Transcription
Uh, there are many of us that saw, uh, an appearance, uh, by Ian Carroll on, uh, Joe Rogan's podcast, and he was talking about your work, and I have had this question for quite some time. Um, why haven't you been on to Joe Rogan's podcast?
Yeah, I mean, I've been name-dropped on there by Rogan and other people and have not been invited on. And I mean, obviously, it's fine. I don't need to go on there. Uh, but I found it strange that, you know, he would have another person on, uh, to talk about my book that's not me. Um, and I would argue, you know, um, again, this is speculative, but I would argue that, you know, the fact that I don't really like either party is very inconvenient to some large platforms. Um, and so, you know, instead, uh, a person that, you know, promoted my research, which, you know, thanks for doing that, um, but that promoted my research, but their solution, unlike mine, um, is to vote Trump. Um, you know, I think that's more convenient. It's a more convenient package, uh, for my research than perhaps what I would say. Um, and also, in that appearance, Ian Carroll, even though he promoted my book, uh, said that my work on Peter Thiel and Palantir, uh, was unhinged, was the term that he used, um, without really explaining.
So, and it's kind of ironic that he would do that because for being such a big fan of, um, my book, at the end of the book, uh, I talk about how Palantir is the new Jeffrey Epstein. And in the age of Palantir, uh, you do not need someone like Jeffrey Epstein or any other figure in history that engaged in sex blackmail. You don't need to do that kind of operation anymore. You can just, uh, either harvest all of the data you would need for blackmail off of people's digital devices, or you plant, you plant things on their devices that are incriminating but don't actually belong to them. And Peter Thiel and Epstein had a significant relationship. More has come out about it, uh, you know, from mainstream sources in the past few months. You know, I first wrote about their overlap in 2019. Um, and so, you know, it's been part of my work on Epstein for a long time, and I don't really think you can separate my work on Peter Thiel and and Epstein, to be honest, because they ultimately are in service to the same endgame, I would think.
A lot of it is partisan. Do you think that's why you're not on a lot of the large, uh, left, uh, YouTube shows as well? It's something I've noticed. Um, you, you've been on my show, uh, obviously Brie show, Bad Faith. I've seen you on Katie Halper. But I noticed that people have pointed this out. They said, "Why isn't Whitney Webb invited on to the large, large left shows, the ones that have like a million subscribers?"
Uh, I don't know. I, I think it might have something to do, um, with my stance during COVID. Um, I was very against a lot of the authoritarian policies that were implemented. Um, I wrote a lot about, um, you know, how the, the formation of the biosecurity state where national security and public health have fused, the role of Palantir. Um, I criticized, uh, you know, the vaccine rollout, Operation Warp Speed, having that led by the military under Trump. I mean, among other things, but, you know, I don't really know. I'm sure I have stances that bother them beyond that, you know. Um, and then I know, you know, of course, that there's a particular figure on the, well, I don't even know if he's considered on the left anymore, but he doesn't like me. That would be Glenn Greenwald. Uh, I did some critical reporting back when I was on Mint Press about the Intercept, um, and how so many of their whistleblowers went to prison allegedly due to reporter malfeasance. It's not Greenwald specifically, but other people that were there at the time he was there. Um, and also, you know, wrote an article criticizing the, uh, Intercept's closure of the Snowden archives, the Snowden documents, uh, because, you know, less like 90% of the Snowden documents were never published and now it's closed. So, bye. Um, and I, you know, talked about how the owner of PayPal, Pierre Omidyar, was also the owner of the Intercept, and PayPal, and also Omidyar's eBay, you know, had long-standing, uh, connections to, you know, intelligence world. And Pierre Omidyar was, uh, one of the most frequent visitors to the Obama White House and things like that. And Greenwald said that Omidyar had no influence on the Intercept at all at the time and really does not like me. So.
Oh my gosh, I didn't know. I didn't know. Oh, it's okay. I mean, I went hard at Greenwald for that because I thought he was the greatest when the Snowden stuff came out. Uh, and I found that very disappointing. Um, so I don't know. I mean, I don't really want to continue having a beef, beef with him necessarily. Um, and I stand by my reporting from from that time. I don't think it was right what happened to Reality Winner and some of these other people that went to jail because they thought it was safe to send documents to the Intercept.
Well, I think that your work is great. Uh, I think you do a great job and a lot of us learn quite a bit, uh, from you. I look forward to reading your next piece, uh, which should be dropping, I believe, next week. You said hopefully.
Okay. I mean, you know, snags happen. I have kind of a busy personal life right now and also, you know, I, uh, things are kind of crazy professionally too. Uh, so hopefully next week. Uh, but we have a lot of exciting projects coming up at Unlimited Hangout, including, you know, a print magazine. Hope to have another book out by the end of the year, um, among other things. So, uh, for anyone that's interested in, uh, what's coming up from Unlimited Hangout, you can sign up for our newsletter, uh, via unlimitedhangout.com, or, you know, you can follow me on Twitter or whatever. But, you know, it's best to sort of take the algorithm, mega man, uh, middleman out, especially when, uh, you know, they're connected to the military-industrial complex as extensively as Elon Musk is, maybe not best to have all your eggs in that basket.
Well said, Whitney Webb. Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks.
No, my pleasure to be back. Hey guys, this was a savvy clip. If you like what you saw, hit that like button and subscribe.