Cody Tucker

The episode opens with the host congratulating Cody Tucker on his second book. He then praises Tucker's Instagram page, calling it "one of the best ones I follow," and asks how Tucker keeps producing a steady flow of "non-sequitur, very bizarre facts and strange coincidences." Tucker explains that he reads a lot and reads quickly.

Tucker then walks through his process. He highlights material, pieces it together, and checks that it is all "you know, real." From there he will "spider web out and go down rabbit holes." He admits the subject matter can get dark, and jokes that he hopes "the FBI is enjoying what they're seeing." The host notes that the work means constantly researching crimes, murders and "weird things that have been done to people over time." Tucker mentions "the Debbie Harry story", and the two touch on a man who disabled the inside door handles of his car to trap people. These excerpts give no further detail on that story.

I'm in a perpetual rabbit hole. Constantly. All day, every day, rabbit holes.

The host introduces a video he watched in which a young man in India robbed someone using scopolamine. Tucker had warned that science topics are not his strength. The host describes the drug as being, he guesses, "in the class of delirient," and says that if inhaled, "you literally become like a prisoner to whoever gave you the drug," like "a zombie."

In the video as described, the robber came up behind his target while the man was waiting across the street and touched the substance to the side of his neck. The victim did not lose consciousness. He kept touching his neck, became "delirious, just moving around weird," and stood "lost and helpless" while the robber took his bag, his wallet and his phone and walked off. The host comments that the substance must be "potent as hell."

The hosts add some context, with plenty of hedging. One speaker says scopolamine is an ingredient in "dromamine" (as transcribed), then qualifies it: "So I don't know. I guess it's a very small dose." They recall the street name "devil's breath." They say drug dealers in Colombia blow it in people's faces to force them to do things. They link it to the film The Serpent and the Rainbow, and say "they think" the drug "might be a part of the whole zombie lore." The producer, addressed as Jamie, notes that it is sold as patches for motion sickness. That prompts jokes about how many patches it would take before "someone could just steal your wallet."

The hosts openly struggle to find corroborating footage. The host says the YouTube results are "literally like the patches and, like, people putting them on their neck." The only other item found is a Vice documentary "from 14 years ago," set in Colombia. The robbery video the host described is never shown or identified in these excerpts.

The Vice mention leads to its documentary on the cannibal warlords of Liberia. One speaker says they have recommended it "probably more than I've ever recommended anything in my life." The two recount the story of General Butt Naked, who they say ate children's hearts, "cutting it right out of their chest while they're alive," in the belief that it made him invincible. He fought fully naked with an AK-47 and a machete, though "normally, you just use the machete." He later became a preacher.

They react with dark irony to his religious conversion: "he found Jesus and all is forgiven." One speaker remarks that very few places give "that kind of leeway." They also recount a later episode from his time as a preacher. He reportedly caught a man serving human meat "on a stick," recognized the taste, and reported him, and the account "was true."

Tucker brings in historical background. He describes Liberia as a colony meant to take freed slaves "back to this spot." He notes that its capital, Monrovia, is named after James Monroe, and briefly checks whether he means Liberia or Libya. He concludes it "was literally founded with chaos," and the host agrees: "We fucked that whole country up." The segment then turns into jokes about Tucker charging into battle naked, which become a riff on whether he can run.

Tucker jokingly offers a theory: when he is not moving, he is "storing energy." He cites kinetic and potential energy and calls this "all I know about science." He adds that after about 15 years of eating and doing nothing, his stored energy is "probably second to none." The host says a study would likely produce "some other explanations." Tucker answers that he could just buy the result, and the host takes that as a serious point.

If I paid the right person, I'd get the results I wanted.

The host then relays an account from a past guest, a litigator in lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies, about how those companies run their peer-reviewed studies. His claims are these. First, there is "no transparency." Second, a company could run 10 studies, have eight show the drug is "complete bullshit," and rely on the one or two that show "some sort of statistically significant improvement" after manipulating the controls. Third, peer reviewers see only the company scientists' report on the study, not the underlying data.

Not the actual data.

He extends the argument to claims of being "a hundred percent effective." His example has one death in the medication or vaccine group and two in the control group, so "a hundred percent more died in the control group," which he says lets companies call it 100% effective. He calls the practice "sociopathy" when it involves medication that could potentially kill people, and names "Viox" (as transcribed) as an outcome of it. These claims are second-hand, with no named sources, specific studies or documents. The worked example, as stated, equates "twice as many deaths in the control group" with "100% effective," and the conversation does not examine that step.

Tucker jokes that spin is "the job I need" and makes a self-deprecating admission. He says he has been hired at every job he applied for despite having no experience in the field, "just because I lied." The jobs he lists are modest: an eyeglass shop, movie theaters (where he worked "for years"), and a pharmacy. He concedes the pharmacy job "could get people hurt." When he claimed a degree, he said he was "on my way to getting one," which he calls "technically" true.

I've been hired at every job I've ever applied to was zero experience in that field.

The host then raises the case of a CIA official who, as he describes it, faked a college degree and military service, still rose to become a senior CIA official, and then invented a fake operation to steal money. The transcript garbles the amount ("150 people? million dollars"), but it appears to be about $150 million. His explanation of how the man got through is simply "they didn't check."

While reading coverage aloud, the hosts list what the man is said to have spent the money on. The figures shift between passes. First there are "35 luxury watch" (as transcribed), later "30 watches, many of which were Rolexes." They also mention two 2026 BMW Alpinas, $1.8 million spent on private charter flights, luxury real estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and an image of what is described as "$3 million in cash and $40 million in gold bars or so." They also speculate about whether the image is genuine: it "looks like a prop," and the cases look like "government pelican boxes." According to the material they read, he is scheduled to be sentenced on January 28, 2027. He faces up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, forfeiture, restitution and a fine.

Both suspect he was not the only one, since "there's no way he came up with this out of a vacuum." That leads to the story of Mena (transcribed "Mina"), Arkansas, the basis of the Tom Cruise film the hosts reach for as "American Maine" (as transcribed). As told here, a man working for the CIA flew cocaine from Colombia into Mena. When he was caught, "Bill Clinton had him released." They offer no evidence for this beyond referring to the film, and one speaker hedges that the CIA and "probably a lot of the big government organizations" operate this way.

The conversation ends half-joking about whether the crime was "worth it". One speaker frames 10 years of luxury against 20 years in prison as a fair exchange. They note that the length of the scheme "didn't really say" in the coverage. They add that, since the crime was non-violent, he would likely serve in a medium-security prison and not "a supermax."

10 years of awesomeness versus 20 years of, you know, prison, I feel like, is like a fair trade.

Talk of comfortable prisons brings up Martha Stewart and Ghislaine Maxwell. The hosts ask, without confirming it, whether Maxwell is held at the same prison as Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. They mention a documentary that "comes up this week" and praise its presenter, though these excerpts do not name him. One speaker says they have recently been doing "a deep dive" into his older work.

The real disagreement in this stretch comes when one speaker, extending empathy, says: "I don't think she killed anybody." The host pushes back. A patient whose condition was not revealed by a "Fagasy" (as transcribed) blood test might have missed out on further testing and medication that a conventional lab such as Quest Diagnostics could have prompted. He adds that some people "could" have gone without knowing they had cancer, and "there could have been a bunch of things where people actually did die." He frames this as a possibility, not a documented case. The speaker then concedes: "So I take that back."

When you're dealing with health stuff and you're lying about health tests, you could have killed people.

The exchange ends on a sardonic "tradeoff." Holmes could also have told people they had a horrible disease, plunging them into despair, until a follow-up showed they never had it and gave them "a new lease on life."

This part ends with a paid ad for AG1 Pro. The read presents it as one scoop once a day containing multivitamins, probiotics and superfoods, with "enhanced support for muscle strength and recovery." It highlights the added creatine, described as "a highly studied compound" with "over 500 peer-reviewed studies," which used to mean buying a separate tub. These are advertising claims, and the excerpt cuts off mid-read. The ad cites peer-reviewed research shortly after the conversation questioned how industry-funded peer review works, but the hosts do not comment on this.

Claims made in the ad read: one daily scoop; multivitamins, probiotics and superfoods; enhanced support for muscle strength and recovery; includes creatine, described as backed by "over 500 peer-reviewed studies"; replaces a separate creatine purchase.

This part of the episode starts with the end of an AG1 sponsor read. The conversation then returns to a story about medical testing that one speaker doubts ever worked: "I don't think those fucking tests found anything." From there the hosts turn to the difference between loose, unplanned podcasts like this one and heavily produced shows. They name Radio Lab and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History as examples, and say Carlin takes months to prepare each episode.

The produced show they recommend is The Dropout, from ABC Audio. It covers the Elizabeth Holmes story, from the founding of Theranos through her ex-boyfriend. According to the speakers, the podcast shows in detail how much the people involved knew the product did not work, and that patients were not learning anything about what was wrong with them. The speakers recall the investment figures with some uncertainty. Warren Buffett "might have dumped $100 million in there," and one woman put in $150 million, money they describe as gone.

The speakers explain the fraud's success partly through how good the story sounded. Holmes was presented as a super genius and a female Steve Jobs, "She even dresses like him," and they describe her as the most successful self-made woman in history, worth $9 billion at one point. They link this to an earlier case Jamie raised about a CIA figure and ask how someone could fake a military career without anyone checking.

The fraud discussion leads to a broader claim about competence. The speakers first say oversight is more common than people think, then correct themselves to say the lack of oversight is. Their argument is that incompetence does not disappear at higher levels of an organization.

People usually aren't very good at their jobs, just in general.

They then move to government, which they treat as the worst case. As evidence they offer what one speaker calls a weird statistic: "When California is experiencing this mass exodus, its government grew substantially." They add that the administration has created over 100,000 jobs, and argue that many of these are unnecessary government positions. In their account, agencies then justify those jobs with new regulations and enforcement framed around clean air, clean water, the environment or climate change. They compare the structure to a pyramid scheme or multi-level marketing. They give no sources for the figures.

Their central example is California's spending on homelessness. They say the state has burned through $24 billion and that Gavin Newsom vetoed an audit of that spending. Much of what follows is explicitly speculation: the money "probably went to a bunch of nonprofits" and NGOs, where executives "probably" earned high six-figure salaries. On their reasoning, those executives have no incentive to fix the problem when they have a house in Santa Monica, a mortgage and a Lexus.

The speakers distinguish ordinary people, who they say often follow rules like the speed limit even when no police officer is around, from people with large amounts of money at stake, who they say tend to do whatever they want, especially in government or intelligence agencies. They return to the intelligence-agency case, describing a closet of gold, $100 bills and cocaine, and 30 Rolexes. They suggest a likely way such people think:

They probably feel like, okay, I'm going to make one big score and then I'm going to get out.

Joe Rogan recounts stories from Michael Douglas, who appeared on the show the day before. When Douglas turned 18, his father offered him a $10,000 check and then cut him off, even though Douglas had student loans. Rogan says Douglas paid for his education by smuggling marijuana in large suitcases before the TSA existed, and did it only twice. Rogan says Douglas described it as "so crazy and so nerve-wracking," with a lot of adrenaline and fear of getting caught, but it made him enough money to finance everything.

The conversation moves to Douglas producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. According to Rogan, the film was financed with Creedence Clearwater Revival's money through the band's manager, whom John Fogerty described on the podcast as a scumbag who was stealing his money. Rogan says the manager sued Fogerty, after he left the band, for sounding too much like Creedence, even though Fogerty had written all the songs. The guest says they knew Douglas produced the film but did not know about the CCR connection.

They go through the film's history. Douglas's father had acquired the rights to Ken Kesey's book, and the speakers connect Kesey to the Kool-Aid acid tests, Timothy Leary and the discovery of the Grateful Dead. The project stalled until Douglas asked for a chance at it. He quit Streets of San Francisco, which they call a hugely popular show, and won an Academy Award for producing the film while still working as a television actor.