Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Pod Save America, I'm Tommy Vitor.
Chapter 2: What is the current state of the MAGA media world?
As we speak, the MAGA media world is fracturing, and many of its leading voices are desperately trying to figure out what a post-Trump MAGA movement will mean for them. For some, this is about business. They wanna know if they can maintain the same level of clicks, of ad sales, of paid promotion deals in a post-Trump political world. But for others, it's about influence.
and a desire to steer the Republican Party to a new place, in some cases, a much more extreme place. What we're talking about is ultimately a battle for the soul and attention of the MAGA movement. And it's being fought as we speak in the podcast, YouTube, and TikTok trenches, often on shows or on platforms that most Democrats have never heard of, but have enormous reach
and influence in conservative circles, especially younger conservative circles. So to help me understand and track where the MAGA movement is going, I'm joined today by Will Sommer from The Bulwark.
Chapter 3: How are right-wing personalities adapting to a post-Trump landscape?
Will's newsletter, False Flag, is a twice-weekly deep dive into right-wing online culture and the communities around it, and it is a must-read for me every week. He has an unparalleled understanding of who makes up this world, where it's going, what they're talking about, the weird, petty, pathetic infighting between them. It is fascinating stuff.
Now, unfortunately for all of us, right-wing media is incredibly popular, which is why we here at Crooked Media are trying to create a progressive alternative.
Chapter 4: Who is Candace Owens and why is she influential?
The best way you can help us is to become a Friend of the Pod subscriber. For about $10 a month, you get bonus episodes of Pod Save America. You get ad-free episodes. You get deep dives into the latest polling data from Dan Pfeiffer and tons more bonus content. And you also can get discounted tickets to our upcoming CrookedCon conference and fun on-site perks. So check that out.
Go to crooked.com slash friends to learn more. And now here's my conversation with Will Sommer. So, Will, your coworker, Sarah Longwell, got a bunch of grief recently for saying that a surprising name keeps coming up in her focus groups when she's asking people who they think should run for president. Candace Owen. And again, this is not people saying that they like Candace's content.
It's voters saying they would vote for Candace Owens for president. Now, I'm sure people listening to this are thinking, like, shut up, Tommy. That is dumb. This is insane. She is... And to them, I say, sure, I agree with you. But I think the point is that a lot of people don't.
So just to start with the basics, who is Candace Owens and why do you think she is so popular and influential to the point where people want to run for president?
Sure.
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Chapter 5: What impact does Tucker Carlson have on conservative media?
So Candace Owens is a woman who emerged – she's from sort of the right-wing media ecosystem, kind of these classic characters working for people like Dennis Prager and Ben Shapiro. And then for the past year or so, past two years, she's become this – sort of insurgent right wing conspiracy theorist, very anti-Semitic.
She pushes a lot of crazy ideas about most notably Charlie Kirk's assassination. She used to work with him and they were friends. And she's sort of been, you know, building this YouTube empire off of both conspiracy theories and also sort of more mainstream celebrity gossip coverage.
And so I think she's managed to really sort of diversify her audience beyond just sort of people who listen to talk radio or watch Fox News.
Yeah, I mean, so Candace's biggest or at least sort of like splashiest most recent interview was a surprising one.
Chapter 6: How are figures like Ben Shapiro losing influence?
It was with Hunter Biden, of all people. Before that, like you said, she spent months and months and months just relentlessly focused on the assassination of Charlie Kirk and spreading conspiracy theories about it. of all shapes and sizes, like planes were tracking Charlie, that there was like a false flag operation.
She seemed to suggest that Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk's wife, might have been the killer. And then before that, there was this endless series of videos she did alleging that French President Emmanuel Macron's wife is in fact a man.
So just for folks who haven't listened to Candace much, like here's a clip of Candace on Piers Morgan's show that I think will give you a sense of the vibe that comes out of a lot of her content. Let's watch.
Why are we pretending that we don't know why we ask questions? Like, you're a journalist. You know what this is. You're like, what's going on? What's going on? Why do you want to know why these planes were tracking Charlie?
And that is the reason why people are watching my shows, because I'm the only one not treating them like they're absolute idiots who don't have two eyes, who believe in magic bullet theory, and who understand that Egyptian planes should not have been tracking Charlie even three times this year would be an anomaly, okay?
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Chapter 7: What role do conspiracy theories play in today's MAGA media?
They've been tracking him. We don't know where it's going to end, but we are going to keep asking questions until we get clear answers.
So she was yelling about Egyptian planes tracking Charlie Kirk. I mean, like, what is her beat? You mentioned, I mean, she has like celebrity stuff, she has pop culture stuff, but is her beat just conspiracy? Like, how would you define it?
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I mean, I think this she has sort of cohered around this idea that there are these sort of pedophile Epstein class powers that be. They're very closely linked to Israel, closely linked to sort of centuries old Jewish cults and cabals. I mean, you mentioned Brigitte Macron.
Chapter 8: How are extremist voices gaining traction in conservative circles?
It's not just that Brigitte Macron is trans, but it's that like the Macron's are part of this ancient Jewish network going back to the Middle Ages. The Frank is the Frank is. Yes, exactly. Too deep in this shit. Yes.
I mean even if you listen to it, it often – like I can get this sense of – it can be kind of hard to describe because in part because it's just – you listen to it and it's like so crazy and she kind of – she doesn't really bother to like make a coherent theory per se. She more just kind of throws stuff out. She goes, oh, isn't that weird? Isn't that weird?
And then suddenly you find yourself that she's walked you to Erica Kirk murder her husband or Brigitte Macron is trans. And she often – We'll sort of abandon things as they're disproven. So like she'll say, I think that guy in the crowd at the assassination is acting weird and that guy will have an excuse.
And she'll say, oh, well, never mind, you know, moving on, you know, and and so there isn't so much one conspiracy theory as this general sense of like anti-Semitic, hateful, this sense of like the cabal runs the world.
Yeah, I mean, like when I listen to Candace's stuff, I find myself getting lost in the sauce and not able to follow her. And we're like down all these conspiracy roads. But the reason I led with her and her in our next subject, Tucker Carlson, is because the normies in my life who text me about politics mentioned those two the most.
So like much like Sarah's focus group, like Candace, I feel like is very influential in And also, she's been waging this battle against Turning Point USA, TPUSA, ever since Kirk's assassination. And TPUSA, for those who don't know, was an incredibly influential media, political kind of voter turnout organization. But now she seems to have done some damage to it. Or I guess that's the question.
I mean, how much damage do you think Candace has done to TPUSA through this kind of ongoing fighting?
Yeah, I mean, I think Candace and sort of the conspiracy theorists around her have actually done a lot of damage to Turning Point. I mean, they have created this sense of, you know, after the Charlie Kirk assassination, there was a lot of goodwill towards Turning Point, a lot of sense that I think both Trump and that organization were going to capitalize on after the murder.
But instead, Candace has said, well, maybe Erica Kirk killed her husband. Maybe this organization, you know, she's picked out all these individual executives. Maybe they were involved in these murders. And I think, you know, And anecdotally, if you look at like groups of conservative moms, they'll say, oh, well, we were going to order some turning point shirts.
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