Nick Cleveland-Stout: Israel’s Scheme to Control AI Is Working, Trump Is Making Millions from War!

If you’ve ever watched an AI tool answer a complicated question with total confidence, you’ve felt the power problem hiding in plain sight. We sit down with journalist Nick Cleveland-Stout of Responsible Statecraft and Drop Site News to trace how Israeli influence operations are pushing narratives about Gaza directly into the systems people now use as “truth machines,” from chatbots to AI-powered search.We break down the reporting on millions spent to shape chatbot responses, including networks of pro-Israel websites designed to be scraped, cited, and absorbed into training data. Nick explains what he tested, what he found in real chatbot citations, and why “LLM poisoning” matters even when users never click a single link. We also talk about Foreign Agents Registration Act disclosures, why these campaigns target broad public opinion after October 7, and what it means when safeguards seem stronger for some foreign influence efforts than others.Then we zoom out to the broader ecosystem: targeted ad pushes on X, YouTube campaigns with massive view counts, and paid placements that aim to shore up conservative support. To close, we turn to a different kind of influence story with huge stakes, Trump’s reported purchases of defense stocks and the conflicts-of-interest questions that follow when arms makers profit alongside expanding defense budgets and war.Subscribe for more interviews like this, share the episode with someone who relies on AI for news, and leave a review telling us whether you trust AI search results or always check the sources.Chapter Markers0:07 Sponsor Message And Cold Open0:58 Nick Cleveland-Stout Returns3:15 Why Israel Targets The Public6:21 Training AI To Talk Gaza10:33 Proof The Chatbots Cite It12:52 LLM Poisoning And Common Crawl14:10 Russia Filters And Israel Doesn’t20:01 Ads Aimed At Conservatives Online25:23 Trump’s Defense Stocks And Conflicts32:07 Final Takeaways And How To HelpAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy