AP Photo/Michael Caulfield
Matt Drudge walking up the stairs at his Hollywood-area apartment in Los Angeles on June 18, 1997.
The reclusive founder of the Drudge Report spoke with Infowars' Alex Jones on Jones' namesake radio show. And for a full 45 minutes, the two addressed a wide range of topics while Drudge sat off-camera.
Among other things, they talked about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the broader 2016 presidential race, the corporatization of the media landscape, world-government conspiracies, and the future of humanity.
Some of the highlights are below.
Hillary Clinton
Drudge, who busted open the Lewinsky scandal, apparently thinks there's a media cover-up of another Clinton sex scandal.
"They've always said, 'Oh, he's a right-wing gossip-monger,'" Drudge said of his critics. "Mainly because of Lewinsky and those years - which by the way, are back. Why aren't we seeing Hillary's lovers? Excuse me, why aren't we seeing Hillary's lovers? Where's the cover-up on this?"
He also argued that Clinton was not physically healthy:
You've got to be the greatest you can be now - now! - before this country is so completely altered and we're left with Hillary's brain in the Oval Office in a jar. Because that's what we're getting: She's old and she's sick. She's not a contender. They're making her a contender with these propped-up 'Saturday Night Light' things. It's like a head on a stick.
But he predicted she would still win:
How sick are the American people right now? I've been saying they could put Hillary Clinton's brain in a jar in the Oval Office and she'd be elected. People are really sick. I think you know this deep in your soul, and this is why you get demoralized here on this very set. People are sick.
While he warned about the future Clinton administration:
Hillary Clinton with the NSA? Good luck if you dissent. Good luck if you dissent. [Edward] Snowden, I'll switch places with you: You can come over here and rot in hell, because that's what it's going to be.
The 2016 race
Drudge name-checked a few other presidential candidates throughout the discussion, including real-estate mogul Donald Trump, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont):
Trump comes along, says a few things - just a few things! - and soars to the top of the list. That's profound. Imagine if we actually had a good selection of candidates who were saying a lot. And I know Cruz and Rand and all the rest ... Where it's going to end up, I don't know. I'm very pessimistic - I'm very pessimistic - on this race because I'm just not sure it's not going to end up with the dreaded brain in the jar in the Oval Office once known as Hillary Clinton.
He further complained that the Democrats weren't offering any top-tier candidates who were relatively young:
Can the Democrats find anybody under the age of 70? What is this oldness in a vibrant country that needs to go forward to a new century? So I don't know. I'm hoping for surprises. I'm hoping for some jolts. We'll have to see.
YouTube/screengrab
Alex Jones interviewing Drudge.
Social media
Drudge was clearly not a fan of Twitter and Facebook:
I'm not on Facebook. I don't do the socials. I've got that little Twitter thing - even that's kind of disgusting. ... I'm just warning this country that yes, don't get into this false sense that you are an individual when you're on Facebook. No, you're not. You're a pawn in their scheme.
He also slammed "meaningless" tweets as a distraction from more important news events:
In the beginning, they were dismissing the internet. They were pooh-poohing it … Now they make it over in their image. Now it's these endless, monotonous tweets. Meaningless - meaningless! - to me. It's just a lot of gnats, a lot of confusion. When the reality of the situation is life on earth has not changed. We need facts. We need events. We need specifics on things. Not all this confusion.
Corporate influence over the media
One of the most consistent themes of the interview was Drudge's dystopian view of the media landscape:
Drudge [Report], to me, when I look at it right now is a correction to this groupthink. There's no difference from any of these websites. You go up and down - we talk about this - what's the difference between the websites? Between a Slate or a Salon or a BuzzFeed or a HuffPo - what is the difference? There isn't any! And this is travesty. It's almost like a weird conglomerate of groupthink that has developed in a dynamic era that should be vibrating.
Drudge claimed to have talked to a Supreme Court justice who said the high court had the votes to rule against news aggregators like him:
They're getting ready for these decisions to come. You thought Obamacare was shocking? You thought some of these other decisions were shocking? Wait until these copyright laws work their way up and the Supreme Court decides you cannot have a website with news headlines linking across the board. Then that will end for me. Fine, I've had a hell of a run.
The future of humanity
Jones directly asked Drudge whether, in his heart, he felt that humanity was going to "make it the next 100 years." Drudge answered affirmatively but then mused about what natural disasters or the government could do to prevent that:
Of course - unless Mother Nature decides. I'm a big fan of letting Mother Nature decide some of this too. We can't control a lot of this. There is a law to the universe. There just is. There's just a law to the universe. We could have the San Andreas [Fault] rip tonight … Will we survive? I'm sure we will. Will we be not allowed to speak as we are today? Well, we'll have it documented that we were allowed to speak that way once.
So I don't know. Am I optimistic? For myself, personally, yes I'm strong. There's not much they can do. They could laser beam me, they could drone me, they can plutonium me, they could do whatever they wanted. But spiritually, I'm set.