The Onion’s Latest Joke: Taking Over Infowars

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank Guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way.
What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bankguy.
Capital One NA, member FDIC.

**Rachel Abrams** (0:32)
From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:36)
This is not a joke. The satirical outlet The Onion is set to take over Infowars, the site that is run by notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Yes, you heard that correctly.

**Rachel Abrams** (0:49)
Last Thursday, The Onion launched its own version of Infowars, the infamous online hub of misinformation created by Alex Jones. The takeover has been years in the making.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:00)
American conspiracy theorist and internet broadcaster Alex Jones has been ordered to pay Sandy Hook families more than $1.5 billion.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:08)
That's because he perpetrated for years the lie that this shooting was a hoax, that the people were actors.

**Rachel Abrams** (1:15)
After losing two defamation cases, Jones was ordered to pay more than a billion dollars to the families affected by the Sandy Hook school shooting.

**SPEAKER_6** (1:22)
Breaking news tonight, Alex Jones has just moved to liquidate his personal assets to pay the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.

**Rachel Abrams** (1:32)
Unable to pay, Jones' assets, including Infowars, were put up for auction.

**Tim Heidecker** (1:37)
He's no longer going to own Infowars, which is this conspiracy empire he's really used to poison the public discourse.

**SPEAKER_8** (1:43)
And then, in a surprise twist, The Onion, the satirical news outlet has won a bankruptcy auction to take control of Infowars.

**Rachel Abrams** (1:52)
The Onion stepped in. They announced plans to convert Infowars to a parody of itself and committed to sharing proceeds from the new venture with the Sandy Hook families.

**Tim Heidecker** (2:02)
Hi, everybody.

**Tim Heidecker** (2:02)
It's Tim Heidecker here. I'm broadcasting now live.

**Tim Heidecker** (2:06)
Thank you for joining me. We have major, major announcements to go through here.

**Rachel Abrams** (2:11)
Now, after nearly two years, The Onion's parody of Infowars is live.

**Tim Heidecker** (2:16)
Make no mistake, we will be the new Infowars.

**Rachel Abrams** (2:21)
Today, we speak with Onion CEO Ben Collins and comedian Tim Heidecker. About what they plan to do with Infowars and why they fought so hard to take control of it. It's Tuesday, July 7th.
Hi, Ben. I'm Rachel Abrams. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for being here.

**Ben Collins** (2:48)
Thanks for doing this at all.

**Rachel Abrams** (2:49)
Yes. Early last week, I sat down with Ben Collins, the CEO of The Onion.

**Tim Heidecker** (2:53)
I gotta practice my daily, hmm, hmm.

**Rachel Abrams** (2:58)
An actor and comedian, Tim Heidecker. Tim, am I allowed to ask you to just give me your Alex Jones impression?

**Tim Heidecker** (3:04)
Yeah. I'm like a trained seal now.
We knew that was the case. And frankly, that's why we're talking about it.

**Rachel Abrams** (3:12)
Collins and Heidecker were preparing for The Onion's imminent relaunch of Infowars. The Onion has been around for almost 40 years and became infamous for skewering everything from American politics to pop culture.

**Ben Collins** (3:23)
In a lot of cases, people need catharsis. Just like give people a, oh, you're not nuts. This feeling of like, you're just not insane.
The shit that's going on is insane, but you're not nuts.

**Rachel Abrams** (3:33)
Collins, who became CEO in 2024 after a decade as a reporter, has revitalized The Onion in a short amount of time.

**Ben Collins** (3:40)
And we've leaned into that as hard as we can. That's why we're the fifth biggest newspaper in the United States now.

**Rachel Abrams** (3:46)
I started my conversation with Ben and Tim by asking why they decided to remake Infowars.

**Ben Collins** (3:51)
You know, I used to be a reporter, and I was covering stupid stuff on the Internet when I was a little wee baby reporter guy at The Daily Beast now, 11 years ago. And my friend's girlfriend was shot and killed on live TV, on Facebook, actually. She was the first person killed by a guy wearing a GoPro. It was brutal. It was just really bad. And then like when you Googled my friend's name, the thing that would come up was that he wasn't real or didn't exist and all this stuff. Like the Internet had just started to show the cracks of where we're headed. So I started covering that for a living. You know, I wound up covering Alex Jones' trial in NBC News. And I remember sitting there when the judgment came down, it became clear that he was going to owe these people a billion dollars. And he said, I'm not paying any of this. You guys know you're not going to receive a penny of this.