Welcome to the Gaslit Nation bonus episode this week. We had a lot of news since we last

recorded. So we're going to check in with you on that. Sarah and I were supposed to record

yesterday. And we had a time set for 10 a.m. Thursday. I messaged her saying I need to

cancel because I just feel very depressed. I woke up. I went to bed last night after the CNN

town hall news and woke up the next morning feeling completely poisoned, just poisoned, like physically sick

by what happened on CNN. I did not even watch it. I watched some clips. I watched the

audience's reaction. I watched the laughing. I watched Caitlin Collins being allowing herself

to be objectified for fame and money.

The whole spectacle was overtly, deliberately pornographic.

I met with a girlfriend later that day for lunch,

and she said that she felt as sick physically as she did in November 2016. It was that same level of demoralization and disinformation and just state sanctioned, or I would say, corporate sanctioned violence.

We're going to go into all of that today, but it's very clear what CNN did for

profits and why they did it. They orchestrated a clan rally. Obviously, you know, by now,

when you're listening to this, you know all the dynamics of this and you know how dangerous this

is. And as somebody who has studied authoritarian states for a very long time now

and watched the rise of Putin's mafia state and watched how that's contributed to the destabilization

of security around the world and all the hell that's rocked for us here as Americans with helping

bring Trump to power and the

Pandora's box of crises we're going to be living with for a very long time, thanks to Trump

and the Kremlin. What happened during the rise of Putin is happening right now in the United

States. What Putin did to become a dictator is he put his supporters,

his oligarchs, his guys in place across the media landscape, television.

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