2/3 of Americans on Pills | Outdoor Therapy | Epstein Files | Fuentes Exposed

Ultimize. Height surgery is on the rise, and it says something profound about dating status and what normal means for men. Two out of three Americans are taking medication every week, and the money behind that habit is staggering. Some therapists are ditching the couch and heading outdoors. And research says your brain may benefit. Adults who still play might actually be less stressed and more resilient. Hillary Clinton is accusing the administration of slow walking the Epstein files while preparing to testify. And Nick Fuentes has turned digital outrage into a subscription business with a sizable audience. All that and more today on Filtered.

Welcome to Filtered with TJ Walker.

Hi. Thanks for joining me. Let's dive right in. Height surgery and the six Foot standard. According to reporting in the Times, a growing number of men are undergoing limb lengthening surgery to gain a few inches in height. The procedure can cost more than $100,000 and involves. This makes me cringe to say it, but I'm reporting the facts to you. It involves breaking the femur and slowly extending it over months, breaking the bones in your legs. Why? Why do this? Because height still functions like social currency, especially in dating apps where six feet has become a symbolic threshold. Now, here's the problem. Only about 15% of American men are 6ft or taller. Yet surveys consistently show many women prefer men taller than themselves and specifically six feet. In fact, some app surveys show a majority, a vast majority of women are saying they only want to see men who are six feet tall. So the apps are turning this preference into a filter. The result? Scarcity psychology. This isn't just cosmetic surgery. It's market pressure, meeting male insecurity and medicine stepping in to monetize it. Okay, this is not completely new, but apparently it is gaining an acceptance and it's becoming more common again. People are spending $70,000 to $150,000 on this surgery. Sometimes Americans travel abroad like they do for other surgeries, especially cosmetic surgeries. You can be on crutches for months, sometimes a six month recovery. Sometimes, as you would imagine, there are long term health problems. I mean, just the idea of breaking apart your bones and your legs and stretching them apart, hoping they grow back together again healthy. It certainly seems like a risky, risky situation. The Times interviewed one gentleman who received this. He says, I just didn't want to be the person sticking out in a negative way. He was, I believe, five foot four. One of the doctors says patients are greedy for length and they will push you. You can actually pull apart longer once the surgeries happen. But then it makes it even more likely that complications will occur. So let's look at some of the facts. Adult men, the 90th percentile of height is 72.7 inches. That's about six feet tall. That's about six and a half feet, excuse me, six feet and a half an inch tall. Adult men, to get in the 85th percentile, that's 72.1 inches. So a full 85% of American men are less than 6ft tall. And yet every, every aspect of culture you see society glamorizing men 6ft tall or more. And this is reflective in social media apps where you see time and time again women essentially trying to weed out any man who isn't six feet tall. Now let me be fair here. Women are often judged unfairly by their weight, by conventional beauty standards, by hip to waist ratio. So I'm not in any way suggesting that men are unfairly victimized in the broader spectrum of appearance. Okay, let's not kid ourselves. But this is different. I've never seen a man say, oh, this woman is incredibly good looking, sexy, everything desirable. But she's only 5 2, therefore I don't want her. I've never ever seen that ever. And yet apparently that does happen constantly in reverse where women reject men. I well remember A Diane Sawyer 2020 special, this had to have been two decades ago where she did an entire piece on male height. And what she found was even little girls, even four and five year old girls, when you ask them who do they want to marry, they said, we want somebody tall. We want somebody tall. We want to tell our husband. This is at age 4 and 5. They also, she also did a very clever thing. Again, it's been two decades and it still stands out in my memory from this 2020 piece. She put men in a, on the, the other side of a, of a one way mirror where women could watch the men without the men seeing them. And asked the women to rate the levels of attractiveness and all things being equal, they like the guy 6 foot 2. Not a huge surprise. But then Diane Sawyer started profiling the individuals said, okay, the guy 6 foot 2 never really had a great job, a little bit of a drinking problem. The guy 56 is a wealthy entrepreneur and a gourmet chef. I mean even then a high percentage of the women, one of the guys 6 foot 2. It wasn't until she started defining the, the tall guy as having a criminal record and the short guy as a multi, multi millionaire entrepreneur and a gourmet chef and a great guy that women would even consider the 5 foot 6 guy. And have things gotten better? I don't think so. Let's look at some more statistics. Okay. The average U.S. male height is 68.9 inches. That's 5, 8.9. That's less than 5 foot 9. So again, many people would say, well, that's short. Well, no, it's not short, it's average. We are told again and again that, you know, basically a man needs to be 6ft tall. Although interestingly, in pop culture, our movies don't do that. George Clooney, five ten and a half. Tom Cruise, depending on what source, between, you know, five six and five nine. Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, five seven range. Robert Redford was only about five nine. So it's not that Hollywood is sending this message, but it is something that is unfortunately, or depending on your perspective, fortunately ingrained in us. There are theorists who believe women crave a taller man because it is seen as a sign of protection, being physically stronger and, and thinking back to, you know, 200,000 years ago, when you're on the savannah and just raw strength is helpful for protection, for survival. That's one theory, but it may have outlived its usefulness. There is a claim, and I've been trying to track it down. It's on Reddit and other places. But 60% of women on social media apps filter out men who are not 6ft tall and only 15% of men are. So this creates a huge, huge problem for both men and women. So I understand why people are going after this surgery, but breaking bones, risking health, I don't know if anyone's died from this surgery, but anytime you're at major surgery and have to go under, there's always that risk, risk of infection. So it's an extraordinarily small supply of men, 15% of all men who are over 6ft tall. So if essentially all the women are going after them, it can make them greedy, picky, it can make them think, oh, why be nice to this one? Another ten are coming along. Then you have the fact that the huge, huge resentment this so called incel movement, I strongly suspect is populated largely by men under 6ft tall. Now, full disclosure, when I was growing up, I was always a lot taller than everyone else. I was a head taller. And when I was in seventh grade, I basically stopped growing. Now I stopped growing at about 5 foot 11 and a half, which without seeming like a big liar, no one's offended by me rounding off to six feet, and no one's calling me a liar for saying I'm six feet Although technically I'm five foot eleven and a half, so I rate my own self at the shortest possible. You can be and still be considered tall in American culture. So I've never really suffered any discrimination based on height, but it certainly exists. And I'm not of the age where dating apps were a part of my socialization. But I have to imagine it's even worse now where women don't even have to meet you in person, give you the benefit of the doubt. They can just say, nope, not tall enough, gone. So I don't know what the solution is. Some dating apps are just trying to put things in above average height, below average height, or average height. They're trying not to put the men, the 85% of men are not 6ft, into a rejection bucket. But it's hard. People want data. They will go to different apps where they do want data. Are you considering this kind of a surgery? You know, it's easy for me to say, I hope not, but I've never gone through life short. I've never gone through life. Certainly when I was young and in my prime and trying to date, I never felt that instant rejection just on the basis of height. So it's easy for me to kind of poo poo this. But I don't know, I think you really, really got to do your research here. I mean, the amount of pain, this is apparently extremely painful, as you can imagine. Once the drugs wear off, certainly they drug you up for the surgery itself, but at some point the drugs wear off and your bones are all broken trying to recover. So it is by all accounts an extraordinarily painful, painful process for months and sometimes they don't heal. I mean, to me it seems a bit sad if, yeah, you're two inches taller, but you can never run again or walk again. I'm not saying that is uniformly the result, but certainly there's going to be some people with severe complications. Now, apparently the high end average is gaining about 3 inches. So if you go from being a man 5 foot 6 to 5 foot 9, I could certainly imagine that that would really change your whole perspective on life as far as how other people treat you. I've seen it firsthand where women, if they could be 5, 4, which is the average height of an American woman, 5, 2, 5 1, summarily reject a wonderful guy, well educated, talented, polite, nice, he's 5 foot 6, 5 foot 9, they would not have rejected the person. So I can, I can understand how that would be. Oh, I just, I just remembered an amusing Anecdote from this is some 30 years ago, back in my single days, I did once face discrimination on the basis of height. I went out with a very nice young lady and I thought we had a wonderful time. I called her up for another date. I assumed she liked me, the feelings would be mutual. She said, no thanks, and I don't know why I did. I wouldn't normally do this, but I asked why. She said, well tj, you're not tall enough. I only like men who are 6 foot 2. And I said, wait a minute, you're 4 foot 11. She was in fact 4 foot 11. And for whatever reason, I guess she wanted the the average of her height, if she had kids or something, to be tall. So she put an extreme premium on anyone she dated being at least 6 foot 2. So I, you know, I got over it. In fact, I hadn't thought of it until just now. Would you get surgery like this? Easy for me to say. I wouldn't. I don't like pain and I'm not worried about being too short. But for those of you who do feel like you've been discriminated against, it's definitely a temptation. What are the ethics of doctors doing this? We're always told the Hippocratic Oath first do no harm. You're breaking someone's bones. I don't quite know how you justify that of doing no harm. You're breaking their bones. There's always the risk of infection. There's always the risk of it not growing back properly. There's always the risk of you're putting someone under. They don't come back. And if it's not for life threatening reasons, that's always questionable. So I'm not quite sure I buy into the ethics of doing this. What do you think? Post your comments in the discussion below.

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how you ever did without it. America's Weekly Pill Habit A nationwide survey published in the Journal of American Medical Association Network open found that 62% of US adults took at least one oral medication in the previous week. One in six took five or more over the counter and prescription use were nearly identical. Financially, this is enormous. US prescription drug spending approaches half a trillion dollars annually over the counter adds tens of billions more. The supplement industry alone generates roughly $70 billion in the U.S. medication isn't occasional anymore. It's a weekly or even daily routine. And it's a core pillar of the American economy. Okay, so how do we feel about this? I'll confess to you, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love things like penicillin. I certainly love vaccines and I love antibiotics. I am a believer in germ theory. So I love the fact that we do have a modern pharmaceutical industry. I love polio vaccines. I love all sorts of medicines. It's why, in fact, the average lifespan of a human being has gone from about 30 or 40, 150, 160 years ago to twice that. However, and this is a big however, I am concerned that for so many people, the first line of defense for health is popping a pill. And let me be clear, I'm not your doctor. I'm not dispensing medical advice or pills on this program. What I try to do here is look at what's going on in the news, filter it through the lens of personal development, and then look to see are there daily habits you and I can perform that makes us healthier, happier, more productive, and the habit of the first line of defense, popping a pill. I don't think any serious person says that's a good thing. Again, I'm not telling you to stop taking pills that your doctor recommends. But so many pills are popped, are consumed, because you and I fail to take care of our bodies in a responsible way. We don't eat real food. We don't eat actual, real fruit and vegetables and leafy greens. We fill our bodies with processed garbage, processed sugar, processed carbohydrates, all sorts of fats injected lots of salt, artificial flavors, artificial food that we just consume all day long and it's not fueling our body properly. And then we think we're going to counter that by either taking a prescription pill or an over the counter pill or some kind of a supplement. And yeah, we're not dying on average at age 30 anymore. That's a good thing. But are we really living in a truly vital, healthy, energetic way for so many of us? I don't think so. Let's look at some more of the facts. US retail prescription spending $467 billion in 2024. A massive, massive amount. $192 billion globally in supplements in 2024. Those are especially dubious. And what hap according to the survey, what people take over the counter versus prescription is about 50 50. So a lot of that is ibuprofen, other basic painkillers. And hey, I don't like pain. Have I ever taken an aspirin or a headache? Sure. But if you have headaches daily, regularly, quite often it's because you're not drinking enough water. You're not exercising, you're eating garbage. You're hunched over screens all day long. So maybe rather than popping the pill first, why not go out of your way to actually have a large cup of water right next to you that you sip all day long? That's what I'm doing. Now, those of you listening on the podcast, I always keep a large glass of water next to me because that's the best thing for you. It's why I rarely, rarely get headaches. It's not because I'm better than you or genetically superior, but when you drink lots of water, you stay hydrated. That alone reduces your odds of getting headaches. Now, a headache can be a symptom of other health problems. By all means, have your doctor look at it. If they are prescribing certain painkillers, listen to them, not me. But this idea that we're just going to continue doing more and more pills, more prescriptions, more supplements, and that that is the solution to good health as opposed to healthy habits. I got a real problem with that. Why is it you can give yourself a reminder to take a pill every day, or five pills a day, as some do, but you can't give yourself a reminder? Go walk around the block for 10 minutes in the morning, get some sunlight. I realize you can pop five pills faster than you can walk ten minutes. I get it. It saves time, but it's not saving you time in the long run if you die 10 years earlier because of lack of exercise, lack of healthy eating, lack of healthy daily practices. You didn't save any time. You lost 10 years. So I would ask you, and I've done this myself, do a serious accounting of how many pills you're taking in a month now, or a day or a week now. Full disclosure. And I'm not recommending anything to anyone for the last couple of years, until recently, I took literally zero pills, zero medicine, zero prescription, zero over the counter for a couple of years or so and felt fine. Most recently, I have taken tablets of magnesium glycinate in the middle of the night if I wake up. And according to a variety of medical sources, that is a mild way that can enhance the odds of me going back to sleep without any negative effects, without side effects. So I have done. I'm not recommending that for you. I'm just being transparent with you what I'm doing. And I'm not selling any of these. I'm not marketing. I'm not telling you the brand. But I don't want to be a hypocrite and tell you I never take pills. You shouldn't either. Okay, I do take that one supplement. But beyond that, the best medicine of all. It's a cliche to say it is eating real food, exercise, move. You don't have to join $1,000 a month health club, walk around the block. You don't need an entire home gym with $20,000 worth of weight machines. You can take two milk cartons and fill them with water or sand and those can be your weight. So the idea that you need money in order to be healthy. No, it's not true. Many of the longest living people in the world live in very poor communities. Whether it's in the mountaintops of Sardinia or Okinawa, other places, it's not necessarily tied to wealth. True, in America, the wealthier you are, the longer you're likely to live. You have better healthcare, less stress. But also the wealthy tend to take their diets very seriously and their exercise very seriously. So this story to me is a good reminder. Let's count how many pills we're taking. Let's ask ourselves, is there something we're taking a pill for that? Maybe we'd be better off solving that problem with some lifestyle change, some daily habit. Think about it like what you heard.

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Therapy goes outside. According to the Washington Post, more therapists are conducting sessions outdoors walk and talk therapy in parks and nature trails. Research by psychologist Mark Berman shows that people who walked in nature improved short term memory by about 20% compared to those walking in urban environments. Therapists say side by side walking reduces social pressure and allows clients to open up more naturally. It's not anti office, it's pro environment. Sometimes changing the setting changes the outcome. So I applaud any therapist willing to try new things and get away from the cliched, you know, sitting in the office and there's the couch or the chair you're sitting in front of and everything looking like it's from a TV show or movie. So I'm glad people are giving this a change. Let's look at some more facts here. And I have mixed feelings about this. So the therapists are saying nature is the cheapest adjunct treatment and is helpful. Okay, my question to many people seeking out treatment, I'm not anti therapist. If you're using a therapist, I'm not asking you to stop. What I would ask you though is do you need a therapist to get you outside? If you're like, unfortunately, so many Americans and many people around the world, no matter how nice a day it is, you're inside hunched over looking at your phone all day long or your screen all day long, you shouldn't have to pay a therapist to get you to go outside. Just go outside, go for a walk, you'll probably feel better. I know I always do and that's why I try to walk outside every day. I typically try to go for a walk for at least an hour a day without my cell phone. It's virtually impossible not to feel great at the end of that. So if, if therapists are the ones who get people to do this, then great. But if you want to save money and you're not suffering severe clinical depression, maybe, just maybe, don't wait until you get depressed and then have to go to a therapist. Maybe just build a walk in nature into your daily routine. Now, I realize it's hard for some people in urban environments. When I live in New York City, it can seem harder to walk in nature, but then maybe I walk a few extra blocks and I go to Central Park. And there are fantastic areas in Central park where you feel like you're in upstate New York, 500 miles away and you don't even see another human being. So look for nature. Could be a park, could be a nature preserve. I'm fortunate Enough now where I live in South Florida to be in somewhat of a remote area. So I have nature preserves all around me that I can get to pretty easily and quickly, plus walking around lakes in my backyard. So I enjoy it. There's something about nature, actual sunlight, nothing being over your head. It lifts the spirit. Now according to Mark Berman, one of the therapists interviewed, those who walked in nature showed a 20% improvement in short term memory, actually enhances the memory process. So that's fantastic. There are new apa, the American Psychology association, which I believe was a client of mine at one point. Full disclosure. They have guidance on how clinicians can implement outdoor sessions responsibly. So this is becoming a thing. That's great. Again, I don't want to seem like I'm bashing therapy. If it's useful to you, by all means, continue. But if your therapist is now taking you outside and it makes you feel even better, guess what? You don't have to wait for next Thursday at 1 o' clock for your 50 minute hour at $300 an hour to go outside again. You can do it every single day. Oh, but teacher, I have too much email, I have too many calls. Go outside. It's not as good as walking without a phone and just taking in the sights. But if nothing else, walking outside in nature with your cell phone, answering emails and calls is better than just sitting inside and feeling the gloom and doom. So I highly recommend. Again, I'm not here as your doctor, but what I try to do here is distill the absolute best personal development habits where there is widespread acceptance across people throughout the medical establishment, health, personal development establishment, and there's really no controversy when it comes to being outside is good for you, it makes you happier in general, it makes you less depressed, it makes you feel good. Again, I'm not speaking about anyone who suffers severe clinical depression. That's a different issue. By all means, seek every form of professional help possible. But for most of us, if you have a baseline of average, some days you feel better than others, some days you feel a little bit down. Why not incorporate spending outdoor time every day so that your overall average is a little higher, that the highs become higher and the lows don't ever really get very low. That is my recommendation and that's one where I definitely practice what I preach. I try to get outside every day. I've been swimming already today and I hope to spend more time outside as well. I want you to be happy and I want you to be healthy and I want you to at least first try things that are the most convenient for you in terms of spending your time and your money, not against you spending money on therapists or on drugs. But it costs nothing to simply walk outside your house and go for a walk. You don't have to make an appointment. You don't have to drive someone somewhere. You don't have to take your money to pay a therapist or to pay a pharmaceutical company to get that pill. You can just put on your shoes and go for a walk. Too often the most obvious solution to a problem, the most obvious practice that prevents a problem from even starting, we tend not to do it because no one's there reminding us, because no one's making a buck. The thing that connects both of these stories is it's easier to take a pill because we're all bombarded with thousands of ads every day on every kind of TV show, every kind of Facebook ad, every kind of social media. Take this pill. Take this pill. Take this pill. We're not bombarded thousands of times a day. Go for a walk. Go for a walk. We are often, maybe not to the same extent, bombarded with ads to go see a therapist. Certainly so many personal development podcasts are all supported by better, I think, better.com and there's all sorts of therapy networks and apps that are bombarding you with ads. And again, they may be great and wonderful. My point is, you're being reminded constantly through media messages for you to spend money to solve a problem using either a therapist or a drug. No one's reminding you first and foremost, walk outside, get some exercise, drink more water, eat real food. So that's a part of what this show is trying to counter is helping you with a media environment to increase the odds that you stay healthy and happy and spend the least amount of time and money doing it.

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Playful Adults are healthier Research highlighted in the conversation suggests adults who stay playful cope better with stress and report greater life satisfaction. Play in adulthood isn't about toys necessarily. It's about curiosity, spontaneity, humor, and social connection. Studies link playfulness to emotional intelligence and resilience. In a culture obsessed with productivity, play looks frivolous, but the data suggest it may be psychological armor. This is fascinating. At one level, it seems like common sense. On the other hand, people don't commonly do it. I know so many adults. Oh, I'm working all the time. I have to spend more billable hours. I have to deal with these clients, these consulting clients. I'm on the phone 14 hours a day. And what good is it if you burn out at 45 and hate your career and can't get out of bed in the morning? You're not really saving any time. So serious adults may actually be stressed adults. You need to make time to play. What do I mean by that? It can be horsing around. It can mean giving your kids a piggyback ride. Here are some ideas of just simple things that anyone can do cost almost nothing or nothing. Frisbee or catching a local park. That's play. Yeah, you're not going to impress anyone with your post on social media that you won a tennis tournament of Beat everybody your age in your entire state or region. It's just playing a board game night with friends. My family and I try to play board game. We don't do it as often as I'd like to, but board games? Infinitely better than sitting back passively watching a screen. Go to free Community at Trivia Nights. We do have them in the community I moved into last year and it is fun. You shout out, you're meeting other people. You're taught it's playful. Why not have a dance party in your living room? Turn on YouTube. Turn on some dance. Don't just watch. Get up and move. There's pick up basketball or soccer at public courts now if you're above a certain age. Look, I'm not usually a fan of saying age gate yourself negatively. We've seen LeBron James be a fantastic basketball player into his 40s, but that basketball is one I don't do anymore. I had a really hard hit coming down playing basketball with a bunch of friends at home about 12 years ago and I said that's it for me. I'll shoot, but I'm not going to play contact basketball. You've got to decide that Improv storytelling game with friends Another way of being playful. Go on a scavenger hunt. Build a blanket fort in your living room with your kids. These are playful things, not about being more productive, not about learning anything more. Although it's nice to learn. It's not necessarily about getting more exercise, although sometimes it could be. Why not have a chalk art competition on the sidewalk in front of your house? These are all playful things, and the research shows it helps adults, keeps them healthier, keeps them living longer. So it's not about necessarily getting up at 5am to get to the gym and working out an extra hour when everyone else is sleeping. That often can be counterproductive. If you're not getting enough sleep, you need time to play where you're not impressing anyone with your step count. You're not impressing anyone with this growth of your biceps, your daughter just doing it for the sheer fun of it. Try. Could help you enjoy life more and live longer.

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Hillary Clinton and the Epstein Files in an interview with the BBC, Hillary Clinton accused the administration, the Trump administration, of slow walking the release of Epstein related files and called for full transparency. Jeffrey Epstein's first conviction came in 2008 in Florida for soliciting prostitution from a minor. He served about 13 months under a plea agreement and registered as a sex offender. He later died in 2019 awaiting trial on federal charges. Public records show Bill Clinton's known travel with Epstein occurred in 2002 and 2003. Clinton's office has stated contact ended in the early 2000s, well before the 2008 conviction. Neither Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing by Epstein's victims. Mention in documents is not proof of crime. This distinction matters. Okay, so what's really going on here now? The Clintons got a lot of attention. Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, for saying they did not want to testify to Congress. They were. They were accused or they were threatened with contempt of Congress charges. Steve Bannon was put in jail for that. So they did buckle under. They, they said, okay, we will testify, but they want it to be public. Their concern is if you go into a grilling testimony, trying to get someone on perjury, if you're a really crafty lawyer, you can, you can make anyone seem like they're contradicting themselves. And they had already answered every single question through text. Their concern was that this was a spectacle meant to distract from Trump. Now, you may love the Clintons, you may hate the Clintons, but let's be fair here. You know, I'm going to be fair. I don't think there's any serious credible evidence that J.D. vance, the Vice President of the United States, has tainted himself and has unseemly connections with Jeffrey Epstein. Okay, so I'm being fair. But I would also suggest to you that there's simply no evidence that the Clintons did anything even close to the line of dubious ethics regarding Jeffrey Epstein. The Clintons ended all associated. They never saw him again, they never talked to him, they never travel with him again after apparently 2003. And it's very easy to say in hindsight, well, everybody should have known this guy was evil. And anyone who ever talked to him, you know, the kid who sat next to him at lunch in fifth grade somehow should have his life ruined now because he didn't know enough to not sit next to Jeffrey Epstein in fifth grade. It's very tempting to be holier than thou and to just put everything in one bucket. Okay, you're with Jeffrey Epstein, you're naked, there's young girls around, you're partying with models, and they're all under 16. That's somehow the same as someone who went to a charity benefit and Epstein gave a million dollars. And you're there with your spouse and you're. No, the two are not the same, my friends. They're just not. And we have a particular situation where this current administration is, shall we say, politely and delicately enmeshed, mixed in, complicated with Jeffrey Epstein. So, yes, Bill Clinton did spend some time with Jeffrey Epstein. There are some photos. Jeffrey Epstein was a well known contributor to universities, to political causes, to the Clinton initiative. Hillary Clinton. This shocked me. I never heard this till today. She apparently never even met Jeffrey Epstein. She did meet Ghislaine Maxwell, who traveled in elite circles. It would be shocking that she wouldn't have met her at some point. Frankly, it's shocking to me that Hillary never met Jeffrey Epstein, considering how connected this guy was, but there's simply no evidence he ever even met him. But now we have a situation where Republican henchmen in Congress trying to do the bidding of Trump, trying to distract everyone from the fact that Trump palled around with this guy. We had records come out just last week from the Epstein files that the sheriff in Palm beach county or in Palm beach town where Trump lived, received a phone call from Trump in early 2000s saying, oh, everybody knows about this guy Epstein and what he does to young girls. So he apparently did know. He continued to associate with him. And it was widely reported that they were essentially best friends. And it wasn't President Clinton or Hillary Clinton saying, you know, Jeffrey, you and I both love the young ladies, the young, beautiful ladies. It was Donald Trump. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were not calling up Jeffrey Epstein saying, hey, come to Chappaqua. We're going to have a party tonight. It's only going to be you, me and a modeling agency of young girls. Clinton's never did that. Trump did. And it's been wrecked. It's been documented thoroughly. This happened at Mar a Lago. So the web of seediness, specifically these guys being out on the prowl, looking, and I'm not going to get into the fact that, okay, Trump was married, had kids. I don't know if it was first, second, third, wife, whatever. He was always on the prowl. Even his staunchest supporters admit that that's supposed to be a positive for him, but was disqualifying for Clinton. But we'll get back to that later. He was out on the prowl with Jeffrey Epstein, a guy who is known for going after children, underage girls, girls who not reached the legal age of consent in Florida or the US Virgin Islands, which was 18 years old. So again, you could say Hillary Clinton is not likable. You can, you could say you don't like how she's cashed in after you say all those things. But if you're a fair, honest person, and I'm assuming if you're watching this show, you try to be,

this is

a bit of a scam, pulling the Clintons in front of a congressional hearing when there's simply no documented evidence that first of all, that Hillary ever met Jeffrey Epstein and that Bill Clinton was ever in a room with him again since 2003. Just because someone ends up being one of the most odious people in history and the most well known pedophile after 2008 doesn't mean anyone who ever shook his hand before 2008 is somehow an accomplice to a pedophile ring. It's just not. So at some point we've got to draw some some reasonable boundaries here that make some actual sense. Where do you stand on this? Again, if you are just a knee jerk Republican partisan and your attitude is anytime we can stick it to the Clintons, let's have at it, okay? But at least be honest. You don't really care about facts or fairness or honesty. You just see this as a political opportunity. That's certainly the attitude of Republicans in Congress now going out of their way to attack and vilify the Clintons on this. Again, are the Clintons perfect? No. Are there areas where you could fairly criticize the Clintons? Yes. In retrospect, the loosening of regulations around the financial sector happened under Bill Clinton's watch. It arguably led to the great financial collapse in 2008. You want to focus on criticism against Clinton on mass issues, you're on fertile territory. You're on firm ground. But the idea that, well, you know, anyone who ever shook Jeffrey Epstein's hand is equally tainted. No, my friends, that is sheer sophistry.

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The Business of Nick Fuentes A profile in City Journal examines how Nick Fuentes built a devoted online follower following known as the Gropers. He live streams regularly, charges viewers to submit questions, sells merchandise, and offers premium subscription tiers. Reportedly priced around $100 per month, he's amassed hundreds of thousands and at times over a million followers across various platforms. Reports indicate he received a significant cryptocurrency donation in 2020 and generates recurring revenue through subscriptions and donations. The model is simple. Controversy drives attention. Attention drives subscriptions. Subscriptions drive income. In the modern media economy, outrage scales so this guy gets a lot of attention. I'm a. I have mixed feelings about talking about him more because at some level, it's adding to his fame and adding to his bottom line. I'm not going to show you his. Any footage of him, but unfortunately, you know, everyone likes to talk about, oh, it's so wonderful. The gatekeepers are gone. Oh, media has been democratized. Yes, but. And this is the. But it's nice that I can have a voice. You can have a voice. People who weren't just the same old traditional insiders with Ivy League educations and stints in various presidential administrations, or that they're the only ones who get to weigh in. I mean, there was a time when commentary in America, certainly when I was a younger man, it was basically controlled by people like Pat Buchanan, Ivy League degree, worked in the Nixon administration, credentialed. Everybody knew him. David Gergen, Harvard Law degree, worked in the Nixon White House. Everybody knew him and liked him. Worked for other administrations, worked for the Clinton administration. There was a time when political commentary was controlled, and you couldn't burst that bubble. Maybe you could get your letter to the editor published in your local paper, but as far as really being able to weigh in on the issues of the day, you couldn't really do it unless you were a serious sort of insider, credentialed insider. You could be a conservative, as Pat Buchanan was. You could be on the more liberal side as James Carville was, and who got a lot of prominence as a commentator after the 92 elections. But you had to be kind of mainstream. So that was the supposedly bad part about the old media world, because to reach people, you had to get on a major TV network, a major newspaper, had to carry your column. You couldn't simply write a newspaper column that said, wow, Hitler was great. He was right. I like Hitler. You couldn't get a column like that published. You couldn't get your own TV show on CNN saying, hey, we're here to talk about how great Hitler was. Nobody at CNN would give you that platform. If they did, no one would advertise, so the show would be canceled after the first episode. So that's the old way of doing things now. And I mostly like our new media environment where lots of different voices can be shared. I can share my voice, but the problem is, with no gatekeepers, how do you get attention? One way is to be extra funny, and some people do very well with that. Tim Dillon's great at that. But the other way, frankly, the easiest way is to say the most outrageous thing possible. And that's what Nick Fuentes has excelled in. He's always going on and on about every conspiracy theory, always saying nice things about Hitler and it outrages people, as it should, but apparently it gets so much attention, people like it. Let's look at some more of the facts. X, formerly Twitter, reinstated him in May 2024. Wire says he has 925,000 followers there. Others put it at more than a million. Wired says some of his live streams now have 2.5 million views. So there was a time when you said, well, I love Hitler, Hitler's great. You'd instantly be written off as a crank, a fool. No major media would give you any attention and you had to kind of live in the shadows. Maybe you could put together a mailing list, have 10,000 people support your blog or something like that. But you couldn't get traction, you couldn't get visibility because no media company would spread your filth, your lies, your demagoguery. Sadly, the Facebooks of the world, the Twitters, the X's, the rumbles, all of those, they're like, oh, you're going to spread nonsense and lies and outrage and conspiracy. Come on, we love you. Here's the red carpet. That's essentially the attitude of these big tech companies because they say, oh, we're not a media company, we're not responsible for anything. But they do have editors, essentially, their algorithms are editors. And when they see something that is a despicable, ahistorical, hate filled lie, the algorithm says, wow, that looks interesting. Let's share that with the whole Internet because it'll get more attention. And that is the problem. And it's apparently making Fuentes a rich young man. He's only 27. Now. I have watched him. He is a capable communicator. He does come across as highly articulate and very intelligent. And no, I'm not endorsing his views, but I'm giving you my honest assessment. He has a nice set, he dresses up nicely, like a nice older pundit, more traditional pundit. He's got a suit and tie on and apparently he's making big bucks. Wired says he earned 5,500 from the top 50 donations in under one hour. On a recent stream, he has at least 400 subscribers paying his $100 a month tier, that's 40,000. That's, that's almost half a million dollars a year. And that's only one of his revenue streams. The Associated Press reported a French programmer sent him $522,000 in Bitcoin in 2020. So apparently people really like this stuff. Now this is a bit of a political problem for the Republicans. Now. I'll talk about Democrats in a minute. I'm fair here. I'm here as a sane, sensible centrist. I'm not carrying water for any one party. But for right now, when it comes to extremists spewing vile hate, anti Semitic racism, I mean, this is not one of these things that's kind of you squint the right way and maybe it's kind of sort of a trope that is aligned with anti Semitism. This is I love Hitler, Hitler's a great guy kind of stuff that this guy says routinely. No serious, credible person would deny he's an anti Semite. He, he revels in and he embraces it. And he speaks for millions and millions and millions of people who consider themselves good MAGA Republican voters. This is a problem for the Republican Party because I happen to believe you can say I'm wrong. You can say I'm being too nice to Republicans. I happen to believe the majority of Republican voters are certainly the faction of voters that decide elections and decided the election in 2024 and 2016 are, are not out and out anti Semites. They're not out and out unbridled racist. They don't like being lumped in with this guy. And they are being lumped in this guy. Now do the Democrats have anything like this? I'm here to give you the honest assessment. And the answer is frankly, no. Are there some progressive left of center, far left commentators on the Internet who occasionally say nasty things? Yeah, they don't have anywhere near the audience this guy does. I mean, I see this guy in the news every day. I don't even hear about any of these Democratic guys. Now back in the day you had Louis Farrakhan, a minister in Chicago for the, I guess the African version of the Islam Nation, who did say vile anti Semitic things. I don't even know if he's alive anymore, frankly. But he has no following whatsoever, no influence in the Democratic Party. And Democrats who ran for office had to denounce him. I'm not hearing Republicans running for office having to denounce Nick Fuente. Seems like a bit of a double standard. Doesn't really seem fair. Here's what I predict today. Nick Fuentes is the most outrageous person on the Internet in terms of just spewing absolute racist, anti Semitic nonsense and conspiracy theories. But he's planting seeds. Other people are thinking, hey, I can do what he does. And I don't think we're that far away from seeing influencers in the Nick Fuentes mode from just using the N word all day long. Every other word is the and I'm not talking about black influencers, my friends. I'm talking about white influencers who align themselves with conservatism and maga philosophies, thinking, how can I get attention? I will talk about how can we cause physical harm to and they're going to use the N word and that's going to be the basis of their show. And some of the more respectable members of the Republican Party will say, tisk, tisk, tisk. Isn't that a shame? Meanwhile, they're going to become power brokers the way Nick Fuentes is essentially a power broker in the modern conservative movement. Because what's to stop them? I mean, what's more outrageous than saying Hitler is great, Nazism is great. I love Hitler. Where else do we go? I guess you could endorse using the N word. Couple that with pedophilia and cannibalism. I guess we're going to end up with commentators who just all day long say anyone who disagrees with me, who's on the other team is the N word, is a cannibal and is a pedophile. I mean, that's kind of what QAnon did back in 2016, alleging the Democrats were running a pedophilia ring out of a pizza place in Washington, D.C. i think we're going to see more of it, sadly, and I don't know what you and I can do about it other than not watch it. I should probably not talk about it as much. Probably the best thing I could do. But ignoring him is not going to make him go away because there is no traditional media with standards. There are no advertisers who can pull the plug. He unfortunately is tapping into genuine real hatred and ignorance that exist in our populace. I'm TJ Walker. I want to thank you for joining me today. If you got any value out of today's show, please leave comments, likes subscribe sign up for notifications and leave reviews. I'll see you tomorrow.

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