July 9, 2025

AI Clones Marco Rubio, Noem’s Cowgirl Portraits, and the New COVID Variant XFG

Show Notes
Transcript

An AI voice clone impersonating Secretary of State Marco Rubio fooled foreign ministers and a member of Congress—proving even top officials can't trust their own voicemail anymore. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is crowdsourcing her official portrait on Instagram… dressed as a cowgirl. And just in time for summer travel, say hello to a new COVID variant: XFG. It’s spreading fast, but should we panic?

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Callaroga Shark Media.

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From Washington, DC, where there's a fake Marco Rubio.

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This is ballot, that's right, and there's a new version

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of COVID. Let's hit this. Hi, I'm Marco Rubio. Patrick

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Gutfield is off today. So someone has been impersonating Secretary

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of State Marco Rubio using AI technology to fool foreign ministers,

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a governor, and a member of Congress, which means we've

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officially reached the point where even our top diplomats can't

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trust their own voices anymore. The impostor created a signal

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account with the display name Marco dot Rubio at State

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dot gov and started leaving voicemails that sounded exactly like Rubio. Now,

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I don't know what's more concerning that someone can fake

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a government official's voice this easily, or that our Secretary

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of State is conducting diplomacy through signal like he's planning

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a surprise birthday party. According to experts, all you need

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is fifteen to twenty seconds of audio to clone someone's voice.

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For Marco Rubio, that's probably just one Senate speech about

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how great America is. The software literally has a button

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that says I have permission to use this person's voice,

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which is the digital equivalent of crossing your fingers behind

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your back. The State Department cable warned that the impostor

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contacted three foreign ministers, which means somewhere in the world

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there are diplomats who think Marco Rubio personally called them

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to discuss international relations. Those are going to be some

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awkward follow up meetings. This comes after someone breached White

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House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles's phone in May and

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started calling senators and governors while pretending to be her.

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When asked about it, Trump dismissed the whole thing, saying

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Wiles is an amazing woman who can handle it, which

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is presidential speak for this is fine. Everything is fine.

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The FBI issued a warning that malicious actors are running

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an ongoing delicious text and voice messaging campaign targeting senior officials.

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Their advice, do not assume it is authentic. So basically,

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we've reached the point where government officials need to ask

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each other security questions like what's your mother's maiden name

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before discussing foreign policy. A UC Berkeley professor pointed out

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that this wouldn't be a problem if officials didn't use

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signal for government business, but apparently our leaders love encrypted

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messaging apps more than teenagers love TikTok. In March, the

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National Security Advisor Michael Waltz accidentally added a journalist to

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a signal group discussing attack plans in Yemen, which contributed

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to his firing. That's like accidentally ceeseing The New York

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Times on your battle strategy. The whole thing shows how

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AI has made impersonation so easy that foreign intelligent services

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are probably just sitting around with voice cloning software like

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it's a smartphone app. Meanwhile, our diplomats are getting pranked

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by what amounts to a very sophisticated version of calling

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someone and pretending to be their refrigerator running. Next thing,

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you know, AI will be hosting dopey podcasts making fun

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of the news. Welcome to twenty twenty five, where you

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can't even trust your own secretary of State unless you

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verify it's really him first. So, Homeland Security Secretary Christy

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Nome just posted a series of portraits of herself dressed

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as a cowgirl on horseback and asked her Instagram followers

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to vote on which one should hang in the South

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Dakota State Capitol. Yes, this is how we're choosing official

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government portraits now through social media polls. The portraits show

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Gnome in full Western GetUp, complete with cowboy hat, riding

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through what looks like a wild West movie set. One

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shows her gazing contemplatively into the distance, Another has her

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galloping with her earrings glittering, and the third shows her

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squinting into the sun. Apparently, thoughtful frontier woman is the

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vibe she's going for. Her followers were eager to weigh in.

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One set option two, here's your pursuit of making America

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safe again, which is a very diplomatic way of saying

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you look ready to lassowe some immigrants. Another praised how

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it shows her powerful and yet contemplative manner, because nothing

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says deep thinking like posing on a horse for Instagram.

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But not everyone was impressed. One commenter asked, where's the dog,

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a reference to Cricket, the fourteen month old puppy she

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famously shot for being bad at pheasant hunting. Another simply

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called it ridiculous, saying she's no calamity, Jane, You're just calamity.

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This is far from Nome's first costume party since becoming

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DHS secretary. She's dressed up as a firefighter, a pilot,

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an ice agent, and a border patrol officer. She's basically

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the government equivalent of someone who owns every Halloween costume

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at Party City. The criticism reached a peak when she

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visited El Salvador's Megaprison wearing a sixty thousand dollars gold

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rolex and posed in front of stripped, humiliated prisoners. When

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Fox News asked if she looked too glamorous wandering through prisons,

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she brushed it off, saying she tries not to pay

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attention to the noise, which is government speak for I'm

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going to keep doing photoshoots whether you like it or not.

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Even some right wing supporters have had enough. Meghan McCain

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criticized her for holding a gun barrel directly at a

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law enforcement officials head in a photo, saying, maybe she

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should try pulling our hair back in a baseball cap

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and not doing a photo op. When Meghan McCain is

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telling you to tone down the theatrics, you might want

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to listen. The whole thing shows how politics has become

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performance art. We've got a Homeland Security secretary who treats

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her job like she's auditioning for a Western movie, asking

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the public to vote on her best cowgirl look. Next thing,

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you know, she'll be asking followers to choose between her

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astronaut costume and her deep sea diver outfit. So just

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in time for peak summer travel season. The good news

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is you can keep your shoes on. The bad news

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is we've got a new COVID variant called XFG that's

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spreading to thirty eight countries and making up thirty percent

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of infections in the UK. The World Health Organization has

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added it to their variants under Monitoring list, which is

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basically the CDC's way of saying, we're keeping an eye

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on this, but don't panic yet. XFG is part of

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the Omicron family tree, specifically deriving from the JN one group.

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It's what scientists call a recombinant variant, meaning it's a

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combination of two other variants LF seven and LPA dot

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one Dot two that somehow got together and decided to

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create something new. It's like COVID variants are having their

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own little mixing party. The variant went from seven percent

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of global samples in May to nearly twenty three percent

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just a few weeks later, which is the kind of

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growth rate that gets virologists attention. Compared to the currently

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dominant variant in the US, XFG has nine additional mutations

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in the spike protein, which sounds ominous but might just

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mean it's trying harder to get noticed. In the US,

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XFG accounts for fourteen percent of confirmed cases, though the

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CDC notes that they're tracking isn't precise because less data

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is being reported these days, so we're basically flying blind

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with incomplete information, which is always reassuring when dealing with

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global health threats. The good news is that vaccines appear

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to still work against XFG, though lab studies show slightly

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lower immune responses. Researchers tested it using human cells in

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something called a pseudovirus, which sounds like the scientific equivalent

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of a stunt double. The results suggests that current vaccines

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should still provide protection against severe disease, even if it's

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not as robust as against other variants, which is scientists

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speak for, we don't know what this thing is going

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to do, but we're paying attention just in case. So

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here we are in July twenty twenty five, still dealing

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with COVID variants that recombine and evolve faster than we

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can keep track of them. At least this one has

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a simple name. XFG sounds like a new energy drink

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or a boy band, not a global health concern. Portions

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of today's show were made with the help of AI

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and XFG. Now stick around for this interview and I

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will see you tomorrow.

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I'm so excited to talk to you, Carl. Talk to

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me a guy who's had this illustrious business career. What

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made you decide to write a book on happiness? You

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could have gone in some many other directions.

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Well, actually I didn't, Donnie. I didn't decide to write

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a book. Something happened. This happiness experiment happened in real life,

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in real terms. I had no idea about writing a book,

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but I saw it working. The experiment was working. My

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friends and family were getting happier, They're increasing their happiness,

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and I saw it. So I thought I need to

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write about this. And so that's when I got into

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writing the book.

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And talk to me about prequested. Talk to me what

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it's about and how it's the foundation of things.

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Well, it came about through three major things that happened

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in life. When I almost died in a plane crash.

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If you read the book, you'll find out whether I

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survived or not. The other thing that happened was I

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got a call from my sister in England. She told

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me her husband was dying. He had six months to live.

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So I flew to England and she was in my

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will and I said, Janet, you're in my will as

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a bequest, but that's something you need right now, so

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I'm going to make it a prequest. I'm going to

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bring that bequest forward and pay it to you now

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while you can enjoy it and your husband can fulfill

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the last wishes. She was overjoyed, burst into tears, of course,

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and said all these is great. My brother was there

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at the same time, and I said, Barry, since I've

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done this too for my sister, I'm going to bring

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your bequest forward, make it a prequest. And he said,

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oh that's fabulous, thank you very much. You're very generous.

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His wife and ballistic, she said, this is too much money,

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it's wrong. I don't want anything to do with it,

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and stormed out of the room. So that was a

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real surprise. Anyhow, she got over it, and the next

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thing that happened is I look at my investments. I

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got a lot of money sitting investments, not doing anything.

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Wasn't working for me, wasn't working for my friend friends.

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So I said, why don't I use this money for

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my own success and happiness and also for my friends,

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the people that helped me get to be wealthy and successful.

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That's what I did.

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So it's not a one time thing. This is kind

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of a lifetime experiment, if you will.

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Yeah, it turned out that way because I didn't want

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to just give people money and say, you know, be happy.

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I said, I want this to enrich your life, be

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something special. So I'd like you to think about it.

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Plan something, write a happiness plan. They asked, what's a

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happiness plan. I said, when I get that, I'll give

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you all the money, and well, let's see how it

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works out.

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So you talk about coaching and grants to reshape and

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change lives, which is timely given what's going on in

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the world today.

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Yeah. And the thing is that it wasn't just about

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the money, Donnie. The money is important. We love money,

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it's good to have it. But what really worked with

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these people was the planning with a happiness coach. Thought

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about carefully what they wanted to do that's going to

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enrich their life, make them happier, what things they love,

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things that they were fascinated with, and they wrote all

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that down with a happiness coach. They had a plan.

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And as soon as I got the plan, I said,

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here's the money, all of it. It's all yours. You

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don't owe me anything, no strings attached. And they went

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off and started becoming happier.

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It's incredible. So the inspiration for this was just your

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your your death experience, Well that was part of.

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It, but it was a number of things that happened.

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First off, I was very, very grateful for the people

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that helped me to become successful, and I wanted it.

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Being grateful is terrific. Okay, we love that you talk

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about gratitude and gratitude journaling all those sort of things,

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But the real thing is is expressing the gratitude, telling

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somebody how much you care about them, appreciating what they

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did for you, writing a letter. It doesn't have to

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be about money. It couldn't be possessions. It can be money,

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it can be attention, could be time, can be knowledge

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as your wisdom that you share with younger people. But

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it's what you're doing while you're still alive that counts

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when you dead it's over.

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It's such a simple but brilliant point. And how do

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you think, let's say play this out that people kind

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of really buy into this intentional happiness and prequesting. How

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does the world become a better place. Let's take this

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up ten thousand feet.

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It would be great. Well, the reason I wrote the

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book is I want this idea to get into the

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world so that certainly the wealthy people, they can do

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the prequesting make themselves and their friends and family happier

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right now while they're still alive. The other thing, I

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want the book to show how these people planned, thought

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about their happiness, created a happiness plan, and then worked

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at and to become happier. And others can learn from

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their experiences, reading their plans and then doing the same thing.

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And in the back of my book there's a workbook

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which goes through that step by step and a plan

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to increase your happiness.

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How do we get this into the workplace, into schools

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and kind of really to your point, get this in there.

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You know that would be lovely if it went into

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the schools, and I think in high schools this would

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be a really good subject to put on the curriculum.

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How do you what is happiness? How do you achieve happiness?

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What's it all about? What is happiness? It's a great question.

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You'll have to read my book. But but in short,

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in short emotion, we all know what happiness is. It's

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feeling good, it's joyful, it's exhilaration, it's loving life. That's

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what it is. A feeling. But it's also a mindset.

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You have to think that I deserve happiness. I want

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to be happy. I'm taking my happiness seriously. So it's

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heart and mind, not just one or the other. So

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it's that combination. But really, I give but a whole

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chapter in the book on what is happiness? And it's

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a it's a it's a great chapter. You'll love the

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book now.

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A lot of people I cannot wait to read it.

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I'm so excited, Like just turned on listening to you.

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A lot of people equate happiness to financial success and things.

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And what am I going to learn in the book

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about that?

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Well, happiness, money is important. Okay, let's let's get that

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off the table. Listen. But it's not going to buy

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you happiness. The good use of money is really important

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how you do it, but it's it's it's the mindset.

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It's the pursuit of happiness that counts. Taking your happiness seriously,

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wanting what you want, and what you want is important,

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your dreams, your purpose is in life, what you want

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to achieve in your career, what you want to treat

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with your family, what you want to achieve. Their purpose

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is all around what you value. Are you pursuing those values,

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are you living those values? This is what it's all about.

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Money helps, but it's all those other spiritual things, if

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you like, psychological things, that are really the root of happiness.

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And as we all know, some people very rich and

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they're very unhappy, and this is a lot of people

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people want to be really happy.

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I always say money could solve problems, but it can't

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buy your happiness. But you certainly can throw into problems.

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But that's about the extent of it. So let's play

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this out. How does the right now the world could

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use this more than ever. So how do let's say

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if I just did this fantasy and said, okay, everybody's

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going to everybody's going to do this prequest. Everybody's going

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to do the happiness planning. How does the world look different?

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Well, as you know, Donnie, when you're happy, your family

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tends to be happy, your friends are happier, and happiness ripples,

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it spreads. And if this idea gets into the world,

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which I'm I'm working very hard to do, get it

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into the world talking to you, because you're going to

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buy lots of these books and you're going to tell

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all your friends about it.

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Right, So I am, yes, I am.

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If this goes in it spreads, it ripples. It doesn't

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stay just with you. It goes down to your family,

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to your friends, and to your community. And if a

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lot of wealthy people did this, and it's not just

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about wealth, it's possessions, it's time, it's love, it's wisdom

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that we can share with others while we're still alive

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here and now. And if that gets into the world

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and there's a lot of people start doing this, then

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this that the happiness level in the world will increase

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little by little, and I'd be very happy about that.

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Mister Barney, it's been inspirational talking to you. I am

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going to get this book immediately. I can recommend it

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just based on what we've talked about to anybody, because

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we all could use a little happiness. I appreciate take,

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appreciate you taking the time.

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Happy to be here. Thanks Donnie,