8/13/24: Musk Trump interview was a big yikes, shock poll from Wisconsin

Speaker A
Welcome, everybody. One of the strangest events of the entire 2024 presidential election took place last night. It was a much promoted Twitter spaces, or x spaces involving Elon Musk, I guess, interviewing Donald Trump, and it went horribly and completely wrong. The big headline from the entire event was that Donald Trump was slurring throughout the entire thing, even the Drudge report splash page saying slur riddled event with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Now that was after a 45 minutes delay caused by the ongoing technical issues that seemed to plague spaces on X Elon Musk, attributing it to a vague DDoS attack, although no such thing has been demonstrated. Eventually the event started and Trump's claims increasingly be so bizarre and disjointed, also slurring the entire time. There were people who, in the aftermath of the event, in an effort to defend Donald Trump, chalked up the slurring to some kind of voice processing. But it seemed to only affect Donald Trump's voice, which was also very strange. So let's listen to some of these clips, starting with maybe the weirdest moment, other than when Trump said, I might flee to Venezuela if I lose. We'll get to that later. Maybe the weirdest moment where Trump, referring to Kamala Harris as Camilla, said that she looked beautiful, kind of like his own wife, Melania Trump. A bizarre, unintelligible moment riddled with Trump's short of wish shirring that made it sound like he was wearing loose dentures. Even though wealthy people don't wear dentures, they get dental implants.

It's all bizarre.

Speaker B
And actually, she looked very much like our great first lady, Melania.

She didn't look, she didn't look like Camilla. That's right. But of course, she's a beautiful woman, so we'll leave it at that.

Speaker A
And I don't know if Camilla, if he's referring to the british, isn't like the wife of the print king. Yeah, I don't know any royal stuff. I don't know if he's referring to that british woman or if he's referring to Kamala as Camilla. But slurring endlessly and unintelligible, Trump then said he's ok with climate change and rising sea levels because he thinks it will give him more oceanfront property.

Speaker B
You know, the biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one, one eight of an inch over the next 400 years, one.

Speaker A
8Th of an inch over the next 400.

Speaker B
The big. And you'll have more. You'll have more oceanfront property. Right the biggest threat is not that the biggest threat is nuclear warming.

Speaker A
Right. So Trump's not worried about global warming. It's all going to be absolutely great. Trump then attempting to talk about groceries, and it went just as poorly.

Speaker B
With all of that being said, the elections coming up and the people want to hear about the economy and the fact that they can't buy groceries because they don't have enough money to buy groceries.

Speaker A
Yeah, the elections coming up. What is going on with this guy? Not only does he have no idea what he's talking about with regard to policy, he's almost unintelligible and seems disoriented. Here is Donald Trump claiming he had millions of people on his Twitter space when it first started. I guess there were maybe a million people, something like that today.

Speaker B
Well, I think we will. I'm pretty sure we will. And congratulations, because I see you broke every record in the book with so many millions of people. And it's an honor. We view that as an honor.

Speaker A
And, of course, no voice processing there that could explain the slurring. That's a video in the room with Donald Trump at Mar a Lago. At another point during this abortive event, Trump started talking about Kim Jong un, a very strange rant. And again, Trump really struggling to speak possible.

Speaker C
So this is like talking to an NPC. So it's just impossible.

Speaker B
But think of it, we need a man or person who's unbelievably sharp in order to stop all the nuclear danger and all the dangers that I'm talking about. And I got along with all these, you know, I got along with Kim Jong un. We had dinner. We had everything. And he really liked me. And I got along with him really well, by the way. He's the absolute boss over there. You know, a lot of people said, oh, do you think you really?

Let me tell you, I saw things that you don't want to know about.

Speaker A
He is the saw things boss.

Speaker B
But we had a good relationship. And he doesn't like Biden. He considers him a stupid man. He said he's a stupid man. Well, at least he speaks his mind. But, you know, in this country, you're not sort of allowed to say it, but I guess you are. You should be allowed to say that's true. But we need really, we need smart people and we need people that have an ability to lead.

Speaker A
This is genuinely sad. And I know that it does sound like loose dentures, but from everything we know about Trump, he doesn't wear dentures. I mean, it's just and in fact, he's known, I believe, to have veneers, which the veneers go on top of your teeth. So it's just not seeming like a reasonable explanation. Trump issuing those very same threats that we've heard many times before about if Biden becomes president, we will have no more country. Now Trump is applying that to Kamala Harris and says, if she becomes president, we won't have a country. And Elon Musk slips a. Yeah, right.

Speaker B
Into that speaker, one lunatic. And if she's going to be our president, very quickly, you're not going to have a country anymore. And she'll go back to all the things that she believes in. She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero.

Now all of a sudden, she's saying, no, I will. I really want to see fracking.

Speaker A
Yeah. As far as I know, Kamala Harris is not planning to shut down all fracking, and she is certainly not planning to defund the police, which simply hasn't happened. And then maybe one of Trump's most destructive promises, claiming during this interview with Elon Musk that went completely off the rails, that one of the first things he will do if he becomes president, God forbid, is he will close the department of education. Speaker one.

Speaker B
And what I'm going to do, one of the first acts, and this is where I need an Elon Musk. I need somebody that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts. I want to close up Department of Education, move education back to the states where states like Iowa, where states like Idaho, you know, not every state will do great because states that basically aren't.

Speaker A
This is project 2025 doing good.

Speaker B
Now, you look at Gavin Newscomb, the governor of California. He's terrible. He does a terrible job. So he's not going to do great with education. But of the 50, I would bet that 35 would do great. And 15 of them, or 20 of them will be as good as Norway. Norway is considered great.

You can name them.

They're so good. Some of these countries are so good.

Speaker A
But just great country. Some of the best. And so, as you can see, just really, really difficult there. Trump embroiled in a battle to the death against his own tongue, seemingly. And then finally, Elon Musk sort of volunteers to work for Donald Trump on some kind of efficiency committee. And Trump says, that's really great. No. And it was great when you were dealing with striking workers and you just fired them all or something. Trump really liked that.

Speaker B
I agree with you.

Speaker C
Well, I mean, if so, I mean, I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money, the taxpayers hard earned money is spent in a good way.

And I'd be happy to help out on such a commission.

Speaker B
I'd love it if it were formed. But you, you're the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do, you walk in and you just say you want to quit? They go on strike. I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike. And you say, that's okay. You're all gone. You're all gone. So every one of you is gone. And you are the greatest. You would be very good.

Speaker A
Oh, Trump almost supplicating to Elon Musk there over the firing of striking workers.

And I mean, listen, all, everyone but the most committed Trump sycophants saw this for what it was, the drudge headline. Trump slurs through interview increasingly bizarre claims. And that is what it was. Something is very wrong. And this doesn't even include Trump statement about Venezuela, which I want to talk about next. Donald Trump said during his ex interview with Elon Musk that if he loses, he will flee to Venezuela. Some writing it off as a joke. But as Trump, has Trump ever told a joke before? It seems like it would be the first joke ever told by Trump. Newsweek report, Donald Trump says he will flee to Venezuela if he loses election. Let's listen to it ourselves. Here is the moment in question.

Speaker B
Speaker one and again, I told you that crime rates all over the world are going way down, which makes sense. In fact, the next time, what we'll do is if something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we'll meet the next time in Venezuela because it'll be a far safer place to meet than our country. Okay, so we'll go. You and I will go and we'll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela, because there you go.

Speaker A
Now, I will tell you that it doesn't sound like he's kidding. And this is not the first time that Trump has talked about how despite the dictatorship of Maduro or as a feature of the dictatorship of Maduro, whatever Trump thinks about Maduro, Venezuela is very safe, as authoritarian, autocratic, dictatorial countries often are. And the trend here is that Trump has been impressed with dictators for a very long time. Left wing dictators, right wing dictators, whatever. You know, I'm from Argentina and I know a little something about authoritarians and fascists fleeing to places when they lose. That's for sure. And maybe Trump is planning, I don't know, to join the late, great Hannibal Lecter in exile in Venezuela or something like that. But I remember that he's also probably lying because he lies all the time. He said in 2020, if he loses, we will never hear from him again. And we certainly have heard more from him. So I don't know that we can trust everything he says. And of course, there's the caveat that he claims he didn't really lose in 2020. I guess he meant if he really loses in 2020, we'll never hear from him again. Since he asserts that he didn't really lose, we've heard from him again. Another again, every detail you add to this is just mind blowing. Trump is also on bail awaiting sentencing, so it sounds like he's conceding he is a literal flight risk. He might get on his plane and fly to Venezuela. Except his plane. Again, the details are just crazy. His plane is currently in maintenance, and he's borrowing Jeffrey Epstein's old private plane.

It's not a joke. I mean, it's. It's almost beyond belief. Trump currently using Jeffrey Epstein's plane, someone who he has sought to distance himself from. So it's all surreal. I would love it if Trump did leave the country, and it would be really interesting to see what his kids did in that scenario. But this is where we find ourselves today.

A slur and lie riddled, endless, endless spaces. Interview with Elon Musk that is sending even many right wingers for a spin because it was so deranged. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel. Do me the favor.

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The attacks on Kamala Harris related to race or dei or passing the bar exam on her second attempt or all of it. These attacks are not helping you. And this is really a sign of how poorly this is going and how some people who are marginally more sane and understand how to read a poll, people like Larry Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway, I'm not praising them. They're just slightly less whacked than Trump. They are saying, stay on message, stop with the insults, because they know it will lead him to another election loss. Let's listen to Kudlow and Kellyanne here.

Speaker B
But he has to turn them into important gifts. He has to hammer away, does he not? I mean, that's what he don't, don't wander off. Don't call her stupid and all kinds of names. Stay on message.

Kellyanne Conway
The wedding formula for President Trump is very plain to see. It's fewer insults, more insights, and that policy contrast. He's got that hunger swagger underdog underestimated of 2016 back, Larry.

Speaker A
And yeah, there is something a little bit funny and ironic about the people who participated in using these very techniques during Trump's presidency. Bomb throwing. Larry Kudlow, alternative facts. Kellyanne Conway. They use these techniques. They are now saying, you don't want to use these techniques. Stick to policy, which he has none and no understanding of. Stick to substance rather than the insults.

Very funny to see. But it's because they realize it's sending them to another election loss. Fox News contributor Robert Wolf said Trump is very far off of his game and that picking JD Vance has been a disaster for him. He's so far off his game, it feels so yesterday. And I think his pick of JD Vance was a disaster for him. And I think for, for Kamala.

Kellyanne Conway
I think the key is going to.

Speaker B
Be ride the momentum until the convention.

Speaker A
Yeah. This is nothing. A group of people that is confident in Donald Trump's ability to win. Here is a bonus from former speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, who said, this is not going to be one on personality, this is not going to be one talking about crowd size. And I have to tell you, in this particular narrow, limited venue, Kevin McCarthy, I believe happens to be correct, but.

Kellyanne Conway
It'S going to be a race, and you've got to make this race not on personalities. Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position. When it comes to what did she do as attorney general on crime, question, what did she do when she's supposed to take care of the border as a czar? Question that they brought inflation and she was the tie breaking vote when it came to inflation, when it came to IR's agents, this is an interest, a perfect person to run against. You thought John Kerry was a flip flopper. She has the biggest flip flop with the most extreme position positions, and you got a short time frame to do it. So don't sit back, get out there and start making the case and use her own words to do it to her.

Speaker A
Yeah, I don't know that it'll necessarily work, but at least Kevin McCarthy is thinking here to some degree. And it's important also to remember that there was a point at which Donald Trump, at least to some degree, thought that Kamala Harris was going to do a good job and was doing a good job as attorney general because he donated to that campaign in California, which, of course, he will now write off and say, no, no, no, that's mere politics. You donate to all sorts of attorneys general in different states because you might need them to be on your side at some point. But if you zoom out, the message here is that this is not going well. Trump sitting in the basement, probably the ground floor at Mar a Lago, doing nothing, golfing, attacking over these trivial issues, doesn't seem to be helping. And the next aspect of this that Fox hosts seem to recognize is not good for Trump is that not only has JD Vance been a disaster, but Tim walls all of a sudden on the campaign trail, is also very bad for Trump. Let's talk about that next.

You need only watch like 90 seconds of Tim Walls speaking at a rally to recognize that he is very good at this. His timing is excellent. His political communication skills are top notch. He is immediately in sync with the crowd. He's finding what lines he can repeat to great effect and to unify individuals. And don't listen to what Trump is saying about how, you know, other picks would have been better or whatever the case may be. Don't listen to what JD Vance is saying about how he's going to crush Tim walls in a debate or whatever they are scared of. And there are people who have a little more common sense. And I, excuse me, comparatively speaking, Trump's former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany is such an individual.

If you listen carefully, they are acknowledging the Tim wall selection is not a great thing for Donald Trump.

Here is Kayleigh McEnany saying that there is no doubt among Republicans that walls genuinely could deliver some states to Trump.

Kayleigh McEnany
I just talked to a former republican congressman who said he's a nice guy. I really liked Tim Walls in Congress. He does have that folksy demeanor. I think maybe there's a belief in the Kamala Harris campaign that he could help with western Wisconsin, which shares a media market with Minnesota, that he could help in a place like Michigan. So he's not to be dismissed.

Speaker A
They're scared. Now, the conventional wisdom is you don't pick a vp in order to deliver a particular state in general. Vps don't help you deliver a particular state. You just pick someone who's going to compliment. You won't get in the way, won't cause a problem for you. Not at all. What's happening with JD Vance. But there is a question here, at least incidentally, whether Tim Walls might indeed help. And Kaley McEnany's analysis there is perfectly reasonable. Western Wisconsin. Certainly there's a consideration about Michigan and the region in general. So they are recognizing, they are very much recognizing what's going on here. Tim walls on the campaign trail has been absolutely excellent. He has been. The great thing about it is he gets attention because he's avuncular and a nice guy.

The crowds love him, but he is not getting in the way of Kamala Harris. He's complimenting her in a way. And that's very different than what's happening with JD Vance. It's all coming together. It's all coming together in absolute and total panic within the Trump campaign. And I want to talk about that a little bit. Next, a desperate Donald Trump decided yesterday to do this totally farcical, multi hour interview with Elon Musk on Twitter spaces. We already talked about that at the top of the show. Trump slurring his way through it, saying increasingly bizarre things. But there's another sub story to this. In advance of the Twitter spaces with Elon Musk, Trump went back to tweeting. Now, you may recall way back when, after the Trump riots or around the Trump riots. Was it before? Now, I don't remember whether it was before or after, but around the time of the Trump riots, Trump was banned from Twitter. In the intervening period, truth social launched and Trump said, truth social is the hot place for posting screeds to social media and this sort of thing. And then eventually when Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into x, Elon Musk unbanned Donald Trump. And Trump did not immediately go back, the idea being, hey, listen, he has a financial interest in truth social. He's going to post on truth social. Although Trump did ultimately make a post about a year ago, August of 2023, of his mug shot and then hasn't posted since. In advance of yesterday's Twitter spaces fiasco, Trump went back to Twitter and started posting a bunch of stuff.

The idea here was to build interest, I guess, in the fact that he was going to be back on Twitter with Elon Musk. So he posted a video, sort of a promotional video about himself. He then posted a message that seems clearly written by someone on his staff where he said, are you better off now than you were when I was president? The answer is no, by the way. Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline. Make the american dream affordable again. Make America safe again. Make America great again. Sort of a takeoff from the way that he will deliver his generic canned speech at many rallies and then, of course, promoting last night's event on, on XDev, live on Ax Trump and Musk. 08:00 p.m. eastern, where he said, or where team Trump said President Trump will be interviewed by Elon Musk tonight at eight Eastern. Like the post to be notified, it will be the interview of the century. Make America great again. And then just posting a bunch more stuff, posting links, posting videos, posting, posting, posting to Twitter. Why are we interested in this? We're interested in this because the shares of stock of the Trump media and technology group continue to decline and decline and decline now down dramatically from their peak of $66 a share down to $23 a share. That is a decline.

That is a big, big, big decline. That is a decline of roughly two thirds from its peak. And of course, there's this really funny aspect to Trump going back to Twitter, which made investors, to the extent that they're investors, honestly, I don't even know if you can call them investors because a lot of them were just like, oh, Trump's name is on it. I'm buying. I'm sure I will make money. And they lost a lot of money. These investors are panicking seeing that Donald Trump is now back to posting on Twitter.

And aside from what he's posting to Twitter, aside from how well the Twitter spaces event went, put all of that aside for a moment. The fact that he's on there at all certainly suggests the diminishment of truth social even further and the further decline of the Trump media and technology group. And even as we're speaking today, intraday the stock down another 7%. So does anyone feel bad for the Trump supporters and the Magapitamians who were in the Ponzi scheme? I'm guessing they will be mad. But do we feel bad for them? And should government bail them out? Or would that just be nanny state nonsense that republicans always tell us the government shouldn't be involved in? Really couldn't happen. Couldn't happen to nicer people, the way I like to say. Let's take a very quick break back with a really interesting long form piece right after this.

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And we'll also talk about Eric Berg, who downplays high cholesterol risks while promoting unproven dietary theories. So let's look at each of these one by one. Barbara O'Neill advocates for a raw, plant based diet.

She says raw foods retain more nutrients and enzymes compared to cooked foods and that this promotes better health. Now a big issue with this diet is people will end up lacking dietary balance because it's so restrictive and people end up not meeting their nutritional needs. Raw foods can retain certain nutrients that can be lost during cooking, but the impact on health is very nuanced, and it's an example of a kernel of a piece of truth that is amplified in a way that doesn't make any sense. Based on the science, cooking can enhance the bioavailability of certain nutrients, like lycopene in tomatoes or beta carotene in carrots. And O'Neill is especially dangerous because she claims to have cured cancer through food and tells people not to undergo chemotherapy. She also claimed cancer is a fungus that can be treated with baking soda, and has asserted that vaccines are harmful and has suggested alternatives like drinking water to prevent diseases like tetanus, discourages using antibiotics, falsely links antibiotics to cancer risk. It's important to understand that as charismatic as she might be, Barbara O'Neill is uncredentialed, has no recognized credentials, failed nursing training, and in fact, in 2019, the Health Care Complaints Commission in New South Wales, Australia, where she's from, ruled that she is prohibited from providing any health related services. O'Neill's teachings are insanely popular, especially on TikTok, and there are clips everywhere of her promoting ineffective and sometimes harmful remedies.

Drinking water with celtic sea salt or celtic sea salt for hydration, using castor oil for various health issues. And her teachings are promoted by third parties and fans as well, which makes it really hard for people seeking health advice to avoid encountering her discredited methods, either directly or indirectly. Barbara O'Neill's online store sells various products like colon tea and baja gold liquid ocean minerals, which are accompanied by disclaimers stating they have not been reviewed by the FDA and are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. The grifting is actually a family business. Barbara's husband, Michael O'Neill, is the founder of the Informed Medical Options Party.

This is a group opposed to mandatory vaccination programs and opposed to fluoride in drinking water. Let's now talk about Paul Saladino. Paul Saladino is a proponent of the carnivore diet. Now in some ways, he kind of picked up the reins from liver King after liver king admitted to steroid use and suffered a sort of public relations fiasco. And the carnivore diet typically consists of solely animal products. The idea there being that the diet will deliver essential nutrients in their most bio available forms while eliminating plant based anti nutrients that can harm the body.

Sometimes Saladino talks about the defense chemicals that are in certain fruits and vegetables. Now, the reality is that a well balanced diet can meet people's nutritional needs and claims about anti nutrients are exaggerated. They are typically in such small traces that they have no effect on human health. And it's also important to mention that Saladino happens to also be on the seed oils or bad trend and the cholesterol doesn't matter trend, and we're going to dig into those later. But just keep in mind that he's also on those. Now. Like Barbara O'Neill, Saladino is uncredentialed. Saladino is an MD in psychiatry, which doesn't give him much credibility in the world of nutrition and physiology. Here he is getting destroyed on the doctors over his lack of credentials.

Doctor
I would ask you, you're a medical doctor, is that correct?

Paul Saladino
Absolutely.

Doctor
And you are a psychiatrist, am I right?

Paul Saladino
A residency in psychiatry.

Doctor
So what do you know about nutrition?

Paul Saladino
What is.

Doctor
Where did you gain your background in nutrition?

Paul Saladino
Listen, this is, I think.

Doctor
No, you listen to me and answer my question. Now I'm asking you to tell us where your background emanates from.

Paul Saladino
I went to medical school and I studied nutrition in medical school, and I studied nutrition independently. One of the crazy things about medical school is that it teaches you how to read articles. I'm a doctor. I know how to read articles. I know how to read the literature.

Doctor
Independent testing. Have you written any articles that was as suggested by these physicians who've been here today.

Paul Saladino
What does writing articles have to do with my knowledge?

Doctor
Well, because I could become you. I could be you as an expert. Because I wrote, read all of the data and all of the articles on this subject. Now I'm an expert. That doesn't make me an expert.

Speaker A
Saladino claims that our ancestors primarily ate meat, suggesting that there is something natural and beneficial about that as a human diet. And this is a really popular and common oversimplification. The diet of early humans varied significantly depending on where on earth they were, on the available resources and the seasonality. And archaeological evidence shows that while some older populations consumed significant amounts of animal products, others relied heavily on plant based foods. Now, Paul asserts that meat contains all essential nutrients needed for human health, and animal products do provide many vital nutrients. But relying solely on meat can result in all sorts of deficiencies in certain vitamins and minerals that are abundant in plant foods. And meat alone cannot meet all nutritional needs. Paul Saladino also argues that people who try the carnivore diet often experience weight loss. This is super common when you follow anyone suggesting a particular diet. Look at these people trying it, and look at how the weight just came right off. This can happen when people change diets for a number of reasons, and it's often because of caloric restriction rather than because you're having animal, uh, products instead of plant foods. The same thing can happen when someone goes, I'm going vegan, or I know people, people who went to fruits and nuts. Any diet that dramatically restricts the foods you can eat is likely to cause weight loss, at least initially. But here's the big twist.

After five years on the carnivore diet, Paul Saladino experienced plummeting testosterone levels, sleep problems, joint pain, and it prompted him to abandon the strict diet in favor of a more balanced approach. Here's him explaining the decision.

Paul Saladino
About two years into the carnivore diet, I started noticing persistence of unpleasant symptoms. So testosterone dropped to around 500 total sleep disturbances, palpitations, muscle cramps. When I was surfing or climbing and I started to think, okay, maybe long term ketosis is not great for me. And I was definitely in ketosis at the time, monitoring blood ketones with a meter. Not deep ketosis, but definitely ketosis. And so at that point, I started to dig into the research a little bit more and understood that insulin signaling is critical at the level of the kidney to hold on to minerals, to hold on to potassium, calcium, sodium, chloride, magnesium, and that in long term ketosis in most humans, you're going to become so electrolyte depleted that it's almost impossible to resolve that with enormous amounts of electrolyte.

Speaker A
Despite advocating against carbs and against vegetables in the past, Saladino now incorporates 300 grams of carbs daily, citing health improvements. This makes sense, as low glucose levels can hinder cognitive ability. They can cause heart palpitations and other issues like confusion, mood swings, anxiety and aggression. Are seed oils toxic? This gets us to carnivore aurelius seed oils like soybean oil, canola oil, sunflower oil. They have become the latest scapegoat for self proclaimed health gurus. Peddling the unfounded claim that these oils are highly inflammatory and detrimental to human health. They sensationalize the supposed dangers of omega six fatty acids and seed oils. They attribute them to a laundry list of ailments, including heart disease, obesity, infertility and cancer. And one of the most vocal opponents of seed oils is carnivore Aurelius, a social media influencer with over 350,000 followers on Twitter, nearly a million on Instagram and carnivore Aurelius capitalizes on fear mongering about seed oils while promoting his own line of health products, including beef liver crisps, steak crisps, and pure collagen from brazilian cows. Aurelius promotes a meat only diet, spreads alarmist and scientifically unsupported claims about seed oils being dangerous. And he asserts that seed oils are responsible for a range of health issues, urging his followers to completely eliminate them from their diets. In one tweet, he writes, canola oil is literally made from seed seeds of the rape plant, named after what it will do to your health.

Like other proponents of the carnivore diet, like Jordan Peterson, carnivore Aurelius regularly post content supporting conservative values, including the belief that feminism is a scam. In reality, omega six fatty acids are essential nutrients that play critical roles in the body, including cell membrane function and immune function. Now let's talk about the supposed link between seed oils and chronic inflammation. It's overblown and misrepresented by influencers offers, often selling their own brand of expensive alternatives. Guy Crosby, who's an adjunct associate professor of nutrition at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, says, while it is true that many foods use seed oils like packaged snacks and french fries, that seed oils are not the whole story because those snacks are high in refined carbohydrates, high in sodium, high in sugar, and if you cut back on those foods, you'll probably feel better. But it's the other components, not the seed oils, that are the culprit behind the weight gain and the negative health outcomes. The narrative that seed oils are universally harmful overlooks the fact that these oils can be part of a very healthy diet when consumed in moderation and actually seem linked to lower inflammation rather than higher. And contrary to the fear mongering, the evidence linking seed oils to adverse health outcomes is weak, often manipulated to fit a preconceived narrative. Doctor Kevin Klatt is a nutrition scientist, and he's debunked these myths. He's emphasized dietary balance, not elimination, is the key, and he rightly points out that a variety of fats, including those from seed oils, can and should be part of a healthy diet.

Despite the lack of credible evidence, the anti seed oil rhetoric is thriving on social media.

A lot of this is because of those very same charismatic influencers who prioritize clicks and sales over integrity. Carnivore Aurelius, among others, is capitalizing on this by promoting his own dietary products. And the anti seed oil movement is yet another example of how charismatic but scientifically illiterate influencers are exploiting fears for profit, pushing dangerous narratives that can mislead and harm people who are just looking for genuine health advice at the end of the day. Cholesterol has also become a battleground of misinformation, with many influencers claiming high cholesterol levels are harmless or maybe even beneficial. One prominent figure here is doctor Eric Berg, who promotes the idea that cholesterol is simply not a significant health concern. With 12 million followers on YouTube, over a million on instagram, Eric Bergdeh is a chiropractor with no formal training in cardiology. He is simply not a medical doctor, and Berg suggests that traditional medical advice on cholesterol is driven by pharmaceutical interests rather than genuine health concerns. And he argues against the medical consensus by denying high blood ldl cholesterol levels and consumption of saturated fat increase your risk of heart disease, despite it being one of the most empirically based beliefs in the medical world. And he asserts that the ketogenic diet will decrease total blood cholesterol levels, decrease ldl, which is bad cholesterol, decrease triglycerides and increase hdl, or so called good cholesterol levels.

The only problem is his claims lack any sort of substantiation from long term studies. And in fact, there's a 2013 meta analysis of randomized controlled trials. So in other words, an analysis of RCT's which found that ketogenic diets can actually increase ldl cholesterol directly contrary to what Berg claims. Now, in reality, high cholesterol is a well established risk factor for heart disease. There's extensive research. Research showing that elevated ldl levels, often again called the bad cholesterol, can lead to buildup of plaques in arteries, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke. Medical professionals widely agree managing cholesterol is crucial for cardiovascular health. Doctor Berg Cherry picks evidence that confirms his biases while ignoring all of the studies. And there are many that contradict his claims. And of course, he fails to cite recent systematic reviews and relies on selective references that undermine the principles of evidence based medicine. Despite the overwhelming evidence, Berg and other anti cholesterol influencers, they're not. They're not even against cholesterol. They're anti cholesterol science influencers. They're getting a lot of traction on social media, and they exploit people's mistrust in the medical establishment to either sell books or supplements or consultation services. And their rhetoric not only misleads the public, but it puts people at risk by encouraging them to ignore proven medical advice. To address these dangerous myths, experts recommend trusting well established medical guidelines.

Advice from qualified healthcare professionals, understanding that high cholesterol is a significant risk factor for heart disease. And you've got to be cautious of influencers who lack credentials and make these unsubstantiated claims. Even Bergs claim that pharmaceutical interests drive the prescription of cholesterol lowering statin medications doesn't pass the SNF test because, number one, the doctors writing the prescriptions have no financial interest in the drugs. The drugs have been around for so long and are available as cheap generics for pennies on the pill. And some insurance companies don't even charge a copay on the statins because they're so effective at preventing more expensive cardiac events in the future. So the anti cholesterol movement really exemplifies how influencers with little or no medical expertise can endanger public health and endanger individual people by spreading the misinformation while they are profiting from the very confusion and fear that they create. Now, let's go through some common arguments. And though they very much differ in terms of approaches and advice, the through line in the arguments of influencers like the ones we've talked about here is you cast doubt on medical professionals to make your ideas seem more plausible. And here are some of the arguments that are often used with what I think are the relatively obvious rebuttals. So there's the claim that the medical community is in bed with big pharma. They all make money together by recommending you take their drugs rather than supplements or herbs.

Now, the rebuttal to this is very clear.

Number one, the supplement industry is equally profitable, if not more so.

Influencers are the ones often making money from supplements, whereas the doctors are not making money from suggesting, hey, lower your cholesterol with a statin. People who recommend the statins are doing it on the basis of empirical, randomized controlled trials, while the influencers are often selling supplements or courses that they make money from directly and are unproven in a randomized, controlled environment. And furthermore, many of the widely used drugs today started as supplements or are derived from plants. And if you find a molecule in a plant, uh, you know, the believe aspirin came from the, uh, bark of birch trees or, uh, cholesterol. Lower lowering medications were originally found somewhere in, in nature.

If they worked, the supplements would be studied in randomized controlled trials and they would then be approved as drugs if they actually worked as described. Here's another claim. The medical community will dismiss alternative treatments because they threaten the profitability of big pharma. Again, many alternative treatments have been adopted into mainstream medicine once their benefits were scientifically proven. Uh, there are so many examples of this. And then finally, there's the claim that the medical community wants to put you on drugs for the rest of your life instead of curing your illness. If you've looked at the supplement space lately, they also mostly want you taking the supplements for life. So that's also not a very good argument. So, bottom line, many of these influencers, whether they do so deliberately or inadvertently, they're threatening public health not only by giving bad advice, but by sowing distrust in the medical community. And often they are directly profiting from it. Now that is not to say that you can't find interesting and accurate health tips on social media. Cardiologist Mohammed Alo is really good doctor ids. There are lots of health and fitness youtubers and influencers that are really good and that I like to watch. So the question is, how do you know if what you are stumbling upon when scrolling or clicking can be trusted? First of all, verify credentials. Check the background and qualifications of influencers offering health advice. Look for professionals with recognized credentials in the field where they are professing expertise, whether it's nutrition, medicine or others.

An influencer might appear authoritative and confident, but if it turns out it's a chiropractor giving cardiovascular health advice, that's a really good reason to be skeptical. Also ensure that what you're hearing is backed up by scientific research. Trust, but verify the truth is as a layperson, you may not be able to understand the nuances of every paper in a scientific journal, but you can read the abstracts. You can see in general whether the overall claims are actually supported by any peer reviewed research. And always just be cautious of miracle cures and extraordinary claims. If something a social media influencer says sounds too good to be true, like skip all the cancer treatment and use baking soda to cure cancer, it's probably not true. Chances are this is someone either trying to make a name for themselves to later monetize or directly monetizing by offering you something that you can buy. If an influencer advises you to buy something, particularly an overpriced supplement, that's a red flag. And most importantly, talk to your doctor because they will be able to provide better advice than any health influencer, especially because it will be tailored to your particular situation. So be on the lookout. We only named a few people Barbara O'Neill, Paul Saladino, Carnivore, Aurelius, Eric Berg. But there are so many others to keep an eye out on.

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Yet another sign that the campaign is really not going well is new reporting that Donald Trump is regularly calling Kamala Harris a bitch. Now this comes in sharp contrast to recent suggestions from a whole bunch of Fox News hosts, republican advisers, Trump's former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Trump's former press secretary Kaley McEnany Trump needs to get off of the insults, he needs to get off of the DEI, didn't pass the bar exam, became black is dumb approach to this election, and really go with something different, like something substantive. And then we get this reporting from axios that Trump behind the scenes is regularly referring to Kamala Harris as a bitch. Former President Trump has been in a foul mood the past few weeks and has repeatedly called Vice President Harris a bitch in private, as reported by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. Why it matters Axios has written extensively about this as the girls versus boys election, with democrats crushing the women's vote. Trump advisers privately concede his misogynistic language is deeply problematic and something they worry he'll unload in a public debate to his detriment, Trump said about Harris on Wednesday in a phone interview. I heard she's sort of a nasty person at a mar a Lago news conference, he said. She's not smart enough to do a news conference, but it's important to remember that we actually have Trump on video calling her a bitch. This was before she became the presumptive democratic nominee. This video of Trump in a golf cart was taken shortly after the June 27 debate against Joe Biden.

And in this, it's a little bit hard to hear because Trump kind of faces away from the camera when he says it, but he refers to her, I believe, as an, as an effing bitch. Here, let's take a listen.

Speaker B
Speaker one, how did I do with the debate the other night?

Broken down pile of crabs. Yeah, it's a bad guy. He just quit. You know, he's quitting the rest. Is that right? Yep. I got him out of the race.

And that means we have Kamala.

I think she's gonna be better.

She's so bad. She's so pathetic.

She's so fucking bad.

Speaker A
So she's. She's an effing bitch. There it is. So listen, this is more representative. I, I don't think it's news to anybody in my audience, if you paid attention to the 2016 presidential election, that this guy does seem to have a problem with the mere idea that the country might choose a woman over Trump. There, there's some base layer on which Trump just. That's infuriating to him. It's inconceivable to him. How could, how could this happen? How could anyone do that? But it does seem to be going deeper this time because the polling keeps shifting away from Trump, which we will look at in a moment.

The media coverage in terms of things like rally crowds, which really trigger Donald Trump on a factual level, it's not going particularly well for him. So all of these different things seem to be angering him even more. And that's where we end up with her referring to her, him referring to her in this way. Now, what, what I think has been very astutely done so far by Harris Walls is they're not stooping to the same level. They're joking. Sure. Tim walls recently saying, we've had these great crowds and nobody cares about crowd sizes anyway. Right? I mean, they're referencing Trump's obsession with crowd size, but they're not going after him in the same way. When Kamala does her routine now, where she talks about, I know people like Donald Trump. I've been a prosecutor. I went after con men and assaulters and whatever. She is not hurling ad hominems. She is sticking to what courts, criminal and civil, have found about Donald Trump and engaging the audience in a sort of clever way. So this is sending him for a loop in a serious way. And my expectation is that if things don't turn around for him in the polling, if media coverage doesn't turn around, if the fundraising doesn't pick up, there's going to be significantly more of this. And that gets us to, what are the latest numbers? They're extraordinary. So I want to talk about that a little bit.

In Wisconsin, there is a new poll which finds that Kamala Harris has a nine point lead over Donald Trump. Think back to 2020 and how close Wisconsin was. Fraction of a point. And consider what it would mean nationally if somehow Kamala Harris were to win. Forget about nine. Forget, forget about five. If Kamala Harris even were to win Wisconsin by three or four, what it would signal about the whole election?

Well, in this new poll conducted by the independent center, Kamala Harris is at 51 and Trump is at 42, 51 to 42, a nine point lead in Wisconsin in this particular poll for Kamala Harris. Now, I think it's important to look at an average of polls. That's only one poll. If you look at an average of the polls that real clear politics includes in its polling, on average, Kamala Harris is leading by 1.2 in Wisconsin. She is leading by six in the recent New York Times Sienna poll. So that's sort of a second data point in Wisconsin that shows the lead is really relatively solid. I'm also heartened to see that very few people are messing with the third party candidates.

Cornel west with 0.3% in Wisconsin, Jill Stein with 0.8%, and Bobby Kennedy junior now down to five.

That's still, and that's 6.1 total. That's still enough to swing the state depending on what the split is between who's pulling from Kamala Harris and who's pulling for from Donald Trump. But it's a good thing to see in this particular situation when what we're trying to do is prevent the worst cut possible outcome, which is four more years of Trump. It's good to see that not too many people are falling for the third party candidates. And I believe that those numbers will decline between now and November. Looking at some other critical states, Michigan looking really pretty good for Kamala Harris. Where she is leading by an average of 3.2, including a Whopper outlier poll. The Bloomberg Morning consult poll has Kamala Harris plus twelve in Michigan over Trump. But that's just 1.1 poll. The average is plus 3.2 for Kamala Harris. Pennsylvania is very tight, and Pennsylvania really is a state that in a lot of scenarios, could be a difference maker. In Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris leading by just shy of one point. And there Kennedy, Stein and West together have 5.5. It's sort of like a, here we go again. Are the third party candidates potentially going to throw this to Trump? And then finally, in Arizona, we really don't have a lot of recent polling. In Arizona. We have a Trump plus eight, very unlikely. And we have a Harris plus four also probably unlikely, although someone winning by four in Arizona is more likely than someone winning by eight on average. The way that real clear politics weighs polling by recency and reliability, it has Arizona as Trump plus two.

So if you're Trump and you're thinking, maybe I'll campaign, even though he hasn't been, if you're Trump and you're thinking, maybe I'll campaign, maybe it's time to schedule some rallies in these states, rather than Bozeman, Montana, as Trump did over the weekend. Uh, but I don't know if Trump is going to show up to Wisconsin, Michigan or wherever, wherever, or if instead he's going to schedule another rally for, you know, Mississippi three weeks from now or something like that. Ultimately, what I think is happening is that Trump is getting really triggered by when he goes to the same place as Kamala Harris, she gets a bigger crowd. They were in the same arena in Philadelphia in a very short span of time, and her crowd was far larger than Trump's shriveled, flaccid crowd. And that really triggers him. The way to avoid those a to b or apples to apples comparisons is go to places she won't go, like Mississippi and Bozeman, Montana. So we'll see if he gets back up on the campaign trail. Just one event, I believe, scheduled for this week, tomorrow, or later in the week. But the polling really not looking good for this guy. We have such a good bonus show for you today. Ukraine says it has seized nearly 400 sq mi of russian territory. Interesting. Trump and Vance want to take more control over the Federal Reserve, something that is worrying economists. And JD Vance's campaign won't deny that it is indeed him in a viral drag photo.

What does this mean, again, for the hypocrisy of these guys? All of those stories and more on today's bonus show. Sign up@joinpackman.com I will speak to you then.

8/13/24: Musk Trump interview was a big yikes, shock poll from Wisconsin

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