Provoked with Darryl Cooper and Scott Horton

EP:56 - Wars & Rumors of Wars

July 31, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Wars & Rumors of Wars

The COVID-19 diaries of Dr. Anthony Fauci have been released, and Scott Horton argues they confirm what skeptics already knew: that public health officials knowingly lied about the virus's origins, the effectiveness of lockdowns, and the vaccines—and that the entire response was driven by political calculation rather than science. For Horton, this is not merely a scandal but the culmination of a decades-long pattern of government betrayal that has fundamentally broken Americans' trust in institutions.

The Fauci diaries and what they reveal

Horton points to specific admissions in Fauci's diaries that he says constitute "smoking guns." Fauci was on the conference call where a supermajority of scientists concluded the virus likely came from a lab—specifically because of the cleavage site that allowed it to latch onto lung cells, something researchers had been trying to achieve. Fauci also knew the death rate was being inflated by conflating case fatality rates with infection fatality rates, using the higher 3% figure long enough to get emergency edicts in place.

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What you'll learn

1 (01:26) **Show Intro and Tech Failures** - Co-hosts Darryl Cooper and Scott Horton joke about a previous episode where Cooper was muted for a full hour due to a Windows audio driver issue and a power outage.
2 (05:07) **Fauci's Diary and COVID Lockdown Betrayal** - Horton introduces the Fauci diary revelations as the main topic, arguing the government knew its COVID policies were baseless by June 2020 yet enforced them for years.
3 (13:55) **Fauci Pleads the Fifth and Bureaucratic Impunity** - Cooper and Horton discuss Fauci pleading the Fifth Amendment in congressional testimony, framing it as a symptom of a detached, unaccountable bureaucracy.
4 (15:18) **The 2016-2020 System Failure** - Cooper broadens the critique, arguing that COVID exposed a pre-existing system of media, tech, and intelligence collusion that rigged elections and suppressed dissent.
5 (18:33) **Trump's Betrayal of His Voters** - Cooper argues Trump's second term has been an "abject 180 betrayal" of his supporters, not just a failure to deliver.
6 (23:26) **COVID's Psychological Toll** - Horton shares a psychotherapist's observation that the George Floyd "I can't breathe" protests mirrored the public's own experience of being locked down and masked.
7 (28:06) **Dying Alone: The Human Cost** - Cooper recounts a story of an elderly man whose lifelong fear was dying alone, only to have his family kept away by COVID rules, making his worst nightmare real.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Scott Horton

Show Notes

Darryl Cooper & Scott Horton discuss the latest developments in the Iran War and lots related to the Anthony Fauci hearings. They criticize the COVID lockdowns, school closures, masks, and Fauci and his gang of crooks for continuing policies after key claims were known to be false. They also cover distrust in government and media, referencing Waco and Ruby Ridge, and end with a discussion of the escalating Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict.

Chapters:

0:36 Last Week's Dead Air, Tech Troubles, and Darryl's illness

3:55 Fauci’s Diary Bombshell

12:57 Bureaucrats and Broken Trust

22:12 COVID’s Social Fallout

30:56 Government as Threat

36:12 Waco and the 90s

40:07 Wrestling Culture Shifts

42:26 Sponsors and Show Notes

43:54 War With Iran Escalates

49:54 Hormuz and Misread Analogies

54:21 Iran, Power, and Populace