Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
Speaker 1: where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
Speaker 1: today's best minds and hell is watching MTG preside over
Speaker 1: the house. We have a fascinating show today. Brian Stelter
Speaker 1: joins us to talk about the media. Then we will
Speaker 1: talk to Ann Albert and Deb mcclutchy, the directors of
Speaker 1: The Martha Mitchell Effect, about the important movie they just
Speaker 1: made and why Martha Mitchell's story matters. But first we
Speaker 1: have the recounts Slade Sommer to talk about what we
Speaker 1: just saw during Biden's State of the Union address. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fast Politics for a special post State of the Union,
Speaker 1: Fast Politics with my friend and yours Slade. Hey, what's
Speaker 1: going on. Well, we just watched the Biden speech. It
Speaker 1: was about an hour and a half. Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: know by the time, yeah, probably about an hour fifteen. Definitely,
Speaker 1: he read it very fast, which was a long speech.
Speaker 1: Before he started, we heard a television pendence saying it
Speaker 1: was going to be a long speech, but he sort
Speaker 1: of tried to catch up. I don't know. I thought
Speaker 1: that was a very good speech. And again, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a partisan, I'm on the opinion side. So I
Speaker 1: you know, I am predisposed to want to like a
Speaker 1: Biden's speech, but it was a really well crafted speech.
Speaker 1: I thought. Yeah, I mean, the best thing I will
Speaker 1: say about it is that he baited Republicans incredibly well tonight.
Speaker 1: Incredibly he got them on the record saying social Security
Speaker 1: and Medicare is a great thing and they will never
Speaker 1: touch it. Right. That was amazing, you know, he got
Speaker 1: them on the record on that that ceiling he got that.
Speaker 1: You know, he literally went there and said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to start by saying I am the king of bipartisan
Speaker 1: and ship and then and then he took that turn
Speaker 1: with the I'll see you at the groundbreaking talking about
Speaker 1: the infrastructure, and then it was all bets are off.
Speaker 1: He was like, check your facts, Come at me, bitch.
Speaker 1: He really went hard into bating them, and by the
Speaker 1: end you had Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, at the
Speaker 1: sideline over of the kids soccer game, like screaming at
Speaker 1: the referee, you know, in some outrageous evil layer coat.
Speaker 1: It was incredible. Yeah, no, I mean, and and the
Speaker 1: stuff that he was bringing up was you know, watching
Speaker 1: McCarthy refused to clap for giving teachers a raise. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are hardly controversial ideas, right raises for teachers. I
Speaker 1: mean that's the kind of thing that you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like should we kill puppies or not kill puppies?
Speaker 1: Let's not kill puppies. I mean, so I do think
Speaker 1: ultimately it did make McCarthy. I mean, when he's sitting there,
Speaker 1: you know, he's saying that he's not against monopoly. He
Speaker 1: got Republicans even to boo non competes where a burger
Speaker 1: flipper can go across the street to a different burger restaurant,
Speaker 1: and that got booed. I like, just genuinely like you
Speaker 1: could sit some out, you know, that's the thing about politics,
Speaker 1: and three just like sit them out. Let let some
Speaker 1: of these lines go over like a lead balloon. And
Speaker 1: not to bring balloons into this. Republicans would be better
Speaker 1: served by just ignoring the guy every once in a while,
Speaker 1: you know, I will say just one quick thing though.
Speaker 1: My favorite part of the speech was when he went
Speaker 1: into like Joe Biden's travel tips and he was like,
Speaker 1: resorts that are resorts, and I like to that for
Speaker 1: a second, then two back in and I was like,
Speaker 1: is this guy talking about like sandals, What's what's going
Speaker 1: on there? I wasn't following that they were. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a long speech. Let's let's call a spade
Speaker 1: a spade here, But yes, there were. I mean, he
Speaker 1: definitely there was a lot of non controversial stuff that
Speaker 1: he got Republicans to be completely against, which I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting. You heard Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert
Speaker 1: at various points screaming about the border. When he brought
Speaker 1: up fent and all, I don't know. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: this is this whole idea that all this fent and
Speaker 1: all is coming through the border, which you know, there's
Speaker 1: certainly is fent and all coming into this country, but
Speaker 1: a lot of it is coming from China. I definitely
Speaker 1: think Republicans ended up kind of being caught flat footed
Speaker 1: because we're used to these very I mean, Biden's speeches
Speaker 1: have been good, but I'm not sure that I think
Speaker 1: this was one of Biden's best speeches. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it was good. I think the fact that he kind
Speaker 1: of blew through the applauses with just continuing the speech
Speaker 1: was very smart, especially in the first half hour or so.
Speaker 1: You know, he set the tone that he wanted to,
Speaker 1: like tell you what's going on on I'm going to
Speaker 1: get through it, especially at a time when a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the media business are saying, like, can
Speaker 1: we get back to the days where you just send
Speaker 1: an email and like, you know, you don't need any
Speaker 1: of this propit circumstances, you know, but look, there were
Speaker 1: a couple of significant things there that you know, we
Speaker 1: we are focusing on at the recount with Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought the the reiteration for a tax on billionaires
Speaker 1: was was really important, you know. I thought the you know,
Speaker 1: reiteration of assault weapons band was really important. Did you
Speaker 1: see McCarthy's face when Biden brought up the billionaire attacks?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just pained, like I'm gonna get some calls tomorrow. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, speaking of McCarthy, Look, I'm not
Speaker 1: a guy who you know, if anyone's listening to this
Speaker 1: podcast and you're like, well, these guys are talking a
Speaker 1: lot about optics. Look, I'm not at all an optics guy.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, optics matter. And like Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy sitting behind Biden's falling asleep for half of it,
Speaker 1: rolling his eyes for a quarter of it and being
Speaker 1: a you know, perturbed, I don't know rich guy for
Speaker 1: the other quarter of it, like, I think he underestimated
Speaker 1: how tough it is to sit in a chair behind
Speaker 1: the President of the United States for an hour and
Speaker 1: a half talking about the State of the Union. I
Speaker 1: think he's gonna get some pretty negative reviews tomorrow. Well.
Speaker 1: I also think that you could see him sort of
Speaker 1: not quite knowing what to do. And if we've seen
Speaker 1: one thing and McCarthy since his fifteen tries at the speakership,
Speaker 1: it's that he doesn't really know what to do, and
Speaker 1: so you find him a lot of times like I mean,
Speaker 1: I actually, I mean, I think McCarthy is is not
Speaker 1: a great human but I appreciate the fact that he
Speaker 1: is like I'll just wing it and then everything turns
Speaker 1: out to be a disaster. Like that I appreciate because
Speaker 1: I'm like, I get that, man, I get being someone
Speaker 1: who's like I can just figure this out on the
Speaker 1: fly and then having everything fall apart. But I think
Speaker 1: that's what happened tonight. Yeah, it's just funny, like McCarthy
Speaker 1: just gets hung out to dry I from his caucus
Speaker 1: like an hour before the State of the Union told
Speaker 1: Monty Raju on CNN, like we're gonna act with decorum,
Speaker 1: We're gonna act with you know, like everything he says
Speaker 1: is just undercut by the clowns of it all. I
Speaker 1: saw a ton of people on Twitter calling Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 1: Green Corurella Deville, Like, what an insult to Corrella Deville? Well,
Speaker 1: that whole that by that, like, you know, not even
Speaker 1: just the amazing Cruella movie, which I really stand pretty hard,
Speaker 1: but you know, just in general, like when Close said,
Speaker 1: you know, Emma Stone, these are these are women of character.
Speaker 1: These are real evil villains. I don't want to hear
Speaker 1: that shit about Marjorie Taylor Great. Well, Marjorie Taylor Green,
Speaker 1: I mean, continues to be sort of just out of
Speaker 1: her depth. I'm just sort of impressed that she doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be embarrassed by any of this behavior. You know,
Speaker 1: she tried today to bring a balloon. I don't know
Speaker 1: what she was doing with that balloon. It was tatroll
Speaker 1: Biden for not having shot down the balloon sooner, even
Speaker 1: though the military told him that this was the time
Speaker 1: to shoot down the balloon. I don't know. I mean that,
Speaker 1: you know, there's so many of these things we're seeing
Speaker 1: in this modern day partisanship where Republicans just will not
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't matter how Biden does it, it's
Speaker 1: wrong to them. Yeah, And you know, that brings up
Speaker 1: a good question. We actually had this debate during the speech,
Speaker 1: you know, in the recount newsroom tonight we're all in
Speaker 1: the office. One of my producers, Steve said like, you know,
Speaker 1: they hate this guy, and I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I find a little bit of it, like w W
Speaker 1: E performative kind of stuff. I don't know the answer
Speaker 1: to that, Like, I don't know if he's right or
Speaker 1: IM writer's somewhere in the middle. Is this specific Republican
Speaker 1: party who was in that room tonight, the people who
Speaker 1: were heckling, the people who were you know, Joe Wilson
Speaker 1: NG channeling their inner Joe Wilson, you know, did they
Speaker 1: mean it or they trying to get airtime here. I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to that question, but it just
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's either silly or crazy or whatever.
Speaker 1: When I think it depends on who it is Biden
Speaker 1: comes from, and I think I think he did a
Speaker 1: pretty good job of articulating this. You know, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm like the old I've been in this institution longer
Speaker 1: than all of you, which is true. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think, you know, he had, there's
Speaker 1: a folksiness to like being a member of Congress and
Speaker 1: the Senate that has been there for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I think like he is much more he hearkens
Speaker 1: back to those days of like, you know, the days
Speaker 1: of conservative justices being friends with liberal justices, and I
Speaker 1: think that actually, ultimately, right now is is actually really good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of juicy, they left Bryan and Ken Anthony Kennedy
Speaker 1: back in. All of a sudden, they walked in, you know,
Speaker 1: the just I think five of them, the justices were there,
Speaker 1: and then Brier and Anthony Kennedy were right behind him,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what you're wait, this is live right? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought I was going crazy there for
Speaker 1: a second. I mean, the Supreme Court is just such
Speaker 1: a like fraud institution right now. I spend so much
Speaker 1: time talking to people on this podcast about the many
Speaker 1: ways in which the Supreme Court is really failing this country.
Speaker 1: So in some ways, having these older guys back there,
Speaker 1: you know, who were who were part of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court when it was less terrible is kind of a
Speaker 1: nice recall. Absolutely, I don't know, you know, overall, I
Speaker 1: can't tell whether or not I love this or I
Speaker 1: hate this. With like a live a live room, not
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, I think I think I hate that altogether.
Speaker 1: But you know, in terms of in terms of what
Speaker 1: happened tonight, you know, a live room where you know
Speaker 1: it's like one part deaf comedy jam and one part
Speaker 1: Prime Minister's Questions or whatever. Right, you know, part of
Speaker 1: me likes it. Part of me thinks that if you're
Speaker 1: gonna go pomp and circumstance, if you're going to go spectacle,
Speaker 1: you might as well go all in. You know. I
Speaker 1: think it's different when when the Joe Wilson you Lie
Speaker 1: Obama joint session moment happened in that I feel like
Speaker 1: that was one guy being a jackass. This I feel
Speaker 1: like modern politics are ridiculous. We are in an absurd
Speaker 1: period of politics. I don't think it's a game. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's ESPN, I don't think it's Sports Center
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. But at the same time, like
Speaker 1: I look at what happens in the UK and while
Speaker 1: they're also a dumpster fire, like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: kind of respect it, like you got something to say,
Speaker 1: you say it. Who's the fucking president? Who cares? You know? Like,
Speaker 1: what's what's mix it up a little bit? I don't know, controversial.
Speaker 1: They're looking pretty bad right now. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about this idea, which I think is really
Speaker 1: something we should be talking about, which is Jamal Bowman,
Speaker 1: who's been on this podcast and know who I know
Speaker 1: pretty I mean, I don't know him that one, but
Speaker 1: I know him a little. Was yelling at Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1: You wrote the speech, You wrote the whole thing somewhat smart, tweeted.
Speaker 1: Being a progressive former's hard work. You often end up
Speaker 1: isolated and ostracized. Your candidates often lose, But what matters
Speaker 1: is that your ideas and policies win the long fight.
Speaker 1: This is a very different, more progressive Democratic Party than
Speaker 1: it was ten years ago. Go, well, I agree with
Speaker 1: most of that. You know, I think there were some
Speaker 1: lines from Biden that were thrown in that we're definitely Biden,
Speaker 1: you know, all the bipartisanship for the first that's not
Speaker 1: getting everybody to stand up and applaud the police. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily matter that Bernie have done. You know, there
Speaker 1: were a couple of moments there that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we're we're vintage Biden, you know, the old guy. I
Speaker 1: will say. You know, Bernie is the exact type of
Speaker 1: guy who I think doesn't mind that ostrazation, ostracization and
Speaker 1: doesn't mind that solitude. And you know, if it could
Speaker 1: be anybody who had a hand in moving this party
Speaker 1: to the left, I think I think Bernie's the guy
Speaker 1: to like take the you know, first they ignore you,
Speaker 1: then they laugh at you. Then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the president gives the State of the Union that has
Speaker 1: all your ideas. You know, if that were the updated
Speaker 1: version of that that cliche, you know, I think Bernie's
Speaker 1: the right guy to do it, you know, much more
Speaker 1: so than Elizabeth Warren, who you know is much more
Speaker 1: of a folksy. But if you looked at Warren during
Speaker 1: that speech, she was delighted. Oh absolutely. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: anything negative about Elizabeth Warren. What I'm saying is like, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: but I mean it does seem like that both of
Speaker 1: them had a lot of their ideas reflected there in
Speaker 1: a way that you wouldn't think yeah, and it's tough
Speaker 1: tough to know Bernie's expressions because he was wearing the
Speaker 1: mask tonight, which was nice. Yeah. I mean I also
Speaker 1: think like it's always sort of tough to read Bernie.
Speaker 1: But from what little I know of him, which is
Speaker 1: that I did interview him for this podcast, he I
Speaker 1: think he cares more about his ideas being adapted than
Speaker 1: he does about the personal glory, though I don't know
Speaker 1: him well in any strate of the imagination. But you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of these progressive guys, and then I think
Speaker 1: my grandfather was, like, you know, he was older than Bernie,
Speaker 1: but he was that same Jewish, Jewish Brooklyn guy who
Speaker 1: you know, really believed in these value you know, in
Speaker 1: the sort of more socialist values. And I do think
Speaker 1: those guys are like on a on a real mission
Speaker 1: in a way. Yeah. I mean, look, everything you need
Speaker 1: to know about Bernie's impact on the Democratic Party is
Speaker 1: just look at Obama's first cabinet. You know, Obama, this
Speaker 1: great reformer who every Republican called the biggest socialists to
Speaker 1: ever exist in the United States, you know, those City
Speaker 1: Group and you know, like his entire cabinet was like
Speaker 1: recycled politicians and Wall Street guys. I'm not saying this
Speaker 1: isn't a knock on Barack Obama. It's a sign of
Speaker 1: the times. Look at Obama's first you know, even with
Speaker 1: the makeup of the House and the Senate, like, look
Speaker 1: at his first four years in office, was a very
Speaker 1: very conservative brand of liberalism. And fast forward six seven
Speaker 1: years whatever it was when Bernie started to run. Even
Speaker 1: then it was still like wow, Bernie saying some stuff
Speaker 1: that just is not going over well in America. You know, now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we have ideas that are being
Speaker 1: put out in the Democratic Party that are almost to
Speaker 1: the left of Bernie Sanders. I think it's incredible that
Speaker 1: that you bring this up and that you you know,
Speaker 1: want to discuss this, because I think it's an incredible point.
Speaker 1: I just think it, like, look at the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: look at what Hillary was running on. The Democratic Party
Speaker 1: is a fundamentally different party because of people like Bernie Sanders.
Speaker 1: Not just Bernie Sanders, but people like Bernie Sanders. And
Speaker 1: I think you see it reflected in in Joe Biden tonight.
Speaker 1: So that's a good point by Jamal Bowman. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I do think ultimately it is this, we needed an
Speaker 1: old white guy deliver a more progressive message. And that's why,
Speaker 1: you know, and and that's why I think we're more likely.
Speaker 1: And I hate to say this, and I'm very tired,
Speaker 1: so maybe I'll regret this in the morning, but I
Speaker 1: think that Republicans are more likely to have a female
Speaker 1: president before Democrats. And it's like the Margaret Thatcher thing.
Speaker 1: You know, Conservatives are able to deliver, you know, are
Speaker 1: able to use to have diverse messengers to deliver the
Speaker 1: conservative message because people are less scared. Absolutely, I agree
Speaker 1: with that completely, and I know we're out of time.
Speaker 1: Do just want to say one more thing, which is,
Speaker 1: as much as we focus on the state of the Union,
Speaker 1: as much as we focus on national politics, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on at the state level that
Speaker 1: one of these days you and I should discuss Florida's
Speaker 1: bringing out the permanent carry gun bill in their Senate.
Speaker 1: You know, Nebraska is talking about this abortion bill that
Speaker 1: rapists can become the sole guardian of a baby if
Speaker 1: like rape is not proven. You know, there's just like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ship going on around the country
Speaker 1: in various states. And if I can just leave any
Speaker 1: of your viewers with anything today. It's like, yes, the
Speaker 1: national stuff is so important. The state of the Union
Speaker 1: is important to discuss and to get into those issues
Speaker 1: and Medicare and social Security. But you know, let's let's also,
Speaker 1: you know, keep focused on that local and state level.
Speaker 1: Cops city down in Atlanta, look that up Google that,
Speaker 1: you know, all these things that are going on around
Speaker 1: the country. Let's keep our eye on that as well. Slade.
Speaker 1: Thank you, please come back absolutely anytime. Love you guys.
Speaker 1: Brian Stelter is a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy Center.
Speaker 1: Welcome to you, Fast Politics. Bryan Stelter, all right, thank you,
Speaker 1: happy to be here. I'm really excited to have you.
Speaker 1: I really really wanted to talk to you about. First
Speaker 1: of all, what has your transition been like and what
Speaker 1: are you doing now. I've been in hibernation for a while.
Speaker 1: I guess you could tell because I was hiding for
Speaker 1: a while. I was just you know, I was and
Speaker 1: I am just like loving stay at home dad life.
Speaker 1: Does that sound corny? That's true. I mean I think
Speaker 1: like in my mind there's something about being able to
Speaker 1: just sort of take a break that is like very luxurious.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming it will never happen to me again in
Speaker 1: my life. And and that's the advice I was given
Speaker 1: by everybody who came out of the woodwork in August
Speaker 1: and and told me, hey, this happened to me once,
Speaker 1: and you should just enjoy the time as long as
Speaker 1: you possibly can. The timing was spectacular, you know. Look,
Speaker 1: I was sad to see reliable sources canceled, but it
Speaker 1: happened in the middle of August. My kids were about
Speaker 1: to go to school, you know, going to like my
Speaker 1: my daughter's in kindergarten now, So like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I had this whole new life based around their school
Speaker 1: schedules and all of that. And it's really been a blast.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, like you were so
Speaker 1: out there are in the way that all of us
Speaker 1: in the you know, in the punditry industrial complex are
Speaker 1: out there? Does it? I mean, do you do you
Speaker 1: miss it? Do you still consume news the same way?
Speaker 1: Has it changed the way you are? You less depressed?
Speaker 1: I mean, tell us everything, I less depressed. I don't
Speaker 1: miss waking up to a Google News alert my name
Speaker 1: full of trash lies and filth. You can't ever have
Speaker 1: the Google News a learned I mean well here, I
Speaker 1: mean here, I am admitting to to not only having it,
Speaker 1: but checking it. You know, when I came in. I
Speaker 1: don't miss having Fox on in the background and then
Speaker 1: randomly seeing my face while I'm while I'm disparaged and
Speaker 1: lied about, like, you know, I don't miss that, you
Speaker 1: know what, you know what I do miss his booking guests.
Speaker 1: That's what you do. The delicate dance of booking and
Speaker 1: getting folks to talk and then trying to get answers
Speaker 1: out of them. That's an art and that's that's something
Speaker 1: that was really fun. And I've started writing for various
Speaker 1: outlets like The Atlantic, and I wrote a piece of
Speaker 1: Boston Globes because I want to I want to start
Speaker 1: to u use those writing muscles because I want them
Speaker 1: to atrophy, you know. Yeah, But it's been so fun
Speaker 1: to experience the news differently. And I don't mean this
Speaker 1: to say that like the news doesn't matter, that you shouldn't,
Speaker 1: you know, soak in it every day, because I still
Speaker 1: do consume a lot of news. But it's different when
Speaker 1: I don't feel the need to be a part of it,
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense. No, it does, and that's
Speaker 1: that actually is sort of the point of this question
Speaker 1: is like, now you have this relationship where you're not
Speaker 1: part of the news, you're not making the news. You know,
Speaker 1: you're writing. But you know, one of the other things
Speaker 1: you did besides the television show was you had this
Speaker 1: newsletter that was basically every single day, and that must
Speaker 1: that must have been a huge, I mean just a
Speaker 1: huge burden, because if you miss anything, you must feel
Speaker 1: just terrible. Well, I I loved doing the newsletter because
Speaker 1: I felt like I thus knew everything that was going
Speaker 1: on on my beat. It was almost like a it
Speaker 1: was motivation to make sure I comprehensively knew what was
Speaker 1: happening everywhere, from from Netflix to Fox, you know. But
Speaker 1: now now I actually I have more appreciation for people
Speaker 1: to do it, and I find myself thinking there should
Speaker 1: be more of those curators in the world. What what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is, you know, Oliver Darcy now
Speaker 1: does the Reliable Sources newsletter. I learned something from it
Speaker 1: every night, and I wish there were more products like it,
Speaker 1: and maybe they don't all have to be newsletters. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 1: is in this environment where we are overwhelmed by information,
Speaker 1: information saturation, kinds of disinformation, and just garbagees out there.
Speaker 1: Great editors, great curators, should be more valuable than ever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I also I love a newsletter, and I
Speaker 1: read Oliver's newsletter, but I also read you know, I
Speaker 1: was a regular reader if you're a newsletter, and I
Speaker 1: read playbook and I read them before, and and I
Speaker 1: do think there's actually a place for more newsletters, Believe
Speaker 1: it or not. It's not so much that I want
Speaker 1: more hot takes, though I'm okay with that, but more
Speaker 1: just that I want more curation. And again, like that
Speaker 1: is the thing we see that Ellen Musk struggles with
Speaker 1: and all, I mean, the rise of Twitter was because
Speaker 1: it provided and curated forum, right, I mean, at least
Speaker 1: for readers like us. Yes, I always thought in the
Speaker 1: best days of Twitter, I was able to tune my antenna,
Speaker 1: you know, left and right and in always different ways
Speaker 1: in order to hear the most interesting people in the world.
Speaker 1: And it took some work to you know, you put
Speaker 1: some work into your Twitter feed, but you would get
Speaker 1: out this great output. And that's become harder now in
Speaker 1: the Elon Musk era. Although I do think It's important
Speaker 1: to note that, you know, the the great dire predictions
Speaker 1: of the site collapsing into itself have not only not
Speaker 1: come to pass, they don't even come close. There's definitely
Speaker 1: glitches on Twitter these days, but we used to have
Speaker 1: the air of the fail whale, but other than Twitter,
Speaker 1: so to the extent that Twitter is not quite as
Speaker 1: useful as it used to be. And to these there
Speaker 1: should be more options like Twitter, there should be more
Speaker 1: ways to get that curation. That's something I definitely noticed
Speaker 1: more now that I'm not maybe I'm sitting outside the
Speaker 1: lazy river. Before I was in the lazy river. But
Speaker 1: that's a bad metaphor because it sounds lazy and slow.
Speaker 1: That's like, I'll have to work on that one. Do
Speaker 1: you think, though, I mean, Drudge is another method of curation.
Speaker 1: It's kind of right leaning though anti Trump that is
Speaker 1: another curation site. I mean, right, ultimately, that's true. That's
Speaker 1: that's a good point. That's that's an interesting model. And
Speaker 1: one of the great gifts of the last few months
Speaker 1: has been, you know, talking to folks, having lunches and
Speaker 1: meetings and hearing how other people consume the news, and
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about this and that's what I've heard
Speaker 1: come up again again and again. Is you know that
Speaker 1: the feeling that, oh yeah, there's there's there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of places or sites like Drudge. You might imagine
Speaker 1: that like CEOs and big wigs and you know, all
Speaker 1: those folks have you know, access to a better version
Speaker 1: of this social or antisocial world. They don't. They're they're
Speaker 1: reading the same stories we are. They're relying on the
Speaker 1: same ountlets were the rest of us are. It was
Speaker 1: a good reminder for me to have my kind of
Speaker 1: reset in that way. For me, I'm the most interested
Speaker 1: in what people are reading and then what they're saying
Speaker 1: about it. The thing I spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: thinking about is like all of our biases, right. So
Speaker 1: this was one of the things you talked a lot
Speaker 1: about on your television show, was this idea of like,
Speaker 1: I'm on the opinion side, right, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of criticism about straight news. I mean there's a criticism
Speaker 1: about opinion, but opinion obviously is opinion. But straight news
Speaker 1: what you put in there, what you don't put in there,
Speaker 1: how you cite things, how you don't cite them. I
Speaker 1: mean it just you know, there really is a lot
Speaker 1: of room for opinion and straight news. When you say
Speaker 1: room for opinion in straight news, you mean no one
Speaker 1: has no bias. And even the way an outlet covered
Speaker 1: straight news ends up showing a bias. On days when
Speaker 1: I would decide to lead the hour with a story
Speaker 1: about TikTok and not a story about Trump or Biden,
Speaker 1: then there are inherent choices in all of that, right,
Speaker 1: I do think you see a certain biases in newscover
Speaker 1: sometimes come through on topics, on coverage of topics like
Speaker 1: abortion as when I think there's undeniable examples like that.
Speaker 1: By and large, I have to say as someone now
Speaker 1: you know, sitting back and not necessarily run into the
Speaker 1: TV when when news is breaking, although I sometimes still
Speaker 1: do and I love watching. I am amazed by the
Speaker 1: quality of the kind of the day to day raw
Speaker 1: news product that's out there. I guess what I'm feeling
Speaker 1: this winter is I'm seeing that the difference between you know,
Speaker 1: the good and the bad, Like the bad is really bad.
Speaker 1: There's some stuff out there that's just atrocious, but then
Speaker 1: but then the great is really great, and we and
Speaker 1: we I think we take it for granted. I think
Speaker 1: we take for granted that there's the A P and
Speaker 1: the Post and the Ruters and the Times and the
Speaker 1: CNN's out there gathering the raw material that the rest
Speaker 1: of us then dissect talk about, take apart, analyze, make
Speaker 1: fun of. You know what I mean. It's that raw material,
Speaker 1: that raw news gathering that gets taken for granted too often.
Speaker 1: But what's bad, Well, it's in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1: I'll give an example. The grind something. The grinds my
Speaker 1: garse these days. I don't know. This is a billion
Speaker 1: dollar business, you know, you need a billion dollars and fixes.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But here here's the well for you.
Speaker 1: There will be a news story that will happen, let's
Speaker 1: say on a Let's say on a Monday afternoon, and
Speaker 1: on Tuesday morning, I'll still see shows, TV shows, website
Speaker 1: still leading with the same story. And it's not it's
Speaker 1: not involved, it hasn't hasn't changed. They're they're just they're
Speaker 1: just recapping the news from twenty hours ago. My big thought,
Speaker 1: my kind of fantasy business thing here is give me
Speaker 1: a product that once I've heard that news once, you
Speaker 1: will not repeat it again. Give me a way to like, Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I know that the stock market dropped yesterday. You don't
Speaker 1: need to tell me again in the morning. I'm noticing
Speaker 1: sometimes kind of all that kind of base level repetition
Speaker 1: that happens. You'll notice that a lot in television news
Speaker 1: as well. Every ten minutes they'll summarize that there was
Speaker 1: a spy balloon. I'm like, you know, I'm aware, I
Speaker 1: know where it came from. Like, you don't need to
Speaker 1: give me the two sentences about how this or originated.
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of that kind of repetition for
Speaker 1: repetition's sake that happens. I do have to say, the
Speaker 1: spy balloon got so much coverage, and it was really
Speaker 1: kind of a raw shack right like right wing media
Speaker 1: had a certain sort of feeling about that it was
Speaker 1: too late and that Biden had done it wrong and
Speaker 1: weren't too open to any other possibilities. Overall, in the
Speaker 1: right with media, and there are some exceptions, the anti
Speaker 1: Biden frame did win out, and in some ways they
Speaker 1: didn't have any other ways to go. It is depressing
Speaker 1: that we are in an an information environment where nuggets
Speaker 1: information are used as warfare by partisans in order to
Speaker 1: to to love their side, but to the something that
Speaker 1: is the reality. What other narrative could they have gone with? Right?
Speaker 1: I don't know, right right right? I also think, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there are people who really do kill it
Speaker 1: at Fox News, a man who are straight journalists who
Speaker 1: have been there forever. I was thinking about Jennifer, Jennifer Griffin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's incredible. I mean, so there are some really great
Speaker 1: reporters there that are I mean, so I do think,
Speaker 1: like you don't want to throw the baby out with
Speaker 1: the bathwater, But I thought the most interesting media story
Speaker 1: last weekend was that Fox News was the only network
Speaker 1: to have a live shot of the balloon as it
Speaker 1: was down. The major networks did not have a live
Speaker 1: show and it's and it's because of the local stations.
Speaker 1: So it's because the local stations affiliated with the other
Speaker 1: networks were not there at the beach with a camera
Speaker 1: point at the sky in the right place. So it
Speaker 1: was a big win for Fox News. And I found
Speaker 1: it to be an interesting contrast to the other right
Speaker 1: wing channels. So news Max has been out there making
Speaker 1: a lot of noise recently, and there are other conservative
Speaker 1: channels as well. Only Fox had the resources to actually
Speaker 1: own the spy balloon story. In fact, news Max was
Speaker 1: running some repeat episode of some talk show when it
Speaker 1: all happened on Saturday afternoon, so that is a notable difference.
Speaker 1: And then, of course we could spend an hour with
Speaker 1: the critiques of Fox and they're all accurate. I mean,
Speaker 1: my god, that they ran on the air Friday night
Speaker 1: and screamed about a possible explosion in the sky over
Speaker 1: Montana outrageously that might have come from wuhan unethical behavior
Speaker 1: by Fox News in primetime. I mean that, my goodness,
Speaker 1: we all knew the balloon had moved past Montana. Some
Speaker 1: person posted a video that was clearly it must must
Speaker 1: have been fake. Fox ran with it like it was
Speaker 1: actually real news. I mean, that's that's embarrassing by Fox's
Speaker 1: primetime shows. But my points, the network deserve credit for
Speaker 1: for having that liveshot on Saturday, and in contrast to
Speaker 1: its conservative rivals like Newsmax, which which did not have anything.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting in those moments when you can
Speaker 1: see the difference between these outlets. Yeah, well, I guess
Speaker 1: this is bad. Molly. Now you've got me like talking
Speaker 1: like an old school TV news or blogger, like like
Speaker 1: I'm back in my dorm room blogging about TV. You
Speaker 1: have for so long covered the media in this very
Speaker 1: like methodical way. I mean, are you worried you're gonna
Speaker 1: miss something? Or now are you just delighted? Tell me
Speaker 1: if you think this this is crazy? I think right
Speaker 1: now we're in a period of repeat episodes. And so
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is Donald Trump's running for
Speaker 1: resident again, but kind of low energy, in a low
Speaker 1: energy way, right, And there's more investigations into Trump and
Speaker 1: for that for years, and it feels to me like
Speaker 1: a series of repeat episodes. Oh yeah. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean that to say, oh, you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: I listen. I still I still tune in, I still
Speaker 1: love watching CNN, I still listen to all my podcasts,
Speaker 1: like I'm still in it as a consumer. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel to me like we're in an environment where
Speaker 1: there's something other than chat, GPD O course in the
Speaker 1: rise of AI. It doesn't feel to me like we're
Speaker 1: in a moment where there's something profoundly new happening in
Speaker 1: our news environment. So maybe that's why I've just been
Speaker 1: enjoying playing Mario with my kids so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think that's a really good an important point
Speaker 1: that you're talking about just now, which is I think
Speaker 1: everyone feels like it is, you know, this Trump. It's funny.
Speaker 1: There was this polling that like spun a whole news cycle,
Speaker 1: this Washington Post ABC poll that was a thousand people
Speaker 1: that said nobody is looking forward to a rematch. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: like I thought the methodology on that was like a
Speaker 1: little bit cookie. I'm not like completely on board with that.
Speaker 1: And also like if you see the statistics like they are,
Speaker 1: you know, the previous poll had a totally different spin.
Speaker 1: So I'm just not like totally on board with that.
Speaker 1: But my reaction to that poll is it's so funny
Speaker 1: about the pull up. My reaction to that poll was
Speaker 1: it's a repeat episode because we had the same polling
Speaker 1: last year that said that Americans did not want to
Speaker 1: rematch and did not want Trump him by So I
Speaker 1: was like, even the poll about the rep repeat as
Speaker 1: a repeat. I mean, clearly, if we've learned anything from
Speaker 1: the mid terms, you know, like I had all these
Speaker 1: folsters on the podcast and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys, like your polls were wrong, and they were like, no,
Speaker 1: the way you interpreted them were wrong. We were still
Speaker 1: you know, there's a ten point margin of error. Whatever.
Speaker 1: The polls are meant to give you a sense or
Speaker 1: but the reality is people don't use polls that way.
Speaker 1: They still use them, and and they do encourage horse
Speaker 1: race journalism. They do. They do encourage horse race journalism.
Speaker 1: And I think for the rest of our lives, that
Speaker 1: will always be too much horse race journalism for that
Speaker 1: for the taste of some. And then then it becomes
Speaker 1: about how you point your antenna and if you if
Speaker 1: you can adjust your tennor or your creation or your
Speaker 1: own news feed to to to block some of that
Speaker 1: out and to focus on other things. And I think
Speaker 1: letting people are better off. I think about polling like
Speaker 1: I think about my classes, Like I put on my
Speaker 1: glasses to watching to see far away, and like you know,
Speaker 1: otherwise things are a little blurry, Like when I look
Speaker 1: at poles, I don't want to how my glasses on.
Speaker 1: I don't want to see them perfectly. I want them
Speaker 1: to be a little blurry, because that is the reality.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the reality. You should you know know
Speaker 1: that it's not a perfect exact answer, but it's instead,
Speaker 1: you know, a ballpark estimate that's probably right most of
Speaker 1: the time. The problem happens when we put our when
Speaker 1: I put the glasses on, we cover the poles as
Speaker 1: if they are exact right, right, No, No, I think
Speaker 1: that's right, And I mean I think ultimately what we're
Speaker 1: seeing is For example, we had this Colorado congressman on
Speaker 1: the podcast, Adam Fresh. He ran against Lauren Boubert. Everyone
Speaker 1: was saying, your easy to have man, he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a prayer. He lost by like five votes. So, like
Speaker 1: I mean, poles do ultimately dictate money, and that money
Speaker 1: does ultimately dictate in a lot of these races. Who
Speaker 1: wins as much as like someone who's more sophisticated, like
Speaker 1: you might theoretically look at them as a nearer or
Speaker 1: far kind of thing. A lot of people are looking
Speaker 1: at them as like gospel. I think that is true.
Speaker 1: But I think at the same time, we haven't ever
Speaker 1: more well two things at the same time, right, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, doesn't ever more sophisticated audience and political
Speaker 1: consumers who are much much savvier about this world than
Speaker 1: they were, you know, a couple of decades two ago. However, yes,
Speaker 1: there's there's also people who clearly still still reply to
Speaker 1: those ridiculous emails from from the r n C in
Speaker 1: the DNA and not d n C, but you know
Speaker 1: the Democrats and emails and the Trump emails that are
Speaker 1: like obviously outright lies. They lately like live to me.
Speaker 1: Every day I get the emails for fun. Clearly people
Speaker 1: are still donating, and I'm clearly some people still fall
Speaker 1: for those emails. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll come back. Thank you. I know you,
Speaker 1: Our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have
Speaker 1: time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of pundentry tweak.
Speaker 1: This is why every week I put together a newsletter
Speaker 1: of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: the podcast, you will love having this in your inbox
Speaker 1: every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot
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Speaker 1: That's Fast politics pod dot com. And al verg and
Speaker 1: Deborah mcclutchy are the directors of The Martha Mitchell Effect,
Speaker 1: which is streaming now on Netflix. Welcome to Bath Politics, Deborah,
Speaker 1: Thank you and Anne, thanks for having us. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you guys are here to talk about the Martha Mitchell
Speaker 1: Effect explained to us what that is and how you
Speaker 1: decided to make this short movie. So the Martha Mitchell
Speaker 1: effect is actually a medical diagnosis um that was coined
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties bred Brendan Mayer, and it essentially
Speaker 1: posits that a medical professional deems a patient story delusional
Speaker 1: when in fact they're telling the truth. And it was
Speaker 1: named after Martha Mitchell because that, in fact, is what
Speaker 1: happened to her. Martha Mitchell was a a Republican cabinet
Speaker 1: wife under Nixon's administration, and she essentially was a very outspoken,
Speaker 1: telegenic woman. She was someone who didn't want to hang
Speaker 1: with the political wives of the time who were very
Speaker 1: traditional and quiet. She want to hang with the boys.
Speaker 1: And she was incredibly popular. In fact, there was an
Speaker 1: article that was written at the time of survey actually
Speaker 1: that she was just as famous as Jackie. So she
Speaker 1: was essentially a household thing and the only one who
Speaker 1: would really talk to the press in the sort of
Speaker 1: buttoned up mix and administration, you know, and the nixt
Speaker 1: administration loved it because they could sort of harness her
Speaker 1: popularity to sort of push through different policies or talking
Speaker 1: points that they would slip to her, sort of slide
Speaker 1: into her. Yes, she had a sort of interesting transition
Speaker 1: from cheerleader to Cassandra. Yeah, absolutely, I mean she you know,
Speaker 1: pre Watergate, they loved her and they thought she was
Speaker 1: amusing and they harnessed her popularity. But then after the
Speaker 1: Watergate burglary, they realized they we're going to have a
Speaker 1: hard time controlling her. And she was talking out and
Speaker 1: they were worried about what she knew. They were really
Speaker 1: more worried that she was going to shine a spotlight
Speaker 1: on this sort of brewing scandal. And as a result,
Speaker 1: um she was contained against her will in the hotel
Speaker 1: in Newport Beach and tranquilized against her will and silenced.
Speaker 1: So the Lesson Years never to Newport Beach. Yes, yeah, bro,
Speaker 1: will you explain to us why Martha Mitchell matters now? Sure,
Speaker 1: Martha Mitchell matters now? Because the film really is a
Speaker 1: case study in gaslighting. So gaslighting was the Merriam Webster
Speaker 1: Word of the Year last year. Gasling has happened to
Speaker 1: many prominent people. Although it can happen in everyday life.
Speaker 1: It could happen to women, it can happen to men,
Speaker 1: It can happen to a country. You know, we would
Speaker 1: argue that our country was gaslightd in the previous administration
Speaker 1: very often. So she matters now, and her story matters
Speaker 1: now because it can really be a way for people
Speaker 1: to understand the mechanisms of gaslighting through her story and
Speaker 1: through this case study, and really understand what it is,
Speaker 1: how they can fight against it, especially women, and just
Speaker 1: see the gas lighting that had happened. And also abuse
Speaker 1: of power. You know, that's what happened in Watergate, is
Speaker 1: that it was an dream abuse of power. You know,
Speaker 1: democracy was on the line, and that's all too common
Speaker 1: in our current political climate right now. Unfortunately. The thing
Speaker 1: that I think is interesting about this phenomenon is that
Speaker 1: she went from sort of the kind of the toast
Speaker 1: of the town to having a pretty grim ending. Will
Speaker 1: you guys talk a little bit about that. In a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, this is sort of the richest to
Speaker 1: drag story. And yeah, it's unfortunate, it is kind It
Speaker 1: is ultimately a tragedy. I mean, she did, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of a honeymoon period we call it right before
Speaker 1: Nixon resigned, where she sort of did a press to
Speaker 1: her and people were starting to recognize oh, she was right,
Speaker 1: like we should listen to her originally, but then unfortunately
Speaker 1: she got very sick and died prema. Clearly I never
Speaker 1: really saw, you know, sort of what she could have become.
Speaker 1: I also relate to this story in a certain way,
Speaker 1: which is, like so many women of that time, they
Speaker 1: sort were able to only be one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: a socialite, a mother. You know, there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of availability for women to be other things than just
Speaker 1: one thing. If that makes any sound, Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 1: I mean Sally Quinn says in the film that, you know,
Speaker 1: women at the time were meant to be hostesses, so
Speaker 1: they dealt with the social aspect of life. And you know,
Speaker 1: Martha Mitchell was the wife of John Mitchell, the Attorney General,
Speaker 1: and was getting a lot of attention, really enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and her husband actually really enjoyed it too, So she
Speaker 1: was unusual in that sense. You know, she was a
Speaker 1: cabinet wife and a celebrity. But I can't think of
Speaker 1: any cabinet wives right now actually that our celebrities, right yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I also think that ultimately, you know, she
Speaker 1: was sort of and also ultimately she wasn't really she
Speaker 1: he sort of took her kid too. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the story of Martha, little Martha Mitchell is quite
Speaker 1: sad to me. It does seem like John Mitchell had
Speaker 1: a great influence on his the daughter, and and yeah,
Speaker 1: Martha died alone and she was estranged from her daughter.
Speaker 1: It's pretty grim. When you guys were making this movie,
Speaker 1: what did you learn? We had just been a lot
Speaker 1: of time digging into the White House tapes, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a tough tough road because it's just so hard
Speaker 1: to hear and it's so voluminous um. But what I
Speaker 1: found the most fascinating was how much Nixon talked about Martha.
Speaker 1: I mean it was constant. He was you know, I
Speaker 1: think at first he was like amused by her, and
Speaker 1: you know, him and his wife spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with John and Martha. And then I think he
Speaker 1: was jealous of her popularity. And then I think he
Speaker 1: was really scared of her because he wasn't used to
Speaker 1: women like Martha, you know, he just wasn't. And so
Speaker 1: there were lots of feelings, lots of really awful things
Speaker 1: that he said about her, about her appearance, I mean,
Speaker 1: typical things that you would imagine gendered you know, sort
Speaker 1: of discrimination and such. That was my biggest take away.
Speaker 1: What about you, Deborah? I would add to that, not
Speaker 1: even in terms of this particular story, but that just
Speaker 1: that these stories exist in the archive, like and and
Speaker 1: I realized as we were digging, like, wow, this story
Speaker 1: is actually here, but no one really done deep enough
Speaker 1: to tell it. And so we were really excited about
Speaker 1: exhuming the story, um and bringing it out, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of not all the president's men via a
Speaker 1: different lens, you know, via a lens of a woman
Speaker 1: who experienced her Watergate story. So I learned actually that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stories like this. They're just hidden,
Speaker 1: but if you look, you can find them. Ultimately, she's
Speaker 1: sort of become a celebrity posthumously. Is there sort of
Speaker 1: regret from John Mitchell or from the daughter or is
Speaker 1: there any sort of sense is there any sense that
Speaker 1: they have looked back on her story differently now well
Speaker 1: John Mitchell has passed, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: tried to reach out to Martha Mitchell and she would
Speaker 1: I've talked to us or does it? Talked to many
Speaker 1: people in the press. We did reach out to Clyde Jennings,
Speaker 1: who was Martha's son from a previous marriage, and he
Speaker 1: very much agreed that his mother was maligned. And unfortunately
Speaker 1: he couldn't talk to us either, but he did agree
Speaker 1: with us, and I think I think was pleased, you know,
Speaker 1: that that her story was finally being told, her side
Speaker 1: of the story. It is interesting to me that she
Speaker 1: sort of became a celebrity in light of the similarity
Speaker 1: between Trump and Nixon. Yeah, it is interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: we haven't really talked about this, but it just came
Speaker 1: to mind. I mean, you know, the similarities are so uncanny,
Speaker 1: but I feel like a couple of months ago, we
Speaker 1: saw Trump was having a rally and and he was
Speaker 1: throwing out red hats that said Trump was right. And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, my lord, that comes from Martha
Speaker 1: was right, from the funeral bouquet that was left anonymously
Speaker 1: at her funeral. That this sort of like tagline has
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, sort of transformed itself and like,
Speaker 1: fifty years later is sort of coming into the ether.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just one example. There are many. It's
Speaker 1: such a story of the ages. Do you guys think
Speaker 1: that there is an equivalent today or do you think
Speaker 1: that just because we've sort of moved on as a society,
Speaker 1: there is no equivalent today of of what happened to
Speaker 1: Martha Mitchell. That's a question that, yeah, that we often
Speaker 1: get asked. Bad It's hard. It's hard to say, I
Speaker 1: mean in terms of a Republican sort of turning on
Speaker 1: the party in some ways, like Liz Chaney comes to mind,
Speaker 1: but that's not a perfect example. It's kind of tricky
Speaker 1: today to say. Yeah, I mean, you couldn't have someone
Speaker 1: like Martha Mitchell today, or you probably wouldn't because her
Speaker 1: life was so limited in a way that was very
Speaker 1: much a women of the time. But right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you definitely saw the Republican Party turned on Liz Cheney
Speaker 1: in a in a similar ashon. Yeah, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean Liz Cheney is definitely, you know, a comparison. But
Speaker 1: this Chaney is an elected official, like Martha had soft
Speaker 1: the power, and you really don't see that today. You
Speaker 1: don't see Karen Pitt's coming out, you know and testified
Speaker 1: Nay six committee. I mean in a weird way the club.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's going to be mad at me for
Speaker 1: saying this. But the closest in a way is George Conway.
Speaker 1: I agree, yes, because he's the spouse who just like
Speaker 1: couldn't who like couldn't look pretty and shut up? Absolutely
Speaker 1: and it and it also affected his family. I mean,
Speaker 1: so much of Martha's story is is sort of you know,
Speaker 1: the personal side of water Kate, but it really is
Speaker 1: about a marriage, right, It's about a dissolution of a marriage.
Speaker 1: And it's also we you know, we term it like
Speaker 1: a love triangle between Nixon and Martha vying for the
Speaker 1: attention of John Mitchell, and in the end, John Mitchell
Speaker 1: betrays his wife for his boss. Yeah. I mean that
Speaker 1: is so incredibly Republican Party that, Yes, it's just a
Speaker 1: sort of interesting, very historic moment in a way that
Speaker 1: Martha Mitchell was. Did you guys feel that it led
Speaker 1: you to something else? I mean, are there are the
Speaker 1: stories you want to tell now that have come from
Speaker 1: this experience? I would say there should be a I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if I want to tell this or I
Speaker 1: don't want to speak for Deborah, but but but I
Speaker 1: do feel like there should be a film about Dorothy
Speaker 1: Huts tell us who that is. Dorothy Hunt was Howard
Speaker 1: Hunt's wife, and Howard Hunt was one of the he
Speaker 1: wasn't a burglar, but he was involved with Gordon Lyddy
Speaker 1: and sort of coming up with this Jim Stone being
Speaker 1: and Jimstone is what ultimately led to the Watergate breaking
Speaker 1: into the Democratic National Convention by the Nixon minions. And
Speaker 1: you know, at one point Dorothy Hunt was involved. She
Speaker 1: mysteriously died in a plane crash with ten dollars of
Speaker 1: cash that was meant or of the Cuban pay. So
Speaker 1: I just feel like she was so involved there and
Speaker 1: maybe the HBO plumbers will get into it, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like that she deserves a documentary
Speaker 1: on her own, right, Yeah. I mean, if I'm going
Speaker 1: to get killed in a plane crash with all that cash,
Speaker 1: I would want a doc I mean, that's the least
Speaker 1: they can fucking do. You know, absolutely, So what's next
Speaker 1: for you guys. We're very excited about the Academy or nomination.
Speaker 1: That's what's coming up next. You're exciting, So that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the next thing immediate. Well, that is very exciting.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys win and it changes your whole
Speaker 1: lives and then you come back some day when your
Speaker 1: guys are moved on. This was great. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you Molly. This was so great to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Thank you, Molly. Yeah, this was really fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jesse Cannon. Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the House,
Speaker 1: because the try gets you. Speaker of the House. Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy is pregaming Biden's State of the Union speech, doing
Speaker 1: all off the record talks with journalists, and Pundon's getting
Speaker 1: ready to try and push back against Biden's good economic
Speaker 1: numbers and his bipartisan message. How's that going for him? Well,
Speaker 1: it's hard to know because it's all off the record,
Speaker 1: but I would just say, as someone who who sort
Speaker 1: of knows how the sausage gets made, Republicans are better.
Speaker 1: I think at doing more off the record talks with journalists,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if some of these Democrats could be
Speaker 1: helped by doing more off the record talks with journalists.
Speaker 1: I think that it's good to talk to people, even
Speaker 1: if it's off the record. And so my moment of
Speaker 1: fun Garay today is the incredible annoyance of Mr Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy and his obstructionist government trying to pregame the State
Speaker 1: of the Union before it's even happened, and for that,
Speaker 1: Kevin McCarthy gets our moment of gray. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and Friday to your the best minds and politics makes
Speaker 1: sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard,
Speaker 1: please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 1: And again, thanks for listening.