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Good night and good luck. Hey folks, it's Rick Wilson. Welcome back to the Lincoln Project Podcast. We have 25 days left until the election and the defeat of Donald J. Trump for the second time. I want to talk about the elephant in the room this week and it's just the
constellation of disinformation, lies, propaganda, and frankly, bullshit that has become the defining characteristic of everything on the right, everything around Trump, every word out of his mouth now is some sort of lurid conspiracy. And the people who are major players in today's Republican Party who have adopted this philosophy that you could lie your ass off and no one will ever find out.
So what do we see this week? Well, first off, a massive hurricane in the Gulf, a Cat 5 hurricane in the Gulf, hit Florida as a Cat 3 just south of Tampa in the Sarasota-Bradenton area. And before it hit, we had Marjorie Taylor Greene again talking about they control the weather and that they were sending hurricanes to go to red areas of the state.
First off, Tampa itself is a blue area, but let's set that aside for a moment. The idea that you have people like Marjorie Taylor Greene who obviously have no knowledge of meteorology, climatology, oceanography, physics, math in any sort of rigorous degree, the idea that you have some sort of mysterious machine
that can cause something the size and scope and destructiveness of a hurricane is, of course, a lurid fantasy. It is, of course, insane because they're insane. But the problem with it is now, particularly because of Twitter, which I will never refer to it by the other name until you put a gun to my head and I'm not going to refer to it by the other name. The problem now is that Twitter has become a cesspool
of misinformation and disinformation. And when these people say things, they become amplified. You're implying that the government made a hurricane stronger to hurt its own country, the United States of America? Correct. They become hyper-distributed. They become something that, because of the oppositional defiant cult disorder nature of Trumpism and MAGA, they'll defend these insanities
Until the last dog dies, because now they feel like if they admit it, that it's a lie, if they admit that it's BS, if they admit that it's garbage conspiracy theory, that somehow the libs will win. That somehow that is a concession to reality they just can't make. And I get why they don't want to make concessions to reality, because reality has a known bias against MAGA.
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This idea, however, that there's no consequence to this is really dangerous. You had people in North Carolina who are now saying they don't want aid from FEMA because it's poisoned or that the government's there to steal their lithium. And what used to be on the very edge cases is now more and more in the center of a political movement that represents about 35% of the people in the country. That should scare the hell out of you.
That should scare the hell out of you. These people up in the hollers in North Carolina, and believe me, I know this area they're in, Burnsville, I know it very well. They're saying they don't want help from FEMA and the government because they're hearing on Facebook and on social media that this is some sort of plot to kill them and take them away from their homes and seize the land for the government. Y'all, if the government wanted to seize your land, they would just do it.
They don't need to use their Jewish weather machine space lasers to create a hurricane, to create a mudslide, to take you out of your home. Grow up. But I know, it's easier to think that way. Conspiracies have an appeal to people who are not smart, who are not educated. Why is that? Conspiracies feel like they give you a cohesive explanation of the world that you couldn't come to on your own knowledge.
They wrap things up in a bundle. The world is a big, gray, messy place, but conspiracy theories always have an explanation. They always have an endpoint. They always have something where people can say, "Ah, that's why it's happening. That's why this is going on." That's not always how it works in the world. It's rarely, in fact, how it works in the world.
When you look at these conspiracies that are being promulgated by the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world, by the crazies, they're running right into hard realities. So one of the reasons we didn't get a FEMA vote in Congress last week when Mike Johnson could have voted on the budget to fund FEMA is
And people in the Republican Party almost universally voted against it, including seven Republican congressmen and women in the path of Hurricane Helene and Milton. They voted against spending money on FEMA because they think it's part of the deep state. I'll give you a perfect example. One of the worst members of the MAGA caucus is a woman named Anna Paulina Luna, represents the 13th District down in Florida, votes against FEMA.
It promulgates all this, you know, hatred of the government. Fine. It's your right. Do it all you want. But you're a member of Congress. After Hurricane Helene blows through, causing a lot of damage to the Tampa area, not as much as North Carolina, but still a lot of damage, where she represents in the 13th District down in Clearwater, Tampa, St. Pete area.
She votes against FEMA. She then, while a new hurricane is coming, goes to North Carolina to campaign with Donald Trump while a new hurricane is coming. I do believe that they've intentionally, and this is my opinion, not helped out those residents because it's red communities that are impacted. Let's call a spade a spade. When they get hit this week by Milton, she races back and she's like, oh, we need FEMA aid right now. Why aren't we getting our FEMA aid? Why isn't FEMA helping us?
You know, irony isn't just for dinner anymore, Anna. The remarkable part of this is that this is going to replicate over and over again. It's going to happen again and again. This is not the climate we grew up with. It's not the climate that we're accustomed to. And so when you've got Cat 3 and 4 and 5 hurricanes popping up in the Gulf now because the Gulf is so, so, so, so hot, right?
We're going to have to address it somehow. And the idea that you're going to pretend that these are caused by Jewish space lasers being steered into red areas of Florida is both a lie, a ludicrous lie, an insane lie, and something that's really twisted and effed up about these people.
They would much rather have the lie. They'd much rather have the conspiracy. They'd much rather have the imaginary demon stalking them than to face facts and face reality and be adults and be grownups and actually represent the people of their districts and actually do the work and actually get out there and reflect what their people need.
You know what? The people of the 13th District this week didn't need Annapolina Luna in North Carolina trying out to be the next long, dark-haired, thin influencer to be Trump's next wife.
She was up there playing the Alina Haba role who had been replaced by Laura Loomer. So I guess that audition got cut a little short. But these people don't need to be doing this. They don't need to lie to their own constituents. They don't need to lie to themselves. They don't need to lie on social media. You don't need to rely on conspiracy theories to have a cohesive vision of the world.
The National Weather Service isn't some part of a deep state cabal trying to impose libtard values on hardworking red-boned Americans. That theory is insane. Insanity is not your friend. Conspiracy theories that require bank shots of dozens and dozens or thousands and thousands of different moving parts and people never hold up. No conspiracy works. You know, the old rule of three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead is real.
There is no conspiracy to alter the weather. There is no conspiracy to change the weather. And that's an irony here because if you don't believe in climate change, then how is it that we're altering the humans? If humans can't alter the climate, then how are we altering the climate to cause hurricanes and steer them toward people?
The degree of insanity in this is robust and remarkable. The degree of pernicious influence it has on the lives of people is robust and remarkable. I don't, I don't, look, the world is complex. And if people want to shortcut sometimes on that complexity, it's one thing. But when it costs lives, but when people don't evacuate because they're told the storm is fake, right?
When people don't accept help when their home's been crushed in a mudslide, but they don't want to take that UN food aid, which has the hormones in it that puts a 5G chip in their body, all these crazy things. My father-in-law lives just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, and he was badly damaged by Hurricane Helene.
And he has refused all FEMA help because he's a hardcore Trumper. And he believes, he literally believes that if he accepts anything from FEMA, they're going to take his house. They're not good for the body politic of America. We all have plans in life. Maybe to take a cross-country road trip or simply get through this workout without any back pain.
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was fighting about ideas and issues again, where they weren't talking about, you know, is George Soros secretly controlling the weather? These things are madness. It's madness. But the number one guy who promotes this and promulgates these things, and not always by the same exact line that Cat Turd perhaps is taking, is Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump has told Republicans over and over again, the truth doesn't matter. He told Republicans over and over again that if you lie and get away with it,
It's not only a good thing, but it shows your superiority in politics. Trump lies in ways that are not measurable anymore by scientific instruments. He lies in ways that are so extraordinary and constant and consistent and persistent that this country is going to have to unwind them for a long time. I want to tell you about a lie he got caught up in this week. Bob Woodward's new book, War, is coming out.
And it's about the first years of the Biden administration, but also the unwinding of Trump's terrible, horrible, no good legacy. We learned a few things in the book. One of which is he's been on the phone with Vladimir Putin seven times at least since 2020. Skipping the Logan Act violation assertion, which I think is valid. Skipping the inappropriateness of talking to a foreign dictator who is, at the time he's talking to him, bombing civilian targets online.
in Ukraine and it was invaded a U.S. ally. That's mind-blowing in and of itself. But the conspiracy wrap-up here from Woodward's book that really got me, and I know a lot of other people too, is while Trump was telling America that COVID was a hoax,
While Trump was telling America that it would all be gone in a few days, while Trump was telling America to put bleach in your ass or UV light or hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, which is a horse dewormer, he was sending Vladimir Putin test kits. When we were short on test kits and PPE, Vladimir Putin was getting them from Trump. You know, remember, something Trump says was a lie and a fraud and a fake, but he was sending test kits to his friend Vladimir when Putin didn't have them.
He quotes Putin as saying, quote, please don't tell anybody you sent these to me. To which Trump responded, I don't care. Fine. Putin said, no, no, I don't want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don't care about me. It's a small thing on the one hand, but it really tells you a lot about Trump's character. It tells you a lot about what a liar he is. It tells you a lot about what a what a what a conspiracy theory that.
grew up around this anti-vax movement centered on Trump that you could cure COVID with all this bullshit woo medicine, this fake, you know, guys, I've purchased ivermectin before for horses. It's a horse dewormer. It is not an antiviral.
I know we've been through this a thousand times by now. I know we're all sick of talking about COVID. God knows we're sick of talking about COVID. Somehow in five years, I've never gotten COVID, but maybe that's because I'm vaccinated. Who knew? And still alive. But Trump's spreading these things. And when you see the proof that he was giving Russia test kits, he knew it was serious. He understood it. These kind of lies, though, they have a consequence. They have an impact.
The fact that Donald Trump was doing this and that Woodward has, and by the way, the Russians being Russians, Woodward writes it, Trump denies it, the Russians confirm it. Bob Woodward has a track record of being correct in these matters that is pretty much unrivaled. Donald Trump, not so much. Bob Woodward has, you know, once again given us an insight into how Trump thinks and acts and operates that tells you a lot about him.
And it tells you that the lies you're hearing on the campaign trail right now should be a big part of your thinking. If you're an undecided voter in a state like Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania right now, ask yourself a simple question. Do you think four more years of Trump will result in more lies or fewer? Do you think four more years of Trump will make America feel like a country that's not as dependent and entangled in crazy conspiracy theories? Or do you think it'll be worse?
I don't think there's any other rational answer. You know the lies will continue and they will accelerate and they will do more damage. You know the conspiracy theories will continue and they will accelerate and they will do more damage. For the conspiracy theories in particular, they lead to consequences, including violence. They lead to consequences, including the loss of human life in this country. Those consequences are real. The conspiracy theories are not.
And that is the elephant in the room.