Colbert vs. CBS, Nick Cannon's Love Advice & The Sweetener Stroke Risk

Coming up on the Community verse where conspiracy meets chaos, that is where we are. Also, broadcast TV sinks to historic lows with Netflix and YouTube soaring. And Paramount's biggest stars are calling out their networks for cutting secret deals and non secret deals with the current political administration. Then Nick Cannon, father of 12 with 6D different women, is going into the relationship guru advice. We'll break down the irony then. A popular zero calorie sweetener may quietly be damaging your brain. A new study suggests that eryth patrol could disrupt blood flow and raise your stroke risk. And the Epstein conspiracy. It's back. Oh boy is it back. And it's tearing the Maga movement apart. After years of weaponizing conspiracies, Trump is now begging his followers, begging to drop the one he can't control. All that and more decoded through a lens of communication here on the communiverse. If you're new to this, welcome. Thanks for joining me. My name is TJ Walker and for decades I've been coaching top Wall street wizards, billionaire fund managers, top executives at Fortune 500 company as well as political leaders around the world on how to communicate effectively and on aspects of their personal development. Now I take you to the other side and show you exactly what's going on through top newsmakers and what they're doing and with the idea of boosting your own personal development. So at Community we look at the top news stories of the day for business, technology as well as culture and analyze it through the lens of communication. So that's we're about here. Glad you're here. Thanks so much for joining us. This is sort of a not a complete pilot, but we're in a soft launch phase. This show will be launching in a full fledged way come September 2, 2025. A few more bells and whistles and tweaks and edits and music for the podcast version. So we're kind of working this out together and getting feedback from you. So if you're watching this, looking at it, give me feedback wherever you can see this on whatever platform. We are going to be multi platform on every single podcast platform and all major video social media sharing sites. So a lot of fun stuff to come. Let's dive right into it. Broadcast TV collapses while Colbert and Stuart slam Paramount's deal with the current administration. Broadcast TV has officially blown fallen below 20% of total US TV consumption first time ever. This is according to Nielsen's June 2025 gauge report. Meanwhile, streaming has reached a record 46% with Netflix alone rising 13.5% on the strength of Jenny in Georgia, a show I've never seen, Squid Game, which I have seen, and other hits. But Legacy's media troubles don't end with ratings. Over at cbs, comedians Stephen Colbert and John Stewart, both of them are Paramount employees, torched their parent company over a $16 million settlement with Donald Trump. But the deal dropped a lawsuit over 60 minutes editing but raised eyebrows across the industry. Colbert called it a big fat bribe. Stewart called it shameful. And CBS executives who reportedly objective they are already gone. So a lot of chaos going on in the world of media, in the world of communication, which is what this show is all about, what is important for you to realize. So in one sense, I like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. They are being courageous, attacking their own bosses essentially. But before you say to yourself, well, now it's okay to criticize your boss, realize there are a couple of differences. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are already fabulously wealthy and fabulously famous. So if they get fired tomorrow, they can simply spend all their energies on their own podcast, create media companies they own completely because they have a fan base that will follow them anywhere. And they can make a lot of money from their own video and audio podcast. They can make a lot of money from book deals with major publishers. And they can make a tremendous amount of money doing their comedy shows in venues all over the world. So they're pretty much set for life. They are un cancelable, even though their particular shows they're on can be canceled. In these days, we increasingly see stars in similar situations, like Trevor Noah, who took over the Comedy Central show, the Daily show that made Jon Stewart so famous. We're seeing people like that voluntarily cancel themselves because they can make more money with their own independent media. But realize this isn't something you can just do day one. It's not something you can do if you are an unknown mid level executive at a bank, an insurance company, or for that matter, a media company. So don't take that as an automatic green light to go trashing your bosses publicly. Wherever you are, I want to help you. This show is about dissecting the news, but also distilling it to lessons for you to help you become more successful. There are some important lessons here though, which is be careful about planting a flag with your own career in old technology. Broadcast television for that matter. Cable television is old technology. It is a shrinking pie. The pie is growing in the online universe. The YouTubes of the world, Netflix, which is kind of a bridge between old and new, but the delivery system is directly through the Internet. It's not by anything that is regulated in the form of cable TV and broadcast tv. So that's what's different about it. Let's look at a few more facts. Teen and kid viewership drove the rise up 27% month over month. That's the the rise to online versus traditional broadc cast and cable. Now Paramount, the parent company of CBS, and that's where Colbert and Stewart work. They struck a deal with the federal government and they essentially paid $16 million to the government in a way that many people think it was either extortion or a bribe or some combination of the two. So it's causing massive turmoil among top management, producers, executive leadership in those companies. And that's why you have Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart calling this thing a bribe, calling it shameful, and why there's been such a shakeup of leadership in those companies. The real lesson I see for you and for me, unless you're already really successful in a big old company, if you're trying to figure out how can you make it big in the media, start your own company now, build it piece by piece. By that, I mean one viewer at a time, one listener at a time, so that you can become essentially un cancelable. Because these big media companies, they aren't going to wait one second to cancel you, fire you if it means appealing to some politician who has control over their ability to merge or monetize their numerous assets. So that's really the lesson here. Are we going to see the Colbert Report, which not report, but the CBS show that he hosts on late night, canceled in the next week or two because he criticized his boss? I doubt it will be that fast. Are we going to see the Daily show, which is on the Comedy Central network, which is also owned by Paramount, Cancel. That's their most profitable show, their marquee show? I'm not predicting that. But are we going to see more Jon Stewart on these places that. That I don't know. I. I'm not predicting we're going to see more of him. I like him. I hope he doesn't go away. By the way, if you're watching this live, thank you very much for doing so. Put a note in the comment. Just let me know. Is the audio working well today? Because I'm trying to follow the same principles I talk about and not be part of a big company with massive cost infrastructure that makes it therefore easier to end the show or be canceled or canned if things implode, if you lose one sponsor. So we're Doing these things very lean. I'm on location today. I'm in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania on a family reunion. About to go on some hikes and go swimming in a lake and having fun, enjoyable things with my family and extended family. But I'm just doing this on a laptop, a webcam, a little portable ring light and an old microphone, a sure mic, put the. Okay, I think we're back in business. I should not have picked up a microphone learning moment. When you are doing a live broadcast, don't pick up microphones, don't adjust them because a cord can, can fall out and all of a sudden nobody sees anything other than your lips moving and you look stupid. And if they're listening to the podcast, it's just complete dead air. So a lesson learned, which is one of the things you, you have to do if you're going to experiment with anything live. I am a big fan of recording media live because it gives you a different energy and it forces you to just get through it and to finish it and to not delay. Once you start, you're sort of committed. So I think it's a time saver for the person creating the content. It's also better for the audience because you get a more naturalistic thing. So many people will start a podcast or YouTube show and, and they'll do it one segment, record it, say, oh, I said too many ums. I said this. I didn't like this sentence here. They start this editing process before, you know what, a week has gone by and nothing they talked about is relevant anymore and they hit delete. They lose their enthusiasm. They say this is too hard and they never actually launch their show. That's the biggest problem many people have. The second biggest problem, biggest problem is they start all this editing process, version after version after version. It becomes so much work and initially the audience is so small. Like, why am I putting all this time and energy into it to get only a handful of people to watch? So people quit, typically after the third show. 90% of people creating their own new podcast and media properties online quit after the seventh show because they made it too time intensive and it wasn't fun. Look, if you love to edit, good for you. God bless you. So to speak. But most people don't. I know I don't. I don't have the patience for it. So that's why I'm trying to give you this show. Live version, but also what they call live to take, which is what most of the really successful late night shows do. They do trim out a couple of minutes here and there for length purposes. But most of the time, what you see on a really high quality show where it's a Bill Mars weekly show, real time, or the late night show or the Tonight show, it's mostly live to tape. They're not doing a lot of heavy editing there for the very same reason. Let's move the story to Nick Cannon, relationship guru. Seriously, Nick Cannon is launching a relationship advice podcast. Yes, the same Nick Cannon who has 12 different children with six different women, one of whom was his wife, his ex wife, Mariah Carey. The new show is called Nick Cannon at night. It premieres July 23rd on Wondery and YouTube and all podcast platforms. It promises live audience Q A, anonymous sex questions, and celebrity guests. Cannon was married, as I mentioned to you, to Mariah Carey. But most of his complex romantic life has played out in public without long term commitment. When and he's been open about wanting to have open relationships with a lot of different women. While the podcast is being marketed as bold and honest, the credibility gap is a little hard to ignore. Because when your personal life looks like a reality show, maybe hosting one isn't the same as advising others on theirs. Now, there's a part of me that just says, look, this is a relationship advice show. Anything I tell you to do, Chances are pretty good if you just do the opposite, you'll have healthy, harmonious, successful relationships. But I don't think he's building it that way. So what do we really need to take away from this? When you're looking at the media, the days are gone when there is some executive and a senior executive and an executive executive, really vetting people, saying what's the best for our audience? Who's the most credible rational source of information? The days are gone when someone says, let's enlight Walter Cronkite as the anchor of the news because he was most credible in reporting on in the field From World War II in the trenches in Europe. And he's really paid his dues by doing thousands of credible TV news stories. Those days are gone. And now we do live in an era where every media company, if they're not going out of business, they're fearing going out of business, so they're looking to reduce risk. The number one way to do that, hire someone famous to host a show. Nick Cannon, for better or worse, is famous. So he gets to do a show on relationship advice. If I become famous enough, I could probably host a show and get some media company, maybe laundry, to hire me. To host a show on how men can grow a great, full, thick head of hair. Because when you think about it, I'm as credible at that as Nick Cannon is at having harmonious relationships. Now, look, I don't want to sound like I'm just a traditional conservative saying everyone has to have one marriage and two kids. And being a monogamous relationship from the time they are 20 till they're 90, I'm not here telling you only one size fits all. But still, having 12 kids from six different women, how do you even keep the name straight? What does that do to a child where they see their. I mean, how can you even see your kids that often? I don't think they're all living in a big commune, sort of big love style. How do you even schedule time to spend meaningful time with 12 children? What does that do to a child who thinks, oh, there's my daddy. He's some guy I see on TV who didn't remember my name last time. I just think that's kind of a lousy way to go through life. If you're the child and for the father, excuse me if that seems too judgmental for you, I. I will give Nick Cannon credit. This may sound like a backhanded compliment. The guy's got a lot of energy because he seemingly is hosting a gazillion show. Everywhere I look, I turn on. I see. I see him on broadcast TV hosting major talent shows. He's got all sorts of cable shows. He's online everywhere. I know last year when I started doing Amazon Live shows, talking about, there's Nick Cannon on Amazon Live. The guy seemingly never sleeps. Between that and impregnating women everywhere, I wonder how much sleep the guy gets. And to his credit, he's hosted the masked singer Leo Masters a lot of other shows. This show, I'm sure it'll be entertaining. But I would ask you to question yourself. If you're looking for relationship advice from Nick Cannon, maybe dig a little deeper and look other places as well. And I see that Janice is with us. Of unconventional wisdom saying, you're right about the different energy that comes from lie. Glad I didn't drop in. I'm glad I could drop by for a few minutes. Sounds like I'm having a great vacation. Yes, I am having a great vacation. I'm a little closer to you than usual. I'm in the Northeast. I'm in the Pocono Mountains. I'm not quite in Canada. Although thinking about you just yesterday because was drinking some. Some wonderful Canadian ice wine at dinner last night. And my. I'm here in a family with a house with extended family and some of my family members just went up to Canada a few months ago and talking about how they had the best seafood of their life in Toronto and the best dim sum ever. So urging me to take another trip back up to Canada, which I hope I can do if I get my. My own status, legal status straightened out with Canada. We live in a time when here in the United States there's so much talk about deporting immigrants. And I don't know if I've ever talked about this on the show before, Janice, but I was deported from Canada when once, believe it or not. Not for any nefarious crime, but I guess essentially, you know, a crime of sorts. I was there to do media training for the Minister of Labor and I was deported for not having work papers for. Because you needed a work paper to work for anyone, even the Minister of Labor. But everyone in Canada has been delightful to me every time I've ever been there and anyone I've ever met from Canada. So, Janice, so glad you're with us here today. Let's hop into the next story. There's a popular sweetener, it's known as Erytritol, and I always have trouble pronouncing that word. But I do the best I can and I try to be upfront with you with my own failures and inadequacies from time to time. It may harm your brain blood vessels and forgive me, I got a little sidetracked a moment. I wanted to just tie a bow around the whole Nick Cannon show thing. The real message for you, I think, is do not wait until you have the perfect credentials to start a podcast, a YouTube channel to write a book. And Janice, you're a perfect example of that. Not that you don't have credentials, but you write a lot of books. You don't necessarily wait until the world's biggest publisher comes and says, janice, we want you to write this book on this subject. You write the book and you put it out to the world. I think that's the real message for anyone who wants to be successful in the modern world, and I know you do, or you wouldn't be watching this show. This show is really about understanding the news through the lens of personal development so that you can be more successful. So I want you to see the story about Nick Canon and say to yourself, not isn't the world going to hell in a hand basket? Isn't this stupid? Isn't he an Idiot. That's not the lesson I want you to learn. What I want you to learn is, hey, here's a guy, maybe doing something that most of the world doesn't think he's the world's best expert in, but he's trying something, he's putting it out there. He's creating more, more ideas and content to try to either entertain or help the world in some way. Maybe I should do the same thing. So maybe you have never been a professional trained chef or a professionally trained wine taster, but you have a passion for wine or a passion for food. Start your own show, start a podcast. It could be one 60 second YouTube or TikTok short a week, but get in the game. We live in a world I think is one of the most exciting times ever to be alive. I take that back. It's the most exciting time to ever be alive. With all the negativity in the news, there's never been a better time to be a human being with a brain. And if you have enough wealth to have one of these, a simple cell phone, you have the ability to become your own independent media company. Help people, share your ideas. And if you want to, and you do it right, you can actually make money from your own creations without some gatekeeper saying, no, you don't have the credentials, you don't have the right look, you don't have good enough hair, you don't have a traditional marriage. All those gatekeepers have lost their power and you have it. So that's really what I want you to take away from a story about Nick Cannon becoming a relationship guru podcaster. Become your own guru in some niche in the world and share your ideas with the world. Now back to this third story on this artificial sweetener. That healthy sugar free drink you reach for, it might be harming your brain more than you think. There's a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder published in the Journal of Applied Physiology. It found that Eric Erytrethol, and forgive me, every time I've ever looked that up, gotten chatgpt to pronounce it, I just have difficulty with it. But this is the, the chemical E R Y T H R I T O L. It's a zero. I've ever looked that up, gotten chatgpt to pronounce it, I just have difficulty with it. But this is the, the chemical E R Y T H R I T O L. It's a zero calorie substitute swee sweetener. It's found in many diet drinks, protein bars, it was in A very, it's in a very popular cereal. Until about six months ago, I was eating on a daily basis. Well, there's new research saying it may disrupt blood vessel function and raise stroke risk. In lab tests, this chemical increased oxidative stress by 75%, reducing nitric oxide, which is a good thing, by 20% and completely blocked the brain's natural clot busting response. These effects were seen at levels equivalent to drinking just one diet soda. The study doesn't prove causation in humans, but it builds on earlier research linking erythritol to heart attack and stroke risk. So it's a reminder. Just because something says sugar free doesn't mean it is risk free. So you can look for this in a lot of gum, chewing gum, protein bars, so called keto friendly snacks. Because its selling point was, hey, it's not sugar and it's not artificial sugar in the way we typically think of it. So it sounded good. There's a lot of products that seem like they're really, really healthy that contain this chemical. Here's the real lesson I take away from it. This is yet another example of we are killing ourselves not just with sugar consumption. Whereas human beings, we've gone from maybe £5 a year to 50, £75 a year and giving ourselves diabetes everywhere in the modern industrialized world. But the artificial sugars, the fake sugars are often worse even though they don't have calories. So the real takeaway I get from this is some sugar is good if it is naturally occurring sugar found in an apple, grapes, my favorite, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries. Typically I start my day with oatmeal with raspberries, blueberries and blackberries on top. At least one of those, but often all three. And you can say, well, T.J. you know those have sugar. Aren't you a hypocrite? No, when sugar, when you're eating sugar in fruit, it's a complex sugar. It takes a long time for the body to break it down. It doesn't instantly spike your sugar levels in your blood. It doesn't instantly tell you, hey, I'm hungry again. Eat more junk food. So there is a place for sugar in your diet, but it's not the processed sugar and it's not the things with different names. And again, I do want to alert you to this. I'm not a doctor and certainly you can do more research on this. But the artificial sweetener is E R Y T H R I T O R L and it is hard to pronounce Sorry about that. But please, really try to actively seek out real fruit. And I don't mean orange juice. Orange juice is processed. All that blending, you can drink the equivalent of four or five oranges in a minute. That's part that spikes your blood levels, your sugar levels in your blood. You're far better off eating an actual orange, eating an actual tangerine. It's highly unlikely you're going to eat five oranges at once. Well, when you drink a glass of orange juice, you do. So the idea that, oh, I don't have to eat more fruit. I had a glass of apple juice or orange juice this morning. No, that's processing now. It's not as processed as a deep fried bacon wrapped Oreo. Okay. But there's just nothing better than an actual piece of fruit. Eat a peach and you know what? Leave the skin on. Wash it. But leave the skin on and you get so much more fiber. It's so much better for your body. Why do I care about that? This is not primarily a health show. It is a show about your success. And one of the facts that I come back to time and time again is that you look at someone wildly successful like Warren Buffett. It's true he's not outrunning marathons every day or Ironman competitions. But between 95 and 98% of his wealth was generated once he was over the age of 60. Now he's pushing 100 now. But almost all of his wealth came after the age of 60. What does that mean? And we're talking about $150 billion of his wealth created after the age of 60. I picked the age of 60 because that's the age when a lot of people either retire or start thinking about retiring. Why do a lot of people retire? Their bodies break down, their brains break down, cognitive difficulties start emerging. That's why one of the most important things you can ever do for your own long term success, not to mention not dying, which is a good thing for you individually, but staying fit mentally and physically is the best thing you can ever do for your long term wealth accumulation, to provide for your family, charities, whatever causes you have. So that's why I think it's essential that you really figure out what are you putting in your mouth. And there's a lot of different types of CEOs in the world, but most fair minded people who interact with them a lot, as I do, would say there is one thing in common. They take their physical fitness really seriously. They take their exercise, their diet very seriously. Jeff Bezos A lot of different things you could make fun of him regarding with his recent wedding and some of his fashion choices. But wow, does he look buff? No. He has a personal chef following him around everywhere. You don't have to have a personal chef. It doesn't require extra money or a personal chef to put down the candy, to put down the coke and instead drink water. Now, I try not to drink bottled water for a variety of reasons. It's bad for the environment. It's the pla. There's some evidence that the plastic can leach in. It just happened to be what I grabbed quickly before spending this time with you today. But plain water, filtered water is so much healthier for you than any kind of sugar water or any kind of fruit juice. So that's why I want you to be healthy, because a, I want you to live and live longer and live longer without getting the typical chronic diseases. There's a huge difference between the average 75 year old American these days and the average 75 year old French or Italian person because I've spent a fair amount of time in all of those countries and 75 year olds in France or Italy, they're out there walking to the shops every day. They're out socializing with their children, their grandchildren, their friends in the cafes. They are by and large thin. So many 75 year olds in America have already started that decline of dementia and Alzheimer's and sitting back in the chair, just watching a cable news channel that tells them everything they want to hear about somebody they don't like and being grumpy. And that is an extraordinary decline. It's a shame to end life that way. And it starts, I believe, with what you put in your mouth every day and what sort of exercise you do. And so we are going to talk about that from time to time. Now, story four, I. I have a little reluctance talking about this show because I don't want this show to be 100% seen as political, because it's not. This is a show about top news stories related to business, technology and culture. But these days in the United States, we happen to have an administration that is so authoritarian, it tries to control every one of those things. So there's no way of avoiding it. And since I am on the road today, I'm only looking at one screen. I've just now flashed back to the screen and I see that Janice has written a few more comments. So I didn't mean to be unresponsive. So Janice writes, what, deported? That's outrageous. Drink more ice wine. I'll tell you about that another time. It all worked out. But I do get questioned every time I step foot on Canadian soil these days. Janice Wright It's a great message drawn from Nick Cannon example. Start now, stop waiting, get in the game. She also writes artificial sweetener sugar substitutes. Thanks for sharing the results of this study and I I will be bringing results of various health studies from time to time because on the one hand you could say, well tj, I've heard that before. You know what else you've heard of before? Drink more Coke. Drink Pepsi, drink Mountain Dew, Drink Miller Light. We are all bombarded with thousands of messages. Thousand daily to consume processed food. Processed drink that is designed short term to boost profits of food and beverage companies. But long term it is designed to kill you. I don't mean that was the purpose. I don't think there's any executive sitting around in a food company saying, yeah, I really like to kill millions of people. I don't think there's anything nefarious there. I just think it's a choice of let's focus on getting people to like our products so much because we have this bliss point of sugar and salt and fat so that it melts in the mouth or it tastes so good, people want more, more, more more. They buy more, we make more money. And it's not unfortunately a part of the nature of capitalism to really factor in what are the long term impacts on humans longevity. And that's where I'm trying to fill the void right here. Okay, next and final story, the Epstein conspiracy that it's imploding Donald Trump's base. Donald Trump spent years fueling conspiracy theories. Many people forget his whole rise to political power was spreading the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a US Citizen, therefore an illegitimate president. Because Barack Obama was allegedly born in Africa, which was a conspiracy theory, it's been debunked a thousand times. Trump didn't care. He just noticed. He got a lot of attention. He got applause every time he talked about that. Well, now the Epstein saga is exploding inside Trump's own movement and he's the one under fire. After promising to release the Epstein client files, Trump's Department of Justice quietly declared the case closed. Epstein's death a suicide. And no list, no client list would be forthcoming. Trump called the story boring and said only bad people care. Well, his MAGA base didn't take it well. Dan Bongino reportedly threatened to resign. He is the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Michael Flynn and Laura Loomers, a couple of crazy people are demanding answers. They are big supporters of the president. Even Speaker Mike Johnson broke ranks saying put everything out there. And for Mike Johnson to say anything that could be perceived as even 1% critical of Donald Trump is a rarity. So, you know, he's getting a lot of pressure from his supporters. Trump tried to put the genie back in the bottle, but this time the conspiracy he fed won't die. Because while many theories are nonsense, some are rooted in the truth. Epstein really was a predator. He really did have rich, powerful, famous friends like Donald Trump, but also Bill Gates, also Bill Clinton. So all of those things, that part is true. And now Trump's followers are asking for, for what he's hiding. So if you live by the conspiracy, maybe you die by the conspiracy. So a few more facts here. Pam Bondi, the, the Attorney General of the United States previously claimed a list, a list, a client list was on her desk and that she would be releasing it. Now she says, oh, no, never existed. MAGA influencers are furious. Dan Bongino, Michael Flynn, Laura Loomer, they're demanding transparency. There's also just a lot of confusion whether Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, even still works for the administration. Apparently he hasn't shown up to the office since last Thursday after getting in a almost a knockdown drag out, at least a shouting, screaming match with the attorney general. So there's a lot of energy here and a lot going on. Tucker Carlson, Brett Weinstein and others are speculating about intelligence cover ups. So now there's all these allegations that Epstein had to be killed because he was working for a foreign government. Trump says Epstein is fake news. That phrase says it is, it is fake news. But unfortunately for him, it's, you live by fake news, you die by fake news, and it's undermining the movement. So someone pointed out there's a cognitive dissonance here that threatens Magna Unity. Do you believe Trump or do you believe the conspiracy that Trump fed? Because Trump was kind of ginning this up for a long time, especially when he was out of focus, power out of office. So what's the real significance here for you as someone who's smart, you're rational, you're logical, you want to be successful, you don't want to just go along with the easy ways of making people successful and pandering. But you live in the real world, I live in the real world. We have to deal with the world as it is. One of the problems in this modern world of social media and everyone gets to have a podcast. I get to have a podcast, you get to have a podcast, everyone gets to have a podcast. Is it's never been easier for conspiracy theories to run around the world 10 times before truth has moved 10ft. It's never been easier to spread a lie, to so dissent, to put doubts in people's minds, to undermine the credibility of anyone in government. Republican, Democrat, left wing, right wing, labor wing, any wings. It's never been easier to destroy the credibility and to make people think they're hiding something evil. And let's be candid, there are plenty of people in government who do bad things, who do want to hide things. So it can happen. But when every single thing a government does is instantly called into question, instantly held up as suspicious activity, and then if there's not an instant release of every single fact and every single document, people conclude they're for, they're hiding things, they're for their criminal, they're for their evil. Therefore we need to run them out of office. It makes government functioning nearly impossible. We've certainly seen this in the United States, Canada, a lot of liberal democracies, or at least former liberal democracies all over the world. When centrists are in power, conspiracy theorists activate such hatred and venom and spew mostly nonsense occasionally mixed with truth, that they can destroy the popular support for any centrist government, making it easy for conspiracy theorists to come in. I would argue that's essentially what's happened in the United States. The problem, of course, is, as Trump is finding out, is when you spend your whole career feeding crazies who love conspiracies, it's very hard to turn that off. It's very hard to find the switch and say, oh, now we're going to enter a fact based world where actual results of investigations turn out very hard to do. What's different and interesting and fascinating to me about this is Trump is usually such a master at controlling the media, controlling the narrative, because he's so good at saying, hey, this thing that you want to talk about here, my impeachment, my 41 felonies, me paying off porn stars, I got a more interesting story here. And he's always able to come up with something more interesting. He hasn't been able to do that in the last few weeks. Now there's a lot of speculation that he essentially went to war in the Middle east to get people to forget about this. That didn't work. He started talking in the last week about wildly unconstitutional things like taking away the citizenship of Rosie o' Donnell, someone born in the United States to American citizens that got attention for about five minutes, and now he's doing something very uncharacteristic. He's attacking his own supporters, saying only, basically only stupid and bad people want to talk about this. Well, that's his support. His supporters are the ones who care about this most passionately. Now, the odd, I won't say silly, but bizarre thing about this from a messaging standpoint is there's usually some internal coherence even with conspiracy theories. There's usually a way of saying, okay, we don't agree with the factofix world, but within our little world, A +B +C ends up with D. Our version of 1 + our version of 2 does get to our version of 3. There's usually an internal messaging coherence at some level. And for the life of me, I can't figure it out here because it's as though a lot of Donald Trump supporters think there's some report out there that says Epstein had these clients where famous liberal Democrats only apparently in their mind gave money to Epstein or said, here, manage my billion dollars and take your fee, and in exchange you're going to bring me children who will have sex with me. That's apparently what the Megamind conspiracy theorists believe about that. And somehow they happen to think that Donald Trump isn't one of those people. Now, I'm not saying I'm not spreading a conspiracy that Donald Trump was sleeping with children. I'm not. But if you want to add up the most logical sequence of events, if Epstein did in fact procure young girls for wealthy celebrity men, and whether directly took fees or indirectly took fees or extorted them, saying, you're going to have me manage your money or I tell. There is no possible world in any scenario where Donald Trump wouldn't be on that list, he has publicly said what a great guy Jeffrey Epstein was. He's publicly said, here's a guy who loves young, beautiful women like I do, and, you know, some of them really young. Direct quotes from Donald Trump. Here's someone where there are official records of him getting on the plane and traveling with Jet Jeffrey Epstein more than half a dozen times. And here's someone. To me, the most oddly damning evidence about any of this, about the moral depravity of someone like Trump is if you look at every picture, every video you've seen of Trump in the last 30 years, I defy you to ever find a picture or a video where he looks happier than when he is in the presence of Jeffrey Epstein. Just look at the videos. It is comical, but also sad and a little pathetic that this seems to be the one guy he seems most at ease with, greatest comfort level, and where there's just joy in his face and his eyes and his smile. That, to me, is fascinating, the messages that's sending. And somehow it's just going right past the mega conspiracy theorist who seem to think that our Dear Leader couldn't possibly be involved, where there is no one else who seems to be in as much alignment with Epstein on a lot of issues. I mean, Bill Gates loves to talk about public policy and helping the third world and the developing world, and that was also an issue. Those were issues that Jeffrey Epstein liked to talk about and like to donate money to. Whereas Trump is on record as saying, hey, it's great being head of the Miss Universe and Miss Teen usa, because I can walk in, in the dressing room when they're getting dressed and they're naked. There's simply no quote like that coming from Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton or Bill Gates or anyone else like that. There's only one person in Jeffrey Epstein's orbit who's on record of saying things like that, and it is the Dear Leader, cult leader of the MAGA movement. So I continue to be amazed by and fascinated by and frankly enjoying this. This feeding frenzy. What will stop it? I don't know, but stay tuned. We'll be documenting it right here because it's a fascinating exercise of crisis communication, damage control. And as I mentioned, Trump, to his credit, is normally a master of crisis control, damage control with the media because he's so good at getting the media and everyone else to look at a new shiny object. He's not been able to do that for the last few weeks, so there's got to be something else. I hope it's not simply starting World War iii, as some people worry he may be doing in the Ukraine, but we'll be following it. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. This is Communiverse. This is your daily deep dive into top business, technology and culture stories analyzed through the lens of communication skills, all with the purpose of improving your personal development and your personal success. Thanks so much. See you next time.