So it used to be Moscow would align or look for willing or perhaps unwitting agents of influence and agents on the political left, anti imperialists, anti American socialist types. Now they're sinking their teeth into conservatives, people who believe in blood and soil nationalism. So in a way, when MAGA came into being, it was cream cheese for the Russians.
I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry o'she. I served in the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover all around the world.
And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Although we don't usually look at it this way, we created conspiracies in our operations.
We got people to believe things that weren't true.
Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the news almost every day.
We'll break them down for you to determine whether they could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Welcome to Mission implausible. So last week we spoke to journalists and author an expert on Russian intelligence, Michael Weiss, about Russian conspiracies throughout history and how they've used their intelligence services to weaponize against the West and others. And this week we're going to talk with him about some things that have just happened recently where Russian intelligence was spreading money to right wing extremists social media people to
spread conspiracy theory. So it was a conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories into our political system. And there were a number of these sort of right wing social media folks, some with large followers on YouTube and Twitter and other places, that were essentially getting paid quite a bit of money by Russian intelligence.
Yeah, they claim not to know, but it was hundreds of thousands a month for some of them for YouTube videos that got very few views.
Well, Adam Adam Waite, some of them got quite a lot of views. And in fact, they interviewed Donald Trump. So I mean, these guys, you know, like a couple of them are like had eighth grade educations, and they were spreading things about civil war and election deny and all this kind of stuff. But actually Donald Trump went on the show with one of these guys and did an interview. And these guys, their whole shtick is that
their shadowy figure is controlling strings behind the scenes. But then when these guys it probably had never made more than thirty thousand dollars a year. Someone came to and provided them four hundred thousand dollars a week to spreads things a shy.
Figure, shattery figure show.
So if they didn't know if they were Russian, and they certainly knew something was.
Up, although that in a way is a proof of the success, right, Like, part of Russia's goal is this corrosive, removing trust and confidence in the media and elected officials and in any voice of authority. So if you have people so cynical that they would take the money, maybe they're thinking, well, that's what MSNBC does. MSNBC does not do that, but in their mind that's what they're thinking, we might as well get ours, right.
Yeah, they're both useful and idiots, right.
To quote a phrase, Yeah yeah yeah.
And one of these same guys, days after it came out and there's an indictment and it became clear that he was taking Russian money, is still promoting stuff.
Now when you have that much money, My mind does go to was this a sophisticated op run by really smart people in Moscow? Or was this a bunch of bottom feeders who knew how to get money from Russia. I'm talking about the middle people who paid the people off. They were like, oh, we're going to come up with this kind of BS scam. So it was a two way scam. They were scamming Russia and scamming the US just to get some commission or some bit of the payment.
What do you think, Well, what's upsetting to me is how easy it is. So for Russia, it's really not very much money. It creates an incredible amount of problems in our political system. And it's not hard to find these people. They're out there. If you just look through social media, people are willing to say the most awful things. And if you want to just keep them saying them, or pump a few bits of information into them, because they'll say anything, it's not a hard operation to run. It.
As an intelligence officer, the easiest operations to run of the most simple. You find a couple of schlubs who will do your bidding, and that is actually the easiest with sophisticated.
Cutout literally how I put this podcast together.
But it's funny because the CIA and I've got to be very careful about false eclipmans. Here the CIA famously in the nineteen fifties was involved in almost the same thing, except with radio for Europe. It was getting people to tell the truth, and they were scrupulous in making sure that the stories were actually true and going in behind then the iron curtain, and people believed it because it was true. This is like vastly different.
What's happened is a lot of the things that we saw in twenty sixteen that Russians have been doing for years and years were really tested, and it pushed in Ukraine before twenty fourteen and after, and then a lot of the stuff that we've seen subsequently was pushed in Europe. So in Europe they've spent a rush day made the Russian intelligence spent a lot of money on European media.
But also they've paid off politicians, they've bought lawyers, they've provided money to right wing and left wing extremist groups. Is there more Are there politicians that are getting money and or somehow getting this information, because there's a number of politicians that are saying exactly the same things that these social media influence are. Is there a direct connection there or are they just hearing it in other places and spreading it By.
The way in twenty twelve. These two guys, once Russian American, the others just American. But they came back from being journalists quote unquote journalists in Russia. They were hanging around with Matt Taibi. They had this newspaper with him, and they came to the US and started this thing called the Shame Project where they were revealing how elite American journalists were just tools of oligarchic capitalism. And they picked five journals and I was one of them. So that's
why this stands out. Congratulations, thank you, And it did cause a fair bit of stress for me for a few days where they wrote out, I mean it was total nonsense, totally untrue about how I had sold rights to like I'd sold my soul and planet money to this bank, and they put together this dossier on me that was like I once spoke at a micro finance conference that happened to be at JP Morgan. So they had a website Adam Davidson at JP Morgan. They said that was the day where JP Morgan bribed Adam to
It was utterly ridiculous. To my frustration, NPR, my employer at the time, told me, I couldn't respond and say it was munch of nonsense, and it just sat there. It was a little alarming, but it didn't get a lot of buzz. But then RT Russia Today had a huge segment on it, and that inspired somebody actually at Jared Kushner's paper at the time, the New york Er over to write a piece that sort of repeated these slanders and that somehow gave it intimacy.
It makes its way into the media food chain. Just to give you a little heads up. So I was in Moscow living in Moscow when Mark Ames and Matt Taibi had their newspaper there called The Exile, which was actually a very disgusting newspaper. They would rate clubs based on the like the number one to four erect penises, about what your chances of essentially screwing girls at the club.
It was disgusting. The fact that Matt Taybe got as much respect as he got. It was pretty open. I mean, he talked about raping people like he was pretty discussion.
Believe me. Even though it was the nineties and it was a crazy time, the Russian security services were still very active, so they're very well aware of what these guys are doing.
Now.
I'm not saying I have any evidence to suggest that they are working for Russian intelligence whatever, but it's the exact kind of thing that Russians would try to take advantage of if they could.
I would say, I have no firm evidence. They may have been just for free doing the thing that Russia wanted them to do, and that was later revealed in other contexts to be the exact playbook of Russia.
And this isn't something new. I mean, going back in American history, Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg, a number of leading movie stars were very pro Nazi right up until Pearl Harbor. In fact, the number of people who were involved in this is actually quite shocking. Errol Flynn, the Great actor, was a great admirer of Adolf Hitler. And it wasn't until December seventh, nineteen forty one that everybody suddenly changed their two.
Not everybody. There's still a lot of people supporting that's after you as you listened to Rachel Maddow's podcast.
Well, they weren't openly, Yeah, they weren't openly.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm really pleased that we're going to have two episodes with Michael Wise. He's really one of the leading lights when it comes to disinformation, authoritarianism, and especially for as he's an expert on ISIS. I found it very interesting, having served twice in a rock against hearing his views on it. And it's funny as a professional intelligence officer that for a while was my thing. I was focusing on ISIS night and day, and I hear journalists come in, Adam,
I will unfortunately pay you a real compliment. Serious journalists like you and Michael Wise. They come in and you guys have got a really good grip, and we would listen very closely what you had to say, because you had to take on things that those of us on the inside didn't always get.
But just to be clear, you're saying, I'm also really good. I just want to I will say something that Michael Wise represents. This may be a time of enormous misinformation, but it's also I think it's got to be the time of the most good information about misinformation that we're actually aware of it.
But what bad actors know is essentially they know we're so big they can't take us on directly. They need to find weak spots, and a week spot for an Intelligence Service is our First Amendment. They know that they can spread any information into our system, and frankly, there's not much we can do about it. We can't stop it, we can't turn it off. We can't tell people not to say things, even if they're getting it from foreign
places for malign purposes. And this is like a terrorist looking for a soft spot to attack, rather than attack an army head on or something. They're looking for weaknesses and taking advantage of it. And in this case, this information flows very well into a system with the First Amendment. Okay, I'm a bit old. I'm going to need to go to the bathroom, so let's take a quick break and we'll be back shortly. All right, welcome back.
There's a Rolling Stone article that's just come out, and this is on the First Amendment. And Johnny, I want to trow you as well that Trump apparently is telling and this is just accord of the article and what I've read, but he is saying that he wants to
arrest Stephen Colbert for expressing his First Amendment rights. And what he's saying in the intimidation part this is that Colbert's jokes and his comments are a contribution not in money, but in kind to Trump's enemies, to Trump's about his enemies, but to his political rivals and his opponents. And he intends to, if elected, go after Colbert for making jokes about him.
So maybe if Harris wins, she can go after Tucker Carlson for his contributions to That is.
A really good point. Yeah, I mean, you know Goose and Ganner kind of thing. But Adam, do you sense this is just something he's just like brooding about or is this something that we actually have to be we and Michael Weiss, this is the authoritarian handbook, one on one, even if he doesn't follow through with convictions, even just investigating or telling the Justice Department to go after as intimidation.
I had an interesting talk with I was at a dinner where it was a bunch of lawyers and smart people on the law, and they were talking about how what this Supreme Court has already done with the presentsidential immunity and other bills this year, the Chevron defense, et cetera.
The immunity thing wasn't even a wild fringe idea that really came out of nowhere and was really shocked a lot of people but the Chevron defense was a fringe idea that has been slowly populating, So it's probably not a good idea to assume this is all, Oh, that's crazy talk. Like the crazy talk to the law of the land pipeline seems pretty robust right now, and like the whole goal of the unitary executive. Even non crazy Conservatives have been promoting this idea for two hundred and fifty years.
Before the Supreme Court they said, well, in theory, could a president order Seal Team six to murder political rival? And yet no one seems to be worried, nor should they be, that Biden is going to order Trump assassinated by.
Although he can fully legally he could, right yeah, and because he won't, in fifty wants to overturn it.
And I'm really concerned about this for both conspiracy theories driving.
This is my opportunity to turn you to an op ed piece that I wrote in the Washington Post recently with Jim Petrilla, a former CIA lawyer, about the immunity discussion, and it's all this talk about the Seal Team six, and when you talk about the military, there's this whole history of not following illegal orders and that type of thing.
I think more likely these immunity decision will have an impact on places like the CIA, where there are authorities that can be used to such a get rid of the reforms that have happened for the last forty fifty years and allow the CIA to do some of these kind of activities.
Unfortunately, these aren't conspiracy theories anymore. These are like something that people in these audits should be really concerned about.
So today we have Michael Weiss. He's a journalist and author and expert on Syria, terrorism and Russian intelligence. He's been publishing inside reporting on the war in Ukraine and Russian malign activities around the world. So, Michael, this seems to be the perfect story for Mission plug. So Russia engaged in an actual conspiracy to pay conspiracy theorists to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories and paid them very well.
Made I think a couple of million dollars. They all got hundreds of thousands of dollars to make videos. There you go, I mean, not produce anything elaborate and sophisticated, just them ranting on camera about things that it seemed that they already sort of believed. But if you read
the indictment. They were prompted by their handler, who it turns out, was a fake persona invented by a Russian intelligence officer, and basically he just his cutout was this non existent finance bro who, in the mold of Elon Musk and David Sachs and that lot, seemed to think that wokeness was destroying Western civilization and the only cure for it is a bunch of weird maga people with podcasts. And the strange thing is that the FBI and DJ make it seem as if these guys were unwitting agents.
If somebody came to me and said, hey, we love your podcast. I'm gonna give one hundred thousand dollars in that episode, I'd be a little bit suspicious. I think
highly of myself, but not that highly of myself. You know, it's well above market rates, So yeah, I mean, is it that they were too stupid to have any even the base level interest in who's coming up to them and offering these bags of cash or did they just not care and think, okay, if it's the Russians, so what, I'm already drinking from those waters as it were.
The media is pretty clear that they received a CV on whoever this guy was, this fake persona, But if you gave it more than ten minutes of googling, he simply doesn't exist. This guy.
He's even spelled his name rong.
Two ends.
So it's either they didn't know or more likely they just simply didn't want to know.
But you know, the amazing thing is the level of insight that the FBI had into the Russian case officer and what he was doing. And one of the things I've been tracking and I think is very thematic, is the kind of cultural degradation of the Russian intelligence services over time. You know, Dossaevsky said you can judge a society based on its prison population. You can also base the society based on its cadre of intelligence officers and agents.
This guy, for instance, pretended he was in Paris but was logging into Zoom or whatever it was Microsoft teams on Moscow time, and they've literally got him googling the time in Paris from his computer.
Yeah, he missed a meeting one time because he missed the thought.
Right, right, And I mean he is spelling your name with two ends, a name like Gregorian, which you could easily google how that name is. It's just bizarre kind of tradecraft.
Because Trump himself has commented on this and basically said, I don't believe any of it, and I think in the right wing blogosphere and their right wing ecosystem, this story doesn't exist right.
Well, all the influencers essentially capped to it and said, we were duped. We are the victims here, right, So they're legitimating the indictment and the credibility of it. The other interesting thing I've noticed with this, and this has also been a theme, certainly for the last decade or so.
Usually when the Russians get their hand caught in the cookie jar, their intelligence operations are exposed, their reflexive response is to deny it's a lie, it's Rusophobia, or the CIA and the FBI are whipping up anti Soviet sentiment. I mean, you just go back to any major spy scandal in the twentieth century during Cold War I mean Gusenko in Canada, the extent to which the Soviet press has said that this was all just a fabrication designed
to disrupt the World War two alliance. And oh, okay, maybe some people in the Communist Party were stealing nuclear information, but it was all stuff we had already, and this is all penny antebs this time. The Russians are kind of Artie's response, I think they were quoted by Fox News was ha ha. They're laughing off. Russian propagandists are saying, oh, okay,
they paid a bunch of right wing podcasters. What about NAPO, which is a collective of, as they call themselves, brain dead cartoon dogs who espouse the Ukrainian cause and basically troll the Russians the way the Russians used to troll everyone else. And yet the Russian conceit, and the conceit of the fellow travelers of the Russian government is that NAFO is a CIA enterprise. But these are all bots paid for by clever accountants at Langley or whatever. Meanwhile,
I know the people who found in NAPO. They're very real. One is a former army tank commander in Afghanistan who's done interviews about it. But I think that's part of the new kind of the way that the Russian government plays these games. You know that the idea of we're inhabiting a post truth, postmodern world where it's no longer. You don't have to deny something. You cop to your own malevolence, but you just turn it around and say,
we just do what everybody else does. Right. That's the fundamental nature of these conspiracy theories is they project that which they what they accused the West of doing, they themselves are guilty of.
Right. Let's take a quick step back, though. Can you tell us about the people involved in this?
Right?
So it was through this company called Tenet Media. There was a few people Benny Johnson, Timpoole, Dave Rubin, and Tim Poole even interviewed Donald Trump on his show. And Benny Johnson has something like two and a half million followers on his YouTube channel.
Yeah.
I think the short answer is they're all angry, grievance afflicted culture warriors. I wouldn't even say that they have any coherent politics other than the liberal establishment and the elites are out to dispossess all of us and wokenesses the cancer of our time, and anything that is anti Trump is bad, and Donald Trump represents this sort of
disruptor mentality that they all cling to. These are people who demand to be taken seriously and are very angry at the fact that so few people seem to have done so, and so they've created this cottage industry of being on the outside looking in at a forty five degree angle to the so called establishment, whatever that is, and however one chooses to define it. And there are a lot of angry cranks and malcontents out there, and what the Internet has done beautifully is bring all of
these people together. And the Russians, to their credit, saw that this is having an influence, that these guys do have an organic following of real people. They are peddling influence, certainly in the age of Trump, They're acting as a force multiplier for the stuff that he believes. So, yeah, there's this guy, Tim pul Well. I don't really know
them that well. I don't follow this ecosystem. I know Timpole has gone on Fox News and complained about how guys like Timpoole can't get laid and how women don't like them, which again, like if I had, if.
The women knew he was getting ten million dollars.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm reading the indictment. I'm looking at the profiles of all of these actors.
You know.
One of the ties that binds all these guys is they're very down on Ukraine and the idea that the Western the United States has any responsibility whatsoever to help Ukraine materially, morally, diplomatically, financially. And I think looking at them from the perspective of a Russian intelligence officer, it makes perfect sense that they would seize upon these guys and say, how can we help. We want to amplify your endeavor here and give you lots of money and
keep you doing the things that you do. But there is evidence here this wasn't a sort of non editorial interference deal. They were prompting them, they were giving them talking points. Could you, for instance, say that the isis K attack on the Crocus mal in Russia was in fact the Ukrainian military. And then it becomes this relationship where you realize the only TV you can do is Russian state TV. So you lean into what you think that audience is expecting from you. You know, Seian opposition
or all terrorists, plasher a Lasada ain't so bad? Putin is this? But what about George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, etc.
Etc.
And I've seen a lot of people over the years who they might start out a little heterodox in their thinking or kind of contrarian and then, as a result of getting boosted by Russian propaganda, become completely intoxicated with the conspiracism because they realize that's how they're building their audience on Twitter and Facebook, and they become this sort of cultural force onto themselves.
But in the past people like this, So in World War Two, Lord haw Right who talked to British troops, he was executed by the British after the war, and his trial he basically said, I believed it. I thought this was all I didn't actually lie. I was talking about British defeats, and I was talking about competence by
Montgomery and so forth, and it didn't matter. And then in the US we had Tokyo Rose and access Sally and again in their trials where they're all found guilty of treason, they basically said, I was telling the truth. My truth just happened to be the same as what our enemies were doing. So when I hear Tim Poole and people like this say, it doesn't really matter because that's what I think anyway. But basically doing it at the knowingly or they should know at the behest of
Gladabra Putin, who is our enemy? If you don't believe it, just ask him, right, he says this, And seventy years ago we were putting these people in the docket and trying them for trees. I'm not saying we should do with these guys, but I think that as a country, we treated disinformation differently in the past. Okay, let's take a break from the craziness just for a minute or two.
And Rebecca, the critical word is money. I have some flickering respect for sort of the generation of revolutionary idealists from the twenties and thirties who joined the communist cause because they truly believed that was the future of humanity. They were driven by not necessarily I mean yes, in many cases a love of Moscow, and they believed in the workers state. But also they were terrified by the rise of fascism in Europe, and they saw communism as
the only viable alternative because liberal democracy had failed. We talked on the last show Whittiger Chambers head amassing people of that ilk to them. When the Soviet services started to say we want to pay you, that was anathema. They would never have taken money that was an insult, and that actually started to make them doubt their own idealism. What do you mean, pay me. I'm doing this because I'm a revolutionary. I do this because it's the core of my conviction.
It's the right thing to do.
Right, it's the right thing to do. And you know, the difference here is it's a grift.
Right.
Maybe they start out believing I don't know, Kamala Harris is kind of comie like in her policy prescriptions. Maybe they start with the kind of politics like this. But again, this relationship that they have with their online audience, these invisible faces of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who click, follow, subscribe, and then if there's a tip jar or some kind of crowdfunding mechanism, feed the beast. That's what I think
drives them. Suddenly they're famous, suddenly they're wealthy, or they're doing quite well, whereas in the more traditional sort of outlets and fora they would fail. And I think again, their sense of self, their mentality, and their place in the culture is very much in definition, is defined by their negative relationship to what they see as acceptable society and the fact that the Russians just paid them loads of cash is very much in keeping with that sort of core cynicism, I.
Think, Michael, let me ask you the question we were getting to earlier about how much bigger it might be. So we have lots of evidence, for example, that in Europe Russia has overtly paid for media, but has also paid politicians and political parties. So is this latest indictment just a tip of the iceberg?
Well, you know, it's very funny. I lived in London from about twenty ten to late twenty twelve and one of the things I noticed when I was starting to cover Russian intelligence and influence operations was the Russian government seemed very interested in the Tory Party to an extent that the SVR helped found something called Conservative Friends of Russia.
They had their launch party at the Russian Embassy and a friend of mine, Peter Palmeransive, went to one of these events and he said it was all very Weimar. You had very awkward looking men with bad complexions. There was at least one or two Dwarfs there, and it was like, these are all like guys who want to go to Russia, want to meet pretty girls, want to have consultancy contracts with gaz Prom and Rosneft, and they see Russia as a fun anarchic place where they can succeed,
whereas in the UK not so much. At best, they might be a Tory backbencher one day, and yet lo and behold, the Russians took them to Moscow and Saint Petersburg and there was some compramont and strip. I mean again, you could write the script in crayon. That's how easy it was. What struck me was okay, so it used to be Moscow would align or look for willing or perhaps unwitting agents of influence and agents on the political left,
anti imperialists, anti American sort of socialist types. Now they're sinking their teeth into conservatives. People who believe in blood and soil nationalism have a sense of religiosity, even if they don't quite subscribe to it. So in a way, when MAGA came into being, it was cream cheese for the Russians. This is exactly what they were hoping to see arise in the United States because they had been playing with the same elements in Europe. What starts in
Europe often migrates over to the United States. And I think we're just now catching up with the fact that this has been going on here for quite some time.
And yeah, I mean it probably isn't just confined to the far right, because there's certainly elements on the far left who agree with the far right on a lot of things Syria, Israel, Palestine, now certainly Ukraine, and indeed, I mean running interference for Donald Trump, because he is the guy who's going to just tear it all up and start all over again, and he's so unpredictable and chaotic. It weakens the United States and therefore empowers its adversaries.
Who are the main public figures in the United States who appear to be regurgitating Russian talking points come to mind for me, for example, Tulca gabberd Ron Johnson, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, Rfk, Junior Rugi, Scott Ridder, Aaron Motte, Josh Holly, all those kind of guys.
Sure Ridder might himself face indictment because the FBI raided his house evidently.
Not the first time, not the first time.
No, I mean you mentioned it. The Grey Zone Project is low hanging fruit. I think, given the fact that it was founded literally after Max Blumenthal came back from Moscow attending the RT annual Gala ten year anniversary, at which, by the way, was also one Mike Flynn, one Jill Stein. But yeah, I mean, look, just because you're regurgitating these talking points or these narratives doesn't mean that you're on the payroll.
It's true. But it's interesting that how clear they are. Often like at the same time they all start putting up almost the same language. So something's going someone's getting it, putting it into the ecosphere, and others are picking it up.
You know, all of these guys were saying in the lead up to the February twenty twenty two full scale invasion of Ukraine, this is crazy, this is QAnon for the liberal establishment. It ain't gonna happen. Then when the Russians invaded, the tweets were almost identical. It was listen, I was wrong, I'm sorry, and it was almost verbatim
across Mark Ames Aaron mate. It's like they all got their fucking taskings from their handlers telling them, oh, yeah, okay, we need to change the narrative to start putting this stuff out now. It cra deserved it, yeah, exactly, Ukraine deserved it. This is the result of NATO's expansion, blah blah, and that's what they've been doing for the last two and a half years. And that actually reflects that not everyone in the Russian government and across the security services
intelligence agencies was read into the invasion of Ukraine. I'd heard stories from here in New York that the Russian mission to the United Nations was hosting a party and everybody, you know, we're twelve vodkas in the bag and they had to be recalled to the office because guess what Putin actually went in And so they either they were acting surprise or they were genuinely taken aback Butye because they didn't think he was going to happen.
We've seen this play before. So in World War Two, the French Communist Party, the American Communist Party, they were like, you know what, let's just stay out of this World War two until Barbaros. Once the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, then the American Communist Party had to do a complete about face.
The French Communist newspaper, the editorials in the morning and the evening edition were the exact opposite.
And dare I say, Hunter Biden. I mean, I don't want to go back to that, but I think we do have to say that it's not just these influencers. Alexander Smirnoff, for example, was this guy was arrested an FBI in Foreman, a Russian who was pushing the narrative that the Biden crime family were in the pockets of the Russian So someone it's not just a few influencers. I think the Russian services are going at this in
a whole host of different ways. So it's a huge conspiracy and it's manifested in all sorts of different ways.
Yeah, and now you have this wonderful chestnut from Putin where he's winkingly endorsing Kamala Harris for her infectious laugh and everyone these idiots are literally saying that means that the Russians are for the Democratic Party. Aha, it's still a hoax.
But the infectious laugh thing that is playing off. Of course, what Trump was saying that was a criticism he was making. So it's clear that Putin is listening to this and he's winking at the American audience.
There's a macab delight they take in watching this sort of very eager enthusiastic constituency, lap up whatever it is they're pouring down, because this is one of the thoroughgoing conceits of how the Russians view people who are not fully recruited, but are these useful idiots, agents of influencers. The Russian term for it is shit eater. They treat them with contempt. They're like tissue to be used and
discarded at the Russians pleasure. And this now, this new thing up where you're offering amnesty to Timpoole and Lauren Chen and a lot of them. They want to come to Russia and live here. Can you imagine any of these people going and living in Russia? I can't. That's the whole game over right there. They need the Western audience. They want to live, they want to indulge in life here while tearing down their own society as completely depraved and corrupt.
So, Michael, how does a free society protect itself? So Lord haw when he was involved in the World War two, the British executed him, access Sally and Tokyo Rose got thirty years, although they're all out within four or five.
Right, These social media influencers were all about conspiracy theories. They had millions of followers, and they constantly talked about seeing shadowy figures secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes. But somehow they didn't seem to question why someone gave these eighth grade education people millions of dollars to spread Russian talking points. They see things behind every bush, and then on this all of a sudden, they got a bunch of this money and didn't ask any questions.
And this is part of the great irony. And again going back to the macab delight. You know, the Russians tell their useful idiots to say everything is a CIA State Department deep state conspiracy, from NAFO to the White Helmets or whatever, when in fact, what the Russians are doing more accurately adheres to that definition, and it's this weird sort of Freudian projection.
It's funny. I saw a tweet which said exactly. I said, just wait until the conspiracy theorists discover they're part of a conspiracy to use conspiracy theorists to spread disinformation via conspiracy theories.
Yeah, exactly.
So we're going to stop here for today and continue our conversation with Michael Weiss on the next episode see you next week. I'm Mission Implausible.
Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'Shea, John Seipher, and Jonathan Sterner. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission Implausible is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable Pictures for iHeart Podcasts.