Speaker 1: This is the warning. I'm Steve Schmidt. Welcome. I'm here
Speaker 1: with Mackay Coppins, who is an Atlantic magazine staff writer,
Speaker 1: is the author of a great biography of Willard Mitt Romney,
Speaker 1: the former governor of Massachusetts, the United States Senator from Utah,
Speaker 1: the two thousand and twelve Republican nominee for President of
Speaker 1: the United States. The name of that book is Romney
Speaker 1: The Reckoning, and he has written recently for The Atlantic,
Speaker 1: a long form profile of James Murdoch, The Murdoch Children,
Speaker 1: about the Murdoch family, all of the considerations of the
Speaker 1: children with regarding the news empire that has, in my
Speaker 1: view done so much damage to the country. Two concepts
Speaker 1: of truth and what will happen to it as the
Speaker 1: inevitable happens, and Rupert Murdoch passes from this world to
Speaker 1: the next sometime before not too very long at age
Speaker 1: ninety five. We have McKay Coppins with us, who I
Speaker 1: just want to say to everybody that he is an
Speaker 1: extremely talented writer, probably in my view, one of the
Speaker 1: two or three very very best of the best long
Speaker 1: form magazine profile writers of the country. In the country.
Speaker 1: You back and look at a masterpiece of writing for
Speaker 1: those of you who are interested in writing as a
Speaker 1: form of expression and read his profile I think in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty with Steve Bannon at Steve Bannon's head Orders
Speaker 1: on the night of the Biden election, extraordinary portrait of
Speaker 1: the MAGA movement at a low move at a low moment.
Speaker 1: But I'm really thrilled today to have Mickay Coppins joining
Speaker 1: me again. One of the best buy the book. You'll
Speaker 1: learn a lot about a compelling figure over this last
Speaker 1: decade and a half who is a deeper person than
Speaker 1: you may suspect, but with no further ado McKay coppins welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Steve, and thank you for that very kind,
Speaker 2: too kind introduction. But I'm glad to be here. I'm
Speaker 2: glad to be talking to you.
Speaker 1: One of the odd things about this moment is that
Speaker 1: people like me, all of a sudden get to ask
Speaker 1: journalists like you questions and do so in front of
Speaker 1: an audience that is sizeable and has a lot of
Speaker 1: curiosity about what journalism has become, what it is. What
Speaker 1: I hope to do today is to expose them really
Speaker 1: to a world class practitioner. As we kind of get
Speaker 1: into Fox News and the story. I just want to
Speaker 1: start out, how do you assess what is happening in Washington?
Speaker 1: What is the mood in Washington, DC? Right now? What
Speaker 1: is at a top level explaining beyond what I would
Speaker 1: say are the contours of a television production, a manifestation
Speaker 1: of reality show theater projected as the workings of the
Speaker 1: presidency to create responses, feelings, and effects. Take us into
Speaker 1: the cavern if you will a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always struggle to answer the question of, like,
Speaker 2: what's the vibe in Washington, because it really depends on
Speaker 2: who you are, Right, There's certainly a contingent of Republicans,
Speaker 2: Trump supporters, MAGA types, for whom this is like, you know,
Speaker 2: their emotional apex. This is like the triumph they have
Speaker 2: been working toward for in some cases decades. Right, This
Speaker 2: mass disruption of the federal government, this dismantling of federal agencies,
Speaker 2: the replacement of civil servants and nonpartisan bureaucrats with Trump loyalists,
Speaker 2: like this is a project that has been in the
Speaker 2: works for a very long time, you know, way before
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five became a kind of talking point.
Speaker 2: And so for some conservatives, Andublicans. This is a kind
Speaker 2: of joyful moment. I would say, if you tried to
Speaker 2: take the temperature of the Washington metropolitan area in general,
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to overstate how much the early
Speaker 2: weeks of trumps second term have kind of upended things,
Speaker 2: right and how unnerving it is right now. To me,
Speaker 2: the most unnerving thing about the early weeks of the
Speaker 2: Trump presidency hasn't really been the Trump Show that you're
Speaker 2: talking about, you know, the post untruth social and the
Speaker 2: press conferences and Elon and the Oval Office and stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, your mile wage may vary on that stuff,
Speaker 2: but like to me, it's kind of a piece with
Speaker 2: what Trump has been for since twenty fifteen, right for
Speaker 2: the past decade and maybe even longer you could go
Speaker 2: and do his reality TV days. What's unnerving to me
Speaker 2: is the culture of fear and self censorship and silence
Speaker 2: that is becoming pervasive among large segments of Washington d C.
Speaker 2: I personally know people who work in the federal government,
Speaker 2: work in the State Department, Justice Department, places like that,
Speaker 2: who are fundamentally not partisans. They are not political creatures
Speaker 2: in any meaningful sense. They've worked under administrations from both parties,
Speaker 2: and they are terrified, right, and they are looking over
Speaker 2: their shoulders constantly. They're afraid of ever expressing any kind
Speaker 2: of political opinion, even in private among friends at church,
Speaker 2: at dinner, because it might be overheard and make its
Speaker 2: way back to the White House, and you know, they
Speaker 2: could lose their jobs over it. People can't make long
Speaker 2: term or even short term plans about their families' lives,
Speaker 2: their professional lives. You know, some people listening to this,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're like a Trump Trump fan, you
Speaker 2: might say, well, that's good. I want I want federal
Speaker 2: bureaucrats to be looking over their shoulders, right, And I
Speaker 2: think that's just the point. That is what Trump has
Speaker 2: tried to accomplish, and he has accomplished it. I think
Speaker 2: it'll take some time for us to really see what
Speaker 2: the long term consequences are of this kind of upending
Speaker 2: of the federal bureaucracy. But at least right now, if
Speaker 2: you're asking for like a temperature check, the mood is
Speaker 2: very unnerved, very frightened, and the chaos, I think is
Speaker 2: doing what it's intended to do.
Speaker 1: I want to dig in a little bit deeper on
Speaker 1: the question of fear and I want to do so
Speaker 1: superficious excuse me superficially, and it just asks your valuation,
Speaker 1: not putting you on the spot of trying to own
Speaker 1: something that's complex with a with a simple declaration, but
Speaker 1: just as a general statement, I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: some categories and ask you to valuate those institutions as
Speaker 1: whether they're filled with people as you described in the
Speaker 1: federal government with fear. Does that hold inside the Republican
Speaker 1: House conference? Are they afraid of Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: I would say almost categorically yes. I don't know if
Speaker 2: they're living in fear day to day, but certainly it
Speaker 2: is true, and I've done reporting on this. It was
Speaker 2: actually in my book. It is certainly true that Republicans
Speaker 2: in the House are afraid of political repercussions for crossing Trump.
Speaker 2: Some are even afraid of, you know, the potential for
Speaker 2: violence against them or their families if they cross Trump
Speaker 2: and an especially highly visible way. So fear is definitely
Speaker 2: a component of some Republicans that now some Republicans are
Speaker 2: just fully on board with the Trump project and agenda,
Speaker 2: and I don't think they're operating from fear, but I
Speaker 2: think it's you know, it would be hard to say
Speaker 2: that fear doesn't play a part in Trump's kind of
Speaker 2: stranglehold on House Republicans.
Speaker 1: I would I would argue that they're all fully on
Speaker 1: board with the project. Whether they get there, and how
Speaker 1: they get there and down which tributary they flow into it,
Speaker 1: I think is debatable, but let me let me, let
Speaker 1: me keep going. So I think that's an interesting constituency
Speaker 1: because they are beneficiaries of staying in line, probably at
Speaker 1: a high level on the proverbial pyramid, and they face
Speaker 1: real repercussion forever objecting to anything in the fear of
Speaker 1: understanding that the benefit in everything goes away if they
Speaker 1: if they do so. Is there a climate of fear
Speaker 1: amongst House Democrats.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, that's a more complicated question. I mean, I would
Speaker 2: say fear. The fear there is not fear of Donald
Speaker 2: Trump per se, more a fear born out of a
Speaker 2: kind of general aimlessness or feeling of like not knowing
Speaker 2: exactly how to respond to this moment. Again, it's hard
Speaker 2: to say anything too sweeping, because I think there are
Speaker 2: Democrats who are operating very boldly. I think there are
Speaker 2: Democrats who are playing a long game. I think there
Speaker 2: are also democrats a lot of Democrats, And you sense
Speaker 2: this across in conversations with democratic political thinkers strategists that
Speaker 2: just don't kind of know how they get out of
Speaker 2: this moment, right they try. The feeling is, at least
Speaker 2: among some we tried resistance politics all through the first
Speaker 2: Trump term, and Trump is back right, and so should
Speaker 2: we be triangulating? Should we be appeasing should we be
Speaker 2: ignoring him? I mean, James Carville famously said recently that
Speaker 2: Democrats should lay over and play dead for a while
Speaker 2: and let the Trump administration implode on its own. I
Speaker 2: think there are just a lot of different voices, a
Speaker 2: lot of confusion about how to respond. So I think
Speaker 2: that to the extent that fear is an element there,
Speaker 2: it would be more about a fear of doing the
Speaker 2: wrong thing right, of kind of taking the wrong political
Speaker 2: course and seeing it backfire. And certainly I think you
Speaker 2: sense that among House Democrats.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there are House Democrats that are
Speaker 1: afraid of Trump's mob, either online through a psychological prism
Speaker 1: of wow, I'm constantly abused, and or the presence of
Speaker 1: that mob manifesting crowd boys pardoned January sixth, rioters that
Speaker 1: we read about some stories that have been published in
Speaker 1: the last ten days talked about the anxiety of members.
Speaker 1: Is there fear amongst our elected officials of the Trump mob.
Speaker 2: I think it would be hard to be a member
Speaker 2: of Congress who lived through January sixth and not have
Speaker 2: some kind of trauma associated with that.
Speaker 1: Not.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of rational to take away from
Speaker 2: that experience some base level fear of that happening again,
Speaker 2: or something similar to it happening. I would also say
Speaker 2: that there has been a general, a gradual rise, and
Speaker 2: I'm afraid to say it, but almost kind of normalization
Speaker 2: of political violence in this country over the last decade
Speaker 2: decade and a half that that has resulted in elected
Speaker 2: officials and politicians walking around every day with the constant
Speaker 2: fear in the back of their mind that they might
Speaker 2: somebody might be trying to kill them. And I remember,
Speaker 2: after even you know, the the assassin assassination attempt on
Speaker 2: Trump last year, talking to Republicans and Democrats who said,
Speaker 2: this is kind of the new reality that we all
Speaker 2: live in. We're all afraid of somebody coming after us,
Speaker 2: right like. And you know, certainly you could go back
Speaker 2: to periods in American history where that was pretty normal,
Speaker 2: and then we went through a period where it was not.
Speaker 2: And there's a general fear that we might be going
Speaker 2: back toward an era of political violence, assassination attempts, and
Speaker 2: I think that fear is constantly lurking in the back
Speaker 2: of our political leader's mind.
Speaker 1: I want to specifically exempt The Atlantic in this next question,
Speaker 1: even from consideration. I don't want to put you on
Speaker 1: the spot there, but you're deeply respected, very established by
Speaker 1: merit and earned reputation in Washington amongst journalists. Is their
Speaker 1: fear of Donald Trump in the Washington newsroom of many
Speaker 1: organizations by journalists.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 2: I I again don't want to speak categorically. There are
Speaker 2: too many data points over the last few months that
Speaker 2: you could point to without sensing that there is fear
Speaker 2: guiding decisions being made at news organizations at some levels.
Speaker 2: Right I would argue that more of that fear is
Speaker 2: being sensed at the ownership and executive level than at
Speaker 2: the newsroom and journalist level. I think we've seen, you know,
Speaker 2: too many frankly, owners and executives at news organizations kind
Speaker 2: of sweatily looking for ways to uh, you know, appease
Speaker 2: or cozy up to the new administration, and uh, and yeah,
Speaker 2: that's unnerving. That's unnerving for journalists. In my experience talking
Speaker 2: to my fellow journalists in Washington, there's more fear about
Speaker 2: what the bosses will do, their their own bosses will do,
Speaker 2: and how that will affect them as opposed to you know,
Speaker 2: Trump coming after them. There is there is talk about that.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's let's be real, like, of course, there's
Speaker 2: talk about what especially, you know, as we were leading
Speaker 2: up to the election, in the weeks after, there was
Speaker 2: there was plenty of discussion in newsrooms about what precautions
Speaker 2: should we be taking, how should we protect ourselves against
Speaker 2: you know, the Justice Department for example, coming after us,
Speaker 2: or Trump putting us on our enemies list. I think
Speaker 2: if you're an especially high profile political journalist who's tangled
Speaker 2: with Trump, you have reason to be concerned. So, no question,
Speaker 2: those those those conversations are happening. But but I would
Speaker 2: say that the what what kind of amplifies that fear
Speaker 2: and what spreads it is the feeling that your owners
Speaker 2: and bosses don't have your backs, right that that's where
Speaker 2: you get really worried. Speaking as a reporter who's worked
Speaker 2: at a bunch of places and for a bunch of
Speaker 2: editors and owners who I really did feel had my back.
Speaker 2: I can tell you like that is a crucial component
Speaker 2: to being able to do, you know, fearless adversarial journalism
Speaker 2: against you know, against the backdrop of powerful and illiberal
Speaker 2: leaders who are who are calling out the media every day.
Speaker 2: But you need you need that support. You need to
Speaker 2: feel like your owners are going to spend money to
Speaker 2: uh and you know, against a frivolous lawsuit or whatever.
Speaker 2: You need to feel like you're the top editors have
Speaker 2: your back, that they're not gonna kind of cowtow to
Speaker 2: somebody who complains about your reporting. You just need to
Speaker 2: have that sense of support. And I think too many
Speaker 2: journalists right now don't have that feeling.
Speaker 1: I don't want to put words in your mouth at all. Well,
Speaker 1: what I just heard you say is that there is
Speaker 1: a chill in the air in America's newsrooms, and it's
Speaker 1: driven by two factors, maybe three. The first is Trump's
Speaker 1: aggress and his aggressive statements of retaliation and retribution made
Speaker 1: against the ownership of media companies, who regard those media
Speaker 1: companies as appendages to great empires that are at the
Speaker 1: periphery that were totems of ego and then until they
Speaker 1: became liabilities of empire. And now the journalist does not
Speaker 1: feel like that they have their back covered by management,
Speaker 1: and that, combined with Trump's arbitrary aggressiveness, there's been a
Speaker 1: very acute change in media culture very quickly in the
Speaker 1: country that people are now very conscious of if I
Speaker 1: write something, there's a consequence. So what you're saying, you put.
Speaker 2: It that way, I would say, and I think that's
Speaker 2: that's a totally fair way of describing what's happening.
Speaker 3: I guess my.
Speaker 2: The the only caveat I'd add is that while there
Speaker 2: may be a chill in the air as you put it,
Speaker 2: I don't want to overstate overstate this because I still
Speaker 2: think there are so many reporters doing really good challenging uh,
Speaker 2: you know, reporting, holding power to account, UH, documenting what
Speaker 2: the administration is doing, what dog is doing, UH, doing
Speaker 2: tough stories. There are a lot of newsrooms, even in
Speaker 2: some of those same newsrooms, where there is a fear
Speaker 2: of what management is up to and UH and you know,
Speaker 2: a fear that they might not have their back. Some
Speaker 2: of a lot of reporters are still willing to take
Speaker 2: the risk to to do solid reporting because they care
Speaker 2: about it that much. Right, So I don't want to
Speaker 2: say that our whole you know, journalistic class has sold
Speaker 2: out and is terrified and you know, cowering and fear.
Speaker 2: I just think that we're up against different dynamics than
Speaker 2: we were in the first Trump term, where we had
Speaker 2: the same kind of rhetoric coming out of the White House.
Speaker 2: But back then it felt like that rhetoric was emboldening
Speaker 2: publications and even their owners right like it. It was
Speaker 2: kind of a dare to like go to to really
Speaker 2: do great work, and a lot of great work was done.
Speaker 2: And my fear is that this time around, at the
Speaker 2: ownership level of management level, there is not the same
Speaker 2: kind of defiance that's motivating the decisions that are being made.
Speaker 1: There is a seminal quote that will be at the
Speaker 1: front of history's recollection of this era when it comes
Speaker 1: to any study of journalism and the collapse of integrity
Speaker 1: that so many American people feel and the disorientation around fact,
Speaker 1: and it will be what Selena Zito said very famously,
Speaker 1: which is about some people take Trump literally and others
Speaker 1: taking him seriously, and the difference between the two. And
Speaker 1: so what I just heard you described is that Trump
Speaker 1: was taken literally but not seriously at one point by
Speaker 1: the American media. But Trump is now taken literally and
Speaker 1: seriously by the American media and probably more importantly by
Speaker 1: the ownership groups of the American media the corporate me
Speaker 1: today than he was then. And that's all the difference
Speaker 1: in the moment.
Speaker 2: I would also add that I'm not sure that they're
Speaker 2: wrong to take him more seriously now than they did
Speaker 2: in the first term. That doesn't mean they're making the
Speaker 2: right decisions or calculations based on that. But he clearly
Speaker 2: is His administration manifestly is more serious in the second
Speaker 2: term than it was in the first term. He has
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time, He and the people around
Speaker 2: him spent a lot of time making plans. You know,
Speaker 2: we see this from all the executive orders he signed
Speaker 2: in the first week's Project twenty twenty five, et.
Speaker 3: Cetera like it.
Speaker 2: It is manifestly, self evidently clear that he is a
Speaker 2: more serious political figure. Whether you find him seriously threatening
Speaker 2: to American democracy or you know serious, you know, champion
Speaker 2: of whatever you believe in, he is a more serious figure.
Speaker 2: His administration is more serious, and there is a reason
Speaker 2: to take his threats more seriously this time than the
Speaker 2: first four years he was president.
Speaker 1: Objectively what you just said, and it seems right to
Speaker 1: me by way of observation analytically, which is that any
Speaker 1: person rationally observing what's happening has to impose a lot
Speaker 1: of weight of denial into the analysis to come to
Speaker 1: a conclusion that Donald Trump does not mean the things
Speaker 1: that he is doing. Yeah, fair point.
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, I think that I would fully agree with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have one last question about about fear, and
Speaker 1: then I want to I want to get into the
Speaker 1: Fox News stuff because I think fear is in the
Speaker 1: end the commodity of Fox News. And there's this tremendous
Speaker 1: family drama, ammorality play that you wrote about so exquisitely,
Speaker 1: and I want to get get into talking about it.
Speaker 1: But Didmitt Romney leave Washington DC afraid?
Speaker 2: You'd have to ask him that question. If you asked him,
Speaker 2: or if I asked him, he would say no, he
Speaker 2: would say that he was not afraid that you know,
Speaker 2: he had his own perfectly legitimate reasons for retiring. Is
Speaker 2: an ins late seventies, His wife is you know, has
Speaker 2: multiple sclerosis. He wants to spend his last good years
Speaker 2: with her and his family. All that that said, I
Speaker 2: know people around him, very close to him, who are
Speaker 2: afraid for him and who believe that I don't know
Speaker 2: that he that would say that. Maybe he wouldn't be
Speaker 2: wouldn't describe himself as acting out of fear. But he's acting.
Speaker 2: He is pragmatically and practically practically aware of the political
Speaker 2: situation that we're in with a president who has an
Speaker 2: enemy's list and a willingness to use the levers of
Speaker 2: government power to go after those those enemies, and that Romney,
Speaker 2: while maybe not at the top of that list, is
Speaker 2: probably somewhere on that list as a Republican apostate, and
Speaker 2: I should mention in my book the paperback edition of
Speaker 2: my book, I interviewed him again last year. I was like,
Speaker 2: I think last spring, and I asked him about kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, if Trump wins, what does this mean for you,
Speaker 2: what does it mean for your family? And he tried
Speaker 2: to downplay it at first, and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm not spending a lot of time
Speaker 2: thinking about that. But then I kept pushing it, and
Speaker 2: then he kind of got a little upset and like irritated,
Speaker 2: and he finally kind of just snapped at me and said,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know what you want me to say.
Speaker 2: I have five kids, five daughters in law, you know,
Speaker 2: dozens of grandkids, like I can't protect all of them.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to protect all of them. And
Speaker 2: it was an interesting kind of window, just a glimpse
Speaker 2: into the psychology of somebody who has been taken pretty
Speaker 2: courageous independent stands in the Trump era as like a
Speaker 2: dissident in the party, kind of reckoning with the reality
Speaker 2: of where we're at and realizing that there's only so
Speaker 2: much he can do to protect the people he cares about.
Speaker 2: With somebody like Trump in the Oval office.
Speaker 1: Do you think that there is any chance we will
Speaker 1: see in the next two years time? In address by
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney somewhere in the country, rising to meet this
Speaker 1: moment as a matter of conscience outside the realm of
Speaker 1: his political ambitions, now in the past, where he simply
Speaker 1: as a man who any millions of people regard as
Speaker 1: a person of tremendous stature and rected to speak in
Speaker 1: what many scores of tens of millions, I suggest will
Speaker 1: we'll soon regard together as a as a really deep crisis.
Speaker 1: Will we ever hear from him again in any consequential way,
Speaker 1: or is Mitt Romney in a state of retirement and repose.
Speaker 3: It's a good question.
Speaker 2: I feel like ever since my book came out in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, every interview I do, people are asking,
Speaker 2: you know, what's he going to do next? Is he
Speaker 2: going to say something? Is he going to speak out again?
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know, is the short answer.
Speaker 2: We actually saw him make his first public statement since
Speaker 2: leaving the Senate just a week or two ago, after
Speaker 2: that Oval Office meeting with Zelensky and with Trump and Vance,
Speaker 2: and you know, he said, we must not let petty
Speaker 2: personal differences get in the way of the reality that
Speaker 2: we're facing, which is an autocratic regime invading a sovereign
Speaker 2: nation and this country deserves our protection, et cetera. It's
Speaker 2: all the things you would expect him to say. I
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what compelled him in that moment to
Speaker 2: speak out. It probably was some combination of just repulsion
Speaker 2: at what he was seeing in the Oval Office and
Speaker 2: a strong feeling that he needed to say something. I
Speaker 2: think at the same time, He's always weighing does this
Speaker 2: stuff make any difference?
Speaker 3: Right? He put that.
Speaker 2: Statement out, it got some coverage, Did it move the
Speaker 2: needle at all? You say that millions of people look
Speaker 2: up to him, and I think that's true. I mean,
Speaker 2: I also think that he believes he has never had
Speaker 2: less influence in Republican politics than he does now, and
Speaker 2: so he asked a way that reality against the costs
Speaker 2: of speaking out. But my guess is, if you were
Speaker 2: asking me to take bets, I'm I'm not a gambling man,
Speaker 2: but I would guess that it's not the last that
Speaker 2: we've heard of Met Romney. I would I would guess
Speaker 2: that we'll we'll hear from him again.
Speaker 1: I just want to say before we turn to the
Speaker 1: to the story of Fox News that Romney a reckoning
Speaker 1: I think is interesting, a psychological portrait that you can
Speaker 1: read of a complex person in public life. I think
Speaker 1: it's an extraordinary portrait of a man in a season,
Speaker 1: but also the institution of the US Senate in a
Speaker 1: particular moment in time, just on the edge of what
Speaker 1: I would argue is a real fundamental collapse now into
Speaker 1: a pile of bureau at least temporarily of both privilege
Speaker 1: and control by the executive branch to which it it's
Speaker 1: a coequal check and balance against, at least within the
Speaker 1: constitutional imagination of our of our of our ancestors. And
Speaker 1: so it's a it's an incredible book. But one of
Speaker 1: the things I walked away from that book astonished by
Speaker 1: was that point that Mitt Romney has a lack of
Speaker 1: self awareness about how much Mitt Romney's words could mean
Speaker 1: to so many people after so much time in office,
Speaker 1: that something more down and edging him like water on
Speaker 1: a rock, that created this doubt in his mind, this
Speaker 1: voice of doubt inside of Mitt Romney's mind about the
Speaker 1: ability of Admit Romney to roar like a lion. And
Speaker 1: I don't doubt it right that he could have that
Speaker 1: he can, and he's got a couple of roarers left.
Speaker 1: But that doubt I found just to be fascinating. I
Speaker 1: want to get into this Atlantic piece that you did,
Speaker 1: which is another astounding piece of psychological portraiture, family portraiture
Speaker 1: or portraiture of power. This is real life succession, This
Speaker 1: is the Murdoch family. And to set the stage that
Speaker 1: very wealthy people have organized their affairs in series of
Speaker 1: inner linking financial arrangements that seek to avoid taxes and
Speaker 1: allow for the salubrious intergenerational transfer of wealth. And there
Speaker 1: are revocable trusts, and there are irrevocable trusts. And one
Speaker 1: of the features of an irrevocable trust is its irrevocability.
Speaker 1: And so there is an irrevocable trust that Rupert Murdoch
Speaker 1: litigated against his children in court and lost the case,
Speaker 1: meaning that upon the death of this ninety five year
Speaker 1: old man, he is unable to fulfill his living intention,
Speaker 1: which is to bestow control of it to the child
Speaker 1: he has selected as his business heir, which is his
Speaker 1: son Lachlan, and not his dissident James, who now with
Speaker 1: the other children. If I understand your story correctly, at
Speaker 1: the moment the Pope dies, blessings will be said, and
Speaker 1: the fisherman's ring, Peter's ring will be taken from his singer,
Speaker 1: from his finger, and the seal of Saint Peter cracked
Speaker 1: from it. And this scene is played out in conclave.
Speaker 1: When his Majesty the King passes in an instant, the
Speaker 1: sovereign is dead, Long live the King at that instant
Speaker 1: which all of humanity shares. When Rupert Murdoch's brain fires
Speaker 1: its last electrical impulse, heart beats a final time, his
Speaker 1: lungs fill in exhale, his last raph. He is gone.
Speaker 1: It seems to me reading your story, Jesse Waters is
Speaker 1: gonna wind up like a park Ranger underdoge scrutiny.
Speaker 2: I won't make quite that bold of prediction, but I
Speaker 2: will say that it does look like as things stand now,
Speaker 2: pending appeals in the litigation and various other possibilities, if
Speaker 2: things play out the way we think they'll play out,
Speaker 2: change will be coming to Fox News when Rupert dies.
Speaker 3: I think that is fair to say yes.
Speaker 2: And the reason is you alluded to it that the
Speaker 2: way that the fam the Murdoch Family trust is currently
Speaker 2: set up, when Rupert dies, control of the empire that
Speaker 2: includes Fox News. It also includes Dow Jones, the Wall
Speaker 2: Street Journal, a bunch of British and Australia newspapers, and
Speaker 2: TV channels, et cetera. The you know, the Fox network,
Speaker 2: but the empire will be split. The control of the
Speaker 2: empire will be split four ways, equally among Rupert's four
Speaker 2: oldest children, Lachlan, James, Elizabeth and Prudence.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: The current kind of makeup of those four. Lachlan is
Speaker 2: the Rupert's mini me. He is a conservative ideologue by
Speaker 2: all accounts. He believes in the way that his father
Speaker 2: has built the empire, and that's why Rupert chose him
Speaker 2: as his successor. James and his two sisters are much
Speaker 2: less conservative and to varying degrees centrist to liberal, and
Speaker 2: more importantly, are appalled by some of the things that
Speaker 2: Fox News has done and other elements of the Empire
Speaker 2: have done, and they believe serious reforms need to be
Speaker 2: made to these businesses to make them responsible participants in
Speaker 2: the public discourse, international politics, media, et cetera. And it
Speaker 2: looks like the three of them will be able to
Speaker 2: outvote Lachlan on major decisions. And so that is why
Speaker 2: there's been so much attention paid to this family drama,
Speaker 2: why The Atlantic put this thirteen thousand words story on
Speaker 2: the cover, Because while it is a very juicy family drama,
Speaker 2: a morality play, like you said, and I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of pathos and really tragedy in it. It's
Speaker 2: almost Shakespearean in nature, it has very real stakes for
Speaker 2: American politics and American democracy, and we're going to find
Speaker 2: out what that means pretty soon.
Speaker 1: Probably what is his condition?
Speaker 2: Ruberts, Yes, as far as I know, healthy or as
Speaker 2: healthy as he can be. But he's ninety four years old,
Speaker 2: so you know, I mean, just actuarily speaking, it's only
Speaker 2: a matter of time before he passes away. But I
Speaker 2: don't know of any imminent illness that is threatening his
Speaker 2: life right now?
Speaker 1: Do the children? When you talk about the four parts,
Speaker 1: are they apportioning as these trusts or structured pieces of
Speaker 1: bricks and mortar in an empire between themselves one part
Speaker 1: for you, one part for you, one for you, one
Speaker 1: for you, or is it three against one seventy five
Speaker 1: percent control of the vote, where fifty plus one is
Speaker 1: the magic number.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So there's the board that constitutes the trust currently includes Rupert,
Speaker 2: who has four votes, and then each of his four
Speaker 2: oldest children has one. Once Rupert dies, his four votes
Speaker 2: go away, and those the one vote that each of
Speaker 2: the four has belongs to them, and so they have
Speaker 2: supervision over the entire empire. And it's a little more
Speaker 2: complicated than that, but basically, yes, it's not like you
Speaker 2: get this fiefdom, I get this one. It's more that
Speaker 2: decisions are made by the four of them together and
Speaker 2: right now, just looking at it, it looks like James
Speaker 2: and his sisters are on one side on most issues.
Speaker 3: Lachlan is on the other.
Speaker 1: So I have an ambition. I've never expressed it before,
Speaker 1: and since these companies are all dying, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get to live it. But I think I would
Speaker 1: have been a great president of a cable news company.
Speaker 1: But what you're saying, uh huh, is that the Murdoch
Speaker 1: siblings could say, at the moment of death, we want
Speaker 1: to make Steve Schmidt the president of Fox News.
Speaker 2: Are you your application right are to them?
Speaker 1: I would, I would, but but that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: Whomever it is now, Juseanne Scott, you're fired, right, you're
Speaker 1: coming in. And so, for example, the new Fox News could,
Speaker 1: if the siblings decided, open up the files of every
Speaker 1: sexual harassment settlement misconduct case of every Fox News anchor
Speaker 1: famous person going back twenty years. You know, whether it's O'Reilly,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty sixty million in settlements, Kimberly Guilfoil. I
Speaker 1: mean they could if they so chose, and their council
Speaker 1: let them, Hey, we are going to open up open
Speaker 1: kimono this institution and let everybody have the peakaboo inside
Speaker 1: of what went on here. They will have that type
Speaker 1: of revelatory power should they choose to do it. They
Speaker 1: could ask, for example, if they wanted to at Fox News,
Speaker 1: say to the Wall Street Journal, we'd like you to
Speaker 1: investigate this organization, open kimono and report back.
Speaker 2: In theory yes, and I'm you added in boring caveat,
Speaker 2: you know, depending on what their council says, I'm sure
Speaker 2: that there are all kinds of legal complexities involved here.
Speaker 2: What I will say, though, having spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time talking to James, who, by the way, spent twenty
Speaker 2: years working for the family business before his eventual falling
Speaker 2: out an estrangement from his father, is that I don't
Speaker 2: see him as like an as a particularly activist figure
Speaker 2: in this sense, right. I don't see him going taking
Speaker 2: over and trying to sabotage Fox News or you know,
Speaker 2: meaningfully hurt these companies to make a point about how
Speaker 2: they've been run. As disillusioned as he is by the
Speaker 2: way that they've been run, I think that what's more
Speaker 2: likely is there would be leadership changes in key ways.
Speaker 2: There would be you know, kind of company wide reforms
Speaker 2: that deal with things like corporate governance and editorial guard rails,
Speaker 2: journalistic guard rails. He would want to see Fox News
Speaker 2: run like a true news organization that didn't, for example,
Speaker 2: broadcast lies about who won the last election, or put
Speaker 2: on quack doctors to spread vaccine misinformation during a pandemic,
Speaker 2: or platform an oil shill and let them pretend that
Speaker 2: they're an expert on climate change. Like those things, to
Speaker 2: him are not political things. And he's been clear every
Speaker 2: time we've talked about this that he doesn't want to
Speaker 2: turn Fox News into MSNBC. He's not saying Fox News
Speaker 2: should become a liberal network. He thinks Fox could continue
Speaker 2: to report from a center right perspective, but do it responsibly,
Speaker 2: with responsible corporate leadership and newsroom, you know, principles and
Speaker 2: values that they abide by. And would that mean some
Speaker 2: change in the way that the coverage is done. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: Would that mean change in talent? He wouldn't go there
Speaker 2: with me, but we've seen reporting elsewhere. I think Brian
Speaker 2: Stelter reported that many of the Fox News stars have
Speaker 2: already started to kind of make plans amongst themselves for
Speaker 2: what to do in the event that James takes over.
Speaker 2: Or James and his sisters are in control, so that
Speaker 2: I would imagine there would be changes at the talent
Speaker 2: level too, But to be clear, that's me speculating. James
Speaker 2: was always careful about going into too much detail about
Speaker 2: what changes he'd want to make, first because he thinks
Speaker 2: it's not appropriate yet. The second because he also he
Speaker 2: recognizes that it's something that his father could weaponize and
Speaker 2: the litigation that's going on because basically Rupert's chief argument
Speaker 2: in this attempt to rewrite the family trust is that
Speaker 2: if Lachlin isn't allowed to have full control of the empire,
Speaker 2: when Rupert's gone, James and his sisters will take the
Speaker 2: value of the companies by moderating its politics, defanging them,
Speaker 2: and making them more responsible, basically, and so so James
Speaker 2: is wary of giving too much detail that Rupert could
Speaker 2: then use in this ongoing litigation.
Speaker 1: Is James ashamed of his last name?
Speaker 3: I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I don't know. You'd have to
Speaker 3: ask him, But I can say.
Speaker 1: That he's James ashamed of his father.
Speaker 2: I think he is ashamed of some of the associations
Speaker 2: that the Murdoch name now has and the things that
Speaker 2: have been done under the banner of his last name,
Speaker 2: the Murdoch Empire.
Speaker 1: Does James Murdoch appreciate that a majority to a substantial plurality,
Speaker 1: depending on how you look at it, views his last
Speaker 1: name shamefully?
Speaker 3: Is he aware of that? Did you ask? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I'm sure he is. I mean I didn't ask him
Speaker 2: quite that question, but I think it was pretty much understood.
Speaker 1: James Murdoch and his siblings live very well. They're billionaires.
Speaker 1: Has James Murdoch ever earned and died doing anything in
Speaker 1: his life that's not associated with the company or his inheritance.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, he's in right now, for example, building a
Speaker 2: media empire in India.
Speaker 1: Has James Murdoch and I just asked this right by
Speaker 1: any reasonable definition, right, discounting nepotism, Have they accomplished anything
Speaker 1: on their own name? When, for example, Teddy Roosevelt's son,
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt Junior, was a young man, he said that,
Speaker 1: lamenting his name, that he would never be judged on
Speaker 1: his own merit. Well, he became the Governor General of
Speaker 1: the Philippines, the board chairman of American Express, He founded
Speaker 1: the American Legion, and he led American Forces Ashore on
Speaker 1: d Day as the only father who had a son
Speaker 1: in the first wave, as the oldest man in the
Speaker 1: first wave, is the only general officer in the first wave,
Speaker 1: and he received them of honor that day for his valor.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to establish, right other than live lives
Speaker 1: of extraordinarily gilded privilege and desecrate what it is that
Speaker 1: their father built that I think is monstrous. Have they
Speaker 1: ever done anything that any of them can point to
Speaker 1: that I did this? I took a stand on this
Speaker 1: somewhere anywhere in the world. I dug a ditch in
Speaker 1: Suriname so that human feces could blow away from the
Speaker 1: water supply to your knowledge, have any of Rupert Murdoch's
Speaker 1: kids ever accomplished anything of note or worth anywhere, not
Speaker 1: attached to his money, not attached to their name, or
Speaker 1: taken a stand on anything other than saying, we don't
Speaker 1: like how my dad runs the company that gave us
Speaker 1: our billions to enjoy our lives with.
Speaker 2: I will give you the answer that James would give,
Speaker 2: which is that he, like I said, he spent twenty
Speaker 2: years in the family business, mainly over maybe mainly internationally
Speaker 2: right so Asia, and then London, he would say that.
Speaker 2: So each of the kids walked away from the twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen deal where Fox twenty first century, Fox Film and
Speaker 2: TV Studios were sold to Disney with two billion dollars
Speaker 2: in their pockets. Right, James helped orchestrate that deal. He
Speaker 2: landed the plane on that deal. Lachlan was against it.
Speaker 2: He would say he earned He helped earn that money
Speaker 2: for him and his siblings by doing that deal, which
Speaker 2: now most analysts would say Disney wildly overpaid for. Setting
Speaker 2: that aside. Since then, since he's left the company, resigned
Speaker 2: from the board, he's done a number of things. He's donated,
Speaker 2: you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to various democratic causes,
Speaker 2: climate change. He's bought, you know, like I said, a
Speaker 2: bunch of media art Basel for example. He's building a
Speaker 2: media empire in India. Now, can you disentangle that stuff?
Speaker 2: This is me speaking now from the obvious head start
Speaker 2: that he got by being born a murdoch. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you can. I think that's part of what
Speaker 2: made him, though, such a compelling interesting subject, is that
Speaker 2: he was grappling with that those questions that you're asking
Speaker 2: in real time as we talked over the course of
Speaker 2: a year, right, Like, he has spent most of his
Speaker 2: life kind of drafted into this family drama, this kind
Speaker 2: of like very Shakespearean, you know, psychodrama about who is
Speaker 2: the father's favorite and who is going to be the successor,
Speaker 2: and spent almost his whole life playing this specific part
Speaker 2: that he was casting as the dissidence on the rebel,
Speaker 2: the black sheep, whatever. And only now that he's in
Speaker 2: his fifties is he trying to kind of figure out
Speaker 2: what his identity is apart from that whole drama, right,
Speaker 2: And you know, you can make a lot of criticisms
Speaker 2: of him, and I think they're fair. I'm not here
Speaker 2: to defend him. I think that there's a lot of
Speaker 2: kind of pathos in seeing somebody like him who has
Speaker 2: a functioning conscience and is trying to figure out the
Speaker 2: right thing to do in a system that he was
Speaker 2: kind of born into and doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 2: right things to do as obvious options.
Speaker 1: I'm not criticizing him. I'm trying to understand him, to
Speaker 1: be clear, and I want to bring it back, you know,
Speaker 1: as we start to wrap up here, because I think
Speaker 1: this is where I see a gap in the proverbial
Speaker 1: bri ridge across the canyon and trying to understand who
Speaker 1: this person is. Right as a as a reader of
Speaker 1: your story, that I think fleshes out a great, a
Speaker 1: great deal of this right. But the missing the missing
Speaker 1: gap for me is will he is he on a
Speaker 1: journey to fully recognize? Is he's somewhere in root to
Speaker 1: a destination that ends inevitably with him staring into a
Speaker 1: mirror and seeing at some degree, like every son will
Speaker 1: see their father's face and time etched in a genetic familiarity,
Speaker 1: does he see evil in the face of his father?
Speaker 1: And does he see the damage that that evil did
Speaker 1: to the most incandescenly perfect idea ever put to paper
Speaker 1: by the mind of man in human history? Is that
Speaker 1: something that he has the depth to reckon with, and
Speaker 1: that he has the deserve shame to face and the
Speaker 1: strength to try to make right by ending an existential
Speaker 1: threat that pounds on by the moment. And even since
Speaker 1: you wrote your story has announced itself in a way
Speaker 1: that is almost incomprehens answible in that it's become the
Speaker 1: government of the United States. That's what his father created,
Speaker 1: and that's what has taken over politically and at this
Speaker 1: moment is working continuously to tear down the institutions that
Speaker 1: emerged from the Second World War that's saved during that war,
Speaker 1: Australia from whence Rupert came by the country that rebuilt
Speaker 1: the world, and any talk about that, and then I'll
Speaker 1: turn it over. I'll ask you one last thing and
Speaker 1: we'll wrap it up.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think I have a satisfying answer
Speaker 2: for you, because the truth is, I don't know, and
Speaker 2: I don't know that anyone apart from the person himself,
Speaker 2: can ever know. You know, the kind of depths of
Speaker 2: courage you're able to summon, the depths of self awareness
Speaker 2: and recognition. I spent a lot of time with him.
Speaker 2: I found him impressive in.
Speaker 3: A lot of ways. He is.
Speaker 2: He's a deep thinker, he's a deep reader. He references history,
Speaker 2: he references philosophy, uh classic works of literature.
Speaker 3: He he he is.
Speaker 2: Not a you know, kind of an unthinking, diletent billionaire.
Speaker 2: I've I've interviewed plenty of those as well.
Speaker 1: I think he's he.
Speaker 2: Is somebody who thinks a lot and where that that
Speaker 2: that kind of depth of historical knowledge and philosophical thinking
Speaker 2: will lead him. I just don't know. I don't know,
Speaker 2: and that, but that, but that's part of again, part
Speaker 2: of what made him so compelling to me as a
Speaker 2: subject is that he does have enough self awareness to
Speaker 2: be grappling with some of the questions you just laid out.
Speaker 2: Maybe not quite in the way you laid them out,
Speaker 2: but he's grappling with these things. But I don't know
Speaker 2: where that grappling will will ultimately lead him.
Speaker 1: It is a fascinating story in a fascinating moment. You know,
Speaker 1: listen again, everybody. Romney a reckoning is a masterpiece of
Speaker 1: political portraiture. It is laugh out loud funny. There is
Speaker 1: something that I'll just say about Mitt Romney that I
Speaker 1: know to be true, having spent enough time around him.
Speaker 1: He has an author's eye for absurdist detail. Mitt Romney
Speaker 1: when he walks into a room, and no one would
Speaker 1: suspect us about Mitt Romney. But Mitt Romney is a
Speaker 1: genuinely funny guy and and his there's different types of
Speaker 1: humor and Mitt Romney's humor. If you think Jerry Seinfeld
Speaker 1: is funny, and I think Jerry Seinfeld is funny, The
Speaker 1: basis of Mitt Romney's humor is his keen eye for absurdism,
Speaker 1: and it conveys so deeply in McKay Coppins's book about
Speaker 1: the Senate about this moment. And McKay coppins, because he
Speaker 1: is the best at what he does, has some license
Speaker 1: at the place he works, which is he gets to
Speaker 1: pick out the things that interest him, and I suspect
Speaker 1: has a long leash in pursuing them. And so when
Speaker 1: you read this story in The Atlantic, we'll share as
Speaker 1: we go out about the Murdoch family. It was brilliant,
Speaker 1: It's consequential, It is Shakespearean, uh, it is biblical and astonishing.
Speaker 1: And the drama that begins to play out at the
Speaker 1: instant of Rupert Murdoch's death is something that every person
Speaker 1: in this country is a stakeholder in. And let me
Speaker 1: say I've never said this about another human being. When
Speaker 1: the moment this monster draws his last breath, good reredditence,
Speaker 1: and let the drama begin. And James Murdoch has a
Speaker 1: lot to answer for, as every one of those kids
Speaker 1: does in my view, and we'll see and and you
Speaker 1: begin to see the contours of how they'll approach a
Speaker 1: decision that will redeem a rotten name or dig a
Speaker 1: deeper grave for it. And with that McKay coppins, the
Speaker 1: very best journalist in America. Thank you for joining the Warning.
Speaker 3: Thanks Steve, and I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the Warning.
Speaker 1: I invite you to join this community where I promise
Speaker 1: to be honest, blunt and direct about what is happening
Speaker 1: in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe
Speaker 1: to this channel on YouTube and on substack. Thank you,