Was Benjamin Franklin a fraud?
NO SUCH THING
iHeartPodcasts and Kaleidoscope
4.6 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We know Benjamin Franklin as a founding father, crucial in the establishment of the United States, discoverer of electricity, kooky writer of almanacs, and inventor of much, much more. But is it possible that good old Benny is actually a complete scammer? We investigate a conspiracy theory that Mr. $100 is not all he’s cracked up to be.
Our guest this week is Claire Aubin, historian and host of This Guy Sucked, with a special thanks to our instigating debaters Kelsey and Rich.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Annie, and I'm Noah. |
| 0:13.2 | This is no such thing. |
| 0:15.5 | It's sure we'll resettle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. |
| 0:19.7 | On today's episode, was Benjamin Franklin a fraud? |
| 0:23.9 | Founding father or frauding father? |
| 0:26.9 | Try that one. |
| 0:28.0 | I'm going to put that in there. |
| 0:29.1 | Yeah. |
| 0:30.1 | A fraudulent father. |
| 0:34.9 | There's no such thing. |
| 0:36.7 | No such thing. No such thing. |
| 0:39.7 | No such thing. |
| 0:42.6 | No such thing. |
| 0:45.7 | No such thing. |
| 0:50.6 | So today's episode was actually inspired by our previous episode we did. |
| 0:55.7 | Last year we did an episode titled Can You Change the Mind of Conspiracy Theorists? |
| 1:01.3 | And as part of that, we asked our listeners to call in with their favorite conspiracy theory that they believed. |
| 1:08.5 | So as part of that process, we got a call from one of |
| 1:11.8 | Manny's friends named Kelsey. I think that Benjamin Franklin was a grifter with a great |
| 1:18.8 | PR team. I live in Philadelphia, so his image is everywhere, to a degree I find suspicious. |
| 1:23.9 | He's credited with inventing basically everything, from electricity to bifocals to modern-day fire insurance, |
| 1:29.3 | and I don't believe that one little guy achieved all of this alone. |
... |
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