May 22, 2025

Trump’s “Free” Jet Isn’t Free and AI Made Up Beach Reads

Show Notes
Transcript

Trump says Qatar gave him a $400 million jet for free—except he asked for it, picked it out, and now taxpayers are footing the bill. Oh, and he’s building a $175 billion Golden Dome missile shield like this is a Bond movie. Meanwhile, two major newspapers published fake book recommendations made up by AI bots. Fake books, fake gifts, fake news—it’s all here. Hosted by Patrick Gutfield.

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Callaroga Shark Media from Washington, d C. Where that free

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plane isn't so free. This is ballot, that's right, But

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you know what is free freedom? I'm Patrick Gutfield and

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President Trump announced Tuesday that we're building something called the

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Golden Dome Missile Defense System. It's basically a space based

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shield that'll protect America from missile attacks. The price tag

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a casual one hundred and seventy five billion dollars. That's

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billion with a B. That's more money than most countries'

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entire economies. That's by every American a jet ski and

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still have money left over money. Trump was in the

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Oval Office with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who called it

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a game changer. You know what else was a game changer?

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The segue remember those changed the game right into bankruptcy court.

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The Congressional budget off those fun loving accountants who tell

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us how broke we're gonna be? Estimated just the space

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parts alone could cost between one hundred and sixty one

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billion and five hundred and forty two billion dollars over

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twenty years. That's quite arranged. That's like saying dinner will

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cost somewhere between twenty bucks and a kidney. General Michael

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Getlin from the Space Force is overseeing the project. The

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Space Force. Remember when that sounded like something from a

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Saturday Morning cartoon. Now they're in charge of our five

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hundred billion dollars space umbrella. Behind Trump's desk during the

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announcement were these giant posters. One showed America surrounded by

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a shiny golden ring with the Golden Dome for America

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written on it very subtle. The other had a glowing

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web of light over the country with a Trump quote,

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this is a very dangerous world. We're going to protect

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our citizens like never before. Nothing says everything's fine quite

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like giant doomsday posters in the Oval Office. Look, missile

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defense sounds great, and who doesn't want protection. But when

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the cost estimate ranges from really expensive to are you

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out of your mind expensive, maybe we should double check

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the math. At these prices, we could probably just pay

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our enemies not to shoot at us and still save money.

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So remember when your friend said they'd gift you their

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old car but then asked you to pay for registration,

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insurance and new tires. Well Donald Trump just did that

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with a four hundred million dollar airplane. Trump's been going

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around telling everyone that Katar is giving America a free

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Boeing seven forty seven to replace air Force one, a gift,

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how generous. Except CNN just found out that Trump's administration

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specifically went shopping for this plane. That's not a gift,

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that's just shopping with someone else's credit card. Here's what

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really happened. Trump found out Boeing wouldn't have new Air

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Force one jets ready for two more years, two whole years,

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so he sent Steve Whitcoff, his Middle East envoy, to

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go plane shopping. Whinkoff called up Katar like he was

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browsing Facebook marketplace for a used civic. Boeing even gave

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the Pentagon a list of potential sellers like they were

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real estate agents showing available properties. This one has a

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nice view, comes with cup holders. Only owned by one

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oil rich nation. Katar was on that list, and when

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the US reached out, they said, sure, we'll sell. There

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were even talks about leasing it, like Trump was trying

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to get a luxury jet through hurts. But somehow, and

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nobody seems to know exactly if you this purchase turned

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into a gift. A four hundred million dollar gift. That's

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the kind of gift that comes with so many strings attached.

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It's basically a marionette. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt

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called it a donation to our country, a donation like

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Katar just woke up one morning and thought, you know what,

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America needs a slightly used jumbo jet. But here's the thing,

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it's not really a gift to a mayor. It's a

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gift to Trump, who apparently spent time in February touring

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a Katari plane and complaining about how much nicer it

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was than Air Force one. The best part, we taxpayers

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still get to pay for retrofitting this free plane with

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all the security features, communications equipment, and defensive systems that

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make Air Force one actually functional. It's like someone gifting

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you a mansion, but you have to pay to install

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the plumbing, electricity, and walls. Legal negotiations are still ongoing,

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which is hilarious. Usually when someone gives you a gift,

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you don't need lawyers. Thanks for the birthday present. Let

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me just have my legal team review the terms and conditions.

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So the Chicago Sun Times and Philadelphia Inquirer just discovered

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what happens when you let robots write your summer reading list.

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Spoiler alert, the robots made up the books. These papers

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ran a special summer section filled with AI generated content,

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complete with fake book titles and quotes from experts who

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apparently exist only in the chat gpt multiverse. The papers

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published something called the Heat Index, a summer activities guide

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that turned out to be more artificial than a spray tan.

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In January, some eager writers and podcasters spotted the bakery

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and shared it online, presumably while laughing so hard they

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couldn't breathe. Here's where it gets good. The AI recommended

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books that don't exist. Tidewater Dreams by Isabella Lende, not

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a Thing, The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir. Nope, he

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never wrote that. The chatbot just went full creative writing

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mode and invented an entire Barns and Noble fiction section.

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It even made up fake titles for real authors like

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Britt Bennett and Taylor Jenkins. Read that's like me telling

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you I love John Grisham's new cookbook. But wait, there's more.

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The articles quoted professors and experts who seemingly don't exist.

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They also attributed quotes to real people that those people

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never said. Like, claiming author Brionna Madia talked to Outside

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magazine about hamm At culture in twenty twenty three. Ham

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At culture is that when you're too lazy to have

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a couch culture. The freelance writer who created this masterpiece, Marcobiscalia,

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admitted he used AI chatbots to write the content. He

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said he considered calling bookstores or checking Goodreads for real recommendations,

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but decided to ask a chatbot instead. You know, the

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same chatbots that once told someone to put glue on pizza.

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What could go wrong? Bascalia told The Washington Post there

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was no excuse for not double checking his work. No excuse, brother,

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You had the entire Internet at your fingertips, He said,

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he totally missed it and would approach these things differently

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next time. You know what this means. We've officially reached

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the point where robots are gaslighting us about beach reads.

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Next thing you know, AI will be writing lame late

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night style monologues, recommending restaurants that don't exist, and movies

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starring actors from parallel dimensions. The real tragedy here, someone

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out there probably went to their local bookstore asking for

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the last algorithm and had to deal with a very

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confused bookseller. No I swear. The Philadelphia Inquirer said it

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was the must read of the summer. AI just went

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full fiction mode and hoped nobody would notice. Well, people noticed,

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and now two major newspapers have egg on their face,

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which I'm pretty sure is also the title of a

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cookbook the AI would recommend. I'm Patrick Guttfield, an irony

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of ironies. Portions of today's show were made with the

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help of AI.