Trad Wife Scandal Rocks MAGA As Bigoted Influencers Exposed in Sex Scandal

0:04Okay, listener, we need to take a little break from all of the stuff that Donald Trump is doing to terrorize citizens and take a little deep dive into this juicy salacious trad wife scandal in the heart of MAGA. And I have with me today, Will Summer. He is a senior reporter at The Bulwark and he writes the newsletter called The False Flag on Right-Wing Media and Conspiracy Theories, which is right up my alley for entertainment. Will, how are you today? Hey, I'm good. Thanks for having me on. All right. So let's dive into this. We have a trad wife And then we have a right wing influencer, Elijah Schaefer, that apparently weren't supposed to be together and engaged in a slap and tickle style affair.

0:51Is that correct? That's right. I mean, I think you summed it up colorfully there. Yeah. I mean, so this is we can look at Elijah Schaefer first, maybe. I mean, this is a guy who was once Glenn Beck's protege, this kind of rising star in right-wing media. And then he got fired from Glenn Beck's company for allegedly assaulting, sexually assaulting one of his coworkers. And there were all these other harassment allegations. And then he said, wait, I'm a real Christian guy now. I have a wife and kids. You know, I'm going to live this traditional lifestyle. And needless to say, the revelations of last week suggest that that was not really the case.

1:26okay i want to play a video for you and the listener of this elijah schaefer so everybody can kind of know exactly the type of man that we're talking about kylie play the clip solid tweet that said this it's like it's crazy on 2025 to pull bitches you literally have to be like a millionaire six foot seven have a drive a lamborghini and like that's who like you know i mean like it'd be white and it's like yeah so women are still going after men that emulate the most masculine tendencies right they're going after tall rich famous men and then and what do we get the the the women they're just whores they can't even cook a hot pocket you know so it's it's it's like you know that's why once you have sex with them once you come you come to your senses right so it's like you have that that post ejaculate clarity um post not clarity they call it on online these days but like because you realize like after you nut you're like you're just a bunch of holes and that's really sad because then it devalues women so then your view of women becomes so low because women really are just a bunch of holes today but that doesn't mean that's who they have to be or who god made them to be or what they should be and i think that a lot of the hatred that i have towards women and a lot of the hatred a lot of men have towards women is simply the product of generations of sin and rebellion that have created women to be something that they're not they're not feminine they're masculine and and uh like like look at this this type of woman that okay i mean That's alarming, to say the least, and how it's all wrapped up into Christianity.

2:51And I'm from Oklahoma, where I lived for 51 years. This doesn't surprise me. This type of toxic masculinity wrapped up into religion and the institutionalized misogyny and sexism that's built into this sect of Christianity. Yeah, well, I mean, what a gentleman, right? I mean, you can see that there's the guy with the beard, Joel Webin, who is a, I believe, a pastor, a very evangelical Christian guy. And he's kind of he's almost like Elijah. You're making the subtext of this all a little obvious, you know, that it's about sort of imprisoning women or sort of ensuring you have this access to a woman.

3:27I mean, it's it's gross stuff. And so and this is this is what he was saying when he was supposed to be the the traditional family man. And so, I mean, as we found out, however, there's he had this employee, this woman, Sarah Stock, who is herself sort of a Catholic trad wife. And, you know, apparently they were carrying on an affair, I guess, before she got engaged. But he was married with kids and that, you know, even as they were both proclaiming, you know, oh, we're so against fornication. And, you know, all as you see Elijah say there, you know, all modern women are so awful and promiscuous that they were carrying on this sort of scandal.

4:04Okay. That's, it's nuts. Okay. So this right wing, I think he's a right wing kind of controversial figure, Milo. And I'm mispronounced his last name. What is it? Ewanopoulos. Ewanopoulos. Okay. Milo Ewanopoulos. He goes on a Twitter rant about this. I'm going to read these and I want to get your feedback on these because it's juicy AF. Okay. Pop this up, Kylie. Milo says in February, 2025, Sarah Stock and Elijah, Elijah Schaefer began sleeping together. The affair ended on the day she got engaged about six months later. In that time, they experienced multiple pregnancy scares. It is alleged by one former acquaintance that Sarah got at least one abortion.

4:46Do you have any reporting on that? You know, I don't. I mean, basically, the backstory here is that this kind of, this content had been circulating for about a week before Milo published it. I got some of it and I had looked at it and said, okay, well, you know, this is how can we report this out, demonstrate certainly that this affair happened or this business is imploding, this Riff TV that we saw in the clip there. And then Milo kind of threw it up online. And so I do think some of this stuff, I'm not sure about the sourcing on it, but we do know there was this relationship. And as you said, I mean, I think it also offers some insights into the infighting and the personalities in this right-wing media world where someone like Milo, who I think shares a lot of Elijah Schaefer's politics, is stabbing him in the back here.

5:31Yeah. And then Milo also makes an extraordinary claim that Elijah is gay and a former twink, I believe. He goes here. A little known fact about Schaefer is that he attended the church and he grew up around Benny Johnson. And listener, you remember Benny Johnson is the guy that outed himself with the Google targeted gay cruise ad. I did an episode on that. whose house Schaefer attended sleepovers while they're both attended the Calvary Chapel. Schaefer left the church in a hurry when he was discovered having sex with another man. And obviously, I mean, I don't know if this is true or not, but I think the through line here is that this group of MAGA Christians are very sanctimonious and they're very interested in the sex lives of American citizens.

6:20They want to legislate marriage and, you know, what gender or sexuality or, you know, they're completely want to regulate and control bathrooms and all of these things. Meanwhile, they're involved in this complete depravity and they justify it somehow, as you heard in the tape with Elijah, with religion. And this is not unfamiliar to me, because when I grew up in Oklahoma around all of these evangelical Christians, I always found the more overtly religious they are, the more screwed up they were. And so Milo, he seems to be outing this. Does he have sources for this? You know, it's a little unclear what exactly he's up to.

7:06I mean, Elijah Schaefer has often kind of been dogged by these gay rumors. I mean, number one, I think we should say basically anyone on the right, any man is going to be acute. They're always accusing each other of being gay. And it's kind of funny because Elijah Schaefer now has had multiple scandals involving sex with women. And it's funny that each time they're like, well, you know, more proof of gay Elijah. So that seems number one, you know, that they're really fixated on that every time. You know, I mean, this is a scandal involving a woman. They're saying yet further proof that Elijah is gay.

7:35But I think to your point, I mean, it is, I think, often, as we saw, you know, dating back to the fight over gay marriage, often people, the people who are most exercised about this stuff are holding these demons back or these secrets. And that's why they're so just, you know, agitated about it. Whereas, you know, I think we see this all across the right wing media where these men are just so mad about women and they seem almost like tormented by this idea. I want women or women are, you know, they're treating me so unfairly. It's something that doesn't really seem related to reality. and it often I think is covering up this like something much more twisted.

8:07I think it's this growing up non-religious around all of these really hardcore core Bible thumpers deeply indoctrinated by their parents. The number one thing they learn as they're being raised is you cannot have sex, cannot have sex, you cannot have sex, sex, the devil, demon, Satan, all this crazy shit before they even have hormones. And so I think there's this desire for them to hate the object of their desire. Because the one thing we're genetically hardwired to do is screw. Like it's in our DNA, you know, survival of the fittest, you know, perpetuating the species. And so you see this woman hating policy, which I think abortion is a lot about that.

8:50The abortion policy is like, okay, if this woman, you know, these girls are doing all this, you know, slut cover up protection with all these abortions, which is a complete lie. But in their mind, they want to make women, pardon my language, less fuckable because they have so much inherent guilt from sex with their, with their parents. I dated this guy in high school. Dad was a crazy Bible thumper, Southern Baptist, and his mom caught him masturbating. And I mean, he was like grounded for a year, like a teenage kid. It's really this kind of stuff in middle America is very real. And I it's it's kind of child abuse and what we're seeing now is the 1980s mega church boom that i grew up in now these people are adults and they're out in the world and we're seeing how dysfunctional and um the debris of their abuse is playing out how has this played out in the trad wife world well i mean this landed like a bombshell it was a big scandal i mean number one sarah stock herself i mean i think she's like 23 24 so she's pretty young she's married already that she had had her marriage blessed by the Pope, by Pope Leo.

9:58So she and her husband had gone to Vatican. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. They had gone to Vatican City and they, you know, she's in this kind of very traditional, like 50s Catholic wedding gown and the Pope is blessing her. And then people are saying, you know, are you kidding me? You roped the Pope into this sham? And so that has obviously been very controversial. She previously, and this just shows you what loving people are in this community, this right-wing media world. when she got engaged last year, she posted a picture of the wedding ring. And I, you know, I'm not a big judger of diamonds, but it looked a little small.

10:29And I think a lot of other people felt that the diamond was small. So all these other right wing women who hate her for all these reasons are saying, Oh, you know, it's too bad you married a broke boy, all this just created a whole other civil war on the right. And so there were a lot of people who are really eager to jump on this. But I think, you know, if you look at and I'm sure this is something you know, you saw, you know, in Oklahoma, I think there's this kind of new generation of these right wing women who say, you know, we need to go back and we just need to, you know, you need to find a husband at 20 or whatever.

10:55And you have these kind of older right wing women who are middle aged or in their 30s, who are saying, you know, there's a reason that, you know, after the Mad Men era, women were like, we need to have jobs because your man's going to run off with a younger woman, you know, all of these other things. And so in this case, we have Elijah Schaefer's wife, who's very much a sort of trad figure staying at home with the two kids. And then suddenly, guess what? He's run off, He's divorcing her. He's having this affair, allegedly. So I think, you know, there is kind of this like larger impact that people are pointing to is like, wait, maybe this trap thing.

11:26It was both hypocritical. And also, if you're a regular person, it's kind of a dangerous way to live your life. it's really really dangerous and i think when you see these women and i lump erica kirk into this even though she's a millennial but when you see these women that have full-time jobs that um are weaponizing their faith and gender washing with their gender to say you need to do this this is what god wants you to do and meanwhile they're working full-time they have full-time jobs, they are riding the coattails of hardworking suffragettes and feminists. And for them to have the ability to even have the platform to tell women to go back into the kitchen is a luxury.

12:08It reminds me of Scott Bennett. It shows you, I mean, Scott Besant, it shows you how far gay rights have come that he feels safe enough to seek refuge in a room full of homophobes. And so So in many ways, these Tradwives and Scott Besant and Peter Thiel are a diabolical example of the success of civil rights in women and in LGBTQ plus people. Yeah, I think so. The idea that they'll be welcomed into this community, whether it's gay people, whether it's women, as long as you agree to kind of help oppress the other members of your class and other minority groups, I think it is very real. Yeah, I do too.

12:51Okay, so is this girl that God, Sarah, she had the phone. That's her wedding. Is her marriage in trouble now after the reveal of this affair? You know, we don't know. I mean, she said, you know, she said basically, you know, a lot of this stuff about me is made up, but I have sinned in various ways. You know, please pray for me. And then she deleted her Twitter account. So, you know, I think, and this is another way it's going to break down, is like it really falls mostly on the woman. And so I think she's kind of disappearing. On the other hand, Elijah, he's decided to do a heel turn, and he came out, and I'm basically quoting him here.

13:30He said, yeah, I have a dick, and it works. Deal with it. So he's kind of, he's back to the bad boy persona. I guess the family man stuff is over. It's a very twisted community, all these kind of right-wing e-celebs. That is crazy. I think it's so difficult for those of us that aren't in it to realize, like, you know, sometimes I think, how did somebody vote for Trump three times? Like, how do you see him on TV? And then you vote for him three times. And then you hear Elijah, and then you hear all of this stuff. And you're like, oh, this is how. This is the cult. This is the cult of his support.

14:07Do you think that this is going to have a backlash on the Trad wife movement? You know, I do think it will. I mean, I think in particular, Sarah Stock was, I mean, again, this is a woman who was blessed by the Pope. I mean, a real kind of like trad ostensibly, although she also had this kind of like influencer YouTube career. So, you know, not exactly that trad. But, you know, I do think it's suggested, certainly I've seen other young right wing women on the internet saying, you know, well, wait a minute, maybe things are a little more complex. Maybe I shouldn't be rushing out to get married by 21 and, you know, become a homemaker.

14:40Maybe I need to sort of live my own life first, because, you know, I think this has been kind of a disaster for trads in general. Yeah. And honestly, I feel badly for Sarah. I mean, probably completely deeply indoctrinated as a child, which I think that type of religious indoctrination is child abuse. And here she is, you know, acting out what she thinks is the right thing to do, submitting to men. She's probably never, ever had a conversation where somebody spoke to her about consent, intimacy, casual sex, marital sex. It's always just one type of sex. And then everything else is of the devil.

15:22So I do have some empathy for these young girls. And I think journalism like yours in exposing this is so important because it's really dangerous for women to find themselves in these spaces. And this administration and particularly Heritage Foundation and the Project 2025 with what they want to do erode a woman's ability to support themselves or file for divorce is really terrifying. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think this is what interests me about this. I think I'll just talk about like gender roles or what the ideal masculinity is or what a marriage should be. Because then when you look often, what are these people's marriages like?

15:57What are they up to? And it's not just like imperfect. It's like a horror show. You know, I mean, this audio came out of Elijah Schaefer berating his wife. I mean, we saw this happen before with Stephen Crowder, the very prominent podcaster, you know, yelling at his own very pregnant wife. And it's just these like just twisted things. I mean, you know, supposedly Elijah Schaefer and Sarah Stock first hooked up at CPAC, which is one of the big conservative conventions. I mean, you hear these stories about CPAC or the Turning Point USA convention. these like people will say well you know you were like doing sex acts in the hotel lobby and everyone was around i mean it's like a bacchanal okay do you have any scoop on benny johnson and i've heard about him like just going his wife crying and upset in a hotel lobby and he's just up doing gay stuff with a lot of different men very brazenly have you heard this or have any confirmation of this yeah you know that's an interesting case i mean again you have a situation where a guy is like kind of posing as this very like traditional moralist heterosexual family man um but you know at least one person from when benny worked at buzzfeed has said oh yeah you know a man you know that we hooked up at a party um you you mentioned the gay cruise ad thing that popped up that the sort of the algorithmic thing that obviously only comes up if you've been i have not faced those ads myself i think you have to kind of be looking for that material um but i think the ultimate tell here was last year, Milo, you know, again, kind of popped up and said, you know, we all know Benny's gay.

17:30And then Benny, you know, for whatever reason, he felt that this accusation, this time, it was too serious. And so both he and his wife suggested that they would sue Milo. They said, you know, we're going to stand, we have to protect our family's integrity. And I think it's been like two months now. I just looked into this last week. No lawsuit has been filed. You know, it sort of seems like, was this real? Maybe, maybe they don't want to get this into a courtroom and get it into discovery and milo he correct me if i'm wrong is he like a born again incel or something like this there's something he was gay now he's an incel or some yeah he was gay and then supposedly you know he was gay and then he supposedly became ex-gay and he became like a real trad catholic catholic guy he would go on like catholic qvc and sell bibles or sell sell like relics um and then you know, more recently, I think he's sort of just lapsed into this kind of general, like, provocateur troublemaker role where he's like constantly digging up dirt on other people on the right, which I think is as you know, you and I following these characters, I think it's certainly interesting.

18:34There's always a storyline that he's found. Okay, final question. I always associate a lot of this stuff with evangelical Christians, But it seems like there's a far right Catholic component to these trad wives with the Pope and Milo, you know, hard right Catholic J.D. Vance. You know, his third religion now that he's on after his third name change is Catholicism. So are you seeing a lot of like hard right Catholics in this genre? I am. I think we're seeing both the rise of what they call themselves trad cast. So people who they really love the Latin mass, typically these are converts, you know, like J.D.

19:15Vance, who see the Catholic Church as sort of a I don't know if they see the kind of like the non-denominational evangelical thing is a little like D class A for them. And they want sort of a more elevated version of that those kind of hard right religious values. And there's also been a rise of even Greek or Russian Orthodox converts in the United States were very political and right wing. Elijah Schaefer, for example, I believe he wears an Orthodox cross. I believe he's an Orthodox convert. So it's all these kind of different identities people are trying on. I should say, you know, Sarah Stock only converted to Catholicism, I think, like less than a year ago and had become this kind of big, oh, you know, I'm back.

19:52You know, I'm going to live like it's the Middle Ages kind of person. And so often, I think particularly with these media personalities, I think it's like they're kind of trying on different garbs for content, essentially. that's that's really interesting because um you know to be a catholic you really have to do a lot of things to do you know like evangelical christians you can just go down and raise your hand but i 100 agree with you that some people think that evangelical christianity is kind of trashy because certainly in oklahoma city when i grew up where i grew up i would have friends that were pretty religious but not bible thumpers like the evangelical megachurch people and they very much looked down on the megachurch people, even in the Bible Belt.

20:33There is like a pecking order of, you know, classify, classy religions. And then the, the evangelical megachurch grifters are always kind of at the bottom of the totem pole. And it's interesting to know in the Trump regime, like Alito, the handmade, that's what I call Amy Coney Barrett. There's some hard right Catholics in the court jd vance a hard right catholic i believe didn't peter till wasn't he like raised evangelical but now he's hard right catholic do you know that you know i'm not totally sure but i mean there are a lot i mean candace owens for example is a catholic convert i mean she's in the course they've had this kind of fight because where she says charlie kirk wanted to convert to catholicism he was on the verge of it and then the turning point usa people and these evangelical pastors who think they're going to lead this uh sort of a resurgence or revival because of charlie Kirk there saying, you know, no, he wasn't Catholic.

21:25So I mean, there is all this religious stuff mixed into it. It's fascinating stuff. Well, thank you for joining me. Whenever you break any other MAGA sex scandal, I'm in. I'm your gal. I eat this shit up. I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.