I think your perceptions of Lex will mislead you to assume he's asking out of personal ignorance instead of asking simple questions he already knows the answer to for the sake of the audience.

As a result, you happened to pick a bad example as Lex already knew what the German Stasi was before that interview because he discussed it over a year ago with Michael Malice back in December 2020 (deep link to "Stasi" conversation): https://youtu.be/uykM3NhJbso?t=56m39s

Lex does not tire out listeners with constant disclaimers in every interview by saying, "I already know about <X> but for the sake of my audience, what does <X> mean?"

Thankfully, he just shortens all that to : "What does <X> mean?"

... but then that makes him look unprepared. But if he puts in that disclaimer every time, we'd complain he tries too hard to let us know he's smart about the topic. Either way, it seems you can't please everybody.