Hello, I'm Caitlin and this is my January surprise.
Oh, oh no.
January surprise has a different ring than the October surprise.
And I'm Zach.
Spoiler alert.
And I'm back ready to attack, ready to lack in my content delivered to you in your ears.
Oh, self deprecating.
Welcome.
Kick it off.
That's how we gotta go.
Welcome to Manipulating the Masses Season 3.
Alright, we're back.
Season 3.
It's been a minute.
Zach and I had to take care of the company for a little bit.
As you know, we do run a marketing agency on the side.
It's our side hobby.
Podcasting is our number one.
So we're back with season 3 and I asked Zach why he decided to call this season 3.
And he told me that every 10 episodes is a season.
So I needed to relay that to my audience because not even I knew that.
So season 3.
Zach, what are we going to be talking about on season 3?
Oh, Caitlin.
Yeah.
And I went Game of Thrones style.
Game of Thrones had 10 episodes every season.
So I'm following the Game of Thrones model just to clarify.
But also, so we've been talking a lot about what we want to do this new season.
And you know, post midterm elections, ramping up many, well, one candidate has already declared for the 2024 election.
And so we thought it'd be a great opportunity for us to take our marketing know-how and our marketing ideas and translate that to the audience to give you guys the tools to understand when candidates on both sides.
This is a very centralized approach to it, but candidates on both sides are going to try to manipulate you ramping up to the 2024 election.
If you can see it, if you can see the tactics they're using, maybe we can make just an informed decision rather than one that's pulling on our emotional strings to get us to act in ways against our own interest.
And we're going to be diplomatic throughout this season and represent both the Republican side and the Democratic side equally.
We're going to try to be real journalists without an opinion.
But do our best.
So now, let me get into the podcast that I researched through Wikipedia.
I love it.
Okay, well, great. I think that's all we need to say about season three, right?
Yeah, let's get into it.
Let's get into it.
So this episode, we're going to, oh, also I want to mention I have a new microphone, so I feel extra sultry this season.
I feel like a real podcaster.
Yeah, yeah, even like noticed it in my presence here. I'm like wearing headphones. I'm like very close to the mic.
I'm feeling like a real podcaster.
Zach, you got like a subtle whisper to your voice to you with the mic.
I know, I can't help it.
It's like, it's like, it's like you're just telling me a bedtime story about that.
And I love it.
Like, I want more of it.
Yeah.
I realize like my husband says this about me, I have an inflection in my voice. So I get overly excited about things and I tend to just yell at people.
And I realized that I do that a lot in the podcast.
But and some of our fired up some of our IG Instagram reels.
I have to preface. I'm not yelling at you. We are yelling together. So.
Yeah, we're yelling as one as one.
Cool. So today we're going to be talking about the October surprise.
In short, the October surprise is a political news story that comes onto the scene shortly before election day and its primary purpose is to sway votes.
Whether this is by accident, or whether this is purposely planted is something that we will get into.
And Zach has been doing a lot of research on kind of the psychological effects of campaigning.
So I want to ask you to just kind of jump in where you see fit when I go through the history of all the October surprises that we've seen in the past.
Oh, you got it.
Not that you needed permission to do that. You were going to do that anyways, but now I'm like granting it to you.
I love it. And I'm excited because I know I mean there was a big October surprise in 2016 right and then but I don't know the other ones.
So I'm excited from what you got on all of these October surprises.
Okay, cool.
So the October surprise was coined by William Casey when he served as campaign manager of Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign.
Fun fact Casey did go on to become the director of the CIA under Reagan that has nothing to do with what I previously said but just fun fact.
Well, he went from campaign manager to director of the CIA.
Talk about networking.
Networking that's what you get when you meet powerful people.
Even though he was the first to coin it there are plenty of examples of this October surprise dating back to 1840.
Whoa.
I know. I know. Can you even imagine the scandals in the 1800s?
Like what what do you think they would be about because now they're so insane in the 1840s it would be like he stole a jug of milk from the local farmer.
Yeah, or I mean I do know like Jefferson and what was the guy that hated him Madison like back in the day.
I think it was Madison don't quote me but they they would like write about each other in the papers and just claim that they had mistresses all over and children out of wedlock.
So I mean it's come a long way but it really hasn't come out.
No, it's always about the mistress.
And the children remember save the children.
Save the children.
So let's get into it.
I'm going to take you down every single October surprise in existence.
I'm so excited.
I know I love the scandal and usually it's a celebrity scandal.
So now this is why I'm into politics because there is just as many scandals.
So shortly before the 1840 presidential election, federal prosecutors announced plans to charge the top wig party officials.
Pause there.
Do we know what the way party is?
You probably with an H. Yeah, yeah.
The wig.
Quick.
I had for I've heard the wig party but I obviously have forgotten about them they were dissolved.
But they kind of eventually kind of became the Republican Party.
So that's that I figured people should know that.
So they charged federal prosecutors charge the top wig party officials with the most stupendous and atrocious fraud because they claimed that they were paying Pennsylvania.
Sorry, paying Pennsylvanians to cross state lines and vote for wig candidates in New York during the 38 elections.
Isn't that funny?
How are Republicans always at the center of voter fraud?
Yeah, I was I'm like flabbergasted.
Like I didn't know that but how how it just history repeats itself.
History repeats itself.
Well, there's a great.
Mark Twain quote that I love that says history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes.
And I think that's so clever.
And this is an example of that right like they're like literally they were saying they paid people to cross the border.
Now they're saying that they bust people like in this different cities to vote and across state lines like it doesn't or the mail in ballots people are dropping multiple mail in ballots, which okay.
Interesting.
So, moving on.
In the year 1836, a new story came out that the James K. Polk who was the 11th president had his slaves branded.
A lot of these stories are going to kind of be like a one liner very much like this.
No, I yeah.
There's not a lot of grounds to these these are just known as the years October surprise.
But I will pause you there because like that's the tactic right we'll get into that but there isn't a lot of meat to these allegations.
It's just the timing of these allegations that are important.
Moving into 1880 shortly before those 1880 presidential elections, a forged letter was published purportedly written by James a Garfield voicing support for Chinese immigration to the United States at the time most white Americans opposed Chinese immigration.
All right, in the week leading up to the 1884 presidential election, Republican nominee, James Blaine attended a meeting in which Presbyterian preacher claims that the Democrats were the party of the rum Romanism and rebellion and Romanism I guess is just a slang for
Catholic Romans, which oh okay. Yeah, exactly. Am I feeling so um rum Romanism and rebellion. Yeah, sounds like a party to me.
Yeah, I was like that. That's a great tagline.
Um, then we're getting into the 1888 US presidential election the Republicans published a letter by Lionel Sackville West who was the British ambassador.
The ambassador suggested that Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland was preferred as president from the British point of view. So that actually caused all the Irish American voters to vote against him and and pushed them into the Republican fold and actually Cleveland lost the presidency this year, or that year.
Yes. Okay, so now we're getting in the 1920s finally we can recognize some people. So 1920 presidential election rumors circulated that Warren G. Harding was of African American descent and Harding campaign.
What.
And then Harding's campaign feared that the rumor would affect his popularity amongst white Southerners. So his campaign made it a point to prove Harding's whiteness. And I found this one so funny that I tried to look up what this campaign entailed and there's like nowhere on the internet at least nowhere that I found that actually had this
They scrubbed it. They scrubbed it. Well, is that or like, were they really proving Harding whiteness I don't I don't know it's like pretty ludicrous. But while I was doing this research, another headline came up that tagged Warren G. Harding as America's horniest president.
I've heard that one. Have you. So I think that is coming up on my radar. The next podcast is, I need to know a list of America's horniest presidents and who came up with this.
So I need to get into that. Well, sexiest magazine. Yeah, we'll drop some some content around our ranking of the horniest presidents. Bill Clinton's got to be up there. Oh, it's gotta be up there.
I mean, can we just say it. Can we just actually, I really want to backtrack from this because I just paused and thought about like the horniest presidents and like this is not a road I want to go down.
Like, let's not do that. Right. Like, I was trying to name the horniest president in my in my list and I was like, no, I'm not going to do this. So maybe.
I think it would be an interesting road to go down presidential taglines or presidential campaign ideas. Because I would love to know, I would love to dig into Harding's whiteness campaign.
Harding is very white by the way. Like there's no ethnic disparities in the way he looks. He's like, he's like, yeah, he's like Salty and Cracker white and I don't understand how people this is the thing with the October surprises.
They're just like, yeah, he's of African descent. Right. There's like nothing to it. No, it's just like it gets out in this public atmosphere and there's not enough time between when this allegation comes out to win the vote is for people to really dissect it and think about it, which is great marketing tactic.
Well, and it's funny that he felt that there were enough grounds to actually build a counter campaign that proved that no, I'm white. I am full blown white people.
That's the insanity of politics. So less than a month. Okay, so moving on, we talked about 1920. Now we're going to talk about 1940 less than a month before the 1940 presidential election. President Roosevelt's press secretary need a black officer in the groin outside of Madison score garden.
That was that October surprise. The Suez crisis and Hungarian Revolution have both been described as October surprises during the 1956 presidential election.
October 7 1964, just under a month before the presidential elections. One of President Johnson's top aids, Walter Jenkins was arrested for disorderly contact with another man at the Washington DC, why am I a place described as a gathering place of homosexuals.
Oh my God, how dare you know now the village people song starts to make a lot of sense to me if it was a YMCA is just Americans version of a Turkish Turkish bathhouse maybe is how in the sixties they saw it is a bathhouse.
YMCA equals bathhouse.
With a recreational area.
On October 26 1972 12 days before the election on November 7, the United States chief negotiator and presidential national security advisor Henry Kissinger, which we have brought him up before in our podcast. Do you remember.
We were talking about it wasn't the Vietnam War, was it? No.
Elizabeth Holmes, when she created their nose.
She got all of these people on her board of advisors and one of them was Kissinger, and she got all of these, like political advisors on her.
There are no board of advisors. So yeah. Sorry, I got to 1972 12 days before the election.
Henry Kissinger appeared at a press conference held at the White House and announced that we believe that piece is at hand.
That was in reference to.
Oh, thus officially ending the US involvement in the Vietnam War in the Vietnam War. That's right. That's right. That's right.
I knew I had researched out a little bit more but I just didn't put it in my notes.
So obviously that was meant to sway votes. All right, so now is 1980.
And this is when the term was officially coined by William Casey, who was under Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Reagan and this was actually coined the October surprise conspiracy.
And then Reagan feared that a last minute deal to release American hostages held in Iran might earn current President Jimmy Carter enough votes to win reelection.
So William Casey started going to the press and started warning of this quote October surprise, and Carter using this news to his advantage and then the voters would look at the event as a bullet. Oh, sorry.
And then he started giving this news to his advantage and saying, Hey, look what I did. I released the American hostages in Iran.
And so William Casey's point by going to the news was to tell voters or was to point this out to voters so they would then look at the event as a political poi poi by the Carter campaign to win the election.
So just kind of giving the information back to the voters and letting them decide.
Um, yeah, that's some 3d chess marketing right there being like, I know this good news is coming. I'm going to shift the narrative prior to it and taking the like that some totally 3d chess marketing.
And then it gets even more involved. David Rockefeller was the chairman of Chase Bank and quote collaborated closely with the Reagan campaign to spread rumors about a possible payoff to win the release of the Iranian American hostages.
And then I ran to release the hostages right before the election. So then David Rockefeller, along with the Reagan campaign, a party started talking about this possible payoff and a propaganda effort that the Carter administration officially have said
talks to free the kids. Sorry, I did not review my notes.
Okay, okay, okay, let me just let me just parse together some of my notes and create a story out of it. Okay.
Rockefeller was the chairman of Chase Bank, who collaborated closely with the Reagan campaign and spread rumors about a possible payoff to win the release of the hostages.
This was a propaganda effort that the Carter administration officials have actually said impeded talks to free the captives so they said it backwards.
An article in the Washington Post in the fall of 1980 about a possible October surprise alleged alleged that the Carter administration was preparing a major military operation and I ran for rescuing us hostages in order to help him get reelected.
So that was an article that got pushed out in Washington Post. And then following that subsequent allegations surfaced against Reagan alleging that his team had actively impeded the hostage release.
A declassified CIA CIA memo from 1980 included that I can't pronounce this name. A tola Comini and other Iranian hardliners. I told I a tola Comini were determined to exploit the hostage issue to bring about President Carter's defeat in the
November election. I just said a lot and I said it very sporadically. Do you want to repeat what I just said? Do you understand what I said?
Essentially. Yeah. So essentially the Iran crisis is going on where there's American hostages based on you know the revolution going on there. It's close. It's happening in October close to Carter's reelection efforts.
Reagan came in and they started to lay the groundwork that this was a political move then partnered with corporations i.e. JD Rockefeller from Chase to give some grounds to that they are going to give money to Iran in order to release these hostages in order to do it before the
election. So Jimmy Carter would have some kind of good news to relay right before the election. So it's almost like a battle of the October surprises. Yes. Right. Carter's like trying to push this right before the election to have something to run on and
Reagan's like countering by sending all these allegations. Right. Which ultimately to your point he defeated Carter in the November elections and Carter lost. Yeah. So I mean but it goes to your point where a lot of
these are very convoluted issues. It goes to your point like it's even hard to describe this stuff. But they put it right at the end because it tugs on your psychological feelings. You feel a certain way about it. But even though you don't fully understand it and that will sway your vote.
Right. I love that you pointed that out because we're going to be talking about fast and slow thinking and how campaigns like pull at that psychologically.
And this is a great example because they'll release this news that people don't fully understand. But you're the but the opponent will just say yeah the email fraud of 2016 release the emails and everyone's like yeah release the
emails and you're like what fucking emails. Why are we so upset about these emails. But all of a sudden there. Yeah.
And then they just play off that. Yes. Okay. Let me let me collect my thoughts read my notes before I say the next action. Good God. You're getting excited about politics. Caitlin I'm excited for you. I'm excited for you.
So after the release of the hostages on January 20 1981 minutes after Reagan's inauguration some charge that the Reagan campaign had made a secret deal with the Iranian government whereby the Iranians would hold the hostages until after Reagan was elected
and inaugurated. So at which might have some likes because they were released literally minutes after he was inaugurated.
And that's the big conspiracy. Yeah. All right. That feels like a good conspiracy. That that shit happens a lot. Nixon did that with the Vietnam War. Like as Lyndon B Johnson was like trying to get rid of it. Nixon like came into the team and was like
no keep it going like just basically through that aside so then Lyndon wouldn't have that to run. Yeah his own stuff like that is.
Yeah. That just makes me sick. So in 1998 days before that we're moving on to a different scandal by the way. Keep up.
In 1998 days before the November 7th election. Thomas Connolly of Scarborough Maine a prominent defense attorney confirmed to reporters that Republican presidential candidate George W Bush had been arrested for drunk driving in the state in 1976
and confirmed the report in a press conference moment at moments after it was revealed.
On October 2nd 2003 we're getting into the ops. The Los Angeles Times released a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger and subsequent allegations that he was a womanizer guilty of multiple acts of sexual misconduct in past decades,
which as we know just American the American public is just not phased by. Don't give a fuck I guess.
At this point. I mean if it's been going on since 1884 that these allegations like we gotta be numb to it as a society by now right.
It wasn't the only embarrassing story about Schwarzenegger to surface just days before the campaign. The next day ABC News and New York Times reported that in 1975 Schwarzenegger had praised Adolf Hitler during interviews for his film pumping iron.
The twin controversies is what they deemed it later led to LA Times column LA Times columnist Steve Lopez to coin the term Gropin for her.
Gropin for her.
I know it was pretty good. So just to break that down obviously to grope so and then he played off a grouping for her for can you say it you said a better than I did for her grouping for her.
Sure. So he called Arnold Schwarzenegger Gropin for her instead of and that was just a play off a grouping for her which is was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party so we love a good pun.
They used to call Hitler the fear right so it's like Gropin fear right like it's okay very well played very well played. I did not know he praised Adolf Hitler.
Allegedly.
Yeah that's exactly right like it even got me that one.
I was like.
Yep don't like that.
All right. On October 29.
The Arabic news agency Al Jazeera aired a video of Osama bin Laden sorry we are moving into 2000. Yeah 2003 still.
Yeah.
The Arabic news agency Al Jazeera aired a video of Osama bin Laden in a speech that justified and took responsibility for the actions of September 11.
Bin Laden called out the Bush administration and the American position in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Quote your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry Bush or Al Qaeda bin Laden claimed quote your security is in your own hands.
And it is believed to have helped President Bush's campaign as it thrust the war on terror back into the public eye.
And people don't know if that was bin Laden's intention or not.
But that was the effect of it.
Yeah.
And it's been claimed that Saudi Prince cut.
I'm not going to print. OK I will pronounce his name Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud.
Cut the price of.
Thank you.
Cut the price of oil to help ensure a Bush victory according to a 60 minute broadcast Prince Bendar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office.
And the British family are close and Woodward told us that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.
I.E. to make sure we're strong to go into war.
Yeah.
Isn't that interesting because obviously the oil prices are definitely a topic of conversation right now with the Biden administration.
I mean guesses as to like what's going to happen in 2024 with oil.
Are we going to see a decrease.
Based off of what we just saw.
Great question.
Yeah.
It's probably not one that either you or I can speculate or even answer without giving totally false information because we are not.
Yeah.
We are marketers.
Yeah.
But all I would say to that is I think the landscape is a little different now because you know with Obama we're now utilizing our own oil production a lot more.
So like we're able to tap into our reserves to keep the price semi reasonable.
You know I think that was the big issue now is like the gas prices at the pumps kept going up because Shell and BP were recording record profits.
Even though we were still producing a lot of our own oil.
Yeah.
It's called Gauge.
There's a little collaboration.
Yeah.
If there's a little collaboration between the gas companies there's not much we can do about that.
So but it does like the price at the pump seems to be an indicator for a lot of people decision making in their election.
Right.
Like who's the politician.
I'm taking the price at the pump as a like key component to that.
You said it.
Isn't that fascinating.
You.
Yes.
I think that's exactly right.
Why are gas prices.
The one thing that just the general American population gets so up in arms about and both Democrats and Republicans can come together and fight gas prices.
Like why is that the one thing that we choose to hang all of our opinions on.
It's got to be something like it's easily like everybody theoretically like I don't own a car so I don't go I don't keep track of the gas prices but like like everybody kind of utilizes it and it's not something that you want.
It's something that you like have to have to drive to work to go like it's it's like something that so everybody can wrap their minds around that price.
And the other thing is like a gallon of milk right like everybody's like what's the price of a gallon of milk because it's so expensive.
It's like a gallon of milk because it's so common people can wrap their minds around it and they feel like it affects them personally.
Yeah.
I buy milk.
I buy gas.
Totally.
It's going to be more expensive.
You know like.
It is the one thing that we.
I think it's a luxury having a car that we don't want to give up and everyone from poverty to billionaires shared this common household thing.
Is owning a car.
Yeah.
And it's a luxury that we don't are not willing to give up but we need gas.
In order to literally fuel it.
So maybe that's why.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I my thoughts trailed off but I just echo what you were saying.
Yeah it's like a common rallying cry.
Yeah.
I think about it when the gas prices were up and there was all these memes of like Joe Biden pointing at the like the stickers you know that they'd slap on there where he's like I did that.
You know and it's pointing at the price of gas like it's just so weird that it's tied to our political.
When in actuality it's like it's OPEC and these shell and BP and all these gas companies that determine the price like there's.
Limited capacity what the leadership and politicians can do.
I don't know.
Normally I would agree with you but we just witnessed that the Saudi prince lowered gas prices to support Bush.
So there could be more of a political sway on gas prices than we think.
Yeah.
Good point.
Righty oh where are we in my in my historical trip down.
You brought us from 1828 all the way to 2003.
I hope you all have enjoyed the ride.
Yeah it's been great.
Okay.
So now we're in 2008 this is where I really become invested because this was I think it was the first year that I could vote actually in a presidential election.
Was it 2008 or was it 2004.
I think it was 2004.
No it would be 2008 for you.
I think it would be.
Oh yeah yeah yeah you're right you're right that was like literally.
Yeah yeah yeah.
It was like one year after I graduated high school yeah.
Yeah yep.
So in 2008 four days before the 2008 presidential election.
The AP press reported that a half aunt.
And then a Democratic candidate Barack Obama was living as an illegal immigrant in Boston. She had been denied asylum and ordered to leave the United States in 2004.
Great.
Then we move on to 2012 Obama versus Romney.
Jesus.
Hurricane Sandy was labeled as that October surprise by some.
And then the Ebola virus epidemic was considered as an October surprise by some.
And then October surprise was labeled as an October surprise.
And then October surprise was labeled as October surprise.
So I think that's what we're going to do.
I feel like this might have been like a slow month in the press.
Because these were both kind of natural disasters.
To some degree.
But yet those were labeled as the October surprise.
But they're being leveraged exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah yeah.
And then you can spin architect but you can spin right like and that's pure marketing.
Right there.
Um.
All right on October 7.
And now we're getting into the 2016 elections right the best.
October surprises.
On October 7 the recording from 2005 was released in which Republican Party nominee Donald Trump using explicit language.
And then he was named.
I'm not even going to say all of this we know we know what this tape was about right.
It's like when you're a star they let you do it.
You can do anything you want to women yada yada yada.
And then so several politicians from both major parties expressed their disapproval over these remarks.
Trump who had been accused of sexism on several occasions before later apologized for these remarks which I do not remember him ever apologizing.
I don't know if I'm going to reflect who I am which I feel like those words were not said by Trump.
Yeah.
Do you have a call.
Yeah he went on Fox News to do it so my it was it was the classic gambit at the beginning of Trump's like rain where like there was two trumps right one where he was going off the cuff and just like talking naturally and the other one where he would just sit and read what somebody else had written for him and just like do it with no
like clearly not meaning it just like saying the words out loud and that was one of those times where it was like clearly somebody had written this apology for him and he just sat there with no energy and just read it because he was supposed to do it.
Gotcha.
We're supposed to be centrist on this but it's hard for me to feel centrist about that moment in our political history.
I just thought of another Obama October surprise I don't know if this was October so maybe this is why I didn't find it in my research but do you remember the Obama scandal.
Do you know which one I'm thinking of that was not previously mentioned.
The one with his pastor.
Yeah.
Oh no I thought you were going to say passport is birth certificate but the birth certificate.
Yeah that was the other one.
I thought of that when you mentioned Warren G. Harding having African descent I was like it was just kind of like shifted a little bit for Obama and being like yeah he's he wears his birth certificate.
Where's the law for birth certificate.
Yeah like it's not much different right.
Yeah maybe they didn't include that because it wasn't in October it was just you know maybe a June surprise.
Yeah just a relentless surprise.
Crazy.
So back to Trump.
The remarks led to many Republicans withdrawing their endorsement from Trump many others who had not previously endorsed him asked him to step aside as the Republican nominee.
The same day Zach the same day.
This is when we get into the email scandal wiki leaks began a two month campaign of releasing emails and excerpts from the account of John Podesta which who was the chief of staff under Clinton.
And they would later become known as the Podesta leaks.
They shed a negative light on Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton and included recordings of excerpts of speeches given by Clinton to a variety of banks.
A debate question being leaked.
Sorry sorry sorry sorry I put the inflection in the right wrong place.
A debate question.
Being leaked to Clinton prior to the debate.
The first one was recorded.
A stance on trade deals different from those purported by Clinton during her campaign, along with her beliefs that it is beneficial to hold both public and private beliefs so these were kind of the initial purge of emails that were released to the public.
Do you have anything to say about the email scandal I mean I go on to talk a little bit more about it.
Yeah I was going to say I'll let you finish because like I yeah it's.
I was going to say it's funny because this is one of those scenarios where this was truly an October surprise right before the election and I was like, actually what is the big deal about these emails like cool she had a private email address
what the fuck like what is like had no clue what it was about and everyone was like release the emails and nobody actually knew what you were asking to release.
So I actually spent a couple, couple minutes, couple minutes of research.
Figuring out what these emails were about.
But what were you going to say.
Well I was going to say I think it the point that you've made so far we're going to get into the emails a little bit but the point that is that wiki leaks started this on the same day.
So now it's evolved to this October surprise has proven very powerful in elections moving forward and we'll talk about why in the next episode but it's now a battle of the October surprises it's evolved to where like Democrats had that tape they had that that bus tape for months right like they didn't get it and release it they held on to that thing until it was the right time to release it.
To release it to the press right right before the election and then Trump's campaign I mean in coordination with Russian wiki leaks blah blah blah we all know that but can I just pause and say that was also the same day.
Yeah.
So now it's like it's like the sex scandal like they both email scandal and Trump is colluding with the Russians to sway our vote on social media.
It's same day like what are we supposed to do with all that information it's too much.
So obviously we pick one that we really want to latch on to mine was personally like Trump is a predator and that's the one I hung on to yours was probably Russian collusion.
The Russia. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was I was like this is fucking nuts that Russia is is successfully influencing.
That's the thing that's why I never fully bought into that because I was like is this actually true like we can't just come out and say yes we're colluding there he's colluding with Russia and then call it a day I was like this is all speculation to a degree.
At the time it was.
At the time.
At the time it was I think a lot has come out since then that kind of verifies that.
You said his campaign.
It does verify it like the Mueller report as much as it wasn't like an indictment of Trump definitely said I mean Paul Manafort his campaign manager went to jail.
He's currently still in jail for selling information to the Russians through like sharing polling data with the Russians like it was definitely it definitely happened.
Maybe not to the degree that the Democrats were saying it happened right and at the end of the day I would argue as well like we made our own decisions in the votes like Russia wasn't there like changing ballot boxes right like it was an influence campaign not a campaign to switch votes right but.
I mean it wasn't literally fraud.
Yeah, no but the influence that social media has over people is is fraud in itself.
Yeah, I think if you utilize it claiming it to be somebody else or you know if you claim to be a heart of Texas Facebook page believing in Texas succession but you're actually some Russian dude in Moscow posting this stuff.
Yeah, that's that's pretty close to fraud I would say in the modern age.
Yes, it wasn't 1840 when the Whig parties were paying Pennsylvanians to crossover state lines to New York and actually submit votes, but Facebook is the equivalent there we made our stand.
Yes, yes, I agree.
Man, rehashing this is like old wounds. So, I'm being centrist Caitlin I'm being centrist. Are you. Okay, we'll give it to you back to the center.
So I did say wiki leaks release the emails also on the same day US intelligence agency publicly accused the Russian government of using computer hacking to interfere with the election process act just made mention of that.
Three weeks later on October 28 getting dangerously close to elections. The FBI director James commie, commie announced in the letter to Congress that he would take appropriate investigative steps to review additional emails related to Hillary Clinton's use of a private
email server. This was announced after newly discovered emails were found on a computer that was seized by the FBI during an investigation of former congressman Anthony Weiner, who had been accused of sending explicit pictures to a minor.
I've heard that name Anthony Weiner before but I actually didn't dig too much into this at the time. I dug into it now. Do you know about Anthony Weiner. Did you. Oh yeah. Did you find his username. Did you did you know I didn't send that much time.
What is part of this whole weeners for weeners. Carlos danger. No Carlos danger was Carlos danger. Carlos danger. Carlos danger.
Send it send it dick pics to a cross Facebook and email like my god. Did he think he was hiding from something or was he like very aware that everybody knew this was him.
Like was this a disguise was Carlos danger of disguise. It was. It was an alias but like people that he was interacting with knew it was him like he would he would oftentimes make these relationships with women off of them like reaching out to his
Facebook page being like I love you for Congress I love like what you're doing and then he would like make that interaction initially.
So, in September 2016 claims were published that weiner had engaged in sexting with a 15 year old girl. This was not the first time that he had been accused of something like this this was just kind of the cap.
And devices owned by weiner were seized as a part of the investigation into this incident so yes weiner had been accused like literally hundreds of other times.
At this point he wasn't even a part he wasn't even a part of the political system anymore.
And this was the incident that led to his computers being seized which led to the email catastrophe of 2016. The report prompted a criminal investigation and weiner's laptop was seized emails that were pertinent to the Hillary Clinton email
controversy were discovered on the laptop. This prompted FBI director James come, comey to reopen that investigation 11 days before the 2016 US presidential election.
And later, Hillary Clinton responded to the decision of the director by calling on the FBI to be fully transparent and to release full and complete facts on what the emails contained.
So she was like, yeah, go ahead, really simple, don't care. On October 30, it was reported that 650,000 emails on weiner's computer were to be investigated potentially being relevant to this particular and other cases.
And the reason that this sole decision, right 11 days into the 11 days prior to the election was the reason that she lost the election to Donald Trump which being apart playing.
What do you think what I was going to say I don't disagree with her. I don't disagree with her. You don't disagree with her. I disagree with just the amount of attention that was put on emails, which led to women hating.
Right, like people now had an excuse to hate Hillary Clinton.
Even though they weren't totally sure of what these emails were about it was just like cool now I have some legs to hate her and I'm going to come out right and say it.
Release the emails. Yeah, I think there's a lot of facets but I do want to add a clarifying question or clarifying point is the reason Anthony Weiner had emails from Hillary Clinton on his computer was because he was married to whom a Abadid who was Hillary Clinton's like
chief of staff chief advisor. So it's like he it was one degree of separation between him and Hillary so that's why he had a bunch of Hillary's emails because he was emailing with whom Abadid all his wife, all the time right.
So, thanks for adding that I think I think I think I think I think it had a major play in 2016. I think yes, it was an easy rallying cry for women hating saying release the emails.
Most of those people could not tell you what the fuck a server is and what it does but they were like she's got a private email server. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, let me let me get in. Let me get into that. Let me get into this private server. So, Clinton and her circle of friends so this is kind of just like a side note to everybody who didn't fully wasn't fully involved in the email scandal of 2016 but
it started because Clinton and her circle of friends and colleagues communicated via blackberry phones. The email account used on Clinton's blackberry was then hosted on a private server in the basement of her home in New York.
I do want to say that this her using a private email is not rare, like a lot of politicians actually do this. Not really a lot of politicians host a private server in her home.
The article that I read like I don't know if they were trying to portray Clinton as kind of like a didn't really know what she was doing with technology. Like that was literally how she was framed was, hey, I don't want to be a part of the dot state dot
gov email system because it's so much easier to just be hosted on my own. And I don't want to use computers I want to use blackberries, because it's just easier for me like that is how she was framed in this article that I was reading and I don't know if that is true.
But to me I was kind of like, Oh, she was just a ditch. Let her go.
She's just she's a boomer like that doesn't understand technology like maybe that is why I was like, Oh, this totally makes sense is because we deal with so many boomers as clients that were like, Yes, she didn't know how to open a PDF totally get it like yeah this totally tracks this
tracks.
Yeah, she was warned by the State Department security personnel about the vulnerability of an unsecured blackberry to hacking. And she affirmed her knowledge was like yep I totally get it but don't know what I'm going to do about it sorry it's just easier for me to use this blackberry.
So then there were domains purchased, and they were pointed to a private email server that Clinton had in her home in her basement, which also is kind of like, you really had to point out that I was in her basement like really making it look like an underground
hacking system like a whole underground system that Hillary Clinton, this 65 year old boomer was operating like the chances of that.
She enters her secret layer of tech in her basement like there's a hidden bookcase and then it's just like totally secret tech layer. Yeah, that's the picture that was painted for me.
So the domains were used to send and receive emails. The server itself runs on Microsoft Exchange with emails over the internet being delivered to an outlook web app. The web page is did I copy the domains.
I know one of the domains was literally like Clinton email.com. Another domain was Clinton presidency.com so all of these servers were hosting.
Sorry, all of these URLs were pointing to her private server in her basement.
So the web pages were secured by a TLS certificate which means that it is a secured URL. However, for the first two months of owning those URLs the pages were not secured.
For me again, just dealing with boomers. I'm like, yeah, that tracks. Like it's 2009. You buy a URL from godaddy.com and you're off to the races.
So anyways, that's kind of my like little background. I didn't want to get too into the email debacle but I did want people to know like where this all came from was because of she had a private server and was not using a dot state dot dot state dot gov email address.
Oh, I also wanted to point out. So it also came through the press that she deleted 30,000 emails. Well, in this article that I was reading actually those 30,000 emails that were deleted.
Okay, let me try to articulate this.
I think it was her chief. I think it was her chief of staff who originally reached out to their host, the server's host, and was like, hey, we don't need basically you have to pay for storage.
And the chief of staff was like, hey, we actually were tapped out on storage. We don't need this much. Can you delete everything from whatever they like she gave a certain date.
They were supposed this was months before the email conspiracy came to the public months. And she was like, can you delete this while allegedly the server the host provider did not delete them until it came into the public side and then they were deleted so it looked like oh my God Hillary Clinton had 30,000 emails deleted.
Okay, I'm out of breath. Yeah, take a breath because I think to bring it back it is it is this is I think again you've proven the point that this is a very nuanced convoluted issue.
And this is where this is why I feel so passionate about how we're framing season three is like that entire issue with servers hosting timing was boiled down to find her emails, and it was boiled even down to one word emails, right, Hillary emails,
and that entire complex issue is boiled down to two words that just elicit a feeling. It's still does for me today, like it on both ends it's like, oh, it's either the feeling of like,
Exhaust emails or it's like, find her emails, they're able to take these very, very convoluted issues and just bring them down to two words just to make you have a feeling about it, and then vote a certain way, because that's what when we step into the voting booth, it is based on feeling
when I did it in this, you know, I did research on the candidates for the midterm elections. But at the end of the day, like, I have a feeling about Republicans, this is a centrist politics, I think if you listen to the other side like, or our other podcasts, we're pretty clear that what side we stand on,
but I have a feeling about them, and it's I there is going to be a long battle uphill for me to vote that side, right.
And so down to is one person in a booth in their feelings. I have a couple other October surprises before I want to get into the midterm that we just went through.
So putting Hillary aside in 2018, the October surprise from Trump was a caravan of migrants from Central America.
Yeah. And he tweeted information about the caravan and later released a Republican television advertisement that was widely criticized as completely racist.
And it was actually taken down by all these major news outlets, even Fox.
And it was basically meant to stoke fear, right, like the migrants are taking away our job, our jobs, people in 2020, 2020 October surprise, started off with the New York Times publishing an investigation into then President Trump's
taxes, which reported that the president only paid a mere $750 in taxes, which President Trump please tell me how you do that. I have been looking for loopholes for the past years.
The article went on to state that the president was currently over $400 million in debt, and even Forbes then went on to publish an article stating that that wasn't even true.
He's more like $1 billion in debt.
People moving on October 14, the New York Post related to emails found on an external hard drive of a laptop computer.
Sorry, I said that weird too. It's like I didn't read my notes.
It's like I came up with this 15 minutes before we went live.
It's like it's almost like that, but it's not. It seems like it but no, no, definitely not.
It's the it's the December surprise on October 14 and article. So do you know what I'm talking about by these external hard drive? Who is it?
Yeah, Hunter Biden. Yeah, yeah, you are more informed than I gave you credit for.
Thank you.
But if you just read that like how crazy to make a big deal about this emails found on an external hard drive of a laptop.
Wow.
That's the big scandal really guys.
They're pulling from that same well like it worked in 2016. You can see how it's tactics like you can just say emails and whoever you're going against and Trump and the Republican party were like run it back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but a good marketing campaign only works once.
So emails will be permanently associated with Clinton and you can't take that away from her. Don't take that away from her. Hunter Biden.
Relax hunter. But yeah, no, you're right though, right? Like you can't run it back. You can't run like actually when I think of the scandal of Hunter Biden, it's drugs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's like it's like that's been out in the open, right? Like you know nothing to do with the scandal of the Biden.
It did not have the same like it did not resonate and it's a good try.
Okay, so now we get into midterms of this year. Do you, can you can you think of a couple of quote October surprises?
Yes, I can think of one is Herschel Walker.
Yes, sir.
Yep. Again, just to bring it back to the center, Democrats had that information for a year, right? Like they had it for a long time.
And when do they decide to drop it to the press?
Right before the elections, right? Right before the elections. I think that is just it's a tactic. It's it's I'm just trying to get a point that these these October surprises are a marketing tactic.
Like it is nothing more than a marketing tactic that people utilize.
Okay, Herschel Walker was another one.
Dr. Oz killing all those nails. You nailed it. Those were the two I thought of too.
Yeah, yeah.
That was the best ones that because for me, obviously that came across my plate and I was like, Dr. Oz is running for governor or whatever the fuck Senate.
He's running for Senate.
So then I got into looking. I was like, Oh, yeah, he's a puppy killer. What the fuck worked on me. It worked on me.
If I was voting in Pennsylvania, I would have gone Federman.
Yeah. And I think what why it works so well, why they keep going back to this well is like Federman one, right?
And my man's a great guy but had a stroke while he was campaigning.
And like so Oz lost to a man whose health is is is not in the best place.
Well, not only that, but a Pennsylvania was Republican.
Yep.
B Federman is married to an immigrant.
So yeah.
Yeah.
And she is awesome. She fires.
She's feisty and I love her.
But anyways, yeah, so all of these things were working against Federman, but you released the fact Dr. Oz kills puppies and there's no coming back from that.
Yep.
And we'll talk about why that works. I have a one ready for that too.
Like, I don't even.
Is there psychology behind that?
Everyone loves a puppy.
Don't kill dogs.
Yes, there is psychology behind that.
So that's all I got for you. We took an hour probably because I spent half an hour stumbling over my notes, but I hope people took away what I was intending for people to take away is that October surprises our marketing tactics and be weary of what we hear in October.
Don't get don't use your fast thinking brain to latch on to an email scandal when you don't know what the actual email scandal is about.
Could not agree more, could not agree more.
And I don't think he stumbled at all come out in the editing.
So in our next episode, Caitlin referenced it fast and slow thinking. This is our psychological trait and that we all do that the October surprise preys upon our ability to make fast quick decisions and then our ability to slowly think and process information.
And it is praying on our fast thinking quick decision brains because there's not a lot of time between these October surprises and the early November election.
So next time we'll go through that and kind of break down.
Caitlin, that was fascinating.
And any no lingering thoughts tuned into our Facebook group, we're going to be posting any kind of campaign taglines or any behind the scenes advertisement that we find throughout the next couple of episodes.
So yeah, as always, follow us on Facebook at manipulating the podcast. No manipulating the masses. What is our Facebook group.
Who cares about Facebook, you know, manipulating manipulating the masses podcast.
There we go.
What I will plug that we're excited about is if you've been listening if this is your first time, please check out YouTube. Caitlin and I will be dropping our episodes on YouTube so you can watch us interact with each other and not just hear Caitlin sultry voice in her new microphone.
You'll be actually able to see us.
Get some ASMR ones in there.
So please get an ASMR channel to be determined.
So yeah, please give us a give us a follow. Check us out on YouTube. Check us out on Facebook. Check us out on Instagram at big millenphillips.agency will be posting little clips of the podcast.
And you can see what we're up to in our side business of actually running a marketing agency.
And that's a fun little addition as well. So Caitlin, wonderful job. I am bracing. I know it's only December now when we're recording this but I am bracing for next October because there will be a surprise.
Yeah, the way.
Yeah, buckle up.
Yeah, next week we'll be talking fast and slow thinking.
Bye.
Bye bye.