Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, I'm Robert Evans and this is once
Speaker 1: again Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you
Speaker 1: everything you don't know about the very worst people in
Speaker 1: all of history. And today we are talking about a
Speaker 1: very special, terrible, terrible person, Alex Jones. Now you probably
Speaker 1: know Alex Jones is a ridiculous hob goblin of a
Speaker 1: man who spouts conspiracies at the same rate of fire
Speaker 1: as of Olcan chain gun. He's been banned from Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: the App Store, and pretty much every other mainstream app
Speaker 1: that is capable of somehow spreading information. Up until very recently,
Speaker 1: Alex Jones is considered nothing but a far fringe loon,
Speaker 1: hardly an important voice in our national discourse. But the sad, weird,
Speaker 1: almost funny if you can hold back the tears, truth
Speaker 1: is that Alexander Jones is one of the most influential
Speaker 1: Americans of the twenty first century. He is an architect
Speaker 1: of modern conservative media and a pioneer in a field
Speaker 1: that employs everyone on the podcast today. Speaking of everyone
Speaker 1: on the podcast today, my guest today are Ben Bowling
Speaker 1: and No Brown from Ridiculous History. Hey, thanks for having
Speaker 1: us on the show. Robert thanks, probably so excited to
Speaker 1: talk about this despicable pustule of a man, and especially
Speaker 1: because this is uh the second time that the three
Speaker 1: of us have hung out. You recently appeared on an
Speaker 1: episode of our show, Yes I did, talking about California's
Speaker 1: first governor and uh, one of the most famous racists
Speaker 1: in Oregon history. That was fun, feel good moment everyone. Well,
Speaker 1: today we will be talking about more racism, but not
Speaker 1: from a Californian or an Oregonian, actually from from a Texan.
Speaker 1: So that's fun. You guys excited? Oh man, thrilled. Let's
Speaker 1: do it all right, Let's let's roll into this. Alexander
Speaker 1: Emrick Jones was born in Dallas, Texas, in nineteen four.
Speaker 1: A two thousand eleven Rolling Stone profile describes him as
Speaker 1: the descendant of two lines of Texas frontiersman. I think
Speaker 1: this article is one of the first, if not the
Speaker 1: very first, major publications that devoted a substantial feature to
Speaker 1: the subject of Mr Jones's life. It takes it amused,
Speaker 1: slightly mocking, but ultimately quite fon stance towards the infamous
Speaker 1: loon quote. He describes a childhood that will disappoint those
Speaker 1: searching for the Freudian roots of his crusade. His parents,
Speaker 1: a dentist and a homemaker, raised him with love and
Speaker 1: the manicured suburb of rock Wall. I was an all
Speaker 1: American kid with a great family, he says. I read
Speaker 1: Time Life books, played football, was friends with everybody. So
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's what Alex says his background was. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that that seems so far, pretty normal, pretty normal
Speaker 1: so far. I mean it's it's hard not to read
Speaker 1: him talking anytime he's quoted and like a Alex Jones
Speaker 1: been eating cigarettes. You can read the phone book. You
Speaker 1: can read the phone book in that boy a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. You say, rock Wall? He grew up in
Speaker 1: rock Wall. Rock Wall, Yeah, which sounds very down home.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a very comforting place to have grown up.
Speaker 1: It is. I actually grew up about twenty five minutes
Speaker 1: away from Alex Jones and in a place called Plane.
Speaker 1: Oh um. So rock Wall is a suburb of Dallas,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a pretty affluent place. This the suburbs
Speaker 1: on that side of Dallas are generally quite well off,
Speaker 1: upper middle class for sure, and Rockwall is one of
Speaker 1: the nicer suburbs in that whole area. It is a nice,
Speaker 1: quiet and pretty boring place, Mike Judges. King of the
Speaker 1: Hill is set in that same area, and it's actually
Speaker 1: a pretty accurate depiction of how it was when I
Speaker 1: lived there. At least I think that's why I said
Speaker 1: it was comforting. King of the Hill is like video
Speaker 1: comfort food for me. Put it on like to just
Speaker 1: it lulls me into a state of utter bliss. So man, okay,
Speaker 1: so when when did things go wrong? Well, uh, that's
Speaker 1: kind of something we're all going to have to piece
Speaker 1: together here during the story. I've I've I've read as
Speaker 1: everything I can about his background, every different article I
Speaker 1: found that goes into his childhood. So I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you everything. There's some conflicting stuff here, so oh awesome,
Speaker 1: here we go. And also, just hey, man, on a
Speaker 1: personal note, thanks for doing that and saving us from it.
Speaker 1: I hope you're okay. It wasn't. It's it's finding all
Speaker 1: the clips that was really emotionally damaging because I had
Speaker 1: to listen to a lot of info wars and it's
Speaker 1: but you are going to put us through that part,
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, no, no, you owe me nothing. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm ready. I'm a monster okay. According to Alex, his
Speaker 1: parents raised him to be a political quote almost as
Speaker 1: an experiment to see what I'd turned into. The closest
Speaker 1: thing to a childhood political training with some neighbors who
Speaker 1: were members of the John Birch Society. They'd come over
Speaker 1: for dinner and I'd be exposed to those ideas starting
Speaker 1: at around age two. So this is the first place
Speaker 1: where I have questions with that Rolling Stone article, because
Speaker 1: no one in nineteen eighty four just had friends that
Speaker 1: came over to talk about the John Birch Society. Do
Speaker 1: you guys know who? What? That is? No break it
Speaker 1: down for us? Okay, So the John Birch Society is
Speaker 1: like the prototype for all future right wing conspiracy organizations.
Speaker 1: Fred Cooke, the patriarch of the Koch Brothers, was one
Speaker 1: of the founding members. Uh. To give you an idea
Speaker 1: of these people's intellectual ten there, they believed Dwight D.
Speaker 1: Eisenhower was a secret Communist. Oh wait, I am familiar
Speaker 1: with these people because they're still like, there's staunchly anti communists.
Speaker 1: That's one of their big platforms, right, Yeah, they're staunchly
Speaker 1: anti communist and they leave that like a gigantic communist
Speaker 1: conspiracy controls most of the world, even during the height
Speaker 1: of the Cold War, when like you know, they, like
Speaker 1: I said, they think Eisenhower was a was a lefty.
Speaker 1: So that should give you an idea of how far
Speaker 1: to the right these guys are having friends who just
Speaker 1: I don't buy that he just had friends who came
Speaker 1: over to talk about the John Bird Society. And other
Speaker 1: articles I've read say that Alex Jones's father himself was
Speaker 1: a member of the John Birch Society, which makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Whatever the truth is, Alex Jones was
Speaker 1: probably born into a mix of middle class luxury and
Speaker 1: far right conspiracy theories. Every single deep dive on the
Speaker 1: man I've read will mention that while young, he found
Speaker 1: a book called none Dare call it conspiracy on his
Speaker 1: father's bookshelf. Um yeah, yeah, so another quote from Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: According to none Dare, the federal income tax is nothing
Speaker 1: but a plot by a cabal of mega rich insiders
Speaker 1: who worked to suck the middle class dry and transfer
Speaker 1: its wealth to the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. As a teenager,
Speaker 1: Jones read the book twice. It's still the easiest to read.
Speaker 1: Primaryanth to the New World Order, he says, So this
Speaker 1: is like the book that's his his I don't know
Speaker 1: what's another influential book, the Bible. This is his Bible,
Speaker 1: like his his his fountain. But there you go. But
Speaker 1: he always, you know, makes a point. Maybe this is
Speaker 1: coming later. I'm sure it is that he's playing a
Speaker 1: character and he doesn't even really believe any of this,
Speaker 1: But based on what you're saying so far, it sounds
Speaker 1: like he has a pretty strong history of believing in
Speaker 1: and he just recently started saying that it was a character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's for a custody hearing. And speaking of that
Speaker 1: custody hearing, the teen custody hearing, which we will be
Speaker 1: talking about more in the in the last episode of
Speaker 1: this three Party podcast. But during that custody hearing, he
Speaker 1: does talk about his childhood some So I'd actually like
Speaker 1: to play you a clip from that where Alex talks
Speaker 1: about his life at age sixteen. So this will give
Speaker 1: us all some idea of what Alex Jones was doing
Speaker 1: as a teenager. When I was sixteen, I didn't want
Speaker 1: a party anymore. I didn't want to play games anymore.
Speaker 1: I grew up. I'd already been in the fights, all
Speaker 1: the big rituals I'd already had. Probably I hate to brag,
Speaker 1: so I'm not braggie. It's actually shameful. Probably a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty women or more, that's conservative, But over a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty women I'd already been in fights with, full
Speaker 1: grown man. I was already dating college girls at the
Speaker 1: time I was fifteen years old. I was already a man.
Speaker 1: So that's a heart blood. I got Harry Balls being conservative, dude, No,
Speaker 1: he is be his myth building at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, no, that's that's all lies. Clearly,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's funny. I feel like, yeah, that's forty
Speaker 1: four year old al I'll believe a hundred and forty
Speaker 1: that's a reasonable number for a fifteen year old. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, oddly enough. If you want some context for
Speaker 1: that video, the first part of it is him talking
Speaker 1: about a new World Order plan to stop people from
Speaker 1: breeding because we're all supposed to have kids by age sixteen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I don't want to be just taking Alex
Speaker 1: out of context because whenever the media tells him, yeah,
Speaker 1: here's a question, if that's his beef, you know, that
Speaker 1: this is this conspiracy to like cut off procreation or whatever.
Speaker 1: And he's had a hundred and fifty women by the
Speaker 1: age of fifteen, where all his like, you know, bastard children.
Speaker 1: He's admitted to I think ten abortions, to like having
Speaker 1: having had partners of his have ten abortions over the
Speaker 1: years and stuff, and it's usually something he brings up
Speaker 1: when he's talking about his like shameful past or whatever,
Speaker 1: um whatever, that's important to him. Yeah, but so so
Speaker 1: none of that is true, you're saying, right, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: absolutely I know he's had sex with people because he
Speaker 1: has kids, but I really doubt he had sex with
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty people by the time he was fifteen.
Speaker 1: But was he was he really fighting full man? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: a fight we know Alex Jones had and we've got
Speaker 1: different different perspectives on that fight, including the police report
Speaker 1: that Alex filed. So that's coming up in a little bit,
Speaker 1: maybe you guys, well, we'll reserve our judgment until then.
Speaker 1: Um So, anyway, during his John Hughes movie Worth Adolescence,
Speaker 1: Alex Jones stumbled onto his first conspiracy well, he was
Speaker 1: out at parties on the weekend, he would watch his
Speaker 1: off duty cops sold pot, ecstasy, and coke to other teens.
Speaker 1: Jones said to Rolling Stone quote a truck would appear
Speaker 1: sometimes with a guy still in uniform inside. Then on
Speaker 1: Monday they'd have dare and drug test as for football.
Speaker 1: I was like, you want a drug test me when
Speaker 1: I know you're selling the stuff. I called them the
Speaker 1: mafia to their face. At the time, I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about the CIA drug dealing. So Alex was a
Speaker 1: varsity lineman at this point in high school, so it's
Speaker 1: entirely possible he went to a lot of parties. And
Speaker 1: it's also possible that rock Wall cops sold drugs to teenagers.
Speaker 1: That whole chunk of suburban Dallas Fort Worth has horrific
Speaker 1: and had horrific drug problems. Um when I was a
Speaker 1: kid there in the midnineteen nineties, there was an article
Speaker 1: that on a like seven or eight kids died in
Speaker 1: a night from heroin overdose. As it was called the
Speaker 1: Great Heroin Massacre. And it turned out that Plain oh
Speaker 1: was like the heroin capital of the United States, And
Speaker 1: in like two thousand one, a bunch of Dallas cops
Speaker 1: got busted for planting hundreds of pounds of fake drugs
Speaker 1: on people. So there's a lot of police corruption in
Speaker 1: that part of Texas. It is entirely possible that young
Speaker 1: Alex Jones stumbled upon a real drug conspiracy. Um. He
Speaker 1: says that this conspiracy is why he wound up leaving
Speaker 1: the Dallas area. He got arrested for driving without a
Speaker 1: license and having a six pack of beer in the car.
Speaker 1: Um and when the police bought brought him to jail,
Speaker 1: he says the police threatened to frame him and send
Speaker 1: him away if he didn't stop, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: the things that they were doing wrong. Maybe that's true.
Speaker 1: Maybe Alex started his career as a conspiracy theorist with
Speaker 1: a real conspiracy. It is possible cops in that part
Speaker 1: of Dallas have done some shady things, and that's certainly
Speaker 1: what your appetite. You know, the first one is legit,
Speaker 1: then you know everything you see from then on is
Speaker 1: like got that tone to It does sound a little
Speaker 1: self aggrandizing though, that the cops were so concerned, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, if they're that bad, why didn't
Speaker 1: they just get rid of him? Well, and that's that's
Speaker 1: a fair point, and it's almost even if there was
Speaker 1: something wrong, because apparently the Rockwell sheriff was indicted on
Speaker 1: criminal charges for like organized crime, conspiracy and stuff after
Speaker 1: he and his family left Austin. He says they left
Speaker 1: that his parents moved to Austin because he was a
Speaker 1: threat from the police. I don't know if that's true.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they were afraid of him, but
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible he saw some evidence of an actual
Speaker 1: shady thing going on and that that's what sort of
Speaker 1: jump started him. I gotta say, I appreciate that you're
Speaker 1: you're being very fair, Robert. I'm noticing that this is
Speaker 1: I think my spider since tells me this is about
Speaker 1: to get really weird. I mean, it's Alex Jones. Of
Speaker 1: course it's going to be really, really weird. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he does it. At this point, he hasn't done anything
Speaker 1: that's that's inherently terrible, and he may be stumbled upon
Speaker 1: a real a real conspiracy. Buckley Hammond, Alex's cousin and
Speaker 1: a current Info Wars employee, considers this, uh, this whole
Speaker 1: rock Wall police thing to be a major moment for Alex.
Speaker 1: Quote the rock Wall cops were lowbrow thugs and Alex
Speaker 1: was a hell raiser. The conflict with the cops started
Speaker 1: Alex down the road of his current pursuit. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems plausible. Once he and his family moved to Austin,
Speaker 1: Alex quit football, which is probably good. He's not a
Speaker 1: man who needs head injuries added on to whatever else
Speaker 1: is going on in his head. He also quit smoking
Speaker 1: pot because he says it made him paranoid, and we
Speaker 1: wouldn't want paranoid Alex Jones. Uh. Decades later, during that
Speaker 1: magical two thousand and eighteen custody hearing, Alex Jones admitted
Speaker 1: that he still does smoke marijuana once a year, quote
Speaker 1: to monitor its strength, like law enforcement does so, just
Speaker 1: to make sure nobody anything. He believes that George Soros
Speaker 1: is making marijuana more potent. That was his what he
Speaker 1: stated in court, and so he's keeping taps. That's just
Speaker 1: stop people from breeding and bringing the new world order
Speaker 1: with better pot. Did you have you seen the video
Speaker 1: of him where he's like talking, He's on a YouTube
Speaker 1: clip and in the background he's got all this like
Speaker 1: E D M DJ equipment and there's like this conspiracy
Speaker 1: about Alex Jones that he is a secret E d
Speaker 1: M DJ. He definitely plays a lot of E d
Speaker 1: M on Info Wars. Yeah, but like in the background
Speaker 1: there's like a t R eight O eight and like
Speaker 1: these like c DJ decks and like all of this
Speaker 1: stuff that only a super hardcore synth nerd would have.
Speaker 1: And it's clearly like a room in his house. I
Speaker 1: can tell you. I know, like at least close to
Speaker 1: a dozen men over forty in Austin who are electronic
Speaker 1: music DJ so and I live in Atlanta and I've
Speaker 1: got a bunch of cent stuff in mind, so you know,
Speaker 1: me and Alex Jones have that in common. It just
Speaker 1: kind of made me feel closer to him. I just
Speaker 1: wanted to bring that up earlier. It's just a Texas thing.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean it's it's popular in Austin. It's
Speaker 1: entirely possible that that's a hobby of his, and if so,
Speaker 1: I encourage him to do that and not everything else
Speaker 1: he's been doing. Consider E d M a more or
Speaker 1: a less positive thing for the world. So so so
Speaker 1: it's similar. I guess this testing marijuana his potency. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of that old story about Gandhi where he
Speaker 1: said that he would have like young female relatives of
Speaker 1: his with him to test his like his resolve, his
Speaker 1: discipline and yeah, yeah Gandhi and good on Alex Jones
Speaker 1: and Allie Stones a real bullward. You know what. It's weird,
Speaker 1: But anytime someone talks about doing something to test themselves,
Speaker 1: it's almost always a little shady. I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 1: normal people don't test themselves, they just indulge sometimes whatever
Speaker 1: I'm getting on a getting on a more point here anyway.
Speaker 1: Jones claims that near the end of his time in
Speaker 1: high school he started reading big fancy history books, including
Speaker 1: William Shier's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which
Speaker 1: is a really good book, as well as works of
Speaker 1: Roman history. He began to see a pattern in history
Speaker 1: of government stage terror attacks. Uh and this apparently was
Speaker 1: sort of the start of his formation of the ideology
Speaker 1: that would take him through into adulthood. So Alex Jones
Speaker 1: graduated high school, he wound up gravitating towards the Austin
Speaker 1: Community Access cable station and took on basically whatever work
Speaker 1: he could volunteer for. When the Oklahoma City Federal Building
Speaker 1: was blown up, by Timothy McVeigh. Jones got on the
Speaker 1: air and accused the federal government of planning the attack.
Speaker 1: Other conspiracy nuts started mailing him tips and information. Soon
Speaker 1: Jones became a local Austin celebrity. Brian Blake, the Austin
Speaker 1: Public Access station producer, recalled that back in those days,
Speaker 1: the station was quote wild and unmoderated, like the YouTube
Speaker 1: of its time. And how was gonna be my question?
Speaker 1: Like he just had like a like a bully pulpit,
Speaker 1: Like he could just do whatever he wanted whenever he
Speaker 1: wanted at this time. Yeah, yeah, he could just get
Speaker 1: on public Access TV. He had like a slot, and
Speaker 1: he also guessed it on a lot of people's shows,
Speaker 1: and he would just say whatever he wanted to. Did
Speaker 1: you ever end up seeing some of this stuff forever? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're about to play a clip to it. So I
Speaker 1: have found a clip from the show in this era,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty remarkable. When you see Jones today, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't look at Alex Jones in a modern Info Wars
Speaker 1: broadcast and be like that man is polished. But I
Speaker 1: think this video makes it clear that he is. He's
Speaker 1: just that's the polish he's picked because the early video
Speaker 1: shows him before he's developed his full stick. Um. So
Speaker 1: for some context, this video starts when one of his
Speaker 1: fans calls in to complain about a wildlife preserve in
Speaker 1: the area. Uh, and Jones starts mocking him and like,
Speaker 1: how dare you doubt the wisdom of the globalist elite
Speaker 1: sort of way, so he's he's being satirical. He's not
Speaker 1: really mocking the guy, but he's talking to him the
Speaker 1: way he thinks that a globalist elite would talk to
Speaker 1: this guy. It's kind of weird. Um. The guy doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to get the joke and is really uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: the fact that Alex is yelling at him. And at
Speaker 1: one point the poor fucker call like, thanks Alex for
Speaker 1: the call and says he has to go and has
Speaker 1: clearly put off, and Alex screams at him, no, submit,
Speaker 1: And then this happens, all right, submit how the kid?
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm illustrating. I'm sorry about being at Hello,
Speaker 1: there another government training center. Dude, I've taught you how
Speaker 1: to be cool. The cool person goes never think all
Speaker 1: the girls is the fool? You know, he wears the
Speaker 1: cool clothes. He don't care about politics. None of that
Speaker 1: baby looks party. Yeah, I don't care about my future
Speaker 1: or the world's future. I'm a caring person. I like tot.
Speaker 1: I like this Alex Jones. Yeah, this Alex Jones is fine.
Speaker 1: He's whimsical. Man, this is great. He's dapper. Yeah, he's enjoyable.
Speaker 1: You want to watch this Alex Jones. He doesn't look
Speaker 1: like he hasn't fully drunk his own kool aid at
Speaker 1: this point. You know. He also doesn't look like he's
Speaker 1: emotionally and financially invested in destroying the world. That's true.
Speaker 1: He looks like this is a bit for him, Like
Speaker 1: he could do uh snl weekend update or something. I
Speaker 1: can see why people would have found him enjoyable and
Speaker 1: even comforting to like turn on at night, smoke a little.
Speaker 1: It was also aff for a time. It was a
Speaker 1: different time. It was not as heavy and weird. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, this feels like an intentional comedy show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: still with a bent, but with an intent on making
Speaker 1: people laugh more than scaring them into buying do prep
Speaker 1: supplies whatever. And he sounds like a normal human being,
Speaker 1: not as we'll get to in later clips. He's been
Speaker 1: gargling cigarettes and razor blades for the last thirty It's
Speaker 1: like what happened to Gallum, you know, like over time
Speaker 1: you just like shrivel and degrade into this like totally
Speaker 1: new creature. You know, this is like him when he
Speaker 1: was see yeah, this is this is Sniegel Jones and
Speaker 1: not go I like that. I like that. So at
Speaker 1: this point he's he's definitely he rants a lot about socialists, uh,
Speaker 1: and he's already ranting about the globalists. But his conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory is more like an X Files type of conspiracy.
Speaker 1: The military and the police and the CIA or untrustworthy
Speaker 1: and spying on people. They're all engaged in a grand
Speaker 1: chess game for your mind. And it's not He's not partisan.
Speaker 1: The Republican and the Cradit parties are all fake to
Speaker 1: this Alex Jones, he got left her on the right.
Speaker 1: He's just everyone that's in power at all is in
Speaker 1: the same conspiracy. That's Alex Jose at this point, fingers
Speaker 1: on the same hand, right, yeah, yeah, just finger yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: So this this particular take that he that he developed
Speaker 1: secure Jones a comfortable niche in Austin's then thriving community
Speaker 1: of weirdos. He became a minor local celebrity and is
Speaker 1: in fact one of the people like that slogan, you know,
Speaker 1: keep Austin weird that developed in this time in the
Speaker 1: late nineties in Austin, and Alex Jones is one of
Speaker 1: the people who was the most prominent folks in that
Speaker 1: sort of era of kookie quirky Austin. So in he
Speaker 1: got his first radio job, a show called The Final
Speaker 1: Edition on k jfk FM. The chief conceit of the
Speaker 1: Final Edition is that every episode might be the last,
Speaker 1: because even then the globalists were perpetually a few days
Speaker 1: away from cracking down on Alex Jones. At least, that's
Speaker 1: the version of reality that Jones portrayed to Rolling Stone.
Speaker 1: Subsequent reporting over the years has revealed a different side
Speaker 1: to how he got his show. I found this quote
Speaker 1: from a two thousand seventeen Business Insider article. While his
Speaker 1: big break came from public Access TV, Jones's first real
Speaker 1: job in media was with a local talk radio show.
Speaker 1: He got the job with some help from his father,
Speaker 1: a dentist, who recommended his son to a patient who
Speaker 1: managed the station. After his father made the connection, Jones
Speaker 1: was invited for an interview, but his father didn't just
Speaker 1: make the connection. BuzzFeed also published a great article on
Speaker 1: Alex in two thousand seventeen called Alex Jones Just Can't
Speaker 1: Help Himself. It provides even more detail on how Alex's
Speaker 1: dad basically got him his first real radio job. Quote,
Speaker 1: he said, my son's got some out their ideas, but
Speaker 1: I think he'd be perfect. Darren O'Neil, the KJFK manager
Speaker 1: who brokered the deal, explained the next week he brought
Speaker 1: Alex in for a meeting to secure jones spot on
Speaker 1: the station. Jones's father became his son's first on air advertiser,
Speaker 1: So there we go. Dad's money is what got Alex
Speaker 1: Jones's career started, and his dad is a fairly well
Speaker 1: off doctor, definitely upper middle class. It is interesting, if
Speaker 1: you're a regular listener to the show too, how many
Speaker 1: of the terrible figures in America that we've talked about,
Speaker 1: the Koch Brothers, Paul Man for Eric Prince got their
Speaker 1: big break from their dad's money. Just kind of weird
Speaker 1: how that works anyway, speaking of money that doesn't come
Speaker 1: from father's or my doesn't come from Alex Jones it's
Speaker 1: time for ads. This This was my way of of
Speaker 1: segueing into the ads as perfect. Yeah, thank you, I'm
Speaker 1: a professional, Just Sophie, can we just play that? And
Speaker 1: we're back. We're talking about Alex Jones and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: we just we just got into the fact that his
Speaker 1: dad got him his first radio job, which is fun,
Speaker 1: perfectly fine if you're not the kind of person who
Speaker 1: always brags about how you're a self made man. Um anyway, whatever,
Speaker 1: um so, yeah, dad's money aside, Alex Jones is apparently
Speaker 1: a natural at radio. Ryan shoe, k JFK's radio engineer,
Speaker 1: later recalled Jones's first day quote, he just walked into
Speaker 1: the booth, sat down, and started in on a rant
Speaker 1: cold I never saw anything like that, according to BuzzFeed Quote.
Speaker 1: Other early coworkers said that Jones was famous and often disorienting.
Speaker 1: Theatrics have been there from the start. Burke described a
Speaker 1: moment when a caller attacked Jones on air as a
Speaker 1: soft button up to media type. Jones, according to Burke,
Speaker 1: erupted into tears, yelling, my name is Alexander Jones, and
Speaker 1: I played football man and my parents are still married
Speaker 1: and I'm a damned American the color was stunned. A
Speaker 1: coworker recalled, we went to break right after that, and
Speaker 1: he put his head in his hands and is rubbing
Speaker 1: his eyes all sheepish. He turned to me and said,
Speaker 1: was I crying too much? I just turn it on
Speaker 1: sometimes and I don't know how to stop. So wow.
Speaker 1: So he's really in touch with his emotions. Huh. Pretty
Speaker 1: stable guy. Has always been a hallmark of him is
Speaker 1: that he gets super worked up and like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's sort of him saying, look, I'm just like you.
Speaker 1: I feel things I feel deeply. It's an interesting point
Speaker 1: because he said, sometimes I just turn it on, but
Speaker 1: I can't turn it off. So there's an interesting, like
Speaker 1: I guess conflict. They're like, how performative is it? Does
Speaker 1: he start performing? I think he's just a method I
Speaker 1: think he taps into it, like you know, method acting style.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that may have been at
Speaker 1: at first. I think he probably started out having enough
Speaker 1: discretion and self control to tap into it when he
Speaker 1: knew it was appropriate for making the show more compelling
Speaker 1: and drawing viewers or listeners in. And I suspect maybe
Speaker 1: over time he's kind of lost his filter. And lost
Speaker 1: his ability to filter like a sane person would because
Speaker 1: I think gone completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's my theory.
Speaker 1: So uh, I asked earlier about Alex Jones and what
Speaker 1: he's like in a fight, and it just so happens.
Speaker 1: We have some some data on that. So in nineteen seven,
Speaker 1: another local Austin, UH celebrity known as Space Hitler punched
Speaker 1: Alex Jones right in his face several times. Space Hitler
Speaker 1: real name Clayton Counts, but I'm going to keep calling
Speaker 1: him Space Hitler. Uh yeah. Space Hitler had a habit
Speaker 1: of calling into Alex Jones's public access show and making
Speaker 1: fun of him. His nickname of choy was Jarhead Jones,
Speaker 1: which for some reason Alex Jones hated. Here's how Jones
Speaker 1: described him in the police report that he filed. Quote,
Speaker 1: he has called my home and told me graphically that
Speaker 1: he wants to kill me. I have made a complaint
Speaker 1: when this has happened informally a number of times, and
Speaker 1: we have contacted the FBI. He has harassed many people
Speaker 1: over the past years. His voice is very easy to remember.
Speaker 1: It is I would say a Houston type accent. He
Speaker 1: is very strange looking, he has eyes that look like
Speaker 1: a goats. So it is Space Hitler just a famous
Speaker 1: local troll or did he have his own show too?
Speaker 1: It's just like the Battle of the shock Jocks. What's
Speaker 1: going on? He was just a famous local kind of
Speaker 1: like personality eccentric, And I don't think it's true that
Speaker 1: he threatened to murder Jones at his home. I think
Speaker 1: that's because top bringing in the FBI is classic Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: I think he's exaggerating it. But from what's up with
Speaker 1: the goat though, I have no idea. I've never heard
Speaker 1: anyone describe someone's eyes as being like a goat. Does
Speaker 1: that mean they're really close together a really far apart
Speaker 1: like octopus? Your guess is as good as mine. I've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of days. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: he means. Yeah, So from what I can gather from
Speaker 1: other people's accounts, Space Hitler was definitely harassing Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: although again I don't think he was calling his home
Speaker 1: and threatening to disembowel him. There are a number of
Speaker 1: versions of what happened in the fight between Space Hitler
Speaker 1: and Alex Jones. They pretty much all start when Space
Speaker 1: Hitler and some friends came down by the studio where
Speaker 1: Alex was like working at the Public Access television studio
Speaker 1: and we're harassing Jones, and Jones asked them to step
Speaker 1: outside and then pretended to get a gun from his car.
Speaker 1: One of Space Hitler's friends mocked him for this and
Speaker 1: then punched Alex Jones in the face. Now, Charlie Satello,
Speaker 1: who was an employee at the station, says that he
Speaker 1: came out right after Alex got punched, and Alex was
Speaker 1: in a frenzy and going crazy. Uh. Satello tried to
Speaker 1: calm Jones down, and he and Jones got into an argument,
Speaker 1: and then Jones started throwing punches at him. Uh. Satelo says,
Speaker 1: quote Alex tried to fight back, but was throwing punches
Speaker 1: with no form. The guy is no fighter. So Charlie
Speaker 1: Satello claims that the fight only stopped because Alex's dad
Speaker 1: arrived and gave Satello a hundred dollars because Alex had
Speaker 1: bled on his shirt. Um, so that's that's one side
Speaker 1: of the story. That's Space Hitler and Charlie Satello's side
Speaker 1: of the story that they're making fun of Alex. He
Speaker 1: calls them outside and pretends to get a gun to
Speaker 1: scare them, and somebody punches him, and he starts swinging
Speaker 1: wildly at people, and someone tries to calm him down,
Speaker 1: and he starts swinging wildly at that guy too, and
Speaker 1: then his dad comes over and bribes everyone to leave.
Speaker 1: So that's one version of the story. Now there's another
Speaker 1: side of the story, and it's Alex Jones side. Uh,
Speaker 1: And we have the full account of that side because
Speaker 1: we have the police report that Alex Jones wrote after
Speaker 1: the altercation. I will be putting a link to this
Speaker 1: police report up on our website behind the Bastards dot com.
Speaker 1: I recommend reading it because it is it is a
Speaker 1: work of art and belongs in a museum. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna quote liberally from it here. So in the police report,
Speaker 1: Jones identifies himself as an employee of Castle Dental, which
Speaker 1: I think he means he was working for his dad
Speaker 1: at this time. Jones claims that Space Hitler and his
Speaker 1: friends rolled up in a mix of suits and jogging suits. Quote.
Speaker 1: I said, why do you call me at home and
Speaker 1: on the air and say you want to kill me?
Speaker 1: The leader said, yeah, jar head, it is me I'm
Speaker 1: not a dumbass like you. I don't put myself out
Speaker 1: in front. I'm hidden. No one knows who I am.
Speaker 1: I can do what I want and get away with it.
Speaker 1: Twenty two year old Alex Jones then claims that a
Speaker 1: man who was quote a large Latin Anglo mix type
Speaker 1: hit him with no warning. Quote. I did nothing because
Speaker 1: I saw that to his left, the ring leader with
Speaker 1: the strange eyes had a double edged military type killing knife.
Speaker 1: Alex claims, are y'all on board? So far you? Alex
Speaker 1: claims that he tried to run away towards the studio,
Speaker 1: but that the big Latin Anglo mix type band followed him.
Speaker 1: He hit Alex once more, and our hero Alex was
Speaker 1: mournfully forced to defend himself. Where's the killing knife in
Speaker 1: all of this? I'm sorry, the goat eyes has the knife,
Speaker 1: of course, the military The man with the goat eyes
Speaker 1: has the military type killing knife. Yeah, okay. So the
Speaker 1: big Latin Anglo guy runs after Alex and hits him
Speaker 1: once and Alex turns around and defends himself. Quote. I
Speaker 1: hit him in the face. He came forward to hit
Speaker 1: me again, and I hit him one more time. I
Speaker 1: believe he fell to his knees. This is when Alex
Speaker 1: claims that that guy Charlie came out and got into
Speaker 1: a fight with him. Now Alex leaves out anything about
Speaker 1: his dad coming over to stop the fight, and it's
Speaker 1: very unclear what actually happened. The Austin Chronicle says that
Speaker 1: the security footage has long been deleted, but the cops
Speaker 1: apparently saw it and they didn't see anything serious enough
Speaker 1: to take further action. My guess is that this was
Speaker 1: more of a sad schoolyard fist fight type situation than
Speaker 1: the action see Alex Jones recounts. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: he didn't knock anyone to their knees, but it gives
Speaker 1: some insight into Alex's head and how I think he
Speaker 1: interprets the world. So, yeah, he had to mournfully defend himself.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I bet at some point he yelled,
Speaker 1: do you know who my dad is? He's dentists. May
Speaker 1: have just yeah, he may have just killed dad. Yeah maybe.
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is this is very enlightening. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: so several days after that fight, Alex Jones. Because that
Speaker 1: fight happened in winter of and within between a couple
Speaker 1: of days and a couple of weeks after that point,
Speaker 1: Alex Jones did a Halloween special guest spot on someone
Speaker 1: else's public access television show. So we're gonna watch a
Speaker 1: video of Alex, and for you listeners who aren't seeing
Speaker 1: the video, the link will be up on the site.
Speaker 1: But Alex isn't like a Halloween decorated set. There's a
Speaker 1: severed a fake severed head, and a bucket next to him,
Speaker 1: and he has a fairly small butcher knife that he
Speaker 1: is jabbing a pumpkin with as if he's trying to
Speaker 1: murder it. And he's taking calls. His first caller seems
Speaker 1: to be making fun of him for being on public
Speaker 1: access TV, which is unpaid work, and he asks Alex
Speaker 1: what Alex does for a living. So we're gonna play
Speaker 1: the clip now, I come on public access and hang out.
Speaker 1: I'm on twenty four hours a day, they say, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty close. Well, I can assure you I don't make
Speaker 1: any money off public access. I can guarantee you that. Well,
Speaker 1: you guys have a good one. He appreciate that call.
Speaker 1: Hello call, are you on the air? Yes? House? How
Speaker 1: you done? Pretty good? I was just kind of curious
Speaker 1: if It's true. The police can have laser, laser or
Speaker 1: infrared beams if you if you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and they can project those in. Yeah, the awesome police departments.
Speaker 1: Last time I heard as twenty units. So oh, and
Speaker 1: he still looks for everybody listening, he still looks a
Speaker 1: pretty good Yeah, he looks like a normal human being.
Speaker 1: Like he's clearly got a ship going on. But it's
Speaker 1: fun and you you want to you want to watch.
Speaker 1: So Alex's radio show at KJFK gradually started to pick
Speaker 1: up steam. His coworkers back then describe a man who
Speaker 1: was incapable of turning himself off. When they would all
Speaker 1: hang out at bars, Alex would come over with a
Speaker 1: thick pile of papers and start ranting about globalists or fluoride.
Speaker 1: Matthew Hobbley, who worked at KJFK, told BuzzFeed later quote,
Speaker 1: he'd come over and go into his spiel, and we
Speaker 1: tell him to be cool, and he'd yell, this is
Speaker 1: serious stuff. We'd be like, damn, Alex, it's our day off.
Speaker 1: But he'd go on and on, and by the time
Speaker 1: he was finished, there were papers everywhere. Was he pounding
Speaker 1: shots though? Is he a drinker or was he like
Speaker 1: a teetote I think he's always been a drinker, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, Yeah, it seems like some of
Speaker 1: the stuff comes from the drink, comes from the place
Speaker 1: of drink, And it seems like there's a big need
Speaker 1: for attention as well, you know, like he doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like the kind of person who's comfortable when he's not
Speaker 1: the topic of the conversation or the person speaking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that seems to gel with what he did
Speaker 1: on Public Access because one of the things he was
Speaker 1: famous for was being the guy you could count on
Speaker 1: to do guest spots on your thing if you were
Speaker 1: away for a week or whatever. He really seemed to
Speaker 1: just always want to be on the air, Like that's
Speaker 1: been a gulf with Alex since he was a teenager.
Speaker 1: Really so interesting. He might like the sound of his
Speaker 1: own voice hard to say, uh so yeah. Tragically, Alex's
Speaker 1: radio show was not long for this world. The final
Speaker 1: edition had its final edition in nine when the station
Speaker 1: got bought in. The new management fired Alex for his
Speaker 1: quote inside Terror job stuff. Alex made the best of
Speaker 1: a bad situation and started his own website, info wars
Speaker 1: dot com. He found Tin stations that were willing to
Speaker 1: buy his new show, and he started broadcasting it from home.
Speaker 1: While running his website. He made a documentary called America
Speaker 1: Destroyed by Design, about a world bank takeover of public
Speaker 1: land that Jones assured everyone was imminent. This earned him
Speaker 1: his first celebrity fan, Richard link Letter, who cast him
Speaker 1: as a crazy street profit, and several of his movies,
Speaker 1: including A Scanner Darkly. So you want to see more
Speaker 1: young Alex Jones, you can find him in A Scanner Darkly.
Speaker 1: I just remember Waking Life and that was the first
Speaker 1: time I ever even heard of Alex Jones. He was
Speaker 1: like the crazy, red faced dude in the cab that's
Speaker 1: just like going off. Yeah he's isn't I think he
Speaker 1: is Alex Jones and all of the link Letter movies
Speaker 1: he appears in. Yeah. As Alex's fame grew, so did
Speaker 1: his popularity. He made a deal with Midass Horses, a
Speaker 1: syndication outfit that existed to sell gold to crazy people
Speaker 1: or sanity disinclined people. Jones started making money of his own,
Speaker 1: and by July of two thou one, his show was
Speaker 1: on nearly a hundred local affiliate stations across the country.
Speaker 1: On July twenty, Alex Jones made his most successful prediction,
Speaker 1: Please call Congress, tell him we know the government is
Speaker 1: planning terrorism. He referenced the nineteen nine three World Trade
Speaker 1: Center attack and identified Osama Bin Lawton as quote the
Speaker 1: boogeyman they need in this Orwellian phony system. So basically,
Speaker 1: Alex Jones on July predicted that there would be an attack,
Speaker 1: very likely on the World Trade Center, possibly involving planes,
Speaker 1: and he identified Osama Bin Lawton as the person who
Speaker 1: would be blamed for it. Now, I do want to
Speaker 1: point out right now that his prediction was not entirely accurate,
Speaker 1: and we're going to play a section of that prediction
Speaker 1: that you will not find familiar. We've seen the news
Speaker 1: stories that you've wanted to blow things up, that you
Speaker 1: have blown things job, and that you're saying that four
Speaker 1: million of us are gonna die and we need martial
Speaker 1: law and the associated press. Yeah, so he wasn't right
Speaker 1: about everything, but you got to give a guy credit
Speaker 1: calling in July at an attack like that. It's close
Speaker 1: enough that he was able to make a career off
Speaker 1: of the fact that he predicted the nine eleven attacks
Speaker 1: well surely that like he was able to translate that
Speaker 1: into listeners that would like follow him to the ends
Speaker 1: of the earth, right, And there's also some confirmation bias there,
Speaker 1: I think, because if if people want to believe that
Speaker 1: he's making accurate predictions, it's very easy to ignore all
Speaker 1: the inaccurate predictions he made before that. It's like the
Speaker 1: Nostradamist effect. I mean, not Damas predicted nine eleven, you guys,
Speaker 1: come on, yeah, exactly, Like if you predict doom and
Speaker 1: gloom every single day for years, sometimes those predictions will
Speaker 1: line up with a real attack. And the nine World
Speaker 1: Trade Center attack was a really prominent terror attack. Osama
Speaker 1: bin Laden was a prominent terrorist, Like, it's not out
Speaker 1: of nowhere. Yeah. Yeah, So that's my question here, Robert.
Speaker 1: Do you think that did he claim to have any
Speaker 1: insider information or was he privy to something? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean he claimed to have sources, and he claimed to
Speaker 1: have because he was talking about how like we know
Speaker 1: that the press is going to support martial law and stuff,
Speaker 1: like he was basing all of this. He always says
Speaker 1: that he's got like white papers and sources and stuff
Speaker 1: that he reads all this from. But he claimed to
Speaker 1: have had inside information that this attack was coming from
Speaker 1: an anonymous source, from a bunch of anonymous sources and
Speaker 1: stuff like He that's classic Alex Jones, as he always says,
Speaker 1: this has been verified, this has been proven, we have
Speaker 1: the sources, and then he doesn't give them, um but
Speaker 1: credit where it's due. He he called a terror attack
Speaker 1: that sounded like nine eleven wound up being a couple
Speaker 1: of months before nine eleven. Um. Here's Alex Jones speaking
Speaker 1: later about this time. Quote. I went on the air
Speaker 1: and said those were controlled demolitions. You just watched the
Speaker 1: government blow up the World Trade Center. I lost seventy
Speaker 1: of my affiliates that day. Station managers asked me, do
Speaker 1: you want to be on this crusade going nowhere or
Speaker 1: do you want to be a star. I'm proud I
Speaker 1: never compromised. So Jones got in trouble at first because obviously,
Speaker 1: right after nine eleven he declared it to have been
Speaker 1: a government attack, and he was probably the first prominent
Speaker 1: person in the country to declare the nine eleven attacks
Speaker 1: of a government conspiracy. Um, this is like nine eleven
Speaker 1: was an inside job. That was sort of the big
Speaker 1: buzz phrase that was around at the time, and he
Speaker 1: is the guy who started like he's not obviously, I'm
Speaker 1: going to guess that when that happened, thousands of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists around the world had similar ideas, but Jones was
Speaker 1: the first prominent conspiracy theorists to really hammer home his
Speaker 1: belief that nine eleven was an inside job um and
Speaker 1: gained traction with it too write whether positive or negative.
Speaker 1: He was the first. He became the face of that, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he would replay that clip of him predicting it
Speaker 1: and stuff, and that got him tens of thousands of followers,
Speaker 1: probably millions by the time, you know, the real height
Speaker 1: of that conspiracy theory. And I'm not the man to
Speaker 1: deny anyone there crowning achievement. Alex as if nothing else,
Speaker 1: probably the luckiest conspiracy theorist in history. But like you said,
Speaker 1: he makes a lot of predictions, and I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that we provide some context here, because Alex
Speaker 1: Jones has predicted one disaster a day for roughly twenty
Speaker 1: straight years, uh and through Yeah, so just so no
Speaker 1: one thinks he's psychic. I would like to zoom forward
Speaker 1: real quick to two and the release of the Robert
Speaker 1: Rodriguez and Danny Trejo film Machete. Now, Alex was terrified
Speaker 1: of this movie because it showed Mexicans with machetes attacking
Speaker 1: mostly white bad guys. So here's a prediction he made
Speaker 1: about the movie Machete, just so we don't think that
Speaker 1: maybe he is magic or whatever. And this is an
Speaker 1: Austin thing too. Rodriguez is an Austin guy, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah right. And and Rodriguez and Jones know each other. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think well, but they met. Yeah, whether he
Speaker 1: knows it or not. Robert Rodriguez, I would say it's
Speaker 1: a nine chance right now is going to trigger racial
Speaker 1: riots and racial killings in the United States with the
Speaker 1: September release of his film Machete. First of all, it's
Speaker 1: like the most owner Robert Rodriguez film ever. Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if anybody saw that movie. I saw it.
Speaker 1: I saw it, and to you know what, to Jones's
Speaker 1: credit here at least he wasn't trying to say. And
Speaker 1: also I want to note our super producer, Casey is
Speaker 1: outside the booth with us, and he is laughing so
Speaker 1: hard at some of these that we can hear him
Speaker 1: in here. Ye. True, that's true. Well well played, sir. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you guys remember the machete race riots, right,
Speaker 1: that was that was a dark time for this country.
Speaker 1: Were going to come back from that. I'm surprised you
Speaker 1: can still buy them in stores. I did just want
Speaker 1: to say that. We Ben and I also do another
Speaker 1: show called Stuff They Don't Want you to Know. That's like,
Speaker 1: we're not a conspiracy theorists. We call ourselves conspiracy realist.
Speaker 1: But the idea is like critical thinking applied to conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: So it's like we look at them, it's like, why
Speaker 1: are people talking about this? What are people saying on
Speaker 1: the internet? Why is this interesting? Why is this a
Speaker 1: fascinating thought experiment? And we get so many crazy emails
Speaker 1: in our email box, and and most a lot of
Speaker 1: them are like these like group emails that are just
Speaker 1: sent to dozens and dozens of addresses, and almost all
Speaker 1: of them are just predicting a disaster a day. So
Speaker 1: he set the tone for this. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a thing, yeah, and it's a smart thing to do.
Speaker 1: If you want to be in the business of making conspiracies,
Speaker 1: you want to make as many prophecies as you can
Speaker 1: because it moves the same thing that like an evangelical
Speaker 1: doom and Gloom preacher would do. You know, you make
Speaker 1: you make so many predictions about the end of the
Speaker 1: world or whatever, and it doesn't matter that each of
Speaker 1: them is fake, because what's important is people. Some people
Speaker 1: want to always be that amped up. They want to
Speaker 1: feel like the snakes are always that highney. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's about the journey to the end of the world,
Speaker 1: not whether or not the world ends. So Jones treated
Speaker 1: his luck as prophecy, and his show began to spread
Speaker 1: like wildfire. At first, he was mostly popular in the moist,
Speaker 1: weird underground of Internet nerds in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: which I'm gonna guess everyone on this podcast was a
Speaker 1: member of one way or the other. I just cringed
Speaker 1: at your use of the word moist, but that's that's
Speaker 1: a personal thing for me. I thought it was there
Speaker 1: was evocative, inappropriate, but disturbing. Yeah. Yeah, Well, we passed
Speaker 1: Alex Jones around like a joint. He was. He was
Speaker 1: Bill Hicks without the humor. He was Robert Anton Wilson
Speaker 1: without the humanity. He was a strange and unique little
Speaker 1: nuts screaming into the abyss when we went on strung
Speaker 1: out red eye drives across the southwestern wherever you happen
Speaker 1: to be driving late at night. But as the Internet spread,
Speaker 1: so did Alex Jones. Uh and he would not stay
Speaker 1: small forever. But now it's time for This is not
Speaker 1: going to be one of my smoother ad breaks, but
Speaker 1: it's it's it's time for an ad break. Ads. We're back,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Alex Jones, who has has just
Speaker 1: you know, started to really drive home the fact that
Speaker 1: he predicted eleven along with a bunch of ship that
Speaker 1: never happened. Anyway, He's making a lot of hay out
Speaker 1: of that. And his first big break came courtesy of
Speaker 1: a man you may know, Charlie Sheen. In two thousand six,
Speaker 1: Jones interviewed Sheen on info Wars about his belief in
Speaker 1: nine eleven conspiracy theories, most of which had of course
Speaker 1: been spread via info Wars. This video, because Charlie Sheen
Speaker 1: is a prominent guy, went really really viral, and that
Speaker 1: same year, Alex Jones published the nine eleven conspiracy film
Speaker 1: Loose Change. He was a producer on Loose Change um,
Speaker 1: which is why a lot of people will still make
Speaker 1: the joke that jet fuel can't melt steel beams. That's
Speaker 1: where that comes from. So Alex jones loose change really
Speaker 1: really ignites the nine eleven conspiracy movement um and for
Speaker 1: the first time in his life, Alex Jones became more
Speaker 1: than just a local Austin celebrity or a nut beloved
Speaker 1: by truck drivers. He launched the info Wars store in
Speaker 1: two thousand six, and he started selling diet supplements in
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen, using his shows as free advertising for
Speaker 1: his own products. Alex Jones was the first person to
Speaker 1: really grasp how much money could be made by being
Speaker 1: famous and trusted and selling people bogus healthcare products on
Speaker 1: the Internet. Nowadays been Shapiro, Gwyneth Paltrow, dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: of different public figures sell various health products using their
Speaker 1: sort of websites and podcasts and and media networks as
Speaker 1: a way to drive sales. But Alex Jones was the
Speaker 1: guy who invented that you know it doesn't have behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards branded life straws. I think you're missing out
Speaker 1: on that niche, you know, for just you can get
Speaker 1: a bottle of twelve behind the Bastards iodine tablets guaranteed
Speaker 1: to make sure you have enough iodine to listen to
Speaker 1: this show. I personally endorsed those. By the way, I
Speaker 1: think you get a price break if you order in bold.
Speaker 1: What about Cyanide tablets, That's what I want. We also
Speaker 1: sell Cyanide tablets. Yeah, those are cheaper. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to really drive the Cyanide but anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I just feel it's important to recognize that that
Speaker 1: Alex Jones was kind of like the like the Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs of sleazily selling people expensive supplements on the internet.
Speaker 1: Like he really like huh yeah, I mean he he
Speaker 1: blazed that trail. He was the first guy I had.
Speaker 1: I had no idea seriously that he was the pioneer there.
Speaker 1: I thought he was just you know what it is,
Speaker 1: it's because it's so ubiquitous, like alarmist conspiratorial shows that
Speaker 1: you know, you hear the ads about how the economy
Speaker 1: is gonna collapse and then it goes to another ad
Speaker 1: about how you should buy gold. But he gotta start
Speaker 1: with buying gold was his first big thing and that
Speaker 1: but I didn't know he was the first. And like
Speaker 1: in two thous fourteen when Glenn Beck was everywhere on
Speaker 1: the air. He was always selling like gold stuff and
Speaker 1: that he was that was very much descendent from Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: because he was the first guy to realize that, like,
Speaker 1: there's a whole constellation of expensive things that people who
Speaker 1: are scared about the end of the world always want
Speaker 1: to buy. And if you can keep them convinced that
Speaker 1: the world is always ending and get them to trust you,
Speaker 1: and then tell them that your ridiculous safety supplies or
Speaker 1: supplements or whatever will protect them, that you can make
Speaker 1: a shipload of money. And that's actually what our second
Speaker 1: episode is going to be. But I just wanted to
Speaker 1: make the point that years before Gwyneth Paltrow made Goop,
Speaker 1: Alex Jones was selling people silver to put up their butts.
Speaker 1: Now uh Inforce grew into a major production. No longer
Speaker 1: was Alex recording a show from his house and filming
Speaker 1: video in a spare room. Now he had a studio,
Speaker 1: semi professional production values, and a whole staff. One of
Speaker 1: his producers from this early period was impressed by Alex's
Speaker 1: ability to talk for an hour about stories he hadn't
Speaker 1: read more than the titles of. Another employee recalled the
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed quote. Sometimes he'll say he has sources and he's
Speaker 1: been told a piece of news that has been confirmed,
Speaker 1: but we wouldn't have that information. Later we'd find out
Speaker 1: it was because a week earlier we had a caller
Speaker 1: on air who theorized about something and Alex repeated at
Speaker 1: as fact. So you mentioned earlier having um uh doing
Speaker 1: your conspiracy show and getting emails from nuts. I suspect
Speaker 1: a lot of Alex's sources are emails like that, because
Speaker 1: he's think of the lists Alex Jones must be on
Speaker 1: like yeah, and he's just like, we we have it
Speaker 1: confirmed now from the email. It's just like and he
Speaker 1: shakes it too. He I'm shaking a bunch of paper
Speaker 1: right now. Very it does feel good. We should be
Speaker 1: filming this so people can watch me shake at a
Speaker 1: camera and get all red faced. Anyway, um yeah. So
Speaker 1: in September two thousand and seven, Alex Jones interrupted Haraldo
Speaker 1: Rivera live on Fox News. Rivera was doing what I'm
Speaker 1: sure was a tasteful and informative report on quote, the
Speaker 1: secret world of restroom gay sex um. But then Alex
Speaker 1: showed up to get in the middle of it, shouting
Speaker 1: nine eleven was an inside job through a megaphone until
Speaker 1: he was removed by the NYPD, which is like almost
Speaker 1: a singularity of classlessness. Haraldo Rivera talking about gay restroom
Speaker 1: sex while Alex Jones rants about nine eleven conspiracies on
Speaker 1: the same frame of a television show. It's amazing. I
Speaker 1: can't tell me we have a clip of this, because
Speaker 1: there's got to be a clip. I'm sure we're just
Speaker 1: gonna have to use our imaginations. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: use your imaginations for that. I didn't pull that one
Speaker 1: up because there was other clips. But yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: who wants to be Haraldo. I'll take one for the team.
Speaker 1: I say we put the kash on this and move on.
Speaker 1: On March eighteenth, two thou eight, Alex Jones became an
Speaker 1: invited guest of Fox News. Judge Andrew Napolitano had him
Speaker 1: on as quote the Great Alex Jones. They talked about
Speaker 1: the fact that Alex and inval Wars had suddenly become
Speaker 1: a substantial influence on other conservative media personalities like Glenn Beck.
Speaker 1: Alex said, I've never seen an awakening this big. I'm
Speaker 1: seeing Glenn Beck talk about the New World Order on
Speaker 1: Fox I'm seeing you talk about it, We're seeing Lou
Speaker 1: Dobbs talk about it, We're seeing mainline hosts Limbos even
Speaker 1: talking about world government. Michael Savage is talking about how
Speaker 1: Obama may stage crises to bring in martial law. So
Speaker 1: all the things that I was talking about in the
Speaker 1: wilderness ten plus years ago are now hitting mainstream and
Speaker 1: it's great. So that's okay. I'm sorry, hold on, hold
Speaker 1: on point of order, Robert. Michael Savage as mainstream, that
Speaker 1: guy's looney Tunes. You know, I I hate to argue
Speaker 1: with you on this, but I grew up in Texas
Speaker 1: with a very conservative family, and I heard Michael Savage
Speaker 1: three or four times a week. And my parents aren't
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists. They're just very conservative. He's not that far outs,
Speaker 1: like if you're right wing, he's not. He was not,
Speaker 1: in that period of time far out of the stream.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it was that? I bet it's
Speaker 1: because I started listening to him later in life, maybe
Speaker 1: later in his career, and when when I heard him,
Speaker 1: he was like based in California and talked about how
Speaker 1: much he hated the comedies in California but he still
Speaker 1: lived there. Oh boy, and I don't know what he's
Speaker 1: doing now or if he's he's gone further to the
Speaker 1: fringes now, but when I was a kid, at least
Speaker 1: I heard him a lot. Um, he's definitely like like
Speaker 1: Glenn Beck, one of those voices who was just regularly
Speaker 1: a part of our lives. So um. The first broadcast
Speaker 1: of the Alex Jones Live Show was in April of
Speaker 1: two thou eight. I found a copy of at least
Speaker 1: a lot of that broadcast. The link will be up
Speaker 1: on our site. But the first minute and a half
Speaker 1: is just the A C d C song Balls to
Speaker 1: the Wall. Uh. Then Alex class Yeah, he's got great
Speaker 1: taste in music. Um, he puts up a lot of
Speaker 1: obscure like industrial metal from the eighties. Uh So something
Speaker 1: that's always interested me Alex jones musical taste, which is
Speaker 1: why it's interesting that you say he might be a
Speaker 1: secret DJ. I would kind of love to hear his music. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: A C d C song Balls to the Wall place
Speaker 1: for a minute and a half, and then Alex Jones
Speaker 1: begins ranting about how all of the world religions are
Speaker 1: controlled by the same group of people. Eventually, the footage
Speaker 1: cuts to Alex Jones wearing a Ron Paul toothousand and
Speaker 1: eight t shirt. He's talking with an Irish guest about
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher. Alex allows his guest to speak for a while,
Speaker 1: occasionally cutting in to move things along. When the show
Speaker 1: starts to drag, he talks about the Illuminati, and they
Speaker 1: eventually wind up on the subject of Senator Joseph McCarthy,
Speaker 1: who Alex loves. He goes on a rant about how
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union was funded by the U. S. Army,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna play a clip from that that the
Speaker 1: army and then our government was funding to Soviets. He
Speaker 1: was totally destroyed instantly because that was about to expose
Speaker 1: that Commune's was just a fake front, just like we
Speaker 1: knew from books that were written and inside people that
Speaker 1: Mao was put into power. Now it's admitted on the
Speaker 1: History Channel, and they have the old CI Section chiefs
Speaker 1: who are now dead, but videos of them admitting that
Speaker 1: they put Mao into power. Alan Watt. So we're at
Speaker 1: normal Alex like today Alex Jones by by two thousand
Speaker 1: eight or so, his politics are a little bit different,
Speaker 1: but you hear the voice right, He's gone all gravel
Speaker 1: in dark, So he's definitely there. He's still kind of
Speaker 1: bipartisan because he's definitely saying that, like the whole government
Speaker 1: is engaged in a conspiracy to make people believe communism
Speaker 1: is real when it's just a front for the U. S. Army.
Speaker 1: So he's not a partisan hack yet, but he's definitely
Speaker 1: evolved from beginning. Alex Jones. Yeah, uh. The election of
Speaker 1: Barack Obama as President of the United States was probably
Speaker 1: the best thing that ever happened to Alex. It seems
Speaker 1: to have taken him by surprise, as does the surge
Speaker 1: of far right sentiment that immediately followed President Obama's election.
Speaker 1: The podcast Knowledge Fight is currently going over every post
Speaker 1: election episode of Alex Jones's show to kind of document
Speaker 1: Alex's transition from a total political outsider to a dedicated
Speaker 1: profit of the far right. But they've shown that he
Speaker 1: didn't see the Tea Party coming. The first episode of
Speaker 1: his show, when the Tea Party got brought up by
Speaker 1: a caller, he clearly had no idea what it was. Eventually, though,
Speaker 1: he got on board and realized that this represented a
Speaker 1: group of people that he could sell stuff to. Alex
Speaker 1: Jones and info Wars were responsible for spreading that viral
Speaker 1: poster of Obama as the joker. If you glanced at
Speaker 1: a tea party protests in two thousand nine, you would
Speaker 1: have seen that. Um. In March two thousand nine, Alex
Speaker 1: Jones released the documentary The Obama Deception, a two hour
Speaker 1: movie about how Barack Obama was a grave threat to quote,
Speaker 1: the hope of free humanity. Jones made the case that
Speaker 1: President Obama was going to take away America's freedom, a
Speaker 1: thing that totally happened. You all remember that, right, um.
Speaker 1: One former employee later described the mood and info Wars
Speaker 1: at the time as quote, we were getting more and
Speaker 1: more calls from people who seemed unwell, claiming that the
Speaker 1: FBI was watching their house. We kept saying we're the underdogs.
Speaker 1: That was our mantra. But slowly it started to feel
Speaker 1: more like we were becoming the majority. Oh yeah, which
Speaker 1: is so what what? What? Like? What spurred this change
Speaker 1: in him? I mean like he was just so freaked
Speaker 1: out by Obama in particular. That's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's a good question because it makes sense why he
Speaker 1: because he obviously he hated on Bush a ton he
Speaker 1: believes Bush murdered thousands of Americans to start a war
Speaker 1: using whatever the hell. I don't I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into nine eleven conspiracy theories. But he hated Bush,
Speaker 1: but he Obama didn't even do anything for him to
Speaker 1: hate him. I think that's what I'm saying. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was just hope. It was just like, let's turn the tide.
Speaker 1: Let's just do some different stuff and you know, be
Speaker 1: good people. I think there's a lot of implicit racism.
Speaker 1: I think that's yes, Yeah, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of implicit racism in the surge of fire right sentiment
Speaker 1: that that sprang up after Obama's election. With Jones, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I'm sure some of its racism. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of it, though, might just be simple economic
Speaker 1: makes sense, knowing if I can scare the ship like
Speaker 1: bushes out of the White House, so I can't scare
Speaker 1: the left anymore into buying my ship right, because their
Speaker 1: guys in office and they think that this war stuff
Speaker 1: is going to get reduced. So now I have to
Speaker 1: scare people on the right. Well, how do I scare
Speaker 1: people on the right. I make Barack Obama look like
Speaker 1: a demon trying to take their freedom. Any wasted no
Speaker 1: time doing that. No, immediately. Yeah, and that's something that's
Speaker 1: pretty easy for him to do. But I appreciate your point.
Speaker 1: You can't be a showman without a show, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So do you do you think that
Speaker 1: it was I know we're speculating here, but do you
Speaker 1: think it was a matter of that cognizant level of
Speaker 1: calculation or do you think he was just going with
Speaker 1: the flow. I think it's probably a mix of both. Um,
Speaker 1: we'll get into that a little bit more later. But
Speaker 1: I I see some calculation at the start of it,
Speaker 1: because Obama hadn't done anything yet to justify a freak out,
Speaker 1: and he engineered the week out with Bush. Obviously, something
Speaker 1: like nine eleven happened. Something as crazy as planes flying
Speaker 1: into a tower. People will make conspiracies about it, and
Speaker 1: he jumped onto that, and maybe that was legitimate. He
Speaker 1: may have really believed every conspiracy he threatens he spread
Speaker 1: about nine eleven. I do think Obama marks the point
Speaker 1: where he's just trying to make money. Um. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's my theory. Um, So they made a lot of
Speaker 1: money in early two thousand nine. Yearly Obama years on
Speaker 1: good days Alex would run around yelling you get a bonus.
Speaker 1: We had a huge sail day. Another former employee recalled
Speaker 1: a time when Alex took everyone out to the Info
Speaker 1: Wars warehouse and shot at boxes of DVDs with a
Speaker 1: bow and arrow, apparently in celebration. This was recalled as
Speaker 1: a fun time. Um. Like all great artists, Alex stole.
Speaker 1: In particular, he stole from Rush Limbaugh. Several former employees
Speaker 1: claimed he nursed an intense jealousy for the right wing
Speaker 1: radio icon. Jones's signature smokes thirty packs a day. Voice
Speaker 1: is apparently an imitation of Rush Limbaugh's voice, and if
Speaker 1: you listened again, we listened to his earlier stuff, he's
Speaker 1: clearly putting on a voice because he doesn't always talk
Speaker 1: like that. Um. One employee later claimed quote, we'd spend
Speaker 1: weeks getting everything just right in the studio. Then he'd
Speaker 1: go for a drive and hear Rush again and say
Speaker 1: I need my voice to sound something like that, and
Speaker 1: so we'd completely re engineer the sound to make him gruffer.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting A key moment. Nowlex's evolution happened in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, because that's the year he got really
Speaker 1: good at google bombing. According to that Rolling Stone profile quote,
Speaker 1: asking his audience to stage a mass online search of
Speaker 1: the phrase revolt against the t s A, a tactic
Speaker 1: known as google bombing, Jones instantly manipulated the term to
Speaker 1: the top of Google search index. As intended, the maneuver
Speaker 1: caught the sensitive traffic antennae of Matt Drudge, who put
Speaker 1: the t s A story on the national news agenda.
Speaker 1: Our show was the detonator on the cap of the
Speaker 1: t s A story, and Drudge was the barrel of
Speaker 1: the gun, says Jones, So this is like early fake news,
Speaker 1: Like this is like yes, he's also the fucking Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs of fake news, because he really figured out he's
Speaker 1: not just putting out fake news stories. He wrecking eyes
Speaker 1: is how to get his listeners to manipulate the algorithms
Speaker 1: of social media and search engines in order to make
Speaker 1: it trying to tip the scales, to like freak people
Speaker 1: out and to like start some kind of firestorm of
Speaker 1: paranoia that's in his favor to help him sell bullshit exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: question was it phrased as when he when he was
Speaker 1: telling his audience to do this, was it phrased as
Speaker 1: you can go search now to learn more about this
Speaker 1: or was he telling them make this the top search term?
Speaker 1: He was telling them to make this a search turn.
Speaker 1: He was staging like he like that was the explicit goal,
Speaker 1: and he's he says like again, like that, like are
Speaker 1: the goal was to get this story to Matt Drudge. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess a lot of our listeners don't
Speaker 1: read the Drudge Report regularly, but it is. It is
Speaker 1: currently number one hundred nineteen on Alexa, the hundred nineteenth
Speaker 1: most popular website on the entire Internet. Um. There are
Speaker 1: very few websites in existence larger than the Drudge Report.
Speaker 1: It is one of the most fluential, you could call
Speaker 1: it journalism outlets on the planet. And Drudge and Jones
Speaker 1: have a mutually parasitic relationship. When Alex was banned from Twitter,
Speaker 1: that was the top story and the Drudge Report a
Speaker 1: few minutes later. Um. Drudge regularly will scan info wars
Speaker 1: and will put like basically comb the crazy out of
Speaker 1: his stories and then put them up on his side. Like.
Speaker 1: That's been going on for years, and it started at
Speaker 1: least as early as two thousand eleven. Alex Jones speaks
Speaker 1: positively of Matt Drudge and regularly cites his website as well.
Speaker 1: He feels differently about Glenn Beck. So here's that Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone profile. People inside his company tell me Beck follows
Speaker 1: what we do closely, says Jones. It's frustrating that I've
Speaker 1: never sold out yet I'm being gobbled up by this
Speaker 1: giant pac man who puts my work through his corporate
Speaker 1: media assembly line. He takes information from me about secret
Speaker 1: combines and elites and then spends it against big government,
Speaker 1: but he ignores big business. He says, George Soros is
Speaker 1: at the top of the New World Order power pyramid.
Speaker 1: Give me a break. I have no love for Soros,
Speaker 1: but I don't trust Beck. Of my audience hates him.
Speaker 1: New listeners on me. I'm a back wannabe. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's the other way around. So we have Alex Jones
Speaker 1: to thank for a lot of Glenn Beck. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: easily wounded this ego he is, and it's it's fun
Speaker 1: that he talks about. He says, George Soros isn't a
Speaker 1: big deal back in two thousand eleven or so, because
Speaker 1: he does not shut up about George Soros today George
Speaker 1: Soros is making our marijuana stronger. He's behind everything bad. Now.
Speaker 1: It's just interesting how he switched over time. But Obama's
Speaker 1: first term is a great time for Alex Jones. It
Speaker 1: goes so well, in fact, that people who were close
Speaker 1: to him at the time speculate that he voted for
Speaker 1: Barack Obama in two thousand twelve. One employee recalled quote,
Speaker 1: he just kept saying, oh my god, if Obama loses
Speaker 1: were out of business. One of the guys in there asked,
Speaker 1: you didn't vote for Obama? Did you? And Alex said nothing,
Speaker 1: just a grimace. I don't know what it meant. So
Speaker 1: that's there's a conspiracy for us to start about Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: I know at least three employees to BuzzFeed stories about
Speaker 1: how a number of people at info Wars at the
Speaker 1: time suspected Jones had voted for Obama. This remains my
Speaker 1: favorite Alex Jones conspiracy. So him insane. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised he made
Speaker 1: If he's cynical enough to do it, then I don't know.
Speaker 1: And if he did it, that's proof that this is
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe he wasn't lying in his his his
Speaker 1: custody hearing, and this is all in act. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's all in act, But I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if he voted for Barack Obama because he wanted millions
Speaker 1: of dollars and because he wanted to continue being relevant,
Speaker 1: and he attached his relevance to being able to stir
Speaker 1: up hate against you know, the system, the president. So
Speaker 1: Obama one and two twelve, obviously, and for a little
Speaker 1: while things remained good in jones Land. He made millions
Speaker 1: of dollars selling supplements, rifle parts and survival supplies like
Speaker 1: seeds and body armor. It's possible that during the Obama years,
Speaker 1: Jones took home like twenty or thirty million dollars himself,
Speaker 1: maybe more um. In two thousand thirteen, at an event
Speaker 1: for the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists, Alex Jones met Roger Stone.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of what I like to call
Speaker 1: the likeliest friendship in history. Former Paul Manafort partner and
Speaker 1: sure to be frequent Bastard pod side character Roger Stone
Speaker 1: told The Washington Post this we kind of hit it off.
Speaker 1: He's fearless, as showman. He likes a drink, a cigar,
Speaker 1: bouty stories, hunting and fishing. He's a man's man. Roger
Speaker 1: Stone self man's man. Yeah, full grown man's man. And
Speaker 1: Roger Stone now hosts a show on Info Wars. We're
Speaker 1: just last week he defended himself against the surely looming
Speaker 1: indictment that's coming from the Muller investigations. So that's that's
Speaker 1: that's fine, that's fine, that's it is good fun. And
Speaker 1: Roger Stone, no one has ever been more ready to
Speaker 1: be an inful Wars guest than Roger Stone. He is
Speaker 1: was made for that show. It's like they poured him
Speaker 1: into a mold. What a guy anyway. Other people around
Speaker 1: Jones at this time say that as Obama's second term
Speaker 1: drew to a cloth, Alex started to change. One ex
Speaker 1: employees said, quote, it became less about affecting change and
Speaker 1: more about being sensational and making money. It didn't start
Speaker 1: out that way. He was a lovely person to hang
Speaker 1: around for a long time, but soon that evaporated. Four
Speaker 1: employees described Alex Jones to BuzzFeed as quote a tyrant.
Speaker 1: One person called him Blackbeard meets Hitler one minute just
Speaker 1: on a high and swashbuckling and calling us to action
Speaker 1: the next punching out walls. So when Donald Trump first
Speaker 1: appeared on the scene, Jones didn't pay him very much
Speaker 1: mind uh. He kind of dismissed him as a plant
Speaker 1: by the globalist or a fake at first. But then
Speaker 1: Roger Stone got involved in the Trump campaign and introduced
Speaker 1: Alex to Donald Trump. In December of two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: Trump appeared on info Wars for a thirty minute conversation
Speaker 1: with Alex Jones. In fifteen years, Alex had gone from
Speaker 1: running a website out of his spare room to talking
Speaker 1: with the soon to be president for an audience that
Speaker 1: numbered in the tens of millions. But Alex Jones never
Speaker 1: lost the common touch. To prove that, here's a video
Speaker 1: he filmed when Caitlyn Jinner transitioned in two thousand and fifteen.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, listener, in this video, he is shirtless.
Speaker 1: This is the first of many shirtless Alex Jones videos,
Speaker 1: and he's wearing what he admits are his own dirty
Speaker 1: gym socks on his ears. So trans zoological, I believe,
Speaker 1: is the term. I may just had to be transabled
Speaker 1: and shot my arms and legs off, and I mean
Speaker 1: known as a biscuit and living a box. We're taking
Speaker 1: care of And if you don't accept it, your hateful.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you don't adopt my life style and
Speaker 1: where dirty brown socks on your ears after you work out,
Speaker 1: you're a racist, you're a homophobe, you're an anti zoological phobe.
Speaker 1: You're a piece of filth. So now I become my
Speaker 1: new self. Yeah, he's pretending to be a dog in that.
Speaker 1: So yeah. And and just just to point out, he
Speaker 1: had a lower third on the screen that said rough
Speaker 1: rough Jones. Yes Jones, Yeah yeah. Now is this the
Speaker 1: first shirtless Alex Jones video? No, I don't think this
Speaker 1: is the first time. It's the earliest I found maybe,
Speaker 1: but he's there's I have up on the site, will have.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a sixteen minutes super cut of
Speaker 1: a I don't even think they're all of the shirtless scenes.
Speaker 1: We will be talking about that. But I think at
Speaker 1: this point his degeneration into modern Jones is finished. Like
Speaker 1: it's kind of like watching Danny DeVito's character and always
Speaker 1: sunny from the second season where he's a businessman, to
Speaker 1: like where he's eating garbage. Alex Jones has got from
Speaker 1: a charming man in a suit who talks like a
Speaker 1: normal person to wearing his filthy gym socks on his
Speaker 1: ears insulting a random woman for no good reason, like
Speaker 1: he's he's completely degenerated now anyways, full gollumn Jones. At
Speaker 1: this point he is Schmigel has died long ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So two thousand sixteen went the way we all know
Speaker 1: it did. Donald Trump gradually defeated his Republican rivals and
Speaker 1: eventually Hillary Clinton. Alex Jones watched his reach and influenced
Speaker 1: growth throughout the campaign. Thanks to the algorithms on Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and YouTube who he had a direct highway into the
Speaker 1: brains of tens of millions of people. In two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: his YouTube channel had some eighty million views. By two
Speaker 1: thousand team that number was more than one point two billion. Now.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump called Jones after his election victory to thank
Speaker 1: Jones's viewers for their support and Alex Jones for quote
Speaker 1: standing up for what's right. According to Alex Jones, this
Speaker 1: is what the President elect said. I just talked to
Speaker 1: kings and queens of the world, world leaders, you name it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't matter. I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: to thank your audience, and I'll be on in the
Speaker 1: next few weeks to thank them. So that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: He didn't show up on info Wars again. I think
Speaker 1: the adults around Donald Trump were like, you can't keep
Speaker 1: showing up on info Wars. Maybe they should minders to say,
Speaker 1: people who rip up his paperwork. Yeah, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was hit him on the hit him on the nose
Speaker 1: of the newspapers, like, no, not go on, Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: that time is gone for you. Maybe they played a
Speaker 1: super cind of shirtless Alex Jones for him, and we're
Speaker 1: just like, we can't let you do this. He's like,
Speaker 1: but Putin. Putin doesn't wear a shirt. He's probably so
Speaker 1: pissed that he has to wear shirts right now. Oh God,
Speaker 1: thank thank God for that. I will let timently say
Speaker 1: whoever is keeping a shirt on the president as a
Speaker 1: hero if that's a difficult thing to do. Um anyway.
Speaker 1: On November nine, Alex Jones, in tears, cheered Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: plan to quote build a better world. He toasted champagne
Speaker 1: glasses with Roger Stone. Frank Sinatra's My Way, played Alex Jones. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So he turned it on, but he couldn't
Speaker 1: turn it off again the tears. Yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: can't turn it off anymore. I think he's past that
Speaker 1: point in his life now. He's he's always on. He's
Speaker 1: like when your bomb told you not to make that face.
Speaker 1: You know, if you if you stay a racist conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist long enough, it'll stick that way. So Alex Jones was,
Speaker 1: after Trump's election on the service at least, on top
Speaker 1: of the world. But like the conspiracies he loved, there
Speaker 1: were more twists and turns in his journey than we're
Speaker 1: visible on the surface. On Thursday's episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Alex's vicious, multi year, multimillion dollar divorce, his
Speaker 1: frankly shocking custody battle, and the moment when Icarus like
Speaker 1: he flew too close to the sun and got banned
Speaker 1: from all mainstream social media. Tomorrow, though, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Alex Jones, a supplement empire, and all the
Speaker 1: people he may have gotten killed along the way. So
Speaker 1: that's what's coming up. I'd like to thank both of you,
Speaker 1: Noel Benjamin for for being on my show, for talking
Speaker 1: with me about Alex Jones. How are you feeling after
Speaker 1: part one of this epic three part thing. A little
Speaker 1: bit dead inside, a little broken, a little on the
Speaker 1: verge of of a nervous breakdown, but also you know,
Speaker 1: kind of chipper and ready to see what comes next. Personally,
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled. I'm learning a lot. And uh when when
Speaker 1: started stuff they'll want you to know, I figured we'd
Speaker 1: run into Alex Jones, but this, this deep dive is
Speaker 1: a real eye opener. Man. The Steve Jobs stuff alone, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really think that's a fair way to build him
Speaker 1: because whatever else he is, and this is something people
Speaker 1: if you talk about, like two people who would like
Speaker 1: study broadcast radio history and like podcasting and how it's
Speaker 1: sort of evolved, he's a seminal figure in that he's
Speaker 1: an important figure in the industry that we're all involved in. Um,
Speaker 1: he is an innovator. He's also the shirtless guy that
Speaker 1: we saw wearing his own filthy gym socks on his
Speaker 1: ears for no real good reason. Um. He contains multitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could also like your Rudyard Kipling reference there earlier
Speaker 1: with the common touch. I have a question, just no spoilers.
Speaker 1: Robert but in the next episode, are we gonna learn
Speaker 1: whether or not Alex Jones sells branded tinfoil? I mean,
Speaker 1: I actually haven't run across Jones selling tinfoil, but we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about the lead based supplements that
Speaker 1: he sold the people. I mean, alright, no Benjamin, you
Speaker 1: guys want to plug your plug doubles before we close
Speaker 1: out this episode. Absolutely. Noel and I are the co
Speaker 1: host of a show called Ridiculous History, which examines the strange, bizarre,
Speaker 1: unusual people, places, events, and things throughout the span of
Speaker 1: human civilization. It's a little shallower dive, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, and the episodes are, like, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes and pretty easy to get through and
Speaker 1: binge nice and snack able podcast episodes. We do those,
Speaker 1: and we also do a show called Stuff That I
Speaker 1: Want You to Know, which applies critical thinking to conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: Um and I think we did one on Alex Jones
Speaker 1: turning the frogs gay pretty recently and that was that
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. But I've I've learned a
Speaker 1: lot more than I ever wanted to know, And God,
Speaker 1: it sounds like we're gonna learn a lot more still
Speaker 1: this is just the beginning of the journey. Um. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, while you're waiting for the next part of
Speaker 1: this three part series, I'm behind the Bastards. Uh. You
Speaker 1: can check out every podcast we've ever done for either
Speaker 1: show on our websites Ridiculous History Show dot com or
Speaker 1: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know dot com beautiful.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at I right, Okay.
Speaker 1: I have a book on Amazon, A Brief History of Vice,
Speaker 1: where I experiment on myself with dangerous ancient drugs, so
Speaker 1: you can pick that up too if you want. You
Speaker 1: can find this podcast on the internet at behind the
Speaker 1: Bastards dot com, where we'll have all of the sources
Speaker 1: and video clips for this ridiculous three part episode, and
Speaker 1: you can find us on social media Instagram, Twitter, at
Speaker 1: at Bastards pod. So uh, We'll be back tomorrow and
Speaker 1: Thursday with more ship about Alex Jones. Until then, maybe
Speaker 1: try buying a T shirt off of our t public
Speaker 1: store Behind the Bastards. You can. You can get Nachos,
Speaker 1: not Nazis, uh, Derrito's not Dictators, DJ stalind We got
Speaker 1: all that stuff, so buy it and and tune in
Speaker 1: for the next episode and remember I love about h