Speaker 1: This is the most traumatic podcast ever. And iHeartRadio podcast.
Speaker 1: Chris Harrison and Lauren z E Ma Comedy from the
Speaker 1: home office in Austin, Texas. And Okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: dip our toe into it, just to dip.
Speaker 2: Just testing the water, just to see how it feels.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into this political arena. And it's funny
Speaker 1: that we even have to say that with trepidation these days,
Speaker 1: because it says a lot about where we are. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's because we're all passionate and that's a good thing,
Speaker 1: and hopefully you do have a passion for what's going
Speaker 1: on in the political arena right now. We obviously have
Speaker 1: a huge election coming up, maybe the biggest ever, or
Speaker 1: maybe just feels like it's the biggest ever, because that's
Speaker 1: the way the media and the press wanteds to feel,
Speaker 1: because that's what drives viewership. But one thing that Lauren
Speaker 1: and I wanted to dip our toe into is the
Speaker 1: debate last week, and it wasn't We're not going to
Speaker 1: get into who won, who lost, etc. You guys can
Speaker 1: debate that yourselves, and I'm sure you have your own opinions,
Speaker 1: and Laura and I have of our own opinions. What
Speaker 1: we love and what Lauren and I both grew up
Speaker 1: on is journalism and it's what struck us the most
Speaker 1: after that debate, and it's what has really the reason
Speaker 1: we're talking about it. It's like, oh, guys, that debate was
Speaker 1: last week, Well it has carried on. What's happened. What
Speaker 1: happened in that debate last week is really you're seeing
Speaker 1: the ramifications and the ripple effects throughout this week, into
Speaker 1: the Sunday morning shows that I watched, into the interviews
Speaker 1: and the things that are happening on social media now.
Speaker 1: And that's what has driven the conversation in our house
Speaker 1: between Lauren and I, both of us journalism students, both
Speaker 1: of us study journalism, love journalism. We talk about it
Speaker 1: a lot, and so the more we start talking about this,
Speaker 1: and especially after I saw the Sunday morning shows, I'm like, babe,
Speaker 1: we got to talk about this. Oh yeah, this was fascinating.
Speaker 3: And another big thing happened on Sunday. I mean, there
Speaker 3: was a second apparent assassination attempt on a former president
Speaker 3: of the United States, and there's a journalistic angle we
Speaker 3: can get in there too, about how much that was
Speaker 3: covered or not. I mean, we were watching the Emmys
Speaker 3: on Sunday night and I turned to you and said,
Speaker 3: you know what's wild. Yeah, just a few years ago,
Speaker 3: if there had been an assassination attempt on a recent
Speaker 3: and any former president and a presidential candidate, it would
Speaker 3: have affected the Awards show. It would have been brought up.
Speaker 3: I would venture to say, the hosts would have a set,
Speaker 3: opened the show and everybody, it's a heavy night in
Speaker 3: America tonight.
Speaker 1: But I know the execs, I know they definitely would
Speaker 1: have said, let's start the show. We got to say something.
Speaker 1: This is one of the biggest news events in the world.
Speaker 1: A president has been they attempt to assassinate a president
Speaker 1: of the United States of America.
Speaker 3: And we would have then they would have said, but
Speaker 3: we're all here together tonight, and we're going to, you know,
Speaker 3: do what we do best and try to find joy
Speaker 3: together and safety and being together, and we're going to
Speaker 3: try to make you laugh and have some fun tonight
Speaker 3: and go on as a country and be strong. That
Speaker 3: did not happen Sunday night. So that's another sort of
Speaker 3: interesting just journalistic and media note. I think that I
Speaker 3: had and you know, you're right, there's been so much
Speaker 3: and how much you know, coverage that s getting or not.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a little it's a little scary to me,
Speaker 3: however your feelings are. And we are not going to
Speaker 3: get into her who we're endorsing or not. We're not
Speaker 3: going to tell you who to vote for or not.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're all just moving pretty quickly through the news cycle.
Speaker 3: And I think we've been talking about that really since
Speaker 3: the Trump Biden debate, is just how quickly the news
Speaker 3: cycle moves now. I mean the first assassination attempt, we
Speaker 3: were passed pretty fast.
Speaker 1: I'm fifty three years old. I've almost now, in the
Speaker 1: last couple of months, have almost doubled assassination attempts in
Speaker 1: my lifetime.
Speaker 2: It's wild.
Speaker 1: And presidents of the United States. You know, I was
Speaker 1: not alive for the Kennedy assassination, so I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember when Reagan was shot, and now I'm watching two
Speaker 1: assassination attempts. And it's in the fact that that wasn't
Speaker 1: No one mentioned that on the red carpet last night,
Speaker 1: as you said, no one, Yes, there were no question.
Speaker 3: At the Grammys a few years ago, I was there
Speaker 3: on the Grammy's red carpet for et and horribly that
Speaker 3: was when the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash happened. And we
Speaker 3: instantly went and I mean, Kobe was in entertainment, but
Speaker 3: he's an athlete, you know, It's not like it was
Speaker 3: an actor.
Speaker 2: But we instantly were like, we have to ask people
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 3: And it was really a hard thing to do as
Speaker 3: a reporter because people are there for this beautiful night.
Speaker 3: We were even breaking the news to some people, but
Speaker 3: we said, we have to ask them about this. And
Speaker 3: I don't think that happened last night that any of
Speaker 3: the reporters. I didn't see anybody asking about an assassination.
Speaker 1: It's aptitude, it was, and what does that say about
Speaker 1: us as a people? What does that say about us
Speaker 1: as a society as a country right now? And the
Speaker 1: reason that I brought up the debate is last week
Speaker 1: ABC hosted the debate. The debate moderators were David Muir,
Speaker 1: who is the head and the face and the hair
Speaker 1: of ABC News right now, Yes have great hair, and
Speaker 1: Lindsey Davis, a lesser known I think reporter at a
Speaker 1: news and so the two of them moderated the debate
Speaker 1: between Trump and Kamala Harris. And again, don't care who
Speaker 1: you think one or lost, nor should you care who
Speaker 1: I think one or lost. But what I found debatable
Speaker 1: pun intended, was the lack of journalistic integrity, just the
Speaker 1: lack of journalism. It was embarrassing, the display of journalism.
Speaker 1: And I know, whether you sit on the right or
Speaker 1: the left, has this deep moving feeling of who of
Speaker 1: how you think my last comments probably weigh on you,
Speaker 1: but regardless, and I somehow we have to be able
Speaker 1: to dissect this pull away, the politics of it, and
Speaker 1: just look at the journalistic integrity that we are now
Speaker 1: lacking in this country, and it's really glaring. The way
Speaker 1: David Muhr and Lindsay Davis behaved was abysmal, embarrassing, and
Speaker 1: disgusting as a journalist. And that's just purely as a journalist.
Speaker 1: Now as a Republican Democrat, I don't care. You can't
Speaker 1: have what we had last week, and the ramifications of
Speaker 1: that are now being felt dramatically, And maybe maybe that
Speaker 1: was you know, how we say there's this pivot point,
Speaker 1: there's this tipping point, and things are swinging. Things have
Speaker 1: started swinging back the other way because of their behavior
Speaker 1: and what ABC News put on display, which was unbelievably
Speaker 1: every journal This should be studied in school. Is how
Speaker 1: embarrassing this was.
Speaker 3: And to really just put in simple terms what you're
Speaker 3: talking about, Sara on the same page. You mean that
Speaker 3: they didn't fact check both sides. You mean the way
Speaker 3: the questions were asked. I'm speaking for you, but yeah, no,
Speaker 3: all these are Yeah, I mean the attitude of like
Speaker 3: sort of the the way things were phrased positive versus
Speaker 3: negative between the two candidates, and when they were being
Speaker 3: asked questions. I was watching it going. I mean, look again,
Speaker 3: we won't get into who won or lost. I do
Speaker 3: think that one candidate got pretty riled up and the
Speaker 3: other candidate was a lot more polished in her presentation.
Speaker 2: And you know who I'm talking about, But I.
Speaker 3: Think that I was watching it going, but they're kind
Speaker 3: of only coming at him, and I my gauge and
Speaker 3: our gauge at ET used to be like, look, sometimes
Speaker 3: it's hard because you're in media. Most people in big
Speaker 3: media organizations are coastal. They're you know, they're either in
Speaker 3: LA or New York. And we used to try to say, remember,
Speaker 3: our audience is the middle of the country and what
Speaker 3: are they watching and how what are they interested in?
Speaker 3: We need to be in touch with them, so I
Speaker 3: you know, I'm texting like my friends and the debate
Speaker 3: women who live in Missouri and Texas, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm in Iowa, the middle of the country, and many
Speaker 3: of them are Kamala supporters. But they were going, I'm
Speaker 3: this debate isn't feeling two sided. And I think it
Speaker 3: was a mistake on ABC's part because a lot of
Speaker 3: people had just watched Biden and Trump on CNN, and
Speaker 3: CNN handled it much better. They kept it neutral. They
Speaker 3: just asked the questions. They didn't fact check at all,
Speaker 3: which I think was the right choice, because it is
Speaker 3: it is too hard to fact check in the moment.
Speaker 3: It is it's only an hour and a half. Things
Speaker 3: are happening so quickly, you're going back and forth, you're listening.
Speaker 3: It's I just think it's too hard to fact check
Speaker 3: in the moment. And when you're only fact checking one person,
Speaker 3: well that's just a glaring obvious bias. Whatever you're politically is,
Speaker 3: whatever it is, it's making it look like you lean
Speaker 3: one way. And as journalists, I know that our media
Speaker 3: has gotten so so like everybody has a brand, you know,
Speaker 3: Fox is this way or MSNBC's this way. But when
Speaker 3: you're conducting a debate between two presidential candidates, this is
Speaker 3: a big deal. This is a big stage. This matters,
Speaker 3: and I thought that they handled it really, really poorly.
Speaker 1: My guess is there will be financial ramifications. I know
Speaker 1: there are viewer ramifications that people have. I can't wait
Speaker 1: for more ratings to come out. I find it interesting
Speaker 1: that they torpedo David Muir's career this way. David, and
Speaker 1: maybe he did it on his own, but I doubt
Speaker 1: it because that's not usually how these things work. It's
Speaker 1: it comes from higher up, and that the executives, and
Speaker 1: you know, the president of ABC who is best friends
Speaker 1: with Kamala Harris. I mean the way this started out,
Speaker 1: and again there is an affidavit out. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about that here in a little bit and we'll
Speaker 1: read through that. But Dana Walden, who's the president of ABC,
Speaker 1: in charge of ABC News and in charge of the debate,
Speaker 1: is best friends with Kamala Harris. They are best friends.
Speaker 1: She introduced Kamala to her husband. That's how they met.
Speaker 1: I was trying to put myself in Dana Walden's shoes,
Speaker 1: and the if my best friend was running for president,
Speaker 1: it is impossible for me to be unbiased. It's impossible.
Speaker 1: It's my best friend and my best friend in the world.
Speaker 1: I was at your wedding, I've watched your kids be born.
Speaker 1: It's I don't blame her for being biased. You should
Speaker 1: be biased. We know who she's voting for. We know
Speaker 1: who she loves and who she's talking to on the daily,
Speaker 1: who she's giving advice to on how to act and
Speaker 1: how to be in these speeches and debates and how
Speaker 1: to handle Trump. So this isn't breaking news that there's
Speaker 1: a bias. It's just I can't believe that we all
Speaker 1: just sat back and watched this unfold and then in
Speaker 1: any way our surprise that when the debate happened on
Speaker 1: her network there was a very glaring bias. It's like,
Speaker 1: we can't have one plus one and we get two
Speaker 1: and go, oh, that's a shock.
Speaker 3: See I disagree. I think it's possible. I just think
Speaker 3: you have to own it. And the reason I say
Speaker 3: I think it's possible, and maybe it's from a hopeful place,
Speaker 3: but in this world, I think it's impossible for people
Speaker 3: to not.
Speaker 2: Know each other. Like by that, I mean when you're
Speaker 2: talking about the world of like.
Speaker 3: Really high up media executives, politicians, Like this is an
Speaker 3: elite class of people where people.
Speaker 1: Are going to know each other and it's small circles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: They meet each other at party, they introduce each other
Speaker 3: to people, like Trump knows a bunch of people high up,
Speaker 3: but he's I mean, I think him and Sean Hannity
Speaker 3: are pretty good friends at Fox, Like after the assassination attempt,
Speaker 3: Sean said he'd talked to the President and spoke to
Speaker 3: the president like, You're gonna have relationships with people because
Speaker 3: you cover them intimately as reporters. But what you have
Speaker 3: to do when you're on a stage is you have
Speaker 3: to put that aside. And I don't know what the
Speaker 3: inner workings were happening at ABC, but I do know
Speaker 3: that Dana Walden was asked about this on the red
Speaker 3: carpet at the Emmy's by Mark Malkin.
Speaker 2: He's a reporter with Variety. Mark and I were always friendly,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad he asked her this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mark, kudos to you for being a journalist and
Speaker 1: asking the question.
Speaker 3: He asked her, what you know people are I think
Speaker 3: you put it people on the far right, which I
Speaker 3: would disagree with a little bit. I think more than
Speaker 3: that are concerned that there was a bias in the debate.
Speaker 3: And I'm paraphrasing him here and she said, and I'm
Speaker 3: borderline direct quoting her here. She said, I don't even
Speaker 3: want to dignify that with an answer. And I thought
Speaker 3: that was arrogant. Dignify that with an answer. You run
Speaker 3: the network. It's known that this candidate is a very
Speaker 3: good friend of yours, and you're talking about the American
Speaker 3: people voting for their next president based on what was
Speaker 3: on your network. You're the ones who got the debate.
Speaker 3: Dignify that with an answer. Address that. And if nothing
Speaker 3: was going awry behind the scenes, if nothing was you know,
Speaker 3: favorable to one person, then you should be able to
Speaker 3: just own that and answer it wholeheartedly and say listen,
Speaker 3: I hear, and we just and you should say, I
Speaker 3: talk to my people behind the scenes. I said, listen,
Speaker 3: you guys, Kama and I have a relationship. I want
Speaker 3: to make sure we treat both people fairly. I want
Speaker 3: to make sure this is really done right. That's what
Speaker 3: you should be saying as an executive, as a leader.
Speaker 1: And that's her answer to that makes the smoke even heavier.
Speaker 1: And where there is that much heavy smoke, now there's fire.
Speaker 1: And so again, I think if you want to seem
Speaker 1: like you are truly an unbiased news organization, which look,
Speaker 1: ABC is notoriously not. They are notoriously not.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that way?
Speaker 1: I know they're not. Well, I mean we can get
Speaker 1: maybe we've.
Speaker 2: Had some personal experience. I see what you're reference.
Speaker 1: I was worn by people. Look, I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: little inside baseball. When I was at ABC, and I
Speaker 1: was there for two decades, there is there's two factions
Speaker 1: to ABC. There's the you know, television side, there's entertainment,
Speaker 1: and then there's the fifty thousand pound gorilla, which was
Speaker 1: always ABC News. And there's a real contentious environment and
Speaker 1: relationship between those two. ABC News is that fifty thousand
Speaker 1: pound gorilla that runs ABC. People have very little say
Speaker 1: over what ABC News does, and so there's already a
Speaker 1: very contentious relationship there and what they pulled off. Again,
Speaker 1: if I was Dana Walton, I would have come out
Speaker 1: because obviously you don't want to seem like you're onlike
Speaker 1: you're biased, and if she had come out before the
Speaker 1: debate said look, I just want to let you guys know,
Speaker 1: I am recusing myself. I have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: this debate. You know, clearly everybody knows where my loyalties lie.
Speaker 1: It's with Kamala. She's a very dear friend. I hope
Speaker 1: she becomes president of the United States. I am recusing myself.
Speaker 1: ABC News will no, I don't know what's going on,
Speaker 1: and even if it's not true, I would have appreciated
Speaker 1: that the fact that even after the mess, that's the
Speaker 1: debacle that was ABC News, when she had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to speak to a very friendly reporter on the red
Speaker 1: carpet to say, I'm not going to even dignify that,
Speaker 1: Like you said, you're a news organization. Not only do
Speaker 1: you need to dignify that, you owe us, that you
Speaker 1: owe that to the country. That's your job. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: to basically stick up your middle finger and say FU
Speaker 1: instead of hey, look, you know, she's my friend, she's
Speaker 1: my girl. But I promise you ABC News is above board.
Speaker 1: How they chose to handle this had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with me. I but what makes me worried. And again
Speaker 1: this is just my maybe it's reality TV brain. I'm
Speaker 1: also a journalist, and I also know I know ABC
Speaker 1: News and I know the way they work. This worries me.
Speaker 1: The Affidavid that came out yesterday.
Speaker 2: Right so, and what.
Speaker 1: Strikes me is that counsel got to her and said,
Speaker 1: do not talk about this because what she did, what
Speaker 1: she really did last night on the red carpet, was
Speaker 1: not put anything in print that she didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with this. So it later because if there
Speaker 1: is a whistleblower, and this whistleblower supposedly allegedly has recordings, emails,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and if she is involved in that, she
Speaker 1: would have perjured herself. She would have lied. They have
Speaker 1: her on record. You can't go on record not knowing
Speaker 1: what's out there. If she goes on record and says
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with this, ABC News had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this, you know, et cetera, that
Speaker 1: we were completely unbiased. We didn't fix this debate in
Speaker 1: favor of one of the politicians. If she goes on record,
Speaker 1: in the fact that she didn't go on record last
Speaker 1: night makes me you're right.
Speaker 3: Sometimes sometimes your reality TV brain is very helpful. So
Speaker 3: there is this on Twitter. There's this alleged affidavit from
Speaker 3: an employee of ABC News talking about how they saw
Speaker 3: these different biases in the debate, I mean, in the
Speaker 3: way the debate would be handled. And the claims in
Speaker 3: this alleged affidavit are that Harris's team was given access
Speaker 3: to sample questions before the debate, which would be a
Speaker 3: big allegation, that they were told she would be she
Speaker 3: would look different on camera than trumpet a get a
Speaker 3: sized podium better for her, and get visually like a
Speaker 3: better look apparently, and that she was able to take
Speaker 3: certain things off the table, was allowed to say some
Speaker 3: topics were restricted, and that the Trump team was never
Speaker 3: given that option. So the affidavit also says that at ABC,
Speaker 3: you know, there's just generally a bias against Trump within
Speaker 3: the organization and that if you are a Trump supporter
Speaker 3: you would fear retribution there. So it's circulating on Twitter.
Speaker 3: It's been picked up by big Twitter personalities. Bill Ackman
Speaker 3: tweeted it today and he tagged Bob Iger in the
Speaker 3: tweet and said, Bob address this. Bill Ackman is a
Speaker 3: big successful financial guy, And I mean, especially if she
Speaker 3: was given sample questions that would be an incredible violation.
Speaker 1: To me, what struck me And there was one moment
Speaker 1: in the debate where I thought that it just felt
Speaker 1: too like David Mere and Lindsay Davis were two on
Speaker 1: the ready with the fact check. Why would they have
Speaker 1: talked to a city manager in Ohio, oh about the
Speaker 1: eating the cats like that? That to me, like that
Speaker 1: was like, why would you to fact checked that, like
Speaker 1: unless you knew there was a possibility that was going
Speaker 1: to come. But that was the oddest fact check of all.
Speaker 1: What CNN did was they decided, Jake Tapper and them
Speaker 1: at CNN decided, hey, let's just let this go. We're
Speaker 1: not going to fact check it all because honestly, as
Speaker 1: you said, fact checking in real time is impossible. Honestly,
Speaker 1: fact checking post debate is impossible because now the fact
Speaker 1: checkers are being fact checked and it's very subjective and
Speaker 1: so there's a lot that goes into that. But real
Speaker 1: time fact checking is virtually impossible. And obviously Trump said
Speaker 1: things that weren't true. Kamala Harris said a ton of
Speaker 1: things that weren't true, and that has come to light.
Speaker 1: And what is interesting, and I don't know, if we
Speaker 1: want to talk more about the AFFI David, but the
Speaker 1: ripple effect of this ABC debacle on CNN and now
Speaker 1: even on ABC.
Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, that's who are we watching.
Speaker 1: We're watching Martha Raddits. George Stephanopolis, who worked in the
Speaker 1: Clinton administration, has a Sunday morning show. But Martha Raddits,
Speaker 1: who is a long time, very good journalist, took over
Speaker 1: that was doing the show yesterday Sunday a couple days ago.
Speaker 1: And what I found interesting is Martha Raddits, And again
Speaker 1: this is just this is my perception. I think there
Speaker 1: is probably that debate probably created a great divide at
Speaker 1: ABC News. My guess is there is turmoil behind the
Speaker 1: scenes at ABC News of real journalists who said, are
Speaker 1: you effing kidding me? That was a joke. You just
Speaker 1: absolutely torpedoed any amount of credibility ABC News had and
Speaker 1: Martha Raddits and some of these journalists are very credible
Speaker 1: and very good at what they do. My guess is
Speaker 1: Martha Raddits went on that show and was like, FI you,
Speaker 1: I'm going to actually do my job. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a journalist. And she started to the other side
Speaker 1: started calling out Kamala Harris's in consistencies, lies stories, tall
Speaker 1: tales she was telling during the debate.
Speaker 3: I think the biggest one was that Vice President Harris
Speaker 3: said that there were no troops in an active war
Speaker 3: war zones, no American troops and active war zones anywhere
Speaker 3: in the country. And they're actually like a few thousand troops.
Speaker 3: And yes, I shout out to you know the social media,
Speaker 3: real troops posted a video of them watching the debate
Speaker 3: while in an active war zones.
Speaker 2: Said well then who are we?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And so Martha had a guest on a governor, a
Speaker 3: Democratic governor, and she said, why would Kamala Harris say that?
Speaker 3: It is a fact. She said, I have covered troops
Speaker 3: and war zones. I know they are American troops and
Speaker 3: war zones right now. Why would she say that? And
Speaker 3: she really seemed I agree with you. This is just
Speaker 3: my perception, but she seemed agitated. And my instant thought
Speaker 3: was there is frustration behind the scenes, because when you're
Speaker 3: a journalist, your reputation matters, and then the reputation of
Speaker 3: the entity workform matters, and it can be very frustrating
Speaker 3: because you and we all know this.
Speaker 2: Anybody knows this.
Speaker 3: You're a member of your company and you don't have
Speaker 3: control over the choices everybody in the company makes, but
Speaker 3: you're aligned with it. And that's really really frustrating. And
Speaker 3: so I one hundred percent think there's fallout happening there
Speaker 3: behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: Ratings are in now for David Muir and ABC News Tonight,
Speaker 1: World News, Tonight, World News, Tonight, Thank You, down twelve percent.
Speaker 1: A million viewers over three days, is what they're saying.
Speaker 1: So definitely taking a hit where it matters most, and
Speaker 1: that is viewership, and that is money, and that's advertising.
Speaker 1: So you can't disregard. There is a pretty grand pushback
Speaker 1: to their behavior.
Speaker 3: And apparently David Muhir went on I didn't watch the
Speaker 3: morning shows, but I guess he went on Live with
Speaker 3: Kelly and Mark.
Speaker 1: So some more inside baseball. So what happens in a
Speaker 1: situation like this is everybody is putting their heads together,
Speaker 1: wringing their hands, figuring out what to do. The ABC
Speaker 1: Comms team will put forth an idea. This is how
Speaker 1: this works. David Muhr can't go on Good Morning Mayor.
Speaker 1: There's only two places he can go right now to
Speaker 1: talk Good Morning America or live with Kelly and Mark.
Speaker 1: Both are part of the ABC family.
Speaker 2: And you mean to talk to say, we.
Speaker 1: Got to get David mure out.
Speaker 2: We got to get him out there. We've got to
Speaker 2: get in front of he.
Speaker 1: This is a disaster. ABC News is melting down. It's
Speaker 1: a huge public relations hit. We got to get David
Speaker 1: Muir out there. David put on blue jeans, boots, look
Speaker 1: like the everyday guy. Go on the friendliest place on
Speaker 1: earth for you with Kelly and Mark. They're not going
Speaker 1: to push you. They're not going to ask any tough questions.
Speaker 1: You need to smile. I know this because I was
Speaker 1: given the same speech by this same people. Go out
Speaker 1: and do the dance. David muirr Is doing the dance.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I would love to talk to him if
Speaker 1: he's feeling the same thing I felt back when he
Speaker 1: was being pushed out. So David Muir went out into
Speaker 1: the foxhole, onto the front lines by himself with Kelly
Speaker 1: and Mark to gaslight us. Make us all seem crazy
Speaker 1: for uh thinking we saw what we all know we
Speaker 1: saw in the debate.
Speaker 3: He said something like and again I'm borderline direct quoting,
Speaker 3: but admittedly paraphrasing here.
Speaker 2: I have it, Oh, you have it.
Speaker 1: David Muir says our duty is to ask the issues
Speaker 1: Americans care about, the important issues of our time, and
Speaker 1: then he goes on to list issues as if we
Speaker 1: don't know what issues are. He's listening the issues that
Speaker 1: we talked about in the debate, David. No one is
Speaker 1: negating the fact that we all wanted to hear you
Speaker 1: talk about the issues and some of the questions, some
Speaker 1: of the questions you and Lindsey actually asked, were pertinent
Speaker 1: and they were right questions you should ask in a debate.
Speaker 1: Nobody is giving you a hard time about.
Speaker 3: That, right, He's totally dodging and missed and changing the
Speaker 3: direction on what the actual issue is.
Speaker 2: The issue that people feel is.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump was fact checked five times, I think, and
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris was not fact checked at all, and it
Speaker 3: has later come out that.
Speaker 2: Many things she said were false. So that's that simple.
Speaker 3: Thing right there. No matter how you feel politically, that's
Speaker 3: why it felt biased. That's why it felt that way.
Speaker 1: And one of the things the affidavit that we've mentioned
Speaker 1: in this podcast alleges, and this is one of the
Speaker 1: things that of course Kelly and Mark are never going
Speaker 1: to ask, but someone should ask. Well, David, it's not
Speaker 1: that you didn't ask a couple of good questions, but
Speaker 1: it's what you chose to ask Donald Trump, and you
Speaker 1: didn't ask that would have put Kamala under pressure, and
Speaker 1: that is Joe Biden's mental health, That is Kamala's brother
Speaker 1: in law, which honestly, I don't think that should have
Speaker 1: been aspen either.
Speaker 3: Oh, you're being specific to the effigy, right, These these
Speaker 3: are the effidavit and these are so I know, I
Speaker 3: just don't want to confuse people, but these.
Speaker 1: Are things that no one's saying. You didn't ask questions.
Speaker 1: We know you and lindsay ask questions. But you also
Speaker 1: chose to skip over the fact that Donald Trump there
Speaker 1: was an assassination attempt against him, he was shot, and
Speaker 1: that was never mentioned. Yet you chose to bring up
Speaker 1: January sixth, which honestly is fine, but you got to
Speaker 1: defend that now instead of going on and now gaslighting us,
Speaker 1: being somewhat glib on Kelly and Mark and just making
Speaker 1: us seem crazy that we didn't just watch what we watched.
Speaker 2: Well, he just didn't address it at all. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: And that's why I call it misdirection because it's sort
Speaker 3: of he's making this like generally positive statement, like our
Speaker 3: job is to ask the tough questions. And then and
Speaker 3: then he turns to the audience on this appearance with
Speaker 3: Live with Kelly and Mark and says, and you know,
Speaker 3: and and the power is yours. The power is in
Speaker 3: your hands everybody to vote. And so then people in
Speaker 3: the audience applaud because you know, they probably feel like
Speaker 3: they've got to applaud that, and maybe there was even
Speaker 3: an applause.
Speaker 1: Su went on, this is how it goes, he said,
Speaker 1: quote all the noise you hear afterwards is just noise.
Speaker 1: You have the power. And then, as you just said,
Speaker 1: the stage manager tells every applause.
Speaker 3: So it's this very curated, just sort of generic positive thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I can read your quote again on
Speaker 3: what he said here, he said, our duty is to
Speaker 3: ask the issues Americans care about, the important issues of
Speaker 3: our time. You could apply that that has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with the bias.
Speaker 1: That people.
Speaker 3: Themselves with that generic so it's it's complete misdirection. It's
Speaker 3: let's go create this appearance of a positive thing that
Speaker 3: we can attach to him. Now because the ratings are
Speaker 3: down twelve percent a million people in just a few days,
Speaker 3: and that's really bad for us, and that's really bad
Speaker 3: for us in our bottom line. And yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that it it's and I want to you know, circle
Speaker 3: his a little more actually happened.
Speaker 2: Well, here you go ahead, a.
Speaker 3: Little more has happened with this alleged affidavit. Look, I
Speaker 3: do want to keep calling it alleged because this Affidavid
Speaker 3: is circulating on Twitter. We don't it's not from, you know,
Speaker 3: a verified legacy media organization. I don't know where it's
Speaker 3: come from. But like I said earlier in the podcast,
Speaker 3: Bill Ackman, who's a big presence on Twitter, I'll pull
Speaker 3: up how many followers he has right now. He has
Speaker 3: one point four million followers on Twitter. And I think
Speaker 3: he might be a Disney shareholder because he has tweeted
Speaker 3: at ABC at Bob Eiger, who runs Disney. He says
Speaker 3: they should directly address the specific accusations of this whistleblower.
Speaker 3: Iiger Disney should launch a full investigation. He wants the
Speaker 3: moderators of the debate to more directly address the accusations
Speaker 3: leveled in this apparent affidavit. He says Disney is subject
Speaker 3: to sec over the reputation of ABC is material to
Speaker 3: the value of Disney. As such, the company must address
Speaker 3: the specific allegations made by this whistleblower and cannot mislead
Speaker 3: the market by issuing a statement which purports to address
Speaker 3: the issues identified but does not so what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: There is actually.
Speaker 3: Also since we recorded the podcast ABC in addition to
Speaker 3: the Dana Walsh interview on the Red Carpet where she
Speaker 3: said she didn't want to dignify Oh, Dana Walder's so sorry,
Speaker 3: where she said she didn't want to dignify things, ABC
Speaker 3: also and like nobody in the media has covered this.
Speaker 3: I mean that's my other kind of big thing here
Speaker 3: is again, whatever your political leaning is, we have to
Speaker 3: be able to ask questions and investigate both sides.
Speaker 2: You can't be We live too much in a time now.
Speaker 3: And I do want to say, again, whatever your political leaning,
Speaker 3: I don't think I think both parties are responsible for this.
Speaker 3: And I do think Donald Trump started a lot of
Speaker 3: this rhetoric. He was he he came into the political
Speaker 3: world as an entertainer, and he made big statements and
Speaker 3: he created a lot of chaos and I'm not saying
Speaker 3: he's not responsible for that here, even though I do
Speaker 3: think there was more of a bias against him in
Speaker 3: the debate. But ABC released a statement, and what the
Speaker 3: statement says is, let me pull it up here and
Speaker 3: quote it. And I've only seen it in the Daily Beast.
Speaker 3: It's not like this is getting picked up everywhere. The
Speaker 3: statement to the Daily Beast. ABC News followed the debate
Speaker 3: rules that both campaigns agreed on, which clearly states no
Speaker 3: topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns
Speaker 3: or candidates. So what Bill Ackman is pointing out here
Speaker 3: is that that statement doesn't address a lot that this
Speaker 3: alleged AffA David from an alleged whistleblower is accusing ABC
Speaker 3: of doing, like that it was that they allegedly shared
Speaker 3: sample questions, or that they allegedly had talks with Kamala's
Speaker 3: team but not Trump's team.
Speaker 1: And they fixed top they set topics that certain they
Speaker 1: would leave certain things out, like we're not going to
Speaker 1: question when did you know about Joe Biden's mental decline?
Speaker 1: When did you So they fixed topics as well that
Speaker 1: we're yes the Affidavid, Yeah, that's it. I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you what's in the.
Speaker 3: Affidavid, Yes, so I think that you know, again, we
Speaker 3: just need to be able to investigate, to question like
Speaker 3: what might be.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think people like go around now calling everything, oh,
Speaker 3: well that's a conspiracy theory, and that's what the far
Speaker 3: left the far right things. And you know, we do
Speaker 3: live in this age of the danger of bad information.
Speaker 2: But that's why we have to investigate things even more.
Speaker 1: And here's the problem. And you know, there has been
Speaker 1: plenty of time and red carpets with Dana Walden to
Speaker 1: clear this up. There's now been an interview with Kelly
Speaker 1: and Mark to clear this up.
Speaker 2: Like, just address it, just say it's false.
Speaker 1: As you said, Dana was just arrogant and just kind
Speaker 1: of gave us all the middle finger. And now David
Speaker 1: Muir just gaslighted everybody saying, guys, you didn't see what
Speaker 1: you just saw. Look over here, like he's David Copperfield
Speaker 1: and just like he went on to say again it
Speaker 1: was so glib. Guys, in a debate. As a moderator,
Speaker 1: we asked questions and then you let them answer. Yes,
Speaker 1: by the way, that's not exactly how the debate went. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that they have now had opportunity, and every
Speaker 1: opportunity they are very carefully, very scripted, and very carefully
Speaker 1: dancing around the actual allegations is what makes you even
Speaker 1: more suspicious. You're making it worse. And I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you this, David Muhror, be careful. They're going to keep
Speaker 1: pushing you out there, They're going to tell you to
Speaker 1: do the dance. Just be careful. Just make sure there's
Speaker 1: people not acting like they're behind you. They should be
Speaker 1: in front of you, they should be beside you. Don't
Speaker 1: take the fall in this.
Speaker 2: Hmmm little thing called escape coat.
Speaker 1: Yes, be careful, David Muir, Elsie, thanks for diving into this.
Speaker 3: Well here we go. What do we have another month? Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's have a glass of wine. Everybody all my love.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us, and we will continue
Speaker 1: to have these honest conversations with you as that's what
Speaker 1: we do. And I thank you guys, appreciate that, and
Speaker 1: we will do it again next time because we have
Speaker 1: a lot more to talk about. Thanks for listening. Follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at the most dramatic pod ever and
Speaker 1: make sure to write us a review and leave us
Speaker 1: five stars. I'll talk to you next time.