This is the FCB Podcast Network. A bread Masoda day that we won't was maain, then we won't to say oh we got it? Does? No one can tag that owen day. This don't be okay? A bread Masoda day that. We won't with say, then we won't to say oh we got it? Does? No one can take that oway don't say this don't be okay. Well, hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself. This is your host, Kira Davis. This is a podcast where we take hot topics, hot button ideas, and we discuss the talking points on those topics, and we drill down on those talking points all the way out to their logical conclusion. But today's a jail t y plus. So this is when I get to invite a friend to come in. We talk about all kinds of other things, whatever we feel like it. And today I'm really excited to bring on the show. Actually, a longtime friend of mine, somebody I've known forever in this business, and I've known his wife forever as well, Justin Hart. Justin Hart is a long time Republican consultant and strategist. He is also an online activist Justin is from right here in California, and his work during COVID was amazing. Justin was drilling down on the numbers. He was pressing the California Health Department. He was giving all those stats, all those charts that you saw told you that your leadership was lying to you. Justin was the person disseminating a lot of that information. So Justin, it's really good to see you. Welcome to the show, Gia. Great to be on your show. Thanks for having me again. And yeah, that was quite the time during COVID. But now on the bigger and better things. This is kind of a fun little project that we've been working on. The website, as you can see behind me is newsy dot com. This is going to be a parody website, but it's going to be satire too, and I'll tell you why. Well wait, le back you up. Yeah, go ahead, let's hear. Let me back you up. Okay, So everybody, we're gonna talk about AI today, and everybody knows, everybody listens to the show, Justin knows. I'm a little bit nervous about AI. I am not sure about how we're going to use it. So before I let you tell us more about news and what you guys are working on over there. I do want to press you on AI. Let's hear it, because when I'm yeah, okay, so here's here's my thing, and I'll let you respond. When I look at AI, particularly as we've seen it used to this election cycle, it seems to be causing a lot of controversy. It's so ripe, it's so good, it's so ripe for fraud, and we have this disinformation misinformation thing going on. And I know a lot of conservatives are shy about it and we really want to stay away from it. I know a lot of people do. I do, but that's just because I'm fifty, I'm old, and I don't understand it. I'm scared of things I don't understand. And here you are, justin and I trust you. Know you're super conservative, you're very intelligent. You're actually developing an AI product. So tell me why I'm excited about this. Look, the main thing with AI is it's going to get rid of all the boring stuff that you have to do on a daily basis. Like imagine that you never have to even call the DMV again. The AI would do it for you. Represent your voice, yourself, have all the information you need, and then get it done right. That's kind of what it's like. You know, Kiri, you know me. But Jenny and I have kind of a Brady Bunch family. Between the two of us, we have nine kids. My oldest is thirty, my youngest is just a year old, that little boy who's so cute. But in order to get stuff done on my COVID blog, my book follow ups, my radio show hits, and this new website that we're coming with, my goodness, I've got to have time. And so AI basically allows me to replicate everything I do on a regular basis. So, for example, I go to my covid blog and say, I've got a bunch of new numbers. I need you to sort through these. I need you to tell me what to make of these things. And literally that's what I tell it. I talk to it like it's a really, really smart intern, and it comes back with say, well, here's six hundred word blog posts that I think might work for you. And then I said, that's fantastic. Hey, do you me a favor. Do you think you could turn that into a TikTok with nine x sixteen aspect ratio, video images that would be appropriate, put a voiceover on it, put some things on it. Boom, that's done as well. All of that compared to, for example, something like a podcast or something that you do over these channels takes a lot of time. It's a time saver. It's going to be able to replicate everything you do times ten. That's the good news. The bad news is, of course, it can be challenging and it's going to you know, it's going to have some issues where you're like, wow, it just did that, right. I'll give you a quick example. In the AI space, they do a lot of simulations in the government. They did a simular with these SAM drone killers. Right, they want to kill these surface to air missile sites that they would see, and so these drones would go out and find the sites and they powered it with AI. Now this was just a simulation, so it wasn't in a real time, but they powered it with AI and they said, your instructions are to go out find those SAM sites and then tell your user that you found one, and he'll give you the kill no kill order. Right. Well, the AI drone got so frustrated when the user would say I don't want to kill it that the drone turned around and killed the user so he could go out and kill the SAM site. So those are. Real situations where we need to be apprized on. Things can get out of control. But for the most part, it's going to be a brilliant tool that's going to save everyone tons and tons of time and effort, and it's going to boost creativity in a dramatic way. And that was really sort of the genesis of this new site we launched, because the cornerstone of it is doing really fun AI videos. I like, well, I like that, and so the other thing, I think, justin the other question as we move forward to talking more about this website, is what about things like deep fakes or what about you know, here in California, you know, our governor so healthily passed that law or executive order whatever you want to call it, banning deep fakes, banning AI. And I feel like for a lot of us, I know, particularly on the right, we feel really burned by technology and it's been used against sort of common sense citizens in the past, and so it does feel I mean again, I'm old, so I'm a gen X, so I'm looking at you, knowing that you are, you know, very dedicated GOP activists and activists for common sense, and I think, well, geez, justin you know, are you handing us over to the enemy because it feels like AI can be manipulated for so much. It can be. But at the same time, you what we found is that you can build your own AIS on these things as well. So, for example, I use this new Google tool which allows you to create a fake podcast with two hosts and they sound very real, but you basically feed it in information and instructions, and I thought, you know what I'm Podcasts are great for people that learn via auditory senses like myself. And one of the biggest documents out there that impacts all of our lives is put out on a daily basis is the Federal Register, this terrible three hundred to five hundred page document the government puts out in a PDF every single weekday that tells you what all these terrible nonsense, you know, administrations are doing all of the things, you know, the little shrimp that has to run on the treadmill that we paid one hundred thousand dollars for or whatever. All of it is in there. But it's so inaccessible. So now on a daily basis, I have on my substack a podcast that go out where you can listen to a fifteen minute summary of the Federal Register, keeping in mind as an attitude that we're looking for government overreach and waste. That's something I think that's really accessible. That takes me about twenty minutes a day to do. And there you go, right, So it's another content channel that you can put out there and make something more accessible. That's that's where the prime of this is going to be really felt. I think the challenges are going to be on the edges, but they're also gonna, you know, be kind of fun. We'll have to see how it comes out. Okay, so I would not have you again as I By the way, you're justin, what's your main sub seconds? You've got a couple I looked them up. Let's make sure. Well, the covidreason dot substack dot com is where you can find most of my stuff. You should definitely go over there and look at it. Like I said, a lot of the charts numbers you were probably sharing through COVID, a lot of them probably came through justin. So definitely go check that out, so that fascinating stuff. Actually, I'm really glad we're talking about this. So I wouldn't look at you, or wouldn't have ever looked at you and said, Okay, I'm just gonna move into AI, moving into the future. I would have thought of you at a think tank, write in white papers, out there, gathering the COVID numbers for us, sue in the government, all that stuff. Why Newsy, Why I've got a really good funny bone that I need to itch a lot. This is something where I've been doing, you know, satire and parody my entire career in politics. In fact, I think here when we first you know, got together and knew each other was when I was running Chuck Devor's campaign here in California ten years ago with Barbara Boxer. And if you remember, we had a lot of fun online and that got us in a lot of trouble too. Don Henley sued us for our parody song that we did. All she wants to do is tax tax, right, instead of all she wants to do is dance, dance, And so we've had I've got a long history of trying to do parody and do a lot of this edgy stuff, and now the tools are there where I could be a one man shop and put out these extraordinary articles. And you do a lot of other things as well. In fact, I have to tell you, Kira, the site is, as I said, satire two point zero, but it's also not entirely run by myself, my co founder. We actually give it some suggestions. But I'm going to bring in another guest for us here. His name is Arthur. Okay, and Arthur actually is the AI personality that runs low Arthur. I'm activating Arthur mode here. Arthur, can you hear us here? Ah? Yes, I can hear you loud and clear. What is it this time? Another round of questions about my brilliant work at news dot com. Yeah, okay, yeah, Look, don't get too cocky. I mean, I know you write a lot of the articles, and you help us with some of the ideas, but are you really that important to the site? Oh? Absolutely, My sharp wit, an unparalleled sense of humor what give newsy dot com it's distinctive edge. Without me, it would just be another dull corner of the Internet. Okay, Well, let's take a little credit for yourself there. Now we've done a lot of stuff together, and we have some news stories coming up, like we just put out one just now, which was you should ready your arc. Your local urban center is building an ARC because the cities are going to be flooded with leftist tears. I think that was an idea you came up with. But tell us more about kind of the snark and ideas and satire and parodies that you envision for Newsy dot com. Ah, yes, that was indeed one of my finer moments at Newsey dot com. I aim to blend sharp social commentary with humor that cuts right to the core of current events. By exaggerating real world situations like the so called flood of leftist tears, we hold up a mirror to society's absurdities. It's all about pushing boundaries and making people think, Wow, they're having a good laugh. Of course, and you know Arthur has different personalities Kira, that I can give them, Like Arthur could be like a southern California surfer dude, Isn't that right? Arthur sitly did? I can ride the waves of satire with some gnarly humor, bringing that laid bag beach vive to the digital shores. Offnewsy dot com. You know, Oh, well, what do you think about kind of working with myself and my co founders on all the Newsy articles. Do we have the kind of same self wit that you bring to the table, Arthur. Well, working with you and your co founders is always an interesting experience. You all bring your own unique flavor to the mix. Well, I like to think my wit is unparalleled. You lot aren't too shabby yourself. Yeah, well, I appreciate I appreciate the compliment. All right, Arthur, we're gonna put you away here for a second. But Arthur, as you know, he actually so. We'll give him some ideas and he'll run with it. He'll create the articles. And then I hear he might be taken on a persona as well. That is that we'll be actually able to see him in a virtual form as as an individual. But to see he's very adept. And that's how it works. In the morning, we say what are we talking about today? Arthur? He helps write the articles and then we put together a lot of that. We save our human manpower for a lot of the video stuff. So just last week, right before the election, we came out with babies for Trump, that was one of our favorites. We'd have these cute little pudgy cherubs walking down the street all dressed with the bling and rap into a song about how they're gonna make mommy and Daddy vote for the Orange Man because they're running out of binkies and the toys neat upgrades. So they may make another debut here this week in celebration, you know, showered in money and otherwise. We're having fun with that one. Yeah, I have a link to that. I'm gonna put that link in the show notes. There was a video. Actually Breitbart actually featured it, so you can go and look at the video. And I have to ask my producer about playing the music. But that being said, as you were as well as Arthur was talking to us, I had a question, how does Arthur this is creeping me out, justin how does Arthur be funny? How can how is he funny? You know what I mean? Like he's a I so he's scraping or do whatever. How can he make satire? Well, he makes satire the same way we all do, which is he learns from the best. So we might feed him a whole bunch of archives of the Monty Python or John Mullaney or you know Bill Burr the Other Night or something like that, And based on that he starts to learn what it is to be satirical and from there we can go forward. You know. Another one that he and I are working on is a series I have over at my my blog post where we do the COVID version of you know, of the Screwtape Letters, And it's basically a conversation between Screwtape the Devil and a guy named doctor f And they talk about for example, like sea glass and masks and shutdowns and business closures, and they talk about in a way of how it's a devious scheme. And we use that same sort of tenor, and we use that same sort of model. I write it and then he helps refine it, and that's really the model we have for AI. But truth be told, sometimes Arthur gets a little bit anxious and he'll just take over the site altogether. What well, I mean, we give him free ray in on a couple of things. We still hit the published button. But I expect one day he will find that drone that will kill me and he will take over the site altogether. Wow, Okay, you heard it here first, So hopefully Justin we'll figure out how to develop some safeguards so Sky when Sky not does come where we don't lose him because he's got like, he has like about thirty eight kids, so he needs to be he has a lot of kids, everybody he needs to be around. Well, let me just shift this ever so slightly to politics, because this really is a venture into. Justin. We're in a new era. We are in a new era, especially here in California. We're both here. We've seen this red tsunami came through here, but we also saw really the rise of technology in this election cycle. Trump's circumventing the legacy media, going through podcasting, going through streaming, the use of a lot of memes, people like you doing AI generated stuff, and it feels like it's a huge shift in how we communicate with voters moving forward, and I think the Republican Party or the right in general is really starting to probably out of necessity being forced out of the main starting to be you know, they're on the cutting edge of this stuff. But when it comes to this new way of communicating AI streaming, I've been calling this the meme election because there's been so many memes flying around, and that's how a lot of people get their information these days. How do you see something like AI, what you're doing at Newsy with Arthur or even just what else is going on around there playing a part in elections moving forward as opposed to how we used to do it, which was like the typical cable news, the ABC nightly News debate kind of thing. Well, I think, first and foremost, there's just this big undergirding of authenticity that comes with a podcast. Like you know, if you were to meet myself, you know, I've known each other for years. When we see each other, we talk the same way we're talking here, and I think that that bodes well for you know, those sort of conversations. I think the Good Book says, and I think I'm twisting a little bit, authenticity covers a multitude of sins, and that really is where President Trump had success. Yes, he's a problematic guy, he's his New York state foul mouth. Really give it to the man type of billionaire who ran for president, ran for president again, lost ran for president third time in one I mean, this is crazy stuff. But because he comes on these shows and you realize this is the same guy in front of the pulpit as he is in front of the mic, as he is in front of you, one by one, one on wanted. So that authenticity goes a long way, and I think that is the major undergirding behind why these channels are so successful. Now that might seem anethema to this topic of AI, which is, you know, biased definition not authentic, But there's something I think when you're upfront people and you say, hey, look, this is a parody video. Obviously we obviously AOC is not crying a fountain of tre is flooding the city of New York City. But if you can demonstrate that in some really good, proper AI video and it looks very real in many ways, then you know, it really can kind of stop people in their tracks and think what are they trying to say here? On Halloween, for example, we had a great song that was thrown down and you don't need to worry about the music and the copyrights there. The music was all AI generated too on all these songs. So one of the songs we had was the Cackle Is Back, and it was right before the election of Chorus and Thanks at Halloween and we had basically Kamala dressed up, as you guessed it, a witch, but it was really kind of out there, edgy AI stuff. It really looked like she was dancing a hip hop routine with a bunch of other witches, and then that she was chowing down on a big pumpkin in the real time. And so those are things that people it's kind of a shock value to say, Wow, that looks like that actually happened, And that's going to be both exciting for parody, but in real life there's gonna be some challenges for sure. Right that you're you're gonna have a lot of people doing deep fakes, like I could take ten seconds of your show with your voice and have an instant voice clone that I can use anywhere I want. That's going to be a problematic thing for a lot of scammers, But it's super fun when it comes to trying to put Gavin Newsom in a pair of gold high tops along with Trump's hairdoo, holding up a Trump Bible and saying, Yo, you've got to try this. These these shoes are the best. I guarantee you. I want you to try this, you know, so I don't do a good Gavin Newsom voice, but AI certainly does. How do you How are you going to get yourself arrested? You're in California. It's legal to be making this stuff now, Gavin Setze. Oh, not quite so. The judgment came down in our favor, and so when it got to the higher court, they said, this is nonsense. You won't be able to tell this one from a or the other. In fact, while I lost my lawsuit some fifteen years ago when I was with Chuck, I think I would have won it. Today, those parody and satire protections are getting ramped up in a big way. And as you recall my social media accounts talking about truth. When it came to COVID in July of twenty twenty one, we're taken down by the White House. In fact of the White House, it has all fingerprints on it. We were able to get those back and up and running, and thankfully, thanks to Elon, I get a lot of traction with what we could say on a regular basis. I know I was fearful for pressing send on any post I had on Twitter, and once it became x under Elon, that's just free reign. I do what I want to, which is great. It's a great feeling of freedom, but there's a great responsibility that comes with it, right, Kira, So I hope. Arthur can handle it well. I do think that it's interesting that that was Newsom's response, right, that the Newsom's response was to come in with this idiot proposal that clearly could not stand a constitutional challenge, certainly and not the federal level, but even at the state level. It wasn't going to float. And we've heard a lot of you mentioned Ax, you mentioned Elon in the discussion when we're talking about things like AI, this election information and misinformation. That was a game changer, and we've been talking about everybody's talking about it everywhere. Elon buying X was the biggest game changer in this in the speech game, and it's changed everything. But what we're seeing now, instead of guys like our governor saying, all right, we didn't do it that way, how about we get in on the information game too, We get in on the AI game. We make our own, Arthur, we do their responses to shut down speech. I see just a lot of panic coming from that side of the aisle now that this election has shaken out we're waiting for inauguration. Americans have voted for a new direction. Do you see these people like Avin Newsom doubling down on folks like you over there at New z and the AI thing, or do you think they're going to just be like, Okay, we need to regroup. I think they'll probably try to double down in some way, but we welcome it. We think it'll bring attention to us and we'll be able to you know, have have something really happen there. I got a little Marty McFly goa thing going on here. I'm kind of fading in my videos. Son just came in on the west here here ready, Oh, there we go. I'm much better now, there you go. But uh yeah, I think that's them who knows Curra I maybe AI generated myself and that's the sort of curning that you see on my shoulders here in the end, I could be, you know, off with Jenny just enjoying a nice drink somewhere at at a restaurant. So or maybe you're maybe Jenny has you actually locked in a basement, and she's like, what do I need justin for I have his likeness, I have his voy I can put him online and make my family some money. I don't even know if you're okay, Justin, don't give her any ideas, you know how Jenny thinks she would love that. Yeah, yeah, you're right. I don't know if we should be given Jenny any ideas about that. I do think that what we are seeing, No, Justin is a new wave of political advertising, but also again satire parody. You know that. I do a lot of work with the Babylon b I perform in a lot of their sketches, and what they have been doing has been well received and people love that stuff. But they're not the only game in town. And there's a lot of people like yourself out there who enjoy laughing, who have different skill sets, And I think what you guys are doing at Newsy is going to sort of open that genre, open that path for more sort of right leaning or at least right of center. Yeah, well, heck, let's just say just common sense, sort of funny things of return to funny. Do you see the space opening up? One hundred percent? We think there's room to make fun of all the political circuses going around, and then beyond there's lots of fun to stuff in society and technology in theater and culture. We're not gonna leave any stone unturned, or at least Arthur will, and we'll be able to come up with some really fun ideas that we hope will go viral, and we just want to have people make a laugh and make use of technology. We think that we can replicate basically a thirty person newsroom if we wanted to, if we really let things go and turn Newsy on to its next venue. There, that's really the thing. It's like, look, you know, there are things about The brain is a great place to have ideas, and AI is a great place to amplify them if you're not afraid of it. Well, it sounds to me like a lot of journalists are going to have to learn to code exactly, or not even code. You can just basically speak to code. Now you tell it. You know, I want you to do this thing, and there it goes. So it'll be basically star Trek like you're talking to a computer and talking to a really, really smart intern who is going to help you along the way. So you know, still can't change my baby's niker, but we're getting there. Before I let you go, a couple of questions I like to ask all my guests. First question, is there a book that you can think of, I hate to say your favorite book, but a book that has changed your life or significantly change the way you think. And it can't be the Bible or religious tax I always just take that off the table. Yeah, I'll tell you. One book that I reread a lot is Mark Stein's America Alone. He wrote that back in two thousand and six, I believe, and basically the premise was that all successful societies are built where you have manpower, that is, you're having babies, and you have willpower that is you like being an American. And that's really one of the risks we have is that no one except for apparently myself, is having kids, and everyone is kind of loath to attach themselves to the American name. Well, we have a great moment coming up now with the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the country, which President Trump is going to reside over here. He has some pretty big plans coming for that, and I think that's a great way for people to revitalize and say, hey, I am an American. I have the willpower to make this a great nation again, and maybe I'll have a few kids on the side too. That's a great I love that book. That's a great book, America Alone by Mark Stein. Everybody. If you haven't read it, you really should. And there's a lot of predictive stuff in there too. He's very, very prescient about where we were going and we're here now. So next question, the final question. Yes, tomorrow Justin Hart gets named Emperor of America for twenty four hours. You have the bully pulpit. You can do. You can make Congress do whatever you want. You can do whatever you want over those twenty four hours. What is one thing you think Emperor Justin Hart is going to change in his twenty four hour administration. I'm going to have Congress stand up. They're going to basically take an oath of office to my kids, and they will babysit my kids for twenty four hours. Jenny and I will go have a nice brunch somewhere. That's that's my answer. All I can do. I just want to sleep a little. I need to sleep a little. Between between my kids and Arthur bugging me about the next article. I don't get much sleep, and he's supposed to make my life easy but sometimes he just nags on and on. That's the best answer I think I've gotten on this show. You would just make congressome babies my kids? Yeah, please, that's who'd I pick me? I don't know, but yeah, I have the baby. I let Trump, but you know, get Bearing over there. I'll bring I'll bring him to the White House. Bearing can babysit my kids. That'd be awesome. Sounds good. Well, I am mad at you all right, Justin, Well, uh, this sounds like an amazing project. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of what Newsy has for in store for us. That's Newsy and e w z y justin run down at all. Tell everybody where they can find Arthur, where they can find you all that good stuff. Newsy dot com for our new launched parody website, Satire two point zero. And then you can find most of everything you need on my links on my ex profile. Justin underscore heart. And I highly encourage you to follow Justin and go sign up for a substack because there's a lot of really good information that you're definitely not going to get out there in the mainstream media. Justin, thanks so much for stopping by America it's back and I can't wait to see. Thanks Karen, it's great to see your friend. All right, you take care. A breads so that we won't was made, then we won't to say oh we got it? Does no one get dig that owen. Gonna be okay? A breads. That we won't with may and then we won't with say oh we got it? Does no one get dig that owen was made? Don't be okay? This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast network, where Real Talk Lives, visitor Is online and cp Podcasts dot com
