Episode Details

If you’ve ever watched an AI tool answer a complicated question with total confidence, you’ve felt the power problem hiding in plain sight. We sit down with journalist Nick Cleveland-Stout of Responsible Statecraft and Drop Site News to trace how Israeli influence operations are pushing narratives about Gaza directly into the systems people now use as “truth machines,” from chatbots to AI-powered search.

We break down the reporting on millions spent to shape chatbot responses, including networks of pro-Israel websites designed to be scraped, cited, and absorbed into training data. Nick explains what he tested, what he found in real chatbot citations, and why “LLM poisoning” matters even when users never click a single link. We also talk about Foreign Agents Registration Act disclosures, why these campaigns target broad public opinion after October 7, and what it means when safeguards seem stronger for some foreign influence efforts than others.

Then we zoom out to the broader ecosystem: targeted ad pushes on X, YouTube campaigns with massive view counts, and paid placements that aim to shore up conservative support. To close, we turn to a different kind of influence story with huge stakes, Trump’s reported purchases of defense stocks and the conflicts-of-interest questions that follow when arms makers profit alongside expanding defense budgets and war.

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Chapter Markers

• 0:07 Sponsor Message And Cold Open
• 0:58 Nick Cleveland-Stout Returns
• 3:15 Why Israel Targets The Public
• 6:21 Training AI To Talk Gaza
• 10:33 Proof The Chatbots Cite It
• 12:52 LLM Poisoning And Common Crawl
• 14:10 Russia Filters And Israel Doesn’t
• 20:01 Ads Aimed At Conservatives Online
• 25:23 Trump’s Defense Stocks And Conflicts
• 32:07 Final Takeaways And How To Help