The Secret Pentagon Influencer Scandal Nobody Is Talking About & Tucker Carlson Goes Nuclear

The Pentagon secretly hired influencers who spewed Pete Hegset's talking points to their massive audiences. The war in Iran is getting crazy again with Tucker Carlson calling for Trump to be impeached. We dive into Milo Yiannopoulos getting arrested and then deported by ICE in the most, oh no, the leper date my face moment of 2026. We're talking about all of that and even more. On today's brand new Philip DeFranco show, you daily dive into the news starting with this. Influencers that you've got defending Pete Hegset and ruining all his culture war talking points online, they might secretly be on the government payroll. That's what we're now learning things to this massive new report from the Washington Post. And where else started with these influencers who were military vets with large followings, the Pentagon not disclosing their assignments, but you have sources claiming that some of them were assigned to civilian roles that, quote, "could lead to changes in policy." Or you've got one of the influencers identified by the post being Rob Maynass, who is over 130,000 followers on Twitter. In addition to his very regular post there, he's also written a slew of op-eds and articles defending Hegset in the defense department. And that including a letter to the editor that was published to the post last month that a recent blog post that claimed Hegset is doing exactly what the voters elected this administration to do, drain the swamp in uniform and put warriors back in charge. And it's also as you the post pointing out Kurt Schlickter, who has over 600,000 followers on Twitter. And he writes for the conservative news site Town Hall, and some of his articles in recent weeks include "Leftus women are an abomination." The Doomers can't deny Trump's big wins, and Canada deserves all the trolling it received. And just so we're all on the same page, that's his grammatical error, not mine. Right, and some of his social posts also include him saying that we are lucky to have Pete Hegset, and he's called Trump a hero for finally fighting back against Iran. And that is the post also noted that Thomas Anderson, who posted 300,000 followers into the name "Cinicle Publius," was previously listed in Pentagon Records, though, is no longer. Right, and the influencers that you've had hired by the Pentagon, they've either been assigned as special government employees or highly qualified experts. The first of which means that they're limited by law to only working 130 days out of a year, while the experts can work full or part-time with or without compensation. But we also don't know what financial agreements were reached. And actually, a Pentagon spokesperson declined to say, if any of them were drawing a taxpayer-funded salary. But even the possibility alone, as well as just this relationship happening in general, it sparked a ton of outrage. Though it is then also very important to note that this is not necessarily the first time that we learned that a conservative influencer was hired by the Trump DOD. I mean, just one example, earlier this month, there was a massive controversy with influencer Jenica Pounds who posts on Twitter as data Republican, which was previously a member of the credentialed Pentagon Press Corps, which we remember what Hegset did with all that. Now, her account posts a ton about right-wing politics. And in a since-deleted post, she claimed that a Trump administration official approached her with documents to publish and tout as a major scoop. But Pound, she thought that this was actually a setup and that the official was trying to entrap and trick her into posting classified government secrets. Right, and you had her going on this whole rant, but then it turned out it was an undersecretary in the State Department who said that this was not a trap and just posted the documents herself. But as all of this played out, the key takeaway here is that we learned that Pound's this online influencer was hired as a special government employee by the DOD in July after her press credentials expired. And rightly so, this prompted a ton of outrage with people saying if you are literally a government employee constantly posting about administration policies, don't you think you should have disclosed this? With the bullwork, then putting out a piece saying that Hegset is building a Pentagon troll army. And among the reactions you had representative Adam Kinzinger posting a video saying, "The Pentagon is using your tax dollars to hire influencers on X to put out partisan talking points. That is the biggest violation of the hatch act of the intention of taxpayer money that I can ever think of." Now, my question is how many more people that are blue check marks on X that are putting out information on behalf of the federal government in Donald Trump and the Republican party, partisan that are actually special government employees being paid by your tax dollars? And so with all this, you then fast-forward to today and you have people going, "Well, how widespread is this?" There's always been talk about influencers taking money. There's always been talk about, well, what are the connections between actual government officials and the kind of talking heads you're seeing on Twitter, on YouTube, on Rumble, all those places? And now, you've got this Washington Post report revealing, "Yeah, that wasn't a one-off instance." This appears to be a trend within the DOD, so how widespread is it? So with that in mind, you had Kinzinger adding, "PXF, we know as fragile as he is, he wants to have all the support on X because that's what means everything to him." If you're a media member out there, every question to PXF and every question to one of these blue checkmark influencers has got to be, "What are you being paid to do?" This was like the Biden administration doing this? You'd be hearing about this nonstop on Fox News. And he's also not the only politician speaking out now. You had Senator Chris Murphy, for example, writing, "What's extraordinary is the Pentagon is refusing to even confirm the social media influencers are drawing government salaries. The contempt DOD has for taxpayers is unreal." And fight-or-pilot Amy McGrath adding, "Think about how weak an insecure man has to be to bring right-wing influencers into the Pentagon for the sole purpose of serving as his personal cheerleaders." You also have the director of influencer partnerships for the Democratic Party claiming that, "There's a lot of conversations we need to have on the left about paying creators, disclosure, etc. But nothing comes even close to this shit." Absolutely insane. We're spending taxpayer dollars on mega-influencers to make pro-Hegseth propaganda. And others just adding, "These are the people who used to call everyone a fed, who told their conspiracy-addled audiences that USAID paid off the media, saying every single accusation the right makes is a confession." And as far as a response from those influencers themselves, you're the posting that all three identified declined to comment. Though Anderson, the one who was no longer on Pentagon records claimed he did, in fact, respond and told the reporter, "Why in the name of all that is holy with any rational human ever comment on anything that the Washington Post asked him or her?" Then also claiming that he's never been compensated by the government for anything, he's posted and added that his time with the DOD was limited to briefly servicing on a task force. Meanwhile, you had mayonnaise not directly responding to the rubber, kind of vague posting, saying, "Don't forget kids, regime media is still fake news." So one, of course I'd love to know your thoughts here, but two, I just have to end this here. That last slide, it always bugs the shit out of me. I do not know how so many of these motherfuckers can say with a straight face that they're against the mainstream media or the regime this or that. You have both the House and the Senate. You have the White House, you have the Supreme Court. Fox News is the biggest mainstream news player out there that serves to the right. Many of the biggest podcasts in the world are conservative podcasts. Also, how many times and how many different ways we have to learn about secret group chats that are happening that connect apparently government officials to talking mouthpieces that are independent. You are the mainstream at this point. You are the regime. And really, it feels like the biggest question is not if, but how many of the people that are out there are Trump-owned, compromised, fed, slot propagandists. But then also, it's not the only news surrounding the Trump administration of the Pentagon right now. Because the U.S. and Iran, they're now trading strikes again for the first time in a month. Yesterday, you were the U.S. launching key strikes on Lyric Island, a key strategic outpost in the street of Hormuz. The U.S. military officials claiming that they had struck rocket launchers that Iranian forces were planning to use to disperse sea mines in the street of Hormuz. And you then had Iranian state media reporting that the attack killed two people and wounded several others. And so then, in response, you had Iran-vowing punishment, claiming that they had fired at bases in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates that host U.S. military personnel. Within Jordan, confirming that it had intercepted eight missiles in its airspace, while the UAE said that it had shot down an Iranian drone near its territorial waters. So this ends up being incredibly significant because it ends up shattering a period of what was relative calm that existed between Iran and the U.S. for kind of the last month. And again, that's generally speaking. A period that came after Trump pulled back from the brink of restarting a full-blown war with Iran, claiming that the two nations that had made progress on a peace deal. But according to reports, Trump actually stopped short because of the growing concerns that the U.S. munitions stockpiles were running low, as well as continued calls who were strained from key Gulf allies at Saudi Arabia. But now, you've got it seeming like Trump's going to escalate again, prolonging the war that's now dragged on for six months. And again, that is despite the fact that Trump promised that it would end quickly. And his repeated claims that we have actually somehow already won. And so he had Trump threatening to forcefully strike Iran after their attacks on the bases in Jordan and the UAE, reportedly telling Fox News this morning, "We're going to hit them hard. There will be a response." And to the meantime, he also had Trump seemingly threatening the possibility of further action against Iran, and specifically the strategic Iranian oil hub, Karg Island. With Trump, posting would appear to be an AI-generated video of oil infrastructure exploding, and then writing in the caption, "Karg Island being blown to smithereens." With many than wondering if he knew that it was an AI video, and it was kind of posturing, or if he thought that maybe it was real. And notably here, we did see Vice President JD Van's trying to walk that back a little, telling reporters, "Well, you know, like a president likes to switch it up on social media a little bit, he would be the first to say, he doesn't make announcements about military actions on social media, but I think that he's sitting in message to the Iranians." Of course, this is by no means the first time Trump's used AI-slap to threaten military action against Iran. I mean, it's not even the first time he used AI-slap to threaten a strike on Karg Island specifically. But very notably here, the president's latest threats come as we've seen one of the biggest voices in right-wing media raising the prospect that Trump might be gearing up to use nuclear weapons in Iran, right? Because in an episode of his podcast that notably aired right before the U.S. launched the latest wave of strikes, we had Tucker Carlson claiming that there is mounting evidence that the U.S. was seriously considering deploying nukes without nuclear level provocation. And specifically there, you had Tucker flagging recent reports that the Pentagon is drafting a new nuclear doctrine that places a much stronger emphasis on the potential deployment of shorter range tactical weapons if the U.S. were to be drawn into a regional war with Russia or China. And while those reports did seem to indicate that the scenario was specific to a conflict with Russia and China, Carlson seemed to argue that he had evidence that the draft doctrine applied to Iran as well. Reports in the last two weeks indicate that during meetings within the Pentagon about how to respond to Iran in that current war, the possibility, the option has been floated of using what are called tactical nuclear weapons, which are just nuclear weapons, detonated at a higher altitude or at a lower strength, but they're still nuclear weapons, that discussions about their use have taken place in the Pentagon. And we're here to confirm that that is absolutely true. And not only have there been discussions about the use of nuclear weapons, tactical nukes against, say, cargo island or pickaxe mountain or various spots within Iran, those discussions have included slide decks, which is to say somebody wrote down on a computer screen, hey, maybe we should use nuclear weapons in this war. And you also had Tucker claiming that Trump himself has repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. Now, if you were to pose this question to the White House press office, they would say the president has never suggested using nukes, but of course that's not true. Because in state statement after statement posted on the internet on true social, the president has threatened the total destruction of Iran of the civilization itself. And of course you can't achieve that with any conventional weapon. There's only one way to achieve that, the total destruction of a civilization, and that's with nuclear weapons. And so openly in public for the world to see the president has threatened, the US president has threatened the use of nuclear weapons in this war. And so we should consider that a real possibility. No, we'll say this is an extrapolation that Tucker himself is making. For all his rhetoric, we haven't seen verified reports or Trump publicly saying that he's actually seriously considering using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran right now. In fact, he explicitly said back in April that he would not use nuclear weapons in the ongoing war. So then to be fair, his word kind of means nothing these days. And actually, I don't know why I felt I needed to add the qualifier these days. Trump, you never know what's going to happen, and I mean, term two is shown that the guardrails are off. But with all this, you also had Tucker's guests, former director of National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent echoing his claims here. I think we would be fools to think that this couldn't happen here in this current scenario, especially as the administration scrambles for a way out. And you then had Tucker going on to argue that Trump should be impeached if he's actually considering using nuclear weapons first without any nuclear level provocation in any context. The second any president actively considers first use of nuclear weapons, that person should be removed from office immediately, immediately. Because that's got to be the red line, destroying all of humanity with a nuclear strike. I mean, like, so why isn't there an attempt to remove him from office? Like immediately. And then you have all of this coming amid reports that multiple top military leaders have warned Pete Hegseth that extending large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks undermining their ability to confront other threats, including those at home. And actually, according to the Washington Post, the warnings were given to Hegseth by the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as multiple four-star commanders as part of the August 14th edition of the Secretary Defense Order's book. Right in the SDOB is a Pentagon document produced every few weeks that's used to make and record major military decisions while also outlining the global availability of U.S. forces. But this latest edition allegedly directs some troops deployed in the Middle East to remain there through September, while some have been directed to stay all the way into 2027. And so as a result, sources say that at least three top commanders in the Navy's top admiral all responded with what's known as a non-concur, which means that they disagree with the Secretary's order to extend their forces but will execute it anyway. And while Army and Air Force leadership agreed with Hegseth the desire to extend their deployed forces, they both emphasize that doing so would carry significant risks. And you would one source reportedly saying that the outlook now is more dire, overall in adding that certain generals and admirals, they were more direct than normal in telling Hegseth that they disagreed with the orders to keep providing equipment in personnel when the trajectory of the war is so uncertain. And again, all of this comes amid reports that the U.S. is running out of key munitions and draining military budgets. And regardless of how you feel or what you think about Tucker's whole claim about Trump and nuclear weapons, the general sentiment that he was expressing there is very real. The more Trump feels like a raccoon pushed into a corner, even one of his own making, the more irrational his actions will become. And then there's more crazy news we got to dive into in just a minute, but really quick two things. One, just a massive thank you to all you beautiful bastards that showed up and showed out in Boston and Philadelphia this last weekend on a crashing out live tour. Oh my God, what a fun insane time. It's filled me with so much joy and hope as well, I'll say all of us just together crashing out about the news. I'm tweaking the shows up until 30 minutes before we go on stage, though I also like sharing my experiences in your cities. And we'll say walking through Philly out of all the places we've gone so far that I've been to, it does feel like one, a place where shit has actually happened, right? There's a lot of history, but also at the same time, it feels like shit could go down it any second. Yeah. I saw bands of kids on ebikes. Yeah. Okay, I've never, I've never been so scared by silence. Yeah. And hey, we have eight more cities to go. So if you haven't yet, get your tickets at crashingouttour.com, especially if you are in or near San Francisco, Phoenix, and Denver, not this weekend, but next, I'll be there Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It's a luckily that gives me time for my voice to recover. But again, crashingouttour.com, I got links in the description in the comments. And then too, we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsor. Try and make healthier choices. It gets really confusing when apparently everyone online has discovered the one food that you're never supposed to eat again. You know, after going through my own health journey, I realized how easy it is to get overwhelmed by conflicting advice and random opinions. And that's what today's sponsor, Nourish, comes in, right, giving you guidance built around you. Because a piece of the reality is that there isn't one perfect approach that works for everyone. Your goals, your habits, your schedule, and your lifestyle all matter. Nourish helps you create realistic changes that actually fit your life instead of trying to completely overhaul everything overnight. And getting started is easy. You check your insurance, answer a quick quiz, get matched with the register dietician, and book your appointment all in under five minutes. And appointments happen one-on-one over Zoom so you can meet with your dietician wherever you are. They can even order blood work and walk you through the results so you're not left wondering which numbers actually matter. And between appointments, the Nourish app lets you message your dietician, log meals, track macros, view labs, and find recipes tailored to your goals. Plus, no surprise billing. Your appointment never exceeds your estimate and 94% of patients pay zero bucks out of pocket. So if you're working toward your own nutrition goals and you want personalized guidance, check out Nourish. Head to nourish.com/philipdefranco or just scan that QR code. But then actually, from that, for your final block today, let's give you some more news you need to know quickly. Starting with the news that right-wing commentator, provocateur, and general douchebag, myelia enapolis, was arrested by ICE last week. And he was put on a plane out of the country the very next day. And I'm not going to give you his full background. It is very, very long, very disturbing. But the key thing you need to know here is while he's been a Trump supporter, he's also been on Maga's shit list for a while. So along the way, he's made some enemies, including the Trump whisperer and someone just call her a deranged lunatic, Laura Loom. Right now you've had her making it very clear, she is not a fan. "You're going to die if I send some alertness, okay, that's just going to happen to you." "If you're such a miserable piece of shit, and your sorrows are going to bring you to the brain." Immediately after the Milo ice news broke, she celebrated and even took credit for her, saying that Milo got loomers. But your daughter is our time homing, saying she didn't have much to do with it. "A lot of people tiptoe soft, you know, there's a lot of people who's calling nice, and she says she's won't, she probably was, but bottom line is, it doesn't matter. He was ordered to be moved by an immigration judge and ICE's job says to you that order." But also, regardless of Loom or not, if all like DHS was really trying to add insult to injury, I think even plastic Milo space online, when they said that they picked him up after he "chosed to overstay his welcome, apparently blowing past his visa deadline and missing an immigration hearing, which led to his removal orders last month." With him then, trying to use it as a way to get other people to self-deport. But then this is also an area where people will really start to focus, and that's because the standard removal period after final orders, that's 90 days. But there are also plenty of cases where immigrants stuck in detention centers passed them, facing issues like medical neglect, food quality, concerns, and overcrowding. So this raises different red flags about Ianopoulos, he didn't really get a taste to any of that. "He was arrested Thursday, we understand he was deported the next day. That seems like a pretty quick turnaround. Was he given preferential treatment to leave instead of remaining in an ICE detention facility longer?" But there, officials denying they got any special treatment. "No, we've been working steadily the last few months, I'm getting people all quicker. We track the average length of stay and we want to get the average length of stay, I'm average length of stay in detention down. We want to execute those orders as soon as we can get them." But generally, if people kind of celebrating and enjoying this moment. Or with many saying, "Milal being humiliated like this, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy." Right in that, for a number of reasons including, he had tweets as recently his last year talking about pleasureing himself to ICE raids. And then you've got the news that an American news guru is just violently ambushing broad daylight in the West Bank by Israeli settlers. But because over the weekend, you would NBC News foreign correspondent Matt Bradley and his team in the Palestinian town of Jaloud near Nablus. And they were interviewing a 51-year-old Palestinian woman by the name of Ada Ahmed Abdulah, who says that she had been forcibly evicted from her home by Israeli settlers. And while walking toward the house, a car with Israeli license plates reversed up the hill toward them and at least four mass men jumped out, wielding wooden clubs and throwing rocks. And with Bradley saying the men straight up beat them before it's speed enough, Bradley getting hit twice in the arm, members of the crew taking hits in Abdulah, she was rushed to a red crescent hospital. And you've got all of this, there's been a sharp documented spike in Southern violence across the West Bank. But then also what really stands out here is the immediate international backlash. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had an issue of very rare public statement calling the assault criminal acts of violence committed by a handful of rioters. And then while you're at spokesperson adding that they don't represent Israelis from Judea and Samaria and that quote, "their actions violate the law, they endanger both Jews and Arabs and they interfere with the Israeli defense forces as they carry out vital security missions." And of course, they harm Israel's international legitimacy, with Israeli military also saying they've opened an investigation and seized vehicles used in nearby clashes. Most everyone else, they're not buying it, saying that they're just saying all this to try to save face. Essentially arguing, this is not a few bad apples situation. Saying this represents a much bigger, much more widespread problem. Right, and actually on the same day that NBC was attacked, an activist was essentially abducted on camera and his colleagues were attacked. So it appears like what happened with Bradley and his crew, it's not uncommon, at least for local Palestinians. And there was a belief that settlers weren't going to attack Americans if the government didn't greenline. But for now, we'll have to wait to see what happens. The many don't think that the outrage here is going to amount to much given that the Trump administration just hates mainstream news and loves the Israeli government. We then also have to talk about yet another flash flood disaster this time at the Grand Canyon, because as I'm recording this, at least two people are dead and about 15 others are missing after a storm slammed the area, so we've got to wait boulders, shelters, and footbridges. But you would rescue teams evacuating over 60 people, with some even having to run to a mule, carousel, to dodge the flood water, wait in there, and piles and dung for three or four hours before helicopters could then pull them out. And that was after the storm had already swept away some of their phones, backpacks and tents. And then actually as far as a different kind of damage, the National Park Service said that the inner canyon took a huge hit, specifically the Trans Canyon waterline. That is also a biggie, because they've poured over 208 million dollars into their water systems in 2023, and there was that to be finished working on it next year. But after this type of disaster, we have no clue what's going to happen. And they've had to drop some heavy water conservation measures while trying to figure that out, where which also means cutting off overnight accommodations until things get settled, though day visits and dry camping will still be allowed. But really a big part of this is that things right now, they're touching go as we speak, because officials, they're warning that there could be even more storms to come before the day is over. And the situation we're going to have to keep eyes on is, you know, people hope that they're going to be able to find some of the missing people as search efforts continue. And then in the news, right, if it feels like half the country is currently battling or trying to avoid violent food poisoning. No, you're not crazy. That is definitely a thing right now, and there's a lot of blame to go around. And while there is, a lot of blame to place on RFK Jr. and Trump for gutting regulations and funding, the reality is that there's even more blame to go around. And again, I'm not going to downplay what a disaster their decisions have been. Right, they most recently decided to stop FoodNet, which was a CDC program that kept track of all these outbreaks to figure out where they came from. Combined that with massive staff cuts from the FDA and CDC and experts are warning that our food safety radar is heavily degraded. And you just have to look at things like the Cyclospora outbreak. Right, 2026 is seen at least 12,000 recorded and investigated cases, which is like six times the next highest number in the past five years. Now to mention, that number is an undercount with a feds admitting that they know of at least 11,000 other confirmed cases that need to be looked at. That is all objectively bad. But the reality is that even if they were reversed and fixed, there's still major problems. But first off, some are always increases foodborne illnesses since its prime conditions where the bacteria to multiply while in transport and in the fact that in modern supply chains, a single field of iceberg lettuce in Mexico can end up in salad bowls across dozens of states before anyone notices. And there's where the biggest loophole is, as the law currently is. Importers, brokers, and trading companies that facilitate the shipment of food but don't physically handle it aren't really subject to tracking regulations. You have this weird situation where they're supposed to make sure that the food is compliant with tracking regulations, but aren't actually subject to those rules. So therefore, they're not really liable for it and don't face real consequences when screw ups happen. And all of that makes tracing foodborne outbreaks outside of the US very hard. And actually, that's even more true if the original supplier isn't keeping accurate records, which can be common in many countries. And while that's supposed to be softened by the FDA, checking these facilities, which they do about 1,000 a year since before Trump was even president, that as far as less than the roughly 8,500 checks across the US and Trump's cuts, haven't helped them. So yes, the criticisms of Trump and R.F.K. junior very valid, but there have also been loopholes for years. Those are two separately important things to understand because what they did was make the consequences far, far worse. But then also two more needs to be fixed anyway. Also in the news, Donald Trump has a very blunt message for anyone that's complaining about these massive AI data centers taken over their neighborhoods. Have fun staying backwards and poor. Anyway, Trump, in a fired up truth social post, slamming local opposition to these new facilities, writing, "The only reason the communities throughout the USA should not want data centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. And you had a morning voters against killing what he called the golden goose, climbing these tech hubs, bring lower taxes and endless jobs." Now, dimension that he says that China has apparently left and all the way back to the bank over American pushback. Right, and then he saw his administration quick to fall in line. You have VP JD Vance who argued that as long as tech giants with clean power back into the Reds, these developments shouldn't be controversial. Also, at his chief technology officer adding, railroads connected our continent and the electric grid turbocharged American history, saying Americans today have a choice, build the infrastructure of industrial growth in your community. And so you've got their argument essentially being that opposing data centers is like asking, "Should the US stop building railways during the industrial revolution?" But then also, Dino, John Federend, making it clear that he supported them as well to have AI supremacy over China. Right, and if you're anti-data center, it's because you either believe Chinese misinformation or spread it. But that's as all of them appear to be extremely out of touch with the American public. Recent polling shows over 70% of Americans opposed building data centers near their homes. And I mean, looking at just the Republicans, it's still almost that high. It's so hated that even in pro-AI conservative places like Texas, the governor, Abbott, he pumped the brakes on data centers and just pulled the plug on flocks or valence cameras. And you've got many seconds easy to see why no one wants these next to their homes. They're massive industrial warehouses that consume water, local electricity, they drive up residential power bills, create constant low frequency noise, and they strain local infrastructure. And the jobs they allegedly bring, they don't really exist at least in the long term. But yes, they bring the short-term gigs to actually build the facilities, but once they're up and running, they offer few long-term positions. In fact, it's gotten so toxic that political candidates in over 20 midterm races are actively running anti-data center campaign ads. Or because many of them have shown they will switch if Trump changes his tomb. Or because it wouldn't be the first time that they were opposed to something like the Iran War with a men just quickly changing position because Trump told him to jump. And then last up today, there is this not-so-dynamic duo that's facing federal charges for scamming over 20 women out of $1.3 million after one of them posed as a San Francisco 49er player for four years. Or because you've got Day John Love and Taylor Chan. And to pull this off, love with neat women on dating apps, catfishing them as a 49er in a big time. Real estate investor. When he posed as this NFL player on social media, to the extent that it actually tricked Google's AI system into thinking that it was true. Where they seemingly poisoned search so that the AI thought that this was real. It's even a quick search would back up things that he was saying. And on top of that, Chan would pose as Love's financial advisor. They'd exchange messages about fake investment opportunities so that Love would then share those screenshots with his victims. But he'd also make fake bank and investment accounts to show them as well. It was a full operation. But also from there, he'd convince the women that he had real feelings for them so they'd send him money. Sometimes he said it was to build wealth and a future together. Other times they'd just be loans. And actually there, he even asked some of them to take out personal loans if they didn't have the money on hand, promising to repay them. But then obviously that never happened, right? And then, apparently if they started asking too many questions about it or they ran out of money to give him, he just blocked them. So the women who come forward about this, they haven't seen a dime from him or the investments that they made. And now with all that, after four long years of scamming, they're being charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. With the two, both getting arrested. Idaho last week, where Love had gone to meet Chan, as well as some of the new potential victims. So the story's gone viral for a few reasons, but here's what I'll say. One, I understand why a lot of people have focused on the social media videos. Or with many looking at the videos of him, like running routes at the beach, always with a 49ers helmet on, saying things like if you've ever seen an NFL player, that is not the body of an NFL player, that is not the speed of an NFL player. With some even shaming the victims who thought that he was real, but here I'll say, no. Well, yes, to people that watch football, you could go, okay, he does not look like he's actually good. I think the real and scarier story here is how easy it is apparently to poison AI search. Because women, they'd presumably Google this guy before doing anything. I mean, he even pointed to the Google results as, hey, I am who I say I am. And for me, I think that's really the point of the story. How easy apparently it is to poison search to the point of what used to be a way to fact check something is now part of the reason you get tricked. I mean, we've even seen this play out in a way that I might talk about tomorrow. I'm just making sure we get the clear on this. But truly, very crazy times. And something that I very much believe is probably being abused in a way that we don't fully understand the scale up right now. But that, my friends, beautiful bastards is the end of your Monday show. Thank you for watching, like, and being a part of those comments in another daily dive. It helps keep us in your feed. Also, if you haven't yet, before it's too late, go get your tickets at crashingouttour.com. We're gonna be in San Francisco, California, Phoenix, Arizona, and Denver, Colorado, next. That'll be next week again, which I'm thankful for, 'cause I feel like I'm actually about to lose my voice. And so, actually, I'm gonna go rest this thing so I can see you right back here tomorrow. Love you, faces. See you then.