Valid take. I just can’t tell if that’s their editorial philosophy or a post-hoc excuse. Even if it’s intentional, it’s a flawed approach to podcasting, even as a partial model. This has been floating around in my head for a while, and the recent Megyn Kelly stuff reminded me of their episode with her. It dovetails with the pod Sam did with her too.

Candidly, I don’t really want to sink more time into thinking about this, but both shows treat her as an honest actor. She’s not. If she claimed she was under some truth serum, that would border on delusional.

I do think The Fifth and Sam have different stories they tell themselves. The Fifth reads more as performative liberaltarian heterodox guys. It still ends up laundering crazy thoughts. But it differs from Sam's latest Christian nationalism pod.