May 7, 2025 • 35 mins
In this week's episode of Black Man Spy, Malcolm Nance engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Aaron Rupar, a prominent reporter and commentator known for his incisive analysis of right-wing media. They dive deep into the world of propaganda, examining how outlets like Fox News manipulate narratives and disseminate misinformation. With an eye on the current political climate, they discuss the implications of economic policies and trade wars, particularly how they may impact Trump's support among everyday Americans.
Aaron shares his unique perspective on monitoring right-wing media, explaining the challenges and methodologies behind his work. Together, they unravel the insidious tactics used by conservative media to deflect accountability and maintain a loyal base, drawing parallels to historical propaganda efforts. This episode is essential for anyone seeking to understand the complex interplay of media, politics, and public perception in today's America.
Don't miss Malcolm's "Burn Bag of the Week," where he highlights the reckless actions of a notable figure in the national security world. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that uncovers the layers of deception in our media landscape and the importance of staying informed in these turbulent times.
Click the lInk below to subscribe to our Newsletter
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/ and please subscribe to this channel for more updates.
Aaron shares his unique perspective on monitoring right-wing media, explaining the challenges and methodologies behind his work. Together, they unravel the insidious tactics used by conservative media to deflect accountability and maintain a loyal base, drawing parallels to historical propaganda efforts. This episode is essential for anyone seeking to understand the complex interplay of media, politics, and public perception in today's America.
Don't miss Malcolm's "Burn Bag of the Week," where he highlights the reckless actions of a notable figure in the national security world. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that uncovers the layers of deception in our media landscape and the importance of staying informed in these turbulent times.
Click the lInk below to subscribe to our Newsletter
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/ and please subscribe to this channel for more updates.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now that we're getting reports of like these ships coming
over from China that don't really have products in them
because of basically the embargo that we have on China
at this point, Like are those Walmart shoppers going to
be hit? Like are they going to go to Walmart
and see that the things that they're used to buying
are more expensive or they aren't there. That's the sort
of development I think that could really kind of like
put Trump's support through the floor that we've seen over
the last decade that he has. Then I think we're
(00:22):
kind of in a new, uncharted territory because they didn't
really experience that the first term until COVID, and I
think a lot of people kind of wanted to excuse
the COVID thing as like, oh, it was this international
calamity and like none of the governments really handled it well,
so it really wasn't Trump's fault, even though we know better.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
This is black Man's Spy.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hi, this is Malcolm Nance, and welcome to black Man's Spy.
This week is going to be very interesting because, as
you know, we deal in the world of the dark arts, espionage, intelligence,
and we're going to touch on propaganda and in a
way that most Americans don't really realize how propaganda is
(01:09):
being delivered. In the old days, the Soviets would have
these entire machines churning out lie after lie after lie
and trying to get it into some remote Indian newspaper
and hope that it would be picked up by the
associated press and then that lie would be propagated throughout
the world. But most people saw it, especially when they
(01:30):
saw Soviet television like or read the newspaper Pravda News
or Etar Task Press Agency.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Anything that came out of them was a lie, and
we knew that was a lie. Not the way it
works in the world today.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
In the United States, we have our own propaganda organs
and organizations, and you know that's in addition to the
way it's being disseminated. Now, anybody with a computer has
the ability to have all the same power to get
their lie or perspective out or propaganda, carefully crafted propaganda
(02:07):
out with bigger distribution thanks to the Internet social media
than The New York Times ever had one of the
biggest propaganda arms, which has been found legally liable for
lying on television, for creating truths half truth lies, and
disinformation is of course Fox News the creation of Roger Ales, who,
(02:31):
after the Watergate resignation of Richard Nixon, really wanted to
create a machine so that Richard Nixon would get off.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And we've seen Fox News and their.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Other right wing outlets one American news network, Newsmax and
other outlets around the world synchronize themselves to where truths,
half truth, lies and propaganda are all furthering an objective.
To reach that objective. One of the problems is there
is so much social media activity, so many lies in
(03:04):
propaganda being disseminated today, it's impossible to monitor if I
you know, when I wrote my book Plot to Hack America,
and I said that the Russians, in creating the Internet
Research Agency would have to have three hundred or four
hundred English language specialists monitoring social media, monitoring cable news
(03:26):
in real time to get the flow of the of
what Donald Trump and the right wing world in Mago
World was saying, so that they could craft propaganda and
lies that would amplify that, then take what they were
saying and repitch it so that it would go around
the world.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I was wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
They had over twelve hundred full time linguist English language
experts monitoring our news media. The problem with this is
that we give foreign powers the ability to leverage our
free speech and turn it into a weapon, so that,
as Mark Twain said, before the truth could get out
(04:09):
of bed and put its shoes on, its trousers on,
a lie has gone around the world three times, and
that's where we are today.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
But now we have multi multi billion dollar platforms.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
And as we saw at the end of the twenty
twenty twenty four election, people, good people of good faith
just started turning off the television.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
They didn't want to monitor.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
The craziness out there that was coming from Trump, the
Maga machine in the right wing world anymore. And they
stopped watching progressive left wing channels because they were starting
to bend at the knee, so to speak. But there
is one person who is not doing that. He is
actually carrying out a job that we would see in
(04:55):
the US intelligence community. We'd have teams of people on
this one individ Jewel is monitoring Fox News, right wing world,
Maga world speeches so that we don't have to. And
that's Aaron Rupar, our special guest for today, so enjoy
this interview. He's a great guy, and believe me, I'm
not gonna watch that stuff, but he watches it, so
(05:17):
we don't have to. Welcome to another thrilling adventure to
a Black Man Spy podcast. And today I have an
extra special treat for you because we have someone who
has nothing to do with espionage but everything to do
with espin oge and that's Aaron Rupar. I'm gonna read
(05:37):
his bio here, so don't watch my eyes. Eric is
a reporter, commentator, author of Public Notice newsletter formally at Vox.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
He established himself as one of the foremost.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Chroniclers of trump Ism that is very true, explaining what's
happening on the American right for a largely progressive.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Audience or any audience with common sense.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
He immerses himself with right wing media and watches chump rallies,
so you don't have to Aaron, Welcome to Black Man's Spy.
I really am a fanboy gushing here over you because thanks.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, no, I appreciate Malcolme.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You're you know you're You're in a group of a
few dozen people who've interacted with a lot on Twitter
over the years, but never actually met in any way,
shape or form.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So it's great to see you and thank you for
having me on the show.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, you know, the reason that I'm gushing is because
you don't you know, it's sort of like you.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
This is why I say you're you're you.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
You know, on this show where we usually have boatloads
of spies and x spies and intelligence people, you're sort
of doing what we do when I was, like when
I was at the National Security Agency, right, we we
monitor things no one ever wants to monitor. Right, all
of these situations, people's videos, communications, whatever, that are just horrible.
(07:00):
And in that and giant pantheon of influencers. If you've
ever seen the balls and bubbles of influencers, it's all wet,
right Elon Musk, And you know, you have all these
right wing characters and you're practically the only blue bubble
there along with Midas Touch in that entire pantheon.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
And just explain to.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Me one why you decided to make yourself so effing
crazy by monitoring. You monitor everything, then you take clips
of it that we need to know about. So I
rely on your stuff religiously. Right, you are, as we.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Call it in the intelligence community.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You are the read board of right wing world because
I'm not gonna watch that.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Why do you do it? Man?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, Initially it was just because there was kind of
a market opportunity for it. You know, I started doing
the clipping stuff back in twenty seventeen, and you know,
at that time, of course Trump was president, and so
you know, right away I was already kind of covering
his rallies and like the White House press briefings and
big congressional hearings. At that time, I was at Think
Progress before I went to Vox, but then you know,
(08:15):
we ended up as a newsroom I Think Progress getting snapstream,
which is the service I mostly use, in addition to
a couple others to clip, and it was just it
took off right away because there weren't too many people
doing that at the time, and so you know, it's
obviously evolved over the years from there. But you know,
initially I came into this as like a traditional reporter
and editor, and the video stuff was like a total
(08:37):
total accident that I stumbled into. But as soon as
I started posting clips on Twitter, it was clear to
me that there was a huge appetite, you know, and
that there's potential to really, you know, build a big
audience doing the work that I do. So yeah, I
mean I kind of stumbled into it, but you know,
I really appreciate all the you know, the kind verds
you had to say, and you know, whenever I get
feedback like that, it is gratifying because you know, as
(08:57):
you kind of alluded to, it's not the easiest work
psychologically to put yourself through, especially with something you know
in power.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You know, the election last November was kind of a
blow in that respect because you know, I think we
all kind of hope that we were turning the page
once and for all, but you know, it's kind of
right back to some of the same mentality and kind
of vibes that I had in twenty seventeen covering this stuff,
and you know, someone has to do it. It's important,
I think that gets out there about what the administration
is doing and what Republicans are up to, and so
I think that's kind of where I come in, you know,
(09:27):
trying to decode that stuff and share it for my audience,
which obviously is mostly left of center.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, you know, I was a contributor at MSNBC for
I don't know six almost seven years, and I was
on air all the time, right, I mean, you know,
whether I started out in counter terrorism and doing terrorism
stuff than the military's national security analysis, and then I
you know, Chris Matthews is the one that really brought
me into commentating onto you know, as the black guy
(09:54):
as to what Donald Trump was doing. And I remember
the first time I saw that, and I remember seeing
one of your clips of that conversation where I think
it was Trump saying that John McCain was a coward
or something like that, and Chris Matthews just looked at
me and I was like, what do you think about that?
What the hell did I just here? And then it
(10:16):
went on and on and on from there. But this
comes to a very sellient point I think for a
lot of our listeners is when that election happened, and
we saw a lot of genuflecting right after the election
at the major news channel C and MSNBC.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
People stopped watching the channel.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I'll be honest with you, I haven't been a contributor
for two years ever since I left and joined the
Ukrainian Army. Right I left, I didn't renew my contract
with MSNBC and join the army. Ever since that time,
I've been so busy, but I watched a lot of
shows religiously, and then after the election, it was like,
I don't have time for this, but I do have
(10:59):
time for your videos. And what I like about your
work is that you take the most important clips of
the day, right that everyone needs to know about, and
you essentially take twelve hours of watching MSNBC and bring
it down to about you know, maybe two or three
(11:20):
minutes of the whether it's the craziest thing that was
said that day, or the thing that I think that
you personally believe is really the thing that most people
need to know about. And so I think that to
tell you the truth, I mean, I certainly hope it
expands after this podcast that that is valuable to me,
(11:42):
cause again I don't want to have to subject myself to.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Starting at Morning Joe or way too early for me.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, I get up at almost four am every day,
usually three thirty four am, and so I start way
too early, going more hours and hours and hours of
Morning Joe. And here the commentary on the exact same
clip that you put up, and I get to make
my own commentary and read the commentary of people that
I know aren't crazy, or aren't bending the knee, or
(12:12):
aren't have a vested interest in that, And a lot
of that also includes Fox News full disclosure.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I was a Fox News guest for two years before
I ever came to MSNBC. So, but do you.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Find that people say the same thing that you know
that they're replacing MSNBC quite honestly with.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
You, Yeah, I think you're right that, you know, kind
of a big value to it is putting the clips
out there so people can react to them on their own,
you know, without being kind of filtered through cable, you know,
and especially with the way that social media works, people
being able to share clips across different platforms and things
like that. You know, I'll see my clips sometimes, kind
(12:54):
of something I post on X, I'll see on TikTok
or you know, see it over on Blue Sky things
like that.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So yeah, I mean, I think you're you're right.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I mean, I still watch a lot of cables, so
you're certainly correct about the ratings aspect that they've gone down.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
The way that I kind of filtered through the noise
just so I can keep things manageable, is I really
focus on the guests that are on you know, so
for instance, like if if Tom Emmer is on CNN,
you know, I'll be sure to tune in because that's
probably going to be a newsmaking interview because you know,
despite CNN's problems, they still you know, some of their
hosts will do a good job interviewing those guests. So
I'm not necessarily seeing like every last bit of the
(13:29):
commentary on there, just because I couldn't possibly watch all
of that across all the different networks. But then you know,
like you have days like today where you know there
are multiple kind of high profile hearings going on, and
then of course you know the Prime Minister of Canada, Marcarney,
is going to the White House. So you know, a
big part of kind of the challenge is just you know,
I'm one person and trying to kind of figure out
what to pay attention to because you know, there's just
(13:50):
not enough hours in the day to pay attention to everything.
And so you know, I think over almost a decade
now of doing this, I've gotten good at that.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It's the same sort of editorial judgment that any sort
of journalist makes, you know, in terms of what's your
thing attention to what's worth amplifying and what's ultimately worth
writing about and sharing with your audience. So you know,
it's certainly way more of an art than a science.
But you're right that, you know, I think a lot
of people do find value, whether it's myself or Asen
or other people who clip and you know, being able
to see the real article for themselves and not have
(14:21):
it filtered through reporters, you know that the text, you know,
kind of explaining it through text or paraphrasing, you know,
I think people generally like to see, you know, the
actual video for themselves.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And draw their own conclusions from there.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Wait, I just heard something you said that really surprised me.
What's your collection methodology? Sorry speaking spy talk here, right,
what's your collection method Are you really by yourself doing that?
Speaker 4 (14:44):
I would have a team of people.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Monitoring twenty four to seven with you know, doing recording
off of this.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
I mean I do have recordings, so you know, like
like snapstream, which is the main service that I use,
you know, records all the cable channels at least, you know.
Now when it comes to you know, webstreams and things
like that, it gets a little more complex, although obviously
YouTube is a pretty good resource for that. You know,
most things live in some form or another on YouTube
these days. But no, I don't have a team, you know,
with my newsletter, I do have a team of contributors
(15:17):
who you know, write for the newsletter and then I
I edit that. But you know, and I've thought about
that because you know, my business is at a point
where I probably could hire someone. But you know, there's
kind of like, you know, some certain efficiencies that that
work out well for me.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Doing it on my own.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And you know, like I said, I have kind of
a process for it that I've honed over many years
that I think, you know, allows me within like a
reasonable timeframe of you know, I don't know, ten eleven
hours a day. I certainly work more than eight hours
a day, but you know, I try not to work
the entire day because I have two little kids as well,
so you know, I try to keep it, you know,
kind of within the realm of manageability, not always you know,
(15:53):
having a ton of success with that, because certainly last
year during the campaign, I mean the last couple of months,
I was putting in real long days because I was
trying to watch every campaign event that I could and
and clip it, you know, as much as possible. And then,
of course, you know, I think there was a kind
of the expectation, or at least the hope that, oh,
you know, I Kamala wins, things will be a little
more calm in twenty twenty five and kind of revert
back to normal. But nope, you know, it's it's crazier
(16:13):
than ever, and so there really wasn't much rest for
the weary. There was, you know, maybe a couple of
weeks over the holidays, and then we're right back in
the thick of it, and yeah, I think we will
be pretty much foreseeably here, you know, twenty twenty eight,
not to mention, you know, twenty twenty six is a
long ways away.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Not to mention twenty twenty eight at this point.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Okay, let's just not talk about that. I'm trying to
get through twenty twenty five. Twenty twenty five could be
a revolutionary year, and I mean that. You know, there
are people out there who were you know, who were
doing this. You know, they they're rejecting everything they're seeing.
And I've said on air, you know, in interviews that
(16:52):
a color revolution is coming to America.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
People power is not putting up with what they're seeing.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That being said, uh, you understand, you know, you're sort
of like me, right, you understand the way that the
opponents here, right, the opposition think, and you also can
easily over time divine. Fox News is in one America
network and uh, you know what's news the newsmax methodology.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
What is the most insidious thing that you see.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
About how they do their reporting?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
That's interesting, you know, I think that there is the
very standard tactic of deflection that you see that I
you know, I see this. It's it's on right when
cable news, but you see it with Republicans as well,
and even you know, people in day to day life
who encounter who are right leaning or you know, who
vote for Republicans, where instead of you know, ever kind
of addressing an issue on the merit on the merits,
it's kind of you know, we see this with the
(17:48):
economy now where it's like, oh, but you know, you
weren't complaining when inflation was bad under Biden, and you know,
it's like always this technique of instead of actually engaging,
you know, on the merits with an issue or with
something that's not going well in society. It's like, you know,
kind of going back to the most recent example of
something similar happening when a Democrat was in power and
kind of holding that up as though it justifies what's
(18:09):
happening now. And so there's you know, I think it's
just that's kind of one example, but you know, just
the pervasive intellectual dishonesty that you see with right wing media.
And you know, I guess like for me, the people
who consume Fox News Newsmax, I mean, those people are lost,
like they're not going to vote for Democrats. I'm more
interested in that because of what the Republicans who are
(18:30):
on there are saying, you know, you know, they go
on CNN, they go on MSBC sometimes are challenged about
some of these things, and that can be interesting. That's
kind of where the conflict. You know, there's a lot
of conflict in that. There's a lot of interesting clips
that can come from that. I'm not so interested all
the time and like the spin and maybe that Fox offers,
and maybe that's because I've been watching it for so long,
but a lot of it is like super predictable, and
(18:52):
it's still you know, to this day, when topics pertaining
to the economy, to tariffs, you know, the stock market dip,
inflationary press.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Sure, it's still.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Very standard kind of like what about Biden deflection that
you see, right, and that's to me is like entirely predictable.
But it is a very kind of insidious mode of
intellectual dishonesty that I think allows people on the right
to sort of avoid ever really engaging with the consequences
of their voting decisions or the politicians that they support.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So, yeah, you know, you mentioned the color Revolution thing.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I mean, you know, I guess I'm a little bit
more skeptical of that simply because you know, when you
look at the polling, you know, Trump's He's still within
kind of the band of normalcy for him. So the
thing that I'm really looking for, you know, looking toward
here the next couple of weeks to a month, is
now that we're getting reports of like these ships coming
over from China that don't really have products in them
because of basically the embargo that we have on China
(19:42):
at this point, Like, are those Walmart shoppers going to
be hit? Like are they going to go to Walmart
and see that the things that they're used to buying,
are more expensive, or they aren't there. That's the sort
of development I think that could really kind of like
put Trump's support through the floor that we've seen over
the last decade that he has. We still have the
same kind of polarization that we've had for about a day,
where like people like you and me, I mean, we're
horrified by Trump. How can people possibly tolerate this? But
(20:06):
you know we still like thirty eight, thirty nine, forty
percent approval. You know, it's kind of the same fault
lines that we've always seen. You know, if the midterms
are next week, I think it'd be really bad for Republicans.
But I'm not seeing such an erosion of support at
this point that I'm expecting, you know, like a call
revolution really people to you know, take to the streets.
So but but again, I think there are dynamics, like
I was saying with with some of the trade stuff,
with the economics of this, where you know, if things
(20:28):
do get really bad, I think that's the sort of
thing that it's going to take, you know, for the
bottom the kind of fall out of Trump support, right,
And it seems like there's potential for that to happen
over you know, this summer, So that's really you know,
it's not gonna happen tomorrow. But you know, again, it's
those people who go to Walmart in communities like the
one I'm living in a disorda right now, where like
if their lives are made worse off by the trade policies,
then I think we're kind of in a new, uncharted
(20:50):
territory because they didn't really experience that the first term
until COVID, and I think a lot of people kind
of wanted to excuse a COVID thing as like, oh,
it was this international calamity and like none of the
governments really handled it well, so it really wasn't Trump's fault.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Even though we know better. So that's kind of my
macro view of the situation right now.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You know, May tenth is what they said, is one
of the senior shipping analysts out there said, is the
last ship to the United States from China that had.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Pre tariff materials on it.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
And there are no ships that left Shanghai or left
other ports for China for the West coast of the
United States. And I think a few ships that'll be
left over that go through the Panama Canal that will
go to the Bayonne, New Jersey and Charleston and then
that's it. There are no containers coming to the United
(21:42):
States post code, you know, post COVID.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Listen to me, post the tariff said, you know, and
you're right.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I mean, I can look out that window there and see,
you know, the top of a Walmart about a mile
away from my house, and you know, Trump's base r
Walmart shoppers and no one else.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
You know, well, that's not true entirely.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
He has that middle upper middle class, you know, you know,
guys with a big bass boat and a second.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
House on the cape and things like that. You know,
let me rephrase that, white guys with those things.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
And you know, and those guys are also diehard loyalists ideologically,
because he represents.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Them as an avatar.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
And you know, the Walmart shoppers, as the old joke goes,
they're just millionaires that are down on their luck. And
in theory, they should be buying those same fixtures from home.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Depot that he's put in the Oval office.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
And you can buy that spray, you know, that same.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Gold tip paint at Low's and then you'll be like
Donald Trump in your trailer park. So the problem is,
as you said quite rightly, and this is where what
we would call maritime and now you know maritime trade analysis.
You know, our intelligence agencies monitor all of this stuff, right,
you know, we use intelligence to remintain competitive in the
(23:05):
economic market. So if there's some Saudi princes going to
raise oil prices, we already know about it and we
generally try to use that. I don't see any of that, see,
any of that market intelligence is completely discounted by these people. Now,
as you monitor Fox the way we would have monitored
Pravda or Iraq television.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
It's this crazy we have to talk like this. But
as you monitor these guys, you.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Know, I know that when the market took that big
dip when it went from forty four thousand down to
thirty six thousand, they just didn't play it right. They
didn't play the ticker at all on the Dow Jones
Industrial and then they downplayed or they just did they
just like blank face reported you know, the actual reality
(23:59):
and then jump back into their North Korean news rah
rah routine.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
How did that go off? I mean, I clips, but
you watch all of it, so.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I feel Yeah, so Fox News pretty much ignored it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
But you know, Fox Business, I thought I thought Fox
Business the coverage was somewhat interesting, you know, And I've
made the joke in the past that you know, Fox
Business is basically Fox News with the stock ticker.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
You know, it's the same sort of material.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
You got, you know, Maria Bartiromo and Larry Cudlow and
you know, these people beat these people could you know,
they could fill it on Fox News and no one
would you know, really miss a beat on that. But
you know, the thing that that actually did kind of
hammer home a little bit to me is that with
bad economic news, it's a little harder to spin just
because it's like quantified, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
They're they're actual numbers in terms of, oh, the market.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Was here and then it went down to here, and
you know, they did try a few tricks like I
you know, I tweeted about this where Fox Business was
only showing the NASDAC for a while and not the
because the number was smaller.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So it was like and I was.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Wondering, mose people don't watch the nasdack.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
I was, and and you know, so they had the
NAZAC and then they had you know, the NAZAQ was
down three hundred points or whatever, and the Dow was
down a thousand, but since the Nasdaq was a smaller number,
I was kind of wondering if that was like a
subtle sleight of hand where people are just scanning the
screen they'd say, oh, the market's a little bit down today,
but not as bad as you know, the Dow number
looked like. But then you know, you did have because
(25:19):
I think the North Korea comparison, you know, it's kind
of an interesting one because you know, you would see
during the days where the market was really taking, hosts
like Cudlow or Maria barts Romo kind of under their breath,
almost kind of being like, you know, they do interviews
with Republicans and sort of you know, they ask these
questions about like how much pain do you really think
people are going to be willing to tolerate here? You know,
(25:41):
and then you know, the kind of criticizing the policy
without like directly criticizing it. And some of the Russings
they would ask their guests, for instance, so there was
you know where it was like, you know that they
wanted to say that the emperor had no clothes, but
they were kind of scared to and so they kind
of danced around it, and so that that was interesting
to me that even some of the like you know,
the MAGA friendly hosts, couldn't really totally hide the fact
(26:06):
that they had some misgivings with the economic policy. And
now because the market has gone up a little bit,
you know, I think they've been able to kind of
move past that, or it's not the tariffs aren't like
a dominating topic like they were right after Liberation Day,
so to speak, on April two. But you know that's
where again, you know, if we see kind of the
tail of this over the next few weeks, where there
starts to be shortages or inflation, the market takes another dip.
(26:29):
You know, you can see even in the initial coverage
of that first dip that there were some cracks forming.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
People weren't thrilled.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I mean, you had guys like Ron Johnson, for instance,
who's gone on Fox Business and said, straight up, I'm
hearing from manufacturers in my state that will not be
able to hold on two three months if these tariffs
stay in place. So you know, that's where it's it's
easy to spin certain things like you know, during COVID,
like the number of cases and things like that. You know,
people kind of saw through some of the spin, but
(26:56):
you know, they got away with a lot of spinning
of that stuff. When it comes to mark kids, when
it comes to people losing their jobs, businesses closing, these
are things that people see in their communities and it's
kind of undeniable. And so you know to me that
that's where there's a real danger in this economic policy
for Trump is because you know, he's kind of putting
himself in a spot where even people who have supported
him all the way down the line, you are being
(27:18):
put in a spot now where it's like this is
kind of too much for me. So you know, we'll
see how the next few weeks plays out.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Last question, and this is a serious one because I'm
really starting to absorb how you're saying this because I
have had to watch opposition TV, right Libyan tell you know,
Jamaharia State Television and all these things, and you know,
the thing is is that we have secret information where
we know the truth, right, and how are they going
(27:45):
to spin that out to their public? That the two
thousand pound bombs that are being dropped on Tripoli air
for it, as of right now.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Is a good thing. So what are we seeing?
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Are we good?
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Can I expect to see that Fox News is going
to start spinning poverty is patriotism?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Take the pain.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
This is a great thing for America. You're losing your
four oh one K is not bad.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
You have to do this tip.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Take one for the gipper. Are you seeing that they're
already doing that?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
There are?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And you know it was really telling Representative David Joyce,
a Republican representative.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
He was on CNN yesterday and he was doing the
you know, like I.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Think people understand because this is a time of shared sacrifice,
and Americans have always sacrificed for the greater good kind
of thing, and it's like, what is the greater good here?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Though?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You know, like it's one thing to sacrifice during a
world war or you know these times of like great
conflict where there's some sort of objective that we're striving toward,
but like we're sacrificing for tax cuts for the rich. Basically, like,
what is this trade war even really over? I mean,
I think it's largely about Trump wanting to kind of
turn the whole economy into a sort of protection racket
(28:56):
where these companies or countries have to come to him
and basically beg for him to do.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Favors for them. You know. I think that's a big
part of it.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Also, you know the tax cuts thing, you know, that's
kind of the end when we get to the medicaid
and this reconciliation build where they're gonna cut the safety net,
Like that's kind of the end goal there.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
So we're already seeing some of that. You know, this
this mentality of like short term pain, long term gain.
But I think because the long term gain is like
so nebulous, and this idea that we're going to bring
you know, garment factories back to the US or something
like that, Yeah, I's like, even if that was something
that we wanted to do, that's gonna happen over you know,
many years to a decade plus.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Like, people don't have that much patience for this, So
I think they're going to try, you know, and I
think maybe right now it kind of works a little
bit because people haven't experienced the true pain of the
tariffs yet. But when we do get to a spot
where people are feeling pain, I don't think that talking point,
you know, and you probably have your twenty percent of
the hardcore base for trumpers that will go along with that,
(29:56):
but I think for the voters that actually decide elections
in the middle, I don't think going to buy that.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Well. Aaron Ruppar, thank you so much for coming on
black Man Spy today. I know you got a heart.
You got to go out and monitor the today's crazy.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I'm going to be watching what goes on with the
ambassador or with the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Karney.
But you know, I hope someday we can get back together,
and I think we should take up a joint fund
to buy Caroline Levitt one of those North Korean kimonos
so that she is properly dressed for her role and
she doesn't have to wear Chinese clothes. So thank you
(30:30):
again for coming onto the show today.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Malcome great talking with you and happy'd be happy to
do it again down the line.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
All right, thanks, welcome to burn Bag of the Week.
This is my special section where I give someone who's
in the national security world the how can I put it,
the recognition that they deserve and in the intelligence community.
As you know, if you've been watching black Man's Spot,
people who we don't appreciate activities we don't appreciate, and
(30:58):
events that we try to prevent that will cause harm
or is based on the laws of stupidity are generally
referred to as burn bags.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
What's a burn bag? This is a burn bag.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
This is the burn bags from my office.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
A burn bag is a receptacle in which we placed
highly classified or ridiculously stupid trash into it.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Staple it up, fold it over, take it to.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
The slide down, to the furnace or the destructor, and
we get rid of it forever.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
And this week burn Bag of the Week.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Goes again to Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of the Secretary
of Defense, Malcolm, what did he do now?
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Did he have another signal chat?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Why? Yes, he did.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
He had well with his wife and his brother and
others with top secret information about US strikes flying around.
And then we're finding out he had more signal chats
on an app that was completely and totally unsecure.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
But that's not why he's burned Bag of the Week
this week.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I could have him as burn Bag of the Hour
for the next five years if I had to go
through everything this young major in the National Guard had.
What he decided to do this week was to decapitate
the Pentagon's leadership by getting rid of twenty percent of
(32:22):
all the flag ranked officers, that's general officers in the
armed forces. And you can be sure he started with
all the women and all the blacks, all the minorities,
no matter what their standard is.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
This guy cares not a wit for the force. He
is like one, two, three, four.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Five, six levels lower than the lower you know, than
of the people.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
That he's out firing simply because he was a Fox
News host who has an alleged drinking problem.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Well, apparently he must be drinking heavy.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
If he thinks he's going to streamline the Pentagons by
getting rid of all the decision makers in not a
five hundred billion dollar organization for what is now budgeted
this year alone, for a one trillion dollar organization, which
means morons at the colonel level who should be handling
(33:19):
things at the colonel level or the lieutenant colonel level,
will now have to start taking care of making decisions
on tens of billions of dollars where generals general staffs
would have been represented. Because that's what happens when you
have a mid level officer who should have no right
to be anywhere near the civilian position of Secretary of
(33:43):
the State decide he's going to dismantle the Department of Defense,
and so Pete Hags if we are going to start
getting some cutouts and throwing you into the burn bank.
But you are once again burn Bag of the week. Congratulations,
you played yourself. Thanks for attending. This week's episode of
Black Man's Spy is a shorter one, but we know
(34:05):
you have things to do.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
And I want to thank you for coming.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Be sure to watch and subscribe on YouTube, Substack, blue Sky.
Every once in the very great while I'm on Twitter
or x I really just stay on there control people.
But if you really want to hear and see the best,
watch me on YouTube and watch my substack app. Become
a subscriber on substack. Become a subscriber on YouTube. I
(34:32):
am going to be reporting to you next from the
great country of Greenland, because once again President Donald Trump
has pretty much said he is not ruling out using
military force to seize Greenland, you know, the country that
is part of Denmark, and I'm going to be going
(34:54):
there via Copenhagen to meet the people, to see the land,
see the terrain, and to give you a on the
ground perspective of just absolutely.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
How hard this idea is of going to a.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Country with people who are full of polar bear hunting
rifles and just walking in and seizing the place. I
can't believe the words are coming out of my mouth,
but that's what I'm going to do for you, my
lovely followers of Black Man Spy. So see me next
week in Greenland. Thanks again, and I'll be putting my
(35:32):
long underwear on so you don't have to
Now that we're getting reports of like these ships coming
over from China that don't really have products in them
because of basically the embargo that we have on China
at this point, Like are those Walmart shoppers going to
be hit? Like are they going to go to Walmart
and see that the things that they're used to buying
are more expensive or they aren't there. That's the sort
of development I think that could really kind of like
put Trump's support through the floor that we've seen over
the last decade that he has. Then I think we're
(00:22):
kind of in a new, uncharted territory because they didn't
really experience that the first term until COVID, and I
think a lot of people kind of wanted to excuse
the COVID thing as like, oh, it was this international
calamity and like none of the governments really handled it well,
so it really wasn't Trump's fault, even though we know better.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
This is black Man's Spy.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hi, this is Malcolm Nance, and welcome to black Man's Spy.
This week is going to be very interesting because, as
you know, we deal in the world of the dark arts, espionage, intelligence,
and we're going to touch on propaganda and in a
way that most Americans don't really realize how propaganda is
(01:09):
being delivered. In the old days, the Soviets would have
these entire machines churning out lie after lie after lie
and trying to get it into some remote Indian newspaper
and hope that it would be picked up by the
associated press and then that lie would be propagated throughout
the world. But most people saw it, especially when they
(01:30):
saw Soviet television like or read the newspaper Pravda News
or Etar Task Press Agency.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Anything that came out of them was a lie, and
we knew that was a lie. Not the way it
works in the world today.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
In the United States, we have our own propaganda organs
and organizations, and you know that's in addition to the
way it's being disseminated. Now, anybody with a computer has
the ability to have all the same power to get
their lie or perspective out or propaganda, carefully crafted propaganda
(02:07):
out with bigger distribution thanks to the Internet social media
than The New York Times ever had one of the
biggest propaganda arms, which has been found legally liable for
lying on television, for creating truths half truth lies, and
disinformation is of course Fox News the creation of Roger Ales, who,
(02:31):
after the Watergate resignation of Richard Nixon, really wanted to
create a machine so that Richard Nixon would get off.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And we've seen Fox News and their.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Other right wing outlets one American news network, Newsmax and
other outlets around the world synchronize themselves to where truths,
half truth, lies and propaganda are all furthering an objective.
To reach that objective. One of the problems is there
is so much social media activity, so many lies in
(03:04):
propaganda being disseminated today, it's impossible to monitor if I
you know, when I wrote my book Plot to Hack America,
and I said that the Russians, in creating the Internet
Research Agency would have to have three hundred or four
hundred English language specialists monitoring social media, monitoring cable news
(03:26):
in real time to get the flow of the of
what Donald Trump and the right wing world in Mago
World was saying, so that they could craft propaganda and
lies that would amplify that, then take what they were
saying and repitch it so that it would go around
the world.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I was wrong.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
They had over twelve hundred full time linguist English language
experts monitoring our news media. The problem with this is
that we give foreign powers the ability to leverage our
free speech and turn it into a weapon, so that,
as Mark Twain said, before the truth could get out
(04:09):
of bed and put its shoes on, its trousers on,
a lie has gone around the world three times, and
that's where we are today.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
But now we have multi multi billion dollar platforms.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
And as we saw at the end of the twenty
twenty twenty four election, people, good people of good faith
just started turning off the television.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
They didn't want to monitor.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
The craziness out there that was coming from Trump, the
Maga machine in the right wing world anymore. And they
stopped watching progressive left wing channels because they were starting
to bend at the knee, so to speak. But there
is one person who is not doing that. He is
actually carrying out a job that we would see in
(04:55):
the US intelligence community. We'd have teams of people on
this one individ Jewel is monitoring Fox News, right wing world,
Maga world speeches so that we don't have to. And
that's Aaron Rupar, our special guest for today, so enjoy
this interview. He's a great guy, and believe me, I'm
not gonna watch that stuff, but he watches it, so
(05:17):
we don't have to. Welcome to another thrilling adventure to
a Black Man Spy podcast. And today I have an
extra special treat for you because we have someone who
has nothing to do with espionage but everything to do
with espin oge and that's Aaron Rupar. I'm gonna read
(05:37):
his bio here, so don't watch my eyes. Eric is
a reporter, commentator, author of Public Notice newsletter formally at Vox.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
He established himself as one of the foremost.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Chroniclers of trump Ism that is very true, explaining what's
happening on the American right for a largely progressive.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Audience or any audience with common sense.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
He immerses himself with right wing media and watches chump rallies,
so you don't have to Aaron, Welcome to Black Man's Spy.
I really am a fanboy gushing here over you because thanks.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Yeah, no, I appreciate Malcolme.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You're you know you're You're in a group of a
few dozen people who've interacted with a lot on Twitter
over the years, but never actually met in any way,
shape or form.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
So it's great to see you and thank you for
having me on the show.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, you know, the reason that I'm gushing is because
you don't you know, it's sort of like you.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
This is why I say you're you're you.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
You know, on this show where we usually have boatloads
of spies and x spies and intelligence people, you're sort
of doing what we do when I was, like when
I was at the National Security Agency, right, we we
monitor things no one ever wants to monitor. Right, all
of these situations, people's videos, communications, whatever, that are just horrible.
(07:00):
And in that and giant pantheon of influencers. If you've
ever seen the balls and bubbles of influencers, it's all wet,
right Elon Musk, And you know, you have all these
right wing characters and you're practically the only blue bubble
there along with Midas Touch in that entire pantheon.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
And just explain to.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Me one why you decided to make yourself so effing
crazy by monitoring. You monitor everything, then you take clips
of it that we need to know about. So I
rely on your stuff religiously. Right, you are, as we.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Call it in the intelligence community.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
You are the read board of right wing world because
I'm not gonna watch that.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Why do you do it? Man?
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, Initially it was just because there was kind of
a market opportunity for it. You know, I started doing
the clipping stuff back in twenty seventeen, and you know,
at that time, of course Trump was president, and so
you know, right away I was already kind of covering
his rallies and like the White House press briefings and
big congressional hearings. At that time, I was at Think
Progress before I went to Vox, but then you know,
(08:15):
we ended up as a newsroom I Think Progress getting snapstream,
which is the service I mostly use, in addition to
a couple others to clip, and it was just it
took off right away because there weren't too many people
doing that at the time, and so you know, it's
obviously evolved over the years from there. But you know,
initially I came into this as like a traditional reporter
and editor, and the video stuff was like a total
(08:37):
total accident that I stumbled into. But as soon as
I started posting clips on Twitter, it was clear to
me that there was a huge appetite, you know, and
that there's potential to really, you know, build a big
audience doing the work that I do. So yeah, I
mean I kind of stumbled into it, but you know,
I really appreciate all the you know, the kind verds
you had to say, and you know, whenever I get
feedback like that, it is gratifying because you know, as
(08:57):
you kind of alluded to, it's not the easiest work
psychologically to put yourself through, especially with something you know
in power.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Now.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You know, the election last November was kind of a
blow in that respect because you know, I think we
all kind of hope that we were turning the page
once and for all, but you know, it's kind of
right back to some of the same mentality and kind
of vibes that I had in twenty seventeen covering this stuff,
and you know, someone has to do it. It's important,
I think that gets out there about what the administration
is doing and what Republicans are up to, and so
I think that's kind of where I come in, you know,
(09:27):
trying to decode that stuff and share it for my audience,
which obviously is mostly left of center.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, you know, I was a contributor at MSNBC for
I don't know six almost seven years, and I was
on air all the time, right, I mean, you know,
whether I started out in counter terrorism and doing terrorism
stuff than the military's national security analysis, and then I
you know, Chris Matthews is the one that really brought
me into commentating onto you know, as the black guy
(09:54):
as to what Donald Trump was doing. And I remember
the first time I saw that, and I remember seeing
one of your clips of that conversation where I think
it was Trump saying that John McCain was a coward
or something like that, and Chris Matthews just looked at
me and I was like, what do you think about that?
What the hell did I just here? And then it
(10:16):
went on and on and on from there. But this
comes to a very sellient point I think for a
lot of our listeners is when that election happened, and
we saw a lot of genuflecting right after the election
at the major news channel C and MSNBC.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
People stopped watching the channel.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I'll be honest with you, I haven't been a contributor
for two years ever since I left and joined the
Ukrainian Army. Right I left, I didn't renew my contract
with MSNBC and join the army. Ever since that time,
I've been so busy, but I watched a lot of
shows religiously, and then after the election, it was like,
I don't have time for this, but I do have
(10:59):
time for your videos. And what I like about your
work is that you take the most important clips of
the day, right that everyone needs to know about, and
you essentially take twelve hours of watching MSNBC and bring
it down to about you know, maybe two or three
(11:20):
minutes of the whether it's the craziest thing that was
said that day, or the thing that I think that
you personally believe is really the thing that most people
need to know about. And so I think that to
tell you the truth, I mean, I certainly hope it
expands after this podcast that that is valuable to me,
(11:42):
cause again I don't want to have to subject myself to.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Starting at Morning Joe or way too early for me.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
I mean, I get up at almost four am every day,
usually three thirty four am, and so I start way
too early, going more hours and hours and hours of
Morning Joe. And here the commentary on the exact same
clip that you put up, and I get to make
my own commentary and read the commentary of people that
I know aren't crazy, or aren't bending the knee, or
(12:12):
aren't have a vested interest in that, And a lot
of that also includes Fox News full disclosure.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I was a Fox News guest for two years before
I ever came to MSNBC. So, but do you.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Find that people say the same thing that you know
that they're replacing MSNBC quite honestly with.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
You, Yeah, I think you're right that, you know, kind
of a big value to it is putting the clips
out there so people can react to them on their own,
you know, without being kind of filtered through cable, you know,
and especially with the way that social media works, people
being able to share clips across different platforms and things
like that. You know, I'll see my clips sometimes, kind
(12:54):
of something I post on X, I'll see on TikTok
or you know, see it over on Blue Sky things
like that.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So yeah, I mean, I think you're you're right.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I mean, I still watch a lot of cables, so
you're certainly correct about the ratings aspect that they've gone down.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
The way that I kind of filtered through the noise
just so I can keep things manageable, is I really
focus on the guests that are on you know, so
for instance, like if if Tom Emmer is on CNN,
you know, I'll be sure to tune in because that's
probably going to be a newsmaking interview because you know,
despite CNN's problems, they still you know, some of their
hosts will do a good job interviewing those guests. So
I'm not necessarily seeing like every last bit of the
(13:29):
commentary on there, just because I couldn't possibly watch all
of that across all the different networks. But then you know,
like you have days like today where you know there
are multiple kind of high profile hearings going on, and
then of course you know the Prime Minister of Canada, Marcarney,
is going to the White House. So you know, a
big part of kind of the challenge is just you know,
I'm one person and trying to kind of figure out
what to pay attention to because you know, there's just
(13:50):
not enough hours in the day to pay attention to everything.
And so you know, I think over almost a decade
now of doing this, I've gotten good at that.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It's the same sort of editorial judgment that any sort
of journalist makes, you know, in terms of what's your
thing attention to what's worth amplifying and what's ultimately worth
writing about and sharing with your audience. So you know,
it's certainly way more of an art than a science.
But you're right that, you know, I think a lot
of people do find value, whether it's myself or Asen
or other people who clip and you know, being able
to see the real article for themselves and not have
(14:21):
it filtered through reporters, you know that the text, you know,
kind of explaining it through text or paraphrasing, you know,
I think people generally like to see, you know, the
actual video for themselves.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
And draw their own conclusions from there.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Wait, I just heard something you said that really surprised me.
What's your collection methodology? Sorry speaking spy talk here, right,
what's your collection method Are you really by yourself doing that?
Speaker 4 (14:44):
I would have a team of people.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Monitoring twenty four to seven with you know, doing recording
off of this.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
I mean I do have recordings, so you know, like
like snapstream, which is the main service that I use,
you know, records all the cable channels at least, you know.
Now when it comes to you know, webstreams and things
like that, it gets a little more complex, although obviously
YouTube is a pretty good resource for that. You know,
most things live in some form or another on YouTube
these days. But no, I don't have a team, you know,
with my newsletter, I do have a team of contributors
(15:17):
who you know, write for the newsletter and then I
I edit that. But you know, and I've thought about
that because you know, my business is at a point
where I probably could hire someone. But you know, there's
kind of like, you know, some certain efficiencies that that
work out well for me.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Doing it on my own.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
And you know, like I said, I have kind of
a process for it that I've honed over many years
that I think, you know, allows me within like a
reasonable timeframe of you know, I don't know, ten eleven
hours a day. I certainly work more than eight hours
a day, but you know, I try not to work
the entire day because I have two little kids as well,
so you know, I try to keep it, you know,
kind of within the realm of manageability, not always you know,
(15:53):
having a ton of success with that, because certainly last
year during the campaign, I mean the last couple of months,
I was putting in real long days because I was
trying to watch every campaign event that I could and
and clip it, you know, as much as possible. And then,
of course, you know, I think there was a kind
of the expectation, or at least the hope that, oh,
you know, I Kamala wins, things will be a little
more calm in twenty twenty five and kind of revert
back to normal. But nope, you know, it's it's crazier
(16:13):
than ever, and so there really wasn't much rest for
the weary. There was, you know, maybe a couple of
weeks over the holidays, and then we're right back in
the thick of it, and yeah, I think we will
be pretty much foreseeably here, you know, twenty twenty eight,
not to mention, you know, twenty twenty six is a
long ways away.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Not to mention twenty twenty eight at this point.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Okay, let's just not talk about that. I'm trying to
get through twenty twenty five. Twenty twenty five could be
a revolutionary year, and I mean that. You know, there
are people out there who were you know, who were
doing this. You know, they they're rejecting everything they're seeing.
And I've said on air, you know, in interviews that
(16:52):
a color revolution is coming to America.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
People power is not putting up with what they're seeing.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
That being said, uh, you understand, you know, you're sort
of like me, right, you understand the way that the
opponents here, right, the opposition think, and you also can
easily over time divine. Fox News is in one America
network and uh, you know what's news the newsmax methodology.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
What is the most insidious thing that you see.
Speaker 4 (17:24):
About how they do their reporting?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
That's interesting, you know, I think that there is the
very standard tactic of deflection that you see that I
you know, I see this. It's it's on right when
cable news, but you see it with Republicans as well,
and even you know, people in day to day life
who encounter who are right leaning or you know, who
vote for Republicans, where instead of you know, ever kind
of addressing an issue on the merit on the merits,
it's kind of you know, we see this with the
(17:48):
economy now where it's like, oh, but you know, you
weren't complaining when inflation was bad under Biden, and you know,
it's like always this technique of instead of actually engaging,
you know, on the merits with an issue or with
something that's not going well in society. It's like, you know,
kind of going back to the most recent example of
something similar happening when a Democrat was in power and
kind of holding that up as though it justifies what's
(18:09):
happening now. And so there's you know, I think it's
just that's kind of one example, but you know, just
the pervasive intellectual dishonesty that you see with right wing media.
And you know, I guess like for me, the people
who consume Fox News Newsmax, I mean, those people are lost,
like they're not going to vote for Democrats. I'm more
interested in that because of what the Republicans who are
(18:30):
on there are saying, you know, you know, they go
on CNN, they go on MSBC sometimes are challenged about
some of these things, and that can be interesting. That's
kind of where the conflict. You know, there's a lot
of conflict in that. There's a lot of interesting clips
that can come from that. I'm not so interested all
the time and like the spin and maybe that Fox offers,
and maybe that's because I've been watching it for so long,
but a lot of it is like super predictable, and
(18:52):
it's still you know, to this day, when topics pertaining
to the economy, to tariffs, you know, the stock market dip,
inflationary press.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Sure, it's still.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Very standard kind of like what about Biden deflection that
you see, right, and that's to me is like entirely predictable.
But it is a very kind of insidious mode of
intellectual dishonesty that I think allows people on the right
to sort of avoid ever really engaging with the consequences
of their voting decisions or the politicians that they support.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
So, yeah, you know, you mentioned the color Revolution thing.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I mean, you know, I guess I'm a little bit
more skeptical of that simply because you know, when you
look at the polling, you know, Trump's He's still within
kind of the band of normalcy for him. So the
thing that I'm really looking for, you know, looking toward
here the next couple of weeks to a month, is
now that we're getting reports of like these ships coming
over from China that don't really have products in them
because of basically the embargo that we have on China
(19:42):
at this point, Like, are those Walmart shoppers going to
be hit? Like are they going to go to Walmart
and see that the things that they're used to buying,
are more expensive, or they aren't there. That's the sort
of development I think that could really kind of like
put Trump's support through the floor that we've seen over
the last decade that he has. We still have the
same kind of polarization that we've had for about a day,
where like people like you and me, I mean, we're
horrified by Trump. How can people possibly tolerate this? But
(20:06):
you know we still like thirty eight, thirty nine, forty
percent approval. You know, it's kind of the same fault
lines that we've always seen. You know, if the midterms
are next week, I think it'd be really bad for Republicans.
But I'm not seeing such an erosion of support at
this point that I'm expecting, you know, like a call
revolution really people to you know, take to the streets.
So but but again, I think there are dynamics, like
I was saying with with some of the trade stuff,
with the economics of this, where you know, if things
(20:28):
do get really bad, I think that's the sort of
thing that it's going to take, you know, for the
bottom the kind of fall out of Trump support, right,
And it seems like there's potential for that to happen
over you know, this summer, So that's really you know,
it's not gonna happen tomorrow. But you know, again, it's
those people who go to Walmart in communities like the
one I'm living in a disorda right now, where like
if their lives are made worse off by the trade policies,
then I think we're kind of in a new, uncharted
(20:50):
territory because they didn't really experience that the first term
until COVID, and I think a lot of people kind
of wanted to excuse a COVID thing as like, oh,
it was this international calamity and like none of the
governments really handled it well, so it really wasn't Trump's fault.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Even though we know better. So that's kind of my
macro view of the situation right now.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You know, May tenth is what they said, is one
of the senior shipping analysts out there said, is the
last ship to the United States from China that had.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Pre tariff materials on it.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
And there are no ships that left Shanghai or left
other ports for China for the West coast of the
United States. And I think a few ships that'll be
left over that go through the Panama Canal that will
go to the Bayonne, New Jersey and Charleston and then
that's it. There are no containers coming to the United
(21:42):
States post code, you know, post COVID.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Listen to me, post the tariff said, you know, and
you're right.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I mean, I can look out that window there and see,
you know, the top of a Walmart about a mile
away from my house, and you know, Trump's base r
Walmart shoppers and no one else.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
You know, well, that's not true entirely.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
He has that middle upper middle class, you know, you know,
guys with a big bass boat and a second.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
House on the cape and things like that. You know,
let me rephrase that, white guys with those things.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
And you know, and those guys are also diehard loyalists ideologically,
because he represents.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Them as an avatar.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
And you know, the Walmart shoppers, as the old joke goes,
they're just millionaires that are down on their luck. And
in theory, they should be buying those same fixtures from home.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Depot that he's put in the Oval office.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
And you can buy that spray, you know, that same.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Gold tip paint at Low's and then you'll be like
Donald Trump in your trailer park. So the problem is,
as you said quite rightly, and this is where what
we would call maritime and now you know maritime trade analysis.
You know, our intelligence agencies monitor all of this stuff, right,
you know, we use intelligence to remintain competitive in the
(23:05):
economic market. So if there's some Saudi princes going to
raise oil prices, we already know about it and we
generally try to use that. I don't see any of that, see,
any of that market intelligence is completely discounted by these people. Now,
as you monitor Fox the way we would have monitored
Pravda or Iraq television.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
It's this crazy we have to talk like this. But
as you monitor these guys, you.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Know, I know that when the market took that big
dip when it went from forty four thousand down to
thirty six thousand, they just didn't play it right. They
didn't play the ticker at all on the Dow Jones
Industrial and then they downplayed or they just did they
just like blank face reported you know, the actual reality
(23:59):
and then jump back into their North Korean news rah
rah routine.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
How did that go off? I mean, I clips, but
you watch all of it, so.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
I feel Yeah, so Fox News pretty much ignored it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
But you know, Fox Business, I thought I thought Fox
Business the coverage was somewhat interesting, you know, And I've
made the joke in the past that you know, Fox
Business is basically Fox News with the stock ticker.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
You know, it's the same sort of material.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
You got, you know, Maria Bartiromo and Larry Cudlow and
you know, these people beat these people could you know,
they could fill it on Fox News and no one
would you know, really miss a beat on that. But
you know, the thing that that actually did kind of
hammer home a little bit to me is that with
bad economic news, it's a little harder to spin just
because it's like quantified, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
They're they're actual numbers in terms of, oh, the market.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Was here and then it went down to here, and
you know, they did try a few tricks like I
you know, I tweeted about this where Fox Business was
only showing the NASDAC for a while and not the
because the number was smaller.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
So it was like and I was.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Wondering, mose people don't watch the nasdack.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
I was, and and you know, so they had the
NAZAC and then they had you know, the NAZAQ was
down three hundred points or whatever, and the Dow was
down a thousand, but since the Nasdaq was a smaller number,
I was kind of wondering if that was like a
subtle sleight of hand where people are just scanning the
screen they'd say, oh, the market's a little bit down today,
but not as bad as you know, the Dow number
looked like. But then you know, you did have because
(25:19):
I think the North Korea comparison, you know, it's kind
of an interesting one because you know, you would see
during the days where the market was really taking, hosts
like Cudlow or Maria barts Romo kind of under their breath,
almost kind of being like, you know, they do interviews
with Republicans and sort of you know, they ask these
questions about like how much pain do you really think
people are going to be willing to tolerate here? You know,
(25:41):
and then you know, the kind of criticizing the policy
without like directly criticizing it. And some of the Russings
they would ask their guests, for instance, so there was
you know where it was like, you know that they
wanted to say that the emperor had no clothes, but
they were kind of scared to and so they kind
of danced around it, and so that that was interesting
to me that even some of the like you know,
the MAGA friendly hosts, couldn't really totally hide the fact
(26:06):
that they had some misgivings with the economic policy. And
now because the market has gone up a little bit,
you know, I think they've been able to kind of
move past that, or it's not the tariffs aren't like
a dominating topic like they were right after Liberation Day,
so to speak, on April two. But you know that's
where again, you know, if we see kind of the
tail of this over the next few weeks, where there
starts to be shortages or inflation, the market takes another dip.
(26:29):
You know, you can see even in the initial coverage
of that first dip that there were some cracks forming.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
People weren't thrilled.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
I mean, you had guys like Ron Johnson, for instance,
who's gone on Fox Business and said, straight up, I'm
hearing from manufacturers in my state that will not be
able to hold on two three months if these tariffs
stay in place. So you know, that's where it's it's
easy to spin certain things like you know, during COVID,
like the number of cases and things like that. You know,
people kind of saw through some of the spin, but
(26:56):
you know, they got away with a lot of spinning
of that stuff. When it comes to mark kids, when
it comes to people losing their jobs, businesses closing, these
are things that people see in their communities and it's
kind of undeniable. And so you know to me that
that's where there's a real danger in this economic policy
for Trump is because you know, he's kind of putting
himself in a spot where even people who have supported
him all the way down the line, you are being
(27:18):
put in a spot now where it's like this is
kind of too much for me. So you know, we'll
see how the next few weeks plays out.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Last question, and this is a serious one because I'm
really starting to absorb how you're saying this because I
have had to watch opposition TV, right Libyan tell you know,
Jamaharia State Television and all these things, and you know,
the thing is is that we have secret information where
we know the truth, right, and how are they going
(27:45):
to spin that out to their public? That the two
thousand pound bombs that are being dropped on Tripoli air
for it, as of right now.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Is a good thing. So what are we seeing?
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Are we good?
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Can I expect to see that Fox News is going
to start spinning poverty is patriotism?
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Take the pain.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
This is a great thing for America. You're losing your
four oh one K is not bad.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
You have to do this tip.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Take one for the gipper. Are you seeing that they're
already doing that?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
There are?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
And you know it was really telling Representative David Joyce,
a Republican representative.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
He was on CNN yesterday and he was doing the
you know, like I.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Think people understand because this is a time of shared sacrifice,
and Americans have always sacrificed for the greater good kind
of thing, and it's like, what is the greater good here?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Though?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
You know, like it's one thing to sacrifice during a
world war or you know these times of like great
conflict where there's some sort of objective that we're striving toward,
but like we're sacrificing for tax cuts for the rich. Basically, like,
what is this trade war even really over? I mean,
I think it's largely about Trump wanting to kind of
turn the whole economy into a sort of protection racket
(28:56):
where these companies or countries have to come to him
and basically beg for him to do.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Favors for them. You know. I think that's a big
part of it.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Also, you know the tax cuts thing, you know, that's
kind of the end when we get to the medicaid
and this reconciliation build where they're gonna cut the safety net,
Like that's kind of the end goal there.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
So we're already seeing some of that. You know, this
this mentality of like short term pain, long term gain.
But I think because the long term gain is like
so nebulous, and this idea that we're going to bring
you know, garment factories back to the US or something
like that, Yeah, I's like, even if that was something
that we wanted to do, that's gonna happen over you know,
many years to a decade plus.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Like, people don't have that much patience for this, So
I think they're going to try, you know, and I
think maybe right now it kind of works a little
bit because people haven't experienced the true pain of the
tariffs yet. But when we do get to a spot
where people are feeling pain, I don't think that talking point,
you know, and you probably have your twenty percent of
the hardcore base for trumpers that will go along with that,
(29:56):
but I think for the voters that actually decide elections
in the middle, I don't think going to buy that.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Well. Aaron Ruppar, thank you so much for coming on
black Man Spy today. I know you got a heart.
You got to go out and monitor the today's crazy.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
I'm going to be watching what goes on with the
ambassador or with the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Karney.
But you know, I hope someday we can get back together,
and I think we should take up a joint fund
to buy Caroline Levitt one of those North Korean kimonos
so that she is properly dressed for her role and
she doesn't have to wear Chinese clothes. So thank you
(30:30):
again for coming onto the show today.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Malcome great talking with you and happy'd be happy to
do it again down the line.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
All right, thanks, welcome to burn Bag of the Week.
This is my special section where I give someone who's
in the national security world the how can I put it,
the recognition that they deserve and in the intelligence community.
As you know, if you've been watching black Man's Spot,
people who we don't appreciate activities we don't appreciate, and
(30:58):
events that we try to prevent that will cause harm
or is based on the laws of stupidity are generally
referred to as burn bags.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
What's a burn bag? This is a burn bag.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
This is the burn bags from my office.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
A burn bag is a receptacle in which we placed
highly classified or ridiculously stupid trash into it.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Staple it up, fold it over, take it to.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
The slide down, to the furnace or the destructor, and
we get rid of it forever.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
And this week burn Bag of the Week.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Goes again to Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of the Secretary
of Defense, Malcolm, what did he do now?
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Did he have another signal chat?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Why? Yes, he did.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
He had well with his wife and his brother and
others with top secret information about US strikes flying around.
And then we're finding out he had more signal chats
on an app that was completely and totally unsecure.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
But that's not why he's burned Bag of the Week
this week.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I could have him as burn Bag of the Hour
for the next five years if I had to go
through everything this young major in the National Guard had.
What he decided to do this week was to decapitate
the Pentagon's leadership by getting rid of twenty percent of
(32:22):
all the flag ranked officers, that's general officers in the
armed forces. And you can be sure he started with
all the women and all the blacks, all the minorities,
no matter what their standard is.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
This guy cares not a wit for the force. He
is like one, two, three, four.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Five, six levels lower than the lower you know, than
of the people.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
That he's out firing simply because he was a Fox
News host who has an alleged drinking problem.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Well, apparently he must be drinking heavy.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
If he thinks he's going to streamline the Pentagons by
getting rid of all the decision makers in not a
five hundred billion dollar organization for what is now budgeted
this year alone, for a one trillion dollar organization, which
means morons at the colonel level who should be handling
(33:19):
things at the colonel level or the lieutenant colonel level,
will now have to start taking care of making decisions
on tens of billions of dollars where generals general staffs
would have been represented. Because that's what happens when you
have a mid level officer who should have no right
to be anywhere near the civilian position of Secretary of
(33:43):
the State decide he's going to dismantle the Department of Defense,
and so Pete Hags if we are going to start
getting some cutouts and throwing you into the burn bank.
But you are once again burn Bag of the week. Congratulations,
you played yourself. Thanks for attending. This week's episode of
Black Man's Spy is a shorter one, but we know
(34:05):
you have things to do.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
And I want to thank you for coming.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
Be sure to watch and subscribe on YouTube, Substack, blue Sky.
Every once in the very great while I'm on Twitter
or x I really just stay on there control people.
But if you really want to hear and see the best,
watch me on YouTube and watch my substack app. Become
a subscriber on substack. Become a subscriber on YouTube. I
(34:32):
am going to be reporting to you next from the
great country of Greenland, because once again President Donald Trump
has pretty much said he is not ruling out using
military force to seize Greenland, you know, the country that
is part of Denmark, and I'm going to be going
(34:54):
there via Copenhagen to meet the people, to see the land,
see the terrain, and to give you a on the
ground perspective of just absolutely.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
How hard this idea is of going to a.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Country with people who are full of polar bear hunting
rifles and just walking in and seizing the place. I
can't believe the words are coming out of my mouth,
but that's what I'm going to do for you, my
lovely followers of Black Man Spy. So see me next
week in Greenland. Thanks again, and I'll be putting my
(35:32):
long underwear on so you don't have to
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