You Idiot Podcasters Did This to Yourselves
On the Rogansphere's "turn" on Trump over the Epstein coverup.
One thing I cannot prove but nonetheless believe to be true is that Donald Trump’s return to power would not have been possible without the failures of so-called cancel culture and MeToo, by which I mean their defeat at the hands of conservative and centrist reactionaries. A fundamental premise of these movements, to the limited extent that they can be called movements with coherent goals, was that sex abuse is bad and sex abusers should not be in positions of power. Their opponents by and large believed that sex abuse is a private matter to be sorted out between abuser and abused, and that the rest of us should mind our own business. Whereas these movements argued that the existing paradigms for holding sex abusers accountable and protecting people from sex abuse are inadequate, their opponents said no: the existing paradigms are fine, if anything they’re too strict. The natural endpoint of their position is that a serial pedophile should be permitted to seek the highest office in the land and use it to protect his pedophile friends, which is exactly what has come to pass.
So it causes me no small amount of consternation to watch all of the comedians-slash-podcasters who cheered Donald Trump’s return to power, and who before that led the cultural backlash against cancel culture and MeToo, react with shock and outrage to Trump’s efforts to squash the Epstein controversy. In the last few weeks Andrew Schulz earned complimentary headlines for his supposed turn on Trump over Epstein; Shane Gillis joked about the coverup while hosting the ESPYs; Theo Von questioned JD Vance’s hypocrisy on the issue; Joe Rogan accused the administration of lying; Dave Smith called the Epstein coverup worse than the coverup of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline; and Tim Dillon has demanded Attorney General Pam Bondi’s firing while speculating that Trump is afraid he might get assassinated if he reveals the truth. (More on that later.)
To which I can only respond: you stupid fucking idiots, this is your fault!
With the exception of the the Wall Street Journal’s blockbuster new story about the birthday card Trump sent Epstein decades ago, there is nothing about Trump or Epstein or Trump’s relationship with Epstein that was not public knowledge when he ran for president in 2024, 2020, and 2016. Not only has this all been out in the open the whole time, many of these podcasters have made a cottage industry of talking about Epstein the whole time, though they conveniently managed to overlook or write off Trump’s connections while they did. (Some of them are still doing this: in a recent episode, Shane Gillis’s Pizzagate-believing Holocaust denier friends argued that Trump couldn’t possibly be a pedophile—he thinks alcohol is a weakness, and pedophilia is a mega weakness, plus he’s just not a sexual person.)
The only thing that’s changed is that Trump has so thoroughly lost his grip on the story that even conservative influencers are turning on him, and it is ultimately from conservative influencers that these comedians take their cues. Gillis, for instance, listens to Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones; Smith is buddy-buddy with Candace Owens, Carlson, and Charlie Kirk; follow Rogan on Instagram and you’ll inevitably see him repost all manner of unhinged MAGA personalities. The irony is twofold. On the one hand, everything they’re outraged about was reported years ago by the news media they’re so proud to have replaced. On the other, they very recently spent years of their lives defending the rights and dignity of sex predators.
Seth Simons
Take, for instance, Whitney Cummings, who says in the latest episode of her podcast that the Epstein coverup is not surprising to her because our entire culture is designed to sexualize minors and protect pedophiles. Less than a year ago, she appeared on a game show with Jeff Ross, the credibly alleged pedophile who has already returned to Netflix and hits Broadway next month. (Cummings’ boyfriend and sometimes-cohost is a pro skater who has also been accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife and son, but who’s keeping track.) Or consider Shane Gillis, whose rise to stardom was given a major assist by confessed sex predator Louis CK, whom he opened for and hosted on his podcast many times.
Longtime MeToo critic Tim Dillon, meanwhile, cast Kevin Spacey in a promo for his latest Netflix special; both he and Theo Von recently gave Candace Owens a platform to make her case that Harvey Weinstein is innocent, a position that Rogan, another prolific MeToo opponent, has endorsed as well. Andrew Schulz, himself accused of abuse by an ex-girlfriend whose allegations he partially admitted were true, has been critiquing MeToo in his standup and podcasts since the movement began, defending the likes of Dave Portnoy and Andrew Cuomo. Dave Smith, of course, was one of the first to give Louis CK a stage all the way back in 2019. And every single one of these figures has sat idly by as Chris D’Elia returned to their workplaces.
In other words, comedy’s free speech crusaders were not simply pro-Trump during his last campaign: they were pro-sex abuse, and it was their years-long advocacy on behalf of sex abusers that helped lay the cultural groundwork for Trump’s return. If they truly want justice for Epstein’s victims, they might start by shutting the fuck up.
What Else?
-In an episode of his podcast released earlier today, Tim Dillon said he was invited to a private dinner with an unnamed Trump Administration official this past week. The official, he said, told him that Epstein was running a blackmail operation on behalf of an intelligence agency or intelligence agencies, possibly the CIA and Mossad, but the Administration is not covering up evidence of Epstein’s connection with powerful figures like Trump or Bill Gates. When Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed to have Epstein files sitting on her desk, Dillon said the unnamed official told him, she was not referring to incriminating evidence but to "porn Epstein downloaded from the internet.”
Dillon said he would not name the official, but he would drop hints throughout the podcast, which he concluded as follows: “We had a nice time, we had steaks, we had some salad, and it was nice. And I won't say who they are. I was a little worried that it was gonna be Indian food.” I’m gonna go ahead and speculate that he’s talking about FBI Director Kash Patel, and I’ve sent the FBI a FOIA request for any of Patel’s emails to, from, or mentioning Dillon.
Seth Simons
-Speaking of Chris D’Elia, the alleged rapist and pedophile has recently been arguing that the victims of sex predators like Harvey Weinstein should be punished as well. Here he is on his podcast Congratulations earlier this month:
D’Elia: This is the thing where it's like, okay, yeah, put Harvey Weinstein in jail, and then also now who are the women that did it and have careers? Not saying they need to go to jail, but what about the other women that didn't do that, that wanted that job? They're not for women either, but you can't say that kind of stuff.
And last week on his podcast The Golden Hour, which he cohosts with comedians Brendan Schaub and Erik Griffin:
D’Elia: You know what drives me nuts is the fucking, this is what drives me nuts. This is what drives me nuts. This is along those lines. What about, okay, now I understand what a lot of these Hollywood producers do is shitty. And, you know, "hey, suck my dick and you can get this job," right, okay, I get that sucks. And that sucks for women. And that's bullshit. Nobody—nobody has come after the women that have actually done that. That actually sucked dick to get into Mad Max or whatever the fuck. And how about how you are taking jobs from women? How about how you, because of that, are being shitty to women, right?
Argue with that. It's like, oh, so you did it too, you took part in that, but it's just the producer's faults? No, I get how the producers are wrong. Fuck them. But what about the women that are now in movies because they fucking [suction noise]. What about all the other women that work hard? What about the powerful women that deserve jobs? Because you fucking [suction noise].
Seth Simons
-Last week I told you about the new lawsuit against Stand Up NY owner Dani Zoldan by his former attorneys. Well, that’s not all: earlier this month, New York’s Workers’ Compensation Board also filed for a $72,000 judgment against Stand Up NY over the alleged misclassification of workers between 2022 and 2023. Ouch!
-Confessed sex abuser Louis CK will be headlining the New York Comedy Festival this year (cosponsored, curiously, by New York Magazine and Vulture, which have both reported on the allegations against him).
-In perhaps the funniest thing many of them have ever done, comedians including Kevin Hart, Tom Segura, Pete Davidson, and Whitney Cummings are reportedly in talks to perform at the very first Riyadh Comedy Festival, coproduced by Just For Laughs exec Bruce Hills:
Sources said the festival will feature multi-comic showcases and solo shows, along with special programming. WME became involved through its relationship with TKO — the sports-focused company borne from former WME parent company Endeavor — which has produced events in Saudi via WWE and UFC. The agency is working with Saudi’s General Entertainment Authority, as well as Sela, the largest live-events company in the kingdom, to get the festival off the ground. Sela will produce alongside Bruce Hills, a legendary comedy producer who spent nearly four decades at Just for Laughs, helping to turn it into the largest and most prestigious comedy festival in the world.
A source familiar with comedy touring noted that there’s big money to be made by comics in the Middle East — up to millions, or tens of millions, depending on the profile of the artist. They said many top stand-ups are happy to be “wined and dined” by the Saudi government, which has come to recognize the power of comics as the “cultural icons” of our time.
Of course, there are also significant drawbacks — or at least factors to consider — in performing in the Middle East. For starters, Saudi Arabia is known for limiting freedom of expression when it comes to the arts — typically dictating on the offer sheet, per multiple agents, what cannot be said on topics like religion, sex and the Saudi royal family.
Ha! Ha!
