Seeking Justice for Sandy Hook Families

Welcome to the The Virchcast, the flagship podcast of the International Chip shhortage. I'm Miasato, and today I'm talking to comedian and writer Tim Heideecker about the Oion's takeover of InfoWars. A year and a half ago, the satirical news site The Oion announced it was trying to acquire InfoWars, the conspiracy news website hosted by Alex Jones Among the many lies pedalled by Jones was that the twenty twelve Sandy Hook Elementary schoolool shooting was a hoax. The victims' families sued Jones and won one point two billion dollars in defamation lawsuits. InfoWars came up in bankruptcy auction and the onion emerged as a potential new owner. The legal process to acquire InfoWars has been through a lot of ups and downs But the Oion is relaunching it anyway on july second. Tim Heideecker, the influential comedian and writer, has been named creative director of the revamped InfoWars. I'll talk to Tim about his vision for Info Wars in an era when reality is stranger than fiction. But first, here's what's happening on the verge today Hey, it's your friends, David Pierce and this is ninety Ses on the Verge for Tuesday june thirtieth, twenty twenty six. We're starting to get looks at the next generation of iPhone and they're coming in the strangest ways Atirst, there were reports that photos of the iPhone eighteen Pro were starting to appear on the Dark Web, along with the lists of the devices's parts. then videos that supposedly showed the eighteen Pro undergoing a drop test showed up on X. If this really is the eighteen Pro boy does it look a lot like the seventeen Pro? Call me when the iPhone fold starts showing up on the dark web. You know what I mean? Meanwhile, a couple of important political things today. A first, the Supreme Court stopped President Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship, which means that still, nearly everyone born in the US is a US citizen And the KidDs Act passed the House by a pretty wide margin, actually. This is a package of bills that, among other things implements safeguards for minors on social platforms and would require AI chatbots to tell you that they are in fact not human Vversions of this legislation have been around forever and there are still a bunch of hurdles to clear, but this idea is starting to move And finally, Verge contributor Sophia Chen just published an excellent piece on the state of quantum computing, which has supposedly been the next big thing for forever at this point In reality, there's a lot of progress being made But you don't have to learn what a qubit is just yet You can read more about all this at the Vverge. com. That's ninety seconds on the Verge for Tuesday, june thirtieth. 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It feels good to Gaeico. Tim Heideeker, welcome to the Virge Cast. Hell. How's it going? It's good. In twenty twenty four, Ben Collins says he's going for info Wars. What is your thought? Immediately, are you like, I want it? I want it. Yes. I think my thought was that would be fun to have to play with What is he? I don't really know what he means. So my first thought was Who do I know over there? and couldn't I'm such a fan of the onion that how can I insert myself somehow into his plan. Yeah. And are you thinking, you know, when you see this news kind of developing, do you have an idea in your head about what you would do if you had the keys? or is that something that kind of developed over time U The first attempt for them, I reached out with I think just to talk to them about what they were thinking and then I never heard back. So I didn't think about it. I kind of just thought, oh well I guess I've I'm no longer relevant because I can't get the onion on the phone. And then out of the blue, they called me and I hadn't realized that this was back on And really I think in that first conversation, I was just spitballing. And my first two thoughts were Well, it would be it would be fun to make fun of him for a little while. U and but then that joke would go go stale. and um But then you'd have all this, you'd have a media site, you'd have the infrastructure of of of like a streaming site or a new, you know, anything you wanted it to be. so it would be and at the same time I was like developing my own independent streaming sites, the high network, which is where I do on cinema and office hours, which is we do through Patreon. and I'm just really excited about the possibilities of like you know, building your own networks, your own subscription s, you know, streaming sites. And I thought, well There's mice sites my especially the high network, which is very specifically It's very similar to the onion, because it' It's very restrictive in what we can really do because of the sensibility has to be very straightforward. or it has to be united. and you can't just I have so many funny friends and ideas that don't fit into that box And the onion was thinking the same thing. They have They want to do so much in comedy, but they're kind of restricted by their own voice for good reason. But so if there's this other thing, maybe we couldn't expand outside of our limited sensibilities drag the cinematic universe out a little bit. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah big old parent company, which it's not quite that yet or it's evolved since then, but it has become sort of these we talk about it in sort of phases like first phase we're going to come out and be very. directly I parodying that world, that sort of conspiracy world u, you know, supplements and and hoodwking people and, you know, crisis actors and all that stuff But to me, that doesn't have a long shelf life. So then it would phase two would evolve into, well, let's make a platform for the kind of comedy we all like. Yeah. ' I think when you know the an earlier announcement, there is a clip of you doing an eerily good Alex Jones impression. Tim Heideecker here. I'm broadcasting now live on the internet. Thank you for joining me. We have major, major announcements to go through here. lots going on To clarify, you're not going to be it in his skin. You won't be Alex Jones forever. Where I am walking in his skin, but I can take it off whenever I want. Yeah No, I'm going do it for a little while, but I don't want to be I mean, I just have other things I want to do. So I'm not I don't want to get trapped in that mentality for too long. Yeah, but the stress on your vocal cords most Act I was people were like, how do you do it? And I said, it's It's fun and easy, but I've only been doing it in short bursts. And then last week we filmed like two proper episodes that kind of took all day. And by the end of that, I was stressed. I mean like physically the vocal cords were pushed and the next morning I was like, b, I don't know if I vocal rest. Yeah ye. I'm sure I could go to some kind of a coach and get to where I can do it every day, but I don't think I want to do that. Yeah ye. So new infoWars scheduled to launch in just a few days july second, what will people find when they go to the onion. info U're we're putting together like a kind of an hour or so of programming that is essentially it's my show which is infull Wars, essentially, kind of the very direct parody that we're calling emergency U with Tim Heideecker and that's got like a like a six episode that I can't reveal much about, but we'll kind of, well, we'll see, we'll see what happens. But and then the onion had before I got involved had produced The Jim Haggerty show Um that is very much like a kind of a Tucker Carlson parody that they've teased already. So we have we have those two kind of like tent pole shows and then there'll be some like interstitial stuff. and you know, we want to start presenting the idea that this is going to be like You know, the way adult swim was this block of time that you would go and and it all felt kind of connected and it was kind of similar sensibility a voice that's consistent. And so that will get us Hopefully, u, you know, into the fall and then I think we'll try to kind of relaunch or sort of presresent our, you know, fall programming schedule, that's stuff that's now just in the works. It's just being developed now. Yeah, I wanted to ask about Jim Haggerty, you know the onnion social media accounts have been teasing and reposting old stuff Can you tell listeners what his lore is? Well, I don't know at all, but I was a fan for sure when they were still doing ONN they're sort of CNN parody Um, and he was like the morning guy and it was like a very much local news more and I just, I mean, I was such a fan of those Americans and ever are planning to travel this summer. But what if taking that vacation doesn't turn out to be as expensive as you think? Travel expert Kathy Barnett joins us now with an affordable summer getaway solution taking a vacation in your mind. Kyorning. And then I guess the his trajectory was He got, you know red pilled, I guess or something and got kicked off. I'm not sure I don't have all the details, but now he's sort of this anti new or anti establishment parody of, you know, exactly kind of exactly what happened with Tucker Carlson. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I was looking up the actor who plays Jim Haggerty, Brad Holbrook Apparently he used to be a reporter in a previous life. kind of adds like a really funny dimension. He I mean, that's like a great of in my world, the of casting is try to find close to the real deal as you can Yeah and work with them likeike not I'd much rather see a real guy that then, you know, a comedy actor, you know, some kind of Improv person pretending to be that like G go for the real deal. For thirty five years, I was part of the problem mouthpiece for the mainstream media, spewing their lies and kissing their feet all while they turn me into something I'm not Now I'm free of my corporate shackles and my only business. is freedom. Yeah, find a disgruntled former news anchor and get him in and write him funny lines. Yeah, give him a reed pill script. Put the teleprompter up there and let him go. Yeah. This is such a funny time to produce satire. Sometimes I wake up and read the news and it's like the Trump administration has stolen onion headlines, right and beatating it to the punch. onion reit p. Yeah, right. How do you keep an edge? Where do you look for next or what getting one step ahead? It depends on what project I'm in. I mean, office hours is much more reactive to what's going on in the world. Do you ever use Snapchat? They've announced these new everyveryone's got the wearables, the glasses, the technological glasses, right? This bombed apparently. What do they do? when you look through them, you see people's faces in a baby filter? And sometimes that can just be you don't need to really like, you know, you can kind of just talk about what's actually happening and have a laugh about it and remind people that you're not going crazy. This is crazy, you know and be angry or be befuddled or whatever your feelings are And that's more like immediate reactiveness in this infar space I think it's finding I mean, just just ratcheting up the absurdity to where it becomes funny and it's more about Um likeike human relationships and not the specifics. as much. I'm more interested in like U Um flaws that we all have that are kind of universal. And so like with Alex Jones, I think there's like the idea of paranoia and everyone's out to get you. how do you can you can do that in a funny way by Sometimes it is hard to find something crazier than U than what he's doing, but you can try to you can usually find something funnier, I think. something that makes me laugh, you know Um I like it's a I like playing in this world. I also like playing with uh, religion and and like the idea of have the the sort of child the school yard or like the elementary school level ideas of hell and heaven and demons because he talks about demons a lot.. And I just think that's very silly, you know, I think demons are silly. It's like thinking about witches and stuff, and goblins, you know, And he treats them so seriously that That's like a fun area for me to play in But hope I hope with all of that you're getting to like a deeper universal connection to like what what we're all what we're all feeling and like finding those flaws in us and seeing and just getting them out in the open and laughing at them? Yeah, yeah. I imagine these clips will be everywhere from the various programs that you're producing re Are you worried about people not realizing that it's new infot wars I mean worried about people realizing that not realizing that this is carroting something. I mean, I guess they would see you and be like Alex Jones looks a little different. Yeah I mean, they're we're not trying like we're not never really trying to fool anybody. You know, I think we're playing to our audience,ing to our fans and people that are into different kinds of comedy or get, you know, think that guy's a scumbag. goof on him with me and But I've always been presenting stuff in a way that might be confusing for people. we confused the hell out of Alex when we exposed ourselves and he started finding all my own all my old Tim and Eric stuff, you know, and Um, you know, you can't cont that's you can't predict that. you can't control it But sometimes it hits in a beautiful way where it's just like, oh, he took the bait. writes the story.. I'm curious what corners of the internet you find yourself fascinated with. Where do you go to find weird things or where do you go to find material or things to play off of or things to to you know sort of shape your work on. Well, I love a few Reddit accounts that I look at a lot. I think that I' I'm a main the main character one char That always is like that that's a character I want to do like wh who is that person? what's their deal Um, I think our guy I do office hour office hours with, um Burger is an absolute Um Instagram addict where he finds like the people with two hundred views that are you know, absolutely from Mars and sends them to me and sometimes I watch them but you know, sometimes it'll be like come back in a way where you're like, I forgot about that. but then now I'm writing a character who's you know, is a guy who is always like showing off his wife and he's taking he's like taking his wife to the mall. like showing how much he loves his wife and how well good he treats his wife. And that's like funny on the surface, but then maybe a month or two later they'll be like something unrelated that's like, oh, that That would be a fun note to play, that similar thing. I mean, I love also like I'll definitely dip into like the Rogan verse or like the, you know, you know a guy Patrick Bet David. I don't think People don't know these people. Yeah. There's a small group of people I know that We treat these like that's like our reality show. Okay.. And there're these right wing guys who do broadcast every morning or and they just talk about the news and everything. But they are hilarious. I mean, unintentionally. Yeah. the way they interact and so that will inspire something. I mean, unfortunately, like everybody else, I'm on the I'm on my phone a lot. just're watching re.oo crap. L the crap. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if we send you a reel, there's like some small chance you might see it You might watch it if it has like two views. Yeah.. Okay Yeah I'm curious if you in working on Info Wars, whether that's Ben Collins or someone else have talked about like contemporary space of conspiracy theorists and what it looks like. because I was thinking about it and Alex Jones almost feels like not quaint because it's like monstrous, but almost like old school in some ways compared to some of the sort of new gen like Nick Fuentes types or right? L they're very tapped into how platforms work and how algorithms work and what young people want. So I'm curious like if you guys talk about sort of the real ecosystem and what it looks like? Well, we haven't talked too much about it. I could tell you what I think, I guess. Yeah. Yeah Alex, that brand of conspiracy theory does feel a little he is of he is an older, you know, he's been doing it for a long time and his His media generally does feel a little dated, I think, if you look at other stuffs I'm fascinated by these like like millennial maybe even what's what's below millennial Gen Z Alpha. Oh ye G and then alphpa. Yeah. Like those young guys mostostly guys even and a lot of them are on the left, we're like really fast talking. Sure. and know everything. you know everything. They sit in that Jubilee thing Oh. But actually, if you look at the GDP from twenty twenty six and twenty twenty, you can find that legitim debate debate talk where I just like I you know, you just tau they run circles around you. And that's like a whole new breed, I think of internet personality that kind of came recently And I mean, I don't look at Nick Fuente. that guy creeps me out I think too much to actually listen to him But yeah, I mean, it's also just so bred out and is just kind of dissolved into general culture and some of it like The weird thing about this when we started really ramping this up was You had it was at this period where suddenly there's all the Epstein stuff and Alex was breaking off from Trump And you started feeling like, well, some of the stuff he has been talking about is real is actually real. There There is a secret society of sickos out there. And um But then it gets, you know, it just gets so messed up with you know, it gets into anti Semitic stuff, it gets into you know, Tom Hanks isn't the problem. right? I don't think. you know. TBD. But like, you know, but people that Alex is very close with are sureure. So and then there's, you know, the break in foreign policy, which was So it's like, it's a weird time sort of a weird time to go hard on him because someome of the stuff he's like saying is actually quite anti Trump and anti establishment. But it still goes back to, I mean, I tuned in the other day just to get some inspiration for the voice that I literally hit on him talking about somebody who had faked his own death. And they were talking about Charlie Kirk faking his own death Like what? like that doesn't I don't know. they just love that Yeah. magical thinking, I guess. and I think for their for their audience It's a way to under to make the world make sense and to like feel like there's order, even if it's an order that is against you, att least it's not just you know, I could get struck by a bolt of lightning sure, you know So, u but the but he his main function to sell pills, right? Pills that probably don't work. Gummies pills. Yeah. and that's at the core of his U, And you know, that's true for like, you know, cheers the sitcom too. It was just to sell, you know, chevrolets. So it's very similar. Yeah. I wonder what we sell I don't know. Oh, I'm sure you sell lots of phones. Yeah for the show comes from Upwork too the business owners out there When did you decide that this was what you wanted to do Was it that late night work ping that made you want to set out on your own? Or have you always had this drive since grade school No matter when you were inspired, you need people to make it happen That's where upwork comes in Upwork is a one stop platform to find, hire, and pay expert freelancers who can help you with web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations, and more. 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They're just big babies. But switching to Geico saved me hundreds, so my bank account is safe. It feels good to sayve some hard earned cash. It feels good to Geico I don't want to spend know too much time talking about Alex Jones because I think like what you're working on is more interesting. but I do have this nagging thought that's like You know, he obviously can perform, right? He do the character, but he was also fighting tooth and nail for his show for Info Wars on the brink of losing it, where he was spending days posting on X, where he seemed to be like conflating characters you'd written and played and saying that it was you, the person who had taken over Info Wars. Do you have a sense of how much He truly believes any conspiracies or anything he shares with his audience versus how much is the performance? I don't have any clue. I mean I could just tell you what I don't have any inside information on that I think it's like sixty percent of an act. and then He's seen I mean, he's been doing it since like the nineties Yeah, you know, so Somewhere in him is a worldview that is, you know, conspiracy driven. Yeah From nine eleven to, you know, you name it Kennedy assassination, Big fooot you know, UFO's, I don know all of it all of it's fun in a way, you know, like there's a recreational quality to this stuff that, you know, I think Joe Rogan used to center his show around like, Hey, let's talk about ghosts. Yeah. Or there was, you know, there was a there was a show I listened to a lot. It was coast to coast. It was George George Art Bell and then George Nori. And it was a radio late night radio show where people would call in and say, Hey, George, I saw you know, Lch this monster about three years ago. and we were and you', huh, gohead know And it's just good radio.. So I think that's what a lot of this started as And then chang It really changed more with Trump because Trump basically was like one of those listeners or one of those callers. Yeah literally calling Yeahah, he would love to call into like TV Yeah. just shoot from the hip and say what he thought and a lot of it was nuts And and now he's now like he actually has he's actually running the world in a lot of ways. That's the scary full circle of it, I guess. Yeah A big part of, you know, the infoWars ecosystem and Alex Jones' finances was right selling I looked at the store the other day. they Well's kind I was kind of surprised because I feel like he hasn't been keeping up with the trends. It was mostly gummies supplements, I feel like he really should be on the peptide train, and I was surprised that he wasn't.ight So will the onion be selling peptidide? I'm a little behind on peptides. I've heard I keep seeing it.ure. Is it like steroid? What is it injectables? I mean, look at Alex. like he's not peptide from what I could tell. It could be a different peptide that I'm not aware of. A new horrible thing. It's a ballooning peptide U that's yeah, I mean, we'll have to figure out the funny version of that. I don't know if that just doing peepides is quite there, but Maybe Ppto, Maybe ejectable Ppto bismo yeah, in a syringe form. Yeah R R. The pink stuff. The pink stuff. Have you heard from any of the like sponsors of the show or any of't there are any. I mean, I think it's it's their stuff. Yeah. I don't know if these they're like manufacturing it somewhere in think I think so. Yeah. No I haven't heard from any We did hear from somebody Uh I don't know how much I could say about this, but who actually makes gold and like he he sells gold, like and you could if you were in a company, you could work with him to like design gold, whatever, you know things and sell the my site. And he I guess used to work with Alex and used to work with Rogan and those guys doing crap. and He saw he's like wants to do business. He wants to make gold for you. Yeah, which we have a couple of ideas. love it. Yeah It could be like a mega sponsorship level where it's like, yeah, as long as. Yeah I want to make sure that we like really explicitly talk about harm that the show caused and You know, for listeners who are not aware, Alex Jones has lied for years about the twenty twelve Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. twenty six people were killed, twenty were kids. And the families have been harassed and threatened. Some said they've received letters from people saying, we're going to desecrate your child's grave. Yeah. Families have had to go into hiding move. And several years ago, Alex Jones was ordered to pay like something like one point five billion dollars to the families U in two defamation suits haveave those families ten anything? Have they gotten a sense of justice or money or anything? No. I mean, I think I'm not sure if this was announced Uh we the this when we launched this, we launched the whole line of merch shirts and bags and all that kind of stuff. And a portion of that is going to the families. and it's quite a bit because we sold a lot of Infowars merch. This is the prime Motivator for this is to set up a to make him for his valuable again and start turnurn start generating u money that can go to them that can start paying them back. Yeah. Yeah, he's been very successful in evading that And part of this is keeping that pressure on. in the courts and in the press and reminding people, I think we forget about that. and people don't know the details of what he was doing to those families. And we should be it should be a never forget situation. because there should be justice for for the decisions he made, there' be consequences for them and to try to it from ing again from that feeling like it's an okay thing to do like U's there's a documentary anyone could watch on HBO called The Truth versus Alex Jones that goes very much into The details of what he did it's a horrifying experience to watch that because the first twenty minutes of that movie is about what happened Th kids and not something that anyone wants to go and revisit because it is truly like as horrible as you can get and then stacked on top of that is almost immediately Um you know, one of the fathers comes out to talk to the press because he doesn't Somebody has to. Somebody has to speak for these people And the cameras are rolling and he's never done this before. The guy's a NCIU nurse. you know it's like a normal guy. And he's uncomfortable. And what do we do often when we're uncomfortable la Yes. We smile. we go this is weird, you know? somethingomething he does that And that is the ground zero point of those ghouls saying, Look at that. he's He's an actor. Nobody wouldn't smile like that. and that just That's the big bang of the insane conspiracy theory that ruined that person's life for many years and then So that was you could watch the clips of him Alex Jones being glib and and just purely disgusting Yeah in the way he talked about these freshly wounded families, you know, in a way that just makes you want to put your hands through the TV screen and, you know, wring his neck Um, And so we're just kind of doing that in a more artistic way. supp. I love the idea that it's like, oh, that was was that was twenty twelve like Dude that those was fucking yesterday Yeah You know, in our in my mind in a way So like, no, you don't get to just like keep doing your shit. Or maybe you will, but we're not going we're not going to like stop. telling people what you did and try to do it you know entertaining artistic way Yeah. And to the bitter end, he was saying lies about the familyies Oh ye except when he's under oath and goes Wow, Ss a joke as a kid right. Come on. It it's a comedy show or, you know, whatever said. It's it's entertainment, you know, toooo late. Yeah process to get the families on board with the vision. I talked to Ben about that because that happened a little before I came on board, but they were you know, they had to take a minute to think about what you're talking about. likeike what And then they came back and said, yeah, this sounds cool. I mean good luck and let us know what we can do It's and then after we had been doing it for a while, after I had put out a couple things, we did a big zoom with everybody and they were like, go for it. go go harder, like do You know, really, don't don't worry about us. like we think this is hilarious and are happy to see him getting dragged through the mud like like he is right now. and like people are not forgetting about this and just more like, you know, thank you basically was what their message was, which is pretty Yeah for sure. I was curious if they had any like creative input. D they have ideas for to do? The only thing one of them said was like I can't you was watching one of my clips of me doing the impression and he's like, my wife gets really mad because she thinks I'm listening to Alex Jones in the room. Hes said turn that guy off, but it was just me, which was a nice That's a curse. Yeah The legal process has obviously been through some ups and downs and speed bumps and it's been a whole thing. The last I heard was that the onion had put forth a plan in which you'd basically license the infoWars IP on like a monthly basis. And that also a judge was trying to stop. So what is it still kind of in limbo Inf? I think it is like yeah The Texas courts of state Court of Appeals has said put a stay on that the last minute, literally like the day before we were about to get the keys which was very upsetting for everybody. Yeah I got a call from Ben. he's like, remember I told you there are like three things that could happen. This is the fourth thing that we didn't think was going to happen. Um every other court in Texas and I think a federal court has said like holding this up. This is bananas Um, And So Limbo is the right word for it because he certainly doesn't have any ownership over that anymore U the receiver does Um But they're apparently too scared to do anything about it. What are they scared of I mean, there's some Wackos out there. Sure. o, okay, you know That could be it? I don't know. I think some people are just a little more tender about this stuff nervous. can't I haven't spoken to the person, but I wish I could because I would say me now Give me the key. G me right now. Can a password. You know like what is the can I guess it? That's all we're talking about here at the root of getting the site itself. So The message we all gathered and said that we are this is going to eventually come likeike it will eventually to our he will have to do it eventually pressure we will keep the pressure on But in the meantime, we're just going to go and do it anyway. and no one's going really no one's going to have anything to say to stop us. We Our legal side is very confident that like we're We can proceed. The only thing we just don't have is the website itself. But we're, you know, we're going to have real infoars, Instagram, real infos, Facebook, all that stuff. in the onion. info is where the site will be. And then, you know, hopefully by the end of the year or something But you know, the who goes to websites anymore anyways, right? Actually a lot of Vverge readers love going to I have a funny thing I have a funny thing to say my ty guy Wh's the techn got Wes who does the I mean like techn technically he's like the technical director on office. Okay, I got it. And he knows everything about computers and the internet, he's always on talking about microchips and stuff. And I was like, I gott to go to New York, I got to do this prze. I gotta do the what the hell is the Verge? I want to go down and do the Verge. And I already did wired. I said. There how can there redo? And And he goes, Oh, no, no, The Verge is the one to do. The Vverge is the hotspot right now. Oh my God. Well, now you know what the verge is. And you can rem on the verge of knowing. There was another interview that you did where you kind of described your early work know, turning a mirror to American culture and consumerism from sort of in a cynical way. But the In fourars venture feels incredibly hopeful to me. and it feels like a refusal to let Alex Jones have the final say and have the last word. So what keeps you hopeful