056: MAGA Goes Global feat. Heidi Beirich

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
But I just want to congratulate.I think you're going to have,
hopefully, a really great mayor.The better he does, the happier
I am. I will say there's no difference
in party. There's no difference in
anything. And we're going to be helping
him to make everybody's dream come true, having a strong and
very safe New York. And congratulations, Mr. Mayor.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.

(00:21):
I appreciate it. Welcome back to posting through

(00:57):
it. I'm Jared.
And I'm Mike A. Little Patreon shout out off the
top all of Fur Leach is somebodyI know.
I actually have a few of his photography prints hanging in my
house. So what's up Oliver?
Dude, good to good to see you. Thanks for supporting the show,
and a lot of people have been supporting the show lately and I

(01:18):
post about this on our Patreon, but I'll say it here too.
First off, we've just been blownaway by how many people are
signing up to get an extra episode of the show each week.
It has blown away all of our expectations and I can't say
thank you enough. But what it also means is that
we can make a big commitment with the show at this point,

(01:43):
which is that the future of posting through it is going to
be advertisement free. No ad reads nothing like that.
No sponsorships with the exception of the parody ads that
executive club members are able to submit.
You know, the silly like jokey ones.
That's going to be the extent ofthe ads on the show and it could

(02:04):
not be possible if it wasn't forall of you.
So thank you. So when you announced that,
Jared, my mind felt so good. It was a a veritable magic
feeling across my mind when you.No, no, no, no.
We already did those ones. It was a shame to like I, we
both actually liked that product, but I also understand

(02:25):
why it was not a good fit for our show.
Oh, baby, whatever, man. So we're going to talk about the
international far right with Heidi Beirich later.
You're going to definitely want to listen to that.
Heidi is a absolute legend. That was a request from one of
our executive club members, Mitch.
But we've got a few things we need to get through before we

(02:48):
get there and right before we start recording.
Mike, you actually called me andyou're like, you see, mom,
Donnie's going to be at the White House.
Dude, this is going to be weird.It's it has to be weird.
It has to be weird, of course, and weird it was.
So we're just going to play a few clips of that and man, weird
it was. Just had a great meeting, a

(03:11):
really good, very productive meeting.
We have one thing in common. We want this city of ours that
we love to do very well. And I wanted to congratulate the
mayor. He really ran an incredible race
against, you know, a lot of smart people, starting with the
early primaries against some very tough people, very smart
people. And he beat him, and he beat him

(03:32):
easily, and I congratulated him.So it's, it's wild to hear him
talking like this about somebodythat him and people in his orbit
openly flirted with the idea of like, well, if he wins, we might
just have to deport him. We might have to just get him
out of the country. He's a communist, He's a
jihadist, He's whatever. And now he's like, yeah, very

(03:56):
productive chat. Seems like a nice guy, you know?
Some of Trump's inner circle maybe rejecting what's happening
here inside, but they can't because Trump, you know, he does
his own thing. He can't.
He doesn't answer to anybody. He's nobody's puppet, which is a
very difficult thing if you are a person who's trying to use
Trump as a tool to spread whatever agenda I'm mentioning.

(04:18):
Somebody in particular was like Stephen Miller.
He comes to mind. But, you know, Trump always
loves stars. He loves stars.
He's a, he's a, he's a absolute whore for celebrity and mumdani,
he recognizes immediately as a rising star in the United
States. Doesn't matter politics or not,
the guy's becoming rapidly very,very famous.

(04:40):
If you think about when we firstcovered him, Jared, you know, a
month or so back, you know, between then and now, the
election has, has catapulted himinto a household name.
And it doesn't matter whether people hate him or not, Trump
wants to be, you know, in the proximity of celebrities.
Well, he had a lot of nice things to say about Zoran, which
if you listened to that episode about the New York City

(05:03):
election, you'll understand justhow bizarre it is to hear him
talking like this. Please.
Mr. President. Republican Elise Stefanik has
campaigned multiple times by calling Zoran Amdani a jihadist.
Do you think you're standing next to a jihadist right now in
the Oval Office? No, I don't, but she's out there
campaigning and you know, you say things sometimes in a

(05:26):
campaign. She's a very capable person.
But you. Know you say?
Yeah, you just say shit sometimes, you know?
Yeah, you say things like we're going to release the Epstein
files. Yeah, No, I mean it just when
you say sometimes things sometimes in the campaign is
really one of the more revealingthings Trump's ever said, right.
Like because he he's just showing you he's like, hey, this

(05:47):
is all bullshit. And I enjoy which, which is
really that's the core evil of Trump actually, is that like,
you know, it doesn't matter to II do think he's a really a
racist guy at heart. I do think so.
You know, he's he's certainly got biases that we can trace
back to the Central Park 5 debacle.

(06:08):
But at the same time, I think hethrows things out there that is
like chum for his base, right? And he doesn't care about what
it's going to do to the country,how it's going to wreck the
country or spur divisions or anything like that.
He's just doing it because he's like, that's what people want to
hear. He would just went out the first
time. It's like, we'll build a wall.
And people cheered. And so he just kept saying that
shit. That's his mentality.

(06:28):
He's like, I don't care. He's this guy's a star.
I don't care. He's he's a * jihadist.
You really have to ask her aboutthat.
But you know, I don't particularly.
I think I met with a very, I metwith a man who's a very rational
person. I met with a man who wants to
see, really wants to see New York be great again.
And I can say again, because NewYork was great.
You know that's that's. Nuts, man, you're by the way, I

(06:51):
we were we were recording something else at the time that
this happened. So you're, you know, the the
Ruth Bader Ginsburg thing was you're telling me now for the
first time with Trump, you're playing this for me right now at
the for the first time. I actually have heard this one
this clip and like it's nuts. He's giving the make like some
blank great again thing to to Zarin Donnie.

(07:11):
Like that's fucking nuts, man. I don't even, I don't actually
have a like a clear comment to make other than that's bonkers
that he's giving that branding to a guy who's a who's a
self-proclaimed socialist. I just I want to know what Sir
Ron said in that meeting becausethere was like a press
conference afterward, but the meeting itself was closed door.
They'll say what they talked about.

(07:33):
They'll say, oh, we talked aboutthat.
You know, they'll use some vagueterms, but man, this like, so
Ron is charismatic and charming,this part of why he won.
But it must be. I mean this dude must just be a
straight up hustler or something, I don't know.
Trump shows it like is, you know, if he thinks that you're

(07:53):
either wealthy or famous or any of the things that he takes that
that that he values very strongly and you are polite to
him, that is really all you needto do.
So if Zoran comes in and he thinks this guy's a rising
celebrity and he is polite and courteous with him, that may be
all he really needs because he may be worried about his own

(08:14):
popularity slipping right now, Jared.
I mean, there are there are a number of polls that show not
just Trump but also the Republican brand to be cratering
in this country. And he's looking at this guy and
his approvals are going up and his, if all he has to really be
is polite to him and, and that'sit.
I, I highly doubt that Zoran promised him anything.

(08:36):
He, he would be, it would be a significant betrayal if he
promised him anything on the icefront.
And, and, and let's be honest here.
I don't think actually Trump cares about those things about
as much as Stephen Miller cares about those things.
He's mostly concerned about Trump, right?
So in his own popularity. So if if Zoran can rub some of
that off on him, nothing better.Yeah, I, I think some people

(08:59):
might see what happened and be like, oh, why is, you know,
Trump is trying to, you know, bring Zoron into the MAGA wagon,
But I think it's the other way around.
I think MAGA is a losing brand. And, you know, like you said,
it's like reverse bandwagoning, right?
He's just like, no, no, see, like, we actually are not going

(09:20):
to, like, try to deport this guyand be normal.
Yeah. I mean, some of the stuff he
said about him was really glowing.
And like you, I'm hearing these clips for the first time.
Well, we didn't discuss your second part of the question.
And on your first part, I mean, he's got beers and a little out
there, but who knows? I mean, we're going to see what

(09:42):
works or he's going to change. Also, we all change.
I change a lot, change a lot from when I first came to office
was worst quite a while ago, quite a while.
My first term was great. We had a the greatest economy in
the history of our country. We're doing even better now.
We're doing much better now thanwe did even in the first time.
And I can tell you some of my views have changed.

(10:02):
And we we had discussions on something.
I'm going to discuss what they were, but that I feel very
confident that he can do a very good job.
I think, I think he's going to be, I think he is going to
surprise some conservative people actually and some very
liberal people. He won't surprise him because
they already like him. I don't know, I, I like, I don't

(10:24):
want to be speechless in a podcast because we don't have a
video element. I can't just sit there and just
go. But I, I'm honestly a little bit
shocked at how much he kind of gave over to Mamdani here.
I mean, he, he, he is really puffing him up.
Dude, I'm like disassociating right now.
It's not good. We used to talk to Heidi in a
minute. He he maybe he's like behind the

(10:46):
scenes. He's like, you know, you know,
I'm like this kind of populism is not popular anymore.
Can I be a Maduro kind of figure?
Is it? Would that be more popular here?
What, what, what's what's cool? Like, I don't know.
It's it's it's really funny. It shows to me all this shows is
just how desperate this guy is to be liked, to be admired, to

(11:06):
be in the presence of things that are hot and exciting.
And he feels like his brand is is not popular.
I'd be just looking at the headlines that came off of this
and it's sort of The New York Times ticker the the minute to
minute updates. They did one of those like live
coverage blogs for this. Some of the quotes are crazy.
Some of the stuff that happened is nuts.

(11:26):
I mean, there was a Fox News reporter, I guess, trying to,
you know, jab it mom Donnie about his supposedly like insane
anti police stances and Trump like jumps in and it's just
like, Oh no, but he's he's not going to do that.
What are you talking about? Not just speaking positively,

(11:47):
but like helping him defend himself against hostile
reporters, right? If I were Mumdani here and if I
were just the left infrastructure in New York,
which I assume is going to be built up around Mumdani or
should hopefully be if he doesn't go the way of a de
Blasio, I would look at this as like a a tremendous amount of

(12:09):
permission and space to do things.
Because you the, the way Trump talked about him, he's got a
very difficult road to like reverse course and be like, this
is communism, this is bad. You can't.
I would look at this as like, let's do whatever the hell we
want because you got the president of the United States
who's supposed to be my archrival in all this or so his

(12:30):
ideology is and he's basically saying he's there to make New
York City great again. It's totally perplexing.
Last Cliff I'll play from that little thing at the White House
was this very bizarre moment where reporter asked mom Donnie
about his previous comments calling Trump a fascist and you

(12:51):
know, if he'd criticizing Trump,I mean that that's to AT what he
doesn't like. But you were just saying, Mike,
it's like if you come in if you're nice to him, whatever
he's good. He's willing to, you know, play
ball with you. But if you go out there and you
say something mean about him in the press, he will use the
levers of government to like eject you right.
You know, so this is how he reacted when Mom Donnie was

(13:14):
asked about his prior negative comments.
Steven Nelson, he asked about your comment, called the
president a fascist and your answer was with President Trump.
And I have been clear about our positions and our views.
Are you affirming that you thinkPresident Trump is a fascist
I've spoken about? OK, you could just say, OK, it's

(13:35):
easier. It's easier than explaining it.
OK, more inexplicable stuff. Because.
Because. You can just say it.
Mum, Donnie is in a tough spot there, right?
He's trying to he's you know what, whatever it is, he's
trying to like make peace, whatever, or trying to trying to
give himself some run in New York City.
Then Trump doesn't even allow him to to hang out there.

(13:57):
He just jumps out and he's like,you could call me a fascist.
Nobody cares. Kind of insane.
He, he just always. Another revealing thing that he
said of like, whatever, dude, I've been called worse.
It's unbelievable. It's like he stepped in front of
the bullet for him. And, you know, I quite frankly,
what I would like to hear Mum Donnie say there, and I don't

(14:17):
know what his answer was becausehe stepped out instead of some
kind of like mealy mouthed kind of comment.
I'd like him to say like, I do think Trump is a fascist and I
hope he changes. That's what I would, you know, I
hope he changes his ways. That's what I like him to say.
I mean, like, I don't expect himto go in there and like hit
Trump with a frying pan, right? But I'd like him to say like,
yeah, I think he's a fascist. I think the mag is a fascist

(14:38):
movement. Absolutely.
And I hope that they can change.I hope they can become come
closer to our side and see that democracy is an important thing
at minimum, not to mention the other things that I advocate.
I have very tempered optimism about mom Donnie and how he will
govern. I just I keep thinking back to
something Bob said on that episode we did about the

(14:58):
election, which is that New YorkCity is an impossible place to
govern. You almost can't govern it.
It is so saturated in corruptionand double you know, backdoor
dealing. Y'all just all kind of like he
is stepping in to be at the top of a machine that is rotten to

(15:18):
the core and will that corrupt him?
It seems to have done that virtually every single person
before him. A positive thing I can say about
Mom Don is he seems to be aware of how broken New York City
politics are with some of the comments that he's made.
But the other side of it is thathe's very young also, and it's
very easy to be a little bit upbeat and and aware of things

(15:43):
to say. Well, we'll figure out something
different when you're young. But again, I think his excuses
if he ends up going to de Blasioway are few and far between
after this event because this really gives him a lot of run
that you have literally Donald Trump saying you're going to

(16:03):
make New York City great again. And he has every reason to put
the pedal to the metal. I or I would think when he takes
office. And I just want to quickly,
Jared, before we bring Heidi on and we have that conversation, I
would like to just read a very recent tweet from Laura Loomer,

(16:26):
who appears to be, in your words, crashing out.
She hates Momdani, calls him a jihadist, A communist, anti
white. What like.
Every. Every buzzword of the book.
I mean, this is Laura Loomer's bread and butter.
Hates him so much that she had one of her little goons go out
there and, like, stick a camera in his face and yell at him when

(16:47):
he got to the airport in DC and then turned on the TV to watch
Trump being like, yeah, this guy, you know, I he's he's
pretty cool, actually. I like this guy, you know,
jumping in front of hard questions for him and stuff.
Yeah. She really thought he was going
to do something else. That's the main thing.
In the middle of this meltdown, she posted a ad for like gold

(17:08):
bars, like like 1 like one of these companies that's like,
don't trust the banks, buy gold coins and bury them in your
backyard. Like so.
I'm glad she found space for that.
Well, let me read this tweet that followed the gold bar ad
quickly, Jared, which is this isLaura Loomer.
This is poetry directly from from the Queen.

(17:31):
America's future doesn't look sobright.
I'm not optimistic about what our country will look like in
2030. I'm going to be very honest.
We have a lot of problems and weonly have less than a year to
address them before Dems take the House.
I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist.
So this, this meeting, as far asI can tell, has broken Laura

(17:55):
Loomer. She is.
She's black Pilling and she's inserious need of some clonazepam
or something to kind of even this off.
Another, I'm just going to read bits and pieces of this one.
This was the one that she had posted before, the one you just
read, she said not condemning Trump.

(18:16):
However, I think we can all agree it's a bad look to let a
foreign born jihadist who said he wants to implement anti white
policies like taxing white people more money to stand
behind the desk in the Oval Office, yadda yadda yadda she's.
The loyal daughter to dad. You know, I'm kind of like, OK,

(18:40):
I'm not happy about any of this either.
But, you know, you know, let's not yell too hard at Dad.
There's all, there's got to be something else to blame here.
Mommy, Mom. Donnie hypnotized him.
This is very dangerous. We can address affordability
without embracing anti white racism and communism.
What are we doing? What are we doing?

(19:02):
I actually don't know either, Laura.
Yeah, I don't. I'm also wondering the same
exact thing as Laura Loomer, butmy brain is like marginally less
cooked than hers. Yeah.
Should we bring in Heidi? I think so.
Let's bring her in Heidi Pirate, who was my mentor,

(19:35):
my supervisor also when I was when I first came to Southern
Poverty Law Center back in 2018 and really the OG of reporting
on hate and extremism in the United States.
I think the the most influentialhorse it right Jared.
I got to be one of the most in the country.
Heidi fears know God you know and and at a time where a lot

(20:02):
of. Organizations have kind of faced
difficulties, whether it's with funding or fear of criticism.
Global Project against Hating Extremism has been steadfast,
calling balls and strikes nothing but respect for Heidi
and the organization she Co founded.

(20:23):
And because it is the Global Plot Project on Hate and
Extremism, I thought it would beperfect to have you on for to
talk about the international farright.
Heidi, what's up? Thrilled to be here with two of
my favorite people, and I think I was mostly your supervisor,
not your mentor in any way, shape or form.
Mike, you came. You came loaded for bear.

(20:43):
Well, OK, all right. I looked.
I looked up to you. How about that?
I think that is the. Most and with the OG thing,
you're just dating me. I've been at this too long I
guess. You know, at some point in this,
I want to slip in some questionsabout groups like National
Alliance and things like that where you see that, like just
just from from that time to now where you see that.
But let's, let's talk about, let's talk about the globe as it

(21:07):
were, the the Steve Bannon version of the globe.
Well, before we get there, we should talk about Marjorie
Taylor Green. On November 14th, Trump publicly
denounced Marjorie Taylor Green in a Truth Social post.
Mike, you want to read this one?I am withdrawing my support and
endorsement of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green of the

(21:27):
great state of Georgia. All I see wacky Marjorie do is
complain, complain, complain. It seemed to all begin when I
sent her a a poll stating that she should not run for Senator
or Governor. She was at 12% and didn't have a
chance. Unless of course she had my

(21:47):
endorsement, which she wasn't about to get.
I can't take a ranting lunatics call every day.
I understand the wonderful conservative people are thinking
about primarying Marjorie in herdistrict of Georgia.
That they too are fed up with her and her antics.
If the right person runs, they will have my complete and

(22:08):
unyielding support. Weird capitalization there.
She has gone far left even doingthe View, the most far left of
all institutions with their low IQ Republican hating anchors.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, Make America great
again. Then the next day he posted

(22:30):
this. Marjorie Traitor Green is a
disgrace to our great RepublicanParty.
So mom and dad, if you're wondering why mom and dad are
fighting, it's been most recently about the release of
the Epstein files. Marjorie Taylor Green was all
for it. And at this point in time, you

(22:51):
know, Trump has since given up this fight, but at that time, he
hadn't quite surrendered to it yet.
At a press conference with Epstein victims, she reacted to
Trump's attacks saying this. I was called a traitor by a man
that I fought for five, no, actually six years for, and I

(23:11):
gave him my loyalty for free. I won my first election without
his endorsement, beating eight men in a primary, and I've never
owed him anything. But I fought for him, for the
policies and for America first, and he called me a traitor for
standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the

(23:33):
discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor
is. A traitor is a is an American
that serves foreign countries and themselves.
A patriot is an American that serves the United States of
America and Americans like the women standing behind me.

(23:55):
Since Trump attacked Marjorie Taylor Green, she's gone to the
press claiming that private security firms have contacted
her, notifying her of threats toher safety stemming from Trump's
rhetoric. On CNN, she claimed that Trump's
rhetoric can radicalize people, that it's irresponsible, which

(24:15):
is quite rich coming from her, and apologized for participating
in what she called toxic politics, something she said
she's been thinking about a lot since Charlie Kirk got shot.
With respect, I haven't heard you speak out about it until it
was directed at you. Dana, I think that's fair

(24:37):
criticism. And I would like to say humbly,
I'm sorry for taking part in thetoxic politics.
It's, it's very bad for our country.
And I've, it's been something I've thought about a lot,
especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, is that we,

(24:57):
I'm only responsible for myself and my own words and actions.
And I am going, I am committed. And I've been working on this a
lot lately to put down the knives and politics.
I really just want to see peoplebe kind to one another.
And we need to figure out a new path forward that is focused on

(25:18):
the American people. Because as Americans, no matter
what side of the aisle we're on,we have far more in common than
we have differences. So this didn't come out of
nowhere. Marjorie Taylor Green has broken
with Trump on a few big issues. In addition to the Epstein stuff
that Marjorie Taylor Green has continued to push to ban H1B

(25:42):
visas, something the Trump administration has been
supportive of, she's also been quite vocal in pushing back on
the Trump administration's claimthat life in America is more
affordable during his second term.
She's criticized the administration for investing its
energy and foreign issues and neglecting domestic life, citing

(26:03):
things like the US handing out gobs of cash to Argentina,
mucking around in Venezuelan politics, and continuing to stay
cozy with Israel as it murders Palestinian civilians en masse.
She also has raised concerns about healthcare costs and how
they would be affected by GOP policy proposals.
So if you haven't been paying close attention, you might be

(26:25):
wondering what the hell is goingon.
And I think what Trump said specifically about Marjorie
Taylor Green considering a Senate or a gubernatorial
campaign is the key here. She's trying to rebrand herself
as more moderate than she has been historically.

(26:45):
The last clip I'll play here before we talk about this is
that appearance that Trump had an issue with where Marjorie
Taylor Green went on The View. She's previously said The View
is hosted by Angry, Nasty Women,but she went on there and she
was quite cordial. The hosts were pouring over her,
fawning over her because she didn't have a meltdown, I guess,

(27:06):
when she was on the show. And she broke from the GOP line
on some of the issues that I just said, and she said
something I thought was interesting here.
This seems to be kind of sum up the message of her attempt to
rebrand as something more moderate.
I think that all of us right here are doing a great job of

(27:28):
exchanging our ideas and things that we believe in and we're
doing it in a very professional and kind way.
And in my opinion, we need more of that in America.
I really do. And a lot of people wanted me to
come on the show and say nasty things and, and you know, all of

(27:48):
us to fight. They wanted all of us to fight.
Thank you for not doing that, Ohmy.
Goodness, no I didn't. I didn't watch around that.
It's like 5 to 1 she. Couldn't handle it, but she
didn't want to handle. It no, I, I didn't want to do
that today because I believe that people with powerful voices
like myself and like you and especially women to women, we

(28:10):
need to pave a new path. This country, our beautiful
country, our red, white and BlueFlag is just being ripped to
shreds. And I think it takes women to of
maturity to sew it back together.
Any theories, Heidi? I mean, she's entered therapy
because there's a lot of talk about working on herself and

(28:31):
kindness. I don't know.
I mean, this is a crazy 180, right?
Marjorie Taylor Green, who I I used to live right next to her
district up in North Georgia. She's the craziest of the
craziest, right? Jews shooting space lasers,
racism going to white supremacist events, like the
list is so long and I don't it is astounding what's happened.

(28:55):
You know, talking about SNAP benefits, healthcare, you know,
you would think she was a Democrat at this point in time.
It is really weird. And I don't know how you go from
that crazy to sounding sane in asecond like.
Yeah, I need to get a hook up for this therapist.
When we were at SPLC, one of thethe the last years of that, I

(29:16):
think there were multiple stories about her, as you said,
appearing at white supremacist assist events or events
alongside white supremacist figures, but also being a sort
of AQ Anon influencer. Am I wrong about that?
That, that that to me is the part that I don't understand.
It's particularly in the contextof like, oh, Trump is, is

(29:36):
stirring up, you know, a mob to try to kill me.
I mean, like is Q Anon was essentially it was many things,
but in part it was just like a rotating cloud that would go
over people's head and give themdeath threats, right.
I mean that is essentially what Q Anon.
Huge into Q Anon. That was like her bread butter.
And I think that is, you know, connected to some extent with
her wishing to get these Epsteinfiles out, right?

(29:58):
That's some of some of the drivethere.
I think I saw her just recently.I don't know, Jared, you've been
looking at clips saying something about how she had been
poisoned by the Internet or she had come to read things that
were wrong, right? Yeah, that's been her line on Q
Anon for a little bit specifically, but she seems to
be expanding it out into all kinds of other things, which is

(30:20):
that she, even though she is extremely powerful person in
this country, you know, second only to Trump and maybe one or
two other people in terms of Republican Party fundraising.
You know, she is kind of whipping out the violin and
trying to portray herself as a victim of like, oh, poor me.

(30:41):
I, I just got caught up in Internet craziness or whatever,
which I just find. So it's credulous.
I, I just, I feel like I don't even want to engage.
With you know, I was thinking about this this morning.
Is she maybe just not the sharpest tool in the shed I mean
could she really have been LED down some kind of crazy path to

(31:03):
believe all this crap It's a little bit beyond me to believe
that space lasers being point ata point in case right?
Who the hell thinks that's goingon?
I don't know it's. It is weird.
It is absolutely weird. Well, the the question that it
raises for me that I would be curious about your perspective

(31:24):
on. So the we've had this, you know,
there were these sort of soft barriers in the Republican Party
that kind of kept neo Nazi whitenationalist type people kind of
Ed Bay, right. For for for decades.
They're just, they would knock on the door and then there'd be
sort of like keep them sort of there, there, there would be
some overlap and then some figures.
But that sort of broke down substantially after one Trump

(31:47):
first announced his run in 2015.And then, you know, further
along the path, there are other things like for example, January
6th and and and so forth. Is it even possible, I guess
would be the question, Heidi, for the current Republican Party
to find any kind of middle ground with independence and

(32:08):
Liberal Democrats, right? Is, is there, is there anything
to even be to be had, which is part of the reason why this
seems so surreal, this private. This is something that I, I
think politicians, you know, forpeople who've been alive longer
than the Trump era, yeah, I mean, this would happen and the
people would move to the middle about things and they would try
to, you know, they're running for office.
And it's like, hey, let me try to seem to appeal to people in

(32:30):
the center. And then sometimes, for example,
you know, Democrats would try totoo many Democrats would
probably would probably try to appeal to, you know, some racist
Republican, you know, contingentthat they think they can peel
off right through the whole Clinton triangulation type
thing. Is this even possible anymore?
I think that that's the case. That's part of the reason we're

(32:51):
even talking about this is. I don't think it is possible.
I mean, one of the, you know, for years at SPLC, one of our
tactics was of course, exposing that a Nazi or white supremacist
or some other kind of bigot had wheedled their way into a
position with the Republicans, weed out them and they cashier
them out. Even when Romney was running for

(33:12):
president, he had Kris Kobach, the anti immigrant guy doing
something, I don't know, workingon a platform when it was
exposed, you know, he was gone. But that all completely
collapsed with Trump, right? I mean, the all those barriers
plus of course the barriers for saying racist stuff, openly
bigoted stuff from the from day one.
And, you know, it's been a little bit interesting to see

(33:35):
this uproar over Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes in the last few
weeks and Kevin Roberts over at the Heritage Foundation getting
his panties in A twist for having defended a Tucker
softball interview. Because you haven't seen an
uproar like this over, you know,anti-Semitism in the ranks or
neo Nazis in the ranks for a long time.

(33:57):
I mean for, you know, damn near a decade now.
It almost feels like the final barrier to me in some ways,
right? We're just sort of like, are we
just going to admit that it's Nick Fuentes party and and be
done with it? But it's interesting that you
say that because it's not only Republicans who used to kind of
like have to distance themselvesfrom people be like regular jobs

(34:18):
even and things like that. And even that's become harder, I
think after Trump's second election.
That's my impression. And one thing that that kind of
I think about frequently is whenwe used to do those stories,
there was you, you could always feel like there was a sort of a
a meeting going on on the other side of it.
That was just kind of you would wait to kind of see like what

(34:39):
people would say and what peoplewould do.
You know, once you brought certain information, there'd be
like this kind of delay where this sort of all right, what do
we do about this? This is this is probably pretty
bad. And now it feels like everybody,
including Marjorie Taylor Green,just reacts immediately as if it
doesn't matter. And I, I guess, does it matter
anymore that people have extremist ties?

(34:59):
I mean, does that matter? Does their past matter?
Yeah, because because like, I watched her appearance on The
View coming into this and I, youknow, and she's getting booked
on CNN and stuff to criticize Trump.
It seems that mainstream media is almost, I, I don't think it's

(35:20):
failed very well, like their eagerness to let her have some
kind of redemption arc or some redemption story.
I'm just curious. It's kind of a moral question, I
guess of like how far is too fargone for, you know, somebody to
come back into polite society? Or like, is this a signal that

(35:42):
that kind of stuff is is buried in negative consequences and
they're trying to escape it or? Well, I mean, I think at this
point in time, Marjorie Taylor Green is a one off.
And I think generally the Republican, I want to answer
Mike's question like I don't think the Republican Party cares
about extremists in the ranks. You know, you got Darren Beatty
over at the US Institute for Peace, right?

(36:03):
He went to a white nationalist event.
You got to anti Semite as a spokesperson at the Pentagon or
the state Department. Like the list is really long.
Bunch of kooky white Christian nationalists throughout the
administration. Did you follow that Paul
Ingrassia, Paul Ingrassia thing?He's he's a he's a grouper,
yeah. Him, and even though he didn't
get this position that he was upfor, he's still working for the

(36:25):
White House. And anyhow, the place is riddled
with these people. But does it matter writ large?
I think it matters a whole lot because I think that for the
rest of the public, like independent centrist Democrats,
this is the stuff that changes the tide.
And unfortunately, in the run upto the November elections, the

(36:45):
that brought Trump back to power, people weren't paying
attention to this. The media wasn't doing a good
job of pointing out how extreme Trump's agenda was.
Project 2025, which is, you know, this Christian
nationalist, anti immigrant, anty everything nightmare,
wasn't getting much play in the press when Trump distanced
himself from it. Like people didn't really

(37:05):
realize how extreme this administration was going to be.
And I don't know, people have some kind of amnesia about the
first one. You know, I don't know how that
works, but I do think it mattersnow.
And I think we're starting to see it in school board races
across the country that have flipped lately to more sane
people away from the kind of Moms for Liberty crowd.

(37:27):
We've seen red districts at the state and local level vote in
Democrats. I do think it matters for the
public to know about this. That's why the question that
you're bringing up about sort ofletting Marjorie Taylor Green
back into the fold of polite society matters.
Does she deserve to be there? But, you know, my guess is part
of this is sensationalism. People want to put her on to see

(37:48):
what kind of crazy things she may or may not say.
And you know, if she keeps down this polite Rd., she may
disappear pretty quickly. Yeah, I, I tend to keep going
back to what Trump said that he,you know, she asked him about,
oh, would you support me if I ran for Senate or I ran for the
governor's office in Georgia? Like all I can figure is that's

(38:11):
it, right? Because in her little red
district, and this is like bloodred district in Georgia, right?
Whoever is quote, UN quote, the most Republican wins.
But if she asked to get a seat that requires support from, you
know, other parts of the state, areas like Atlanta and stuff

(38:34):
like that, or, or at least like if they're not going to support
her, at least like not try to RIP her head off right as
aggressively. That's all I can figure this is.
But it seems like a huge gamble for her because her brand is
synonymous with Trump. The knives are out, though.
Like I said, it's risky. Laura Loomer floated out the

(38:55):
idea of moving to Georgia to primary Marjorie Taylor Green.
And who knows, maybe third time's the charm running for
office for Laura. OH.
My God. She she, she couldn't win the
Villages. No, she was in Florida.
Laura explicitly saying she doesn't care what happened on
Epstein's island. You know that doesn't matter
literally at all or anything, quite frankly matters to Laura

(39:18):
except for proximity to power. Well, I don't know.
God bless Marjorie Taylor Green,you know, maybe she'll come to
reality. Who knows, maybe she'll live a
but nice fulfilling life with that personal trainer boyfriend
of hers or something. I was just about to say, maybe
she has it, maybe she has a new personal trainer that is, you
know, is is a bit like, you know, he's an Ms. Now watcher.

(39:41):
She's hanging out with people atthe gym now.
Well, Heidi, we wanted to have you on.
We had a listener request to cover what's going on in the
international far right movement.
And I thought that was a great idea because so much this year
we focused, you know, we both live in the US we cover US
politics. But, you know, I, I think what

(40:03):
people here, people like us say,well, the far right's really an
international movement. They might think, OK, yeah,
sure. But but like not really fully
understand what that means exactly.
And I thought we would talk about it today on 2 tracks, one
that I'm calling nasty shit and the other one that I'm calling
powerful shit. So.

(40:24):
Start with the nasty shit and kind of pulled a few stories out
from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism website.
We'll put a link to those down in the description if people
want to read them. But the first thing I want to
talk about is this bombing of a school mosque in Indonesia where
nearly 100 people were injured. What did you guys find?

(40:46):
Because I just want to say like,this is not prototypical white
nationalist racism, right? This was someone who was a
student at the school, someone who being Indonesian was not
like a prototypical alt right, You know, white dude with the
specific haircut or whatever. But the digital footprint that

(41:09):
this kid who 17 years old, this kid left behind was full of
psycho Nazi shit. Right.
Yeah, he's not the only one in the last couple years like this.
Yeah, but he was completely influenced by Breton Tarrant,
right? The mosque, the Christchurch
Moss shooter. He was clearly embedded online
in neo Nazi stuff like to the hilt, and had completely bought

(41:33):
into it. I, I can't answer the question
of how a young Indonesian man begins to align himself with
this, but we saw two plots in Singapore very similar to this
one. There was the stabbing guy in
Turkey, whose name I can't remember who was also influenced
by neo Nazism. And there's more than than just

(41:54):
these examples. And we've also seen the stuff
here in the US, right? The Allen TX shooter guy was his
diary was filled with neo Nazi references he talked about.
I was just about to say that I was just I was I was holding on
to that to ask you. I was like, I was going to, that
was going to be my smart reference I was going to make
because he's he was Latino and if I recall correctly, right.

(42:16):
And he had all that, you know, that's any.
And he also he was reading V Dare, which is like the like the
strangest thing for a guy who's who's, you know, has.
Yeah. It was a little hard to explain
to reporters at the time of the Allen, TX thing, why is a Latino
guy saying he wished he was white, right?
Because they, the guy literally did.
He was like, I wish I was born white, which I think said that

(42:37):
speaks more to the power of being white in this country.
But the case of Jakarta and Singapore, this is, you know,
all I can say is that the Internet is a bastard, right?
It really has the ability to to mobilize people.
I think the Jakarta kid may havecome from a Christian family and
there might have been a religious aspect to this that he

(42:59):
was anti Muslim as a result of that and somehow latched on to,
you know, Terence, great replacement kind of worldview.
But we're seeing more of it. And of course this wouldn't be
happening if if you couldn't just go on Telegram and learn
every evil thing in the world in5 minutes.
In the era before Trump and the sort of great Replacement terror

(43:19):
attacks that started to populate, there were more, of
course, the, the one for example, in in Norway that that
one that that took place before Trump and whatever.
But there were there a lot of great replacement focused things
that just basically started to populate after after Trump's
election. It seems like it has become like
a kind of blank template for anybody who wants to find a

(43:43):
cause to, you know, that justifies doing a shooting,
right? We had so many shootings in the
United States in the Obama era, for example.
Like, I'm, I'm thinking about like the one where the guy
dressed up like a joker. It was in, it was somewhere in,
in Colorado. I was like, hit a movie theater,
right? Yeah, it was, it was for a Dark

(44:03):
Knight Rises, I believe was the was, was the one that he used
there. And there was a whole bunch of
shootings like that. It seems like this the great
replacement telegram propaganda that you're talking about.
It seems like a a thing that people can latch onto to kind of
just justify what they're doing in their mind and and make it
part of a higher calling. And it doesn't seem to
necessarily, you know, be something attractive only to

(44:26):
white people. I don't know.
That's that's just my observation.
You. Could, I mean, it's, it's a
fairpoint to think that you could fit the great replacement
conspiracy to any location whereone population thinks they're
being wiped out by another population, right.
You could just layer it out likeMuslims are out breeding as
Christians. I'm, I'm not saying that's what
this guy said, but that kind of a logic or countries that have,

(44:48):
you know, ethnic like opposed ethnic groups, you could use
this as a, as a logic, even though it's specifically
supposed to be about white people.
So I do think it provides that kind of opening, but I also just
think people are on the web and they're exposed to a mishmash of
things, School shooters, women shooters, the Saints culture,

(45:10):
you know, great replacement. You know, it's a whole lot of
mess and it's influential. Sorry, when you say the Saints
culture, you're referring to the, the idea that some of
these, you know, previous terrorists like Dylan Roof or
somebody like that is it has been sainted in the eyes of
Internet terrorists. So I'm going to explain that for
the the listener who may not know what that is.

(45:31):
So I want to cover a couple morethings under the nasty shit
category. You guys also put out a report
about active clubs, which are sort of these like white
supremacist training. Like it's like it's a there's
this big emphasis on physical fitness and often explicit white

(45:53):
nationalist or even neo Nazi ideology.
Your organization found that these groups, which I first
became aware of as they were spreading in the US and they've
spread spread out quite far now are starting to crop up globally
in a big way. What can you tell me?
About that, I mean active clubs,I don't remember every single

(46:15):
country we've documented, but like the first couple Latin
American active clubs popped up in the last year or so that I'm
pretty sure one was in Colombia.They are in every single
European country and usually have multiple chapters.
And they're also in, you know, they're in Canada.
I can't remember if Mex, I thinkArgentina was the other Latin

(46:36):
American country where they've shown up.
So this thing's spreading like avirus, but of course it's it's
the Co creation of an American, you know, Robert Rondo, the neo
Nazi out of Huntington Beach, CAand and a neo Nazi MMA fighter
from Russia. Dennis, I always forget his last
name. Kaput Ken Kaputskin, something

(46:56):
like that. So it's not surprising, right?
In other words, the inspiration was from the gecko that this
would be global and that it should it should be implanted
everywhere. And we're now there were a bunch
of arrests recently in Sweden ofactive club members who were
involved, I think, in beating upimmigrants.
And in other words, the violencefrom this movement is starting

(47:17):
to assert itself. And, and I just say one other
thing about it. I mean, the the kind of emphasis
on masculinity is almost absurd in these circles, right?
They're all male groups. Yeah, it's like, it's like a
parody of itself, almost. Well, well, in that context,
could you tell us also a little bit more about who Rob Rundo is?
Because I think that, you know, the average person who's

(47:38):
listening to this may not. So that that's a useful jumping
off point for the. Yeah, so Robert Rundo, I already
mentioned he's from Southern California.
He founded a a neo Nazi group, the Rise Above movement before
this active club stuff started about 3 1/2 maybe four years
ago. He runs the like the clothing
outfit, the merch for all this man stuff, this workout stuff

(48:02):
called will to rise which all these people purchase.
And he was involved in some nasty altercations at Trump
rallies some years ago. Went on the run for a while, was
hiding in like Romania. His court case is extremely
complicated, and oddly enough, aSouthern California judge
thought that he was being treated unfairly for the

(48:22):
violence he engaged in. But he's an important figure and
he's fought in MMA fights in other countries.
I think he's been to Ukraine as well, right?
So he's sort of an A Nazi socialinternational Nazi socialite of
some sort. Rundo is somebody who has gone
to lengths to network internationally, right?

(48:45):
In ways that are provable. He's showing up places, meeting
with people, posting about it, Doc, you know, self documenting
it. But I can't imagine he's been to
every single one of these European countries and shaking
hands with all of these active clubs, even though they're
ripping off his idea, right. So I, I'm just curious,

(49:06):
especially in the online age, the international element of the
far right is not always easily traceable.
Sometimes it's just like the ideas move across, right?
How do you understand that? And as an expert on these
subjects and, and, you know, running an organization that

(49:26):
looks at it, how do you go abouttrying to explain that to people
who their eyes may have just like glazed over?
While I was, unfortunately, we talk about global stuff that
happens a lot, especially with Americans.
Well, I mean, you bring there's two the different things
happening at once, right? There's the spread of propaganda
from different parts of the world.

(49:48):
They can either be coming to theUnited States or be being
exported out of the United States into other places.
Then there's the actual physicalmovement and interactions of
people in the real world. You know, the great replacement
conspiracy theory, that was a European idea.
It was propagated by a Austrian who created the Generation

(50:10):
Identity movement out of Austriaoriginally.
That at one point Generation Identity was kind of like the
active clubs, right? They were everywhere pushing the
idea that, you know, white people are being intentionally
displaced by immigrants and minorities in their home
countries. And that idea of migrated to the
United States and then was heardin the chants at
Charlottesville, right, in 2017 and influenced groups names like

(50:33):
Identity Europa, right, which was a play on on generation
identity. So those are ideas going to
other places and then being picked up.
What I think is is happening nowadays is it's it's the idea
is that stuff is saturated all over the Internet of all kinds.
But there's a whole lot more physical movement and

(50:54):
interaction. Like we've got Patriot Front
guys going over to Europe and hanging out in active clubs and
taking images of them. You know, the leader of the
blood tribe, Christopher Pohlhaus, tried to go to
Australia to join a March. You know, there's a lot of in
these hardcore circles, neo Naziand white supremacist circles,
real attempts to stage stuff in in real life, which I think is

(51:17):
interesting. Last thing I want to touch in
the nasty shit is the European identitarian movement, right?
That's what they call it. Another report you guys put out
was how they've ramped up their fundraising efforts, which for a
while, you know, there was a period where these groups kind
of crawled into their shell a little bit, got really

(51:38):
secretive, got really, you know,they were getting banned from
platforms left and right, but they're kind of coming back out
of that shell. Am I understanding that sort of
the take away that report correctly?
Yeah, you are understanding it, Jared.
And I think we can largely thankElon Musk for lowering the bar
on what we find online. I mean, at this point in time,

(52:00):
you find just as much bad shit on X as you do on Telegram.
I mean, it's really quite shocking.
So, so the identitarian movement, which began with
Generation Identity is basicallya, a white nationalist movement.
They believe European countries,Western countries, the US,
Canada should be run and ruled for and by white people and we

(52:23):
should get rid of migrants. I mean, I would argue that
Stephen Miller basically agrees with this philosophy and and
they were back on their heels after Charlottesville.
They're this massive. I mean, YouTube know all about
this, right? But the massive deplatforming
from, you know, things like PayPal and social media sites

(52:43):
and, you know, they were really,really back on their heels for a
while. And that process is reversing
itself. And Elon was the beginnings of
that, right when he just let allhell break loose on Twitter once
he purchased it. But let's face it, Zuckerberg's
doing less of the content. Moderate, Like, it's the whole
universe. Instagram's got, you know, neo

(53:05):
Nazis on it and Holocaust deniers.
I mean, the whole thing has fallen apart.
So why not start online fundraise raising again, You
know, And if the processors aren't going to ban you, why not
do it? And why there's just a general
boldness among white supremacists, not just in the
United States, but around the world.

(53:26):
And I think we can lay that at the feet of Trump and the GOP as
well, because they they brought them into the fold, right?
And, and they feel like they're part of mainstream society.
So you know what's the problem. Is it, is it safe to say that,
you know, our politics here is, is serving as an inspiration
abroad? Like the, you know, Trump's rise

(53:48):
excites people in other Western countries who may have, you
know, fishistic ambitions or whatever.
I've heard that he's heavily admired by, you know, a lot of
white nationalist types in, in Germany, for example.
I mean, I just find that crazy to me because I look at our
country and it's completely broken and crazy in any, any,

(54:10):
any sounds insane compared to their, their, their, often they
they have at least a more sophisticated presentation from
politics than we have. But yet nevertheless, it seems
like inspiring people. Yeah, there's even a Trump party
in Belgium now. But in the Flemish part of
Belgium, yes. I mean, I feel the same way,

(54:31):
Mike. I look at what's going on here
and I think this place has fallen to pieces.
But the far right is super enthused.
It has, you know, made people like Giorgio Maloney in Italy
even more powerful. Viktor Orban now, who has
destroyed that country's democracy and economy.
Yeah, well, he may pay for that in the elections in 2026,

(54:54):
finally. But he's gotten away with
murder. In some ways.
I would argue Trump just followed Orban's path but did it
in, you know, nine months as opposed to over, you know, more
than a decade. But you've got far right parties
in multiple countries that are emboldened by this.
There's, you know, Kevin Roberts, the head of the
Heritage Foundation was in Spainlast week meeting with the far

(55:16):
right party there Vox and some anti LGBTQ type groups like
citizen go. So and and there's this whole
network now of, you know, CPAC has multiple international
chapters. For example, there's these
national conservative conferences that bring far right
figures from multiple places together.

(55:36):
None of that stuff existed six or seven years ago.
I mean, it's, it's like a totally like it's a completely
new phenomenon. We have a far right
international on the level that you're talking about, Mike, and,
and that just wasn't there. And Trump is a key part of it.
We'll see what happens with US politics.
You know, the Dutch just rejected Gert Builders and their

(55:59):
far right party. So some people might be catching
on to the cluster that is the American situation.
The the global aspect of this isso surreal to me because if you
do like that meme where it's like the dominoes go and lands,
you know, whatever. It starts with the fact that we
had this absolutely ridiculous broken Electoral College system,

(56:19):
which doesn't weigh out the popular vote, and then he wins a
bunch of Rust Belt states by a little bit.
It was like, not much. And now here we are 10 years
later and we're talking about the global far right being on
the rise. It's just completely mind
boggling. Heidi, I want to talk about some
of the stuff you just mentioned,but first I want to ask you

(56:43):
what's the best concert you've ever attended?
I'm an old person, Jared. This is a music podcast that
occasionally covers extremism, so.
I I will tell you some funny concerts I saw in my youth.
I was at the very first Black Flag concert which was held
here. In.

(57:03):
California in like 1981, it was broken up by the cops.
It was at the like Civic Center at the time.
That's. The rules.
Yeah, I saw the Cure in a gym atUC Irvine.
There was maybe 100 people at the at the con concert.
So like we were standing right, right in front of them.

(57:26):
Blowing my mind here. I was at the original US
festival in San Bernardino whereI saw all in one night, like the
Talking Heads, the B50 twos. I don't remember, like I, I
think maybe I don't remember theothers, but it was like a hell
of a lineup. Maybe like the Go go's some
something like that. So I, I used to go to concerts.

(57:47):
I I saw here at the College of the Desert, which is the local
Community College, I think it was a double bill of Billy Idol
and Adam Ant. So in the 80s I was on it well.
I do feel that there is among far right, the people who cover
the far right, there is like a universal affection for like

(58:09):
goth new wave music. It seems to, you know, I'm
thinking about Hannah and you know everybody that she just
seems like it. Everybody has at least some some
key in that. But lately, I haven't been
anywhere. Jared, I'm sorry.
Well, follow up question, do youhave a guilty pleasure TV show?
And I only started thinking about this because I'm watching

(58:29):
The Sopranos for the first time right now and just being like,
Oh my God, this is an amazing show.
Why have I not watched this until now?
Do you watch TV? And if you do, and if you do,
what do you what do you like to watch?
Well, I just finished watching 6Feet Under, which I watched when
it was on originally years and years ago.

(58:51):
And that last episode, which I won't provide a spoiler, is
haunting me. But in the last couple years,
Jared, I rewatched The Sopranos,justified, The Wire, like some
of the biggies, right? Like the big, the big ones,
Breaking Bad. Yeah, over the course of like
the last couple of years and then one summer, I decided to

(59:15):
watch all the things ever produced by Star Trek.
So I watched all of it. Every single bit of it.
That would take that would take you a whole summer.
It was forever. No, it took me longer than this
summer. I hadn't watched some of the
original movies. It was hours.
And this is like embarrassing. How can I even keep down a job
right? Does that include like the 4th 1

(59:38):
where they where they like heal whales or like they're talking
to whales or something? That's all of it.
That was a. Very that's that's a very
bizarre film. That's all I remember.
All right, back, back on topic here, You mentioned the
conferences that have been cropping up and you know, I, I
tell people if you put me on US politics, you know, I can have a

(01:00:05):
lot of useful and interesting things to say about far right
politics in the US. But if you put me on a boat and
send me like 5 miles off the continental US, I'm just like,
who's that? What?
But but something I have noticedis what you said specifically
the C PAC conferences where theygo kind of take turns kissing

(01:00:27):
the rings of people like Viktor Orban.
And you know, there's one in Brazil where they did the same
with Bolsonaro. And to me, I, I feels like I,
I've seen the religious right, you know, in my years reporting,
doing the international outreachspecifically on same sex

(01:00:48):
marriage issues and on contraceptive issues, abortion
acts, you know, reproductive care issues.
But I can't remember seeing the big organizations, you know,
they're really well monied, really, really well connected
type folks getting in on this inthe same way.

(01:01:08):
Is is that just my ignorance or does this does this feel like
it's escalating to you? No, it's not your ignorance.
So we did a tally that you can find a report on our website
where we looked at 20 years of far right conferences to try to
drill down on what you're talking about, Jared, Like are
they more frequent? Are they happening more often?
Are they in more places? Who was meeting say 10 years ago

(01:01:33):
versus who is doing this today? And what we found was there's
way more of these conferences, there's way more circuits,
there's way more far right figures who are showing up
repeatedly at these things. And really, if you go back like,
say, before 2010, it was like the American Renaissance

(01:01:53):
Conference. It was like white supremacist
conferences that, you know, thathad like a few international
people. That's what I remember seeing.
It's like Jared Taylor. We get like an economy ticket to
Finland and like talk for 30 minutes.
So you know. That's exactly Erica give some
bullshit speech in England for half an hour.
That's right. And but now there are multiple

(01:02:13):
of these CPAC, National Conservative, the new Make
Europe Great again mega conferences, the Viktor Orban
outfits like the Danube Institute, they hold their own
events that bring these people together.
Vox as an annual conference for the far right C PAC is in I
think 7 or 8 different countriesand just had events I think in

(01:02:37):
Poland and Hungary. So it is a whole network that
has almost sprung up out of whole cloth.
But I would argue there's some reasons for that.
The far right in Europe in particular was not that powerful
until recently. So you didn't really have a far
right to draw on. Now there's a far right
political party in every single country.

(01:02:58):
So they're, you know, networked into this.
And of course, they want to hangout with Trump and Orban and
both scenario, both scenarios going to be in prison from now
on. But these kinds of figures,
because it's access to money, business opportunities, travel,
etcetera. And you know, Orban himself has
pumped more than a billion dollars into his fake college
that hires Americans as visitingfellows and and pays for a lot

(01:03:23):
of these things. So he's he's, I think in terms
of money, that regime is really important.
And at the same time you still got the anti LGBTQ kind of
Christian nationalist, anti abortion folks showing up at
these events and their own events.
So while all these conservative leaders, you know, these US

(01:03:43):
conservative leaders with the access to the money, with the
access to the power are over in these countries like Hungary,
they're talking very openly. I mean, really just slaying it
on thick with these guys saying,you know, the I there was a
quote I feel like I remember seeing where somebody at the C
PAC hungry conference was like Hungarian politics is the model

(01:04:06):
for MAGA, right? And to me that feels like that
says it all right, Like that's, that's all I need to hear.
We this should be the end of theconversation.
And I and to be clear, I know like this is an audio podcast,
but I'm, I'm doing like a a little Italian hand, like that's

(01:04:28):
how how close my fingers are together.
I know like that just a little bit about Hungarian politics.
But if you try to bring it home for us, just like what it means
that leaders in the conservativemovement today are going out of
their way to shack up with theseinternational far right figures.

(01:04:51):
Because I think a lot of people like in the MSNBC crowd or
whatever, it's like everything'sabout Trump, Trump, Trump,
Trump, Trump. But it's this kind of shits like
all over the conservative movement right now.
And it has just, like, completely rotted out the power
structures in that movement. So it's like if Trump falls into
the fold, all of this is still going to be here, right?

(01:05:12):
Well, that's for sure. I mean this, this move towards
authoritarianism or the EuropeanParliament says that Hungary is
not a democracy, it's an electoral autocracy, right.
So in other words, they have elections, but they don't have
any of the other mechanisms of ademocracy.
And Hungary is the model. Project 2025 was modeled on
Hungary. Trump is this whole movement

(01:05:35):
here. The far right in the US is
modeled on the Hungarian path. So.
So what is what happened in Hungary?
It started with anti immigrant politics and then stripping
rights from LGBTQ people and women.
It was a politicization of the judges.
And then hung Orban's friends buying up all the media.

(01:05:56):
So you got rid of a Free Press. You can see the theme, right?
You can hear the echo. Yeah, all of this sounds very
familiar. Yeah, this is the.
That's the path that that I would argue Trump and company
and other far right parties are following.
It's really Viktor Orban's path to some extent.
Gyre Bolsonaro did some of thesethings, but he was less

(01:06:18):
successful in Brazil. In other words, the democracy
was more vibrant or caught on and rejected these politics
quicker than in in Hungary. And I know some people who are,
you know, democracy activists inHungary.
And they said one of the things about Orban is he did this very
slowly. So it was like very much frog
and boiling water. And a lot of people in Hungary

(01:06:39):
kept thinking the EU was going to save them.
And the EU should have saved them.
Actually, they should have put their foot down and they didn't.
Oddly enough though, if you're acitizen of Hungary, you can get
out easily and you do have protections from the European
Court of Human Rights, which youdon't have in the United States
case, right? The further we go down this

(01:07:00):
authoritarianism term, there's no European Union to turn to, to
stop it. It's basically up to us.
So it's, I don't think most people understand this and how
horrible it it actually is to live in Hungary.
And will he also gerrymandered the hell out of the country,
right? Made it impossible for the
opposition to win elections. They can't advertise their
political parties, their positions.

(01:07:21):
I mean, it's, you know, it's democracy by stranglehold.
Just on that front, you mentioned that Orban might lose
power in 2026, but given what weknow and what you're talking
about here as it relates to their democracy, can we trust
that that'll happen? I mean, it's, you know, it can.
Can we have faith in their in their voting?

(01:07:43):
I, I say that because we are regularly, Jared and I are
talking about how long we can trust our own elections to be
free and fair. And we saw a taste this November
where the Republican Party was humiliated pretty, pretty badly.
It was a, it was a strong rebukeagainst them and against Trump.

(01:08:05):
And I don't know if they're willing.
You know, I just saw a poll, forinstance, I think it's Marist
poll from from November 13th that had white people up with
the preferring the Democrats by a pretty significant margin.
You know, that's like over 5 points or something like that.
So I guess my question is, that's a two-part question,

(01:08:26):
which is can Warbon be voted out?
Is the election is, is there arethe levers of democracy strong
enough to actually dump this guy?
And then the next thing is can they do hear what was done there
fast enough to stop Mag? I guess So.
That's a two-part question. Yeah, well, what happened in

(01:08:48):
Hungary is 1 of Orban's fellow travelers defected, right?
So there's inside the political party that Orban leads, Fidez,
there was a defection. So it's a little bit of inside
the tent breaking off, kind of like Marjorie Taylor Green,
which means this guy kind of knows the insurance and outs of
power whether. And then on top of it, you still
have the European Union's regulations to some extent on

(01:09:10):
elections, but we'll see. I mean, Orban has kicked the
shit out of even coalition efforts on the left and or
center to the left repeatedly inHungary.
The other thing is he's trashed the economy, which was a little
familiar to us here in the United States right now.
I. Mean that country?
What I do know, I have a friend who has like Hungarian family is

(01:09:34):
the country basically exists on EU subsidies at this point and
if you don't live in Budapest, it's a pretty fucked up place to
live. Last thing I want to talk about
before we let you go is. Oh, but let me say something
about Mike's question about the elections.
I am super scared about the midterms and what's coming.

(01:09:57):
I feel like the smackdown the Republicans got just a few weeks
ago and the polling that's out now on Trump, which is just
horrific, means that the Republicans know they're going
to lose badly. Also, they're they've screwed up
the gerrymandering, right? They shouldn't have started that
game. And so I feel like they're
pretty certain that they're going to lose.

(01:10:18):
So what are they going to do to stop themselves from losing?
And I've played 1,000,000 scenarios in my head, Mike, you
know, Insurrection Act troops manipulating voting machines,
keeping people from, I don't know, I feel like if they
thought they had a chance, we'd be less a threat for something
like that. I, I don't know, but I'm, I'm

(01:10:40):
very worried. And I know there's a lot of in
terms of state that are wearing too.
And if you want to sign for it today, as we're recording this,
he was praising Mumdani as if hehimself was like ADSA member.
You know, he's just like, he's like he's, I would love to go to
New York City with. I don't worry about anything.
He's the best. He's after this conversation.

(01:11:01):
He's so good and I I mean, that's that's to me, I think he
knows that the energy is he needs he needs something because
the the energy is no longer withhim.
I think people are getting pretty disgusted and that makes
yeah, I mean, they could get desperate and we'll see what
they do. I.
Think it's pretty clear that they're scared, right?
Like one approach is the Marjorie Taylor Green approach,

(01:11:23):
which is like, I'll defect and try to differentiate myself a
little bit and sell something new.
But but yeah, I think what thoseelections showed was there is
kind of a a whiplash coming towards them.
And if they try to fight it, they will lose.
So you've got Trump being like, I don't know, man, this mom,

(01:11:44):
Donnie guys, you know, a lot of conservatives would be
surprised. You know, just just being, you
know, almost like, please don't hit me.
Please don't hurt me kind of thing.
Last thing I want to ask you about before we let you go is
something we've talked about on the show quite a bit.
We had a few episodes we had like Chris Mathias on to talk

(01:12:05):
about it, which is the Antifa terror designation, which a lot
of conservative influencers seemto be like really getting burnt
out on. You know, they really tried to
make it a thing. There's Antifa menace in every
town and we're going to come root them out and throw them in
jail. And it doesn't really seem like

(01:12:26):
a whole lot has happened. There's like 1 case in Florida
or not Florida, Texas where they're trying this out.
They attacked a government facility.
It was probably going to get terror enhancements anyway.
But like, it hasn't really materialized the way that they
hoped. This this like national
crackdown against anybody who like waves a pride flag or shows

(01:12:46):
up at their events and tells them that they suck.
Like it just hasn't seemed to materialize.
But internationally, something your organization reported out,
it's getting a little bit of a warmer reception, right?
Like like some of the sort of international far right figures
that this administration and theconservative movement have been

(01:13:06):
cozying up. They've been kind of into this
idea of, of trying to use these,you know, national security
mechanisms against anti fascist movements, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean Viktor Orban has already
done some kind of anti antifa law.
The Trump administration just listed four groups.
Admittedly they're either barelynon existent or there was one

(01:13:30):
from Germany. That really is a problem that
engages in violence. You know what I'm worried about
when it comes to this is first of all, this is about waving the
bloody shirt and deflecting awayfrom the fact that most
terrorism is far right, right? Then it comes from the ranks of
those who believe the great replacement, which GOP figures,
including Trump's spread, right.They're trying to to say that
that history is not the case. What I am worried about is are

(01:13:54):
they going to go after groups who work with groups that are
declare themselves anti fascist but aren't engaged in violence?
Like we work with groups in Europe whose mission is to be
anti fascist. Is there going to be some kind
of end around to get it Americangroups through that kind of a
mechanism? Alternatively, do they end up
using these things as a way to break down on folks who are

(01:14:14):
protecting immigrants? You've seen Ken Paxton with this
listing of care as a terrorist organization.
So you're trying to chill, speed, shut down donor networks?
I don't know. I haven't seen much here either
domestically on this front. And plus, let's be real.
And TIFA doesn't exist in the way that Trump imagines it,

(01:14:35):
right? It's not some big behemoth, but
there are dangers. What about law enforcement,
right? If law enforcement is told over
and over again that left wing activists are the problem, what
happens then at protests with cops?
I think there's there's a lot ofpotential dangers and chilling
of civic space and civic institutions.

(01:14:57):
But yeah, it hasn't really gotten very far.
But that's true of a lot of the executive orders, I think
generally, yeah. Because they're ridiculous.
So zooming out here towards the end, one more fun question,
Heidi, when was the first time you remember using the Internet?
What was that like? How do you remember that in the
context of our online purgatory that we all marinate in now?

(01:15:22):
I think the first time I read a news story on the Internet was
in 1994. AOL had just come out and
Israeli Prime Minister, what washis name, was shot the guy who
was trying to get a peace agreement.
It's like Rabin. Thank you.
Jesus. It's terrible.

(01:15:43):
I am getting old. That's OK.
Yeah. When Ravalon was shot, that's
the first time I remember it. And I think I got.
I had e-mail around that time, Jared.
But I was here, You know, I in my very, very early days in the
early 90s, I was a tech person. I used to code DOS.
I would code surveys. This was back when, well, it's

(01:16:05):
just ridiculous. You know, you got if you got a
50 megabyte hard drive, you werelike, this is incredible.
You know, like when e-mail just started.
So yeah, that's what I remember.That's what I remember about
news on the Internet. Do you think the Internet was a
mistake? A lot of it's a mistake, Yeah.
It's kind of like the devil. I mean, in, you know, everybody

(01:16:28):
goes back to the Arab Spring, right?
And think about how much you know, but God, it sure shows
people can't tell the wheat fromthe chaff online, right?
And and the radicalizing and it's a mess.
Probably the whole thing would get substantially better if
there were no Elon Musk though. He has certainly done some

(01:16:49):
damage. Have you ever seen anything like
since the Internet became a factor, since like, like, like
access It is now. It's like, we used to have to go
to like so many different forums.
Now we're all lazy, right? We just like you just pick up
our phone and just do X because it seems like that's where
that's that's where all the action.
It's like you mentioned Telegram, but is there that much
of a difference really? I mean, maybe a little bit.

(01:17:12):
Yeah. I mean, Mike and I both have
burner accounts on X that basically function as conveyor
belts to like bring us material that we need to do to do our
stuff. It's such a pisser too, because
I was part of an effort that helped rewrite Twitter's tools,
but I mean rules before Elon bought it.
And like they were on a good path.

(01:17:32):
They were like going somewhere good and he just destroyed
everything. You know what you can do?
Well, Heidi, thanks for joining us today.
The last question I have for youis we've been talking about the
far right internationally and how it overlaps with the
American US. Your organization, the Global
Project Against Hate and Extremism.
Put a link down in the description of this episode for

(01:17:54):
folks to go check it out. Basically, why is it important
to understand this as a global movement and to track it the way
that your organization does? Basically like why does your
organization need to exist? Why?
Why should people in the US who you know, their whole experience
internationally is like a week long vacation on their honeymoon

(01:18:17):
or something? I'm talking about myself here.
Why? Why should they be paying
attention to this and and keeping an eye on it the way
that you guys are? Well, I mean, I'll just say
First off, the reason we have topay attention to the far right
is because it's a movement that's opposed to democracy and
human rights writ large. And that's the problem with it.
And it's a fundamental, deeply destructive ideology.

(01:18:41):
And the reason you have to thinkabout it globally is because as
we talked about here, this stuffis coming into the United States
from other countries, from places like Hungary.
It's we don't live in a silo. We are also as responsible
citizens should know what the hell we're exporting to other
places, right? When the when the US government
decides to write a big fat checkto Harvey Javier Malay, the

(01:19:03):
president of Argentina, it's ourtaxpayer money being exported
to, you know, prop up a far right lunatic, frankly.
So we don't live, we don't live in an isolated bubble and these
movements don't know borders. I mean, it sounds like a cliche,
but it's right. You know that that is how it
functions. And when it comes to terrorism,
that stuff is spread completely across borders.

(01:19:24):
All the groups that the three ofus have studied like an
atomwaffe and a base, whatever, they don't know about borders
and they're killing people all over the place.
So because of their race or because they're Jews, whatever
the case may be. So we, you have to unfortunately
know this stuff to understand what's happening in this
country. I want to, I want to ask one

(01:19:44):
last question, Jared, if I may. Go ahead.
So Heidi, I don't want to make too big of it, but like, you've
gotten like tons of threats and like throughout your life.
I know it's crazy stories. I'm sure that I don't even know
that you've dealt with and doingthis work.
You're a hero in my opinion. I know you don't want to do, but
literally. One of the one of the real

(01:20:06):
estate motherfuckers alive, I'llsay yes.
I think I have said that to people.
The Heidi's. Heidi's the real 1.
I will get a T-shirt with that on it.
Jared, thank. You so I mean, you did
incredible work on groups like National Alliance and, and we we
did a we did a one episode that was just gave people background
about the Turner Diaries, for example.
When you look at that era and the reporting that you did and

(01:20:27):
the risks that you took and all that, do you feel to some
extent, and I, I include being this, I mean that that we
failed, not that we failed. Like, I mean, certain, there's
no, nothing to discredit the work that was done.
But like just when you look and you felt like at that time, like
what's like, OK, we can, we can stop the spread of this
particular group. National Alliance or VDAIR, my

(01:20:48):
book, which is coming out. It's not really about like the,
it's not like the extremism beattype thing, but VDAIR is in it
and they and they die of basically over the course of
the, the book. I know Brimelow's still alive
and he's blogging to like 10 people on sub stack, but all
this great replacement stuff, all this, you know, acceleration
and stuff, it's it seems like it's broken containment.
It feels like there was all thisfight and we went through so

(01:21:10):
much. Do you, do you feel like you
know, is there frustration? Did you feel looking back over
all those groups that you went head to head with over the years
became the face of the resistance against?
I think actually about this a lot, Mike.
You know, I started doing this work in, you know, late 99,
early 2000, at a time where these groups really were on the

(01:21:31):
fringe. You could make that argument.
There was rising different kindsof bigotry.
The anti immigrant movement was starting to take off anti Muslim
stuff. Of course, after 911, I think
one of the things that we probably should have done and
didn't was be less timid about the fact that this stuff was
spreading into mainstream politics.
Like I think back to the debatesover the Tea Party.

(01:21:53):
Should we call it the Tea Party and extremist movement?
No, those are regular Americans who are concerned about, you
know, the economy had gone to shit, this kind of stuff.
They're not all racist. Well, the fact of the matter is
that we wouldn't have got to where we are today if it hadn't
been for the anti immigrant stuff coursing through that
movement. And then it moved into the far
right of the party, of the Republican Party at the

(01:22:14):
congressional level and in certain red states.
You know, back then, though, if you did take a harder line
politically like this, you were called hyperbolic.
Nobody wanted to accept the factthat these movements were
growing, were extreme. You know, that was the reaction
you would get. It was like, Americans couldn't
accept that the devil was inside, right?
You remember all the debates over saying, hey, white

(01:22:36):
supremacist terrorism is just asbad as Islamic extremism?
Look at the numbers, Pay attention to it.
And even the Obama administration was like, hell,
well, no, you're wrong, or we'regoing to look weak if we don't,
you know, keep ranting about al Qaeda.
So I do wonder sometimes if a better political analysis might
have helped because we lived under the fantasy that this was

(01:22:58):
contained, right, That this was a contained problem.
So if you just mess up the National Alliance, yeah, someone
will pop up in their place. But it'll be a while.
The threat will recede a little.Then we'll go after White
Revolution. Then we'll go, you know,
whatever the hell the things were.
But we should have warned people, but this wasn't just
coming for for, you know, in theform of a few domestic terrorist
attacks and extremist movements.This was gobbling the country

(01:23:22):
and and that we failed to get across.
And now we're living with that reality.
I feel that so strongly. It's something as I've been
thinking about just watching this whole nonsense over Tucker
Carlson and and Nick Fuentes, for example, because one of the
groups that I attacked the the the group that I easily attacked

(01:23:42):
the the hardest while I was at SPLC was the right stuff network
and and ID ING different guys with maybe like 7 different
people in that organization. And I look and it's like, wow,
the kind of Mike Penovich ideology is now, you know,
practically at the heritage. It's not quite there, but like

(01:24:03):
that's, it's, it's stunning, youknow, and, and he, he's a shell
of himself and his his group andhis outfit, they were all kind
of underground at that time and kind of hiding under pseudonyms.
But it does feel like, wow, justridiculous that that somehow it
continued to mutate. Lament, lament for all the
things we could have done. This feels like a good place to

(01:24:23):
wrap it up on that bright and cheery note, Heidi Pyrick.
We'll put again a link to GlobalProject Hate and Extremism and
some of the stories that we talked about today down in the
description. If this organization is not on
your radar already, it should be.
They're doing fantastic work. And Heidi, I'm glad you gave us

(01:24:45):
some of your time. I know you're a busy woman, but
we really love having you on today.
Come on to my favorite people now.
Thanks guys for having me on. Appreciate it.
Thank you. That was great.
I said it a bunch of times, but Heidi is like, legitimately

(01:25:07):
hero. Was so excited to finally get
her on the show. Yeah, she's a real one.
Also the suggestion, that executive club suggestion from
Mitch to talk about this international angle was a really
good idea. I mean.
We have smart listeners. It's so important.
Yeah, yeah, I all of the suggestions we've had for

(01:25:31):
episodes we should do have been totally spot on and I wish I
would have thought of it. Well, it's time to say farewell.
We will see you with the premiumepisode this week right before
Thanksgiving or whenever it'll come out.
And yeah, I'm looking forward tothat.
We've had a lot of fun on these recent ones.
Just a quick plug, if you would like a discount on my book with

(01:25:54):
pre-order, Strange People on theHill is coming out on April 7th
and if you were listening to this and you'd like a promo
code, it is Strange 20 STRANGE T20.
Strange 20. Yeah, go grab it and tell all

(01:26:15):
your friends. Yeah, I'm really looking forward
to, to having it. I I may or may not have a galley
copy that I've been flipping through casually and.
Should get Andres read it. OK, what can I say?
Another Hayden banger? Well, anyway, let's get out of
here. Yes.

(01:26:35):
We'll see you guys on a premium feed on Thursday or whenever it
comes out and then next week on Monday.
So for folks who are traveling for Thanksgiving, safe travels.
Take care. The world's crazy and fucked up.
Just enjoy some time with your family and and try to relax a
little bit. Or, if you're Trump, enjoy.
Enjoy time with the Mayor of NewYork, Civically the incoming

(01:26:58):
Mayor of New York City. Yeah, yeah, maybe they'll carve
a Turkey together or something. All right, Take care, guys.
Bye.

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