Episode 1870 of the No Agenda Show, titled "VBS," hosted by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak and published May 21, 2026, delivers a wide-ranging media deconstruction of a week dominated by a vice-presidential cameo at the White House podium, a Kentucky primary upset, and an unprecedented federal indictment of former Cuban dictator Raul Castro. Broadcasting from the Texas Hill Country and California's Refinery Row, the hosts pick apart how ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, and MSNBC framed — and in some cases buried — the stories driving the 2026 midterm cycle.
The episode opens with David Muir's unusual ABC headline tease before pivoting to what Curry calls the real lede: Vice President JD Vance filling in for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and fielding questions on Iran, gas prices, and the ongoing ceasefire. The hosts then dissect Rep. Thomas Massie's primary loss to Trump-backed Ed Gallrein, a $32 million race shadowed by an alleged AI-driven smear campaign involving Massie, Lauren Boebert, and a so-called "boner phone." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Hatch Act–adjacent campaign appearance and Tucker Carlson's combative Channel 13 Israel interview round out the political block.
Curry argues the Massie collapse — from a 71% win probability on May 8 to a near 10-point loss — was driven by an algorithmic smear ignored by legacy outlets. "It was a smear campaign that indicated that once Massie's wife died, he had an affair with at least 2 women," Dvorak explains, while Curry counters with a listener letter alleging the story was manufactured to take down both Massie and Boebert. On Vance's press briefing debut, Curry is unequivocal: "He is making the press briefing exciting again."
The hosts then turn to the DOJ's indictment of Raul Castro over the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, framed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Dvorak floats the theory that President Trump is "completing the Bay of Pigs operation that Kennedy chickened out on," noting the Nimitz strike group's entry into the Caribbean. Other segments cover the $1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund born from Trump's settled IRS lawsuit, his 3,700 stock trades (which the hosts attribute to high-frequency trading algorithms), Polymarket insider-betting concerns tied to Donald Trump Jr., Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's "Economic Fury" sanctions program targeting UK-domiciled tanker operators, the San Diego Islamic Center shooting, and Google's $190 billion Gemini Spark rollout at I/O.
The episode underscores how media deconstruction reveals the framing and omission of stories that shape political narratives, from the vice president's direct engagement with the press to the legal accountability of a former dictator. For more, the full episode is available at noagendashow.net and wherever podcasts are heard.
