all about
(32:17):
that because it was an anti Bush thing. So no
used to know. But now I feel like it's undeniable
that it's like right wing coded, And I think it's
a combination of things where it's like the rise of
QAnon and it begetting as big and mainstream as it did,
and it kind of becoming like intrinsically linked with MAGA
(32:39):
and Trump and the right, and also how all encompassing
it is. It's like it will wrap up anything into itself,
you know what I mean. It's like any kind of
conspiracy theory can get connected back to this larger one
type thing and it and there it's people on the
right largely. And then uh, and then I think a
lot of like pied type stuff, you know, Like I'm
not not blaming things on Joe Rogan, but I'm saying
(33:00):
like that what realm of influence is tied to get
you know, again, like early Joe Rogan and that there's
like a crossover. He loved talking about conspiracy theories and
aliens and all that shit that's used to be mostly
all of what he did. And then you can see
how they've got it's gotten mixed together with the politics
of the right over the years, just by looking at
his show as like a case study or an example.
(33:21):
And that sucks because like some again, sometimes I could
think they're fun, right, but I don't want to be
even jokingly part of the current version of the world
of conspiracy theories. It's just another thing that's been co
opted and ruined by the far right. As far as
I'm concerned, we used to have fun with conspiracy theories
in this country and now they're dangerous.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
But yeah, yeah, in high school, there was like who
really built the pyramids or space aliens? And you know,
you can enjoy that on any any part of the
political spectrum. But one of my things that I'm sort
of gobsfick and still dealing with. But it was like
where I come from, I think where you do too,
you know, sort of like a small town, the military
was always sacred, sinct. It was also a place where
(34:02):
kids coming out of high school, we can get a
job and you can see the world. You can make
something of yourself with a we had a pickle plan
in town, right and it closed down, and kodaks like,
you can always join the Marines, right, yes, yes, and
a lot of people did. And if you didn't go
to college. So with with the right now with Trump,
what they've broken is really the military isn't sac or
saint anymore. When Trump got up and said that John
(34:25):
McKay is a fucking loser, freaking being held and tortured
by the North Vietnamese, and people bought that, and people
bought that in my tone too. You know, Trump's saying
that generals are stupid and the military of a bunch
of pussies. Right, what's your sense of like where you
come from, is the military not being held in high
(34:46):
regard anymore. I thought that was the bedrock thing me too.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Yeah, it's nothing like I was saying earlier about checks
and balances or whatever. The military is the type of
thing that I thought would not everybody called into quest.
That was one of the craziest things that I ever
saw Trump do, is when he did the things like
you're talking about. He got caught calling you know, dead
soldiers losers and all this type of shit he's done
over the years. It's like, I can't believe that this
is okay with everybody, because that was like the one
thing you could never ever do. And it's all this
(35:11):
dose stuff. And they've just recently started talking about, oh,
they're actually going to cut some of the defense budget.
And this part is hard for me because I've spent
years being like, we should cut some of the defense,
Like for most of my life it's like, God, I
really wish we could cut some of the defense budget
and focus more on space travel and going to Mars.
And it's like without the monkey's Paul curls, right, this
is the version of the world that's happening. But I
(35:33):
think it's like, I don't know for sure, but I
think it's like they still have an idea, an idealized
version of the military that is sacro sanct in their head.
And it's like they think that the present day military,
like so many things, has been like co opted and
ruined by like wokeism and dei stuff and that type
of thing, or you know, the military is like gone
woke with military leadership. So the military has lost its way,
(35:55):
I think and gotten all woke and shit is how
they justify being anti military right now. And it's like
they just they want to they the real American military
that they like, remember, it's like it's still attainable and
that's still like the gold standard and it is sacro
sanc but it's just been bastardized in the current version
(36:15):
of it. That's why you can shit all over it
is because of that. So you got to get it
back to the old way or something.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Well.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
The next one then is similar, is like how do
we become pro Russian, like for Christ's sake, Like.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yes, that's that one is nuh because again growing up
here and my whole life, you know, I mean, they're
the bad guys in every movie and everything. It's like
the cold war was such it ended when I was
like a kid, but it was still just like such
a huge part of everything, and it's I just never
I don't know, Uh, it's a big part of Like
how so many people demonize the left overall apperiod or
(36:46):
socialism being a dirty word is because they got associated
with the evils of communism and Soviet Russia and that
being the enemy and all that, and it was just
never questioned. It's communism is still evil and socialism by
proxy and all that. But now Russia's awesome because of
I don't know, Putin's.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, we got to get people to watch Red Dawn again.
It's the ru Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
I lived in Russia and I've been working on Russia
things for a long time and it's not awesome. Yeah,
but I you know what I think it is. And
you what's so good about your comedy trade is you
focus on what has happened I think in this country
is we've defined our enemies as internal enemies rather than
external enemies. Like when we grew up, it was like
there was external enemies and we disagreed with each other,
but we're on the same side against external I think
(37:28):
one of the geniuses that Trump picked up on that
was already out there. Was if I can make Hillary
Clinton the enemy, then anything I say or do is
okay because it's attacking that, because they're the real enemy,
not anybody else.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
So true, what's your favorite conspiracy theory? And I hope
it has to do with CIA, so we can maybe
address it for you.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
My definitely the favorite genre of them, at least I guess,
is all aliens and UFO stuffything from like Rosswelt through
the drones or whatever, and all the stuff that people say,
and then we can't talk about any of that, right, See,
I have aliens in an underground bunker somewhere or alien
tech or whatever. It's like one of those things where
it's like, basically, do I think that aliens probably exist
(38:10):
somewhere in the universe? Yes, mathematically I think that they
probably do. Do I think that like the drownes in
New Jersey and shit, or like aliens sur violence or
any of that stuff. No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
There was a senator from Nevada, Reid, who was really
was obsessed with this for years, obviously at Area fifty
one is in Nevada and stuff, and so he pushed
the defense Department and the Intelligence he used to create
some version of looking at things that we couldn't figure out.
And there's been a congress variety of hearings and this
and that, and of course none of it really answers
(38:40):
any of this. And of course the thing is, every
time you try to answer these things, it just makes
people go deeper and say, ah, like they said, hey,
let out all the JFK stuff, and essentially the intelligence
just let out all the JFK stuff. But the fact
there's like two pieces of paper left, they're like, ah,
that's where the real thing is. You almost can't win
when you start down this thing. So I think there
is an office or in the Defense Department and probably
(39:04):
in the intelligences or that try to do what they
can to look at things that are unexplainable and see
if they can't figure things out or if recover things
that look that way. But in terms of actual alien stuff,
I spent thirty years in a CIA, and I never
heard anything but anything.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
We hit an office on this. I think this is big.
In the seventies and eighties for a while that was
looking at far seeing and we hired psychics and they
would sit down and they would sit over a piece
of paper and drink a coffee and they would like
sketch something out and they go look for this in
Atlanta vous stock like a submarine pen. And the only
reason we had that was because and I can't remember
(39:40):
was here to read. But there was some influential senator
who was convinced that this could and he like made
us do it. He gave us the money. It said,
fucking do this and it produced nothing. But we're still
like CIA had an office that did this, Yeah, because
we were forced to, like.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
It's like mk Ultra, which is in the nineteen fifties, yep.
There was a concern that we were fighting the Soviet Union,
and there was all these public TV shows and movies suggests,
and a number of people had come back from fighting
in Korea and other places, and it seemed to become brainwashed.
If you believe communism must because there must have been
a drug or a brainwashing that the Soviets had figured out.
And so there was a small place of the CIA
(40:21):
that was supposed to look into it and test drugs
and things to see if this thing existed. I think
they they ruined a lot of people's minds but they
found out that there was no You could destroy someone's brain,
but you can't really reprogram it very right. And yeah,
it was a pretty sad experiment.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
And I have to say, if we just the way
things work in the real world. So John and I
are both we've been out for a long time and
are measley pensions were not poor, but we're certainly not rich.
We could hit the jackpot if we, like said, I
know where the aliens are, right, And if there really was,
why wouldn't people come out afterwards and say it, like,
you know, just or sneak off to the Washington Post
(40:58):
or the New York Times or Carlson and go here's yeah,
the thousands of us, Why wouldn't wanted to know?
Speaker 4 (41:04):
That? Is the mind that because over your I thought
about I think really like the real conspiracy theory is
that it's all way more boring than you think it
is and also less effectual than you think of this
not as all powerful as a lot of people think
it is. And they couldn't don't have the capacity to
do a lot of this stuff that people think that
has been done. And also, as you just said, it's
like the whole moonlanding mean faked or whatever like that one.
(41:25):
It's like the sheer number of people that would have
to be involved with something like that and never ever
even up to it, including their deathbed, say a single
thing about it or leak any information out or whatever.
And it's like people just people can't do that, you know,
it's human nature to It's just impossible. You can't keep
a secret like that with that many people. There's like
(41:48):
two people maybe can keep a secret, and even when
the third person gets involved, it's you're in danger of
it getting out. Let alone thousands of people.
Speaker 3 (41:55):
So yeah, especially in this day and age, he could
make some good money off of it.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Yeah. Yeah, they don't stay secret very long.
Speaker 3 (42:01):
It's been so fun to listen to you. I enjoy
falling on social media and I would suggest that people
in our audience to look it up Tree Crowder.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Thank you, Trek Crowder dot com, track Crowder on all
the socials and yeah, thanks for having me. It's a fun.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Appreciate Troy is tr Ae, So Troy, thank you very much,
really really appreciate it.
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Seipher,
and Jonathan Stern. The Associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Implausible is a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures
for iHeart Podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Adam Davidson
John Sipher
Jerry O'Shea
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd is a thought-provoking, opinionated, and topic-driven journey through the top sports stories of the day.