Hi, I'm Matt Taibbi And I Did Not Get Smoked Like A Salmon By Mehdi Hasan, Shut Up.

Elon Musk's mouthpiece does not need to 'prepare' for an 'interview' so people will think he 'knows' what he's 'talking about.'

Bro! Bro! Broooooooooo! Down here, bro!

Yeah yeah, I know I’ve made some changes since you were last down here. I took down the Kyrie Irving poster after the Nets traded him. That old neon Rolling Rock sign finally burned out. I set up this entire Faraday cage so the government can’t get into my computer or scan my brain.

Of course they can. The brain fires off electrical impulses, Faraday cages block electromagnetic interference, ergo the government cannot get in here and read my mind. I’d turn my entire skull into a Faraday cage if I could, but it would probably scare my children. They’re already a little weirded out that I never leave this room without a metal bucket over my head.

The plastic wrap? Keeps out the miniature drones with tranquilizer darts the government keeps trying to send in through the air vents. Smart, huh?

Of course the model train set is still here, but I have added a few things. I made a little park right next to this part of the tracks. That’s Rachel Maddow sitting on the bench talking to her CIA handler.

Also I built a model of CIA headquarters over here and made the trains run right through it. It’s a metaphor for journalism!

What’s that? Bro, I always wear my conductor hat when I’m playing with my model trains. Shouting “Toot toot!” doesn’t quite land the same way if I’m not, you know?

Yeah yeah, I know I’ve got to get ready for my interview with Mehdi Hasan , but the thing is that I don’t really need to. Everything I’ve reported about Twitter and government censorship is so self-evident. I laid it all out in those gazillion-tweet Twitter Files threads. All you have to do is slog your way through those while ignoring the thousands of replies pointing out possible mistakes or omissions of context. Simple!

It’s all so self-evident that if Mehdi challenges me on anything, all I have to do is startle and blink as if I’m shocked that he doesn’t see how obvious the whole conspiracy is, at which point he’ll realize I’m right and he’s wrong.

Later when people on Twitter point out any mistakes I made or anything I might have misinterpreted, I’ll throw out stuff like “ Langley-concocted ” like if I’m the fourth lead on a Netflix show about a White House aide on the run from CIA assassins sent by high-level government officials engaged in a shadowy conspiracy to kill the president, as shorthand for why the stuff Mehdi's saying is bad.

Sure! Langley-concocted. Mention that Mehdi’s on MSNBC, stuff like that. Then everyone will go, “Whoa, yeah, he is on MSNBC! And also he said ‘Langley-concocted!’ Ergo, Mehdi is part of a government cover-up of the truth!”

No, there isn't any need to back any of that up. What is it you think I do here anyway?

Frankly, Mehdi will probably crumple like an aluminum beer can smashed against a forehead. It’s all that obvious.

Yep, that’s a scale model of Twitter headquarters that the train is running right through. Again, journalism metaphor.

Well, Elon liked it .

No, I don't think this interview is going to amount to much. Like, Mehdi made some crack about my hypocrisy in not being concerned about Twitter’s suppression of free speech in India despite Elon’s avowed hatred of government censorship of social media. Then I offhandedly shot back , “Why don’t you have me on your show then since you're so sure you know what I'll say” like we were negotiating where to have a big fight at recess, and he was like, “Okay!” Which, when you think about it, is the same sort of flippancy that goaded Elon into spending $44 billion to buy Twitter in the first place.

I’m sure that Mehdi won’t call my bluff by being prepared or being a tough interviewer, it’s not as if he’s literally written a New York Times bestseller about how to win arguments through the marshaling of evidence and supporting facts or anything.

No, the Twitter Files weren’t fact-checked by anyone, why would I fact-check anything that is so undeniably obvious to anyone who doesn’t spend all of their time on Twitter, which last I checked was roughly 99 percent of the population?

Listen, I didn’t name my Substack “Racket” for aesthetic reasons, you know.

Yep, that's a model of my house. And that's the florist's van sitting outside that's secretly an FBI monitoring station. Joke's on them though, because Faraday cage.

No, there isn't a real van. I just put that in there because the government would like to be secretly monitoring my exposure of their horrific abuses of power on social media. But see, miniature me in the miniature basement of my miniature house also has a miniature Faraday cage. So the government can set up a listening post in a florist van outside my real house, or the miniature feds can set up a listening post in front of my train-set miniature model house, but either way I'm covered.

Why are you slowly backing away from me?

Hey, one more thing before you go: For the Hasan interview, conductor's hat or no conductor's hat?

Yeah, I've got a baseball cap around here somewhere. It's made out of a Faraday cage too, so double bonus.

[ YouTube ]

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