(upbeat music) - Hey everybody, welcome to the weekend to our edition of my podcast, My Dear Dave Sexton. Nick, we got it, we got a humdinger of a show today. - And is there any better juxtaposition than hearing you crack open a beer while I'd sip my juice as part of my juice cleanse, my three day? - Oh, trying everybody, the rumors are true. Nick is currently on a juice cleanse. - Yeah, and I'm almost done, I cannot wait, and I'm actually feeling pretty good. - I've never done a juice cleanse, and I can't imagine I'm going to, but I'm happy for you. - Thank you, thank you for being happy for me. - When we were in Chicago, I will never forget Nick, you were like, you know what, I'm really enjoying Pepsi right now, I'm a Coke guy, but I'm really enjoying Pepsi right now. I was like, there is a juice cleanse that is up ahead, no doubt about it. - Well, yeah, but you had a factory and I had Italian beef, and I had a pool of sausage, and we had Geordown, it's pizza, and like it was a non-stop fest of Chicago food, so yes, it was needed. - It was needed, you are making it through the juice cleanse, we are all making it through the juice cleanse with you, my friend. Listen, we got so much to talk about today, you're going to want to hear this episode. patreon.com/muckregpodcast, become a subscriber, listen to the Weekender, also next week, Tuesday night after this supposed debate, Nick and I are going to be coming at you live with our analysis, our reaction, and by the way, Nick, everybody's been saying we have the best analysis post shows that are available, such one of the reasons why this show is growing, I think people are going to want to be there. - I would hope so, and they're going to, because yeah, we've always had these great things, great analysis immediately afterwards, and also the juxtaposition of our stuff with what you might watch on TV is-- - It's, uh, there's no real comparison. - Probably not. - Yeah, unless you want to watch the same old retreads with the same old shallow analysis. Nick, we got so much, we got Tucker talking to a Nazi apologist, which by the way, there's so much meat on that bone. We've got Venezuelan gangs taking over Aurora, Colorado question mark. We've got the GOP, like, they're defecting everybody. The Republicans are coming over, they're supporting Kamala Harris. Obviously, this election has taken care of, I don't even know why we have to talk about this, it's almost like it isn't true. But before we begin, Nick, this story, the more that comes out about this, the wilder it gets, the Department of Justice has rolled out a case that two Russian nationals, Konstantia, Kalishnikov, and Elena Afishiniva, that they have been working on behalf of the Russian government, Putin, more or less, and have spent tens of millions of dollars by investing in a group called Tenant Media. Now, you probably haven't heard of Tenant Media, you're probably thinking, wait, are we talking about that terrible movie that nobody could follow that seemed interesting, looked good, but had no idea what was going on? Also, by the way, the sound mixing was awful in that movie. - Oh, I was worried that you were gonna like that movie. - Oh, that movie looked good, felt good at times, real mess, real mess. We're not talking about the movie, Tenant. We were talking about a media conglomerate, a ramshackle group that has apparently been an investment vessel from the Republican, what a Freudian slip from Russian nationalists and people wanting to interfere in American politics. And Nick, there's an all-star lineup of people who have apparently been paid by Russia to promote Russian talking points, conspiracy theories, and propaganda. Let's take a look, we got Tim Poole, we got Dave Rubin, we got Lauren Chin, who was just fired by the blaze for her part in this entire thing. - Oh. - Nick, this is a massive, massive revelation. And there is so much to discuss here, but obviously, we knew stuff like this was going on. We've talked about it in the past where we've said, these people don't actually have people who support them. They're getting tons of money funneled into them, whether or not it's like tobacco corporations, billionaires trying to put their ideas, or foreign nationals who are trying to change the discourse. And here it is laid out in black and white. This is an astounding revelation. - And just for the record, I would have easily done this for only $50,000 in this episode, Jared, I don't need 100, I would do 50, easy. I would, you know, spread some rapid Russian propaganda? Sure, I mean, can you believe the numbers here? I have to imagine it's how they got caught, right? In my way, in case you're listening at the eye, like, no, we would not do that, but-- - No, we won't do this. And by the way, if we show up, like in a couple of weeks, and we're like, have you all visited Jordan lately? There's so much cool stuff happening in Jordan. Like, watch us on YouTube, I will blink three times, call in a wellness check. - Yeah, makes sure we're okay. But I have to imagine they got caught because when you're transferring those large sums like that, the red flag comes up and then they happen to notice that this company in America is depositing similar sums in their accounts, that would probably lead to some sort of investigation. But, you know, it all tracks, it all makes sense. You know, if you ever listen to Tim Poole, it was weird that some of our left field stuff where he would just suddenly become very pro-Russian, very anti-Ukraine, you know, hard to imagine that would happen in any other way, but non-organically. - Well, so in a lot of ways, man, there's so much to dissect here. First things first, the right is aligned with Russia ideologically, right? Like, it's the same conspiracy theories, it's the same illiberal democratic pushes that they have, they think that white wealthy men should rule everything, that they should plunder everybody's wealth, that they should oppress people and have total control in the democracy as a sham. Those ideas are completely aligned. That is the reason why the Republican party agrees more with Vladimir Putin than they do. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, you name it. But also, by the way, there's a lot of ill-gotten blood money to go around. One of the problems whenever Russia invaded Ukraine is that the Western world had come to depend on blood money-driven Russian donations. Whether or not it was laundering money through real estate, apartments, condos, you name it. Our financial institutions were absolutely afloat with this stuff. I would be shocked if this was an isolated incident. First things first. Like, this is all over the place. And by the way, we don't even have the beginnings of an understanding of what crypto, how that has played a role in all of this. And we talk about this all the time. Like, these people don't have actual audiences and yet their reach is massive because it's being amplified and amplified. On the subject of Tim Poole, no. And I'm gonna read his statement on this in just a second. I wanna say, first of all, Tim Poole is an actual idiot. Like, he's one of the least intelligent personalities that you can find anywhere. And the fact that he was more than happy to cash these giant extravagant checks and basically serve as a parrot for these people without really asking what was going on. So you basically have two things, Nick. And I wanna read this statement and then we can talk about it. This is from Tim Poole. Should these allegations prove true, I as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims. I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or what they are instructed. The Culture War podcast was licensed by tenant media, existed well before, yada, yada, yada. So here we have it from Tim Poole who says that he played no role in this whatsoever. Let's listen to what Tim Poole has said in his position here. And then let's think about whether or not this is even the beginnings of an excuse. - But I don't know that it matters anymore. This is psychotic. Ukraine is the enemy of this country. Ukraine is our enemy being funded by the Democrats. I will stress this again. One of the greatest enemies of our nation right now is Ukraine. They are expanding this war. Now don't get me wrong, I know. You've got criminal elements of the US government pushing them and guiding them and telling them what to do. Ukraine is now accused, a German war issued for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline triggering this conflict. - All right, we can stop there because, you know, he wants to make it seem like the Nord Stream blowing up the pipeline was what triggered this and what caused Putin to go into Ukraine. - Incredible mind palace. - Well, yeah, or the 100,000, 100 Gs were-- - More than that, oh, he made much more than that. Nick, let me ask you a question. So on one hand, somebody says you were paid by Russia to spout Russian propaganda in America. And on the other hand, you say, no, I wasn't forced to do this. I did this naturally, it just so happened that Russia was paying me to do it. How is that any better? - Right, so he's trying to, I guess, insist that he believes in what he was saying. - Yes, I was willingly trafficking Russian propaganda. It just happened that they recognized that I was a useful idiot. Who in the world thinks that any of this is a good explanation? - I think it's desperation at this point. And what you said earlier is true. I think that it will have more. I think there'll be more of these kind of people coming out. - And I think part of the thing that we have to recognize, and we've sort of touched on this a little bit before, but it needs reiterating and also explored. Nick, the people who are doing this, they honestly do not care how much damage they're doing. You know what I mean? When someone like Alex Jones gets on the radio and spouts these terribly racist, sexist, xenophobic ideas, transphobic ideas. Like it does not enter his mind. I'm hurting people here. What enters his mind is this is going to make me wealthy and this is going to make me powerful. There's something missing there. Do you know what I'm saying? Like before you and I get on here in order to talk, I don't know about you. I think about what we're going to talk about. I think about what my responsibilities are. I think about what I'm communicating. I want to get it accurate. I also want to be a good human being while I'm doing that and help. That never factors into it. The defining shared characteristic of the right wing is a desire for wealth and power that trumps literally everything else, including not just the fate of your nation, but also the fates of human beings. - I mean, for sure. It's not bad enough that Putin wants to interfere in our society, in our elections, all these different things, but now they're able to find Americans who are willing to do that as well and basically, you can argue it's violating their oath of being a citizen here. And the other thing that's interesting is that, I don't, the true or false, in 2015, somewhere early in 2015, Vladimir Putin woke up from his, in his palace. - From his coffin. - And he sat up, shook off the eons and yeah. - He had an idea and he said, we're going to interfere with the American election starting right now. True or false, do you think that happened in 2016, 2015? - I think it happened well before that. - Oh yeah. - And because we're having this conversation. I want to give a little bit of context, Nick. America has been doing this for decades. They've been interfering in other elections and other political elections for decades. This is part of the problem, is that this has turned into a larger game of power that has now brought us here. And part of the issue is that we saw someone like Vladimir Putin and we were like, yeah, this guy would be perfect. He will be a great caretaker of capitalism in the new Russia. So all of this stuff is a lot of chickens coming home to roost. And you're right, it did not start in 2015. This has been growing for a while. The first Republicans to go over to Russia and hang out with Vladimir Putin, like much earlier than 2015. This has been brewing for a while. - Oh, and they've been inserting themselves, not with social media before that even existed, but they've been able to have campaigns that will influence Americans for since the '80s. I mean, listen, they were doing Trump. - Nick, they were doing this back in like the '50s, in the '40s and the '50s. Let me tell you, there were communists within the New Deal administration. There were communists in the labor movements. There were, like, it goes back to the beginning of communism. This stuff has been the give and take. It doesn't discredit certain things, but this has been a long going, ongoing thing. Both sides going back and forth. - Right, and so it's not surprising that, like, as this pump has been primed for all these decades, that it, like, gets to a critical mass where someone asked, "Oh, Tim Poole can get out there," and starts spouting out about Russia and how, you know, it's really the radically corrupt, Ukrainian officials who are just taking all the money we're giving and spending it or sashing it away in private accounts, you know, that makes it so easy for people to believe that at this point, because they've been built the whole time. It's what they want. And by the way, there is a larger existential question here and it's Trump, it's Tim Poole, it's all these assholes. We're gonna talk about Tucker Carlson here in just a couple of minutes. They didn't spring out of nowhere, right? What happened was that American democracy and representative government got to the point where, like, nobody expected anything to get better, so they just wanted people to tell them the things that they wanted to hear. And so now you have, like, an entire culture that is just like listening to stuff that is pleasing to them. We'll talk about this more when we get into Venezuelan gangs, you know, rampaging around Aurora, Colorado. It is a larger existential problem, which is that this Republican Party exists because it has a base to represent. There's a reason why they're able to do this. Like, Tim Poole is not talented. If you have ever watched or listened to him more than five minutes and God help you if you have, this guy's not talented, but he's incredibly wealthy because there is a market opportunity. And by the way, Russia has taken advantage of that market opportunity. They've invested in it, they've exploited it the same way that Donald Trump has invested in it and exploited it and it's been a cycle. - I never would have thought, I remember in 2015 or 2016 when all the Russia stuff started coming out and you saw the right response in a big shrug. And I never understood that 'cause it was like, isn't it in the cockles of their mind, like Russia or Soviet Union bad? Like, we're not supposed to like that interference and that stuff. And already we're ready to dismiss it and call it a hoax despite all the mounting evidence that we've had across the board with it. That was the one thing on my bingo card. I don't think I ever really could have predicted, but I suppose it does make sense long enough time and the board knows that Russia/Soviet Union can play a long game. You've been listening to the free part of this episode. 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