America This Week, May 17, 2024: "Delusion, Not Just Once A Year"
2024-05-17 00:30:30
Welcome to America This Week, with Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn, the national news wrap-up so true, we recommend you stow all sharp objects before reading. <br/><br/><a href="https://www.racket.news/s/america-this-week?utm_medium=podcast">www.racket.news</a>
All right, welcome to America This Week, I'm Matt Taibbi.
And I'm Walter Kern.
Walter, what's going on?
It's so complicated, but I'll explain it in a nutshell. I'm in a juice fasting spa somewhere near Palm Springs, California. Yep. And I'm admitting it too.
For the last five days and for the next four, I will not eat solid food.
I haven't eaten it and I won't eat it.
Okay. Why is that?
Because it's a juice fasting spa. So that means that you come here and there is basically a lock on the door and you're only allowed to drink juice rather than eat solid food and get a lot of, you know, water into your system. And you are also expected, and I'm just going for it, Matt, because our audience deserves the truth. I think that's the premise of this show. You're also expected to do daily colonic therapy.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
We need imaging.
Not only are you expected to do it, I have met expectations and done it. So you're looking at somebody who, according to the California thesis about health, is as healthy as a person can get. I've had no solid food, only organic juices, daily colonics, walks in the desert, saunas, and let's see what else. I've stood on one of those machines that vibrates you at incredibly high speeds.
Yeah.
It's sort of like what they had on the Flintstones back when, remember, when Wilma would get on the reducing machine and she'd belt around herself and, you know, the motor would run it. So I've done all those things. I'm four days in. I call myself the healthiest podcaster in America right now.
Oh, that's fantastic. The healthiest podcaster.
Yeah, it won't be true next week, but it's true at this moment.
Can you do other things?
Can you do coke?
Here?
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. This is a place that, not to, you know, bust anybody's anonymity, but movie stars come right before roles in which they have to weigh 15 pounds less than they do.
Okay. So, and you're only allowed to drink juice and go to these colonics. And one of the,
so we don't yet have anal surveillance in America. But they do have it here at this spa. I'm not kidding you. And they can tell.
You said that with a little too much confidence that we don't have anal surveillance in America.
That we know of.
That we know of.
We had it in the nineties under the guise of alien abductions, which we all know were MK ultra kidnappings, which used psychedelic drugs to simulate alien abductions and then included anal intrusion. But anyway, here the colon therapist can tell what you've eaten. So if you cheat, it, exactly. It will go into a clear tube, which she examines.
And so, so here may be the best story I've ever heard. And I can't use the guy's name. He's a major Hollywood action star. Usually as fit as you can believe, just glistening with oil. and, you know, deltoid and peck splendor in the movies in which he beats people up, hand to hand combat, but he gained a little weight.
So he came out to this spa to lose it before his next film, except he has no actual discipline. I don't know how he'd ever gotten fit in the first place. So what he did was, well, and this place is in the middle of nowhere, is? he had a Confederate every day, bring him in and out burgers, drive to the place and deliver in and out burgers. But he had a problem.
How did he get rid of the scraps? How did he get rid of the wrappers? You can't just have the smell of in and out burgers wafting from your cabana or your room.
This is like the great escape. Yes.
So what he did was every day he would order FedEx to come and he would fill a FedEx box.
This happened years ago. And the person who told me, who busted this story, doesn't work here anymore. So I don't think anybody's in danger. So he'd fill the FedEx box with his extra French fries and pieces of bun and wrappers and greasy napkins. And he would FedEx out his detritus, his in and out detritus.
But he was caught by his colonic therapist. What are these French fries I'm seeing?
See, colonic therapists can tell what a French fry looks like after it's passed through the human digestive system.
Is that a knowledge set that you want to have? I guess you do.
So this is, but, Matt, the reason I'm telling this is that this is the final act of the deep state.
They will bug our toilets.
And if we don't eat the bugs, if we have too much meat, if we consume, you know, an inordinate amount of carbon releasing food or something. Or if, you know, for whatever reason, they will analyze us through that. Because there's no lying to your dentist. There's no lying to your hairdresser. And there is no lying at all to your colonics therapist.
Well, they have to automate it, right? Have like a little Bluetooth mechanism down there? Right. I mean, you could have a whole range of things. You could have a tumescence detector as well, right?
Oh, yeah. Full body aware, total body awareness.
Total body awareness. Yeah. DARPA already working on it, I'm sure.
I know they are. There's probably a system. There's probably a pilot program in some small American town that doesn't realize it. Where all their sewer pipes run through this center. Where people are sitting at desks, watching clear plastic pipes, as the, you know, the sewage of the city flows through.
Coming from the different houses and so on. And they're, you know, analyzing it. Whatever.
Yeah. They know exactly how many French fries we've eaten and how many we've lied about.
Do you remember? This is no joke. During COVID, they were using samples of wastewater in certain cities to estimate the levels of COVID infection. I don't know if you remember that. And then they were using the results of those tests as the basis for lockdown.
It's like, we tested the sewage in, you know, Red Lake, Nebraska. We've got a high COVID count. We're closing that school.
Precious bodily fluids.
Yep. Got to analyze them. Yeah.
Wow. Well, that sounds exciting, Walter. Maybe I'll try that sometime. You'll have to let me know how it goes. Yeah.
But I'm glad to hear that.
See, you haven't asked why I'm here.
I'm debating whether I want to know or not.
Well, because I'm not an action star trying to lose weight.
Yeah. What are you doing?
Four years ago, I had a, my father passed away. And it was, you know, nothing that anyone should feel terrible about. 82 years old. But he had a difficult passing because he had ALS. And when he, and it was right during COVID.
And when he finished, I was so grateful for my own health. That I said, and it was so stressful seeing him off a month at his bedside. I said, I'm going to go and really relax and indulge myself once this is all over. But it was COVID and it was impossible to do that for years. You know, and these places were kind of paranoid.
Nobody, you know, how do you do the mask thing? And the social distancing thing? And so on. When you're sticking tubes up people's asses. So this whole world of, you know, psycho, California style, spa detoxing.
Kind of froze up for a while. And I'm keeping my promise to myself in this very new age therapeutic way. That I sort of have a restart. In honor of my dad. That's how I'm justifying the crazy expense.
Well, that sounds, that's a noble cause. I thought it was for something darker than that. But that sounds great.
Yeah, my heroin addiction.
All right. I'm going to keep quiet about that one. Well, excellent. I'm glad to hear you're doing that. You sound healthier than me.
Because you probably are. And I'm happy for you. Briefly.
Briefly.
We have a show today that is going to be more about mental unhealth.
So it's good that you have a little bit of contrast going. The story we picked to discuss this week was more on the nose than any story that we've ever probably chosen. In terms of its relation to current events. We want to both begin and end this show with a little bit of fiction. So, Walter, I haven't even shared this with you.
But if you'll just bear with me. This is like a minute and a half clip.
And it's the ending of a movie called Eric the Viking. Do you remember that one?
No.
It's a sort of late Monty Python thing. It had Tim Robbins in it. And it's about a society called High Brazil. That is falling under the water. And here are their leaders.
You know what some of you must be thinking. The day has come. We're all going to go down, etc, etc. But let's get away from the fantasy and look at the fact. We do seem to be going down quite fast, your majesty.
I'm not trying to contradict you, of course.
Of course you're not, citizen. But let's stick to the facts. The threat of total destruction has kept the peace here in High Brazil for 1,000 years.
So whatever else is happening, you can rest assured.
High Brazil is not sinking.
May I just make a point in support of what King Arnold just said? Oh, we'd be delighted, wouldn't we? Yes.
We'd certainly like to hear what one of us has to say.
Save yourselves! High Brazil is sinking! What would you say now of safety precautions?
It can't happen. But it is, look!
I've already appointed the Chancellor as chairman of a full committee of Iqbari.
And in the meantime, I suggest we have our sing-song.
Sing-song! Sing-song! Sing-song! Sing-song!
I think we're getting better. I can tell.
Father!
So what? It's not happening.
So, High Brazil is not sinking. Very underrated Monty Python scene. Sort of classic story about denial. And how did you like Tim Robbins', the immortal Tim Robbins' hair extensions in that scene?
It was great. Rarely have I seen a clip from a movie where I think I'll probably watch the movie within the next few hours.
It's a really funny movie, actually. So why don't we bring this up? Because the story this week is in multiple different directions about denial. And there's a very weird thing going on about polls that has suddenly become a fixation of everybody. And this all began with a new series of New York Times polls that didn't really show anything new.
I guess, you know, it's kind of worth looking at some of these results, right? And basically, what they were showing is that Trump is significantly behind in most of the battleground states. And, you know, he's only ahead in one by one point.
Trump or Biden?
Biden is only ahead in one of the seven battleground states. He's ahead Trump for the first time.
Yeah. But if you look at the overall numbers, you know, you might even see Biden in the lead in some of these polls. But if you go by the electoral map, he's behind. It doesn't seem to me to be like a hugely insurmountable gap. one way or the other.
We can get into that. But there was immediately a furious reaction to this whole thing. that began, and we can show some of these clips later, that began with some rather high profile media figures simply pronouncing the whole thing kind of over. Chuck Todd did a deep dive on Meet the Press. that kind of suggested that Biden was kaput, you know, finished.
Fareed Zakaria entered into a rant, basically saying I was wrong about everything. We're going to lose this election. You know, hi, Brazil.
Did he really say we? Did he say we?
I mean, we can. we can listen to it.
He probably did. I mean, that's.
He probably did.
They're pretty shameless now.
Yeah. And then this was followed by some rather shocking. Oops, sorry. Some rather shocking appearances by both Joe Biden himself and his wife and the first lady, Jill. So here he is.
Here's Joe Biden, being interviewed by Aaron Burnett.
It's also true right now, Mr. President, that voters by a wide margin trust Trump more on the economy. They say that in polls. And part of the reason for that may be the numbers. And you're aware of many of these, of course.
The cost of buying a home in the United States is double what it was. when you look at your monthly costs from before the pandemic. Real income, when you account for inflation, is actually down. since you took office. Economic growth last week, far short of expectations.
Consumer confidence may be no surprise. Is near a two year low. With less than six months to go to election day. Are you worried that you're running out of time to turn that around?
We've already turned it around.
Look, look at the Michigan survey. For 65% of American people think they're in good shape economically. They think the nation's not in good shape,
but they're personally in good shape.
The polling data has been wrong all along.
Here's Jill Biden on CBS and has a similar reaction to the polls.
He's losing in all the battleground states.
No, he's not losing in all the battleground states. He's coming up and he's even or doing better. So, you know what? Once people start to focus in and they see their two choices, it's...
So, there's that. Then there was a...
They've had the same two choices for years, Jill. I don't think, you know, unless something happens to somebody, they've known about these choices for quite a while.
Yeah, it's really crazy. And then there was just the whole spate of this stuff. And we can get into some of the other... There were some reactions that were similar to this among some media figures that we can listen to in a minute. But first, here's Joe Biden talking and giving a speech last week.
I believe it was in Palo Alto. And he said, well, the press doesn't want to write about it, because the momentum is clearly in our favor, with polls moving toward us and away from Trump.
And there's just like one thing like this after the other. Then there came to be a whole series of news stories about how Biden is in denial. There was an Axios story that went into this in great detail, or at least great detail as far as Axios is concerned. Yeah. Biden's polling denial, why he doesn't believe he's behind, why it matters.
The dismissiveness of the poor polling is sincere, not public spin, according to Democrats who have spoken privately with the president and his team. The bedrock belief has informed Biden's largely steady-as-she-goes campaign. Even as many Democrats outside the White House are agitating for the campaign to change direction, etc., etc., etc. So this is the backstory of the whole thing. And we can get into some more of the other stuff first in a bit.
But essentially, the polls are the same as what they've.
. It's the same trends that we've seen for a couple of months now. And then there's a moment where it seemed like all these press figures decided to freak out about it. And the White House is in denial. They agreed to a debate, which seems like it might be a response to the poll numbers.
I don't know. Walter, what's your first blush impression about all this? Because my reaction initially is that all of this is kayfabe on some level. And I just can't figure out what the angles are.
If it's not kayfabe, and kayfabe meaning, if it's not a pantomime, if it's not a show meant to manipulate perceptions and set up various narratives in the future, then it's perhaps what it appears to be, which is Joe and Jill tied to the mast while other cooler heads start to try to talk them off the ship. It's mutiny on the bounty. In other words,
inside the White House, and I imagine Jill Biden has a preeminent role at this point, given her husband's general drowsiness,
they are probably hanging on for dear life. I mean, I don't think that the people like Fareed, Zakaria and so on, who are paid to prop things up, would start questioning at this level with complete insincerity. Because it's not like Joe's going to rally at some point and become a different person. I don't see, if I was investing in a candidate, I don't see him as a good investment at this point. He's getting older by the second.
The economy doesn't have a renaissance up ahead in the next few months. He's got all of these international liabilities, which he doesn't control, all these conflicts that could go badly. Ukraine's not going well, and they all know that.
So I think they're trying to ease him off the ledge. Come on, man, post-presidency, the waters are great.
Or it could be kayfabe. Or they could be setting us up for some comeback narrative or the amazing resilience of Joe's steady hand. But remember, the person he's running against right now is trapped in a courtroom every day, where people are making fun of him all day long on the news. Every time he nods his head, falls asleep, and so on.
And also denies reality in a couple of cases, too. Right.
But imagine if this were a real campaign. How would Joe be doing? If his opponent wasn't in leg irons, essentially.
So I'd say it looks bad for him, frankly. And I think they're preparing us for a graceful departure. A kind of like, man, what a service you did at such a difficult time, bringing the economy back post-COVID. We know your health wasn't the best. And we know it took a lot out of you.
But we salute you.
And it's sad to see you go. And then he gives a speech about how he did his best. I don't know when that comes. But I may be in denial, too. I may be in denial, too, because I've been wrong about this.
Dude, I've been wrong about this for four years. Because I thought it was going to happen during the last campaign.
Exactly. One of the great under-reported campaign stories of the 2020 cycle was the stubborn success of the Biden campaign. A lot of media watchers and campaign reporters who covered Biden's campaign early on saw his act on the stump and said, this guy's not going to make it. There's no way he's going to end up winning this thing. And they just dismissed him.
And the coverage was highly dismissive. for a while. There was always this presumption that somebody else was going to come surging to the top, somebody younger and more able to express themselves.
And they kept trying to promote this other person, whether it was Kamala or Mayor Pete or whatever. And it never happened. And Biden continually did well in the polls. And his support was consistent throughout. He won in spite of a lot of media guffawing at his performances.
And then he wins, not campaigning at all. Then we head into this cycle. But we've been doing these speculations, not just us, but everybody. Are they setting us up for Kamala Harris or Buttigieg or the governor of California? What's his name?
Newsom. Sorry, Gavin, Newsom. Remember that whole business when Gavin Newsom snuck into the White House?
Everybody was saying, OK, here it is. They're finally going to switch out Biden. This has been going on every couple of weeks.
And when he debated Ron DeSantis.
To stop believing.
I mean, Newsom debated Ron DeSantis.
Yeah, exactly.
It would be a strange operation that I don't quite understand to continually sort of hold out the possibility that the candidate will replace, but not do it.
What does that make Joe look? Look like the underdog in some way? Or does it assure America that they're poised? Should it get too bad to do something? So don't worry.
You know, we're monitoring the situation. Maybe it gives that message. From one clip I saw of Morning Joe, and we might have it here. The strangest thing is this accusation that he launched quite vehemently against the New York Times, which had a poll which was not so good for Biden. And which Joe interpreted as evidence of some plot, almost, on the Times part.
To go negative on Joe. Maybe he didn't say it, but there was an implication. Maybe drive him out.
I can't imagine that he was suggesting they were backing Trump. But in any case, when they start the circular firing squads like this, and start going after the New York Times and so on,
that implies some real disarray.
Cycling through all these versions where there's some hidden angle to something, eventually you start defaulting to, well, maybe this is just what it looks like. And it's just total confusion.
Let's just watch this tirade by Joe Scarborough. Because it's kind of fascinating to watch. It reminded me of, we've talked about this before, but We Bombed the New Haven, the Joseph Heller play, where there's a character who says, we should bomb Istanbul off the map. And the other character says, well, why don't we just bomb the map? And this is Joe bombing the map.
And we're picking it up in the middle, but basically he's angry. This is Joe and Mika being angry about the New York Times polls.
17 stories that make people run around Manhattan with their hair on fire and Washington with their hair on fire. Put this New York Times Ipsos poll.
Put it back.
Won at the same time by the New York Times. Binds ahead by four points nationally. Four points nationally. Not even an article about it. Anyway.
As for that New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Siena College polling of six key battleground states that came out Monday morning, there was a lot of reaction to that. As we know, some of the most trusted pollsters in the country are calling into question the methodology and results.
You think?
The CEO of the Nevada Independent, John Ralston, calls Trump having a 13-point lead in the state, quote, bizarre, adding that nothing remotely similar has been seen in the state in decades. The founder of UVA's Center for Politics, Larry Sabato, says he laughed after seeing the Nevada numbers and recommends others do the same. National political reporter at The Bulwark, Mark Caputo, also calls the Nevada poll, quote, a total outlier. Meanwhile, the director of polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics, John DeLaPolpe, is raising questions about how Biden could be losing the youth vote by 27 points in Michigan while winning it by 24 points in Wisconsin.
A million monkeys with a million cell phones making calls as pollsters. That's how you do it.
Finally, the New Republic's, Greg Sargent, expressed dismay at the survey's methodology. This is important, which shows 20% of the likely voters polled either didn't vote in the last two midterms.
Wait a second. Wait a second. They're likely voters?
But they did not vote.
20% of what The New York Times is calling likely voters?
So let me finish.
Didn't vote in the last general election or the last two midterms?
Okay, so this is all happening and then, in a second, you're going to see this, basically, Joe, take out his frustrations on John Heilemann, who's on the panel. Here we go. Here's Heilemann.
Like it's his fault.
This is just a reaction to one poll. No, you can go back. You can look at the tape. We do this every time a New York Times Siena poll comes out. It's always an outlier and The New York Times always gets 15 or 16 articles out of them that everybody rushes to because it says Earth ends at 5 o'clock.
You know, go, hit, link New York Times 15 times and they keep writing articles about it. There are, and NPR has found some of these voters that said, well, you know, I voted for Biden before, but, and they said, but wait, this guy, we checked the voting rolls. He's never voted. Other news organizations, right? Like three, four more examples, not just of people in the surveys, but people, the New York Times quoted in their articles.
Well, here's one of many people that we interviewed that said he's disillusioned and is going to vote for Trump. No record of them voting.
Yeah.
Okay.
Are you feeling something?
Well, I'm feeling that, I'm feeling that there's a, I think sometimes, as a general matter, there's maybe a little bit of an over-reliance on voters telling the truth about things in general. Heat to say it. Reporters find this occasionally a bit liar.
The reporters lie.
Here's what I'd say about this, about this poll. If I were to ask you this question, Joe, do you know anybody on either side who, who doesn't think that it's the case, that of the battleground states that Joe Biden is stronger in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, than he is in Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia?
Anyway, it goes on.
Matt, I am sorry.
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