Transcription
We've gotta talk about this MAGA right-wing civil war. Because it's actually been going on for a bit. But it really heated up with this one interview. Because he had former Fox host and now podcaster Tucker Carlson bring on the leader of the white nationalist movement, Nick Fuentes.
Now, you know, with that, Carlson himself has been called a white nationalist by critics for a long list of past comments he's made, especially his promotion of the so-called Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which suggests that there's a scheme to gradually replace white people with nonwhite immigrants. You don't even for Carlson, for many, if Fuentes was seen as a uniquely far-right guest, especially when it came to anti-Semitism.
Well, you people sharing moments from Carlson like this. What I do think is bad, just objectively bad and destructive, is the "all Jews are guilty" or "all anybody is guilty of anything" because that's just like not true. You also had people sharing clip after clip of this nearly 2.5-hour interview where Carlson seems friendly and sympathetic. "Know, I agree with you on some of the things you're pivoting against, for sure. I'm an American nationalist, too. Worrying about who lives in your country is far-right. Apparently, there's a lot of these neocon Jewish types behind the Iraq war. There is the foreign aid complex, which is really unique. Was the Zionist Jews like Dave Rubin, like Ben Shapiro, like Dennis Prager. Fox has done a Jewish business. So while Rupert Murdoch is an ally of Netanyahu. Not that interested in the Jews, but I'm very interested in the foreign policy question. We do, on some level, need to be pro-white, not to the exclusion of everybody else, but recognizing that white people have a special heritage here." Say identity politics like it's a bad thing. "I think identity is reality. Identity is reality." Right.
And so the full interview, it gets millions and millions of views. The clips, they go viral, pick up tens of millions of views across multiple platforms. And of course, you then have people reacting. Among those who had Ted Cruz, who also had a very hostile interview with Carlson not too long ago, and he said, "If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and then their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are a coward and you are complicit in that." Right. And that is you had Republican and former Senate Leader Mitch McConnell saying, "Last I checked, conservatives should feel no obligation to carry water for anti-Semites and apologists for America-hating autocrats. But maybe I just don't know what time it is."
But then also, someone with a lot of sway in the conservative movement came to Carlson's defense. Kevin Roberts, right? He's the president of the Heritage Foundation, one of the most prestigious right-wing think tanks in the country, and the creator of Project 2025. "Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Heritage Foundation didn't become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians, and we won't start doing that now. We will always defend truth. We will always defend America, and we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else's agenda. That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and as I have said before, always will be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation." With him then also adding that he disagrees with and even abhors things that Nick Fuentes has said, but that canceling him is not the answer.
But then with that, you had others strongly disagreeing with. For example, Matt Brooks, the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition, telling Jewish Insider that he was appalled, offended, and disgusted that Roberts and Heritage would stand with Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes as somehow being acceptable spokespeople within the conservative movement. And now you also have Ben Shapiro jumping into the mix, throwing punches at both Roberts and Carlson. "It is not cancellation to draw moral lines between viewpoints. It is not cancellation to refuse to signal boost Hitler supporters like Nick Fuentes. It is not cancellation to criticize Tucker Carlson for rhetorically fluffing Nick Fuentes and other anti-American crackpots." In fact, Shapiro dedicated his entire show today just to the Carlson-Fuentes controversy. And he didn't mince his words. "They are white supremacists, hate women, Jews, Hindus, many types of Christians, brown people of a wide variety of backgrounds, blacks, Americans, foreign policy, and America's constitution. They admire Hitler and Stalin." With Shapiro then warning that they're now being normalized within the mainstream Republican Party and then adding, "The main agent in that normalization is Tucker Carlson, who is an intellectual coward, a dishonest interlocutor, and a terrible friend."
Now, with all this for context, Shapiro's involvement here, it is likely something that he would already do. But also, it is personal. With Tucker and Fuentes before, but they also brought his name up a lot during the interview. Right. With Fuentes saying that he was actually a fan of Shapiro by the time that he went to college in 2016, having befriended many writers from The Daily Wire and getting cultivated as an up-and-coming right-wing debater. But then, according to his account, they first butt heads over Israel. "I tweeted to Ben Shapiro, I said, you know, I've never seen anything on The Daily Wire that's actually critical of Israel." He quote-tweets me and says, "To accuse a Jew of dual loyalty is the surest sign of anti-Semitism." Then I put out another tweet similar. I said something like, "If you're trying to [inaudible] first, you should live in China. If you're Mexico, first, you should live in Mexico. If you're Israel first, maybe you should go live in Israel." And again, he quote-tweets me and says, "You're an anti-Semite." So? You're an 18-year-old college freshman. You're clearly talented and you're engaged, really interested. And you ask not not crazy questions like, what? What is this? And rather than explain it, they just call you a racist. Call you an anti-Semite. And so he claims that after a few months of what he said was just asking questions about Israel, he was finally excised from the movement. With that, he claims The Daily Wire was pivotal in blacklisting him. This even though, in his words, "And not to be that guy and say that thing. But like, my best friend is a Jewish person." Right.
But on his show today, you get Shapiro going on the offensive, playing a series of clips meant to prove that Fuentes believes it extended far beyond just innocently questioning U.S. support for Israel. Shapiro playing clips where it appears Fuentes is saying that women actually want to be raped, instructing his followers to kill, rape, and die in his name. A post-civil rights for women, arguing that Jim Crow wasn't a big deal and was actually better for black people, stating that racism is justified, questioning the history of the Holocaust, and calling Hitler "really fucking cool." "Hitler was a pan of fireworks and kind of a pagan. It's like, well, he was also really fucking cool." "Were also with that you had people defending Fuentes kind of landing in three camps or in a mishmash of them." Right. Some seeing those clips and just saying "based." "The weather is absurd." "Some of these are not recent." And others saying that they're out of context.
But then with all this, you with Shapiro turning to Carlson, with him playing a series of clips where Tucker apparently defends Vladimir Putin, defends the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, gives a softball interview to the Iranian president, downplays Hamas, and ties Jeffrey Epstein to the Israeli government. With all this, you and Shapiro pointing out that Carlson also recently interviewed Candace Owens, who herself hosted Nick Fuentes before that, in arguing that this is a pattern. "You bring your dirty, ugly ideologies to Tucker Carlson's rhetorical car wash. He mixes it with some of the vestigial respect Americans have for him from his Fox News days, and voila, hideous ideas suddenly become mainstream. But there's no question that Tucker has become the most virulent super spreader of vile ideas in America."
You know, also in the situation, Shapiro wasn't the only high-profile commentator targeted by Carlson and Fuentes. Because they also talked about Mark Levin and claimed that he was actually the one who first radicalized Fuentes in 2016. "He goes live, and he says, 'America's becoming a majority nonwhite country. Does anybody think that's a good idea?' And I was thinking to myself, yeah, that actually doesn't sound so good." Right. Now, while speaking before the Republican Jewish Coalition, you had Levin shooting back. "For six months, I've been fighting these bastards. Whether it's Tucker Carlson or whether it's Nick Fuentes. And I've been looking over my shoulder looking for help. And, you know, I found nothing. What do you mean? We don't cancel people? We canceled David Duke. Donald Trump canceled David Duke. We canceled Pat Buchanan. We canceled the John Birch Society. We canceled Joseph Sobran. We canceled pornography on TV. We cancel stuff all the damn time. Hitler admires Stalin, admires Jew haters, American haters, Churchill haters. You're damn right we're going to cancel them and deplatform them."
Then, you know, there were also others who got caught in all this. Not just Ted Cruz, but George Bush, Mike Huckabee, John Bolton, and others getting lumped together by Fuentes and Carlson, his so-called "Christians, scientists." And with that, you had Tucker in particular, accusing them of heresy and saying that they've been infected by the brain virus that is neo-conservatism.
You know, for now, we're gonna have to wait to see what happens. Yes, in the long term. But also, even just this week, the Carlson-Fuentes interview kicked things off. You now have Shapiro, but there's going to be a lot more back and forth happening. Though again, it didn't all stem from this podcast. These, these fissures, they've been widening for months now, if not years. The arguably, I think the biggest mover in the last year or so has been what Israel did in Gaza. Lots of hearts, minds, opinions, viewpoints have changed. Again, that's just one aspect of a multi-front issue. And so with all this, as we wait to see how this MAGA civil war plays out, I'd love to know your thoughts, opinions, and reactions here. And then there's more we're going to dive into in just a minute. But first, let me say, you know, between gas, groceries, gifts, and the unexpected, holidays are basically a financial endurance test. That, that's where today's sponsor Upside comes in clutch. All season, Upside is the free app giving you extra cash back on everyday purchases like gas, groceries, and eating out. Because holiday survival shouldn't require a second job. Open the app. Claim an offer. Pay like normal. Follow the steps and boom, money back. It's real money, not like points, credits, or mystery tokens that you'll never use. Upside works with over 100,000 gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants. So you're saving whether you're on a road trip or just avoiding cooking. Users also earn up to three times more cash back than other programs, and together they've already gotten back over $1 billion. Last night, I was at 7-Eleven filling up and I saw the Upside offer for 10% off per gallon. It saved a few dollars right there. So you know, this app, it gives your wallet a reason to smile this season. Your Upside has given back $1 billion to its users. And to find out how much you could earn, just download the free Upside app and use promo code DeFranco to get an extra $0.25 back for every gallon on your first tank of gas. An extra $0.25 back for every gallon on your first tank of gas using promo code DeFranco.
The next up, and then it is, let's talk about MAGA world losing their minds this weekend over this picture. Because you had a bunch of teachers from Tucson wearing bloody T-shirts with the words "Problem Solved" for Halloween. Many MAGA, this was a clear reference to Charlie Kirk. It really seemed to kick off when you had Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, writing, "Concerned parents just sent us this image of what's believed to be teachers mocking Charlie's murder. Deserve to be famous and fired." Within other conservative leaders like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis then piling on and tweeting, "Been really disturbing to see teachers across the country glorifying a murder just because they disagreed with the victim."
Except here's the thing. There was a major problem. And that actually ends up being a pun with this narrative. Because it turns out it wasn't a reference to Kirk at all. Vail School District Superintendent John Kerry quickly putting out a statement denying that and saying, "I want to clarify that these shirts were part of a math-themed Halloween costume meant to represent solving tough math problems. The shirts were never intended to target any person, event, or political issue." The man going on to say that other descriptions of this were false claims and unequivocally untrue. You also saw Kirk trying to be a bit diplomatic and saying that he understood how the image could come off badly and that we are, quote, "truly sorry for the hurt or upset it has caused." That also is there was other evidence that this wasn't a reference to Kirk, such as the fact that the teachers were the exact same thing last year, as many on social media pointed out.
But of course, since this all went viral, the district and the individual teachers have apparently been getting harassed, leading to demands that Kolvet and others apologize for getting it so wrong. After seeing the evidence contradicting the claims that this was a Kirk reference, Kolvet appeared to double down and wrote, "Seen enough evil since Charlie's murder that I'd actually be relieved if this isn't another example. That being said, it's a very weird costume for teachers in general. But after what happened to Charlie, I'm absolutely floored they wore it again. Do not believe for a second that all of them are innocent. Some probably are, but I believe others knew exactly what they were doing." However, it looked like other TPUSA members were more apologetic. With, for example, Blake Neve, producer for The Charlie Kirk Show, writing that he realizes his proximity to the assassination makes it far more likely to see references to it, even if there wasn't one. But also considering the evidence that the shirts were worn last year, he didn't feel like it was right to keep his criticism up. Said though some MAGA people, you know, they're outraged and they've kind of moved the goalposts slightly and they've written things like, "School district claims these teachers wore the same exact shirts last year. I'm skeptical, but okay, let's pretend that's true. Is it okay for teachers to wear these shirts just three months after the public assassination attempt of Donald Trump? It's not. It's abhorrent." We've had some agreeing with that sentiment. You've also had others saying, "That's just sounds like someone trying to save face." Hey. Yeah, this is a new show, but also, it's a conversation. So let me know your thoughts, opinions, and reactions here.
Then next up in the news, I've kind of a fun little thing you get to do. You get to stress about if you want. If you were like, man, there's there's not enough stress in my life. Because a new study is now linked regular melatonin use with an increased risk of heart failure. So one, we should talk about it because you're going to see this in the news. But also two, because if you're one of the millions of people who use melatonin all the time, experts say that you shouldn't panic, at least yet. Right. Because specifically, the study analyzed five years of data from over 130,000 adults with an average age of 55 who have been diagnosed with insomnia. Within that subset, the researchers found around 65,000 people who had been prescribed melatonin and reported taking it for at least a year. Because, well, you or I, we might be able to walk into a drugstore and buy as much as we want over-the-counter. Outside of the United States, there are other countries that require a prescription, like, for example, the UK. While notably patient locations weren't available to the researchers, they did account for a number of other factors that could influence heart failure risk, like various health conditions. To conduct the study, the researchers compared the health records of those 65,000 people who had been prescribed melatonin with other patients who had insomnia but no record of taking the supplement. What they found is that people with a recorded long-term melatonin use had about a 90% higher chance of heart failure over five years compared with non-users. The also, the actual number of people who had heart failure is still relatively low. We're talking like 4.6% for recorded melatonin users and 2.7% for non-users. Then also beyond that, researchers found that people who took melatonin were nearly three and a half times as likely to be hospitalized for heart failure. And nearly twice as likely to die from any cause. And those in non-melatonin groups. So you might look at that and get freaked out. Especially because melatonin use has become so prevalent in recent years. With many of you, it is a safe, more natural sleep aid. I mean, a 2022 survey found that more than 1 in 4 adults reported taking the supplement to help them to sleep.
But also, I'll say, before you panic, there are a few important things that we need to break down. First of all, I would say that the study hasn't gone through the rigorous peer-review process, so it's still considered to be preliminary. Then beyond that, the study also had some very significant limitations that could pretty dramatically impact its findings. The biggest issue by far is that the group of people listed as melatonin users were categorized that way only because they were prescribed the medication and had it noted in their health records. So the data, it doesn't account for people who could be taking it over-the-counter without a prescription. So it's very likely that many of the insomniacs who were identified as non-users actually did take melatonin for an extended period, but it just wasn't in their records, because maybe they live in America or one of the many other countries where you can get it over the counter. And all of that, as experts noted, that the health records analyzed here lacked important details about the severity of the insomnia among patients and whether those prescribed melatonin reported changes with their sleep patterns. Because quality sleep is incredibly important for heart health. Research shows that people who get poor sleep, they tend to have higher heart rates and blood pressure and experience more cardiovascular events. If the patients taking prescription melatonin still were not getting good sleep, it could skew the results. With that, you would an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at Yale School of Medicine, explaining, "They had such bad insomnia that they needed prescription-dose melatonin. Were they actually getting the benefit of the melatonin for sleep? If the answer is no, then you cannot have a correlation that melatonin causes heart failure." With them then adding that it's more likely that insomnia could be contributing to declining heart health and heart failure.
You know, even the researchers behind the study acknowledge that it had major limitations with the lead author saying, "It doesn't prove that melatonin directly causes heart failure. It simply shows that people with chronic insomnia who took melatonin long-term were more likely to experience these outcomes." Still, he argued that the fact that they found a link at all, it's still notable. And it needs to be studied further. Adding, "Melatonin is generally viewed as a very safe supplement, as something people and even physicians don't usually worry much about. So we honestly didn't expect to see a clear signal linking long-term use with higher rates of heart failure, hospitalizations, and death." Right. And that's something that many experts agree on, arguing that these findings raise questions about whether melatonin is more harmful than we think. And it highlights the need to study the medicine further. For now, you've got some medical professionals saying that, you know, there's no need for people and healthcare providers to change things up. Especially because some of the past research actually suggests that melatonin might have health benefits for people with heart failure. Some noting that it's an antioxidant and could help protect against coronary artery disease, which can cause heart failure. That said, experts still advise that melatonin should be used carefully and under supervision, especially for people who have cardiovascular risk factors.
And then we'll get back to the news in just a minute. But first, let me say, get in on this sale. Right now, over at BeautifulMatch.com. I decided to just do the Black Friday sale now. So right now, if you go to BeautifulMatch.com, pretty much everything 60% off. You can grab yourself maybe some graphic gear, flannels, a polo, the go-anywhere pant, candles. There's a bunch. Also, just a small warning, there is limited stock of this first push for November. So definitely grab what you want while you can.
But then next up today, we've got to talk about how ex-President Donald Trump has now threatened to go "guns blazing" into Nigeria. He said the reason for this is that thousands of Christians are being killed by radical Islamists, and the government is doing nothing to stop them. That is you have experts saying that the truth isn't that simple. Right. So Nigeria is an extremely diverse, multi-ethnic country, but in terms of religion, its population of more than 230 million people, it's split almost equally between Christians and Muslims, with Christians mostly in the South and Muslims mostly in the North. And as far as the killing, the worst of it has been concentrated in the Northeast, largely thanks to the extremist group Boko Haram and its years-long campaign to build an Islamist state. But also here, while Christians are targeted, most victims of Boko Haram and other armed groups are Muslim, right. Since that's the dominant population in the part of the country where most of the attacks are happening. Now, that said, in other parts of the country, there have also been clashes between mostly Christian farming communities and largely Muslim herders. It's a religion. It's definitely a factor. But the conflict is also driven by land and resources. Overall, the data seems to back that up with the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data program finding that nearly 12,000 attacks against civilians resulted in over 20,000 deaths in Nigeria from 2020 until now. With 385 attacks resulting in 317 deaths being targeted. Events against Christians where Christian identity of the victim was a reported factor. Then also, 196 attacks resulting in 417 deaths were against Muslims.
And so with that, you've got a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies explaining, "The crisis is far more complex than a simple religious framing suggests. The geography of violence largely determines who becomes the victim." But also, despite that, there are those who have latched on to the less complex narrative, including before Trump, right? That includes Senator Ted Cruz, who a few weeks ago, you had him introducing legislation to designate Nigeria a violator of religious freedom, alleging that, quote, "officials are ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist jihadists." Right. And then you fast forward to this week and you had Trump writing on social media, "Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria," and claiming radical Islam as responsible for the mass slaughter of thousands of Christians and announcing that he would be designating Nigeria a country of particular concern, and then adding, "The United States cannot stand by while such atrocities are happening in Nigeria and numerous other countries. Stand ready, willing and able to save our great Christian population around the world." With that, you got him not only threatening to end all aid and assistance to Nigeria, but he also warned, "US may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns blazing, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities." And adding, "I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action." End up then Secretary Pete Hegseth responding on saying, "Yes, sir," and repeating the allegations against Nigeria.
Though all of this, as you said, the Nigerian president denying them, writing on X, "The characterization of Nigeria as religiously intolerant does not reflect our national reality, nor does it take into consideration the consistent and sincere efforts of the government to safeguard freedom of religion and beliefs for all Nigerians." But also with that, I will add, while Trump's claims are misleading at best, many experts say that he is at least right that the government could be doing more. Right. And with that, you know, Trump mentioned making Nigeria a country of particular concern, and that is a real designation established under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to describe countries that systemically violate religious freedoms. And you actually had the independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommending this year that Nigeria be put back on that list after the Biden administration removed it. Also notably, there, the commission emphasized violence against both Christians and Muslims, writing, "Religious freedom conditions in Nigeria are poor, as the government tolerates or is slow to respond to attacks by non-state actors who kill, kidnap or threaten Christians and Muslims in the Northern and Middle Belt regions."
So we're gonna have to wait to see how this plays out. But also something notable about all this is that while Trump is pushing this misleading narrative about Nigeria, he's remained silent as an armed group backed by a U.S. ally has been committing what is likely some of the most horrific violence of the 21st century. Right. And they're talking about what's happening in Sudan. Right. Because the blood, it's visible from space. That's the result of likely tens of thousands of people being killed in the past week in the Sudanese city of El Fasher. Because, as we've talked about, the paramilitary force known as the RSF, they took control of the city on October 26th after an 18-month siege, and while many have tried to escape, relatively few have succeeded. With a Doctors Without Borders coordinator in the town where most of those who have made it out have been arriving, explaining, "Our question is very simple: Where are they? Where are the rest?" And adding, "Our fear is that these people have been detained for extortion or got killed." End to that point, those who escaped, they've reportedly been showing up with bullet wounds and signs of torture, with one survivor saying about her journey out of the city, "There were bodies of men and women everywhere. Some people were run over by vehicles. While we were on the road, they took girls from our group, choosing them and dragging them away." You've also had the World Health Organization verifying an attack on the last functioning hospital, saying that more than 450 people have been killed.
And ultimately, like we seem to be watching history repeat itself in a way that is unfortunately unsurprising, because the RSF grew out of the government-backed militia accused of genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, when an estimated 300,000 civilians belonging mostly to non-Arab ethnic groups were killed, women were systematically raped, and millions of people displaced. Now you've got Nathaniel Raymond, the head of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab, saying that "the South is now finishing the liquidation of Darfur and adding, 'This is the final battle of the Darfur genocide.'" The also, in terms of the intensity of the violence, you had him evoking the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where more than 800,000 civilians were killed in just over 100 days. You had him saying that high-res satellite images that his team had seen, it showed activity that suggests mass killing on a level that can only be compared to Rwanda. And adding, "We have never seen a velocity of violence at this scale. In the tens of thousands in terms of all of the body consistent objects on the ground. Are moving like a woodchipper, and they are killing everything that moves."
And then with all that, you know, we can't ignore the role that foreign powers, either through direct support or indifference, have played in making this violence possible. There, you know, as far as the RSF, its biggest backer has been the United Arab Emirates, which has been supplying money and arms to the group. And we thought you had Cameron Hudson, a former chief of staff to successive U.S. presidential special envoys for Sudan, saying, "The war would be over if not for the UAE. The only thing that is keeping them in this war is the overwhelming amount of military support that they're receiving from the UAE." Then notably with that, you know, the UAE gets a lot of support from the United States of America. And we've seen very little pushback on that from members of Congress. Right. Yes. You've had a bipartisan group of senators issuing a statement condemning the violence and calling for the RSF to be designated a foreign terrorist organization and even noting, "Foreign backers of the RSF and SRF, including the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Iran, China, and governments in the immediate region have fueled and profited from the conflict and legitimized the monsters destroying Sudan." But for all of that, the statement doesn't call for any specific action against those countries. Now, you've also had Senator Chris Van Hollen and some others pushing for legislation prohibiting arms sales to the UAE until it stops arming the RSF. But that doesn't seem to actually have a chance. Right. And even if it did, which again, we are not saying it even has a chance, it did, you'd still understandably have people asking, you know, what could have been prevented by taking action sooner. None of this can be undone. But again, that's where we are right now. We're gonna have to keep our eyes on this.
But that, my friends, you beautiful bastards, is where today's show is going to end. But remember, you've got more. Just a click away. You've got my brand new podcast, "In Good Faith," this week with MKBHD. They're also going to have another iGTV episode out for you tomorrow. This time, for the first time ever, with a guest who is actively facing a federal indictment. And or you can watch that newest episode of "Crashing Out" with myself and Alex Pearlman. And they're the newest episode this week is going to be out Thursday. What a week it's going to be. Thank you for watching. I love you faces. And I'll see you right back here tomorrow.