Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Something to Talk About, the Stella Podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah La Marquin, your.
Speaker 1: Host, and every week I sit down with some of.
Speaker 2: The biggest names in the country because when.
Speaker 1: Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something
Speaker 1: to talk about. Last year, Aaron Molan lost every job
Speaker 1: she had. She'd always believe that without those roles she
Speaker 1: was nuhy, But once her greatest fear was realized, she
Speaker 1: discovered something unexpected.
Speaker 3: So I should probably be more.
Speaker 4: Of a shell of my former self, but I'm a
Speaker 4: complete opposite. I've never felt more confident, I've never felt
Speaker 4: more excited, and I've never felt less scared.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, Aaron lost her beloved father, Senator Jim Moland,
Speaker 1: to cancer. Regular listeners of this podcast will remember my
Speaker 1: emotional conversation with her later that year, speaking about grief,
Speaker 1: love and legacy. Then in twenty twenty four came another reckoning,
Speaker 1: this time with her career.
Speaker 2: So this year, Aaron has made.
Speaker 1: A decision that she's never working for anyone else again,
Speaker 1: and today she's here to announce a new move, a
Speaker 1: role with US based Salem Network, a media platform back
Speaker 1: by members of the Trump family. On today's episode, Aaron
Speaker 1: opens up about why she believes getting on Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: bad side would be the ultimate compliment, the real story
Speaker 1: behind those high profile job losses, why she's not planning
Speaker 1: on manifesting a man anytime soon, and the heartbreaking reason
Speaker 1: she doesn't see a wedding in her future. Aeron Moland,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Stellar Podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. It's so lovely to see you
Speaker 3: and lovely to be here, so thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: The last time you.
Speaker 1: And I sat down, it was in a different studio.
Speaker 1: I feel like every time we talk it's a different studio.
Speaker 3: Similar to my life and anfl for life.
Speaker 1: A lot has changed. It was the beginning of last year,
Speaker 1: so early twenty twenty four, and a lot of order
Speaker 1: under that breach for you and I to unpack. But
Speaker 1: I want to start off with some news that you're
Speaker 1: here to announce you're starting a new role I believe
Speaker 1: with Salor Media.
Speaker 3: What can you tell?
Speaker 4: So I've just signed with Salor Media, which is a
Speaker 4: big media company in the US, and it's been two
Speaker 4: or three months in the works, which is it's been
Speaker 4: a little bit of a process, but a really exciting one.
Speaker 4: And I'm essentially doing three shows a week for them.
Speaker 4: They have a podcast network, radio network, and a television network,
Speaker 4: so I'll be appearing on all three of those over there.
Speaker 4: And it's the same company that hosts Charlie Kirk Scott Jennings,
Speaker 4: who came to prominence on CNN Lara Trump Show is
Speaker 4: on there as well. Donald Trump Junior's just invested very
Speaker 4: heavily in it. So it's really exciting and it really
Speaker 4: fits into the kind of content that I'm producing at
Speaker 4: the moment, which is a lot of overseas stuff, a
Speaker 4: lot of US politics, a lot of war in the
Speaker 4: Middle East, war in Europe, stuff that I'm very passionate
Speaker 4: about and really enjoy covering. So yeah, it's amazing. It's
Speaker 4: it sounds like a dream job. But I'm old enough
Speaker 4: and ugly enough now to understand that that doesn't mean
Speaker 4: it always works out. So look, I'm excited, I'm realistic
Speaker 4: about it, and I'm just really eager to get started.
Speaker 3: Where do you.
Speaker 1: Base yourself for something like that. You're obviously you're a mom,
Speaker 1: a single mom. You are living in Sydney. Will you
Speaker 1: be moving to the US for this or do you
Speaker 1: have to back and forth.
Speaker 2: I mean, then that's quite a commute from Australia to
Speaker 2: the States.
Speaker 4: I think I've done twelve overseas trips this year, so
Speaker 4: I'm getting very, very used to going to places. I
Speaker 4: was in South Africa last week two and a half
Speaker 4: nights on the ground. I'll go to la for a night,
Speaker 4: I'll go to Israel for a night. So look, I
Speaker 4: definitely won't be moving there, and I think initially there
Speaker 4: was a few opportunities for me to move over at
Speaker 4: the start of this year, but if I was still
Speaker 4: with my daughter's father it will be much easier prospect.
Speaker 4: But definitely not moving anyway. It would be way too
Speaker 4: difficult and I would not ever want to take her
Speaker 4: away from her dad. And I love Australia and the
Speaker 4: beauty of the current media landscape is that you can essentially.
Speaker 3: Do most things from anywhere.
Speaker 4: So I built a studio in my spare bedroom at home,
Speaker 4: so it's amazing I can do everything from there. I
Speaker 4: can do interviews remotely, and then for the kind of
Speaker 4: bigger ones I'll travel.
Speaker 3: I'll get in a.
Speaker 4: Plane and go somewhere for a night and then come home,
Speaker 4: which is more mother guilt than necessity if I'm being
Speaker 4: completely honest. But I feel like if I spent longer
Speaker 4: on the ground and people say, oh, I'll stay for
Speaker 4: a few days, I just sit there feeling guilty that
Speaker 4: I wasn't back at home. So I'll base myself definitely
Speaker 4: in Australia. For bigger interviews and bigger projects, I'll travel. Otherwise,
Speaker 4: I'll essentially work out of my closet slash spare bedroom,
Speaker 4: which I've been doing a lot of over the last
Speaker 4: six months or so, which is perfect for me. I
Speaker 4: feel very blessed. It's honestly, it just I feel like
Speaker 4: it's all worked out as it should have.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a little bit about your audience,
Speaker 1: because obviously the beginnings of your career was very much
Speaker 1: really as a sports reporter on broadcast television, and then
Speaker 1: of course started doing radio. And we'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of these things that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: the pivots that have happened, but I just generally interested
Speaker 1: in how many of your current audience do you think
Speaker 1: live overseas as opposed to Australia. You have obviously huge
Speaker 1: following in Australia and particularly on your social media, but
Speaker 1: with your profile growing in the States, and obviously that's
Speaker 1: what Salem Media have seen something there that how many
Speaker 1: people working for Salem Media are international? Are you one
Speaker 1: of the few people from overseas well?
Speaker 4: Definitely the only person in Australia and I think potentially
Speaker 4: overseas as well. I actually went to go on to
Speaker 4: other website to just have a look at a few
Speaker 4: of the different shows and I wasn't able to access
Speaker 4: it from Australia, which I hap to email them and say, hey,
Speaker 4: we might need to fix this up as as quickly
Speaker 4: as possible. So what I'm doing is very unique for
Speaker 4: them as well. But they look at my audience and
Speaker 4: they see what I'm doing, and it's in terms of
Speaker 4: percentage of audience. I would say when I'm doing something
Speaker 4: now like I didn't even cover the Australian election essentially,
Speaker 4: and I'm doing multiple videos a week, and that's for
Speaker 4: no other reason other than I'm now almost entirely targeting
Speaker 4: that US audience. And even just the style that I
Speaker 4: do and the way that I put things together, the rhetoric,
Speaker 4: my language. I mean, I'm quite ausy in my humor.
Speaker 4: Sometimes they don't understand my sarcasm. We'll have people comment
Speaker 4: on videos and say oh no, no, no, they actually didn't,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, no, I know that I'm being psarcastic.
Speaker 4: It's Australian humor, but I suspect at the moment. And look,
Speaker 4: we've got a lot of metrics. And I work with
Speaker 4: a guy in New York who's incredible, who's been doing
Speaker 4: this with me the entire time. He's coming with me
Speaker 4: to Salem to work with me there, which will be amazing.
Speaker 4: But we are vast majority now US audience, So I
Speaker 4: think over sixty percent of my current audience is all
Speaker 4: US based.
Speaker 1: I know Meghan Kelly is a name that Salem have
Speaker 1: brought up in recruiting you and signing you. Do you
Speaker 1: have role models? If so, would she be one of them?
Speaker 1: How to feel about that comparison?
Speaker 3: A look, I think.
Speaker 4: Again, I say, old enough and ugly enough to not
Speaker 4: get over excited by anything anymore. Maybe jaded, maybe damaged. No, look,
Speaker 4: it's incredibly flattering in that she's a phenomenal broadcaster. She's incredible.
Speaker 4: I think I'm very different to her in a lot
Speaker 4: of ways. I was I caught up with Linda Yakarino,
Speaker 4: who was the head of x over in New York
Speaker 4: last month, and she's become quite a good friend of
Speaker 4: mine and she knows Meghan quite well, and we were
Speaker 4: both talking about the kind of differences in our style.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, similar in some ways, but I
Speaker 4: think I'm a much more emotional person she's you know,
Speaker 4: I can be scathing as well in my assessments on things,
Speaker 4: but I also have a side where I deeply feel things,
Speaker 4: whereas she's I think, much more clinical in what she does.
Speaker 4: But she's amazing. You know, she covers things like what
Speaker 4: Lauren Sanchez wore to the inauguration, and she'll also cover
Speaker 4: you know, the war in Ukraine. In that She's got
Speaker 4: a lot of breadth to her, a lot of depth,
Speaker 4: and I'm excited.
Speaker 3: I think it's such a new world out there.
Speaker 4: And for me, I remember when Piers Morgan went just
Speaker 4: to YouTube and we had him on radio, and I
Speaker 4: mean in a way Hughesy and I kind of, you know,
Speaker 4: we were chatting afterwards and going, you know, it still
Speaker 4: feels like if you're going to that space, then you
Speaker 4: can't hack it in real media. You know, you can't
Speaker 4: make it in real media. And now clearly am I
Speaker 4: attitude towards it has changed entirely in that I look
Speaker 4: back at what I was doing in more legacy media
Speaker 4: and mainstream media, and the biggest audience that I got
Speaker 4: was cutups of that that were then shared on socials
Speaker 4: by other people. And I look at the way I
Speaker 4: consume news now, in the way I consume content, and
Speaker 4: it's almost I mean, I'll watch Fox News at home,
Speaker 4: it's basically the only thing I watch, but I'll consume
Speaker 4: ninety nine percent of content on my handset, on social media,
Speaker 4: on YouTube, on x So the world is changing significantly,
Speaker 4: and a lot of organizations same is here a pivoting
Speaker 4: and they're keeping up with it. But it's a world
Speaker 4: that if you're willing to take a risk and you're
Speaker 4: willing to put yourself out there, which regardless of what's
Speaker 4: happened to me in my career, I've never shied away
Speaker 4: from taking an opportunity and putting myself out there. And
Speaker 4: I'll always do that, and I'll do it more robustly
Speaker 4: now than ever before, which is probably quite strange given
Speaker 4: what happened last year, which was I lost every job
Speaker 4: that I had, so I should probably be more more
Speaker 4: of a shell of my former self. But I'm the
Speaker 4: complete opposite. I've never felt more confident, I've never felt
Speaker 4: more excited, and I've never felt less scared, which is
Speaker 4: quite strange to me.
Speaker 2: What do you put that down to?
Speaker 4: I think for twenty years in the media, and I
Speaker 4: started out in television at twenty one, now forty one,
Speaker 4: I didn't quite realize until I lost. And I say
Speaker 4: I lost everything last year. I didn't at all. I
Speaker 4: did not at all, but professionally I lost every role
Speaker 4: that I had from the start of the year till
Speaker 4: the end, lost every role. And once that happened, it
Speaker 4: dawned upon me how miserable I had been, and not
Speaker 4: because I hadn't had amazing jobs or i'd loved moments
Speaker 4: of them. I had entirely, But I had lived crippled
Speaker 4: by fear that entire time. And it was only once
Speaker 4: I lost everything, every job, that I realized that I
Speaker 4: was actually okay, and I realized that what I'd been
Speaker 4: terrified of, which was if this doesn't work out, if
Speaker 4: this doesn't rate, if I get sacked, then I'm nothing
Speaker 4: and I have no worth and value and people won't
Speaker 4: like me. I won't be able to get another job,
Speaker 4: I will have failed. My fear of failure was so massive.
Speaker 4: And then when it all happened, and then the last one,
Speaker 4: when Sky happened, I you know, I had an hour.
Speaker 4: I was like, holy shit, oh my god, because you know,
Speaker 4: it was funny when radio ended. It was kind of thought, well,
Speaker 4: you know, maybe I'm not that suited to talking about
Speaker 4: Taylor Swift in the morning. You know, maybe that's not
Speaker 4: my thing. And that's okay. But I remember saying to
Speaker 4: my daughter. I went to pick her up, and when
Speaker 4: I taught her about radio ending, and she looked at me,
Speaker 4: she goes, what happens if Sky end your show too?
Speaker 4: And I was like, don't be silly, honey, mummy's amazing
Speaker 4: on the sky. And then about two months later I
Speaker 4: went to pick her up.
Speaker 3: I'm like, guess what happened.
Speaker 4: You know, it's I can laugh about it now, but
Speaker 4: at the time it was it was, yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: It was really difficult, absolutely, but again I had an hour.
Speaker 4: I went, oh my gosh, what am I going to do?
Speaker 4: And then I suddenly went, wait a minute, I have
Speaker 4: an audience, and if it's not here, then it's definitely
Speaker 4: over there. And I have value, and even if other
Speaker 4: people don't see it, or if a certain section of
Speaker 4: people don't see it, that's fine.
Speaker 3: No one has value to everyone. You know.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump's a president and a shitload of people can't
Speaker 4: stand him. You know, people who are immensely talented have
Speaker 4: a shitload of people who can't stand them. People who have,
Speaker 4: you know, insane ability in a certain field have failed
Speaker 4: in twenty other fields. And for some reason, I kind
Speaker 4: of thought, Okay, well, I write everything I do. My
Speaker 4: monologues go viral every week online. I'm getting people overseas
Speaker 4: who are big time broadcasters who are sharing them. Maybe
Speaker 4: I don't need that legacy media. I don't need that platform.
Speaker 4: And it dawned to me that actually, I'm going to
Speaker 4: be okay, and I need to back myself. And for
Speaker 4: some reason, and I should have been in the fetal
Speaker 4: position in the corner for some reason. You know, I
Speaker 4: had my moment of panic and my moment of fear
Speaker 4: and my moment of oh my gosh, what are people
Speaker 4: going to think? And then I went, okay, But I'm
Speaker 4: actually okay, and I'm alive, and I've got a healthy,
Speaker 4: beautiful daughter, and I've got a family who love me,
Speaker 4: and I still believe in myself and I still believe
Speaker 4: in what I can do. And from then on I
Speaker 4: had this just weight off my shoulders and I felt
Speaker 4: my chest just it had been tight for twenty years.
Speaker 4: And every every time I I, you know, ratings, radio ratings,
Speaker 4: when we you know, we doubled our ratings, and it
Speaker 4: was the greatest feeling in the world, and You're on
Speaker 4: top of the world. And that would last about twenty
Speaker 4: two seconds for me before I would then go into
Speaker 4: this space of but what if they dropped next time?
Speaker 4: Same as Sky, I'd look at the ratings. My show
Speaker 4: was number one for four weeks in a row, and
Speaker 4: I was on top of the world, But after each
Speaker 4: single one, did I enjoy it?
Speaker 3: And of course I didn't.
Speaker 4: I suddenly then went into this space of but that
Speaker 4: might change, and what if it does, and what happens then?
Speaker 4: And then yeah, when everything went, I kind of went
Speaker 4: I'm not afraid anymore of losing things or of people
Speaker 4: thinking that I've failed, because it's all part of life,
Speaker 4: you know, you should be I failed. Daily, I'll do
Speaker 4: a video that doesn't resonate, doesn't matter. The next day,
Speaker 4: I'll do one that goes viral the next two days,
Speaker 4: I might do one that doesn't resonate again, and it
Speaker 4: just it doesn't matter. I put myself there. I will
Speaker 4: try harder than anyone else. And I'm not going to
Speaker 4: be ashamed of that either. You know, I've been shamed
Speaker 4: in the past for trying too hard, or for working
Speaker 4: too hard, or for trying to do big things, and
Speaker 4: it's well, no, sorry, but I will try to do
Speaker 4: big things for the rest of my life. And if
Speaker 4: one in a hundred of them come off, then amazing.
Speaker 4: And when the other night in nine Jane, I can
Speaker 4: look at my little girl and say, mummy tried a
Speaker 4: mummy back to herself, and Mummy's really proud, and I am.
Speaker 4: I'm proud of everything that I've done.
Speaker 2: That realization that none.
Speaker 1: Of us can be all things to all people. Everyone
Speaker 1: fails every single day, every single one of us. As
Speaker 1: you say, it doesn't matter who you are, the most
Speaker 1: globally renowned person through to an obscure person. Everyone's got
Speaker 1: people that love them and are chamboning them, and everyone's
Speaker 1: got people that, oh I'm winching about that person as
Speaker 1: soon as they turn their head, whether it's on a
Speaker 1: macro scale on social or just within the corridors of
Speaker 1: an offic that realization that I'm okay, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be measured by that. I'm also thinking about some
Speaker 1: of the work that you have done throughout your career
Speaker 1: in in trolling. You were one of the people that
Speaker 1: were very much at the forefront of that conversation that's
Speaker 1: now become very mainstream about social media and the way
Speaker 1: that we conduct ourselves and the tone there and the
Speaker 1: way that we.
Speaker 2: Really go after people.
Speaker 1: Is that extended eron to that belief in yourself and
Speaker 1: that little bit of immunity.
Speaker 3: I thought rug was bad. I had no idea, and.
Speaker 1: The long time politics, you'll have a challenge, don't you
Speaker 1: a rugby league and then get into politics.
Speaker 3: Just got my mother.
Speaker 4: I remember her saying back to me in the day,
Speaker 4: you know, the public service would just be so lovely
Speaker 4: for you, and I'm sure it would be, but I've just,
Speaker 4: for whatever reason, easy has never appealed to me. I'm
Speaker 4: my father's daughter in so many ways, and he was
Speaker 4: exactly the same. And when I say easy, by the way,
Speaker 4: I know that being the public service is not easy
Speaker 4: in any way. But she was kind of saying as
Speaker 4: opposed to this kind of very public life that I
Speaker 4: find myself in and the highs and lows of it.
Speaker 4: It's so interesting when I think back to the Online
Speaker 4: Safety Act and Aaron's Law, as former Prime Minister Scott
Speaker 4: Morrison called it at the time, and I think back
Speaker 4: to interviews that I did where I was very emotional
Speaker 4: about the abuse that I was receiving and the death
Speaker 4: threats and not even and I remember back then I
Speaker 4: would always focus more on that because I didn't want
Speaker 4: to appear to be weak and vulnerable and.
Speaker 3: Be hurt by just mean comments. You know.
Speaker 4: I was very very particular about that. It's so interesting
Speaker 4: now because a kid, you not, apart from the things
Speaker 4: that are legitimate in terms of the safety of myself
Speaker 4: and my daughter, there is not one thing, apart from
Speaker 4: again the safety of myself and my daughter that can
Speaker 4: hurt me anymore online. It's I often think back, I
Speaker 4: wonder would I have been so passionate about what I
Speaker 4: was advocating for in the legislation if I'd been this
Speaker 4: person back then, Because back then I was so deeply
Speaker 4: affected by all of it. It lived rent free in
Speaker 4: my head, every mean comment, every awful thing that was
Speaker 4: said to me. I felt awful about myself so much
Speaker 4: of the time, and I was distressed by it constantly,
Speaker 4: and it was very difficult for me to handle. And now,
Speaker 4: I mean I almost feel embarrassed a little bit by
Speaker 4: how deeply it affected me, and not zero regrets because
Speaker 4: I hope that the work I did made it safer
Speaker 4: online and the focus on children was always paramount for
Speaker 4: me in the safety of children online, but for me
Speaker 4: individually again, there is nothing anymore that you could say
Speaker 4: to me in a personal way, a physical way, an
Speaker 4: integrity way that hurts me anymore. And it is such
Speaker 4: a peaceful, lovely existence and it's I guess it all
Speaker 4: boils down. I feel like last year, at the end
Speaker 4: of last year was such a kind of such a
Speaker 4: pivotal moment in my life where I suddenly realized that
Speaker 4: the opinions of others and this desperate need that I
Speaker 4: had to be liked and accepted and for people to
Speaker 4: think that I was a success just it kind of
Speaker 4: died when I lost every job. And I also was
Speaker 4: so worried always about letting other people down and letting
Speaker 4: bosses down, and letting colleagues down, and co hosts and.
Speaker 3: Partners as well.
Speaker 4: I would be you know, I don't want my partner
Speaker 4: to see someone writing this awful thing about me, because
Speaker 4: that's and I just feel like I've come to this
Speaker 4: space now where my opinion of myself is the only
Speaker 4: thing that matters to me anymore.
Speaker 3: And I know.
Speaker 4: Whether I've put everything into something. I know whether I've
Speaker 4: done something really well. I know whether I've done something
Speaker 4: not as well. That's the gauge now that I go on,
Speaker 4: and it's just such a lovely place to be after
Speaker 4: twenty years of essentially hell in my own head.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to hear that.
Speaker 1: Since we actually started talking a little bit about social media,
Speaker 1: one of the things I really did want to talk
Speaker 1: to about was X and the show that you've been
Speaker 1: working on, their sixty nine X minutes. This started actually
Speaker 1: fittingly enough with Elon Musk on X formerly known as Twitter,
Speaker 1: where he said, let's do this show obviously not sixty
Speaker 1: minutes in a satirical fashion. Hopefully some of the US
Speaker 1: base got that, Aaron. There's been talk about what's happened
Speaker 1: to that show, and especially of course with the announcement
Speaker 1: today of your role with saleor Media some people, I'm
Speaker 1: sure would be asking, well, will you still be working
Speaker 1: on that show?
Speaker 3: I will be, which is wonderful.
Speaker 4: And look, I guess the beauty of that show and
Speaker 4: the way that it operates, so even when we don't
Speaker 4: do full shows, we'll be doing interviews and clips and
Speaker 4: they'll be posting kind of you know, sixty nine x
Speaker 4: minutes and I hate the name the way, and my
Speaker 4: mother hates the name, and it's it's not reflective of
Speaker 4: the content of the show. But look now, I think
Speaker 4: you know, it will do once a fortnight or once
Speaker 4: a month and then do clips. So look, that to
Speaker 4: me will become a kind of secondary project that I'll
Speaker 4: host whenever the show is on. And Salem are very
Speaker 4: happy for me to keep doing that, and for me,
Speaker 4: it's just it's great exposure. It's you know, the caliber
Speaker 4: of guests that we get on that show is phenomenal
Speaker 4: in the world. Leaders, you know, some of the most
Speaker 4: incredible people. We had both Trump sons last week, Tony Abbott,
Speaker 4: Pete Haigseth, Secretary of Defense, so you know, it gets
Speaker 4: a very big audience as well. I think the first
Speaker 4: few episodes we've done, maybe twelve episodes it's had fifteen
Speaker 4: million views per episode, so it's a really big reach.
Speaker 4: So look, I would love to stay involved in it.
Speaker 4: I've Initially it was a little bit hard because they
Speaker 4: wanted me to sign exclusively, but I made a promise
Speaker 4: to myself at the start of this year. Someone said
Speaker 4: to me very early on when it all happened, when I,
Speaker 4: you know, lost all my jobs. They say, now your
Speaker 4: ego is going to want to sign up to something
Speaker 4: straight away.
Speaker 3: Don't give yourself time.
Speaker 4: And even now, even with Salem, I'm not signing exclusively.
Speaker 4: I'm signing with them, but I wanted to give myself
Speaker 4: a year and just build up profile in America, do
Speaker 4: my own content, work for myself, and I'll never work
Speaker 4: for anyone else again ever. I'll never put myself in
Speaker 4: a position where someone else controls my content or my future.
Speaker 4: That's something that I won't budge on. So everything I
Speaker 4: do now is me working for me, and they can
Speaker 4: contract me out if they like, but I control everything
Speaker 4: which is I think I've earned the right to do
Speaker 4: that now, and I want.
Speaker 3: To do that and it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a much more peaceful existence for me in
Speaker 4: that space. So the sixty nine next show. It started
Speaker 4: as once a week, it's now kind of whenever. We're
Speaker 4: doing one next week. We did one last week, but
Speaker 4: it will I'll still do it, but it will be
Speaker 4: less intense now that I'm doing the Salem Show as well.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: Let's stay on the topic of politics a little bit
Speaker 1: and Donald Trump. As you say, with Salem Media, you
Speaker 1: also interviewed Lara and Eric Trump last year, so I
Speaker 1: assume that sort of a relationship that's become quite close.
Speaker 1: Is that something that extends to the rest of the family.
Speaker 1: I mean you included at the Donald Trump Christmas party at.
Speaker 3: I wish, No, not as yet.
Speaker 4: I'm still working on meeting Donald and look, I will
Speaker 4: at some stage because I'm very persistent. But no, I'm
Speaker 4: certainly not considered. I wouldn't consider myself how many kids
Speaker 4: does he have a fifth child?
Speaker 3: That would?
Speaker 4: I mean, look, that would be a little excessive. But
Speaker 4: Lara I love and Eric as well. They're just they're
Speaker 4: incredibly good people. Lara has been incredibly supportive of me,
Speaker 4: and she you know, she feels that I was incredibly
Speaker 4: supportive of her early on as well. I used to
Speaker 4: get her on my show very regularly before she became
Speaker 4: rnc CoA chair before. She's now hosting her own primetime
Speaker 4: show on Fox News, which is going incredibly well.
Speaker 3: So she's wonderful.
Speaker 4: She's someone I respect immensely, and yeah, we'll see how
Speaker 4: that relationship develops. And I guess now having a show
Speaker 4: specifically in that market, I'm sure I'll.
Speaker 3: Do more and more with guests over there.
Speaker 1: As we're sitting here halfway through the year, coming up
Speaker 1: to the six month mark of the Trump administration part two,
Speaker 1: and of course he is an absolute lightning rod globally,
Speaker 1: still huge interest in him from all corners of the world,
Speaker 1: of course, including here in Australia. As we know of
Speaker 1: course for our listeners. He introduced sweeping tariffs that raised
Speaker 1: quite a lot of eyebrows. He's embarking on mass deportation efforts.
Speaker 1: There's the controversial travel ban. He's ramped up battles with
Speaker 1: some corners of the media, and of course he's copping
Speaker 1: flak and even alienated some of his baits with the
Speaker 1: Epstein files still not being released. And there has of
Speaker 1: course been his falling out with Elon Musk. He's no
Speaker 1: longer part of the administration as a commentator. What's your
Speaker 1: view your scorecard if you like of the Trump administration
Speaker 1: so far.
Speaker 4: It's a great question, and you know, I'm the Do
Speaker 4: I think Donald Trump is perfect? Absolutely not. Have I
Speaker 4: been critical of things he's done, absolutely? You know, I
Speaker 4: think accepting the jet was not a particularly smart move
Speaker 4: in terms of falling out with other people. Obviously Tucker
Speaker 4: Carlson and he have had a fairly significant falling out
Speaker 4: there used to be incredibly close. I think Megan Kelly
Speaker 4: copped a little bit from him a couple of weeks
Speaker 4: ago off the back of her comments regarding the Epsign files. Look,
Speaker 4: I don't know why they're not released. I think just
Speaker 4: release whatever you've got. I think that would just be
Speaker 4: the smart move given I think I think that transparency
Speaker 4: was a big part of what they campaigned on. But
Speaker 4: to be honest, I think Douglas Murray wrote a great
Speaker 4: piece on this this week in terms of what everyday
Speaker 4: Americans care about, really, and the Epstein files is not
Speaker 4: even top ten in terms of what I would consider
Speaker 4: most people with cost of living pressures, who actually have
Speaker 4: real problems would care about and in those ways, And
Speaker 4: that's where I look at and what I judge. You know,
Speaker 4: I think the economy is going very well.
Speaker 3: I understand the tariffs.
Speaker 4: Were not popular, but I thought, particularly when it came
Speaker 4: to China, I feel like Donald Trump coming down incredibly hard.
Speaker 4: And yes, people will say, oh, will he kind of
Speaker 4: soften towards the end, But that's Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: He does that.
Speaker 4: That's his kind of strategy when he's looking at negotiating
Speaker 4: a deal. But I look at and I say, the
Speaker 4: rising threat of China. It's not a rising threat. It
Speaker 4: is a significant, very present threat. And the US has
Speaker 4: essentially and particularly under Biden, has funded so much of
Speaker 4: their now strength and light and power that they have
Speaker 4: not hidden the fact that they want to use to
Speaker 4: become the number one country in the world. And I
Speaker 4: think America had to stop and say, why are we
Speaker 4: funding our biggest threat. It's not Iran, it's China. So
Speaker 4: I feel like that was to me, it was nothing
Speaker 4: about the economy. It was about national security. And I
Speaker 4: thought it was a really strong move, and I don't
Speaker 4: think it mattered so much for me. What happened after
Speaker 4: that it was standing up and saying we're not going
Speaker 4: to continue this. So I think when it comes to
Speaker 4: foreign policy, yes, he said it in the Russia Ukraine
Speaker 4: war and that hasn't occurred yet.
Speaker 3: War in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: I think the US's involvement in the strikes in Iran
Speaker 4: was superb. I think an Iranian official has come out,
Speaker 4: I think just over the past couple of weeks or so,
Speaker 4: and said the damage done to Fordeau and to the
Speaker 4: big nuclear facilities was significant because there was a lot
Speaker 4: of conjecture as to whether or not the US strikes
Speaker 4: were successful. But I think that had to happen, and
Speaker 4: he was brave enough and bold enough to make a call.
Speaker 4: And you had people like Tucker Carlson saying, oh, I
Speaker 4: didn't vote for war. Well, it wasn't war. It was
Speaker 4: an act of war that prevented an all out nuclear
Speaker 4: war around say constantly, death to America, death to Israel,
Speaker 4: and they follow through on all of those things at
Speaker 4: every opportunity. So for them to have had nuclear capability
Speaker 4: was not on for anyone. So if you care about
Speaker 4: peace and prosperity, and you care about the kind of
Speaker 4: world we live in here in Australia because we rely
Speaker 4: on America for our protection, then you should be very
Speaker 4: impressed with that part of his presidency thus far. But
Speaker 4: I think in terms of the things I care about
Speaker 4: as an Australian here when it comes to national security
Speaker 4: and peace and prosperity, I think he's done better than
Speaker 4: anyone else would have.
Speaker 1: He will take any opportunity, not the only politician in
Speaker 1: the world certainly to say yes, here is all the
Speaker 1: great things that I'm doing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, no one does it more.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, he's not so receptive to any criticism, as he
Speaker 1: said Megan Kelly, anyone that he would have considered to
Speaker 1: be an ally perhaps turns on people. He's not really
Speaker 1: somebody that's very open to bipartisan observation, shall we say
Speaker 1: from the media, are you prepared for that if you
Speaker 1: become the recipient of a Donald Trump bar So I
Speaker 1: thought Aaron mollan was on my side.
Speaker 3: That's sort of Trump is.
Speaker 4: Look, I think absolutely, I think everything I've done in
Speaker 4: my career would prepare me for that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: And look it would be again, I look at the
Speaker 4: world so differently now, and I would consider it an
Speaker 4: absolute privilege if he was familiar enough with my work
Speaker 4: to annihilate me publicly. But it's funny, isn't it, Because
Speaker 4: you look at press conferences and you know I often
Speaker 4: think he has no qualms in calling you out and
Speaker 4: annihilating you in the most public way. You know it
Speaker 4: must be we're not used.
Speaker 3: We don't know. We're alive here in Australia without you know.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you know, Albanezi might get a little shirty or
Speaker 4: schom I might have gotten a little bit tense with someone,
Speaker 4: but it's a very very different situation, you know. I
Speaker 4: often have to when I'm scrolling, I'll see a post
Speaker 4: from the White House and I have to go back
Speaker 4: and check if it's actually because you know, he calls
Speaker 4: people losers and like it's it's insane.
Speaker 3: But I guess what would you rather?
Speaker 4: You know, someone who is going to say exactly what
Speaker 4: they think when they think it, so you're never left guessing,
Speaker 4: Or you'd rather someone like Joe Biden, who you know
Speaker 4: had no idea what was going on, did not control
Speaker 4: a thing. The autopen was used for anything significant, said
Speaker 4: oh Araan we've worn them and sorry they then pulled off,
Speaker 4: you know, killed multiple US troops. I know what i'd
Speaker 4: rather in power, and you know it's not perfect, but
Speaker 4: I feel like at least you're never guessing in terms
Speaker 4: of what he thinks about anything and everything and the
Speaker 4: access that the media gets to him. You might hate
Speaker 4: his responses, you might hate his rhetoric, you might think
Speaker 4: that it was uncalled for, but there's no other president
Speaker 4: in history that has given media more access, and not
Speaker 4: just media that he likes, you know, other media too.
Speaker 1: Aaron I asked you about if you're the only Australian,
Speaker 1: one of the few international anchors on Salem Media, what
Speaker 1: about political leanings. It's obviously very much overtly doesn't shy
Speaker 1: away from it. It's mainly targeted to a conservative audience.
Speaker 1: Absolutely for you that can be of I would say
Speaker 1: unpredictable political views. And I mean that as an absolute
Speaker 1: compliment because I think that's a really rare and vital
Speaker 1: quality I think in all of our political discourse. But
Speaker 1: people are looking for comfort. That's why echo chambers exist.
Speaker 1: They want to know what they're getting.
Speaker 2: If there's a.
Speaker 1: Moment where, you know, the Democrats in the path to
Speaker 1: the primaries, they start unearthing their new you know, Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: or someone comes through and it's you know, not a
Speaker 1: bide and it's someone that comes out says some really
Speaker 1: sensible things.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that you would.
Speaker 1: Have the platform, the support from your audience as well
Speaker 1: to come out and support that, or do you think there's.
Speaker 2: Very much an expectation from your audience.
Speaker 3: I think it.
Speaker 4: Look even I think the audience absolutely is conservative. But
Speaker 4: I think the audience anywhere is what you make it
Speaker 4: and who you draw into it. And I've never been
Speaker 4: someone that has thought, oh, well, I feel this way,
Speaker 4: but I'm going to hide it, you know, because it
Speaker 4: might not be popular. Breakfast Radio was different in that
Speaker 4: it was a comedy show, so I wasn't going to
Speaker 4: go in there and talk about US politics or talk
Speaker 4: about anything that was fairly intense. And that wasn't about
Speaker 4: hiding it. It was just about it wasn't the right
Speaker 4: platform in this instance. I've already done so, you know,
Speaker 4: and the vast majority of my audience would be conservative,
Speaker 4: and you know, I've done things that they have disliked immensely.
Speaker 4: Even this year, even recently. Over in the US, there's
Speaker 4: a trend gender woman in parliament over there, and I
Speaker 4: think it was a Foreign Affairs committee and a Republican
Speaker 4: senator was calling her mister, and I did a video
Speaker 4: and I went online and it went very much against
Speaker 4: you'd say the bass, and I said, I don't want
Speaker 4: men in women's locker rooms, and I don't want biological
Speaker 4: men playing against women in sport. But my gosh, that
Speaker 4: is so unnecessary. It's just unkind.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I want everyone to feel good about who they are
Speaker 4: and to be happy. And I'm socially quite progressive, which
Speaker 4: which is a little bit unique, I guess in that field.
Speaker 4: And I got a lot of blowback from people and
Speaker 4: a lot of you know, thousands of comments from people saying,
Speaker 4: oh I thought you were better than that, you know,
Speaker 4: blah blah blah. It's you know where you know, a
Speaker 4: lot of criticism and a lot of blowback. And I
Speaker 4: was saying to my editor slash producer, you know, oh gosh,
Speaker 4: should we put up another video and hopefully they'll forget.
Speaker 4: I was like, no, we sit with this and we
Speaker 4: you know, this is part of it. And in the end,
Speaker 4: I didn't lose any followers or they only went up.
Speaker 4: And people at least know that when I say something,
Speaker 4: I mean it. Even if I know, and I knew
Speaker 4: it was going to be very unpopular, I'm not afraid
Speaker 4: of doing that.
Speaker 1: And coming up Erin on a recent trip to Israel
Speaker 1: that ended in a bomb shelter and the question about
Speaker 1: marriage that brought her to tears.
Speaker 2: A couple of years.
Speaker 1: Ago, when you were still working on a FM that
Speaker 1: was the hughesy Ed and Eron Show. One of the
Speaker 1: jobs that you lost at the end of last year.
Speaker 3: The tattoo, which I thought would secure my future, really didn't.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm guessing you'll never do that again.
Speaker 1: He said, you'll never work for one person again. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that will extend to tattooy An employers.
Speaker 4: So I feel like I could change it. I've just
Speaker 4: got to meet a man that his initials are age.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could.
Speaker 1: I can imagine I put that out in the universe people.
Speaker 3: That believe in manifesting.
Speaker 4: I certainly would not be manifesting a man. I have
Speaker 4: a million things i'd rather before that. But yes, I
Speaker 4: hear you.
Speaker 1: But I know I was talking to a little bit.
Speaker 1: It was not long after your dad, Jim Molland, who
Speaker 1: you're extremely close to. His presence is still with you
Speaker 1: when you talk about him. But I was talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about whether losing him might have set you
Speaker 1: on a path to maybe pursue a career in politics,
Speaker 1: and at that time it was Sky News political columns
Speaker 1: and then the FM radio Sean I was like, do
Speaker 1: you see sort of a world where the paths might diverge.
Speaker 2: And you sort of go down one path and then
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: Fate, as it often does, made the decision for you.
Speaker 1: I wondered if that had also shifted your politics a
Speaker 1: little bit, because now it seems like it's quite focused.
Speaker 1: This is what you are. You're a political commentator, You're
Speaker 1: a political anchor.
Speaker 3: I think very much so.
Speaker 4: And I look back to that period and we were
Speaker 4: on Ready for four years and it was a very
Speaker 4: difficult balance at times, and it was very hard to try.
Speaker 4: And I guess you're trying to be in this space
Speaker 4: where I mean, the radio audience was very different to
Speaker 4: obviously the Sky News audience. And whilst I didn't do
Speaker 4: Sky News content on radio, you know, my content I
Speaker 4: would do on Sky would often get a lot of publicity,
Speaker 4: and it was look, I definitely am much more. I
Speaker 4: wouldn't say my political views have changed at all, not
Speaker 4: even a little bit. I've always I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: in fact, most people would get more conservative as they
Speaker 4: get older. I think who was at Hollyva Lance. What
Speaker 4: did she say in some podcasts that I can't believe
Speaker 4: I'm quoting Holly of Lance, God bless her. I was
Speaker 4: quoting Taylor Swift the other day as well. But something,
Speaker 4: you know, you just grow up and you know, realize
Speaker 4: how the world works essentially. But I've kind of because
Speaker 4: of Dad and you know, kind of I think always
Speaker 4: had a fairly good grasp of that. But yeah, it's
Speaker 4: now the things that used to occupy my mind and
Speaker 4: that would part of my day to day aren't there anymore.
Speaker 4: So I'm no longer in that pop culture world. I'm
Speaker 4: no longer talking about single mum Isshue, you know all
Speaker 4: that we did a lot of that kind of stuff,
Speaker 4: which I loved and that that's a big part of me.
Speaker 4: And I guess I now would talk to my girlfriends
Speaker 4: about the stuff that I used to talk about on radio.
Speaker 4: But it is, It is funny. There are things that
Speaker 4: happened now and I think, God, that would have been
Speaker 4: a good story for radio, but I do not have
Speaker 4: a platform to share that now. So yeah, I think
Speaker 4: I love like that experience was amazing and we had
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Our listeners, and yes, we did have listeners, and they were.
Speaker 4: You know, we did double our audience and they were amazing,
Speaker 4: and it was it was a lovely, fun, incredible time
Speaker 4: that was enjoyable as opposed to apart from the you know,
Speaker 4: the angst about ratings and whether or not it would work,
Speaker 4: but the actual day to day with Husey and ed
Speaker 4: was was. Yeah, a real highlight of my life. And
Speaker 4: again no regrets at all. You know, I think back
Speaker 4: what I've accepted it. Had I known it was going
Speaker 4: to end at some stage, well, everything ends at some stage.
Speaker 4: We lasted four years and what one of ten or
Speaker 4: eleven or twelve teams that they've kind of churned through
Speaker 4: since then, It's like, you know what, I refuse to
Speaker 4: believe that every single individual that's been on that network
Speaker 4: is a failure. I vehemently refuse to believe that. In fact,
Speaker 4: I know that for a fact, So nor do I
Speaker 4: put myself in that category either or anyone else.
Speaker 1: I think it's the same way that we increasingly, I
Speaker 1: would argue, I've come to think a bit about relationships
Speaker 1: ending in marriage is ending. There was a time where
Speaker 1: that was all, well, that failed, but now we're like, well,
Speaker 1: that was actually a part of my life and that
Speaker 1: shape to that person.
Speaker 2: Is that shape? Two I am if there's.
Speaker 1: Children involved, and we see it less as a failure
Speaker 1: as something that ran its natural course hundred.
Speaker 4: The more I think about it these days, particularly, I think,
Speaker 4: you know, how does anyone meet someone at seventeen eighteen?
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm when I was thirty, I was such
Speaker 4: a different person in terms of what I value and
Speaker 4: my confidence and myself were. You know, there's so many
Speaker 4: different things that change. And I again, you're so right,
Speaker 4: it's not it's not a failure. And I used to
Speaker 4: hate when people would say a broken home, and I
Speaker 4: think that is utterly ridiculous. My daughter has two of
Speaker 4: the most beautiful, wholesome, loving homes that she could ever
Speaker 4: wish for, and a mum and dad who are in
Speaker 4: a wonderful place separately. But also we're a family as well,
Speaker 4: you know, we do a lot of things together. And it's, yeah,
Speaker 4: there's no element, you're right, a failure. But at the
Speaker 4: time I deeply felt like I had failed. I looked
Speaker 4: at my parents, who had been together for fifty five
Speaker 4: years or you know, they met when they was seventeen
Speaker 4: and eighteen, And some people are really blessed in that
Speaker 4: that is their story. That will not be my story.
Speaker 4: And would I have thought as a forty one year
Speaker 4: old sitting here now that I've never been married, I
Speaker 4: never would have thought that was my existence. You know,
Speaker 4: I joked to my siblings, I'm like, they're all I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm the hot one. How did I not get married?
Speaker 4: That's a joke, that will be I'll be annihilated for that,
Speaker 4: but bring it on.
Speaker 3: I don't care.
Speaker 4: It's a you know, we joke around a lot, but
Speaker 4: that just hasn't been my journey. But my journey's been insane.
Speaker 4: What a life I've lived. I've lived the most incredible life.
Speaker 4: And I'm in the greatest place I've ever been in.
Speaker 4: And I've thought I've been in great places before, but
Speaker 4: I wasn't. But I can hand on heart say that
Speaker 4: this stage of my life has been the most peaceful.
Speaker 4: And I'm driven by excitement now, not by fear, which
Speaker 4: is the most significant shift I've ever had in my life,
Speaker 4: which is really lovely.
Speaker 1: To be driven by excitement, that's that's a fantastic thing.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you what you missed about
Speaker 1: radio and what you didn't miss I mean breakfast radio
Speaker 1: the shift is brutal. But then I imagine broadcasting into
Speaker 1: the States, you're also navigating all sorts of time zones.
Speaker 3: Apart from my.
Speaker 1: Daughter that is sleeping in your bedroom, so probably the
Speaker 1: alarm clock still going off for crazy hours.
Speaker 4: Look, she's pretty amazing, Actually she kind of. She's She
Speaker 4: does not disturb me at all, which is which is wonderful.
Speaker 4: I disturb myself much more often. She's she's great. Yes,
Speaker 4: sometimes I have to get up in like an interview
Speaker 4: I'm trying to do at the moment desperately, which hopefully
Speaker 4: you know, I'll have an next twenty four hours or so,
Speaker 4: but I will have to get up at some ridiculous hour,
Speaker 4: which is so fine. What don't I miss? Look, I
Speaker 4: definitely I didn't. I don't think I realized what I
Speaker 4: was missing at home. So my little girl was how
Speaker 4: old was she?
Speaker 3: Like two? When I started breakfast radio.
Speaker 4: She was a baby and I did it for four
Speaker 4: years and so her entire life, basically she was waking
Speaker 4: up to a babysitter. And that to me, I think back,
Speaker 4: and I go, even with school and starting school last year,
Speaker 4: and you know, I say, babysitter, Vicky, who's you know
Speaker 4: started with us, says, not a nanny. We've never had
Speaker 4: a full time nanny, but just would babysit when we work.
Speaker 4: When she was six weeks old. So she's part of
Speaker 4: our family, and so we're very blessed, you know, to
Speaker 4: have had her.
Speaker 3: But now I look at the way.
Speaker 4: Her mornings start with her mum and I walk her
Speaker 4: to school, and I'm so present.
Speaker 3: And I've heard.
Speaker 4: People talk about when they lose jobs in this kind
Speaker 4: of thing before, and I've always thought, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: Good cover a loser. But it's actually it's.
Speaker 4: So true in that I feel like I miss such
Speaker 4: a big part of and I was always there, and
Speaker 4: you know, i'd pick her up from school, and I'm
Speaker 4: you know, I don't have much of a life apart
Speaker 4: from work in her so I'm always with her. But
Speaker 4: I just I now look at how she wakes up
Speaker 4: and I'm the first thing she sees, and we cuddle
Speaker 4: and she tells me a story because she's not a
Speaker 4: you know, I'll pick he up from school and she's
Speaker 4: got no interest in talking to me, but that morning
Speaker 4: time is so special. So I certainly I don't miss
Speaker 4: missing that part of her life. And I feel very
Speaker 4: blessed to have it now and to be able to
Speaker 4: walk her to school. Miss I miss the people absolutely.
Speaker 3: I miss you know.
Speaker 4: I couldn't show you our current group chat with Hughesy
Speaker 4: and Ed because ratings came out recently and we like
Speaker 4: to look and you know, we're bitter and twisted at times.
Speaker 3: But you know, that's life. That's everyone in the media.
Speaker 3: You're lying if you tell me you're not.
Speaker 4: But we had a great relationship and there's still you
Speaker 4: know Huesy in particular. I mean when I go on dates,
Speaker 4: he's usually the first person, you know, I text or
Speaker 4: call afterwards. We speak a lot, and he's someone that
Speaker 4: I'm forever grateful to have met and spent so much
Speaker 4: time with him.
Speaker 3: Yes, we came to.
Speaker 4: Blows a few times and we would disagree and really
Speaker 4: our cup which I loved as well, but he's, you know,
Speaker 4: become one of my closest friends. So I missed the
Speaker 4: people very much, so, but not much else. I gotta say.
Speaker 1: I also think it's totally believable when you talk about
Speaker 1: the benefits of getting some of that time back as
Speaker 1: a mother, because you weren't somebody that came out and
Speaker 1: said for family reasons I've decided to leave these jobs.
Speaker 1: You've been really honest and candid about that, so I
Speaker 1: think it's but it is true even if we do
Speaker 1: lose the job or circumstances change.
Speaker 3: By the way, that's that's wrong their experience.
Speaker 4: I only had my experience with you know, Hughsi and
Speaker 4: Ed's experience and their situations of I'm sure I know
Speaker 4: her are entirely different, but absolutely, you know, I kind
Speaker 4: of feel like I always ask people for brutal honesty,
Speaker 4: and I've always been very vulnerable in terms of, you know,
Speaker 4: how I feel about my body or how I felt
Speaker 4: about my body, not so much now, which is also
Speaker 4: a lovely space to be in, but how I've felt
Speaker 4: about different things, you know, past relationships that were not healthy.
Speaker 4: I've always been so vulnerable, yet with work I almost
Speaker 4: haven't been. For some reason, that was my achilles heel. Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm happy to say that I suck at this or
Speaker 4: I'm awful at this, or that this failed. But if
Speaker 4: it's professional God, no, no, no, can't, no way.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 4: The thought of people thinking I failed professionally, h anything
Speaker 4: else would be completely fine, But for some reason, that
Speaker 4: was the thing that terrified me more than anything else.
Speaker 4: But again, I got to the end of last year
Speaker 4: and thought, what more is there left to be afraid of?
Speaker 4: Like what in terms of that field? And I've got perspective,
Speaker 4: I've got a healthy child. I'm so lucky when I
Speaker 4: say I'm talking just in that professional capacity, I'm not
Speaker 4: afraid anymore of it.
Speaker 3: And so I don't need to hide anything.
Speaker 4: I don't need to make up stories or pretend like
Speaker 4: you know, oh well, you know, I've just decided to
Speaker 4: pivot or it is like you know, it happened. I
Speaker 4: lost all my jobs last year, and at the time
Speaker 4: it wasn't overly pleasant. But now I can say it's
Speaker 4: the greatest gift I've ever been given, the greatest gift.
Speaker 4: And I'm not saying I'm thanking the people who gave
Speaker 4: it to me, but I am incredibly grateful as to
Speaker 4: how it's all worked out, because in every way, personally
Speaker 4: as a mother and professionally already, I've had more success
Speaker 4: in the last six months in the ways that matter
Speaker 4: to me than I've had in twenty years.
Speaker 1: Aerin, when you left Sky Used Australia, there was a
Speaker 1: bit of a narrative out there that part of the
Speaker 1: reason or the reason that you'd lost your job there
Speaker 1: was because of your outspoken views and your pro Israel stance. Now,
Speaker 1: just for some context again for our audience. Obviously, Sky
Speaker 1: News Australia has a lot of anchors that are very
Speaker 1: passionately in favor of Israel, including Shari Marx and Caroline Marcus.
Speaker 1: Former Treasurer Josh Fredenberg presented a documentary that was investigating
Speaker 1: anti Semitism in Australia, and in February of this year,
Speaker 1: Sky News Australia actually held a very big anti Semitism summit.
Speaker 1: So it seems like a completely bizarre conspiracy theory to
Speaker 1: have gotten out there. Can I ask you about that,
Speaker 1: how it got out there and what you would say
Speaker 1: to people that believe it or heard it.
Speaker 3: I've said from day one.
Speaker 4: Have you watched Sky News Australia, Almost every anchor on
Speaker 4: there is very pro Israel. I've said it in every
Speaker 4: single interview that I've done. I was told budgetary reasons,
Speaker 4: it had nothing to do with my stance on Israel,
Speaker 4: and I said.
Speaker 3: That on X I put posts up.
Speaker 4: Look, I guess because I was so outspoken in favor
Speaker 4: of Israel and people in other parts of the world
Speaker 4: working for networks who are not like Sky News Australia,
Speaker 4: I guess, but debunked it at every single every turn,
Speaker 4: every corner, every opportunity, and you know, without being silly,
Speaker 4: it's utterly ridiculous. As I've said publicly multiple times, I've
Speaker 4: done a million interviews since in international media, and every
Speaker 4: time I've been asked about it, I've said the exact
Speaker 4: same thing.
Speaker 1: What did you learn at your time on Sky that
Speaker 1: has shaped the person that you are today and the
Speaker 1: news presenter that you are.
Speaker 3: Look, it was, I guess the first time that I
Speaker 3: was doing me essentially and not in terms of.
Speaker 4: When I hosted football that was amazing and in a
Speaker 4: lot of ways, but my job was not to talk
Speaker 4: about me. My job was to host a panel and
Speaker 4: facilitate radio. Absolutely a lot of personal content, but I
Speaker 4: was part of a team that was amazing in that,
Speaker 4: you know, I chasing in views, chasing guests that I
Speaker 4: wanted talking about things that I cared about deeply, and
Speaker 4: even you know, I talked about same sex marriage issues
Speaker 4: and things that maybe didn't align so much with what
Speaker 4: other people on Sky News believed, which you know is
Speaker 4: neither here nor there. But to do an hour live
Speaker 4: show a week for was I there three years?
Speaker 3: Three years?
Speaker 4: Was amazing And to be honest, it's what I'm doing
Speaker 4: now is essentially that what I used to do back then,
Speaker 4: but just doing it for myself. So I think it
Speaker 4: broadened my horizon in so many ways, and it enabled
Speaker 4: me to talk about things I truly cared about rather
Speaker 4: than things that I was just paid to talk about.
Speaker 4: So it look, again, was I pleased with how it happened? No,
Speaker 4: not at all, of course not, of course not. Do
Speaker 4: I regret leaving Channel nine and going there, not for
Speaker 4: a second, And do I regret my time, They're not
Speaker 4: for a second. It gave me the most incredible platform
Speaker 4: to show the world essentially who I am and what
Speaker 4: I can do. And yeah, it's certainly contributed to I mean,
Speaker 4: you may not think I'm a good broadcaster. For those
Speaker 4: who do think I'm a good broadcaster, it's certainly contributed
Speaker 4: to that.
Speaker 3: I think we're all the some of our parts.
Speaker 1: I think you're a great broadcaster, and I think all
Speaker 1: of the things that you've worked on from being a reporter,
Speaker 1: from being somebody that was at the forefront of female
Speaker 1: reporters and female presenters in footy and taking in the
Speaker 1: NRL world still very male dominated, a lot more female
Speaker 1: presenters in sports fortunately these days. And then being a
Speaker 1: columnist and working on FM radio and sharing that part
Speaker 1: of your life and working on Sky News.
Speaker 2: I think it's all the sum of.
Speaker 3: I feel parts and you are.
Speaker 4: I love thinking about it like that, because if you
Speaker 4: look at anything individually that any of us do, it
Speaker 4: will always come to an end in some way, shape
Speaker 4: or form. And whether that's your choice or someone else's,
Speaker 4: or whether it just dies a natural death, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It's all an experience. And I look at you know.
Speaker 4: I remember Larry Amda telling me ages ago when the
Speaker 4: Footay Show ended, I'm the most sacked host in Australian television.
Speaker 4: And I think he may have also told me he's
Speaker 4: the highest paid, but he may not own up to that,
Speaker 4: or I don't know if he still is. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm sure he's very valuable. But I remembered that for
Speaker 4: a long time and I didn't really need to think
Speaker 4: about that much until last year. And he's absolutely right
Speaker 4: in that this is part of our industry and for me,
Speaker 4: what a privileged, amazing life I have led and I've
Speaker 4: been given some of the most incredible opportunities, and I
Speaker 4: hand on heart can say that I have taken every
Speaker 4: single one to the point where they're well, not even probably,
Speaker 4: I know that, you know, I give so much and
Speaker 4: I want to do so much that it often annoys
Speaker 4: people and bosses who are like just but I just
Speaker 4: I love it so much and I feel so grateful
Speaker 4: for every opportunity I've had, And You're right, I feel
Speaker 4: like where I'm at now is a sum of all
Speaker 4: those parts. And the broadcaster I am now. You know,
Speaker 4: on my show I'm I'll won't just cover politics. There'll
Speaker 4: be other things, social issues. There'll be lots of different
Speaker 4: things that I'll feel more comfortable talking about because of
Speaker 4: all the experiences I've had. And again, you know, I
Speaker 4: look at other people who are, you know, married with
Speaker 4: lots of kids and have had very solid, safe, comfortable,
Speaker 4: peaceful existences, and God bless them, and that's amazing. That
Speaker 4: was never going to be my journey. That was never
Speaker 4: going to be my journey, and I just I pinch
Speaker 4: my I think gratitude. It sounds so wanky, but since
Speaker 4: doing that year of therapy, when Dad died, and I
Speaker 4: did that one year with beautiful Sandy Ray, who was
Speaker 4: just amazing change my life about you know, gratitude and
Speaker 4: about just being grateful for everything that I've got and
Speaker 4: what I've done. I look at my life now and
Speaker 4: I think how insane, how insane that all the things
Speaker 4: I've done, and some I did better than others. Absolutely,
Speaker 4: I'm a human being, and I don't think i've even
Speaker 4: started yet. You know, I don't think I've even come
Speaker 4: close to reaching a peak of what i want to
Speaker 4: do professionally. And I'm excited about the potential of that,
Speaker 4: and I'm excited about challenging myself and I'm excited about
Speaker 4: owning it completely, as in, everything I do from this
Speaker 4: point forward is on me, and there's no one telling
Speaker 4: me what to do or how to do it, or
Speaker 4: what to wear, or who to interview, or to focus
Speaker 4: more on local or to focus more on this, and
Speaker 4: that it's entirely on me, and that ownership is exciting
Speaker 4: for me rather than scary.
Speaker 1: Surviving really difficult things professionally personally can really give us
Speaker 1: a new perspective. And yet I can hear it in
Speaker 1: you as well, a real belief because you know what
Speaker 1: you can withstand. So I have to ask Aaron about
Speaker 1: something that you went through in June. You were in Israel.
Speaker 1: In fact, you were in Tel Aviv when rockets were
Speaker 1: coming in from Iran. You were in a bomb shelter
Speaker 1: at one point. How did you get out of there
Speaker 1: and how has that experience shifted you in terms of perspective?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. And I think as someone who
Speaker 4: has talked about this conflict for a long long time,
Speaker 4: to actually experience it, I think from a professional perspective
Speaker 4: was incredible.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was.
Speaker 4: It was very scary at times, and it was it
Speaker 4: was something I wasn't prepared for. I'd gone for one
Speaker 4: night I was being awarded an honorary doctorate, which was
Speaker 4: a lovely on from a university or a University of
Speaker 4: Rachman over there in Tel Aviv, and then I woke
Speaker 4: up the next morning ready to go to the airport
Speaker 4: and the first kind of attack had been launched onto
Speaker 4: Iran and airspace closed, everything shut and we were told
Speaker 4: to prepare for retaliation.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it was. It was.
Speaker 4: I think I went to a bombshelter maybe a hundred
Speaker 4: times in that week. You're running to bombshelters, multiple times
Speaker 4: a night, multiple times during the day. But this is
Speaker 4: what I you know, this is what I do. And
Speaker 4: even when I started back in Sport, I remember saying
Speaker 4: to the news director at Channel nine, I want to
Speaker 4: be a foreign correspondent.
Speaker 3: I want to go to war zones.
Speaker 4: And that was when I was a twenty five year old,
Speaker 4: and so to actually be in one and to be
Speaker 4: able to cover it, you know, I could have. I
Speaker 4: wasn't there working for anybody. I was just there on
Speaker 4: my own. But I went, I've got contacts here, foreign minister, President,
Speaker 4: i can go to impact sites. I can talk about
Speaker 4: what's happening on the ground. I can point out the
Speaker 4: complete fallacy in saying this is a tit for tat
Speaker 4: war when it's you know, let's target a nuclear site
Speaker 4: or a nuclear scientist or a terrorist, and versus let's
Speaker 4: target a building with a little girl who's got cancer.
Speaker 4: So I could actually go out to these sites, and
Speaker 4: so I did, you know, every day I went out
Speaker 4: to impact sites. I went and did interviews, I went
Speaker 4: to the IDF headquarters. I used it to do my
Speaker 4: job basically, and to report and to cover it.
Speaker 3: But again, yeah, it was I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 4: It was very unsettling and very nerve wracking, particularly when
Speaker 4: I realized that where we're staying, I think the Masade
Speaker 4: headquarters was close by underneath ground, so you kind of
Speaker 4: you know, we had missiles coming very close to where
Speaker 4: we were, so it was scary. But I was watching
Speaker 4: people there with their kids and families as well, so
Speaker 4: you know, I did. There was this poor, poor family
Speaker 4: from Florida that I just attached myself to staying at
Speaker 4: the hotel. They were I mean, bless them. I'm going
Speaker 4: to go visit them when I'm in Florida for a
Speaker 4: talk in a couple of months. Their kids were there
Speaker 4: and having to run to bomb shelters, but I felt
Speaker 4: grateful that I wasn't have to having to worry about
Speaker 4: my child safety. And then of course we're in bomb shelters.
Speaker 4: There are people who don't, who couldn't get to bomb shelters,
Speaker 4: and so yeah, perspective, It gives you a lot of perspective.
Speaker 4: And it was also incredible for me to experience what
Speaker 4: they do on the ground, not to that extent normally
Speaker 4: that was heightened absolutely, but for a lot of people
Speaker 4: in that region that is their everyday existence.
Speaker 1: I imagine that you hugged your daughter a little bit
Speaker 1: closer when you did get back home to Australia.
Speaker 4: I didn't cry it all over there at all. And
Speaker 4: you know, I had to escape through Jordan, which was
Speaker 4: which was quite a process as well, kind of trying
Speaker 4: to get through the border there, and eventually how I
Speaker 4: got out with this lovely group of people who let
Speaker 4: me sneak along with their crew, a bunch of economists
Speaker 4: from the US. But when I got to her dad's place,
Speaker 4: I think it was eleven pm at night, and I'd
Speaker 4: said I'm just going to come and get her straight away,
Speaker 4: and yeah, that I shed a few tears there. She didn't,
Speaker 4: which was hurtful.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 4: That was probably the only time I've I've shed tears
Speaker 4: over that, and that was just relief to be home
Speaker 4: with her and very grateful to live in this incredible country.
Speaker 3: God, we're lucky.
Speaker 1: My final question to Erin is, once we spoke, you
Speaker 1: were talking about how your late dad had said the
Speaker 1: forties are the best decade. It's still in the very
Speaker 1: early stages of the forties.
Speaker 2: We've spoken about what lies ahead.
Speaker 1: Professionally, you prepared for everything, including getting in Donald Trump's radar,
Speaker 1: good and the bad. You've said that even though you're
Speaker 1: the hot sibling you never married.
Speaker 3: My sister's are beautiful and my brother's very handsome. I
Speaker 3: have to put that on.
Speaker 1: It's all good. Never mind that, like how mainly Australian audience.
Speaker 3: Never mind?
Speaker 1: But what does lie ahead?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 2: What are you prepared for?
Speaker 3: As you said, do you.
Speaker 1: See potentially a waiting I know it's not the front
Speaker 1: of mine for you, but how are you feeling about
Speaker 1: the new opportunities with this new view that you have
Speaker 1: in yourself, this closest you've probably come to peace in
Speaker 1: a piece in a long time, high level of self
Speaker 1: acceptance radiating from you.
Speaker 3: It is very very much exactly that.
Speaker 4: And I feel like I look back at past relationships
Speaker 4: and I now have a greater understanding of why. And look,
Speaker 4: I had, you know, three very long term relationships, but
Speaker 4: I understand why they didn't work given where I was at.
Speaker 4: And I'm not taking full responsibility for that, but I
Speaker 4: definitely take ownership of of my shortcomings. And I mean,
Speaker 4: how can you be healthy and loving in a relationship
Speaker 4: when you're miserable inside? And when you're anxious all the time,
Speaker 4: and when you don't particularly like yourself, and when you're
Speaker 4: living in fear, it's almost impossible. Now my life is
Speaker 4: very different, which is lovely. In terms of marriage, I'll
Speaker 4: answer right now how I feel right now. Never I'll
Speaker 4: never get married, because I don't think I would. I
Speaker 4: don't think I could without Dad there to walk me
Speaker 4: down the aisle. I think that for me is that's
Speaker 4: the only thing I look forward to about marriage. I
Speaker 4: was hoping to make it through the whole thing without
Speaker 4: getting teary.
Speaker 3: I was so close. But I never grew.
Speaker 4: Up dreaming of like a dress, or like a prince
Speaker 4: charming or a But I remember when I was young,
Speaker 4: my cousin's dad walking her down the aisle and they
Speaker 4: would joke that she used to be naughty. And I
Speaker 4: was at the wedding with Dad, and he gave this
Speaker 4: beautiful speech about about how.
Speaker 3: She was a bit of a wild child, which I
Speaker 3: was when I was younger.
Speaker 4: And and then how she kind of, you know, she
Speaker 4: was a doctor and she was amazing, and you know,
Speaker 4: Dad and I would always, you know, he would always
Speaker 4: joke about his speech at my wedding, which he's obviously
Speaker 4: not here to give that or to what we've done.
Speaker 3: They are. So look, marriage does.
Speaker 4: Not interest me in the slightest at this stage, or
Speaker 4: I genuinely don't think I'll ever get married, and that's
Speaker 4: I'm so fine with that, despite the fact I'm not
Speaker 4: crying over not getting married. I'm crying because I missed
Speaker 4: my beautiful dad. But in terms of partners, I kind
Speaker 4: of when I separated from my daughter's father, I then
Speaker 4: went into another relationship almost immediately for three years, and
Speaker 4: I didn't give my self time to be alone, and
Speaker 4: I didn't quite understand why people don't recommend that until
Speaker 4: a little while in and I wait, now, this is
Speaker 4: why they say you should. So this year for me
Speaker 4: is all about so many different things, but it's also
Speaker 4: about me being on my own and being okay to
Speaker 4: be on my own, and it's again the loveliest, most
Speaker 4: peaceful existence I've ever had. And I'm dating. Absolutely, I'm
Speaker 4: open to connection, but in terms of commitment, not for me. No,
Speaker 4: this is my time to be selfish, to be the
Speaker 4: most present mother that I can be, and to do
Speaker 4: exactly what I want, when I want and when my
Speaker 4: daughter's with her dad for whatever period.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: Last month, they got on a plane and went to
Speaker 4: South Africa for two and a half nights because and
Speaker 4: you know, a girlfriend there is there and her husband
Speaker 4: and might have been another cute guy there, you know,
Speaker 4: and I just can and it's fun. And I'm having
Speaker 4: more fun now than I've ever had in my life
Speaker 4: in every single way. So I think this year for
Speaker 4: the rest of the year will be exactly the same
Speaker 4: as in. I don't want a relationship, I don't want commitment.
Speaker 4: I just want to live in peace. And I've found
Speaker 4: this lovely sweet spot now.
Speaker 3: That I don't want to be ruined.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we'll see. It's thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: It's been really lovely to chat and as always catch up.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you so much, Thank you.
Speaker 4: Eron.
Speaker 1: The Erin Molan Show launches this month on the Salem Network,
Speaker 1: and you can hear from Erin in her previous episodes
Speaker 1: of the Stellar podcast via the link in our show notes.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your company today. Before you go, we'd
Speaker 1: love it if you take a moment to leave a review.
Speaker 1: I'll be back in your ears with another exclusive guest
Speaker 1: next week.