Pushkin.

Welcome back to Risky Business, the show about making better decisions.

I'm Maria Kanikova.

And back in New York City, New York, not Las Vegas.

I'm Nate Silver.

What are we talking about, Maria?

So first we're going to do a little bit of a poker update.

As you guys known, it wasn't here last week, so you had him in absentsha a pre taped interview because he had a deep run in the main I've had a few runs as well, and there's lots of news from the World Series.

So we're going to start with a poker update.

Then we're going to get a little bit more serious and talk about some conspiracy theories in the air.

Maria, is the World Series Poker still going on?

It is like today the last official day where you can enter a new event.

Is that right?

No, there are two more days night, so we're recording this on Tuesday, July fifteenth.

There are multiple bracelet events, and then tomorrow there's also a turbo.

You know that we love turbos.

They're a nice, nice little ways to try to get a fast bracelet.

At the end of the series, so a few more days left, I have been not at the World Series, but at the WPT event at the Venetian.

Had a nice deep run there and actually busted in fifty third place last hand of the night yesterday.

So we were you know, anyone who plays poker, you know, at the end of the night they pause the clock and they say four more hands, five more hands.

Well I wish they had said four more hands, because on hand number five I was dealt pocket jacks with eighteen big lines on the button, and the small blind who was an incredibly of European player who'd been three betting me all day, three bet me and we went with the jacks.

In that time he happened to have pocket kings and that was the end.

What kind of euro Romanian?

I try to get the Euros to talk more like the Romanians the Eastern Europeans are like, but like someone like the Germans or the Dutch, or like a little more serious than they need to be.

I try to break them out of their shells, you know what, Maria.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, that's a great strategy.

This Romania was very sweet, very nice, very talkative, and took all my chips.

I busted the last time of the night, in my last World Series event, what was a three K midstake something, although it was someone like like, I don't think that poker players should intentionally make a goal of like, oh I made it to X day, Like, if anything, it reduces your flexibility.

In my case, it was to kind of settle my business and get out of town.

But it might not be playing another tournament or taking an off day or things like that, and so like it's an arbitrary cutoff busting out on the last it looked like but I I, you know, last hand before dinner, break, last hand, last orbit at the end of the day.

Can sometimes we get opportunity to pick to pick up chipsyp a little bit tired, right, yep, conflict diverse and yeah, no, no.

Shame, Maria, No, no, no shame at all.

You know.

I actually I have a story about this because psychologically it's actually a really interesting thing because I think that this is this is something that carries over, you know, from the poker world to the real world, where people just want to like they want to last, right, like they don't want to they don't want to bust in quotes.

And I back when I was just learning poker and I was still really working closely with Eric Sidell, and he was giving me a lot of coaching.

I remember it was a big event.

It was late in the night, you know, we had a few hands left and I remember folding preflop I think pocket sevens something like that because I just didn't want to deal with it.

I didn't want to and there were like a few hands left in the night, and I told him this.

I was like, you know, I was just tired, and he just he didn't say anything.

And then later he came up to me and he's like, we need to talk about that.

He's like, do you see you know Jason Kuhn or I Caxton, you know, some of the best players in the world folding pocket sevens in that spot.

And I was like, no, I guess not.

He's like, you can't do that right, like you're leaving ev And yes, I understand that you're tired and you don't want to bust, but these are bad reasons and you need to play like you are there to play, and you're there to play your best game, and you have to take those spots, and you have to take advantage of people who aren't willing to take those spots.

Those are the people who win.

And you know, I think that really that conversation really stayed with me because it's such important life advice, right, like, don't don't fold when you're just like feeling a little risk averse if it's not for the right reasons.

The why has to be correct, and the why can't be I don't want to bust, right, that's that's not that's not a good reason.

Yeah, And also knowing when the marginal spots are and what's less marginal, right, Like, it's fine to fold the very marginal stuff, but like you have this exponential thing where hands quickly escalating value, and in most positions, folding sevens from some reasonable position is a substantially positive expected value play.

Even if you even if you like lost twenty IQ points the men you put chips in the hand, right, you know, you're probably still gonna make enough money by flopping sets and continuing carefully when the board's dry and things like that.

Right, And like you do have to pay yourself a little bit.

The World series as long of it, how would you how would you rate your overall World Series?

Well, we're not done yet.

We're not done yet.

Okay, I still have I still have a few events to go.

I'd give myself, uh a B minus maybe in yeah, in this world series, but we'll see, we'll see.

Maybe.

You know, I bink a bracelet in the last two days and I'm like, just kidding.

No, Actually, I wouldn't change my rating because you know, the the B minus isn't for results only, it's for kind of overall play, et cetera.

And I definitely, you know, I think I've played well in some of it.

I think I made some mistakes in some events, like there's you know, there's a lot going on, there's a lot to learn, and there's always room to improve.

So I think that that's a reasonable reasonable grade for myself.

How about you, Nate, I'll give myself a B plus as far as how I played.

So, I think I've become like pretty adept to exploitive things.

Picking up on vibes tells just general exploited to play to beat those players.

I focus less on hanging around with elite players, and I think those spots were more tricky.

I'm kind of in this like weird spot mixed games are I think it's not Texas no limit hold them basically right, and like for the first time in some period I put more study into those mixed games.

It also bricked all my events where you often face like much tougher field.

So it's probably the World Series that like was very much at the median of like what you could reasonably expect, right, And the thing is, like, so I wound up.

I think when I tell it up, I'm going to have lost a little bit of money despite cashing the main event and when they've have been after that for like a combined sixty two thousand or whatever, Right, but fifty thousand offsets a lot of ten K buy ins.

I bought in twice to this win ten k and to various mixed games ten k's right, And then so yeah, even then you're like, I think a little bit down for the tournament.

Like I said, I'll do the math, but like, but that's kind of like I think you are allowed to look at signs of successful play that like aren't necessarily just how much you increase your hand in mob Hendon is the encyclopedia of everybody's poker results, right, Like, you know, if you're in the mix, as I call it, right, you're building a big stacks early, You're lasting a long time.

You're part of the story of the tournament.

You're attracting some maybe media attention from your friends.

You have some fun hands that you can play and talk about later.

Like if you're in the mix constantly, then that feels to me like airing towards the side of a more successful World Series, even if you do run Jackson King sometimes or lose, flips, bad meats, et cetera sometimes.

Yep.

I think I think that that is all correct.

I'm also down for the series, not nearly as down as I was last year.

As you know, last year I was down.

I was six figures.

That is not true now.

And like I said, a few events left and as everyone knows and every winning player knows, like it is all the big scores, right, like that's what matters.

That's that's what actually will make the difference.

So we'll see and we can check back in next week.

But I just want to give a big shout out.

By the time you guys hear this, there will be a winner.

But we have the first woman in over thirty years at the final table of the World Series main event, Leo maud Gets from Spain.

She's lovely.

I've known her for a number of years and she's very easy to root for and a great player.

And I just want to give a shout out to a pretty historic moment for the World Series.

I think I think that that's really great, and it's just it's a crazy final table, right, the number of players who are incredibly well known players and good players, it is just astounding.

Kenny Hallard, who's one of my fellow ambassadors from Poker Stars, this is his second World Series of Poker final table got Mike Mazraki the Grinder, who is a legend, won the fifty k Players Championship four times, including this year.

Adam Hendrix, you know, really nice guy, really solid player.

So you know, we a lot of people to root for and everyone I was anti sweating, and anti sweating is very fun.

It's people you really don't want to win.

But I'm very glad that all of my anti sweats are out of the main event.

Yeah, Adam Hendrix is when I play against the most most nice guy, very good player, talking about someone who's always in the mix, right, he just always somebody who seems to have have a lot of chips.

You know, it seems to me like I mean, there are a few pure amateurs or predominantly amateurs left.

Right, It does seem to me as though you are seeing fewer true blue amateurs when bracelets or reach very long into the World Series main event, right, like, there were a lot of big names at various stages of the top one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, et cetera, as compared to in years past.

I think, you know, I think that means that, like I think the games are getting tougher.

At the same time, if you are I don't need call Marie and I kind of quasi professional, like you do have more resources to study from than ever before.

But like everything else, right, it's becoming like it's becoming more about who's putting in, putting in the hours, putting in, putting in the work, and back.

To me, because this is all about me speaking of fish and you know, putting in hours, et cetera.

I have a cautionary tale from this week's World Series from from my play.

Yeah, and this is something that we can that we can all learn from, whether you play poker or not.

You know, Nate, I've written about this a lot.

How you know, I really into focus and multitasking bad right, and I went against that.

And I was multi tabling two online bracelet events on Sunday when there were two online bracelet events going on, the three K high Roller and the Mystery Bounty.

And I was one of the chip leaders in the three K high Roller with over eighty big lines.

I was in seventh place, and I had eleven big lines in the Mystery Bounty.

And I went all in in the Mystery Bounty with a six OFFT suit and then realized that I had misclicked and went all in in the three K high Roller with the a six OFFT suit and not the Mystery Bounty.

And I was and I was called by Pocket Aces and that was the only stack at my table I actually covered me.

I had eighty big lines.

I had eighty biglines.

The Pocket Aces had eighty six big lines.

We were two of the biggest stacks in the tournament.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you absolutely torched three thousand dollars on fire.

I just I've never done that before.

It has never happened to me.

And I was just I was mortified.

I was like, oh my god, how did I do that?

And then I also imagined the person tagging my profile right online, I'm being like donkey fish like shoves eighty big lines over and open with a six opsuit.

The funny thing is that would have actually gotten through like ninety nine percent of the time.

This person just happened to have pocket aces.

But yeah, so so that was a major mis click.

Don't multitask people, It's not a good idea.

No.

Look.

One thing you notice is that as you get deeper in these events and you and maybe deeper in the series, people are more fatigued.

Right, You notice more puns like avoiding a pun?

Did do you think that was a punt?

A certain type of punt.

It's a point caused by fatigue or inattendants.

I suppose right.

The windows had changed places that in my defense, so so they.

Use like the wrunk place or something or like I barely should But.

No, I don't.

I don't you can change I don't even know how to do that.

I think you can change the felt of all your tables, but I don't know if you can change the felt of just one.

Yeah, I like if I when I have barely been playing online anymore.

When I do, I will use different colors.

Give me visual cues.

But yeah, look, I think and I've misclicked in real life too, you know, put out the wrong chip and and things like that.

I think only I had like one or two of those and four or five weeks this year, which is for me pretty good, right.

But no, I mean, I know I went on of the main event and a blaze a glory, I triple blarow, bluffed with the combo draw.

I think it was a good play.

But you know, and even if you make a misclick, I think you have to be kind of like butterfly effect as a term pocket players for some people use for like, everything in the event's different from the time that you play a hand.

The cards are shuffled differently, you give them back the dealer differently, right, the random number seat is different online and so like, well, for sure, I think I think people make.

There are lots of Yeah, there are lots of butterfly effects.

You know.

Yesterday during the World Poker Tour event that I was playing, there was one hand where I ended up folding a big combo draw on the flop.

After there was you know, a bed and a reraise, and I you know, I just determined that you know, there's no way I'm good and I'm so basically, I ended up folding and had I just called, which I was very close to calling, you know the pod odds we were there, but I just I ended up folding.

It was a big multi way pot and I actually hit it on the turn, but I had folded my hand, and I would have knocked out this incredibly aggressive player who then went on to build a huge stack.

And it's so funny because I was just thinking back to that hand.

I didn't make a mistake, and you can't think that way, right, Like, if you made the correct fold, it's okay if you hit it, Like, you can't think that way.

But I was like, huh, I was actually thinking about the butterfly effect and kind of downstream effects.

I was like, had I called right, this guy would not have knocked out all these other players, and so many other people's tournaments would have been very, very different from that one hand.

And I mean that's true of so many decisions in life obviously, but in poker you can actually track them.

So it's kind of funny, right in poker, you can track, like, had this hand played out differently, you know, all of these other things happen, and I think that that's just a good to remember and also good not to dwell on, right, Like, yeah, you know, that's life and that's the nature of randomness.

So yeah, Nate, we can wrap up the World Series, and we'll wrap up next week after I actually finish and we know who the main event winner is.

Let's take a break and then switch gears and talk about something a little bit more serious.

So, Nate, the last few weeks, there's a name that's never really gone away, but has been a little bit less in the air and suddenly is back in the spotlight.

Jeffrey Epstein.

Jeffrey Epstein.

We thought, we thought we were done.

We thought we were done, and we were not done.

There was a member of the New York State Assembly named Harvey Epstein who was running in my legislative district.

That's a little bit of the most talked of fortunate.

Okay, so you know, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide.

I'm going to put it in quote because we're going to be talking about conspiracy theories, so I'm going to put it in in quotation marks.

But this is a conspiracy theory that actually a lot of people believe in he committed suicide in prison while awaiting trial on various charges of sex trafficking, et cetera, et cetera.

His co conspirator, Gislen Maxwell, is serving a prison sentence currently, I think twenty years.

But the Epstein files, right, the files that all of this was built on, clients, video footage, et cetera, et cetera.

There's been talk that this exists, right, that there's like this treasure trove of data that's been kept secret.

And one of the things that Donald Trump said is, We're going to bring all these people to justice.

We are going to kind of bring the Epstein files to the light.

We're going to share all of this.

And then all of a sudden, no, there are no there's no there are no client lists, there's nothing there.

We should forget Jeffrey Epstein.

No one cares about him, nothing's going to be released, and so the statement's completely changed, and so conspiracy theories are in the air and people think that there's some massive cover up, and this is one of those moments.

And these moments are incredibly rare.

Inn You and I have talked about this before, where there seem to be you know, Trump's supporters who are saying, wait, wait, wait a second, what the hell?

Right, we were promised names and justice for these people who have committed sex crimes against children, right, what's going on now?

Why are you telling us that there are no names?

And so this is one of those rare moments where people seem to not be happy on the Republican side as well as on the Democratic side.

Yeah, what's a conspiracy theory, Maria in your opinion, Well.

There are plenty of conspiracy theories in here.

I mean, one of the biggest ones is that, obviously, as Elon Musk alleged after his falling out with Trump before his reconciliation with Trump.

Although now I think they've fallen out again.

I can't.

I can't keep it straining.

They're in, they're out, they're in, they're out.

But I think they're out right now.

But Elon Musk alleged Trump's name is in the files, and not in a good way, because let's uh, let's just caveat this for a second.

So if your name is in quote unquote the Epstein files, that doesn't actually mean that you're implicated, right, The Epstein files is just to catch all name for all of the evidence trial transcripts, et cetera, et cetera.

So you might have been deposed, right, you might have been giving a statement, you might have been There's there are a lot of ways your name can end up in the Epstein files.

But what Elon Musk suggested alleged was that was tied up in it in not in a deposition way, but in a much more direct way.

And so the biggest conspiracy theory might be that, you know, Donald Trump does not want these files released because they implicate him.

Right, So that's I think the biggest conspiracy theory Trump and other people who are high up in the government.

I mean, you know, I I'm not sure I love the term conspiracy theory.

It's like a kind of cousin of misinformation, which is the term I don't like necessarily and part because like some conspiracy theories like later proved to be true or plausible, right, I mean, the Lablique thesis of Covied origins is not generally accepted as the truth.

It's generally accepted though now by the scientific community in most governments, is a plausible you know, fifty to fifty or something theory, Right, Things like the Tuskegee experiment or lower stakes more recent like you know Hunter Biden's laptop.

There's lots of stuff that gets labeled this way, and like, why wouldn't why shouldn't you be a little suspicious of whether Epstein really killed himselves?

Right?

Oh?

No, I mean that one for sure, that one I actually am suspicious off as well.

I think that a lot of things get labeled conspiracy theory.

I think conspiracy theory is an incredibly useful term, but it can't get thrown around on things that it doesn't actually fit.

This is the same argument I make with con artists when people are like, oh, this is a con artist.

That's a con artist.

I'm like, no, you need to be specific in what a con artist is, right.

A con artist is an incredibly specific term, and you can't start labeling all people con artists that you disagree with or that you think our salesmen are, you know, doing something that you think is a little bit icky, because at that point, con artist stops meaning anything.

And I think that's the same is true of conspiracy theory.

Nate, Have I told you my favorite conspiracy theory joke about the jfk assassination, Someone.

About God or yeah, go tell tell to the audience.

Yeah, okay, So you know, this guy dies and he's kind of been an his entire life.

He's been obsessed with the jfk assassination and that's kind of his He just wants to know.

He's been digging and digging and digging.

And he gets to Heaven and he's at the pearly gates and God says, you know, you have one question, and I promise to answer it truthfully anything in the world that you want to know.

And he says, okay, yes, I know exactly what I want to ask.

Who killed Kennedy?

And God says, you know, it was Lee Harvey Oswald.

He was acting by himself, there were no co conspirators.

And the guy says, oh man, this thing goes further up than I thought.

I've always loved that.

Yeah, look, I mean it's that joke just absolutely encapsulates the way that conspiracy theorists' minds work that no matter what evidence you present, no matter kind of what you show them, once they believe something, they will go to the end of the world to prove that that's true.

And you can't bring them out of that conspiratorial frame of mind.

So that's the distinction, right, where with something like the COVID labliku.

By the way, you know, people were trying to discredit that theory and make it seem like a conspiracy theory, but you know, as evidence mounted up, it became less and less plausible to do that.

So you know, you have people on both sides of that, including people who said it was definitely not a lablak who did change their minds.

So that's kind of a little bit you know, I think a little bit of a nuanced difference between before.

And some of them initially thought it was a lableak and then changed their mind and then changed their back, right.

I mean, you know, this is a case where it's like, Okay, what evidence do you have of like people conspiring to manipulate the evidentiary record.

In that case, there was actually lots of like foid documents and things like that that seemed to involve discourse.

It was like not very scientific.

Yeah, I think one thing you have to like think about is like who are the alleged co conspirators and how plausible is it that like that they're all working in cahoots with what you're.

Right, absolutely absolutely.

I think I think that when you're looking at conspiracy theories, one of the questions you have to ask, and this is something that I think we talk about a lot on the show, is incentives.

Right, what are the incentives here?

Who has the incentive to kind of cover this up?

Is?

Is it plausible?

Right?

And why?

Right?

So, in the case of something like the COVID lovel Yeah, the incentive structure was bad, and it was so that makes it much more likely.

In the case of a JFK assassination, No, I mean, I'm sorry, Like, the incentive structure was very different, right, it was the assassination of a president.

Like, everyone's incentives are aligned to try to figure out what the hell happened.

So, you know, those are two incredibly different situations.

Now, in the case of something like Jeffrey Epstein the Epstein Files, it can get money, right, because it's become clear that a lot of incredibly powerful people were involved for years in what in Epstein's antics.

I mean, I've never really thought much about the Jeffrey Epstein story until this Trump angle, I guess, right.

I mean, look, I do think on a basic level, when like when people promised to reveal information and then a very circumspect about it later.

Then that's a very reasonable plug.

You know, if a guy my age wearing a hat probably not that much underneath.

Right, it's not a conspiracy theory.

It's like inference, human inference that normal people would make.

Yeah, And I mean it's like.

By the way, we do have evidence.

But with Jeffrey Epstein that he there was tons of evidence against him, and very powerful forces blocked it from coming to trial many many times until it finally did in twenty nineteen.

Right, there were a lot of attempts to prosecute him, a lot of attempts to bring him to justice, and they never went anywhere.

So we know that there were a lot of very powerful forces on his side for a very very long time.

So that's more evidence, just like your hat night.

And I guess as I've gotten like older and a bit wealthier, like I do think that, like you know, powerful people, the circles are kind of small, I mean, extremely powerful people, right, the circles are kind of small.

They kind of all know one another.

Right.

They can be kind of high on their own supply or unscrupulous in different ways, I think, Right, like, yeah, I don't know, and you as to see when they fail, right, Like in New York, we have a lot of rich people who are very unhappy as a Roun Mamdanni who won the primary, and are very unhappy that like all the alternatives to him suck and have been rejected by voters, and they are powerless.

It's kind of fun to watch it, Like, no, there's not really any toil.

Let's get a right in on the ballot.

You can't really get people off the ballot, but yeah, it's funny when the perfectable can't control everything.

Yeah, no, I mean with this specific administration, given how much information manipulation has to in place.

I always you know, I hate like because I'm so against conspiracy theory like thinking, and I think it's such a pernicious kind of way that our minds work because people are very susceptible, and some people more than others.

But our minds do get susceptible to kind of conspiracy theory like thinking, because there's a lot of things going on cognitively, right, Like the human brain loves to see patterns, right, and loves to find patterns where patterns don't exist.

You know, it's something that like we always do, or patterns seeking animals, and that manifests themself in all sorts of ways.

We like cause and effect, right, we don't like uncertainty.

We like to tell stories.

So there are all of these things that predispose us to kind of falling for conspiracy's cognitive dissonance.

You know.

That's kind of one of the original, kind of original theories that explains a lot of conspiracy thinking with Leon Festinger back in nineteen fifty.

Now, I'm sure you know this very famous story, right, the Alien cult the Seekers.

There was a woman, Dorothy Martin, who communicated with alien civilizations, and she had a date that you know, aliens were going to come and take all of these faithful people with her.

That everyone believed her.

You know, there was this big cult.

The day came and went and there were no aliens, and then she's like, oh, you know, we got the dates wrong in this rod and the cult didn't fall apart, right, They still believed her, right, They were like, oh, okay, you know she's not lying.

She really does communicate.

It was just other stuff and you explain everything away.

And that was kind of one of the original manifestations that was studied in a serious way about how the human brain is just capable of just dismissing everything right and just telling its own story.

So this is all kind of a big aside to say that I am very much against.

As soon as something is like a conspiracy theory, I want to try to debunk it, right.

But then sometimes you find yourself being like, Okay, well this is what we were talking about, Like with the COVID LABLA immediately I was like, no, this seems actually like it might be plausible, right, Like even back then, I was like, why are we dismissing this right away?

We have no evidence.

There's so much uncertainty, there's so much unknown, there's so much ambiguity.

How can you know for sure it was one or the other?

Right?

You need to as a scientist, you need to entertain all the possibilities before you get more evidence.

And with the Epstein files, like I actually have the same feeling like wait, like why are we dismissing it one way or the other?

Like we need more evidence, we need to know what's going on.

And if you look at the incentive structures, like I don't know, the incentive structures are all out of whack here.

Right, Maybe there's nothing there, but maybe there is, And we can't just dismiss it.

We can't just say it's a conspiracy theory.

Like it's one of these things where there is this cloud of uncertainty and ambiguity that hampers accurate decision making, accurate decision assessment.

And those are the moments where we need to be careful and entertain all sides and not dismiss anyone as conspiracy theorists as much as I hate to say it.

Yeah, I take an even more obvious example.

You know, there was a conspiracy I'll use that term among senior White House officials to cover up Joe Biden's cognitive decline.

Right, And you would be called lots of names if you kind of pointed that out.

And there's an example of where it was a very small circle, right, I mean, like sometimes the signs of this are like pretty obvious, right, Like, it seems like there's got to be some politically inconvenient angle for Trump somewhere in the Epstein vials, right, don't know if it's him, or when it's associates, or if it's minor or super major or whatever else.

Right, But like that's the not just the reasonable for, but the correct probabilistic inference from from something like that happening.

Yeah, so I think given how all of a sudden, you know, the total about face that we have from the administration, that's just like one eighty.

And this administration pulls one eighties all the time right on very stupid things.

So in and of itself, it's kind of meaningless, but there is a signal in there as well, because every time they pull a one eighty, it's for politically expedient purposes.

Right, So when they pull one eighties on tariffs, when they pull one eighties on immigration or whatever it is, it's always because of some politically expedient reason.

And so what the easiest explanation here is that there's another politically expedient reason why they all of a sudden say that there's no information, there's nothing to be had, there's nothing to be gained, and let's move on, and nobody cares about Epstein.

So political expedience is always and what's good for Trump, right, what's good for number one is always the top reason.

And we've seen that his entire administration is very happy to go along with whatever that is.

There's a three percent chance that Jeffrey Epstein is found alive this year by deciding first coordinated polymarket Polymarke, are you taking me under or the over?

I'm taking the under on that about a little one percent taking me under on that.

Although I did just you know, I'm still in Vegas.

I did just see Elvis on the streets.

So okay, you know, so you never know, people come back.

From the dad all the time.

By the way, I'm a paid advisor to Polly Market, you know, like the where they mentioned like the health symptoms like really fast, Like I'm a Polly Market.

It's just like compress that in.

We should compress that in for all future episodes.

But I do.

I do, uh work with them and receive income for that.

Who's the comedian who people say isn't dead.

I don't remember Andy Kaufman.

Andy Kaufen Yah, yeah.

Yeah, Andy Kaufman.

Yeap, Yes, that is correct.

There are lots of people, you know, Jimmy Hoffa might pop up at any moment, although I think Jimmy hoff is probably on the bottom of Lake Mead or in the desert somewhere.

But yeah, there are lots of people who might come back to life, but conspiracy theories, you know, they're they're here to stay, were incredibly susceptible to them.

In general, we hear on Risky Business, do not endorse conspiracy theory like thinking, but you need to learn how to separate things that you know are actual conspiracy theories from people voicing opinions that could be labeled conspiracy theories because someone thinks it's inconvenient and it's a nuanced distinction, and it's very difficult to make it accurately because some people would say, well, you know jfk assassination, people are incentivized against me.

Well, no, like you, you really do need to look at the actual incentives and try to be a little bit more rational about that to try to make those determinations.

People will use the phrase like no evidence, right, and that can be a loaded phrase.

Right.

No evidence often means no proof.

But in many of these mysteries, nothing is firmly proven, Like you know, on the COVID origins, nothing's been firmly proven for example, right, and so like, So take on different valances when it's a liberal or conservative cause.

What can be frustrating with certain types of stories.

It's like, you know, who do I really trust to report on like the Epstein case.

I'm not quite I'm not quite sure.

I'm not I'm not sure.

If I devoided to vote a week, if I decide to like become semi obsessed with the Epstein case, I don't know what I conclude.

Right.

It's one of those things that like you almost have to turn up the news coverage because it's like, Okay, do I want to go down a rabbit hole here and like whose claims are trustworthy?

And who's a grifter and and who's not?

And that can be that can be difficult.

Let's take a quick break, and when we return, how will the Epstein rift affect Trump's coalition?

Look, I think the political implications are interesting.

It's maybe the closest we've gotten to like for the MAGA base where this is an issue where I mean Trump campaigned at various times on opening up the Epstein files, right, and like, so you actually see in the MAGA world, or at least according to these people who interact with it more than I do, you actually do see some descent.

Trump got ratio that means a negative response on his own social media platform, like truth social and so it's interesting, right, It's interesting.

It's a popcorn kind of sitting on the sideline story for me.

Yeah, so I'm actually, I'm actually this is something that we haven't talked about yet.

But I'm curious about your thoughts on potential since this is like a popcorn story.

Do you think it's a popcorn story for Trump's base or do you think it might have some more lasting impact.

So at the beginning, I kind of implied that a lot of Trump supporters are not happy right with this, about with this particular about face, right that they were promised that, you know, there'd be justice and the Epstein files, and now they're told no Epstein files, and they're like, what's going on?

You know, we want these child sex criminals brought to justice.

We've seen you know, a lot of quote unquote rifts in Trump's base that then disappear because then they're like, no, no, okay, fine, we love we love Donald Trump and everything's going to be fine.

Do you think that this one has potential to be more lasting or do you think it's also going to be a blip and then all of the Trump supporters are going to recoalesce and forget all about it and move on.

Because, as we've already talked about many many times on the show, memory short and people love Trump.

One thing I not is like the incentives are a little bit different now that Trump no longer has anything to run for.

This is, unless he's trying to violent the constitution.

I guess could run for any non president office.

It could become, you know, mayor of New York, mayor primaries or un or whatever.

Right, I sh wouldn't be a primary, most.

Likely mayor of New York.

No, no, no, no, uh.

It could be a win win, right, Maybe you get him out of the presidency.

Maybe Bill Lackman's like, I know a guy, He's a smart businessman, right, politically moderate, you know, well known celebrity entrepreneur, right real estate magnate.

Donald Trump writing campaign for mayor of New York.

Sorry, what which question, Maria?

No, look gonna how's this gonna work out for?

Do we think that this is actually going to have any sort of lasting impact on the Trump based on his coalitionhow?

Yeah?

Looky?

Is it gonna fizzle out?

Again?

I think it could be a little self for as Trump gets more unpopular and gets further removed from the election and does have another election.

I think you could see like people on the right more willing to challenge him potentially, Right, they got their big beautiful bill pass, a lot of us being done through executive order.

Otherwise, like not like there's that much good to go on through Congress if his siplitical standing is is damaged or I don't know, I'm not like one of these like right wing group check whisper types exactly.

It seems just in the news coverage that like that you are seeing rifts that you haven't seen before.

It does seem that way, And I'm actually I'm going to be very curious to watch this because one of the phenomena that we've talked about and that we've observed many times here is that so far there has been nothing lasting right.

So far, there have been no rifts that have actually become rifts in that kind of maga core coalition.

Right.

We've seen we've seen moments where we're like, oh, like are people going to turn against Trump for this?

Oh, are they going to turn against Trump for this?

And it hasn't happened.

Right, They've kind of forgotten and they've told the story in different ways cognitive dissonance dissonance reduction at its best.

You know, the aliens are still coming.

It's just the date has changed.

But it does like right now, at least in this stage of the news cycle.

And it's so you know, it's so tough to know how this will play out long term, but it does seem like this might be like it might be building up right, And maybe that's just wishful thinking.

I have no idea, but I'm very, very curious to see how it will turn out and whether this is a breaking point or not.

You know, I would I would probably take the or not side of that bet, just because that's the way that you know, historically it's it's played out.

I think that you know, in a few weeks we'll look back at the segment and laugh and say, yeah, of course, everyone's forgotten all about it.

But as of now, it seems like there is at least a non ero chance that this might have some lasting coalition changes, especially as other people might start rising up to try to not challenge Trump but establish themselves as people who might kind of be party leaders going forward.

As we get deeper into the presidency, closer to the midterm elections closer to other incentives that might matter to the electorate.

Right, I think I've thought enough about Jeffrey Episteine for your day.

You want to call the show, Let's do it.

Thanks everyone for following along.

Good luck everyone.

Like the world series of Poker of this podcast is ending, not permanently this episode, yes, just for the week, just for the week.

Yeah, let us know what you think of the show.

Reach out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot fm.

And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you that's coming up right after the credits.

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Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova.

And by me Nate Silver.

The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.

This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter.

Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwit.

Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob gold.

Scene mixing by Sarah Bruguer.

Thanks so much for tuning in mm HM