Latest / Follow the Leighder / The Cult of Trump and Authoritarian Mind Control | Dr. Steven Hassan
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- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and this y'all today is gonna be cool. Stephen Hassan Cult Expert and New York Times bestselling author is joining us today. Welcome Dr. Hassan. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: It's a pleasure, Leigh. I've been following you on social media and followed you and reached out to you and we're going to get you on my podcast. But in the meantime, you said, would you come on mine? And I said, well, we'll find an hour. So here we are. Leigh/@followtheleighder: We found an hour and folks if the background looks a little different it's because I'm in a hotel and speaking at a women's conference and and dr. Stephen Hassan is super busy, too, so we just ⁓ We it we made it work, and ⁓ I'm glad because if you haven't followed him on ⁓ he's his cult expert. ⁓ He has the cult of Trump which I'm super excited to get into, because you all know my background with Christian nationalism and US military chaplaincy. So I'm looking forward to making those connections. And then he's also the founder and kind of the lead, the face of Freedom of Mind Institute. You have written a book on it. Excuse me. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Yeah, it's actually a Freedom of Mind Resource Center. ⁓ So it's ⁓ not a nonprofit at the moment. We actually started an institute, but we didn't get the funders coming forward back in 2000. So we're just doing this. But ⁓ you know, I went back. in my sixties to do my doctorate because I wanted to update the law around undue influence because the law is about a hundred years out of date with understanding psychology and neuroscience and developmental psychology. And right now the law says if you're a minor, can be unduly influenced. If you're elderly with dementia, you can be unduly influenced, but everything else is a slippery slope, it says. However, I did my dissertation based on trafficking law, which is an international crime, and it is defined as fraud, force, or coercion. So I did my dissertation on my bite model of authoritarian control on the foundation of brainwashing theories from the Chinese communist era of my mentors, Robert J. Lifton, Margaret Singer, at Gershine, et cetera. I said, here's trafficking law, here's the definition, and my bite model explains that in robust detail, controlling behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions is the definition of coercion. So we're trying, and now I'm doing postgraduate research to, and then publishing hopefully soon. that this really works, really defines authoritarian mind control and brainwashing in adults who are otherwise normal but are getting radicalized and brainwashed. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And that's the biggest thing, ⁓ is that so many folks are normal people. getting brainwashed. it is so overwhelming too online because of the money spent on social media by corporations, by invested parties. And it's an odds. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: and countries that want to undo America Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, just to name a few Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, and it's wild to see, like you said, these were neighbors. These were people you either went to church or worshiped with. You went to restaurants, you did dinner and holidays, and I can't even hold a conversation with some of them now. And I want to, first of all, talk, before we get into this, define or kind of talk to us about what your experience was. with Colts is. I know that you just talked about your dissertation, but yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Sure. So basically I grew up in Flushing, Queens, New York. And actually Donald Trump's childhood home was 1.3 miles from my childhood home. So I grew up in New York knowing what a hole Donald Trump is, you know, way before he ran for any political office. ⁓ I grew up in a conservative Jewish family, intact parents. My mom was an art teacher. My dad had a hardware store. have two older sisters. I was writing poetry and reading, reading lots of books. I wanted to be a college professor. And my girlfriend abruptly dumped me ⁓ over the Christmas break of 73. And I started the spring semester at Queens College. And three women asked to sit at my table at the cafeteria while I was waiting for classes. And they were smiling and love bombing me. And they saw all my books for the next semester. ⁓ you're so smart. And I'm like, are you students here? ⁓ yes, we are. Are you part of some religious group or something? ⁓ no, not at all. You know, but they were just love bombing me and lying their faces off. And to cut to the chase, I got recruited into the Moonees cult, where the leader Sun Myung Moon claimed to be 10 times greater than Jesus Christ, and he was asked by Jesus to finish his mission, and his job was to unify the world and build the Garden of Eden, God's unfulfilled plan, and that I was summoned by 10 generations of my ancestors on my father's and mother's side who were stuck in low levels in the spirit world who needed my good works on earth to give them good vitality elements. I'm just giving you a little of the bull that I was indoctrinated with. And, you know, I was indoctrinated into believing in Satan, which I had never believed in, and demons. I was taken to see the Exorcist movie, and Moon said, God made this movie. This is a prophecy of what will happen if you leave the unification church. In any case, I was selected by one of the top leaders to be one of his disciples. got to be in the meetings with Moon as they were planning to take over the United States government and get rid of democracy because God wants a theocracy. We're planning to infiltrate Congress and, and, ⁓ So I was in on these meetings thinking, yeah, yeah, let's do it. And then I nearly died in a van crash, which led me into the hospital away from the group away, sleeping, eating, just away from the constant reinforcement. And then I reached out to my sister who said, you have a nephew. I want him to meet you. want him to know his uncle. And, ⁓ she lured me to visit her. I was programmed against my parents because they said I was an occult and I was brainwashed. So I knew they were evil. ⁓ but anyway, they did an intervention as it turned out, ⁓ started involuntarily. Then I agreed to meet cause I was such a fanatic. I just didn't believe I was an occult or brainwashed. So when my father cried and begged me to listen to another point of view, I wanted to prove to him. that I could do it and that I knew what I was doing. But then when I learned about Chinese communist brainwashing and the eight criteria that had been written in 1961 by Robert Lifton in his seminal work on Chinese communist brainwashing, the wheel started turning. Because as a Mooney, we were God and the commies were Satan, right? But then it was like, but we're doing the same brainwashing. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Wow. Wow. Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Eight criteria. And then the thing that broke me out of the bubble was just realizing Moon was a liar. And if he was a liar, he couldn't be God's representative on earth. And he couldn't be trustworthy. And I had been told to lie to the members and I learned that he had lied to me. So when the wheel started turning, I was like, what am I doing? I don't need to. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. All right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: I have a life. I don't need to follow this group just because I invested two and a half years, 20, 18 to 21 hours a day, seven days a week. So when the bubble burst, I left and then there was a congressional subcommittee investigation ⁓ into Korean CIA activities in the United States. And I became a whistleblower and I turned over all the documents I had as a leader. And here I am 50 years later, having become a mental health professional, having authored five books, a course teaching mental health professionals, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, et cetera. And, you know, I'm trying to educate people how the mind works, how to protect yourself, how to talk to your family and friends who've been radicalized. Cause there's a method that works. And unfortunately, people don't know the method, so they try to argue, they try to give facts and logic, and it just drives the cult member deeper into defending the cult. Leigh/@followtheleighder: No, that's interesting you said that, because I want to ask you what those tips are right after this. I read a book, and we've talked about it on here listeners, Pamela Cooper White, Psychology of Christian Nationalism. And she says towards the end that the most effective ally in pulling people out of MAGA or Christian Nationalism are the ex-members. And ⁓ I wonder, what do you think about that? Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: So I would argue with that a little bit, Leigh, because again, I've been doing this for 50 years. And while it is very positive that people are leaving MAGA and many are now messaging on social media about their disillusionment, when you're in the cult, you're told to not trust these people. They're traitors, they're possessed by Satan. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: So what I have learned is that it's a formula that helped to get me out of the moonies. Basically the most effective thing is to talk about Chinese communist brainwashing, especially with MAGA explain what the former military intelligence people came up with with models. point out that China is doing brainwashing centers right now, trying to convert Uighur Muslims and Christians and others to becoming Han Chinese and Tibetans, or pimps and traffickers, because MAGA people, for the most part, are against pimps and traffickers. So when you explain the influence continuum that I've created, which is on my website, freedomofmind.com, Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: You can download it for free. And then my bite model, which is behavior information, thought and emotional control and the laundry lists. ⁓ then you, you, you, you, you're explaining how these other entities are brainwashing. then the most powerful way to help someone get out is not to persuade them, but to help them reality tests by being respectful. By being curious, being a good listener and asking questions. For example, when, what's your first memory of Donald Trump? And then you just wait for them to think about it. I saw him on the escalator. I saw the apprentice. I saw him on a tabloid, you know, having sex with not his wife, whatever, but you, get people back. to who they were before their mind got hacked, right? And then you ask them to walk forward to explain to you so you can step into their shoes, what were the points that convinced them to take it seriously that this person, Donald Trump, was either a successful businessman, which he was not, or that he was fit to do political office, which he is not, right? Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. Alright. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: So, but the key technique is warm questioning and learning to be a good active listener because the person will get themselves out if they know you're respecting them. If you've said, moronly, how could you believe that Trump's a good person? Right? If you've said that, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: The first step is always to apologize. I know that I said some very rude and mean things to you in the past. Please forgive me or my friend. You know, we went to high school together or you're my cousin, whatever. Please forgive me. Can we do a reboot or can we have a redo? And then I really want to understand what you make of things that are happening in the world right now. I'm really curious. What do you think about what's happening with oil and the economy? And if you knew the person before they got hacked, you'll know which values to touch on. Because if they were a woman and they were for women's rights, that's a fertile area to go. If they were isolationists, I want America first. I don't want to spend money on foreign wars. That's a topic I'm curious. What do you make of it? You know, what do you make of Tucker Carlson saying that Trump has betrayed, you know, his promises for his election, but you don't laugh. I'm laughing with you. But the point is, is, is you're trying to have conversations over time. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, but it's... Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Don't expect to do this in one conversation. People got radicalized over months and potentially years. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Right. Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: And, ⁓ people are leaving because they're realizing this is not the future I want for my children or my grandchildren, or they're experiencing, you know, radical climate change where they're tornadoes that they never had or floods that they never had or heat waves that they never had. And it's like, well, 97 % of the world's climate scientists say it's because of what we're doing to heating. Heating the atmosphere. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Doctor, thank you for that. It really is about patience and warmth and genuine interest and not trying to disrespect their autonomy, their sense of reality. Reality testing is a really great way to say that. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: And I'll add one more thing. I present myself and I'm real. I've changed my mind. ⁓ I really am open to learning new perspectives and I have no problem separating my ego from my beliefs. If you point out something that I said that is untrue, I'll apologize and I'll correct myself. So I try to model for the people that I'm talking to. How, how to live a life where you are open to learning and growing and evolving as a person and not just confirming the same old beliefs that you've had for years. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And I know that right behind you is your book, The Cult of Trump. has blossomed up into the New York Times bestseller list. You were on an interview with Trevor Noah. When we talk about cults, it is a very scary time because it seems like there's a lot of political tribalism and just a lot of fracturing. Can you talk about specifically, I know that There's conservatives and there's the Republican Party and then there's MAGA and the cult of Trump. Talk to me about what the cult of Trump specifically is. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Thank you. So when my book agents proposed this title as a book, I was like, I'm not political was my first response B it will alienate the people I most want to reach. If I have a book called the cult of Trump and, and Steve, my agent argued, ⁓ but they're not going to read your book anyway. Write a book for the rest of us to understand. how this person got into the presidency. And all I knew having grown up in New York, exposed to Donald Trump for my life, was that he was a malignant narcissist. And a malignant narcissist is a term that was coined by social psychologist, Eric Fromm, F-R-O-M-M, as ⁓ post World War II. when he was trying to analyze Adolf Hitler and what are the characteristics of Hitler. And as I learned these characteristics, and I have a list that you can download on freedomofmind.com, I started the book, you know, in my mind going, okay, I can compare, I can quote from his own words and his own behaviors how he's a malignant narcissist, and I'm going to compare him with Jim Jones. of the People's Temple and Moon of my former cult and Hubbard of Scientology. And that's chapter three of the cult of Trump. I decided to start the book with the 1928 book by Edward Bernays, who is the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who wrote the book Propaganda in 1928. And he was the first person to do a presidential campaign. He was the first person to create PR that you don't sell a product, you sell the need for a product. And all of what has now evolved into this massive multi-billion dollar marketing thing that we're all now being blasted by constantly. But what I want to jump to is what, as I did my research, I realized that the cult of Trump have puppeteers. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: that were recruiting and influencing Trump, but then there were actual authoritarian cults that were bringing their members into supporting Trump. So that's the key point that I want people to understand that when you have, for example, new apostolic reformation mega churches and some guy or woman says, I'm an apostle. And God told me Donald Trump won the 2020 election, don't believe Satan and the fake news. And everybody believes that this is a prophet of God and the person can speak in tongues and cast out demons and do faith healing. They're in a bite model mind control cult where they think that if they go to another church, they're going to hell. Like if they leave their particular cult. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: But I talk about Opus Dei as a mind control cult. And Opus Dei was behind the Federalist Society and the hacking of the Supreme Court and Heritage Foundation Project 2025. I interviewed UK journalist Gareth Gore on his wonderful book on Opus Dei. And I just did a live stream with Gareth because he met with the Pope at the Pope's invitation to answer The Pope's questions about Opus Dei, because Opus Dei has been really spending a lot of time and energy and money saying the Pope is satanic and Pope Francis was satanic. Why? Because they weren't wanting totalist power and they were talking about Jesus and love and helping immigrants and realizing we have to be stewards of creation. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: So anyway, so Opus Dei is in my book. ⁓ There are many other cults that, and I had to do the book very quickly for the time constraints that Simon and Schuster had. So I didn't put in the Moonies. I didn't put in Scientology. I didn't put in Falun Gong that does Epic Times. There were many other Mormons I should have put in that are in the cult of Trump. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: But the most important frame that I want to say to you and your listeners is that I'm a human rights person. I'm a rule of law and separation of church and state person. I do believe in God. do belong to a Jewish community. So I'm not anti-religion, but I believe a legitimate religion gives you informed consent, respects your conscience. encourages you to read whatever you want to read, talk to whoever you want to. And if you're not happy or you find a better place that's more suitable, you can leave and you're not a traitor. And you're not, you know, cast out into hell forever because you don't want to follow anymore. So my work is really ⁓ wanting to educate Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Bye. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: everyone on the planet against authoritarian mind controllers and how to define them, how to recognize them, how to reality test. And in this digital world, the authoritarians want to control the information we consume, which is why it's going to be ever more important for people like yourself and your lived experience and your graduate work. to be accessible if people know that you exist and how to find you. So I'm trying to do as many interviews as I can, network with people, and if YouTube goes down or whatever, I want to be able to put things up in Europe or in Canada. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: so people can have a VPN like they do in other dictatorships and find information that the regime doesn't want them to know about. Right? I'm just downside planning. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And one of the things—I read a book about the Chinese government in the 90s, maybe late, late thousands, and one of the things they did was—that I thought was interesting was change the language. They mess with, I want to say, the dictionary, or they did a bunch of things to the language, and you might know more through your studies. But is that common, like to start with language and words with a cult? Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Absolutely. So I just watched a new documentary on Orwell that just came out, I recommend, called Two Plus Two Equals Five. I don't know if you've read Orwell, Animal Farm, or 1984, but it's really a worthwhile doc because Ruel Peck, who did the film, connects the dots to authoritarians today in many different countries. Cause the playbook is the same. So my mentor, Robert J. Lifton, who just passed away in his nineties, and I actually have interviews with him that he was kind enough to grant me. So you can go to my YouTube channel, Dr. Steven Hassan and put in Lifton and actually see him with his white hair in his eighties and nineties. ⁓ So he did these eight criteria that helped to get me out of the Moonies. One of them is called loaded language. And he says the language of a brainwashing environment, unlike words in a healthy environment where words describe reality, loaded language are terms that are thought terminating cliches, is the way he described it. You know, like fake news, like Don't even think that this information might be legitimate. It's fake. So it just stops you cold, right? And so every mind control environment has these loaded words and when you're You know healthy and awake and want to learn you want to learn new words new terms you want a more robust complex understanding of reality. You don't want a small black and white, all or nothing, good versus evil, us versus them world where you're just going, looking to confirm what you think is inerrant, you know, truth. And everyone else are demons and I don't want to be possessed. So I'm just going to believe whatever confirms the doctrine of the group that I'm in. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: I believe that spirit should be evolving and growing and love-based and truth-based. So you can notice I can go on and on with my answer. Leigh/@followtheleighder: No, it's just, it's so fascinating. I mean, you talk about this Chinese brainwashing, you've talked about language. What are some other paths that they take? Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Well, I created the Byte model because Lifton, if you read his eight criteria, they're kind of ivory tower. mean, the guy was Harvard and Yale and I had to reread chapter 22 of Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, a study of brainwashing in China. This is the book I referenced before that came out in 61. I had to read it over and over again with a dictionary going, what does this mean? What does he mean by milieu control and how communication and the environment becomes internalized? but it, but when I met with Lifton a few months after I got out, because I, I, I just knew that what he was describing in the fifties, my experience was much different than that. So I reached out to him and got him on the phone. He was at Yale at the time. And I said, Dr. Lifton, your book saved my life. And his first response was, which book? Cause he had written so many. I said, Reform. And he said, ⁓ that old book. Why? And cause it came out, I don't know, 15 years earlier or 16 years before I'm, was talking with him. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: And I said I was recruited at Queens College and I dropped out of school and I was following this fat Korean billionaire who thought he was the Messiah and I was recruiting people and fasting outside the United Nations. So he said, come and talk to me. So I met with him. I had a cast on my leg from that near fatal van crash that led to my deprogramming. I'll never forget this. He had hard covered books from the floor to the ceiling as far as the room was filled with hard covered books. And I'm telling him how I was recruited and how I recruited and indoctrinated people. And he looks at me and he said, you know, I just studied the second hand, but you've lived it. They did it to you and you did it to other people. And what you're describing is so much more sophisticated than what the Chinese were doing in the fifties. You need to study psychology and explain it to people like me. And I'm sitting there. This, you know, depressed college dropout, you know, confused. What am I going to do with my life? Steve Hassan and this Yale psychiatrist is telling me I have something valuable to share. And it was life changing for me in therapy. We call this a therapeutic reframe of, yeah, you had lemons, make lemonade, like do something good with this bad experience. And so I just started deconstructing and learning psychological principles. Like it took me four years before I was learning about phobias, how their irrational fears. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: but it subverts your critical thinking and decision making. And then I was like, how did the Moonies put a phobia in me? And I was like, damn, they took us to see the Exorcist movie. I remember that now. Da da da da da. And it's like, oh. So I was like, it's been a deconstruct. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Wow. Wow, yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: process for, that was at least 10 years, not that I'm still not learning from the many different people that I worked with and helped, but then I learned about hypnosis because I had exhausted all the social psychology literature and persuasion literature and attitude change. Philip Zimbardo was another mentor of mine who was very warm and inviting, really helped my career and was very encouraging to me. So I learned about the ash conformity study, the Milgram obedience study, the Zimbardo prison study, et cetera. But then when I was exposed to hypnosis, I'm like, that's the ingredient. Because in the moonies, they didn't say, we're going to teach you how to hypnotize people when you do a lecture. But they said, sit in the audience and listen to the brothers lecturing, pray that God works through them and that you can absorb, you know, the Holy Spirit that that you can do this. ⁓ they would talk like this, Leigh, hi, we're with God today. How about you? Imagine the Garden of Eden, you know, and so I learned how to do that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Later they said things like, Steve, the eyes are the window of the soul. You should look three inches into people's eyes and then you could really speak to their spirit. So I would be looking through people, right? Believing I'm doing God's work on earth. But in hypnosis, it's called eye fixation as an induction into an altered state of trance. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ really? Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: And when you're, and there's nothing wrong with being in trance. People go into trance all the time. If you go to a good movie, turn around some time and look at that people's faces. I'm looking at the movies, right? But when you're in that state, your critical thinking is offline. So if you're in an environment with someone with an ulterior motive or an agenda to put ideas in your head that you would refute. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: that goes in and that's what's happening online. People are doom scrolling. They're not even aware of what they're watching one after the next day after the next. And there's a lot of hypnotic stuff that's on the internet now that's really dangerous. So I've been trying to warn people, Hey, it's your mind. should control it. You need to be aware and awake if you're going to allow information from external sources that you don't know who they are, you should really have your guard up. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, well that makes sense that, you know, the thing about the eye contact, like you're looking into their soul and like, but that is a form of, I mean, I've never even thought about like coaching people on behaviors in interacting with others. That's a really interesting, thank you for sharing that. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: So I'll add that MKUltra, which is a big topic with MAGA people, was the CIA's attempt to combat Russian investigation into mind control. And they tried LSD and electroshock and all kinds of things. But the thing that worked was hypnosis. That was the one thing they wrote up. And I actually did a chapter in a clinical hypnosis. hypnosis textbook with a former law professor who wrote one of the original books on MKUltra. ⁓ But I'm mentioning this because a psychiatrist named Milton Erickson consulted with the CIA and later two people, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, modeled Erickson's conversational style and process style of hypnosis and created a thing called neuro-linguistic programming or NLP. Have you ever heard of it? Tony Robbins teaches NLP without ever calling it NLP, although I've seen a couple of videos now where he admits that John Grinder was his mentor and he learned all this stuff from him. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I have, okay. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: And if you're not sure if Tony Robbins is a guru and a cult leader, watch the documentary, Tony Robbins, I Am Not Your Guru. And one thing you learn about words is when you say, don't think of a white horse, your mind thinks of a white horse. I am not your guru, says Tony Robbins. Ha! I've talked to many former trainers in his corporation. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm. Right. Right. Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: that were not very happy about their time there. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, that, this is all really interesting, particularly when you said early on that cult leaders were bringing their cults into Trump. Like it was like all these small armies are now like aligning with others. And one that's particular, ⁓ particularly threatening is of course the rise of Christian nationalism. I know you talked about Opus Dei. ⁓ There's also a... the Opus Dei side being very Catholic, there's also the evangelical seven mountain mandate. They all kind of cross over and... Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Yep, Lance Wallnau, Seven Mountain Dominionism, yep. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. And, ⁓ and, that really leads into now to where we have, ⁓ the head of the DOD saying some pretty, ⁓ intense religious rhetoric, some very specific religious rhetoric, holy war, ⁓ Armageddon. Yeah. Right. There, what was the other thing? He told everyone to get on their knees and pray to Jesus. And I was like, that is clear direction. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Holy War. And God chose Trump. Leigh/@followtheleighder: What are we doing? Like, what are we doing? Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Yeah, yeah. And it's against the constitution and the bill of rights and separation of church and state and the culture of our military. But there's one thing I left out that I have to say, Leigh, the top of chapter seven of the cult of Trump, which is the puppeteers, I put Russia. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. Okay. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: And my research goes back to 87 when I wrote the book when Trump first went to Moscow, came back and took out full page ads against NATO. Before he had gone to Moscow, he never talked about NATO, came back and did full page ads, I think in three newspapers. But I read books by Craig Unger and I recently did a live stream with him. He wrote House of Putin, House of Trump. He later wrote a book called Active, excuse me, American Compromat. Compromat is the term for blackmail. And he used as a source a former KGB official, Yuri Schvets, who I interviewed in a two-parter on my substack, Stephen Hassan. ⁓ And Craig says he was recruited back in the eighties by Russia, back in the Soviet Union era, not as an agent, but as an asset. As a useful idiot is another term in intelligence circles for someone that's easy to manipulate and use for your purposes. So he was getting money laundered. He was getting bailed out of his failed businesses by Russia. for a really long time before he did a presidential run. And through the Mercer's, Steve Bannon, Breitbart, hacking Facebook, Brad Parskell, we all know now that the 2016 election was hacked with the help of Russia and the Mercer's and Facebook. Zuckerberg was complicit. with ⁓ manipulating people's minds by using personal data gathered improperly and algorithms. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, that's a very serious thing. And even like the corporate spending on conservative ⁓ online spaces is just insane. It's an onslaught. And the thing about it makes it really hard is everyone feels like it's very like organic or, you know, and it's just, it's just not. It's an Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: not organic It's not, it's an agenda. Read project 2025, even to the point where it says TSA should be privatized. Look at what's happening right now. People are not getting funded at airports and they're bringing in ICE agents. But if we're gonna combat this, we need to have a clear diagnosis. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Hmm? Bye. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Who are the bad actors? What's the real story? And it's gonna be psychoeducation and working together in real life with people who have values, people who care about women's rights and gay rights and trans rights, indigenous rights, rights of minority religions, who are not white nationalists, Dominionists, right? ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: I really am hopeful, believe it or not, a lot of people are very pessimistic, but we are not what Germany was after World War I, where they were demoralized and their economy sucked. People who grew up in America, we don't want to live in a China where we have a surveillance situation where anywhere we go, we can be abducted. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: and charged with crimes because we said something that the regime didn't like. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Alright, well and it's scary because like he said, one of the things that I read in Pete Hexseth's books is how much he adores the Roman state cult. He loves the whole idea of it. And it makes complete sense why this past week he would talk about the Chaplain Corps and going and restructuring the Chaplain Corps to make it much more faith forward. Of course this is... not general faith, not faith as a concept. This is a very specific, narrow interpretation of what the right kind of faith means. ⁓ Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Right. Right. And that's what you did your Master's on, if I'm remembering, right? So tell my listeners who are listening to this a bit about your expertise, please. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, absolutely. You know, I served in the United States Air Force Reserve in the Chaplain Corps as a chaplain candidate, which is the title of someone who is striving to be a chaplain but is still in seminary. And then when you graduate, then you become full chaplain. And I wound up leaving Midway through seminary and leaving the service for just kind of not knowing how to hand. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I'm a very spiritual person, but I didn't know what to do with that once I got into institutional organized religion. I was like, whoa, this is way different than—but part of that I did see in the military was—I mean, I had colonels that would talk about how—the colonel chaplains talk about how they did not believe that women should be in the military, and this is just policy, and policy can be changed. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: All right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: questioning why I was there. I must not be loyal to Jesus if I'm a woman willing to work outside of the home. Another one was I'm not loyal to Jesus because I was willing to minister to people of all faiths, which is the point of the military chaplain court, like to be in a multi-faith environment and they just didn't like it. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: So, it certainly is. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And they they expressed that I must not be committed to Jesus if I was willing to. And I was just like, I remember going to, I was asked to go to a Wiccan ceremony with a young girl going through basic training. I went down to San Antonio, Lackland Air Force Base and she didn't want to go alone. And they are very faith pushy in boot camp and basic training. Like not a specific faith necessarily, but like you have to like. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Mmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: that should be part of you if you're gonna be in this world. And increasingly it has become much more and more Christian emphasized. But anyway, I took this gal to this basic training soldier to a wiccan ceremony and then as I was leaving I remember they said something to the effect of like God of the North, God of the West, like they went around the cardinal directions and it was a call and response and. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I don't know I could chaplain saw them. Anyway, they were like, why would you do a call and response at someone else's ceremony? And I said, is God not the God of the cardinal direction? I didn't even know how to like, ⁓ but anyway, so I'm struck. And then I found that they were, it goes beyond just like little comments. they will, ⁓ if over time they have used policy, they have used ⁓ very wealthy legal teams. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: right Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ to argue that proselytizing and saying some pretty, pretty discriminatory things to people harmful too, are all protected by free speech as a chaplain. like a chaplain could do quite a number of damage of proselytizing. Either saying, hey, this is Armageddon. We're going to a holy war. Right, you can say something to that scale and start. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ And you're seen as a spiritual leader, so you have authority, even though it's not command and control, but it's cultural authority. So in a weird way, not in a weird way, but it is the intersection of church and state because it's tax-paid clergy. Like in the Supreme Court back in the 80s, I think two Harvard students tried to challenge it. They said, why am I paying for my taxes going to a religious figure? And the court said because of the unique position, the United States government is responsible for providing spiritual care to the soldiers that they would ask to die for the country. So that's how it gets justified is that it's too unique. ⁓ anyways, but over time, have a lot of policies have changed. You know, throughout the military's time, ⁓ the chaplain was always supposed to be kind of like Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Mmm. Alright. Leigh/@followtheleighder: the helper for the commanding officer. it wasn't necessarily about converting souls or anything like that, but it was like, you know, addressing alcoholism, gambling, things that happen in war that soldiers do. And they just wanted a spiritual person to be on the premise. And it has just been weaponized by a very... ⁓ Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Right. Right, right. Right. No, I get it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: by these sort of cult mentality of like, we need to go out and aggressively proselytize, evangelize, recruit through evangelizing. And then the proselytizing is how we can publicly shame or, you know, communicate our agenda publicly. it's ⁓ just been building and ⁓ it's also affecting not only is the treatment, that chaplains could do to the soldiers, but even the Chaplain Corps itself, they're not supporting or, how do I want to say this? They have gone so far as to argue that if helping or supporting a fellow chaplain who does not fall in line with their beliefs is then validating that chaplain's beliefs and it is against their, so like, they could argue it's against their religion to give me a job recommendation. I mean, like, they're, Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: they are twisting freedom of religion to then be discriminatory. ⁓ so that's kind of the basis. I saw it and... Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Yeah, no, it's very important. Very, I'm glad you're speaking out. And I was going to ask you, do you know the organization ⁓ National Security Leaders of America? Leigh/@followtheleighder: I've heard of them. Do you have a... ⁓ Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Well, I do have some connections there, but I was recently at a principles first dot U S summit outside of DC and I met a bunch of generals and admirals who are very concerned about what's happening right now. And I think that you would have a very receptive audience. People who've had long careers of service in the military and are just aghast at what's happening now. So I think that's a good connection for you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: and Well, and that's the scary thing is because the United States, it's such a like Christian dominant, we're not a Christian country, but Christian culturally dominant, okay. ⁓ But that was never, I mean, we have documents going all the way back to founding fathers that we're not a religious nation, we're not here to have religious enemies. You can even go back to the Treaty of Westphalia back in 1647 or so, like really traditional or. conventional wisdom of the last kind 300 years was that you didn't do holy wars. You did land and resource and and you know ugly yeah colon is a but you didn't the crusades kind of really put a damper on that and then of course the Protestant Reformation. So it's very concerning for the ability for someone like this someone like Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Wait. colonization. Right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Pete had accepted and used the Chaplain Corps as the priestly class for like, and that's where it gets concerning. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Yep. It's really, yeah, no, it's really an issue. ⁓ I'm going to need to go soon, but I just interviewed somebody that I want to introduce you to. She literally just wrote this book, the missionary kids, understanding the myths of white evangelism. She was a missionary kid. She's a former CIA analyst and she did a very scholarly deconstruction. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, yeah. All right, on. Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: of ⁓ white Christian evangelism, including the belief that the scripture is inerrant and she talks about the narcissistic attitude of we're saved and nobody else is, et cetera. You'd really enjoy ⁓ meeting her, reading her book, interviewing her and such. I met her at the Principles First Summit and she's very cool. Leigh/@followtheleighder: You are such a joy and so full of resources and tools and I really appreciate you for your heart, for your mind, your, for liberating people mentally until I just... Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Thank you. Thank you. It's a mission. I really feel like this is what I'm meant to do. This is my purpose. My family rescued me and it's a very unique niche that needs millions more people in it. And there are tons of former cult members who leave cults, but if they don't get the proper deconstruction and understand how their mind got hacked, they're very susceptible. to getting into cults. So that's another population in the cult of Trump. Our ex-Scientologists, ex-Moonies, ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, ex-Mormons, got, they responded to the familiarity of the authoritarianism of the leader and we have the truth, it's black and white, all or nothing good versus evil. Follow us and everything will be fine. You know, kind of mentality. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. All Well, ⁓ can you tell the audience where they can learn more about you? Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Sure thank you so my website is freedom of mind dot com cult expert on things like instagram and and i think acts and versions of it just go to freedom of mind you'll see all my social media icons i'm doing special emphasis on sub stack where i ask people to donate five bucks a month to help funds. more outreach and more courses, etc. And on my YouTube, Dr. Stephen Hassan. And check out my two hours with Trevor Noah on his What Now? podcast. It's on his YouTube channel. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Man, well, that was just fantastic. Thank you so much, doctor. I really appreciate you. And folks, what did y'all think about the Let me know in the comments. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. Y'all know the drill. ⁓ name is Leigh Larson. This is another episode of Follow the Leighder. And next time, ⁓ see ⁓ Awesome. I know you have to go. Thank Steven Hassan, Cult Expert: Stay in touch. Thanks.